zealots," "the King's Majesty hath one Catholic city, and "one champion, the Lord Butler, in this land, that dare

repugn against the detestable abusions of so sundry "sects as this miserable land is in manner overflowen "withal, whose pharisaical ceremonies and hypocrisy, of

so long time continued here, hath not only trained and "brought the people in manner wholly from the know"ledge of God, but also in an evil and erroneous opinion "of the King's most noble Grace, and of all those that "under his Majesty be the setters forth of the true Word "of God, and repugnators against those abuses."t

Lord Butler followed up the attack in almost the same words; and was supported by Agard, another member of the same clique. Since the departure of Robert Cowley, writes Agard to Cromwell,§ "here is no news, neither "business, but all after one rate; so that here as yet "the blood of Christ is clean blotted out of all men's hearts, what with that monster the Bishop of Rome, "and his adherents. It is hard, my good "Lord, for any poor man to speak against their abu"sions here; for except it be the Archbishop of Dublin, “which doth here in preaching set forth God's Word "with due obedience to their Prince, and my good "Lord Butler, the Master of the Rolls, Mr. Treasurer, "and one or two more, which are of small reputations, "here is else none, from the highest, may abide the

*White to Cromwell, 28 March 1538. White was in Lord Ormond's service, or had been.

Grey had intimated in one of his letters that the Butlers were becoming formidable, notwithstanding their professions of attachment to the Crown. Not unlikely, considering that their great rivals the Geraldines were now powerless. See S. Pap. II. 419.

State Papers, II. 563.

§ 5 April 1538.

"hearing of it, spiritual, as they call them, nor temporal; "and in especial they that here rule all, that be the "temporal lawyers, which have the King's fee."*

My Lord Deputy, says Archbishop Brown, still bears "his favours towards the Observants."+ "Our Governor," says Lord James Butler in a letter to Cowley, then in London, "threatens every man after such a tyrannous "sort, as no man dare speak or repugne reasonably "against his appetite; more than I or any other true "Christian man durst speak against the Bishop of "Rome's usurped authority, if we were there; of whose "sect he is chief and principal in this land, albeit there "is nothing so apparent but he will deny."

So far as these charges were intended to insinuate that Grey was not active in enforcing the King's supremacy, they are disproved by his actions.§ But probably the authors of them were justified in ascribing to Grey a strong partiality for the old religion. "Surely he hath a special zeal to the Papists," || might with some justice be urged against him by his enemies; for we find that on one occasion whilst he was holding a sessions at Trim, with the Archbishop of Dublin, Brabazon, and others, he not only refused to allow "the Papists, hypocrites, and worshippers of idols," as the writer calls them, to be indicted and arraigned, but whilst the other three remained outside "the chapel where the idol of Trim stood,.

*

Agard had a personal animosity against Grey, as we learn from another letter. He had set up broad looms and a dyehouse in Dublin, and his project was not countenanced by the Deputy, "which is my heavy lord." (State Papers, II. 569.)

† State Papers, III. 67.

Ibid. p. 34.

|| Lord James Butler to Cromwell, 26 August 1538. ¶ Thomas Alen to Cromwell, 20 October 1538.

§ Ibid. p. 59.

my Lord Deputy, very devoutly kneeling before her, "heard three or four masses." *

Nor, inconsistent as it may appear to us, was this attachment to the ancient faith considered at that time as incompatible with the fullest acknowledgment of the royal supremacy. Prelates like Gardyner and Bonner, zealous Roman Catholics of all ranks, even Mary herself, found no difficulty in reconciling this article of their political with their religious creed. Ireiand, like England, was divided into four parties: those who, like Grey, acknowledged unreservedly the King's supremacy, and yet thought they might hold it with due regard to doctrines long established, and submission to ministers who still preached them. Secondly, Protestants, like Archbishop Brown, Agard, and others, who considered the least toleration of Romish doctrine as no better than hypocrisy, and would have rooted out with fire and sword all those who retained any affection for the mass, and refused to denounce the Pope as Anti-christ. Thirdly, Roman Catholics who looked with unloving eyes on the proceedings of Henry VIII., but yet reluctantly complied with the King's commands when they could not escape them. And fourthly, those-by far the greatest number at least in Ireland-who placed their obedience to the Pope above all other considerations, and flinched not from disobedience, disloyalty, and death

