In his voluminous work, Mr. O'Flanagan, avoiding all matter foreign to his subject, and touching as lightly on wars and confiscations as possible, while relating succinctly and carefully the lives of the numerous lord chancellors of Ireland, necessarily gives us a history of English policy and legislation in that country in an entirely new form, and fills up in its historical and legal records a hiatus long recognized on both sides of the Atlantic. In ordinary histories, we see broadly depicted the effects of foreign invasion and domestic broils: in the Lives, we are permitted to have a view of the most secret workings of the viceregal government and of the managers of the so-called Irish Parliament; of the causes which governed British statesmen in their treatment of the sister kingdom, and the motive of every step taken by the dominant faction of the Pale, supported by the wealth and power of a great nation, to subdue a weak neighboring people, who, though few in numbers, isolated and disorganized, possessed a high degree of civilization and a vitality that rose superior to all defeat. The book has also this advantage, that, while it supplies the links that bind causes with effects and develops in a critical spirit the true philosophy of history, it neither shocks our sensibilities uselessly with the perpetual narration of mental and physical suffering, nor tires us with vain speculations on what might have been had circumstances been different. The author is content to accept the inevitable, and deals exclusively with the subject in hand.
The partial success of Strongbow in conjunction with the Leinster troops induced Henry II. to project a visit to Ireland, partly from a fear that his ambitious subject might be induced by the allurements of his newly acquired greatness to forget his pledge of fealty and allegiance, and partly in the hope that his presence with an armed retinue would so overawe the native princes that their entire submission would follow as a matter of course. He therefore landed at Waterford, in 1172, and after visiting Lismore, where a provincial synod was being held, entered Dublin on the 11th of November of that year. But though he remained in that city during the greater part of the winter, surrounded by all the pomp of mediæval royalty, his blandishments were only partly successful in winning any of the prominent chieftains to acknowledge his assumed title of Lord of Ireland. He rested long enough, however, to establish a form of provincial government for the guidance and protection of the Anglo-Normans, and such of the Irish of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Wexford, and of the surrounding counties as acknowledged his jurisdiction, and these became what was long afterwards known as the English Pale. The head of this system was the personal representative of the monarch, appointed and removed at his pleasure, and called at various times lord deputy, viceroy, chief governor, and lord-lieutenant, and in case of his absence or death a temporary successor was to be chosen by the principal nobles of the Pale, until his return or the appointment of his successor by the king. In the year 1219, during the reign of Henry III., the laws of England were extended to the Anglo-Norman colony, and a chancellor in the person of John de Worchely was appointed to assist the viceroy in the administration of the laws and public affairs.
The office of chancellor, or, as he was afterwards styled, lord high chancellor, was known to the Romans, and many of its peculiar duties and powers are directly derived from the civil law. In England, its establishment may be considered as contemporary with the Norman conquest, and from the first it assumed the highest importance in the state. "The office of chancellor or lord keeper," says Blackstone, "is created by the mere delivery of the great seal into his custody, whereby he becomes the first officer in the kingdom and takes precedence of every temporal peer. He is a privy counsellor by virtue of his office, and, according to Lord Ellismore, prolocutor of the House of Lords by prescription. To him belongs the appointment of all the justices of the peace throughout the kingdom. Being formerly, usually, an ecclesiastic presiding over the king's chapel, he became keeper of his conscience, visitor in his right of all hospitals and colleges of royal foundation, and patron of all his livings under the annual value of twenty pounds, etc. All this exclusive of his judicial capacity in the Court of Chancery, wherein, as in the Exchequer, is a common law court and a court of equity."[31] In Ireland, while the chancellor exercised the same functions within a more contracted sphere, his political power and duties were more directly and frequently felt. The viceroys, particularly those of the early periods, were generally soldiers expressly deputed to hold the conquests already gained, and to enlarge by force of arms the possessions of the Anglo-Norman adventurers. They were little skilled in the arts of government, and, from their short terms and frequent removals, knew little of and cared less for the people they were temporarily sent to govern.[32] The chancellors, on the contrary, were the reverse, being from the first up to the reign of Henry VIII., with a few exceptions, ecclesiastics, generally men well versed in law and letters, and having been usually at an early age selected from the inferior ranks of the English clergy and promoted to the highest positions in the church in Ireland, as a preliminary step to their appointment to the most important judicial and legislative office in the colony, they had every inducement to become familiar with its affairs and with the dispositions and influence of the people among whom their lot in life was cast. "Learned men were those chancellors," says O'Flanagan, "for the most part prelates of highly cultivated minds, attached to the land of their birth, while exercising important sway over the destinies of Ireland."
