A History of Ireland.

by Eleanor Hull

1931

VIII.—THE STATUTE OF KILKENNY

The last public appearance of the Red Earl of Ulster was at a Parliament at Kilkenny in 1326, when he entertained the barons in splendid style, retiring after the ceremony to die in the abbey of Athassel; his heir, William Donn, or 'the Brown Earl,' being then a boy of fourteen. By 1327 the quarrels between the barons had become so violent that the de Burghs, the le Poers of Waterford, the de Berminghams, Butlers, and Geraldines, were commanded, on pain of forfeiture, to desist from mustering soldiery and making war on one another. In the South these broils were so constant that the inhabitants of Cork, Kinsale, and Youghal addressed a petition to the Viceroy and Council begging them to send down "two justices and some good English captains and men," without which they say, "we are all cast away, and then farewell Munster for ever." The citizens dared not walk outside the walls for recreation without a body of armed attendants, and as a result of this seclusion they were forced to intermarry, so that "well-nigh the whole city is allied together." [2] The restlessness of men's minds was aggravated by rumours of heresies and trials for witchcraft, but still more by repeated outbreaks of the plague. These outbreaks in Ireland were the final wave of the Black Death, which had swept away more than half the population of England in 1348.

[2] Campian's History, in Ware's Ancient Irish Histories (1809), Bk. II. pp. 141-142. Campian wrote in 1571.
The succession of viceroys reflects the attempts of English monarchs to govern Ireland by a series of experiments. In early times the office of Justiciar (Capitalis Justiciarius) was placed in the hands of the most powerful of the Norman nobles; but their jealousies led to the substitution for them of a series of ecclesiastical rulers, men of European experience, but with little knowledge of the country they were called upon to administer. After them a return was made to the rule of nobles on the spot. The most beneficial tenure of office in the early period was that of Sir John Wogan, who arrived in Dublin in 1295 and brought about a short truce in the Burke and Geraldine wars. In 1307 he suppressed the Knights Templars, whose pretensions had become intolerable, and whose priors, ruling from Kilmainham, defied Deputies in a way difficult to be borne. During his tenure of office he held three Parliaments at Kilkenny, that of 1310 being memorable as the first to which elected representatives of the cities and boroughs were summoned, as well as the spiritual and lay peers, and knights who represented the counties and Liberties. But it was not until 1541 that members of Irish blood were called on to attend. The early Parliaments were exclusively of Anglo-Normans, occupied with the interests and quarrels of their own class. They were, as a rule, anti-Irish in spirit. The condition of things existing in the fourteenth century had never been contemplated in the early days of English rule. All the records go to show that it was the original intention of the sovereigns of England to make no distinction between the people of the two nationalities, but to treat them in every respect alike. Various early Church grants were signed together by Norman and Irish lords, and Irish bishops signed the ordinances of synods or joined the barons in such matters as the decree of 1205 about the body of Hugh de Lacy.[3] The King's mandate appointing Henri de Londres as Justiciar in 1221 was sent to the Irish princes as well as to the Norman knights.[4] In the following year, 1222, when a question as to a writ of bounds came up which was contrary to the law of England, it was laid down that "the laws of Ireland and England are, and ought to be, the same," though in a later comment on the same subject it was arranged that in the lands inhabited by Irishmen Irish custom was to be adhered to, and in the English parts that used in England was to be enforced.[5]

[3] Register of the Abbey of St Thomas, Dublin, ed. J. Gilbert, pp. 315-316, 348-349.
[4] Sweetman, i, No. 1001.
[5] Ibid., 1, Nos. 1033, 1081.
It was one consequence of the submission of the Irish princes that they became henceforth eligible for the protection of English law. Their oath of fealty placed them in this new position. When O'Neill of Ulster, O'Conor of Connacht, O'Brien of Thomond, MacMorrogh of Leinster, and Malaughlan of Meath made their submissions they were recognized as equally capable of enjoying English law with the Norman nobles. Theoretically, English law was thus granted to the whole country, for their rule extended over the larger part of the five provinces. They were known as the "Five Bloods who enjoyed English law," and this placed them in a position of superiority to those who were not so favoured. This is often referred to in legal pleas, as when, in the reign of Edward II, O'Kelly is described as an Irishman "not of the blood or progeny of those who enjoy the laws of England." [6] There seems no doubt that it was intended that English law should become the general usage of the septs of the submitters, and thus gradually be introduced throughout the whole country; but in fact no such drastic change as the substitution of a foreign system of law was possible in a country which had lived for centuries under its own native regulations formed upon a manner of life wholly different from that which had given rise to English law. It could not be universally enforced until the plantations had brought an English population to replace the native inhabitants, people who carried with them the laws, customs, and language of their own country. Up to the reign of James I the Senchus Mór or Brehon law, which the English called "the law of the hills," still held its own over the native parts of the country, and the Brehon, as expounder of that law, retained his authority among the people. But the chiefs who were brought into contact with the English officials, and the merchants, traders, and others who had constant dealings with English people in the Pale felt the practical inconveniences arising from a double system of administering justice, and they made repeated attempts to obtain the protection of English law.

