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 A.D. 1513.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [death of kildare. 
 
 fought bravely and faithfully for his allies 
 on this occasion. Not long after, the chief- 
 tain of Tirconnull went on a pilgrimage to 
 Rome, and he is said to have spent sixteen 
 weeks in London on his way thither, and 
 the same period on his return, during which 
 he was treated with great honour by tlie 
 king. He returned to Ireland early in 1512. 
 During his absence, hostilities had broken 
 out between, the people of Tirconnell and 
 those of Tyrone, and he found himself at 
 the same time involved in war with O'Neill 
 in the nortli, and with Mac William Burke 
 in the south. 
 
 O'Donnell first invaded Lower Connaught, 
 and after ravaging the country for a few 
 weeks, he compelled the Burkes to make 
 peace. He then entered Tyrone, reduced 
 O'Neill to agree to the terms he offered him, 
 and took possession of the castle of Omagh 
 as a guarantee. Troubles in Connaught had 
 meanwhile called thither the English lord 
 deputy, who overrun Roscommon, taking 
 possession of the castle and town of Ros- 
 common and other fortresses; and O'Don- 
 nell, after his return from Tyrone, repaired 
 to the Curlew mountains to meet the 
 lord deputy, and then he threw himself 
 into Sligo, and ravaged the possessions of the 
 O'Connors. Immediately after this expedi- 
 tion, Kildare marched with his army into 
 Clannaboy in the north of Ulster, took the 
 castle of Belfast, and devastated the territory 
 of the Scoto-Irish of the Glynns. O'Don- 
 nell meanwliile made more than one unsuc- 
 cessful attack upon Sligo; and then he per- 
 formed a greater service to the English 
 government, by proceeding to the court of 
 king James IV. of Scotland, who was said 
 to be meditating an invasion of Ireland, in 
 imitation of Edward Bruce. We are told 
 that O'Donnell was received by the Scottish 
 monarch witii great honour, that lie remained 
 in Scotland three months, and that then, 
 liaving persuaded James to relinquish his 
 projects against Ireland, he returned home. 
 
 The earl of Kildare had not left the dis- 
 trict of Clannaboy long, before it was invaded 
 by O'Neill of Tyrone, and the Glynns were 
 plundered a second time in the same year. 
 Kildare invaded Ulster again, and having 
 overrun the country as far as Carrickfergus, 
 he was called away by new disorders in 
 Munster, raised by the Irish and degenerate 
 English of Desmond, the O'Briens of Tho- 
 mond with other Irish septs, and the Burkes 
 of Clanrickard. He marched again into the 
 modern county of Kerry, where he proceeded 
 
 VOT,. I. 2 m 
 
 to the shores of the lake of Killarney, and 
 captured the castle of Mac Carthy, at "Pailis, 
 and then he marched into the district of Ely 
 (now the King's County) against the O'Car- 
 rolls, to whose castle of Limevan, now called 
 Leap Castle, he laid siege. But finding his 
 forces, or his cannon, insufficient for the 
 reduction of this strong fortress, he returned 
 into Leinster, and, having raised a stronger 
 army, he again marched against O'Carroll, 
 in the month of August, 1513. He had 
 proceeded no further than Athy, when he 
 was suddenly taken ill, upon which he re- 
 moved slowly to Kildare, and there, after 
 lingering a few days, he died on the 3rd of 
 September. His body was carried to Dub- 
 lin, and was buried in St. Mary's chapel, in 
 the choir of the cathedral. The Irish an- 
 nalist, in recording his death, says of him in 
 less studied terms than those in which he 
 usually speaks of the honoured dead, "he 
 was a knight in valour, and princely and 
 religious in his words and judgments." 
 
 Wlien the council at Dublin were assured 
 of the death of the earl, they met and chose 
 for his successor his son Gerald, and the 
 English monarch shortly afterwards con- 
 firmed their choice. The young earl showed 
 himself worthy of his father, at least in his 
 warlike spirit. He had no sooner taken 
 possession of his office, than he marched 
 against O'Moore of Leix, plundered the 
 country, and drove the chief himself to seek 
 refuge in his woods and fastnesses. He next 
 proceeded against the O'Reillys, stormed 
 and demolished the castle of Cavan, and slew 
 Hugh O'Reilly, their chief, and many of his 
 followers. Among other warlike exploits 
 which followed in quick succession, we may 
 note his defeat of the turbulent septs of the 
 mountains of Wicklow, whose chief, Shane 
 O'Toole, he slew, and sent his head to the 
 mayor of Dublin. It was not till L516 that 
 he resumed his father's hostilities against the 
 O'Carrolls; he was then joined by Piers 
 Butler earl of Ormond, James the eldest son 
 of the earl of Desmond, and other noblemen 
 of Munster and Leinster, and, marching into 
 Ely with a formidable force, he captured 
 and demolished the castle of Limevan, or 
 Leap Castle, which had been left unton- 
 quered by his father, and of which the Irish 
 annalists tell us "there was scarcely any 
 castle at that period better fortified and 
 defended." 
 
 From Limevan the earl marched to Clon- 
 mel, which was surrendered to him without 
 resistance, and he returned to Dublin with 
 
 TfW 
 
CAPTURE OF SLIGO.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 151G. 
 
 his ai-my laden with spoils. Next year he 
 was called again into the field, and niarchinpj 
 northward into Lecale in the county of 
 Down, he took by storm the castle of Dun- 
 drum, which the Irish had recently captured 
 from the English; thence he proceeded 
 against Phelim Magennis, whom he defeated 
 with great slaughter, and made that chief 
 himself prisoner; and then he marched into 
 Tyrone, laid waste the country, and took 
 and burnt the castle of Dungannon. Before 
 this year, 1517, had been brought to a close, 
 the earl was again called into Thomond, by 
 a feud between the O'Carrolls and the 
 O'Melaghlins, the latter of whom had 
 applied to him for assistance. The O'Car- 
 rolls had invaded the district of Delvin, and 
 taken and plundered the castle of Kincora, 
 the ancient seat of the monarchs of Munster. 
 This expedition, also, appears to have been 
 rather the result of the earl's private alliances 
 than called for by the interests of the Eng- 
 lish government. 
 
 The feuds among the native Irish con- 
 tinued, indeed, to rage during the period of 
 which we are now speaking. The O'Neills 
 and the O'Donnells made a temj)orary peace 
 in 1514, but a variety of lesser quarrels with 
 neighbouring septs, such as the Maguires 
 and the O'Neills of Clannaboy, led to the 
 renewal of hostilities between the two great 
 Irish chieftains of the north in 1516. After 
 a successful incursion into Tyrone, O'Don- 
 nell suddenly marched southward against 
 the O'Donoughs, and made himself master 
 of the stronghold which had so long been 
 coveted by the chieftains of Tirconnell, the 
 castle of Sligo. The story of its capture is 
 thus told by the Irish annalist. The cele- 
 brated object of superstition known by the 
 name of St. Patrick's Purgatory, which lay 
 in O'Donnell's territory in Donegal, was 
 still a place of pilgrimage for people from 
 various parts of Europe, and a little before 
 this time it was visited by a French knigiit 
 of wealth and influence, who was honourably 
 received by the chief of Tirconnell, for whom 
 he appears to have conceived a warm attach- 
 ment. O'Donnell spoke to his guest of his 
 desire to obtain possession of the castle of 
 Sligo, and of the formidable cliaracter of its 
 position and defences, and the knight pro- 
 mised on his return to France, to send him 
 a ship of war armed with great guns, a thing, 
 it seems, hitherto possessed by none of the 
 Irish chieftains. As O'Donnell returned 
 from his first invasion of Tyrone in 1516, he 
 learnt that the promised ship had arrived in 
 274 
 
 the harbour of Killybegs. He innnediately 
 ordered it to proceed into the bay of Sligo, 
 and marching with his army by land to that 
 place, the town and castle soon surrendered 
 to this double attack. O'Doimell then 
 overran the surrounding districts, took 
 Colooney, Castledargan, Doonamurray, and 
 other castles, and returned home to prepare 
 another expedition into Tyrone the same 
 year, which he performed without expe- 
 riencing any serious opposition. 
 
 At this moment a great feud broke out 
 among the Geraldines of Desmond, arising 
 out of a rivalry between two sons of the 
 earl of Desmond, James and John. The 
 former, who was the heir to the earldom, 
 was supported by the Mac Carthy More and 
 other Irish chiefs of Desmond, with the 
 White Knight (Fitz Gerald of Tipperary 
 and Cork), the knight of Glynn (Fitz Gerald 
 of Limerick), the knight of Kerry (Fitz 
 Gerald of that county), Fitz Maurice (a 
 Fitz Gerald of Kerry), and O'Connor of 
 Kerry. These chiefs joined their forces, 
 drove John fitz Gerald out of Desmond, and 
 laid siege to his stronghold, the fortress of 
 Lough Gur in the county of Limerick. 
 John took refuge among the O'Brians of 
 Thomond, with whom he had contracted an 
 alliance by marriage, and they immediately 
 raised a powerful army, and, with the 
 Butlers, who also espoused his cause, 
 marched back with him into Limerick, and 
 compelled his enemies to make a speedy 
 retreat. The attention of the chronicler is 
 suddenly taken from the proceedings of the 
 Geraldines to notice a sanguinary quarrel 
 among the Butlers ; and this was followed 
 by an invasion of Ormond by Thomas Burke, 
 who after committing great depredations 
 was defeated and slain. The Irish annalist 
 tells us that he was "the most noble-deeded 
 Englishman of his time," and justifies this 
 epithet by telling us that " it was by him 
 that the Hy-Many had, some time before, 
 been plundered and desolated." A war 
 broke out at the same time between Fitz 
 Maurice of Desmond and the Mac Carthys, 
 which was followed by the war between the 
 O'Carrolls and the O'Melaghlins already 
 alluded to. These troubles were hardly 
 appeased, when new wars broke out among 
 the various septs of Ulster; and the provinces 
 of the north and the south continued to be 
 disturbed with such petty feuds for several 
 years. 
 
 The earl of Kildare meanwhile conducted 
 his government more like a great chieftain 
 
A.D. 1515.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [state of IRELAND. 
 
 than a deputy of the English crown, and as 
 such he seemed to be regarded by the Irish. 
 He had too many private interests and 
 alliances, to allow him to act solely in the 
 interest of the monarch he was bound to 
 serve, and his intercourse with the Irish, 
 whether hostile or friendly, had generally 
 for its main object to strengthen himself or 
 his friends. He appears to have considered 
 that his duty, as far as he represented the 
 English interest, extended no further than 
 to preserve the English pale in the same 
 condition he found it, and he resisted all 
 further invasion, without making any 
 attempts to recover the ground which had 
 been lost. He seemed fully aware that he 
 only held his high office from the belief 
 that he alone had sufficient influence over 
 the Irish to keep them quiet during the 
 time that the English crown found it incon- 
 venient to interfere by force to re-assert its 
 own power, and he was only anxious to 
 strengthen that influence as a means of 
 perpetuating his tenure of office, heedless 
 how many eyes were watching his proceed- 
 ings and seeking the opportunity to over- 
 throw him. The English court was now, 
 indeed, beginning to pay more attention to 
 Irish affiurs, and received information relat- 
 ing to the condition of that country, unknown 
 to the deputy. The policy of the Tudors 
 was too hostile to the old aristocracy to 
 allow the proud lords who had so long been 
 masters in Ireland to exist long under their 
 rule. 
 
 Among the informations sent from Ire- 
 land to the English court was one which 
 is still preserved in the English State 
 Paper Office,* and which gives an interest- 
 ing picture of the condition of Ireland in 
 the year 1515. It consists of a report on 
 the state of Ireland, combined with certain 
 suggestions for its reformation, and it had 
 evidently been made according to direc- 
 tions from the crown, for the information 
 of tiie English council. It appears from 
 this remarkable document, that, at the date 
 just mentioned, the English rule extended 
 only over one-half of the five counties of 
 Uriel, or Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, 
 and Wexford, and that even there the 
 great mass of the population which was 
 obedient to the English government con- 
 sisted of native Irish, the English having 
 everywhere deserted their lands on account 
 of the exactions and oppressions to which 
 
 * It is printed in the first volume of the " State 
 Papers " relating to Ireland. 
 
 they were exposed. Tlie island was still 
 divided among "Irish enemies" and "Eng- 
 lish rebels." The writer of tliis report 
 reckons more than sixty separate states, or, 
 as he calls them, "regions," of the former; 
 "some as big as a shire, some more, some 
 less ; some as big as half a shire, and some 
 a little less." In these, he tells us, there 
 reigned "more than sixty chief captains, 
 whereof some call themselves kings, some 
 king's j^eers in their language, some princes, 
 some dukes, some archdukes, that live only 
 by the sword, and obey no other temporal 
 person, but only him that his strong; and 
 every of the said captains makes war and 
 peace for himself, and holds by the sword, 
 and has imperial jurisdiction within his room 
 (limits), and obeys no other person, English 
 or Irish, except only such persons as may 
 subdue them by the sword." O'Neill of 
 Tyrone and O'Donnell of Tirconnell were 
 the two great chiefs of the north ; but there 
 were besides these, seven other indejjendent 
 chieftains in Ulster, O'Neill of Clannaboy, 
 or Claneboy, O'Cahan of Kenoght in Derry, 
 O'Dogherty of Inishowen, Maguire of Fer- 
 managh, Magennis of Upper Iveagh in Down, 
 O'Hanion of Armagh, and Mac Mahon of 
 Irish Uriel, now the county of Monaghan. 
 In Leinster, the chief and original seat of the 
 English power, there were no less than ten 
 independent Irish chiefs, Mac Murrough of 
 Hy-Drone in the east of Wexford, O'Byrne 
 in Wicklow, O'Morough in Wexford, 
 O'Thole in Wicklow, O'Nolan in the south- 
 west of Wexford, Mac Gilpatrick of Upper 
 Ossory (Queen's County), O'More of Leix, 
 O'Dempsy of Glinmaliry (Queen's County), 
 O'Connor of Offaly (King's County), and 
 O'Doyne of Oregan in the Queen's County. 
 The Irish chiefs in Munster were still more 
 numerous; those of the south, or of Des- 
 mond, were Mac Carthy More, or the Great 
 Mac Carthy, who occupied a part of the 
 county of Kerry, Cormac mac Teague mac 
 Carthy in the county of Cork, O'Donaghue 
 of Killarney, O'Sullivan of Beare (Cork), 
 O'Connor of Kerry, Mac Carthy Reagh of 
 Carberry (Cork), O'Driscol of Baltimore 
 (Cork), and two O'Mahons of Carbery (Cork); 
 in Thomond there were the O'Brien of Toy- 
 brien (Clare), O'Kennedy of Lower Ormond, 
 (North Tipperary), O'Carroll of Ely (King's 
 County), O'Meagher of Ikerin (Tipperary), 
 Mac Mahon of Corkvaskin (Clare), O'Connor 
 of Corcumroe (Clare), O'Loughlin of Burrin 
 (Clare), O'Grady in the district now called 
 the barony of Bunratty (Clare), O'Brien of 
 
 275 
 
STATE OF IRELAND.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1515. 
 
 Arra (Tipperary), O'Mulrian and O'Dwyer 
 to the south of the last mentioned sept, and 
 Mac Brien of Coonagh in Limerick. The 
 L-ish chiefs of Connaught were O'Connor 
 Roe and Mac Dermot in Rosconmion ; 
 O'Kelly, O'Madden, and O'Flaherty, in 
 Galway; O'Ferral of Annaly (Longford); 
 O'Reilly and O'Rourke of Breflhy (Cavan 
 and Leitrim); O'Malley of Mayo; Mac 
 Donough of Tiragrill, O'Gara of Coolavin, 
 O'Hare of Laney, O'Dowdy of Tir-eragh, 
 Mac Donaghue of Corran, and Mac Manus 
 O'Connor of Carbury, all in Sligo. The 
 latter was commonly known as O'Connor 
 Sligo. There were three chiefs in Meath, 
 O'Mulloughlin, Mac Geoghegan, and O'Mul- 
 moy, or Mulloy. 
 
 Not only did all these Irish chiefs exer- 
 cise the right of making war and peace at 
 their pleasure, but we are further informed 
 that "in every of the said regions there be 
 diverse petty captains, and ever}' of them 
 maketh war and peace for himself witliout 
 license of the chief captain." It is added, 
 "there be but few of the said regions 
 that be in peace with themselves, but com- 
 monly rebelleth alway against their chief 
 captain." We are told that there were other 
 smaller septs, equally independent and tur- 
 bulent, but of too little importance to be 
 enumerated. It is estimated in this report 
 that the army of the largest of these septs 
 did not exceed five hundred spears, five 
 hundred galloglasses, and a thousand kernes, 
 in addition to the "common folk" of the 
 sept; that the average army of a sept 
 consisted of about two hundred spears and 
 six hundred kernes; and that the smaller 
 septs could bring into the field only about 
 forty spears and two or three hundred 
 kernes, the "common folk" being as usual 
 not counted.* 
 
 The report then goes on to enumerate 
 "more than thirty great captains of the 
 English noble folk, that follow the same 
 Irish order, and keep tlie same rule, and 
 every of them maketh war and peace for 
 himself, without any licence of the king, or 
 of any other temporal person, save to him 
 that is strongest, and of such that may sub- 
 due them by the sword." These were, in 
 Munster, the earl of Desmond, the knight 
 of Kerry, Fitz Maurice, sir Thomas of Des- 
 mond, sir John of Desmond, sir Gerald of 
 
 * The galloglasses were the hea^7 armed infantr)- 
 of the Irish, who wore iron helmets and coats of mail; 
 the kerns had no armour, and fought with spears, or 
 pikes, and darts. 
 
 276 
 
 Desmond, the lord Barry, the lord Roche, 
 the young lord Barry, the lord Courcy, the 
 lord Cogan, the lord Barrett, the White 
 Knight, the knight of Glyn, the sons of sir 
 Gerald of Desmond in Waterford, the 
 Powers of Waterford, sir William Burke 
 in the county of Limerick, sir Piers Butler 
 (who claimed the title of earl of Ormond), 
 "and all the captains of the Butlers of the 
 county of Kilkenny and of the county of 
 Fethard." In Connaught there were the 
 lord Burke of Mayo, the lord Burke of 
 Clanrickard, the lord Bermingham of Ath- 
 enry, the Stauntons of Clonmorris in Mayo, 
 the Mac Jordans, or sons of Jordan D'Exeter, 
 in Mayo, Mac Costello baron Nangle of Cos- 
 tello in Mayo, and the Barretts of Tyrawley 
 in the same county. In Ulster, there were 
 the Savages of Lecale in Down, the Fitz 
 Howlins of Tuscard, and the Bissetts of the 
 Glynns of Antrim. The English chiefs of 
 Meath, who were "degenerate" and did not 
 acknowledge obedience to the English 
 government, were the Dillons, the Daltons, 
 the Tyrrells, and the Delamares. 
 
 The writer of this report sums up by 
 telling us that, between the Irish enemies 
 and the disobedient English, the whole of 
 the counties of Waterford, Cork, Kilkenny, 
 Limerick, Kerry, Connaught, Ulster, Car- 
 low, with the half of those of Uriel, Meath, 
 Dublin, Kildare, and Wexford, paid no 
 obedience to the king's laws, and had neither 
 justice nor sheriff's under the king. "All 
 the English folk of the said counties be of 
 Irish habit, of Irish language, and of Irish 
 conditions, except the cities and the walled 
 towns. Also, all the English folk of the 
 said counties, for the more part, would be 
 right glad to obey the king's laws, if they 
 might be defended by the king from the 
 Irish enemies; and because the king defends 
 them not, and the kmg's deputy is not able 
 to defend them, therefore they are all turned 
 from the obedience of the king's laws, and 
 live by the sword after the manner of the 
 Irish enemies; and though many of them 
 obey the king's deputy when it pleases 
 them, yet there is no one of tliem all that 
 obeys the king's laws." The reporter 
 gives a list of the counties in which the 
 English paid the odious black rent, amount- 
 ing in all to the then large sum of seven 
 hundred and forty pounds a year; and 
 he gives a picture of the grievances of the 
 people of Ireland, and the wretched condi- 
 tion to which they were then reduced. 
 " What common people in all this world," 
 
A.D. 1515.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [treatise of pandarus. 
 
 he says, "is so poor, so feeble, so evil beseen 
 in town and field, so bestial, so greatly 
 oppressed and trodden under foot, and fared 
 so evil, vnth so great misery, and with so 
 wretched life, as the common folk of Ire- 
 land?" It was an old proverb, he tells us, 
 that the war of Ireland was a thing which 
 would never have end; "which proverb is 
 like always to continue, without God set in 
 men's breasts some new remedy that never 
 was found before." He then goes on to 
 state various opinions which had been ex- 
 pressed by different people as to the causes 
 of the ill success of the king's government, 
 and of the remedies which they require, 
 which appear to be chiefly abridged from a 
 book on the condition of Ireland that had 
 been recently published under the name of 
 Paiidarus.* 
 
 It is the plan of reformation proposed 
 in this book of Pandarus which is here laid 
 before the king's council, and it exhibits 
 the new constitutional principles which were 
 gaining ground at this moment when the 
 old feudal aristocracy was falling. The 
 power of a king and a state, it says, consists 
 m the commons; when they are rich and 
 happy, the king is the same, and the state 
 prospers ; when they are poor and wretched, 
 the king and the state suffer with them. 
 In England, the king was powerful, because 
 the commons were rich, and were carefully 
 protected from oppression ; while in Ireland, 
 where the commons had been left a prey to an 
 overbearing aristocracy, which looked only 
 to its o\vn private interests, instead of being 
 defended by those on whom they had to 
 look for protection, they had been oppressed 
 and plmidered until they were unable to 
 defend themselves. To raise the king's 
 power in Ireland, it was necessary to raise 
 and encourage the commons, and to repress 
 the aristocracy. The former were to be 
 made to feel that they were under the im- 
 mediate protection of the king, and they 
 were to be armed and disciplined under 
 responsible officers ; the deputy to be assisted 
 with an army sufficient to enable him to 
 enforce the king's authority. The old cry 
 
 * " Pandarus, the author of a book, intituled Safits 
 Popitli, lived in the reigns of Edward IV., Edward V., 
 Richard III., and Henry VII., and, perhaps, under 
 Henry VIII. In which book he shows the cause of 
 the miseries of Ireland, and prescribes proper remedies 
 for the same, suitable to those times." — Ware's List 
 of Irish Writers, p. 23. Probably, after all, it is but 
 a pseudonyme : the English abridgment speaks of the 
 writer as " the Pandar." There is a copy of this book 
 in manuscript in the British Museurh. 
 
 of the decline of archery is renewed, with an 
 intimation that hand-guns, a weapon now 
 coming more and more into use, would be 
 more effective in the sort of warfare prac- 
 tised in Ireland. " Moreover, inasmuch as 
 archery is failed amongst all the king's sub- 
 jects of this land, except among such as 
 dwell in the city of Dublin and town of 
 Drogheda, and such as dwell between both 
 towards the sea coast, and in default of 
 archery and bowmen the king's subjects 
 were never so feeble, and, without some 
 remedy be found shortly to supply the great 
 lack of archery and of bows, the king's 
 subjects shall never prevail against the wild 
 Irish or English rebels, nor obtain the over- 
 hand and palm over their enemies ; and 
 inasmuch as all the wild Irish and English 
 rebels of all this land do dread more and 
 fear the sudden shot of guns much more 
 than the shot of arrows, or any other shot 
 or kind of weapon in this world; it be 
 ordained by the said wardens and constables 
 that of every hundred persons there be 
 twenty gunners assigned and charged to 
 purvey them guns, powder, and pellets 
 according." As a further precaution of 
 defence it is recommended, " that the said 
 wardens, by the straight commandment of 
 the king's deputy, and the said captain, 
 ordain and procure that every village and 
 town within six miles of the wild Irish, be 
 ditched and hedged strongly about the 
 gates, of timber, after the manner of the 
 county of Kildare, for dread of fire of their 
 enemies, and that the folk of every town 
 shall help other with their own labour and 
 victuals to make and perform the said ditches 
 and hedges in all haste possible." The 
 military dispositions occujiy the greater part 
 of the report, for it was now taken as an 
 acknowledged axiom tliat Ireland could only 
 be reduced to order by force of arms. " If,'' 
 the report goes on to say, "the king were 
 as wise as Solomon the Sage, he shall never 
 subdue the wild Irish to his obedience, with- 
 out dread of the sword and of the might 
 and strength of his power and of his English 
 subjects, ordered as aforesaid; for as long 
 as they may resist and save their lives, they 
 will never obey the king. In consideration 
 whereof, the Pandar sheweth that all this 
 world cannot find the means to maintain 
 the king's sword and his power so strong 
 and so mighty, and with so little cost and 
 charge, as to put his English subjects in 
 order with harness and weapon, as aforesaid; 
 for the virtue of that order is mighty, and 
 
 277 
 
KILDARE ACCUSED.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. irA'.y 
 
 so strong, that the wild Irish shall never 
 have power to resist in the field, nor to 
 maintain their wars, by night or by day, 
 nor to save their lives and their goods after, 
 while the world endures. If this land were 
 once furnished in order as aforesaid, wlio 
 durst be so bold within the realm of Eng- 
 land to rebel against the king, as the noble 
 folk of that land have done right oft ? And 
 if the king fortune hereafter to be at such 
 distress, which God avoid ! where might he 
 be received for sure, and succoured so 
 mighty and so strong, as with his subjects 
 of Ireland? Also, what man can find or 
 shew a better mean for the king of England 
 to subdue the king of Scots to his grace, 
 than to order his land of Ireland as afore- 
 said ? For the sword and army of Ireland 
 will be a rod and a flail for ever to compell 
 Scotland to be always under the obedience 
 of the king of England." This remarkable 
 paper concludes with a singular prophecy of 
 the extraordinary power to which king- 
 Henry was to attain, and with a bright 
 picture of the prosperity which Ireland 
 might enjoy: it shows the feeling of popular 
 satisfaction that was extending throughout 
 the kingdom under the rule of Henry VIII. 
 " Also, the Pandar saith plainly, that the 
 ])rophecy is, that the king of England shall 
 put this land in such order, that all the 
 wars of the land, whereof groweth all the 
 vices of the same, shall cease for ever; and 
 after that, God shall give such grace and 
 fortune to the same king, that he shall, with 
 the army of England and of Ireland, subdue 
 the realm of France to his obedience for 
 ever, and sliall rescue the Greeks, and 
 recover the great city of Constantinojile, 
 and shall vanquish the Turks, and win the 
 Holy Cross and the Holy Land, and shall 
 die emperor of Rome, and eternal bliss 
 shall be his end! Also, the Pandar saith, 
 that if this land (Ireland) were put once in 
 order as aforesaid, it would be none other 
 but a very paradise, delicious of all pleas- 
 aunce, in respect and regard of any other 
 land in this world, inasmuch as there never 
 was stranger nor alien person, great and 
 small, that would leave it willingly, not- 
 withstanding the said mis-order, if he had 
 the means to dwell therein honestly ; much 
 greater would be his desire, if the land were 
 once put in order." 
 
 The boundaries of the English pale are 
 
 defined in this report as extending from 
 
 Dundalk in the north, to the towns of 
 
 Dervor and Ardee in Louth, "always on 
 
 278 
 
 the left side, leaving the march on the right," 
 and so to the towns of Syddan, Kells, and 
 Dangan, in Meath, thence to the towns of 
 Kilcock, Claine, Naas, and Kilcullen Bridge, 
 in the county of Kildare, to Ballymore, in 
 the county of Dublin, back to Rathmore in 
 Kildare, and then to Rathcoole, Tallagh, 
 and Dalkey, in the county of Dublin. 
 
 The spirit of this document is in evident 
 opposition to the power of the Geraldines 
 and the other great Anglo-Irish lords, and, 
 although the suggestions it contains were 
 not acted upon, the conduct of the earl of 
 Kildare was already looked upon with sus- 
 picion. It is not improbable that the fore- 
 going report was drawn up by the direction 
 of cardinal Wolsey, who was just now rising 
 to power, and who evidently looked with 
 attention upon the affairs of Ireland. The 
 policy he subsequently followed was evi- 
 dently based in some degree upon the 
 recommendation described above, and he 
 lent a favourable ear to all informations 
 against the earl of Kildare, and the great 
 family of the Geraldines. Kildare's rela- 
 tions with the Irish chiefs gave great 
 umbrage, and it was even suspected that 
 he was preparing to form with them a con- 
 federacy against the English government in 
 case of any attempt to displace him from 
 his high office. The charges against the 
 king's deputy were gradually made with so 
 little secresy, that he was obliged to repair 
 to England to defend himself against them, 
 which he did so far to the satisfaction of the 
 court, that he was allowed to retain his 
 office of chief governor, although the Eng- 
 lish court, under the influence of Wolsey, 
 who is said to have nourished the most 
 hostile feelings towards the earl of Kildare, 
 still kept spies upon his conduct, and 
 encouraged the private informations against 
 him. These soon became so alarming, that 
 in 1519 the earl of Kildare was summoned 
 to attend the English court, and was per- 
 mitted to appoint his kinsman sir Thomas 
 fitz Maurice fitz Gerald of Laccagh, to act 
 as deputy during his absence. It was now 
 evidently the king's intention not to restore 
 Kildare to his office; he had begun to turn 
 his attention seriously to the affairs of Ire- 
 land; he was occupied during the following 
 year with foreign negotiations and with the 
 splendid pageantry of the celebrated " field 
 of the cloth of gold," at which Kildare 
 was one of his attendants; but after his 
 return, in the April of 1521, Henry appointed 
 Thomas earl of Surrey, the son of the hero 
 
A. D. 15^0.] 
 
 HISTORY OV IRELAND. 
 
 [the earl of surrey. 
 
 of Flodden field, his lord-lieutenant of Ire- 
 land, and that nobleman landed at Dublin 
 with a small military force on the 23rd of 
 May following. 
 
 It has been suggested that Wolsey had 
 two objects in view in appointing the earl 
 of Surrey to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, 
 and that he not only designed the appoint- 
 ment as a mortification to the earl of Kil- 
 dare, but that he wished to remove to a 
 distance from the court a nobleman whom 
 he feared as a rival. Be this as it may, 
 the choice was a judicious one, and the 
 new deputy soon proved that he was well 
 fitted for the task entrusted to him, not 
 only by the vigour with which he acted 
 against the enemies of the English govern- 
 ment, but by the moderation with which 
 he conciliated all parties who were placed 
 under his rule. He had hardly entered 
 upon the duties of his office, when he was 
 called into action by the dissensions between 
 the Geraldines and the Butlers, and by 
 insurrections of the O'Moores of Leix and 
 the O'Carrolls of Ely. Sir Piers Butler, 
 who claimed and was allowed to assume the 
 title of earl of Ormond, and who was sus- 
 pected of being one of the chief abettors 
 of the informations against the earl of Kil- 
 dare, was at open war with the earl of 
 Desmond, the latter of whom hardly acknow- 
 ledged any obedience to the English monarch. 
 Surrey sent the archbishop of Dublin, with 
 the lords Gormanstown and Trimleston, and 
 the chief justice Bermingham, to Waterford, 
 to make peace between the two great lords, 
 while he proceeded in person, with the 
 small body of troops he could call together 
 in the hurry of the moment, against the 
 Irish enemies. 
 
 So rapid were Surrey's movements on this 
 occasion, that he is said to have been seated 
 at dinner in Dublin castle when the news 
 of the insurrection of the O'Moores reached 
 him, and to have been on his march against 
 them next day with the small army under 
 his command. This consisted of a few of 
 
 * The following incident of the war against the 
 O'Moores is told in Holinshed : — 
 
 " While the lord-lieutenant sat at dinner in the 
 castell of Dublin, he heard news that the Moors, with 
 a maine armie, were even at the entrie of the borders, 
 readie to invade the English pale. Immediately men 
 were levied by John Fitzsimons, then maior of Dublin, 
 and the next norrow, joining them unto his band, 
 the lieutenant marched towards the frontiers of Leix. 
 
 " The Moores, upon the lieutenant his approach, 
 severed themselves into sundrie companies, and under- 
 standing that the cariage was di-agging after the 
 armie, and slenderlie manned, certeine of them charged 
 
 his own attendants whom he had brouglit 
 from England, of a party of the citizens of 
 Dublin headed by the mayor of that city, 
 who marched with them into the field, and 
 with a body of hired Irish soldiers, whom 
 the earl estimated himself at only a hundred 
 and twenty horsemen and three hundred 
 kernes. He had, as he says in his letter to 
 the king, " the least assistance of the Eng- 
 lishry that ever was seen," and he estimates 
 the whole number of English with him at 
 forty-eight horsemen and a hundred and 
 twenty footmen, so that his whole army 
 consisted of only about six hundred men. 
 With these he entered the enemy's country, 
 at the end of June, burnt several towns 
 and destroyed the crops, and after some 
 severe skirmishes, in one of which the 
 lord-lieutenant narrowly escaped with his 
 life, he compelled the Irish to retreat 
 into their woods. While thus occupied, 
 the commissioners whom he had sent to 
 Waterford returned with the intelligence 
 that they had " with much difficulty," 
 brought the earls of Desmond and Ormond 
 to consent to a truce to last till the follow- 
 ing Candlemas, and that at the same time 
 they had taken oaths of obedience from 
 some others of the Geraldines and other 
 English and Irish chiefs of the south. At 
 the same time the earl of Ormond, relieved 
 for the present from his apprehensions of 
 the Geraldines, came to the assistance of 
 the lord-lieutenant with a body of his own 
 dependents, consisting of a hundred horse- 
 men, two hundred galloglasses, and two 
 hundred kernes; and he was also joined by 
 twenty-four Irish horsemen under one of the 
 Mac Murroughs, and with the same number 
 of horsemen and about a hundred kernes 
 and other footmen under the " lord steward's 
 seneschal." With his army thus increased, 
 he soon reduced the O'Moores to submission ; 
 and O'Carroll also submitted, and came with 
 the earl of Ormond to take his oath of 
 obedience.* 
 
 The earl of Surrey was certainly sent to 
 
 the lieutenant his servants and such of the citizens 
 as were appointed to gard the cariage. Patrike Fitz- 
 simons, a strong sturdie yoonker, kept the enemies 
 such tacke, as he chased part of them awaie, rescued 
 the cariage, slew two of the rebels, and brought the 
 heads with him to maister maior his tent. The next 
 morning, two of the lieutenant his men, that slunke 
 awaie from Fitzsimons, thinking that the cariage had 
 beene lost, advertised their lord that Fitzsimons fled 
 awaie, and the Moores were so manie in companie, 
 as it had beene but foUie for two to bicker with so 
 great a number. The lieutenant posted in a rage to 
 the maior his paviUion, telling him that Ids man Fitz- 
 
 279 
 
WAR WITH THE o'moores.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1520. 
 
 Ireland with hostile feelings against Kildare, 
 and, although that nobleman was treated at 
 the English court with all possible honour, 
 the king's instructions to his lieutenant 
 directed him to do his utmost to detect and 
 bring to light " the seditious practices, con- 
 spiracies, and subtil drifts of the earl of 
 Kildare, his servants, aiders, and assisters." 
 There appears to have been grounds for 
 suspecting that the insurrections of the 
 O'Moores and the O'CarroUs had been stirred 
 up by the earl of Kildare's agency in order 
 to embarrass the new governor, and informa- 
 tion was given to the latter that a letter had 
 been sent by Kildare to O'CarroU, directly 
 urging him to rebellion. At the conclusion 
 of this first petty campaign, the earl of 
 Surrey gained some further intimation relat- 
 ing to this affair, which he communicated 
 to the king in a letter dated on the 23rd of 
 July. In a subsequent letter, addressed to 
 Wolsey on the 6th of September, the lord- 
 lieutenant states that he had examined three 
 of O'CarroU's brothers, who had confessed 
 to the fact of the letter having been sent by 
 Kildare to O'CarroU, and one of them made 
 a deposition to the effect that it was deli- 
 vered into the hands of the Irish chieftain 
 by the abbot of Monastereven in his pres- 
 ence, and that he heard it read, and noted 
 its contents, which were to the effect that 
 
 siraons was a cowardlie traitor in running awaie, 
 when he should have defended the cariage. 
 
 " ' AVliat am I, my lord ?' quoth Patrike Fitzsimons, 
 skipping in his shii't out of the tent, with both the 
 heads in his hand : ' My lord, I am no coward, I stood 
 to my tacklings when your men gave me the slip, I 
 rescued the cariage, and have here sufficient tokens 
 of my manhood,' tumbling downe both the heads. 
 ' Saist thou so, Fitzsimons ? ' quoth the lieutenant ; 
 ' I crie thee mercie, and, by this George ! I would to 
 God it had beene my good hap to have beene in thy 
 companie in that skirmish!' So, drinking to Fitz- 
 simons in a boll of wine, and honourablie rewarding 
 him for his good service, he returned to liis pavillion, 
 where, having knowledge of Omore his recule, he 
 pursued him with a ti'oope of horsmen. The lieu- 
 tenant thus passing forwards, was espied by a gunner 
 of Omors, who lodged close in a wood side, and 
 watching his time, he discharged his peece at the 
 verie face of the lieutenant, strake the visor off his 
 helmet, and pearscd no further, as God would. This 
 did he, retchlesse in maner what became of himselfe, 
 so he might amaze the armie for a time, and surelie 
 hereby he brake the swiftnesse of their following, and 
 advantaged the flight of his capteine, which thing he 
 wan with the price of his owne bloud. For the 
 souldiers would no fm'ther, till they had ransacked 
 all the nookes of this wood, verelie suspecting some 
 ambush thereabout, and in severall knots ferretted 
 out this gunner, whome Fitzwilliams and Bedlow of 
 the Roch were feine to mangle and to hew in peeces, 
 because the wTetch would never yeeld." 
 280 
 
 the Irish chief should keep peace with the 
 English as long as no English deputy were 
 sent into Ireland, but that the moment an 
 English deputy came he was to make war 
 with all his might upon all the English 
 except such as were Kildare's personal 
 friends.* The examination of this man had 
 been taken before the chief justice Berm- 
 ingham and sir William Darcy, because they 
 were acquainted with the Irish language: it 
 appears to have been still considered insuf- 
 ficient as a proof, and the earl of Surrey 
 adds in his letter to Wolsey, that he was 
 doing his utmost to get the abbot himself 
 into his power, and suggests that the earl 
 of Kildare might himself be brought to an 
 examination. " Methinks," he says, " if 
 your grace laid to the earl of Kildare's 
 charge, that such a letter he sent to O'Car- 
 roU by the abbot of Monastereven, in Irish, 
 and that both the said abbot and O'CarroU 
 have confessed the same, and the said abbot 
 is coming to avow the same before him, he 
 cannot well deny it." He further suggests 
 that the earl's confidential secretary, William 
 Delahide, should be committed to the tower, 
 and there put to the torture, in order to 
 force him to a confession, as it was suspected 
 that he was the writer ; and Surrey concludes 
 with a piece of information which shows us 
 how much the people of Ireland were still 
 
 * The following is the deposition of the brother of 
 O'CarroU, as printed in the " State Papers," part iii, 
 p. 45: — 
 
 " The saying of Donogh O'Keroyll, brother unto 
 O'Keroyll, consernyng the letter sent by the erle of 
 Kildare to O'Keroyll, which he hath deposid upon 
 the Evangelist to bee true. 
 
 " He saith, that in Ester weke last past, the abbot 
 of Monaster Evyn, called Heke, brought a letter to 
 O'Keroyll out of England, on the behalf of the erle 
 of Kildare, wherin was wTittin thes wordes in Irish, 
 ' Lyfe and helth to O'Karoyll, from the erle of Kil- 
 dare. There is noon Irishman in Irland that I am 
 better content with then with you ; and whenever I 
 come into Irland, I shall doo you good, for anything 
 that ye shall doo for me ; and any displeasure that I 
 have doon to you, I shall make you amendcs therfor. 
 Desiring you to kepe good peas to Englishmen, tyll 
 an English deputie come there ; and when any Eng- 
 lish deputie shall come thydder, doo your best to 
 make warre upon Englishmen there, except suche as 
 bee towardes me, whom ye know well your silf.' 
 
 " Item, the said Donogh, being examyned, if therl 
 of Kildares signe manuel were upon the said letter, 
 said, he knew not his signe, but he did marke that it 
 was sealed with a seall having a cross, which he 
 thought was the said earll is seall. 
 
 " Patrik Bermynghera, Juge. William Darcy." 
 
 The date here given would just precede the appoint- 
 ment of the earl of Sussex, and the story of the letter 
 seems by no means improbable. 
 
A.D. 1520.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [surrey and o'donnell. 
 
 influenced by fear or love of Kildare: — 
 " Here is daily such reports made, and 
 brought out of England, that the said earl 
 should marry the king's kinswoman, and 
 have his room and rule here again, that as 
 well Englishmen as Irish, being afraid 
 thereof, daily come unto me, and say that 
 if he come again, this land was never in 
 such trouble as it shall be; for such Irish- 
 men as have followed my mind, and served 
 me, will look to be destroyed by him, and 
 for fear thereof will combine them so toge- 
 ther, that they will rather adventure to 
 destroy all the Englishry, than to be de- 
 stroyed themselves." It was, indeed, not long 
 after this that the earl of Kildare married 
 the lady Elizabeth Gray, daughter of the 
 marquis of Dorset; and the influence of 
 the marquis is said to have been exerted 
 in protecting him against the further machi- 
 nations of Wolsey. The affiiir of the letter 
 to O'Carroll appears to have been di-opj^ed, 
 as we hear of no further steps taken in the 
 investigation. 
 
 If the earl of Kildare did not directly 
 encourage the Irish to rise against the earl 
 of Surrey, it seems evident that they resorted 
 to hostilities in the belief that they were 
 ' performing a service that would be agreeable 
 to him. Such was the case not only with 
 , the O'Moores and the O'Carrolls, but with 
 j O'Neill of Tyrone, who had taken up arms 
 against the English government as soon as 
 he heard of the appointment of the earl of 
 Surrey to the lord-lieutenancy. Kildare 
 had always shown a partiality for Con 
 O'Neill, as his own kinsman, and it is pro- 
 bable that he had supported him latterly in 
 his wars with O'Donnell of Tirconnell, and 
 when, about the middle of July, the lord- 
 lieutenant returned from his inroad into 
 Leix, he found O'Donnell at Dublin, wait- 
 ing his arrival to assure him of his attach- 
 ment to the English, of his readiness to 
 assist him against O'Neill, and of his personal 
 I fears of the return of the earl of Kildare to 
 ► power; and he made a merit of his own 
 forbearnce, when he resisted the urgent 
 appeal of O'Neill, who had invited him to join 
 
 • " Pleas it your grace also to understand, that 
 now at my comyng home hethcr I founde O'Downyl 
 here, whom I t'ynde a right wise man, and as well 
 dctcrmyncd to doo to your grace all thinges that may 
 be to your contentacion and pleasure, as I can wyssli 
 him to bee. He hath confessed to me that a littill 
 before ray comyng, O'Nele sent to him, desiring him 
 as sone as I were landed to moeve warr against me, 
 saj'ing that for his part he wold soo doo, for he was 
 desired by the erle of Xildare soo to doo. To whom 
 
 VOL. F. 2 N 
 
 in attacking the English pale in desjsite of 
 the English deputy.* From this time 
 O'Donnell appears to have been the Irish 
 chief who enjoyed most of Surrey's con- 
 fidence, and it was agreed that he should 
 unite with the English in the projected 
 attack upon the turbulent chief of the 
 north, by invading Tyrone from the west. 
 After several attemj^ts at negotiation, Surrey 
 proceeded against O'Neill and the Mac 
 Mahons towards the middle of August, and, 
 after committing the usual havoc, he com- 
 pelled those chiefs to make an unconditional 
 submission. At the end of the month, the 
 lord deputy sent to England the satisfactory 
 intelligence that "all Irishmen were at 
 peace;" and he then proceeded to call a 
 parliament to consider of the internal state 
 of the English territory. 
 
 In the midst of these pacific appearances, 
 news came of bickerings among the turbu- 
 lent Anglo-Irish of the south, which threat- 
 ened again to disturb the tranquillity of 
 Munster. The restless earl of Desmond, 
 setting at defiance the authority of the lord- 
 lieutenant, had not only renewed his dispute 
 with the Butlers, but he was preparing for 
 open hostilities with some of the native 
 chiefs. The earl of Surrey immediately 
 sent commissi(mers to Waterford, to endea- 
 vour again to reconcile the earls of Desmond 
 and Ormond, and to warm the former against 
 committing hostilities without the king's 
 licence, but the latter measure at least was 
 in vain. The Irish chiefs who had provoked 
 the earl were two Mac Carthys of the county 
 of Cork, known as Cormac Oge and Mac 
 Carthy Reagh, whose crime ajjpears to have 
 been their friendship for sir Thomas of 
 Desmond, who, although a Fitz Gerald, was 
 a bitter enemy of the proud earl. The 
 latter, deaf to all warnings and expostula- 
 tions, marched with an imposing army into 
 the territories of the Irish chiefs about the 
 middle of September, and attacked the 
 united forces of the two Mac Carthys and sir 
 Thomas of Desmond. Contrary, as it would 
 appear, to every body's expectation, the 
 result was the entire defeat of the earl of 
 
 O'Downyl answerid, that he was your true subject, 
 and who soo ever your grace appoyntid to have the 
 rule here, he wold truely serve and defend him. He 
 hath promysed me to envade O'Nele on his side, 
 when I shall envade him on my syde. And in com- 
 ynyng with him of your graces affaires here, he said. 
 If ever the kyng send the erl of Kildare hether in 
 authoritie agayne, let the kyng make him an assur- 
 aunce, by indenture of this land, to him and to his 
 heirs for ever." — State Papers, p. 37. 
 
 281 
 
SURREY AND o'nEILL.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1521. 
 
 Desmond, who is represented as having lost 
 in the sanguinary conflict not less than two 
 thousand men. Among the slain were sir 
 John fitz Gerald and a son of sir John of 
 Desmond, and the earl's two uncles, sir 
 Gerald of Desmond and sir John of Des- 
 mond, with others of the Geraldines, were 
 wounded and taken prisoners. When the earl 
 of Surrey received intelligence of this event, 
 he could hardly contain his exultation at the 
 signal chastisement of what he terms the earl 
 of Desmond's "folly" and liis obstinacy ; but 
 he saw the danger to which the peace of the 
 south was exposed, and he marched without 
 delay towards Munster. It appears that he 
 found the earl of Desmond humiliated, at 
 least in outward bearing, and that he suc- 
 ceeded in reducing the province to peace ; 
 and then he returned to his parliament, with 
 the expectation, as he avows, that the session 
 would not last long before he would be con- 
 strained to prorogue or adjourn it, " by 
 reason, of the great troubles and business 
 with the war of Irishmen;" so well had he 
 now learnt how little faith could be placed 
 in their peace. Yet, with the exception of 
 an incursion into the country of the O'Byrnes, 
 the island appears to have remained tranquil 
 during the remainder of the year. Cormac 
 Oge and Mac Carthy Reagh had met the 
 lord-lieutenant at Waterford, and he de- 
 scribes them, in a letter to Wolsey, as " two 
 wise men," and adds, " I find them more 
 conformable to good order than some Eng- 
 lishmen here. I have motioned them to 
 take their lands, and to hold them of the 
 king's grace, and they will be content so to 
 do, so that they may be defended; and I 
 know divers other Irishmen of like mind." 
 
 We find a break in the Irish correspond- 
 ence from this time till the April of 1521, 
 during which time the earl of Surrey seems 
 to have been constantly occupied in studying 
 the character of the people with whom he 
 had to deal, in reconciling them with one 
 another and with the English government, 
 and in furthering by every means in his 
 power the interests of his royal master. He 
 had convinced himself that no trust could 
 be placed in the apparent tranquillity of the 
 moment, and he prepared with prudent fore- 
 sight for a renewal of hostilities in the fol- 
 lowing year. He communicated his opinions 
 to the king freely, to whom he avowed his 
 conviction that no order would be established 
 in Ireland until the king had effected its 
 complete conquest, which would be a work 
 of time, and would require a large expendi- 
 282 
 
 ture of the public treasure; "for," said he, 
 " whensoever the Irishmen shall know that 
 your grace intendeth a conquest, they will 
 all combine together, and withstand the 
 same to the best of their power." Still, 
 while preparing for hostilities in case of 
 need, he pursued measures of conciliation, 
 and the king authorised him not only to 
 make O'Neill and other " lords of the Irishy" 
 knights, but he sent him a collar of gold of 
 his own livery as a present for O'Neill. 
 
 The two great chiefs of the north, though 
 still at hostilities with each other, were now 
 equally warm in their professions of friend- 
 ship to the English government, and they 
 evidently embarrassed and annoyed the earl 
 of Surrey by opening an independent and 
 direct correspondence with the English 
 monarch, which was not always conducted in 
 good faith. As spring approached, a variety 
 of incidents seemed to announce an exten- 
 sive confederacy among the Irish to rise 
 against the authority of the lord-lieutenant, 
 and from the movements among the Geral- 
 dines there appeared to be grounds for sus- 
 picion that they were more or less compli- 
 cated in it. SuiTey's attention was therefore 
 occupied equally with the threatening aspect 
 of the south, and with the importunities of 
 the two rival chiefs of the north, who now 
 began to be jealous of each other's advances 
 to the lieutenant. O'Donnell was supported 
 by his old allies, the O'Neills of Clannaboy, 
 while he had for his enemies not only the 
 O'Neill of Tyrone, but the two great 
 branches of the Burkes of Connaught, and 
 the no less warlike Mac Dermots of Ros- 
 common. O'Donnell, who seems to have 
 incurred Suriey's suspicions, had intimated 
 to him early in the spring, his wish to call in 
 a strong body of Scots to assist him against 
 these numerous enemies, but the earl abso- 
 lutely refused his consent to this measure, 
 for, as he intimates in a letter to the king, 
 with the remembrance of the great field of 
 Flodden before his mind, " your grace knows 
 there is no such love between the Scots and 
 we, that I should be desirous to have them 
 stronger in this land than I." At length, on 
 the threat of O'Donnell that he would make 
 his peace with O'Neill, and place his hostages 
 in his hands, the lord-lieutenant so far 
 listened to his importunities as to consent to 
 his employing four or five hundred Irish- 
 Scots, " considering," as he says, " that it 
 would be dangerful to have them both agreed 
 and joined together, and that the longer they 
 continue in war the better it should be for 
 
A.D. 
 
 1521.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [invasion of offaly. 
 
 your grace's poor subjects here." Soon after 
 this, the earl of Surrey, alarmed at the 
 rising of the Irish in Munster and West- 
 meath, summoned the chiefs of the north to 
 march to his assistance, according to their pro- 
 mise, and then he learnt how little he could 
 reckon on their effectual co-operation. No 
 sooner had O'Neill of Tyrone marched with 
 his army to the south, than Hugh O'Neill of 
 Clannaboy, with the Irish-Scots called in by 
 O'Donnell, began to make incursions into 
 his territory ; and O'Donnell marched to the 
 border, and assumed a hostile posture. 
 O'Neill was obliged to return and defend 
 his own country: and thus, as the lord- 
 lieutenant bitterly complains, the "good 
 service" which O'Donnell had so often pro- 
 mised, ended in his not only holding back 
 his own assistance when wanted, but in his 
 hindering the powerful O'Neill from coming 
 to his assistance when he was willing and 
 ready. 
 
 In the king's directions at this time we 
 trace a strong desire to diminish the expenses 
 of the Irish government, and a wish to send 
 back Kildare, who had now been set free 
 but was still retained at court, although 
 Henry expresses his fears that the return of 
 Kildare to Ireland might be the signal for 
 new disorders. The earl of Surrey began 
 to feel the irksomeness of his position; he 
 was obliged to be continually in the field 
 against enemies whom he could only drive 
 into their woods and morasses, and when 
 they submitted he found it necessary to 
 accept promises in which he placed no trust ; 
 he was himself suffering under one of the 
 diseases which was at that time ravaging the 
 island; and, with the conviction that it was 
 only by a considerable increase in the expen- 
 diture that he could do any permanent ser- 
 vice to the English interests, it was only by 
 constant importunities that he could obtain 
 the inefficient allowance of money which the 
 king had been induced to grant for his 
 government. In addition to this, he had 
 evidently become strongly hostile to the 
 turbulent Geraldines, and had taken into 
 his especial confidence sir Piers Butler, the 
 claimant to the earldom of Ormond, who 
 was the great object of their hatred. He 
 foresaw that the return of the earl of Kil- 
 dare would raise troublesome intrigues that 
 must render his position still more irksome. 
 
 As the summer of 1521 approached, the 
 earl of Surrey received certain information 
 that the O'Moores and the O'CarroUs had 
 confederated with O'Connor Faly to invade 
 
 the English pale. With his usual activity, 
 the lord-lieutenant immediately assembled 
 the forces at his disposal, consisting of his 
 own retinue, the mayors of Dublin and 
 Drogheda at the head of the fighting men 
 of those cities, and most of the noblemen 
 and gentlemen of the pale, with a hired com- 
 pany of galloglasses and kernes, carrying 
 with them three great pieces of ordnance, 
 and eighteen falcons and arquebusses, which 
 probably constituted the most formidable 
 part of their array. They left Dublin on the 
 9th of July, and entered Offaly on the 13th. 
 O'Connor appears to have been taken by 
 surprise, and following the usual plan of 
 Irish warfare, he left a garrison in his strong 
 castle of Monasteroris, and, after being 
 defeated in a skirmish, hurried away with 
 his allies to plunder Westmeath, while his 
 own territory was exposed to the ravages of 
 the English. Next day the English laid 
 siege to the castle of Monasteroris, which 
 they battered so furiously with their three 
 great guns, that, although it was "esteemed 
 the strongest hold within the Irishry," the 
 defenders quitted it at night, and fled across 
 an adjoining marsh, and the following morn- 
 ing the lord-lieutenant took possession of 
 the fortress and placed in it an English gar- 
 rison. During the absence of O'Connor in 
 Westmeath, Surrey met with no resistance 
 in his ravages, and he " destroyed much 
 goodly corn, and burnt many towns and 
 houses; but all the people with their cattle 
 and goods were fled before my lord's coming 
 thither." On the 23rd of July, O'Connor 
 returned from Westmeath and marched 
 directly towards Monasteroris, but finding 
 his castle taken and the English army assem- 
 bled in force, he made a hasty retreat towards 
 the more inaccessible parts of his territory. 
 Finding that he was followed by only a small 
 party of his enemies, the Irish chieftain sud- 
 denly turned upon his pursuers, who were 
 compelled in their turn to seek safety in 
 flight, after losing several of their bravest 
 men. Among these was sir Edward Plunket 
 lord of Dunsany, who was slain, and one of 
 his kinsmen severely wounded, after they 
 had wounded O'Moore of Leix and his son, 
 and slain O'Moore's foster-brother. On the 
 24th of July the English army returned to 
 Dublin, without having obtained any satis- 
 factory advantage over the Irish enemies, 
 and Surrey immediately took steps to collect 
 a larger army to march against tiiem on the 
 8th of August. The earl of Ormond, with 
 his own retinue and troops, had assisted the 
 
 283 
 
SURREY RECALLED.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1521. 
 
 lord-lieutenant by marching into the terri- 
 tory of O'CarroU, which lay contiguous to 
 his own, and there committed as much 
 destruction as the English in OfFaly. The 
 Geraldines of Kildare showed a less friendly 
 feeling, for no sooner had the earl of Surrey 
 arrived at Dublin, than he received intelli- 
 gence that O'Connor, O'Carroll, and O'Moore 
 were in full march to Naas, a town in Kil- 
 dare within sixteen miles of Dublin, encou- 
 raged in this step, as it was suspected, by 
 the Geraldines; and the lord-lieutenant was 
 obliged to march in all haste to Naas, to 
 save that town from being burnt. News, 
 however, was brought at the same time of a 
 more encouraging description, that O'Don- 
 nell and O'Neill had made peace, and that 
 they were preparing to march to assist the 
 English government against the Irish chiefs 
 of Offaly, Leix, and Ely; upon which the 
 latter submitted and gave hostages for their 
 future obedience. 
 
 At this moment of necessity, the earl of 
 Surrey was suffering more than ever from 
 the neglect in the remittances of money 
 from England, and, on the pretext that his 
 health was fast giving way under the com- 
 plication of disease which at tliat time infested 
 Ireland, he became importunate for his 
 recall. The king was not unwilling, for 
 many reasons, to listen to his request ; he 
 was already looking forward to hostilities 
 with France and Scotland, and he was 
 not only desirous of sending Surrey to a 
 scene in which his abilities would be of 
 greater service, but, in contemplating the 
 increased expenditure for which his new 
 wars were likely to call, he determined if 
 possible to diminish that of his Irish estab- 
 lislunent, and he thought of trying again the 
 old experiment of leaving Ireland to the 
 management of the great Anglo-Irish lords. 
 Accordingly, towards the end of the October 
 of the year 1521, the king sent the earl of 
 Surrey his permission to resign his office and 
 return to England; it appears not to have 
 reached him till near the middle of Decem- 
 ber, when he lost no time in taking advan- 
 tage of it. In a letter from the Irish council 
 of state to Wolsey, written immediately after 
 the earl's departure, they bear full testimony 
 to the popularity of his government in the 
 English pale, in their statement that " this 
 land is brought in towardness of reformation 
 by the active prowess and great policy of 
 
 284 
 
 the said lord-lieutenant, which hath right 
 substantially and 'wisely demeaned himself 
 in feats of war, and right indifferently (im- 
 partially) in causes of justice, without any 
 partiality or corruption, and hath the best 
 experience of this land, and of the ways how 
 the said reformation may easiest be brought 
 to effect, of any man that ever came into this 
 land in our time. And we think undoubt- 
 edly," they add, " that if it may please the 
 king's grace to furnish him with sufficient 
 number of men, the land, by his policy, 
 may now be brought to subjection and 
 reformation, seeing the ways well prepared." 
 Surrey, in his letters to the king and his 
 minister Wolsey, had as constantly pressed 
 upon their attention the loyal services of sir 
 Piers Butler, the claimant to the earldom of 
 Ormond,* as he had encouraged their suspi- 
 cions of the fidelity of the earl of Kildare 
 and the Geraldines; and Henry now listened 
 so far to his advice, as to appoint the former 
 his successor as lord deputy of Ireland. 
 But he, at the same time, announced his 
 intention of sending to Ireland the earl of 
 Kildare, the implacable enemy of the Butlers, 
 and thus prepared the way for new disorders. 
 When the earl of Ormond, (for he was 
 allowed by courtesy to assume the titl ) 
 took possession of his office, he found the 
 English power threatened on every side, not 
 only by the Irish, who had taken courage on 
 the departure of tlie earl of Surrey, (who 
 had carried with him the small English army 
 which had accompanied him to his govern- 
 ment) but by the Scots, who threatened to 
 invade Ireland as well as England. At the 
 end of February, the council of Ireland 
 wrote a pressing letter to Wolsey, describing 
 the danger, and praying that the king 
 would " send five or six of his ships to keep 
 the seas betwixt us and the Scots, which 
 shall not only keep many of their pleasures 
 and commodities from them, but also put 
 the Irish rebels in great fear, and be, if 
 necessity should require, a great puissance 
 against them." 
 
 * The last earl of Ormond had left two daughters 
 and coheirs, one of whom married sir William Boleyn; 
 and their son, sir Thomas Boleyn, claimed the earl- 
 dom as heir-general, while sir Piers Butler claimed it 
 as the nearest heLi--male. The earl of Kildare and 
 the Geraldines espoused the cause of sir Thomas 
 BolejTi, and this dispute increased the animosity 
 between the rival fannlies, and was more than once 
 made the pretext for open war. 
 
CHAPTER n. 
 
 O'dONNELL and O'NEILL ; NEW DISSENSIONS BETWEEN THE GERALDINES AND THE 
 BUTLERS i CAPTURE OF LORD DEPUTY DELVIN BY THE IRISH. 
 
 s EFORE the earl of Ormond 
 had been many weeks in 
 office, events occurred which 
 showed what were likely to 
 be the results of king Henry's 
 new policy towards Ireland. 
 The prospect of the return of the earl of 
 Kildare agitated the whole island, and it is 
 clear that it was the general impression that, 
 although the appointment of his rival to 
 the office of lord deputy was a proof he 
 enjoyed the royal favour, the Geraldines 
 would immediately proceed to take venge- 
 ance on their enemies the Butlers, and on 
 all who had favoured or supported them. 
 The earl of Ormond, like the Geraldines, 
 had his great lordships beyond the pale, and 
 his own alliances with the natives, and he 
 showed no inclination to neglect his own 
 interests in his zeal for those of his master. 
 When he received the king's commission, he 
 hastened to Dublin, took the oaths of office 
 on the 26th of March, 1522, and three days 
 afterwards he returned home to his own 
 county of Kilkenny, to keep his Easter 
 among his own family and dependents, visit- 
 ing Mac Morough and some of the Irish 
 chiefs of Leinster on his way, to encourage 
 them in their obedience to the English gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 It was already commonly reported that 
 O'Moore of Leix, when he heard that the 
 earl of Kildare was coming home, had de- 
 clared he would no longer keep peace with 
 the English, and that he was preparing to 
 take up arms. Other septs were, no doubt, 
 ready to follow his example. But the 
 greatest disorders took place in Ulster, 
 where O'Donnell's anticipations that the 
 departure of the earl of Surrey and tlie 
 release of the earl of Kildare would be the 
 signal for a general attack upon Tirconnell, 
 were speedily realised. The chieftains of 
 TjTone and Connaught joined in a powerful 
 confederacy against O'Donnell. A large 
 body of Scots, under Alexander mac Don- 
 nell of the isles, came to the assistance of 
 Con O'Neill, who had likewise united under 
 his standard, in addition to tlie forces of 
 Tyrone, the Magenisses, the O'Reillys, and 
 
 the Irish of Orgial and Fermanagh, as well 
 as many of the " degenerate" English of 
 Meath and Leinster, who imagined that they 
 showed their attachment to the earl of Kil- 
 dare by serving his Irish kinsman. The 
 Burkes of Clanrickard, bringing with them 
 their own Irish allies, the O'Briens, O'Car- 
 rolls, and O'Kennedys, joined the Burkes of 
 Northern or Lower Connaught, with OCon- 
 nor Roe, O'Connor Don, and the Mac Der- 
 mots of Moylurgh, in attacking O'Donnell 
 from the side of Connaught, and they were 
 to form a junction with O'Neill in Tirhugh. 
 To oppose these numerous enemies O'Don- 
 nell had only the forces of Tirconnell, but 
 they had in their favour their own reputa- 
 tion and that of their leader, and the nume- 
 rous victories which had been gained by the 
 arms of Tirconnell under himself and his 
 father. 
 
 O'Neill was the first to take the field, 
 and he marched directly against Tirconnell. 
 O'Donnell, however, had foreseen the attack 
 on this side, and he hastened with his forces 
 to take possession of the difficult pass of 
 Portnatrynod, on the Tyrone side of the 
 river Finn opposite Lifford, which was the 
 direct route by which the army of Tyrone 
 generally invaded Tirconnell. When O'Neill 
 heard that O'Donnell had posted himself in 
 this pass, he marched in a more southerly 
 direction into the plains bordering on Lough 
 Erne, and penetrated as far as Ballyshannon, 
 the castle of which he took by storm, and 
 slew a great number of the people. The 
 capture of Ballyshannon occurred on the 
 11th of June, and he subsequently took and 
 burnt the smaller towns Bundrowes and 
 Balleck, and then prepared to return with 
 his booty. When O'Donnell heard of the 
 progress of his enemies in the south, he 
 sent his son Manus with a part of his army 
 to plunder and ravage Tyrone, while with 
 the remainder he crossed the mountains 
 through the gap of Barnismore, to watch 
 O'Neill and protect the district of Tirhugh. 
 O'Neill, whose return was hastened as much 
 by the intelligence of the havoc committed 
 by Manus O'Donnell as by the desire to 
 secure his own plunder, now hurried back 
 
 285 
 
 J 
 
BATTLE OF KNOCKAVOE.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1522. 
 
 into Tyrone, and again avoided the army of 
 O'Donnell, who returned after him towards 
 Liiford, and finding that O'Neill, after 
 securing his plunder, had encamped with 
 all his arniy on the hill of Knockavoe near 
 Strahane, he posted his army at Drumleene,a 
 little to the north of Lifford, where he was 
 joined by his son Manus. The position of 
 the chieftain of Tirconnell seemed now almost 
 hopeless, for he was in face of an army far 
 superior in numbers to his own, and the 
 time was near at hand when the forces under 
 O'Neill were to be joined by the no less 
 numerous army of Connaught. O'Donnell 
 took the desperate resolution of making a 
 night attack on O'Neill's camp, and as it was 
 a last struggle that must evidently decide 
 the fate of his kingdom, he ordered the 
 horses of his people to be abandoned, and 
 the whole army to march on foot, as he 
 declared that no one of the Kinel-Connell 
 ought on this occasion to wish for safety by 
 flight. O'Neill had received intelligence of 
 the intended attack, and had taken all neces- 
 sary precautions, placing sentinels in advance 
 of his camp, on all the roads by which it 
 could be approached, to give immediate 
 notice of the advance of the enemy. But 
 the men of Tirconnell marched so silently, 
 that they had reached the spot occupied by 
 the sentinels before the latter were aware of 
 their presence, and then they rushed for- 
 ward with such haste that they entered the 
 camp along with tliem. O'Neill's army, 
 though taken by surprise, acted with great 
 bravery, and the battle lasted for some time 
 with extraordinary fury, the darkness of the 
 night adding to the confusion, so that they 
 fought almost without knowing whether they 
 were striking friends or enemies. It ended, 
 however, in the utter defeat of the army of 
 Tyrone, which was driven from their camp 
 with great loss, several of their bravest chiefs 
 having fallen in the struggle. The slaughter 
 seems to have fallen heaviest on the Scot- 
 tish allies, and on the "degenerate" English 
 who had followed the fortunes of O'Neill. 
 The men of Tirconnell gained an immense 
 booty, and many of them hurried home to 
 deposit their plunder in a place of safety. 
 The battle of Knockavoe was regarded as 
 one of the celebrated battles of the Irish, 
 and it was said to have been the most san- 
 guinary engagement that had ever been 
 fought between the Kinel-Connell and the 
 Kinel-Owen. 
 
 Having collected liis stragglers, O'Donnell 
 again took his course towards the south- 
 286 
 
 west, marching through the gap of Bamis- 
 more, and crossing the rivers Erne, Drowes, 
 and Duff, till he came to Carrownamaddoo, 
 in the district of Carbury in Sligo, where he 
 fixed his camp. 
 
 Meanwhile the Burkes of the north and 
 south,the O'Connors, Mac Dermots,0'Briens, 
 O'Carrolls, and O'Kennedys, had assembled 
 their forces according to agreement, and 
 marched into Sligo on their way to join 
 O'Neill. There they determined to obtain 
 possession of Sligo castle before they pro- 
 ceeded any further, and they were occupied 
 in the siege of that fortress when O'Donnell 
 entered Carbury, where he had arrived almost 
 as soon as the intelligence of his victory. 
 The army of Connaught was struck with 
 such a sudden terror, that not only did 
 they at once send messengers to treat for 
 peace, but before any answer could be 
 received to their proposals, the various 
 chiefs broke up their quarters before Sligo, 
 and made a precipitate retreat to the Cur- 
 lew mountains, where they separated and 
 returned to their several homes. "It was 
 strange and wonderful," says the Irish an- 
 nalist who records these events, "that such 
 an army as was there, so numerous, so com- 
 plete, with leaders so noble, and with enmity 
 so intense against the persons opposed to 
 them, should have retreated in this manner, 
 without having expended their fury and 
 wreaked their vengeance on each other." 
 O'Donnell had settled the terms of peace 
 with his enemies of Connaught with their 
 messengers befoi'e either knew of this preci- 
 pitate flight, and the latter only overtook 
 tlie chiefs for whom they had acted when 
 they had reached the Curlew mountains and 
 were preparing to separate. Thus was the 
 great confederacy of the north broken, and 
 the power and renown of the O'Donnells 
 raised higher than ever. 
 
 We are quite ignorant how far the new 
 lord deputy interfered in these great feuds 
 in the north. As far as we can judge by 
 the scanty memorials of the English pale 
 during this year, he was more busily engaged 
 with his own feuds with the Irish septs in 
 Munster, and in measures of precaution, if not 
 of hostility, against the Geraldines. Some 
 of the former are said to have sent over to 
 England to lay their complaints before the 
 king.* It is by no means, however, impro- 
 
 * Leland gives the following anecdote from the 
 Lambeth MSS. : — 
 
 " Mac Gillapatrick, the Irish chieftain of Ossory 
 had received some injury from the earl of Onnond, 
 
A.D. 
 
 1523.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [butlers and geraldines. 
 
 bable that this was clone at the instance of 
 the Geraldines, in the hope of prejudicing the 
 king against his deputy, for tlie feud between 
 them and the Butlers was already breaking 
 out with as great violence as ever. It was 
 towards the end of the year 1522 that the 
 earl of Kildare at length returned to Ire- 
 land; and from the day of his arrival he 
 appears to have laboured incessantly to effect 
 the removal of the earl of Ormond from tlie 
 government. At first he pretended to co- 
 operate heartily with the deputj^, and in his 
 zeal in tlie king's service he fell into an 
 ambush laid by the insurgent Irish, and nar- 
 rowly escaped with his life. While Ormond 
 was laying waste the territory of O'Brien of 
 Thomond, whose son was slain in a skirmish, 
 the rival earl had joined with his kinsman, 
 Con O'Neill, and attacked O'Connor Faly 
 and the O'Moores of Leix, and he flattered 
 the pride of O'Neill by allowing him to act 
 as a mediator in obtaining terms of peace 
 for the insurgents. In the beginning of 
 May, Kildare marched to the north against 
 Hugh O'Neill of Clannaboy, who, with the 
 assistance of a large body of Scots, were 
 connnitting depredations in that quarter. 
 He visited Carrickfergus, placed under arrest 
 the mayor, who was supposed to have con- 
 nived at some acts of piracy, destroyed Hugh 
 O'Neill's castle of Belfast, and two other 
 castles garrisoned by Scots, and "burnt 
 twenty-four miles of country." 
 
 In the letter in which the earl of Kildare 
 describes this last expedition to king Henry, 
 he complains bitterly of the wrongs he had 
 sustained from the lord dej)uty, who, he 
 says, had during his absence ravaged the 
 lands of some of his dependents " in cruel 
 wise," taking and destroying several castles 
 which he had garrisoned for the defence of 
 his own territory. He further states that, 
 it having been reported tliat it was the 
 king's intention to deprive the deputy of his 
 office, the latter had been preparing for his 
 own defence by entering into bonds of 
 alliance with divers of the Irishry, and 
 especially O'Carroll, intending by their 
 
 or, at least, found some pretence of complaint against 
 the present deputy, better known among' the Irish by 
 the name of Piers the Red. In all the dignity of 
 offended grandeur, he determined to apply to the 
 king of England for redi'ess ; but not with the humi- 
 lity of a suppliant or a subject. His ambassador was 
 sent to the court of England, to obtain justice, or 
 else to denounce the vengeance of an injured poten- 
 tate. He appeared at the chapel-door when the king 
 was going to his devotions, and advancing with a 
 composed and undismayed gravity of deportment. 
 
 assistance to defend his title to the earldom 
 of Ormond. " I," continues Kildare, " am 
 in a very evil case ; for, in avoiding your 
 displeasure, I forbear to make any bonds 
 with Irishmen against him that hath your 
 authority, and my friends of your English 
 subjects may not conveniently assist me in 
 my defence against the same, so as, without 
 the hastier help of God and your grace, I 
 am likely to be undone thereby." This 
 letter was dated on the 24th of May, from 
 Kildare, and on the very next day his 
 countess, who was at Maynooth, wrote a 
 pressing letter to cardinal Wolsey, describing 
 the various injuries her lord had suffered 
 from the deputy, against whom she endea- 
 voured to the utmost of her power to pre- 
 judice him. Aff'airs continued, however, in 
 the same state, without any steps taken by 
 the English court to pacify the dissensions 
 between the two lords, till the end of the 
 year, when they were embittered by a san- 
 guinary occurrence. 
 
