When James Fitzmaurice found that Sidney had not brought either the Earl or Sir John of Desmond with him, he called a meeting of Geraldines, and informed them that their chief and his brother were condemned to death, or at least to perpetual imprisonment. He reminded them that when the good Earl Thomas had been murdered by the tyrant Earl of Worcester his followers had chosen a captain for themselves, and he advised a like course. He was immediately chosen by acclamation, and unhesitatingly accepted the position in spite of Sidney’s threats. He was soon afterwards proclaimed a traitor. The wise Earl of Clancare, as Shane O’Neill had in derision called him, placed himself about the same time at the head of a Celtic confederacy, plundered Lord Roche’s country, drove off the cattle, burned the sheep and the corn, and killed men, women, and children. Neither wheat nor oats were to be had for love or money west of Youghal: the combined result of drought from heaven and heat from the Earl of Clancare. Spanish ships supplied the MacCarthies with arms. Edward Butler told Sidney’s messenger, who found him at Thurles with 1,000 men, that no man of Irish birth could be safe since Sir John of Desmond had been sent to the Tower for little or nothing. He knew that he himself had deeply offended his brother the Earl, and was therefore afraid of Sir Edmund, who had also 1,000 men with him. ‘Your secret conference, brother,’ he said in the messenger’s presence, ‘hath brought me to this mischief.’ To Dublin he refused to go without pardon or protection, and Shane O’Neill hardly claimed more, even in his proudest days.
Ormonde’s presence declared indispensable.
The presence of Ormonde alone could settle his country, and he, in Sidney’s opinion, ‘politicly kept himself in England, as well for duty’s sake to the Queen as ancient and innate malice to the Earl of Desmond and all Desmondians.’ Sir Edmund could not brook the notion of dismissing his armed followers, and, as he himself expressed it, ‘riding up and down the country like a priest.’ No brother or lieutenant was of any use, and if Ormonde would not come Sidney would have to go himself; and he begged for a strongly-worded letter to show to the people. The report was that he was not allowed to interfere with the Butler districts, and indeed he was loth to do so, knowing that the Earl bore him little goodwill, and that he had the Queen’s ear. ‘Though never so upright,’ he said, ‘I shall not escape slander.’[158]
Lawless conduct of Ormonde’s brethren.
Both Butlers continued their lawless practices; indeed, Lady Dunboyne, who was a chief sufferer, declared that Edward was ‘but a patch to Sir Edmund in extortion and spoil.’ He threatened her with yet worse things for having brought Sidney’s letters to him; and in the meantime seized her cattle, nominally for the purpose of maintaining himself against the White Knight, with whom he had picked a quarrel to give an excuse for keeping his ragged battalion together. Ormonde still lingering in England, the Lord Deputy was obliged to go to Kilkenny himself, where he hanged several of Edward Butler’s men, not by martial law, as Sir Peter Carew proudly pointed out, but ‘by the verdict of twelve men orderly.’ A similar example was made at Waterford, and Sidney returned to Dublin to make preparations for holding a Parliament, in which he secured a majority by interfering in elections.[159]
Parliament of 1569. Opposition to Government.