[6] "Praedictus Gulielmus O'Kelly est Hibernicus et non de sanguine aut progenie eorum qui gaudeant lege Anglicana, quoad brevia portanda. Qui sunt O'Neale de Ultonia, O'Connochur de Connacia, O'Brien de Thotmonia, O'Malachlin de Midia, et MacMorrogh de Lagenia." (Archives of Bermingham Tower, 3 Edw. II).
In 1277 Robert d'Ufford transmitted the intelligence that "the Irish had offered 7000 marks for a grant from the King of the common laws of the English," and three years later, in 1280, the request was renewed.[7] The King commanded that a conference should be called immediately to discuss the question; but we hear nothing of it further; probably, like other well-intentioned proposals between the kings and their Irish subjects, the plan was defeated by the men on the spot, whose whole aim it was to widen the differences between the two peoples and to hold down the Irish as an inferior race. About this date the O'Byrnes, the MacCarthys,[8] and even the O'Flahertys of West Connacht appealed for the gift of English law, the latter saying that though they were "meere Irish" they had always been loyal. Many instances of denization to private persons are recorded;[9] it was especially necessary to merchants trading with the towns, in order to put them on an equal footing before the law with the English. Henry III declared that "all Irishmen who chose were to be admitted into the peace of the King and Prince Edward"; [10] but Sir John Davies makes it clear that "the pride, covetousness, and ill counsel of the English planted in the country" interfered to prevent these good designs.[11]

[7] Sweetman, ii, Nos. 1400, 1408, 1681.
[8] Sweetman, ii, No. 2362.
[9] Ibid., ii, No. 1602 ; and see Davies, Discovery of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued (Morley, 1890), pp. 262 seq.
[10] Ibid., 11, Nos. 919, 2298.
[11] Davies, op. cit., p. 281; Grace, Annales Hiberniae, pp. 84-85, note.
During this period of general unrest Parliaments were summoned at frequent intervals; in 1329 one met in Dublin to make peace between the Earl of Ulster and Maurice FitzThomas, Earl of Desmond, and others were called in 1330 and 1331 at Kilkenny when similar disputes had broken out. Violent measures were adopted, which up to this time had been unknown, by weak and vindictive Justiciars, such as Sir Antony Lucy and Sir Ralph d'Ufford (1344), to regain their waning authority, but they only resulted in still further stirring up opposition and increasing disaffection. The Earl of Desmond, though he had received the King's pardon, was captured at Limerick by Lucy and shut up in prison. Sir William Bermingham and his son Walter were taken at Clonmel, and, notwithstanding the King's charter, imprisoned in Dublin Castle. In 1332 Sir William, who is called "a bold and noble gentleman, of rare excellence in war," was hanged in Dublin, to the open grief of many. His son was set at liberty. Campian says quaintly, "William Bermingham, a warrior incomparable, was found halting...and so hanged was he a knight among thousands odd and singular [i.e., remarkable above his fellows for his qualities]." D'Ufford came over in July 1344, after a time of "universal war through the whole of Ireland," and during his period of maladministration the wars between the Desmonds and the Burkes were at their height.

Sir Maurice (or Morish) FitzThomas FitzGerald, first Earl of Desmond, whose great possessions were second only to those of the de Burghs, was the son of that Thomas a nAppagh, or 'of the Ape' whose marvellous escape from the burning house when he was an infant in the cradle, by the aid of a pet monkey, had left him the sole survivor of his family. His father and kin had been wiped out at the battle of Callan (1261) near Tralee by the MacCarthy Mores, of whose lands they had possessed themselves. Thomas lived to grow to man's estate and to avenge the destruction of his family. He was Justiciar in 1295, when Sir John Wogan came over to take office, and he died in 1298. His son Morish FitzThomas extended his influence by a marriage in 1312 with Katherine, daughter of Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, and his fiery temper is shown by his attack on Arnold le Poer for calling him in public a 'rimer.' Morish rose high in favour with Edward III, to whom he had rendered signal services in his Scottish wars, and was by him created first Earl of Desmond in 1329, with a grant of the Liberty or Palatinate of Kerry, to be held of the English Crown, and a grant of the advowson of Dungarvan. He scoured the Irish Sea with a fleet confided to him by the King, and kept the coasts free of pirates. He held the native chiefs in subjection, forcing on them obedience to the English sovereign. The O'Nolans and O'Mores felt his hand in turn. He had ten thousand men of the O'Briens at his back, and the MacCarthys were never free from fear. He turned his hand against his own wife's family, the de Burghs of Ulster, and involved the country in war. Viceroys like Lucy and d'Ufford were not the persons to deal with a proud noble like Desmond, whose power and pretensions were growing to an inconvenient height; both the combatants were shortly afterward captured at Limerick and shut up in prison. Desmond escaped, but was recaptured and sent to Dublin, where he lay in confinement for eighteen months.

Subsequently he was liberated, the highest nobles in the kingdom standing as sureties for his fidelity. But when he was summoned to attend a Parliament in Dublin in 1345, Desmond again, as in 1331 and 1341, "came not"; and d'Ufford, "with the King's banner displayed," marched into Munster, against the consent of the great lords, commanding Desmond on pain of forfeiture of his lands to repair to him. Morish had replied by summoning an independent Parliament at Kilkenny (November, 1341), where, after swearing fidelity to the Crown, a formal complaint was drawn up, to be transmitted to the King, against the policy and greed of "the needy men sent from England without knowledge of Ireland." They proposed three questions for the King's consideration: (1) how a realm at war could be governed by one unskilful in all warlike services; (2) how an officer under the King who entered very poor should in one year have grown to more excessive wealth than men of great patrimony in many years; (3) how it happened, seeing they were all called lords of their own, that the Lord of them all (the King) was not a penny the richer for them? These queries were aimed directly at the Deputies, who were robbing Desmond's castles, revoking patents for grants of land, imprisoning people without cause and extorting from them sums of money, little of which went into the public treasury. The twenty-six noble sureties of Desmond were especially suffering from their depredations, the Earls of Ormonde and Ulster alone being too high placed for him to dare to touch them. A dangerous precedent was set up when, under the influence of men like the Justiciar, Edward III showed his intention of superseding these powerful and independent descendants of the old Norman conquerors by new men, "English born in England," who knew nothing of the country, but flocked over in order to enrich themselves at the expense of the great lords whose influence it was the main object of the officials in power to subdue. After the receipt of the formal complaints made by Desmond's Parliament, d'Ufford was called to England to answer for his misdeeds and for the incessant frays allowed under his government between the Anglo-Norman nobles.