 Among the most confidential of the earl 
 of Ormond's friends and advisers was Robert 
 Talbot of Belgard, who was an especial 
 object of hatred to the Geraldines on 
 account of the zeal and activity he had 
 shown in furthering the personal interests 
 of the deputy in opposition to them. As he 
 was on his way with a small retinue to keep 
 his Christmas with the earl of Ormond, James 
 fitz Gerald laid wait for him near Balli- 
 more, and there fell upon him unawares and 
 slew him. This outrage increased the ani- 
 mosity of the two parties, which broke out 
 in open war, and the dependants and parti- 
 zans of the two chiefs made hostile inroads 
 into each other's territories, and committed 
 great havoc. Intelligence of this turbulent 
 behaviour, as well as the repeated complaints 
 of each party, reached the English court, 
 and the king found it necessary to interfere. 
 In the month of April, 1524, Henry appointed 
 three commissioners, sir Antony Fitzherbert, 
 sir Ralph Egerton, and James Denton dean 
 of Litchfield, who were to act as judges 
 between the two disputants, and they landed 
 
 delivered his commission in these words: — Sta jiedihus, 
 doinine rex.' — doininus mens G lUapatricins me misit 
 ad te, etjussit dicere quod si nun vis castit/nre Petrnm 
 Hiifioii, ipse faciei helium contra te. We are not 
 informed whether Henry was amused or provoked at 
 this incident, or whether the importance of the Irish 
 ambassador received the mortification of a total neg- 
 lect. Piers the Red, it is certain, was not corrected, 
 and the hostilities of Mac Gillapatrick were not found 
 to have a very extensive or severe effect." 
 
 287 
 
KILDARE MADE DEPUTY 
 
 ■] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1524. 
 
 in Ireland for that purpose towards mid- 
 summer. It has been said that the choice 
 of tlie commissioners had been made at the 
 suggestion of the marquis of Dorset, and 
 that they were prejudiced in favour of the 
 earl of Kildare ; but, be this as it may, they 
 soon effected at least an outward peace 
 between the two earls, who bound them- 
 selves by an indenture dated on the 28 th 
 of July, which begins by rehearsing that 
 there had been " of long season, debate, 
 unkindness, and variance betwixt the said 
 earls, for divers ojjpressions, wrongs, burn- 
 ings, robberies, and spoilings, had, done, and 
 committed by the adherents, confederates, 
 and allies of the same parties, either of 
 them to other, and to tlieir tenants, friends, 
 and other persons of their peace and bands," 
 to forgive and remit to each other all 
 injuries hitherto committed, to live thence- 
 forth in mutual friendship and love, and to 
 submit all subjects of dispute which might 
 arise between them in future to the judg- 
 ment of certain of the great officers of the 
 crown named in the bond. No mention is 
 made in this document of the murder of 
 Robert Talbot, but the chronicler in Holin- 
 shed informs us that the murderer, sir James 
 fitz Gerald, was sent a prisoner to England, 
 where it is said that Wolsey indulged his 
 hatred to the Geraldines in subjecting him 
 to the humiliating punishment of being led 
 about the streets of London with a haltar 
 round his neck, and a taper in his hand, 
 preparatory to his execution, before which 
 the dean of Litchfield obtained his pardon 
 of the king. Wolsey, enraged that his 
 victim should thus escape him, is pretended 
 to have been henceforth more resolved to 
 sacrifice in some way or other the chief 
 members of tliis great family. 
 
 Just a week after the agreement between 
 the earls of Ormond and Kildare, tlie latter 
 was sworn to the ofiice of lord deputy, and 
 he was on that occasion made to enter into 
 another indenture, binding himself to the 
 king to observe and perform certain injunc- 
 tions which seem to show a doubtful confi- 
 dence in his fidelity. On this occasion, when 
 the new lord deputy, after having taken the 
 customary oath, marched in procession to 
 the abbey of St. Thomas in Dublin, it was 
 his Irish kinsman. Con O'Neill, who carried 
 before him the sword of stiite. This turbu- 
 lent chieftain of the north now professed 
 unbounded attachment to the English 
 government. 
 
 To support O'Neill against his Irish ene- 
 288 
 
 mies was one of the first acts of Kildare's 
 government. The chieftain of Tyrone had 
 experienced little peace from his neighbour 
 O'Donnell, since the disastrous battle of 
 Knockavoe in 1522. After remaining en- j 
 camped in a hostile attitude near the borders 
 of O'Neill's dominions during the spring of 
 1523, O'Donnell and his son Manns marched \ 
 into Tyrone, and ravaged and burnt the 
 whole country from Donaghmore, where 
 they crossed the border, to the town of 
 Dungannon. Among other towns burnt by 
 O'Donnell on this occasion was that of 
 Knockinclohy, in the barony of Dungannon, 
 which belonged to Mac Donnell, the com- 
 mander of O'Neill's galloglasses, and where 
 the annalist laments that "a beautiful herb- 
 garden was cut down and destroyed by his 
 forces." After having successively encampt 
 in several places, without finding an enemy 
 strong enough to encounter him in the field, 
 O'Donnell returned home to secure his 
 booty, and then he entered Tyrone again, and 
 remained there plundering and devastating 
 till the end of the year, when O'Neill sub- 
 mitted to the terms of peace that his invader 
 chose to dictate. O'Donnell then marched 
 into Breff'ny against the O'Rourkes, whose 
 territory he overran, "burning its edifices 
 and corn, and leaving nothing worth notice 
 in it without burning." 
 
 Soon after the return of O'Donnell from 
 this expedition, two of his sons, Niall Garv 
 and Owen, quarrelled with each other, and 
 commenced a civil war which spread confu- 
 sion throughout Tirconnel], and would pro- 
 bably have led to more disastrous conse- 
 quences, had not the two young chieftains 
 fallen by each other's hands in a skirmish 
 near Lough-Veah. Perhaps the quarrel 
 between the two brothers had been stirred 
 up or embittered by the intrigues of O'Neill, 
 for after their death O'Donnell, with no other 
 apparent provocation, assembled the army 
 of Tirconnell, and again invaded Tyrone, 
 which he plundered and ravaged without 
 opposition, as he had done the year before. 
 O'Neill had probably taken refuge with the 
 earl of Kildare, which would account for 
 his presence at Dublin on that nobleman's 
 entrance upon office ; and immediately after- 
 wards, "precisely in the middle of autumn," 
 to use the words of the Irish annalist, the 
 new lord deputy raised an army and marched 
 with his kinsman to take revenge on his 
 enemies of Tirconnell. They proceeded 
 without halting to Portnatrynod near Lif- 
 ford, where they encamped within the strong 
 
A.D. 1524.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [Desmond's treason. 
 
 intrenchments wliicli had been thrown up 
 two years before by the O'Donnells. The 
 chieftain of Tirconnell and his son Manus 
 had collected a large army, which had been 
 i reinforced by the arrival of a large body of 
 Scots, and they encamped at Drumleen, 
 [ separated by the river Foyle from their ene- 
 mies, and intending to give battle on the 
 morrow. Manus O'Donnell was desirous of 
 making another night attack, but his father, 
 who feared only the ordnance which the earl 
 of Kildare had brought with him, and the 
 strength of his intrenchments, refused his 
 consent. Manus, however, marched with a 
 party of galloglasses, and kept the English 
 army on the alert all night. Next morning, 
 contrary to the expectations of all, the earl of 
 Kildare sent messengers to O'Donnell's camp 
 to treat of peace, which was at length con- 
 cluded, Kildare offering himself to be a surety 
 between them, and then, at the beginning of 
 October, he returned to the English pale. 
 
 Meanwhile the Butlers were active against 
 their enemy, who had obtained so signal a 
 triumph over them by his appointment to 
 the office of lord deputy, and who, on his 
 side, was no less hostile to his old rival, the 
 earl of Ormond. Early in 1345 the latter 
 importuned the English court with com- 
 plaints against the deputy, whom he accused 
 of breaking the terms to which he had bound 
 himself before the commissioners. Kildare 
 retaliated by sending over to England a long 
 bill of accusations against the earl of Ormond, 
 and singularly enough, among other things, 
 he charges him with confederating against 
 his authority with the same O'Carroll who 
 had been accused of leaguing with Kildare 
 to embarrass the government of the earl 
 of Surrey. 
 
 It was from one of his own kindred, how- 
 ever, that Kildare's government now received 
 its greatest embarrassment. In the course 
 of 1523, the king of France, engaged at the 
 same time in a war with the emperor and 
 with the English monarch, formed the pro- 
 ject of raising a rebellion in Ireland which 
 might at least hamper one of his assailants. 
 With this object he sent a secret embassy 
 to propose an alliance with the earl of Des- 
 mond ; and the latter, who had been long 
 accustomed to set the English government 
 at defiance, and who at times would hardly 
 condescend to hold communication with it, 
 was flattered at being treated as an indepen- 
 dent prince by one of the greatest monarchs 
 in Christendom. He at once entered into a 
 treaty by which he bound himself to raise 
 
 VOL. I. 2 o 
 
 an army of four hundred horse and ten 
 thousand foot, with which he was to join a 
 French army on its landing in Ireland, and 
 he promised to enter heartily into the war 
 against the king of England, and never to 
 lay down his arms until he had conquered 
 one portion of the island for himself, and 
 the other for sir Richard de la Pole, who 
 was now wandering abroad, the representa- 
 tive of the house of York, and the tool of 
 any power which wanted to annoy the king 
 of England. The French king could have 
 no object in such an alliance but to give 
 momentary embarrassment to his enemies; 
 all his projects were put an end to by his 
 capture at the battle of Pavia; and the earl 
 of Desmond, whose alliance with France 
 had been discovered by the English king, 
 was left to support the consequences of his 
 treason. An order was sent to the earl of 
 Kildare, as lord deputy, for his arrest ; and 
 he so far obeyed the royal command, as to 
 march an army into Munster. But the 
 earl of Desmond retreated before him, and 
 his escape was probably connived at. In- 
 stead of following him up closely, Kildare 
 returned with his army to assist his other 
 kinsman, O'Neill. The opportunity was 
 not lost by the earl of Ormond, who was 
 indefatigable in his efl:brts to seize uf)on the 
 earl of Desmond, but without success. 
 
 The government of the earl of Kildare 
 had been by no means distinguished by 
 tranquillity among the Irish septs. Not long 
 after its commencement, a deed occurred 
 which excited horror throughout Ireland. 
 Maurice Doran, bishop of Leiglin, a prelate 
 who was respected for the holiness of his 
 life, had by some means or other offended 
 some turbulent ecclesiastics of his diocese, 
 who were not particularly distinguished for 
 the regularity of their lives. Among the 
 most violent of these was Maurice Cavanagh, 
 one of his archdeacons, the son of the abbot 
 of Duske, the latter being, as it was said, 
 a pretender to the bishopric. Towards the 
 end of the year 1524, the bishop held a 
 friendly meeting with Maurice Cavanagh 
 and some of his party at the head of Glen 
 Reynold, when he was set upon by the arch- 
 deacon's attendants and basely slain. The earl 
 of Kildare pursued the perpetrators of this 
 crime with relentless animosity, the more so 
 as some of them were followers of the earl of 
 Ormond, and those who fell into his hands 
 were carried to the spot on which the mur- 
 der was committed, and put to death with 
 the most degrading tortures. 
 
 289 
 
SUCCESS OF O DONNELL. 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 152G. 
 
 Duiiiig- the year 1524, besides the great 
 war between 6'Donnell and O'Neill in the 
 north, there were feuds more or less san- 
 guinary among the O'Kanes of Ulster, the 
 Mac Donoughs of Tirerrill, the Mac Ran- 
 nalls of Sligo, the O'Reillys of BrefFny, the 
 Maguires, the Mac Mahons, and in the 
 south among the O'Connors of Kerry and 
 the Mac Carthys. The O'Kanes were at 
 war again in 1525, and this was followed 
 next year by feuds among the Magennises, 
 the O'Reillys, the O'Rourkes, the O'Dogh- 
 ertys of Inishowen, and others. The peace 
 between O'Neill and O'Donnell appears to 
 have been soon broken, and, early in 1525, 
 O'Neill met Manus O'Donnell at Dublin, 
 where the lord deputy had called a meeting 
 of English and Irish chiefs to labour for 
 tlieir reconciliation; but after (to use the 
 words of the Irish annals) " their English 
 and Irish friends had debated and argued 
 upon every covenant that had ever been 
 entered into between them till that time," 
 they were still as far from agreement as 
 ever, and each hastened home to prepare for 
 a renewal of hostilities. In the beginning 
 of spring the two O'Donnells invaded 
 Tyrone, which they again plundered and 
 devastated without opposition, and during 
 Shrovetide they " feasted upon their preys" 
 at Kilralun, in O'Neill's territory, after 
 which they returned home with great 
 booty. 
 
 In the meanwhile a confederacy had been 
 formed against O'Donnell in Lower Con- 
 naught, where the O'Connors and the Mac 
 Donoughs had risen up in arras, and plun- 
 dered his allies in Carbury. O'Donnell 
 immediately reassembled his army, which 
 had separated after the expedition into 
 Tyrone, marched into Carbury and demo- 
 lished the castle of Grange, the residence of 
 the descendants of Brian O'Connor, and then 
 marched into Moylurg and plundered and 
 burnt the open country, his enemies always 
 retreating before him. But as soon as he 
 had carried away his booty into Tirconnell, 
 the O'Connors and Mac Donoughs assembled 
 again, threw themselves into Sligo, where 
 they destroyed the crops that were on the 
 ground, and then laid siege to the town 
 and castle of Sligo, in the hopes of making 
 themselves masters of it before O'Donnell 
 could come to its relief. But that chieftain 
 returned with the same activity he had dis- 
 played on so many other occasions; and, 
 finding they had raised the siege and retreated 
 at his approach, he pursued and overtook 
 290 
 
 them at Ballydrihid, only about three miles 
 from Sligo, and there entirely defeated them, 
 slaying several of their chiefs, and capturing 
 all their plunder. 
 
 The arms of O'Donnell were equally suc- 
 cessful in other quarters. His son Manus 
 erected a castle within the intrenchments of 
 Portnatrynod near Lifford, in spite of an 
 attack from O'Neill, whom he defeated in a 
 battle which resulted from his attempt to 
 hinder the completion of the castle. Later 
 in the same year O'Donnell marched with 
 all his forces into Sligo, to the assistance 
 of the Burkes of Tirawley, who were at 
 war with the Barretts, and on his way he 
 took the opportunity of wreaking his ven- 
 geance again on the O'Connors of Sligo. 
 In Tirawley he utterly destroyed the castles 
 of Caerthanan and Cros-Maoiliona, and after 
 committing other devastation, " he esta- 
 blished such peace, amity, and concord be- 
 tween the descendants of Richard Burke 
 and the Barretts that they were for a long 
 time afterwards friendly to one another." 
 Thus we find a native Irish chieftain enforc- 
 ing peace between two elans of "degenerate" 
 English. O'Donnell then continued his hos- 
 tilities against the O'Connors and the Mac 
 Donoughs, till both those septs submitted 
 to him and accepted his peace. Yet so 
 little were pacifications of this kind to be 
 depended upon, that next year saw a new 
 invasion of Connaught by O'Donnell, in 
 which he ravaged the whole of Moylurg, 
 destroyed several of its castles, and laid 
 siege to that of Castlemore in Mayo. Manus 
 O'Donnell remained in the north, engaged 
 in hostilities with O'Neill, and completing 
 his castle of Portnatrynod. 
 
 The enemies of the Geraldines were not 
 slow in taking advantage of the remiss- 
 ness of the earl of Kildare in pursuing the 
 war against his kinsman of Desmond, and 
 they watched for every opportunity to 
 send over to England exaggerated reports 
 of his disloyalty. He was accused of 
 holding a traitorous correspondence with 
 the earl of Desmond, and of engaging the 
 Irish septs to assist in screening liim from 
 the pursuit of justice, and it was asserted 
 that proofs could be produced of such an 
 engagement with the O'Byrnes of Wicklow, 
 as well as of a letter written to invite the 
 rebellious nobleman to a private interview. 
 These reports were received and listened to 
 at the court of England, and at length gave 
 cardinal Wolsey the advantage which he is 
 said to have long and ardently desired. In 
 
15^8. 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [capture of lord delvin 
 
 1526 the earl of Kildare was summoned to 
 England, to answer a number of charges 
 brought against him, the chief of which 
 were, in addition to his conduct in conniving 
 at the escape of the earl of Desmond, that 
 he had entered into alliance with several of 
 the king's Irish enemies, that he had caused 
 loyal subjects to be hanged for no other 
 reason but that they were dependants on 
 family of the Butlers, and that he had con- 
 federated with O'Neill, O'Connor, and other 
 Irish lords, to invade the territories of the 
 earl of Ormond while the latter held the 
 office of lord deputy. When he appeared 
 at court, instead of being treated with honour 
 as formerly, he was placed under arrest, and 
 committed a close prisoner to the Tower. 
 According to the account given in Holinshed, 
 he was exposed to a severe examination in 
 the council chamber, and even insulted by 
 the cardinal. It is certain that he remained 
 some time in confinement, until the earl of 
 Surrey, now (since the death of his father in 
 1524) duke of Norfolk, interceded for him, 
 and he, with the marquis of Dorset and some 
 other nobles having become sureties for him, 
 he was delivered from prison and committed 
 to the custody of the duke. 
 
 During the absence of the earl of Kildare, 
 who had not been deprived of his office, 
 Ireland had the misfortune to be governed 
 by vice-deputies. The first of these was 
 Kildare's kinsman, James fitz Gerald of 
 Leixlip, whom the earl had appointed his 
 deputy on his departure for England. He 
 was soon, however, found either incapable 
 of grappling with the disorders which now 
 sprung up on every side, or too much devoted 
 to the faction of the Geraldines, and he was 
 displaced to make way for Richard Nugent 
 baron of Delvin. From a letter written by 
 archbishop Inge and chief-justice Herming- 
 ham to Wolsey in the February of 1528, com- 
 plaining of the vice-deputy's insufficiency, we 
 learn that Ireland was so far neglected by the 
 English government at this time, that it was 
 considered necessary to have for a deputy a 
 nobleman whose private property was suffi- 
 cient to enable him to bear all the extraor- 
 dinary expenses of his office, and who had 
 influence among the Irish septs to set them 
 one against the other as the best protection 
 of the English pale, yet these very qualifica- 
 tions were the main ground of the charges 
 against the earl of Kildare. " It was never 
 so great need," says the archbishop of Dub- 
 lin, "to provide for the defence of this poor 
 land, in our days, as now; for the vice- 
 
 deputy (lord Delvin) is not of power to 
 defend the Englishry, and yet the poor 
 people is far more charged and oppressed 
 by him, tjian they have been, the earl of 
 Kildare being here. He hath no great lands 
 of his own, and the king's revenues, besides 
 the subsidy, are scant enough to pay the 
 king's officers their ordinary fees; and the 
 subsidy may not be had, till it be granted 
 by parliament, without which the deputy 
 hath full little to maintain his charges. The 
 earl of Kildare could help himself, in taking 
 advantage of Irishmen, better than any other 
 here." 
 
 It was little more than a month after the 
 date of this letter, when a misfortune hap- 
 pened to lord Delvin which threatened to be 
 attended with the most alarming conse- 
 quences. During the spring of 1528, the 
 various Irish septs bordering on the pale 
 exhibited signs of restlessness, and it was 
 whispered among his enemies that the earl 
 of Kildare had urged them to rise against the 
 English government, in order to make tlie 
 king feel the necessity of sending him back. 
 One of the most troublesome chieftains at 
 this moment was Kildare's ovni son-in-law, 
 O'Connor Faly, who committed several un- 
 provoked depredations on the English terri- 
 torry. O'Connor was one of those who 
 received from the Anglo-Irish a pension for 
 keeping the peace, wliich the vice-deputy, 
 lord Delvin, irritated by the turbulent be- 
 haviour of the Irish chieftain, refused to 
 pay. This led to bitter recriminations on 
 both sides, till at length it was agreed that 
 the dispute should be arranged at a peaceful 
 meeting between O'Connor and lord Delvin, 
 which was to be held on the 12th of May, 
 near a castle belonging to sir William Darcy, 
 called Rathyn, in the English territory, but 
 close upon the borders of Offaly. O'Con- 
 nor, contrary to his agreement, came to the 
 place with a strong body of his armed fol- 
 lowers, treacherously attacked the English, 
 slew their footmen, and wounded several of 
 their knights, and carried the vice-deputy 
 away into Offaly, where he placed him in 
 close confinement, and treated him harshly. 
 
 This insolent outrage gave the greatest 
 alarm to the government at Dublin, which 
 had already received information that the 
 perpetrator had confederated with various 
 other Irish chiefs, and they expected it 
 would be the signal for a general rising. 
 The lord Piers Butler, who had just resigned 
 the title of earl of Ormond to sir Thomas 
 Boleyn in exchange for that of earl of 
 
 291 
 
LORD DELViN IN PRISON.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.u. 1528. 
 
 Ossory, which the kins? conferred upon him, 
 was absent in the south of Munster, busily 
 occupied in making war upon the earl of 
 Desmond ; and the council in Dublin, after 
 having made an ineffectual attempt to obtain 
 the liberation of lord Delvin, hastily elected 
 sir Thomas fitz Gerald to fill his place in 
 the government, in the hope, as they said, 
 that" the great influence of the Geraldines 
 might restrain the turbulence of the Irish 
 septs at this critical moment.* In the 
 absence of his father, Lord James Butler, 
 the eldest son of the earl of Ossory, one of 
 lord Delvin's escort who escaped when he 
 was taken, proceeded under a safe conduct 
 to O'Connor's residence, and passed a night 
 under his roof. He informed archbishop 
 Inge, in a letter dated on the 20th of May, 
 that the captive deputy was kept in such 
 close confinement, that it was not without 
 much difficulty and suit that he was per- 
 mitted to speak with him, OX'oiuior insisting 
 not only that himself and his two brethren 
 should be jjresent during the interview, but 
 that their conversation should be carried on 
 loudly and in Irish, in order that they might 
 be fully acquainted with all that passed 
 between them. In answer to lord Butler's 
 expostulations, O'Connor said that the only 
 condition on which he would set his prisoner 
 at liberty was the payment of his pension 
 and of a ransom for the vice-deputy, and an 
 assurance that no one should ever be allowed 
 to pursue any measures to avenge the quarrel. 
 " His answer to me," says lord Butler, 
 " was so strong, and also he being so stiff 
 in it, that I durst not reply to anything that 
 he said, seeing that I was in his danger, to 
 do with me what him list." The Butlers 
 were especially active in the service of the 
 crown at this moment, and their zeal appears 
 to have been taken in good part by the king. 
 Their exertions chiefly saved the English 
 pale from serious disasters, for O'Connor of 
 Offaly now set no limit to his presumption, 
 and he talked publicly of his determination 
 to relieve Ireland entirely from the authority 
 of the English crown. -j- The Geraldines 
 
 * The alarm of the council is strongly portrayed in 
 the exclamations which fill their letter to the duke of 
 Norfolk on this pressing occasion. — " Almightie God 
 grante that our sovereigns lorde may provide breve 
 remedye ! or eUes this poor Englishi-ie is lyke to have 
 suche ruyne, that -nill not be repaired in any mans 
 dales lyving; for the Hirishemen (being never so 
 strong as nowe) have spii-d their tyme, and our 
 debilitie never more than at this howre. The Holy 
 Trinitie defend us! fore here is none othir hope of 
 socoure !" 
 
 292 
 
 supported him too openly in his pretensions, 
 and it is probable that the behaviour of the 
 new vice-deputy was not entirely without 
 suspicion, for the king appears to have sent 
 a commission in the month of October ap- 
 pointing the earl of Ossory to that office. 
 
 The communications sent to England from 
 the earl of Ossory and his son, dwell per- 
 petually on the circumstance of the near 
 relationship between the turbulent chieftain 
 of Offaly and the earl of Kildare, and on 
 the disloyal behaviour of the Geraldines in 
 Ireland, and they seem not to have been 
 thrown away at least upon the royal ears. 
 Among the great men in England who came 
 forward to express their interest in the 
 affairs of the sister island at this moment 
 was the duke of Norfolk, whose great popu- 
 larity in Ireland brought him numerous 
 communications on the fears and hopes of 
 the people over whom he had ruled with so 
 much satisfaction. In a letter written to 
 Wolsey on the 20th of June, the duke says, 
 " The malice between the earls of Kildare 
 and Ossory is, in my opinion, the only cause 
 of the ruin of that poor land." In a subse- 
 quent letter to the cardinal, he dwells upon 
 the dangers with which the English interest 
 in Ireland was threatened, and adds, " On 
 my truth, I see no remedy, the king not 
 sending the earl of Kildare thither, but only 
 to continue his brother (sir Thomas fitz 
 Gerald) in authority for this summer, and 
 to help him either with three or four hun- 
 dred Englishmen out of the parts next 
 adjoming thereto, and good captains with 
 them, or else to send him some good sum of 
 money to wage men with there, and with the 
 same money to get on his part such Irish- 
 men as he may, next adjoining to the Ing- 
 lishry, and the money to be distributed by 
 the advice of the chancellor and chief-justice 
 there (archbishop Inge and Patrick Ber- 
 mingham) ; and that also some money might 
 be sent to the earl of Ossory, as well to give 
 unto Irishmen to take part with the king's 
 deputy and him, as at the least to sit still 
 without doing hurt, nor to suffer none others 
 
 t " Item, O Conour, at the receyte of the kynges 
 letter to hym, delyvered by oon Gerot Delahide, the 
 said Gerot said to O Conour, that the kynges grace 
 dyd gret hym well. O Conour, in djTysion, askid 
 hym what kyng. The messinger said, the kyng of 
 England ; and Conour said with pom])e, that he 
 triistid, if he moght lyve on yer, to se Irland in that 
 case, that the kyng schold have no juridiction or 
 intromyttyng therwith, and that ther schold be no 
 more name of the kyng of Ingland in Irland then of 
 the kyng of Spayne." — State Papers, p. 148. 
 
A.D. 
 
 1528.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [kildare at court. 
 
 to come through them, to do hurt to the 
 king's obedient subjects. Other remedy 
 than his premised, by the truth I bear unto 
 the king's highness, I do not see, to preserve 
 that land, without marvellous great loss." 
 Such was the weakness of the English rule 
 in Ireland in the earlier part of the reign of 
 Henry VIII., and such the crooked measures 
 it was found most convenient to adopt in its 
 support. The duke, who already suspected 
 the intention of restoring the earl of Ossory 
 to the government, continues, " And if any 
 labour be made unto your grace to make the 
 earl of Ossory, or his son, deputy, in nowise 
 condescend thereunto ; for if they had the 
 rule, being so far off as they be, and also at 
 war with the earl of Desmond and O'Brien, 
 it shall be impossible for them to defend the 
 four shires, nor scant their own country ; 
 and when they shall come into the four 
 shires, they must come strong, and shall 
 spend so much in the country, that they 
 shall do more hurt far than good." 
 
 From some scattered state papers of this 
 period still preserved, it appears that, in 
 spite of the hatred which Wolsey is repre- 
 sented as having borne towards the earl of 
 Kildare, it was the cardinal who wished him 
 to be retained in his office of lord deputy, 
 and tnat it was the king who was opposed to 
 it. The powerful minister appears to have 
 objected to the earl of Ossory, and his son 
 the lord James, on the ground that the one 
 was too old to act with the necessary vigour, 
 and the other too young to be entrusted with 
 so great a responsibility. The reasons urged 
 for retaining the earl of Kildare are such as 
 show us too clearly the dangerous position 
 in which that nobleman stood in relation 
 to the crown. " The first cause," the cardi- 
 nal says, " is, that since the harvest and 
 collect (gathering in) is now at hand"— the 
 paper was written at the latter end of July — 
 " by reason whereof no provision can be 
 sent from hence in time for the withstanding 
 thereof, but that it should be in the power 
 of the Irish rebels, combined together, to 
 destroy and devastate the whole Englishry, 
 if by good wisdom, dexterity, and policy, 
 they be not contained by sweet and fair 
 means, and some hope of the earl of Kildare's 
 return: for it is greatly to be feared that 
 the said earl of Kildare's kinsfolks, servants, 
 and such other wild Irish lords (with whom 
 the said earl hath, and hath had, intelligence), 
 if they shall perceive that he is clearly 
 excluded from his office and in the king's 
 displeasure, they shall peradventure, for 
 
 revenging thereof, seeing they may now 
 commodiously and in manner without re- 
 sistance do the same, overrun the whole 
 English bounds and pale, and do such high 
 displeasure, as will not without army royal 
 and marvellous great expenses be redubbed 
 or repaired hereafter; whereas they, being 
 in some hope and not in utter desperation 
 of the said earl's return, there is some 
 apj)earance that they will forbear from doing 
 the said extreme hurts, and so by such means 
 the said dangers may be vpisely put over, 
 till other better provision shall be made and 
 devised for withstanding of their malicious 
 attempts." " The second cause," he con- 
 tinues, " why there should be no other 
 deputy made at this time there, is, that as 
 long as the said earl of Kildare is not dis- 
 charged of his room, he shall be afraid that 
 anything should be done or attempted to 
 the great hurt of the Englishry by those 
 that he hath intelligence with, or any others, 
 supposing that the same might be laid to 
 his charge ; forasmuch as he standeth respon- 
 sible as yet as the king's deputy of that land, 
 whereas he, being thereof discharged, shall 
 little or nothing care what may come of the 
 said land, or what hurt or damage be 
 inferred thereunto." The king followed a 
 middle course between the suggestions of 
 his minister and his own inclinations; he 
 allowed Kildare still to bear the title of lord 
 deputy, though he retained him at court, 
 and he gave the preference to the earl of 
 Ossory to act as real governor under the 
 title of vice-deputy; but he strongly ex- 
 pressed his reluctance to send the Greral- 
 dine back with the power of deputy, "for 
 his highness thinketh that the said earl of 
 Kildare goeth fraudulently about to colour 
 that the king should think that his grace 
 could not be served there but only by him." 
 Wliile one branch of the Geraldines 
 thus made itself suspected and feared by its 
 intrigues, the other was pursuing its course 
 of open hostility to the English crown, and 
 to the partizans of the English government 
 in Ireland. The earl of Desmond had 
 leagued with the O'Briens of Munster, and 
 far from repenting his former alliance with 
 France, he was now engaged in a new 
 plot to bring a foreign army into Ireland. 
 It was Charles V. who now offered his 
 assistance, and active negotiations were 
 carried on during 1528 and the earlier part 
 of 1529 for a Spanish army to be landed in 
 Ireland to join with Desmond and his Irish 
 allies in making war upon Henry VIII. 
 
 293 
 
DUKE OF RICHMOND.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. I,5f39. 
 
 Their designs were frustrated by the death 
 of the earl of Desmond, on the 18th of 
 June, 1529, at the moment when the earl of 
 Kildare was at length on the point of being 
 sent back to Ireland. His successor seems 
 to have thought it prudent to act, at least 
 at first, witli some show of obedience to the 
 English crown. 
 
 The English council appears to have hesi- 
 tated long on the best measures to be pur- 
 sued with regard to the government of Ireland, 
 when, on the 22nd of June, 1529, the king 
 bestowed the higher office of lord-lieutenant 
 of Ireland upon his young illegitimate son, 
 the duke of Richmond, and in the August fol- 
 lowing he appointed sir William Skeffington 
 to be the duke's deputy, and then it was 
 announced that the earl of Kildare was to 
 return with him to Ireland virtually as a 
 coadjutor, and was to have the chief man- 
 agement of the war against the Irish. A 
 reconciliation was at the same time enforced, 
 not only between Kildare and Ossory, but 
 also between the latter and the earl of Des- 
 mond. The written instructions which Skef- 
 fington carried with him to Ireland began by 
 orderinff him to lose no time in consulting 
 with the council of state there, on the neces- 
 sary measures for defending the English pale 
 against the Irish "rebels" who were in arms 
 against it. "For the better accomplishment 
 whereof the king's highness sendeth now 
 with the said deputy, for his more strength 
 and assistance, not only the number of two 
 hundred horsemen, there to reside and demore 
 (dwell) upon the tuition and defence of the 
 king's said land and good subjects of the 
 same, but also money for the contcntation 
 and payment of their wages, whom the king's 
 trust is the said deputy will employ to such 
 good purpose as may surely serve to the 
 defence aforesaid; whereunto nothing shall 
 more confer, than to conserve and keep the 
 king's said good subjects in good unity, love, 
 and concord, repressing and reforming all 
 particular grudges and displeasures, which 
 be or may grow amongst any of them, and 
 chiefly and principally between the king's 
 right well beloved cousins the earls of Kil- 
 dare, Desmond, and Ossory, who be the 
 persons most able there with their powers 
 and assistances efiectually from time to time 
 given to the said deputy, to resist the malice 
 
 of the enemies, and to preserve the king's said 
 land from invasion and annoyance. And 
 therefore the said deputy, with the rest of 
 the said council, must have special regard 
 thereunto, so that all rancours and displea- 
 sures between the said earls, and any of them, 
 may be clearly removed ; and they, as they 
 intend the weale of themselves and of that 
 land, and to avoid the king's utter displea- 
 sure and indignation, to put apart all occa- 
 sions that might engender any hatred or con- 
 trariety amongst themselves, and to conform 
 them to the appeasing thereof, by the order, 
 advice, and direction of the said deputy and 
 rest of the council; whom the king's high- 
 ness specially willeth and chargeth to see 
 due justice administered in the matters of 
 variance depending between the earls of 
 Kjldare, Desmond, and Ossory, whereby they 
 may, those things once extinct, join them- 
 selves in such conformity as they may, accord- 
 ing to the king's trust and expectation, serve 
 his grace in the defence of his said land, 
 truly, diligently, and surely, as his grace 
 verily trusteth they will do accordingly." 
 
 In their proceedings against the king's 
 enemies, the earls were to act according to 
 the express directions of the council, and 
 they were to do nothing without or contrary 
 to its authority. The deputy is further 
 directed to use his utmost exertions to obtain 
 a subsidy, in support of the Irish govern- 
 ment, before the assembly of the Irish par- 
 liament, which was to be called at the fol- 
 lowing Michaelmas, and he carried over wth 
 him the king's directions with respect to 
 the acts and statutes which were to be passed 
 in it. The remaining articles of these in- 
 structions direct that the soldiers sent over 
 from England shall serve under the earl of 
 Kildare in his expeditions against the Irish, 
 when the deputy was unable to take the 
 command in person, and order the deputy 
 and council to send frequent reports on the 
 progress of Irish affairs to the king and his 
 council in England. It is the mark of an 
 increasing attention on the part of the latter 
 to the condition of the Irish subjects, which 
 is further testified by the increasing number 
 of Irish state papers in the English State 
 Paper Office, and which was very soon ren- 
 dered still more necessary by the grave cha- 
 racter of events. 
 
 294 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 APPROACHING FATE OF THE FAMILY OF THE OERALDINES; UEBELLION OP 
 SILKEN THOMAS. 
 
 URING a short period 
 the king's instructions, 
 and the fear of provoking 
 his serious displeasure, 
 appear to have produced 
 their effect in Ireland, 
 and the earl of Kildare made an unusual 
 show of zeal in carrying out the plans of the 
 deputy and his council. Even the native 
 annalists remark that the power of the Eng- 
 lish of the pale became suddenly raised, and 
 that the Irish were attacked and reduced to 
 submission on every side. 
 
 When the new deputy, accompanied by 
 the earl of Kildare, landed at Dublin, they 
 were received amid the acclamations of the 
 populace, and the public joy seemed to per- 
 vade all ranks of the citizens, who marched 
 forth in solemn procession to meet them on 
 the green of St. Mary's abbey. There we 
 are told that the recorder, Thomas Fitz- 
 simons, made a "pithy" oration, in answer 
 to which Skeffington presented the earl of 
 Kildare, and told them to rejoice in his 
 escape from his enemies. " You have at 
 length," he said, if the words placed in his 
 mouth by Holinshed's chronicler be authen- 
 tic, " this nobleman here present, for whom 
 you sore longed whilst he was absent. And 
 after many storms by him sustained, he hath 
 now, to the comfort of his friends, to the 
 confusion of his foes, subdued violence with 
 patience, injuries with suffering, and malice 
 with obedience; and such butchers (alluding 
 to Wolsey, now falling into disgrace) as of 
 hatred thirsted after his blood, are now taken 
 for outcast mastiffs, littered in currish blood." 
 It is said that one of Kildare's first acts was 
 to proceed against the sept of the O'Tooles, 
 who had plundered his tenants during his 
 absence, and that his popularity was at this 
 time so great in Dublin, that the citizens 
 sent to his assistance two hundred archers of 
 their own trained bands. 
 
 For a while the earl of Kildare affected 
 the most cordial zeal in co-operating with 
 the deputy, and they made, in apparent 
 harmony, several successful attacks on the 
 Irish chiefs who had given most trouble to 
 the English. The O'Moores of Leix were 
 
 invaded and reduced to submission; and the 
 chief of the O'Reillys was taken prisoner. 
 The Irish, as far as we can gather from 
 their own chronicles, appear, during Kil- 
 dare's absence, almost to have forgotten 
 their own feuds in their hostility against 
 the English, but now they were again 
 quarrelling with one another. In 1530, a 
 domestic broil among the O'Neills, in which 
 the Mac Mahons took a part, led to the 
 devastation of a part of Fermanagh. O'Don- 
 nell was at war with the Burkes of Con- 
 naught. The army of Tirconnell marched 
 into Roscommon, ravaged Moylurg and 
 Muintir-Eolais, penetrated into Galway, 
 where they burnt the castles of Glinske and 
 Kilcrone, belonging to Mac David Burke, 
 and returned home with their plunder 
 through the counties of Mayo and Sligo. 
 After having thus secured his booty, O'Don- 
 nell invaded BrefTny, and devastated the 
 whole of that country " from the mountain 
 westwards." We are told by the native 
 annalist that, in the course of this incursion, 
 O'Donnell's army " burnt the best wooden 
 house in all Ireland, the house of Mac Cons- 
 nava on Lough Allen." Later in the same 
 year, O'Donnell again invaded the territory 
 of the Burkes, and committed his usual 
 devastations. 
 
 O'Donnell was at this time courting the 
 friendship of the English government, and 
 O'Neill appears to have lost its confidence 
 by the threatening attitude he had assumed, 
 in spite of his relationship to the earl of 
 Kildare. It is difficult, however, with no 
 more than the slight notices of the annalists, 
 to understand the real posture of affairs in 
 Ireland. Jealousies, and even bickerings, 
 had already arisen between that nobleman 
 and Skeffington, and it is by no means im- 
 probable that the chieftain of Tyrone was 
 secretly encouraged by the Geraldine. At 
 the beginning of May, 1531, O'Donnell sent 
 his ambassadors to Dublin, to sir William 
 Skeffington, and by them he made himself 
 formally the king's liegeman, undertook to 
 serve against all the king's enemies, and 
 claimed the king's protection for his own 
 dominions. The deed of submission, which 
 
 ^95 
 
KILDARE AND OSSORY.l 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.u. 1531. 
 
 is still preserved, calls O'Neill the king's 
 rebel, and intimates that he had his agents 
 in Dublin who had tried to hinder the 
 alliance of O'Donnell with the English. 
 Soon after the date of this transaction, the 
 English deputy, with Kildare, and other 
 English nobles, led an army into Tyrone, at 
 the instance, we are told, of O'Donnell, and 
 ravaged and burnt the southern part of 
 O'Neill's kingdom. At Kinard (now Cale- 
 don) they were joined by the army of Tir- 
 connell, and by that of Nial Oge O'Neill, 
 and another branch of the O'Neills who 
 were accustomed to join the standard of 
 O'Donnell on such occasions, and the c.\stle 
 was taken and demolished, and the country 
 round laid waste. Here the invasion ended, 
 and we are informed that the presence of 
 O'Neill and his army, which had been so 
 often, in recent years, defeated by the forces 
 of Tirconnell alone, now awed the formid- 
 able army of the confederates, which sepa- 
 rated, each party returning home with their 
 spoils, but without having reduced O'Neill 
 to any terms of submission. Perhaps the 
 intrigues of the earl of Kildare saved O'Neill 
 from being reduced to extremities by the 
 English; and it appears that O'Donnell 
 was called home by domestic troubles. Im- 
 mediately after his return, we find him 
 reduced to the necessity of calling in the 
 subordinate sept of the Maguires to assist 
 in putting an end to the civil war which was 
 raging between his own sons. Next year 
 (1532), Tirconnell was pacified, apparently 
 by the intervention of the lord deputy, to 
 whom O'Donnell and Maguire paid a visit 
 in Dublin, and one of the last military acts 
 of the government of sir William Skeffington 
 was to invade Tyrone again, on which occa- 
 sion he captured and dismantled tlie castle 
 of Dungannon. 
 
 The earl of Kildare now began to look 
 at sir William Skeffington only as an obstacle 
 in the way of his own advancement, and the 
 success with which he had escaped from all 
 attempts to efiict liis ruin only increased his 
 presumption. As early as the year 1531, 
 
 I the quarrel between this earl and the Butlers 
 had again broken out into open acts of vio- 
 
 j lence, and Kildare seems to have lost no 
 opportunity of injuring or insulting his 
 rival. Among the complaints sent to Eng- 
 land by the earl of Ossory at the commence- 
 ment of 1532, is one which relates to the 
 invasion of Tyrone in the previous summer, 
 and which is peculiarly interesting from the 
 picture it affords us of the turbulent charac- 
 296 
 
 ter of the materials of which an Anglo-Irish 
 army in this age was composed. " When," 
 says the earl of Ossory in this complaint, 
 " the earl of Kildare 's great friend and 
 adherent, O'Neill, was, in malice now lately 
 against the king and his deputy, committing 
 divers great wrongs and hurts towards the 
 king's subjects; wherefore the deputy, by 
 the advice of the privy council, proclaimed 
 a general hosting to be made upon the said 
 O'Neill, to the which hosting the deputy 
 instantly {i. e., pressingly) desired me to 
 accompany him. Whereunto I condescended, 
 notwithstanding the long distance of a hun- 
 dred and forty miles from my habitation to 
 the said O'Neill's country ; and, to serve 
 the king, brought with me a better company 
 than the earl of Kildare brought, with all 
 his Irish allies and adherents, and was at 
 mine own cost and charge all the time of 
 the expedition. And being in the enemy's 
 country, I, with the substance of all my 
 retinue, went abroad, foraging, and doing 
 such hurts as I might, leaving but a few to 
 keep my lodges, upon whom the earl of 
 Kildare's servants made an assault, and 
 wounded one of my servants. And over 
 that, the earl of Kildare displayed his 
 standard, and gathered all his power to insult 
 the little company that remained keeping 
 my lodges, of whom he slew the captain of 
 my footmen, and spoiled my company's 
 lodges of their harness, victuals, money, and 
 pilfer; whereof, as yet, no restitution is 
 made. And at my returning to the camp, 
 my company were fierce to have been re- 
 venged ; but, at the deputy's request, in 
 avoiding the danger of his person and his 
 company, by the enemies ready to set on 
 him, if the earl of Kildare and I had 
 encountered, I with much pain restrained 
 and stayed my company from revenging ; 
 and to endure the reproach, loss, and 
 damages, without anyredi-ess, as yet." The 
 earl of Ossory concludes this article of com- 
 plaint by beseeching the king for redress, 
 or for license " myself to seek my remedy, 
 if I can." 
 
 Other letters from Ireland at this time 
 show the little disguise which the earl of 
 Kildare now adopted in carrying on his 
 plans against his old enemies. The arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, Allen, who was a protege 
 of Wolsey, and had been appointed lord 
 chancellor of Ireland in 1528, began already, 
 now that the cardinal was known to be in 
 disgrace, to experience that bitter hatred 
 which a little later ended so fatally for him. 
 
A.D. 
 
 1532.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [kildare and skeffington. 
 
 A new cause of strife was furnished by the 
 death of Muh'ony O'Carroll, the chieftain 
 of Ely, in 1532. His son Fergananim 
 O'Carroll was already, before his father's 
 death, at war for the succession with another 
 branch of the family, the sons of John 
 O'Carroll, who, according to the Irish 
 system, appear to have had the better right. 
 The earl of Ossory took part with the sons 
 of John, while Kildare sided with Fergan- 
 anim, and thus in one district of the island, 
 and under a standard not their own, the two 
 earls were actually at open war. On the 
 morning of the day on which the old chief- 
 tain of Ely died, his sons and the sons of 
 John fought a sanguinary battle, in which 
 the latter with their ally the earl of Ossory 
 were defeated. In consequence of this 
 victory, Fergananim O'Carroll assumed the 
 chieftainship of the sept, but the war between 
 the two parties continued unabated. 
 
 Mfeanwhile the fall of cardinal Wolsey 
 had been hailed by the Geraldines as a signal 
 triumph, and the earl of Kildare proceeded 
 more openly in his of)position to the deputy, 
 sir William Skeffington. He sent his con- 
 fidential messenger into England, to make 
 complaints against the Irish government, 
 and at length he proceeded thither in person. 
 The king appears to have given credence to 
 his charges against the deputy, or perhaps 
 he was embarrassed with the constant bick- 
 erings of his Irish nobles, and was willing 
 to give Kildare another trial in the govern- 
 ment. He returned to Dublin in the August 
 of 1532, with the king's commission as lord 
 deputy, and sir William Skeffington deli- 
 vered up to him the sword of state. His 
 first proceedings showed plainly the spirit 
 with which he was now actuated. He treated 
 his predecessor, Skeffington, with disrespect, 
 and almost with insult, and the ex-deputy 
 hurried over to England to prepare the way 
 for his revenge. The archbishop of Dublin, 
 Allen, who had been an opponent of the 
 Geraldines, was deprived of his office of 
 lord-chancellor, and the seals were given to 
 Cromer, archbishop of Armagh, a devoted 
 creature of the earl of Kildare. One excep- 
 tion was made, to cover appearances, by the 
 appointment of the lord James Butler to the 
 office of lord treasurer; but this did not 
 hinder the deputy from showing the utmost 
 hostility towards his family. The earl of 
 Kildare had no sooner taken full possession 
 of his office than he threw himself heart and 
 hand into the feud of the O'Carrolls, and 
 joining Fergananim O'Carroll with his army, 
 
 VOL. r. 2 p 
 
 he not only carried on the war in person in 
 the territory of the O'Carrolls, but he en- 
 tered with his army the county of Kilkenny, 
 and plundered and burnt the lands of his 
 rival the earl of Ossory. It was in the 
 course of this war that the earl of Kildare, 
 while besieging the castle of Birr, which was 
 garrisoned by the O'Carrolls of the opposite 
 party, received a musket-shot in the side, 
 under the ribs. The ball could not be ex- 
 tracted by the unskilful surgeons of that 
 time, and he lay a long time in a dangerous 
 condition. At length, according to the Irish 
 annalists, next spring the ball came out at 
 the opposite side, and the earl was relieved 
 from much of his suffering, though he is said 
 never to have entirely recovered from the 
 effects of his wound. It has been said that 
 the irritation caused by this accident increased 
 the natural violence of his temper, and con- 
 tributed towards hurrying him into those 
 imprudent courses which soon afterwards 
 ended in the ruin of his family. 
 
 We have insufficient materials for the his- 
 tory of the last administration of the earl of 
 Kildare; but, from the little we know, he 
 appears to have been constantly engaged in 
 interfering in feuds like that just described, 
 while the disorder increased on all sides to 
 such a degree, that the seat of government 
 itself was sometimes exposed to the msults 
 of the insurgent Irish. During the year 
 1533, the English were especially unfortu- 
 nate in their hostilities with the native septs. 
 On one occasion, when three of the earl of 
 Kildare's brothers were on the borders, the 
 O'Tooles surrounded the house by night, 
 and set fire to it with the intention of 
 burning them; one of the brothers escaped 
 by the swiftness of his horse, and the other 
 two slunk away unperceived in the guise of 
 women, but their men were all slain. Ano- 
 ther brother of the earl of Kildare invaded 
 the territory of the Mac Mahons, when he 
 was defeated and closely pursued by the 
 Irish for six miles, himself wounded, and 
 thirty of his men slain. The lord Thomas 
 fitz Gerald, the earl's son, received a still 
 more disgraceful check from the O'Reillys, 
 who slew Edward Nugent and " other great 
 and valiant gentlemen," and took several 
 distinguished prisoners. The earl's Irish 
 kinsman, O'Neill, invaded Louth with a 
 large army during the sunnner, and was 
 allowed to remain there three or four weeks 
 plundering and burning at his pleasure, 
 while the deputy was too much occupied 
 with his own interests to make any attempt 
 
COMPLAINTS AGAINST KILDARE.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1533. 
 
 at resistance. To crown all, Edmund Oge 
 O'Brien, after having harassed the English 
 pale with predatory inroads for nearly a 
 year, carried his boldness so far as to make 
 a forcible entry by night into the castle of 
 Dublin, the strongest fortress in Ireland, 
 from which he carried away prisoners and 
 plunder: " which enterprize," says the writer 
 who reports this event, " hath more discou- 
 raged the king's subjects there, than the 
 loss of two thousand pounds of their goods, 
 inasmuch as niglitly since great watch is in 
 the city of Dublin, fearing that the same 
 should be pilfered (plundered), prostrate, 
 and destroyed, whereof they never dreaded 
 so much." 
 
 It is probable that the earl of Kildare, in 
 the prosecution of his wilful courses, treated 
 the council with neglect, if not with disre- 
 spect, for we find that they were among the 
 first to make open complaint. In the latter 
 part of the year 1533, sir John Allen, the 
 clerk of the council, who had recently been 
 appointed to the office of master of the rolls, 
 was sent to England with instructions from 
 the council to lay before the king the state 
 of Ireland, with certain suggestions for its 
 reformation, but, as it is understood, his 
 secret directions were to make serious 
 charges against the earl of Kildare. His 
 written instructions, which are still pre- 
 served, were signed by the archbishops of 
 Armagh and Dublin, the bishops of Meath 
 and Kildare, the prior of Kilmainham, the 
 abbots of St. Thomas Court and St. Mary's, 
 the prior of Louth, the lords Gormanstown 
 and Trimleston, barons Fynglas and Wliite, 
 and the chief-justice Delahide. This was 
 followed by a long private report on the 
 state of Ireland, addressed to Cromwell, 
 who was now rising in power, in which the 
 earl of Kildare was more openly attacked. 
 Private letters, arraigning the conduct of 
 the deputy, appear now to have crowded 
 upon the English minister, until the earl's 
 own brother, sir James fitz Gerald, addi-essed 
 himself to the king to complain how "my 
 lord my brother, your deputy, beareth me 
 most extreme displeasure, for such service 
 as I did to sir William Skeffington, then 
 your deputy." He represents that his lands 
 were so oppressed by the exactions and 
 impositions of the lord deputy, that they 
 were almost waste and destitute of inhabi- 
 tants, and himself deprived entirely of his 
 rents and revenues ; and he adds, as a further 
 testimony of the consequences of the earl's 
 misgovernment in one part of the Emjlish 
 298 
 
 territory, "except your grace look to the 
 redress and relief of your poor subjects of 
 the counties of Kildare and Carlow, they 
 shall be utterly destroyed, and the land left 
 waste; for the inhabitants be oppressed so 
 extremely, and otherwise than ever was seen, 
 that they must depart and leave the ground 
 waste, and so is a great part of it already. 
 As for the county of Carlow, which is my 
 lord of Norfolk's, it is for the more part 
 made waste and void, for the tenants, by such 
 oppression, be enforced to forsake their 
 habitations." 
 
 This, in fact, is the sum of the complaints 
 in the different papers addressed to the 
 English government, that, owing to the 
 insecurity which had resulted from the mal- 
 administration of the English pale, the Eng- 
 lish tenantry had, for many years, been 
 gradually deserting it, and it had been found 
 necessary or convenient to supply their 
 places with native Irish, who were habitu- 
 ated to this unsettled condition of society. 
 Thus the population which stood in the 
 light of subjects to the English government, 
 had no common interest with it, and was no 
 protection against invasion. The Irish coun- 
 cil of state assured the king that at this time 
 the land " was brought into such ruin, that 
 neither the English order, tongue, or habit, 
 was used, or the king's laws obeyed, above 
 twenty miles in compass." The council 
 declared their belief, that a great cause of 
 the evil was " the committing of the govern- 
 ment of this land to the lords who are natives 
 of the same, and the frequent change of 
 deputies." They recommend as remedies a 
 better military arrangement of the popula- 
 tion, under fixed captains, who were to call 
 out the local forces only at the order of the 
 lord deputy, and a strict ordinance that no 
 English noble or chief should enter into any 
 leagues or alliances with the Irish septs, 
 except by licence of the English government. 
 They further recommend the abolition of 
 the " black rent," and of the Irish custom of 
 taking eraics, or compensation for offences ; 
 the appointing to the government only Eng- 
 lish deputies, and not lords who were natives 
 of Ireland, and the appointment of other 
 officers who would not be swayed by their 
 own Irish interests ; the resumption of all 
 the king's revenues, which had, in former 
 times, been sold or given away in a profligate 
 manner. 
 
 The longer report sent to Cromwell enters 
 more into the particular grievances of the 
 moment. It states, as one of these, that 
 
A. D. 1533.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [state of the pale. 
 
 when the king deputed his authority to any 
 one of the great Irisli nobles, the latter 
 " doth shape it as a cloak or habit to cover 
 his cruel persecutions, minding utterly to 
 extinguish the fame and honour of any other 
 nobleman within that land;" and thus, 
 " such as most aided my lord of Norfolk, 
 and Sir William Skeffington, during their 
 being in the king's authority there, are now 
 worst entreated and most persecuted; and 
 their enemies, who then did most annoyance, 
 and warred upon the king's subjects, are 
 favoured, strengthened, and maintained." 
 This, it is represented, naturally raised the 
 authority of a great noble of the land like 
 the earl of Kildare, with his numerous fol- 
 lowers and his Irish alliances, above that of 
 the king himself, because those who served 
 him were sure of protection, whilst those 
 who served the king only, received no pro- 
 tection at all. In illustration of the effects 
 of this system, the writer of the report, who 
 was evidently a man well acquainted .with 
 Irish affairs, tells " a tale" which he had 
 heard in Ireland, which will be best given 
 in his own words. " At the time the earl 
 of Kildare's brethren, and others of the 
 Geraldines, O'Neill and O'Connor, with all 
 their friends, were appointed to invade and 
 subdue the king's dominion, of the circum- 
 stances whereof, as I suppose, few men of my 
 degree in Ireland be more privy than I am, 
 those of the earl of Kildare's privy council, 
 which were assigned to be the contrivers of 
 this secret purpose (of which sir Gerald 
 Shaneson, knight, was in manner principal 
 and chief; for, as I suppose, he is preserved 
 as the chief organ pipe of such mysteries; 
 he is a man of two hundred marks land and 
 above ; and if the earl of Kildare be in 
 England, during his absence he will be as 
 strange as any Irishman in Ireland; and if 
 he be there, he will be as familiar in Dublin 
 and elsewhere as others, and yet shall he 
 not obey the law) could not persuade sir 
 Thomas fitz Gerald, the earl's second brother 
 and heir to the lady St. John, to condescend 
 to their purpose for a great reason ; sir Gerald 
 Shaneson heard him so much stick upon the 
 king. "What, thou fool!" said he, "thou 
 shalt be the more esteemed in Irelarul, to 
 take part against the king ; for what haddest 
 thou have been, if thy father had not done 
 so ? What was he set by, until he crowned 
 a king here (alluding to Lambert Simnel), 
 took Garth the king's captain prisoner, 
 hanged his son, resisted Poynings and all 
 his deputies, killed them of Dublin upon 
 
 Oxmantown Green, would suffer no man to 
 rule here for the king but himself ? Then 
 the king regarded him, made him deputy, 
 and married thy mother to him; or else thou 
 shouldst never have had foot of land, where 
 now thou mayest expend four hundred 
 marks by year or above.' " 
 
 Such representations as these were calcu- 
 lated to raise a strong hostility towards the 
 Geraldines in a mind like that of Henry VIII. 
 and it was not long after this report that the 
 king determined to summon his deputy to 
 appear again in his presence for the purpose 
 of giving an account of his administration. 
 It appears that it was full time some steps 
 should be taken for the relief of the English 
 pale, which was exposed in such a degree 
 to the depredations of the Irish enemies, 
 that the citizens of Dublin were in danger 
 of suffering from the want of provisions. 
 A facetious priest named John Deythyke 
 wrote to England at this time, perhaps to 
 Cromwell, and gives the following burlesque 
 description of the state of things in Dublin. 
 " It may please your mastership," he says, 
 " to be advertised of the news that be in 
 this country, which be these. No doubt 
 here be very well disposed people, and full 
 of abstinence. Your mastership knovv^eth, 
 their accustomed ceremony is to refrain fiesh 
 on the Wednesday; but now they be much 
 more full of devotion, for they do not only 
 abstain it on the Wednesday, but also Sun- 
 day, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. This 
 is a very sore abstinence. I trust to Jesus, 
 ye shall hear that there shall be many saints 
 amongst them; but they play the fox's part, 
 'fy of hens '.'when he could not reach them. 
 For I assure your mastership, all the butchers 
 in Dublin have not so much beef to sell as 
 would make one mess of brewis (pottage); 
 so as they use white meat very well in 
 Dublin, except it be in my lord of Dublin's 
 house, or such as have of their own provi- 
 sion. And the cause thereof is, they be 
 nightly robbed ; there hath been five or six 
 preys taken out of St. Thomas's within this 
 ten days, so that one butcher for his part 
 hath lost two huncbed and twenty kine. 
 And another cause is, the country is so quiet, 
 that they dare not ride one mile out of the 
 town to buy any manner of victuals; and 
 they make their complaint to the deputy, 
 and the wind hath blowen him so in the ears 
 that he cannot hear them. But it is a coni- 
 mon saying, ' Who is so deaf as he that list 
 not to hear?' So as the poor butchers be 
 without remedy, and have closed up their 
 
 299 
 
KILDARE IN THE TOWEK.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1534. 
 
 shops, and taken them to making of pricks, 
 thinking that there is a new Lent." The 
 writer of this letter goes on to make a state- 
 ment which was calculated to throw strong 
 suspicions on the designs of the earl of 
 Kildare— " Sir, since the sight of the king's 
 letters (i. e. those summoning him to court), 
 the deputy hath conveyed all the king's 
 ordnance out of the castle into his own 
 country, and fortifyeth his castles and fast- 
 nesses with them. What this should mean, 
 I know not as yet, but I think no good; for 
 it is a shrewd likelihood." 
 
 It is indeed probable that at this time the 
 earl of Kildare meditated a desperate attempt 
 at resistance, and it was evidently the com- 
 mon impression in Ireland that he would 
 set at defiance the king's authority if any 
 attempt were made to recall him. In a 
 letter from the earl of Ossory to Cromwell, 
 the former informs the minister that " men 
 think here that all the parchment and wax 
 in England wdll not bring Kildare thither 
 again." At length, in the month of October, 
 the carl received the king's order to repair 
 to England, and, althovigh he offered no 
 resistance, he showed an unwillingness to 
 obey it, which indicated a foreboding of 
 the fate which hung over his house. At 
 the beginning of November, he sent his 
 countess to England, in the hope that by 
 her family connections and influence she 
 might be able to avert the storm; but find- 
 ing this hope vain, and after a multitude of 
 excuses for his delay, on receiving another 
 pressing letter from the king he left Ireland 
 in the February of 1534. From the subse- 
 quent examination of one of Kildare's 
 servants, who was employed as his confiden- 
 tial messenger at this time, it appears that 
 the earl, before he entered upon his journey, 
 held several communications with his bro- 
 thers and with his son, the lord Thomas 
 fitz Gerald, and that the latter, according to 
 the rumour in the earl's house, was to be 
 ruled by the advice of his uncle, sir James 
 fitz Gerald, sir Thomas Eustace, James 
 Delahyde, sir Walter Delahyde, and sir 
 Walter's lady, Janet Eustace. This seems 
 to imply an arranged plan of proceeding 
 during the earl's absence, probably with the 
 object of raising such difiiculties in Ireland 
 as would compel the king to restore him to 
 the government — a plan which had succeeded 
 so well on former occasions — or to revenge 
 him, in case the king should proceed to ex- 
 treme measures. He then summoned the 
 council of state to meet him at Drogheda, 
 300 
 
 the port from which he intended to sail. 
 There the earl, who had already been 
 accused of harbouring the project of making 
 the office of chief governor hereditary in 
 his family, adopted the fatal resolution of en- 
 trusting the government during his absence 
 to his own son, a youth who had not yet 
 reached the age of twenty-one, and who 
 possessed all the pride and rashness of his 
 family, and he delivered the sword to the loi'd 
 Thomas in presence of the council. On 
 his arrival in London, the earl was made 
 acquainted with the charges against him, 
 and committed a close prisoner to the 
 Tower. 
 
 The earl of Ossory also repaired to court, 
 perhaps with the expectation of obtaining 
 the office of deputy; but the various infor- 
 mations which the king and his minister 
 now received from Ireland showed so clearly 
 the evils which had arisen from the misrule 
 of the Irish lords, that he determined to 
 re-appoint sir William Skeffington, who 
 jsrepared immediately for his journey, and 
 the earl of Ossory, after entering into a 
 written bond to the king, promising to sup- 
 port his government with all his power, 
 returned to Ireland. Before their departure, 
 events had occurred in Ireland which mate- 
 rially affected the position of all parties con- 
 cerned in the government, and led to most 
 important results. 
 
 A long report on Irish affairs sent over to 
 the king soon after the earl of Kildare's 
 departure, says that his son was already 
 "taken to be young and wilfull, and mostly 
 to this time ordered by light counsel ;" which 
 means probably that he acted solely by the 
 advice of the persons recommended to him 
 as counsellors by his father, who were no 
 doubt some of the most unscrupulous sup- 
 porters of the Geraldine influence. They 
 perhaps looked upon the appointment of 
 Skeffington as the commencement of an 
 intrigue to displace them gradually from 
 the advantageous position which they then 
 held in Ireland, and then to proceed to 
 force when they had been deprived of the 
 principal means of resistance, and they seem 
 to have thought it most politic to resort 
 at pnce to violent measures. All accounts 
 would lead us to believe that in his subse- 
 quent conduct the lord Thomas fitz Gerald 
 acted by the counsel of these very advisers 
 whom the earl had recommended to him. 
 Those who subsequently sympathised with 
 the Geraldines in their misfortunes, pre- 
 tended that their enemies had designedly 
 
A.D. 1534.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [silken Thomas's rebellion 
 
 spread abroad the report that the earl of 
 Kiidare had been brought to the scaffold, in 
 order to lead the young lord into such 
 measures as would compromise his family, 
 but they agree that it was the counsel of 
 James Delahyde which drove him into oj^en 
 rebellion.* 
 
 It is said that there was from the first 
 little agreement between the young vice- 
 deputy and the council of state, and that there 
 were open bickerings between him and arch- 
 bisliop Allen, whom he regarded with feelings 
 of intense hatred as the supposed instrument 
 of cardinal Wolsey in former persecutions 
 of his family. The divisions between the 
 council and their chief were increased by the 
 encouragement which his enemies derived 
 from the reports that gained ground daily 
 of the execution of the earl of Kiidare, and 
 of the approaching departure for Ireland of 
 sir William SkefBngton. As these reports 
 gradually took more strength, when the lord 
 Thomas had held his office but four months, 
 he summoned the council to meet at St. 
 Mary's Abbey, on the 11th of June, 1534. 
 He appears to have arranged his plans very 
 extensively, and to have already formed a 
 confederacy with O'Neill, O'Connor Faly, 
 and other Irish chiefs, who were to support 
 him with their forces; and when the day 
 arrived, which was the festival of St. Bar- 
 nabas, the young lord rode through the 
 streets of Dublin with his sword and robes 
 of state, but escorted with seven score horse- 
 men in their shirts of mail, besides the usual 
 assemblage of followers on foot. He pro- 
 
 * It may be worth while to repeat here the story 
 related in Stanihurst's " Chronicles of Ireland," in 
 Holinshed, but with the caution that his stories are 
 not to be relied upon, and in this part they are more 
 or less contradicted by the published State Papei-s. 
 He appears too often to have taken the mere traditions 
 of the Pale, and worked them up from his own ima- 
 gination : — 
 
 " The enemies, therefore, having welnigh knedded 
 the dough that should have beene baked for the 
 Giraldines bane, deuised that secret rumors should 
 sprinkle to and fro, that the earle of Kiidare his exe- 
 cution was intended in England, and that upon his 
 death the lord Thomas and all his bloud should have 
 beene apprehended in Ireland. As this false mutter- 
 ing flue abroad, it was holpen forward by Thomas 
 Canon, and others of Skeifington his seruants, who 
 sticked not to write to certeine of their freends, as it 
 were, verie secret letters, how that the earle of Kii- 
 dare their' maister Iris secret enemie (so they tooke 
 him, because he got the governement over his head) 
 was alreadie cut shorter, as his issue presentlie should 
 be ; and now they trusted to see their maister in his 
 government, after which they sore longed, as for a 
 preferment that would in short space advantage them. 
 Such a letter came into the hands of a simple priest, no 
 
 ceeded in this manner to Dame's Gate, and 
 thence crossed the water to St. Mary's 
 Abbey, where the council, according to ap- 
 pointment, waited his coming. 
 
 The vice-dejjuty had hardly taken his 
 seat, when his horsemen and servants, armed 
 and weaponed, rushed into the council-cham- 
 ber to support their leader, who now rose 
 and with much warmth declared his inten- 
 tion of renouncing his allegiance to the 
 English monarch, and of taking up arms in 
 defence of his family, which was threatened 
 with ruin, and then offered the sword of state 
 to the lord-chancellor, archbishop Cromer. 
 The latter, who was himself a creature of 
 the Geraldines, and had probably been tam- 
 pered with, was the only member of the coun- 
 cil who had been admitted to the secret of 
 tlie lord Thomas's intentions in calling them 
 together, and while his colleagues were struck 
 with confusion, he rose to meet the angry vice- 
 deputy, and, seizing him by the wrist, witli 
 tears on his cheeks, pathetically intreated 
 him to lay aside his dangerous designs, repre- 
 senting to him the little hopes he could 
 entertain of final success against a powerful 
 monarch like Henry, and the doubtful cha- 
 racter of the intelligence upon which he was 
 acting, and urging him to wait, at least till 
 he should obtain more correct information. 
 The young Geraldine stood unmoved by the 
 chancellor's oration, while, we are told, liis 
 followers, who were unacquainted with the 
 English language, began to murmur at its 
 length, some jestingly intimating that they 
 thought he was preaching a sermon, while 
 
 perfect Englishman, who for hast hurled it amongest 
 other papers in the chimnies end of his chamber, 
 meaning to peruse it better at more leisure. The 
 same verie night, a gentleman retaining to the lord 
 Thomas, the lord justice or vicedeputie, as is before 
 specified, tooke up his lodging with the priest, and 
 sought in the morning, when he rose, for some paper 
 to draw on his sti'ait stockings; and, as the divell 
 would, he hit upon the letter, and bare it awaie in the 
 heele of his stocke, no earthlie thing misdeeming. At 
 night againe he found the paper unfretted, and musirig 
 thereat he began to pore on the writing, which noti- 
 fied the earle his death, and the apprehension of the 
 lord Thomas. To horsse goeth he in all hast, brought 
 the letter to James de la Hide, who was principall 
 councellor to the lord Thomas in all his dooings. De 
 la Hide having scantlie oveiTead the letter, making 
 more hast than good speed, posted to the lord Thomas, 
 imparted him that letter, and withall putting fire to 
 flax, before he dived to the bottome of this trecherie, 
 he was contented to swim on the skum and froth 
 thereof, as well by soothing up the tenor of the letter, 
 as by inciting the lord Thomas to open rebelHon, 
 clolting the odious name of treason with the zealous 
 revengement of his father's wrongfuU execution, and 
 with the warie defense of his owne person." 
 
 301 
 
MURDER OF ARCHBISHOP ALLEN.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1534. 
 
 others, who probably knew that the chan- 
 cellor was the protege of his family, ima- 
 gined that he was recounting the praises of 
 their leader, wjio, from the gorgeous apparel 
 of his bodyguard, was popularly known by 
 the title of Silken Thomas. At this moment 
 an Irish bard, who formed one of his house- 
 hold retinue, taking up the theme which this 
 last conjecture offered to him, suddenly struck 
 the strings of his harp to chant the praise of 
 Silken Thomas, telling him of the glory of 
 the Geraldines, and lamenting that he lin- 
 gered so long in avenging their feud. This 
 appeal had an instantaneous effect; the lord 
 Thomas cast a fierce eye on the members of 
 the council, threw down the sword and 
 divested himself of the robes of state, and 
 rushed out wildly with his followers to pro- 
 claim his rebellion to the world. 
 
 Tlie council, which had now recovered its 
 courage, immediately desjjatched an order to 
 the mayor of Dublin to arrest the young 
 Geraldine and his companions as traitors; 
 and then such of them as were more especi- 
 ally obnoxious to the Geraldines, including 
 archbisliop Allen and chief baron Finglas, 
 took refuge in Dublin castle, which was put 
 in a state of defence. The city of Dublin 
 had been almost depopulated by the plague, 
 and it was now too weak to offer any resist- 
 ance to the designs of the rebels. After 
 hovering about it for a short time, he col- 
 lected the Irish septs of the pale under his 
 standard, proceeded through it, exacting 
 oaths of fidelity to his cause from the prin- 
 cipal inhabitants, or throwing into prison 
 those wno refused, made an ineffectual 
 attempt to persuade the Butlers to join in 
 his rebellion, and then invaded their terri- 
 tories in Kilkemiy. Among the Irish septs 
 who took this occasion to rise against the 
 English, were the O'Tooles and other septs 
 of the mountains of Wicklow, who overran 
 and plundered the district of Fingal, which 
 was considered as the granary of Dublin. 
 The citizens, alarmed and provoked at this 
 attack, raised the few men who were still 
 left able to bear arms, and went out to inter- 
 cept the plunderers at Kilmainham; but, 
 overpowered with numbers, they were driven 
 back and obliged to take shelter behind their 
 walls, after fourscore good citizens had been 
 slain. 
 