* Yet Alen admits that Ireland was never in better order (III. 102). "This country was in no such quiet these many years, for throughout the "land, in manner, it is peace both with English and Irish. I never did 66 see, in my time, so great resort to the law as is this term, which is a good sign of good quiet and obedience; which I do not only impute "to my Lord Deputy's martial feats, but also to the industry, policy, and "compassing of other of the King's Council, who bave of late taken great pains in that behalf."

itself, whenever their consciences dictated the sacrifice. The moderate men of either party disappeared in the terrible commotions by which Ireland was shaken for so many years, leaving the hot-headed zealots, a small active minority on one side, a disunited and uninfluential multitude on the other, to carry on their interminable feuds, to the loss of good government, of national peace, prosperity, union, and happiness.

The religious inclinations of Grey naturally exposed him to another charge, of which his pertinacious assailants were not slow to avail themselves, and which Grey found it less easy to shake off. As the Butlers were the champions of Protestantism, their enemies the Geraldines were the supporters of the Pope.* Now, Grey's sister, Elizabeth, married to Gerald FitzGerald, ninth Earl of Kildare, was the mother of Gerald FitzGerald, second son of the preceding Earl, whose marvellous escapes from the clutches and snares of the English government form such a picturesque episode in Irish history.† I shall not here detail how he was carried off by his aunt-how he fled to France-was placed under the protection of Cardinal Pole-defeated the ingenuity of numerous English spies, hungering after English gold. His wonderful and almost incredible adventures, his nearness in blood to the Deputy, seemed to justify the suspicion that all the efforts of England to secure the prize had been frustrated by Grey's connivance. The accusations were numerous; they were repeated with the utmost pertinacity.‡

*State Papers, III. 176.

Upon the death of his half-brother Thomas, in the Tower, this Gerard FitzGerald became heir to the earldom. His mother, the Countess, resided with her second son, Edward, at Beaumanoir, in Leicestershire, a house belonging to her brother, Lord Leonard. See S. P. II. 344.

See State Papers, III. 52, 56, 63, 78, 102. See also Alen and Aylmer's charges to the same effect, Ibid. III. 39, 87, 129.

It was useless for Grey to assert that he had used every effort to capture his nephew, whose name had now become a rallying point for a growing anti-English party in Ireland.* His failure to take his nephew, whom he had never seen, and was never destined to see, was attributed to any but the true motive. The escape of FitzGerald, the temporary triumph of his party in 1539, the encouragement which it gave to the enemies of England both on the Continent and in Ireland, were received by the King and his minister Cromwell with the utmost mortification, and probably contributed more than anything else to the Deputy's eventual disgrace. If he was not made to feel the immediate consequences of the King's vengeance, that delay was not owing so much to the important services he had rendered in Ireland-for, whatever might be his defects of temper, even his enemies could not deny that he had done more by his activity to secure peace and extend the King's authority than any of his predecessors as to the belief that he might still prove a useful instrument in securing the person of his nephew. It is probable also that the King was unwilling needlessly to provoke the resentment of the Geraldines, who were still unquestionably the most popular of all the septs in Ireland. The Irish priests and friars throughout the country preached daily in young FitzGerald's behalf, and promised the joys of heaven to those who suffered death and martyrdom in his cause. "I ensure your Lordship," writes Cowley

*See State Papers, III. 16, 106, 127, 156, 193.

† Ibid., III. 141. "I suspect much our own country," says Alen, in a letter to Cromwell, 19 July 1539, "what for the affection part of "them bear to the Geraldines, and the favour that many hath to the Bishop of Rome and his laws and errors, that they will either turn against us or otherwise stand us in small stead; much the rather I