He is said to have replied that "he thought it expedient to wink at one knave cutting off another; it would save the King's coffers and purchase peace in the land," whereat, it is added, "the King smiled." [12] In 1346 the Justiciar died, "to the greatest public joy of all men," and in the same year a truce was granted to the Earl of Desmond. He sailed from Youghal to England with his wife and two sons to state his own case against d'Ufford, and to surrender to the King. Here he remained for three years in nominal confinement within the bounds of London, being allowed twenty shillings a day by the King for his expenses from the time he set foot in England. He became very friendly with Edward III, and was sent home in 1349. In 1355 he was taken under the King's special protection and his sureties were restored to him. In the same year he became Viceroy, but he died in 1356, "not without great lamentation of them that did love quietness and peace." His character is curiously summed up in the words of an Anglo-Irish chronicler: "He was a good man and a just who hanged even his own relations for theft and well castigated the Irish." [13]

[12] This phrase is constantly, but erroneously, taken to apply to the native Irish.
[13] Grace, Annales Hiberniae, 1355 ; Book of Howth, in Carew, Miscellany, p. 166.
Maurice FitzGerald, fourth Earl of Kildare (1318-90), had suffered hardly less from the malpractices of d'Ufford than Desmond had done. He was equally averse to the new policy of superseding the English born in Ireland by English born in England. He had been enticed to Dublin by d'Ufford and arrested while sitting in Council at the Exchequer. But he was released in the following year, and in 1347 was with Edward III at the siege of Calais, where he was knighted by the King. He became Justiciar in 1356, and held the office from time to time till his death. But the evil policy against which he and Desmond protested continued and gave all the old nobility a sense of insecurity which did not tend to peace.

In 1340-41 the King, weary of the tidings of incessant wars in Ireland, petulantly revoked "all grants made either by his father or himself to any person whomsoever in whatsoever way, whether Liberties or possessions or other goods," by which measure almost the whole country was moved to insurrection.[14]

[14] Grace, Annales Hiberniae, 1340-41.
It was unfortunate that his proposal to visit his Irish dominions, made in 1332, was never carried out. His personal dealings with the Earls of Kildare and Desmond, when they sought his intervention, show that he desired to act justly toward them and to undo as far as was possible the evils caused by his representatives on the spot, but he was ill served by the men in power. In June 1364 he ordained that any Englishmen, whether born in England or in Ireland, who should raise any dissension, reproach, or debate between themselves, should be liable to a fine and two years' imprisonment.[15] But such regulations were of little avail to stop feuds among lords surrounded by fighting kerne and jealous of each other's greatness. He therefore, in 1361, took the step of sending his son Lionel, Duke of Clarence, brother to the Black Prince, to represent him in Ireland, ordering all nobles in England who held lands in that country to attend him. The appointment looked like an attempt to revive the policy of Edward I, and to regard Ireland as the appanage of an elder son of the English king, who was to be resident in Ireland. The Viceroyalty of Lionel was ushered in by the creation of many new knights, whose families, such as the Prestons, Talbots, Cusacks, de la Hydes, and de la Freigne (de Fraxinis), became established in the country. Lionel's wife, Elizabeth, the daughter of the murdered Earl of Ulster, accompanied him. Their only daughter married Edmund de Mortimer, Earl of March, whose son Roger, made Viceroy by Richard II in 1397, was the direct heir to the throne; he laid claim to the great possessions of the de Lacys in Meath, the de Burghs in Connacht and Ulster, and the Marshals in Leinster. It was in the desperate hope that it might still be possible to recall the semi-independent Anglo-Norman lords to their allegiance that in 1366 Lionel called together the Parliament which passed the famous Statute of Kilkenny. This Parliament was attended by a number of bishops, and on its conclusion the Bishops of Dublin, Cashel, Tuam, Lismore, Waterford, Killaloe, Ossory, Leighlin, and Cloyne fulminated an excommunication against all who should transgress the law. The lords and commons sat together at the making of the Statute of Kilkenny, and the Statute itself is in French, which was still the language of the law and of society both in England and in Ireland.[16]

[15] Rymer, Foedera (1708), vi, 442.
[16] For the Statute of Kilkenny see Berry, Statutes and Ordinances, i, 430-469.
It is important to remember that the Statute of Kilkenny was not aimed directly at the Irish nation, but at the Anglo-Norman lords; it was inspired by the conviction that these old English were rapidly passing away from their allegiance to the Government, and that their broad lands were dropping back into independent states; and it was an attempt to stop this process before it was too late. The Statute was drawn up by the Irish Parliament, and represents the policy of the Anglicizing party in Ireland itself; and, as such, it is intensely anti-Gaelic in spirit. The earlier policy of endeavouring to draw the two races together was to be abandoned, and a new policy adopted of keeping them apart; it being believed that only in this way could the great principalities be preserved in any semblance of fealty to the Crown. Bitter feeling between the two races was in the ascendant. Lionel had himself witnessed an example of this soon after his landing. He had, on his arrival, engaged in war with the O'Byrnes of Wicklow, and, as a matter of precaution, he had ordered that none of Irish birth should come near his army. He was surprised to learn soon afterward that at least a hundred of his own men were missing; and he discovered that these men were Irishmen in his own army. His English soldiers had taken advantage of his order to massacre their Irish comrades.[17] This unexpected incident so impressed his mind that he afterward "advised himself and united the people, showing a like fatherly care to all." Nevertheless, he presided at the Parliament of Kilkenny.