 It was an object of the utmost importance 
 to the rebels to make themselves masters of 
 Dubhn castle, and the lord Thomas deter- 
 mined immediately to lay siege to that for- 
 tress, in the belief that it was iU provided 
 302 
 
 with amunition and provisions, and the hope 
 that he should be able to reduce it before 
 efficient aid could arrive from England. 
 One of his first steps was to enter into a 
 parley with the citizens, to whom he pro- 
 posed that they should allow him to enter the 
 city and lay siege to the castle from thence, 
 on condition that they should be protected 
 from all injury, either in their property or 
 persons. The citizens were weakened, not 
 only by the ravages of pestilence, but by the 
 recent defeat they had sustained from the 
 O'Tooles, and they were utterly unable to 
 resist the armed multitude which followed 
 the standard of the rebellious Geraldine. 
 They at first hesitated; then, as a measure 
 of security, consulted the constable of the 
 castle; and when he, well acquainted with 
 their unfortunate condition, agreed, after he 
 had first been supplied with provisions and 
 men to strengthen the garrison, they com- 
 plied with the conditions of the rebels. 
 
 The siege of Dublin castle was now regu- 
 larly formed ; and, although under its brave 
 constable John White, that fortress seemed 
 to promise at least a lengthened resistance, 
 some of the members of the government 
 who were most obnoxious to the rebels were 
 apprehensive of the result, and were anxious 
 to make their escape to England. This was 
 especially the case with archbishop Allen, 
 who appears to have had good reason for 
 apprehending the vengeance of the Geral- 
 dines. A small vessel was therefore secretly 
 provided for him, and he embarked at night 
 at Dame's gate, Bartholomew fitz Gerald, a 
 Geraldine in his service, acting as guide 
 and pilot. By this man's unskilfulness or 
 treachery, the ship was stranded near Clon- 
 tarf, and the archbishop and his attendants 
 landed at Howth, where they were received 
 into the house of one of the inhabitants. 
 The lord Thomas, however, was immediately 
 informed of the circumstances of tlie arch- 
 bisliop's flight and of his place of refuge, 
 and he proceeded to Howth, accompanied 
 by sir James Delahyde and his uncles sir 
 John and Oliver fitz Gerald, and a body of 
 his Irish followers, who beset the house 
 and dragged the archbishop from thence to 
 a small village named Artayne, where, in 
 spite of his supplications for mercy, he 
 was, by the Geraldine's order, murdered 
 with circumstances of great barbarity. This 
 slaughter took place on the 29th of July. 
 According to the account given in Holinshed, 
 when the bishop begged on his knees that 
 liis life might be spared, the lord Thomas 
 
A.D. 1534.1 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [the great ExcoMMUNirAxioN. 
 
 turned away from him in disdain, bidding 
 his followers in Irish "Away with the churl !" 
 and the latter, interpreting this as an order 
 for his death, fell upon the unfortunate 
 prelate and cruelly hacked him to pieces 
 with their daggers, or skeins. The exami- 
 nation of one of the lord Thomas's servants, 
 who afterwards surrendered to the English, 
 implicated his master more directly; and it 
 appears that the young lord had sent his 
 chaplain, soon after the death of archbishop 
 Allen, to the pope to obtain absolution for 
 killing him. 
 
 * This tremendous act of excommunication, from 
 its extraordinary character, deserves to be here printed 
 from the original. It is as follows : — ■ 
 
 " The cnpie of the curse geven TJiomas Fifzr/nrakl and 
 others for ki/lfi/n;/ of the archbusshop of Dub/i/n. 
 
 " In the name of God, Amen. By thauctorite of 
 the fader, the sone, and tholy goost, and of the blissed 
 apostels Peter and Paule, Saynt Patric thapostell and 
 patrone of Irlonde, all other the apostels and company 
 of heven, and by thauctorite of om- mother holy 
 churche, and the kepers of the sph-ituall jurisdiccion 
 of the metropolitan see of Dublin, the same sea beyng 
 voyde. Whearas Thomas fitz Gerold, eldist sone to 
 Gerold late erle of Kildare, of malyce pretensed, not 
 oonlie procured John Telyng and Nicholas Wafer to 
 put violant handes upon the moost reverend father 
 in God lorde Jolm Alen, of good memorie, late arch- 
 busshop of the said sea of Dublin, prymat of Irlond, 
 takyng him prysoner at Houth, within the dioces of 
 Dublin, and from thens conveyeng hym to Tartayne 
 in the same diocesse ; but also in the same he the said 
 Thomas, accompanedwith John fitz Gerold and Olyver 
 fitz Gerold, bredern to the said late erle, James Dela- 
 hide, Edwarde Rookes, and dyverse other evyll dis- 
 posed persones, nioost shamefullie, tyi-annyusly, and 
 cruellie murdred and put to death the said archbus- 
 shop; for which execrable, abhomynable, detestable, 
 and danipnable acte, accordyng to the prescriptes and 
 ordynaunce of holy churche, we publishe and declare 
 the said Thomas fitz Gerold, John fitz Gerold, Olyver 
 fitz Gerold, James Delahide, Edward Rookes, John 
 Telyng, Nicholas Wafer, and all other, which gave 
 commandment, counsaill, favor, helpe, ayde, assist- 
 aunce, comeforte, or consentid to the same, or after 
 thacte commytted ded ratifie, accept, approve, or wil- 
 fuUie defcnde it, or socor or receyve any suche said 
 personnes,to be excommunicate, accursed, and anathe- 
 mazate. And to thentent all Cristen people may the 
 rather take knowlege therof and avoyde and eschue 
 the daunger of the same, we invocate and call in ven- 
 gaunce against the said Thomas, and every of the 
 persones aforesaid, the celestiall place of heven, with 
 all the multitude of angels, that they be accursed 
 before them, and in ther sight, as spii-ittes condemp- 
 ned ; and the devell to stand and be in all ther doinges, 
 on ther right hand, and all ther actes to be synfull 
 and not acceptable before God. Been they and every 
 of thaym cast owt from the company of Cristen people, 
 as dampned creaturs, and all that they shall doo to 
 be done in ther dampnable offence and syne. Lett 
 thaym be put owt of ther bowses and mansyons, 
 which oder men may take, and put to decay and 
 ruyne; ther labors to be frustrat from all goodnes. 
 
 This savage act was in many respects 
 injurious to the cause of the rebels; the 
 murder of a high ecclesiastic produced a 
 profound sensation among the populace ; and 
 the sentence of excommunication which fol- 
 lowed, clothed in the most awful expressions 
 of vengeance which the church could invent, 
 is said not only to have excited a public 
 horror of the criminal, but to have broken 
 the heart of his father, to whom, according to 
 one report, it was read in his prison in the 
 Tower.* It is certain that the earl of Kildare 
 died soon after receiving intelligence of his 
 
 Lett no man be to thaym mercyfuU, and ther memorie 
 for ever in the erth to be forgotten. God Almighty 
 may raygne upon thaym the flames of fyer and sul- 
 fure, to ther eternall vengeaunce, and that they may 
 cloth thaym selfs with the malediction and high curse, 
 as they dayly cloth them with ther garmentes; the 
 water of vengeaunce may be i.i the inner partes of 
 ther bodies, as the mary is in ther bonnes. Been they 
 and every of thaym gyi-ded with the gyi-dels of male- 
 diction and curses. Been they and every of thaym 
 partetakers with the wycked Pharoo and Nero, 
 Herode and Jude the proditors of Jhesu Crist, and 
 with Daron and Abyron, whnom the erthe swalowed 
 qwyck, so may they disend into hell qwyck. O good 
 Lorde, send to thaym and every of thaym hunger and 
 thyrst, and stryke thaym and every of thaym with 
 ])estilens, till they and every of thaym be consumed, 
 and ther generation clene radycat and delytit of this 
 worlde, that ther be no memorie of thaym. Stryke 
 thaym and every of thaym also with such leapre that 
 from the hiest parte of the head to the sole of ther 
 fote ther be no hole place. Stryke them also with 
 madnes, blyndnes, and woodnes of mynde, that they 
 may palpe and clayme, also handle as blynde men 
 dothe in darknes. And furder been they cursed and 
 ])ut from the company of all Cristen people, for they 
 cannot have paynes according to ther deservyng. 
 And by the auctorite aforesaid, we do declare inter- 
 dict the place wher the same archbusshop was killed ; 
 which interdiction we will to be observed accordyng 
 thordynaunce of holy church in this behalf; and lyke- 
 wise do interdict all cities, landes, townes, castels, 
 willages, all maner of chapels, and all other places, 
 whenn the said cursed persons been, or anny of 
 thaym be, or at anny tyme hereafter shalbe, come, or 
 resorte unto; willing and commandyng all spirituall 
 persons of this dioces and provynce of Dublin, upon 
 payne of the lawe, to cease from administration of all 
 devyne service, as longe as the said Thomas fitz 
 Gerold, John fitz Gerold, Olyver fitz Gerold, James 
 'Delahyde, John Telyng, Nicholas Wafer, Edward 
 Rookes, or anny other of the said cursed persones, 
 or anny of thaym, shalbe present, and so contynue 
 thre dayes after ther departure. And also, by the 
 same auctorite, decre thaym and every of thaym to be 
 deprived of all spirituall honors, dygnites, offices, 
 benyfyces, and all other ecclesiastycall profightes and 
 commodites, whatsoever they bee, which they now 
 possesse ; and inhabill thaym and every of thaym to 
 receyv or accept any other lyke in tyme to come. 
 Furder, by the same auctorite, we excommunicate 
 and curse all persones, thoos, and in the cases which 
 the law permittith, except which, after due know- 
 ledge, thexecut)'on of this sentence of the great curse; 
 
 3();>' 
 
DEATH OF KILDARE.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1534. 
 
 son's rebellion, chiefly however, from the dis- 
 ease under which he had long been labouring, 
 and the copy of the sentence of excom- 
 munication, which we put below, and whicli 
 was sent to the lieutenant of the Tower, 
 probably arrived too late. The rebel was 
 not perhaps immediately made acquainted 
 with the death of his father. Although he 
 is sometimes spoken of by others as the earl 
 
 of Kildare, he does not appear ever to have 
 assumed that title himself; and, at a later 
 period, the Geraldines of Kildare looked 
 back to this circumstance with some com- 
 placency, as relieving them from an apparent 
 exception to their boast that no earl of 
 Kildare ever actually bore arms against his 
 sovereign. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SIEGE OF DUBLIN CASTLE; RETUEX OF SIR WILLIAM RKEFFINGTON; CAPTURE OF MAYNOOTH; 
 SURRENDER OF THOMAS FITZ GERALD. 
 
 O doubt can reasonably 
 be entertained that this 
 rebellious outbreak had 
 been foreseen and ar- 
 ranged by those en- 
 gaged in it some time 
 before its occurrence, 
 and it seems even pro- 
 bable that the earl of 
 Kildare himself had directed that some such 
 course should be followed in certain cases 
 which might occur, as, for instance, what he 
 must have anticipated, an attempt to over- 
 throw the power of his family. As far as 
 we can form a judgment upon the slight 
 notices contained in contemporary docu- 
 ments, negotiations were carried on with 
 
 and specially the servauntes and famyliers of the said 
 cursed persones, that from hensforth shall do anny 
 service, kepe cumpany, famyliarite, talke, comon, 
 speke, ayde, comforte, or socor the said Thomas fitz 
 Gerold, John, 01j"ver fitz Ceroid, James, John, 
 Nycholas, or Edward, or any other present at the 
 kylleng of the said archbusshop, gyveng command- 
 ment, counsayleng, favoryng, helpyng, aydeng, assyst- 
 yng, comfortyng, or consentj-ng to the said murder, 
 and either afterward ratifieng, approvyng, or wilfully 
 defendjiig the same acta and all thoys which shall 
 mpiister or g}Te unto thajm or anny of thajTii meate, 
 drynke, water, fyer, dresse ther sustenaunce, or gyve 
 anny of thaj-m anny maner of comforte or helpe. 
 And to the terror and feare of the said dampnable 
 persons, in signe and fygure that they be acciu-sed of 
 God, and ther bodies gyven and committed into 
 thandes of Satan and Lucyfer, we have ronge thes 
 belles, erecte this crosse with the fygure of Crist, etc. 
 And as ye see thes candelles light taken from the 
 crosse, and the light quenched, so be the said cursed 
 
 304 
 
 Scotland and Spain to procure assistance 
 before the rebellion was declared ; and not 
 long after the lord Thomas had renounced his 
 allegiance to the English crown, James Dela- 
 hide and others were despatched to Spain to 
 hasten the succours expected from that 
 country, while another mission was sent to 
 Rome to secure the favour of the pope, with 
 whom the English monarch had now quar- 
 relled. 
 
 It was, however, on his Irish allies that 
 the young Geraldine placed his chief hope 
 of support, and three of the greatest of the 
 native chieftains, O'Neill of Tyrone, O'Con- 
 nor Faly, and O'Brien of Thomond, besides 
 many other lesser septs, entered warmly into 
 his cause. But those private dissensions 
 
 murderers and rebellyous persons agajTist the lawes 
 of God and our moder holy churche excluded and 
 seperated from the light of heven, the feliship of 
 angels, and all Cristeu people, and shalbe sent to the 
 low derknes of fendes and dampned creaturs, among 
 whom everlastj-ng paynes dooth indure. And thes 
 thre stones, which we cast towardes ther inhabita- 
 cions, is done to the terror of thaym, that they may 
 the soner come to grace, in token of the vengaunce 
 which God toke against lyke cursed persones, called 
 Dathon and Abp-on, being so detestable in the sight 
 of God, that the erth opened and swalowed them 
 qwyck into hell. Yet trustyng that our Salvyor 
 Jhcsu Crist, of his infynite mercye, may call them to 
 grace of repentaunce and amendesment of this ther 
 execrable offence, ye shall devotlie pray with us. 
 Mevelabunt celt iniquitatem, etc. Cum Spahno Deus 
 laudem. Fiat. Fiat. Amen." 
 
 (Superscribed) " To Mr. Lyveutennaunt at the 
 kynges Tower of London." 
 
A.D. 1534.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [the earl of ossory. 
 
 and divisions which had so long been the 
 bane of Ireland, disabled most of these chief- 
 tains from giving the active aid which was 
 expected from them. There was a rival 
 O'Neill, who, with the O'Neills of Claneboy, 
 o-ave the O'Neill occuj)ation at home; while 
 a brother of O'Connor Faly, named Cahir 
 O'Connor, and a son of O'Brien assisted the 
 earl of Ossory against their brother and 
 father. This spirit of discord was active 
 even among the Geraldines themselves, and 
 in the south there was a rival claimant to 
 the earldom of Desmond, who hindered 
 the Geraldine who had assumed the title 
 from marching to tlie assistance of his kins- 
 man with any efficient force. The only 
 great Irish chieftain who remained really 
 faithful to the English government was 
 O'Donnell, and he was embarrassed in the 
 same manner as the chieftains who supported 
 the Geraldines, for his restless son Manus 
 O'Donnell had joined O'Neill against him 
 and the English. 
 
 When full intelligence of lord Thomas's 
 rebellion reached the English court, the 
 first step taken by king Henry was to send 
 trusty messengers with his letters to the earl 
 of Ossory, desiring him, as the most faithful 
 of his Irish subjects, to use his utmost 
 strength and diligence in opposing the rebels. 
 These messengers arrived in Ireland at the 
 beginning of August, and the earl immedi- 
 ately raised his tenantry in arms, and invaded 
 the earl of Kildare's counties of Carlow and 
 Kildare, from which, after he had burnt and 
 destroyed the country, he carried off an 
 immense booty. This diversion drew otF the 
 lord Thomas from his devastations in the 
 English pale, who hurried with all his forces 
 to defend his own, and there, with a resolu- 
 tion of taking signal vengeance on the But- 
 lers, he assembled a very large host, took 
 provisions for four weeks, and marched into 
 the territory of the earl of Ossory. There, 
 however, the only exploit he performed, was 
 the capture, after a siege of five days, of a 
 small castle of the Butlers, named Tullo, on 
 the Slaney, in the county of Carlow. He 
 marched thence to an island in the Barrow, 
 where he encamped his whole army, and 
 from his camp there he, for five days succes- 
 sively, proceeded in battle array into the 
 earl of Ossory 's borders; but on finding that 
 the earl was posted with his forces ready to 
 fight him, he as often retreated. On the 
 last of these demonstrations, the carl of 
 Ossory endeavoured to draw the rebels into 
 a battle, but they eflTected their retreat with 
 
 VOL. I. 2 Q 
 
 some loss, and then they sent word they 
 would fight on the morrow. This, however, 
 appears to have been a mere feint to disguise 
 the real intentions of the insurgents, for next 
 day their camp was found deserted, with 
 much baggage, provisions, and carriages, 
 which they had left behind in their hurry 
 to depart. The lord Thomas now made a 
 new attempt to seduce the Butlers from their 
 fidelity to the English crown, off'ering the 
 earl of Ossory to divide all Ireland with him, 
 if he would desert the English cause, and 
 help him to conquer it; to which proposal 
 the earl returned answer, that "if his coun- 
 try had been wasted, his castles won or pros- 
 trate, and himself exiled, yet would he never 
 shrink to persevere in his duty to the king, 
 to the death." The lord Thomas next sent 
 messengers to the earl to propose a truce for 
 a short period, to which Ossory was glad to 
 consent, because his possessions in Tippe- 
 rary were threatened with invasion by the 
 earl of Desmond ; the latter was compelled 
 to retreat with disgrace, but the earl of 
 Ossory soon discovered that the truce was, 
 on the part of the rebels a mere artifice to 
 gain time until they were joined by O'Neill 
 with the forces of Tyrone. On his arrival, 
 lord Thomas recommenced hostilities ; and 
 the earl of Ossory proceeded with his son, 
 the lord James Butler, and a small force, to 
 plan an attack upon his enemies. There the 
 lord James Butler was drawn into an ambush, 
 and, after wounding a son of the Irish chief, 
 O'Moore, he himself escaped with difficulty, 
 and severely wounded. 
 
 These events are given as related by the 
 earl of Ossory himself, in a communication 
 to the king. For the events of the siege of 
 Dublin we have unfortunately no other 
 authority than that of Stanihurst, who ap- 
 pears too often to have collected vague tra- 
 ditions, and added his own embellishments. 
 In one or two circumstances we have reason 
 for believing that his narrative of the siege is 
 not strictly correct, but it is probably the 
 traditional story preserved by the citizens, 
 and, as no great length of time had passed 
 since the events to which it relates, we may 
 perhaps consider it tolerably accurate as a 
 general outline. 
 
 We have already stated that the citizens 
 of Dublin, with the agreement of the con- 
 stable of the castle, had consented to admit 
 the rebels into the city. At the time of the 
 murder of the archbishop, the rebels had not 
 yet taken advantage of this consent, but, 
 having, after that event, drawn themselves 
 
 ;]05 
 
SIEGE OF DUBLIN.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 1534. 
 
 nearer round the city, they at length marched 
 into it, and entrenched tliemselves in face of 
 the castle, with two or three of tlie small 
 cannons called falcons, with which they 
 began very ineffectually to batter it. When 
 the constable returned tlieir shot with con- 
 siderable interest, and annoyed tlieni much 
 with his lieavier ordnance, the besiegers 
 threatened to take the youth of the city and 
 place them on the top of tlieir trenches to 
 be exposed to his shots. This, if true, was 
 a first breach of their covenant with the 
 citizens. 
 
 The same ship which brought the letters 
 from king Henry to the earl of Ossory in 
 August, was the bearer of encouraging mes- 
 sages from tlie English monarch to the con- 
 stable of Dublin castle, and to the mayor 
 and citizens. The latter now recovered their 
 courage, and, after holding meetings pri- 
 vately to confer together, they determined 
 to break tlieir agreement with the rebels, 
 and they easily discovered a variety of pro- 
 vocations on the part of the latter to justify 
 themselves. They suddenly shut the gates, 
 and thus cut off all communication with the 
 Geraldines without, and then fell upon the 
 besiegers and threw as many of them as they 
 could take into prison as traitors. The 
 latter, who had made no impression on the 
 castle with their ordnance, beyond shoot- 
 ing a ball through the wooden gate, offered 
 little resistance; a few escaped by swim- 
 ming across the Liffey, but the greater part 
 were taken prisoners. The citizens now 
 placed tliemselves in a posture of defence, 
 and declared their determination to hold 
 firm in the cause of the king of England. 
 
 Intelligence of these events was carried 
 in haste to the lord Thomas, who was still 
 engaged in hostilities with the earl of Ossory, 
 and compelled him in the month of Septem- 
 ber to hasten to Dublin, leaving his Irish 
 allies, the Mac Morroughs, O'Moores, 
 O'Connors, and O'Briens, witli some of the 
 gentlemen of Kildare, to defend that county 
 against the Butlers. Hs summoned the 
 various gentlemen of the English pale, who 
 had unwillingly taken the oath of fidelity to 
 him, to meet him before the city, and he 
 threatened vengeance to the citizens who 
 had risen up against him. As he approached 
 Dublin witli his own followers, he found a 
 party of the children of the better class of 
 citizens, who had been sent into the country 
 on account of the pestilence, and who had 
 not yet returned home, and these he imme- 
 diately seized as hostages for their parents. 
 30G 
 
 He then burnt a ship that was in the haven, 
 and attempted to coerce the inhabitants by 
 threats, and by cutting off the conduits by 
 which the city was supplied with water; 
 but, having once taken courage to resist, 
 they now persevered in their resolution. 
 Tlie rebels tried to entrench themselves in 
 Sliijo-street, which was lined witli thatched 
 houses; but they were dislodged by the 
 ordnance of the castle, and the houses in 
 tlie street were burnt to deprive them of 
 shelter on that side. They next assembled 
 in great numbers at St. Tliomas's court, and 
 attempted to force the New Gate, to which 
 they set fire. 
 
 In the meantime the citizens had observed 
 symptoms of a want of cordiality with the 
 rebels in the motley force which was assem- 
 bled outside their walls, the majority of 
 which consisted of inhabitants of the pale 
 who had been forced into the service. Most 
 of the arrows shot into the town were found 
 to be without heads, and some of them bore 
 letters informing the citizens of the enemy's 
 designs against them. Encouraged by this 
 circumstance, and by letters received from 
 the earl of Ossory promising to come to 
 their assistance before a certain day, after 
 having spread a report that succours had 
 arrived from England, the boldest of the 
 citizens, to the number of about four hun- 
 dred, rushed out through the burning gate, 
 and fell furiously upon tlieir besiegers. The 
 latter, supposing that the report of the 
 arrival of an English army was true, gave 
 way immediately, and dispersed over the 
 neighbouring country, leaving their guns in 
 the hands of the townsmen, and a consider- 
 able number of their best men slain. The 
 lord Thomas himself on this occasion nar- 
 rowly escaped capture; he is said to have 
 remained all night concealed in the convent 
 of the grey friars in St. Francis-street, from 
 whence he stole next morning secretly to 
 his army. 
 
 Disconcerted at this check, and confidently 
 informed on one hand that an English fleet 
 had been seen at sea making for the coast, 
 and on the other tormented by the importu- 
 nities of his tenantry, who informed him 
 that the Butlers were ravaging Ills county 
 of Kildare, tlie lord Thomas resolved to 
 make the most advantageous truce he could 
 witli the citizens before he should be com- 
 pelled finally to raise the siege. A messen- 
 ger was accordingly sent with a flag of truce 
 to the mayor, to whom the rebel chief pro- 
 posed the following conditions for raising 
 
A.D. 1534.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [sir william skeffington. 
 
 the siege : that the lord Thomas's men, who 
 were in the city prison, should be released, 
 that the citizens should pay a thousand 
 pounds in money, tliat they should deliver 
 him five hundred pounds in wares, that they 
 should furnish him with ammunition and 
 artillery, and that they should intercede with 
 the king for the pardon of himself and his 
 confederates. The citizens, we are told, 
 retiu-ned answer by their recorder, that, with 
 regard to the second and third articles, their 
 city was so much reduced by war and pesti- 
 lence, that they could not afford to part with 
 money or wares, and that, as to the fourth, 
 tliey conceived, that if he were earnest in 
 his wish to obtain a pardon, it would be 
 more appropriate to ask for parchment and 
 wax to engross it, than artillery and ammu- 
 nition to resist his prince. They were wil- 
 ling to accede to his last article, and as to 
 the first, they offered to exchange their 
 prisoners for the citizens' children that he 
 had seized on his arrival. This exchange 
 appears not to have been effected, but the 
 arrival of a new deputy, with strong rein- 
 forcements, in the harbour, saved the citizens 
 from further trouble. 
 
 It was soon found that the king had chosen 
 a deputy who possessed none of the qualities 
 required for the government of Ireland at 
 this critical moment. Age and sickness 
 seemed to have deprived sir William Skef- 
 fington of the little energy of character he 
 ever possessed, and his letters exhibit to us 
 a sentiment of self-importance far beyond 
 what can be justified by his capacity or by 
 his actions. While Dublin was closely 
 besieged by an enemy who met with little 
 resistance except from the activity of the 
 Butlers, and the king's subjects waited 
 anxiously for assistance, and his friends for 
 encouragement, sir William Skeffington lay 
 idle at Beaumaris, losing the advantages of 
 weather, and damping the spirits of his 
 troops, who were eager for action. On the 
 fourteenth of October, when the tempes- 
 tuous weather had commenced, the deputy 
 and his army at length set sail, and thej 
 were driven from the course by a violent 
 storm, till at last they made the island of 
 Lambay, a few miles to the north of the 
 bay of Dublin, under shelter of which they 
 passed the second night after their departure 
 from the Welsh coast. Next morning ru- 
 mours were brought to them that Dublin 
 was hard pressed, if not alrea-dy taken, and 
 the deputy, who appears to have himself 
 adopted the strange resolution of landing at 
 
 Waterford and not at Dublin, called a council 
 of war, at which it was resolved that, con- 
 sidering it was " the best and chief city of 
 all Ireland," and that they had already re- 
 ceived pressing messages from the citizens, 
 who were importunate for assistance, one 
 part of the fleet, under the command of sir 
 William Breretonand John Salisbury, should 
 put into Dublin, while the deputy and the 
 rest should proceed according to his original 
 intentions. Accordingly, on Saturday, the 
 seventeenth of October, the fourth day since 
 they had been at sea, these two commanders, 
 with a strong party of good soldiers, landed 
 at Dublin, to the great joy of the citizens, 
 who, as they found, had obtained a truce of 
 six weeks of their besiegers, on condition 
 that they should in that time petition the 
 king, not only for a pardon for the rebel 
 Geraldine, but to appoint him deputy for 
 life. This truce the lord Thomas broke 
 immediately he knew that the succours from 
 England had reached Dublin, by burning 
 the corn of the prior of Kilmainham, and 
 then he proceeded with his main strength 
 towards Howth and the coast, to annoy the 
 other English ships if they attempted to 
 enter the harbour, and he defeated and took 
 some gentlemen of the neighbourhood, who 
 had been encouraged by the arrival of the 
 English fleet to rise in favour of the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Meanwhile sir William Skeffington re- 
 mained a whole week in the neighbourhood 
 of the isle of Lambay, impeded by the con- 
 trary winds from proceeding to Waterford. 
 During this period the only exploits per- 
 formed by his fleet were to destroy a few 
 small vessels belonging to the rebels, and to 
 drive into Droglieda a pirate named Erode, 
 who had already captured an English trans- 
 port laden with horses, which he liad landed 
 for the use of the insurgent army. At length, 
 despairing of a favourable wind for Water- 
 ford, the deputy listened to the entreaties 
 of the citizens of Dublin, who represented 
 that his presence was necessary to repress 
 the insolence of the plunderers who were 
 devastating the neighbouring countrj', and 
 he landed all his forces. The rebel chief 
 now withdrew inland, after having pro- 
 visioned and strengthened his castle of 
 Maynooth, on the borders of the counties 
 of Dublin and Kildare. Shortly after, on 
 receiving intelligence from the mayor of 
 Drogheda that that city was threatened with 
 a siege, Skeffington, Brereton, and Salisbury 
 marched with tiieir army thither, and re- 
 
 307 
 
DILATORINESS OF THE DEPUTY.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1534. 
 
 maiiied a week, but saw no enemy. With 
 this exception, they remained idle in Dublin 
 for two or three weeks without offering any 
 hindrance to the devastations carried on by 
 the lord Thomas or his Irish allies in differ- 
 ent parts of the pale. 
 
 The lord Thomas, when he raised the 
 siege of Dublin, had been obliged to hasten 
 to the relief of his own territories in Kiklare 
 and Carlow, which were oveiTun and ravaged 
 by the Butlers, after which he proceeded to 
 join his Irish allies O'Moore and O'Connor 
 Faly. The earl of Ossory, instead of wait- 
 ing on this occasion to offer the insurgents 
 battle, had marched south to Waterford, to 
 form a junction with another English force 
 which had arrived at Waterford under the 
 command of sir John Saintloo, and they 
 immediately proceeded into the territory of 
 the Geraldines in Tipperary, where they 
 laid waste the country and captured the 
 castle of Knockgraffon, between Cashel and 
 Cahir. They then wrote to the new deputj', 
 requesting him to meet them with his forces 
 at Kilkaa in Kildare, there to commence an 
 active campaign against the rebel lord in the 
 heart of his own territory, and the deputj' 
 fixed a day for that purpose. When the 
 day came, and the earl of Ossory and sir 
 John Saintloo met at the place appointed, 
 they heard nothing of the deputy or his 
 army, except some rumoui's which reached 
 them that he was sick at Dublin ; and after 
 waiting there three days, consuming their 
 provision to no purpose, the earl returned in 
 haste to his own county, which was threat- 
 ened with invasion by the Geraldines and 
 O'Moores. The earl at the same time did 
 good service to the English government by 
 detaciiing Mac Murrough from the service 
 of the traitor, as he is called, and throwing 
 a considerable damp on the zeal which 
 O'Moore and O'Connor had hitherto showni 
 in his cause. 
 
 At last the deputy began to show some 
 signs of activity, and on the 15th of Novem- 
 ber, he marched from Dublin to Dundhaugh- 
 lin on the borders of Meath, and hearing 
 there that the lord Thomas had shown him- 
 self in the neighbourhood of Trim, to pro- 
 tect that to\vn, which he had compelled to 
 espouse his interests, he proceeded thither 
 and put the rebel chief to flight, after some 
 skirmishing, in which the Geraldines sus- 
 tained considerable loss. On his return to 
 Dublin, the rebel forces hung so close upon 
 the deputy's army, that a party of their horse 
 had occupied the wood adioining to the 
 308 
 
 bridge of Kilmainham, close to the city, to 
 molest the English foot soldiers as they 
 passed. It was the Sunday before St. 
 Katherine's day, the 22nd of November, and 
 the rain was so heavy that the foot soldiers 
 marched up to their middle in water in the 
 flooded roads, and the horse, when they 
 came in sight of the city, broke through all 
 restraint and hurried forwards, each as he 
 best could, to get shelter in the houses. 
 The lord-chancellor, the bishop of Meath, 
 and the lord Gormanstovm, with some other 
 gentlemen, and their attendants, were the 
 only horsemen who remained with the deputy, 
 and they protected the footmen (who were 
 chiefly armed with bows, which they could 
 not have used, because most of the strings 
 were wet, and the feathers of the arrows had 
 fallen off), until they had passed the bridge, 
 and then, having called back his ordnance, 
 SkefRngton directed it upon the wood and 
 dislodged the enemy. The consequence of 
 his resolute conduct on this occasion, if we 
 believe the deputy's own account, was a new 
 attack of his malady the same evening, which 
 he describes as being the principal cause of his 
 subsequent inactivity. Nevertheless, on the 
 1st of December, he rode with Brereton to 
 Waterford, and in passing through the coun- 
 try of the Geraldines, they took the castle 
 of Kildare, in which they placed a garrison 
 of twenty men. But this fortress was re- 
 taken by the lord Thomas six days after 
 their departure, and he went from thence to 
 Trim, which surrendered to him two hours 
 after he had presented himself before it. 
 Trim, it appears, was plundered and partly 
 burnt; and after ravaging the surrounding 
 country, they were allowed, without oppo- 
 sition, to lay siege to Dumboyne, within 
 ten miles of Dublin, during two days, at the 
 end of which time they took the town and 
 burnt it. 
 
 The young Geraldine seems to have been 
 desirous of passing his Christmas in tran- 
 quillity, and, after the destruction committed 
 at Trim and Dunboyne, he sent a messenger 
 to the deputy to propose a truce from the 
 19th of December till the morrow after 
 twelfth-day ; to which extraordinary demand 
 sir William Skeflington, perhaps wishing to 
 enjoy Christmas himself, gave a ready assent, 
 which, as one of Cromwell's Irish corres- 
 pondents informs him, was looked upon by 
 people there as " nothing honourable." The 
 O'Connors, O'Moores, and O'Brians had 
 hitherto given active assistance to the rebels ; 
 and while the latter were plundering Trim 
 
A.D. 1535.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [activity of lord ossory. 
 
 and Dunboyne, and devastating the country 
 near Dublin, O'Neill of the north entered 
 the English settlements in Uriel, and ravaged 
 them with fire and sword. 
 
 The strange inactivity of the lord deputy, 
 who seemed as though he thought he was 
 only sent to take care of Dublin and Drog- 
 heda,* not only gave dissatisfaction to the 
 loyal English, but raised the courage of 
 their enemies, who began to act with greater 
 boldness than ever at the beginning of the 
 year 1535. The lord Thomas strengthened 
 his own castles of Maynooth, Portlester, 
 Rathangan, Lea, Carlow, and Athy, in the 
 expectation that they would hold out until 
 assistance arrived from Spain or Scotland, 
 his hopes of which became daily more san- 
 guine. It was reported that the emperor 
 had promised to land a Spanish army in Ire- 
 land in the month of May. To the castle 
 of Lea, in Queen's county, as being the 
 most remote from the English power, he 
 had removed the main bulk of his property 
 and ammunition, and he even threatened, by 
 the advice, it was said, of O'Moore, that he 
 would destroy his other fortresses as well as 
 the corporate towns, and burn the whole 
 country, that they might afford no shelter to 
 his English enemies. 
 
 While the rebels were thus bestirring 
 themselves on every side, the English deputy 
 still remained inactive. Sickness hindered 
 him from taking the field himself, and, with a 
 strange jealousy that anybody else might ob- 
 tain tlie credit of success, he refused to let the 
 army take the field without him. The un- 
 ceasing vigilance of the earl of Ossory and his 
 son alone impeded the Geraldine in his pro- 
 jects and alliances. When, at the beginning 
 of January, the O'Kellys were preparing to 
 march into Meatli to join the lord Thomas 
 with all their forces, the earl of Ossory 
 raised the Burkes of Clanrickard against the 
 O'Kellys, and thus compelled the latter to 
 stay at home in their own defence. Next, 
 the Mac Carthys and Geraldines of Desmond 
 were confederating together to give open 
 assistance to the lord Thomas, upon which 
 
 * Allen writes to Cromwell on the 26th of Decem- 
 ber: — "The gentilmen and the kingis poor subjectes 
 crie and resorte to us daily for defence, but cm- peple 
 will not oute of DubUn. Sir, as I and master the- 
 saurer have advertised you hertofor, this rebell can- 
 not be subdued, nor the kingis landes preserved from 
 utter destruccion, if the kingis army, although they 
 were ten thousande in number, contyneu tlius in 
 Dublin. Assuring, it is evidently knoweh, if they 
 had setto the subdueng of him (as he thought him 
 self we wold), I have perfite knowlege by thois 
 
 the earl of Ossory marched into the south of 
 Munster, and "sowed such strife between 
 them, as they do continue in the same (this 
 was written in the following summer), full of 
 war and debate, the one destroying the other." 
 He then joined vnth Saintloo in reducing 
 the Irish of Wexford to obedience, and cap- 
 tured one or two of their strongholds. At 
 the beginning of February O'Brien of Tho- 
 mond was to have joined his forces to those 
 of the rebels, but the earl of Ossory encou- 
 raged the eldest son of the O'Brien to take 
 up arms against his father and kinsmen, and 
 gave him such assistance with his own depend- 
 ents as efi'ectually retained the whole sept 
 at home. Two of O'Moore's brethren, with 
 various gentlemen of O'Moore's country, 
 were in the same manner engaged, by Ossory 's 
 agency, into a war with O'Moore, so that he 
 also was constrained to give up the cause of 
 the Geraldine in order to attend to his own 
 defence. Thus were many of his most pow- 
 erful allies detached from him in one way 
 or another, till he was reduced to a position 
 that was comparatively helpless; and, towards 
 the beginning of March, after having seen 
 that his strong castle of Maynooth was in 
 condition to stand a long siege, and visited 
 his other fortresses, he proceeded into Con- 
 naught to recruit his strength with new alli- 
 ances there. The sort of warfare which had 
 been carried on during the month of Febru- 
 ary in the English pale may be conceived 
 from the statement of one of the documents, 
 that on the 27th of that month the army in 
 Dublin burnt thirty towns which were the 
 refuge of the "traitor," as he was usually 
 called, and that the garrison of Trim burnt 
 nine or ten towns on the same day. The 
 rebels carried on their burnings upon their 
 enemies in a similar manner. 
 
 Meanwhile, the deputy had at length been 
 roused from his sluggishness by the receipt 
 of letters from the English monarch, ex- 
 pressing deep displeasure that he should 
 have remained so long in Ireland consuming 
 his treasures and forces to no purjjose ; and 
 at last, on the 13th of March, having sent 
 
 which have privay intelKgence with him, he loked for 
 non other but to be banished a monthe past. And 
 now, by our negligente licing in Dublin, which is 
 situate in Irelande as it wer Dover in Inglande farr 
 from the defence of thool realm, he groweth in pride 
 and strength agayne. Wherfor it shalbe best both 
 the king and your mastership write to the deputie 
 and the capitaynes to approache nigh to the warre, 
 and leve Dublin and Drogheda ; for ye shall never 
 have good service doon untill ye prohibitt them to 
 demore in thois placis." — State Papers, p. 221. 
 
 309 
 
CAPTURE OF MAYNOOTH.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1585. 
 
 his army forwards, Skeffington proceeding 
 in person to Maynooth, and next day he 
 commenced the siege of the castle. The 
 garrison consisted of above a hundred able 
 men, no less than sixty of whom were 
 gunners, i. e., men practised in the use of 
 hand-guns or muskets, a class of soldiers 
 who were at this time much less numerous 
 and considered much more efficient than the 
 others. The ordnance which gave most 
 annoyance to the besiegers appears to have 
 been that planted on the summit of the lofty 
 donjon or keep, and on the I6th of March, 
 the latter directed their camion against this 
 tower from the north-west, and battered the 
 top of the tower till it was no longer tena- 
 ble, and the guns planted upon it were 
 rendered useless. Then they turned their 
 ordnance against the base-court of the castle, 
 and battered furiously night and day the 
 north-east end, which had been made very 
 strong with a new bulwark, from the 18th 
 to the 22nd, by which time they had made 
 a wide breach. We are not informed what 
 loss the besiegers had sustained up to this 
 time. On the 23rd, between four and five 
 o'clock in tlie morning, the lord dej^uty's 
 army marched to this breach, and after an 
 obstinate struggle, in which about sixty of 
 the garrison are said to have been slain, 
 while the loss of the assailants were only 
 seven, they made themselves masters of the 
 base court, and what remained of the garri- 
 son retired into the " great castle." This 
 was not long defended; and the small 
 number of soldiers who now remained to 
 guard it, among whom was Christopher 
 Paris their captain, surrendered on the mere 
 condition that their lives should be granted 
 until they were carried before the deputy, 
 
 * This account of the siege and capture of May- 
 nooth is taken from the official dispatch of the deputy 
 and council of state, dated from Maynooth, on the 
 26th of March. Stanihurst (in HoUnshed) has given 
 a very different account, making Christopher Paris to 
 have betrayed the castle to the besiegers, and to have 
 been the only man executed. We here give Stani- 
 hurst's account verbatim, to show how little this 
 writer is to be depended upon : — 
 
 " The lord dcputie marched with the English armie 
 and the jjower of the pale to Mainoth, and laid siege 
 to the castell on the north side towards the parke. 
 But before anie peece was discharged, sir William 
 Brereton. by the deputie his appointment, did summon 
 the castell, offering such as kept it to depart with bag 
 and baggage, and besides their pardon to be liberallie 
 rewarded for their good and loiall service. But such 
 as warded the castell, scornefullie scoffing the knight 
 his offer, gave_ him hartie thanks for his kindnesse, 
 which they said proceeded rather of his gentlenesse 
 than of their deserving, wishing him to keepe up in 
 
 310 
 
 and then to be placed at his discretion. 
 They supposed, no doubt, that after so many 
 of them had been killed in the assault, the 
 small number which remained might easily 
 hope for mercy; but in this they were mis- 
 taken. " Considering," says sir William 
 Skeffington, in his dispatch to the king, 
 " the high enterprize and presumption 
 attempted by them against your grace's 
 crown and majesty, and also that if by any 
 means they should escape, the most of them 
 being gunners, they at some other time 
 would semblably elsewhere aid your traitors, 
 and be example and arieans to others to do 
 likewise, we all thought expedient and 
 requisite that they should be put to execu- 
 tion for the dread and example of others." 
 Accordingly, on the morning of the 25th 
 they were brought out and examined, and 
 their depositions committed to writing. 
 They were then brought to trial before the 
 provost-marshal and captains, and, upon 
 their own previous confessions and deposi- 
 tions, condemned to die; and immediately 
 afterwards they were taken out before the 
 gate of the castle, where twenty-five of them 
 were beheaded and one hanged. The whole 
 number taken prisoners was thirty-seven, 
 and as the dean of Kildare and at least one 
 other ecclesiastic are stated to have been 
 among them, these probably, with some 
 others who were reserved for further exami- 
 nation, were saved. Among the depositions, 
 which were forwarded to the king, that of 
 one priest stated that the emperor had 
 undertaken to send ten thousand men to the 
 rebels by the 1st of May, and that die king 
 of Scots also had promised speedy assist- 
 ance.* 
 
 After the taking of Maynooth, the deputy 
 
 store such liberall offers for a deere yeare, and to 
 write his commendations home to his freends, and 
 withall to keepe his head warme, for, at their hands 
 he was like to have but a cold sute. Finallie, not to 
 take such keepe of their safetie, in that they were 
 assured, that he and his fellowes should be sooner 
 from the siege raised than they from the hold re- 
 mooved. 
 
 " Upon this round answere, the ordinances were 
 planted on the north side of the castell, wliich made 
 no great batterie for the space of a fortnight; yet the 
 castell so warilie on ech side invironed, as the rebelles 
 were imbard from aU egresse and regresse. Chris- 
 topher Parese, foster-brother to Thomas Fitzgirald, 
 to whome of speciall trust the charge of the castell 
 was chietlie committed, profering hisvoluntarie service 
 (which, for the more part, is so thanklesse and 
 unsavorie as it stinketh), determined to go an ase 
 beyond his fellows, in betraieng the castell to the 
 governor. In this resolution he sliot a letter indorsed 
 to the lord deputie, the effect whereof was, that he 
 
A.D. 1585.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [the rebels discouraged. 
 
 again relapsed into his former sluggishness, 
 and tlie war was carried on in tlie same petty 
 manner as before. The earl of Ossory alone 
 exhibited his usual activity. While Skef- 
 fington's army carried on the siege of May- 
 nooth, the earl and sir John Saintloo posted 
 themselves, with their forces, so as to hinder 
 any relief from the O'Moores, the Mac 
 Moroughs, or the Geraldines of the south, 
 and they, at the same time, persuaded many 
 gentlemen of Kildare to desert the rebel 
 standard. 
 
 The lord Thomas had, in the meantime, 
 with the assistance of O'Connor Faly, col- 
 lected a considerable army in Connaught, 
 and he was hasting with it to the relief of 
 Maynooth, when he received intelligence of 
 the fall of that fortress, and of the fate of 
 the garrison. His followers were struck 
 with dismay, many of them returned to their 
 homes, and his army gradually dwindled 
 away, until at length his company was re- 
 duced to only about sixteen gentlemen and 
 priests, and with this small train he took 
 refuge with his staunch friend O'Brien of 
 Thomond. His first impulse was to hasten 
 
 would devise means the castell should be taken, so 
 that he might have a summe of monie for his paines, 
 and a competent stale during his life. This motion, 
 by letters to and fro agreed upon, Parese caused such 
 as kept the ward to swill and boll so much, as they 
 snorted all the niglit like grunting hogs, litle mis- 
 deeming that, whilest they slept, anie Judas had 
 beene waking within the castell. 
 
 " The occasion of this extraordinarle exceeding 
 was colored, for snatching unto the castell a field- 
 peece the daie before from the armie, for which they 
 kept such pot-revels and triumphant carousing as 
 none of them could discerne his beds head from the 
 beds feet. Parese, taking his tide and time, made 
 signe to the armie betweene the twilight and dawning 
 of the daie, who, having scaling ladders in readinesse, 
 would not overslip the oportunitie offered. Holland, 
 petit capteine to Salisburie, was one of the forwardest 
 in this exploit, who, leaping downe from the wall, 
 fell by mishap into a pipe of feathers, where he was 
 up to the arme pits, so stiflelie sticking therein, and 
 also unwealdie in his armor, as there could not helpe 
 himselfe neither in nor out. Sir William Brereton 
 and his band, having scaled tlie wals, cried on a 
 sudden, ' saint George, saint George !' Three drunken 
 swads, that kept the castell, thought that this sliowt 
 was nought else but a dreame, till time they espied 
 the walles full of armed men, and one of them withall 
 perceiving Holland thus intangled in the pipe, be- 
 stowed an arrow upon him, which by good hap did 
 misse him. Holland foorthwith rescued by his fellows 
 shot at the other, and strake him so full under the 
 skull, as he left him spralling. The resistance was 
 faint when the souldiors entered, some yeelding them- 
 selves, others, that withstood them, slaine. Sir Wil- 
 liam Brereton ran up to the highest turrett of the 
 castell, and aduanced his standard on the top thereof, 
 notifieng to the deputie that the fort was woone. . . . 
 
 in person to Spain, and not to return till the 
 forces promised by the emperor were ready 
 to embark with him. He soon abandoned 
 this plan, as his prospects at home seemed 
 again to brighten, and he merely sent some 
 of his confidential friends to Spain to hasten 
 the foreign levies. O'Neill, in the north, 
 had been very active for him, and had 
 brought in a considerable number of Scots 
 of the Isles ; and as Manus O'Donnell was 
 ready to join with O'Neill, and O'Connor 
 Faly was also prepared to take up arms when 
 required, the lord Thomas calculated that 
 before Midsummer he would be able, by 
 means of this formidable confederacy, to 
 invade the English pale with an overwhelm- 
 ing force. But the difficulties which lay in 
 tlie way of these plans were greater than he 
 expected. The domestic dissensions in the 
 various septs still paralyzed the motions of 
 their chieftains; the chiefs who had hitherto 
 supported the cause of the English govern- 
 ment, and especially O'Donnel, Connelagh 
 O'Neill, Maguire, O'Neill of Cianeboy, and 
 other chiefs of Ulster, were confirmed in 
 their fidelity by recent events, and were 
 
 The lord deputie entred the castell in the aftcrnoone. 
 . . . Christopher Parese, not misdoubting but that 
 he should have beene dubd knight for his service 
 doone that daie, presented himselfe before the govern- 
 our, with a cheerefull and familiar countenance, as 
 who should sale, ' Here is he that did the deed.' Tlie 
 deputie verie coldlie and halfe sternlie casting an eie 
 towards him, said, ' Parese, I am to tlianke thee on 
 my master the king his behalfe for this thy proffered 
 service, which I must acknowledge to have beene a 
 sparing of great charges, and a saving of manie vali- 
 ant soldiors lives to his highnesse; and when his 
 maiestie shall be thereof advertised, I dare be bold to 
 sale that he will not see thee lacke during thy life. 
 And because I male be the better instructed how to 
 reward thee during my govcrnement, I would gladlie 
 learne what thy lord and master bestowed on thee.' 
 Parese, set a-gog with these mild speeches, and sup- 
 posing the more he recited the better he should be 
 rewarded, left not untold the meanest good turne that 
 ever he receiued at his lords hands. ' Why, Parese,' 
 quoth the deputie, ' couklest thou find in thine heart 
 to betraie his castell, that hath beene so good lord to 
 thee? Trulie, thou that art so hollow to him, wilt 
 never be true to us ?' And therewithall, turning his 
 talke to his officers, he gave them commandement to 
 deliver Parese the summe of monie that was promised 
 him upon the surrender of the castell, and after to 
 chop off his head. Parese, at this cold salutation of 
 ' Farewell, and be hanged!' turning his simpering to 
 whimpering, said, ' My lord, had I wist that you 
 would have dealt so streictlie with me, your lordship 
 should not liave woone this fort with so little bloud- 
 shed as you did.' " 
 
 It is hardly necessary to observe that this story is 
 a very old one, and had been told of a multitude of 
 fortresses betrayed to enemies long before the capture 
 of Maynooth. 
 
 311 
 
EXPLOITS OF THE REBELS.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1535. 
 
 indefatijrable in discovering the designs of 
 the Irisli cliiefs of the other party, and in 
 frustrating them; and many of those who 
 had been hitherto doubtful in their zeal 
 in lord Thomas's cause, now openly de- 
 serted it. 
 
 For many weeks after the capture of 
 Maynooth, the infirm and spiritless deputy 
 took up his residence in that fortress, and 
 kept round him a portion of his army, 
 the only effect of which was partially to 
 keep in check the neighbouring districts. 
 Within a short time after the fall of May- 
 nooth, the king's troops were in possession 
 of the other castles of the Geraldines in 
 Kildare and Carlow. Other divisions of the 
 army were now stationed in positions to 
 repress the incursions of the rebels on 
 different sides. Thus sir Rice Mansell, who 
 had come over with sir John Saintloo, held 
 Trim ; Salisbury commanded at Dundalk ; 
 Brereton held Dublin castle; and another 
 advanced post was left in the charge of 
 Saintloo himself. 
 
 So far, however, from doing any active 
 service, these garrisons were continually 
 exposed to attacks from the Irish who sided 
 with the rebel Geraldine in the partizan 
 warfare which now devastated the fairest 
 districts of the island. The various strata- 
 gems employed by the lord Thomas on these 
 occasions, and the daring exploits performed 
 by himself and his followers, were the sub- 
 ject of a multitude of stories, which were 
 probably seldom true in themselves, but 
 which pictured accurately the character of 
 the hostilities as they were now carried on. 
 Stanihurst has preserved two, the truth of 
 which we have no other reason for doubting 
 than the too general want of authenticity in 
 this writer's narratives. Thus, on one 
 occasion, after his castle of Rathangan had 
 been taken and garrisoned by the king's 
 troops, he caused a drove of cattle to be 
 brought early in the morning within sight 
 of the watch, who giving immediate notice 
 of the supposed booty, part of the gar- 
 rison issued out to capture them. Lord 
 Thomas and his men, who lay in ambush, 
 fell suddenly upon them and slew the greater 
 part of them. At another time he set fire 
 to a village near Trim, and clad some of his 
 horsemen, who could speak English, like the 
 deputy's soldiers, who rode in all haste to 
 the town with a hue and cry, proclaiming 
 they were captain Salisbiiry's soldiers, and 
 that the traitor Thomas fitz Gerald was 
 burning a village hard by. The garrison of 
 312 
 
 Trim hurried out without much order, when 
 they were attacked by their enemies, who 
 were assembled in great numbers near Trim ; 
 many of them were slaughtered, and the 
 rest owed their safety mainly to a cemetery 
 in which they had taken shelter, and which 
 was held in great reverence by the super- 
 stitious Irish. 
 
 Meanwhile the earl of Ossory, as usual, 
 was the only really active commander in the 
 king's service. In April, by the desire of 
 the deputy and council, he marched with 
 a strong body of his own men, to Navan, 
 and thence he detached his son, the lord 
 James Butler, who held the office of lord 
 treasurer of Ireland, to lay waste the lands 
 of the Tyrrells, Daltons, Petits, and other 
 " degenerate" English, who had supported 
 the cause of " Silken Thomas." The castle 
 of the Tyrrells was taken, and two only of 
 the garrison escaped in the slaughter which 
 accompanied the assault. Greater service 
 was done to the English cause by Ossory 
 himself, who at this moment induced the 
 powerful Irish chief O'Moore to proceed 
 with him to Maynooth, where he was per- 
 suaded or bought over to the side of the 
 English government, " which," says the earl, 
 " we concluded the rather, for that then we 
 were but at a slipper point with all the 
 Irishry, and having him assured, being the 
 hardiest captain of them all, we might enter 
 the sharper in business, and have the better 
 and honourabler peace with the residue of 
 the Irishry." The submission of O'Moore 
 was speedily followed by that of Mac Mur- 
 rough. Even O'Connor Faly is represented 
 as wavering in his attachment to the rebel 
 cause. 
 
 While Skefflngton remained still sick at 
 Maynooth, the eai-1 of Ossory joined in con- 
 sultation with the council at Dublin, and it 
 was determined, in the apparently prosperous 
 state of the king's cause in Ireland, to invade 
 Westmeath, for the purpose of reducing that 
 district to better obedience. After this, Ossory 
 and Saintloo were to place themselves at the 
 head of a strong force, and march into Mun- 
 ster, where they proposed to lay siege to the 
 castle of Dungarvan, and to hinder the Irish 
 septs on that side the Shannon from joining 
 O'Brien, for they apprehended a confederacy 
 between O'Brien and O'Connor, their hopes 
 beinsr onlv in the belief that both those chiefs 
 were reduced to too great weakness to be 
 very formidable by themselves. In the 
 same expedition they were to seize upon the 
 castles of the earl of Kildare in Limerick, 
 
A.D. 1535.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a new confederacy. 
 
 which were the onlj- fortresses garrisoned by 
 the rebel lord that still held out. At the 
 same time the council were to send a force 
 to the borders of Off'aly, which they imagined 
 would be able, with the assistance of their 
 new ally O'Moore, to hold O'Connor in 
 check. 
 
 In the paper of instructions to his mes- 
 senger proceeding to England, which con- 
 tains the statement of these designs, the 
 earl of Ossory offers various suggestions for 
 securing and improving the advantages 
 already gained over the enemy. He states 
 that all the castles in Kildare and Carlow 
 were now strongly garrisoned for the king ; 
 and he urges that an act of attainder should 
 be passed against the house of Kildare as 
 speedily as possible, because, till that had 
 been effected, it would not be possible to 
 farm the forfeited lands to the king's profit. 
 He recommends, under the extraordinary 
 circumstances of the moment, the temporary 
 suspension of Poyning's Act, which prohi- 
 bited the holding of a parliament without a 
 certificate being sent into England of the 
 business it was intended to transact; and he 
 strongly advises a resumption of all grants 
 of the king's revenues and customs, and that 
 they should in future be kept in the king's 
 hands. He fm'ther suggests that money 
 should be raised for the king's service by 
 punishing some of the gentlemen and others 
 of the pale who had broken their allegiance, 
 with fines of money. 
 
 The writing of this paper was hardly 
 finished, when the plans of the council were 
 disconcerted by the arrival of intelligence 
 that O'Connor, O'Brien, and O'Kelly, had 
 raised the greater part of the Irish of Mun- 
 ster and Connaught, and were on the point 
 of invading the English pale. We gather 
 from the scanty records of the two following 
 months, that ovs^ing to the remissness of the 
 deputy and some of his officers, the small 
 English army had become mutinous and dis- 
 orderly, and that they could not be restrained 
 by their officers from plundering and abusing 
 friends and foes. Wearied and dissatisfied 
 with the incapacity of their chief, the council 
 at Dublin at length despatclied two of its 
 members, the chief-justice Aylmer, and 
 Allen the master of tlie rolls, to England, 
 to represent to the king the necessity of 
 committing the direction of affairs in Ireland 
 to some man of courage and experience in 
 military affairs ; upon which Henry appointed 
 to the military connnand in Ireland the lord 
 Leonard Gray, with the avowed intention of 
 
 VOL. I. 2 R 
 
 giving him subsequently the office of deputy, 
 so ill filled at present by the aged and feeble 
 Skeffington. On the 27th of July, Aylmer 
 and Allen were at Beaumaris, on their return 
 to Ireland, and they then received informa- 
 tion that during their absence the rebels had 
 overrun a great portion of the English pos- 
 sessions, that they had burnt Kildare as well 
 as the greater part of the county, and that a 
 strong garrison accidentally placed at Naas 
 had alone hindered them from carrying their 
 devastations to the walls of Dublin, "which 
 had been a loss in effect irrecuperable." An 
 attempt made by a rebel lord to capture a 
 convoy of provisions sent from Naas to the 
 castle of Rathangan had ended in a signal 
 defeat of the assailants, and somewhat 
 checked their insolence. 
 
 Lord Leonard Gray landed in Ireland on 
 the 28th of Jvdy, and on the 1st of August 
 he was followed by Aylmer and Allen. 
 They proceeded immediately, with the forces 
 they brought with them, into the county of 
 Kildare, now the principal seat of the war, 
 and the two latter give a melancholy picture 
 of the state to wliich the country had been 
 reduced during the short period of their 
 absence. " We marvelled," they say, " to 
 consider the estate of this country at our 
 landing, so far altered from the condition 
 that we left it at our departure. For in the 
 county of Kildare there be eight hundreds 
 or baronies, and six of them were in effect 
 all burnt, few or no people inhabiting there, 
 but leaving their corn on the ground to the 
 traitors; besides many and divers hurts, 
 burnings, and wastes done within the shire 
 of Meath." The castle of Rathangan had 
 been captured, and recovered, and the lord 
 Thomas himself narrowly escaped being 
 taken on the latter occasion. Wliile the 
 attention of the garrison of Naas was drawn 
 off by the ravages of the insurgents in an- 
 other quarter, the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes, 
 descending suddenly from their mountains, 
 had obtained possession of the noble castle 
 of Powerscourt, built by the earls of Kildare 
 at an immense cost, and levelled its walls 
 with the ground. 
 
 O'Moore appears now to have been acting 
 cordially with the English, and soon after 
 the arrival of lord Leonard Gray, he joined 
 him in a foray into the district of Allon, in 
 Kildare, where the rebels were then in force. 
 By a judicious combination of movements, 
 suggested, it appears, by O'Moore himself, 
 they succeeded in surrounding the young 
 Geraldine cliief, with several of his kins- 
 
 313 
 
/ 
 
 COMPLAINTS AGAINST SKEFFINGTON.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1535. 
 
 men who had shown themselves warmest in 
 his cause, when accompanied wdth only about 
 three or four hundred of his followers, and 
 they only escaped by the ill-conduct of 
 some of the English soldiers, who ran away 
 to secure their booty, instead of performing 
 the service which was entrusted to them. 
 It was observed on this occasion, that the 
 sympathies of the Irish for the Geraldines 
 was so strong, that although O'Moore's 
 people showed no mercy for the soldiers of 
 O'Connor, they could not be induced to 
 strike those of the lord Thomas. The latter 
 was reported to have been captured by some 
 of the Irish of O'Moore's company, who 
 set him at liberty as soon as they knew him. 
 The war was doubtless protracted by the 
 collusive conduct of those engaged in it. 
 It was, however, now approaching fast 
 towards a termination, as far as the lord 
 Thomas was personally concerned; though 
 the inactivity of the deputy was still the 
 main obstacle to the king's service. 
 
 This inactivity now gave rise to loud com- 
 plaints, which reached the king and his 
 ministers from different quarters. " To he 
 plain to you," Aylmer and Allen wrote to 
 Cromwell on the 21st of August, " our 
 deputy is as evil, and worse in his health, 
 than he was at our departure from hence; 
 inasmuch as, at his last being in Drogheda 
 for the conclusion of peace with O'Neill 
 and others of the north of Ireland, where- 
 unto we have no firm credence whilst no 
 hostages be delivered for performance of 
 the same, he was almost dead among them. 
 Whereupon the council, before our arrival, 
 were determined to certify the king of his 
 debility; but thinking to move him thereof 
 to the intent he should assent thereunto, they 
 considered that he would discourage so much 
 thereat, that it should be occasion to hinder 
 his health. But surely the man is spent; 
 and by reason of his impotencie, if the 
 treasurer (Brereton) at this time had not set 
 his hand, the land had been destroyed to 
 the sea-side. For the lordship of Maynooth, 
 which was worth four hundred marks by the 
 year, where he lyeth himself, is made waste 
 to the gates of the castle, and on this side 
 two miles, and his own beasts taken thence 
 from him, and he not able to rescue nothing. 
 Or, if he rise before ten or eleven of the 
 clock, he is almost dead before noon. And 
 now, in this latter end of the summer, and 
 the chief of the harvest, he with the army 
 being appointed to set forward with twenty- 
 one days victuals on Monday last towards 
 314 
 
 O'Connor's country, this day, being Satur- 
 day, he is not forth, and my lord Leonard 
 and the residue of the army lie in 
 the field spending their victuals; and my 
 lord Butler with six score horsemen and 
 five hundred footmen, O'Moore, and Cahir 
 O'Connor, on the other side do likewise; so 
 as either the journey (expedition) shall be 
 disappointed, or at the least nothing so much 
 hurt done to the enemies as else might. 
 Wherefore, considering that he is not able 
 to stir, nor execute his room (place) for 
 debility, and that the winter is drawing 
 nigh, and also for that the king is deter- 
 mined that my lord Leonard shall be deputy, 
 who we trust shall do high service — for in 
 judgments by his doings now, he will exe- 
 cute that room very well, for he beginneth 
 to order well the army, and is a stirrer 
 abroad and no sleeper in the morning — that 
 the king's highness send as well for the other 
 home, as a patent for the lord Leonard of 
 the same office." Two days after this, on 
 the 23rd of August, the earl of Ossory, 
 writing to his agent at courts, complains in 
 equally bitter terms of the inconvenience he 
 had been put to by Skeffington's dilatoriness. 
 " The deputy," he says, " appointed my 
 retinue to be at the Naas the 14th day of 
 August, where they have continued these 
 seven days, spending their victuals voidly (to 
 no purpose), awaiting upon the deputy, who 
 pondereth Httle my charge, and the cost the 
 country have there, burning and robbing.* 
 And he before put me to great charge, before 
 Christmas, and neither came nor sent to me, 
 and eftsoons before Midsummer, with much 
 victuals. And when I brought my company 
 to the Naas, he made the most part of my 
 company to return home. And this is now 
 the fourth hosting that I have answered; 
 and yet the deputy never wrote to the king 
 of my service or charge, but would have all 
 the glory and fame of other men's services 
 attributed to himself. If he had followed 
 my counsel, Thomas of Kildare had been 
 kept still with O'Brien, and O'Connors 
 pledges in keeping ;j- whereby the said Tho- 
 mas should have had no succour in O'Con- 
 nor's country, and the English pale in safe- 
 guard, and the army and I all this season 
 occupied in the king's great affairs, in break- 
 ing O'Brien's bridge, taking Dungarvan, and 
 reforming or subduing the O'Briens, and 
 
 • The country being exposed to the enemy's plun- 
 dering parties. 
 
 t i. e. The English deputy would have had hostages 
 for O'Connor's good behaviour. 
 
A. D. 
 
 1535.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [submission of lord thomas. 
 
 Munster Geraldines, and all Munster ; which 
 had been well forwards by this time, if this 
 wilful dangling with O'Connor had not been. 
 The deputy foUoweth the counsel of such 
 as have neither strength, activity, practice 
 (experience), or yet goodwill to further the 
 king's most necessary affairs." The earl 
 adds a lamentable picture of the conduct of 
 the English soldiers among their friends — 
 " Labour master secretary's (Cromwell's) 
 letters to the under-treasurer and captains 
 to see the army of better order than they 
 were last in these parts, rifling and taking 
 pigs, geese, capons, chickens, perforce, for 
 nought; cutting crosses and chequers of 
 their beds ; forcing the taverners, and other 
 inconvenience. The country where they be 
 complain sore upon them." 
 
 The deputy had at this time joined the 
 army, and they marched directly into Otfaly. 
 There, instead of meeting with the desper- 
 ate opposition they expected, messengers 
 from O'Connor and lord Thomas litz Gerald 
 brought them their written offers of submis- 
 sion upon certain conditions, and the former 
 gave his hostages, and was received into the 
 king's peace. The next day the lord Thomas 
 was a prisoner in the English camp ; he was 
 carried immediately to Dublin, and his cap- 
 ture was considered a matter of such great 
 importance that before the end of the month 
 he was conducted to England by the lord 
 Leonard Gray. 
 
 The terms on which the rebel lord sur- 
 rendered himself have been a subject of 
 considerable discussion, and are still wrapped 
 in some mystery. Stanihurst, whom we 
 have seen on several occasions to be un- 
 worthy of credit, asserts that he had the 
 deputy's "faithful and undoubted promise" 
 that he should receive the king's pardon on 
 his arrival in England, and he adds further 
 that they took the sacrament together as a 
 confirmation of the conditions before the 
 submission took place. Yet it appears from 
 Skefhngton's own letter that he was not 
 
 * This letter, as printed in the State Papers, p. 273, 
 is as follows : — 
 
 " Lord Thomas Jitz Gerald to lord Leonard Gray. 
 " Affter all dw recummendations, I hartely recum- 
 mend me unto your lordshj-p, sertyfiying you that 
 whereas I have done any thyng contrary agaynst my 
 sovyryng lorde, the kinges grace ys mynd, came 
 nothyng of my owne mere mosyon, butt onely by 
 vouer (? their) cownsayll, the which bene in your 
 lordshypys cumpany now, as ben Thomas Ewstas, 
 and Gerald Gerott, Shane ys son, with dyverse othyrs, 
 by the which 1 was gowernyd att that tyme, and dyd 
 nothyng butt affter ther mynd ; the which I reportt 
 
 present, and he was then so little acquainted 
 with what had really taken place, that he 
 tells the king that Thomas fitz Gerald " hath 
 submitted and yielded himself to your high- 
 ness's mercy and pity, without condition 
 either of pardon, life, lands, or goods, but 
 only submitting himself to your grace." 
 This, however, was certainly not the case, 
 for the council, writing three days after to 
 inform the king of the capture of the 
 " traitor," state that his submission was 
 made to the lord Leonard Gray, the lord 
 James Butler, and the lord chief justice, 
 and they "most humbly" beseech his high- 
 ness, " that according to the comfort of our 
 words spoken to the same Thomas to allure 
 him to yield himself, ye would be merciful 
 to the said Thomas, especially concerning 
 his life." The letter which " Silken Thomas" 
 wrote to lord Leonard Gray before he came 
 into the English camp is preserved, and 
 shows us the humiliating position to which 
 he must have been reduced, wlien he could 
 condescend to seek the unworthy justifica- 
 tion of throwing his whole fault upon his 
 advisers, who were with tlie deputy; in it 
 he makes pardon, not only for his life, but 
 for his lands, a condition of his surrender.* 
 The king was evidently displeased and em- 
 barrassed at the conditions, whatever they 
 were ; and from a letter of the duke of Nor- 
 folk to Cromwell, it is clear that they 
 amounted to a promise that his life should 
 be spared. " According to my accustomed 
 fashion," says the duke, " plainly to show 
 my opinion concerning his highness's affairs, 
 I am of the mind, as yet, and shall be until 
 I shall hear better reason to the contrary, 
 that in no vnse he should be as yet put to 
 execution, quod defertur, non anfertur (what 
 is delayed, is not relinquished). And these 
 be part of the reasons to lead me thereunto. 
 One is, that concerning the fashion of his 
 submission, my lord Leonard and my lord 
 Butler shall for ever lose their credit in 
 Ireland; which were pity, for they may do 
 
 me to all the lordes of the Englys pale. Wherefore 
 I hartely desyre your lordshyp to be interssessor 
 betwyx my sayd ys grase and me, that I may have 
 my pardon for me and myn lytf and landes, the which 
 shall nott be ondyservyd to the uttermost of my 
 power ; and yff I cannott optayne my forsayd pardon, 
 I hawe no nothyr to do butt shyfte for my sylff the 
 best that I can; trustyng in God who preserv your 
 lordshyp. 
 
 " By your lovyn frend, 
 
 " T. FYTZ GeRALDE." 
 
 " To the rygtht worsypfuU lord Leynard Gray, 
 delyver this with spede." 
 
 315 
 
LORD THOMAS IN THE TOWER.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1535. 
 
 good service. Another is, that surely the 
 Irishmen shall never after put themselves 
 into none Englishman's hands ; which if 
 they do not (considering that daily for divers 
 causes many of them sliall oifend), his grace 
 shall be enforced immediately to proceed to 
 the general conquest of the land." 
 
 The king, though glad that his "traitor" 
 had fallen into his hands, was evidently little 
 inclined to confirm the merciful conditions 
 of his captors. Yet he so far followed the 
 advice of the duke of Norfolk, that he de- 
 layed making known his decisions for several 
 months. In the meantime he wrote to his 
 deputy, thanking him for the service done 
 in the capture of the rebel, adding, however, 
 "the doing whereof, albeit we accept it 
 thankfully, yet if he had been apprehended 
 after such sort as was convenable to his 
 deservings, the same had been much more 
 thankful and better to our contcntation." 
 
 There is, however, a feeling of kindliness to- 
 wards his old servant in this letter which does 
 honour to the royal writer, when he conti- 
 nues, "and consequently, according our esti- 
 mation incident towards you, in this behalf, 
 and in consideration of the same, we be not 
 so moved with your age, sickness, and debi- 
 lity, which no doubt be no small impeach- 
 ment unto you and hindrance of our causes, 
 as we will yet, in respect thereof, remove 
 you from the room, honour, and authority, 
 which we have committed unto you in that 
 land; but for your comfort be contented to 
 tolerate your said sickness and debility, per- 
 mitting you to continue therein." Sir Wil- 
 liam Skeffington, who was no doubt well 
 aware of the attempts which had been made 
 to obtain his recall, lived but a short time to 
 enjoy the consolation of seeing thus that they 
 had not been in vain. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE WAR IN IRELAND; THE RIVAL EARLS OF DESMOND; ATTAINDER AND EXECUTION OF 
 TUE GEKALDINES OF KILDARE; DESTRUCTION OF O'BRIEN'S BRIDGE. 
 
 1^^ Y the capture of its chief, 
 ^^ the strength of the 
 rebellion was broken, 
 altliough it was not 
 ended. There remained 
 still many of his kins- 
 men and advisers to be 
 taken, and most of the 
 Irish chiefs who had 
 assisted him remained 
 in arms, hostile to the English govern- 
 ment. Even O'Connor Faly, although he 
 had made a nominal peace with the deputy, 
 was still an object of suspicion. On the 
 other hand, a determined intention was now 
 shown to pursue the advantages which had 
 been already gained, and to reduce Ireland 
 to a better subjection to the English crown. 
 The absence, indeed, of lord Leonard Gray, 
 who held the office of marshal of the army, 
 and the mutinous spirit shown by the sol- 
 diers, furnished for a while a sufficient 
 excuse for Skeffington's usual inactivity. 
 The Butlers, as usual, were foremost in 
 316 
 
 the service of the crown. It has been already 
 stated, that there were two claimants to the 
 earldom of Desmond; John fitz Gerald, a 
 brother of Thomas, twelfth earl of Desmond, 
 had usurped the title on his death, on the 
 pretence that the mother of the direct heir, 
 James of Desmond, had not been legally 
 married to his father, earl Thomas's only 
 son. James of Desmond had married a 
 daughter of Cormac Oge, and that Irish 
 chief, with other Mac Carthys, having 
 warmly espoused his cause, the south of Ire- 
 land was thrown into confusion by the hos- 
 tilities between the two parties. It was the 
 earnest desire of the English monarch to 
 strengthen his influence in Munster by in- 
 ducing these two pretenders to submit their 
 claims to his judgment; and soon after the 
 departure of lord Leonard Gray, with his 
 prisoner, for England, the earl of Ossory and 
 his son, the lord James Butler, proceeded 
 southward to enforce the king's wishes on 
 this subject. At the same time an expedi- 
 tion was fitted out by the lord deputy to lay 
 
X 
 
 A.D. 1535.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [expedition to the south. 
 
 siege to Dungarvan, the capture of which 
 was a project often talked of during the 
 spring and stimmer. 
 
