War of the Roses. 1399-1485

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CHAPTER V***

The Wars of the Roses***

1399-1485**

“Bella, horrida bella.*” - Virgil. *

The terrible Art defied the English power to the very end of his life, giving and taking some very hard knocks from time to time. The Dubliners, under their mayor, John Drake, defeated their old enemies, the O’Byrnes, who were allied to the King of Leinster, in the mountains behind Bray, and slew 500 of them. In the year 1405 they showed their prowess further from home. The Scots under Douglas and the Welsh under Glendower had been leagued with young Hotspur in rebellion against Henry IV.

The citizens fitted out a fleet, which sailed along the coasts of both countries, ravaging as it went. Henry showed his appreciation of their fidelity and courage by allowing the chief magistrate of the city the privilege of having a gilt sword borne before him in the same way as the lord mayor of London. The sword-bearer is still an official in Dublin’s ancient Corporation.

In 1409 the title of mayor was introduced; previous holders of the office had been called provost.

Despite the achievements of the citizens, English authority in Ireland touched its lowest point at this period. The “Pale” (or enclosure), as the part of the country still resisting absorption by the Irish was called, had contracted until it comprised only four counties, Louth, Meath, Dublin and Kildare, and not even all of these. This narrow strip of land, some 30 miles long by 20 wide, could alone be relied on to respect the royal commands, though harried ever and anon by the neighbouring clans of Wicklow, Queen’s and King’s Counties, then still unconquered, and preserving the native names of Leix and Offaly.

The city of Dublin began to be plagued by pirates, who infested the narrow waters of the Channel. Once the archbishop was carried off but rescued by his faithful flock, who turned out *en masse *and chased the enemy as far as Ardglass, on the coast of County Down. A fort was erected on Lambay Island to guard against the dangers from the sea, and a dyke made from Tallaght to Saggard to restrain the incursions of the mountaineers of Wicklow.

The great hero of the French wars, Sir John Talbot, was three times appointed to the viceroyalty, in the hope that his strong hand might bring peace to the troubled kingdom. But there was need of a statesman as well as a mere warrior. Talbot won victories, but could not utilise them properly. He was soon entangled in a feud with the great house of Ormond, which completely neutralised his successes in the field.

The Archbishop of Dublin was brother to the viceroy. The citizens apparently sympathised with their spiritual and temporal heads, for in 1434 they broke into S. Mary’s Abbey and dragged out Ormond from thence, with much abuse of both him and the abbot. Such disrespect to the Church could not be condoned, even by a secretly sympathising archbishop, and the mayor and citizens were condemned to do penance at Christ Church, S. Patrick’s and the Abbey itself.

A little while later Ormond, who, in the kaleidoscopic variations of Irish politics, had now become viceroy, was accused of treason by the Geraldine prior of Kilmainham. The latter offered to prove his charges by the wager of battle. A day was fixed for the encounter, but the King intervened personally, and ordered a judicial investigation, by which Ormond was acquitted.

The rulers of the great Hospital of S. John of Jerusalem at Kilmainham often figure prominently in Irish history. They were a peculiar order in the State, half soldier, half monk, supposed to spend the intervals of their campaigns against the Saracens of Palestine in religious practices and military training. But their two professions agreed ill with each other. The Hospitallers, like the Templars, whom they often succeeded, were accused of avarice, irreverence, and moral laxity.

Towards the year 1449 the shadow of the Wars of the Roses began to darken the horizon. Richard, Duke of York, suspected of designs on the English throne, was sent to rule Ireland. Queen Margaret no doubt hoped that the troubles of his office would keep his hands too full for him to entertain any ambitious projects. Apparently she mistook her man. He saw in his new province an instrument which could be easily adapted to gain his ends. By a judicious blend of suavity and sternness he won over the whole of Ireland to the Yorkist cause, as well Irish as Anglo-Irish. The iron hand in the velvet glove had never been used so well. Had he been loyal to the English Crown, he might have had the great credit of finally conciliating Ireland. But his purpose throughout was only to gain a strong base for his attacks on England.

