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THE FIRST VOLUME.

INTRODUCTORY.

PAGE

Early notices of Ireland 1 The Celtic constitution 2 The tribal system 5 The Celtic land law 7 Common origin of Celtic and Teutonic institutions 11 The ancient Irish Church 12 Gradual introduction of Roman ecclesiastical polity 14

THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT.

First inroads of the Northmen 17 Turgesius 17 Danes and Norwegians 18 Danish power in Ireland 19 Its limits 21 Revival of the Celts 22 Brian Borumha 23 Battle of Clontarf 28 Conversion of the Danes 29 Superiority of their civilisation 30 Brian's monarchy not permanent 31 Danish Christianity in Ireland 32 Conflict between Canterbury and Armagh 33 Papal supremacy fully established 34

FROM JOHN'S VISIT IN 1210 TO THE INVASION BY THE BRUCES IN 1315.

FROM THE INVASION OF THE BRUCES TO THE YEAR 1346.

THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.

THE GERALDINE REBELLION--SKEFFINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION, 1534-1535.

FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540.

END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION.

Ormonde proposes to reform his country 221 Grey almost constantly engaged in war 222 His quarrel with the Butlers 223 The O'Carrolls 223 The O'Mores 224 Rash expedition of Grey 226 His dispute with the Butlers 229 The revenue 233 Cromwell's Irish policy 234 The royal supremacy acquiesced in 236 A Catholic movement nevertheless makes itself felt 238 Grey routs the O'Neills 240 Fall and fate of Grey 243

St. Leger Lord Deputy 262-287 O'Donnell abjures the Pope 262 O'Neill abjures the Pope 264 Other chiefs follow suit 266 The Munster nobles do likewise 267 O'Neill made Earl of Tyrone 268 O'Brien made Earl of Thomond 270 MacWilliam Burke made Earl of Clanricarde 271 The MacDonnells in Antrim 271 Financial dishonesty 274 An Irish contingent in Scotland 276 And in France 277 Dissensions between St. Leger and Ormonde 278 An English party in Scotland 279 The Lord of the Isles in Ireland 280 Abortive attempt to invade Scotland from Ireland 281 Intrigues of Irish officials--St. Leger and Ormonde 282 Ormonde is murdered in England 285 Permanent causes tending to weaken Irish Governments 286

Points at issue between King and Pope 288 See of Armagh 289 Dublin 290 Meath 290 Cashel 291 Tuam 292 Remoter sees 292 King and Pope in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught 293 Corrupt state of the Church 294 Miserable condition of four sees particularly described 295 General corruption of the clergy 296 Evils of Papal patronage 297 Many of the religious houses out of order 298 Excellent service rendered by others 299 Ecclesiastical legislation in 1536 300 The Crown could procure the passing of Acts, but the people remained unaffected by them 301 Archbishop Browne 302 His quarrel with Bishop Staples 303 Lord Leonard Grey gave general offence 303 Images, relics, and pilgrimages 304 The Munster bishops conformed 305 But this does not prove any real conversion 306 Origin of a double succession 306 Wauchop made Primate by the Pope 306 First appearance of the Jesuits 307 The friars oppose the royal supremacy 310 The Reformation hateful to the Irish 311 Henry attacks the monasteries 312 Account of the different orders 313 Cistercian abbeys 314 Hospitallers 315 Pensions to monks 317 The monks were not really driven out 317 Property of the religious houses 318 The mendicant orders 319 Their suppression scarcely decreased the number of friars 320 The plunder of the monasteries shared by all classes 320 The educating monasteries not replaced 321 Early attempts at an Irish university 321 Archbishop Browne 322 Bishop Staples 323

St. Leger still Deputy 325 Education of Irish nobles at Court 326 Sir Edward Bellingham Lord Deputy 327-345 His efforts to protect the Pale 328 Pirates on the Irish coast 329 Bellingham puts down the O'Mores 331 And the O'Connors 332 He bridles Connaught 333 A remarkable adventure 334 The Irish mint 335 Bellingham's haughty bearing towards great men 337 He offends his own council 339 He tames Desmond 339 Ireland quiet 340 The Reformation--Browne and Staples 341 Bellingham and Dowdall 342 The royal supremacy 343 Death and character of Bellingham 344 Lord Justice Bryan 345 Lord Justice Brabazon 346 Foreign intrigues 347 St. Leger Lord Deputy 348-353 His conciliatory policy 349 The Reformation hangs fire 349 Causes of this 350 Want of money 351 The French discourage the Irish refugees 352 English settlers not always a civilising influence 353

St. Leger Lord Deputy 354-359 Protestantism officially promulgated 354 Doctrinal conference 355 Browne and Dowdall 356 Tolerant views of St. Leger 357 Sir James Croft Lord Deputy 359-383 Colonisation projects 360 The Ulster Scots 361 The O'Neills 362 Shane O'Neill and his competitors 363 Another doctrinal conference 365 The primacy removed to Dublin 367 Church patronage 368 The coinage 370 Sufferings from a debased currency 371 Attempts at mining 372 French and Scotch intrigues 373 Connaught 374 Leinster 375 Ulster 376 Protestant bishops 379 Bale 381 Catholic reaction after Edward's death 382

THE REIGN OF MARY.

