Ireland under the Tudors. Bagwell Richard
of Ireland. They were there rather as allies of the native chiefs than as conquerors, and the easy lapse of their descendants into Irish habits is the less to be wondered at. Richard de Burgo obtained a confirmation of his grant in 1226, through the favour of his kinsman, the great justiciar, Hubert, and he soon afterwards made himself master of Galway, which he fortified strongly, and made the chief place of Connaught. After his time the O’Connors never regained possession of it, and the importance of the royal tribe steadily diminished during the whole of the thirteenth century. Richard de Burgo’s eldest son Walter married Maud, daughter and heiress of the younger Hugo de Lacy, who died in 1243, and he thus became Earl of Ulster as well as Lord of Connaught. His son Richard, commonly called the Red Earl, advanced the power of the Anglo-Norman state to the furthest point which it ever attained.
Poverty of the colony under Henry III.
Constant war is not favourable to the production of wealth, and it seems probable that no very considerable progress was made in the arts of peace. Tallage was first imposed on Ireland in 1217, in the name of Henry III., but it seems to have yielded little, and a generation later there was equal difficulty in collecting a tithe for the Pope. Innocent IV. ordered that a sum should be so raised for the liberation of the Holy Land, and very stringent letters were sent to Ireland in 1254; but collector Lawrence Sumercote declared that the difficulties were insuperable. The Irish, he explained, never saved anything, but lived riotously and gave liberally to all, and he professed that he would ‘rather be imprisoned than crucified any longer in Ireland for the business of the Cross.’ The plan of drawing upon Ireland for English or Continental wars was, however, largely practised during the reign of Henry III., and it tended to sap the strength of the colony. Ready money might be scarce, but there were men, and they could be ill-spared from the work of defending their lands against a native race who were ever on the watch to take advantage of their absence or neglect.
Edward I. had not time to attend to Ireland personally.
A vast number of documents remain to show that Edward I. took great pains about Ireland. Phelim O’Connor, who died in 1265, may be regarded as the last King of Connaught. His son Hugh did indeed assume the title, and, according to the annalists, ‘executed his royal depredations on the men of Offaly, where he committed many burnings and killings;’ but his kingship does not appear to have been officially recognised, and the De Burgos were the true rulers. The Red Earl was supreme in the northern half of Ireland; but O’Neill was recognised as King of Tyrone, while his claim to be head of all the Irish in Ireland was denied. O’Cahan was also sometimes given the title of king. O’Donnell was treated with less respect, and a price was set upon his head, which appears to have been actually brought to Dublin in 1283. In 1281 Hugh Boy O’Neill, whom the annalists call ‘royal heir of all Erin, head of the hospitality and valour of the Gael,’ sided with the English against Donnell Oge O’Donnell, who is called ‘King of the north, the best Gael for hospitality and dignity; the general guardian of the west of Europe, and the knitting-needle of the arch sovereignty, and the rivetting hammer of every good law, and the top-nut of the Gael in valour.’ A battle was fought near Dungannon, and O’Donnell, who had under him the O’Rourkes and MacMahons, and ‘nearly the majority of the Irish of Connaught and Ulster,’ was defeated and slain. Two years later Hugh Boy was killed by the MacMahons. The story of this contest is a good illustration of the hopeless incapacity of the natives for anything like a national combination. If Edward I. had been able to attend to Ireland personally, it is at least probable that he would have conquered the country as completely as Wales.
Frequency of quarrels among the colonists.
