Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [337]
But O’Byrne placed himself before the door.
“The oath requires that you swear loyalty to Lord Thomas,” he said evenly, “and also to the Holy Father, and also to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles of Spain.”
This triad had been carefully devised. Once you had sworn to it, there could be no going back to the English king. As far as King Henry VIII was concerned, once you had given that oath you had sworn to treason, for which the fearful penalty was to be hung, drawn, and quartered. For those who understood its implications, the oath was awesome in its finality.
But Walsh was so heated now that he was scarcely listening.
“I’ll swear no more,” he shouted. “Let the Lord Thomas come here with a thousand men and I’ll offer him my own head to cut off if he doubts me. But I’ll not be treated like a villain by you, O’Byrne.” He gave the man from the Wicklow Mountains a look of contempt, while he himself had gone red in the face. “To you I’ll swear nothing. Now leave my house,” he shouted in fury.
But Sean O’Byrne did not move. He drew his sword.
“I have already killed men better than you, Walsh,” he stated dangerously, “and burned down houses bigger than this,” he added, with a glance towards Margaret. “So,” he concluded softly, “you have your choice.”
There was a pause. Walsh stood very still. Margaret watched him anxiously. Nobody said a word.
“I do it,” Walsh said, with infinite disgust, “at sword point. You are witnesses,” he looked round the men gathered there, “at how I have been treated by this man.”
Moments later, at the table, O’Byrne administered the oath, and Walsh, looking dignified and contemptuous, with his hand on the Gospels, repeated the words tonelessly. Then the patrol left. It was not until they were safely out of sight that Walsh spoke.
“I’m glad Richard was down in Dublin today,” he remarked. “I hope he won’t have to take that oath.”
“I was afraid for a moment that you wouldn’t,” said Margaret.
“I was trying not to,” her husband explained. “The oath I swore voluntarily, to support Lord Thomas as I had his father, was harmless enough. Kildare, after all, was the king’s deputy in Ireland. But I’d already heard about this new oath of theirs, and I knew what a terrible thing it was. The reference to the Emperor is the worst part. It’s treason pure and simple.” He shook his head. “If he wasn’t going to let me get out of it, then I had to have witnesses that it was extracted from me under compulsion. That’s why I called everybody in. It’s not a complete defence, but if things go badly for Lord Thomas, it might save my neck.”
Margaret looked at her husband with admiration.
“I didn’t realise that was what you were doing,” she said. “You act very well.”
“Don’t forget,” he said with a smile, “that I’m a lawyer.”
“But do you really think that Lord Thomas will fail?” she asked.
“When the Fitzgeralds fight the Butlers it’s one thing,” he replied. “But when they make war on the King of England it’s another. We’ll have to see how it turns out.”
That night, as she fell asleep, Margaret found two sets of images coming into her mind. The first was of Sean O’Byrne with his sword, threatening her husband who, she realised, was the finer and cleverer man. The second was of her brother as she imagined he might have looked, sword in hand, as he went into battle against the Tudor King of England. She slept badly after that.
If Tidy had supposed that finding the new accommodation in the tower might bring greater harmony to his family, by that August he decided that it was the worst thing he had ever done in his life.
In early August, Silken Thomas returned to Dublin, to find the gates closed. He demanded admittance. The mayor and aldermen refused. He told them he would attack, but they