While such was the troubled state of the Church, as exemplified in its twofold hierarchy, the religious orders continued to spread, with amazing energy, among both races. The orders of Saint Francis and Saint Dominick, those twin giants of the thirteenth century, already rivalled the mighty brotherhood which Saint Bernard had consecrated, and Saint Malachy had introduced into the Irish Church. It is observable that the Dominicans, at least at first, were most favoured by the English and the Anglo-Irish; while the Franciscans were more popular with the native population. Exceptions may be found on both sides: but as a general rule this distinction can be traced in the strongholds of either order, and in the names of their most conspicuous members, down to that dark and trying hour when the tempest of "the Reformation" involved both in a common danger, and demonstrated their equal heroism. As elsewhere in Christendom, the sudden aggrandizement of these mendicant institutes excited jealousy and hostility among certain of the secular clergy and Bishops. This feeling was even stronger in England during the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., when, according to the popular superstition, the Devil appeared at various places "in the form of a grey friar." The great champion of the secular clergy, in the controversy which ensued, was Richard, son of Ralph, a native of Dundalk, the Erasmus of his age. Having graduated at Oxford, where the Irish were then classed as one of "the four nations" of students, Fitz-Ralph achieved distinction after distinction, till he rose to the rank of Chancellor of the University, in 1333. Fourteen years afterwards he was consecrated, by provision of Pope Clement VI., Archbishop of Armagh, and is by some writers styled "Cardinal of Armagh." Inducted into the chief see of his native Province and country, he soon commenced those sermons and writings against the mendicant orders which rendered him so conspicuous in the Church history of the fourteenth century. Summoned to Avignon, in 1350, to be examined on his doctrine, he maintained before the Consistory the following propositions: 1st, that our Lord Jesus Christ, as a man, was very poor, not that He loved poverty for itself; 2nd, that our Lord had never begged; 3rd, that He never taught men to beg; 4th, that, on the contrary, He taught men not to beg; 5th, that man cannot, with prudence and holiness, confine himself by vow to a life of constant mendicity; 6th, that minor brothers are not obliged by their rule to beg; 7th, that the bull of Alexander IV., which condemns the Book of Masters, does not invalidate any of the aforesaid conclusions; 8th, that by those who, wishing to confess, exclude certain churches, their parish one should be preferred to the oratories of monks; and 9th, that, for auricular confession, the diocesan, bishop should be chosen in preference to friars.
In a "defence of Parish Priests," and many other tracts, in several sermons, preached at London, Litchfield, Drogheda, Dundalk, and Armagh, he maintained the thesis until the year 1357, when the Superior of the Franciscans at Armagh, seconded by the influence of his own and the Dominican order, caused him to be summoned a second time before the Pope. Fitz-Ralph promptly obeyed the summons, but before the cause could be finally decided he died at Avignon in 1361. His body was removed from thence to Dundalk in 1370 by Stephen de Valle, Bishop of Meath. Miracles were said to have been wrought at his tomb; a process of inquiry into their validity was instituted by order of Boniface IX., but abandoned without any result being arrived at. The bitter controversy between the mendicant and other orders was revived towards the end of the century by Henry, a Cistercian monk of Baltinglass, who maintained opinions still more extreme than those of Fitz-Ralph; but he was compelled publicly and solemnly to retract them before Commissioners appointed for that purpose in the year 1382.
The range of mental culture in Europe during the fourteenth century included only the scholastic philosophy and theology with the physics, taught in the schools of the Spanish Arabs. The fifteenth century saw the revival of Greek literature in Italy, and the general restoration of classical learning. The former century is especially barren of original belles lettres writings; but the next succeeding ages produced Italian poetry, French chronicles, Spanish ballads, and all that wonderful efflorescence of popular literature, which, in our far advanced cultivation, we still so much envy and admire. In the last days of Scholasticism, Irish intelligence asserted its ancient equality with the best minds of Europe; but in the new era of national literature, unless there are buried treasures yet to be dug out of their Gaelic tombs, the country fell altogether behind England, and even Scotland, not to speak of Italy or France. Archbishop Fitz-Ralph, John Scotus of Down, William of Drogheda, Professor of both laws at Oxford, are respectable representatives among the last and greatest group of the School-men. Another illustrious name remains to be added to the roll of Irish Scholastics, that of Maurice O'Fihely, Archbishop of Tuam. He was a thorough Scotist in philosophy, which he taught at Padua, in discourses long afterwards printed at Venice. His Commentaries on Scotus, his Dictionary of the Sacred Scriptures, and other numerous writings, go far to justify the compliments of his cotemporaries, though the fond appellation of the "flower of the earth" given him by some of them sounds extravagant and absurd. Soon after arriving from Rome to take possession of his see he died at Tuam in 1513, in the fiftieth year of his age—an early age to have won so colossal a reputation.