[17] Grace, Annales Hiberniae 1361.
Though the statutes of this Parliament are in many ways a repetition of earlier legislation, especially of the laws passed at Wogan's Parliament, its provisions are much more detailed and explicit than any former Act had been. In its preamble it states that "whereas for a long time after the conquest of Ireland the English in Ireland used the English language, mode of riding, and apparel, and were governed and ruled with their dependants by English law... thus living in subjection, now many English of this land forsaking the English language, fashion, mode of riding, laws and usages, live and govern themselves according to the manners, fashion, and language of the Irish enemies; and also have made divers marriages and alliances between themselves and the Irish enemies aforesaid, whereby the said land and the liege people thereof, the English language, the allegiance due to our Lord the King, and the English laws there are put in subjection and decayed, and the Irish enemies exalted and raised up, contrary to right. The King has summoned this Parliament in answer to the grievous complaints of the commons of Ireland...for the better observance of the laws, and punishment of evildoers."

The Act deals principally with persons of English origin who are in good position, and it discourages by severe threats of punishment any imitation of or intimate connexion with the native Irish. Marriage or concubinage with them are forbidden and also the close ties of 'gossipred,' and fosterage (Art. II). The English language is to be spoken in English parts and English fashions kept up, and the Irish living among the English are also to use the English tongue. It would seem that things had gone so far that even many of the clergy living among the English could not speak the English tongue, and it is ordered that they shall be given a respite in order to learn it (Art. III). They must also ride with saddles in the English fashion and not bareback. Among English people disputes are to be settled by English and not by Brehon law, and there is to be no difference made between the English born in England, or "new English," and those born in the country, or "old English." It would seem that the feeling between them ran so high that the one called the other "English hobbe" and "Irish dog." It is curious to think of a de Burgh or Geraldine being styled "Irish dog" by some degenerate sycophant from the other side, and little wonder that they retorted by flinging "English hobbe" in the faces of their opponents. All are henceforth to be known alike "as lieges of our lord the King" (Art. IV). There are several clauses dealing with peace and war, the practice of arms, and to prevent the selling of arms to the Irish. No war is to be undertaken by private persons, but only by the Council on the advice of Parliament (Arts. II, IV, X). The practice of keeping kerne at the expense of the retainers is to be stopped, and such kerne, if kept at all, must be at the lord's expense (Art. XVII). Inducements are held out to 'idlemen' [18] to settle down on waste lands (Art. XVIII). An Englishman who breaks a peace or truce made by the authorities between him and the Irish is to be imprisoned and forced to make restitution (Art. XXVII).

[18] 'Idlemen' were gentlemen or persons of good birth, not common vagrants. The word comes from aedel, 'noble.' But they speedily degenerated into outlaws. A viceregal dispatch says: "These English rebels style themselves men of noble blood and idlemen, whereas, in truth, they are strong marauders" (Gilbert, Viceroys of Ireland, p. 288).
Many of these laws were, in the circumstances of the time, just and necessary, and they protected the Irishman at peace, as they protected the Englishman, from the exactions and tyranny of their overlords. Had it succeeded, the Statute of Kilkenny might have been commended as founded in reason and necessity. But it was impossible that it should succeed. The barons to whom it chiefly applied could easily place themselves beyond the reach of the law, and in spite of punishments and excommunications no regulations such as these, which entered into every part of the family and social life, could be enforced. Though successive Parliaments confirmed the Statute of Kilkenny with some modifications, it was practically dead, so far as its objects were concerned, almost before it could be put into operation. With the death of Lionel "the laws died with him also," though Davies says, rather erroneously, that they "restored the English government in the degenerate colonies for divers years." In a country where several of the founders or leaders of the greatest Norman families had taken Irish wives whose descendants were among the chief nobility of England, such rules proved particularly difficult to enforce. These marriages went on, in spite of all laws, and at the close of the fifteenth century three heads of the junior branch of the Ormonde family married the daughters of Irish chiefs, and three daughters of Gerald, Earl of Kildare. Deputy of Ireland, followed this example. The same thing was going on in private families all over the country.

Fosterage with Irish families was adopted almost as frequently by the settlers as by the old inhabitants, and they were unwilling to give it up. Frequent petitions were made and licences granted for dispensing with this statute in particular cases. By it the Norman lord was united with his Irish tenants in the closest bond of affection and interest. In later days it was to the devotion of his foster-parents that many a hunted scion of the old Norman stock owed his safety when in hiding from the English officers of the law. But from the point of view of the maintenance of English authority it is easy to see that these customs were regarded as objectionable, making the law of the land very difficult to enforce. Nevertheless, these regulations, though impossible to carry out, formed a ready excuse in after days for the suppression of the old Anglo-Irish nobility. The apology for the execution of the eighth Earl of Desmond was that he had broken his allegiance by an "Irish alliance and fosterage"; in 1466 an Act attainted the Earls of Kildare and Desmond and Edward Plunket "for alliances, fosterage, and alterage with the King's Irish enemies." The restrictions about modes of dress, fashions of cutting the hair and beard, riding, and using native sports like hurling and 'coiting' might be merely irritating, though they irritated at every moment of life and at every point; but questions of marriage, fosterage, and 'gossipred' entered into the intimacies of family life. In spite of laws to the contrary, the day was to come when one of the greatest of Irish Deputies, Sir Henry Sidney, was to act as ' gossip ' or sponsor to a child of Shane O'Neill.

