forced their way into the church. Their sudden rush threw Sir James into a violent alarm; he imagined that it was a preconcerted scheme to assassinate him, and ran to the chapter house, into which he entered and secured the door. For a few minutes the confusion must have been very great: the fury of the archers appears in the description of the annalist: "The citizens in their rage imagining that every post in the church had been one of the soldiers, shot hab nab, at random, up to the rood loft, and to the chancel, leaving some of their arrows sticking in the images." Kildare, whose intentions were free from any deceit, felt that his honour was at stake, and instantly rebuked his people: following Sir James to the chapter house door, he assured him that no harm should happen him. Ormonde desired his hand upon the promise, and a hole was made in the door for the purpose. But when this was done, Ormonde was struck by a suspicion that it was designed to make him stretch out his hand through the door, and then strike it off, and refused to run this risk. The lord deputy ended the doubt by putting in his own hand: on this Sir James unbarred the door, and they embraced one another in sight of the angry crowd. Thus this strange alarm was quieted; and Sir James, suppressing as he might his excited animosity, they became seemingly reconciled; but, probably, parted greater enemies than ever. The effect of this incident is said to have endured even beyond the lives of the two persons between whom it occurred, and created a sense of dislike which was long kept up in their posterity. On the death of the earl of Ormonde, Sir James contrived to take possession of his estates, which, by his great influence and authority with the whole Butler faction, he was in these lawless times enabled to maintain against Sir Pierce Butler, the rightful claimant. It does not appear that Sir Pierce had entered into any immediate course for the recovery of his rights thus usurped. He is mentioned in the peerage as being the direct descendant from Richard, the youngest son of James, third earl of Ormonde. So remote a degree, though it cannot lessen a right, the creation of positive law, has certainly the effect of lessening the sense of it. Such is ever the effect of lapse of time, or of any deviation from customary order, because men judge by habit rather than by computation. But at that period, the sense of legal rights was scarcely superior to the claim of usurpation maintained by force; which was still made specious by a confused notion of the rights of conquest. It was the unhappy consequence of this undefined state of personal rights, that usurpation brought with it murder and private war as the resources of justice. Pierce Butler, reduced to great distress by poverty, was also in personal danger, and obliged with his wife to take refuge in the woods. Stanihurst mentions, that so great was their want, that his wife, a daughter of the great earl of Kildare, being advanced in her pregnancy, was reduced to complain of the poorness of her diet, and to say that she was no longer in a condition to live on milk, and entreated her husband that he would procure some wine. To this Sir Pierce answered, that she should have wine enough * Cox. 66 + Lodge, Archdall. within twenty-four hours, or feed alone on milk." On which, taking with him, he went forth to lie in ambush for the usurper of his rights. his page The following day as Sir James Ormonde was on his way between Dunmore and Kilkenny, with six horsemen, he was suddenly assailed by Sir Pierce, who rushed upon him from his lurking place, and before he could receive any aid from his followers, ran him through with a spear. This occurrence probably took place in August, 1518. In Ware's Annals it is by some unaccountable error placed in 1497: but as the reader may recollect, the seventh earl of Ormonde lived till 1515. It is indeed highly probable, that the error was committed by his son, by whom the Annals were arranged from his father's papers. Sir James Ormonde was known as a person of great ambition, craft, and courage; an excellent soldier, and famed for the use of "his weapon." His favour with the king was in a great measure owing to his valour and activity against Simnel. By his murder, Sir Pierce recovered his rights, and became eighth earl of Ormonde. Maurice, Tenth Earl of Desmond. DIED A.D. 1520. THE earls of Desmond, although possessing power, influence, and extent of territory inferior to none of the great barons of English race in Ireland; yet from the remoteness of their possessions, had latterly been less concerned in the affairs and changes of the pale. As the intercourse of the English became more contracted with the decline of their power, and the diminution of their territory, the lords of Desmond became comparatively isolated in the remote province of Munster; and began to perceive the wisdom of keeping their power and persons safe from the arbitrary jurisdiction of the royal governors. The seizure and sudden execution of the eighth earl, father to the Maurice who is here to be noticed, may have much contributed to teach this lesson. The consequence was, that although they occasionally joined in insurrectionary movements, yet they neither exerted themselves prominently, nor were strictly called to account. Maurice was son to Thomas, the eighth earl, of whom we have already made mention.