The Rule of the Tudors 1485 - 1603

A minor or an idiot could never succeed in Gaelic Ireland, where power was not won or held without force. Henry Óg O'Neill succeeded to the chieftaincy of Tyrone in 1493 by murdering his elder brother. The bardic poet who composed his inaugration ode admitted that 'whichever of you has the best right to the land of Ireland, until he adds his might to the right, he may not obtain union with her inheritance'. In Gaelic Ireland, in an attempt to ensure the stability of succession from an anarchy of contenders within the kin group the tanist (tánaiste) was nominated and inaugrated at the same time as the chief, as 'the expected one', to succeed automatically upon the chief's death. But the tanist was often usurped by a stronger contender. In some lordships the eldest son did succeed, but this was because he was in a sufficiently strong position to take over unopposed. Families which adopted primogeniture or restricted succession were unlikely to be undermined through generations of disputes; so the Gaelicized Clanrickard Burkes grew powerful while their inveterate enemies in Connacht, the Mayo Burkes, who might allow even a fourth cousin to succeed, were debilitated through the generations. Son succeeded father as MacCarthy Mór through six generations until 1508, but such stability was very rare. Within the ruling dynasties bitter succession struggles often led to internal wars. Succession might be disputed by rival claimants - leaders of septs within the lineage. One sept would produce a leader and hope for another; the defeated sept, malicious and vengeful, could even ally with the clan's natural enemies. The disputes might continue interminably until the stronger overcame the weaker, or until an overlord imposed his candidate upon a vassal lineage. From the mid fifteenth century a dissident clan of the O'Neills was always hostile to the ruling O'Neill and in alliance with O'Donnell in the north-west of Tyrone. When Heny Óg, usurper and fratricide, made himself O'Neill in 1493 it was with the support of the Sliocht Airt, the sons of Art O'Neill of Omagh. Sub-lordships emerged to rule indepently. The chieftaincy of O'Neill of Clandeboye had established itself in the mid fourteenth century and came to rule most of Antrim and Down. To the Gaelic lord, both the land and the people were his. That confusion between political lordship and landlordship gave the lords great power. Even lesser lords might tax their subject tenants arbritrarily: this was 'cutting upon the country'. English observers condemned a system which seemed to make lords tyrants, and tenants slaves, or worse than slaves, 'for commonly the bond slave is fed by his lord, but here the lord was fed by his bond slave'. The ultimate test of lordship was the ability to levy tribute; to exact dues and to resist the exactions which others might claim from him or extort from his dependants. 'Spend me and defend me' was the ubiquitous proverb of his sixteenth-century Ireland, for the compact made between the lord and his people was the offer of protection and justice in return for tributes, heavy in times of peace and seemingly limitless during the perennial wars between lord and lord. Lords could legitimately demand tribute in a bewildering variety of forms in a society where payment was in kind, but there were demands which were seen as tyrannical, 'black'. MacCarthy Mór exacted food for his huntsmen and dogs among the mountains of Desmond in the south-west, and taxed the lowlands for the maintenance of his troops, an exaction called dowgallo, black rent, against which 'all the freeholders cry out . . . as imposed upon them by extortion and strong hand'.