To the native Irish dwelling among the English these laws proved short and sharp if they went into open rebellion, and very irritating if they remained at peace. Such Irishmen, whether tenants, servants, or merchants, were forbidden to use their own language, even among themselves, under pain of imprisonment and forfeiture of lands, until the offender found sufficient sureties that he would adopt and use the English tongue (Art. III). Such a law must have borne heavily on the Irish of the towns and prevented many willing Irish workers from settling where work was to be had. All Irish minstrels, tympanours, pipers, story-tellers, rimers, and harpers were forbidden to come among the English under threat of fine or imprisonment and the forfeiture of their instruments (Art. XV). This provision was intended as a protection against spies "finding out the secrets, customs, and policies of the English, whereby great evils have often happened." But the Irish piper and minstrel was a welcome guest at the houses of English and Irish alike, and an Anglo-Irishman could enjoy a story of Cuchulain or Finn MacCool quite as much as any O'Sullevan or O'Kelly. Even the most English circles applied at times for permission to keep rimers and minstrels in the family, for the amusement of long evenings and the pleasure of guests. That it was in their power, in the course of their wanderings from house to house, to pick up a good deal of information that was useful to the chiefs regarding the plans and dispositions of the English need not be doubted. The bards gathered news, advised, warned, and encouraged; they stirred up the lagging chief to fresh efforts and applauded his successes. For substantial rewards they sang the praises of their chiefs, welcomed their rise to power, and bewailed their deaths.[19] All this they appeared to be as willing to do for an ' old ' English loyalist who was willing to pay the price as for any Irish 'rebel.' Tadhg MacDaire MacBrodin in later days (he died in 1652) could write a panegyric to an Elizabethan Earl of Thomond, or pen the praises of the Barrys, Bourkes, and Clanricardes, who were fighting against Tyrone, with apparently the same freedom from compunction and in just the same flowery language as though he was lauding his Irish chief.

[19] In the sixteenth century blind Tadhg O'Higgin received as a reward for a single poem in praise of the house of MacSweeney "a dappled horse, one of the very best in Ireland, a wolf-dog that might be matched against any, a book that was a well brimful of the very stream of knowledge, and a harp of special fame" from the bard of MacWilliam Burke, who was present on the occasion. The rentals of a chief bard sometimes amounted to £4000-£5000 a year, exclusive of rewards.
To the English the bards were a well-recognized source of danger, and as such were the object of stringent laws intended to suppress their activities. When caught they were liable to be hung out of hand or driven out of their broad lands, as when, in 1415, Lord Justice Talbot "harried a large contingent of Ireland's poets, as O'Daly of Meath, Hugh oge MacGrath, Duffy and Maurice O'Daly." But these acts of severity were occasional; there was no general massacre of the bards as in Wales; and in Spenser's day they were still playing and singing the beautiful native airs in English houses as freely as in the Irish houses of the chiefs, and everywhere winning praise for their skill and intelligence. Schools of bards and scribes continued to flourish all over the country, and in the Gaelic revival, which no laws could do more than check, they became like the old professional companies of early days. In 1451 Margaret O'Conor Faly, who took the bards under her special care, is recorded to have made a feast at Killeigh, in Leix, at which 2700 poets, musicians, and antiquarians were royally entertained.

The exemptions from the legal restrictions imposed by laws like those promulgated at Kilkenny were frequent, so impossible was it to carry them out. Applications from the towns for permission to trade with the Irish were especially common and seem seldom to have been refused. Applications to "parley with" the Irish of the borderlands were also frequent, such parleyings being generally carried on with bodies of troops held in readiness in case of treachery on either side. The laws were not all framed to hamper the Irishman; if he would but live at peace they helped and protected him. But to live at peace too often meant to sink into the position of a serf to his lord, and to become English in language and custom; the "Five Bloods" gradually lost their old position of superiority as the possessors of English liberty and law.

One of the most severe of the laws enacted against the Irish was that excluding them from holding any religious office in "any cathedral or collegiate church or benefice amongst the English." It was the declared intention to fill the churches of the Pale exclusively with English clergy and the monasteries with English monks. This caused great and natural discontent among the Irish, who "looked on their exclusion from the legal profession as an offence against man, but that of keeping them out of Church dignities as offending against God." Up to a recent date the tendency had been all the other way. Mellifont, the first Cistercian house and the chief of Irish abbeys, admitted no monks who would not swear that they were not of English descent; and so late as 1324 Edward II complained to the Pope that the Irish refused to admit English into their monasteries.[20] The chapter of 1323 expresses its detestation of such damnable divisions, introduced by the enemy of the human race. Retaliatory laws to exclude Irishmen seem to have been passed soon afterward. In 1337 Edward III mentions that his father, Edward II, had ordained that no Irishman should be admitted to any Irish monastery, but had afterward revoked the command. He now ordains that all loyal Irishmen shall be admitted in the same way as Englishmen. But as the bitter feeling between the two nations increased, it penetrated into the monasteries of the new orders, even those of the Cistercians and the Franciscans. These had built their first friary in Dublin in Francis Street before 1232 and became missionaries to the poor. During the campaign of Bruce many Franciscans took part with the invader openly or secretly, while others acted in close concert with the English Government. The difference became so marked that it led to a division in the society, the Southern houses, including Cork, Limerick, and Timoleague, being handed over to the English friars, while an attempt was made to concentrate the Irish friars in a group including Athlone, Galway, and Armagh. By 1327 Athlone had become a purely Irish house, while Cashel, curiously enough, was English.[21] The rapid spread of the Franciscan Society in Ireland, from its foundation in 1231-32, shows the need that existed for some organization that should come into intimate touch with the poor and the ignorant.

