Part 11 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Parliament of 1508.]

Of the remaining years of Henry VII.'s reign but little seems to be recorded, except that the chronic war among the native tribes did not cease. Kildare held a Parliament in 1508, in which a subsidy of 13_s._ 4_d._ was granted out of every ploughland, whether lay or clerical. About the same time a party of the O'Neills took Carrickfergus Castle, and carried off the mayor. In 1509 Kildare again invaded Tyrone in the interests of his grandsons, and demolished Omagh. When the King died he was in full possession of the government, and without a rival in those parts of Ireland which were in any real sense subject to the English Crown.[74]

[Sidenote: Henry endeavoured to separate the two races.]

It was the decided policy of Henry VII. to act in the spirit of the Statute of Kilkenny, and to separate the English and Irish districts.

The well-known name of the Pale, or the English Pale, seems to have come into general use about the close of the fifteenth century. A great number of ordinances remain to prove how necessary it was for the Englishry to bear arms, and the practice of fortifying the home district against the Irish became a subject of legal enactment at least as early as 1429. An Act of the Parliament of 1475 declares that a d.y.k.e had been made and kept up from Tallaght to Ta.s.sagard, at the sole cost of four baronies--Coolock, Balrothery, Castleknock, and Newcastle--and provision was made by statute for its future maintenance. This was an inner line for the defence of Dublin only, but the Parliament of Drogheda made a similar provision for the whole Pale. It was enacted that every inhabitant of the marches or inland borders of Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Louth, should, under a penalty of 40_s._, make and maintain 'a double ditch of six feet above ground, at one side, which meareth next unto Irishmen,' the landlord forgiving a year's rent in consideration of this work. The legal provision was afterwards enforced by writs addressed to the sheriffs and justices, and the name of Pale was perhaps first given to the district so enclosed. The building of this Mahratta ditch may be considered to mark the lowest point reached by the English power in Ireland.[75]

FOOTNOTES:

[48] _History of St. Canice_, by Graves and Prim, especially pp. 187 and 193; also Mr. Graves's _Presentments_, p. 79; Archdall's _Lodge's Peerage_, art. 'Mount Garrett.'

[49] It is hard to say whether the instructions for John Estrete, attributed by Mr. Gairdner to the very beginning of Henry's reign, are by him or by Richard III. Henry would hardly have promised to make Kildare Deputy for ten years on condition of his going to Court, and the allusions to Edward IV. are more likely to have been made by Richard.--_Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII._, vol. i. p. 91. The three letters in the Appendix cannot be earlier than 1488.

[50] Writing to Morton or Fox, Octavian says, 'Profano coronationis pueri in Hibernia sceleri, me solo excepto, nullus obst.i.tit manifeste.' This hardly gives due credit to the Bishop of Clogher.--_Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII._, vol. i. p. 383. Henry's letter to Pius II. is at p.

94. 'Armachanensis' must be a mistake on the King's part.

[51] Lambert was crowned May 2, 1487.

[52] _Book of Howth_, and an account in _Carew_ (followed by Smith), iv.

p. 473.

[53] Bacon; _Book of Howth_; O'Donovan's _Four Masters, ad ann._ 1485.

The battle of Stoke was fought June 16, 1487.

[54] Henry's letter to Waterford is in Smith's _Waterford_; the letter of the Dublin people in Ware's _Annals_.

[55] Sir Richard Edgcombe's voyage, in Harris's _Hibernica_.

[56] _Book of Howth_; _Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII._, vol. i.

p. 384.

[57] _The Earls of Kildare_; Harris's _Dublin_; _Four Masters, ad ann._ 1492.

[58] Ware; Gairdner's _Life of Richard III._; _Letters of Richard III.

and Henry VII._, ii. 55.

[59] _Irish Statutes_, 10 Henry VII., Dec. 1, 1494.

[60] _Ibid._, chaps. iv. and xxii.

[61] Gilbert's _Viceroys_, p. 454, and Ware. The Act is not in the printed statutes.

[62] _Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII._, vol. ii. pp. lxxvi. 237, 242, 299; _Histories of Waterford_, by Smith and Rylands; _Four Masters and Annals of Lough Ce ad ann. 1505_.