Ireland (9 page)

Meanwhile in Connacht, encouraged by Bruce’s success, the O’Connors, the descendants of Rory, rose up against the English. But they were defeated at the Battle of Athenry, where many of the O’Connors and other Irish kings were killed.

When Bruce and his army routed the English forces at the Battle of Kells, County Meath, Edward II decided to take decisive action. A large English army set out to engage Bruce in battle at Faughart, the birthplace of Saint Brigid, on 14 October 1318. Bruce was outnumbered and instead of waiting for reinforcements, decided to fight.

Bruce was killed in the battle and his army defeated. This defeat left Edward II still the undisputed Lord of Ireland and the opportunity for Ireland to win her freedom ended for now. But this was not the last battle to be fought on Irish soil over who should be king of Scotland or England. Ireland was still bound to England and within 150 years a war in England over who should be king, known as the War of the Roses, would affect Ireland.

But war did not bring the next great threat to Ireland and her people. Instead they were threatened by a more deadly foe – a tiny insect, which would cause more death and suffering that even that caused by the recent wars.

T
he tiny insect, which brought such death to Ireland, was a flea. The disease it caused was called the plague, also known as the Black Death. It was transmitted to humans by fleas that lived on the blood of black rats. Almost everyone who came in contact with an infected person caught the disease, which meant it was at its worst in towns and cities. In Ireland, this affected the English settlers more than it did the Irish or the Normans, who lived mostly in rural areas.

The plague was widespread in Europe and by 1450 Europe’s population had halved. Ireland did not fare any better, and the country virtually ground to a standstill. Trade ceased, crops were not sown or harvested, and people also died of starvation and other diseases. The worst effects of the plague ended within a year, but it continued to erupt from time to time over the next fifty years. Following the plague, many English landowners returned to England and fewer came to Ireland. The Irish, encouraged by Edward Bruce’s campaign, had also won back some of their lands. By 1366, English control in Ireland had been greatly weakened.

At this time there were three distinct groups of people in Ireland. There were the native Irish, the descendants of the Celts; there were the Norman families, the descendants of those who had come with Strongbow and in the years since then, many of whom now thought of themselves as Irish; and there were the new English settlers who had been granted lands by English kings.

At the time of the plague, the Normans had been in Ireland for nearly 200 years. Over these two centuries many of them had begun to practise Irish customs, dress like the Irish, speak Irish and marry Irish men and women. They were, in the words of the famous quote, ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’. They, along with Irish kings, now controlled large areas of the country. The influence of the English was centred in an area around Dublin, which became known as the Pale. The new English settlers who lived there, and English settlers elsewhere in the country, no longer felt safe among the Irish and the Normans. They lived in fear of rebellion, of losing their lands and of being murdered. They were also alarmed that the Normans were now behaving like the Irish, and oftentimes siding with them in disputes against the English.

By 1366 Edward III was king of England and was alarmed at the situation in Ireland. He was so worried about losing control of Ireland that he sent his son, Lionel, to be his representative in the country. This position has been known by many names and so as not to confuse you, I’m going to call it the Viceroy. Lionel summoned a parliament, consisting of English settlers from the Pale, in Kilkenny in November 1366. This parliament passed laws, which are known as the Statutes of Kilkenny. These laws forbade the Normans and the English settlers from wearing native Irish clothes, practising Irish customs, playing Irish games like hurling, speaking Irish or marrying Irish persons. However, the Normans ignored them, which continued to alarm the settlers in the Pale and the English king.

In 1377, Richard II became king of England. He was then only ten years old and his uncle, John of Gaunt, ruled the country. When Richard was old enough to rule, he decided to regain control of Ireland. In October 1394 he landed at Waterford with a great army of 34,000 men. His campaign seemed a success when many Irish kings publicly submitted to him. But once he returned to England the Irish kings continued on as before.

