Ireland under the Tudors (Vol. 1-3). Bagwell Richard

      Trial and execution of Grey.

An enormous number of charges were brought against Grey. He was accused of maintaining the King’s enemies and depressing the King’s friends, of injustice to Irishmen and others, of violence towards Councillors and others, and of extortion. There is no reason to suppose that he could have taken young Gerald, with whom, in Stanihurst’s quaint language, he was accused of ‘playing bo-peep;’ but no doubt he had been guilty of much injustice, as his unprovoked invasion of Ferney and his treatment of O’More sufficiently prove. He cannot be called a man of scrupulous honour, or he would not have arrested the Geraldines at dinner, or professed his intention to capture his nephew by fair means or foul. But Henry VIII. knew how to pardon such conduct, though he could punish his instruments when it suited him. The Irish chiefs felt that they could not trust Grey, and therefore kept no faith with him. He was accused on all sides of greed, and especially of making useless expeditions for the sake of plunder. The usual inquisition made after his arrest shows that he had some private hoards. He was violent in Council, and no doubt it was often hard for a Viceroy, especially for one who suffered from gout, to deal with the Dublin officials, who were independent of him and sometimes spies on his conduct. ‘I think,’ says Walter Cowley, ‘there is not one of the King’s Council there but my Lord Deputy successively have sore fallen out with them.’ But he was rude and tyrannical to others also, as to Lord Delvin, whose life he was accused of shortening by insults, and especially by calling him traitor, ‘which,’ says the old Earl of Ormonde, ‘shall never be proved.’ In any case and whatever his actual guilt, a cloud of witnesses appeared to denounce Grey.231 He pleaded guilty, rather in hopes of mercy than acknowledging his faults; but no pardon followed. That he had any treasonable intention is more than doubtful, but there was more against him than against Buckingham; he suffered a year’s imprisonment in the Tower, and then underwent the fate to which his treacherous compliance with a tyrant’s wishes had condemned his Geraldine kinsmen.

      FOOTNOTES:

      201. Ormonde to St. Leger, March 12, 1538. See also the ‘Fall of the Clan Kavanagh,’ by Hughes, Irish Archæological Journal, 4th series, vol. ii., 1873. Erics were compositions for murder, caines for other felonies. Rahownes may be the same as ‘sorohen.’ I do not understand allyieg, unless it be ‘allying’ with the Irish.

202. Four Masters, 1537; Brabazon to Aylmer and Alen, Whitsuntide, 1538; Council of Ireland to Cromwell, June 10, 1538.

203. Grey to the King, June 4, 1538; Brabazon to Aylmer and Alen, Whitsuntide; Luttrell to Aylmer, June 5; Council to Aylmer, June 10. All the accounts make out that Kelway was quite wrong.

204. Justice Luttrell to Chief Justice Aylmer, June 5, 1538; Ormonde’s instructions to R. Cowley, June; Lord Butler to his father and to R. Cowley, June.

205. Lord Butler to his father, June 19, 1538; Ormonde to the Irish Council, June; to R. and W. Cowley, July 16; to R. Cowley, July 20; to the Privy Council, S.P., vol. iii., p. 77; Grey to the King, June 4 and July 26; Council of Ireland to Cromwell, June 10, July 24, and August 22.

206. Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alen to Cromwell, Aug. 24, 1538. For the treatment of O’More see Ormonde to R. Cowley, June 1538; Aylmer and Alen’s articles against Grey, June. Lord Butler to R. Cowley, June 20. Articles alleged on the part of O’More, S.P., vol. iii. p. 26. Council of Ireland to Cromwell, June 10. Luttrell to Aylmer, June 5. The ten years’ truce between Charles V. and Francis I. was concluded June 28, so that Lord Butler must refer to some earlier negotiations.

207. Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alen to Cromwell, July 24, 1538.

208. Grey to the King, July 26, 1538. Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alen to Cromwell, Aug. 22. Information against Lord Leonard Grey, Oct. 1840, in Carew.

209. Grey’s account has been pretty closely followed; see his letter to the King, July 26, 1538.

210. For unfavourable strictures on Grey’s journey see Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alen to Cromwell, Aug. 22; articles by the Earl of Ormonde in S.P., vol. iii. p. 77; Thomas Agard to Cromwell, July 25, 1538. Agard blames Grey for taking cannon with him; he risked them of course.

211. Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alen to Cromwell, Aug. 22.

212. Articles by the Earl of Ormonde, S.P., vol. iii. p. 80.

213. Brabazon, &c., as above.

214. Grey to Cromwell, Oct. 31, 1538, in Carew.

215. Ibid. The ‘islands’ referred to seem to be the peninsula of Ards, subsequent attempts to colonise which did not meet with much success. The islets in Lough Strangford are very small.

216. St. Leger and others to Cromwell, Nov. 15, 1537, and Jan. 2, 1538.

217. J. Alen to St. Leger, S.P., vol. ii. p. 486, 1537. St. Leger and others to Cromwell, Jan. 2, 1538; to Wriothesley, Feb. 11. The King to St. Leger and others, Jan. 17. The Commissioners sailed from Dublin in April.

218. Interrogatories, with Aylmer and Alen’s answers, as to Paulet’s conversations, are printed in the S.P., vol. ii. pp. 551-553.

219. Alen and others to Cromwell, Jan. 18, 1539. In his letter to Cromwell of Sept. 8, 1539, R. Cowley says Saintloo did no service, but kept in a corner like a King, used every kind of extortion, and took no notice of the universal outcry against him. ‘Such a liberty,’ says Cowley, ‘is more like to induce them to plain rebellion than to any civil order.’

220. Council of Ireland to Cromwell, Feb. 8, 1539, and also the letter of Jan. 18, and Browne to Cromwell, Feb. 16. The letter of Jan. 18 says ‘all the Bishops of Munster’ were summoned.

221. The Council of Ireland to Cromwell, Jan. 18 and Feb. 8. Both letters are signed by Alen, Aylmer, and Brabazon; the second by Browne also.

222. Grey to the King, May 9, 1539; Walter Cowley to Cromwell, Feb. 18, 1539; Thomas Wusle, Constable of Carrick Fergus, to Laurans, Constable of Ardglass, March 1539, in Carew; confession of Connor More O’Connor, servant to young Gerald, April 17, 1539; Brabazon to Cromwell, May 26; Gerot Fleming to Cromwell, April 27.