eason,
Lord Kildare was once more restored. It cost him but a little time to
deliver himself of the presence of Skeffington; and in 1532 he was again
sole deputy. All which the Earl of Surrey had foretold came to pass.
Archbishop Allen was deprived of the chancellorship, and the Archbishop
of Armagh, a creature of the Geraldines, was substituted in his place.
Those noblemen and gentlemen who had lent themselves to the interests of
the English in the earl's absence were persecuted, imprisoned, or
murdered. They had ventured to be loyal from a belief in the assurances
which had been made to them; but the government was far off and Kildare
was near; and such of them as he condescended to spare "were now driven
in self-defence, maugre their wills, to follow with the rest."[319] The
wind which filled the sails of the ship in which Kildare returned, blew
into flames the fires of insurrection; and in a very Saturnalia of Irish
madness the whole people, with no object that could be discovered but
for very delight in disorder itself, began to tear themselves to pieces.
Lord Thomas Butler was murdered by the Geraldines; Kildare himself was
shot through the body in a skirmish; Powerscourt was burnt by the
O'Tooles; and Dublin Castle was sacked in a sudden foray by O'Brien Oge.
O'Neile was out in the north; Desmond in the south; and the English pale
was overrun by brigands.[320] Ireland had found its way into its ideal
condition--that condition towards which its instincts perpetually
tended, and which at length it had undisputedly reached. The Allens
furnished the king with a very plain report of the effect of his
leniency. They dwelt boldly on the mistakes which had been made.
Reechoing the words of the Report of 1515, they declared that the only
hope for the country was to govern by English deputies; and that to
grudge the cost seemed "consonant to the nature of him that rather than
he will depart with fourpence he will jeopard to lose twenty
shillings--which fourpence, disbursed in time, might have saved the
other."[321] They spoke well of the common Irish. "If well governed,"
they said, "the Irish would be found as civil, politic, and active, as
any other nation. But what subjects under any prince in the world," they
asked, "would love or defend the rights of that prince who,
notwithstanding their true hearts and obedience, would afterwards put
them under the governance of such as would persecute and destroy them?"
Faith must be