 One of lord Leonard Gray's captains, 
 Stephen Ap-Parry, has left us, in a letter 
 to secretary Cromwell, a detailed account of 
 the expedition conducted by the Butlers, 
 under whom he served with a party of lord 
 Leonard's men, which he commanded. Parry 
 proceeded to Leighlin bridge, on the Bar- 
 row, to receive the orders of lord James 
 Butler, and he remained there the first night, 
 and he and his men were "very well handled, 
 and the people were glad of us." They 
 marched thence to Callan, where they re- 
 mained nine days, " and there," he tells us, 
 " they be after an English fashion, many of 
 them, and were very glad of us." Their 
 next halting-place was Clonmell, where they 
 remained three days and three nights, and 
 "were well handled, and after a good fashion, 
 and well entertained." Here they were 
 joined by Thomas Butler, lord Ossory's son- 
 in-law, in whose company they proceeded 
 over the mountains towards Dungarvan, 
 being joined on their way by another son-in- 
 law of the earl of Ossory, Gerald mac Shane. 
 Before Dungarvan they joined the army of 
 the deputy, and that of the earl of Ossory 
 and his son. 
 
 The attack upon Dungarvan took place 
 about the middle of September. After bat- 
 tering it a few hours with the deputy's ord- 
 nance, a breach was made sufficient to allow 
 of an assault; but by the intervention of 
 lord James Butler, the commander of the 
 castle was persuaded to yield it up without 
 further resistance, and this important fortress 
 was committed to the charge of the earl of 
 Ossory and his son. Jealousies had already 
 arisen between the Butlers and sir William 
 Skeffington, arising probably from their 
 difference of temper; and it showed itself 
 here, not only in the omission of all mention 
 of the services of the lord James Butler 
 in the deputy's letter to the king, but in 
 the refusal of the deputy to furnish lord 
 Butler with a piece of ordnance, which he 
 required in his further advance to the south. 
 Lord Butler complained bitterly of this 
 incivility on a subsequent occasion. 
 
 Parry continued to serve under lord But- 
 ler. From Dungarvan they went to Youghal, 
 where they remained the first night, and 
 where " we had very good cheer, and honestly 
 received ; and there they did sell a gallon of 
 Gascon wine for four pence sterling." The 
 second night they encamped by a castle 
 
 called Cahermon, about half-way between 
 Youghal and Cork, where lord Butler mus- 
 tered his army. It consisted of two hundred 
 and two horsemen, three hundred and twelve 
 galloglasses, and two hundred and four 
 kernes, "besides followers, as the fashion of 
 the country is;" and in this, as it appears, 
 captain Ap-Parry's company was not counted, 
 consisting of three score and eighteen spear- 
 men, twenty-four "long boys," and five hand- 
 guns, "and every man well horsed." But, 
 in consequence of the deputy's jealousy, 
 they had no ordnance. 
 
 The next day they marched toward Cork; 
 and when they came to a hill half a mile 
 from that city, orders were suddenly given 
 to di'aw up the whole army in martial array. 
 They now perceived that another hill, about 
 half a mile distant, was occupied by the 
 army of the Irish chieftain, Cormac Oge, 
 who came to meet them on behalf of his son- 
 in-law, the young claimant to the earldom 
 of Desmond. Cormac Oge and lord Butler, 
 each with a small escort, met in the interme- 
 diate valley, and held a friendly parley ; and 
 then lord Butler's army marched into the 
 city of Cork, where they were received by 
 the mayor and his brethren in full ceremo- 
 nial dress, with their scarlet govras and tip- 
 pets of velvet, "after the English fashion; 
 and he was very glad of us Englishmen, and 
 made us the best cheer that ever we had in 
 our lives." The morning after, Cormac Oge 
 brought James of Desmond to the town's end 
 to meet lord Butler, and Ap-Parry remarks 
 particularly that "this young man speaks 
 very good English, and keeps his hair and 
 cap, after the English fashion, upon his head, 
 and would be, as far as I can perceive, after 
 the English fashion." James of Desmond 
 spoke submissively of his allegiance to the 
 English monarch, and declared his wilhng- 
 ness to repair to England, or anywhere that 
 the king might direct, to lay his claims 
 before him, and stand by his judgment, "and 
 as for Cormac Oge, he was very well content 
 that he should so do." 
 
 At Cork, also, the young lord Barry waited 
 upon lord Butler, and made his complaint 
 against Cormac Oge and his son-in-law Mac 
 Carthy Ileagh, the nephew of the late earl 
 of Kildare, by his sister Eleanor, who, he 
 said, withheld from him a great part of his 
 inheritance. Cormac Oge replied that he 
 was ready, as a true liegeman of king Henry, 
 to abide by the judgment of the deputy or 
 council between himself and any man in Ire- 
 land, who could lav to his charge that he had 
 
 317 
 
/ 
 
 EXPEDITION TO THE SOUTH.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.u. 1535. 
 
 done him any wrong in lands or goods ; but 
 Mac Carthy Reagh, who had come in upon 
 a safe conduct, made answer with all the 
 haughty pride of the two ftimilies, Irish and 
 English, from which he derived his blood, 
 that he would not be sworn to the king, nor 
 give any pledges to do any man any right 
 whom he might have done any wrong to, 
 for, he said scornfully, "that that he had 
 won with his sword, with his sword he would 
 hold it." The lord Butler, moved at what 
 he considered as the insolent language of 
 the Irish chieftain, retorted angrily that "it 
 should be unto liis pain," to which he made 
 answer that he would abide it, "with a proud 
 countenance," says the relator, "as like the 
 Geraldines as ever I saw." " My lord James," 
 Ap-Parry adds, "would marvelously fain 
 have been in hand with his country, but he 
 could not meddle with no man until such 
 time he had brought in the Desmonds and 
 Cormac Oge to have bond of them according 
 to their promise." 
 
 However, the lord Butler now prepared to 
 march northward again against the O'Briens, 
 who were still in arms. The first day's 
 march brought the army from Cork to 
 Mallow on the Blackwater, where they 
 encamped by the river side ; next day they 
 proceeded as far as Kilmallock, which was 
 even then "a very poor town;" and on the 
 third day they reached Limerick. 
 
 After having followed the old Irish fashion 
 of cutting down and plashing the woods 
 through which his enemies would have to 
 pass before they could penetrate into his 
 territory, O'Brien had marched with his 
 army to within three miles of Limerick to 
 meet the threatened invasion; but, hearing 
 that they brought ordnance with them, of 
 which the Irish still seem to have entertained 
 a great terror, he withdi-ew his garrisons 
 from two of his castles near Limerick, and 
 retreated into the mountains. But on hear- 
 ing that lord Butler's army was without 
 ordnance, he returned in speed, restored the 
 I garrisons to his castles, and placed in them 
 what ordnance he had ; and lord Butler, 
 finding it impossible to take these castles 
 without cannon, and convinced of the impru- 
 dence of advancing further into O'Brien's 
 country, if he left the Irish garrisons in his 
 rear, relinquished this part of his design, 
 and determined to bring the Desmonds to 
 order before he passed any further. " And 
 so," says Ap-Parry, "in Limerick we had 
 very good cheer, but nothing like the cheer 
 that we had in Cork." 
 318 
 
 They marched, however, about eight miles 
 from Limerick to a monastery founded by 
 the earl of Kildare for monks of the order 
 of Greenwich, there to meet Donough 
 O'Brien, the son of the O'Brien. This 
 young chief was lord Butler's son-in-law, 
 and had been supported by the Butlers 
 in making war on his father during the 
 Geraldine rebellion. He appears to have 
 been at this time dissatisfied with the little 
 reward he had received for his services, and 
 he now represented how he had forsaken 
 his own kindred and tribe to serve the king, 
 and had been sorely wounded in his service, 
 and demanded that in return he might be 
 assisted in conquering for himself some of 
 the Irish lands, which he would hold of the 
 king. He had fixed a longing eye more 
 especially on the castle of Carrigogunnell, 
 on the Shannon to the west of Limerick, 
 " which never was none Englishman's this 
 two hundred years." He added, " I will 
 desire of the king no help, nor aid of no 
 man, but this English captain (meaning 
 Stephen Ap-Parry) with his hundred and odd 
 of Englishmen, to go with me upon my 
 father and mine unkle, the which are the 
 king's enemies, and upon the Irishmen that 
 never Englishman was amongst; and if that 
 I do hurt or harm, or that there be any mis- 
 trust, I will put in my pledges, as good as 
 ye shall require, that I shall hurt no Eng- 
 lishman, but war upon the wild Irishmen 
 that are the king's enemies. And for all 
 such land as I shall conquer, it shall be at 
 the king's pleasure to set Englishmen in it, 
 to be holden of the king as his pleasure shall 
 be ; and I to refuse all such Irish fashions, 
 and to order myself after the English laws, 
 and all that I can make or conquer." Thus 
 were Irishmen ready to betray and make 
 war upon their own fellow-countrymen, and 
 even upon their own parents, in support of 
 foreign aggression; the spirit of private 
 feud had become so deeply inrooted in their 
 breasts. 
 
 We are not told what reply lord Butler 
 made to this proposal, but the same day he 
 was called ofl" to the dispute relating to the 
 earldom of Desmond, by the arrival of sir 
 John of Desmond, who is described as " a 
 very old man, who can speak very good 
 English, and, as far as I can perceive, he 
 hath been full of mischief, and is yet at this 
 hour." When it was proposed to him to go 
 to England to meet the other claimant, young 
 James of Desmond, and refer the question 
 to the king's judgment, he answered proudly, 
 
A.D. 
 
 1535.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [o'brien's letter. 
 
 " What should I do in England, to meet a 
 boy there ? Let me have that Irish rascal, 
 Cormac Oge, and I will go into England 
 before the king." After some further par- 
 ley, however, he concluded by agreeing to 
 meet Cormac Oge and James of Desmond 
 at Youghal, and there to debate the matter 
 with the members of the Irish council. The 
 army then marched back to Kilmallock, and 
 thence they proceeded by Cashel to Clon- 
 mell, whence Parry was despatched to 
 Waterford to summon the chief-justice and 
 other members of the council, who were there, 
 to the meeting at Youghal. 
 
 We have followed Parry's narrative the 
 more minutely, from the interesting light 
 which it throws on the condition of Ireland 
 at this time. He concludes with a melan- 
 choly picture of the state of the country. 
 " All this journey," he says, " from Dun- 
 garvan forth, there is none alive that ever 
 can remember that ever Englishmen of war 
 was ever in those parts. Some days we rode 
 sixteen miles of waste land, the which was 
 Englishmen's ground, yet saw I never so 
 goodly woods, so goodly meadows, so goodly 
 pastures, and so goodly rivers, and so goodly 
 ground to bear corn; and where the ridges 
 were that hath born corn, to my thinking 
 there was no beast did eat it, not this twelve 
 years ; and that it was the most part such 
 waste all our journey." 
 
 No other expedition of importance was 
 undertaken during the year 1535. After 
 the taking of Dungarvan, the deputy, sir 
 William SkefBngton, returned quietly to 
 his old quarters at Maynooth. In October, 
 O'Brien of Thomond wrote a letter to king 
 Henry, professing himself a " lowly" sub- 
 ject, disavowing all complicity in the late 
 rebellion of the Geraldines, and, probably 
 as a sneer upon the knight at that time hold- 
 ing the office of deputy, concluding with the 
 prayer that, " it would please your grace to 
 be so good and gracious to this poor land, 
 and to us your poor subjects, as to send some 
 nobleman to govern us; and in especial if 
 it would please your highness to send your 
 son the duke of Richmond* to this poor 
 country, I assure your grace that I and my 
 brother and all my kinsmen, with all my 
 friends, shall do him as lowly service, and 
 as true as any man living; and I, my kins- 
 men, and all my friends, shall right gladly 
 receive him to our foster son, after the cus- 
 tom of Ireland, and shall live and die in his 
 
 * WHio at this time held the office of lord-lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland. 
 
 right and service for ever, and bind us to the 
 same, after your pleasure known." It was 
 a policy attempted by several of the Irish 
 chieftains, to endeavour to escape from the 
 danger which threatened them near home, 
 by writing humble professions of obedience 
 to the directing power which was far off. 
 The chieftain of Thomond had at this time 
 very little intention of making his peace 
 with the English ; and the latter were pre- 
 paring to march against him as one of their 
 most powerful and most troublesome oppo- 
 nents. 
 
 The king meanwhile continued to encou- 
 rage his officers in Ireland, not only by his 
 warm expressions of satisfaction at their 
 conduct, but in some cases by personal 
 rewards. We have seen that even the inac- 
 tive Skeffington received his share of thanks, 
 and that he was protected from the attempts 
 of his enemies to deprive him of his office. 
 On the 3rd of October the king had directed 
 letters under the privy seal to the chancellor 
 of Ireland, conferring the title of viscount 
 Grane on lord Leonard Gray, and that of 
 viscount Thurles on lord James Butler, the 
 two noblemen to whom chiefly he owed the 
 suppression of the rebellion. The first of 
 these noblemen was sent back in his office 
 of marshal of the king's forces, and at the 
 same time the king's written instructions 
 were despatched to Skeffington, complaining 
 of the disorders which had been allowed to 
 find their way into the army, and indicating 
 the new regiilations by which they were to 
 be corrected. The king urged his deputy 
 to be active in pursuing the remains of the 
 late rebellion, and sent him a list of the 
 persons who were still to be arrested, in 
 addition to those who were already in his 
 prisons, or who had paid the forfeit of their 
 transgressions on the gallows or the scaflTold. 
 The list included the five brothers of the 
 late earl of Kildare, James, John, Richard, 
 Oliver, and Walter; with their kinsmen 
 James fitz Gerald, Gerald fitz Gerald, Wil- 
 liam fitz Gerald, and his brother Richard fitz 
 Edmund; "and as many other of the bastard 
 Geraldines as the chief-justice and others of 
 the council shall think convenient." All 
 these were to be attainted by an act of the 
 Irish parliament, as well as a number of 
 Anglo-Irish noblemen and gentlemen who 
 had given more or less assistance to the 
 rebels, such as the lord of Dunsany, Dela- 
 hyde, Dillon, Lynch, and others. 
 
 In addition to the mutinous temper of the 
 small English army now serving in Ireland, 
 
 319 
 
EXECUTION OF THE GERALDINES.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1536. 
 
 which seems to have been a cause of great 
 hindrance, the king's service suffered from 
 jealousies between the old officers of the 
 crown, who had become habituated to the 
 sluggish mode of carrying on the govern- 
 ment that had characterized the preceding 
 age, and the new officers, who were ever 
 anxious for action, and who would willingly 
 take the places of those who, according to their 
 notions of business, filled tliem to no useful 
 end. This feeling seems to have existed to 
 a very great degree between the marshal of 
 the army and the lord deputy, and the king's 
 instructions sent over to the latter in Octo- 
 ber contain the remarkable paragraph: — 
 "Letting yon further to understand, that 
 having assigned our trusty and right well- 
 beloved the said lord Leonard Gray to repair 
 thither again at this season, in the same 
 room and authority that he had there before, 
 for the leading and ordering of our army, 
 we have willed and commanded him to de- 
 mean himself in due reverence and obedience 
 towards you, as to the honour and authority 
 of your room (place), wherein ye represent our 
 estate, doth appertain, nevertheless, we think 
 it shall be your part, on the other side, to 
 consider his nobility, being of our blood, 
 and use him and entertain him both accord- 
 ing to the same and our authority and trust 
 committed unto him there." It is evident, 
 from this paragraph, that complaints had 
 been made on both sides. Skeftington was 
 peevish and jealous of his own authority and 
 state ; but Gray also appears to have been dis- 
 tinguished by the sternness and severity of his 
 character, and lie subsequently made enemies 
 not only of the Butlers, but of many of the 
 people with whom he had to deal in Ireland. 
 His rudeness and unkindness are even said 
 to have abridged the days of sir William 
 Skefiington, to whose place he certainly 
 aspired. 
 
 Skeffington died at Kilmainham on the 
 last day of the year 1535; and the Irish 
 council of state immediately met and elected 
 lord Leonard Gray to succeed him, knowing 
 that their choice would receive the king's 
 approbation. 
 
 The new deputy is represented as not scru- 
 pulous with regard to the manner in which 
 he furthered the interests of the English 
 monarch, and the historians represent him 
 as having used treachery, in order to secure 
 the arrest of the lord Thomas's uncles. This, 
 however, seems to be partly contradicted 
 by a letter written by lord Leonard Gray at 
 a later period, in which he boasts of the 
 320 
 
 capture of the five Geraldines as one of 
 his greatest and most difficult exploits; and 
 we must not forget, that the two known 
 authorities for this statement are not con- 
 temporary, and that one of them, the "Annals 
 of the Four Masters," was strongly prejudiced 
 in favour of the Geraldines, while the other, 
 Stanihurst, who tells us that three of them 
 were invited in the most friendly manner by 
 the deputy to a feast and arrested at table, 
 is deserving in general of little credit. The 
 latter writer gives anotlier popular story 
 relating to the five brothers, according to 
 which, one, who was a greater reader of 
 books than the rest, and who was comforting 
 his brethren on their voyage with cheering 
 words, as they sat in the cabin, accidentally 
 inquired the name of the sliip, and upon 
 being told it was " the cow," he suddenly 
 changed countenance, and told them that 
 he knew an old prophecy was now about to 
 be fulfilled, wliich said, that " five earl's 
 brethren should be carried in a cow's belly 
 to England, from thence never to return." 
 
 In this case the prophecy was but too 
 fatally fulfilled. On their arrival in London 
 they were inmiediately thrown into the com- 
 fortless dungeons of the Tower, where at 
 that time state prisoners met with little in- 
 dulgence. The lord Thomas fitz Gerald had 
 been obliged to make a private application to 
 his friend, the O'Brien of Thomond, for a 
 loan of money to furnish himself with the 
 common necessaries of life, for he states in 
 a letter, preserved in the State Paper Office, 
 that he was left without money, and without 
 clothes, that in the severity of winter wea- 
 ther he had often gone bare-foot and bare- 
 legged, that now he would be in the same 
 plight, " but that poor prisoners, of their 
 gentleness, have sometimes given me old 
 hosen and shoes, and old shirts." The six 
 Geraldines were at length brought to the 
 gallows, at Tyburn, to undergo the punish- 
 ment of traitors in its most degrading forms. 
 It is generally understood that the execution 
 took place on the 3rd of February, 1536. 
 Several of their adherents had already under- 
 gone the same fate in England and Ireland. 
 
 With the connnencement of the year 1536, 
 the new lord deputy and the Irish council 
 prepared to carry on the war with vigour 
 against O'Brien, and they had always for 
 their guide his son Donough. Another 
 project occupied their attention, and one 
 which seemed at the moment to be of greater 
 importance even than distant expeditions. 
 The mountainous and less accessible parts 
 
A.D. 
 
 1536.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. ['"'ew causes of alarm. 
 
 L^ 
 
 of the English pale were still occupied with 
 native independent septs, who took every 
 opportunity of weakness on tlie part of the 
 government, or of absence of the deputy 
 and his army, to rise and plunder the terri- 
 tory around Dublin. It was proposed to 
 expel these entirely from the districts they 
 had held so long, and establish English 
 settlers in their place ; a measure, certainly, 
 which, however hard towards the Irish, 
 could not fail to turn to the advantage of 
 the English government. 
 
 There was one object, however, which 
 especially occupied the attention of the 
 Anglo-Irish government at this moment. 
 O'Brien of Thomond was still the Irish 
 chieftain whose power gave the govern- 
 ment most uneasiness, and who, from the 
 part he had acted during the whole of the 
 events we have been describing, was looked 
 upon with some reason as one of its bitterest 
 enemies. O'Brien had built a large bridge, 
 protected at each end with strong towers or 
 castles, across the Shannon, about ten miles 
 above Limerick, by which he secured the 
 passage from his own territory (the county 
 of Clare) into Limerick, and thus made 
 himself formidable to the inhabitants of the 
 latter country. To destroy this bridge was 
 considered a step of so much importance 
 towards humbling O'Brien's power, that it 
 had been included in all the plans of the pre- 
 ceding year, and the new lord deputy made 
 it one of his first military expeditions in the 
 summer of 1 536. It was only delayed for a 
 while by apprehensions of risings in different 
 parts on the capture of the five brethren of 
 the late earl of Kildare, and by measures 
 required for the strengthening and establish- 
 ment of the civil government over districts 
 which had now been reduced to submit to 
 English rule. Among the latter, one of the 
 schemes of policy began to find warm advo- 
 cates, which, at a later period, was often 
 proposed and partially carried into execution, 
 the settlement of new English colonies in 
 the territory which had been brought under 
 subjection. The old inhabitants were still 
 not sufficiently assured of the power of the 
 crown to venture to farm the forfeited lands 
 of the Geraldines. " The gentlemen of the 
 county of Kildare," we are told by one of 
 Cromwell's correspondents, on the 21st of 
 March, 1536, "are the most sorriest afraid 
 men in the world; for they think that they 
 shall be taken, one after another of them, as 
 sir James fitz Gerald was, and his brethren. 
 The country is much waste and void of inha- 
 
 VOL. I. 2 s 
 
 bitants ; for here are no farmers that are able 
 to inhabit, which is the greatest decay now 
 of this country. But would God that it 
 would please the king's highness to send 
 Englishmen for to inhabit here! then I 
 would not doubt but his grace should have 
 here a good country, and also unto his grace 
 a profit, for, until that, there is no way to 
 the reformation of this land." 
 
 The deputy was kept at Dublin during 
 the months of April and May by the session 
 of Parliament, in which the Irish commons 
 had shown more than usual alacrity in for- 
 warding the wishes of government. " The 
 common house," says the vice-treasurer Bra- 
 bazon, on the 17th of May, "is marvelous 
 good for the king's causes, and all the learned 
 men within the same be very good; so that 
 I think all causes concerning the king's grace 
 will take good effect." During the session, 
 various causes of apprehension came to alarm 
 the lord deputy Gray. At the beginning of 
 May he was informed that O'Neill, while he 
 made outward professions of good faith to 
 the government, was forming suspicious 
 alliances among the Irish septs, and calling 
 in privately bodies of Scots from the isles. 
 On the other side, O'Brien had rendered 
 himself doubly dangerous by his close con- 
 federacy with sir John of Desmond, who had 
 taken forcible possession of the earldom to 
 which he laid claim in the south. O'Connor 
 Faly also continued to give alarm by his 
 indecisive conduct; and amid all these 
 dangers, the English army remained muti- 
 nous and disorderly for want of regular pay. 
 
 A long paper of suggestions for the 
 reformation of Ireland at this time, preserved 
 among the State Papers, throws a curious 
 light upon the position which the English 
 government held towards its Irish subjects. 
 It opens by stating, as an acknowledged fact, 
 that it would be necessary to commence by 
 reforming the " English subjects," who had 
 in general given more trouble than the Irish, 
 and this could only be effected by enforcing 
 the due execution of the laws, which they 
 had been in the habit of setting at defiance. 
 This being done, the next step recommended 
 was the reduction of O'Connor of Offaly, 
 for it was through that district that the 
 English pale was most easily assailed. 
 Tlien the English army miglit proceed %vith 
 greater surety against O'Brien, and it is 
 reconnnended that, on the way, the town of 
 Wicklow should be fortified and permanently 
 garrisoned, " and to inhabit the same with 
 a fourscore English freeholders, and the 
 
 321 
 
PLANS OF CONQUEST.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 153G. 
 
 residue to be of the English pale, and that 
 every of the same eighty have a hundred 
 acres of the lands next about the town, 
 paying for every acre yearly to the king two- 
 pence, which shall be a good living for them, 
 profitable for the king, and surety for all the 
 country." In similar manner, it is recom- 
 mended to fortify and " inhabit " a number 
 of castles and towns over this part of the 
 country, and more especially Arklow, Ferns, 
 Timolin (in the south of Kildare), and Leigh- 
 lin. " Then shall all Leinster be clear Eng- 
 lish, without any of the Irishry amongst 
 them." Another army of a thousand men, 
 it was proposed, should, at the same time, 
 be occupied in Ulster. They were to "wall 
 and inhabit," in a similar manner, Carling- 
 ford, Ardglass, vVrmagh, Carrickfergus, Sligo, 
 and other towns, and to establish settlements 
 in some districts whicli were then waste and 
 depopulated. The baron of Delvin and liis 
 son were to have six hundred men to occupy 
 Athlone, which was also to receive English 
 citizens, and to reduce the Irish septs in the 
 surrounding districts. An army of a thou- 
 sand men was then to march to Limerick, 
 and be joined there by the earl of Ossory 
 and his son, with their forces. They were 
 to reduce the O'Dwires, to fortify and 
 inhabit Nenagh, and to take O'Brien's 
 bridge. Thence they were to overrun the 
 country of O'Brien, and to take possession 
 of his castles and strongholds, especially the 
 castle of Bunratty, and to fortify and inhabit 
 Clare, and " make two other like borough 
 towns in the midst of O'Brien's country." 
 It is added, " there are piles (forts) enough 
 in that country already, so that there needeth 
 no more but to inhabit." After the reduc- 
 tion of O'Brien, it is recommended that the 
 king's army should march to Galway, where 
 they might secure the aid of Mac William 
 and the Burkes of Clanrickai'd, " strong 
 hardy men, and of high stature, and name 
 themselves of the king's blood, and were 
 English, and bear hate to the Irishry; so 
 that, so long as they will acquit them well, 
 it were good to accept them, binding them 
 not only to withdraw from the maintenance 
 and succouring of the Briens, but also to do 
 their uttermost against them and all others 
 of the Irishry, which I think verily they will 
 perform." The Burkes of the south of Con- 
 naught had, indeed, shown an inclination to 
 assist the crown during the rebellion of the 
 Geraldines. " There are of the Irishry," it 
 is added, " in those parts, O'Kelly and 
 O'Madden, to whom these Burkes bear 
 
 mortal grudge; that, therefore, the same 
 army, with the said earl and the Burkes, 
 exile them, build, and inhabit accordingly. 
 And there are another sect of the Burkes, 
 and divers of the Irishry towards Sligo, 
 beyond Galway, in like hate with the same 
 Mac William of Clanrickard and the said 
 other Burkes ; that like enterprize be exe- 
 cuted against them." All the " Englishry " 
 in Munster, were, in the meanwhile, to 
 make war upon Cormac Oge, Mac Carthy 
 More, Mac Carthy Reagh, and O'Connor of 
 Kerry, who are stated to have been all at 
 this time in alliance with O'Brien. For 
 these extensive operations it is recommended 
 that the greater part of the army should be 
 archers on horseback, and northern spear- 
 men, " for they are most meet for Ireland, 
 especially at chases and skirmishes." O'Car- 
 roll and O'Moore, who had now exhibited 
 some zeal in the king's service, were to be 
 induced by rewards and honoius to take an 
 active part in this war, and it is finally sug- 
 gested that " these countries shall not need 
 to be all inhabited with Englishmen, but 
 may be mixed with divers born in the Eng- 
 lish pale, in cities and borough towns, and 
 in the earl of Ossory 's country." The agent 
 to whom Cromwell owed this plan, suggested 
 in conclusion that " these devises be begun 
 this next March, and so to be throughout 
 continued all that year next following; and 
 then the king's highness, with certain of his 
 council, to come the next somer thereafter, 
 with no great power, and so establish for 
 ever continual laudable order, according to 
 the laws of God, and of this his realm." 
 
 Several papers of this description show 
 the attention which was now beginning to 
 be given by the king and his minister to the 
 state of Ireland; and we shall see, in the 
 proceedings of the ensuing summer, that 
 there was some inclination to act upon the 
 above suggestions. The cruel manner in 
 which this war was to be carried on, is de- 
 scribed in a paper supplementary to the one 
 just mentioned — -the only excuse for it is, that 
 it is a system which the English had partly 
 learnt from the Irish themselves, who were 
 certainly, according to this plan, to be treated 
 on the footing of savages. " The very 
 living of the Irishry," we are told, "doth 
 clearly consist in two things ; and take away 
 the same from them, and they are past for 
 ever to recover, or yet to annoy any subject 
 in Ireland. Take first from them their 
 corn, and as much as cannot be husbanded 
 and had into the hands of such as shall dwell 
 
A.D. 
 
 1536.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [troubles in sligo. 
 
 and inhabit in their lands and country, to 
 burn and destroy the same, so as the Irishry 
 shall not live thereupon ; then to have their 
 cattle and beasts, which should be most 
 hardest to come by, for they shall be in the 
 woods, and yet with guides and policy, they 
 be oft had and taken in Ireland at this day. 
 And again, by the reason that the several 
 armies, as I divised in my other paper, should 
 proceed at once, it is not possible for the 
 said Irishry to put or flee their cattle from 
 one country into another, but that one of 
 the armies, with their guides and assistors, 
 by hap, policy, espial, or some other mean, 
 shall come thereby ; and admitting the 
 impossibility, so that their cattle were saved, 
 yet, in continuance of one year, the same 
 cattle shall be dead, destroyed, stolen, 
 strayed, and eaten; for by reason of the 
 continual removing of them, going from one 
 wood to another, as they shall be forced to 
 do, their lying out all the winter, and narrow 
 pastures, they shall be stolen, lost, strayed, 
 and dead, and, almost all of them, when all 
 the great number of the Irishry, so being in 
 exile, being together, with their tenants and 
 followers, taking their corn and other victual, 
 shall have no manner of sustenance, but only 
 the residue of the same cattle, if there shall 
 be any, whereby their said cattle must in 
 short time be consumed, and then they shall 
 be without corn, victuals, or cattle, and 
 thereof shall ensue the putting in effect of 
 all these wars against them." 
 
 In the midst of these projects, three deaths 
 announced at the same time (in a letter 
 of the 19th of June), those of sir John of 
 Desmond (the usurper of the earldom), 
 Cormac Oge, and Mac William of Clan- 
 rickard (John Burke), came to fix the atten- 
 tion of the government more intently on the 
 affairs of Munster. The son of John of 
 Desmond, known as James fitz John, assumed 
 the earldom after his father's death, to the 
 continued exclusion of the rightful heir, 
 James fitz Maurice, and the succession of 
 Cormac Oge appears to have descended 
 peacefully to the next heir ; but that of 
 Mac William was fiercely disputed between 
 two claimants, Richard Bacagh and Ulick, 
 the former of whom seems to have been the 
 more popular among his sept, while the latter 
 was supported by lord Ossory, and was be- 
 lieved to be the more devoted to the English 
 interests. The part which the young usur- 
 per of the title of earl of Desmond would 
 take, at first excited some speculation, but 
 all doubt was soon removed by the intelli- 
 
 gence that he had formed a close league with 
 O'Brien, and that the Butlers were threat- 
 ened with an attack by this new alliance. 
 The affairs of Munster were further compli- 
 cated by a sudden feud between O'Moore of 
 Leix and Mac Gillapatrick. 
 
 Wliile the southern districts of the island, 
 over which the English influence had been 
 so much extended by the suppression of one 
 branch of the Geraldines, continued thus to 
 monopolize the attention of the Anglo-Irish 
 government, the northern chiefs remained 
 unmolested, and the only apprehensions 
 which seem to have been entertained from 
 that quarter, arose from the report of 
 O'Neill's transactions with the Scots, now 
 popularly known by the name of Red-shanks, 
 which were supposed to threaten projects 
 of a hostile character. Towards the middle 
 of June the lord deputy repaired to Dundalk 
 and the borders of Ulster, to hold a confer- 
 ence with O'Neill, who appeased the fears of 
 the moment by taking new oaths of alle- 
 giance to king Henry, and entering into new 
 indentures, by which he undertook to oppose 
 all the king's enemies and rebels, and made 
 an express stipulation that he would intro- 
 duce into Ireland none of the Scots, or Red- 
 shanks, which had been the object of so 
 much uneasiness to the government. 
 
 There remained, behind O'Neill and O'Con- 
 nor Faly, a large district of the island, in- 
 cluding a considerable portion of Connaught 
 with Sligo and Tirconnell, which was entirelj' 
 beyond the English influence, and to the 
 affairs of which the deputy and council in 
 Dublin appear to have given very little 
 attention. A considerable portion of the 
 population of the south of this district was, 
 nevertheless, of English origin, though that 
 of the north was purely Irish. This region 
 had, during the spring of 1536, been thrown 
 into a state of turbulence by the intrigues 
 as it appears of an ecclesiastic, who belonged 
 himself to one of the " degenerate " English 
 septs. Richard Barrett bishop of Killala, 
 in Mayo, is accused by the Irish annalists 
 of having incited Teige Oge O'Connor, with 
 the Mac Donoughs, and some other Irish 
 septs of North or Lower Connaught, to 
 make war suddenly upon the Burkes; and 
 he accompanied them in the invasion of 
 the barony of Tirawley in his own diocese. 
 The invaders appear to have experienced no 
 opposition, but they received great assistance I 
 in their depredations from their ghostly con- 
 ductor; for when they reached the monastery 'i 
 of Errew, on the shores of Lough Conn, in 
 
 323 
 
EXPEDITION TO LIMERICK.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 15,%. 
 
 which the natives had deposited all their 
 most valuable property, as in a sanctuary 
 which the plunderers alone would have 
 respected, the bishop, showing little respect 
 for the holiness of its patron, St. Tiernan, 
 ordered it to be taken out of the sanctuary, 
 and given as spoils to the army. 
 
 This appears to have been a mere war 
 of personal ambition, for now Teige Oge, 
 encouraged by his success, assumed the title 
 and rank of the O'Connor, or chief of Sligo. 
 He then marched, with his allies, against 
 the Clann-Costello, another sept of English 
 origin, which had obtained considerable 
 influence in Mayo, and, meeting with no 
 opposition in the open country, he laid siege 
 to the chief residence of the Mac Costellos 
 at Kilcoman, and carried back to Sligo the 
 chieftain, as a hostage for the submission of 
 his clan. 
 
 These troubles soon attracted the atten- 
 tion of O'Donnell, who appears to have 
 monopolized the right of interfering in the 
 affairs of Sligo and Lower Connaught. He 
 mustered a formidable army, attended by 
 all his sons except the rebellious Manus (who 
 was held back by his ally O'Neill), and 
 accompanied by the Maguires, the O'Reillys, 
 the Mac Sweenys, the O'Boyles, and other 
 septs, at Ballyshannon, and from thence 
 marched to the borders of Sligo, where tliey 
 encamped for the night. Knowing that the 
 new O'Connor had exerted himself to raise 
 a large army, and that he had tlireatened to 
 meet him on his march, and fearing a sur- 
 prise by night, O'Donnell sent the chieftain 
 O'Boyle, with his sept, to watch one rout 
 by which he expected the enemy to approach, 
 while one of the sons of O'Donnell, unknown 
 to O'Boyle, marched for a similar purpose 
 in another direction. By some mistake, one 
 or both of these parties lost their way, and 
 meeting, in the darkness of night, each took 
 the other for the enemy, and a desperate 
 conflict ended in the death of O'Boyle. This 
 occurred on the 31 st of July. Next day, 
 they learnt that O'Connor, in spite of his 
 boasting, had never left tlie neighbourhood 
 of Sligo, upon which O'Donnell marched 
 with his whole army to the neighbourhood 
 of Drumcliff", sending a party of his cavalry 
 to within four miles of Sligo, vrliere they 
 defeated an advanced body of O'Connor's 
 forces. The latter made a faint attempt to 
 hinder O'Donnell from crossing thj river of 
 Sligo into the barony of Carbury, and then 
 retired before him, only hazarding now and 
 then a skirmish with his plundering parties. 
 324 
 
 The army of Tirconnell now ravaged and 
 plundered the whole country as far as Tire- 
 ragh, and, we are told, "so immense were 
 the preys and spoils obtained by O'Donnell's 
 army on that expedition, that two beeves 
 used to be given for a groat in his camp." 
 The chiefs of Lower Connaught still re- 
 mained in arms, and, although they cau- 
 tiously avoided a general engagement, when 
 O'Donnell returned home satisfied with his 
 plunder, they did their utmost to harass him 
 in his retreat. Thus, to use the words of 
 the Irish chronicler, " O Donnell returned 
 home without obtaining rent or tribute, 
 submission or homage, from the chiefs of 
 Lower Connaught, which was unusual with 
 him." His departure was followed by a 
 domestic war among the Mac Donoughs, 
 and by another war in Roscommon among 
 the O'Connors, Mac Dermots, O'Rourkes, 
 and O'Kellys. 
 
 Thus were the Irish occupied in destroy- 
 ing each other, at the moment when the 
 English power was gaining an ascendancy 
 in Ireland. Little caring how long the 
 O'Donnells and the O'Connors continued 
 their work of mutual devastation, the lord 
 deputy had proceeded in the meanwhile with 
 a vigorous campaign in the south. Having 
 left sir William Brabazon, who held the 
 oflice of treasurer of the war, in command 
 in the English pale, to keep the native septs 
 there in check, and overlook the rebuilding 
 of the castles of Powerscourt and Wood- 
 stock and the bridge of Athy, lord Leonard 
 Gray marched to Kilkenny on the 25th of 
 July, with an army victualled for a month. 
 Here he was met by the earl of Ossory and 
 the lord Butler, who brought with them a 
 " goodly company," and, havir.g reconciled 
 the two chiefs O'Moore and Mac Gilpatrick, 
 they with Mac Murrough, O'Byrne, O'Car- 
 roll, and other lessc^r Irish chiefs, as well 
 as the lord Roche, and many gentlemen of 
 the counties of Wexford and Waterford, 
 joined the English standard, and made up 
 for the deficiency caused by the absence of 
 the gentlemen of wh;.t was now considered 
 the pale, most of whom sent their excuses 
 instead of coming in person. The fear of 
 the vengeance of the Geraldines, in case they 
 should be eventually restored to their pos- 
 sessions and power, seems still to have 
 influenced the Anglo-Irish in an extra- 
 ordinary manner. The iiiost efficient por- 
 tion of the army thus consisted of the 
 forces of the Butlers, for tlie English 
 soldiers attendant on the deputy are stated 
 
A.D, 
 
 1536.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [o'brien's bridge. 
 
 to have amounted to no more than seven 
 hundred. 
 
 They marched thence to the neighhour- 
 hood of Cashel, where they encamped in the 
 open field three days, waiting for James fitz 
 John of Desmond, who had been summoned 
 to meet the deputy at this place, according 
 to a promise he had previously given. But as 
 he neither made his appearance nor returned 
 any answer, the army moved forwards to the 
 neighbourhood of Limerick, to a castle 
 called Lough-Ger, which James fitz John 
 had recently taken from James fitz Maurice. 
 This castle they found deserted, and the earl 
 of Desmond's garrison before leaving it had 
 carried away the doors and windows and 
 burnt the roofs. It was delivered to the tem- 
 porary custody of the Butlers. 
 
 Finding that no terms were to be made 
 with the earl of Desmond, the army now 
 took up its head-quarters in the city of 
 Limerick, preparatory to opening the cam- 
 paign against O'Brien, under the guidance 
 of Donough O'Brien, who, banished from 
 his own country, had remained, ever since 
 the breaking out of the Geraldine rebellion, 
 with the English, and now joined the camp 
 at Limerick. To satisfy tliis young chief- 
 tain, a portion of the army marched against 
 the strong castle of Carrigogunnell, which 
 Donogh O'Brien had in the preceding year 
 demanded as the price of his assistance. The 
 garrison of the O'Briens, which held this 
 fortress, talked at first very high, and set 
 the besiegers at defiance ; but when their 
 artillery began to batter the walls, the go- 
 vernor demanded a parley, which ended in 
 the surrender of the castle without further 
 dispute. It was, according to agreement, 
 entrusted to the keeping of Donough O'Brien, 
 as the king's subject, but the army liad no 
 sooner left it, than it was attacked by the 
 Irish, and was surrendered by its new gar- 
 rison almost without resistance. 
 
 On Friday the 4th of August, the whole 
 army marched from Limerick towards Tho- 
 mond, and being conducted by Donough 
 O'Brien and his friends by a secret path 
 which " never English host or carts came 
 before," and by which they avoided the diffi- 
 culties of approach presented by the regular 
 road, they came in face of O'Brien's bridge 
 on the morning of Saturday. The bridge is 
 described as havinsj at each end a strong 
 castle or tower built of hewn marble, — the 
 walls of the strongest tower, that on the 
 Limerick side, which consequently they 
 had to attack first, being at least twelve 
 
 or thirteen feet thick. It vvas further 
 strengthened at this time with fortifications 
 of timber, and hogsheads of earth; and was 
 guarded with gunners, galloglasses, and 
 horsemen, who had one large cannon that 
 " shot bullets as great as a man's head," and 
 " a Portugal piece, certain hackbushes (a 
 very large species of musket which re- 
 quired a rest), and hand-guns." The two 
 towers stood within the water at some dis- 
 tance from each bank, to which they were 
 joined by four arches, and these on the 
 Limerick side had been broken down in ex- 
 pectation of the attack. The bridge itself 
 appears to have been constructed of timber. 
 
 The lord deputy's army appears to have 
 been ill provided with ammunition, for after 
 battering with all his ordnance during the 
 first day, he found at night tliat his shot was 
 spent, and that he had made no impression 
 on the tower. He then determined to jjursue 
 a diff'erent mode of attack, and every man in 
 the army was ordered to make a faggot one 
 fathom in length, and these, as well as lad- 
 ders, were to be ready for use next morning. 
 Then the space between the bank and the 
 tower being filled up with the faggots, a 
 party of the English soldiers attendant on 
 the deputy, with sir William Saintloo's com- 
 pany, rushed over them to the tower, and 
 after a short struggle made themselves 
 masters of it and the bridge, the defenders 
 of which escaped on the opposite side, leav- 
 ing their guns and stores to the conquerors. 
 The loss of the latter in the assault consisted 
 only of two gunners slain, and a few men 
 wounded. The whole of Sunday and Mon- 
 day was employed in breaking down and 
 destroying this formidable bridge; and on 
 Tuesday the army returned again to its 
 quarters at Limerick, from whence the lord 
 James Butler and Donough O'Brien were 
 sent with an escort to Waterford, to bring a 
 further supply of ammunition and artillery 
 which had been conveyed by sea from Dublin 
 to that city. 
 
 The want of ammunition and ordnance 
 was not the only evil under which the Anglo- 
 Irish army laboured at this time, and which 
 hindered its operations. The soldiers sent 
 over from England seem on all occasions to 
 have rendered themselves remarkable by 
 their insubordinate spirit, and this was now 
 increased by the slow transmission of money 
 for their pay. In the letter in which the 
 lord deputy announces to secretary Cromwell 
 the destruction of O'Brien's bridge, he com- 
 plains bitterly of the "shrewd" case in 
 
 3f?o 
 
MUTINY IN THE ARMY.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 153G. 
 
 which he was placed by the " misorder and 
 evil rule " of the whole company of the 
 English, insomuch that, he says, " I promise 
 you, on my honesty, I am in more dread of 
 my life amongst them that be the soldiers, 
 tlian I am of them that be the king's Irish 
 enemies." First, it appears, no sooner did 
 the lord deputy give the order for marching 
 into Munstcr, than the northern men, who 
 formed the bulk of his own soldiers, broke 
 out into open mutiny, and refused to move 
 till they had received the arrears of pay. 
 This disorder was no sooner appeased, than 
 he received intelligence that the company 
 of sir William Saintloo had mutinied at 
 Waterford. " And not contented therewith," 
 he says, " in our camp, the first night ap- 
 proaching to our enemies, the whole com- 
 pany of the said Saintloo made a mutiny 
 and insurrection in the field, we being in 
 our enemies' country ... so as I and all 
 that were in the field must have gone to 
 harness and bent the ordnance upon them 
 for pacifying them." " The truth is," he 
 adds, " there was never so much disorder 
 amongst so small a company, that ever I saw 
 or heard of, with the exception of my own 
 company. There is very few other in the 
 army now that can excuse him, but his com- 
 pany, part or all, hath mutinied, murmured, 
 and grudged to serve the king's grace divers 
 times; and now of late they are at such point 
 amongst them, that unless I provide money 
 for them, they will do no service, except 
 they were in such a place as they might rob 
 and steal, as they do daily, for anything that 
 I can do, notwdthstanding there is both sta- 
 tutes and articles made for the eschewing 
 thereof." The deputy then alludes to the 
 jealousies which were spreading among the 
 officers of the government, and adds, " this 
 country passeth all that ever I saw for minis- 
 tration of sedition and discord; and they 
 princijjally delight to put one of us English- 
 men in anothers neck." 
 
 It was this mutinous disposition of the 
 army which brought the expedition against 
 O'Brien somewhat abruptly to an end. On 
 the arrival of the ammunition and stores 
 from Waterford, lord Leonard Gray pro- 
 ceeded to recover the castle of Carrigogun- 
 nell, which had been retaken after the 
 departure of the English for the expedi- 
 tion against O'Brien's bridge, and which 
 was now strongly garrisoned by the men of 
 the earl of Desmond and the O'Briens. 
 These not only set the besiegers at defiance 
 in scornful terms, but when the deputy 
 326 
 
 summoned them in due form to surrender, 
 they seized upon his messenger, and detained 
 him as a prisoner. The deputy, provoked 
 at this outrage, sent them word that, if they 
 did not surrender the castle before his ord- 
 nance began to play upon it, he would put 
 the whole garrison to the sword, man, woman, 
 and child. The besieged, unmoved at this 
 threat, repeated their defiance ; and the 
 English guns immediately opened their fire 
 on the entrance gateway, in which a breach 
 was soon made, and the English, with some 
 loss, forced their way into the base-court. 
 The ordnance was then planted against the 
 dongeon or keep of " the great castle," and 
 a breach being soon made there also, the 
 English rushed forwards to repeated assaults 
 during the day, but tliey were always beaten 
 back with loss. In the night, however, a 
 party of the lord deputy's own retinue suc- 
 ceeded in gaining an entry ijito one of the 
 towers, which they kept till daylight, and 
 then, while the attention of the garrison was 
 divided by this diversion, another attack was 
 made by the besiegers without, who soon 
 made themselves masters of the castle. The 
 garrison had killed thirty of the English in 
 this obstinate defence, and their own number 
 had been considerably diminished. Still 
 lord Gray kept his word with the remainder, 
 and the only persons spared from the slaugh- 
 ter were some "gentlemen of the Briens," 
 who were carried to Limerick, and there 
 tried and executed as rebels; "the dread 
 and example whereof," say the Irish council, 
 " we trust shall be a mean that few garrisons 
 in Munster shall keep against the king's 
 deputy, especially if they perceive that he 
 have great ordnance with him." 
 
 The castle of Carrigogunnell was again 
 delivered into the hands of Donough O'Brien, 
 and this time he appears to have taken better 
 care of it; for we find the citizens of Lim- 
 erick complaining, in tlie following year, of 
 the depredations committed by Donough's 
 garrison. The army again returned to 
 Limerick, and there received overtures from 
 O'Brien as well as from the earl of Desmond. 
 The latter is stated to have shown himself 
 much more submissive, and to have expressed 
 a willingness to refer himself to the king's 
 judgment; but the communications of the 
 chief of Thomond were of so unsatisfactory 
 a character, that the deputy announced his 
 intention of crossing the Shannon and 
 marching into his territory. At this moment 
 a new and still more serious mutiny broke 
 out among the English soldiery, who refused 
 
A.D, 
 
 15;36.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [death of RICHMOND. 
 
 to advance ; and lord Gray was compelled, 
 very unwillingly, to give up his design, and 
 return to Cashel, on his way to Dublin. 
 The parliament had followed the steps of 
 the army, having been prorogued from Dub- 
 lin to Cashel, and from Cashel to Limerick; 
 and it was now prorogued again, to meet at 
 
 Dublin on the 15th of September. Thus, 
 after having raised great expectations among 
 all parties interested in this expedition, it 
 ended only in marching an imposing force 
 into the heart of Munster, and in marching 
 it back again. No serious impression had 
 been made on Thomond or Desmond. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GEEALD FITZ GERALD; OPPOSITION IN PARLIAMENT, AND DIVISIONS AMONG THE 
 
 OFFICERS OF STATE; INVASION OF OFFALY, AND FIN-\L 
 
 SUBMISSION OF THE O'CONNORS. 
 
 HEN the brothers and 
 eldest son of the late 
 earl of Kiklare expe- 
 rienced the sweeping 
 vengeance of the law, 
 there still remained 
 two direct representa- 
 tives of the family, for 
 the earl had left two 
 sons by his second wife the lady Elizabeth 
 Gray, Gerald and Edward, the first of whom 
 was now about twelve or thirteen years of I 
 age. The younger child had been conveyed 
 to England, and was, with his mother, the 
 countess of Kildare, at the mansion of her 
 family, Beaumanoir in Leicestershire. But 
 Gerald fitz Gerald, the elder, and the heir 
 to the earldom of Kildare, had been entrusted 
 to the care of the staunch adherent of his 
 family, James Delahyde, and was at this 
 moment with him at the court of O'Brien 
 of Thomond. It was the wish to obtain 
 possession of the person of this youth, that 
 made the Anglo-Irish government so anxious 
 to reduce tlie O'Briens, and that led to so 
 many expeditions against them. The young | 
 heir of Kildare, whose misfortunes excited 1 
 sympathy from one end of the island to the j 
 other, was destined soon to be made the | 
 motive of a more formidable confederacy of | 
 the Irish chieftains. 
 
 Meanwhile the government was embar- 
 rassed, not only by an unexpected op2)osition 
 in the Irish parliament, but by an event 
 equally unlooked for, which was believed to 
 have invalidated its legislative labours. This 
 
 parliament had, as we have seen, not only 
 carried on its deliberations at Dublin, up to 
 the moment of the lord deputy's departure 
 on his expedition against O'Brien, but it 
 had accompanied him in his march, and con- 
 tinued to sit at Cashel and Limerick, and 
 now recommenced its duties on his return 
 to Dublin. Soon after this, however, the 
 intelligence was received that the young 
 duke of Richmond, who held the office of 
 lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and in whose 
 name the government was carried on and 
 the parliament called, had died on the 22nd 
 of July, by which event the Irish parliament 
 was looked upon as virtually dissolved, 
 although it was subsequently to that date 
 that some of its most important acts, includ- 
 ing that of the attainder of the Geraldincs, 
 had been passed. The question of the vali- 
 dity of these acts seems to have been for 
 some time a matter of debate, and it was 
 even jjroposed to call a new jjarliament to 
 confirm them ; but it appears at length to 
 have been decided that the deputy had the 
 power of calling and holding parliaments, 
 and therefore the acts alluded to were allowed 
 to be valid, and the parliament which passed 
 them was continued. 
 
 The opposition in the Irish house of com- 
 mons, which seems to have been looked 
 upon in the light of a novelty in Ireland, 
 was shown chiefly in two acts brought in at 
 this time, one for a resumption of the king's 
 customs, the oiher for granting him the 
 twentieth part of all the rents and revenues 
 of every man's lands during ten years. The 
 
 327 
 
OPPOSITION IN PARLIAMENT.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1537. 
 
 commons at all times showed great reluc- 
 tance in granting money, and these bills 
 were thrown out, much to the disappoint- 
 ment of the officers of the crown, one of 
 whom, Robert Cowley, whose opinions and 
 recommendations on Irish affairs appear to 
 have been received with great attention by 
 the king and his minister Cromwell, ascribes 
 it to " the seduction of certain ringleaders 
 or belweathers, applying more to their own 
 sensualities, singular {i. e. particular) profits 
 and affections, than to any good reason or 
 towardness to prefer the king's advantage or 
 commodity." He adds, that the conunons 
 had determined to send two members of 
 their house into England, " such as they 
 think will hold fast and stiffly argue to 
 maintain their froward opinions, to vanquish 
 the reasons of such as would speak in the 
 king's causes ;" and he adds that one of these 
 was the serjeant-at-law, Patrick Barnewell, 
 a " principal champion " of the opposition, 
 "who, and in effect all his lineage of the 
 Barnewells, have been great doers, adherents, 
 and privy counsellors to the late earl of 
 Kildare." In the sequel of this letter, 
 Cowley suggests that, if the commons per- 
 sisted in refusing the supplies demanded of 
 them, they might be intimidated by remind- 
 ing them of the charge of rebellion which 
 still hung over their heads, for, he says, 
 " there be very few of all the English pale 
 that can excuse them, but that they in the 
 time of rebellion, were personally with 
 Thomas fitz Gerald, or gave him some aid 
 of men, money, or victuals, whereby the 
 king, by extremity of his laws, might take 
 from them all their lands, goods, and chat- 
 tels." This rigorous counsel was not fol- 
 lowed, nor were the supplies granted, and 
 the Irish war remained still chargeable to 
 
 • The king's letter is so curious, that it deserves to 
 he given entire: — 
 
 " Trusty and welbiloved, we grete you well. Lat- 
 ing you wit, that forasmuclie as we have been adver- 
 tised, tliat whereas a certen motion was made unto 
 you, in the last session of our high com-te of parlia- 
 ment there, for a benevolence to be graunted unto us 
 by you, our subjiettes of our lay fee, within that our 
 lande of Irelandc, you made a certen argument and 
 stey therein; albeit we doubt not but you doo all 
 consider what importable charges we have been at 
 lately for your defences, and that you wold of your 
 selfes, thoughe noon instance were made unto you 
 for the same, devise as wel how presently to gratifie 
 us with some recompence, as to condesceiide to such 
 an augmentation of our revenues there, as might be 
 hable to defend you from the violence of all traitours 
 and rebells, and to preserve you in good peax, civilitie, 
 and quictnes. Yet to thintent you shuld not onl)' 
 knowe that it shal be moche to our contentation yf 
 328 
 
 the king. On the final prorogation of this 
 year's parliament on the 28th of September, 
 the deputy and council wrote to the king, 
 excusing the commons on the ground of 
 inability, arising from the depredations to 
 which they had been exposed in the late 
 rebellion ; and when parliament met again 
 in the January of 1.537, the king wrote a 
 letter to the Irish house of commons, in 
 remarkably gentle language, represented the 
 great charges he had been at in the late wars, 
 and his anxiety for the welfare of his Irish 
 subjects, and asking them to contribute 
 towards defraying them.* 
 
 The refusal of the Irish parliament to 
 grant the supplies did not hinder the Eng- 
 lish monarch from pursuing his projects of 
 " reformation," as it was called, in Ireland, 
 and sir William Brereton was actively em- 
 ployed in the autumn of 1536 in raising sol- 
 diers in Cheshire to be transported into that 
 country. Measures were at the same time 
 taken for correcting the disorders of the 
 English army in Ireland, which had already 
 created so much hindrance to the public ser- 
 vice. No further service, however, was done 
 during the winter, which seems to have been 
 passed in disagreements and quarrels be- 
 tween the officers of the crown, and the ears 
 of the king and his minister were besieged 
 with their mutual complaints. The latter 
 appear to have been dissatisfied with the 
 small amount of real service which had been 
 performed during the preceding year, and 
 they were inclined to charge this as well as 
 the disorders of the army to the ill manage- 
 ment of those who conducted the govern- 
 ment. On the 4th of February, 1537, the 
 day after the Geraldines of Kildare were 
 executed at Tyburn, the lord deputy an- 
 nounced in a letter to secretary Cromwell, 
 
 you shal lovingly growe to some resolute point in the 
 graunt of the said benevolence, and that we shall lake 
 your proceding therein most thankfully, and as a 
 perfite argument and demonstration of your entier 
 love and due obedience towardes us, but also that we 
 desire not this matier for any notable gayn that we 
 covejte shuld thereof ensue to our self, but for that 
 we have suche a zeale to reduce that our laiide to a 
 perfite conformitie, that we wold have some conve- 
 nient furniture of yerely revenues there, as reasonne 
 is, for the conducing and maintenauncc of the same, 
 we have thought convenient by these our letters, only 
 to desire you in this matier soo to procede with us, as 
 we may have cause to thinke you have the stomakes 
 of faithfuU subjiettes towardes us, your prince and 
 soveraign lorde, and like cause, with our iavour and 
 princely governaunce towardes you, to requite the 
 same. 
 
 " To the Conimen House of the parliament in 
 Irlande." 
 
A.D. 
 
 1537.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [invasion of offaly. 
 
 that James fitz John, who lickl the earklom 
 of Desmond, had made advances towards a 
 reconciliation with the crown, but tliese 
 appear to have led to no immediate result. 
 The Irish council was at this moment occu- 
 pied with a project for the reduction of the 
 province of Leinster to a better state of obe- 
 dience and security by the conquest and, if 
 necessary, expulsion of the Irish septs which 
 occupied the country between Dublin and 
 Waterford, the Mac Murroughs, O'Byrnes, 
 and O'Tooles. But before any steps could 
 be taken to carry this project into execution, 
 the lord deputy found it necessary to proceed 
 into Oftaly, and chastise its chief, Brian 
 O'Connor. 
 
 At the latter end of May, a small army, 
 under the immediate command of the deputy, 
 was assembled at Rathwere, at which place 
 he was joined by lords Delvin and Slane, 
 with the Plunketts and other gentlemen of 
 the pale. By the advice and guidance of 
 lord Delvin, the army marched through the 
 territories of the O'Mulnioys, the Mac Geo- 
 ghegans, and the O'Melaghlins, receiving the 
 submissions of those chiefs on its way, and 
 increased by their forces, which joined in 
 the expedition, and they entered Oftaly from 
 a side where it had never been attacked by 
 the English before. This was perhaps to 
 hinder O'Connor from retreating into Ulster. 
 The deputy was accompanied by Cahir 
 O'Connor, the brother of Brian O'Connor, 
 who had been living now two years in the 
 English territory, and who acted as the 
 guide into Offaly. He led them direct to 
 a strong castle of the O'Connors named 
 Brackland, or Bragnoll, which was imme- 
 diately besieged, and taken the same day. 
 The castle itself was delivered to Cahir 
 O'Connor; but the garrison, with the excep- 
 tion of one man who received a more merci- 
 ful pardon at the intercession of Cahir, 
 experienced what the deputy called " the 
 pardon of Maynooth," that is, they were 
 taken out and beheaded as rebels. Next 
 day they marched a distance of about five 
 miles to O'Connor's chief fortress, the castle 
 of Dcngen, situated in a strong position 
 in the middle of an extensive marsh, which 
 the soldiers were obliged to pass on fag- 
 gots and hurdles. The same day thej' 
 attacked and gained possession of the bawn, 
 or precincts of the castle, with the loss only 
 of two men. This was the afternoon of 
 Friday, and the besiegers were obliged to 
 remain inactive within the bawn, watching 
 the garrison, till Monday evening, waiting 
 
 VOL. I. 2 T 
 
 the arrival of their large siege-piece from 
 Dublin. On Tuesday morning they began 
 to batter the castle, and having soon made a 
 breach, they took the castle by assault, and 
 slew a large portion of the garrison, whose 
 heads were raised upon poles. The Irish 
 army was at this time so ill supplied with 
 artillery, that they possessed only one large 
 battering-piece, and this they had the mis- 
 fortune to lose by its bursting at the attack 
 on Dengen castle. The council, in their 
 despatch to the English minister, lament this 
 mishap, and beseech him earnestly " to be a 
 mean to the king's highness that there may 
 be another sent hither with speed, or else 
 his grace's deputy cannot prevail against 
 Irishmen which have garrisons." 
 
 In spite of the expostulations of Cahir 
 O'Connor, the castle of Dengen vv-as levelled 
 with the ground, a small angle of it only 
 being left standing, " to the intent," as the 
 lord deputy expressed it, " that the Irish 
 might see to what purpose the keeping of 
 their castles served." Athlone, which had 
 been long in possession of the natives, was 
 also about the same time recovered by the' 
 English; and, daunted by the success of the 
 English invasion, and perhaps deserted by 
 many of his own people, for we can only 
 explain the events of this war by supposing 
 that Cahir O'Connor had numerous parti- 
 zans among the Irish of Offaly, the chief of 
 that district, Brian, fled, as it was under- 
 stood, to seek protection among the O'Car- 
 rolls. The deputy, having nearly expended 
 his provisions and ammunition, established 
 Cahir O'Connor as chief of Offaly, and then 
 returned to the pale. 
 
 The Butlers had not taken part in this 
 expedition in consequence of the illness 
 of the earl of Ossory, but a part of the 
 earl's men, under the command of his son 
 Richard, joined the deputy's army the day 
 after the capture of Dengen. As they were 
 provisioned for a longer period, it was agreed 
 that they should proceed into the country of 
 the O'CarroUs, to look after the "false 
 knave," as the deputy terms the O'Connor 
 Faly. The attention of the Irish govern- 
 ment was, however, immediately called oif 
 from these hostilities to new proposals of 
 internal reform; and the attention paid by 
 the king and his minister, who appear to 
 have been still dissatisfied with the proceed- 
 ings of the deputy and many of his coun- 
 sellors, was shown in the eagerness with 
 which they received information respecting 
 the condition of the country, and in the 
 
MEETING WITH o'neill.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. I5;57. 
 
 appointment of commissioners sent over to 
 make a strict examination into the state of 
 the island and the conduct of those to whom 
 its government had been entrusted. These 
 commissioners, who reached Ireland in 
 August, were directed among other things 
 to investigate the claims to the earldom of 
 Desmond, James fitz John, the claimant 
 who had assumed the title, having written a 
 submissive letter to the king, offering to 
 assist the crown in the reduction and pacifi- 
 cation of Munster. 
 
 The prospect of this commission appears to 
 have incited the deputy and council to in- 
 creased activity, and a rising of the Cavenaghs 
 of Leinster was the signal for reassembling 
 the army, which marched against them at the 
 end of July, with victuals for a fortnight. 
 The Cavenaghs were soon reduced, and some 
 of their strongholds destroyed; and then 
 lord Gray, uniting with the earl of Ossory, 
 marched through the countries of the 
 O'Moores and Mac Gillapatricks, and joined 
 by the forces of those septs, entered the 
 territory of O'Carroli, while it was invaded 
 'on the other side by Caliir O'Connor, in con- 
 junction with the O'Mulmoys and the Mac 
 Geoghcgans. O'Carroli had received assist- 
 ance from O'Brien and some of the septs of 
 Connaught, but even thus he was not long 
 able to make head against the invaders, to 
 whom he made his submission and gave his 
 hostages. O'Mcagher of I-kerin experienced 
 the same fate; and Brian O'Connor was 
 obliged to seek a last refuge in the woods 
 and marshes. Thence, under a safe conduct, 
 he ventured into the deputy's presence, 
 pleaded his cause submissively, and begged 
 for the restoration of his territory; which 
 the deputy promised him on condition of his 
 obtaining liis pardon of the king, while at 
 tlie same time the deputy and the council 
 wrote to the king urgently rcconnnending 
 that the chieftain of Ossory should not be 
 pardoned. 
 
 Soon after lord Gray's return to Dublin, 
 he received intelligence of an alarming 
 character from the north. Hugh O'Don- 
 nell, the chieftain of Tirconnell, who had 
 remained in general faithful in his attach- 
 ment to the English government, died at 
 Donegal on the 5th of July, and was suc- 
 ceeded by his rebellious son Manus, who 
 had been distinguished as the constant ally 
 of O'Neill against the English. No sooner 
 iiad the new O'Donnell been installed, than 
 O'Neill began to exhibit his temper towards 
 the English by various petty encroachments 
 ■^30 
 
 on the border, and by an attempt to gain 
 possession of the castle of Ardglass. The 
 deputy immediately assembled the army of 
 the English pale, and, carrying provisions 
 for a month, marched to the borders of 
 Ulster, "as well to repress the same O'Neill 
 in such of his wilful proceedings, as to pro- 
 secute others for their disobedience, as 
 cause should require." O'Neill had as- 
 sembled a large body of Irish and Scots to 
 resist the threatened attack; but the council 
 of state, between which and the lord 
 deputy there appears to have been a great 
 want of unanimity, so far overruled him 
 in his warlike projects, that it was deter- 
 mined first to try the effect of treaty witli 
 the chieftain of Tyrone ; and he was in- 
 duced to remit the decision of all matters 
 in dispute to the lord chancellor, the bishop 
 of Meath, and the chief justice, on the 
 part of the English government, and 
 Maguire and Mac Donnell (liis captain of 
 galloglasses) for himself. " Notwithstand- 
 ing," says Gray to Cromwell, " to be plain 
 with your good lordship, if I might have 
 followed my own will and purpose, surely 
 I would have visited him in his camp, 
 where I trusted to have saluted him after 
 that sort, as, God not disposing the con- 
 trary, I would have so handled him that 
 neither he, nor any of his, the favourers or 
 partakers of him, should have had any 
 great cause to rejoice or boast them of that 
 voyage made by any of them." At the 
 same time a letter arrived from O'Donnell, 
 pleading his father's services to the English 
 monarch, and professing the same attach- 
 ment in his own person. 
 
 O'Donnell only waited to be relieved from 
 all fears on the side of the English, to pro- 
 ceed on the hostile expedition with which 
 it was considered in a manner necessary that 
 every great Irish chieftain should begin his 
 reign. Lower Connaught was, on this oc- 
 casion, chosen as the scene of his ravages, 
 and, early in September, when the corn was 
 in the ear, he overran, plundered, and burnt 
 the whole of Carbury, Tireragh, Leyny (the 
 territory of the O'Haras), Corran, and Tir- 
 rerill. The castle of the O'Haras was cap- 
 tured, and the chief himself carried away as 
 a hostage. Several of the lesser septs of 
 Ulster were at the same time engaged in 
 petty hostilities among themselves ; and the 
 same turbulent and seditious spirit with which 
 Manus O'Donnell had embittered his father's 
 reign, was already exhibited towards himself 
 by his near kinsman, Calvagh O'Donnell. 
 
A.D, 
 
 l.'JS?.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [plans of reformation. 
 
 As far as regarded the natives, the power 
 of the English government had not, for 
 several ages, stood so high. The laws were 
 executed duly and without interruption 
 throughout the English pale. One branch 
 of the formidable Geraldines was entirely 
 broken, while the other began to assume a 
 conciliatory and even a submissive tone. 
 O'Brien showed no inclination to enter into 
 hostilities. The two great chieftains of the 
 north, evidently intimidated by the success- 
 ful pi'ogress of the English arms, showed a 
 desire at least to avoid any unfriendly re- 
 lations with the government at Dublin. 
 Nearer home, the O'Connors and O'CarroUs 
 had received a severe chastisement for their 
 refractory spirit. The lord deputy, writing 
 to Cromwell concerning the deposed chief- 
 tain of Offaly, on the 1 9th of September, 
 describes " that arrant and rank traitor " as 
 " now going from one to another of his old 
 friends, to have meat and drink, and hath 
 not over four knaves with him, more like a 
 beggar than he that ever was a cajjtain or 
 ruler of a country, and maketh daily suit 
 unto me and divers of the council here, at 
 whose hands he shall have little succour, 
 our sovereign lord's pleasure and your will 
 not being to the contrary." 
 
 The king's commissioners were busily 
 engaged in the meanwhile in a searching 
 examination into the causes of the previous 
 weakness and misgovernment of the English 
 possessions, and their labours gave rise to a 
 number of reports and papers of different 
 kinds, many of which are still preserved in 
 the State Paper office. These contain much 
 of the old jirejudices and the wrong views of 
 former legislators, and exhibit none of the 
 far-sighted policy which might have pro- 
 duced permanent benefits. It was still the 
 favourite panacea to introduce to as great 
 an extent as possible an English population, 
 to the expulsion of the natives, and to sub- 
 ject the latter to a government of coercion. 
 The country of Offaly was now considered 
 as being in the king's hands, under Cahir 
 O'Connor as tenant of the crown, and it was 
 a subject of consideration in what manner it 
 could be most advantageously disposed of. 
 Sir John Allen, who gave a paper of sugges- 
 tions to the commissioners, recommended 
 that the Berminghams and others, who for- 
 merly held districts in Offaly, should be 
 restored, and that the rest should be given 
 to Cahir O'Connor, and he to receive from 
 the king the title of baron of Offidy, and to 
 hold his lands according to English laws and 
 
 inheritance. The council approved of this 
 plan, which, they suggested, must have the 
 effect of rendering him a good subject, be- 
 cause, if he accepted it, " Irishmen would 
 so hate him afterwards, that he would have 
 but little comfort of them, and so must look 
 to the king's subjects for protection against 
 them." " Finally," says Allen to the com- 
 missioners, " because the nature of Irishmen 
 is such, that for money one shall have the 
 son to war against the father, and the father 
 against the child, it shall be necessary the 
 king's grace have always treasure here, as a 
 present remedy against sudden rebellions." 
 
 Scarcely a month had passed from the date 
 at which lord Gray had described Brien 
 O'Connor as reduced to a condition little 
 superior to that of a beggar, when a new 
 revolution in Offaly showed how short- 
 sighted was the deputy's confident boast. 
 The king appears all along to have been dis- 
 satisfied that Gray had not pursued further 
 his successes against that chieftain, who had 
 probably obtained assistance and encourage- 
 ment from friendly septs in Connaught, with 
 which he suddenly reappeared in Offaly, 
 attacked his brother Cahir and defeated him 
 in battle, and took possession of the country. 
 The intelligence of this new insurrection 
 gave great displeasure to the English court, 
 and the minister wrote a querulent letter to 
 lord Leonard Gray, urging him " eftsoons 
 to handle that matter of O'Connor's with 
 such a dexterity, as he may be hanged, for a 
 terrible example to all Irish traitors." " The 
 expulsion of him," Cromwell adds, " was 
 taken very well, but the permission of him 
 to have such a scope to work mischief, at his 
 pleasure, as no doubt he must needs be re- 
 maining in despair of restitution, was neither 
 wisdom, nor yet good precedent. Redub it, 
 my lord, in the just punishment of his trai- 
 tor's carcass, and let his treason be a warning 
 to you, and to all that shall have to do for 
 the king's majesty there, never to trust 
 traitor after, but to use them, without treat- 
 ing, after their demerits." 
 
 When this letter was written, the lord 
 deputy had assembled the army of the pale 
 and marched to the borders of Offaly. But 
 O'Connor had prudently chosen for the 
 period of his operations the season least 
 favourable to the movements of a regular 
 army; and Gray found, when he reached 
 Rathangan, on the 19th of October, the 
 waters so high from heavy rains, and the 
 roads so impracticable, that he was compelled 
 to return and wait a more favourable moment. 
 
SUBMISSION OF o'coNNOR.] HISTORY or IRELAND. 
 
 [a.u. 1588. 
 