Beyond some meagre annals, compiled in monastic houses, and a few rhymed panegyrics, the muses of history and of poetry seem to have abandoned the island to the theologians, jurists, and men of science. The Bardic order was still one of the recognized estates, and found patrons worthy of their harps in the lady Margaret O'Carroll of Offally, William O'Kelley of Galway, and Henry Avery O'Neil. Full collections of the original Irish poetry of the Middle Ages are yet to be made public, but it is scarcely possible that if any composition of eminent merit existed, we should not have had editions and translations of it before now.
BOOK VII.
UNION OF THE CROWNS OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND.
CHAPTER I.
IRISH POLICY OF HENRY THE EIGHTH DURING THE LIFETIME OF CARDINAL WOLSEY.
Henry the Eighth of England succeeded his father on the throne, early in the year 1509. He was in the eighteenth year of his age, when he thus found himself master of a well-filled treasury and an united kingdom. Fortune, as if to complete his felicity, had furnished him from the outset of his reign with a minister of unrivalled talent for public business. This was Thomas Wolsey, successively royal Chaplain, Almoner, Archbishop of York, Papal Legate, Lord Chancellor, and Lord Cardinal. From the fifth to the twentieth year of King Henry, he was, in effect, sovereign in the state, and it is wonderful to find how much time he contrived to borrow from the momentous foreign affairs of that eventful age for the obscurer intrigues of Irish politics.
Wolsey kept before his mind, more prominently than any previous English statesman, the design of making his royal master as absolute in Ireland as any King in Christendom. He determined to abolish every pretence to sovereignty but that of the King of England, and to this end he resolved to circumscribe the power of the Anglo-Irish Barons, and to win over by "dulce ways" and "politic drifts," as he expressed it, the Milesian-Irish Chiefs. This policy, continued by all the Tudor sovereigns till the latter years of Elizabeth, so far as it distinguished between the Barons and Chiefs always favoured the latter. The Kildares and Desmonds were hunted to the death, in the same age, and by the same authority, which carefully fostered every symptom of adhesion or attachment on the part of the O'Neils and O'Briens. Neither were these last loved or trusted for their own sakes, but the natural enemy fares better in all histories than the unnatural rebel.
We must enumerate some of the more remarkable instances of Wolsey's twofold policy of concession and intimidation. In the third and fourth years of Henry, Hugh O'Donnell, lord of Tyrconnell, passing through England, on a pilgrimage to Rome, was entertained with great honour at Windsor and Greenwich for four months each time. He returned to Ulster deeply impressed with the magnificence of the young monarch and the resources of his kingdom. During the remainder of his life he cherished a strong predilection for England; he dissuaded James IV. of Scotland from leading a liberating expedition to Ireland in 1513—previous to the ill-fated campaign which ended on Flodden field, and he steadily resisted the influx of the Islesmen into Down and Antrim. In 1521 we find him described by the Lord Lieutenant, Surrey, as being of all the Irish chiefs the best disposed "to fall into English order." He maintained a direct correspondence with Henry until his death, 1537, when the policy he had so materially assisted had progressed beyond the possibility of defeat. Simultaneously with O'Donnell's adhesion, the same views found favour with the powerful chief of Tyrone. The O'Neils were now divided into two great septs, those of Tyrone, whose seat was at Dungannon, and those of Clandeboy, whose strongholds studded the eastern shores of Lough Neagh. In the year 1480, Con O'Neil, lord of Tyrone, married his cousin-germain, Lady Alice Fitzgerald, daughter of the Earl of Kildare. This alliance tended to establish an intimacy between Maynooth and Dungannon, which subserved many of the ends of Wolsey's policy. Turlogh, Art, and Con, sons of Lady Alice, and successively chiefs of Tyrone, adhered to the fortunes of the Kildare family, who were, however unwillingly, controlled by the superior power of Henry. The Clandeboy O'Neils, on the contrary, regarded this alliance as nothing short of apostasy, and pursued the exactly opposite course, repudiating English and cultivating Scottish alliances. Open ruptures and frequent collisions took place between the estranged and exasperated kinsmen; in the sequel we will find how the last surviving son of Lady Alice became in his old age the first Earl of Tyrone, while the House of Clandeboy took up the title of "the O'Neil." The example of the elder branch of this ancient royal race, and of the hardly less illustrious family of Tyrconnell, exercised a potent influence on the other chieftains of Ulster.
