Dean Cobbe, Lambetr Simnel, Henry VII, Poynings.

Chapter III.

1478-1534.

State of the Anglo Norman Colony, A. D. 1478 - Riva1 Viceroys summon Parliament - Anecdote of Dean Cobbe - State of Religion in 1484 - Lambert Simnel crowned King 1487 - Perils of Members of Parliament - Henry VII. - Viceroy Sir Edward Poynings - Mode of proceeding in Parliament - A Bridle on the Irish Parliament - Royal Favours on Sir Edward Poynings.

We can hardly imagine greater anarchy than prevailed in the colony at this time. Lord Grey, as lord-deputy, landed in Ireland in 1478, with a guard of 300 archers and men-at-arms. He did well to have them, for the Irish Privy Council selected the Earl of Kildare as Viceroy, and refused to acknowledge Lord Grey. The chancellor, Lord Portlester, who was father-in-law of the Earl of Kildare, refused to surrender the Great Seal of Ireland, and James Keating, the constable of Dublin Castle, would not allow Lord Grey to enter it. He broke down the drawbridge, and defied the lord-deputy and his guard to enter. For a time both viceroys tried to execute the Irish Government. The Earl of Kildare took a bold step. He summoned a Parliament, which assembled at Naas, in the county of Kildare, in June 1478, which voted him a subsudyidy. Lord Grey was not idle. He procured the king’s writ, commanding Kildare not to act as deputy. The mayor of Dublin was ordered to make public proclamation that no subsidy was to be paid to the Earl of Kildare. Lord Grey summoned a Parliament, which met at Trim, in the county of Meath, where the proceedings of the Naas Parliament were declared null and void. The statutes and ordinances of the Parliament at Naas were ordered by the judges to be cancelled, and delivered up on pain of felony. A new Great Seal was engraved by Thomas Archbold, master of the mint, which the Parliament ordered to be the Great Seal of Ireland.

A prebendary named Cobbe removed the cross from Church Cathedral, Dublin, and supplied its place with a boar’s head and a crown, which occasioned the following epigram:-

“Christ cross from Christ’s Church cursed Cobbe hath pulled down,

And placed in its stead what he worships - the crown.

Avenging the cause of the Gadarine people,

This miscreant hath placed a swine’s head on the steeple;

By this intimating to all who pass by,

That his hearers are swine, - and his church is a sty.”

[Gilbert’s History of Dublin, vol. i. P. 285.]

We may judge from that conduct on the part of the Dean of Christ’s Church what was the state of religion in Ireland. This also is disclosed by an Act passed in 1434, reciting that “divers benefices and advowsons of the Sees were situated amongst Irish enemies, and as no Englishman could inhabit the said benefices, and divers English clerks, who were enabled to have a cure of souls, were not expert in the Irish language, and such of them as were, disdained to inhabit amongst the Irish people, and others darde not.”

About this time, a youth of fair presence and gentle bearing, who was presented to the head of the Geraldines, the Earl of Kildare, then Viceroy of Ireland, as the Earl of Warwick, and gave such strong proofs of his being so, was treated as such. Not only did the Earl of Kildare espouse his cause, but the viceroy’s brother, Sir Thomas FitzGerald of Laccagh, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, also believed him to be the true heir of the house of York. Numerous men of rank, influenced by these dignitaries, pledged themselves to aid him with their lvies and fortunes. They halso applied to Margaret, Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, sister of the Earl of Clarence and aunt to the young Earl of Warwick. This princess acknowledged the youth as her nephew, and supplied a force of 2,000 men under the command of Martin Swartz, a general of rank and military skill.

The Earl of Lincoln, Lord Lovel, and other adherents of the White Rose, embarked with the army of Swartz, and landed in Dublin in May 1487. The coronation of the young king took place with royal splendour in Christ Church Cathedral on Whit-Sunday, May 24, 1487. He received the title of Edward VI. The deputy, chief officers of state, judges, and other high functionaries renounced their allegiance to Henry VII., and did homage to the crowned king. A sermon suitable to the event was preached by the Bishop of Meath.