St. Leger is again Lord Deputy 384-396 The succession 384 The Queen and the Pope 386 Bishop Bale at Kilkenny 386 The Primacy is restored to Armagh 391 Restoration of Kildare 392 The Pope and the kingdom of Ireland 393 Mary's notions of prerogative 394 Recall of St. Leger--his accusers 396 Sussex made Lord Deputy 396 Ulster 397 The King's and Queen's Counties 399 The monastic lands not restored 401 Catholicism re-established 401 Military operations of Sussex 402 O'Neills and O'Donnells 404 Sir Henry Sidney Lord Justice 405 General disaffection 406 Mary's ideas on Irish policy 407 Sussex in Munster 408 And in Thomond and Connaught 410 Abortive expedition to the Hebrides 411 State of the Protestants under Mary 413

INDEX 415

IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS.

INTRODUCTORY.

Agricola took military possession of south-western Scotland partly in the hope of being able to invade Ireland. He had heard that the climate and people did not differ much from those of Britain, and he knew that the harbours were much frequented by merchants. He believed that annexation would tend to consolidate the Roman power in Britain, Gaul, and Spain, and kept by him for some time a petty Irish king who had been expelled by his own tribe, and to whom he professed friendship on the chance of turning him to account. Agricola thought there would be no great difficulty in conquering the island, which he rightly conjectured to be smaller than Britain and larger than Sicily or Sardinia.

'I have often,' says Tacitus, 'heard him say that Ireland could be conquered and occupied with a single legion and a few auxiliaries, and that the work in Britain would be easier if the Roman arms could be made visible on all sides, and liberty, as it were, removed out of sight.' Agricola, like many great men after him, might have found the task harder than his barbarous guest had led him to suppose; and in any case fate had not ordained that Ireland should ever know the Roman Peace. It was reserved for another petty king, after the lapse of nearly 1,100 years, to introduce an organised foreign power into Ireland, and to attach the island to an empire whose possessions were destined to be far greater than those of Imperial Rome.

Setting aside all ethnological speculations as foreign to the scope of this work, it may be sufficient to say that the inhabitants of Ireland at the dawn of authentic history were Celts, of the same grand division as the bulk of the Scots Highlanders, but differing considerably from the people of Wales. Their organisation in the twelfth century had not passed beyond the tribal stage.

There was a monarch of all Ireland, who had Meath--the Middle--as his official appanage, and who reigned originally at Tara. There were provincial kings of Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught. A primacy was given to the race of Niall, who lived presumably in the fourth and fifth centuries, and from whom the O'Neills, O'Donnells, and others trace their descent. The theory is thought to have been pretty closely adhered to until the desertion of Tara in the sixth century of our era. After that the over-king lived in his own territory; but his authority was often disputed, especially by Munster, the revolt of which province finally broke up the old order.

Wars were frequent, and Irish Brehons, who were rather legal experts than judges, exerted themselves to define rights and liabilities, and to establish a peaceful polity. Perhaps in laying down the law they sometimes rather stated their own conception of what it ought to be than described the actual state of things; much as Brahminical writers propounded a theory of caste which cannot be reconciled with historical truth. Neither the Church nor the Law had always original power sufficient to enforce steady obedience. The Law might be clear enough, but the central government was often too weak to secure respect for the opinion of experts. Portia might have argued like a very Daniel, but she could have done nothing without the Duke behind her. In the absence of such an overpowering authority, the decisions of the Brehons were little more than arbitrations which might be, and probably often were, accepted as final, but on which neither party could be compelled to act.

In the treatise called the 'Senchus M?r' there is a passage which may be as old as the fourteenth century, in which it is allowed that the nature of Irish royalty varied considerably from time to time. 'The King of Erin without opposition,' says the writer or interpolator, 'received stock from the King of the Romans; or it was by the successor of Patrick the stock is given to the King of Erin, that is, when the seaports of Dublin, and Waterford, and Limerick, and the seaports in general, are subject to him.' There is here an attempt at once to bring Ireland within the pale of the Empire, and to show that the Irish Church was independent. It was natural that the Brehons should seek to introduce their country into the circle of nations, but we know as a matter of fact that the Empire never had anything to do with Ireland. The passage quoted may have been inspired by a wish to deny English supremacy by attorning, as it were, to the superior lord. It is a tribute to the greatness of the Empire more than anything else, and it was not thought of until the Brehon law schools had fallen from their high estate.

