Sussex landed at or near Dalkey, and on the following day rode into Dublin. He was received on St. Stephen’s Green by the Mayor and Aldermen. Shaking hands with the chief magistrate, the Earl is reported to have said, ‘You be all happy, my masters, in a gracious queen.’ Three days later he was sworn in at Christ Church, Nicholas Darton, or Dardy, one of the vicars-choral, chanting the Litany in English before the ceremony, and the choir singing the Te Deum in English afterwards. Ormonde at the same time took the oath as a Privy Councillor and as Lord Treasurer of Ireland. Thus was the Protestant ritual quietly re-introduced, Sidney having been sworn with the full Roman ceremonial. The work of painting the two cathedrals, and of substituting texts of Scripture for ‘pictures and popish fancies,’ had begun three months before.[6]
The Queen is gracious to the Irish nobility.
Many important men had hastened to offer their services and forward their petitions to the new Queen. Conspicuous among them was Richard, second Earl of Clanricarde, called Sassanagh, or the Englishman, of whose loyalty the Queen had a very good opinion, but who in one important respect fell short even of a Court standard of morals. The names of seven of his wives and sultanas have come down to us, and of these at least five were living at this time. He was acknowledged as captain of Connaught, his Earldom was confirmed by patent, and he received other marks of favour. The Queen also lent a favourable ear to Ormonde’s uncle, brother, and cousin, and to the new Earl of Desmond. Connor O’Brien, whom Sussex had established in the Earldom of Thomond, and MacCarthy More, were also well treated, and so were several of the corporate towns.[7]
Parliament of 1560. The royal supremacy restored.
The first Parliament of Elizabeth met on January 12, 1560, and was dissolved on February 1. It was attended by three archbishops, seventeen bishops, and twenty-three temporal peers, including all the earls then extant in Ireland. Ten counties sent two knights each, and twenty-eight cities and boroughs were represented by two burgesses each. Ten other counties, King’s and Queen’s among them, are mentioned, Connaught counting as one, and Down being divided into two; but they either received no writs or made no returns, and the same may be said of the borough of Kilmallock. James Stanihurst, Recorder of Dublin and member for that city, was chosen speaker. The chief business was to establish the Queen’s title, and to restore her father’s and brother’s ecclesiastical legislation. First-fruits were restored to the Crown, and so was the commandery of St. John. Massingberd’s alienations were annulled, and, as he was suspected of secret dealings with the Irish, he was attainted unless he should surrender within forty days.
Variations from the Anglican theory.
So far English legislation was closely followed, but in two important respects the Church was made more dependent on the State than in England. Royal Commissioners, or Parliament in the last resort, were to be the judges of heresy without reference to any synod or convocation, and congés d’élire were abolished as useless and derogatory to the prerogative. These matters having been arranged to his satisfaction, Sussex again went to England, and Sir William Fitzwilliam, who had just come over as Treasurer at War, was appointed Lord Justice in his room.[8]
The Catholics will not yield.
Fitzwilliam, who was new to Ireland, at first found the Irish pretty peaceful, but admitted that the overtaxed people of the Pale were less so than they were bound in duty to be. Causes of disturbance were not long in coming. Old O’Connor escaped from Dublin Castle, and uneasiness was immediately observable in the districts where he had influence. Calvagh O’Donnell’s wife, who was Argyle’s half-sister, had brought over some 1,500 Scots, ‘not to her husband’s enrichment,’ as the Lord Justice supposed, but as a plague to Shane, who had married O’Donnell’s sister and ill-treated her. Shane had engaged a similar force, and all these combustibles could scarcely be stored without mischief. The priests who were beaten in England showed signs of an intention to transfer the struggle to Ireland, where they had many partisans and might create more. At all events, they were flocking across the Channel, ‘not for any great learning the universities of Ireland shall show them as I guess.’ The Government only was weak. There were but fifty hundredweight of lead in store, and Fitzwilliam thought he might have to strip the material for bullets from some house or church.[9]
Intrigues of Kildare. Lord Justice Fitzwilliam expects a general rising.