ing purport was therefore passed. "Whereas our holy father Adrian, pope of Rome, was possessed of all the seignory of Ireland in right of his church, which for a certain rent he alienated to the king of England and his heirs for ever; by which grant the subjects of Ireland owe their obedience to the king of England as their sovereign lord; it is therefore ordained, that all archbishops and bishops of Ireland shall, upon the monition of forty days, proceed to the excommunication of all disobedient subjects; and if such archbishop or bishop be remiss in doing their duties in the premises, they shall forfeit one hundred pounds." The lord deputy, Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, and his party affected by a vigorous administration to support the interest of the crown, though they chiefly levelled their severity against Desmond and his friends.

6. The parliament was adjourned to Drogheda,* where the Yorkists procured an act "for attainting of treason Thomas, earl of Desmond, Thomas, earl of Kildare, and Edward Plunkett, esq. for alliance, fostering, and alterage with the king's Irish enemies, for furnishing them with horses, harness, and arms, and supporting them against the king's subjects, declaring their goods and lands forfeited, and that whoever should not discover their goods to the earl of Worcester, within fourteen days after the rising of parliament, should be attainted of felony." Kildare was imprisoned, but either escaped or was released. Desmond repaired to the chief governor to justify his conduct, but was instantly brought to the scaffold and beheaded. A rare example of a great man falling the victim to a code of severity, which had never been practised on the multitude. So prompt in those factious days was the vindictive animosity of party.

7. Some ineffectual attempts were made to revenge the death of this earl by Gerrat, one of the surviving branches of the family of Desmond, for which he was attainted. The enemies of that house enjoyed but a short lived triumph. Kildare, who had escaped to England, easily obtained his pardon. The very parliament which condemned him, in obsequious submission to the royal mandate, reversed his attainter, and restored him to his estate and dignity. To complete his triumph, he was soon after constituted lord

* Of several laws passed in this parliament two only are printed, one of which expressly extends to Ireland the English statute against rapes, and all other statutes theretofore made in England.

deputy in the room of Tiptoft, who was recalled to England, and suffered on the scaffold under a sentence similar to that which he had executed upon Desmond. Thus was the Geraldine ascendancy once more established, and all the acts repealed which had been passed to the prejudice of the earl of Kildare. The goods belonging to the late deputy were moreover vested in their present governor, as a compensation for his imprisonment, and the other damages he had sustained.

8. On the restoration of Henry VI. through the vigorous interposition of the earl of Warwick, the duke of Clarence had been created by a new patent Lord-lieutenant of Ireland for twenty years; but no change was made in the actual administration of the Irish government by this short lived revolution.* Kildare continued in the station of lord deputy, but the English of Ireland were generally left to their own resources, which were so pitiably slender, that the act for supplies provided for no more than an establishment of one hundred and sixty archers, and sixty-four spearmen, of whom twenty-four were to form the particular retinue of Kildare's son Gerald. They were to be retained for three months in the counties of Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Argial, and to be paid out of the revenue; and in aid of the appointment the officers were empowered to quarter their soldiers in all such places as they should resort to for the public weal. This was in fact a renovation of the execrable system of coigne and livery, or free quarters, the sure forerunner and concomitant of bad times.

9. Kildare's next parliament provided a more permanent military establishment, which still however bespoke the exility of their means. They instituted a society of thirteen persons of the first consequence in the pale; namely, the earl of Kildare, lord Portlester, and Sir Rowland Eustace for the county of Kildare; lord Howth, the mayor of Dublin, and Sir Robert Dowdal for that of Dublin; lord Gormanstown, Edward and Alexander Plunkett, and Barnaby Barnwall for the county of Meath; and the mayor of Drogheda, Sir Lawrence Taaff, and Richard Bellew for Argial. They were to assemble annually at Dublin, on St. George's day, to renew their pledges of zeal for the English government,

*The whole business of parliament was to reverse attainders, in which was that of Ormond, to repeal all the acts of Edward IV. and to declare him an usurper. He and his adherents were attainted. † 13 Edw. IV. c. 61.

and were stiled the brotherhood of St. George. To their annual captain were assigned, as his train, one hundred and twenty archers on horseback, and forty other horsemen, with one attendant to each. To support this armament, the fraternity was empowered to demand twelve pence in the pound upon all merchandise sold in Ireland, except hides and the goods of the freemen of Dublin and Drogheda. They were also empowered to make by-laws for the regulation of their society, to elect new members on vacancies; and their captain had particular authority to apprehend outlaws, rebels, and all who refused due obedience to law.

