LITMIR.BIZ

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Deputy, ‘more for fashion than for faithful obedience.’ The fashion and the want of faithful obedience have both continued to our own time. Bingham saw clearly that the Queen’s government would never be really popular – ‘the people, for every small trifle, are daily suggesting that they are intolerably oppressed and extorted upon.’ His advice was to keep them down by steady but gentle pressure, ‘so that by having too little the country may not be waste, and by having too much the people may not rebel. Nevertheless, my meaning is rather to better their estate than to make it worse.’ He understood the problem, but he was not much more successful than others in finding the solution.117

State of the Church

      John Long, a Cambridge man and a Londoner, was consecrated Primate on the day on which Perrott left Dublin. As a special mark of favour the new Deputy had been allowed to fill the vacant see. Loftus desired the appointment of Thomas Jones, Dean of St. Patrick’s, who ultimately succeeded him in Dublin. Not much, either good or bad, is recorded of Archbishop Long, but he became the chief pastor of a most forlorn flock. ‘There are here,’ says an English visitor to Ireland, ‘so many churches fallen down, so many children dispensed withal to enjoy the livings of the Church, so many laymen – as they are commonly termed – suffered to hold benefices with cure, so many clergymen tolerated to have the profit of three or four pastoral dignities, who, being themselves unlearned, are not meet men, though they were willing, to teach and instruct others, as whoso beholdeth it must not choose but make it known.’118

Munster thoroughly cowed

      Many of the chief men of Munster came to Perrott at Limerick, and the rest signified their intention of attending him at Cork. But news arrived that Scots had landed in Ulster, and the Lord Deputy, who liked fighting better than anything, turned aside from Limerick, crossed Tipperary, and returned by Kilkenny to Dublin. Ormonde and Norris, together with all the late rebels whom the Earl had pardoned, were ordered to make ready for the northern enterprise. Malachi O’Moloney, Papal Bishop of Kilmacduagh, was suspected of having a hand in the Ulster plot; he came to Perrott, renounced the Pope, and took the oath of supremacy; but there can be little doubt that this conversion was insincere. A messenger from Tirlogh O’Neill had certainly been in Munster, but found it impossible to stir up the embers of the Desmond rebellion. Lord Fitzmaurice told him plainly that no one would stir as long as Perrott and Ormonde were in Ireland. The Lord Deputy could therefore turn his back safely on Munster, and he hastened to Dublin to make preparations for repelling what he believed to be a serious invasion.119

Escheated lands in MunsterDifficulties of the survey

      Far more important than the perennial but limited trouble with the Scots, was the question of surveying and resettling the attainted lands in Munster. In June 1584, a commission for the purpose was directed to Vice-Treasurer Wallop, Sir Valentine Browne a man of long experience in English revenue business, Surveyor-General Alford, and auditors Jenyson and Peyton. Their survey began early in September, and they did not return till the end of November, having found a great part of the province waste; and Kerry in particular seemed impossible to re-people except by importation from England. Sir Valentine Browne, who was an elderly man, was active and zealous, but he found the work very hard. ‘He hath,’ says his colleague the Vice-Treasurer, ‘been sundry times bogged, yet hath gone better through with it than might be imagined so corpulent a man of his years would have been able.’ Rivers and mountains had to be crossed, and provisions could hardly be procured at any point between Limerick and Dingle. One hundred persons fed at the Commissioners’ table, who had to supply it on credit. Wallop was struck by the great fertility of the land, and estimated that the Queen would have a new revenue of 6,000l. within three years. But the difficulty in making an accurate survey was very great. It was supposed that land worth more than 1,000l. a year had escheated in parts of Tipperary, outside of Ormonde’s jurisdiction; but what he had once claimed no one dared to inhabit in spite of him. The Earl’s palatinate was originally a matter of grace and favour, but he tried to extend it to the whole county, and it seemed doubtful whether any subject ought to be so great. The difficulty of arriving at the truth proved even more serious than Wallop at first supposed. Many months passed without anything being decided, and in the meantime Munster was in the utmost misery. Vice-President Norris could not prevent his starving soldiers from running after his brother into Flanders, and the towns, which truly pleaded poverty, could neither be forced nor persuaded to support them.120