* On the execution of Thomas, he was succeeded by James, the ninth earl, elder brother to Maurice. But this James, after twenty years, spent in honour and prosperity, was murdered by his own servants, in his house at Rathkeale, in the county of Limerick, in the year 1487. Maurice succeeded. His first care was to take the plotter of the murder, Shane Mantagh, whom he put to death. Maurice, though incapacitated from personal exertion by lameness, being obliged to be carried in a horselitter, was called Bellicosus, for his warlike character and successes. In 1487, he gained two * Page 404. battles, sufficiently remarkable to be noticed by most Irish annalists and historians. In one of these he defeated and slew Murchard O'Carrol, chief of Ely, with his brother. In the other, he in like manner, defeated and slew Dermod Macarthy of Desmond-victories which though not gained in the English cause, yet as Leland remarks, contributed to the security of the English pale. In 1497, he joined Warbeck, and besieged Waterford; but was obliged to raise the siege. Soon after he made a formal submission to the king, who was probably more pleased by the submission, than offended by the crime; he not only forgave Desmond, but granted him "all the customs, cockets, poundage, prize wines, of Limerick, Cork, Kinsale, Baltimore, and Youghall, with other privileges and advantages."* Maurice died at Tralee, in 1520, where he was buried in the house of the friars' preachers. He left an only son, who succeeded him. Donald O'Donell, Chief of Tirconnel. DIED A.D. 1456. THIS descendant of an ancient Irish race, at this period, beginning to take a more prominent place in the annals of Ireland, was elected chief of Tirconnel, in 1454. His competitor Rory O'Donell, was dissatisfied at the choice of the sept. In some time the chief was made prisoner by O'Doherty, and confined in the castle of the Island. Rory now thought that so good an opportunity of rectifying the election of his race, by a method at that time not unfrequent in Irish elections, immediately collected his friends, and betook himself to the place with the design to slay the chief. He set fire to the gate and stairs of the tower, and, but for an accident, the result of his over zeal, was in a fair way to effect his purpose. O'Donell, who saw the proceeding from within, very excusably devised a plan to interrupt his kinsman's patriotic enterprise; he prevailed on his keepers to take off the irons with which he was bound, and immediately betook himself to the top of the tower: there he stood in view of his enemy. Rory was gratified by a sight, which gave him assurance, that the victim of his princely ambition was in his power: he therefore approached in eager haste to urge his people, and inspect the state of the interior, that his rival might not live a moment longer than could be helped. But his rival, was at the same moment busy with notions of nearly the same kind: in the midst of his sanguinary eagerness, as he gazed on the subsiding flames which delayed his vengeance, poor Rory's ambition and resentment were suddenly annihilated by an enormous stone which descended from his rival's hands and stretched him lifeless at the base of the smoking tower. The chief did not live long to fulfil the promise of a reign so well begun. He died in 1456.† * Lodge. + Inch Castle 十 Sir W. Betham's Irish Antiquarian Researches. + Hugh Roe O'Donell. A.D. 1505. HUGH ROE O'DONELL was more successful, than the unfortunate person of his race, whose fate we had to describe in our last notice. He succeeded to the chieftainship in 1461, by deposing Tirlogh, who had succeeded Donell in 1456. A quarrel between his sons led to his own deposition in 1497, when he was succeeded by his son Con: but Con's usurpation was brief; his violent death, a few months after, placed his father again at the head of the O'Donells. He filled this honourable station till 1505, when he died in the 78th year of his age.