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A CONCISE HISTORY OF IRELAND

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Fairlie

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Re: A CONCISE HISTORY OF IRELAND P. W. Joyce

PostFri Sep 16, 2016 9:12 am

THE REBELLION OF SILKEN THOMAS (1534-1537)


332. When the lord deputy, Garrett Oge Fitzgerald, went to England in obedience to the king's mandate, he left his son, the young Lord Thomas, as deputy in his place. On his arrival in London he was sent to the Tower, on various charges. He might possibly have got through his present difficulties, as he had through many others, but for what befel in Ireland, which will now be related.

333. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, who was afterwards known as "Silken Thomas," from the gorgeous trappings of himself and his retinue, was then in his twenty-first year, brave, open and generous. But the earl his father could not have made a more unfortunate choice as deputy; for there were in Dublin plotting enemies who hated all his race, and they led the young man to ruin by taking advantage of his inexperience, and of his unsuspicious disposition.

334. They now—1534—spread a report that his father had been beheaded in England. Whereupon with his brilliant retinue of seven score horsemen he rode through the streets to St. Mary's Abbey; and entering the chamber where the council sat, he openly renounced his allegiance, and proceeded to deliver up the sword and robes of state.

His friend archbishop Cromer, now lord chancellor, besought him with tears in his eyes to forego his purpose; but at that moment the voice of an Irish bard was heard from among the young nobleman's followers, praising the Silken Lord, and calling on him to avenge his father's death. Casting the sword from his hand, he rushed forth with his men to enter on that wild and hopeless struggle which ended in the ruin of himself and his family.

The earl, his father, on hearing of his son's rebellion, took to his bed, and being already sick of palsy, died in a few days.

335. Collecting a large force of the Irish septs in and around the Pale, Lord Thomas led them to the walls of Dublin. The city had been lately weakened by a plague, and the inhabitants on promise of protection admitted him. He then laid siege to the castle, to which several of the leading citizens, including archbishop Allen, had retired on the first appearance of danger.

336. The archbishop, having good reason to dread the Geraldines, for he had always been bitterly hostile to them, attempted during the siege to make his escape by night in a vessel that lay in the Liffey. But he was taken and brought before Lord Thomas at Artaine. He threw himself on his knees to beg for mercy, and the young lord, pitying him, ordered his attendants to take him away in custody. But they, wilfully misinterpreting him, murdered the archbishop. This fearful crime brought a sentence of excommunication against Lord Thomas and his followers.

337. As time went on, O'Conor Faly, O'Moore, and O'Carroll—three powerful chiefs—joined his standard; and he had on his side also O'Neill of Tyrone, and O'Brien of Thomond. He and O'Conor Faly now invaded Meath, and burned Trim, Dunboyne, and the surrounding territory.

338. The new deputy Sir William Skeffington remained inactive during the whole winter. But in March, 1535, he laid siege to the castle of Maynooth, the strongest of Fitzgerald's fortresses, which was defended by 100 men. After a siege of nine days, during which the castle was battered by artillery, then for the first time used in Ireland, he took it by storm, except the great keep; and the garrison who defended this, now reduced to thirty-seven men, seeing the case hopeless, surrendered, doubtless expecting mercy. But, they were all executed. The fall of Maynooth damped the spirits of his adherents; and one of his best friends, O'Moore of Leix, was induced by the earl of Ossory to withdraw from the confederacy.

339. The rebellion had already brought the English Pale to a frightful state, three-fourths of Kildare and a great part of Meath burned and depopulated; while to add to the ruin and misery of the people, the plague was raging all over the country. Lord Leonard Grey, marshal of Ireland, was directed to place himself at the head of the army and to take more active measures. He made short work of the rebellion. Lord Thomas's remaining allies rapidly fell off; and he and his faithful friend O'Conor sent offers of submission. O'Conor was received and pardoned; and Lord Thomas delivered himself up to Lord Grey, on condition that his life should be spared.

340. Lord Thomas was conveyed to England in 1535 and imprisoned in the Tower. Here he was left for about eighteen months neglected and in great misery. There is extant a pitiful letter written by him while in the Tower to an old servant in Ireland, asking that his friend O'Brien should send him £20 to buy food and clothes:— "I never had any money since I came into prison, but a noble, nor I have had neither hosen, doublet, nor shoes, nor shirt but one; nor any other garment but a single frieze gown, for a velvet furred with budge [i.e. instead of a velvet furred with lambskin fur], and so I have gone wolward [shirtless] and barefoot and barelegged divers times (when it hath not been very warm); and so I should have done still, but that poor prisoners of their gentleness hath sometimes given me old hosen and shoes and shirts."