Scots in Ulster

      Ormonde, who was in a hurry to get to London, deferred his journey that he might accompany Perrott to Ulster. The young Earl of Thomond, who had been educated in England, and who lived to be called ‘the great Earl,’ was glad to take part in the expedition. His great object was to have the county of Clare acknowledged as part of Munster, and freed from the jurisdiction of the Connaught government; and in this he ultimately succeeded. Clanricarde also gave his services, and so did Lord President Norris. Perrott had 2,000 trained men with him, besides Irish allies, and he thought they would all be necessary. It had been his intention to govern plausibly, and ‘to look through his fingers at Ulster as a fit receptacle for all the savage beasts of the land;’ but the Scots were said to be 4,000, and there were the usual reports about Spanish ships. Norris, who had a cooler head than Perrott, afterwards said that he thought the Scots were bent ‘only on their customary fetching of meat.’ They took 3,000 cows from Tyrconnell, but their numbers were larger than usual. Macleans, as well as MacDonnells, were engaged, and the whole movement had probably more to do with Hebridean politics than with any intention of hurting Queen Elizabeth. The Scots disappeared as quickly as they had come, and when Perrott reached Newry, he found that no foeman worthy of his steel awaited him. He resolved, however, to go on, and to show that Ulster was within his reach.121

The Scots clans, and the Ulster Irish

      Secretary Davison was in Scotland at this time, and he ridiculed Perrott’s fear of Scottish invasion. The obscure politics of Isla and Cantire were not well understood even at Edinburgh, and the Englishman’s judgment may have been warped by the contempt which he certainly felt for Arran. The whole thing, he said, had been greatly exaggerated. But, notwithstanding his opinion and that of Norris, it seems clear that the uneasiness among the western clans had something to say to the fall of Gowrie, and to Arran’s short-lived triumph. The islanders would hardly move for king or regent, unless they saw some advantage to themselves. Some of them at least were paid by cattle taken from the O’Donnells, and all were willing to make interest at court if it could be done cheaply. Perrott’s ships just failed in intercepting the Scots at Lough Foyle, and he could only speak from report. ‘Yet truly,’ he maintained, ‘although they ran away thus cowardly, howsoever Mr. Davison was abused by his intelligence, they were in number little fewer, their training and furniture no worse, and their purpose no better, than I wrote.’ Tirlogh Luineach was not minded to oppose Perrott, and he came to him at Newry without pardon or protection. The old chief’s adhesion proved of little value, for, like other Irish leaders before and since, ‘the better subject he became, the weaker he waxed, and the less regarded of his followers.’ In fact he required help against his own people. But O’Cahan and the crafty Baron of Dungannon also came in, and Perrott proceeded to invest Dunluce Castle.122

Slight connection of the western clans with EdinburghPerrott takes Dunluce

      The legal government of Scotland accepted no responsibility for the raids of Macleans and MacDonnells in Ulster. Formerly attempts to retaliate on the Hebrides had not been successful, though Perrott wished to repeat them; but James and Elizabeth were at peace, and the Queen was quite justified in treating the intruders as filibusters. Whether or not they were partly moved by Catholic intriguers in Mary Stuart’s interest really mattered very little, for they could not influence seriously the fate of creeds or kingdoms. But they were a constant source of expense, and the officer who dealt them a crushing blow would deserve well of his sovereign. This honour was, however, denied to Perrott, and reserved for Bingham. The Scot who commanded the garrison of Dunluce declared that he held the castle for the King of Scots’ use, and would defend it to the last. He can, however, have had no valid commission. The position of

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