 This did not occur till the 10th of November, 
 and on the 12th the army again assembled, 
 and taking provisions for twenty-one days 
 marched through the country of Mac Geog- 
 hegan, and was joined by that chief and 
 O'Mulmoy in person. They then entered 
 Offiil}', and encamped at the castle of Brack- 
 land, which Gray had on the former occasion 
 secured by leaving a garrison in it. Here 
 they learnt that Brian O'Connor, as soon as 
 he had received positive information that his 
 enemies were in Offaly, had retired into 
 the country of a neighbouring chieftain, 
 O'Dwyne, which was protected by a river 
 and some rather formidable moors and bogs, 
 over which no carriages could then pass. A 
 party of the Butlers, who had invaded Offaly 
 from the other side, now joined the deputy, 
 and they took up their quarters at a town 
 called Castellanbryck, where, finding the 
 place well stored with com, they remained 
 several days. A plundering party, on foot, 
 were sent across the moors, but, carelessly 
 encamping in one of O'Dwyne's towns, they 
 were attacked by surprise, and many of them 
 killed and wounded. Another and larger 
 party met with better success, and a great 
 part of O'Dwyne's country was laid waste, 
 upon which O'Connor fled again, and sought 
 refuge with his old friend O'Carroll. The 
 arm 3% on its return into Offaly, took pos- 
 session of the abbey of Killeigh, and a place 
 called Castle Geshill, in both of which they 
 found large stores of corn, which they carried 
 away or burnt. The deputy selected from 
 the plunder of the abbey " a pair of organs" 
 and other articles fitted for the king's college 
 at Maynooth, and as much glass as glazed 
 nearly all the windows of the college and castle. 
 This indeed seems to have been almost 
 the only fruit of his exjjedition. The crafty 
 Irish chieftain sent new declarations of his 
 respect for the English government and his 
 desire to negotiate; and the lord deputy "to 
 drive off the time," as he expressed it in his 
 letter to the English minister, "till the long 
 nights were past," sent him a safe conduct 
 to repair to Dublin, although he placed no 
 faith in his professions. Brian O'Connor 
 used the safe conduct to repair to the pass 
 of Kinnayfad, "on the borders ofBerming- 
 ham's country," and there he was met by his 
 brother Cahir, who, heedless of his obliga- 
 tions to the English, was suddenly reconciled 
 with their enemy, and retired with him to 
 the shelter of the woods and morasses. Such 
 was the position of affairs at the close of the 
 year 1537. 
 
 3o2 
 
 Tlius was war carried on in Ireland under 
 lord Leonard Gray. The lord deputy was 
 irritated by the ill-success of negotiations 
 as well as invasions, and he was also alarmed 
 by the strong expressions of dissatisfaction 
 which had been made use of by the king. 
 Towards the approach of spring he made 
 formidable preparations for crushing the 
 power of the O'Connors; and towards the 
 end of February, while lord Ossory, who 
 upon the death of sir Thomas Boleyn had 
 on the 22nd of February been restored to 
 the older title of earl of Ormond, was prac- 
 tising with the O'Maddens and other Irish 
 septs to detach them from their alliance with 
 the chieftain of Offaly, he was preparing to 
 march into that country again. But a mes- 
 senger from Brian O'Connor came to propose 
 a personal interview with the deputy, and, 
 as O'Connor refused to come into the pale, 
 it was agreed that the meeting should take 
 place on the borders of Offaly. 
 
 The cautious ceremonies with which this 
 meeting was conducted show in a remarkable 
 manner the little confidence which each part)' 
 placed in his antagonist. The deputy pro- 
 ceeded with a force of eight hundred men 
 to the pass or ford of Kinnayfad already 
 mentioned, where the river appears to have 
 formed the boundary of Offaly. He then, 
 according to agreement, passed the river 
 with a portion only of his men ; and O'Con- 
 nor, who also had come with a strong escort, 
 not only gave his eldest son, with a younger 
 son and his chaplain, as hostages, but he 
 consented to leave the whole of his force, 
 except twelve horsemen, at a distance of 
 three miles from the place fixed upon for 
 the parley. The deputy took the precaution 
 of sending a small party of horsemen to 
 scour the country, and having learnt from 
 them them that the Irish chief had strictly 
 performed his covenant, he proceeded to the 
 appointed place, attended also with twelve 
 horsemen. He had placed a watch, consist- 
 ing of a trumpeter and four horsemen, upon 
 a high hill, with strict injunctions, upon 
 pain of death, to sound an alarum if he saw 
 any signs of treachery or danger; and a pro- 
 clamation was made upon the same penalty, 
 that the soldiers should remain drawn up in 
 their ranks during the time of the parley, 
 and that no one shovdd quit his place on any 
 account whatever, until the alarum should be 
 sounded. 
 
 The place of meeting was a plain field, 
 about a quarter of a mile distant from the 
 deputy's army; and there, according to the 
 
A.D. 
 
 1538.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [submission of the o'connors. 
 
 words of lord Gray's own statement of the 
 transaction, Brian O'Connor "met the said 
 lord deputy with humble reverence, sub- 
 mitted himself to the king's highness, con- 
 fessing his offences, and there did utterly 
 refuse {i. e. resign) all his title and interest 
 that he had in the said country of Oflaly, 
 and in all black-rents and fees that ever he 
 had or used to have of any of the king's sub- 
 jects; and such wages as he had, to be at the 
 king's pleasure. And further, the said Brian 
 there did desire the said lord deputy for to 
 make intercession for him in writing to the 
 king's highness, that he might have the said 
 country to farm of the king, and that he 
 would pay out of every plough land three 
 shillings and four pence Irish by the year. 
 Also the said Brian did there desire the said 
 lord dej^uty, that in case the king's highness's 
 pleasure were that he should not have the 
 said country of Offiily as his grace's farmer, 
 that then the said Brian might have his life, 
 and to be put at large, and after to avoid 
 out of the same, and that he nor none of his 
 never to meddle further withall, but the 
 same to be at the king's highness's pleasure." 
 He at the same time gave one of his sons 
 as a hostage for his good faith. 
 
 The cause of the Irish chieftain must have 
 been absolutely hopeless, when he conde- 
 scended to terms so humiliating as these. 
 The meeting was held on the 2nd of March, 
 
 and O'Connor bound himself to appear before 
 the lord deputy at Dublin on the 5th, and 
 this time also he was punctual to his en^ 
 gagement. It was Cahir O'Connor who now 
 showed himself refractory. The position of 
 the two chieftains with regard to each other 
 became indeed strangely metamorphosed, 
 for while Cahir O'Connor, the former ally of 
 tlie English, held against them the natural 
 strongholds of the country, their old enemy 
 Brian did them faithful service in tracking 
 and hunting him out. Under his guidance, 
 the English at length found Cahir fortified 
 in a strong house, surrounded with water, 
 marshes, and deep ditches, and defended by 
 a garrison armed with hackbushes and hand 
 guns. The siege of this castle was pressed 
 so closely, that Cahir O'Connor made his 
 escape with difficulty, alone and in his shirt, 
 and took refuge in the country of the 
 O'Dempsys. The house or castle was plun- 
 dered and dismantled, and before leaving it, 
 the captors broke down the entrenchments 
 and, in the words of the dispatch, "made 
 smooth work." Cahir O'Connor, having 
 obtained a safe conduct, presented himself 
 next day at Rathangan, and accompanied the 
 small army to Dublin, where he made his 
 submission in the same manner as his brother 
 Brian. The latter also came again to Dublin 
 on the 30th of March, and renewed his for- 
 mer bond of submission. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE EAKL Ol'' DESMOND; THE YODNG HEIR OF KILDAEE SHELTERED IN TIRCON- 
 
 NELL; QUARREL BETWEEN GRAY AND ORMOND; CONFEDERACY OF TUE 
 
 NORTHERN CHIEFTAINS: ESCAPE OF GERALD FITZ GERALD TO FRANCE. 
 
 rS AVING thus at last 
 reduced O'Connor 
 Faly to the position 
 of an obedient sub- 
 ject, the government 
 began again to turn 
 its attention to the 
 affairs of Munster. The conduct of the earl 
 of Desmond had been in the highest degree 
 equivocal; at one moment he was confede- 
 rating with O'Brien in open rebellion, while 
 at the next he was reiterating professions of 
 
 I the strongest feelings of respect and attach- 
 I ment to king Henry, and he had rendered 
 himself so formidable that the deputy pre- 
 ferred listening to the latter to entering 
 I upon a war which would require consider-^ 
 I able resources, and promised to be of some 
 ! duration. The royal commissioners sent to 
 Ireland in 1537, commenced their labours 
 I with Munster; they had held a conference 
 j with James fitz John of Desmond in the 
 I fields without Clonmell, and he gave them 
 I written articles, professing his unbounded 
 
THE HEIR OF KM. RARE.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d, 1538, 
 
 fidelity to the crown, and his resolution to 
 assist the king in all his causes and against 
 all his enemies, and making various promises 
 of which he performed none. The commis- 
 sioners urged him more especially to use his 
 endeavours that young Gerald fitz Gerald 
 should be delivered into their hands, and, 
 promising a full pardon for the only offence 
 with which this youth was charged, that of 
 having " withdrawn himself from the king's 
 majesty without ground or cause," they 
 assured him that the king had never had any 
 other intention towards the young Geraldine 
 except such as tended to his honour and wel- 
 fare, " and to liave cherished him as his 
 kinsman, in like sort as his other brother is 
 cherislied with his mother in the realm of 
 England." After having repeatedly wearied 
 the commissioners with delusive promises, 
 until they began to " think it folly to give 
 any further faith either to his word or writ- 
 ing," at length, in the beginning of March, 
 15.'38, he gave up his son as a hostage for his 
 good behaviour. Yet he seems at this very 
 j moment to have been looking forward and 
 giving encouragement to new confederations 
 among the Irish chiefs against the English 
 government. 
 
 The young Gerald fitz Gerald was now 
 the hope and rallying jjoint of the Geral- 
 dines, and was the grand object of solicitude 
 among those who were opposed to English 
 supremacy. He had been recently conveyed, 
 with great secresy, from Thomond into Des- 
 mond, to be placed under the care of his 
 aunt, the lady Eleanor fitz Gerald, widow of 
 the Irish chieftain of that district, Mac Carthy 
 Reagh. He was there under the innnediate 
 protection of the earl of Desmond, who was 
 no doubt well acquainted with the motive of 
 his removal. It appears that a negotiation 
 had been carried on for some time for a mar- 
 riage between Manus 0"Donnell, the chief- 
 tain of Tirconnell, and the lady Eleanor. It 
 is said that the lady yielded to the solicita- 
 tions of the O'Donnell at the urgent desire 
 of her kindred, who hoped thus not only to 
 secure an asylum for the heir to the vast 
 power of the earls of Kildare, but to lay the 
 toundation of a confederacy which should 
 eventually lead to his restoration. In the 
 month of May, 1 538, messengers came from 
 O'Donnell and O'Neill to the earl of Des- 
 mond, to bring this match to a conclusion, 
 and there they were met by the lady Eleanor 
 and her nephew, wlio accompanied them 
 first to O'Brien in Thomond. They rode 
 thence with a very slight escort to Ulick 
 334 
 
 Burke (one of the chiefs of the Burkes of 
 Clanrickard), who passed them onwards 
 to tlie northern Mac William (the Burkes 
 of Sligo), and thence they proceeded to 
 Donegal, witho\it having experienced any 
 obstruction during this long journey. They 
 were accompanied by James Delaiiyde, a 
 priest named Walsh (the late earl's chaplain), 
 and the young Geraldine's tutor Levrous. 
 From this moment the council at Dublin 
 began to be alarmed with reports of the de- 
 signs and prejiarations of the two northern 
 chieftains, and of their secret practices with 
 the king's enemies in Scotland. 
 
 The facility with which this small party 
 traversed nearly the whole island from north 
 to south, shows at the same time a strong feel- 
 ing of sympathy among a large portion of the 
 population of Ireland, and a want of good 
 intelligence and foresight on the part of the 
 Anglo-Irish government, who, in spite of the 
 king's anxiety to obtain possession of the 
 young heir of Kildare, were only informed of 
 his departure to the north, and of the marriage 
 of the lady Eleanor with Manus O'Donnell, 
 by common report, some time after both 
 events had taken place. The near relation- 
 ship between the young fugitive and lord 
 Leonard Gray, raised suspicions of collusion 
 on the part of the lord deputy, which were 
 industriously circulated by his enemies, and 
 seemed to be in some measure confirmed by 
 the wilful courses which he was at this time 
 accused of pursuing. These excited against 
 him the animosity of the Butlers, whose 
 interests he crossed, as it would seem, unne- 
 cessarily, and the dissatisfaction of the coun- 
 cil, who accused him of acting on his own 
 responsibility, and interfering among the 
 natives imprudently, and often even in 
 contradiction to their advice. Lord Gray 
 appears, indeed, as far as we can judge 
 from the records of the history of this period 
 (which do not come from his friends), to 
 have fallen into the usual error of identi- 
 fying himself too closely with the internal 
 feuds of the Irish septs. 
 
 Thus, at the beginning of April, 1538, 
 the lord deputy made an incursion, contrary 
 to the advice of the council, into Ferney, 
 against the Mac Mahons, where he committed 
 great depredations, although he sustained 
 some loss, and the only result was his being 
 obliged to hurry to Drogheda, to defend 
 it against O'Neill, who threatened to make 
 common cause with the Mac Mahons. O'Neill 
 retreated at the approach of the English 
 army to his borders, but he sent a messenger 
 
A.D, 
 
 1538.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [battle of belahoe. 
 
 declaring his intention of adhering to his 
 former submission to the English govern- 
 ment, and with this promise the deputy was 
 satisfied. He then marched against the 
 O'Reillys, who had excited his suspicions, 
 ajul received their promise to keep the peace. 
 Munster appears at this moment to have 
 received little of Gray's attention, and to 
 have been left almost to govern itself. Among 
 most of the native septs, the deputy espoused 
 suddenly the cause of the chieftains who had 
 formerly been the allies of the Geraldines, 
 and who were still the enemies of the Butlers. 
 He encouraged troubles among the earl of 
 Ormond's allies, the O'Moores. In Offaly, 
 he gave his entire confidence to Brian O'Con- 
 nor, and supported him in hunting down his 
 brother and rival Cahir, the old ally of the 
 English. In Thoniond, he as suddenly es- 
 poused the cause of the O'Brian, against his 
 son Donough ; and the earl of Desmond took 
 advantage of this change to lay siege to the 
 castle of Carrigogunnell. In Ely, the lord 
 deputy supported Fargananim O'Carroll in 
 the chieftainship, who was the known enemy 
 to the influence of the Butlers in that dis- 
 trict. 
 
 The rest of the spring was occupied in 
 other petty incursions against the smaller 
 septs on thebordersof Ulster, and the enemies 
 of the deputy represented that these short- 
 sighted hostilities were also in most cases 
 caused by his partialities, and that their 
 result was to drive from their old alliance 
 with the English the septs of the north, 
 who had so often lent their hands to arrest 
 the forces of Tyrone in their expeditions 
 against the pale. He was thus unwittingly, 
 or, as some said, intentionallj', lending his 
 assistance to increase and consolidate the 
 power of the great enemy of the English 
 government, and some went so far as to 
 declare that the lord deputy had formed a 
 private friendship with O'Neill, which he had 
 sealed by the Irish tie of gossipry . Yet in the 
 
 * This incursion is not described in the State Pa- 
 ]iers now preserved, and is only alluded to in a letter 
 li-om W. Cowley to Cromwell (State Papers, vol. iii., 
 ]). 14), who says, " At suche tyme as 0'Nele,_0'Don- 
 ail, and thees traytors, iwice invadid the Enslish pale, 
 ther was nether the justice Howth, nether Bathe, at 
 the setting on the rebellis." The Irish " Annals of 
 the Four Masters," which are often a year in arrear 
 in date, give the expedition, which ended in the bat- 
 tle of Belahoe, in the year 1539, but the State Papers, 
 which are tolerably copious in that year, seem to show- 
 that this could not be the case. Stanihurst has given 
 a long account of this invasion, but very confused, 
 and evidently mixed up with stories that had nothing 
 to do witli it. Perhaps it may be, after all, only a 
 
 midst of these professions, O'Neill joined 
 with O'Donnell and the lesser northern septs 
 in invading and ravaging the English pos- 
 sessions in Meath.* 
 
 In this invasion, the two northern chief- 
 tains plundered and destroyed the towns 
 of Ardee and Navan, and laid waste the 
 whole country as far as the hill of Tara, on 
 the summit of which they made a ceremo- 
 nious muster of their forces. Having col- 
 lected, according to the Irish accounts, more 
 and richer spoils than any Irish army ever 
 carried out of the English pale, they returned 
 through Oriel into Ferney, and, having just 
 crossed the ford of Belahoe, they lay en- 
 camped on the other side of the river, when 
 the lord deputy, having collected the Eng- 
 lish forces at hand, and joined with him the 
 citizens of Dublin and Drogheda, overtook 
 them and forced them to a battle. The 
 Irish annalists say that their countrj'men, 
 instead of listening to their chiefs, who urged 
 them to keep together in battle array, were 
 thrown into disorder on the first apj^roach 
 of their enemies, and began to fly in diff'erent 
 directions. The English made a consider- 
 able slaughter of those who remained on the 
 field, and recovered the whole of the plunder. 
 Magennis, the chief of one of the septs who 
 had taken part in this invasion, was made a 
 prisoner, and was subsequently put to death. 
 According to Stanihurst's story, Magennis 
 was slain in the battle ; but the Irish annal- 
 ists represent him as falling a victim to the 
 enmity of rivals in his own sept who pro- 
 bably aspired to the chieftainship, and who 
 sent messengers to bribe those who had cap- 
 tured him to put him to death. The Irish 
 certainly felt this as a severe check; and 
 the memory of the battle of Belahoe long 
 afterwards discouraged them in any attempts 
 against the English pale.f 
 
 The spring of 1538 was passed over in 
 petty disputes with the native septs, such 
 as the O'Carrolls, the O'Moores, and the 
 
 part of the war with the Mac Mahons of Ferney, 
 mentioned just before. 
 
 t Stanihurst tells an incident of this battle of Bela- 
 hoe, which shows that it was looked upon as an action 
 of some importance by the Englisli of the pale as well 
 as by the Irish, and which will be repeated best in the 
 quaint language of the author. The battle appears to 
 have commenced in the attempt to force the passage 
 of the river. 
 
 " At which time James Flemmg, barou of Slane 
 (commonlie called Blacke James) garded with a round 
 companie, as well of horsemen as of footmen, humblie 
 besought the deputie to grant him that dale the honor 
 of the onset. Whereto when the lord Greic liad 
 agreed, the baron of Slane with cheareful countenance 
 
DISSATISFACTION OF THE BUTLERS.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1538. 
 
 O'Reillys, in the course of which Gray raised 
 to different chieftainships men who obtained 
 his confidence by their professions of per- 
 sonal friendship, many of whom were cer- 
 tainly more friendlj' to the Geraldines than 
 to the Butlers, and whose claims were not 
 always founded injustice. Brian O'Connor, 
 of Oflfaly, had become his confidential ad- 
 viser; Fergananim O'Carroll, the enemy of 
 the Butlers, was sustained in authority in 
 Ely; the O'Moore of Leix, who was the 
 earl of Ormond's ally, and had succeeded to 
 the chieftainship, according to the Irish law 
 of inheritance, was seized and thrown into 
 prison, while his rivals, the sons of the late 
 chieftain, were taken into the deputy's favour. 
 These proceedings, in which the deputy 
 appears to have acted entirely on his own 
 responsibility, provoked the Butlers, who 
 had served the king faithfully in the late 
 troubles, and gave dissatisfaction to the 
 council, and he was ojjenly charged with 
 betraying the interests of the crown, with 
 the secret design of restoring the Geraldines 
 to their former power. At length, in the 
 month of June, lord Gray undertook a cir- 
 cuit throvigh Munster and Connaught, and 
 the smallness of his retinue was represented 
 as a proof that, on one side, he wished to 
 bring contempt on the Anglo-Irish govern- 
 ment, while, his enemies said, he would not 
 thus have exposed himself among the wild 
 Irish, if he had not some secret personal 
 understanding with the native chiefs. This 
 
 impartptl the ohteiriinj; nf his sute, as plcsant tidings 
 to Kobcrt llaire])ennie, who with his ancestors was 
 i standard-bearer to the house of Slane. But Ilalfe- 
 I pennie seeing the further side of the water so beset 
 with armed galloglasses, as he tooke it as likelie an 
 attempt to rase down the strongest fort in Ireland 
 with a filHp, as to rush through such quicke iron 
 walls, that he answered the baron, that he would rather 
 disclame in his office, than there to give the onset 
 where there rested no hope of life, but an assured 
 certaintie of death. And therefore he was not as yet 
 so wearie of the world, as like an headlong hotspur 
 voluntarilie to run to his utter and undoubted de- 
 struction. Wierefore he besought his lordship to set 
 his heart at rest, and not to impute his deniall to 
 basenesse of corage, but to warlnesse of safetie, al- 
 though he knewe none of staied mind but would 
 sooner choose to slcepe in an whole sheepe his pelt, 
 than to walke in a torne lion his skin, namelie when 
 all hope of life was abandoned, and the certaintie of 
 death assuredlie promised. 
 
 " The baron, with this answer at his wits end rode 
 to Robert Betoa of Downore, brake with him as 
 touching Halfepennie his determination, and withall 
 requested him (as he did tender his honor) now at a 
 pinch to supplie the roome of that dastardlic coward, 
 as he did terme him. Betoa to this answered, that 
 though it stood with good reason that such as here- 
 33G 
 
 circuit was not only a remarkable event at 
 the time of its occurrence, but it derives an 
 additional importance from the fact, that it 
 made a principal portion of the charges on 
 which this uui'ortunate nobleman was after- 
 wards brought to the block. He appears 
 merely to have announced to the council 
 that he was proceeding to hold a meeting 
 with the earl of Desmond in the country of 
 O'Carroll, and they complained that they 
 knew nothing of his further intentions. He 
 was accompanied by O'Connor, the sons of 
 O'Moore, and some other Irishmen, lord 
 Gormanstown, and two or three gentlemen 
 of the pale, and a small escort of Eaglish 
 soldiers. 
 
 They marched into Offaly on the 17th of 
 June, and were the first night entertained 
 by O'Connor in the abbey of Grey Friars 
 at Monasteroris. Next day they proceeded 
 to the borders of O'Mulmoy's country, 
 where, after taking a castle called Eglis, 
 they encamped at Ballinavally, and were 
 there joined by the chiefs O'Mulmoy, Mac 
 Geoghegan, and Mac Gillapatrick, each with 
 a small escort. It appears that the castle of 
 Eglis was in the possession of Donougli 
 O'Mulmoy, a rival of the O'Mulmoy who 
 held the chieftainship. On the 19th they 
 encamped at Kilcormoke Abbey, and the 
 day after at Sierkyran. They were now in 
 the country of Ely, and Fergananim O'Car- 
 roll came to the deputy and renewed his 
 submission and engagements, by which he 
 
 tofore tasted the sweet in peace, should now be con- 
 tented to sip of the sowre in war ; yet notwithstand- 
 ing, rather than the matter should to his honor lie in 
 the dust, he promised to breake through them, or else 
 to lie in the water; and withall being surpassinglie 
 mounted (for the baron gave him a choise horsse) he 
 tooke the standard, and with a sudden showt, having 
 with him in the fore-rank Mabe of Mabestown (who 
 at the first brunt was slainc), he floong into the water, 
 and charged the Irish that stood on the further shore. 
 After followed the gentlemen and yeomen of the pale, 
 that with as great manhood charged the enimies, as 
 the enimies with corage resisted their assault. To 
 this stoutnesse were the enimies more boldlie pricked, 
 in that they had the advantage of the shore, and the 
 gentlemen of the pale were constrained to bicker in 
 the water. But the longer the Irish continued, the 
 more they were disadvantaged, by reason that the 
 English were so assisted with fresh supplies, as their 
 enemies could not anie longer withstand them, but 
 were comiielled to beare backc, to forsake the banke, 
 and to give the armie free passage. The English 
 taking hart upon their faintnesse, brake through the 
 galloglasses, slue Maggadnesh their ca])teine, pursued 
 Oneale with the remnant of his lords, leaving behind 
 them for lacke of safe carriage the spoile of the pale, 
 scantlie able to escape with his owne life, being egerlie 
 pursued by the armie untill it was sunne set." 
 
A.D. 
 
 1538.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [progress through munster. 
 
 bound himself to pay the king twelve pence 
 yearly out of every plough-land in his ter- 
 ritory, to find eighty spears for a quarter 
 of every year during his life, and twelve 
 horsemen and twenty-four kerns, at his own 
 costs, at every general hosting for forty days, 
 to cut any pass through his country for the 
 king's ordnance and army, and to aid the 
 deputy with his whole strength for three 
 days whenever he should make war upon 
 the king's enemies on his borders. The 
 deputy and his army remained till the 23rd 
 of June, assisting Fergananim O'CarroU 
 against the rival claimants to the chieftain- 
 ship, from whom he captured by force the 
 castles of Birr and Modren. This hosti- 
 lity was the subject of bitter complaints on 
 the part of the earl of Ormond and his 
 friends. 
 
 During his stay with O'Carroll, the lord 
 deputy encamped one night at Balahagayne; 
 he passed thence through Beallaneshally to 
 Garranegralaghe in O'Mulrian's country, and 
 there, or on his march, received the submis- 
 sion of some of the lesser septs in that neigh- 
 bourhood. On the 24th he entered Ormond, 
 and received the submission of the Irish chief- 
 tain O'Kennedy ; and the two following days 
 were likewise employed in visiting and re- 
 ceiving the submissions of lesser Irish chiefs. 
 On the latter day, the 26th of June, three 
 Anglo-Irish chiefs of higher distinction ar- 
 rived in the lord deputy's camp. One of 
 these was the earl of Desmond, who came 
 "with a good band of men," and, according 
 to Gray's account, he "diligently served 
 your majesty under me." The others were 
 Ulick Burke, the same who had assisted he 
 lady Eleanor fitz Gerald and her party in 
 their progress to Tirconnell, who was a 
 claimant to the chieftainship of Clanrickard ; 
 and Theobald Burke, the chief of the clan 
 William of the north. The earl of Desmond 
 (whom the deputy and the English council 
 of Ireland always speak of simply as James 
 of Desmond) accompanied lord Gray to 
 within three miles of Limerick, which city 
 the deputy entered on the 28th of July, and 
 immediately administered to the citizens and 
 clergy the oath of supremacy. 
 
 Having settled everything to his satisfac- 
 tion in Limerick, lord Gray prepared to 
 march into the country of the O'Briens, 
 where new domestic quarrels had arisen be- 
 tween the O'Brien and his brother Murrough 
 O'Brien, who was at this time in possession 
 of a considerable portion of Thomond, and 
 who next year, on the O'Brien's death, suc- 
 
 VOL. I. 2 u 
 
 ceeded to the chieftainship. A meeting was 
 held on the banks of the Shannon, about ten 
 miles from Limerick, between the O'Brien 
 and two of lord Gray's officers, at which the 
 earl of Desmond acted as mediator, and at 
 length it was agreed that O'Brien sliould 
 be at peace with the king for a year, and 
 give one of his sons as an hostage, on condi- 
 tion that the English should assist him 
 against his brother MuiTough. The first 
 object of attack was, as on a former occasion, 
 O'Brien's bridge, which Murrough O'Brien 
 had rebuilt, and which " the great O'Brien," 
 as the English authorities call him, now 
 assisted in destroying. On the 8th of July, 
 the lord deputy having been joined by the 
 earl of Desmond and O'Brien, entered the 
 territory of Murrough O'Brien, which they 
 plundered and laid waste in every direction, ' 
 and captured the two castles of Bally-Con- j 
 nell and Castle Clare. The native Irish 
 were still so little used to large ordnance, 
 that when the garrisons of these two for- 
 tresses saw the English approaching with 
 the cannon they had brought from Limerick, 
 they fled and left the castles wdthout de- 
 fenders. At Ca«tle Clare, on the 9th of 
 July, the deputy parted with O'Brien and 
 James of Desmond, and the same day the 
 English marched into Clanrickard. The 
 enemies of lord Gray and of the Geraldines 
 laid great stress on the suspicious familiarity 
 between the deputy and the earl of Des- 
 mond and O'Brien on this occasion, and it 
 was pressed as a serious charge against him 
 on his trial two years afterwards, that he had, 
 " to the king's greatest dishonour that ever 
 was seen in Ireland, passed through the 
 strength of all Thomond to Connaught, upon 
 O'Brien's nude promise, having for his safe 
 conduct a simple galloglas of O'Brien's bear- 
 ing an axe before him." It is added that 
 the deputy owed the safety of himself and 
 his small party in a great measure to the ex- 
 ertions of Donough O'Brien, who held back 
 the Irish from surrounding and destroying 
 them. The deputy's progress was indeed 
 undertaken not without rashness, and, be- 
 fore separating witli his equivocal allies at 
 Castle Clare, a violent quarrel arose between 
 the deputy and the earl of Desmond, relat- 
 ing to the possession of the hostage of 
 O'Mulrian, which was near being attended 
 with fatal consequences. The proud earl 
 drew up his forces in battle array, and was 
 on the point of attacking the small body of 
 English who accompanied the deputy, when 
 he was pacified with great difficulty by his 
 
 337 
 
CONFEDERACY IN ULSTER.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 153S. 
 
 friend sir Thomas Butler, and then, without 
 farther parley, drew off his men in anger, and 
 marched home. 
 
 In Clanrickard the deputy was joined by 
 the partizans of Ulick Burke, who has 
 already been mentioned as one of the claim- 
 ants to the chieftainship, and one of his first 
 exploits was the capture of the castle of 
 Boilean-Clare, belonging to his rival. Next 
 day they entered Galway, and administered 
 the oath of supremacy there in the same 
 manner as at Limerick. The deputy and his 
 retinue were treated in the most hospitable 
 manner by the mayor of Galway and Ulick 
 Burke, and before leaving the country lord 
 Gray captured some other castles of his rival, 
 whom he deposed from the chieftainship, and 
 raised Ulick in his place. He then marched 
 to the borders of the O'Kelly's country, and 
 he was visited in his camp there by the 
 O'Connor Roe, who made his submission to 
 the English, and held a long private confe- 
 rence with the lord deputy. On the 22nd 
 of July, he marched through O'Madden's 
 country, and crossed the Shannon into that 
 of Mac Coghlan, whom he compelled also to 
 make his submission ; and from thence he 
 returned through the territories of the 
 O'Melaghlins, the Mac Geoghegans, and the 
 Tyrrells, into the English pale, and reached 
 Maynooth on the 25th of July. 
 
 The long progress of the deputy, which 
 was represented as a mere display of his own 
 personal importance, was far from giving 
 satisfaction at Dublin, where he was blamed 
 for neglecting the real interests of the state. 
 He was accused of having imprudently left a 
 considerable portion of his artillery, so ne- 
 cessary for the defence of the pale, at the 
 distant town of Galway, where it would 
 be lost in case of any sudden attack by 
 the Spaniards or French ; and it was 
 publicly said that the deputy had owed 
 his safety not to any dread of his person, 
 but to his intrigues with the Geraldines and 
 their Irish partizans, to whom he had every- 
 where given his support, and it was even 
 pretended that he had not unfrequently been 
 influenced by bribes. People added that the 
 attention of the deputy would have been 
 better employed in preparing for the storm 
 that was gathering in the north, and of which 
 the great soutliern cliieftains whom he flat- 
 tered himself he had been gaining over to 
 the English interests were evidently aware. 
 
 It was soon understood that the removal 
 of the youthful heir of ELildare was not a 
 mere measure of protection, but that it was 
 
 the result of a deliberate plan, of which one 
 of the least objects was his restoration by 
 force of arms to the title and possessions of 
 his family ; for the design evidently extended 
 to the expulsion of the English rulers, and 
 to the establishment of O'Neill or some 
 other chief as king of Ireland. This is 
 proved by the attempts that were made to 
 obtain assistance, not only from Scotland, 
 but from the courts of France and Spain. 
 As the summer of 1538 approached, the 
 reports of the intentions of the northern 
 confederates became more and more alarming, 
 and the fears of the Anglo-Irish government 
 were increased by the conviction that no trust 
 could be placed in the j)romises of any of the 
 chieftains who had so recently placed their 
 submissions in the hands of the deputy. As to 
 the two great chieftains of the south, O'Brien 
 and James of Desmond, there could be little 
 doubt which way their inclinations carried 
 them ; and O'Neill and O'Donnell, staunch 
 to their mutual league, were each on his 
 side actively employed in drawing, by one 
 mean or other, the lesser septs of Ulster to 
 their standard. O'Donnell had commenced 
 the year with a new invasion of Lower Con- 
 naught, in the course of which he had cap- 
 tured the castle of Sligo, which had again 
 fallen into the hands of the O'Connors. He 
 now suddenly entered into friendly alliance 
 with O'Connorof Sligo, and voluntarily shared 
 with him the profits of his recent conquest. 
 It seemed as though the Irish were trying 
 to forget their nmtual divisions in order to 
 unite in some common enterprise. 
 
 At this critical moment, the English rulers 
 tried also to lay aside their personal enmi- 
 ties. Frequent complaints of the disagree- 
 ment between the lord deputy and the 
 Butlers, and of the injury which the service 
 in Ireland sustained from it, had reached 
 the king's ears, and soon after Gray's return 
 from his progress through Munster and Con- 
 naught, the monarch, instead of deciding 
 between them, sent them a peremptory order 
 to be reconciled. To judge by the papers 
 relating to this transaction which are pre- 
 served, the earl of Ormond and his son 
 showed more alacrity in obeying the king's 
 commands than the lord Leonard Gray. 
 They repaired to Dublin on the first sum- 
 mons from the council, but they refused to 
 present themselves before the deputy imtil 
 they had received good assurance for their 
 safety, because, they said, as he had carried 
 his hatred so far as to stigmatize them pub- 
 licly by the epithet of traitors, they feared 
 
A.D. 1538.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [jAMES OF DESMOND. 
 
 he might cause them to be arrested and 
 thrown into prison. Wlien the council ex- 
 postuhited privately with the deputy, he 
 recriminated upon the Butlers, and made 
 vague charges against them of having assisted 
 the king's enemies. These charges were 
 afterwards reduced to writing, and delivered 
 privately to the council, who also received 
 from the earl of Ormond and his son, in 
 writing, the accusations they brought against 
 Gray. The latter contained charges which 
 compromised the deputy in his official cha- 
 racter in a serious degree ; and for this and 
 other reasons, after having carefully read 
 and considered of them, the council deter- 
 mined, to the great offence of the deputy, 
 that neither party should be made acquainted 
 with the contents of the writing given in 
 against them, but that they should be sworn, 
 under pain of disobedience to the king, to 
 lay aside their personal hostility, and unite 
 heartily in the king's service, and they were 
 made to sign a paper to that effect, drawn 
 up by the council. " But," the latter add, in 
 writing to Cromwell, "we must be plain to 
 your lordshij), that as far as we can perceive 
 this agreement will not long endure betwixt 
 my lord deputy and them. Neither can we 
 perceive (whereof we be sorry) that my lord 
 deputy is meet to make long abode here, for 
 he is so haughty and chafing, that men be 
 afraid to speak to him, doubting his bravish 
 highness. Nevertheless, it is much pity of 
 him, for he is an active gentleman." It was 
 said that when the paper of reconciliation 
 was brought to the lord deputy to sign, he 
 put his signature to it in a scornful manner, 
 without condescending to make himself ac- 
 quainted with its contents, observing to the 
 council, "Were it not to fulfil the king's 
 pleasure and connnandment, more than for 
 any good will I have to jjerform your order, 
 I would never put my hand to it at all. 
 
 Rumours, however, of the king's intention 
 of recalling lord Gray from his office, which 
 now arrived from England, seam to have had 
 their effect upon the deputy ; and he acted in 
 apparent cordiality with the earl of Ormond 
 and his son. The latter joined the lord 
 deputy in the latter part of September, in a 
 fierce inroad upon the turbulent sept of the 
 : Cavenaghs, who were reduced to humble 
 terms of submission. The council, announc- 
 ing this event to king Henrj', on the 8th 
 of October, informed him that, "as concern- 
 ing the state of your highness's land, (thanks 
 be to God and your highness) the same is 
 at such stay and peace at this season as it 
 
 hath not been this many years; neither was 
 there any king of England these hundred 
 years past so esteemed, known, obeyed, and 
 feared, as your grace is. All Irishmen, and 
 the borderers, be at peace; howbeit, there 
 is little trust in their peace, if they might 
 have opportunity to do hurt." Yet, before 
 the end of November, they again wrote to 
 England, and although they still speak of 
 the continuance of peace, it was accompanied 
 with the ominous "as yet," followed by the 
 communication of various circumstances of 
 a suspicious character which gave them cause 
 for alarm. 
 
 In the first place, the council stated that 
 James of Desmond had suddenly obtained 
 such a strength in Munster "as no earl of 
 Desmond had there in no man's remem- 
 brance;" and that he had constrained or 
 allured into confederacy with him the other 
 heads of the Geraldines in the south, the 
 knight of Kerry, the lord Barry, the knight 
 of the valley, the white knight, and others 
 of the English blood in those parts, in addi- 
 tion to his old league with O'Brien. They 
 therefore suggest that the king should send 
 over to Ireland the other claimant to the 
 earldom of Desmond, James fitz Maurice, 
 who was then with the king in England, 
 and give him assistance against his rival, 
 "whereby the combination and power of the 
 other may be abated and diminished." 
 "For," they add, "much more good wisdom 
 and policy it is to put them two together, 
 the one against the other, whereby this pre- 
 tended earl may have his hands full, to look 
 to his own defence, than to permit him to 
 aggregate to himself all the strength of the 
 best part of Ireland." 
 
 A still greater subject of alarm was fur- 
 nished by the proceedings of the Irish chief- 
 tains of the north, and the council hints at 
 its suspicions that the activity of James of 
 Desmond was not altogether unconnected 
 with them. The alarm from this quarter 
 was rather augmented than otherwise towards 
 the end of the year by a variety of rumours, 
 true or false, which represented the Irish of 
 Ulster as already prepared for a general 
 rising in favour of young Gerald fitz Gerald. 
 Among other informations which tended to 
 show the temper of the confederates, we 
 meet with the declaration of an Anglo-Irish 
 merchant of Waterford, who, returning from 
 a voyage at the beginning of December, 
 went to the house of one of the partizans 
 of the Geraldines named William Walsh, 
 when James of Desmond sat at supper with 
 
 339 
 
AFFAIRS OF THE NORTH.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1539. 
 
 ! him. Walsh welcomed the stranger, in- 
 quired whence he came, and, understanding 
 I he had been in the parts beyond the sea, 
 j asked after the state of the Emperor. The 
 ' merchant answered, "He doth like a noble 
 man, but I have little speech on him, but of 
 mine own natural prince, the king of Eng- 
 land." Then said WiUiam Walsh, "But 
 how doth our new pope in England?" The 
 other replied, " I know no new pope there, 
 nor any ruler but the king." Upon which 
 Walsh exclaimed, "I would be loath to be 
 of his counsel, who putteth to death the 
 chief of his kin and counsel." The stranger 
 observed boldly on this, that he did therein 
 "like a prince of justice, and would to God 
 the like were done in Ireland, then should 
 it be a merry land !" James of Desmond 
 took this as a joke, or made his own appli- 
 cation of it; and he dismissed the speaker 
 with the jeering observation, "Ye say like 
 a wise young man; ye may depart!" 
 
 Perhaps it was intended that the remark 
 should apply to the lord deputy and the 
 Irish council, whose disagreements broke 
 out again in the winter, and increased the 
 general uneasiness. The latter, writing to 
 secretary Cromwell, on the 12th of Decem- 
 ber, assure the English minister that, "As 
 for my lord deputy, we have always, and so 
 shall keep such patience to his lordship 
 (howsoever he useth us), as he shall have no 
 just cause of discontentation, debate, or con- 
 tention with us ; but we shall have our eyes 
 and hearts chiefly and constantly fixed in 
 answering the king's business and affairs, 
 without wavering or mutation ; so as, be 
 well assured, if his lordship have any dis- 
 pleasure to any of us, it can arise of no 
 private occasion, but for our plain speaking 
 to him in the king's causes. Otherwise we 
 have no business with him. But, howsoever 
 he shall taunt or mishandle us, we shall 
 suffer it patiently, rather than to repugn in 
 anything, whereby the king's causes might 
 in any wise be hindered." 
 
 The year 15o9 commenced with a new 
 attempt to draw the earl of Desmond to 
 obedience, which, however, only ended in 
 convincing the officers of the Irish govern- 
 ment that he was engaged in designs against 
 it. A messenger sent by James fitz John of 
 Desmond to king Henry at the begiiming of 
 March was only a blind for these designs, 
 which were more fully developed in the 
 course of the following summer. The atten- 
 tion of the deputy and council of state was, 
 however, still most anxiously bent towards 
 340 
 
 the north, where O'Donnell and O'Neill con- 
 tinued their preparations for a strong de- 
 monstration in favour of the young Geral- 
 dine, who was still residing at the court of 
 Tirconnell. Several attempts were made at 
 this time to obtain possession of this youth 
 by force or intrigue. The conduct of the 
 northern chiefs was temporising, and the 
 English deputy wanted either the will or the 
 power (probably the latter) to act with vigour. 
 A meeting was appointed to take place in 
 the plain of Carrie Bradagh, near Dundalk, 
 on the last of April, at which O'Neill and 
 O'Donnell promised to bring Gerald fitz 
 Gerald to the lord deputy, and, says the 
 latter in a despatch to the English monarch, 
 " if they had kept appointment with me, 
 having young Gerald with them, howsoever 
 the thing had chanced, by the oath that I have 
 made unto your grace, they should have left 
 the young Gerald behind them, quick or 
 dead." But neither O'Neill nor O'Donnell 
 appeared at the place of meeting, and the 
 deputy, who had repaired to Dundalk witli 
 some of the chief officers of the Irish govern- 
 ment and a small army, marched thence to 
 Armagh, which was at this time in the ter- 
 ritory of O'Neill, and there they learnt that 
 the chieftain of Tyrone had established him- 
 self in the strongest position in his whole 
 country, which was called the Broad Water, 
 and which was more than usually difficult 
 of access at this time, on account of the heavy 
 rains that had already impeded the English 
 army. Messengers were therefore sent to 
 O'Neill, and peace was again established 
 with him. 
 
 The deputy listened more readily to paci- 
 fic councils at this moment, because he had 
 received intelligence that James of Desmond 
 had seized the occasion of his absence to 
 make war upon the Butlers, no doubt as a 
 diversion in favour of O'Neill. Lord Gray 
 and his army were at Drogheda on the 9th 
 of May, from whence he returned immedi- 
 ately to Dublin. The lord chancellor Allen, 
 who accompanied this expedition, wrote to 
 Cromwell on the Igth of May, "Of one 
 thing I assure your lordship, that O'Donnell 
 and O'Neill, with all the fautors of the Geral- 
 dincs, be of this purpose and intent, that 
 if the king's majesty will not restore young 
 Gerald to all the possessions and pre-emi- 
 nence that his father had in this land, they 
 will do what they can, if they may have 
 opportunity, to put him in by force. And, 
 my lord, I assure you in mine opinion, it 
 were a great purchase for the king to have 
 
A.D. 1539.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [death of the earl of ormond. 
 
 tliat boy out of the way ; for, if he were, I 
 would think that the king had Ireland (hav- 
 ing good governors in it, and defended from 
 foreign power) in such a stay as no king else 
 it had these hundred years. And if your 
 lordship might perceive as much as me 
 seemeth, I do presently see and consider, ye 
 would judge it profitable for England to 
 have that naughty boy by some means appre- 
 hended, or the fautors of him in time so 
 prosecuted, that others should fear to suc- 
 cour him." A few days after, the vice- 
 treasurer Brabazon describes the young 
 Geraldine as one " who beginneth to grow 
 to man's estate, and, if he be not circum- 
 spectly prevented, shall one day put us here 
 all to trouble;" and he adds, " it is good 
 your lordship move the king's majesty, that 
 by some manner of means this boy might be 
 had, though he should be bought of some 
 of the traitors about him, and they to have 
 their pardons, whose power after his taking 
 is nothing." The Irish, however, continued 
 faithful in their trust, and Gray's attention 
 was called off by a sudden rising of the ever- 
 turbulent O'Tooles, and by the continued 
 hostilities of the Geraldines of Desmond. 
 
 In the course of the month of June, some 
 messengers from the north were captured, 
 whose examinations threw more light upon 
 the designs of the Geraldine party. It 
 appeared that the northern chieftains were 
 in alliance with the O'Tooles, O'Byrnes, 
 Cavenaghs, and others, of the English pale, 
 as well as with the Irish and Geraldines of 
 Munster, and that they received quick and 
 regular intelligence of all the deputy's move- 
 ments. A simultaneous invasion of the 
 English pale was to be made by O'Donnell 
 in conjunction with his allies from Con- 
 naught, and by O'Neill with the whole 
 strength of the Irish of Ulster, and of the 
 Scots from the isles; while they were to be 
 assisted by a simultaneous rising of the Irish 
 in the pale, and the Butlers with the Eng- 
 lish forces of the south, were to be occupied 
 by the attacks of the earl of Desmond and 
 O'Brien and their allies. The confederates 
 only waited for the arrival of the Scots, and 
 it was expected that the banner of insurrec- 
 tion would be raised at latest in the begin- 
 ning of September. 
 
 We have very little information relating 
 to the events of the next three months, but 
 the English authorities appear to have been 
 unusually active and vigilant, and the Irish, 
 as usual, found it much more easy to talk of 
 these great confederacies than to carry them 
 
 into effect. Early in the month of August 
 the lord deputy was engaged in hostilities in 
 Uriel, and inflicted a severe check on the 
 Irish and Scots, who had committed depre- 
 dations in that quarter. Piers Butler, earl 
 of Ormond and Ossory, who had long been all 
 but helpless with age and bodily infirmities, 
 died on the 21st of August, and his son the 
 lord James Butler succeeded to the earldom. 
 This nobleman had already given many 
 proofs of his talents and activity, and of his 
 fidelity to the English crown, and he now 
 distinguished himself by his energetic oppo- 
 sition to James of Desmond and liis allies in 
 Munster. The month of September arrived, 
 but the Scots had not come in force, and 
 the other parties in the alliance were still 
 unprepared to risk a desperate blow. A 
 general restlessness among the lesser septs 
 was the only sign that as yet confirmed the 
 anticipations of the English government. 
 To repress these, the deputy assembled the 
 army of the pale at Trim, on the 7th of 
 October, and marched against the O'Reillys, 
 who had given cause of dissatisfaction ; but 
 they met him at Kells, and made their sub- 
 mission. The English army then marched 
 to Dundalk, from which place the dejnity 
 sent a messenger to O'Neill, wiio again fixed 
 a day to meet him at Carrick Bradagh, but 
 before the day arrived he made an excuse 
 for not keeping his promise. The lord 
 deputy thereupon turned his whole force 
 against the barony of Lecale, which was in 
 the possession of the Savages and of a colony 
 of Scots. The former, originally an English 
 family, and distinguished at an earlier period 
 by their daring hostilities against the Irish, 
 had " degenerated," like so many of the older 
 English settlers, and now lived in wild inde- 
 pendence in the Irish fashion. Lecale was 
 soon overrun by the troops of the lord de- 
 puty, who took eight castles, including that 
 of Dundrum, which lord Gray describes as 
 " one of the strongest holds that ever I saw 
 in Ireland, and most commodious for the 
 defence of the whole country of Lecale, both 
 by sea and land." He adds, " I have been 
 in many countries and places in my days, 
 and yet did I never see for so much a plea- 
 santer plot of ground than the said Lecale, 
 for commodity of the land, and divers islands 
 in the same, environed with the sea, which 
 were soon reclaimed or inhabited, the king's 
 pleasure known." 
 
 The deputy had taken some alarm at the 
 constructions which in England were made 
 on his tardiness in effecthig tlie seizure of 
 
 ;J{1 
 
GREAT HOSTING IN MUNSTER.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1539. 
 
 the young Geraldine, whieli was by many 
 ascribed to the affinity of blood which existed 
 between them, and he now seems to have 
 been anxious to do his utmost to belie them. 
 In a subsequent portion of the despatch just 
 quoted, he makes Cromwell acquainted with 
 his secret design in the expedition to Dun- 
 dalk, and we learn, what probably O'Neill 
 himself knew or suspected, that the deputy's 
 demand of a personal interview with the 
 northern chieftain was nothing more than a 
 snare, so little did either party consider it 
 necessary to keep faith with the other in the 
 Irish warfare of this age. " Though I openly 
 reported this journey as before is mentioned," 
 says tlie lord deputy, " I assure your good 
 lordship the truth in my very intent and 
 purpose of the same was this. I had special 
 and sure knowledge that my nephew young 
 Gerald was with O'Neill, and I made all the 
 ways and means that I could in the world, 
 to allure him to my hands, and have at divers 
 times practised the same, so that at this time 
 I thought that O'Neill and I should have 
 met, and the said Gerald would have come 
 with him; and if the case had so chanced, I 
 would surely have taken him ; and if not, by 
 the oath that I have made to my sovereign 
 lord and master, I would have taken the said 
 O'Neill, and have kept him, till he had 
 caused the said Gerald to have been delivered 
 to my hands." 
 
 James of Desmond and O'Brien had in the 
 meantime attacked the new earl of Ormond, 
 but, meeting in the first instance with a re- 
 pulse, they were preparing to take revenge 
 by invading his lands with an overwhelming 
 force. Ormond despatched hasty messengers 
 to the lord deputy, who at this moment was 
 acting in the greatest cordiality with him, to 
 inform him of his danger; and Gray, with 
 what forces he could collect without weaken- 
 ing the pale, marched into Munster at the 
 commencement of November, an unfavour- 
 able season for making war upon the Irish. 
 After a short consultation, they determined 
 " both by policy and strength to pluck from 
 O'Brien all his forces and wings on this side the 
 Shannon ;" and they commenced by the cap- 
 ture of the castle of Roscrea, which had been 
 taken from the Butlers by the O'Meaghers 
 of I-kerin, and was now surrendered 
 on the first threat of an attack. The day 
 following they marched to Modren, a castle 
 belonging to the O'CarroUs. A revolution 
 had taken place in this sept, for Fergananim 
 O'Carroll was about this time treacherously 
 murdered by one of his ovni kinsmen, and 
 342 
 
 there was now a domestic war between the 
 O'Carroll who had succeeded to the chieftain- 
 ship, and Calvagh O'Carroll, Fergananim's 
 son. The two rival O'Carrolls came to Mo- 
 dern and placed themselves in the hands of 
 the lord deputy to stand by his judgment. 
 Hither also were sent the hostages of Mac 
 Brien of Arra, Regan of Owney, O'Dwj'er 
 of Kilnamanna, and several other Irish chiefs, 
 who promised allegiance, and bound them- 
 selves to pay a yearly tribute to the crown. 
 
 Continuing his march into Munster, the 
 lord deputy reduced by force some of 
 O'Brien's allies on this side of the Shannon, 
 and then repaired to the earl of Ormond's 
 house at Thurles, where he remained two 
 nights. Gerald Mac Shane and the White 
 Knight, two of the earl of Desmond's parti- 
 zans, presented themselves before the lord 
 dejJUty at Thurles, and made their submis- 
 sion. From Thurles the army marched to 
 Cashel, Clonmel, Dungarvan, and Youghall, 
 at which latter place the three sons of 
 Gerald of Desmond came in and submitted ; 
 and then the lord deputy proceeded to 
 Imokilly. 
 
 It appears that the king had yielded to 
 the suggestion of sending over James fitz 
 Maurice of Desmond, the rightful heir to 
 the earldom, and that he now accom^janied 
 the deputy's army. At Imokilly, lord Gray 
 delivered to him all the castles in that barony, 
 which appertained to the earldom of Des- 
 mond, with all the other castles between 
 Youghall and Cork, except those belonging 
 to the lord Barry, who, as well as the sons 
 of Cormac Oge, came in and made his sub- 
 mission at the latter city. After a short stay 
 at Cork, the army continued its march to 
 Kinsale, passing through the lands of Ker- 
 ricurriky, which, as having been possessed 
 by his grandfather, were also delivered to 
 James fitz Maurice. The deputy appears to 
 have expected to receive some communication 
 from James fitz John of Desmond, but that 
 chieftain continued to set him at defiance, 
 and lord Gray returned to Cork, leaving the 
 earl of Ormond to negotiate with Mac Carthy 
 Reagh, whom he induced to give hostages 
 for his future allegiance. 
 
 After the return of the earl of Ormond to 
 Cork, the lord deputy, having failed in his 
 attempt to bring James of Desmond to a 
 parley, determined to try what impression 
 he could make upon O'Brien of Thomond, 
 and with this object he marched with his 
 whole army into O'Callaghan's country, to 
 pass the Avonmore, or, as it is now called, 
 
A.D. 15I0.J 
 
 HlSTOilY OF IRELAND, [jealousies in the north. 
 
 the Bkckwater, and so proceeded to Lime- 
 rick ; but that river was so flooded with the 
 heavy rains, that after remaining encamped 
 on its banks four days and four nights, he 
 found himself compelled to relinquish his 
 design. The enemy appears to have collected 
 in some strength on the opposite side of the 
 river, and, on the last day the lord deputy 
 remained there, the earl of Desmond, James 
 fitz John, made his appearance on the bank, 
 and, to use the words of the earl of Ormond, 
 " showed himself no less wide from all good 
 order and duty, than correspondent to his 
 unjust proceedings hitherto ; in whom ap- 
 peared no manner towardness of any good 
 conformity, declaring then, that he had com- 
 bined with O'Brien against me (Ormond), 
 and that he could fall to no end but by the 
 advice of the said O'Brien, and, further, that 
 the said O'Brien would have on his peace all 
 the Irishry of Ireland." 
 
 Lord Gray, " sore moved with these 
 words," immediately gave the order to march 
 back to Cork, and thus ended the expedition 
 which, without having produced any sub- 
 stantial advantage, had still a salutary effect, 
 because, undertaken at a period of the year 
 which was especially unfavourable to the 
 English, it helped not a little to convince 
 the Irish of the increasing strength and firm- 
 ness of the government. Neither Ormond 
 nor Gray placed much faith in the promises 
 which their presence had extorted from the 
 subordinate chieftains, who, they knew, 
 would break them on the first favourable 
 occasion ; but these chieftains were learning 
 the important fact that the Enghsh govern- 
 ment now possessed the power to protect 
 those who were faithful to it, as well as to 
 punish those who set it at defiance. The 
 whole army which had thus overrun a con- 
 siderable part of Munster, consisted only of 
 about four hundred English soldiers under 
 the lord deputy, and about the same number 
 of fighting men under the earl of Ormond. 
 
 The grand confederacy between James of 
 Desmond, O'Brien, O'Donnell, and O'Neill, 
 remained unimpaired at the commencement 
 of the year 1.540, and they had relinquished 
 none of their pretensions. O'Neill, who 
 now took the lead, had declared that he 
 would never be satisfied until the authority 
 of the king of England was banished from 
 the island, and he had himself marched to 
 the hill of Tara to be there inaugurated 
 king of Ireland. The restoration of the 
 Geraldines was, with him at least, a secon- 
 dary consideration. Another appointment 
 
 was made with the turbulent chieftain of 
 Tyrone, who promised to meet the lord 
 deputy at Carrick Bradagh near Dundalk on 
 the 2~nd of January ; but O'Neill not only 
 failed of his promise for the third time, but 
 9ne of his sons made an irruption into the 
 Freys, the country of Felim Roe (who was 
 in alliance with the English), and burnt and 
 ])lundered it in a savage manner. Gray, 
 jjrovoked at this attack, collected his army 
 in all haste at Dundalk, and made a sudden 
 and forced march to Dungannon, the prin- 
 cipal residence of the chieftain of Tyrone, 
 which he expected to reach before daylight, 
 and thus fall upon O'Neill by surprise. The 
 treachery or ignorance of the guides saved 
 O'Neill from falling into the deputy's hands ; 
 for, by a mistake in the way, the army only 
 reached Dungannon an hour after daylight, 
 and their enemy had taken the alarm and 
 fled. Dungannon, however, was taken, and 
 lord Gray wreaked his vengeance on the 
 surrounding country, which was plundered 
 and burnt by the English army during the 
 six following days. 
 
 These energetic proceedings of the deputy 
 seem to have thrown a considerable damp 
 on the spirits of the Irish, and two events 
 followed which led eventually to the break- 
 ing up of the formidable confederacy. The 
 first of these was the flight of the youthful 
 Gerald fitz Gerald to France. Treachery 
 appears to have been actively at work against 
 the young Geraldine, and the reports of a 
 later period pointed to O'Donnell himself as 
 the traitor. Perhaps the pretensions of 
 O'Neill were already reviving the old jea- 
 lousies between Tirconnell and Tyrone. 
 Towards the middle of March, 1540, a mer- 
 chant ship of St. Malo happening to be in 
 one of the harbours of the shores of Donegal, 
 was engaged to convey a small party to the 
 coast of Britany. Under concealment of the 
 night, a small cock-boat carried on board 
 four persons, two of whom were the young 
 Geraldine and his tutor Leveroux ; and one of 
 the others was Robert Walsh, a faithful ser- 
 vant of his family. To disguise more com- 
 pletely the young adventurer, he was dressed 
 only in a saffroned shirt, and was bareheaded, 
 "like one of the wild Irish." The English 
 agent, Bartholomew Warner, who gave this 
 account to the English ambassador in 
 France,* said that, according to the report 
 
 * Warner says, he obtained his information of a 
 solicitor of St. Malo, who " was instruct, on this 
 nianer folowing, of the selfe parson which brought 
 him over, whos name is Allen Governors, dwelling in 
 
 343 
 
FLIGHT OF GERALD FITZ GERALD.] HISTORY OF IHELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1540. 
 
 of the merchant, the transaction was arranged 
 by O'Donnell himself, who went to him, 
 attended by a number of priests. Stanihurst, 
 who had conversed with the fugitive in later 
 times, after he had been restored to the title 
 of earl of Kildare, and who had questioned 
 him upon the events comiected with his early 
 history, says that it was the lady Eleanor 
 who contrived his escape, and conducted 
 him and his small party to the boat which 
 was to carry them away ; and he adds further, 
 that the lady, who had discovered or sus- 
 pected the secret treachery of her new hus- 
 band, immediately separated herself from 
 him, and i-eturned to her own country in 
 the south.* The ship arrived safely at St. 
 Malo, and Gerald fitz Gerald was honour- 
 ably received by the governor of Britany, 
 Monsieur de Chateaubriant. 
 
 The other event to which we have just 
 alluded was the death of James fitz Maurice 
 
 St. Malo, that he, being with his shipe on marchan- 
 tlyse in Yrlande, ner unto thos parties wher great 
 Adonels abyding is, ther came unto liim the sayde 
 Adonel, with certeyne other (as men callythe them) 
 religiouse parsons, or men of the churche, the which 
 entreatyd with liim to bring over the sayde Fylz 
 Garethe; the wliich thing was agrcyd, and an act 
 passyd betwen them, sygnyd by a notary. The name 
 of the place wher yt was made, nor off the notary, 
 my sayde solicitor cowlde not tell me. In the which 
 acte he was bownde to render him saffe aland at St. 
 Malo, and the other that shuld pase lykewyse with 
 him, and a certeyne nomber of silver vessell also. 
 The sayd Fylz Garethe was convayde aborde the ship 
 in the nyght in a small cocke, havyng on but a saf- 
 fronyd shurtt, and barheaddyd, lyke one of the wyllde 
 Yreshe, and with him 3 persons. The one was a 
 j)rest, his name they know not, but they say he is his 
 scole master, and bathe governyd him ever sins the 
 deathe of liis father, tlie which they say also kepythe 
 him so under, that, and yft' he rebuke him never so 
 little, he treamblythe for fear. The secondes name 
 they say is Robert, his surname they know not. And 
 the other he herde not callyde by lus name, wherfor 
 he cowlde give me no knowledge therof." 
 
 The fact of his being taken on board at night 
 with so much precaution shows that treachery was 
 apprehended, from which at least O'Donnell was not 
 able to protect him, if he had the inclination. 
 
 of Desmond, who was basely murdered on 
 the Friday before Palm Sunday, by his kLns- 
 nian Maurice fitz John, the brother of the 
 James fitz John, who had assumed the earl- 
 dom. No sooner had this event become 
 known, than the latter, who appears not to 
 have been implicated in the crime, hastened 
 to Youghal, where he was well received, 
 and he not only recovered without opposi- 
 tion the castles and territory which a few 
 weeks before had been transferred to his 
 rival by the lord deputy, but, as had been 
 anticipated, nearly all the chiefs who had 
 then given their hostages to the English, 
 returned to his banner. But James of Des- 
 mond, thus relieved of the only obstacle that 
 lay between him and the earldom he had 
 assumed, for he was now the next heir-at- 
 law, began from this moment to change his 
 tone towards the English government, and 
 to adopt a course much more conciliating. 
 
 * " But shortlie after the gentlewoman, either by 
 some secret friend informed, or of wisedome gather- 
 ing, that hir late maried husband intended some 
 treacherie, had hir nephue disguised, storing him like 
 a liberall and bountifuU aunt with seven score porte- 
 guses, not onelie in valour, but also in the selfe same 
 coine, incontinentlie shipped him secretlie in a Britons 
 vessell of Saint Malouse, betaking him to God, and 
 to their charge that accompanied him, to wit, master 
 Levrouse and Robert Walsh sometime servant to his 
 father the earle. The ladie Elenor having thus to 
 hir contentation bestowed hu' nephue, she expostu- 
 lated verie sharpelie with Odoneil as touching his 
 villanie, protesting that the onlie cause of hir match 
 with him proceeded of an especiall care to have hir 
 nephue countenanced ; and now that he was out of 
 liis lash that minded to have betraied him, he should 
 well understand, that as the feare of his danger 
 mooved hir to annere to such a clownish curmudgeon, 
 so the assurance of his safetie should cause hir to 
 sequester hirselfe from so butcherlie a cuthrote, that 
 would be like a pelting mercenarie patch hired, to 
 sell or betraie the innocent bloud of his nephue by 
 affinitie, and hirs by consanguinitie. And in this 
 wise trussing up bag and baggage, she forsooke 
 Odoneil and returned to hir countrie."— <Stani/mrs< 
 i/i HoUnshed. 
 
 344 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ^ THE REFORMATION IN THE CHURCH, AND ITS EFFECTS IN IRELAND. 
 
 NEW element of discord 
 was now added to those 
 which already existed in 
 this unhappy island. A 
 great change had been 
 eflected in the foreign 
 relations of England 
 during the few years 
 that the lord Leonard 
 Gray held the government of Ireland. By 
 throwing off all subjection to the see of 
 Rome in 1534, the English parliament had 
 in a manner insulated this country from 
 the sympathies of the continental nations, 
 and laid the foundation of that high inde- 
 pendent position which it has since obtained 
 among the European states. The intemperate 
 measures pursued by the pope provoked the 
 English monarch to proceed in his work of 
 reformation, and during the six following 
 years he dissolved the monasteries, abolished 
 the monkish orders, and destroyed almost 
 every trace of the Romish church establish- 
 ment in his dominions. 
 
 As there had been little real devotional 
 feeling among the turbulent Irish septs, so 
 at first the change in religion appears to have 
 entered but little in the furious strife which 
 desolated the island. The government was 
 too nmch occupied with its political difficul- 
 ties, to take any active steps to enforce the 
 ecclesiastical laws newly established in Eng- 
 land, and a very large portion of the island 
 was entirely independent of English law. 
 The Butlers were the first great Anglo-Irish 
 family that carried their devotion to the 
 king so far as to give their zealous support 
 to the new order of things in the church. 
 In the May of 1534, the king made a grant 
 to the earl of Ossory of the government of 
 Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Ossory, 
 and Ormond, and the earl entered into a 
 written indenture promising certain services 
 to the crown, in the conclusion of which 
 there was a special agreement that, "con- 
 sidering that it is manifest and notorious 
 that the provisions and usurped jurisdiction 
 of the bishop of Rome hath been, and con- 
 tinually is, the most and principal cause of 
 the desolation, division, ruin, and decay of 
 VOL. I. 2 X 
 
 the said land of Ireland, by the abominable 
 abuse whereof the cathedral churclics, 
 churches in monasteries, parish churches, 
 and all other, regular and secular, for the 
 more part, in effect, through the land, be in 
 utter ruin and destroyed ; for the said bishop 
 of Rome commonly hath preferred, by his 
 provisions, to the administration and govern- 
 ance of them, not only vile and vicious 
 persons, unlearned, being murderers, thieves, 
 and of other detestable disposition, as light 
 men of war, who, for their unjust mainten- 
 ance therein, some time to expel the rightful 
 incumbent, and other seasons, by force of 
 secular power, to put the true patrons from 
 their patronage, and other their misorders, 
 have not only spent, wasted, and alienated 
 such lands as the king, his noble progenitors, 
 and his nobles, gave to the augmentation of 
 God's divine service, in the churches of that 
 land, the exhibition and maintenance of the 
 ministers of the same, and the utensils and 
 ornaments there, but also by occasion of the 
 same great wars hath been stirred amongst 
 the king's people, and countries burnt, 
 bishops and divers other persons, spiritual 
 and temporal, murdered, and many other 
 detestable things have ensued thereby, which 
 would abhor any good christian man to hear, 
 to the high displeasure of God, the violation 
 of his laws, the derogation of the king's 
 jurisdiction and regality, and the great 
 detriment of his nobles and jjeople ; and 
 the king's highness, like a most virtuous 
 and most Christian prince, minding and 
 desiring above all things the repression 
 and extincting of any abuse and enormity 
 which in any wise may be contrary to 
 the laws of God, or be occasion to his 
 people to fall from charity or Christian man- 
 ners, hath willed his said deputy to resist 
 witli all his power the abuse and usurped 
 jurisdiction of the said bishop of Rome in 
 the premises; according to which his grace's 
 pleasure, the said earl of Ossory hath pro- 
 mised to his highness, and by these presents 
 bindeth himself, that he and his son, and 
 every of them and their heirs, shall not only 
 by themselves resist with all their possible 
 powers, everywhere under their rules, the 
 
 345 
 
THE REFORMATION.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 [a.d. 1535. 
 
 said provisions and the bishop of Rome's 
 usurped jurisdiction; niaintaininn- also and 
 assisting the king's deputy and all his officers 
 for repressing thereof, according to the 
 statutes thereupon provided, but also shall 
 practice with all others, and induce them as 
 much as they possibly may to do likewise." 
 
 This is the earliest notice we have of an 
 attempt to introduce the church reformation, 
 which had been effected in England, into 
 Ireland. The mass of the Irish clergy at 
 this time appear to have been ignorant and 
 turbulent, and the flock entrusted to their 
 charge naturally followed the example of 
 their pastors. It was enough for them to 
 know that the English had thrown off the 
 yoke of Rome, and, with their anti-English 
 feelings, they readily believed that their own 
 interests were identified with their old reli- 
 gion. A few days after the date of the earl 
 of Ossory's indenture just quoted, the rebel- 
 lion of Silken Thomas broke out, and threw 
 the affairs of the Irisli government into so 
 much confusion, that little was done towards 
 enforcing the royal mandates on this subject. 
 Even at this moment the question of religion 
 was not put forward prominently by the 
 insurgents ; although their leaders found a 
 justification in the plea which had so often 
 been set up by the English themselves on 
 former occasions, that the pope was the 
 temporal lord of the island, that the English 
 monarchs derived their right of sovereignty 
 from him, and that since the king of Eng- 
 land had turned heretic, he could transfer 
 it to another ; and they now applied to him 
 for encouragement and assistance. The pope 
 eagerly snatched at the opportunity of 
 revenge upon the disobedient monarch, and 
 from this time foreign intrigue was constantly 
 at work in the island, until it produced that 
 bitterness of religious animosity which led 
 to such melancholy effects in the following 
 century. 
 
 The lord chancellor Allen informed king 
 Henry's minister, Cromwell, at the close of 
 the year 1534, when the lord Thomas still 
 remained in open rebellion, that the insur- 
 gent leader had just sent to Rome the offi- 
 cial of Meath, the official of the bishop of 
 Armagh, the dean of Kildare, parson Walsh, 
 the bishop of Killaloe, and " certain other 
 papists," to Rome, and he adds that these 
 were his "learned counsellors" against the 
 king and his crown. It was Cromer bishop 
 of Armagh, the old friend of the Geraldines, 
 who stood foremost among the clergy of 
 Ireland in defence of the church of Rome ; 
 346 
 
 and who gave credit to his party by his 
 reputation and learning. He had been sus- 
 pected of favouring the rebellion of lord 
 Thomas fitz Gerald, and partly on that 
 account and partly for his known opposition 
 to the acknowledgment of the king's supre- 
 macy in the church, he was arrested in the 
 spring of 1535 on a charge of high treason. 
 One object, indeed, of a commission sent to 
 Ireland in this year was to demand that ac- 
 knowledgment, and no sooner had the com- 
 missioners declared this than archbishop 
 Cromer openly and boldly declared against it. 
 He summoned the suffragans and clergy of 
 his diocese, and pictured to them in strong 
 language the danger with which their ancient 
 religion was threatened. He exhorted them 
 to preserve their allegiance to the apostolic 
 see, using the arguments best suited to their 
 understandings, and reminding them that 
 their country had been called from the 
 earliest ages the holy island, and the island 
 of saints, as a convincing proof of its peculiar 
 attachment to the papal see. He enjoined 
 them by his spiritual authority to resist all 
 innovations, and pronounced the anathema 
 of the church in its most tremendous form 
 against all who should acknowledge the 
 king's supremacy. These exhortations had 
 their effect, and two emissaries were instantly 
 despatched to Rome to represent to the pope 
 the danger of the church in Ireland, and to 
 intreat his interposition in its defence. 
 
 The great champion of the new party was 
 Browne archbishop of Dublin, like Cromer 
 an Englishman by birth, who had been 
 appointed to that see after the murder of 
 archbishop Allen. He was a prelate well 
 known for his strong leaning to the refor- 
 mation now commenced in the English 
 church, and, being himself a member of the 
 commission just alluded to, it became his 
 especial duty to preach in support of the 
 king's supremacy, and against the "usurped 
 power" of the pope. In performing this 
 duty, he exposed himself to scorn and out- 
 rage, and he expresses in his letters the 
 apprehension that his life was in danger 
 from the violent zeal of his opponents. In 
 his communications to the English minister, 
 Cromwell, he described his ill success in his 
 task and the opposition he experienced from 
 archbishop Cromer, and complained of the 
 extreme ignorance of the Irish clergy, whom 
 he represented as incapable of perform- 
 ing correctly the common offices of their 
 religion, and as unacquainted even with the 
 language in which they celebrated the mass. 
 
A.D. 
 
 1536.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [parliamentary opposition. 
 
 The common people, he said, were " more 
 zealous in their blindness than the saints 
 and mart)TS were in truth at the beginning 
 of the gospel;" and he expresses the fear 
 that, in consequence of the mission from the 
 Irish clergy, the pope should give a new 
 political importance to O'Neill of Tyrone, 
 by ordering him to take up the defence of 
 the Catholic faith in Ireland against the 
 English heretics. 
 
