Readers of Gibbon will recall the words with which the great historian terminated his brilliant sketch of the career of England’s patron saint: ‘The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter’.

This sweeping denunciation of the renowned St George as a myth has left Englishmen completely indifferent. In Ireland, however, such Olympian detachment is not to be expected, for the national saint is taken seriously—very seriously—and when a brilliant German scholar, in the course of a visit to Ireland, following the opinion of certain eminent writers (among them an Irishman), proclaimed that the St Patrick ‘of the snakes and shamrocks’ had never existed, or was perhaps some other person masquerading under the same name, his announcement created an outburst of indignation and hostility so violent that the professor thought it wiser to curtail his sojourn.

This paper deals with the obscure adventures of a minor official and petty landowner of unremarkable birth and little influence. The details of these adventures, which have for so long been forgotten, and which were once so assiduously concealed, may seem hardly worth the labour of investigation. And yet many statesmen of the seventeenth century attempted such an investigation, including Wentworth himself. Indeed it is no overstatement to say that this examination was a major pre-occupation of the great deputy in the first two years of his appointment.

By Wentworth’s time, Richard Boyle, the minor official in question, had become earl of Cork and lord treasurer of Ireland. He had been one of the lords justices who ruled Ireland before Wentworth’s arrival and had come close to achieving the deputyship itself. He was also the leader of the planter party and enjoyed a rent-roll of £20,000 a year to give reality to his authority. In short he towered over his rivals and enjoyed an influence, founded on both position and wealth, which permeated every part of Irish society.

Few of the writings on the more modern history of Ireland, written in the period between the union and the granting of emancipation, may be said to have been the result of original investigation. Neither from the standpoint of sources nor from the manner of presentation were there any obvious signs of development. The general histories by Gordon, Burdy, Taaffe, Lawless, and the rest relied for their facts upon general histories written in the eighteenth century, such as Leland, Warner, Hume or Curry, or upon the authorities cited in these and for the most part re-edited during our period—such as Cambrensis, Spenser, Keating, Ussher and Ware. Indeed, very often the general historians were only too content to rely solely on each other. Thus, Lawless (1814) was greatly indebted to Taaffe (1811), who, in turn, had leaned upon Plowden (1803). And Burdy (1817) was, for all practical purposes, a re-edition of Gordon (1805), even to the very sentences and marginal indications of the contents of paragraphs.

There were three good reasons why Edward II hastened to secure papal help within the first year of the pontificate of John XXII (1316-17). A number of important bishoprics were vacant to which the king hoped to secure his candidate, he needed fiscal help for defence purposes, and the weight of papal condemnation to fall on his enemies. Within the year he had secured a satisfactory degree of papal support in each of these three desiderabilia, and the cooperation of pope and king touched Irish affairs at some important points.

The general reasons why the king should wish to arrange episcopal succession to his liking are well known. There was particular reason for securing politically reliable bishops in Ireland. As Edward himself was to explain to John, the ‘fraudulent machinations and malicious and false collusion’ of some Irish prelates against royal power had been a major factor in the risings connected with Edward Bruce’s invasion. At this time both Dublin and Cashel were vacant, and Edward took all measures to ensure their filling by men acceptable to him. There were two candidates in the field at Cashel, nominees of a split in the chapter. In August of 1316, Edward wrote to eight cardinals impressing on them the necessity of having an English archbishop, and urging the candidature of a Franciscan, Geoffrey of Aylsham.

By March 21 the British prime minister had discovered that, owing to difficulties raised by Poland and Russia, as well as by Rumania, it would be impossible to secure the support of all the four great powers for the declaration he had suggested on March 20. Chamberlain accordingly altered his course, and on the same day, through Halifax, threw out the suggestion of a bilateral arrangement for mutual consultation between Britain and Poland. The foreign secretary had a long discussion with Count Raczynski, who had received instructions from Warsaw to inform London of Polish objections to the proposed four-power declaration.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were six superior courts in Ireland—chancery, the three common law courts (king’s bench, common pleas and exchequer), the admiralty court and the prerogative court (an ecclesiastical court with jurisdiction over testamentary matters).Four of these courts were of medieval origin. The exchequer was probably in existence before the close of the twelfth century, the Irish chancery was founded early in the thirteenth century, the first Irish chancellor being appointed in 1244, and the antecedents of the courts of king’s bench and common pleas are to be found in the thirteenth century. The other two courts were comparatively modern. The court of prerogative and faculties based its rights to exercise jurisdiction on two sixteenth century acts and two seventeenth century patents, one of James I and one of Charles I. And though admiralty jurisdiction had been exercised in Ireland from medieval times, the Irish court of admiralty had been created by statute in 1784. From the court of chancery and the three common law courts there was an appeal to the court of error (known as the court of exchequer chamber) composed of the judges of the three common law courts, and in 1857 it was enacted that the court of exchequer chamber when hearing an appeal should consist of the judges of the two courts from which the appeal did not arise. From the admiralty court and from the prerogative court there was an appeal to delegates in chancery.

