The Duke of Clarence, who had the faculty of pleasing both parties, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1470 by Henry VI., and on the deposition of that monarch Edward IV. confirmed the appointment, granting him the office for twenty years, to date from 1472. Meanwhile the Earl of Kildare continued to rule the country until 1475. Then the Bishop of Meath, William Sherwood, acted for a time, until Gerald, ninth Earl of Kildare, became deputy. In 1478 Clarence was removed, and John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant for {56} twenty years. He could not rule in person, however, and so he conveniently appointed his infant son, George, to the office, at the same time nominating Lord Grey as his locum tenens. Grey arrived in Dublin to find that the Earl of Kildare refused to recognize his authority, giving as a reason his opinion that Grey's appointment was made under the Privy Seal, and was, therefore, illegal. The Chancellor sided with Kildare, declined to surrender the Great Seal for Ireland, and advised Kildare to summon a Parliament at Naas. That complacent assembly voted the Earl a subsidy. This was the state of affairs in 1478, and it really marked the beginning of the great struggle between Ireland and England. By now the Anglo-Irish families had lost their sympathies for the English and had become almost exclusively Irish. Grey proceeded to hold a Parliament of his own at Trim, and, of course, it formally annulled all the acts passed by Kildare's assembly. These Parliaments were merely travesties of the word as understood to-day; they did not represent even the opinions of those permitted to take part in their proceedings, while a cynical disregard of the English colony was their most characteristic feature. They were termed 'Parliaments' in order to dignify the proceedings, but their only use was to declare their subjection to the person summoning them. The death of the infant Prince George in 1479 enabled Grey to retire from the contest with dignity, and for two years Robert Preston, first {57} Viscount Gormanstown, represented the nominal viceroy, Richard, Duke of York. Then in 1481 the Earl of Kildare, the only man who could rule Ireland with any hope of success, was reappointed deputy to the young prince. The death of Edward IV. and the accession of Edward V. found Kildare still in power. The mysterious disappearance of the king and his younger brother from the Tower of London brought Richard III. to the throne, and he nominated his son, Edward, aged eleven, viceroy for a period of three years, Kildare remaining as deputy. It was announced throughout the colony that Richard intended visiting Ireland, and Kildare was, therefore, declared Lord-Deputy for one year only. The death of Prince Edward in 1484 brought the viceroyalty to Richard's nephew, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, but the Battle of Bosworth opened a new era for Ireland as well as for England.