Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [305]
“You think I won’t be able to manage while you’re away?” she asked, teasingly.
“Not at all.” He smiled ruefully. “I expect you’ll be glad to have me out of the house for a while.” He paused. “But I don’t want you to say where I’m going.”
“I’m not to say you’re down in Munster?”
“It might be misunderstood.”
“And why,” she asked, “is that?”
William Walsh was a careful observer of the political scene. He was still hoping to get a seat in Parliament; but the last seven years had not been an easy time to become involved in politics.
Superficially, the situation in Ireland looked the same as usual. The king was far away; the Butlers and the Fitzgeralds were still rivals for power, and the Fitzgeralds, as always, were the stronger. But there was one subtle difference.
Walsh had remembered the story Doyle had told about King Henry when they met at Maynooth, and the warning it contained. It had been only a year afterwards that something of Henry’s character had been exhibited when Kildare and his royal friend had had a falling out. The cause had been a complex legal matter concerning the Butler inheritance: Henry had taken one view; Kildare, in Ireland, had flatly contradicted him. And soon afterwards, Kildare had been called by Henry to England, and a great English nobleman was sent to govern Ireland in his place. Walsh had been quietly cultivating his relationship with Doyle ever since their friendly exchange at Maynooth, and it was during one of their conversations in Dublin that the alderman had enlarged on the theme he had discussed before.
“You have to understand,” he remarked, “that underneath all the royal splendour, Henry is like a spoilt child. No one has ever told him: no. If he wants something, he thinks he should have it. Thanks to the huge fortune his father’s loyal councillors left him, he’s been able to build new palaces and engage in some foolish expeditions on the Continent. All in search of glory. He’ll soon empty his treasury. His father had to bend with the wind—he forgave Kildare over the Simnel business, and let him govern Ireland because nobody else could. The father was pragmatic; the son is vain. And if Kildare contradicts him or makes a fool of him, he can’t stand it. His friendship, as I’ve already told you, is worth nothing.”
Yet while Walsh suspected that the alderman was probably right, he also believed that the Fitzgeralds would continue to get their way; and events seemed to bear this out. After little more than a year, the great English nobleman had begged to be recalled. “You’d need a huge army and a ten-year campaign to bring English order to this island,” he told the king. “You’re better off leaving it to Kildare.” Henry didn’t give up so easily. He put Butler in charge. But as usual, the Fitzgeralds soon made it impossible for the Butlers to govern. There were numerous incidents. One of the Talbots, a good friend to the Butlers, was even murdered by Kildare’s own brother. There was nothing for it: last year Kildare had been sent back to govern Ireland—on condition that he cooperate with the Butlers in the administration. Of course, it was all done in the best face-saving manner. Henry clasped him to his chest; the two men swore eternal loyalty and friendship. Henry even gave his friend one of his own cousins as an English bride. But his eyes were not smiling. And for their part, the Fitzgeralds were not deceived. “He’d like to destroy us, but he can’t,” they concluded. They weren’t alarmed. They’d been surviving English kings for generations.
To William Walsh, it seemed that his loyalty to the house of Kildare was likely to work to his benefit now. Indeed, the chance of a parliamentary vacancy had recently arisen and he had hopes that, with Fitzgerald