CHAPTER IX.

The Irish Suit.

1523.

I. SURREY was pressing Wolsey to bestow his niece on James, her Irish cousin, as a means of strengthening the King's friends against the Yorkist Geraldines. Since the war with France broke out, François was negotiating with the Irish chiefs, especially with the Desmond branch of the Fitzgeralds, to whom he made an offer of sending over a new White Rose, in Richard de la Pole. Pole was to come with a sufficient force of ships and troops. Kinsale and other harbours were to be surrendered to the French. Pole was to be crowned in Dublin, and Desmond was to have an Irish kingship in the south.

2. Red Piers, whom Surrey thought a good soldier, swore that no one but himself could keep the Geraldines in check. "Sir Piers," said Surrey, "is not only a wise man, and hath a true English heart, but is the man of most experience in the feats of war. ... I would the Earl of Desmond were of like wisdom and order." Surrey held that the King had only two ways left of dealing with his Irish lands. The country must be either conquered by the sword or governed through the Irish chiefs. The first would take more time and waste more treasure

than the council liked to spend; but if they shrank from conquest, they must be content to govern through the Brehon code. Which Irish chief could they select? Surrey recommended Piers. The Geraldines were nearer to the Pale. The Butler country being Kilkenny, sixty miles of bog and mountain cut them off from Dublin; yet the King was forced to try what could be done with Piers as deputy. Kildare was stronger; but he made no secret of his Yorkist sentiments; and when a new White Rose was threatening a descent on Cork, the council dared not place a Yorkist in the deputy's chair.

3. A legal difficulty barred the way. Red Piers had taken to himself the rank of Ormond, and his right to that distinction was disputed by the heir-atlaw. Henry, having never sanctioned this assumption, was unwilling to offend his able envoy at the Spanish Court. Yet the condition of affairs induced him to adopt his lieutenant's hint. "In debating with our Council," he wrote to Surrey, "what personage should be most meet to occupy the room of your deputy, we have remembered Sir Piers Butler, pretending himself to be Earl of Ormond, who, as we be informed, as well by your writing, as otherwise, is now reputed for the best amongst other our obedient subjects of that land." Surrey arranged the matter with Sir Piers before he left Dublin to undertake the Scottish war. Piers was to be his deputy for a little while. The Irish Council were misled into believing that Surrey would soon return. A patent was drawn up, appointing "Sir Piers" to the post of Surrey's deputy, but Henry feared to

send it over, lest the Irish chieftain should refuse a patent in which his title was denied. What was the King to do? His judges sought a way, but the affair was one of law and not of private grace. Henry might make his deputy Earl of Ormond by a new creation; but Piers was eager to secure the ancient honours of his house; his standing in the country, and his power to serve the crown, depending on his being accepted as the lawful heir of the Kilkenny sept. Yet nothing could be done for him so long as Anne refused his son's proposals; and the patent of lord deputy was at length sent out to Dublin in the name of Sir Piers.

4. Piers was full of promise. He would soon settle with Mac More and other Irish captains. A few days would suffice to calm his own district of Kilkenny. In a week he should track out Desmond in the marshes of Munster, and having put an end to the rebellion, he should return to Dublin ere the Easter Term commenced. With one so swift of foot, so sure of aim, it seemed like pedantry to stand on legal points. Under some such quibble of the lawyers, as that Piers held local rank, and might be Earl of Ormond in Ireland, while he was no more than Sir Piers Butler in England, he was sworn of the Council and installed in the Deputy's

seat.

5. Though Piers had married a Geraldine, the Geraldines refused to treat him as Earl of Ormond, and in spite of "Mairgread's" spells, his tenants in Kilkenny were persuaded he was not their lawful lord. Kildare was still in London, waiting on the

King, to whom his pleasant manners and his Irish humours made him a welcome guest. That he should work against a rival who had crept into his place, was in the natural course of things. While he was in London, he satisfied every one that in spite of his Yorkist opinions he was one of the pleasantest men alive. Even his opinions sat so lightly on his tongue that he would cast them to the winds for a pretty woman's smile. His conduct seemed as airy as a jest, and few imagined that his days were chiefly spent in plots against the Crown. He won the heart of Lady Elizabeth Grey; a match which introduced him to the innermost circles of the English Court. Yet this fine gentleman, who smiled and danced, and wore point-lace in Catharine's closet, was in constant intercourse with Irish monks and spies, who carried his instructions to the Pale. A word being dropt in hut and bawn, a gang of kernes roved up and down the country, wasting the prosperous lands with fire and sword. When news

came back to Westminster, that Ireland was disturbed, Kildare observed with lightsome touch of humour, that those Irish would obey no ruler save a Geraldine.

6. But neither Wolsey nor Surrey was prepared to hand the government of Ireland to this Yorkist chief. Could they not strengthen Piers the Red? His weakness lay in his defects of title and his suits at law. If these defects and suits were once removed, his natural talent, and the King's support, might bear him up. The foremost difficulty lay in reconciling Lady Margaret and her son Lord Boleyn

to his assumption of the Ormond title and his occupancy of the Ormond lands. No method seemed so sure to overcome this obstacle as a marriage. If James, "pretending to be Lord Butler," were to marry Anne, Lord Boleyn might see his daughter live to be Countess of Ormond, while another peerage, say the barony of Rochford, might be given to him for his son George. If once the youth and maid were man and wife, no question need arise about the Irish lands. Those lands were hardly worth the cost. Some of them had been overrun by the wild Irish for two hundred years past. Kilkenny was a long way off, and royal patents were waste paper in the forests of Mount Brandon and among the marshes of the Barrow and the Suir. A chief like Piers, red-handed, swift of foot, and quick in fight, might have some chance in dealing with the Irish kernes; but how was an English peer like Boleyn to drive them from their huts and haunts? Boleyn might save much money by arranging his affairs with Piers. A light seemed breaking on the Cardinal, when he learned that Lord Percy was sighing at the feet of Anne.