[20] R. Cox, Hibernia Anglicana, p. 100 ; Rymer, Foedera (1707), iv, 55.
[21] E. B. Fitzmaurice, Material for the History of the Franciscan Province of Ireland, 1230-1450 (1920), Introduction, pp. xxiv-xxv.
After the Statute of Kilkenny had been passed ecclesiastical prohibitions against Irishmen were rigorously enforced and confirmed in all particulars, a writ in this sense being promulgated in the Kilkenny Parliament of 1380, and sent to eighteen monasteries.[22] The law affected the 'old English' as well as the pure Irish. In 1332 Edward III enjoined that "all holding benefices or married or estated in Ireland, but without possessions in England, be removed" and those having estates in England be substituted. This reads like a penal law of later days. Even the Popes, who in former times had set their faces against rules of mutual exclusion, now approved them, as part of their policy of supporting the English authority in Ireland.[23] More astonishing is it to find the Irish Archbishop of Cashel, Maurice MacCarwell, approving such measures and denouncing a sentence of anathema against any who infringed the statutes of the Parliament of 1310, which enacted, among other things, that "no meere Irishman [i.e., of pure Gaelic birth] shall be received into a religious order among the English in the land of peace in any parts of Ireland," the "land of peace" meaning those districts living under English law.[24] In the native districts, such as Kilmore, Clogher, Clonmacnois, Derry and Raphoe, Tuam, Killaloe, Elphin and Ross, few English names occur in the lists of bishops up to the fifteenth or, in some cases, the sixteenth century; in others they are mixed or wholly English.[25]

[22] 4 Ric. II (1380), in Berry, Statutes and Ordinances, i, 481.
[23] See the Papal rebukes made in 1220 and 1224 in this sense, in Theiner, Vetera Monumenta, No. 36, p. 16, and No. 55, pp. 142-144.
[24] Ware, Bishops (ed. Harris), p. 476.
[25] See the lists given in Ware, Bishops (ed. Harris).
In all cases alike the disposal of ecclesiastical dignities was claimed by the Crown. In spite of legal statutes, licences had frequently to be granted to Irish clerks owing to the lack of sufficient clergy within the Pale, it being impossible to induce priests to come over from England in the required numbers. Many of the bishops elected never went over to their dioceses at all, or speedily returned to England when they had visited them. The Church fell into a miserable condition for want of clergy; even in Dublin, at St Patrick's Cathedral, vespers had to be given up for lack of officiating priests. In 1565 the Privy Council complained that "as for religion, there is but small appearance of it; the churches uncovered and the clergy scattered, and scarce the being of a God known." Laws and regulations founded on false economic and social theories such as were those formulated in the Statute of Kilkenny, which held apart peoples naturally formed to intermingle with one another, are bound to fail; a hundred years later the districts within which these laws could be enforced had shrunk to portions of the counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth (Uriel), and Kildare;[26] and in Poynings' Law (1494) which confirms many of the provisions of the Statute of Kilkenny, the attempt to enforce the speaking of English among Irish people or the riding with saddles is expressly abandoned, earlier laws having failed to enforce these customs.[27]

[26] Parl. of Trim, 5 Edw. IV, 1465, ch. iii, in Berry, Statutes and Ordinances (1914), iii, 345.
[27] Poynings' Parl., Drogheda, 10 Hen. VII, 1495, ch. viii, in Irish Statutes (1885), vol. i.
But in various ways restrictions continued to be placed on the efforts of Irish gentlemen to rise in their several callings and to fill the professions of teaching, the Church, or the law which were open to them. Much has been made of the restrictions applying to students resorting to Oxford for education. Irishmen had entered Oxford in considerable numbers from early times, and many of them had risen high in their several colleges, a native of Dundalk having become Chancellor of the University early in the fourteenth century. But laws which may have been necessary and salutary were passed from time to time, chiefly by the Irish Parliament, to prevent begging students or men "adhering to the enemies" from passing oversea "under colour of going to the schools of Oxford, Cambridge, or elsewhere." Poynings' Act against Vagabonds [28] includes these men "who go about begging, not being authorized under the seal of the University" along with proctors and pardoners who also go about without authority living on the alms of the city. It is evident that men went to England with purposes of their own under pretence that they were going as students to Oxford, and it became necessary that they should get a letter of recommendation from the Deputy or some one in authority under the Great Seal, as a passport for their good behaviour. "Clerks, beggers, chamber-deacons and unattached students" were no more welcome in Oxford than elsewhere. Nor yet were the " felonies and manslaughters" which were a main cause of the restrictions against Irishmen entering a university "which is the fountain and mother of our Christian faith." These have been committed "to the great fear of all manner of people." But from all these regulations "graduates of schools and professed religious persons" and also "graduates or apprentices in law" are expressly exempted. They applied only to improper or turbulent persons, not to serious scholars. Of these there was a constant supply, especially during the sixteenth century, and that no hindrance was placed in their advance to higher posts is shown by the records of Fellows of All Souls and Merton and Oriel of Irish birth, and of learned men who became schoolmasters in their own country on their return, such as Richard Stanihurst and Peter White, the former an historian, the latter a passionate student and teacher of Greek learning at his school in Waterford.[29] The difficulties they had to encounter were chiefly from unfriendly neighbours and officials in their own country.

[28] Ibid., ch. xv.
[29] Lists of Irish students in Oxford and Cambridge are given by Hooker in Holinshed, Chronicles (1586), "Description of Ireland," ch. vii, pp. 39-44, and by Mrs. A. S. Green in her Making of Ireland and its Undoing (1908).
It was the fear that Ireland might slip entirely from the grasp of the English Crown and revert to native conditions under lords of Norman descent but with Irish sympathies that brought over Richard II in 1394. Roger Mortimer, fourth Earl of March (1374-98), a member of this princely family which gave four Viceroys to Ireland in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, accompanied the King as Lord-Lieutenant. He was the direct heir to the throne. His father Edmund Mortimer had held the same position in 1379, as his vast estates, acquired in Meath and Ulster, partly through the forfeitures of the de Lacys and partly through his marriage with Philippa, had necessitated his presence in that country. Both kept up an almost regal splendour, though in later life, during his second term of office, Roger assumed Irish dress and horse trappings. These accoutrements were to prove the direct cause of his death, for he fell in a rash attack on some of the Leinster clans at Kells in 1398, his dress having prevented him from being recognized. His son, the younger Edmund, was also destined to die in Ireland, being cut off by plague in the midst of negotiations with the Irish chiefs in 1425.

