LANCASTRIAN-YORKIST IRELAND
York’s attempt on the throne the following autumn
drew solid support from the English of Ireland.
Although York was killed soon after, his son claimed
the throne as King Edward IV, and his ensuing victory
at Towton, the greatest battle of the Wars of the Roses,
left the Yorkists in control. In 1462, the defeated
Lancastrians tried to emulate York’s strategy in reverse:
a Lancastrian invasion of the lordship led by Ormond’s
brother coincided with risings in the midlands and
Meath on behalf of Henry VI. The Lancastrians briefly
secured control of the Ormond heartland around
Kilkenny and Tipperary, capturing Waterford city, but
elsewhere there was little support for the feeble
Henry VI, and the risings collapsed following the rebel
defeat by Desmond at Pilltown.
Thereafter, the lordship remained solidly Yorkist. In
1470–1471, divisions within the Yorkist camp per-
mitted Henry VI’s short-lived “readepcion.” An Irish
echo of this saw Kildare briefly heading a nominally-
Lancastrian administration as deputy to Edward IV’s
renegade brother, Lord Lieutenant Clarence. Yet this
time Edward had no need of Irish support to recover the
throne, and following news of Barnet and Tewkesbury
Edward was promptly proclaimed. These events were
in marked contrast, however, to the aftermath of
Richard III’s defeat at Bosworth in 1485. Edward’s
death in 1483 had precipitated new splits among the
Yorkists, eventually allowing Henry Tudor to seize the
throne. Yet the Irish administration now headed by
Kildare’s son, the young 8th earl, exhibited a marked
reluctance to proclaim Henry VII, even going so far
as to convene a parliament in Dublin in Richard III’s
name fully two months after his death. It was to be
another ten years before Tudor rule was fully accepted
in English Ireland. In 1487, traditional loyalties
remained sufficiently strong for the Yorkists to recover
Ireland, crown an English king in Dublin, and then
invade England with an army that was probably the
largest raised there in 150 years. The Yorkist cause
only finally expired at the siege of Waterford in 1495
when Desmond’s army and “King Richard” IV’s navy
were dispersed by Sir Edward Poynings’ artillery.
It is not difficult to explain the lordship’s enthusi-
astic support for the Yorkists. We may discount York’s
supposed concession of legislative independence in a
Home Rule parliament in 1460; this underlined royal
weakness at a time when the Englishry craved closer
ties with the court, not less. The key factor was the
close relationship between the Yorkist leadership and
the 7th earl of Kildare. York’s retainer and deputy,
Kildare was thereafter consistently favored by
Edward IV, himself an experienced marcher lord and
a far better judge of character than the saintly Henry VI.
Kildare’s long tenure of the governorship and other
indications of Edward’s favor, such as grants of land,
enabled the earl to recover, restore, and extend his
wasted ancestral possessions, expelling the Irish and
fortifying the territory with towers and castles. His son,
the 8th earl, continued this strategy, thereby also
restoring the English position in Counties. Kildare
and Carlow. This is not to say that relations between
king and earl were invariably harmonious; there were
clashes in 1468, 1478, and 1483. Yet, at bottom, Edward
IV recognized (as the later Tudors did not) that good
rule in a marcher society rested on reliable and resident
marcher lords. Following the collapse of Lancastrian
France, ruling magnates were the key to the English
recovery in the remaining borderlands.
S
TEVEN
E
LLISReferences and Further Reading
Cosgrove, A., ed. “A New History of Ireland.” II Medieval
Ireland. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
Ellis, S. G.
Ireland in the Age of the Tudors 1447–1603: English
Expansion and the End of Gaelic Rule. London: Longman,
1998.
Ellis, S. G.
Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power: The Making of
the British State
. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995.
Ellis, S. G.
Reform and Revival: English Government in Ireland,
1470–1534
. London: The Royal Historical Society, 1986.
Empey, C. A., and K. Simms. “The Ordinances of the White
Earl and the Problem of Coign in the Later Middle Ages.”
In
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy
, 75 (1975): sect. C.
Goodman, A.
The Wars of the Roses: Military Activity and
English Society, 1452–1497
. London: Routledge, 1981.
Gorman, V. “Richard, Duke of York, and the Development of
an Irish Faction.” In
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy
,
85 (1985): sect. C, 169–79.
Griffiths, R. A. “The English Realm and Dominions and the
King’s Subjects in the Later Middle Ages.”
In Aspects of
Government and Society in Later Medieval England: Essays
in Honour of J. R. Lander
, edited by J. Rowe. Toronto: 1986
Griffiths, R. A.
The Reign of King Henry VI
. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1981.
Johnson, P. A.
Duke Richard of York 1411–1460
. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1988.
Lydon, J. F.
The Lordship of Ireland in the Middle Ages
. 2nd
ed. Dublin: Four Courts, 2003.
Matthew, E. “The Financing of the Lordship of Ireland Under
Henry V and Henry VI.” In
Property and Politics: Essays in
Later Medieval English History
. Edited by A. J. Pollard.
Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1984.
Otway-Ruthven, A. J.
A History of Medieval Ireland
.
2nd ed.,
London: Benn, 1980.
Pugh, T. B. “Richard Plantagenet (1411–1460), Duke of York
as King’s Lieutenant in France and Ireland.” In
Aspects of
Government and Society in Later Medieval England: Essays
in Honour of J. R. Lander.
Edited by J. Rowe. Toronto: 1986.
Storey, R. L.
The End of the House of Lancaster
. 2nd ed. Glouc-
ester: Alan Sutton, 1986.
Thompson, M. W.
The Decline of the Castle.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987.
See also
Dublin; Kildare; Kilkenny; Lionel
of Clarence; Manorialism; Pale, The; Parliament;
Richard II