 In this dilemma, the archbishop recom- 
 mended that an Irish parliament should be 
 immediately called, in order to pass a law 
 enforcing the acknowledgment of the king's 
 supremacy, which might, at least as far as 
 English law extended in Ireland, awe the 
 refractory into obedience. This advice 
 seems to have been fully approved, and a 
 parliament was accordingly called, and met 
 at Dublin on the 1st of May, 1536. It was 
 this parliament which passed the act of 
 attainder against the house of Kildare, as 
 well as a number of other statutes of import- 
 ance which had no connection with the 
 church. Most of these met with little or 
 no opposition ; and this parliament with 
 equal facility pronounced the marriage of 
 the king with Catherine of Arragon to be 
 null and void, thus confirming the sentence 
 of separation delivered by the archbishop of 
 Canterbury. They declared the succession 
 to the crown to be in the issue of the king 
 and the lady Anne Boleyn, pronouncing it 
 high treason to oppose this succession and 
 misprision of treason to slander it ; and they 
 appended an oath of allegiance to this issue 
 to be formally taken by the subjects of Ire- 
 land. This act had scarcely passed, vehen 
 intelligence arrived of the execution of Anne 
 Boleyn, and the marriage of the king with 
 lady Jane Seymour ; on which the Irish par- 
 liament repealed their own act, and passed 
 another for the attainder of the late queen 
 and her alleged accomplices, declaring the two 
 former marriages null and void, and making 
 a new provision for the succession to the 
 crown. 
 
 A less pliant temper was shown by the 
 parliament when the laws relating to the 
 church were brought under consideration. 
 By these laws, the king was declared supreme 
 head on earth of the churches of Ireland ; all 
 appeals to Rome in spiritual causes were 
 abolished; the English law against slander- 
 ing the king in consequence of these innova- 
 tions was enacted and confirmed in Ireland, 
 together with the provisions made in Eng- 
 land for the payment of first-fruits to the 
 
 king; he was invested not only with the first 
 fruits of bishoprics and other secular promo- 
 tions in the church of Ireland, but with those 
 also of abbeys, priories, colleges, and hospi- 
 tals; the authority of the bishop of Rome 
 was solemnly renounced, and the maintainers 
 of it in Ireland made subject to praemunire; 
 all officers of every kind and degree were to 
 take the oath of supremacy, and every per- 
 son refusing it was declared guilty of high 
 treason; all payment of pensions and suing 
 for dispensations and faculties to Rome were 
 utterly prohibited; some of the chief monas- 
 tic establishments were suppressed by name, 
 and the others in general terms. 
 
 The Romish party collected all their 
 strength to oppose these laws, and their 
 opposition became powerful by the great 
 number of ecclesiastics who held seats in 
 the parliament. It had been the custom to 
 send two proctors from each diocese, who 
 thus formed a numerous body; they had 
 been originally called to parliament only as 
 counsellors or assistants, without any voice 
 in its deliberations, but amid the irregulari- 
 ties which had crept into the Irish govern- 
 ment of late years, they had so far encroached 
 as to assume the right of voting as members 
 of the legislative body. These men com- 
 posed the strength of the Romish party in 
 parliament, and, although the act of supre- 
 macy was passed, they so far exerted them- 
 selves as to throw out the act for granting 
 the king the twentieth part of the church 
 revenues, as well as that for the suppression 
 of monasteries. When the parliament re- 
 assembled in the January of 1537, the proc- 
 tors, joining with the bishops and abbots, 
 became still more persevering in their oppo- 
 tion, and the business of the legislature was 
 retarded by their pertinacity. Little pro- 
 gress was made in any of the bills which 
 remained to be disposed of, and some even 
 of those which passed the commons were 
 thrown out in the upper house. It was thus 
 that the spiritual lords rejected the bill for 
 granting to the king the twentieth part of 
 all ecclesiastical revenues, after it had been 
 agreed to by the lower house. It be- 
 came necessary to prorogue the parliament 
 again, and to seek some means of breaking 
 the power of the opposition. During the 
 recess, the king's council was consulted, and 
 after referring to the records of former ses- 
 sions and comparing them with diligence, it 
 was decided that the votes of the proctors 
 were a mere usurpation on the rights of the 
 Irish parliament. An act was accordingly 
 
 347 
 
ARCHBISHOP BROWNE.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1537. 
 
 prepared to put down this usurpation, and 
 it was one of the first measures passed when 
 the parliament reassembled. The power of 
 the ecclesiastics in parliament was thus at 
 length broken, and the act granting the king 
 the twentieth part of the ecclesiastical reve- 
 nues, as well as that for the dissolution of 
 the monasteries, were passed without any 
 further difficulty. 
 
 The Romish party now made an ingenious 
 attempt to invalidate the laws which they 
 could not prevent being enacted, and they 
 devised a pretence for impeaching the autho- 
 rity of parliament itself. On account of the 
 extraordinary circumstances under which 
 this parliament had been called, the act of 
 Poynings, which required that information 
 of all the acts to be passed should previously 
 be sent over to the government in England, 
 had been temporarily suspended, and the act 
 for the suspension of this law contained a 
 provision that no statutes should be ordained 
 in the present parliament prejudicial to the 
 grants, liberties, customs, or commodities of 
 the crown, but such only as should be deemed 
 expedient for " the king's honour, the in- 
 crease of his revenue, and the common weal 
 of his land and dominion of Ireland." The 
 opposition to the government took advantage 
 of these expressions, and insisted that the 
 parliament had no power of making any law 
 in which these several circumstances did not 
 all concur, and that whatever laws they might 
 enact which were not at once conducive to 
 the honour of the king, the advancement of 
 his revenue, and the common weal of Ireland, 
 must be in themselves devoid of force and 
 authority. This opposition was carried on 
 with so much pertinacity, that it was found 
 necessary to pass another act to explain the 
 alleged ambiguity, to declare the validity 
 of all laws of the present parliament enacted 
 for any of these purposes, and to make it 
 felony to attempt to invalidate them. 
 
 The tardiness with which the king's inten- 
 tions were carried into effect must be attri- 
 buted in some measure to the divisions in 
 the council. Archbishop Browne was ably 
 and zealously seconded by the lord chancellor 
 Allen and lord Butler, the treasurer; but 
 other members of the council remained 
 attached to the old system, and among these 
 was the deputy, lord Leonard Gray. There 
 was a want of unanimity even amongst those 
 who supported the new opinions, which was 
 the case especially between the archbishop 
 of Dublin and Staples bishop of Meath. 
 The overbearing zeal of the former was 
 34S 
 
 scandalized at the more moderate tone 
 assumed by the bishop, and he wearied the 
 king and his ministers with complaints, not 
 only of his lukewarnniess, but of his alleged 
 leaning towards popery ; while the latter 
 complained that the archbishop boasted that 
 he was the head of the clergy of Ireland 
 under the king, and that " pride and arro- 
 gance had ravished him from the right re- 
 membrance of himself." The king at length 
 wrote admonitory letters to both prelates; 
 he charged the bishop with slackness and 
 negligence, and urged him to be more dili- 
 gent in enforcing the measures for church 
 reformation; but he accused the archbishop 
 in terras of greater severity of "lightness in 
 behaviour," adding, " such is the elation of 
 your mind in pride, that, glorying in foolish 
 ceremonies, and delighting in tve and us, all 
 virtue and honesty is almost banished from 
 you;" and, threatening him with deprivation, 
 he urges him to "reform yourself with this 
 gentle advertisement, and do first your duty 
 towards God in the due execution of your 
 office, do then your duty towards us in the 
 advancement of our affiiirs there and in the 
 signification hither from time to time of the 
 state of the same, and we shall put your former 
 negligence in oblivion." In replying to these 
 charges, the archbishop denied the imputa- 
 tion of pride and arrogance, and set forth his 
 own spiritual services in " declaring to the 
 people the only gospel of Christ," and in- 
 ducing his hearers " utterly to despise the 
 usurped power of the bishop of Rome." 
 
 The agitation consequent upon tliis attempt 
 to enforce the reformation in the church 
 could not fail to increase the general disorder 
 by adding new feuds to those already exist- 
 ing. As every death of the chieftain of a 
 sept was previously the signal for a contest 
 for the succession, now the vacancy in a 
 bishopric led to a double appointment, and 
 a bishop nominated by the pope was often 
 brought forward to contend against the 
 nominee of the king. One was supported by 
 the Irish, or independent Anglo-Irish, chiefs 
 and the population, while the other was 
 backed by the authority of the civil govern- 
 ment ; and the contest was sometimes carried 
 on for several years. An instance of this 
 occurred in the case of the bishopric of 
 Clonfert, in Galway, which became vacant 
 in 1536. The king promoted to this see an 
 Augustine friar named Richard Nangle, 
 provincial of the Augustines in Ireland, who 
 had probably shown his devotedness to the 
 king by his readiness in supporting his 
 
A.D. 
 
 1538.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [religious animosities. 
 
 supremacy; but the Burkes of Clanrickard 
 had sent to Rome and obtained the pope's 
 bull to confer the same see on one of their 
 kinsmen, Roland Burke. The Burkes, both 
 the Mac William and Ulick, supported the 
 pope's bishop with so much zeal, that the 
 king's bishop was not only unable to obtain 
 the revenues of his see, but he could not go 
 abroad without exposing himself to personal 
 danger.* In spite of the favour shown by 
 the lord deputy Gray to Ulick Burke, this 
 ecclesiastical feud was not appeased till 1541, 
 when Roland Burke made his submission to 
 the king, took the oath of supremacy, and 
 was confirmed in the bishopric by the king. 
 The division in the council on the subject 
 of religion was probably a chief cause of the 
 toleration which was shown towards those 
 who opposed the views of the English govern- 
 ment, a toleration which was not approved 
 by archbishop Browne, and which led to 
 bitter hostility between that prelate and the 
 lord deputy. We discover but few instances 
 of individual persecution. The first case of 
 imprisonment for off'ences connected with 
 the religious controversy, was that of a grey 
 friar who had preached against the " break- 
 ing or pulling down of churches." Arch- 
 bishop Browne committed to prison the 
 suff'ragan of the bishop of Meath, because he 
 had publicly prayed first for the pope, 
 secondly for the emperor, and lastly for the 
 king of England, of whom he added, " I 
 pray God he never depart this world, until 
 he hath made amends." The archbishop also 
 imprisoned a prebendary of St. Patrick's, 
 named Humphrey, who had rendered him- 
 self remarkable by the pertinacity with which 
 he thwarted Browne's proceedings. This 
 
 * A letter from Richard Culoke, merchant of 
 Dublin, to the treasurer Brabazon, on this subject, 
 preserved among tlie State Papers, is worthy of being 
 printed if it were but to give a sample of the ortho- 
 graphy of a great Anglo-Irish merchant of that period. 
 It is dated Nov. 10, 1537. 
 
 " Rygtht honoi-abuU and my espessyall good mas- 
 ter, AVyllara Brabsoun, the kynges tressurer in 
 Irlonde, I hertely recomand me unto masterschyppe. 
 And you shall undjTstond of the newys of this partes 
 of Conazt, sens I \Tot unto you laste. Sir, her ys 
 comm a kynesman of Vylloke Bowrkes from Romme, 
 the wych whent for to sped and so to haw the 
 bysshopryke of Clonfert, whos nam ys one Rowland 
 Bowrke, so that the sayd Rowland Bowrke ys dayly 
 amongys hys frendes within Clanryeart in company 
 with Blake Vyllam and Vylloke o Bowrke; so that 
 your mai^tershype shall undyrstond that the kynges 
 gras dyd yew the sayd bysshopryke befor oneto the 
 doctor Nangyll, Hawstyn frer, aiid apone ys gras ys 
 yefte was consecratyt and hade pessabuly possessyon 
 of all the sayd byssopryke untyll now; for this Row- 
 
 ecclesiastic, when performing service in his 
 own church, had not only omitted to read 
 the form of prayers which had been ordered 
 to be adopted in churches, but when his 
 curate went up into the pulpit and began to 
 read them, he suddenly interrupted him by 
 beginning with the choir to sing high mass. 
 In this instance the lord deputy liberated the 
 archbishop's prisoner, much to the prelate's 
 dissatisfaction. On the 20th of October, 
 1538, when the lord deputy and council were 
 gone forth with the army, one of the arch- 
 bishop's party complained in a letter to 
 Cromwell that, " Here was a bishop and a 
 friar put in the castle of Dublin for their 
 high and notorious offences against the king's 
 majesty, and at the last sessions were brought 
 to Trim, to have been indicted, arraigned, 
 and suffered accordingly; yet our masters of 
 the law, and all other (in good faith, except 
 my lord treasurer,f and very few beside), be 
 such papists, hypocrites, and worshippers of 
 idols, tliat they were not indicted; whereat 
 my lord of Dublin, Mr. treasurer, and the 
 master of the rolls were very angry. How- 
 beit they could not remedy it." The writer 
 adds, " They three would not come in the 
 chapel where the idol of Trim stood (a cele- 
 brated image of the virgin), to the intent 
 they would not occasion the people; not- 
 withstanding, my lord deputy, very devoutly 
 kneeling before her, heard three or four 
 masses." 
 
 We need not be surprised, with all these 
 difficulties to contend with, if the reforming 
 zeal of archbishop Browne was almost pow- 
 erless, while the practices of Cromer and his 
 party met with complete success. The 
 clergy in general ojaposed the attempt of the 
 
 land Bowrke haw brouge from Romm many ben}-frys 
 and desspensasyons within Conazt, and ys haydytt by 
 hys frendes so moch, that the kj-nges bysshope dar 
 not goo into no plas abrod, so that I wold dessyr 
 your mastersh)-pe, by reyssonn Make Wyllam and 
 Vylloke o Bowrke do say that they be the kynges 
 sugetes, that you void caws my lord depute to wryte 
 hys secret leter messe unto Make Vyllam and Wyl- 
 loke Bowrke, for to take the sayd Rowlond Bowrke, 
 and send hyra to the kynges lawys to Dulyng, other 
 hels that a strayt leter unto the mer of Gallwy for to 
 stop all the revenuys and costoms of Gallwy for the 
 bysshopes behalff, untyll such tym that Make Vyllam 
 and Vylloke do caws the kynges bysshope to haw ys 
 pessabuly and sur possessyon, as he haw had befor. 
 For all lyes in Make Villam and Vylloke Bowrke. * 
 * ' Mother newys her ys non, but Jhesu preserv 
 your mastershyppe in honor 
 
 " By youres to hys power, 
 " Rychart Culoke of Dulyng mai'chand." 
 
 f The lord James Butler. 
 
 349 
 
COMMUNICATIONS WITH ROME.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1538. 
 
 archbishop of Dublin to remove the images 
 and relics from their churches, and a special 
 envoy was sent to Rome to express their 
 constant devotion to the apostolic see, and 
 to implore the active interposition of tlie 
 pope in support of his spiritual authority in 
 Ireland. Tliey even made an attempt to 
 divert the king, by a petition addressed 
 tlirough the mediation of the duke of Nor- 
 folk, from pursuing his scheme of reforma- 
 tion in Ireland. In the diocese of Dublin, 
 several of the clergy preferred resigning 
 their benefices to acknowledging the king's 
 supremacy. Archbishop Browne was filled 
 with apprehensions; he complained to Crom- 
 well of the activity of the Irish and the 
 "papists," and of the lukewarmness of the 
 lord deputy ; and he expressed the conviction 
 that the agents of Rome were exerting them- 
 selves to prevail u])on the Irish to lay aside 
 all their other feuds and take up the one 
 quarrel of the church, and that a confederacy 
 was in preparation of a much more formid- 
 able character than those which had gone 
 before. It was soon afterwards discovered 
 that a private commission had already arrived 
 from Rome to Cromer and his associates, 
 enjoining them to persevere boldly in sup- 
 port of the papal authority. They were 
 empowered to absolve from their oath those 
 who had been persuaded to acknowledge the 
 king's suprcmucj', and they were furtlier 
 directed to command them, under penalty 
 of the severest ecclesiastical censures, to 
 make confession of their guilt within forty 
 days, and to enter into a new and still more 
 solemn engagement to maintain the autho- 
 rity of the see of Rome, to oppose heretics 
 and resist their edicts issued against the 
 papal power, and to declare all those accursed 
 who should presume to claim any power, 
 either ecclesiastical or civil, superior to that 
 of the church. 
 
 Dark intimation of these pi'oceedings 
 received from time to time by the Irish 
 government, increased their circumspection 
 and activity. It was soon discovered that 
 
 * This letter, as printed in Leland, was worded as 
 follows; the original was probably in Latin. 
 
 " My son O'Neill, thou and thy fathers were ever 
 faithful to the mother ehui'ch of Rome. His holiness 
 Paul, the present pope, and his council of holy fathers, 
 have lately found an ancient prophecy of one Saint 
 Lazerianus, an Irish archbishop of Cashel. It saith, 
 that the church of Rome shall surely fall when the 
 catholic faith is once overthrown in Ireland. There- 
 fore, for the glory of the mother church, the honour 
 of St. Peter, and your own security, suppress heresy, 
 and oppose the enemies of his holiness. You see, 
 I 350 
 
 the communication with Rome was most 
 active in the northern province, and that 
 O'Neill had been selected as the chosen 
 instrument in working out the salvation of 
 the church. The clergy throughout Ulster 
 were busily occupied in inflaming the zeal 
 of the Irish chieftains, and preaching to 
 them the necessity of union. Old prophecies, 
 pretended to be dragged from the dust of 
 monasteries, were brought forward to en- 
 courage them, and even forged letters and 
 orders from Rome were adduced, in order 
 to give more importance to the undertaking 
 in wliich they were now called upon to join. 
 In tlie summer of the year 1538, a Francis- 
 can friar, who was reported to be an agent of 
 the Romish party in the north, was arrested 
 in Dublin, and thrown into prison. The 
 lord deputy would have discharged him, 
 after exposing him on the pillory with a short 
 imprisonment; but when the circumstance 
 was announced to the English government, 
 he was ordered to send him to London to 
 be more closely examined. No sooner, 
 however, was the prisoner informed of this 
 intention, than, perhaps afraid that he might 
 under the severity of torture be forced to 
 declare the secrets of his employers, he put 
 an end to his own life. Among his papers 
 was found a letter addressed to O'Neill, 
 professing to be written by the bishop of 
 Metz in the name of the council of cardinals, 
 but which has been supposed, apparently 
 not without reason, to be an imposture. In 
 this letter O'Neill was exhorted to combat 
 staunchly and manfully the designs of the 
 enemies of the church, because, it said, an 
 old prophecy had been found, which fore- 
 told that the church of Rome would not 
 fall till the catholic church was overthrown 
 in Ireland, which island was therefore looked 
 upon by the whole church with anxiety as 
 the last bulwark of the faith.* 
 
 It is clear, however, from the events which 
 followed, that at this time the cause of the 
 Romish church had no great hold on the 
 symj^athies of the Irish cliiefs, when it was 
 
 that when the Roman faith perisheth in Ireland, the 
 see of Rome is fated to utter destruction. The council 
 of cardinals have therefore thought it necessary to 
 animate the people of the holy island in this pious 
 cause; being assured that while the mother churcli 
 hath sons of such worth as you, and those who shall 
 unite with you, she shall not fall, but prevail for ever, 
 in some degree at least, in Britain. Having thus 
 obeyed the order of the sacred council, we recom- 
 mend your princely person to the protection of the 
 Holy Trinity, of the blessed Virgin, of St. Peter, St. 
 Paul, and all the host of heaven. Amen." 
 
y-D. 
 
 1540.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [lord gray recalled. 
 
 inconsistent with their own private interests ; 
 and whenever they found it necessary or 
 advantageous to make tlieir submission to 
 the English government, they were easily 
 induced to acknowledge the king's supre- 
 macy, and disclaim the "usurped power of 
 the bishop of Rome." 
 
 In spite of the passing of the act for that 
 purpose, and several intimations of royal 
 dissatisfaction, no progress had been made 
 in dissolving the Irish monasteries, when, 
 early in 15t}9, the king sent to his deputy 
 strict orders on that subject, which were 
 immediately carried into effect. The disso- 
 lutions were effected with less personal vio- 
 lence than in England,* but they led to the 
 same scenes of spoliation. The abbey lands 
 and possessions seem in general not to have 
 been immediately regranted from the crown; 
 and singularly enough, few of those who had 
 
 • The " Annals of the Four Masters " inform us, 
 that in 1540, " The English, throughout every part of 
 Ireland where they extended their power, were i)er- 
 secuting and banishing the religious orders, and 
 
 been most active in promoting the work of 
 dissolution obtained any share in the spoils. 
 The applications of archbishop Browne and 
 chancellor Allen, though neither extrava- 
 gant nor without plausible motives, were 
 not listened to. The popish "idols," which 
 had hitherto been sj)ared, were now hauled 
 out and destroyed; and among those which 
 perished were two objects held in peculiar 
 reverence by the Irish, the celebrated image 
 of the Virgin at Trim, and the still more 
 celebrated "staff of Jesus," which was pre- 
 tended to have been given by the Saviour 
 to St. Patrick, and had been preserved in 
 the church of Armagh with the greatest 
 solicitude. Even these strong measures met 
 with less opposition than might have been 
 expected, and the mass of the Irish clergy 
 bore the change without any extraordinary 
 demonstration of discontent. 
 
 particularly they destroyed the monastery of Mona- 
 ghan, and beheaded the guardian and some of the 
 friars.'' 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EECALL OF LORD LEONARD GRAY; SUBMISSIONS OF THE IRISH CHIEFS; THE IRISH 
 P.4ilLIAMENT BESTOWS ON HENRY VIII. THE TITLE OF KING OF IRELAND. 
 
 UTUAL ill-feeling had 
 long existed between the 
 lord deputy and the 
 council, and as he 
 seemed to become re- 
 conciled with one enemy, 
 the earl of Ormond, the animosity between 
 lord Leonard Gray and the rest of the 
 council appeared to increase in intensity. 
 Their frequent complaints certainly pro- 
 duced an effect in the English court to his 
 disfavour. He had been for some time 
 petitioning for a temporary leave of absence, 
 for the purpose of communicating to the king 
 and his ministers, more in detail, his own 
 opinions on the affairs of Ireland (that is, of 
 making his complaints against his colleagues), 
 and of providing himself with a wife, or, to 
 use the term then in fashion, a "bed-fellow;" 
 and immediately aftei the intelligence of the 
 flight of the young heir of Kildare was re- 
 ceived, he was summoned to appear before 
 
 the king, and at the same time his bitterest 
 opponents, the lord chancellor Allen, and 
 the vice-treasurer Brabazon, together with 
 the earl of Ormond, were sent for to con- 
 front him. He seems at this time to have 
 quarrelled again with this nobleman, and 
 he carried with him the goodwill of none 
 of his colleagues. Whatever may have 
 been the motives of Gray's conduct in 
 Ireland, or the services he may have 
 rendered, he appears to have shown a 
 hasty and unconciliating temper and an 
 overbearing pride which peculiarly unfitted 
 him for this difficult office. According to 
 archbishop Browne, there were "hardly 
 English or Irish " who were not glad of his 
 departure, and we cannot be surprised at 
 the feeling against him, if (which there 
 seems no reason to doubt) this prelate's 
 assertion be true, that the lord deputy " in 
 a great fume," called liim a "poll-shorn 
 knave friar," merely because in his pre- 
 
 351 
 
COMPLAINTS AGAINST GRAY.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1540. 
 
 sence he spoke of cardinal Pole, who had 
 been declared a traitor, as a "popish car- 
 dinal." Archbishop Allen was a declared 
 enemy of Gray; but the testimony of sir 
 William Brereton, whom the king had ap- 
 pointed to occupy the temporary place of 
 lord justice, was equally disfavourable to 
 him. This official, in a letter to the king's 
 prime minister, Cromwell, now created earl 
 of Essex, informed him that "my late lord 
 deputy declared to me his pleasure in divers 
 things for my direction ; and amongst other 
 things he willed me, that I in no wise 
 should trust any one of the council here, 
 saying that, if I should trust any of them, 
 I should be utterly undone. What he 
 meant thereby, I cannot perfectly judge, 
 unless it were that I should distrust all the 
 whole council, and to be as a post, alone 
 without any counsellor, directing my pro- 
 ceedings hke a blind man lacking expe- 
 rience, which, as I tliink, was his device, 
 as a mean to cast me away. And, to be 
 plain to your lordship, he hath left this land 
 in a marvellous evil sort and great danger." 
 About the same time the council itself, 
 under the signatures of Brereton, the earl 
 of Ormond, the archbishop of Dublin, and 
 the bishop of Meath, the lords Gorman- 
 ston and Trimlestown, the chief justices 
 Aylmer and Luttrell, and others, in a letter 
 to the king, make the statement, — "We 
 perceive, by your highness's letters, how 
 the same hath been informed, that there 
 hath been division and contention amongst 
 us of your grace's council, to the detri- 
 ment and hindrance of your majesty's 
 affairs here ; we do protest and ascertain 
 your highness, upon our fidelities, that we 
 never had any such contentions or divisions 
 amongst us, but at all times we have been 
 unifomi and concurring, in word and deed, 
 earnestly to further all your grace's affairs 
 to the uttermost of our powers. The 
 truth is that, in tymes, part of us have been 
 plain with my lord deputy, to show him our 
 minds, for his direction in a right course 
 in things wherein we noted deformity, and 
 for refraining him from his own appetite 
 (wilfulness). Peradventure he hath con- 
 ceived some grudge and displeasure to them 
 that have been so plain with him, which is 
 the ground of the report of the said divi- 
 sion." That there was some truth in these 
 representations would seem evident from 
 the fact that we hear no more of divisions 
 in the council, or between the council and 
 the deputy, after the recall of lord Leonard 
 
 ;j52 
 
 Gray. This ill-fated nobleman must have 
 experienced misgivings when he learnt that 
 his greatest enemies were recalled at the 
 same time to appear against him before the 
 English council. Ormond was retarded by 
 the active service he was engaged in against 
 the turbulent Irish; and Allen and Bra- 
 bazon were only able to follow the lord 
 deputy after a lapse of some days. But 
 'hey had not been long at court, before the 
 intelligence reached Ireland that the lord 
 Leonard Gray was committed a close pri- 
 soner to the Tower. 
 
 The enemies of the late deputy had con- 
 stantly represented that he had involved 
 himself in the same treasonable famili- 
 arities with the Irish chiefs which had 
 been objected against the earl of Kildare; 
 and some coloui'ing appeared to be given 
 to this charge by the sudden rising of some 
 of the Irish septs on the intelligence of his 
 recall. The first of these was lord Gray's 
 particular friend, O'Connor Faly, who in- 
 vaded the county of Kildare, and com- 
 mitted great devastation in burning and 
 plundering. At the same moment the 
 O'Tooles and the Cavenaghs returned to 
 their old practices, and carried their ravages 
 almost to the neighbourhood of Dublin. 
 The sons of O'Moore, whom the late lord 
 deputy had established in the chieftainship 
 of Leix, followed the example of O'Connor, 
 and invaded Kildare from another side. 
 They all retired with their plunder when 
 they learnt that an enemy was jDreparing to 
 face them in the field, and escaped to their 
 homes with little loss; and the attention 
 of the new lord justice and council was 
 called off by the threatening attitude which 
 O'Neill continued to hold in the n rth. 
 
 The latter chieftain had again appointed a 
 meeting with the new lord justice and tlie 
 council at Carrick Bradagh, which was to take 
 place on the 10th of May; but when he 
 arrived at Dundalk, according to appoint- 
 ment, a messenger from O'Neill informed 
 them that, remembering the treacherous 
 devices of the late lord deputy, he was afraid 
 to trust himself too far into the power of 
 " any Englishman," and proposed that the 
 parley should be held at the Narrow Water, 
 near Magennis's castle. To this the lord 
 justice consented, for he received intelli- 
 gence that the pale was threatened with 
 invasion during his absence, and a peace was 
 concluded with O'Neill on the same terms as 
 that which he had made with Skeffington in 
 15o5. That O'Neill was not sincere, we 
 
A.D, 
 
 1540.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [activity of brereton. 
 
 know from a letter he received at the hegin- 
 niiig of June from James V. of Scotland, 
 which shows that he was engaged at this 
 time in negotiations with him for a hostile 
 alliance.* 
 
 Brereton returned to find the borders of 
 the pale in the utmost disorder. While he 
 was engaged with O'Neill, rumours having 
 reached the lord chancellor Allen and Bra- 
 bazon, who were left at Dublin preparing 
 for their departure to England, that the 
 O'Tooles, the Cavenaghs, and O'Connor, 
 were meditating new inroads, those two offi- 
 cials hastened into Kildare to raise the 
 country against them. O'Connor chose this 
 moment to invade the country of the Ber- 
 minghams with a large body of horsemen, 
 galloglasses, and kernes, but in the midst of 
 the ravages he was perpetrating there, intel- 
 ligence that Allan and Brabazon, with the 
 forces they had raised in Kildare, were com- 
 mitting similar havoc in Offaly, compelled 
 him to make a hasty retreat. Brereton had 
 just reached Trim on his return from the 
 parley with O'Neill, when he learnt that 
 O'Connor had retaliated for the invasion 
 of Offaly by a fierce inroad into the English 
 pale, in the course of which he burnt Kil- 
 dare and obtained possession of the castle. 
 It was too late to seek the invaders in Kil- 
 dare as they had already carried off their 
 plunder and returned home; and the lord 
 justice, alarmed at the general restlessness 
 of the Irish septs, determined to place him- 
 self on the defensive rather than provoke a 
 general attack by a fruitless inroad on the 
 territories of any one of his enemies. 
 
 The earl of Ormond was in the meanwhile 
 actively employed in the south, where he 
 was indefatigable in the king's service. He 
 appears to have laid aside much of his per- 
 sonal animosity against the earl of Desmond, 
 and, in his anxiety to bring him to friendly 
 communication, he ventured, as he says, 
 " even to jeopard himself into his hands, in 
 trust for to win him with familiarity and 
 persuasion," by lodging two nights in his 
 dominion, escorted only by his usual attend- 
 ants, on his way to a parley with O'Brien. 
 " Yet," says the ear] of Ormond in his re- 
 port of this progress, " he is in such despair 
 of himself, being an offender hitherto having 
 not his pardon, as he will not all relinquish 
 his amity with O'Brien and others of the 
 Irishry, nor yet be an open partaker with 
 
 * See the " EpistoliB Jac. IV., Jac. V., et Maria; 
 regum Scottorum," published at Edinburgh in 1722. 
 VOL. I. 2 Y 
 
 them in their attemptates, in hope to have 
 grace at the king's majesty's' hands; and 
 saith, to excuse himself, that the Irishry 
 make so strong confederacies, as he is not 
 able to resist them, if he would do his best, 
 but then should be in jeopardy himself also. 
 So, as to determine what he will do, I cannot 
 plainly judge." " O'Brien," adds Ormond, 
 " is haughty and proud, and nameth O'Neill, 
 O'Connor, and the O'Tooles, his Irishmen, 
 whom he intendeth to defend; and I can 
 think none other but he will do his uttermost, 
 if time and power can serve him." The 
 earl concludes with an urgent request that 
 Brereton, to whom the report is addressed, 
 would send for the protection of Munster a 
 few of the English troops which he was at 
 this moment collecting for the defence of the 
 pale. 
 
 The necessity of Brereton's precautions 
 was soon made evident. In the month of 
 June it was publicly announced that O'Neill 
 and O'Donnell, with all the power of the 
 north, the Irish septs of Connaught, the 
 O'Kellys, O'Brien, O'Connor, O'Mulmoy, 
 and Mac Geoghegan, had appointed to meet 
 on the 6th of July at Fenaa near Foure, in 
 Meath. Their ostensible object was to hold 
 there a parley with the lord justice, with a 
 view to the establishment of a general and 
 lasting peace. The inhabitants of the pale 
 were tlu'own into the utmost alarm, for they 
 knew that a multitudinous army like that, 
 with the jjresence of which they were now 
 threatened, was seldom assembled with a 
 pacific object. It was currently reported 
 that they intended to entrap the lord justice 
 and his council into a conference, where his 
 small army would be overwhelmed by num- 
 bers, and that then they would overrun tlie 
 pale; and tlie alarm was increased by the 
 i'urther announcement that each chief was to 
 bring his army victualled for five weeks. 
 The council met in anxious consultation, 
 and it was determined to raise the English 
 of the pale, and occupy the spot fixed 
 for the meeting before the appointed day, 
 and to resist them to the uttermost. At 
 Brereton's call, the army was joined by the 
 lords spiritual and temporal, "judges, learned 
 men, and priests," the commons of Dublin 
 and Drogheda, even the husbandmen of the 
 pale cheerfully left their ploughs to march 
 to this great hosting, and lent their carriages 
 for the use of the army. The whole number 
 assembled in arms at Foure were estimated 
 at not less than eight thousand men, and yet 
 they were spoken of as a small force in coni- 
 
 353 
 
NEW INVASION OF OFFALY.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1540 
 
 parison with that which the Irish chiefs had 
 calculated on bringing there. 
 
 But the enthusiasm shown hy the inhabi- 
 tants of the pale, and the active proceedings 
 of the lord justice, had already struck the 
 Irish confederates with dread, and, when 
 the 6th of July arrived, none of them made 
 their appearance. The only chief who com- 
 mitted serious hostilities was O'Connor Faly, 
 who had invaded the "Englishry," and taken 
 by surprise Castle Jordan. The English had 
 brought with them provisions for three weeks, 
 and, when it was ascertained that the Irisli 
 bad relinquished their meeting, Brereton 
 consulted with the council, and it was "con- 
 cluded to do some exploit." This army of 
 "lords spiritual and temporal, judges, offi- 
 cers, priests, commons, and ploughmen," 
 marched into OfTaly against O'Connor, their 
 nearest enemy, and there "camped in sundry 
 places, destroying his habitations, corn, and 
 fortalaces, so long as their victuals endured." 
 The English army then dispersed, and the 
 lord justice returned to Dublin, but it was 
 resolved to make a new invasion of O'Con- 
 nor's country on the 9th of August, with an 
 army victualled for fourteen days. 
 
 This chieftain, who had retired to the 
 natural fastnesses of his country during this 
 invasiou, reconuuenced hostilities before the 
 time appointed for this new inroad. O'Con- 
 nor Faly had given new provocations, and 
 had received a severe chastisement. He 
 seemed now to be effectually humbled, and 
 showed his anxiety to obtain peace upon 
 favourable terms. 
 
 Diu-ing the interval between the recall of 
 lord Leonard Gray and the appointment of 
 a new deputy, the king began again to be 
 uneasy on account of the great expenditure 
 of the Irish government, and the small sums 
 which his subjects there contributed towards 
 it ; and he was evidentl}' suspicious that his 
 money was wasted or turned from the uses 
 for which it was destined. The late deputy 
 remained a prisoner in the Tower, and a 
 letter from the king to some of his officers 
 in Ireland requiring them to make an inquiry 
 into his property there, led to a search into 
 the state of the revenue, the result of which 
 was communicated by Robert Cowley, the 
 Irish master of the rolls, in a letter to the 
 duke of Norfolk. This letter, from the 
 singular light it throws on the state of Ire- 
 land at this period, is deserving of a detailed 
 notice.* 
 
 * It was printed in full by sir Henry Ellis, in the 
 second series of his " Letters illustrative of English 
 ■']o4 
 
 Cowley begins by stating that "seeing the 
 king's great treasure sundry times sent out 
 of his grace's coffers from England hither, 
 the great revenues of the land, the infinite 
 goods and chattels of them which had been 
 put to execution (i. e. the Geraldine rebels), 
 and of all the religious houses suppressed 
 and dissolved, fines, forfeitures, amercements, 
 casualties, kine given by Irishmen as amends 
 for their offences in taking part with ene- 
 mies, incomes for leases of farms, customs, 
 and many other profits due to the king's 
 highness consumed ; hearing on the other 
 part the exclamation of the soldiers that 
 their wages was but very little, and that 
 they might have no payment," in considera- 
 tion of these things he had made search in 
 the exchequer toassurehimself of the amount 
 of the king's revenues, and he expresses his 
 surprise that " there could be found no 
 manner roll, book, or scroll of the king's 
 revenues, with the barons, with the remem- 
 brancers, with the chamberlains, or with the 
 engrossers," so that the king had no memo- 
 rial of his revenues, or of the manner in 
 which they were emjjloyed. He proceeds 
 to state that Brabazon, who held the office 
 of treasurer of the wars, and Thomas Agard 
 "had received all the king's revenues and 
 duties, and distributed the same at their 
 pleasures without making any of the council 
 privy thereto ; whereby men think they 
 betwixt them have gained twenty thousand 
 marks at the leiist, and I believe the same. 
 They have had all the doing of receipts, 
 surveyors, comptrollers, auditors, paymas- 
 ters, letting out of farms, allowances of all 
 accounts, all they two, so as they have done 
 what they would. They have the substance 
 of all the king's farms, and make the price 
 themselves, and appoint the days of payment 
 at their own pleasure, whereto none is privy." 
 "There was never seen," he adds, "so sharp 
 receivers and so slow payers; they gain 
 yearly two thousand marks by their farms 
 and fees, besides their snap shares, which is 
 a nemo scit infinite." 
 
 He recommends as a remedy that commis- 
 sioners should be sent to Ireland, "substan- 
 cial men, that be not needy or greedy, to 
 repeal all leases, which must be by act of 
 jjarliament, and to take deliberately a new 
 survey for the king's advantage." It appears 
 indeed that the persons employed in Ireland 
 went thither too often as to a field where 
 they could make their own harvest without 
 
 History," vol. ii, p. 93, who erroneously ascribes it to 
 the year 1538. 
 
A.D. 1540.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [state of IRELAND. 
 
 being interfered with. " And where now," 
 Cowley proceeds to say, "every soldier 
 coveitetli to have three or fonr great farms, 
 only to enrich themselves and to make their 
 hands, passing not upon any service, pains, 
 or feats of war, but lying in the heart of the 
 country with his horse, horse-keeper, some 
 two horses, and his wench, for ten-pence 
 Irish a week; they can find money to go 
 gorgeously apparelled, and their wenches, 
 and to riot in playing at the dice money 
 enough; their purses full; hut to pay the 
 little tenpence a week, they have no money." 
 " Thus," he says, " the king's treasure sent 
 hither is consumed; his grace's revenues and 
 profits; likewise the country oppressed never 
 the tenth part so sore, utterly beggared ; 
 the men-of-war subdued that should serve 
 the king's highness of the country birth, 
 which bear all the burthen of the charges of 
 holding horsemen, galloglasses, and kerns, 
 carriage of the army's victuals, drawing the 
 ordnance and artillery, without wages, and 
 yet the poor men themselves going to the 
 hosting bearing their wallets on their necks, 
 utterly undone. And yet divers of the 
 army, not contented to have their victuals 
 conveyed at the charge of the poor husband- 
 men, desire to have more carts to their 
 private advantage, to take a fine of money 
 to their purses, others to have them as slaves 
 to carry wine, to be sold to their profit upon 
 the free carriage of the poor people." 
 
 Cowley goes on to point out other dis- 
 orders in the military establishment of Ire- 
 land : he complains that a large portion of the 
 king's Irish revenues was expended in the 
 wages of small garrisons, of castles and forts, 
 who did little else but live riotously and pil- 
 lage the king's tenants : being far distant from 
 one another they were incapable of doing 
 any effective service, even if they were 
 willing. When summoned to attend the 
 deputy, they refused to go, alleging that 
 their charge was only to keep their gar- 
 rison; and when the enemies invaded their 
 neighbourhood, they lay quiet within their 
 walls, not venturing to fire a gun or make 
 any resistance. Such had been recently 
 the case with the castle of Kildare; and 
 with Castle Jordan on the borders of Offlily : 
 the constable of the latter, we are informed, 
 was absent, taking his "pastime," while the 
 castle was "taken, broken, and rifled, and 
 the ward like faint cowards gave over the 
 castle and rendered themselves prisoners to 
 O'Connor." This chieftain thus obtained 
 possession of some guns and ammunition. 
 
 which he kept " to the great danger of the 
 king's subjects." 
 
 As a remedy for these and other evils, 
 Cowley recommends that, on the appoint- 
 ment of a new dejsuty, he should be author- 
 ized to call immediately a parliament and 
 pass an act to repeal all leases of the king's 
 manors, lands, and possessions in Ireland, 
 which had been made during the last seven 
 years; and that those farms should be dis- 
 tributed among "gentlemen of the country 
 to enable and encourage them to do service 
 to the king's highness, and to entertain and 
 keep men of war." He recommends next, 
 that instead of expending the king's re- 
 venue in supporting his soldiers in gar- 
 risons, the castles should be committed to 
 "gentlemen of the country" who had lands 
 in the neighbourhood, and whose own in- 
 terests would lead them to keep them faith- 
 fully and without charge to the crown. The 
 king's army could thus be made available 
 in its whole force, and at any place, where 
 the needs of the government might require 
 it : this army, he says, ought to consist of 
 "picked, clean, honest men, hardy, well 
 horsed and harnessed, and diligent," and 
 they should "have suflicient wages to live 
 upon honestly, and no need to comj^lain or 
 oppress the country." Next, it was pro- 
 per that the olficers who were appointed to 
 receive and administer the king's revenue 
 should be called upon to give an exact 
 account, and that those accounts should be 
 put upon record, "so that no such playing 
 of coll-under- the-candlestick, or jugglings 
 of the king's revenues, be no more used as 
 it hath been." Finally, it is suggested, 
 "that certain commissioners may be ap- 
 pointed, such as be close-handed and not 
 needy or greedy, to make inquisicions in 
 all places of all men's demeanors, of all ex- 
 torsions, briberies, concealments, collusions, 
 and other abuses, whereby I trust every 
 man shall be known in his kind, and the 
 king to have part of his right, being em- 
 bezzled, and the poor people some recom- 
 pence." 
 
 The letter we are quoting concludes with 
 stating that the deputy and his army were 
 at that moment occupied in the invasion of 
 Offiily, "and," says the writer, "when that 
 is done, I cannot see how any more general 
 hosting can be made this year; the coun- 
 try be so poor with holding horsemen, 
 galloglasses, and kern, carting and carriage, 
 finding the army meat and drink for little 
 or nothing, that they be beggared and not 
 
 355 
 
SUBMISSION OF o'donnell.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1540. 
 
 able to find or continue this excessive 
 charge; and if we shoukl suffer our hold- 
 ings to go from us, we should be weak and 
 in great peril, if the confederacy of these 
 Irishmen should continue." 
 
 As we have just remarked, this letter of 
 a high official in the Irish government, 
 gives us a picture of the condition of Eng- 
 lish Ireland at that time which cannot be 
 mistaken. The cause of all its evils were 
 then, as it had long been, the neglect which 
 the English ministry showed towards the 
 details of the administration of Ireland. 
 Left for several ages to the rule of the 
 English settlers, the government had de- 
 generated into a feudal aristocracy which, 
 after a long period of oppression and 
 tyranny, ended in open rebelHon against 
 the English crown, of the small portion 
 wiiich still remained nominally English of 
 all which had once been reduced under 
 English domination. Then suddenly taking 
 its confidence from the aristocracy it had 
 itself created, the English government, 
 without any other investigation than vague 
 reports, went into the opposite extreme 
 of trusting only in officials sent over with- 
 out sympathy for the people they had 
 to govern or interest in their prosperit}^ 
 We see above the disorders which arose 
 from this policy; and it was followed to 
 such an extent, that even the faithful and 
 ever active earl of Ormond became to some 
 extent an object of suspicion for laying 
 aside his personal hostility towards James 
 of Desmond. The old policy and the new 
 policy, thus carried out, were equally fatal 
 to the interests of the English pale, and 
 we here find the Irish master of the rolls, 
 Cowley, expressing the opinion that its 
 inhabitants were so weakened and im- 
 poverished that they were incapable even 
 
 * O'Donnell's letter was written in English, and 
 expressed as follows: — 
 
 " Be it knowcne to all men, that I, Manns O'Donel, 
 do confesse and knowleage that I have moste hay- 
 nouslye and unkyndlye (i.e. unnaturally) oifendyde 
 God AUmyghttye, and my moste drade and benynge 
 soverayne lord kynge Henry the Eighte, by the grace 
 of God, kjTige of Englonde and of France, defencere 
 of the fajihe, lorde of Irlonde, and in erthe immedyat 
 undere Cryste supreme hede of the churche of Eng- 
 londe; and hawe commyttyde and bene privey to 
 sondi-y gret offences agenste his soverayne magestye, 
 wherof I ame repentante, and moste humblye submjie 
 my self mito his gracious mercy, besechynge his 
 heghnise, of his clemence, of his mercyfull pardone; 
 bendinge my self, by this presentes, that frome hens- 
 forthe I shall not onlye lyve in due and faythfull 
 
 356 
 
 of carrying on war in their own defence 
 without a temporary pause. 
 
 It happened fortunately that at this critical 
 moment the vigour lately shown by the Eng- 
 lish governors had so far broken the spirit 
 of the Irish chieftains that tlicy were desi- 
 rous of laying aside their hostilities, and that 
 at the same time there was a strong feeling 
 on the part of the English monarch to adopt 
 a pacific and conciliatory policy. The Irish 
 themselves appear at last to have become 
 convinced of the advantages of living under 
 a regular government. The first of the great 
 Irish chieftains who made advances was the 
 ruler of Tirconnell. On the 20th of June, 
 Manus O'Dounell wrote a letter to king 
 Henry, couched in the humblest terms of 
 repentance for his "sundry great offences," 
 for which he solicited the royal pardon, 
 while he acknowledged in its fullest sense 
 the king's sjjiritual supremacy.* On the 
 same day of the following month, the other 
 great northern chieftain, O'Neill, also wrote 
 a respectful letter to the king, in Latin, and 
 in a much more independent style than that 
 of O'Donnell. The language and style of 
 the latter, and the names of the witnesses, 
 prove that his scribes were English mer- 
 chants ; those of O'Neill were evidently 
 Irish monks. He proffers his duty to the 
 king as his liege lord, without making any 
 allusion to his spiritual supremacy ; he throws 
 the blame of his disobedience and turbulence 
 on the late deputy, lord Leonard Gray, 
 whose tyranny and treachery he intimates 
 left nobody at peace; and he asks for a 
 grant of some lands and ruined castles on 
 the northern coast. The king returned gra- 
 cious answers to both; to O'Donnell he gave 
 a free pardon for all past offences; while, in 
 reply to O'Neill, he encouraged him to merit 
 by his subsequent behaviour the future 
 
 obedyens as his trwe and moste humblye subgate, 
 but alo shall resorte, assoone as I commytly may, to 
 his magesty, and playnlye and apertlye confese and 
 declare my submyssione acordinglye; and, in lyke 
 mannere, showe the verye truthe off all suche thynges 
 as shalbe inquerythe of me, as myche and as fare of 
 my knowlege shall cxiende, wilhouthe concylinly 
 advysydlye anny partte therof, bona fede, as God 
 shall hclpe me. And in wytncs wherof, that I wyU 
 performe aU thyng afore wryttenne, I have fyi-mythe 
 this byll with my o'mi proper hande, with the recordis 
 that hav ferme to the same (i.e. the witnesses, of 
 which there are two), the 20 day of June, the yere of 
 oure Lorde God, 1540. 
 
 " Ego O'Donel." 
 
 This decument is scaled with the known seal of the 
 O'Dounells of Tii-connel. 
 
A.D. 
 
 1540.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [sir antony sentleger. 
 
 favours of the crown, and, referring to his 
 request for a grant of lands and castles, tells 
 him that it is rather postponed than refused. 
 
 Other Irish chiefs followed the example 
 of O'Neill in excusing their rebellion, by 
 the provocation given to them by the late 
 deputy. They were encouraged to make 
 this plea probably by the knowledge that 
 lord Leonard Gray was in disgrace, and the 
 belief that any accusations against him would 
 be listened too with ready ears. At the 
 same time, the universal feeling against him 
 in Ireland shows that his conduct must have 
 been blameable. 
 
 At length the king selected to fill the 
 office of lord deputy of Ireland sir Antony 
 Sentleger, who, as chief of the commission 
 of inquiry sent over in 1537, had already 
 made himself well acquainted with the aflTairs 
 of that island. He reached Dublin in the 
 month of August, and, according to his ovm 
 dispatch sent to the king early in September, 
 he found the country committed to his charge 
 in a state of tranquillity which it had not 
 witnessed for many years. The earl of 
 Desmond and his ally, O'Brien, were show- 
 ing the same peaceful dispositions as the 
 chieftains of the north, and even the turbu- 
 lent O'Connor now spoke submissive lan- 
 guage. The only people of the Irish who 
 gave any trouble were those old thorns in 
 the back of the English pale, the Cavenaghs, 
 and the lord deputy had no sooner taken 
 possession of his government, than he col- 
 lected the forces at hand and marched into 
 the territory occupied by that restless sept, 
 forming the western part of the county of 
 Carlow. After continuing ten days in this 
 country, "burning and destroying the same," 
 to use the deputy's own words, their chief, the 
 Mac Morough, as he was entitled, came "with 
 the most part of his nation and sect," and 
 not only made his humble submission, but 
 agreed to renounce in future the name of 
 Mac Morough (which was virtually resigning 
 their independence), and promised never 
 more, under any circumstances, to elect any 
 one among them to be their governor, but 
 to obey the king of England alone. They 
 further agreed to surrender tlieir lands to 
 the king, and receive them back to hold 
 of the crown by knight's service. " And 
 although," says sir Antony Sentleger, " the 
 nature of the Irishmen be very fickle and 
 inconstant, yet it is thought here by your 
 majesty's council, that these men which thus 
 liberally have submitted, renouncing tlie 
 same name, which they would never do 
 
 before this time, will continue in their said 
 good purpose, seeing we handled them after 
 their said submission very gently, not taking 
 from them any part of their lands or goods, 
 but only of such as would not condescend to 
 the same reasonable submission." From this 
 district the lord deputy marched into Leix, 
 wliere he compelled the sons of O'Moore, 
 who had been established in the chieftain- 
 ship by lord Leonard Gray, to give pledges 
 for their submission ; and their example was 
 followed by other small septs in the neigh- 
 bourhood, who had only been maintained 
 in independence by their support. 
 
 Most of tliese had been the allies of 
 O'Connor Faly, who now remained almost 
 alone in his hostile attitude towards the 
 English. He had suffered much in the 
 "general hosting" which followed the assem- 
 bling of the English forces at Foure; but 
 he showed no inclination to bow to circum- 
 stances, until the council just before the 
 arrival of the new lord deputy proclaimed 
 another general hosting against him, with a 
 fortnight's provisions, in September, and 
 then he thought it safest to make his peace. 
 The council, who were somewhat embar- 
 rassed by the impoverished condition of their 
 exchequer, listened wllingly to his advances, 
 and not only he, but his other allies, O'Mul- 
 moy, Mac Geoghegan, and O'Melaghlin, were 
 admitted to make their submission, and two 
 castles were raised on their border to keep 
 them in awe. 
 
 The last Irish sept against whom it was 
 at this moment found necessary to make a 
 demonstration of force, was that of the 
 O'Tooles, who, occupying the mountainous 
 parts of the county of Wicklow, bordering 
 on the marches of Dublin, having the wood 
 and morass for their only habitation, and 
 the deep glens and mountain passes for their 
 fortresses, had long been a source of annoy- 
 ance and terror to the English pale, in spite 
 of their small numbers. When the govern- 
 ment was least prepared for an attack, they 
 were accustomed to issue suddenly from their 
 wilds, burn and plunder sometimes up to 
 the very gates of Dublin, and escape with 
 their plunder before any adequate force 
 could be collected to arrest the invaders. 
 The chieftain of the sept at this time was 
 Turlough O'Toole, a man who combined in 
 a remarkable degree the reckless and fero- 
 cious bravery and the wild notions of gene- 
 rosity and honour which were often found 
 in the ruder ages of society. On a recent 
 occasion, when the great Irish chieftains, 
 
 357 
 
SUBMISSION OF DESMOND.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1541. 
 
 O'Donnell, O'Neill, O'Connor, and otliers, 
 had combined to invade the English pale 
 simultaneously, Turlough, who was well 
 acquainted with their movements, sent a 
 messenger to tlie lord deputy to inform him 
 that, seeing liim thus assailed by unequal 
 numbers, he felt it is duty to take part with 
 the weak against the strong ; but, if the 
 English overcame the danger with which they 
 were menaced, as soon as the others had 
 made peace, he then would singly make war. 
 Turlough O'Toole kept his promise ; no 
 sooner was the pale relieved from the fear 
 of its more powerful invaders, than this chief 
 called forth his w ild warriors from tiie moun- 
 tains and glens, and commenced furious hos- 
 tilities on the English territory. After 
 having reduced the Cavenaghs and the 
 O'Moores, Sentleger prepared an expedition 
 against these troublesome neighbours. The 
 deputy marched into their territory early in 
 October, and, after re-edifying and strength- 
 ening some of the fortresses on the borders, 
 he continued ravaging their country inces- 
 santly during four weeks, without bringing 
 them to submission. At the end of that 
 period, the earl of Ormond joined the deputy 
 in O'Toole's country, with "a goodly com- 
 pany" of six hundred horse and foot; and 
 then, seeing the hojielessness of a further 
 struggle, Turlough O'Toole came to the 
 deputy on a safe conduct, and, finding Sent- 
 leger unwilling to listen to all his demands, 
 asked for permission to repair to England to 
 lay his petition in person before the king, 
 "of whom he had heard so much honour." 
 The lord deputy not only acceded to this 
 I request, but supplied him with twenty pounds 
 I from his own purse to defray his expenses, 
 and gave him a letter of recommendation to 
 the duke of Norfolk. As was constantly 
 the case among these rude chieftains, the 
 power of the head of the clan consisted 
 entirely in the devoted attachment of his 
 dependents. "Although," says the deputy 
 Sentleger, in writing to the king, "it shall 
 appear to your majesty that this Turlough 
 is but a wretched person, and a man of no 
 great power, neither having house to put 
 his head in, nor yet money in his purse to 
 buy him a garment, yet may he well make 
 two or three huncked men." And he goes 
 I on to assure the king, that Turlough "had 
 done more hurt to the English pale than any 
 [ man in Ireland, and will do, whenever he 
 J shall not either be clearly banished or re- 
 : stored to your highness's favours, whereby 
 . he may be bound to serve your majesty, as 
 
 we (the council) think verily he wall do." 
 Turlough O'Toole repaired to the English 
 court, and the wise condescension shown to 
 him by Henry VIII. confirmed him in his 
 attachment to the government. 
 
 Munster was now the only province which 
 gave any cause of uneasiness, but here also 
 the example given by the chiefs of Ulster 
 had produced its effect. Towards the end 
 of the year 1540, James of Desmond showed 
 an inclination to make his peace with the 
 government, and early in the January of 
 1541, the lord deputy, accompanied with 
 the lord chancellor and others of the council, 
 and with the earl of Ormond, took their 
 way toward the south. In their progress, 
 the earl of Ormond showed his loyalty by 
 making them "great cheer." They were 
 met on the way by a messenger from the 
 earl of Desmond, who announced his will- 
 ingness to hold a parley with them at the 
 city of Cashel, if sufficient pledges were 
 given for his safety. When the deputy 
 reached Cashel, the earl, who was then 
 within ten miles of the city, sent another 
 message, requiring that the earl of Ormond 
 should be given as his hostage. This Sent- 
 leger refused, but he sent instead the arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, the master of the ordnance, 
 and his own brother. James of Desmond 
 then came, and he made his submission to 
 the king on terms which a few months before 
 he would have rejected with scorn. The 
 articles were signed and sealed at the house 
 of Desmond's staunch friend, sir Thomas 
 Butler of Cahir. He agreed among other 
 things to renounce for himself and his heirs 
 for ever the privilege claimed by his ances- 
 tors of never appearing at any parliament or 
 entering into any walled town, unless at his 
 own pleasure. A great source of ill-feeling 
 between the houses of Desmond and Ormond 
 had been an indirect claim to the earldom of 
 Desmond, which the Butlers made through 
 a former intermarriage; and it was agreed 
 that they should now be reconciled by a 
 cross marriage between their children, each 
 binding himself to the other in the sum of 
 four thousand pounds to see this engagement 
 duly performed. 
 
 After this important transaction had been 
 completed, the lord deputy and his company 
 proceeded as the earl of Desmond's guests 
 to his town of Kilmallock, "where," says 
 Sentleger to the king, "I think none of 
 your grace's deputies came this hundred 
 years before;" and there, to use again the 
 words of the lord deputy, "he made us very 
 
A.D. 
 
 1541.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [submission of chiefs. 
 
 good cheer, and took ray coming and theirs 
 thither in so kind a part, that he openly 
 declared, that if I would desire him to go to 
 London to your majesty he would gladly do 
 the same." 
 
 After remaining two days at Kilmallock, 
 they all proceeded to the city of Limerick, 
 where they were rejoined by the earl of 
 Ormond, who appears to have been carried 
 off by other business. They remained at 
 Limerick eight da^'s, in the course of which 
 they held a parley with O'Brien, "the 
 greatest Irishman of the west of this land." 
 This chieftain, also, had laid aside much of 
 his wildness, and he made no scruple of 
 presenting himself in person in the city of 
 Limerick, where he remained with the deputy 
 three days. But he went no further in his 
 submission, as he insisted upon the repara- 
 tion of various grievances which he repre- 
 sented himself to have suffered from the 
 English government, complaining more espe- 
 cially that he was not permitted to build his 
 bridge over the Shannon, nor to recover his 
 possessions on this side of the river, which 
 had been taken from him by the late deputy, 
 as usurpations on the rights of the English 
 crown. In answer to these claims, Sentleger 
 declared that he would make war as long as 
 the king would permit him, rather than give 
 up either point ; and they separated for that 
 time without arriving at any satisfactory 
 conclusion. The power of the O'Brien was 
 now, however, much diminished by the sub- 
 mission of Mac William of Connaught, and 
 by the continued faithfulness of Donough 
 O'Brien to the English party. 
 
 The earl of Desmond appears to have been 
 no better furnished with ready money or 
 household goods than the mere Irish chiefs. 
 He proved his sincerity in his present sub- 
 mission, by expressing his determination to 
 attend the parliament about to be held in 
 Dublin, in his rank of earl, which was now 
 formally conceded to him; but he acknow- 
 ledged his defRciency in any other apparel 
 than that usually worn by an Irish chieftain. 
 "Wherefore," says the deputy, "if it may 
 please your majesty to give unto him parlia- 
 ment robes and some apparel, whereof he 
 hath great lack, and not furnished with sub- 
 stance to buy the same, his country as yet 
 being in a manner wasted with the wars, it 
 shall be to him a great comfort. I, as a poor 
 man, gave unto hiin gown, jacket, doublet, 
 hose, shirts, caps, and a riding-coat of 
 velvet, which he took very thankfully, and 
 wore the same in Limerick, and in all places 
 
 where he went with me." Mac Gillapatrick, 
 lord of Upper Ossory, who had also become 
 a faithful subject, accompanied his submis- 
 sion wdth a request to be made a lord of 
 parliament, and an intimation that a gift of 
 parliament robes would be very acceptable. 
 " I verily trust," says Sentleger, "that your 
 highness shall wdn more obedience with these 
 small gifts, than perchance hath been won 
 before this time with ten thousand pounds 
 spent." 
 
 Mac William of Connaught, who assumed 
 among the English the less Irish name 
 of Fitzwilliam, went beyond any of the 
 others in his professions of obedience, and 
 he put forward his petition to be created an 
 earl. 
 
 Mac Gillapatrick, like the Mac Morough 
 and some other Irish chiefs, relinquished the 
 name which had been his distinction as a 
 chieftain, and, in his intercourse with the 
 English took the name of Fitzpatrick, as the 
 Mac WilHam did that of Fitzwilliam. The 
 latter also agreed to hold his lands of the king, 
 and petitioned for the title of earl of Con- 
 naught — he received subsequently that of 
 earl of Clanrickard. " I ensure your majesty," 
 says Sentleger, "he is a goodly man, and a 
 man much desirous to come to civil order, and 
 came out of the farthest part of tliis land to 
 me to Dublin, where, as my small power 
 would serve me, I entertained him, and gave 
 him a cup of silver and gilt, which he accepted 
 very kindly; and now in this journey, hear- 
 ing of my coming to Cashel, came thitlier to 
 me, and left me not till my departure from 
 Limerick. He is a man that may best serve 
 your majesty in the parts where he dwelleth 
 of any other man, and is a man that, if 
 O'Brien would stir, he is always ready to set 
 upon him, and lieth between the same 
 O'Brien and O'Donnell, that without his 
 favour they cannot come together. Thus, I 
 trust God worketh with your majesty, to 
 bring thus your subjects to their due obe- 
 dience. I perceive them to be men of such 
 nature, that they will much sooner be brought 
 to honest conformity by small gifts, honest 
 persuasions, and nothing taking of them, than 
 by great rigour; and, God willing, when 
 your majesty once hath their obedience, 
 profit will soon follow." The effect of this 
 conciliatory policy was shown in a remark- 
 able manner during the remaining years of 
 king Henry's reign. 
 
 A new stroke of policy was now attempted 
 as a further tie upon the affections of the 
 the Irish, who had always, from a feeling of 
 
 359 
 
TITLE OF KING OF IRELAND.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1541. 
 
 national vanity, been tempted to follow any- 
 one of their chiefs who set up a title to be 
 "king of the island." The style hitherto 
 adopted by the English monarclis had been 
 only " lord of Ireland ;" but as early as 15ti7, 
 the lord chancellor Allen had suggested, as a 
 measure that would increase the respect of 
 the Irish for the English crown, the jJassing 
 of an act of parliament to confer upon him 
 the title of "king of Ireland," and inducing 
 the Irish captains to recognise it. This sug- 
 gestion was now at length carried into efi'ect. 
 The parliament met at Dublin in the month 
 of June, 1541, and was rendered remarkable 
 by the presence of a number of noblemen 
 who had not attended a parliament before 
 for many years, such as the earl of Desmond, 
 the lord Barry, the lord Roche, the lord fitz 
 Maurice (who took care to enter on the roll 
 that he was descended from Raymond le 
 Gros), the lord Bermingham, and Mac Gil- 
 lapatrick, wjio came with his new title of 
 bai'on of Upper Ossory. There were also 
 present other Irish chiefs who had not yet 
 been made lords of parliament, Mac William, 
 procurators or deputies from the great 
 O'Brien, Donough O'Brien, and the chiefs of 
 the septs of Cavenagh, O'Reilly, O'Moore.* 
 All these rode in procession in their parlia- 
 ment robes to a solemn service in the cathe- 
 dral, and afterwards they met in the parlia- 
 ment-house. The commons elected sir 
 Thomas Cusack for their speaker, who was 
 presented to the lord deputy in the upper 
 house, and there, as Sentleger %vrote to the 
 king, " made a right solemn preposition, in 
 giving such laud and praise to your majesty, 
 as justly and most worthily your majesty 
 hath merited, as well for the extirpation of 
 the usurped power of the bishop of Rome 
 out of this your realm (who had of many 
 years been a great robber and destroyer of 
 the same) as also for your innumerable bene- 
 fits shown unto your realms and subjects of 
 the same." The lord chancellor thendeUvered 
 an answer to the speaker's "preposition " or 
 exordium, conceived in the same strain and 
 style; and the Irish chieftains, who were 
 present, are said to have expressed great satis- 
 faction when these two addresses were inter- 
 preted to them in their own language by the 
 earl of Ormond. The lord deputy next in- 
 troduced a bill to confer upon the English 
 monarch the title of king of Ireland, which 
 
 * Of the clergy present on this occasion were the 
 four archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and 
 Tuam, and nineteen bishops. 
 3G0 
 
 he caused to be read, and interpreted in Irish. 
 During this and the following days, this bill 
 was passed rapidly through both houses, with 
 the most perfect unanimity, and, as it is said, 
 among acclamations of joy. All the Irish 
 chiefs gave their willing consent, and the 
 general satisfaction was so great that the 
 following Sunday was a day of public rejoic- 
 ing. The lords and gentlemen went in pro- 
 cession to St. Patrick's church, where a 
 solemn mass was chanted by the archbishop 
 of Dublin ; the act was then proclaimed in 
 the presence of two thousand persons, and 
 a grand Te Deum concluded the ceremony. 
 The joy on this occasion was made more 
 universal by the dehvery of all prisoners on 
 free pardon, except debtors and those com- 
 mitted for treason, murder, or rape. " There 
 were made in the city," writes the deputy, 
 " great bonfires, wine set in the streets, great 
 feastings in their houses, with a goodly firing 
 of gtms." The new style of the king was, 
 " Henry the Eighth, by the grace of God, 
 king of England, France, and Ireland, de- 
 fender of the faith, and in earth, imme- 
 diately under Christ, supreme head of the 
 churches of England and Ireland." 
 
 A variety of other acts were passed at 
 this parliament, relating to the internal 
 regulations of the English pale, the distri- 
 bution of lands and places in the gift of the 
 crown, and other minor matters; and, as a 
 still further step towards conciliating and 
 securing the good faith of the great chiefs 
 of Munster, on the 23rd of July the parlia- 
 ment was prorogued to meet in the beginning 
 of November at Limerick. 
 
 In spite of their promises of submission, 
 O'Neill and O'Donnell still held themselves 
 aloof. Of the motives for the tardiness of 
 the latter in fulfilling his promises, we are 
 totally ignorant ; but at length, early in 
 August, he met the lord deputy in O'Reilly's 
 country, and was there formally received 
 into the king's peace, and he also petitioned 
 for apparel. " If it may stand with your 
 highness's pleasure," Sentleger wrote to the 
 king, " to give him parliament robes, I think 
 it shall be very well bestowed upon him, for 
 I think him furnished of other apparel 
 better than any Irishman ; for at such time 
 as he met with me, he was in a coat of crim- 
 son velvet, with aglets of gold, twenty or 
 thirty pair; over that a great double cloak 
 of rich crimson satin corded with black 
 velvet, a bonnet with a feather set full of 
 aglets of gold; that methought it strange 
 to see him so honourable in apparel, and all 
 
A.D. 1541.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [death of lord gray. 
 
 the rest of his nation, that I have seen as 
 yet, so vile." 
 
 O'Neill still refused to submit, and the 
 lord deputy proposed anotlier parley in the 
 neighbourhood of Duudalk. Resolved to 
 be prepared for any alternative, Scntleger 
 proclaimed a general hosting, with twenty- 
 one days' provisions, and ordered that the 
 army should assemble at Dundalk early in 
 September, " intending," as he said, " either 
 by compulsion to bring him from his old 
 kind of life, or else earnestly to pursue his 
 arrogant wilfulness, as far as our powers 
 shall extend." Wiien the period fixed for 
 this expedition arrived, and O'Neill con- 
 tinued refractory, the lord deputy marclied 
 into Tyrone with his army, and continued 
 twenty-two days, burning and destroying. 
 O'Neill in the meanwhile attempted to force 
 his enemies to retire by making a sudden 
 invasion of the English pale, where he burnt 
 two or three villages; but his forces were 
 attacked and beaten by the lords of the pale, 
 and he was forced to make a hasty retreat, 
 closely pursued by his victorious assailants. 
 This disaster seems to have at length hum- 
 bled the great chieftain of the north; and 
 his resolution to seek peace was fixed 
 when he learnt that O'Brien of Thomond 
 
 had determined to make his submission. 
 O'Neill submitted in the month of Decem- 
 ber, and thus, before the end of the year 
 1541, all Ireland had joined in acknowledg- 
 ing the supremacy of Henry VIII. as king 
 of Ireland as well as England. "I trust in 
 God," said Sentleger, " this submission of 
 O'Neill will be a spectacle for all the Irish- 
 men in Ireland; for, in effect, all the great 
 men of the Irishry hearkened what end 
 should be taken with him; and seeing he 
 hath put in liis pledges, they cannot honestly 
 refuse to do the same, when they shall be 
 required." 
 
 While his successor was thus proceeding 
 triumphantly in the king's service in Ireland, 
 lord Leonard Gray had fallen a victim to 
 the hatred of his enemies. The charges 
 against him related entirely to his transac- 
 tions in Ireland, and, as he was suspected of 
 collusion with the rebel Geraldines, they 
 were construed into high treason. This un- 
 fortunate nobleman gave up his own defence 
 by pleading guilty, in the vain hope of thus 
 moving the king's compassion, and he was 
 publicly executed on Tower Hill about a 
 fortnight before Henry was made by tlie 
 Irish act of parliament king of Ireland. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CLOSING YEARS OF THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. ; CREATION OF IRISH PEEKS ; 
 THREATS OF A FRENCH INVASION. 
 
 HE few remaining years 
 of Henry's reign offer 
 a remarkable contrast 
 to the incessant hosti- 
 lity which we have had 
 so long to dwell upon. 
 The authority of the 
 king of England was 
 acknowledged, with 
 very slight exceptions, over the whole island ; 
 and as all the great chiefs had surrendered 
 their lands to receive them back to be held 
 by English tenures, the foundation at least 
 was laid for the general adoption of the 
 English law. The English law of succession, 
 especially, took the place of the old Irish 
 ■ijrstem of tanistry, which had been the cause 
 VOL. I. 2 z 
 
 of many of the worst evils of Ireland under 
 its independent chiefs. The chiefs them- 
 selves seemed to be suddenly seized with an 
 eager desire for English honours and titles, 
 and in gratifying this new passion, the king 
 increased the influence of English laws and 
 manners, and at the same time laid the foun- 
 dation of an Irish peerage. 
 
 The service of the field had now been laid 
 aside to follow the more peaceful delibera- 
 tions of parliament, which, after being again 
 prorogued to the latter part of December, 
 1541, then met at Dublin to be prorogued 
 again, and on the 15th of February, 1542, 
 the session was continued at Limerick. The 
 submission of O'Neill had meanwhile been 
 almost inunediately followed by the full 
 
 361 
 
CREATION OF IRISH PEERS.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1548. 
 
 submission of O'Brien of Thomond, and 
 this chieftain, with Mac William of Clan- 
 rickard, and Donough O'Brien and other 
 Irish chiefs of Munster, attended in person 
 at the parliament at Limerick. Towards 
 the middle of March the parliament was 
 prorogued anew; it sat at Trim from the 
 12tli to the 21st of June, and then adjourned 
 to tlie 6th of November at Dublin. 
 
 The first and foremost of the Irish chiefs 
 in seeking honours and titles was, in spite 
 of the tardiness of his submission, O'Neill of 
 Tyrone. At the end of August, 1542, O'Neill 
 suddenly made his appearance in Dublin, 
 and mformed the lord deputy that it was his 
 wish to proceed to England to declare to the 
 king in person his humble obedience and 
 fidelity. " Whereupon," writes Sentleger, 
 "for that I considered the like precedent 
 had never been seen in the days of none of 
 your noble progenitors, I have borrowed of 
 merchants of this city for him two hundred 
 marks sterling. He hath promised I shall 
 have kine for the same, and for that I have 
 sent his son and divers of your retinue here 
 to levy the same." " I thought rather," 
 adds the lord deputy, " to adventure the loss 
 thereof, than he should fail to come to your 
 majesty; most humbly beseeching the same, 
 that I may know your highness's pleasure, 
 whether I shall suffer any more of these 
 Irishmen to repair to your majesty. I am 
 the bolder to suffer them to come, for tliat 
 your majesty willed by your letters, that 
 when any of the nobility of them sued for 
 any lands, or any other great things, that 1 
 should send them to your jiighness to receive 
 the same at your hands." 
 