341. At the time of his arrest his five uncles were treacherously taken; and though it was well known that three of them had openly discountenanced the rebellion, and notwithstanding the promise made to the young lord, the whole six were executed at Tyburn in 1537.

342. And this was the end of the Rebellion of Silken Thomas, which had been brought about by the villainy of his enemies, and during which, though it lasted little more than a year, the county Kildare was wasted and depopulated, and the whole Pale, as well as the country round it, suffered unspeakable desolation and misery. It was a reckless enterprise, for there never was the remotest chance of success: the only palliation was the extreme youth and inexperience of Lord Thomas Fitzgerald.

343. Notwithstanding the efforts of king Henry VIII. to extirpate the house of Kildare, there remained two direct representatives, sons of the ninth earl by Lady Elizabeth Grey. Gerald (or Garrett) the elder, then about twelve years of age, succeeded to the earldom on the death of Lord Thomas. At the time of the apprehension of his uncles (in 1535) he was at Donore in Kildare, sick of small-pox. His faithful tutor Thomas Leverous, afterwards bishop of Kildare, fearing for his safety, wrapped him up warm in flannels, and had him secretly conveyed in a cleeve or basket to Thomond, where he remained under the protection of O'Brien. The other son, then an infant, was in England with his mother. The reader should be reminded that Leonard Grey, now lord justice, was uncle to these two children, for their mother Lady Elizabeth was his sister.

344. Great efforts were now made to discover the place of young Gerald's retreat; and certain death awaited him if he should be captured. But he had friends in every part of Ireland, for the Irish, both native and of English descent, had an extraordinary love for the house of Kildare. By sending him from place to place disguised, his guardians managed to baffle the spies that were everywhere on the watch for him. Sometimes the Irish chiefs that were suspected of protecting him were threatened, or their territories were wasted by the lord justice; and large bribes were offered to give him up; but all to no purpose.

345. When Thomond became an unsafe asylum, he was sent by night to Kilbrittain in Cork, to his aunt Lady Eleanor Mac Carthy, who watched over him with unshaken fidelity. While he was under her charge, Manus O'Donnell chief of Tirconnell made her an offer of marriage, and she consented, mainly, it is believed, for the sake of securing a powerful friend for her outlawed nephew. In the middle of June, 1537, the lady travelled with young Gerald all the way from Cork to Donegal, through Thomond and Connaught, escorted and protected everywhere by the chiefs through whose territories they passed. The illustrious wayfarers must have been well known as they travelled slowly along, yet none of the people attempted to betray them. The journey was performed without the least accident; and she and O'Donnell were immediately married.

346. At the end of two years Lady Eleanor, having reason to believe that her husband was about to betray Gerald, had him placed, disguised as a peasant, on board a vessel which conveyed him to St. Malo. On the Continent he was received with great distinction. He was however dogged everywhere by spies greedy to earn the golden reward for his capture; but he succeeded in eluding them all. And he was pursued from kingdom to kingdom by the English ambassador, who in vain demanded from the several sovereigns that he should be given up. He found his way at lost to Rome to his kinsman Cardinal Pole, who gave him safe asylum, and educated him as became a prince.

347. After many extraordinary vicissitudes and narrow escapes, he was reinstated in all his possessions by Edward VI., in 1552; and in 1554 Queen Mary restored his title, and he became the eleventh earl of Kildare.
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Re: A CONCISE HISTORY OF IRELAND P. W. Joyce

PostFri Sep 16, 2016 9:13 am

GENERAL SUBMISSION (1535-1547)


348. A few years before the time we have now arrived at, king Henry VIII. had begun his quarrel with Rome, the upshot of which was that he threw off all allegiance to the Pope, and made himself supreme head of the church in his own kingdom of England. He made little or no change in religion; on the contrary he did his best to maintain the chief doctrines of the Catholic church, and to resist the progress of the Reformation. All he wanted was that he, and not the Pope, should be head.

