"in this realm that went the right way as he doth, "both for the setting forth of God's Word to his honour, "and to the honour of the King's Majesty, and his "Grace's great commodity and profit." With the Archbishop of Dublin he seems to have continued on good terms, and to have joined that prelate heartily in his efforts to advance the Reformation. Though Bellingham's sincerity could not be questioned, he not only preserved a moderation which the difficulties of his place required, but he acted with a spirit of kindness and forbearance towards those who differed from him, not generally found in the men of his times. His letter to the Archbishop of Armagh, who still continued refractory, is a model of Christian charity and discretion, which other governors in like circumstances might have done well to imitate.

"My Lord Primate,

"I pray you lovingly and charitably to be circumspect in your doings, and consider how God hath liberally given you divers gifts, and namely of reputation amongst the people, which requireth a great consideration at all times, as well in your acts as words. The King's Majesty also is, and hath been, your good and gracious lord; and I, his minister here, doth not a little love and esteem you. Wherefore I require you, let all these in part be with the gratuity of setting forth the plain, simple, and naked truth recompensed; and the way to do the same is to know that which, with a mild and humble spirit wished, sought, and prayed for, will most certainly be given, which I pray God grant us both.

"Your friend,

"EDWARD BELLYNGHAM.

"I pray you fail not to hearken for my return to Dublin, and to repair thither, to the intent consultation be had for the better setting forth of the truth and obedience amongst the King's Majesty's loving subjects."*

* Irish State Papers, Vol. I., No. 162.

(1549.) But Bellingham was not destined, any more than his predecessors, to escape the tooth of detraction. The widow of the Earl of Ormond, whose death in England has already been mentioned, had married Sir Francis Bryan, better known by his services to Henry VIII. Bryan seems to have enjoyed the favour of the Council,* for he was created marshal of the army on 6th January 1549. The new Deputy, like most of his predecessors, regarded this augmentation of the influence of the Butlers with feelings of dislike and suspicion.† He was by no means inclined to tolerate the least derogation from his authority or share its dignity with another. To increase his dissatisfaction, some dispute sprung up between him and the Countess of Ormond respecting the guardianship of the young Earl's property, who was at that time residing in England. In a letter to Esam, Bellingham urges that "it is a good quiet time of reformation of that fault, [i.e. "the independence of the Butlers] whilst their heirs be "within age, and the order of their possessions and "servants be merely in the Deputy's hands, which if it "be committed to any other of their friends, they will

* See Cowley's letter to Bellingham, Irish State Papers, II. 47 and 49.

† Alen says in a letter to Cecil, written some time after, "What was "betwixt him (Bryan) and Mr. Bellingham before their coming hither, I "know not; but I think Mr. Bellingham bare him such displeasure as "I never see him bare to none other; and, as I judge, he would have "done the like to any other that had married my Lady of Ormond. I "will not divine what King Kenry VIII. see in Mr. Bryan, to use him in such trust of the weighty affairs of his realm; nother what the Lords see in him to make him, as it were, Viceroy of this realm." (Irish State Papers, III. 26.) Of Bryan, Aschan says: "Some men being never so old and spent by years, will still be full of youthful conditions, as was Sir F. Bryan, and evermore would have been." (Schoolmaster, p. 129, ed. J. B. Mayor.)

Irish State Papers, I. 140.

66 get thank of the infant when he cometh to age, and "for their own private commodity together maintain the "old misdemeanours."