For the first two hundred years after the creation of the office of chancellor, very little can be gleaned by the author of the Lives, except the mere names, date of patents, and a few dry facts usually connected with well-known historical events. The destruction by fire of St. Mary's Abbey in Dublin, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and of the Castle of Trim, in both of which valuable public records were kept, accounts to some extent for this paucity of materials, while, as he says, "others were carried out of the country, and are met with in the State Paper Office, the Rolls Chapel, Record Office, and British Museum, in London; others are at Oxford. Several cities on the Continent possess valuable Irish documents, while many are stored in private houses, which the recent commission will no doubt render available"—a sad commentary upon the way in which everything relating to the history of the country has been neglected by that government which so frequently parades its paternal inclinations.
The want of judicial business during this period was amply compensated for by repeated but vain efforts to reconcile the different factions into which the colonists of the Pale were divided, and to prevent the followers of the rival houses of Ormond and Kildare from open warfare whenever the slightest provocation was offered by either side. While the power of England was expended in foreign wars or in the internecine struggles of the Roses, her grasp on the dominion of Ireland was becoming every day more relaxed, and it was only by the judicious pitting of one party against another, by alternate threats and bribes, that even the semblance of authority could be maintained at all times. Thus, in 1355, Edward III., writing to the Earl of Kildare, uses the following emphatic words:
"Although you know of these invasions, destructions, or dangers, and have been often urged to defend these marches jointly with others, you have neither sped thither nor sent that force of men which you were strongly bound to have done for the honor of an earl, and for the safety of those lordships, castles, lands, and tenements, which, given and granted to your grandfather by our grandfather, have thus descended to you. Since you neither endeavor to prevent the perils, ruin, and destruction threatening these parts, in consequence of your neglect, nor attend to the orders of ourselves or our council, we shall no longer be trifled with," etc.
This was strong language, but fully justified by the unsettled condition of affairs in and outside the Pale. Chancellor de Wickford, Archbishop of Dublin, who was appointed in 1375, found that his sacred calling and official dignity were no protection to him even in the vicinity of the capital, and was therefore allowed a guard of six men-at-arms and twelve archers, while the lord treasurer had the same number. Nor was this precaution taken against the Irish enemy alone, for we find that Thomas de Burel, Prior of Kilmainham, when chancellor, while holding a parley with De Bermingham at Kildare, was, with his attendant lords, taken prisoner. The lay noblemen were ransomed, but the prior was kept a prisoner only to be exchanged for one of the De Berminghams then confined in Dublin Castle. This family seem to have held the judicial officers somewhat in contempt, for we read at another time that Adam Veldom, Chief Chancery Clerk, was captured by them and the O'Connors, and obliged to pay ten pounds in silver for his release. When John Cotton, Dean of St. Patrick's, was appointed chancellor in 1379, and commenced his tour, accompanied by the viceroy, from Dublin to Cork, he was allowed for his personal retinue, independent of his servants and clerks, not very formidable opponents, it is to be presumed, "four men-at-arms armed at all points, and eight mounted archers," a circumstance which shows that the Irish and many of the Anglo-Irish of the country had very little reverence for the person of even an English chancellor.
In 1398, Dr. Thomas Cranley was sent over to Dublin as its archbishop and chancellor of the colony, and from his high position and known ability it was expected that he would not only remedy the disorders of the Pale, but bring back the great lords to a sense of their duty to the king, and devise measures for the collection of his revenues, which these noblemen did not seem inclined to pay with the alacrity befitting obedient subjects. After several years of fruitless endeavors to effect these objects, he was obliged to write to King Henry IV. for funds to support his son, who was then acting as viceroy. "With heavy hearts," says the chancellor, speaking for the privy council, "we testify anew to your highness that our lord, your son, is so destitute of money that he has not a penny in the world, nor can borrow a single penny, because all his jewels and his plate that he can spare of those that he must of necessity have, are pledged and be in pawn. All his soldiers have departed from him, and the people of his household are on the point of leaving him." And he further significantly adds, "For the more full declaring of these matters to your highness, three or two of us should have come to your high presence, but such is the danger on this side that not one of us dare depart from the person of our lord." This was indeed a sad condition for the son of the reigning monarch and his council to find themselves in, while the Talbots, Butlers, and Fitzgeralds were feasting on the fat of the land surrounded by thousands of their well-paid followers. Again, in 1435, when Archbishop Talbot was chancellor, the council through that prelate addressed a memorial to the king, in which the following remarkable passage occurs:
"First, that it please our sovereign lord graciously to consider how this land of Ireland is well-nigh destroyed and inhabited with his enemies and rebels, insomuch that there is not left in the northern parts of the counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare, that join together out of subjection of the said enemies and rebels, scarcely thirty miles in length and twenty miles in breadth, as a man may surely ride or go, in the said counties, to answer to the king's writs and to his commandments."
This extraordinary admission, made two hundred and sixty-six years after the landing of the Normans, would be almost incredible did it rest on less weighty authority. This was the time for the Irish people to have regained their freedom, and, had they had half as much of the spirit of nationality and organization as they possessed of valor and endurance, a decisive blow might easily have been struck that would have for ever ended the English power in their island. But the propitious moment was allowed to pass, and dearly did they pay in after-times for their supineness and folly.