|
The Introduction of "Brass
Money" - Misery of Ireland in Consequence - The New Imposition called "Cess"
- Rise of Prices - Crying down the Coinage - Death of Edward VI -
Accession of Mary - Fall of the Earl of Tyrone - Rise of Shane O'Neill -
War in Ulster - Defeat of the Baron of Dungannon - Shane O'Neill
triumphant.
Matters temporal and
spiritual usually go hand in hand in Ireland. By the irony of fate the
advent of "brass money" coinage, which is indissolubly associated in the
minds of men of Ulster with Popery and wooden shoes, was contemporaneous
with the coming of the Reformation. By a resolution of the English
Council, dated the 8th of July, 1550, it was determined that a mint should
forthwith be established in Ireland, and that it should be farmed out for
twelve months, on terms which brought about the last and worst measure any
Government can adopt, a debasement of the currency. The Irish standard had
been always lower than the English. When the English silver was 11 ounces
fine to 1 of alloy, the Irish had been 8 ounces fine to 4 of alloy. It was
now arranged with the manager of the Irish mint that the money to be
coined was to be 4 ounces fine with 8 of alloy. The pound weight of
silver, if coined at a pure standard, yielded forty-eight shillings; with
two-thirds of alloy it should therefore produce one hundred and
forty-four; and if the King was to make twenty-four thousand pounds by
receiving, as arranged, thirteen shillings and fourpence on every seven
pounds four shillings that were issued, three hundred thousand pounds'
worth of base coin would be let out over the Irish people in a single
year. Notwithstanding that such a procedure threatened the country with
great injury, the mint was established, and we learn from the Annalists
that "new money was introduced into Ireland, that is copper; and the men
of Ireland were obliged to accept it for Silver". In consequence, prices
rose, and trade was utterly disorganized. The new coin was of so base a
description that its introduction into England -was prohibited under
severe penalties. The mint continued, notwithstanding the universal outcry
against the debasing of the currency, to pour forth supplies of coin, each
issue being baser than the one which had preceded it. The confusion and
loss caused thereby became daily more intolerable.
Such was the state of the
currency in 1551, when Sir Anthony St. Leger left the country. He was
succeeded, as we have seen, by Sir James Crofts, who was struck by the
misery resulting from the circulation of the bad money, and complained, in
a letter to the Duke of Northumberland, that he could not understand why
Ireland should have worse money than England. He protested against a
continuance of the debasement, and entreated that the standard might be
restored. The mischief had only commenced; yet even then he represented
that the soldiers could no longer live upon their wages; and the
importance of this statement may be estimated from the fact that the
maintenance of the garrisons in the affected districts alone cost
thousands yearly. The natives had so poor an opinion of the coinage that
they would not accept the money upon any terms. Crofts added that "the
town of Dublin and the whole English army would be destroyed for want of
victuals if a remedy were not provided". He suggested that a possible
remedy would be to cry down the money to its true value, and to issue no
more of it. In reply to his complaints, Crofts was told that the
reformation of the coinage was impossible, and the calling down
objectionable. It was suggested that he should consult the principal
people in the country about it; and he received a broad hint that the
churches contained jewels and plate, which he might secure, failing which
he could dismiss the soldiers if he could not pay them.
The Lord Deputy, an honest
man, was in a cruel plight, but he recognized the truth of "needs must
when the devil drives"; and as he could not dispense with his soldiers, he
admits that in order to keep the army from starving he had been driven to
purveying, but he hoped this state of things would not last long. "We have
forced the people for the time", he wrote, "to take seven shillings for
that measure of corn which they sell for a mark, and twelve shillings for
the beef which they sell for fifty-three shillings and fourpence. These
things cannot be borne without grudge, neither is it possible it should
continue." The merchants cried out piteously against the fraud which was
filching from them the results of their commerce. Consultations were of no
avail. "I sent", wrote the Lord Deputy, "for inhabitants of Dublin, Cork,
Limerick, Waterford, and Drogheda, to know the causes of the dearth of
corn and cattle, and how the same might be remedied. I declared unto them
how the merchants were content to sell iron, salt, coal, and other
necessaries, if they might buy wine and corn as they were wont to do. And
thereof grew a confusion in argument, that when the merchant should need
for his house not past two or three bushels of corn, he could not upon so
small an exchange live; and likewise the farmer that should have need of
salts, shoes, cloth, iron, hops, and such others, could not make so many
divisions of his grain, neither should he at all times need that which the
merchants of necessity must sell. So it was that money must serve for the
common exchange."