It was by giving stock that an Irish chief showed his power and added to his wealth. There were lands attached to his office, but his capital consisted of kine, and he extracted a sort of rent by obliging his inferiors to give them pasture. The number of cattle which he 'grazed without loss' upon other people's ground was the measure of his power and popularity. There were free tribesmen the amount of whose obligation to their chief was strictly laid down, though a greater quantity of stock might be voluntarily taken under certain restrictions. But there were also servile or semi-servile classes whose comparatively unprotected condition placed them more or less in the power of the chief to whose sept they were attached. An ambitious chief would always have opportunities of aggrandisement, and his wealth enabled him to support a mercenary force, and to grow strong at the expense of his own and other tribes. Broken men who had lost their own tribal position would always flock to an ambitious chief, and the disturbing influence of such retainers was often too strong for Brehons or priests. But the growth of power by means of mercenaries was not peculiar to Ireland, and was perhaps less frequent than is commonly supposed.

In 628 Leinster was devastated. Quarrels between near relations were frequent, and often ended in murder. When we consider that the deaths of important people only are recorded, we cannot pronounce the Ireland which sent forth Aidan, and Adamnan, and Columbanus to have been at all a peaceful country. Christianity was then established, and no Scandinavian irruption had yet hindered the development of purely native ideas. But Irish chroniclers, perhaps owing to their genealogical turn, give a disproportionate space to deaths; and it may be admitted that the number of homicides was not greater in Ireland than in some parts of Germany in feudal times.

As the chief was elected by his tribe from among a limited number, so was the land distributed among the tribesmen within certain fixed limits. As it is with England's treatment of Ireland that we have to do, it may be as well to let Sir John Davies himself say how the matter appeared to the Tudor lawyers:--

'First be it known that the lands possessed by the mere Irish in this realm were divided into several territories or countries; and the inhabitants of each Irish country were divided into several septs or lineages.'

'Secondly, in every Irish territory there was a lord or chieftain, and a tanist who was his successor apparent. And of every Irish sept or lineage there was also a chief, who was called Canfinny, or head of a "cognatio."'

'Thirdly, all possessions in these Irish territories ran at all times in course of tanistry, or in course of gavelkind. Every lordship or chiefry, with the portion of land that passed with it, went without partition to the tanist, who always came in by election, or by the strong hand, and never by descent. But all the inferior tenancies were partible among the males in gavelkind.'

'Again, the estate which the lord had in the chiefry, or that the inferior tenants had in gavelkind, was no estate of inheritance, but a temporary or transitory possession. For just as the next heir of the lord or chieftain would not inherit the chiefry, but the eldest and worthiest of the sept , who was often removed and expelled by another who was more active or stronger than he: so lands in the nature of gavelkind were not partible among the next heirs male of him who died seised, but among all the males of his sept, in this manner:--

'The Canfinny, or chief of a sept made all the partitions at his discretion. This Canfinny, after the death of each tenant holding a competent portion of land, assembled all the sept, placed all their possessions in hotchpotch, and made a new partition of the whole; in which partition he did not assign to the sons of the deceased the portion which their father held, but allotted the better or larger part to each one of the sept according to his antiquity.'

'These portions being thus allotted and assigned were possessed and enjoyed accordingly until the next partition, which, at the discretion or will of the Canfinny, might be made at the death of each inferior tenant. And thus by these frequent partitions and the removals or translations of the tenants of one portion or another, all the possessions were uncertain, and the uncertainty of possession was the very cause that no civil habitations were erected, and no enclosure or improvement of lands made, in the Irish countries where that custom of gavelkind was in use; especially in Ulster, which seemed everywhere a wilderness before this new plantation made there by the English undertakers. And this was the fruit of this Irish gavelkind.'

'Also by this Irish custom of gavelkind bastards took their shares with the legitimate, and wives, on the other hand, were quite excluded from dower, and daughters took nothing, even if their father died without issue male. So that this custom differed from Kentish gavelkind in four points.'