In 1275, Edward granted the whole of Thomond to Thomas de Clare, who took advantage of the dissensions among the O’Briens, and built the strong castle of Bunratty to dominate the district. The conquest of Thomond was, however, never completed, or nearly completed, nor did the De Clares succeed in establishing themselves like the De Burgos. They might have done so had they not come so late into the field, and their failure was certainly not owing to any exceptional power of combination shown by the Irish. It was rather due to quarrels among the colonists, whose strength was being constantly sapped by taking part in Edward’s Scotch wars, and who were not recruited by any considerable immigration. In 1245, the male line of the Earl Marshal was finally extinguished, and the inheritance of Strongbow fell to five sisters, the great grand-daughters of Dermod MacMurrough. Matilda, the eldest, obtained Carlow and carried the hereditary office of Earl Marshal to her husband, Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk. Joan, the second, received Wexford. Isabella, the third, had Kilkenny, which her descendants sold to the Ormonde family. Sibilla, the fourth, had Kildare for her share. Eva, the youngest sister, married William De Braose; and through her daughter, who was married to Roger Mortimer, became ancestress of most of the royal houses of Europe. As the five daughters of William Earl Marshal were all married, and had all children, the history of Leinster becomes very confusing. Had it remained in one strong hand the Irish would hardly have recovered their ground. But, as Giraldus points out, the ‘four great pillars of the conquest, Fitz-Stephen, Hervey, Raymond, and John de Courcy, by the hidden but never unjust judgment of God, were not blessed with any legitimate offspring.’ A similar fatality attended many others, including Earl Richard, to whom, and not to Fitz-Stephen, common fame, more true in this case than contemporary history, has attributed the real leadership among the Anglo-Norman invaders of Ireland.
Edward I. weakens the colony by drawing men and supplies from it.
In his great campaign of 1296 Edward had much help from Ireland. The Earl of Ulster was among those who led contingents to Scotland, and the names of Power, Butler, Fitzthomas, Wogan, Rocheford, Purcell, Cantoke, and Barry appear among the leaders. The whole force from Ireland consisted of 310 men-at-arms, 266 hobelers or horsemen with unarmoured horses, and 2,576 foot, including many archers and cross-bowmen. All who went received pardons, but some refused or neglected to obey the royal summons. In 1298 Edward drew provisions from Ireland. His requisition included 8,000 quarters of wheat, chiefly fine flour in casks; 10,000 quarters of oats; much bran, bacon, salt beef, and salt fish; and 10,000 casks of wine. If so much wine could not be got in Ireland, then the Viceroy was to agree with some merchant to bring it from Gascony as quick as possible. Edward used Ireland as a base for operations, or as a recruiting ground, but he never had time to give it much of his personal care. First Wales, then Gascony, then Palestine, then Scotland engrossed his vast energies; but Ireland was left to herself. Without the means to keep order themselves, Viceroys found it necessary to preserve the colony by stirring up dissensions among the Irish. The justiciar, Robert d’Ufford, was sent for by Edward and charged with this evil policy. He answered, that to save the King’s coffers, and to keep the peace, he thought it expedient to wink at one knave cutting off another. ‘Whereat,’ says an old author, ‘the King smiled, and bade him return to Ireland.’
Disorders after the death of Edward I.
John’s imperfect partition of Ireland into shires was still more imperfectly carried out. At the death of Edward I. four out of his grandfather’s twelve counties—namely, Meath, Wexford, Carlow, and Kilkenny—were liberties or exempt jurisdictions in the hands of what Davies calls ‘absolute palatines,’ claiming and exercising almost every attribute of sovereignty. The Fitzgeralds had acquired similar authority over a portion of Desmond, and the De Clares over a portion of Thomond. Connaught and Ulster were under the De Burghs, in so far as they had been reduced at all, and Roscommon was a royal castle and the head of a separate county. At Randon on Lough Ree was another royal castle, and these were almost the only strongholds of the Crown in Connaught; for Galway was quite subject to the De Burghs. Within their palatinate jurisdictions, the great nobles made barons and knights, appointed sheriffs, and executed justice. The King’s writ only ran in the Church lands, and was executed by a separate sheriff. So complete was the distinction, that in the mediæval parliaments knights were separately returned for the counties and for the ‘crosses,’ as the ecclesiastical jurisdictions were called. The inherent weakness of such a polity was probably aggravated by the suppression of the Templars, who always kept a strong armed force. In 1308 Edward II. called for an account of their lands and revenues, and the barons of the exchequer answered that they could make no proper inquisition. ‘On account,’ they wrote, ‘of the long distances, and of the feuds between certain of the magnates of Ireland, we do not dare to visit the places named, and jurors of