No list has been preserved of the members who sat in either House of Elizabeth’s second Irish Parliament. Many Englishmen had, by Government influence, been returned for remote places. Sidney, who had a taste for heraldic pomp, was in some anxiety as to what dress he ought to wear. He was told to do as St. Leger had done. If he could not find whether St. Leger had used a garter or a Parliament robe, he might do as he pleased. Princely robes of crimson velvet lined with ermine were provided in due course, and the Lord Deputy took his seat under the cloth of estate. Lord Chancellor Weston made an eloquent speech on the advantages of law and order. The House then separated, and James Stanihurst, Recorder of Dublin, was again chosen Speaker of the House of Commons by a large majority over Sir Christopher Barnewall, who was also a lawyer and the candidate favoured by the gentlemen of the Pale. After the usual protestations of unfitness, Stanihurst was accepted by Sidney, and made a speech in which he claimed personal inviolability for the members, freedom of speech, and power for the House to punish breaches of its own orders. The Lord Deputy, having granted these suits, addressed the whole Parliament at great length. None knew better, he said, than those in Ireland the advantages of law and order; let them act according to that knowledge, and be careful lest in defending their own privileges they should tread upon her Majesty’s prerogative. On the following day business began, and it soon appeared that the House of Commons was divided into two parties bitterly hostile to each other. The Court, or English party, consisted chiefly of officials and of the Lord Deputy’s nominees, men who might be trusted not to exhibit too much independence. On the other side were the gentry of the Pale, the burgesses returned by the old corporate towns, and the common lawyers generally, who had been roughly handled by Sidney in Sir Peter Carew’s case, and who asserted that some of the English members were returned for towns not incorporated, that sheriffs and mayors had returned themselves, and that others were ignorant of their constituencies and non-resident. The Judges held that the first and second objections were good, but that there was nothing in the third. The Attorney-General having reported this decision, which still left the Government a majority, the Irish party professed not to believe him, and demanded that the Judges themselves should come down. The Speaker called for the orders of the day, but the malcontents refused to listen to the first readings of any bills. Next day the Judges came and confirmed their former decision, but the Irish party, headed by Sir Edmund Butler, still obstructed the business, and opposed the introduction of a Bill for suspending Poyning’s Law and allowing Bills to proceed without being first certified under the Great Seal of England. This Bill was obviously for the enlargement of their own jurisdiction, and passed in the end, as did another which provided that the Great Seal of Ireland should not be affixed to any further Suspension Bill until it had been passed by the majority of both Irish Houses. After some days spent in these bickerings, Hooker, who sat for Athenry—an ancient borough certainly, but at this time containing only four freeholders—made a long prerogative speech. He had formerly represented Exeter and had a taste for antiquities, and he proved to his own entire satisfaction that Moses and Pythagoras, Camillus and Mithridates, had created precedents on his side of the question. ‘The minority,’ he says, ‘did not hear the same so attentively as they did digest it most unquietly.’ The debate was adjourned, and Hooker had to be escorted by his friends to Sir Peter Carew’s house. The next day Sir Christopher Barnewall and other lawyers inveighed against Hooker, but the Speaker silenced them, and desired them to put their complaints into writing. Hooker, who says that the proceedings were more like bear-baiting than the deliberations of a Senate, then presented a treatise on the Order of Parliament, which closely followed English precedents, and asserted the power of the Speaker to hold members to the question, and to reform, correct, and punish disorder with the advice of the House. The contest was not renewed, and after the first fortnight matters settled down considerably.[160]
Legislation. Attainder of Shane O’Neill.
Sir Edmund Butler was openly censured by Sidney in the Council Chamber, and withdrew in high dudgeon to his own country. The House of Lords showed a mutinous spirit as well as the Commons. The Gentleman Usher seems to have occupied a position within the bar, and this being objected to, Sidney withdrew the cloth of State, but it does not appear that the punishment weighed very heavily on the delinquents. Several Acts of great political importance were passed. A subsidy of 13s. 4d. on every plough land was granted for ten years in consideration of the abolition of coyne and livery. This was for the public benefit, but was very unpleasing to many noblemen. The five principal men of each shire were made responsible for the rest, Shane O’Neill was attainted, the name of O’Neill extinguished, and the Queen entitled to Tyrone. Irish captainries were abolished unless established by patent. For the infringement of this law death without benefit of clergy was provided by the draftsman in England, but the House of Lords substituted a fine of 100 l. for each offence by a peer, and 100 marks for men of lesser degree. Even after this amendment there was much opposition, which, as the Chancellor observed, argued that ‘the matter misliked them more than the pain.’ An Act was also passed to enable the chief Governor, on certain conditions, to make the remaining Irish countries into shire ground.[161]