War against the usurper was soon declared. The chancellor changed the mace for the sword, and became a general commanding a division of the Irish troops. These, with the Burgundians under Swartz, landed in Lancashire, and once more the adherents of the rival Roses were to meet in the shock of war. They encountered each other near Stoke, a village about a mile from Newark-on-Trent, and it was a desperate conflict. For three hours the issue seemed doubtful, but the house of Lancaster prevailed. The young aspirant to royalty was taken prisoner; the valiant ex-chancellor was slain, as was also the greater number of the supporters of the claimant, who was discovered to be the child of Thomas Simnel, an Oxford joiner. His fate is involved in obscurity - some stated he was made a turnspit in the royal kitchen, others that he was kept a prisoner in the Tower; but this was his last appearance as a claimant to the throne.

The position of members who had any distance to travel to the Irish Parliament in the reign of Henry VII. was by no means safe or agreeable.

In 1480, the state of the colony was deplorable. The chancellor was at variance with the chief justice of the King’s Bench, and the Irish displayed such hostility to the settlers of the Pale, that the cities and boroughs sought to be allowed to refrain from sending members to Parliament, on the ground that their representatives could not encounter the great peril incurred from the king’s Irish enemies and English rebels; for it is openly known how great and frequent mischief have been done on the way, both in the north, south, east, and west parts, by reason whereof they may not send proctors, knights, or burgesses.

Prior to the reign of Henry VII., the government of Ireland was confined to the chiefs of AngloNorman descent, who exercised almost royal rule. These were the FitzGeralds, Earls of Kildare and Desmond; the Butlers, Earls of Ormond; De Burgh, Earl of Clanrickarde; De Lacys, St. Lawrence, and others, who sometimes yielded obedience, or sometimes thwarted the action of the viceroy. When Henry VII. was firmly established, he learned, with more minuteness than his predecessors, the state of Ireland. He found the Privy Council, composed of men of the highest rank in Church and State, having no check imposed by the presence of the sovereign, often overruled the deputy and controlled the Parliament.

To be a privy councillor it was desired; to be a member of Parliament was shunned. Henry VII. resolved to alter this; to make the Irish people more free, and less dependent on the lords. He also had complaints made of the great expense incurred by the viceroys assuming to themselves the power or convening Parliaments, and imposing subsidies for non-attendance, and of the great expense incurred by members having to attend frequently in Dublin or elsewhere. He therefore selected a deputy, Sir Edward Poynings, to reform these grievances. He arrived in Ireland in 1494, and called a Parliament which met at Drogheda, and passed the celebrated statute 10 Henry VII., called Poynings’ Law. By this all statutes made within the realm of England concerning the common weal, from henceforth be deemed good and effectual in the law, and such be accepted, used, and executed within the land of Ireland in all points, according to the tenor of the same. By this Act all the fundament laws of England were transferred to bind Ireland. This is eulogised by. Lord Coke as a profitable Act of Parliament. He further provided that no Parliament be holden in the said land, but at such season as the king’s lieutenant and council there first do certify the king under the Great Seal of that land, the causes and consideration and all such acts as seemeth should pass in the said Parliament, and such causes, considerations, and acts affirmed by the king and his council to be good and expedient for that land; and to summon the said Parliament under his Great Seal; that done, a Parliament to be had and holden, after the form afore rehearsed, and if any Parliament be held contrary, it is to be deemed void and of none effect. The effect of this, according to the opinion of the late Lord Chief Justice Whiteside, was to place a bridle in the mouth of the Irish Parliament, and subjugate alike the lord-deputy, the nobles, and the commoners to the will of the king’s council at London.

Sir Edward Poynings received many tokens of the king’s favour. He was a privy councillor, a knight of the Garter, and, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Warham, ambassador to the Emperor Maximilian. He went to Ireland as deputy for the king’s son, afterwards Henry VIII.

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