In conformity with this resolution, and the strict determination to uphold his authority to the utmost, the Deputy had strongly advised that the young Earl should be detained in England. In fact, this appears to have been Bellingham's fault, and sometimes to have given to his conduct an appearance of absolutism. In a letter written about the same time to the Earl of Warwick he remonstrates very warmly, and in language not likely to be acceptable to so ambitious a member of the Privy Council, against any interference on their part with his authority. The Council had resolved to erect a mint in Ireland, to which they had appointed one Agarde, notorious for the part he had taken against Lord Leonard Grey. They had resolved to exempt the mint from Bellingham's control, much to his dissatisfaction; and in his remonstrance there is a mixture of haughtiness and boldness, to which evidently the Council in England had not been accustomed. "I am,” he says, "at your honourable "Lordship's commandment, as Bellingham, as much as

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any servant you have; but, in respect I am the King's "Deputy, your good Lordship may determine surely that "I will have none exempt from my authority, in Ire"land's ground, but sore against my will." In the same letter he urges Warwick to stand his good Lord, “that all

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men here may know I am the King's Deputy; so "that they shall think, when they have my favours,

things go well with them, and the contrary when they "have them not." *

"My Lord," he adds, "there hath been such letters, so

Irish State Papers, I. 132.

many, and in manner all, and namely that came from your Lordship, which sounded so much to the little con"fidence there is in my proceedings, that if I had not with "words and countenance affirmed here that they were [written] upon sinister information, so that they were "the less material, I take God to record, I think that, "besides that the King had been utterly unserved by me, "I should, with most ignominy, and for lack of reputation, have been driven to have returned into England.' Was the ambitious Earl to be propitiated by such language? †

To add to his discomfort, his old friend Alen seems to

* Bellingham in this letter touches on a practice, which, as we have seen in previous instances, was productive of many evil consequences; namely, that the sinister information of certain persons has "been more "hindrance to the reformation of Ireland than all the rebels and Irishry "within the realm. . . Till your Lordship and others perceive "what is for the reformation of this realm, better than yet your Honours "do, the best minister that ever was, and he that best doeth or meaneth, were as good sit still as go about it." He adds that none but those who were importunate with the Council, for the sake of their own interest, had any chance of being attended to. "And till this be otherwise, it is "not possible this realm should be reformed or amended, so that it shall "not continue. And to confirm their informations to be good, once in a

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year or two, certain commissioners are sent over with the good and "careful zeal your Lordship and others of the most honourable Council "have to the bouncing out of the truth; and those same commissioners "are by these sinister informators there in England procured, and hither "into Ireland conveyed, and here by them and their means delicately "used (as the country will bear it). The said commissioners, nothing "able to abide the pain and time requisite, (which two are the finers and "triers of all truth), but so by those that procured them, brought them " and here had the handling of them, they quietly return, with such "little pleasures (as this country will give) received at their hands. "Where their report to your Honours is, according to their corrupt voca"tion (as a man may call it), to come in at the window; and so con"firmeth your judgment with errors worse than the first." (Irish State Papers, I. 132.)

† See his own account, Ibid. I. 166.

have turned against him. Alen had been told that the Deputy was dissatisfied at his claiming too much. credit for himself in the government, which Alen denied. "If he would my death," says Alen, "I would say of "him, as I have heretofore both said and written, that "he is the best man of war that ever I saw in Ireland, "having sithence his coming hither done more service "to the King for his Grace's honour and the terror of "his rebels there, than, after the repressing of the Geraldines, was done here in all the King's father's years, for all his charges; having nevertheless wished, "which I wrote to your Honour only, that Jupiter and "Venus had been as bountiful to him as Mars and "Saturn hath been;" meaning that Bellingham was more remarkable for his saturnine temper and his military exploits than for dignity and beauty of person. confirms in all particulars the accounts we have received of Bellingham's lofty bearing. The Council was but a shadow, and he treated them as such. He went so far as to say that he had not "so great an enemy in Ireland as the Council; and if they were hanged, it were a good "turn." He was fond of telling them "that their wealth and undoing depended upon him," and he threatened to commit them if they offended him. "At other times," says Alen, "he would keep them waiting in the Council "Chamber for two or three hours without making his

He

appearance." To Alen himself he had been particularly offensive. "By God's body!" saith he, "whensoever my "Lord Chancellor goeth about to work mischief, then "he feigneth himself sick." At the same time Alen admits that Bellingham was wholly free from the prevalent vice of greediness.

Bellingham was recalled, and Sentleger was once more sent to replace him. The author of the "Book of Hothe"