 It was the ambition of O'Neill to obtain 
 the title of earl of Ulster. This, however, 
 was refused by the king, who expressed his 
 astonishment that a man who had so often 
 and grievously offended, should presume to 
 ask for one of the greatest earldoms in 
 
 •The following is O'Neill's submission, given in 
 English on this occasion, and equally obsequious 
 with that of the other Irish chiefs : — 
 
 "To the kinges majestic, our most gratious sove- 
 reign lorde. 
 " Pleasith your most excellent majestie, I, O'Neyll, 
 oon of your majesties most humble subgiettes of 
 your realme of Irlande, do confesse and know- 
 legde before your most excellent highnes, that, by 
 ignoraunce and for lack of knoweledge of my most 
 boundcn dieutye of allegeaunce, I have most gre- 
 vouslye offended your majestie, for the which I ask 
 your grace here marcye and forgyvenes, most 
 humbly beseching your hieghnes of your most 
 gratioux pardon; refusing my name and state, which 
 
 S(i2 
 
 Christendom, which, moreover, was the king's 
 proper inheritance. Yet O'Neill was gra- 
 ciously received at the court at Greenwich, 
 where he made his submission in writing on 
 the 24th of September,* and on Sunday the 
 1st of October, 1542, the king created him 
 earl of Tyrone for life, with remainder to 
 his illegitimate son Matthew, and the latter 
 was created at the same time baron of Dun- 
 gannon, to him and the eldest son of the 
 earl of Tyrone for the time being. The 
 new Irish earl was treated with extraordi- 
 nary marks of favour, and among other pre- 
 sents made to him were robes of state and a 
 gold chain of the value of a hundred pounds. 
 The example of O'Neill soon found imi- 
 tators, especially in the south, where several 
 of the great chieftains were preparing, in 
 the autumn of 1542, to follow him to Eng- 
 land. From various causes, the principal of 
 which was the scarcity of money among the 
 great Irish lords, this intention was not im- 
 mediately carried into effect; but on the 
 15th of May, 1543, the lord O'Brien, and 
 the Mac William of Connaught, wlio was 
 now known as the lord Fitzwilliam, left 
 Dublin on tlieir way to England. They 
 were accompanied by the old ally of the 
 English, O'Brien's nephew Donough, who 
 by the law of tanistry w'as the heir to the 
 chieftainship of Thomond, and who had been 
 knighted as sir Donough O'Brien. fhe 
 latter carried a separate letter of recom- 
 mendation from the lord dejiuty and council, 
 in which they expressed a hope, i:i conside- 
 ration that he was " a gentleman of a hardy 
 courage, and one that for a long time hath 
 right faithfully served your highness, that 
 this his access unto your majesty, with the 
 sight of your princely magnificence, and the 
 savouring also of your most kingly bounty, 
 shall totally confirm him to good civility 
 and order, whereunto he is much given of 
 his own inclination."' These were followed 
 
 I have usurped upon your grace agaynst my dieutie, ! 
 and requ)Ting your majestie of your clemencye to 
 gyve me what name, state, title, lunde, or lyveng, 
 it shall please your hieghnes, which I shal know- | 
 ledge to take and holde of your majesties mere 
 gift, and in all thinges doo herafter, as shall 
 beseme your most true and faythefull subgiet. 
 " And God save your highnes." 
 
 O'Neill signs only with his mark, a very rude 
 cross. This submission was considered of so much 
 importance, that it was immediately printed and 
 distributed abroad. A printed copy is preserved 
 in the British Museum, MS. Cotton Titus B. XI., 
 fol. 381. The original submission is preserved in 
 the State Paper Ofnce. 
 
A.D. 154.S.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [creation of irish peers. 
 
 in their political pilgrimage by the chief of 
 the Mac Namaras. Another chieftain of 
 considerable power, Mac Gillapatrick or 
 Fitzpatrick, who had already' received the 
 title of baron of Upper Ossory, was likewise 
 a visitor to England at this time. 
 
 A paper is still preserved in the English 
 State Paper Office containing an abstract of 
 the requests which these Irish chiefs came 
 to present to the throne, which was drawn 
 up as a memorial for the king previous to 
 their presentation. They all desired a grant 
 from the crown of their lands and jurisdic- 
 tions, by English tenure, and a general 
 pardon for all past offences. O'Brien re- 
 quested that the laws of England might be 
 executed in Thomond, " and the naughty 
 laws and customs of that country be clearly 
 put away for ever;" that bastards should no 
 longer be allowed to inherit;* that "there 
 may be sent into Ireland some well learned 
 Irishmen, brought up in the universities of 
 Oxford and Cambridge, not being infected 
 with the poison of the bishop of Rome, 
 and they to be first approved by the king's 
 majesty, and then to be sent to preach the 
 word of God in Ireland;" and, finally, that 
 he might be granted " some place of small 
 value near Dublin, where he may prepare 
 for his horses and folks, if he shall be com- 
 manded to resort to parliament or council 
 at Dublin." The principal requests of the 
 lord Fitzwilliam " were, that he might be 
 created earl of Connaught (a title which 
 the king would not separate from the crown) ; 
 that he might have the town of Sligo, whicli 
 he said had been unjustly usurped by the 
 O'Donnells and others; and that he might 
 be defended against the encroachments of 
 the clan-William, the other branch of the 
 Burkes." The lord Fitzpatrick petitioned for 
 grants of the lands of dissolved monasteries, 
 and for the use of English courts and forms of 
 justice, and like O'Brien, he asked, as conve- 
 nient " for his resorts unto councils and par- 
 liaments at Dublin," that he might have a 
 grant of the manor of Leixlip, or of a parcel 
 of land called Fountesland, both portions of 
 the forfeited estates of the earls of Kildare. 
 The principal request of sirDonough O'Brien 
 was, that the old law of tanistry might be 
 observed in his case, as he by that law was 
 the heir to the chieftainship of Thomond, 
 
 • The loose way of living of the Irish chiefs, and 
 the confusion between legitimate and illegitimate 
 children, combined with the Irish custom of tanistry, 
 had been the great cause of tlie continual domestic 
 wars among the Irish septs. 
 
 and that he might hold his own lands of 
 the king by fee simple, " with some name 
 of honour whereby he may come to the 
 parliaments or councils." 
 
 Sunday the first of July was a day of great 
 ceremony and festivity at the king's favourite 
 manor of Greenwich. Early in the day, the 
 queen's closet was prepared for the celebra- 
 tion of high mass, richly hanged with cloth 
 of arras, and well strewed with rushes. When 
 the king had entered and taken his place, 
 O'Brien, Mac William, and sir Donough 
 O'Brien were brought in, and there, after 
 the celebration of mass, put on the robes of 
 state which the king had given them. Imme- 
 diately after, the king being under the cloth 
 of state, accompanied with his council and 
 many of the nobles of his realm, as well as 
 with the ambassadors of Scotland, the chiefs 
 were successively presented to undergo the 
 ceremony of investiture. First came O'Brien 
 as earl of Thomond, led between the earl of 
 Derby and the earl of Ormond ; the viscount 
 Lisle carried before him his sword, the hilt 
 upwards, and garter king-at-arms bore the 
 letters patent creating him an earl. When 
 they approached the king, garter delivered 
 the letters patent to the lord chamberlain, 
 who delivered them to the great chamberlain, 
 and he to the king, and the latter gave them 
 to secretary Wriothesley, who read them 
 aloud. When he came to the words cinctu- 
 ram gladii, the viscount Lisle presented the 
 sword to the king, "who girt it about the 
 new earl baldrick-wise, the earl kneeling 
 between the two earls who had led him, and 
 who stood by his side." The letters patent 
 were then read to the end, after whicli Mac 
 William went through the same ceremonies 
 in receiving the title of earl of Clanrickard. 
 Then came sir Donough O'Brien, who had 
 obtained the title of baron of Ibrackan, led 
 into the king's presence in his kirtle between 
 two barons, the lords Cobham and Clinton, 
 the lord Mountjoy bearing before him his 
 robe of state, and garter bearing his letters 
 patent as before. The king took the 
 letters patent, and gave them to secretary 
 Paget to be read, and when he came to 
 the word investimus, the monarch took the 
 robe of state and put it on the new baron. 
 He then placed round each of their necks a 
 chain of gold with a cross hanging to it, and 
 gave them their letters patent, and they all 
 returned thanks in due form. In further 
 honour of these creations, the king conferred 
 the honour of knighthood on five of their 
 attendants, among whom was a Mac Namara. 
 
TURLOUGH o'tOOLE.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1543. 
 
 Then the earls and the baron in order took 
 their leave of the king, and carrying their 
 letters patent in their hands, tliey were led 
 in procession to the council chamber, which 
 had been appointed for their dining place. 
 First went the trumpets blowing before 
 them; then tlie officers of arms; next came 
 the earl of Thomond, led between the earl 
 of Derby and viscount Lisle; then the earl 
 of Clanrickard, led between the earl of Or- 
 mond and lord Cobliam ; and, lastly, the 
 baron of Ibrackan, led between lords Clinton 
 and Mountjoy. They were there seated at 
 the dinner table, and after the first course, 
 garter proclaimed their styles in French as 
 " The very liigh and mighty lord Murrough 
 O'Brien, earl of Thomond, lord of Inchquin, 
 of the kingdom of Ireland," " The very high 
 and mighty lord William Burke, earl of 
 Clanrickard, lord of Dunkellyn, of the king- 
 dom of Ireland," and " The noble lord Do- 
 nough O'Brien, lord of Ibrackan, of the 
 kingdom of Ireland." The honours thus 
 conferred upon the Irish chiefs were ren- 
 dered more agreeable by the payment from 
 the king's exchequer of all fees and expenses, 
 and they returned to Ireland confirmed in 
 respect for the monarch of England by the 
 attentions which had been shown to them, 
 and the georgcous ceremonies they had wit- 
 nessed at his court. 
 
 On their arrival at Dublin, a despatch from 
 the king to the lord deputy had already an- 
 nounced the titles granted to the three chiefs, 
 and the grant of most of their requests, more 
 especially the various demands of monastic 
 lands. The lands on this side the Shannon, 
 claimed by the O'Briens, and some rights 
 claimed inConnaught by the new earl of Clan- 
 rickard, were reserved to the crown. The 
 kingadds, "you shall further understand, that 
 for the better satisfaction of the four persons 
 before named, that is to say, the earls of 
 Thomond and Clanrickard, and the barons of 
 Ibrackan and Upper Ossory, we have granted 
 unto every of them and their heirs male 
 some house and piece of land near Dublin, 
 for the kcejjing of their horses and trains, at 
 their repair to our parliament and councils." 
 The choice of the localities for their houses 
 was referred to the lord deputy, who was 
 also authorised to give similar houses and 
 pieces of land to the earls of Desmond and 
 Tyrone, none of these grants to exceed the 
 sum of ten pounds in yearly value. 
 
 Singularly enough, when we turn from 
 this picture of peace to contemplate the 
 condition of the Irish themselves as described 
 364 
 
 in their own chronicles, we find that as they 
 became reconciled with the English govern- 
 ment, they broke out again into those old 
 disorders which had so long hindered the 
 prosperity of the country. The example of 
 advancing civilization under established 
 laws seemed to have no influence upon 
 tliem ; the districts more remote from the 
 English pale were as yet scarcely known 
 to the English authorities except by the 
 submission of their chiefs, and their domestic 
 wars were carried on unobserved, except in 
 one or two cases where tliey aifected more 
 nearly the English interests. One of these 
 cases occurred no further from Dublin than 
 the sept of the O'Tooles. Turlough O'Toole, 
 the chief of this sept, who was now in great 
 favour with the English authorities, and had 
 received several marks of their good will, 
 was involved in a feud with his kinsman 
 Turlough Mac Shane O'Toole, and, in spite 
 of the proliibition of tlie lord deputy, he 
 had attacked him several times, and expressed 
 his resolution to pursue the feud until he 
 had killed him. At length Turlough O'Toole, 
 pursuing Mac Shane with horsemen and 
 kerns, took up his lodging somewhat incau- 
 tiously, intending to attack his enemy next 
 morning ; but the latter, who had assured 
 himself of all the circumstances by his spies, 
 suddenly set upon him in his lodgings early 
 in the morning, and slew Turlough O'Toole 
 and all who were with him. Turlough Mac 
 Shane then fled, and concealed himself in 
 the mountains, until he was induced to come 
 upon a safe conduct to Limerick to submit 
 to the judgment of the council. 
 
 It appears that when the late chief of the 
 O'Tooles was in arms against the English, 
 Turlough Mac Shane, who was the tanist of his 
 sept, had acted towards the latter in the same 
 manner as Donough O'Brien in Thomond, 
 and Cahir O'Connor in Olfaly, and that he 
 was therefore considered as having some 
 claims to indulgence. It was moreover re- 
 presented that the deceased chief had been 
 the assailant, and that Mac Shane was acting 
 in his own defence. From these considera- 
 tions, says Sentleger to the king, " lest Irish- 
 men would imagine that we should favour or 
 dissemble his death, in respect of his old 
 attemptates and malefaits, we took order, 
 for detestation of tlie oflTence, that the said 
 Turlough Mac Sliane sliould not only forfeit 
 to your highness all his lands, and be de- 
 barred from the seignory of Omayle for ever ; 
 but, in recompense of the death of the said 
 Turlotigh O'Toole and others killed with | 
 
A.D. 
 
 1543.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [feud among the burkes. 
 
 liim, he should pay to his wife, children, and 
 kinsfolk thirteen score kine, with all such 
 horse and harness as he took from them the 
 time of tlie act committed. To the satisfac- 
 tion of which amends he is nothing of ability, 
 but driven in manner to beg the same of his 
 friends; so that, all things considered, we 
 did as great extremity to him as might be 
 done." 
 
 Another case in which the lord deputy 
 interfered, occurred in the following year 
 among the old Anglo-Irish families in the 
 south. A feud had long existed between 
 the lord Roche and the White Knight, who 
 had invaded each other's lands until an ex- 
 tensive district was entirely laid waste. In 
 the spring of 1543, upon receiving orders to 
 that effect from the lord deputy, the earl of 
 Desmond entered their countries, captured 
 both the belligerents, and brought them to 
 Carlow, where he delivered them prisoners 
 into the deputy's hands. The latter com- 
 mitted tliem to close confinement in the 
 castle of Dublin, " where," he says, in his 
 despatch to the king on this occasion, " now 
 they agree very well together, and lie both 
 in one bed, that before could not agree in a 
 country of forty miles in length between 
 them, and under their rule." " I purpose," 
 adds Sentleger, " they shall there remain, 
 till their amity be better confirmed, and 
 then, God willing, and your high pleasure 
 so known, I intend to send them home free, 
 and apjiarel them like Englishmen, for now 
 they be in their saffron shirts and kerne's 
 coats. I must of force so do, or else drive 
 them to great extremity ; for I think tliey 
 I both with all their riches would not buy 
 themselves one suit of apparel, and pay for 
 their board in your said castle for one quarter 
 of a year, and yet I am sure their lands, well 
 ordered, would make them both great lords." 
 One yeai; later witnessed a still more trou- 
 blesome feud in Connaught, on the death of 
 Ulick Burke, who had lived but a few 
 months to enjoy his new title of earl of 
 Clanrickard. It will be remembered that 
 this chief was imposed upon this great 
 Anglo-Irish sept by lord Leonard Gray, to 
 the prejudice of another branch of the 
 family who claimed the chieftainship by 
 right, and whose representative then was 
 Richard Oge Burke. The sons of Richard 
 Oge now set up their title, and attempted 
 to make it good by force of arms ; and the 
 confusion was increased by tiie fact that 
 most, if not all, the children of the late 
 earl, who were in possession, were of very 
 
 doubtful legitimacy, " there were," says 
 Sentleger, " so many marriages and divorces, 
 that it is not yet known whether the late 
 earl hath any heir male." 
 
 The earls of Ormond and Thomond, and 
 the baron of Ibrackan, who considered the 
 attempt of the sons of Richard Oge as an 
 insurrection against the king's authority, 
 immediately marched into Clanrickard to 
 support the sons of the earl, and they had 
 already committed some hostilities, when an 
 order from the council obliged them to 
 desist. Sentleger was at this moment in 
 England, absent from his post, and it appears 
 to have been the wish of the council to hold 
 both parties in suspense till his return ; 
 but finding this impossible, they appointed 
 Thomas Burke, one of the earl's sons, cap- 
 tain of the country during the interim, and 
 authorized him, with the earls of Ormond 
 and Thomond and tlie baron of Ibrackan, 
 to oppose the sons of Richard Oge as the 
 king's enemies, leaving the question of 
 legitimacy to be decided afterwards. Thus 
 was Connaught again involved in a war 
 which soon desolated some of the finest 
 districts of the island. 
 
 The chief seat of turbulence, however, 
 was found in Tyrone, Tirconnell, and Lower 
 Connaught, where the government in Dub- 
 lin had as yet no permanent influence. 
 After the flight of young Gerald fitz Gerald, 
 the old hostile feelings between the O'Don- 
 nells and the O'Neills began to revive, and 
 from acting independent of each other, they 
 soon proceeded to mutual hostilities. It was 
 perhaps in some degree from the new feeling 
 of hostility to O'Neill, that O'Donnell sud- 
 denly became so obsequious in his advances 
 to the English government, while the same 
 feeling may at length have combined with 
 other causes in producing the rapid change 
 in the person of O'Neill from obstinate 
 enmity to professions of devoted subjection. 
 When the lord deputy undertook the last 
 inroad into O'Neill's country before that 
 chieftain's submission, Manus O'Donnell led 
 the array of Tirconnell into Tyrone to assist 
 the English. On his return from this expe- 
 dition, O'Donnell invaded Fermanagh twice, 
 ravaged the country, and captured and dis- 
 mantled the castle of Enniskillen. His 
 southern and western borders were at the 
 same time troubled by feuds among the 
 O'Rourkes and the O'Boyles. 
 
 Next year, after an inroad into Lower 
 Connaught, O'Donnell and his son Calvagh, 
 joined by the O'Rourkes and O'Kauis, 
 
 3(i."> 
 
DISORDERS IN THE NORTH.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1542. 
 
 marched to the north against the Mac Quil- 
 lins of Antrim, and reached the banks of the 
 Bann before they met with any opposition. 
 Here they found Mac Quillin, at the head 
 of his own sept and a body of English allies, 
 posted on the opposite bank to defend the 
 passage of the river. With considerable 
 difliculty, arising from the want of boats, 
 and the obstinacy with which the fords were 
 defended, the army of Tirconnell made good 
 the passage of the Bann, and there, being 
 far superior in numbers to their opponents, 
 they spread over Mac Quillin's country, 
 plundering and burning, until Mac Quillin, 
 in despair at the havoc they had committed, 
 repaired to O'Donnell's camp, and purchased 
 a peace by presents of horses, armour, and 
 other articles of value. 
 
 This peace was of very short duration, for 
 no sooner had O'Donnell returned home, 
 than Mac Quillin called in a body of Scots 
 from the islands to his assistance, and invaded 
 the country of O'Kane, wliich bordered upon 
 his own; but a battle proved disastrous to 
 the invaders, who were driven in headlong 
 flight over the Bann, in the waters of which 
 multitudes were drowned. Mac Quillin 
 himself escaped not without difficulty. He 
 obtained some assistance from sir William 
 Brabazon, who held the temporary ofHce of 
 lord justice during Seutleger's absence, and 
 invaded O' Kane's country a second time, 
 and with better success. Among other 
 exploits on this occasion, Mac Quillin took 
 O'Kane's chief castle of Limavady by assault, 
 and slew all the warders. 
 
 While these and other hostilities were 
 going on in the north, O'Donnell had led 
 his army into Lower Connaught to demand 
 the rents he claimed there, which, however, 
 were paid without hostilities, and he returned 
 home in peace, leaving Lower Connaught to 
 a second visitation from the Mac William 
 on a similar errand and with a similar result, 
 though not till he liad committed various 
 acts of hostility. The lord deputy seems 
 not to have overlooked the turbulent move- 
 ments of O'Donnell, and he was at this time 
 so little confident of the good faith of two 
 chiefs of the north that he acknowledges to 
 have looked on their mutual hostilities with 
 satisfaction, as more safe to the English inte- 
 rests than their alliance. O'Donnell was so 
 
 *"And for that we perceived that the same erle 
 and O'Uonell had in effeete all the capitaynes of the 
 northe hanginge on their slevis, we have clerlye 
 dischardgcd them of eiiny rule over soche capy- 
 tayncs, savinge onelye over those that be in their 
 
 far looked upon with suspicion, that, while 
 O'Neill was at this very moment (the autumn 
 of 1542) on his way to England to be invested 
 with the title of earl of Tyrone, the rival 
 chieftain could not obtain that of earl of I 
 Tirconnell. Next year, however, after some I 
 anxious and troublesome negotiations with [ 
 the lord deputy, O'Donnell consented to 1 
 present himself at the court in Dublin, and 
 tliere, in presence of O'Neill, now earl of 
 Tyrone, and other chieftains, he at length 
 made liis submission. By indentures signed ! 
 by the two great northern chieftains at this 
 time, they gave up those claims of sovereignty 
 over the smaller septs on their borders, which 
 had so often been the cause of hostilities 
 between them.* O'Donnell had, like most 
 of the L-ish chieftains, to contend with 
 domestic seditions in his own territory; and 
 he had long held in prison two of his rela- 
 tives, while his own brother was a fugitive 
 in England. The deputy persuaded him to 
 set at liberty his kinsmen, and to be recon- 
 ciled with his brother, and they all met at 
 Dublin on this occasion. 
 
 The year in which this meeting occurred 
 was one of considerable turbulence among 
 the Irish septs of Ulster. It began with a 
 violent feud among the Mac Sweenys of 
 Fanad, in which the heir to that chieftain- 
 ship was slain by his rival kinsman. A 
 chieftain of the O'Boyles met with a similar 
 fate, except that instead of falling in the 
 field, he was slain treacherously and pri- 
 vately, and the kinsmen who slew liim were, 
 to use the words of the Irish annalist, " in 
 his friendship, in his company, and in his 
 pay." While O'Donnell was making peace 
 with some of his kinsmen, others, even in 
 his own family, were conspiring against him. 
 When he departed for Dublin, his son and 
 heir, Calvagh, was left in charge of his ter- 
 ritory, and he was fully occupied in defend- 
 ing his right against his younger brothers 
 Hugh and Donough, who had raised the 
 standard of rebellion against their father. 
 Several subordinate septs took part in these 
 troubles, and many people were killed, and 
 great havoc committed. There were other 
 feuds equally destructive among the Ma- 
 guires in Fermanagh, and the O'Melaghlins 
 in Westmeath. This latter quarrel, and 
 that of the Mac Sweenys, were continued 
 
 owne countreys, that is, for the crle in Tyrone, and 
 the same O'Uonell in Tyieconnell." Sentleger's 
 dispatch to the king, in the State Papers, vol. iii., 
 p. 428, where the indenture between the northern 
 chiefs and the lord depu'y on this occasion is given. 
 
A. a. 
 
 1544.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [iRISH RECRUITS. 
 
 in the following year, and ended in the 
 slaughter of the chiefs of the difi'erent clanSi 
 
 The sons of O'Donnell also continued 
 their hostilities against their father, and had 
 made themselves formidable by obtaining 
 possession of some strong forts, especially 
 that of Liiford. The Irish were still un- 
 skilful in attacking fortresses, and Calvagh 
 O'Donnell was despatched to Dublin to 
 obtain permission to hire some English sol- 
 diers, with ordnance and other engines for 
 sieges, and with these he proceeded against 
 Lifford, where the insurgents prepared for a 
 vigorous defence. In the first attacks one 
 of the English soldiers was killed, in revenge 
 for which his companions put to death one 
 of the hostages of the insurgent O'Donnells, 
 who had been delivered up to the English 
 auxiliaries. It was the usual custom of the 
 great Irish chieftains to hold some of the 
 other chiefs of their families in their hands 
 as pledges for the obedience of their fathers. 
 Hugh O'Donnell, alarmed for the safety of 
 the other hostages, surrendered the town 
 and castle of Liiford, and fled the country ; 
 upon which the English auxiliaries were 
 paid their wages and returned home. 
 
 O'Donnell then marched against the Mac 
 Quillins, who had probably given assistance 
 to his rebels, and he took from them the 
 castle of Inisloughan, or Loughan island, in 
 the Bann, which commanded the important 
 fisheries of that river. This fortress he 
 gave up to the O'Kanes, the old enemies of 
 the Mac Quillins, between whose territories 
 it lay. After having taken one or two other 
 strong places, and laid waste the country, 
 O'Donnell returned home laden with rich 
 spoils. 
 
 It appears that O'Neill was not a stranger 
 to the disorders in Tirconnel, and this expe- 
 dition against the Mac Quillins revived the 
 old animosities between the two great north- 
 ern chieftains, who invaded each other's 
 territories more than once in the course of 
 the summer. Mac Quillin at the same time 
 called in to his aid a strong band of Scots 
 from the isles, with whom he retook Inis- 
 loughan, and invaded the territory of the 
 O'Kanes, where he committed great devasta- 
 tion. O'Kane in self defence called in the 
 Mac Sweenys, with whose assistance he 
 attached and defeated the invaders, deprived 
 them of their plunder, and drove them over 
 the Bann with great slaughter. 
 
 During the last two years of king Henry's 
 reigny the septs of the north had become 
 more peaceful, and the general tranquillity 
 
 of the island was such, that instead of send- 
 ing troops from England to support the 
 government, the latter was enabled to con- 
 tribute a strong force to assist in the king's 
 foreign wars. In the spring of 1544, when 
 Henry had already declared war against 
 France, and was apprehensive of Scotland, 
 he applied to the Irish council for three 
 thousand kernes, one thousand of whom 
 were to be employed in guarding the marches 
 of Scotland, while the others were to form 
 part of the army he was preparing for the 
 invasion of France. When, however, it was 
 represented to him that French ships were 
 already hovering upon tlie coasts of Ireland, 
 and that the absence of so great a number 
 of the Irish fighting men, who of course 
 would be taken chiefly from the friendly 
 septs, the island might be exposed to a dan- 
 gerous invasion, he modified this demand so 
 far as to require only one thousand kernes, 
 five hundred of whom were to be sent im- 
 mediatel}' to Chester for the service of the 
 north. Among the State Papers of this 
 period we find the particulars of the raising 
 of these men, which furnish a sort of mea- 
 sure of the zeal of the different chiefs in 
 the service of the English government. The 
 earl of Ormond, as usual, was foremost in 
 his devotion to the crown; he had been 
 cessed at one hundred kernes, but he volun- 
 tarily sent double that number, commanded 
 by his two nephews, lord Power and Piers 
 Butler, the latter of whom was the second 
 brother of the baron of Dunboyne. The 
 earl of Desmond sent a hundred and twenty 
 instead of a hundred. But the earl of 
 Tyrone (O'Neill), who was likewise assessed 
 at a hundred kernes, sent only ninety; and 
 the earl of Thomond (O'Brien), and the 
 baron of Ibrackan (his son Donough), who 
 were assessed respectively at a hundi'ed 
 kernes and fifty kernes, sent none at all. 
 Three other peers sent more than the num- 
 ber required of them; these were, the Irish 
 baron of Cahir, lord Power, and the baron 
 of Slane, who were each ordered to contri- 
 bete twenty-four kernes, and who sent re- 
 spectively thirty, thirty-four, and thirty-six. 
 Sir Gerald fitz John of Dromanny sent 
 twenty-four kernes, as required; the baron 
 of Dunboyne sent sixteen only, instead of 
 twenty-four; O'Reilly sent eighty-nine in- 
 stead of a hundred; and O'Connor thirty-eight 
 instead of fifty. O'Carroll and O'Moore, 
 who had been severally rated at fifty kernes, 
 Maguire, O'Rourke, and O'Mulmoy, who 
 were each required to send a hundred, and 
 
 367 
 
IRISH SOLDIERS.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a. d. 1544. 
 
 O'Melaglilin, from whom twenty-four were 
 demanded, sent none. Magennis sent twenty- 
 eight, instead of fifty; and Cahir mac Arte 
 Cavenagh, twenty-one instead of twenty- 
 four. To make up for this great deficiency 
 in numbers, several chiefs as well as gentle- 
 men of the pale, who had not been sum- 
 moned to contribute by the king, sent in 
 their contributions at the request of the 
 Irish council. These were the baron of 
 Delvyn, who sent thirty -five kernes ; the 
 baron of Carbirry, tliirty; the lord Louth, 
 with the gentlemen of Uriel and Ferney, 
 forty-one ; sir Thomas Cusacke, with the 
 borderers of Meath and Westraeath, a hun- 
 dred and ten; Robert Sentleger, the lord 
 deputy's brother, ninety; the Byrnes, fifty- 
 two; Teigue O'Connor, twenty-five; O'Toole, 
 ten ; and Teigue O'Farral of Ainialy, twenty- 
 five. 
 
 In the letters which passed betvifeen the 
 deputy and council in Dublin, and the king 
 and his council in England, on the subject 
 of these recruits, we have some curious inci- 
 dental information on the condition of the 
 Irish soldiery or fighting men at that time. 
 Some dis])utes had arisen from the two cir- 
 cumstances that, first, whereas it was custom- 
 ary for each two kernes to be attended with 
 one boy to carry his arms on the mnrch, the 
 Irish cliiefs insisted on reckoning these boys 
 in the number of the kernes they were 
 required to contribute ; and, secondly, that 
 whereas it was customary to place a captain 
 over every hundred kernes, each chief who 
 sent no more than twenty or thirty, insisted 
 on sending his own captain to command 
 them, so that when jointed together the 
 captains were too numerous for the men. 
 The Irish council compromised the first of 
 these difliculties by allowing only one boy 
 to four kernes ; but they left the second to 
 the decision of the king when the recruits 
 should join the army. The lord deputy had 
 previously been consulted on the class of 
 Irish soldiers whom he considered likely 
 to be most serviceable in the war in France, 
 and it was chiefly at his recommendation 
 that the kernes were selected. In his letter 
 to the king describing the different descrip- 
 tions of Irish soldiers, Sentleger observes, 
 beginning with the horsemen, " In case your 
 majesty will use their service into France, 
 your highness must then be at some charges 
 with them; for there is no horseman of this 
 land but he hath his horse and his two boys 
 and two hackneys, or one hackney and two 
 chief horses, at the least, whose wages must 
 368 
 
 be accordingly; and of themselves they have 
 no riches to furnish the same. And assur- 
 edly I think for their feats of war, which 
 is for light scourers, there are no properer 
 horsemen in christian gi-ound, nor more 
 hardy, nor yet that can better endure hard- 
 ness. I think your majesty may well have 
 of them five hundred, and leave your 
 English pale well furnished." The deputy 
 continues, " As to their footmen, they have 
 one sort, which be harnessed in mail and 
 bassinets, having every of them his weapon, 
 called a sparre, much like the axe of the 
 Tower, and they be named galloglasses ; and 
 for the more part their boys bear for them 
 three darts a piece, which darts they throw 
 before they come to the hand strife. These 
 sort of men be those that do not lightly 
 abandon the field, and bide the brunt to the 
 death. The other sort, called kerne, are 
 naked men, except only their shirts and 
 small coats ; and many times, when they 
 come to the bicker (fight), but bare naked, 
 saving their shirts for decency, and these 
 have darts and short bowes; which sort of 
 people be both hardy and deliver (quick) to 
 search woods or marshes, in which they be 
 hard to be beaten. And if your majesty 
 will convert them to morespikes and hand- 
 guns, I think they would, in that feat, vfith 
 small instructions, do your highness great 
 service; for, as for gunners, there be no 
 better in no land than they be, for the num- 
 ber they have, which be more than I would 
 wish they had, unless it were to serve your 
 majesty. And also these two sorts of people 
 be of such hardness, that there is no men 
 that ever I saw, that will or can endure the 
 pains and evil fare that they will sustain ; 
 for in the summer, when corn is near ripe, 
 they seek no other meat in time of need, but 
 to storke or swyll (scorch or stew?) the ears 
 of wheat, and eat the same, and water to 
 their drink; and with this they pass their 
 lives; and at all times they eat such meat as 
 few others could live with." 
 
 The greater part of the thousand kernes 
 raised for the king's service appear to have 
 been carried into France, where they were 
 actively employed in the siege of Boulogne 
 in the September of 1544. There they are 
 said to have astonished everybody by their 
 ferocity as well as by their bravery, until, if 
 we believe the story reported by Stanihurst, 
 the French sent a messenger to the English 
 monarch to inquire whether they were men 
 or devils whom he had brought against them. 
 They are accused of having put to death 
 
A.D. 1545.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [threats of invasion. 
 
 without mercy all the prisoners who fell into 
 their hands, and it is said that the French 
 retaliated by subjecting the Irish they 
 captured to the most savage tortures. One 
 of the stories for which the Irish soldiers at 
 Boulogne furnished the subject is preserved 
 by the writer just quoted. After the sur- 
 render of the town, he tells us, a French 
 army lay encamped on the west side of the 
 town beyond the haven. One of the Frencli 
 soldiers, who was remarkable for his stature 
 and strength, frequently came to the edge of 
 the water, and there in boasting manner 
 challenged any one of the English army that 
 possessed sufficient courage to encounter him 
 in single combat. At length an Irishman 
 named Nicholl Welsh, provoked at the insult, 
 threw himself into the water and swam across 
 to the opposite shore, where he fought with 
 and slew the challenger, and then swam back 
 with the Frenchman's head in his mouth, 
 amid the acclamations of his companions. 
 
 Tlie desertion of his ally the emperor, soon 
 obliged king Henry to return to England, 
 and to take measures for the defence of his 
 own coasts. New alarms had already been 
 raised in Ireland that the French king was 
 preparing to send young Gerald of Kildare, 
 accompanied by a powerful army, to drive the 
 English out of Ireland, and many of the 
 native chiefs showed an inclination to waver 
 in their allegiance. The lord deputy was 
 at this time absent in England, and his place 
 was supplied by sir William Brabazon as 
 lord justice, who exerted himself in preparing 
 to avert the danger. In the autumn of 1544, 
 it was loudly rumoured that the young Geral- 
 dine was in Britany, and that a formidable 
 army of Frenchmen was ready to accompany 
 him to Ireland. Waterford was pointed out 
 as the place of landing, and the citizens, in 
 the greatest alarm, prepared for the defence 
 of their city. It was, however, more gene- 
 rally believed that the invaders would land 
 more to the south, in the country of the Mac 
 Carthys, who had not yet submitted to the 
 English government, and who were known 
 to be devoted to the interests of the Geral- 
 dines, with whom thej' were allied by blood. 
 They were the more suspected, because the 
 lady Eleanor, who had been so active in the 
 cause of her nephew in 1538, was now 
 residing among them. It was feared that 
 O'Connor of Offaly would join them, and 
 the Irish council declared that the earl of 
 Desmond was the only one of the Geral- 
 dines in Ireland on whose fidelity they could 
 count. 
 
 VOL. I. 3 a 
 
 Their fears, however, with regard to the 
 south soon passed away, and seemed entirely 
 dispelled, when, in the spring of 1545, the 
 lady Eleanor herself came to Dublin, threw 
 herself on the king's mercy, and received his 
 pardon. It was now rumoured that the attack 
 was to be made in the north, and that the 
 French were there to join with the Scots, 
 with whom Henry was at this time at war. 
 O'Connor and the other suspected chiefs had 
 made professions of allegiance, which were 
 so satisfactory that the rank and title of a 
 viscount was promised to the former. The 
 north of Ireland, also, was soon relieved 
 from any fears of an invasion; while a for- 
 midable armament was fitted out in Ireland 
 against the neighbouring coast of Scotland. 
 
 The earl of Lennox, having deserted the 
 cause of his country to join the standard of 
 king Henry, entered into negotiations with 
 Donald lord of the isles and some of tht 
 Scottish chiefs of the coasts opposite Ireland, 
 and the king sent orders to the lord deputy 
 and council in the summer of 1545 to raise 
 an army of two thousand men, to co-operate 
 with him in an attempt upon Dumbarton, 
 which it was expected would be delivered 
 up to him by treachery. The preparations 
 in Ireland went on slowly, and it was not 
 till the month of November that the Irish 
 forces, which were placed under the command 
 of the earl of Ormond, sailed with the earl 
 of Lennox from Dublin. This large and 
 costly armament, which, as the lord-lieuten - 
 ant states, far exceeded anything that had 
 been seen in Ireland for many years, pro- 
 ceeded to Carrickfergus, and there waited 
 the arrival of the Scots of the isles, who it 
 appears had been still slower in their pre- 
 parations. While the fleet lay somewhat 
 incautiously ofi" the harbour of Oldfleet, a 
 violent tempest carried the ships from their 
 anchors, and scattered them along the oppo- 
 site coast of Scotland, where they narrowly 
 escaped being captured by their enemies. 
 This too was not the only discouragement 
 which they had to encounter; for, by some 
 accidental communications, the earl of 
 Lennox learnt that his agents in Scotland 
 had betrayed him, and that, instead of look- 
 ing for a rising of the country in his favour, 
 he might expect to be drawn into a snare by 
 those who had promised their assistance. 
 
 The fleet under the command of the earls 
 of Lennox and Ormond reassembled without 
 any considerable loss, and they were not 
 long afterwards joined by the fleet of the 
 lord of the isles, which restored the confi- 
 
 369 
 
DEATH OF HENRY VIII.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1517, 
 
 dence of the leaders. But they had now 
 received full confirmation of the treachery 
 of their friends in Scotland, and of the for- 
 midable preparations that had been made 
 for their reception. Under these circum- 
 stances, it was resolved, in a council of the 
 chiefs, that they should separate for the 
 present, and watch a more favourable oppor- 
 tunity for invading Scotland, when their 
 enemies were not on their guard. The lord 
 of the isles accompanied the fleet to Dublin, 
 where he is said to have died shortly after- 
 wards. The army had landed with the two 
 earls at Carrickfergus, and thence, amid the 
 rigours of winter, it marched overland, one 
 half under the command of the earl of 
 Ormond along the coast by Belfast, through 
 Lecale to Dundalk, while the rest took the 
 shorter route through the Ai-des. The latter 
 division had to fight its way through hordes 
 of armed natives, who laid aside all allegi- 
 ance to the government the moment they 
 saw a favourable occasion for committing 
 hostilities. Ormond broke up his army at 
 Dundalk, and himself rode forward to Dub- 
 lin and thence to his own county of Kil- 
 kenny.* 
 
 An angry contention had in the meanwhile 
 arisen between the earl of Ormond and the 
 lord deputy Sentlcger, which is said to have 
 been embittered by the ill-offices of some 
 members of the council, and which gave rise 
 
 • The Irish chiefs began now to boast of their ser- 
 vices in furnishing men, and to seek for their rewards. 
 The following letter was addressed to the king about 
 this time by O'Keilly, and relates to the kernes fur- 
 nished in 1543. 
 
 "To the ryght honorable and hys wcrye good kyng, 
 
 Hary, kyng of Hegland, Fransse, and of Herland. 
 
 "Ryght honorable nobuU kyng Harry, kyng of 
 
 Hyngland, Fransse, and of Herland. After my 
 
 nioste bounden duetye premysed, it may pleace your 
 
 nobuU gras to have ndacion. I hartyly 
 
 recomment me wnto nobuU gras. The cause of my 
 wTytynge wnto your gras at thys tyme ys humylly to 
 beseche yow to be soo good kyng wnto your magysty 
 ys pore servant, as to consydere the grett costes that 
 I hat dune about me 100 men that I shent wnto gras 
 into H)Tigland, and I sertytfy your gras that me 100 
 men costes me about 600£ for the goyng and comyng, 
 and the have 8 vyke of ther vages wnpayt gj'tt, 
 because the whas so longe at Shester, and at Holly- 
 hed, shens whyn was contrary to them. Nu I dcssjT 
 yowr nobuU gras for that sam costes that 1 hat dune, 
 and for the servys I du every day wnto youj- gras, 
 and to yowr debytty in Herland, to shend to me a 
 
 to mutual complaints to the king and his 
 ministers. The true grounds of this quarrel 
 are not known, but it soon rose so liigh that 
 it was found necessary to summon both 
 parties, as well as the lord chancellor Allen 
 (who was believed to be at the bottom of 
 the strife) to London, where, after an exami- 
 nation before the privy council, Allen was 
 committed a prisoner to the Fleet. The 
 two earls appear to have been fully recon- 
 ciled; but Ormond never returned to his 
 native country. Having partaken in a 
 splendid banquet given at Ely House, in 
 Holborn, the meats administered to the earl 
 and his companions had, by design or acci- 
 dent, been poisoned, and the earl and thirty- 
 five of his attendants were seized with imme- 
 diate sickness; seventeen of the attendants 
 fell victims to the fatal diet, and the earl 
 himself, after lingering a very short while, 
 died towards the end of October, 1646, 
 deeply lamented by his countrymen, with 
 whom he was universally a favourite. 
 
 Three months after Ormond's decease, on 
 the 28th of January, 1547, king Henry VIII. 
 followed him to the grave, leaving Ireland 
 in a state of unusual tranquillity, under the 
 prudent rule of sir Antony Sentleger, who 
 had been sent back to his post, and was 
 continued in his office of lord deputy on 
 the accession of the youthful monarch, 
 Edward VI. 
 
 lytell ferjTu, that hys within myn on land, and hyt 
 hys no mor but 18£ a yers, that prior Ford hat afor, 
 to have that for meself, and for me son after me, 
 wnto every man know that I have yowr gras hys 
 wages in Herland. Also I dessyr yowr gras be so 
 good to thys sam pore chaplyn, for God sake, and for 
 the servys that he hat dune for yowr sake and for 
 me sake; and I sertitfy yowr gras that thys pore 
 chaplyn whas taken in Scotland, and he payt for hys 
 ransser 8 nobyll, and 1 know that hys menny men in 
 Herland that the have 2s. or 3s. a day, and the wyll 
 not du mor servys wnto gras, mor than he hat dune, 
 and for that servys, and for God sake, and for me, 
 lett hym have hys lyvyng in sum plassys in Herland, 
 
 makyng of thys sam by r aU Herland 
 
 whas rest and sheffs. And thus, besechynge our lord 
 Jesu Chryste longe to kep yowT most honorable nobull 
 kyng in prosperous helth and felicite. Fynally, 
 God safe the kyng. 
 Yowr honorable, noble kyng humble and 
 obediente true servant. 
 My lord Ho Keylly in Herland." 
 
 "To the kyng hys good gras." 
 
 370 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 STATE OF IRELAND ON THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. ; SIR EDWARD EELLINGHAM ; 
 EXPULSION OF THE IRISU FROM LEIX AND OFF ALT ; RENEWAL OF DISORDERS 
 AMONG THE NATIVE SEPTS. 
 
 "RE AT as was the change 
 which had taken place in 
 the condition of Ireland 
 since the appointment of 
 sir Antony Sentleger, 
 there were found men to complain that 
 enough had not been done, and that the 
 lord deputy alone had been an obstacle in 
 the way of a much greater reformation. 
 Personal jealousies and intrigues had ever 
 been the bane of the Irish government, and 
 several members of the Irish council during 
 the period we have been describing appear 
 to have occupied themselves almost entirely 
 in impeding the plans of the lord deputy for 
 the time being, and in framing complaints 
 against him. In the case of lord Leonard 
 Gray, the intrigues of these men led to 
 violent contentions, and ended fatally for 
 their victim, who was betrayed by his own 
 wilfulness and Tiolenceof temper. We find 
 that chancellor Allen, who had been so 
 active at the time of the Geraldine rebellion, 
 who had been the enemy successively of 
 Skeffington, Gray, and Sentleger, and who 
 was now a prisoner in the Fleet, had appa- 
 rently widened the breach between the last 
 mentioned deputy and the earl of Ormond, 
 but he was called over to England on this 
 occasion more especially for the purpose of 
 substantiating charges which he had secretly 
 made against Sentleger for negligence in his 
 government. 
 
 When the lord deputy was preparing to 
 obey the king's summons in tlie March of 
 1546, he called a meeting of the principal 
 Irish chiefs as well as the lords of the pale, 
 in order to receive from their own lips their 
 promises to continue faithful in their alle- 
 giance during his absence, or until the ar- 
 rival of another deputy, as many anticipated 
 that Sentleger might be disgraced. Among 
 the former were, with the half Irish earl of 
 Desmond, the new earls of Thomond and 
 Tyrone, the lord of Upper Ossory, O'Con- 
 nor, O'Mulmoy, the O'Carrolls, and Mac 
 Geoghegan. Sir Thomas Cusacke, who 
 describes the meeting of these chiefs at Dub- 
 lin in a letter to secretary Paget, said that 
 he "could perceive none of better confor- 
 
 mity than those Irish lords," who promised 
 " to help to see the country defended, as 
 need shall require from time to time, to the 
 uttermost of their powers, till the return of 
 my lord deputy; weeping and lamenting his 
 departing, giving his lordship commendation 
 and pi-aise, in thanking God of his coming 
 amongst them; ascribing, that if such truth 
 and gentleness had been shown to them by 
 the governors and rulers that were before 
 his time, they had been reformed as well 
 then as now; and being so much in despair 
 of his return, they lament therefore his de- 
 parting, the more, because they found him 
 so good and just in his proceedings, who 
 never took of them nothing, but would give 
 apparel and plate to them, and to his power 
 would not suffer wrong to be done to them, 
 whereby they felt both wealth and quietness." 
 So that, he says, those which would not be 
 brought under subjection by the threats of 
 an invasion with ten thousand men, now 
 came to Dublin in obedience to a mere 
 letter, " which is no small comfort to every 
 heart to see." "Finally," he adds, " this land 
 was never, by our remembrance, in so good 
 ease, nor nothing like, for honest obedience." 
 
 In spite of this honourable testimony to 
 the wisdom of Sentleger's government, 
 Allen gave in a paper of complaints under 
 the title of " certain notes on the state of 
 Ireland," in which the lord deputy was 
 charged vnth betraying his trust, and with 
 reducing the English power in that island to 
 a state of dangerous insecurity. These are 
 mostly general accusations, which had evi- 
 dently little if any foundation, but they 
 elicited answers which help to make us ac- 
 quainted with the true condition of the island 
 at that period. 
 
 The chancellor complains, in the first 
 place, that in spite of the successes of Sent- 
 leger's administration, the English pale had 
 not been extended or strengthened, and that, 
 except the mere professions of obedience of 
 the Irish chiefs, there was no greater security 
 against them than in former times, while 
 they had been allowed under cover of peace 
 to increase their own strength and make 
 themselves more formidable than ever. To 
 
 371 
 
(CHARGES AGAINST SENTLEGER.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1546. 
 
 this Sentleger replied, that the forces of the 
 pale were increased in numbers and disci- 
 pline, and that its real strength and security 
 had certainly been confirmed by the forfei- 
 ture of the earldom of Kildare, and by the 
 submissions of the Irish chiefs on its borders. 
 Of the Irish septs within the pale, he asserted 
 that the O'Byrnes did not possess one-half 
 the number of horsemen they had when he 
 entered upon the office of lord deputy ; that 
 the strength of the O'Tooles was entirely 
 broken ; and that the force of the Cavenaghs 
 had been reduced from eight or nine score 
 horsemen to hardly forty. With regard to 
 the borders that were most exposed " Old 
 O'Moore," he said, "would ride everyday 
 in the week with more horsemen than all 
 O'Moore's country is now able to make; 
 Mulrony O'Carroll had more horsemen than 
 they now all the O'Moores and O'Carrolls 
 together; and O'Connor had at my coming 
 into the land four horsemen to one he hath 
 now." 
 
 The next complaint of the chancellor was, 
 that the king's writ received obedience and 
 respect no further than it did formerly, and, 
 he said, " further than that is obeyed I see 
 no likelihood of continuance of any con- 
 formity." In reply to this charge, the lord 
 deputy said, " In good faith, I think it be 
 very little further obeyed than it was four 
 years past; for it were hard to make those 
 wild men in so short time to obey a king's 
 process, which know neither law nor letter ; 
 but sure I am the most part of Ireland obey 
 better the king's commandment and letter, 
 and keep better rule in their country now, 
 than they did this hundred years past. For 
 when I came into the land, no man could 
 ride between Limerick and Cashel, but he 
 must both have safe conduct, and pay a 
 crown for every pack carried on horseback; 
 and now he pays nothmg, and there yearly a 
 sheriff chosen, who executeth as well as he 
 can the king's process, which cannot be so 
 sicerely there as in other places of more 
 civility." We learn further from the reply 
 to this charge that, in this year (154-6) one 
 of the once turbulent sept of the O'Tooles 
 was executing faithfully the important office 
 of sheriff of the county of Dublin ; and that 
 there was also appointed a sheriff among the 
 O'Byrnes, who " executed his office in such 
 sort as was and is prescribed to him by me 
 and the council." The Irish chiefs seemed 
 indeed at this moment to vie with each other 
 in their professions of loyalty to the Irish 
 government; and we have a remarkable ex- 
 372 
 
 ample of this spirit in the Irish baron of 
 Upper Ossory, (the chief of the Mac Gilla- 
 patricks), who, like another Brutus, caused 
 his own son, who had taken part in some 
 treasonable practices, to be arrested and de- 
 livered up to public justice. 
 
 Another of Allen's complaints was, that 
 the province of Leinster, "which is the key 
 both for the surety of all Ireland, and the 
 entry to reduce the rest to obedience," was 
 not reduced to such reformation as the king 
 might justly have expected. This charge 
 referred to a favourite project with many 
 people who gave attention to the affairs of 
 Ireland, and one which had been often 
 brought forward, that of expelling entirely 
 from the English province the smaller Irish 
 septs, such as the O'Tooles, the O'Byrnes, 
 the Cavenaghs, and many others who had 
 been troublesome to the English rulers, and 
 peopling their territories with new English 
 settlers. The answer to this was a plain 
 one. It had been the opinion of the Irish 
 council and, as it would appear, of the king 
 himself, that, among the numerous difficul- 
 ties with which the Irish government was 
 beset, it was better and safer to use every 
 means to change the native septs of Leinster 
 into obedient and faithful subjects, by con- 
 ciliation, or even by tlie adoption of force, 
 than to run the risk of raising a general 
 ferment throughout the island by attempting 
 to expel them altogether. At the moment 
 of which we are now speaking, most of them 
 were giving the most satisfactory marks of 
 their fidelity to the English crown ; although, 
 within a few months, we shall see one or two 
 of them rising without cause, and provoking 
 that very severity which the English govern- 
 ment had itself hesitated in using. 
 
 Another charge, connected in some mea- 
 sure with this, and equally answered by the 
 fact that it was not in the power of the lord 
 deputy to apply a remedy, was that he per- 
 mitted the Irish chiefs, especially the 
 O'Neills, and the O'Donnells, to carry on 
 their old hostilities among themselves. The 
 effect of this, it was represented, would ne- 
 cessarily be, that the great chiefs would, 
 under cover of their peace with the English 
 government, gradually reduce under their 
 sway the smaller septs around them, who 
 had often embarrassed them in their wars 
 with the English, and that they were thus 
 increasing and concentrating their strength 
 for the time when accident or necessity 
 might again induce them to raise the stan- 
 dard of rebellion. It was further allecfed 
 
A.D. 1547.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [new insurrections. 
 
 thcit the lord deputy had not compelled, as 
 he ought to have done, the Irish chiefs to 
 fulfil all the articles of their coinpacts, and 
 that, whereas they had promised to make 
 roads through their various territories, to 
 reduce their armed forces, to dismiss the 
 greater part of their idle retainers, and to 
 adopt the English laws and manners, none 
 of these things had been performed, and the 
 Irish continued to follow their old laws and 
 customs. The rest of the chancellor's charges 
 were too vague and general to require any 
 serious answer ; and, in reply to one in which 
 Allen insinuated that the deputy was too 
 confiding in his dealings with the Irish who 
 had submitted, and repeated the old com- 
 plaint that Irishmen were faithless in keep- 
 ing their promises, Sentleger makes the 
 somewhat significant remark, "I know not 
 wherein they have greatly broken them, but 
 perchance, if Englishmen being there were 
 well examined, they all keep not their pro- 
 mises." 
 
 Such were the cheering prospects in Ire- 
 land when sir Antony Sentleger returned to 
 reassume the office of lord deputy. But a 
 sudden change was produced in the senti- 
 ments of some of the Irish chiefs, by the 
 intelligence of the death of Henry VIII. 
 Tliey appear to have ascribed the power 
 which the English had latterly gained in 
 Ireland more to the individual character of 
 the king, than to the conduct of their gover- 
 nors, and they recovered their courage when 
 they learnt that the crovsn of England was 
 transferred to the brows of a child. The 
 first symptoms of disorder were shown in 
 an insurrection of the Geraldines of Kildare, 
 headed by two nephews of the late earl, one 
 of whom bore the significant name of Mau- 
 rice of the Wood, given to him probably on 
 account of the wildness of his life. At the 
 first outburst, they committed great depre- 
 dations, plundering Ballymore-Eustace in 
 the county of Dublin, Rathvilly in Carlow, 
 and several parts of Kildare, where they 
 burnt the town of Rathangan. They re- 
 mained in open rebellion several months, 
 until they were entirely defeated at the 
 town of Three-Castles in the county of Kil- 
 kenny, where the English forces were assisted 
 by the O'Tooles. Maurice of the Woods, 
 with his brother, and fourteen other leaders, 
 were taken prisoners and carried to Dublin, 
 where they were executed as traitors. A 
 certain importance was given to this in- 
 surrection by the conduct of the earl of Des- 
 mond, who, on the death of Henry VIII., 
 
 retired to his great estates in the south, 
 and there resumed the state and indepen- 
 dence which had been assumed by his an- 
 cestors. 
 
 Almost at the same moment with this 
 outbreak a feud arose between the O'Kellys 
 and O'Maddens, which led to some blood- 
 shed ; and then O'Connor Faly and O'Moore 
 of Leix, encouraged by the first successes of 
 the insurgents, and seduced by their old 
 sympathies for the Geraldines, threw off" 
 their lately assumed allegiance, and joined 
 in burning and plundering the county of 
 Kildare. 
 
 At this moment Edward Bellingham, a 
 brave and experienced commander, was sent 
 over with the office of marshal of the army, 
 at the head of six hundred horse and four 
 hundred foot ; and with this seasonable rein- 
 forcement, he lost no time in joining the 
 lord deputy. They invaded Offaly, and laid 
 the country waste as far as Croaghan in 
 King's County, whence they returned, to 
 use the words of the Irish annalist, " without 
 getting battle or submission." Then O'Con- 
 nor and O'Moore reappeared in Kildare, and 
 burnt the town of Athy, with great slaughter 
 of its inhabitants. This provoked a new 
 invasion by Sentleger and Bellingham, who 
 overrun the whole of OfFaly and Leix, and 
 drove the insurgents into Connaught. The 
 latter were proclaimed traitors and outlaws, 
 and their territories were seized upon as 
 forfeited to the king. The Irish landholders 
 were dispossessed and driven from their 
 homes, sometimes, as it is said, with circum- 
 stances of great cruelty, and strong garrisons 
 were placed in Offaly and Leix to keep those 
 countries, which were now added to the 
 English pale, in subjection. Bellingham, 
 who thus gained the credit of being the first 
 who extended the limits of the pale, was 
 rewarded with the honour of knighthood, 
 acccomjjanied with a full approbation of his 
 conduct. 
 
 O'Connor and O'Moore, joined by Cahir 
 Roe O'Connor and other chiefs, sustained 
 themselves during nearly a year, in spite of 
 successive defeats ; but at last, deserted by 
 their Irish followers, who saw no prospect 
 but that of destruction in renewing the con- 
 test, the two chiefs of Oftaly and Leix sur- 
 rendered themselves to tlie mercy of the 
 lord deputy. Sentleger being about this 
 time recalled, the two Irish chiefs accompa- 
 nied him to England, where they were 
 retained, although the treatment they expe- 
 rienced is diiI'Lrently represented. Accordin;' 
 
 .S78 
 
LEIX AND OFFALY CONFISCATED.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1548, 
 
 to some authorities they were thrown into 
 prison, and treated witli great rigour, while 
 others say that they were merely retained 
 at court, and even taken into favour, each 
 receiving a yearly pension from the exche- 
 quer of a hundred pounds. O'Moore died 
 not long after his arrival in England. Many 
 of the kinsmen and followers of these chiefs 
 were induced also to leave their native 
 country, and take service in the English 
 army; and thus sir Edward Bellingham, who 
 now, on the 18th of May, 1548, was appointed 
 to the government of Ireland with the office 
 of lord justice, was relieved from any serious 
 obstacles in settling the new English districts 
 of Leix and Offaly. 
 
 Another insurrection, planned by some 
 young lords of the family of the Fitz Eus- 
 taces, who had found means to involve in it 
 their father the viscount Baltinglas, but 
 which was repressed by the quick and ener- 
 getic measures of the present rulers of Ire- 
 land, had for its object the re-establishment 
 of the Romish church, and is said to have 
 been excited by the intrigues of the pope. 
 
 The severity exercised in the case of 
 OfFaly and Leix, and the power and activity 
 shown by the government in other quarters, 
 soon checked the inclination to rebel which 
 had shown itself among the Irish chiefs at 
 the commencement of the new reign, and 
 the native Irish were becoming gradually 
 conscious of the advantages they received 
 from the protection of the English crown 
 and the regular administration of English 
 laws. Some of them voluntarily laid aside 
 the old Brehon system, and submitted their 
 differences to the decision of English courts; 
 and lesser chieftains willingly transferred to 
 the crown the sort of allegiance which they 
 had formerly been compelled to pay to the 
 greater chiefs on whose borders they lay, 
 and surrendered their lands to have them 
 restored to hold by English tenures. Thus, 
 Maguire of Fermanagh, one of the cele- 
 brated chieftains of Ulster, had been con- 
 sidered as a dependent upon the great 
 O'Neill. A dispute arose between them, 
 and Maguire referred the decision of the 
 case to the lord deputy and council. The 
 latter received Maguire's submission, ad- 
 mitted him to the king's protection and 
 peace, and released him from all further 
 dependence on O'Neill. Some of the greater 
 chieftains followed the example of their 
 dependents, and felt that their extensive 
 possessions would be best protected by plac- 
 ing them under the safeguard of the crown. 
 374 
 
 This process of voluntary attachment was 
 gradually producing an important change 
 over a large portion of Ireland. 
 
 A remarkable act of vigour and modera- 
 tion secured the peace of the south. The 
 earl of Desmond is said to have co-operated 
 with a strong force raised among his depen- 
 dents in reducing Leix and Oftaly; but, 
 with this exception, he continued to hold 
 himself aloof from court, and appears to 
 have at length made himself the object of 
 suspicion. When he was summoned by the 
 new lord justice, sir Edward Bellingham, to 
 attend a meeting of the great lords at Dublin, 
 the earl of Desmond refused obedience to the 
 wiit, under the pretence, as it ai^pears, that 
 he was engaged in the festivities of Christ- 
 mas. Bellingham, without a moment's hesi- 
 tation, assembled a small body of horse, and, 
 without making any one acquainted with 
 his design, marched directly into Ulster, 
 presented himself unexpectedly at Des- 
 mond's house, and finding the earl quietly 
 seated by his fire, saluted him courteously, 
 acquainted him with the object of his visit, 
 and carried him back with him to Dublin, 
 There, according to the story preserved by 
 Stanihurst, he " did so instruct, school, and 
 inform him, that he made a new man of him, 
 and reduced him to a conformity in manners, 
 apparel, and behaviour, appertaining to his 
 estate and degree ; as also to the knowledge 
 of his duty and obedience to his sovereign 
 and prince ; and made him to kneel upon 
 his knees sometimes an hour together before 
 he knew his duty." " This, though," adds 
 Stanihurst, "it were very strange to the 
 earl, who, having not been trained up in 
 any civility, knew not what appertained to 
 his duty and calling, neither yet of what 
 authority and majesty the king his sovereign 
 was; yet when he had well digested and 
 considered of the matter, he thought him- 
 self most happy that ever he was acquainted 
 with the said deputy, and did for ever after 
 so much honour him, as that continually all 
 his lifetime, at every dinner and supper, he 
 would pray for the good sir Edward Belling- 
 ham; and, at all callings, he was so obedient 
 and dutiful, as none more in that land." 
 
 While the southern province was thus 
 kept in tranquillity, the Irish chiefs of the 
 north appeared to be meditating new dis- 
 orders. The O'Neills, O'Donnells, and 
 O'Doghertys, conspiring together, are said 
 to have made some overtures to the French 
 king for assistance against the English 
 power, and to have ofl'ered to become liis 
 
A.D. 
 
 1549.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [french embassy to o'donnell. 
 
 subjects and shake off all dependence upon 
 the English crown, if he would obtain the 
 pope's gift of Ireland and land a French 
 army in Ulster to co-operate with them. 
 France was at this moment in alliance with 
 the Scots, on the eve of a new war with 
 England, and probably calculating on a large 
 amount of discontent excited among the 
 Irish by the increasing power of the English 
 government and the rigorous steps taken to 
 enforce the new reformations in religion, its 
 monarch was willing to lend an ear to pro- 
 posals which seemed calculated to embarrass 
 liis enemies. Francis I. accordingly sent as 
 a special envoy to the Ulster chiefs, a French 
 soldier of considerable skill and experience, 
 the baron de Fourquevaux, who had already 
 served in the Scottish wars. This nobleman 
 was attended by the sieur de Monluc, after- 
 wards bishop of Valence. They repaired to 
 Dumbarton in Scotland, from whence it was 
 arranged that they should set sail, and there 
 they met with two Irish gentlemen, George 
 Paris and William Fitzgerald, who were re- 
 turning from France, where they had been 
 sent to solicit assistance for the insurgent 
 Geraldines, as well as one of the O'Moores, 
 probably a sufferer in the late proceedings 
 in Leix and Offaly, who professed to have 
 been employed in a similar commission on 
 behalf of the O'Byrnes, the O'Carrolls, and 
 some other chiefs of Leinster.* 
 
 At length, sailing from Dumbarton, they 
 reached the coast of Ireland in tempestuous 
 weather, and were compelled to anchor for 
 the night off Green Castle, at the mouth 
 of Lough Foyle. It was Shrove Tuesday 
 when they arrived at this place. Next day 
 the violence of the weather was so great, 
 that they could proceed no farther than a 
 large square tower of stone called Culmor 
 Fort, which was in the keeping of a son of 
 O'Dogherty, a dependent of the O'Donnell. 
 Here the envoys requested shelter till the 
 storm was over, announcing themselves as 
 two French gentlemen sent by the king of 
 France to O'Donnell, to whom they gave 
 the title of the count or earl. During their 
 
 • The baron de Fourquevaux, by direction of the 
 king, kept a daily record of his journey to Ireland, 
 which is still preserved. 
 
 f " He was verie exquisit and careful! in the governe- 
 ment, as few before him the like ; as well in matters 
 martiall, as politike, magnanimous and courageous; 
 in the one, to the appalling of the enimie, and as 
 severe and upright in the other to the benefit of the 
 commonwelth. For neither by flatterie could he be 
 gained, nor by briberie be corrupted ; he was feared 
 for his severetie, and beloved for his integritie, and 
 
 stay at Culmor Fort they received a visit 
 from the papal nominee to the archbishopric 
 of Armagh, Robert Waucop, or, as the name 
 was Latinized, Venantius, which had no 
 doubt reference to the object of their mis- 
 sion. Proceeding on their journey, the 
 two emissaries reached in safety the castle 
 of O'Donnell at Donegal, whither, it appears, 
 the earl of Tyrone, O'Neill, had also re- 
 paired; and the two chieftains of the north 
 bound themselves by oath, in their own 
 names and in those of all their brother 
 chieftains, to place their lives, forces, and 
 possessions under the protection of France, 
 so that " whoever was king of France, the 
 same should be likewise king of Ireland." 
 If this statement be true, it would show a 
 more extensive confederacy among the native 
 chiefs than other circumstances would lead 
 us to suppose. Next year the secret prac- 
 tices between the court of France and the 
 Irish chieftains was renewed, and the same 
 George Paris, a gentleman of the English 
 pale, was employed in it. It is probable 
 that sanguine agents like this deceived both 
 sides by promising far more than they were 
 authorised to promise, or than either party 
 was willing or able to perform. Paris had 
 been obliged to fly the English pale for 
 treasonable practices, for which his father or 
 brother had been executed, and a letter 
 addressed from Ireland to the English privy 
 council at this period informs us that on 
 this account he sought " all the means he 
 could to annoy the king and the realm, and 
 for that purpose had been a common post 
 between the wild Irish and the French." 
 
 At this period the Irish government was 
 suffering again from the frequent change in 
 its rulers. Sir Edward BelHngham executed 
 the duties of his office with prudence as well 
 as energy, and appears to have gained the 
 respect of the chiefs with whom he had to 
 deal as well as that of the gentlemen of the 
 pale jf yet he also was exposed to the same 
 jealousies and clamours that had tormented 
 his predecessors, and these became so loud 
 that in 1549 he was recalled from his govern- 
 no governor for the most universaUie better reported 
 of than was he. But as vertue hath the contraric to 
 enimie, so he found it true; for he was so envied of, 
 and that rebellious nation not brooking so woortliie 
 a man, who travelled all the waies he could to reduce 
 them to the knowledge of themselves and of their 
 duties, and also to reforme that corrupt state of 
 governement, that great practises and devises were 
 made for his revocation, and matters of great im- 
 portance informed and inforced against him." — 
 Stajiihurst. 
 
 375 
 
SHANE ONE 
 
 [LL.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRE1^\ND. 
 
 [a.d. 155]. 
 
 ment. He was succeeded by sir Francis 
 Bryan, an Englishman who had married the 
 countess dowager of Ormond, and was 
 "overnor of the counties of Tipperary and 
 Kilkenny. He was appointed marshal of 
 the army and lord justice, and took the 
 oaths of office on the 29th of December, 
 1549, but he died on the 2nd of the follow- 
 ing February, at Clonmel, as he was on his 
 way to invade the district of Ely. Sir Wil- 
 liam Brabazon was thereupon appointed lord 
 justice, and on his death, which occurred on 
 the 9tli of July, sir Antony Sentleger was 
 restored to his office of lord deputy. 
 
 It was in the interval between the recall 
 of Bellingham and the return of Sentleger, 
 thai the French mission described above 
 arrived in Ulster, and at that time both the 
 great chieftains of the north were involved 
 in domestic strife. In Tirconnell, Calvagji 
 O'Donnell had risen in arms against his 
 father Manus, and was joined by the O'Kanes 
 and other turbulent and warlike septs. A 
 decisive battle, fought at Ballybolly in Done- 
 gal, had ended in the slaughter of the cliief- 
 tain of the O'Kanes, and in the entire defeat 
 of Calvagh, who was obliged in consequence 
 to conceal himself among his friends, but he 
 persevered in his hostilities, and we shall 
 find him a little later gaining the upper hand 
 in this unnatural strife. 
 
 The struggle of parties in Tyrone was 
 more obstinate, and more important in its 
 effects on the English government, and on 
 the whole island. It first brought into 
 notice the celebrated Shane O'Neill, who 
 afterwards gave so much trouble to the 
 officers of queen Elizabeth. Con O'Neill, 
 the chieftain on whom the late king had 
 conferred the title of earl of Tyrone, had, 
 it is said, carried on an adulterous inter- 
 coiu'se with the wife of a smith named 
 Killaie of Dundalk, who afterwards left her 
 husband, and she then declared to the O'Neill 
 that one of her children, named Matthew, 
 was his son. Such a declaration, it appears, 
 was considered, according to the Irish law or 
 custom, a sufficient ground of affiliation;* 
 and, as little distinction was made between 
 bastards and legitimate issue, Con O'Neill 
 immediately adopted him, and, as he was 
 the eldest of his family, declared him heir to 
 the chieftainship, and obtained for him the 
 title of baron of Dungannon. The partiality 
 
 * " And here understand you the wickednesse of 
 this countrie ; which is, that if anie woman doo mis- 
 like hir husband, and will depart from him, he shall 
 have all such children as were borne of hir bodie 
 376 
 
 of the earl of Tyrone for his son Matthew 
 had roused the jealousy of the other mem- 
 bers of the family, and especially of John, 
 or, according to the Irish form of his name, 
 which is better known in history, Shane 
 O'Neill, the second and legitimate son. 
 The objection to the baron of Dungannon 
 was not his illegitimacy, which would have 
 had little weight with the Irish, but his bro- 
 thers said that their father had been de- 
 ceived by his paramour, and that Matthew 
 was well known to be the son of the smith 
 of Dundalk, whom, being the favourite of his 
 mother, she had intruded into the princely 
 house of Tyrone by a falsehood. 
 
 Shane O'Neill appears to have possessed 
 in an unusual degree the talents necessary 
 for gaining power and authority among the 
 rude population, over whom his ancestors had 
 ruled as kings, and his ambition to emulate 
 their glory was equalled only by Itis hatred 
 of the English government, which he looked 
 upon as the cause that his family had lost 
 its titles and dignities. After his father's 
 return from his visit to the English court, 
 Shane lost no opportunity of calling to his 
 memory the greatness of their ancestors, and 
 the claims which he had derived from them 
 to the lofty position of king of Ireland, and 
 as it happened he found ears that did not 
 refuse to listen to his counsels. As these 
 sentiments took possession of the earl of 
 Tyrone, his affections became gradually 
 estranged from the baron of Dungannon; 
 and the latter, in self-defence, drew more 
 closely his alliance with the English. 
 
 The two parties in Tyrone were thus 
 gradually exasperating each other, without 
 proceeding to actual hostilities, until at 
 length, in 1551, the suspicions of the English 
 government at Dublin were so far excited bj' 
 the baron of Dungannon's reports of the 
 anti-English practices of his father, that 
 they caused the latter to be arrested and 
 connnitted to close confinement at Dublin. 
 Shane O'Neill and his younger brothers now 
 took to arms, and declared war against their 
 brother Matthew and the English who pro- 
 tected him. 
 
 At this time, the summer of 1551, sir 
 Antony Sentleger had been recalled, and he 
 had been'succeeded by sir James Crofts, with 
 the title of lord justice, who marched to the 
 north in support of the party of the baron 
 
 during their abode togither, except such as she shall | 
 name to be begotten by anie other man, which man 
 so named shall by their custome have the said child." — 
 tStanihurst. 
 
A.D. 
 
 1552.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [invasion of ulster. 
 
 of Diingannon. But he appears to have pro- 
 ceeded rashly, and without a prudent estimate 
 of the forces of his opponent, and his first ope- 
 rations were singularly unsuccessful. A first 
 invasion of Ulster by the lord justice appears 
 to have led to no other result than the col- 
 lection of plunder. He carried the English 
 army to the northern coast, where the sons 
 of Con O'Neill appear to have trusted in the 
 alliance of the Scottish adventurers from the 
 islands, who had latterly crowded to this 
 coast, both to plunder and to form settle- 
 ments. A portion of the English army des- 
 patched in four ships to plunder the island 
 of Rathlin, ignorant of the fact that a large 
 body of the island Scots had landed there to 
 oppose them, was entirely cut off". After 
 this disaster, the lord justice returned with 
 the remainder of the army to the English 
 pale, to recruit for a second invasion of 
 Ulster. He accordingly soon afterwards 
 marched again to the north ; but the O'Neills 
 and the Scots had employed the interval 
 in organizing their army, and an obstinate 
 battle ended in the entire defeat of the 
 English with considerable slaughter. Next 
 spring sir James Crofts marched into Ulster 
 for the third time, and established himself 
 at Belfast, where he built a castle, but he 
 was again mortified by defeats. A strong 
 detachment of the English army, under the 
 command of one of the Savages, having 
 advanced incautiously in search of plunder, 
 was attacked by the O'Neills of Clannaboy, 
 and was driven back with considerable loss. 
 The baron of Dungannon, in the meanwhile, 
 having raised a large force of his Irish ad- 
 herents, was marching to join the English 
 army at Belfast, when he was overtaken 
 by night, and obliged to encamp till next 
 day at some distance from that place. Shane 
 O'Neill, who had hurried forwards with the 
 hope of preventing the junction of his brother 
 with the lord justice, made one of those 
 sudden night attacks on his camp which had 
 been so often successful in Irish warfare, 
 and Matthew of Dungannon was obliged to 
 save himself and the wreck of his army by a 
 precipitate flight, after having lost a great 
 number of his men. In the autumn, sir 
 James Crofts returned again into Ulster with 
 a greater army than before; but the Irish 
 on this occasion adopted their old policy of 
 seeking shelter in their woods and fastnesses, 
 and the only result of the lord justice's 
 expedition was the destruction of the corn 
 and the devastation of the open country. 
 After this invasion, each party seems by 
 
 VOL. I. 3 B 
 
 tacit consent to have abstained for some time 
 from further hostilities. 
 