The title of Justiciar, or Chief Justice, at this time begins to be dropped (except for temporary appointments in the interim between two Viceroys) and the more important title of Viceroy or Lord-Lieutenant was adopted. When, as frequently happened, the chief official was absent from his post, a Deputy filled the office, but these titles are loosely used; and the Deputy was frequently a more important personage than the nominal Viceroy, as being actually in residence in Ireland. Richard came over on October 2, 1394, to study affairs on the spot. The result of his inquiries is contained in a letter written by him from Dublin to his uncle the Duke of York, stating that he proposes to hold a Parliament in that city. He writes that "in his land of Ireland there are three sorts of people, wild [i.e., unsubdued] Irish, his enemies; Irish rebels; and loyal English. The King and Council consider that the Irish have become rebels in consequence of the grievous wrongs inflicted on them, for which no remedies were afforded, but that if wisely treated and given hope of grace they would not join with the King's enemies." He has in the meantime taken them into his protection until Easter week in order that they may have time to come in and state their case.[30] By Irish rebels he evidently means the 'old English,' who had become "more Irish than the Irish," such as the Poers (or Powers), Geraldines, Berminghams, Barretts, and Dillons, who are stated a few years later to be in rebellion [31] and who during Richard's visit showed none of the alacrity of the native chiefs to come in and acknowledge fealty to the King. The wiser treatment of which Richard spoke was seldom applied, and the opinion of an old writer that the Irishmen were "enclined to Englisshe rule and order, where Englisshmen would rebelle and digresse from obedience of lawes" [32] was true, for most of the rebellions against the Crown up to Elizabeth's day were organized by the descendants of the old English settlers, and not by the native Irish. In the reign of Henry VIII we have this striking testimony as to the combined result of English policy and Irish social life on the English themselves. The Lord Deputy, writing in 1536 to the King, says: "Your Highness must understand that the English blood of the English conquest is in a manner worn out in this land...some by attainders, others by persecution and murdering of [by] Irishmen and some by departure from hence into your realm of England. And contrarywise, the Irish blood ever more and more increaseth." [33]

[30] See Appendix III for this letter, and Gilbert, Facsimiles, III, No. XXII. The original is in French, still the language of the Court.
[31] See Appendix IV for this information sent to Henry IV in 1399 in a note by Alex. Balscot, Guardian of Ireland and the Council.
[32] Cotton MS., Dom., xviii. British Museum.
[33] Calendar of State Papers, Hen. VIII, ii, Pt. Ill, p. 338.
So far as Richard II was concerned, these Anglo-Norman "Irish rebels" kept prudently in the background during his stay in Ireland, though William de Burgh and Walter Bermingham resorted to the King's ship in May 1395 and were knighted by the King. But of much more importance were the submissions of the Irish kings, again, as in the time of Henry II, led by the representatives of the four provinces, now once more almost independent, O'Neill of Ulster, O'Conor Donn of Connacht, Art MacMorrogh Kavanagh of Leinster, and O'Brien of Thomond, who are said to have submitted "by love and fayreness, and not by batayle nor constraynte." The most remarkable of these submissions was that of young O'Neill, who, acting for his aged father, made his homage to the King at Drogheda on March 16, 1395. He had already written to Richard on his arrival in Ireland, offering him welcome, and assuring him that nothing he had done was to be interpreted as renouncing Richard's lordship, "for I have always recognized the same and do so now." The kings were received on honourable terms and once more restored to full legal rights and confirmed in their lands as holding of the Crown. They represented in their persons the great body of their underlords all over the country, and O'Brien even went so far as to declare that he had acquired no lands by conquest, but only by grant of the King's predecessors to his ancestors.[34] The terms seemed satisfactory to both parties. The Irish kings henceforth had an indisputable right in English law to the lands now confirmed to them, and the English King could boast the allegiance of native Ireland.

[34] These indentures have recently been printed in E. Curtis' History of Medieval Ireland, pp. 308-311, from the instruments in the Public Record Office, London. They are of exceptional interest.
The story of King Richard's doings in Ireland is told in the graphic pages of Froissart and also in a French metrical history of Richard II. In Richard's train there came a French knight named Henry Castide, who had spent many years in Ireland and knew the Irish tongue well. In after days he related his experiences to Froissart, who included the account in his chronicles. He describes the wild life lived by the Irish in the forests and the narrow passes where it was impossible to follow them. So light were they of foot that no horseman, were he ever so well mounted, could overtake them. Castide remarks that they sometimes leapt from the ground behind a rider, grasping him so tightly that it was impossible to shake off the assailant. He himself had had a curious experience of this kind, for, his horse taking fright in the middle of a skirmish, a runner leapt on its back and pressed it forward at full speed into the woods, until they arrived at a village in a retired spot, surrounded by palisades. Here the Frenchman lived, separated from his friends, for seven years. He became much attached to his handsome host, Bryan Costeret, and married his daughter, by whom he had two children, and one of these returned with him to Bristol when at length he gained his liberty by exchange of prisoners. He tells us that the Irish language was always spoken in his family and that he introduced it among his grandchildren as much as he could. The language proved of special use to him, for he was chosen on that account by King Richard to instil English ways and manners into the four Irish princes who had given in their submissions and whom he desired to create knights. Castide did his best to transform them into Englishmen in the short month allotted to him, but in spite of all his efforts "to soften their language and nature" he laments that very little progress had been made. They still insisted on dining with their retainers and minstrels around them, without any distinction of rank, "for they had everything in common except their bed."