A meeting was held in
Dublin at the close of the year 1551, at which the Deputy met
representatives of the industrial classes in Ireland, and discussed the
first principles of commercial economy, but the meeting appears to have
been barren of results. Those present agreed that "By the whole consent of
the world gold and silver had gotten the estimation above other metals as
meetest to make money of, and that estimation could not be altered by one
little corner of the world, though it had risen but upon a fantastical
opinion, when indeed it was grounded upon reason, according to the gifts
that nature had wrought in those metals". They concluded, therefore, that
if the currency could not honestly be restored, they preferred the lesser
of two evils, and desired that it should be immediately called down to its
market valuation.
But though the opinion of
the country had been taken, as suggested, and the country was absolutely
against the new coinage, and cried aloud for redress, the Government paid
no heed to their sufferings. The prices continued to rise. "The measure of
corn that was wont to be at two or three shillings", and when Croft was
appointed Deputy in March, 1551, was "at six shillings and eightpence",
rose a year later to "thirty shillings". "A cow that had been worth six
shillings and eightpence sold for forty shillings; six herrings for a
groat; cow-hides were ten to twelve shillings a hide; a tonne of Gascon
wine was sold for twelve pounds, and of Spanish wine for double that sum."
The distress in the
agricultural districts was particularly acute, owing chiefly to the
reintroduction of the Anglo-Irish custom of coyne and livery under the new
name of "cess". This new imposition has been defined as "a prerogative of
the prince and an agreement and consent of the nobility to impose upon the
country a certain proportion of victual and provision of all kinds, to be
delivered and issued at a reasonable rate, or as it is commonly termed" at
the King's price.
This price, unfortunately
for the farmers, varied from time to time, being fixed by proclamation,
and remained unaffected by the depreciation of the currency. Therefore, as
the value of money decreased the cess became increasingly burdensome. The
picture drawn by the honest Lord Deputy is harrowing even after a great
lapse of time. "The people", he wrote, "know not the actual cause of their
misery, but they know it originates in England; and that reflection is a
source of bitterness: they do collect all the enormities that have grown
in so many years, so that there is among them such hatred, such
disquietures of mind, such wretchedness upon the poor men and artificers,
that all the crafts must decay, and towns turn to ruin, and all things
either be in common, or each live by others' spoil ; and thereof must
needs follow slaughter, famine, and all kinds of misery." Crofts was in
deadly earnest. "Baseness of coin", he assured Northumberland, who, no
doubt, was tired of the subject, for he never even acknowledged the
receipt of the letter, " causeth universal dearth, increaseth idleness,
decayeth nobility one of the principal keys of the commonwealth and
bringeth magistrates into hatred and contempt of the people."
The wail of the injured
Irish now rose in tones too piteous to be neglected, and at last, in
April, 1552, Northumberland consented to cry down the money to half its
previous value. Three thousand pounds weight of bullion was sent to
Dublin, with orders to the manager of the mint to call down the coin, buy
it in at the reduced valuation, and make a new issue at the old standard
or something approximately near it. The crying down was effected in June,
and a partial revival of the stricken trade of the country followed.
The death of Edward VI, in
July, 1553, grievously upset the existing order of things. The tables were
turned, and those who were ardent reformers were to be themselves speedily
reformed. Browne and Staples were, on the accession of Mary, expelled from
their Sees, and Dowdall was replaced in his archbishopric. Mary,
notwithstanding her Catholicism, was not a Papist. She retained the title
of Queen of Ireland in spite of the contention of Pope Paul IV that "it
belonged only to him to give the name of a king", and clung with so much
tenacity to the dignity that the Pope in the end was content "to dissemble
the knowledge of what Henry had done and himself to erect the island into
a kingdom, that so the world might believe that the Queen had used the
title as given by the Pope, not as decreed by her father ".