When the Irish rebellion broke out in October 1641, Charles I was in Scotland, where, closely watched by agents of his dissident English parliament, he was attempting, by a policy of tardy retreats and unwonted largesse, to make of the Scottish kirk a pillar of the throne, and to transform wily old enemies like Argyle, Hamilton and Leslie into trusty retainers. Accordingly, when the Scottish estates—then in close liason with Westminster—suggested that the English parliament be entrusted with the management of the Irish war, Charles quickly agreed and sent a message to that effect to London.

In the house of commons, on November 1, the radicals, aware that Ireland formed a common focus of interest for the Scots, the London merchants and many of their supporters in the house, received the news of the rising with ‘smooth brows’. The well-known London interest in Ulster had long been shared by the Scots who had, indeed, attempted to supplant the Londoners in 1638. Hamilton himself appears to have fancied himself as Strafford’s successor.

From 1700 to 1767 it was customary for the lord lieutenant of Ireland to reside in the country only during the period when the Irish parliament was actually in session. Before the amendment of Poynings’ law in 1782 the parliamentary session had lasted approximately six to eight months in every second year. On its prorogation the viceroy had returned to Great Britain for the intervening eighteen months, placing the government of Ireland in the hands of three prominent Irish politicians known as the lords justices. For some years before 1767 the British government had been considering the appointment of a permanently resident lord lieutenant in order to instil stability into the Irish political administration and to remove the necessity for the appointment of Irish politicians as lords justices.

In 1767 the Pitt-Grafton administration appointed George, Viscount Townshend, lord lieutenant of Ireland. On his arrival the new viceroy found that the government of the kingdom was in the hands of the great borough proprietors, many of whom were connected with the influential whig families in Great Britain. These Irish politicians were accustomed to carry through, or undertake, the king’s business in parliament in return for a generous share of administrative patronage, which they used to increase their political power and family prestige. This patronage was mainly connected with the control of the revenue board of which John Ponsonby, speaker of the Irish house of commons, brother of the earl of Bessborough and closely connected with the duke of Devonshire, was the first commissioner.

The following letter is to be found among the Gladstone papers in the British Museum. Its recipient, William Monsell, M.P. for county Limerick and one of the most prominent Irish liberals, evidently felt it was of sufficient interest to send on to the leader of his party. At the time it was written, Gladstone had already declared himself in favour of disestablishment, though as he was still in opposition he was not yet in a position to give effect to his sympathies.

It comes as no surprise to find Dr Moriarty holding the opinions that he proclaims in this letter. The bishop of Kerry was well known as a staunch advocate of the British connexion. He had been the fiercest of all the bishops in his denunciations of fenianism; and a few years later he was publicly to condemn the home rule movement. But in none of his published utterances, probably, did he state so frankly the reasons for his point of view. In a public manifesto addressed to a people critical of his ideas, he would have concentrated on those arguments which might have some appeal for them. In a private letter such as this one, addressed to a person in full sympathy with him, he was hindered by no diplomatic considerations from giving a frank account of his opinions.

The second World War was to find Germany and Italy as allies in a conflict in which their initial opponents were Britain, France and Poland. Italy did not immediately enter the war, but by the terms of the ‘pact of steel’ of 22 May 1939 she was to become a belligerent. The war broke out over the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. The circumstances under which it arose were peculiar in one particular point, namely in that Great Britain entered the conflict directly and immediately as an ally of a power in eastern Europe. She had entered the wars of 1914 and of 1793 in a secondary manner—as an ally of powers already at war and over commitments which related primarily to western and central Europe. It was novel therefore that she should have become involved directly in a conflict relating to eastern Europe.

If one had tried to predict, in 1919, the circumstances under which Britain would fight another war with Germany, few would have hazarded the opinion that she would choose the crossing of the Polish frontier as a casus belli. In addition, if one had, in 1938, tried also to predict Britain’s ally in an eventual conflict, Poland would have come towards the end of the list. Since 1934, Poland had generally been regarded as a power which was endeavouring to keep out of conflicts between Germany and the western powers—at least in the early stages of such a war. The relations between Berlin and Warsaw were, as from their agreement of 26 January 1934, surprisingly cautious; and the personal relations between leading Germans and Poles reflected—or so it appeared—the existence of such friendly relations. However, within a very short period after the Munich agreement of 30 September 1938, Britain was to become deeply involved in the defence of a frontier which British public opinion had previously regarded as the most open to criticism and revision of all the arrangements concluded at Versailles.

On 26 May 1315 an expeditionary force from Scotland landed on the north-east coast of Ireland, not very far from Larne, under the command of Edward Bruce, who was intent on gaining by the sword a kingdom for himself in Ireland after the fashion in which his brother, Robert, had recently won a crown in Scotland. By September 10 he had overthrown the too confident ‘Red Earl’, Richard de Burgh, and was lording it over the east of Ulster save at one point: the royal castle of Carrickfergus, placed impregnably on a rocky headland jutting out into Belfast Lough. The town itself could not, of course, resist, but the castle defied assault for a whole year before it found it wise to surrender on terms.

We have little information about what happened during the siege and are almost wholly dependent upon a few chroniclers and annalists, who are often merely repetitive and are usually writing long after the events they record. Their evidence can be briefly summarised.