Richard, like most kings, made many enemies in England, and on his return from Ireland he had some of these enemies murdered. He also seized the lands and property of John of Gaunt. This was Richard’s big mistake, for John of Gaunt had a son named Henry Bolingbroke. He decided to fight to regain what was his by right, and to take revenge on Richard.

In Ireland, Richard’s power and influence continued to weaken. By 1399 he was forced to return to Ireland to try and regain control once more. While he was here with his army, and before he could regain control, Henry Bolingbroke claimed the English throne. Richard hurried back to England, but was captured and imprisoned and died there, most probably murdered. Henry was crowned King Henry IV on 30 October 1399. But like Richard, his influence in Ireland was restricted almost entirely to the Pale, which was decreasing in size.

There are a number of reasons why the power of the English king waned in Ireland at this time. One reason is that some Norman families, like the Fitzgeralds of Kildare, had been given positions of power and influence in Ireland. Members of the Fitzgerald family served as Viceroys, but they, like many other Norman families, now regarded themselves as Irish, and resented the English in the Pale, and the power of the English king in Ireland.

Another reason why English influence in Ireland waned around this time is because English kings were fighting wars in France. You remember that the Normans came from Normandy in northern France, and from the time of William the Conqueror, English kings claimed to be kings of part of France. English armies regularly fought with the king of France to try and protect their lands there. Wars cost money and men, and this meant that the English kings could not spare money or men to fight in Ireland.

Yet another reason was that there were continual disputes in England over who was the rightful king. The most vicious and long lasting of these disputes was the Wars of the Roses. It was given this name because each side in the dispute choose a rose, just like a badge, to represent them. This war lasted thirty years and was fought between the family of the House of York, whose supporters wore a white rose, and the family of the House of Lancaster, whose supporters wore a red rose.

The House of York is in Yorkshire and one of its chief cities is Leeds. The House of Lancaster is in Lancashire and one of its chief cities is Manchester. Today, colours from that long ago War of the Roses are still worn by football teams from those two cities: Leeds United in white and Manchester United in red. So that old rivalry still exists, but thankfully players are not killed during the matches.

But during the Wars of the Roses, it was a dangerous time to live in England, especially if you were related to, or supported, the rival claimants to the throne. When one claimant succeeded to the throne he would have all his rivals murdered, or tried for treason and beheaded. Even children were not safe, and one of the saddest stories from this time is that two young princes, Edward and Richard, were murdered while imprisoned in the Tower of London.

This murder was carried out on the orders of Richard III. He was then king, but had no right to the throne. He was of the House of York, and was a cruel man, like many of the kings from that time. He was the uncle of the princes, one of whom – Edward – was the rightful heir to the throne. Richard, like all tyrants, was frightened that when Edward grew up he would try to reclaim the throne and have Richard tried as a traitor and executed.

One night Richard sent men to the Tower of London and they murdered the two little princes while they were asleep. They buried the bodies beneath a stairway, and years afterwards they were found there. Richard denied that he was responsible for the disappearance of the princes, but the people knew that he had ordered their murder.

Because of this, and because Richard was so cruel, the people hated him. When a man named Henry Tudor decided to fight Richard for the crown, the people supported him. The armies of these two men met on 22 August 1485 at a famous place called Bosworth Field, where Richard was defeated. Though a cruel man, he was very brave, and even when the battle seemed lost, he refused to flee. He died fighting, the last reigning English king to die in battle. It is said that his crown fell off during the fighting and that when the battle was over a man named Lord Stanley found the crown on the battlefield. Lord Stanley picked it up and placed it on Henry Tudor’s head while his supporters cried out, ‘Long Live King Henry’. The place where Henry was crowned is still called Crown Hill today.

This Battle of Bosworth Field was the final battle in the Wars of the Roses. It ended the reign of the kings of England who were known as the Plantagenets, and which had begun with Henry II. They were called Plantagenets because an earlier member of the family, Geoffrey of Anjou, a place in France, wore a piece of broom in his cap. The Latin name for this plant is
planta genista
, from which the word Plantagenet comes.