Nevertheless, they went through the solemn ceremony of knighthood, watching all night in the cathedral and being robed in magnificent silken cloaks lined with fur, in which they afterward dined with the King. Castide, relating the story to Sir John Froissart, says they were much gazed upon, "for it was certainly a great novelty to see four Irish kings." There is a touch of sarcasm in Froissart's inquiry as to how it came about. "You have said it was accomplished by a treaty and the grace of God; the grace of God is good, and of infinite value to those who can obtain it; but we see few lords nowadays augment their territories otherwise than by force." Neither a treaty nor the grace of God will suffice where the treaty is not founded on justice, and in one instance Richard had departed from the usual upright way in which he had dealt with the Irish kings. This was in his dealings with Art MacMorrogh Kavanagh who had recently submitted. He had been elected king of Kavanagh's country, a district of thirty miles between Carlow and the sea, in 1357, when he was still a youth. Since the reign of Edward III the Kavanaghs had received from Government eighty marks a year in return for their protection to English settlers in these districts, and to keep the sept quiet. But this subvention was frequently unpaid, and disputes arose as to the non-fulfilment of the agreement. In addition to this, Kavanagh had married a daughter of the fourth Earl of Kildare, whereupon her vast estates were seized by the Crown, since she had, under the Statute of Kilkenny, forfeited them by marrying a 'meere' Irishman.

Naturally exasperated, Kavanagh wasted Leinster and took up an attitude of defiance. When Richard came over with his army of four thousand men-at-arms and thirty thousand archers it was chiefly with a view to chastising Art and recovering his lands for the Crown. When the King had cut his way through Leinster to Dublin, and Kavanagh, following the example of O'Neill, came in to submit, the terms made with him were of a kind quite different from those entered into with the other kings. He was required "by the first Sunday of Lent to quit the whole land of Leinster with all the armed men of his following." They were given leave to conquer any other lands now occupied by the King's enemies His rent and the heritage of his wife were secured to him. This last provision, which had been the chief cause of quarrel, is the one generous point in the indenture. But the order to remove from his ancient inheritance could not be carried out. Hardly had Richard left the country when Art was 'out' again, renouncing his allegiance and inflicting a severe defeat on the English forces at Kells in Co. Kilkenny in which Richard's young cousin, Roger Mortimer, whom he had left as Viceroy was slain. Furious at the news, Richard resolved on a second expedition to Ireland, to subdue his rebellious vassal. Again he gathered a formidable army, and men were pressed for Ireland wherever they could be found. After ten days spent at Milford Haven the King crossed to Waterford.

His chronicler says that the King's courage was extraordinary, and indeed that unhappy prince never wanted in personal fearlessness; but those that saw him leave London judged truly when they said: "Well, Richard of Bordeaux has taken the road to Bristol for Ireland. It will be his destruction; he will never return thence to joy." Richard's expedition was from the first ill-fated. His supplies did not arrive, and MacMorrogh cut off those in the country. "Some even of the knights did not eat a morsel for five days together." When at last three ships came into harbour from Dublin the knights plunged into the sea to seize the food from the boats. "Many a cuff passed between them, and over a thousand were drunk that day." MacMorrogh's uncle came in to surrender with a withy round his neck and his followers barefoot and stripped behind him. But when the King pardoned him and sent word to Art that he would admit him also to mercy, and give him castles and lands in abundance if he would do the same, MacMorrogh replied that he "would do no such thing for all the treasure of the sea." Finally, however, Art sent a begging friar to ask for a parley, as the King was slowly making his way north to Dublin. A place of parley being arranged, the King's uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, was sent with two hundred lancers and a body of archers to meet him. An onlooker describes the meeting. "Between two woods," he says, "at some distance from the sea, I beheld Macmore [MacMorrogh] and a body of the Irish more than I can number, descend the mountain. He rode a horse without housing or saddle, which was so fine and good, that it had cost him, they said, four hundred cows. In coming down it galloped so hard that I never in my life saw hare, deer, or sheep, I declare of a certainty, run with such speed. In his right hand he bore a great long dart, which he cast with much skill. He was a fine large man, wondrously active. To look at he seemed very stern and savage and an able man." The two leaders could not come to an agreement; "they took short leave and hastily parted." Art would give no terms other than that he should never be molested or interfered with. The King grew pale with wrath and swore that he would never depart from Ireland till he had Art in his power, alive or dead. He offered a hundred marks of gold to anyone who would bring him in. But Richard never got hold of MacMorrogh. When wind and storm permitted news to come over from England they brought tidings of a general revolt, which was to end only in the deposition and death of the King and the coronation of Henry IV.

Among those who accompanied Richard II on his expedition to Ireland was the young Duke of Lancaster, afterward to become king as Henry V; he had been knighted by Richard amid the blazing woods of Leinster. He was covered with shame and distress when the account of his father's rebellion was brought to him, but though he was held in light confinement in Trim Castle as a hostage for his father, the good relations between him and Richard do not seem to have been disturbed. His first act on his accession was to pay funeral honours to the remains of the murdered king.

MacMorrogh continued fighting to the close of his life. He never submitted, and though living close to the Pale he succeeded in maintaining his independence. He died in New Ross during the Christmas season of 1417, after a reign of forty-two years. Tradition says that he and his chief brehon, who died on the same day, had been poisoned by a woman.

END OF CHAPTER VIII