The first step was to assume an almost absolute independence of English control. An Irish parliament declared that English laws or English writs had no validity in Ireland, it asserted the right of the viceroy to coin his own money and declared the compassing his death to be treason. The dangerous crisis, which Henry II. and his successors had so dreaded, had at last been brought about. The viceroy had made himself into an independent king.

An unfortunate squire, who arrived with writs to apprehend Richard as a traitor to his lawful sovereign, was himself hanged, drawn and quartered for compassing the death of the viceroy. In 1460 the Duke sailed from Dublin to enter upon that fateful campaign, which ended in his defeat and death at Wakefield.

He had done his work very thoroughly in Ireland. The whole nation, with the exception of the Butlers, became as strongly Yorkist as it was subsequently Royalist and Jacobite. By some evil fate it always backs the losing side and suffers all the penalties embodied in “Vae Victis.” During the stay of Richard of York in the Castle, a son had been born to him, the “false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,” who stands out so vividly in Shakespeare’s historical plays.

Dublin, as might be expected, made little progress during the Wars of the Roses. The Butlers and Geraldines enacted a little replica of the struggle in England, and massacred each other all over Munster and Leinster. The citizens were hard pressed to provide the troops necessary for the defence of the Pale. In 1475 the Brotherhood of S. George was founded in order to focus the patriotism of the Anglo-Irish on this important point. Twelve of the leading men of Dublin and its environs, including the mayor for the time being, were to meet annually to elect a captain and arrange for the maintenance of a special force under his command.

About this time the Pope took some steps towards founding a university in Dublin. The time was not yet fit for such an enterprise. The attempt had been made before. In 1320 Archbishop de Bicknor had set up a college, or rather a theological school, in S. Patrick’s Cathedral. It never attained to any eminence. The prelates of the day were too bent on war and politics to have much time to spend on the encouragement of learning. Again the roads were so dangerous and life and property so insecure, even in the capital, that students could not safely resort there to study. The city had to wait another hundred years for its college.

The Wars of the Roses in Ireland, as in England, form a dark, unrelieved picture of murder and faction. Once the incoming viceroy, Tiptoft, “the butcher,” Earl of Worcester, seized his predecessor, the Earl of Desmond, and had him beheaded. The victim on this occasion suffered, like many another before and since, for his imprudence in interfering between husband and wife. He had urged Edward IV. to put away his queen, who was not of distinguished birth, and espouse in her stead some noted foreign princess.

The King declined the advice, which, however, he never disclosed to anyone, until one day in a fit of anger he taunted the queen with what she might have been, had he followed the counsels of his ”cousin of Desmond.” She, womanlike, soon divined the secret. The murder of Desmond was a barbarous revenge for the slight he had put upon her. Without the knowledge of Edward, Tiptoft, when leaving for his province, received from the queen a command to compass, by whatever means he might, the death of the outspoken Irishman.

On another occasion the Earl of Kildare refused to surrender up the government to Lord Grey, the successor appointed by the English King. The constable of Dublin Castle, James Keating, one of the turbulent Hospitallers of Kilmainham, closed the gates of the fortress against Grey and defied all attempts to force an entrance. Grey held a parliament at Trim and Kildare a rival assembly at Naas. Eventually a threat of confiscation of the priory lands induced Keating to acknowledge Grey’s commission and admit him to the Castle.

At the same time the powers of nature were not beneficent to Dublin. A great storm blew in the east window of Christ Church and destroyed the numerous relics preserved under the high altar, sparing only the wonder-working Bacall-Iosa, the sacred staff of Jesus, believed to have been bequeathed by Our Lord to S. Patrick. A great drought reduced the Liffey to a mere rivulet. The chronicler says “the river was completely dry for the space of two minutes,” which seems incredible. Plagues and famines continued to visit the city with dismal regularity every fourth or fifth year. Money was debased and industry at a standstill.

Fall of the Geraldines. 1485-1558. To Chart Index. Home.