10. In the mean while John, earl of Ormond, had the address to ingratiate himself with the king, who highly estimated his attractive accomplishments, and he was fully restored to his estate and dignity. This restoration of the family of Butler, accompanied by the dismissal of Kildare from the government, soon rekindled the flame of discord throughout Ireland. Edward sent his commission to the archbishop of Armagh to act as umpire between the contending parties, and to determine their differences in the fulness of royal authority. The Geraldine party once more gained the ascendancy, and Gerald, the young earl of Kildare, assumed the government; yet he was opposed by other deputies appointed by the king, who increased the disasters of this unfortunate country, by keeping up opposite establishments, holding opposite parliaments (or conventions) at the same time, and passing contrariant laws (or ordinances).

11. The earl of Kildare, on his second appointment to the government, received from the king special and full instructions to compose the disorders of the late short and tumul ́tuous administrations. The controversy between the two co-existing parliaments, each claiming its own legality, was submitted to the decision of the king. He pronounced in favour of neither, but directed certain acts made by both to be established or annulled in the ensuing parliament, and pointed out such provisions in each as the interest of the crown or the welfare of the state required. Kildare, during the remainder of this reign, is represented by the Irish annalists as taking too interested a part in the local quarrels of the old natives, who still continued to oppose each other by enforcing the usual provisions for the defence and security of the English settlements. Sir John Davies has in a very few words given a strong etching of the state of Ireland at this tumultuous period." After his (Henry VI.) death, when

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EDWARD V. AND RICHARD III.

LA. D. the wars between the houses were in their heat, almost all the good English blood, which was left in Ireland, was spent in those civil dissentions; so as the Irish became victorious over all without blood or sweat. Only that little canton of land, called the English pale, containing four small shires, did maintain a bordering war with the Irish, and retain the form of English governmet. But out of that little precinct there were no lords, kinghts, or burgesses summoned to the parliament; neither did the king's writ run in any other part of the kingdom; and yet upon the marches and borders, which at that time were grown so large, as they took up half Dublin, half Meath, and a third part of Kildare and Lowth, there was no law in use but the march law, which, in the statutes of Kilkenny, is said to be no law, but a lewd custom."

CHAPTER XIII.

1483.-Edward V. and RICHARD III.

1. EDWARD IV. left two sons, Edward, the prince of Wales, twelve years and five months old, and Richard, duke of York, about nine years of age. Edward was immediately proclaimed king at Ludlow: but his short reign or rather interregnum of two months and twelve days was terminated in the murder of these two brothers by their inhuman uncle, Richard III. His detestable reign, which lasted but two years, two months, and four days, ended by his death at the battle of Bosworth field, where Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. gained both the victory and the crown. This was the thirteenth and last battle fought between the houses of York and Lancaster. It put an end to those bloody contests, in which above a hundred thousand men and eighty princes of the blood lost their lives.

2. Richard, who had waded to the throne through blood and treachery, was too busily engaged in maintaining the fruits of his usurpation at home to be able to lend his mind to the preservation or improvement of Ireland. He continued Gerald, earl of Kildare, in the government of that country, who first acted as deputy to Edward, the king's son, then as deputy to De la Pole, earl of Lincoln. Some

few insignificant statutes passed during this reign; but no event occurred sufficiently memorable to be noticed affecting either the lords of the pale or the native dynasts. The fall of Richard at Bosworth happened on the 22nd of August, 1485.

CHAPTER XIV.

1485.-HENRY VII.

1. HENRY VII. immediately after the battle of Bosworth was proclaimed king by acclamation on the field, when the lord Stanley placed the crown of Richard on his head, in confirmation of that popular or military election. This was further ratified by a solemn coronation on the 30th of October following. Yet this politic prince, not satisfied with this title to the crown, though allied to the house of Lancaster, procured an act of parliament to supply defects of legal title, and then married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV. in whom, as heir to the house of York, the hereditary claim to the crown really existed. These accumulated rights probably induced Henry to affect a general system of reconciliation, and well knowing the strong prejudice of the Irish in favour of the house of York, and sensible of their susceptibility of any impression that would countenance their native turbulence, he found it politic at first not to irritate the prevailing faction by removing them too hastily from power.

2. To the astonishment of both parties, the earl of Kildare was continued lord deputy, his brother Thomas lord chancellor, and all the officers of state and the privy council remained without change or addition. This policy of the king served but to increase the insolence of the Yorkists. His coldness to the queen and marked harshness to the opposite party in England roused the sympathies of the Yorkists in Ireland, and that new kingdom soon became pointed out as a place of political intrigue. The earl of Kildare in particular was considered a person from whom eminent danger might be apprehended. Henry was alarmed, and commanded the earl to repair to England, under pretence of HIST. IREL. VOL. I.

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