ense. The
English Yorkists joined his party, and the little army landed at Dublin,
in May, 1487. On Whit-Sunday, the 24th of that month, Lambert Simnel was
crowned in the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. After the ceremony he was
borne in state, on the shoulders of tall men to the Castle. One of his
bearers, a gigantic Anglo-Irishman, was called Great Darcy. Coins were
now struck, proclamations issued, and all the writs and public acts of
the colony executed in the name of Edward VI.

Soon after, Simnel's party conducted him to England, where they were
joined by a few desperate men of the Yorkist party. The battle of Stoke,
in Nottinghamshire, terminated the affair. The youth and his tutor were
captured, and the principal officers were slain. According to one
account, Simnel was made a turnspit in the royal kitchen; according to
another authority[373] he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. It
would appear as if Henry was afraid to visit the Earl of Kildare too
heavily for his transgressions, as he retained him in the office of Lord
Deputy.

The use of fire-arms appears to have become general in Ireland about
this period (1487), as the Annals mention that an O'Rourke was slain by
an O'Donnell, "with a ball from a gun;" and the following year the Earl
of Kildare destroyed the Castle of Balrath, in Westmeath, with ordnance.
The early guns were termed hand-cannons and hand-guns, to distinguish
them from the original fire-arms, which were not portable, though there
were exceptions to this rule; for some of the early cannons were so
small, that the cannonier held his gun in his hand, or supported it on
his shoulder, when firing it.[374]

In 1488 Sir Richard Edgecumbe was sent to Ireland to exact new oaths of
allegiance from the Anglo-Norman lords, whose fidelity Henry appears to
have doubted, and not without reason. The commissioner took up his
lodgings with the Dominican friars, who appear to have been more devoted
to the English interests than their Franciscan brethren; but they did
not entertain the knight at their own expense, for he complains
grievously of his "great costs and charges." A Papal Bull had been
procured, condemning all who had rebelled against the King. This was
published by the Bishop of Meath, with a promise of absolution and royal
pardon for all who should repent. Edgecumbe appears to have been at his
wit's end to conciliate the "rebels," and informs us that he spent the
night in "devising as sure an