With the death of Richard III, a new family of monarchs – the Tudors – came to reign in England. They also became the Lords of Ireland. The first of these rulers was Henry VII, who was crowned by Lord Stanley on Crown Hill.

Shortly after Henry VII became king, a young man arrived in Dublin claiming that he was the Earl of Warwick, and had a right to the English throne. He was an impostor, but the Irish people believed him and crowned him king of Ireland. He then returned to England with an army of Irish and German soldiers, intent on claiming the English crown. His army was small and ill-trained, and was defeated at the Battle of Stoke. The pretender was taken prisoner and it turned out that his name was Lambert Simnel, the son of a baker. Henry did not execute Lambert, but sent him to work in the royal kitchens. I suppose we could claim that Lambert Simnel, a baker’s son, was the last king of Ireland. But, in reality, he was no such thing.

Shortly after this, another man claimed to be one of the two princes who had been murdered in the Tower of London on the orders of Richard III. But he, too, was an impostor, named Perkin Warbeck, who had been put up to this ruse by enemies of Henry’s who wanted the crown for themselves. Warbeck got support from Cornwall, which is part of England, but when Henry’s army came to do battle, Warbeck ran away to France. He was eventually captured and at first Henry treated him kindly. But when he found out that Warbeck was still plotting with others to overthrow him, he had the man beheaded.

Henry VII reigned as king of England and Lord of Ireland until his death in 1509. During his life, he showed little interest in Ireland. But that changed with the coronation of his son, Henry VIII. Events that took place during his reign were to have terrible consequences for the people of both England and Ireland. They led to great bloodshed and suffering yet began over the simple matter of who should be Henry’s rightful wife.

T
he disasters, which were to befall Ireland and England at the beginning of the sixteenth century, began with two weddings. The first was in 1501, when sixteen-year-old Prince Arthur, heir to the throne, married Catherine of Aragon. Two months later the young prince died. On his death, the second son of Henry VII, also named Henry, became heir to the throne. When the king died in 1509, this second son was crowned Henry VIII. He was then just eighteen years old.

Towards the end of his life, Henry VII had become greedy and cruel, and the people were glad to see an end to his reign. They hoped his son would be a better king than his father. At first, they were not disappointed. The young man was intelligent, he wrote books, music and songs, and loved wrestling and hunting. Soon his subjects came to love and admire him.

After his coronation, the second wedding took place when Henry married Catherine, his brother Arthur’s widow. At this time, it was forbidden by the Catholic Church for any man to marry his brother’s widow. England was a Catholic country and in order to marry Catherine, Henry had to get permission from the Pope. Unfortunately, Henry and Catherine’s sons did not live. Henry blamed his wife for this, and began to worry about who should reign after his death. It was very important that a king had an heir. If he did not, then on his death there was likely to be disputes over who should be the next king. At times these disputes led to wars, something Henry wished to avoid.

Henry decided to take a new wife who, he hoped, would bear him sons. He was in love with a woman, Anne Boleyn, and wished to marry her. But in order to marry, he would have to divorce Catherine and would again need permission from the Pope to do so. This time the Pope refused permission, which angered Henry. He was a powerful king and thought that the Pope should not tell him what he could or could not do. Henry declared himself head of the Church in England, divorced Catherine and married Anne. This had little effect on Ireland, which was also a Catholic country. But later it would have terrible consequences.

Anne was a beautiful young woman and at first she and Henry were happy. Soon a daughter, Princess Elizabeth, was born, but they did not have any sons. Henry still did not have a male heir. He now decided to get rid of Anne and marry someone else. Rather than divorce Anne, he had her falsely accused of treason. When she was found guilty, she was beheaded. It was a terrible thing for Henry to do. Not only did he have his wife executed, but the little Princess Elizabeth, who was just two years old, lost her mother.