The early history of the native Irish Church is shrouded in much obscurity. The best authorities are disposed to accept St. Patrick as the apostle of Ireland, the fifth century as the period of his labours, and Armagh as his chief seat. He was not a native of Ireland; so much seems certain. A more interesting, because a more clearly defined figure, is that of Columba or Columkille, who was born in Donegal in 521. The churches of Derry, Durrow, Kells, Swords, Raphoe, Tory Island, and Drumcliff, claim him as their founder; but it is as the apostle of North Britain that he is best known. He was religious from his youth, but a peculiarly serious tinge was given to his mind by a feeling of remorse for bloodshed which he had partly caused. He had surreptitiously transcribed a psalter belonging to another saint, who complained of this primitive infringement of copyright. A royal decision that 'to every cow belongs her calf' was given, and was followed by an appeal to arms. Exile was then imposed as a penance on Columba, whose act had been the original cause of offence. Such was long the received legend, but perhaps the exile was voluntary. Whether his departure was a penance or the result of a vow, tradition says that he was bound never to see Ireland again, that he landed first on Oronsay, but found that Erin was visible from thence, and refused to rest until he had reached Iona. His supposed feelings are recorded in a very ancient poem:--

'My vision o'er the brine I stretch From the ample oaken planks; Large is the tear of my soft grey eye When I look back upon Erin. Upon Erin my attention is fixed.'

Irish Christianity was at first monastic. A saint obtained a grant of land from a chief. A church was built, and a settlement sprung up round it. The family, as it was called, consisted partly of monks and partly of dependents, and the abbot ruled over all as chief of a pseudo-tribe. Like a lay chiefry the abbacy was elective, and the abbots wielded considerable power. These ecclesiastical clans even made war with each other. Thus, it is recorded that in 763 the family of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise fought with the family of St. Columba of Durrow, and that 200 of the Columbides fell. The head of such a confraternity was called coarb, or successor of the founder, and Irish writers sometimes called the Pope 'coarb of Peter.' In course of time the coarb of Patrick crystallised into the Archbishop of Armagh, and the coarb of Columba into the Bishop of Derry. Other saints were revered as the founders of other sees. Very often at least the abbot was chosen from among the founder's kin.

Episcopal orders were acknowledged from the first, but it was long before the notion of a territorial bishop prevailed. In early days there were many bishops, wanderers sometimes, and at other times retained by the abbot as a necessary appendage to his monastery. The bishop was treated with great respect, but was manifestly inferior to the head of a religious house. St. Patrick was said to have consecrated 350 bishops, founded 700 churches, and ordained 5,000 priests; a mere legend, but perhaps tending to show that the episcopal order was very numerous in Ireland. Travelling bishops without definite duties, and with orders of doubtful validity, became a scandal to more regularly organised churches, and drew down a rebuke from Anselm as late as the beginning of the twelfth century. At an earlier period impostors pretending to be Irish bishops were not uncommon.

In 716, under Duncadh, the eleventh abbot, Iona conformed, and the Paschal controversy came to an end, after lasting 150 years. The coronal tonsure was adopted three years later. The supremacy of Rome was thus acknowledged, but circumstances long prevented the Irish from adopting the Roman plan of Church organisation.

FOOTNOTES:

'The existence of the Irish Pentarchy,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'was as real as that of any similar confederacy among nations in a tribal stage, and the means of enforcing the orders of the over-king were not very different or less effective than in many federal states--ancient, mediaeval, and modern.'

Dr. Sullivan does not think Christianity was fully established by the middle of the seventh century. 'The Irish Church organisation,' he says, 'was ill calculated to influence the social habits and the political life of the people; unlike the diocesan and centralised system of the Latin Church. Hence a high spiritual life and intellectual cultivation within the numerous coenobiums was quite compatible with practical paganism and disorder outside.'

'At all times' must be understood to refer only to those comparatively modern ages above mentioned.

Dr. Sullivan believes the story of the decision against Columba to be a mere myth.

'The Irish Church,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'had undoubtedly two distinct phases of monasticism: one that of the Patrician period--an obscure but highly important and interesting phase; the other, that of the sixth and subsequent centuries, to which the Irish missionaries belonged.'

Dr. Sullivan warns me not to attribute too much influence to the Danish Church. 'The tribe-bishop,' he says, 'was a much earlier development, and proves the growth of diocesan jurisdiction and the consequent merging of the Irish Church in the Latin Church. The acceptance of the Roman time for celebrating Easter by the Irish Church and the constant intercourse between Ireland and the Continent had brought the Irish Church fully under Roman supremacy three and a half centuries earlier. What really took place in the early part of the twelfth century was the more complete adoption of the organisation of the Western Church, and of the principles of the canon law; and especially the granting of lands and charters to the Church in the same way as in feudal lands. The marriage of Irish princes with Saxon and other foreign princesses, and the growth of towns which helped to relax its rigid tribal system, did more than the Danish Church.' The chief towns were, however, of Danish origin.

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