349. Henry was now determined to be head of the church in Ireland also; and to carry out his measures he employed the deputy Skeffington, the earl of Ormond, and George Brown, formerly a London friar, whom the king appointed archbishop of Dublin in place of archbishop Allen.

Brown now—1535—went to work with great energy; but he was vehemently opposed by Cromer archbishop of Armagh; and he made no impression on the Anglo-Irish of the Pale, who showed not the least disposition to go with him.

350. A parliament was convened in Dublin in 1536, which passed an act making the king supreme spiritual head of the church. The members representing the church, called proctors, two from each diocese, opposed it; but they were deprived of the right of voting; and the act was passed by laymen. An oath of supremacy was to be taken by all government officers, i. e. an oath that the king was spiritual head of the church; and any one who was bound to take it and refused was adjudged guilty of treason. All monasteries, except a few in some remote districts, were suppressed: and their property was either kept for the king or given to laymen.

351. About this time the Irish chiefs showed a general disposition for peace, and the king was equally anxious to receive them. At this important juncture, in 1540, a sensible man—Sir Anthony Sentleger—was by good chance appointed lord deputy. He was all for a conciliatory policy, and he told the king in a letter "I perceive them [the chiefs] to be men of such nature that they will much sooner be brought to honest conformity by small gifts, honest persuasions, and nothing taking of them, than by great rigour." Accordingly he took full advantage of their present pacific mood; and by skilful management he induced them to submit. They all acknowledged the king's temporal and spiritual authority. As to the spiritual supremacy, it had not been much brought into notice before that time, and they hardly knew what they were doing. Besides it was only the chiefs; the body of the people knew nothing of it, and the doctrine of the king's spiritual supremacy made no headway in the country.

352. Hitherto the English kings from the time of John, had borne the title of lord of Ireland; it was now resolved to confer on Henry the title of king of Ireland. With this object a parliament was assembled in Dublin on the 12th June, 1541; and in order to lend greater importance to its decisions, a number of the leading Irish chiefs were induced to attend it.

The act conferring the title of King of Ireland on Henry and his successors was passed through both houses rapidly, and with perfect unanimity.

353. Titles were conferred on many of the chiefs. Conn Bacach O'Neill was made earl of Tyrone, and his (reputed) son Ferdoragh or Matthew was made baron of Dungannon with the right to succeed as earl of Tyrone. O'Brien was made earl of Thomond; and Mac William Burke, who is commonly known as Ulick-na-gann, was made earl of Clanrickard. O'Donnell was promised to be made earl of Tirconnell; but the title was not actually conferred till a considerable time after.

354. With the career of Henry VIII. in England we have no concern here: I am writing Irish, not English history. Putting out of sight the question of supremacy and the suppression of the Irish monasteries, Henry's treatment of Ireland was on the whole considerate and conciliatory, though with an occasional outburst of cruelty. He persistently refused to expel or exterminate the Irish to make room for new colonies, though often urged to do so by his mischievous Irish officials. The result was that the end of his reign found the chiefs submissive and contented, the country at peace and the English power in Ireland stronger than ever it had been before. Well would it have been, both for England and Ireland, if a similar policy had been followed in the succeeding reigns.
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Re: A CONCISE HISTORY OF IRELAND P. W. Joyce

PostFri Sep 16, 2016 9:15 am

A CONCISE HISTORY OF IRELAND

PART IV

THE PERIOD OF INSURRECTION, CONFISCATION, AND PLANTATION

1172-1547.

THERE were four great rebellions during this period:—the rebellion of Shane O'Neill; the Geraldine rebellion; the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill; and the rebellion of 1641; besides many smaller risings. And after all these came the War of the Revolution (625).

The causes of rebellion were mainly two:—First, the attempt to extend the Reformation to Ireland: Second, the Plantations, which though the consequence of some rebellions were the cause of others. These and other influences of less importance will be described in a general way in the next chapter, and in more detail in those that follow.

Whenever a rebellion took place, the invariable course of events may be briefly summed up as:—Rebellion, Defeat, Confiscation, Plantation.

The Plantations began immediately after the confiscation of Leix and Offaly (410) and continued almost without a break during the whole of this period, that is for a century and a half.
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Re: A CONCISE HISTORY OF IRELAND

PostFri Sep 16, 2016 8:21 pm

Great info digesting it all :D
My ipad controls my spellings not me so apologies from it in advance :) lol
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