and tempests quickly alternated with sunshine. In the midst of the general goodwill, Lord Leonard sent home a request that he might be allowed a few days' or weeks' respite from his labours. He was anxious to marry, he said, and, if only for a short time, to breathe English air again. The council endorsed his petition; and Henry, in acquiescing, showed so little intention of remembering bygone failures, that he advised him, if he was coming over, to lose no time; in May operations would recommence against the Irish, and his presence would be required.[1] In the interval between the presentation of the request and the arrival of the King's reply, dissension had returned in all its fury; and with dissension, one of the periodic fits of what may be called madness in the deputy. It seems that the English residents at or near Dublin, with the majority of the army, were inclined to treat the Irish as an inferior race—as a nation of treacherous, cowardly slaves, who deserved neither the privileges nor the respect of free, honourable men. The King had insisted that all his loyal subjects, whatever was their blood, were equal before the law, and equal in his own estimation.[2] But
- ↑ Henry VIII. to Grey: State Papers, vol. iii. p. 194.
- ↑ 'Forasmuch as we be credibly informed that sundry of our retinue there doth both in words and deeds misbehave themselves towards our good and loving subjects of that country, as in calling them traitors, and in violently taking their goods and commodities from them, our pleasure and commandment is that you shall cause a proclamation to be made, commanding by the same, upon pain of death, that no man be so hardy so to misuse himself in word or deed towards any of our said good subjects of the birth of that our land.'—Henry VIII. to Grey: ibid. p. 195.