Ireland under Catholic Mary
was, alas! no happier than under Protestant Edward, indeed there is every
reason to believe that the country suffered more during the reign of the
Queen, for we are told that "the Irish were not quieter during her reign
than they were under her brother; but, on the contrary, their antipathy
against Englishmen and government induced them to be as troublesome then
as at other times", for "although the Queen was zealous to propagate the
Catholic religion, yet her ministers did not forbear to injure and abuse
the Irish".
Under these circumstances
it is not to be wondered at that Irish grievances increased and
multiplied. When Conn O'Neill was created Earl of Tyrone, the Lord Deputy,
Sir Anthony St. Leger, believed that the remedy for Irish anarchy had at
last been found. He had yet to learn that though the loyalty of Irish
clansmen to their chiefs was very great, their loyalty to their national
traditions was greater still. The evidence of this loyalty is clearly seen
in the conduct of John or Shane O'Neill, a son of the Earl of Tyrone, who
now appeared upon the scene. In the settlement brought about by Henry
VIII, Tyrone surrendered his lands to the Crown, as already stated, only
to receive them again under the usual feudal tenure. The earldom he
received for himself and his heirs, and he named as his heir Ferdoragh
(called by the English chroniclers Matthew), his favourite son, who was
accordingly created Baron of Dungannon. It was admitted at the time that
there were serious doubts as to Ferdoragh's legitimacy, for he had not
been presented to O'Neill by Alison Kelly, his mother, the wife of a
blacksmith at Dundalk, until he was sixteen years old. Most men under
these circumstances would have denied the paternity, but Conn O'Neill
being as his son, Shane, later explained to Queen Elizabeth "a gentleman,"
in that "he never denied any child that was sworn to him, and that he had
plenty of them", accepted the lad as his son, and, finding that he was a
fine, dashing youth, gradually began to take delight in him. Thus it was
that, on being required to name his heir, he named Ferdoragh, and
accordingly to Ferdoragh was secured the reversion of the earldom on his
father's death.
Tyrone, having grown old,
became forgetful of his submission, and, reflecting on his past life,
became filled with an abnormal sense of the greatness and regal splendour
of his race. He had in his early manhood pronounced a curse on those of
his posterity who should ever conform to English ways or associate with
Saxons. And now all these favourite ideas were revived, when from his own
reconciliation with the English Government he returned to live among his
kinsmen and followers. His partiality for his son Ferdoragh caused much
jealousy among his legitimate children. Shane and his brother Hugh
endeavoured to alienate their father from the Baron of Dungannon, and from
the Government which had countenanced his shameful liking for one who was
in all probability not his son. They reproached him with his degenerate
submissions to the English Crown, and exhorted him to resume the ancient
dignity and independence of his house. The Earl was but too susceptible to
such impressions, and readily sacrificed the interests of his favourite to
dreams of shaking off the yoke of allegiance and recovering the ancient
independence of the house of O'Neill. He began to regret his unjust
partiality to Ferdoragh, and desired that Shane should succeed to all his
honours. Some attempts against Ferdoragh made by Shane and Hugh, with the
Earl's connivance, raised considerable commotion, and obliged Dungannon to
advise the authorities at Dublin of the dangers he himself ran, and of the
suspicious conduct of his father and his tendency to revolt. These charges
resulted in the Earl and Countess being arrested and removed to the
restraining influence of the English Pale, and later, on some further
rumours of their disloyal intentions, to their being imprisoned in the
house of a magistrate in Dublin.
Shane now proceeded to make
war against Ferdoragh, to whom he attributed the imprisonment of his
parents. Ferdoragh relied on the assistance of the Lord Deputy, and the
Lord Deputy, depending on the forces commanded by the Baron, joined him
with some newly raised levies. Shane and his followers were reinforced by
a body of Scots, who had made a descent upon Ulster and were ready to
engage in the service of any chieftain who was ready and willing to pay
for his requirements. He suddenly attacked the joint forces of the Lord
Deputy and Dungannon, defeated and pursued them with considerable
slaughter, and, encouraged by this success, he plundered his father's
castle, ravaged his whole territory, and spread desolation through a
district the fairest and most flourishing in the whole island. Repeated
attempts made by the Lord Deputy to reduce him to submission were futile,
and as a rule ended for the Crown in disgrace and disappointment. A new
force was now in Ulster, and years elapsed before the Crown ceased to be
troubled by Shane O'Neill. |