* Gerald, Ninth Earl of Kildare. THIS earl, it has been already mentioned, was, in 1503, during his father's life, appointed treasurer in Ireland, but did not succeed to the earldom till 1513, when his illustrious father died. He was the only son of his father's first marriage with the daughter of lord Portlester. His father's death caused much perplexity; it removed the terror and authority of his great name: excited the hopes of the enemies of the pale, and threw a damp over the courage of its friends. The force too which he had collected, at once melted away. Under these dis couraging circumstances, no expedient seemed to offer so ready a prospect of relief, as the nomination of his son and successor, Gerald, now lord Kildare. He was nominated lord justice by the council, until the king's pleasure should be known. The king appointed him lord deputy. He followed the active example of his father, vindicating the peace of the country by prompt and successful expeditions into each district in which any demonstration of a hostile character called for his interference. He drove the O'Mores into the woods in 1514, and on his return attacked the O'Reillys, who had made an excursion against the English he slew Hugh O'Reilly, and razed the castle of Cavan. In the following year he went over to England, leaving lord Gormanston deputy in his place. On his return he convened a parliament. At this, it appears that the bills thought necessary were prepared in England, and sent over with directions that no other business should be entered upon by this parliament. The discussion of these bills, the preparation of which seems to have been a chief object of Kildare's visit to England, occupied a considerable time—at least the parliament was continued to 1517, by successive prorogations. In 1516, this earl passed a year of signal activity. He invaded Imaly, slew Shane O'Toole in battle, and sent his head, after the manner of the time, a barbarous trophy to the lord mayor of Dublin. Ware mentions one of the numerous prophecies which, from time to time, * Sir W. Betham's Irish Antiquarian Researches. have amused the native credulity of the simple, but imaginative Irish. This old prophecy foretold, that in the year 1516, the Irish nation, being at the lowest ebb of its prosperity, was to become then powerful and warlike. "The author of a book," writes Ware, "called the People's Welfare, gives a touch of this prophecy; it is extant under the title of Ireland's Pandar."* Ireland has had Pandars enough to administer such illusions in the same name, and under a like pretence:† but this was a work of great research and practical knowledge, of which the views were founded on extensive and just observation, and quoted as of considerable authority. We shall have to notice Panderus again. He is supposed to have lived from Edward IV. to Henry VIII. In 1517, Kildare pursued his successes in Ulster, in battle, foray, skirmish, and siege; discomfiting the Magennises, taking Dungannon, and bringing back an ample spoil to Dublin. These successes were sadly qualified by the loss of his countess, the lady Elizabeth de la Zouche, who died soon after his return. This lady is mentioned by Ware as "commendable for her excellent qualities." She was interred at Kilcullen, near her lord's mother, (Alison Eustace.) Many circumstances, seemingly slight in their nature, were working to the disadvantage of this earl. The great rival family of Butler were again represented by a person of ambitious and intriguing temper. We have already mentioned, in our notice of Sir James Ormonde, how Sir Pierce Butler, having been excluded from his rights, recovered them by the assassination of the wrongful occupant. This Sir Pierce, now the earl of Ormonde, with the usual policy of his courtly race, pursued his ambition more by cultivating the grace of the English monarch and his minister the great Wolsey, than by playing the more dangerous and uncertain game of provincial hostilities and alliances pursued by his rivals. He stood high with the king and his minister, and was, it is mentioned, strongly instigated by his wifeherself a Geraldine, and probably opposed to her kinsman with the implacable animosity of family hate to undermine the favour of Kildare. This earl was, like most of the lords of his race, more apt to lead his faction to the field, than to bow with supple grace before the tyrant of the English court, or administer dexterous flatteries to the accessible infirmity of Wolsey. To Wolsey, the character, conduct, and services of Kildare, were represented unfavourably; the representations were, it is likely, not without truth, but they were one-sided and partial. The services of Kildare were probably regulated on the common principle of public service, as it was understood in those days—that is, with great latitude. In performing their public duties, the Irish barons did not lay aside their private interests: nor indeed was this quite possible. The whole tissue of the affairs of the island were interwoven with those of the leading barons of this great family. Nor could the earl of Kildare, without a political suicide, separate his interests as chief from his duties as viceroy. It must, therefore, have been easy for factious hostility to find matter for charges like these-1st, "That he had enriched himself and followers by unjust seizure of the king's revenues and *Ware's Antiquities. + Panderus "Salus Populi." |