An elaborate report on "the State of Ireland," with "a plan for its Reformation"—submitted to Henry in the year 1515—gives us a tolerably clear view of the political and military condition of the several provinces. The only portions of the country in any sense subject to English law, were half the counties of Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, and Wexford. The residents within these districts paid "black rent" to the nearest native chiefs. Sheriffs were not permitted to execute writs, beyond the bounds thus described, and even within thirty miles of Dublin, March-law and Brehon-law were in full force. Ten native magnates are enumerated in Leinster as "chief captains" of their "nations"—not one of whom regarded the English King as his Sovereign. Twenty chiefs in Munster, fifteen in Connaught, and three in West-Meath, maintained their ancient state, administered their own laws, and recognized no superiority, except in one another, as policy or custom compelled them. Thirty chief English captains, of whom eighteen resided in Munster, seven in Connaught, and the remainder in Meath, Down, and Antrim, are set down as "rebels" and followers of "the Irish order." Of these, the principal in the midland counties were the Dillons and Tyrrells, in the West the Burkes and Berminghams, in the South the Powers, Barrys, Roches—the Earl of Desmond and his relatives. The enormous growth of these Munster Geraldines, and their not less insatiable greed, produced many strange complications in the politics of the South. Not content with the moiety of Kerry, Cork, and Waterford, they had planted their landless cadets along the Suir and the Shannon, in Ormond and Thomond. They narrowed the dominions of the O'Briens on the one hand and the McCarthys on the other. Concluding peace or war with their neighbours, as suited their own convenience, they sometimes condescended to accept further feudal privileges from the Kings of England. To Maurice, tenth Earl, Henry VII. had granted "all the customs, cockets, poundage, prize wines of Limerick, Cork, Kinsale, Baltimore and Youghal, with other privileges and advantages." Yet Earl James, in the next reign, did not hesitate to treat with Francis of France and the Emperor of Germany, as an independent Prince, long before the pretence of resisting the Reformation could be alleged in his justification. What we have here to observe is, that this predominance of the Munster Geraldines drove first one and then another branch of the McCarthys, and O'Briens, into the meshes of Wolsey's policy. Cormac Oge, lord of Muskerry, and his cousin, the lord of Carbery, defeated the eleventh Earl (James), at Moore Abbey, in 1521, with a loss of 1,500 foot and 500 or 600 horsemen. To strengthen himself against the powerful adversary so deeply wounded, Cormac sought the protection of the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Surrey, and of Pierce Roe, the eighth Earl of Ormond, who had common wrongs to avenge. In this way McCarthy became identified with the English interest, which he steadily adhered to till his death—in 1536. Driven by the same necessity to adopt the same expedient, Murrogh O'Brien, lord of Thomond, a few years later visited Henry at London, where he resigned his principality, received back his lands, under a royal patent conveying them to him as "Earl of Thomond, and Baron of Inchiquin." Henry was but too happy to have raised up such a counterpoise to the power of Desmond, at his own door, while O'Brien was equally anxious to secure foreign aid against such intolerable encroachments. The policy worked effectually; it brought the succeeding Earl of Desmond to London, an humble suitor for the King's mercy and favour, which were after some demur granted.