 Meanwhile the disorders had been on the 
 increase in other parts of the island. Before 
 the insurrection in Offaly and Leix had been 
 appeased, a new war broke out between the 
 O'Melaghlins and Mac Coghlans in the 
 barony of Delvin, and that district was 
 invaded by the English and seized for the 
 king. The English, however, were soon 
 afterwards involved in a war with the O'Car- 
 rolls of Ely, whose chief had been thrown 
 into prison in Dublin, and the Irish of Delvin 
 seized upon the occasion to rise up and 
 deliver themselves from the yoke which had 
 been imposed upon them. This only pro- 
 voked a severe retribution, for Delvin was 
 immediately overrun by another English 
 army, which committed terrible devastations ; 
 and Ely O'Carroll experienced a similar 
 fate. O'Carroll had made his peace with 
 the government, surrendered his territory to 
 the crown, and received it again as a fief, 
 and been rewarded with the title of baron of 
 Ely; but he had become involved in the 
 revolts of neighboxrring septs, and he was 
 now engaged in desperate hostilities with 
 the English. He allied himself with the 
 O'Kellys, a part of the O'Melaghlins, the 
 Mac Coghlans, the O'Connors, and even the 
 Mac Morrough, or head of the Cavenaghs, 
 and thus the war extended from Roscommon, 
 through a part of Westmeath and Ofi'aly, 
 and through Ely, Ormond, the counties of 
 Kildare and Tipperary, and into Wicklow. 
 The English had broken the strength of this 
 confederacy by a strong military establish- 
 ment at Athlone, and by an alliance with 
 the chieftain of the Melaghlins, who was at 
 war with his kinsmen; and they pressed so 
 hard upon the O'CarroUs, that the latter were 
 obliged in 1548 to destroy some of their 
 principal castles, especially that of Ely, and 
 those of Banagher, Moystown, and Cloghan, 
 to hinder them from becoming garrisons for 
 their enemies. In Tipperary the O'Carrolls 
 were for a short time victorious, and they 
 there plundered and burnt the town of 
 Nenagh, as well as the monastery of Owney, 
 which had been used by the English as a 
 castle. O'Carroll then joined Mac Coghlan 
 in plundering the district of Moy Corran in 
 Westmeath. 
 
 Early in the next year the O'Melaghlins, 
 who were in alliance with O'Carroll, com- 
 mitted a daring outrage against the chieftain 
 of their sept. The latter, with a kinsman 
 named Murrough G'Melaghlin, had taken 
 
 377 
 
DISORDERS THROUGHOUT IRELAND.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1552. 
 
 up his quarters in a house in the township 
 of Newcastle in Westmeath; the insurgent 
 O'MelaghHns, by a secret march, succeeded 
 in surprising him in his house, which they 
 surrounded and burnt over his head, kilhng 
 or severely wounding more than twenty of 
 his followers. O'Melaghlin and his kinsman, 
 Murrough, escaped narrowly, the latter being 
 wounded in the fight. The insurgents had, 
 however, at this time been in all quarters 
 reduced to extremities, and O'CarroU at 
 length presented himself before the lord 
 justice and council in a "great court" held 
 at Limerick, where he succeeded in obtaining 
 terms of peace for himself and his confede- 
 rates. 
 
 During two or three successive years the 
 central and southern parts of the island were 
 in a comparative state of tranquillity, which 
 was disturbed only by an occasional feud 
 among the natives. Feuds of this kind, 
 attended with the deaths of their respective 
 chiefs, occurred during the 3'ear 1549 among 
 the O" Maddens of Longford, among the 
 O'Ferralls, and among the O'Sullivans of 
 Cork. In the spring of 1550, there was a 
 violent feud among the Mac Sweenys of the 
 north, in which the Scots took part, and in 
 the course of which the town of Killybegs 
 was plundered. In 1552, there were similar 
 feuds among the O'Rourkes, the O'Reillys, 
 and the O'Briens. In the midst of these 
 petty commotions, the English soldiery, who 
 were now distributed over a considerable 
 extent of country, showed their zeal for the 
 new church principles by plundering and 
 ruining the monastic establishments, which, 
 however, were not always spared by the Irish 
 themselves. The Irish chroniclers lament 
 especially the devastation committed in the 
 year last mentioned by the English garrison 
 of Athlone upon the venerable monastery of 
 Clonmacnoise, and they tell us that the 
 soldiers, in their eagerness to complete the 
 work of destruction, "took the large bells 
 out of the belfry, and left neither large nor 
 small bell, image, altar, book, gem, nor even 
 glass in a window in the walls of the church, 
 that they did not carry them away." 
 
 The feud which gave most uneasiness to 
 the English authorities was that among the 
 O'Briens of Thomond. The first earl of 
 Thomond died in 1551, and was succeeded 
 by his nephew Donough, the baron of Ibrac- 
 kan, without any opposition. In the case 
 of Donough, who had been a devoted friend 
 to the English in their wars in Munster, the 
 king had allowed the old custom of tanistry, 
 
 by which Donough O'Brien was heir to the 
 chieftainship, to have its course, but it was 
 declared, as well to gratify him as to intro- 
 duce the English law of descent, that the suc- 
 cession after Donough's death should be in 
 his eldest son and his heirs. The Irish looked 
 still with jealousy on the English title of 
 earl and the tenure by which it was held, 
 and they considered their chieftain as the 
 O'Brien, and preferred their old custom of 
 succession. Donough's brothers, Donal and 
 Turlough, who were shut out from the suc- 
 cession by the English law, encouraged and 
 profited by the popular feeling, and early in 
 1553 rose in arms to compel the earl to name 
 a tanist or heir to the chieftainship according 
 to the Irish custom. The whole of Thomond 
 was involved in a devastating war, until 
 towards Easter the death of the earl, slain 
 barbarously, as it is said, by Donal O'Brien, 
 made way for the latter to seize upon the 
 chieftainship. Almost at the same time a 
 somewhat similar feud broke out among the 
 Burkes of Connaught; and at the moment 
 when the death of the king was preparing 
 the way in England for a storm of religious 
 persecution, Ireland appeared to be threat- 
 ened with a renewal of its old disorders. 
 
 The reformation had during this reign 
 made a rapid and substantial progress, but it 
 had still made no advance among the Irish, 
 who were not only attached to their old 
 observances, but who were constantly 
 agitated by the agents of the papal party, 
 who impressed upon them the belief that the 
 supremacy of Rome was inseparable from 
 their own national independence. The 
 known character of king Henry VIII. had 
 compelled many to an outward profession of 
 obedience to his church mandates, which 
 they hardly felt it necessary to persevere in 
 under his successor; and the great mass of 
 the Anglo-Irish population of the pale were 
 still either f;ivourable to the old system, or 
 indifferent to either. Wlien the reformed 
 liturgy was carried over from England in 
 1550, it was received in the same indilferent 
 manner by most of those who were obedient 
 to the king, while it was vigorously opposed 
 by the much larger party who remained 
 firm in their attachment to Rome, and who, 
 in spite of the known illiterate character of 
 the great mass of the popish clergy of Ire- 
 land at this time, looked with scorn upon 
 what they pretended would enable any illi- 
 terate fellow to read mass. 
 
 The difficulty of enforcing the new church 
 regulations was increased by the singular 
 
A.D. 1551.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [ecclesiastical affairs. 
 
 mixture of both religions parties among the 
 Irish prelates who had been appointed under 
 Henry VIII., when Romish bishops and 
 archbishops were sometimes confirmed in 
 their appointments from motives of policy ; 
 while in parts of Ireland remote from the 
 seat of government, bishops nominated by 
 the pope were allowed to hold their sees 
 undisturbed. It was thus impossible to 
 carry into effect any measures for instruct- 
 ing the mass of the people, and preparing 
 them for the reception of the reformed doc- 
 trines in the same manner as in England. 
 The lord chancellor of Ireland, sir Thomas 
 Cusack, in a letter to the duke of Northum- 
 berland in 1552, described the ignorance of 
 the Irish populace, who received no reli- 
 gious instruction from one party or the other; 
 " hard it is," he observed, " that men sliould 
 know their duties to God and to the king, 
 when they shall not hear teaching or preach- 
 ing throughout the year." And he com- 
 plained further that, at a time when the 
 merest mechanic in England coukl hear and 
 convey instruction, and was habituated to 
 religious inquiry, iu Ireland " preaching we 
 have none, which is our lack, without wliich 
 the ignorant can have no knowledge." Thus 
 the first foundations of all reformation were 
 wanting. 
 
 Towards the end of the reign of the late 
 king, on the death of Cromer archbishop of 
 Armagh, which had made vacant the see of 
 most importance in Ireland, because it 
 claimed the primacy of the whole island, the 
 pope nominated Robert Waucop for his 
 successor. The king however, influenced, 
 it was said, by the advice of the lord deputy 
 Sentleger, refused to countenance this 
 interference with his supremacy ; and as that 
 
 supremacy was now acknowledged by the 
 Irish chiefs tliemselves, the nominee of the 
 king remained with nothing but a titular 
 dignity, and a native of Ireland named John 
 Dowdal was appointed by royal mandate to 
 the primacy. In this man the king and Sent- 
 leger appear to have been deceived, for he 
 soon distinguished himself by his devotion 
 to the cause of Rome, whicli became more 
 conspicuous after Henry's death. When 
 the new liturgy was delivered in a convoca- 
 tion of the Irish churchmen, the primate at 
 the liead of his northern clergy offered the 
 most determined opposition to it, and treated 
 with contempt the proposal to perform divine 
 service in the language of the people. Sent- 
 leger expostulated with him mildly, and was 
 proceeding to show that the object of the 
 new liturgy was not to bring rehgion into 
 contempt, but to communicate it to that 
 numerous class who had been hitherto left 
 in ignorance, when arclibishop Dowdal inter- 
 rupted him with a stern and haughty admo- 
 nition to beware of the curse of the clergy, 
 and after some further altercation, departed 
 from the assembly followed by almost all 
 of his suffragans. His great opponent, arch- 
 bishop Browne of Dublin, who now remained 
 the first in dignity among the assembled pre- 
 lates, and also was celebrated for the outward 
 ardour with which he had embraced the re- 
 formed faith, now rose and declared his full 
 acceptance of the king's order; his example 
 was followed by bishops Staples of Meath, 
 Lancaster of Kildare, Travers of Leighlin, 
 and Coyn of Limerick, and on Easter day 
 of the year 1551, the new liturgy was read 
 with great solemnity in the cathedral of 
 Christchurch, in the presence of the deputy, 
 magistrates, and clergy. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 RELIGIOUS DISPUTES ; PERILOUS " VOCATION " OF JOHN BALE. 
 
 HILE the reformed party 
 thus enjoyed their tri- 
 umph in the cathedral, 
 archbishop Dowdal re- 
 tired with an affected 
 dignity of resentment to 
 the abbey of St. Mary, 
 in the suburbs of Dublin, 
 and he refused to take any part in the pub- 
 
 lic councils, or to hold intercourse with 
 his conforming brethren. His opposition 
 to the government had made him popular 
 among the Irish and among all the Romanists, 
 and this sudden popularity acting upon a 
 mind which was evidently influenced in no 
 slight degree by ambition and pride, made 
 the primate still more obstinate in his re- 
 sistance. 
 
 379 
 
THE NEW LITURGY.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1551. 
 
 In the midst of the agitation caused by 
 these religious disputes, in the spring of 
 1551, Sentleger was suddenly recalled, 
 and sir James Crofts, a gentleman of the 
 privy chamber, sent over to Ireland as his 
 successor. Sentleger appears to have acted 
 with impartiality between the two creeds, 
 and his recall is said to have been the result 
 of the complaints of archbishop Browne, who 
 represented the deputy's supineness in the 
 cause of the reformation as a chief cause of 
 the obstinacy of the northern clergy in their 
 opposition to the wishes of the court, where 
 Brovnie had risen in importance in the same 
 degree as Dowdal had become popular with 
 the Romish party. Although Dowdal's con- 
 duct had given great offence to the English 
 court, the first care of the new deputy was 
 to labour by persuasion and address to 
 soften his opposition and reconcile him to 
 the new regulations of public worship. He 
 addressed a letter to him in liis retreat at 
 St. Mary's abbey, which was delivered into 
 the primate's hands by the bishop of Meath. 
 In this he reminded him of the obedience 
 due to his sovereign, which the Saviour 
 had recommended by his own example, and 
 which bishops of Rome had not scrupled 
 to acknowledge; he expressed his desire as 
 deputy of being the instrument of recon- 
 ciling him with his spiritual brethren ; and 
 he urged him to appoint a place of con- 
 ference for this purpose, in order that the 
 discipline of the church of Ireland might 
 be adjusted amicably by the clergy, as the 
 only means of preventing some still more 
 stringent orders of regulation. 
 
 The pride of the disobedient prelate was 
 not lowered by the importance thus given 
 to him by his opponents. He replied coldly 
 that he had too good reason to fear that 
 nothing would be gained by bringing him 
 to a conference with a number of obstinate 
 churchmen, yet, although he professed that 
 he had no hope that the difierences which 
 had occasioned his separation could be 
 easily adjusted, he accepted the friendly 
 offer of the deputy, while he made an 
 excuse for not condescending to present 
 himself at his court. Sir James Crofts 
 overlooked the provocation contained in 
 this resolution of the proud prelate, in his 
 earnest desire to reconcile the whole body 
 of the Irish clergy to the royal ordinance, 
 and he prevailed upon him to r^ree to a 
 meeting between the ecclesiastics of the 
 two opposing parties. The conference was 
 opened in the form of a theological dis- 
 380 
 
 putation, held in the great hall of the 
 abbey. Dowdal there defended the ritual 
 of the Romish mass, which was opposed 
 by the bishop of Meath, who was now 
 the zealous advocate of the reformation, 
 although, even in appointing this opponent, 
 there was an indulgent leniency shown 
 towards the archbishop's feelings. Such a 
 mode of proceeding, where there was no 
 authoritative umpire, was a mere osten- 
 tatious display of argument; both parties 
 claimed the victory, and each retired with 
 feelings of greater acrimony against his 
 opponent. 
 
 In fact, as no law had yet established the 
 new liturgy in Ireland, the court had no 
 direct means of punishing the ecclesiastic 
 who thus set its authority at defiance, and 
 it was therefore powerless in enforcing im- 
 mediate conformity. In this emergency, 
 however, a plan of proceeding was adopted 
 against the refractory prelate, which pro- 
 duced an effect that is not easily appre- 
 ciated at the present time. A dispute for 
 supremacy had long raged between the sees 
 of Armagli and Dublin, both of which 
 claimed the primacy, the former as being 
 established by St. Patrick, and the latter as 
 being the metropolis of the English posses- 
 sions. After much acrimonious discussion, 
 and repeated, though vain, appeals to popes 
 and kings and councils, it was at length 
 agreed, as a mode of reconciling the claims 
 of the contending parties, who placed most 
 importance in the question whether the 
 archbishop of Armagh should have his cro- 
 sier borne erect within the jurisdiction of 
 his rival, that each prelate should be entitled 
 to primatical dignity, and erect his crosier 
 in the diocese of the other; but that accord- 
 ing to the distinction established in England 
 between the sees of Canterbury and York, 
 the archbishop of Dublin should be contented 
 with the title of primate of Ireland, while 
 the archbishop of Armagh should receive 
 that of primate of all Ireland. The distinc- 
 tion had so far been acquiesced in by all 
 parties; but the court now gave a new judg- 
 ment, which seems to have struck archbishop 
 Dowdal with the deepest mortification. By 
 the king's patent, the see of Armagh was 
 deprived of the superior title, which, with 
 all its powers and privileges, was conferred 
 on Browne and his successors for ever in the 
 see of Dublin. 
 
 The effect of this measure was different 
 from what we might reasonably expect. 
 The proud prelate who had set the govern- 
 
V.D. 
 
 1553.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [BALE BISHOP OF OSSORY. 
 
 ment at defiance, who had stood upon the 
 sanctity of his office, was suddenly struck 
 with terror in the midst of the popularity 
 which his bold conduct had secured for 
 him. He seems to have apprehended that 
 this was only the first step towards greater 
 rigour; the dignity and privileges of his see 
 had already been sacrificed in consequence 
 of his opposition to the crown, and he now 
 appears to have thought that his person was 
 in danger. Instead of remaining at his post 
 to face the storm that seemed to be rising, 
 he suddenly fled to the continent, and thus 
 deprived his party of a leader whose station 
 commanded respect. The court party lost 
 no time in profiting by this weak step of 
 their opponent; it was represented that his 
 flight was a virtual renunciation of his pas- 
 toral charge, and a staunch protestant named 
 Goodacre was appointed as his successor in 
 the archbishopric. The government no 
 longer met with active opposition to its 
 measures ; but it had still to contend vnth a 
 greater obstacle, the sullen obstinacy of the 
 people and the entire disobedience of all 
 those ecclesiastics who were too far re- 
 moved to be under its power. 
 
 Of these obstacles we may form a notion 
 from the case of the celebrated John Bale, 
 an English ecclesiastic of great learning, but 
 remarkable for his violent and acrimonious 
 hatred of popery, who was at this moment 
 appointed by king Edward, in whose favour 
 he stood high, to the bishopric of Ossory. 
 The difficulties with which he had to con- 
 tend were subsequently described in an 
 account published by this prelate himself of 
 what he terms his "vocation." 
 
 John Bale, well known in the literary 
 history of England by his numerous wi'i tings, 
 had been one of the tutors of the young 
 king, and he held the living of Bishop- 
 stoke in Hampshire, when, on the 15th of 
 August, 1552, the court being at South- 
 ampton, he was nominated to the vacant 
 bishopric of Ossory. He declares that he 
 accepted the appointment with reluctance; 
 but on the 19th of December, he took his 
 leave of Bishopstoke, and proceeded with 
 his wife and one servant to Bristol, 
 where they waited nearly a month for a 
 passage. At length, on the 23rd of January, 
 1553, after being two days and two nights 
 at sea, the new bishop landed at Water- 
 ford, and while he remained in that city 
 he had numerous opportunities of wit- 
 nessing how little real progress the refor- 
 mation had made in Ireland. He complains 
 
 1 
 
 bitterly of the idolatrous manner in which 
 the communion service was performed in 
 the cathedral there, and of the manner in 
 which "they wawled over their dead, with 
 prodigious bowlings and patterings, as 
 though their souls had not been quieted 
 in Christ," as well as of divers other 
 "heathenish behaviours;" and when he left 
 he did not omit a strong expression of his 
 opinion " that Christ had there no bishop, 
 neither yet the king's majesty of England 
 any faithful officer in the mayor." On his 
 way from Waterford to Dublin, bishop 
 Bale passed a night at Knocksopher, at the 
 house of Adam Walsh, his commissary- 
 general for his new diosese. 
 
 From his first entry into Ireland, Bale 
 appears to have fallen into converse with 
 men who afforded him no very elevated 
 standard by which to judge of the priest- 
 hood which he was called to rule; and the 
 clergy at first, not aware of the rigid piety 
 of the English reformer, made an incau- 
 tious display of the very vices which he 
 considered himself commissioned more espe- 
 cially to correct by his preaching. Even 
 from the first moment of his landing, there 
 arose a bitter enmity between the bishop 
 of Ossory and the inferior clergy, and by 
 consequence between him and the natives. 
 An instance of this occurred in his first 
 night's entertainment in the house of Adam 
 Walsh. "At supper," says Bale, "the 
 parish priest, called sir Philip, was very 
 serviceable, and in familiar talk described 
 unto me the house of the White Friars, 
 which sometime was in that town, conclud- 
 ing in the end, that the last prior thereof, 
 called William, was his natural father. I 
 asked him if that were in marriage. He 
 made me answer, 'No; for that was,' he said, 
 'against his profession.' Then counselled 
 I him that he never should boast of it more, 
 'Why,' said he, 'it is an honour in this 
 land to have a spiritual man, as a bishop, an 
 abbot, a monk, a friar, or a priest to father.' 
 With that," continues Bale, "I greatly 
 marvelled, not so much of his unshamefast 
 talk, as I did that adultery, borbidden of 
 God, and of all honest men detested, should 
 there have both praise and preferment, 
 thinking in process for my part to reform it.'" 
 At Dublin, Bale says that "much of the 
 people" rejoiced at his coming, in the hope 
 that by his preaching "the pope's supersti- 
 tions" would diminish, and the true chris- 
 tian religion increase. He was honourably 
 received by the lord chancellor, sir Thomas 
 
 381 
 
BISHOP BALE AT KILKENNY.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1553. 
 
 Cusack, and met with an old acquaintance 
 in the new archbishop of Armagh, Hugh 
 Goodacre. But a new trial awaited him 
 here, and he obtained, by his unflinching 
 zeal, a decided victory over the spirit of 
 religious moderation, against which he 
 looked upon it as his duty to make war in 
 whatever shape it presented itself. The feast 
 of the purification of Our Lady had been 
 appointed as the day on which the new pre- 
 late was to be invested or consecrated, and 
 this ceremony was to be performed by the 
 archbishop of Dublin, assisted by the 
 bishops of Kildare and Down. The new 
 ritual had as yet been but very imperfectly 
 received in Ireland, and had not been 
 confirmed by any Irish act of parliament; 
 and when the appointed day arrived, Lock- 
 wood, dean of Christ-church, proposed that 
 the Romish ritual should be observed, under 
 the pretence that this form being of more 
 force through the diocese over which Bale 
 was to preside, its adoption would take 
 away much cause of discontent between 
 him and his diocesans. The prospect of a 
 popish successor to the weakly prince who 
 now sat on the throne had also probably 
 some infuence in making people in au- 
 thority slow in relinguishing entirely the 
 old rites, at the moment when there was 
 an imminent chance of their restoration. 
 The reasons adduced by Lockwood were 
 coincided in by archbishop Browne, (whom, 
 although he had of late times talked so 
 much against the papacy. Bale looked upon 
 as little better than an ally of the pope), 
 and by the rest of the clergy present, and 
 even archbishop Goodacre was constrained 
 (though. Bale says, much against his will) 
 to acquiesce. But Bale himself remained 
 firm in his resolution to be consecrated by 
 no other form than that which had been 
 adopted by the church of England, and he 
 not only terrified the clergy into a com- 
 pliance, but, when he saw the wafer or 
 stamped cake prepared for the communion, 
 he suspended the whole office until it was 
 removed and common bread placed on the 
 table. 
 
 The circumstances of his consecration, 
 and the fier}' zeal with which he inveighed 
 from his pulpit at Kilkenny against the 
 papacy and against the irregular living of 
 the clergy, soon rendered the new bishop 
 of Ossory an object of the greatest abhor- 
 rence among the Roman catholics of his 
 diocese, and it was at a moment when their 
 hostility seems to have been sharpened by 
 382 
 
 the belief that a great change was at hand, 
 when they would be allowed to take their 
 full revenge upon their opponents. Bale 
 himself was at a subsequent period con- 
 vinced of this, and he informs us that when 
 he repeatedly urged his clergy to marry, 
 and leave their familiarity with " other 
 men's wives, daughters, and servants," their 
 usual reply was, "What, shall we marry 
 for half a year, and so lose our livings?" 
 " Think ye not," he remarks, " that these 
 men had knowledge of some secret mischief 
 working in England?" 
 
 After he had preached twelve sermons 
 to his congregation at Kilkenny, which, as 
 he confesses, produced very little effect, he 
 removed the week after Easter to his epis- 
 copal residence at Holmes' Court, a few 
 miles from Kilkenny, where he remained 
 till the feast of the Ascension. He there 
 received the alanning intelligence that 
 archbishop Goodacre had been poisoned at 
 Dublin, " by procurement of certain priests 
 of his diocese, for preaching God's verity, 
 and rebuking their common vices ;" and 
 this intelligence was followed by messages 
 from his friends in Dublin, counselling him 
 to be on his guard against similar designs 
 upon his own life. Yet, undaunted by these 
 various warnings, he returned to Kilkenny, 
 and there continued his preachings with 
 the same zeal as before, but with still less 
 chances of success, for events were now 
 confirming the anticipations of his opponents. 
 
 Bale soon found that the Irish clergy re- 
 ceived much earlier news of the political 
 events of the day than other people, which 
 he seems to have considered as a proof of the 
 existence of a plot, with very extensive 
 ramifications, against the English supremacy 
 in church and state. On the 25th of July 
 he was alarmed by a sudden and tumultuous 
 movement among his clergy. " The priests," 
 he says, " were as pleasantly disposed as 
 might be, and went by heaps from tavern to 
 tavern, to seek the best Rob-Davy and aqua 
 vitas, which are their special drinks there. 
 They caused all their cups to be filled in, 
 witli Gavdeamus in dolio, the mystery thereof 
 only known to them, and, at that time, to 
 none other else." But the bishop's alarm 
 was soon increased, when he learnt that the 
 cause of all this merriment was the news of 
 the death of Edward VI.,* which had 
 already spread among the clergy, and was 
 considered by them as the signal of the 
 
 • King Edward died on the 6th of July, 1553, 
 
liV.I). 
 
 1553.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [accession of queen mary. 
 
 entire overthrow of the protestant church. 
 The justice of Kilkenny, Thomas Hothe, 
 v^ho is represented as having been all along 
 a papist at heart, accompanied by lord 
 Mountgarret, who was also no favourer of 
 the new regulations, proceeded the same day 
 to the cathedral, and called for a communion 
 in honour of St. Anne. The priests replied 
 faintly that it was contrary to the new epis- 
 copal regulations, but lord Mountgarret and 
 the justice took upon themselves to absolve 
 them of obedience to their bishop, and a 
 mass in the Romish fashion was performed; 
 after which, " the jjriests thus rejoicing 
 that the king was dead, and that they had 
 that day been confirmed in their supersti- 
 tious obstinacy, resorted to the aforesaid 
 false justice the same night at supper, to 
 gratify him with Rob-Davy and aqua-vitae, 
 for that he had been so friendly unto them, 
 and that he might still continue in the same." 
 
 The next day, however, these rejoicings 
 received some check from the proclamation 
 of queen Jane, which was made at Kilkenny 
 " with solemnity of processions, bonfires, 
 and banquets." The Irish council had in- 
 deed acted somewhat precipitately in execut- 
 ing the commands of the party which had 
 supported the intrigue of the duke of North- 
 umberland to which this lady was made a 
 victim : and in less than a month they were 
 compelled to seek their peace v/itli those 
 who had triumphed by a still more cere- 
 monious proclamation of queen Mary. 
 
 The intelligence of the death of the king 
 had meanwhile produced a general agitation 
 throughout Ireland. The lord deputy, sir 
 James Crofts, happened at the time to be 
 absent in England, and the government was 
 left in the hands of two lord justices, sir Tho- 
 mas Cusack and sir Gerard Aylmer, which 
 added to the embarrassments of the English 
 authorities. The natives rose in many parts 
 of the island, which had been reduced to obe- 
 dience to the crown, attacking the smaller 
 forts and garrisons, and committing a multi- 
 tude of outrages. Bale intimates that there 
 was an impulse among the Irish to rise 
 against their English governors and make 
 a general massacre of the English inhabitants, 
 " minding, as they then stoutly boasted it, 
 to have set up a king of their own ;" and he 
 adds that some of the instigators to these 
 disorders tried to exasperate them against 
 the English by spreading a report that the 
 young earl of Ormond and the son of the 
 baron of Upper Ossory had been put to death 
 in London. Bale says that in one instance 
 
 in his neighbourhood the Irish enticed nine 
 soldiers out of their fort and slew them ; and 
 he mentions from his own knowledge another 
 outrage committed near the city of Kilkenny. 
 An English gentleman of consideration in 
 Ireland, named Matthew King, who was then 
 absent in London, probably attending on the 
 deputy, possessed a castle not far from Kil- 
 kenny. His lady, who remained in charge of 
 the castle, was so much alarmed at the state 
 of the country, that she determined to take 
 shelter in that city, and on the 13th of 
 August she proceeded thither with her 
 family and goods in carts. But they were 
 attacked on the way by a party of kernes 
 and galloglasses belonging to the baron of 
 Upper Ossory, Michael Patrick, and lord 
 Mountgarret, who, after a sharp conflict, 
 slew four of her men, and robbed her of all 
 her property, having stripped the lady herself 
 naked. 
 
 These disorders appear to have had their 
 origin partly in the strong feeling that had 
 been excited by the priests against the pro- 
 testant ritual, and partly in the deeply- 
 rooted inclination of the "wild Irish" to 
 break out into rebellion and conunit outrages 
 on one another the moment the death of a 
 monarch seemed to give them a temporary 
 relief from the fear of the law. They were 
 abated in some degree when it was known 
 that the succession was established, and 
 especially when it was understood that the 
 new queen was a Roman catholic. Queen 
 Mary was proclaimed at Kilkenny on the 
 20th of August, " with the greatest solem- 
 nity that there could be devised, of proces- 
 sions, musters, and disguisings," and the 
 bishop exclaims pathetically, " what ado I 
 had that day with the prebendaries and 
 priests about wearing the cope, crosier, and 
 mitre in procession, it were too much to 
 write." He argued, expostulated, and pro- 
 tested; and at last utterly refused compli- 
 ance with the wishes of his clergy, but the 
 latter found a way of carrying their " papis- 
 tical fantasies " into effect in spite of their 
 spiritual ruler, for, •' in the meantime," he 
 says, " had the jsrelates gotten two disguised 
 priests, one to bear the mitre afore me, and 
 another the crosier, making three procession 
 pageants of one." The citizens appear to 
 have been less opposed to the new order of 
 things than the clergy, and the bishop took 
 his revenge on this occasion by causing some 
 of those singular religious miracle-plays to 
 be performed, which he had himself com- 
 posed as a means of instructing the populace 
 
 383 
 
BP. bale's persecutions.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1,5.53. 
 
 ill the doctrines of the reformers, and incit- 
 ing them against the church of Rome. " The 
 young men, in the forenoon, played a tra- 
 gedy of God's promises in the okl law, at the 
 market cross, with organ playings, and 
 songs, very aptly; in the afternoon again 
 they played a comedy of St. John Baptist's 
 preachings, of Christ's baptisings, and of his 
 temptation in the wilderness; to the small 
 contentation of the priests and other papists 
 there." * 
 
 These now began to be more confident in 
 their boasts, and they openly predicted not 
 only that their bishop would not venture to 
 preach the obnoxious doctrines again, but 
 that he would be compelled to make a public 
 recantation of all that he had previously 
 taught. To give the lie to these vaunting 
 predictions, the zealous prelate boldly 
 mounted into his pulpit on the Thursday 
 following the day of the proclamation, which 
 was St. Bartholomew's day, and taking his 
 text from St. Paul, " I am not ashamed of 
 the Gospel," he preached a long discourse, 
 resuming in the form of a summary all that 
 he had said to them since he first took pos- 
 session of his see, to their no small mortifi- 
 cation and confusion. The same day he 
 dined with the mayor, or, as they called them 
 in Ireland, the suffren (sovereign) of the 
 town, who was then a citizen named Robert 
 Shea, " a man sober, wise, and godly," and 
 Bale adds, "which is a rare thing in that 
 land." After dinner some priests of the 
 town came to their bishop, and entered into 
 a disputation concerning purgatory and 
 prayers for the dead, whom he answered in 
 a scornful manner, concluding with a com- 
 parison of papists with the devil, whereby 
 the exasperation of the clergy was increased. 
 Wearied with tlieir outcries, he returned 
 next day to his residence at Holme's Court. 
 The evident intentions of the English 
 queen to restore the Romish faith now- 
 encouraged the bishop's enemies to proceed 
 to greater violence, and the clergy leagued 
 
 * The " comedy" of John the Baptist, and the 
 " tragedy" of God's Promises, are both among Bale's 
 known works, and were printed in 1538. The latter 
 has been reprinted in Hawkins's collection of Old 
 Plays. This use of the terms comedy and tragedy 
 sounds rather strange to modern ears. 
 
 t Bale was bitterly prejudiced against those of the 
 opposite creed, and his personal characters are in 
 general no doubt much exaggerated. Yet we cannot 
 doubt, from a variety of concurrent testimonies, 
 that the majority of the Irish clergy were at this 
 time in a state of great mental ignorance, and not 
 much superior in character to the wild Irish, over 
 ,S8+ 
 
 themselves with the baron of Upper Ossory, 
 the lord Mountgarret, and other chiefs in 
 the diocese. Every day brought to his ears 
 whispers of designs against his life ; and the 
 day after his return to Holme's Court, he 
 learnt that some of the kernes of the baron 
 of Upper Ossory and lord Mountgarret had 
 been on the watch to kill him on his way, 
 and they began to rob the bishop's lands and 
 molest his tenants. The bishop was thus 
 put on his guard, and he used the best pre- 
 cautions in his power for his personal safety. 
 His fears were augmented when, on the last 
 day of August, the clergy of Kilkenny took 
 advantage of his absence to restore what he 
 calls the " whole heap of superstitions of the 
 bishop of Rome" in his church. " They 
 rung all the bells in that cathedral, minster, 
 and parish churches; they flung up their 
 caps to the battlement of the great temple, 
 with smilings and laughings most dissolutely, 
 the justice himself being therewith offended; 
 they brought forth their copes, candlesticks, 
 holy-water stock, cross, and censers; they 
 mustered forth in general procession mostgor- 
 geously, all the town over ,\v'\X\\ Sa7icta Maria 
 ora fro nobis, and the rest of the Latin litany ; 
 they chattered it, they chaunted it, with great 
 noise and devotion; they banqueted all the 
 day after, for that they were delivered from 
 the grace of God into a warm sun."f 
 
 The bishop's dismay was completed by a 
 sanguinary outrage committed on the 8th of 
 September, which may also be told best in 
 the bishop's own words. "On the Friday 
 next following," he says, "which was the 
 8th day of September, five of my household 
 servants, Richard Foster, a deacon, Richard 
 Headley, John Cage, an Irish horse-groom, 
 and a young maid of sixteen years of age, 
 went out to make hay about half a mile off, 
 betwixt eight and nine of the clock, after 
 they had served God according to the day; 
 and, as they were come to the entrance of 
 the meadow, the cruel murderers, to the 
 number of more than a score, leaped out of 
 
 whom they were placed. Bale, speaking of one of 
 these prelates, whom he terms " the drunken bishop 
 of Galway," describes him in his own coarse lan- 
 guage: — "The exercise of this beastly bishop is none 
 other but to gad from town to town over the English 
 parts, confii-ming young children for twopence a piece, 
 without examination of their ckristian belief, contrary 
 to the christian ordinances of England, and at night 
 to drink all at Rob-Davy and aqua-vitae like a man ; 
 to whom, for a mock, now of late, a galloghss of the 
 land brought his dog wrapped in a sheet, with two- 
 pence about his neck, to have him confirmed among 
 neighbours' children." 
 
A.D. 
 
 1553.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [bishop bale's flight. 
 
 their lurking bushes, with swords and with 
 darts, and cowardly slew them all unarmed 
 and unweaponed, without mercy. This did 
 they in their wicked fury, as it was reported, 
 for that they had watched so long afore, 
 yea, an whole month space, they say, and 
 sped not of their purpose concerning me. 
 They feloniously also robbed me of all my 
 horses, and of all master Cooper's horses, 
 which that time sojourned with me for safe- 
 guard of his life, to the number of seven, 
 driving them before them." 
 
 When news of this attack reached the 
 city of Kilkenny, the sufFren or mayor raised 
 the citizens, and with a hundred horsemen 
 and three hundred foot hastened to Holme's 
 Court to rescue their bishop. They arrived 
 there about three o'clock in the afternoon, 
 and Bale returned with them to Kilkenny 
 the same night, "the young men singing 
 psalms and other godly songs all the way, 
 in rejoice of my deliverance." He adds, 
 "as we were come to the towii, the people in 
 great number stood on both sides of the way, 
 both within the gates and without, with 
 candles lighted in their hands, shouting out 
 praises to God for delivering me from the 
 hands of these murderers." 
 
 That the priests did not sympathise in the 
 sufferings of their bishop, was made evident 
 immediately by their declaring publicly that 
 the whole was a judgment upon him for 
 allowing his servants to work on the holiday 
 of Our Lady's nativity. Scared by these 
 and other no less significant warnings. Bale, 
 after a few days sojourn in Kilkenny, deter- 
 mined to fly from his unruly flock ; and, 
 with the assistance of his friends, he was 
 conveyed privately to the castle of Leighlin, 
 and from thence he proceeded to Dublin, 
 where he remained for some time among his 
 acquaintance. Archbishop Browne, who had 
 acted so prominent a part in the previous 
 history, still held that see, and Bale's coarse 
 account of this prelate shows us that, in 
 addition to the overweening pride with which 
 lie had been accused at a former period, this 
 champion of protestantism as long as it was 
 the religion of the court, was reported to 
 be addicted to gluttony and drunkenness. 
 "As the epicurous archbishop had know- 
 ledge of my being there," says Bale, "he 
 made boast upon his ale-bench, with the cup 
 in his hand, as I heard the tale told, that I 
 should, for no man's pleasure, preach in that 
 city of his. But this needed not; for I 
 thought nothing less at that time, than to 
 pour out the precious pearls of the Gospel 
 
 VOL. I. 3 c 
 
 afore so brockish a swine as he was, becom- 
 ing then, of a dissembling proselite, a very 
 pernicious papist. And as toucliing learning, 
 whereof he much boasted among his cups, I 
 know none that he hath so perfectly exer- 
 cised as he hath the known practices of Sar- 
 danapalus ; for his preachings twice in the 
 year, of the ploughman in winter by £xit 
 qui sem'mat, and of the shepheard in summer 
 by Ego sum pastor bonus, are now so well 
 known by rote of every gossip in Dublin, 
 that, afore he cometh up into the pulpit, 
 they can tell his sermon." Slight sketches 
 of personal character, like this, are often of 
 the greatest utility in enabling us to under- 
 stand and appreciate the history of past 
 ages. 
 
 At length, after bishop Bale had remained 
 half concealed in Dublin for some time, he 
 was conveyed on board a ship bound for 
 Scotland, and thus hoped to escape from the 
 land in which he had experienced so many 
 persecutions. But his troubles were not yet 
 at an end. A Flemish man-of-war happened 
 to be hovering on the coast, and his Irish 
 pilot, who seems to have been in the coun- 
 sels of Bale's enemies, persuaded the captain 
 that the bishop was a Frenchman who was 
 flying with a large treasure of money. The 
 small vessel on which the bishop had em- 
 barked was suddenly attacked by the Flem- 
 ing, and he was himself carried on board the 
 enemy, where he was retained a prisoner, 
 while the Flemish ship wandered slowly 
 along the coasts of Ireland and England, 
 treated harshly or leniently, according as the 
 captain gained new information on the cha- 
 racter of his captive, which raised or lowered 
 his chances of obtaining a high ransom. At 
 length the fugitive bishop was safely landed 
 in Flanders, from whence he proceeded 
 through what he calls the " worthy land of 
 Germany " to Geneva. There, as it apjjears, 
 he compiled immediately after his arrival the 
 narrative of his adventures in Ireland, which, 
 printed in the December of the same year, 
 bears, no doubt in scorn, the singular colo- 
 phon, "imprinted in Rome, before the castell 
 of S. Angell, at the signe of S. Peter."* 
 Bale remained at Geneva till the accession 
 of queen Elizabeth, when he returned to 
 
 * The title of this curious little volume is — ■ 
 
 " The Vocacyon of Johan Bale to the bishoprick 
 
 of Ossorie in Irelande, his persecucions in the same, 
 
 and fiiiall delyveraunce." 
 
 It is a book of considerable rarity; but it has 
 
 been reprinted in the sixth volume of tlie original 
 
 edition of the " Harleian Miscellany." 
 
 385 
 
RESTORATION OF POPERY.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1553. 
 
 England, but he never again set foot on the 
 soil of Ireland. 
 
 Other prelates who had supported king 
 Edward's reformation were seized with the 
 same apprehensions, and had probably en- 
 dured the same persecutions, as John Bale, 
 but they have left us no memorial of their 
 sufferings. One at least, bishop Casey of 
 Limerick, followed Bale's example, and fled 
 in dismay. Soon after the accession of queen 
 Mary, Dowdal was replaced in his see of 
 Armagh, made vacant by the death of Good- 
 acre, and he was at the same time restored 
 to the dignity and office of primate of all 
 Ireland, to the prejudice of the see of Dublin. 
 In consideration of the spoil made in the 
 archbishopric during his absence, he was 
 now invested with the priory of Atherdee. 
 Archbishop Dowdal went far beyond the 
 officers of government in his zeal for the 
 establishment of popery. The latter had 
 lived through several changes, and they pro- 
 ceeded with the same moderation which they 
 had exhibited on former occasions. The 
 change in the personnel of the church esta- 
 blishment was not great, which chiefly arose 
 from the circumstance that a very large 
 majority of the Irish clergy were catholics, 
 and that of those who had accepted the re- 
 formed faith few were zealous in their pro- 
 fessions. One of the first bishops who was 
 deprived was Staples of Meath, who appears 
 to have been the most honest of the earlier 
 converts. Browne of Dublin, who seems 
 to have preserved the respect of no pai'ty, 
 Lancaster of Kildare, and Travers of Leigh- 
 lin, were also successively ejected, and their 
 sees filled with ecclesiastics devoted to the 
 Romish communion; and several of the in- 
 ferior clergy were treated with the same 
 severity. A commission was appointed, con- 
 sisting of archbishop Dowdal, and Walsh the 
 nev? Romish bishop of Meath, to bring to 
 account the clergy who had during the late 
 changes so far trespassed against the papal 
 canons as to contract marriage. A licence 
 was published for the celebration of mass. 
 
 But the extreme Romish party was so far 
 disappointed, that among the royal titles that 
 of supreme head on earth of the church of 
 Ireland continued for a time to be inserted 
 in state documents. 
 
 Before we leave bishop Bale, it may be 
 well to observe that he alludes slightly to 
 some of the evils which continued to be the 
 principal cause of the desolation of Ireland, 
 among which the most grievous was the old 
 custom, still kept up in most parts of tlie 
 island, of coin and livery, "which," he says, 
 " are so cruel pillages and 02)pressions of the 
 poor commons there, as are nowhere else in 
 this whole earth, neither under wicked Sa- 
 racen nor yet cruel Turk," and under cover 
 of which every kind of personal outrage was 
 committed. "This I will utter briefly," he 
 continues, " that the Irish lords and their 
 under-captains, supporting the same, are not 
 only companions with thieves, but also they 
 are their wicked masters and maintainers. 
 So that they both coupled together, the mur- 
 derer with his master, and tlie thief with his 
 maintainer, leave nothing undevoured behind 
 them in that fertile region, no more than did 
 tlie devouring locusts of Egypt. Anon after 
 their harvests are ended there, the kernes, 
 the galloglasses, and the other breechless 
 soldiers, with horses and their horsegrooms, 
 sometimes three waiting upon one jade, enter 
 into the villages with much cruelt}' and 
 fierceness; they continue there in great 
 ravine and spoil, and, when they go thence, 
 they leave nothing else behind them for pay- 
 ment but lice, lechery, and intoUerable 
 penury for all the year after. Yet set the 
 rulers thereupon a very fair colour, that it is 
 for defence of the English pale. I beseech 
 God to send such protection a short end, and 
 their lords and captains also, if they see it 
 not soon amended. For it is the utter con- 
 fusion of that land, and a maintenance to all 
 vices." Bale adds, " three people are in 
 Ireland in these days, priests, lawyers, and 
 kernes, which will not sufler faith, truth, 
 and honesty to dwell there." 
 
 386 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MEASURES CONCILIATORY TOWARDS THE IRISH; SENTLEGER RE-APPOINTED 
 LORD DEPUTY ; ADVENTURES OF THE YOUNG EARL OF KILDARE. 
 
 UCH was the confused 
 state of the church in 
 Ireland during the first 
 year of the reign of 
 queen Mary, which 
 was increased by a 
 certain degree of neg- 
 lect of the internal state of Ireland shown 
 at this moment by the English court, and by 
 the appointment of officers of state in Ire- 
 land, most of whom were indifferent in reli- 
 gious matters, and whose interest it was 
 rather to avoid bringing forwards religious 
 questions, than to make them prominent 
 objects of legislative inquiry. 
 
 The turbulent demonstrations made by 
 the natives on the first intelligence of the 
 death of king Edward, were soon repressed 
 in those parts of the kingdom which had 
 been brought more absolutely under the 
 influence of the English government. Some 
 of the Irish septs, however, were thrown 
 into violent commotion. Donal O'Brien, 
 the new chief of Thomond, seemed at first 
 inclined to defy the English authorities; he 
 raised an army and marched into Leix, but 
 there, in a conference with the English, he 
 agreed to a peace with them, and returned 
 home without committing any open hostility. 
 The feud between the Burkes in Connaught 
 continued with varying fortune. That of 
 the O'Melaghlins was renewed, and the Eng- 
 lish appear to have changed their policy 
 towards it ; for the O'Melaghlin, having 
 treacherously attacked and slain Niall O'Me- 
 laglilin, who was the tanist of his tribe, on 
 his return from the court of MuUingar, the 
 baron of Delvin and the English of Athlone, 
 espousing the cause of the murdered chief, 
 invaded and plundered Moy Corran, and 
 took possession of its principal castles. A 
 great feud among the Mac Coghlans next 
 engaged the attention of lord Delvin, who 
 overran their country, and committed great 
 devastations. The Irish annals, which call 
 this war a "retaliatory contention," have 
 placed on record what they term a "surpris- 
 ing act" which was performed in the course 
 of it, at Clononey in King's County. A 
 rustic of the town, we are told, slew three 
 
 "eminent men" of the guards of the castle 
 with a wood cleaver, bound a woman who was 
 inside, and took the castle, "which was a bold 
 act for any one common man to perform." 
 
 This turbulence was appeased in a great 
 measure, or at least it was hindered from 
 spreading, by the conciliatory temper shown 
 by the English court. The daughter of 
 O'Connor Faly, who had formed intimacies 
 in England, and had made herself well ac- 
 quainted with the English language, went 
 to England, and solicited the queen with 
 success for the release of her father, who 
 had long been retained as a prisoner at the 
 English court. In consequence of this act 
 of filial affection, the chieftain of Offlxly was 
 enabled to return to his native land, on 
 giving the usual hostages for his fidelity. 
 But the most popular act of the commence- 
 ment of Mary's reign was the restoration oi' 
 Gerald of Kiklare, who liad been the cause 
 of so much uneasiness in the latter years of 
 Henry VIII., to his Irish titles and estates, 
 and the sending of him back to Ireland with 
 his younger brother Edward. Two other 
 young chiefs returned with them, the earl 
 of Ormond (Thomas Butler) and Brian mac 
 Gillapatrick, the eldest son of the baron of 
 Upper Ossory, whose names, as we have just 
 seen, had already been used to excite insur- 
 rection. 
 
 As yet Ireland remained without a chief 
 governor, and it was not till the llth of 
 November, that sir Antony Sentleger, who 
 had been appointed lord deputy for the fifth 
 time, landed again at Dalkey to resume the 
 government. This appointment was a new 
 assurance of a policy at once moderate and 
 enersjetic, and showed at the same time that 
 no extraordinary changes were then contem- 
 plated. He came to his post with a long 
 experience of Irish affairs; he had held it 
 already under more than one change in the 
 ecclesiastical government; and, being looked 
 upon as a philosophic scoffer, he who had 
 presided with prudent moderation when the 
 Romish creed was abolished, was not likely 
 to act otherwise now that it was to be re- 
 stored. He came with the further recom- 
 mendation, that in his former administrations 
 
 387 
 
GERALD OF KILDARE.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1553. 
 
 he had conciliated the esteem and friendship 
 of many of the native chiefs. 
 
 The youthful adventures of the heir of 
 Kildare had been singularly romantic. As 
 we have already seen, having reached St. 
 Malo in Britany in safety, he was taken 
 under the protection of the governor of the 
 province, M. de Chateaubriant, with whom 
 he remained during a month, and then, by 
 the procurement of the Frencli king, he was 
 placed with the young dauphin, afterwards 
 Henri II. The English monarch was mean- 
 while actively intriguing to obtain posses- 
 sion of the fugitive, and several agents 
 were employed in tracing out his place of 
 concealment. As soon as it was ascertained 
 that he was in France, the English ambas- 
 sador, sir John Wallop, made a formal 
 demand to the French king, that he should 
 fulfil the terms of the new league between 
 the two crowns, by which each was bound 
 not to harbour the subject of the other when 
 called upon to deliver him up, and added, 
 that the boy to whom he was at this time 
 giving shelter was the brother of one who 
 had been recently executed in London as a 
 notorious traitor. The king evaded this 
 demand by alleging that he was only bound 
 to reply to it when the ambassador showed 
 a special commission to that effect from his 
 monarch; he said that the youth was not 
 in his keeping, but that he would make 
 inquiry into the matter when the ambassador 
 produced his commission; and he further 
 intimated his belief that the age of the 
 fugitive must relieve him of all suspicion of 
 being implicated in his brother's treasons. 
 Wallop despatched a messenger to England 
 for further instructions; and, to relieve the 
 king of France from further embarrassment, 
 young Fitz Gerald was privately removed, 
 in company with his tutor Leveroux, to 
 Valenciennes in Flanders, where he was 
 within the dominions of the emperor 
 (Charles V.) 
 
 This measure had not, however, been 
 carried into execution so secretly as to 
 escape the vigilance of the English ambas- 
 sador, who sent one of his men, named James 
 Sherlock, to Valenciennes, to act as a spy 
 upon his movements. Leverous discovered 
 the intrigue against his pupil, and gave in- 
 formation of it to the Spanish governor of 
 the fortress, who, on some pretence, threw 
 Sherlock into prison, and Fitz Gerald was 
 removed to Brussels, where the emperor was 
 then holding his court. 
 
 The latter gave the fugitive the same 
 388 
 
 protection which he had found in France ; 
 but, as the English ambassador at the court 
 of Charles V. had also been instructed to 
 demand his delivery, he was sent privately 
 from Brussels to the bishop of Liege, the 
 emperor allovnng him a pension of a hundred 
 crowns a month. The bishop of Liege 
 entertained him very honourably, placed him 
 in an abbey of monks at that city, and kept 
 a vigilant watch over his safety. 
 
 In the meanwhile intelligence of his place 
 of retreat was conveyed to Rome to his 
 kinsman cardinal Pole, who sent for him 
 into Italy, after he had resided at Liege 
 about six months. On his arrival at Rome, 
 the cardinal settled upon him an annuity of 
 three hundred crowns, treated him with the 
 greatest affection, and placed him succes- 
 sively with the bishop of Verona, the car- 
 dinal of Mantua, and the duke of Mantua, 
 in order that he might be fully instructed 
 in the learning which became a scholar and 
 in the accomplishments which were befitting 
 in a gentleman. His former tutor, Leveroux, 
 who had shared his banishment and watched 
 with so much fidelity over his safety, was at 
 the same time admitted by the procurement 
 of cardinal Pole into the English house at 
 Rome, called St. Thomas's Hospital; and 
 the other companions of his flight returned 
 to Ireland. 
 
 At the end of eighteen months, the young 
 heir of Kildare was recalled by cardinal 
 Pole to Rome, who during the next three 
 years overlooked his education with the most 
 assiduous attention. The duke of Mantua 
 had added three hundred crowns to the pen- 
 sion he already received from the cardinal. 
 At the conclusion of this period, when he 
 had entered into his nineteenth year, the car- 
 dinal referred it to his own choice, whether he 
 would continue his studies with a view to the 
 ecclesiastical profession, or travel to foreign 
 courts to make himself acquainted vaih the 
 world and follow the profession of arms. 
 The youth preferred the latter; he proceeded 
 with the cardinal's recommendations to 
 Naples, and there falling into acquaintance 
 with some knights of Rhodes, he accom- 
 panied them to Malta, and thence he soon 
 afterwards sailed to Tripoli on the coast of 
 Barbary, which was then a fort of the knights 
 of Rhodes. There he served six weeks under 
 Montbrizon, who was the commander of the 
 fort of Tripoli. Tiie knights were at that time 
 engaged in very active hostilities with the 
 Turks and Moors, and during the time Fitz 
 Gerald remained with them they captured 
 
A.D. 1553.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [gerald of kildare. 
 
 and plundered some of the richest towns and 
 villages that lay near the coast. At the end 
 of his six weeks' service, he returned to 
 Malta with a great booty, and, after an ab- 
 sence of about a year, he again bent his steps 
 to Italy, and was joyfully received at Rome 
 by the cardinal, who, proud of his young 
 kinsman's exploits against the infidels, in- 
 creased his pension from three hundred 
 crowns to three hundred pounds. 
 
 The cardinal now introduced his kinsman 
 to tlie service of Cosmo de Medicis duke of 
 Florence — known to history as Cosmo the 
 Magnificent — who gave the young adven- 
 turer the office of master of his horse, with 
 a pension of three hundred ducats a year, in 
 addition to the three hundred pounds he 
 received from the cardinal and three hun- 
 dred crowns from the duke of Mantua. 
 Fitz Gerald remained in the service of Cosmo 
 the Magnificent three years, in the course of 
 which time he met with an accident from 
 which he narrowly escaped with his life. 
 One day, " he travelled to Rome a-shroving, 
 of set purpose to be merry," and, as he rode 
 hunting with the pope's nephew, cardinal 
 Farnese, in his eager pursuit of a buck, he 
 was separated from his company, and, unac- 
 quainted with the locality, was precipitated 
 into a pit nine-and-twenty fathoms deep. 
 His horse was killed by the fall ; but Fitz 
 Gerald, snatching desperately at a mass of 
 tangled roots at the side of the pit, at no 
 great distance from the bottom, was thus 
 enabled to cling for a time to the wall, and 
 when he could hold no longer, he slid gently 
 down upon the dead horse, and stood upon 
 it for the space of three hours over his ancles 
 in water. A favourite greyhound only had 
 followed his track; and the faithful animal 
 stood at the edge of the pit, howling inces- 
 santly. Cardinal Farnese and his train, 
 having missed their companion and sought 
 him for some time in vain, were at length 
 guided to the place by the cries of the grey- 
 hound ; and, having procured from a village 
 at no great distance ropes and other neces- 
 saries, they succeeded in rescuing him from 
 his perilous situation.* 
 
 The death of Henry VIII. had now re- 
 leased Gerald fitz Gerald from any further 
 fears for his personal safety, and he returned 
 to England under the reign of Edward VI., 
 where he was admitted at court. There his 
 
 * The adventures of the youno; earl of Kildare, 
 during his exile, which are partially alluded to in 
 some of the State Papers, are only known by the 
 narrative of Stanihurst. As this writer had conversed 
 
 graceful person and polished manners capti- 
 vated the daughter of sir Antony Browne, 
 knight of the garter, and by his marriage 
 with her he formed an interest which soon 
 gained him the royal favour. He was 
 knighted by that monarch, who, in 1552, 
 restored to him the manor of Maynooth, 
 aud a large portion of the estates of his 
 forefathers. In the succeeding reign, his 
 connection with cardinal Pole, and his per- 
 secutions by the party of the reformed 
 church, were new titles to court favour, and 
 he was now restored by letters patent to the 
 titles of earl of Kildare and baron of OfTaly, 
 and, although the attainder was not reversed, 
 he was soon afterwards invested with all the 
 estates forfeited by his father. His tutor 
 Leveroux shared in his good fortune ; for he 
 also was now recalled from Rome, and he was 
 appointed to the bishopric of Kildare, in 
 place of the staunch protestant Thomas 
 Lancaster, who had been deprived for having 
 contracted marriage. 
 
 A new title was about this time added to 
 the native Irish peerage, and one wliich shows 
 strongly the wish to act with a conciliatory 
 spirit towards the native chieftains. The 
 Cavenaghs of Leinster had of late years laid 
 aside much of their wild ferocity, although 
 they still prided themselves upon their inde- 
 pendence. The head of the sept at this 
 time, 01", as he was termed by his followers, 
 the Mac Murrough, was created a peer of the 
 realm by the title of baron of Balyan, and 
 by the same patent was nominated, in defer- 
 ence to Irish prejudices, the captain of his 
 sept: it was a somewhat anomalous method 
 of conciliating the two qualities of the 
 English lord of parliament and the Irish 
 chieftain. 
 
 In spite of all these concessions to popu- 
 lar opinion, the last government of sir Antony 
 Sentleger was far less tranquil than those 
 which had preceded. The young earls of 
 Kildare and Ormond found suflScient occu- 
 pation on their return to their native coun- 
 try, in resisting the violent feuds which 
 raged among the natives ; the latter was em- 
 ployed against the turbulent Donal O'Brien, 
 of Thomond ; while the former was engaged 
 nearer his own home with lord Delvin against 
 the Mac Coghlans, and was sent to the north 
 to interfere in the quarrels of the O'Neills. 
 
 The troubles in Thomond arose from the 
 
 with the earl himself, and had no doubt learnt his 
 story from his own mouth, we may perhaps place 
 more confidence in this than in many of Stamhurst's 
 relations. 
 
 389 
 
RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF POPERY.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1556. 
 
 usurpation of the chieftainship by Donal 
 O'Brien, while the title of earl of Thomond, 
 according to the Eng:lish patent, had de- 
 scended on Connor O'Brien, the son of the 
 late chiefs, whose title to the chieftainship 
 was therefore supported by the English. In 
 spite, however, of these disorders, Donal 
 O'Brien found the means to engage in the 
 no less violent feud among the Burkes of 
 Connaught, and he led an army into Clan- 
 rickard which laid waste large tracts of that 
 country. In Ulster, Shane O'Neill was en- 
 gaged in a war with the O'Neills of Clanna- 
 boy. These contentions in the north were 
 rendered more sanguinary by the numerous 
 bodies of Scots, who, invited to the assist- 
 ance of one party or the other, gradually 
 established themselves along the northern 
 coasts, and exerted a very important influ- 
 ence over subsequent events. In 1555, 
 they obtained such power in the district of 
 Clannaboy, that they nearly reduced the 
 Irish of that part to their obedience, after 
 having slain their chieftain, Hugh O'Neill. 
 Soon after this, Calvagh O'Donnell brought 
 over from Scotland a new body of these 
 loreigners to assist in his war against his 
 father Manus, whom he committed to close 
 prison and assumed the chieftainship of this 
 great sept, after having spoiled and laid waste 
 a great part of Tirconnell, and beaten down 
 the castle of Inisowen with a cannon brought 
 by the Scots, which is celebrated in the Irish 
 chronicles under the name of " the crooked 
 gun." 
 
 Meanwhile a change had taken place in 
 the moderate tone of the English govern- 
 ment. After a year of apparent toleration, 
 the queen began to exhibit a more persecut- 
 ing spirit, and the full restoration of the 
 papal iniluence was effected on her marriage 
 with Philip of Spain in the summer of 1554. 
 The attainder of cardinal Pole was reversed, 
 and that ecclesiastic returned to England, 
 and was made a minister of the crown, in full 
 parliament, reconciled this country to the 
 see of Rome, in consequence of which the 
 queen's title of svipreme head of the church 
 was subsequently omitted. Penal laws 
 against heretics were established, and were 
 subsequently enforced in the most revolting 
 manner. Next year, 1556, ambassadors 
 were sent to Rome to represent England in 
 the papal court. But the Romish church, 
 rendered presumputous by its sudden 
 triumph, was not yet satisfied with regard 
 to Ireland; and the pope actually refused to 
 admit the English ambassadors to an 
 390 
 
 audience, because their mistress had assumed 
 the title of queen of Ireland without his 
 permission. He asserted that it was his 
 right alone to erect new kingdoms, or abolish 
 old ones ; and it is said to have been his first 
 intention to oblige Mary to recede from this 
 title altogether. But more prudent counsels 
 prevailed; and, to show, as he pretended, 
 his indulgence towards the repentant nation, 
 he himself formally erected Ireland into a 
 kingdom, and then admitted the queen's title, 
 as though it had been assumed by his con- 
 cession. 
 
 To effect the greater change in Ireland 
 which the queen now contemplated, it was 
 thought necessary to have a man more de- 
 voted to the court even than sir Antony 
 Sentleger, whose known moderation or in- 
 difference in matters of religion agreed ill 
 with the principles which then prevailed. 
 Sentleger had already experienced a revival 
 of the factious opposition to which all the 
 previous rulers of Ireland for many years had 
 been exposed, and the complaints which 
 were sent over to England against him 
 afforded a convenient colour for his recall. 
 The office of lord deputy was given to sir 
 Thomas Radcliffe viscount Fitz Walter, the 
 eldest son of the earl of Sussex, a nobleman 
 who was in high favour at court on account 
 of the active part he had taken in the 
 queen's cause at the moment of her acces- 
 sion. Lord Fitzwalter was appointed lord 
 deputy of Ireland in the spring of 1556, and 
 one of his earliest public acts was to call a 
 parliament, which assembled at Dublin on 
 the first day of June in that year. It was 
 the first Irish parliament that had met since 
 that at which the Irish chiefs attended in 
 1542. 
 
 The great business of this parliament was 
 tlie re-establishment of the ancient worship 
 throughout Ireland, and its most important 
 acts related to the church, altliough several 
 measures were passed at this time of consi- 
 derable importance relating to the civil 
 government. The deputy had brought over 
 a bull from cardinal Pole, which was read in 
 full parliament by the lord chancellor. ■ It 
 recited the fatal separation of Ireland from 
 the see of Rome, which was ascribed to 
 coercion, and it rejoiced at the willingness it 
 had shown to return to its obedience to the 
 pope on the accession of queen Mary, who 
 was represented as a model of catholic 
 princes. A full absolution from their offence 
 w;is pronounced on all the inhabitants of the 
 island generally; wliich was accompanied 
 
 _ 
 
A.D. 
 
 1556.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [queen mary's parliament. 
 
 with the ratification of all dispositions of 
 benefices, and a confirmation of marriages, 
 dispensations, and other ecclesiastical pro- 
 ceedings during the late schism. The pos- 
 session of church lands was secured (as in 
 England) to those who were invested with 
 them, with a gentle admonition to beware of 
 sacrilege, and to restore what might be neces- 
 sary for the maintenance of parsonages and 
 vicarages. The parliament was at the same 
 time enjoined to abrogate all laws which had 
 been enacted against the supremacy of Rome. 
 
 At the reading of this bull, the chancellor 
 and the whole assembly of lords and com- 
 mons knelt in a humble posture, in sign of 
 reverence and contrition. When it was 
 concluded, they arose and adjourned to the 
 cathedral, where Te Deum was solemnly 
 chaunted, followed by public thanksgiving 
 for the happy reunion with the church of 
 Rome. 
 
 After this devout preparation, the parlia- 
 ment proceeded to execute the directions 
 they had received from England. They first 
 passed an act declaring that the queen had 
 been born in lawful matrimony, repealing 
 all acts relating to the king's divorce, or to 
 the succession of the crown to the prejudice 
 of Mary, and declaring the regal power of 
 Ireland to be vested in her as fully as in any 
 of her predecessors. They next adopted the 
 measures of the English parliament relating 
 to treasonable offences against the persons 
 of the queen and her consort, and to the 
 government and administration of the realm 
 by their issue. Other acts revived all sta- 
 tutes made in Ireland for the punishment and 
 suppression of heresy, ratified the provisions 
 of the bull sent over by the papal legate, car- 
 dinal Pole, and repealed all acts made against 
 the holy see since the twentieth year of 
 the reign of Henry VIII., re-establishing 
 the jurisdiction of the pope, discharging the 
 payment of first-fruits to the crown, and 
 restoring to the church the rectories, glebes, 
 and other emoluments vested in the crown 
 since the twenty-eighth year of the reign 
 of Henry VIII., reserving only the lands 
 granted to the laity, who could be induced 
 by no consideration to restore them. 
 
 Among other matters of domestic legis- 
 lation, the recent descents of the Scottish 
 islanders held a prominent place. The usual 
 subsidy was granted with an express condi- 
 tion that it was to be applied to the expul- 
 sion of these unwelcome visitors; and the 
 alarm was so great, that it was further de- 
 clared to be high treason to invite them into 
 
 Ireland or to entertain them there, and felony 
 to intermarry with them without licence from 
 the lord deputy. 
 
 Another act of this parliament vested in 
 the crown for ever, and converted into shire- 
 land, the territories of Leix and Offlily, which 
 were declared to have been "recovered" 
 from their rebellious tenants, and the lord 
 deputy was empowered to grant estates or 
 leases in them, with reservation of such rents 
 as he should judge expedient. The district 
 of Leix received the name of Queen's County, 
 and its chief town was called Maryborough ; 
 Offaly was named the King's County, and 
 its principal town Philipstown. This act 
 was followed by another, empowering the 
 lord chancellor to appoint a commission 
 under the great seal for viewing all the 
 towns, villages, and waste grounds in Ire- 
 land, and reducing them to counties, shires, 
 and hundreds. The crown was empowered 
 to revoke this commission at any time within 
 seven years. It was a commission which 
 could not be executed to any considerable 
 extent, and must be looked upon chiefly as 
 an intimation of the wishes of the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 One of the most important acts of this 
 session was that defining the meaning of the 
 celebrated act relating to the holding of par- 
 liaments, known as Poynings' act. The 
 original aim of this act was to put a stop to 
 the abuses by which an Irish parliament had 
 in former times been made a mere factious 
 instrument in the quarrels of the Anglo- 
 Irish aristocracy ; but attempts had been 
 made to evade it, and it liad more than once 
 been made the subject of dispute. In some 
 cases it had even been thought inconsistent 
 with the public service. Of late parliaments 
 had been increasing in power, and had shown 
 signs of greater independence than formerly, 
 and it seemed therefore more important that 
 the crown should retain all its old means of 
 restraining them. The present parliament 
 formally defined the intent and meaning of 
 Pojaiings' act, and established the law of 
 Irish parliaments in the form which conti- 
 nued to be in force down to the time of the 
 Union. It was enacted that no parliament 
 should be summoned or held in Ireland, 
 until the chief governor and council should 
 certify to the throne the causes £ind conside- 
 rations for which it should be called, and 
 such acts and ordinances as were intended 
 to be brought before it. When these had 
 been approved, and returned under the great 
 seal of England, a parliament was to be 
 
 391 
 
ATTEMPT AT PERSECUTION.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1.556. 
 
 summoned for the purpose of passing such 
 acts, and no others. But, inasmuch as events 
 might happen during the time of parliament 
 necessary to be provided for, the chief 
 governor and council were empowered and 
 directed to certify such other causes and 
 provisions, after the summoning and meeting 
 of parliament, as they should further then 
 think good to be enacted, which, and no 
 others, should be passed in every such par- 
 liament, if agreed to by the three estates. 
 A precautionary clause was added, that this 
 interpretation and definition should not have 
 a retrospective action, it being provided in 
 it that all the parliaments and all the acts 
 passed since the tenth year of the reign of 
 Henry VII. should remain in the same force 
 as if tiiis new act had not been made, and 
 that nothing therein contained should extend 
 to the defeating of any provisos made in the 
 present session. 
 
 The only other act of this parliament 
 which calls for any notice here, was one of a 
 private nature against the late archbishop 
 of Dublin, George Browne. His successor 
 presented a petition, complaining of great 
 devastations in the archiepiscopal rights 
 during the late schism, especially of some 
 parcels of the lands of the see which had 
 been leased to individuals, and, as it would 
 appear, to some of the archbishop's children, 
 without the king's licence. The parliament 
 passed an act cancelling all such conveyances, 
 in which the children of the married prelate 
 were stigmatized by the epithet of bastards. 
 This appears to have been almost the only 
 act of personal persecution on the score of 
 religion by the Anglo-Irish government, at 
 
 a time when in England the fire of religious 
 zeal blazed in the shape of burning faggots. 
 It is even said that several English families, 
 known to be advocates of the reformation, 
 and who were therefore unsafe in England, 
 fled to the sister island, and there enjoyed 
 their opinions and performed their worship 
 in private without molestation. 
 
 How far any steps were taken by the 
 English court to carry over the flame of 
 religious persecution into Ireland we cannot 
 now ascertain. A story was repeated at a 
 subsequent period, which may perhaps be 
 no more than a popular fiction. It was said 
 that Cole dean of St. Paul's was sent with a 
 commission to the Irish government for pro- 
 ceeding against heretics with the greatest 
 severity. At Chester, we are told, he showed 
 his commission exultingly in the presence 
 of his hostess, who happened to be related 
 to some English protestants who had retired 
 to Dublin, and who would be exposed to 
 the first brunt of persecution. At night, 
 while the dean was asleep in bed, she con- 
 trived to steal the commission from his box, 
 and deposited in its place a pack of cards. 
 Cole, unconscious of the robbery, proceeded 
 next day on his voyage, and reached Dublin 
 in safety, where he lost no time in presenting 
 himself before the privy council to deliver 
 his commission. Having explained with 
 great solemnity the queen's intentions, he 
 opened his box, but was covered with con- 
 fusion when he saw the unexpected nature 
 of its contents. He returned immediately 
 to England, but too late to obtain a renewal 
 of his commission, which was hindered by 
 the death of queen Mary. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HOSTILITIES WITH TITE IRISH SEPTS DURING THE REIGN OF QUEEN MART ; SHANE O'NEILL's DEFEAT IN 
 TIRCONNELL ; WAR AGAINST THE o'bRIEN'S ; ACCESSION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, 
 AND RESTORATION OF THE PROSESTANT FAITH ; THE COINAGE. 
 
 HE reduction of Leix and 
 OflTaly to the condition of 
 English counties was not 
 eff'ected without much 
 trouble and bloodshed. 
 O'Connor Faly, who had 
 been sent back to Ireland 
 at the beginning of queen 
 followed a course which 
 
 excited the suspicions of the lord deputy so 
 far that, not many months after the return 
 of the Irish chieftain, it was considered 
 prudent to place him in confinement in 
 Dublin, where he still remained. His son 
 Donough in Offaly, or (as it was now called) 
 King's county, and Conall O'Moore in I^eix 
 or Queen's county, were now actively en- 
 gaged in inciting rebellion. They were 
 
1557.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [persecution of the septs. 
 
 both of them arrested and thrown into 
 prison ; but after some negotiations and 
 consultations O'Moore and O'Connor Faly 
 were set at liberty, the two earls of Ormond 
 and Kildare having become their sureties. 
 But they were in arms again within a few 
 weeks, and their territories were again over- 
 run and plundered by the English forces. 
 Conall O'Moore, having been taken prisoner, 
 was executed as a traitor at Leigh lin; and 
 several of the O'Connors suffered the same 
 fate, their chief alone escaping. The Mac 
 Murrough had also joined in the insurrection, 
 and was taken and executed at Leighlin. 
 There was a simultaneous rising among the 
 Mac Coghlans, who occupied a part of the 
 King's County, and joining with the O'Mad- 
 dens, their neighbours in Connaught, they 
 had obtained possession of the castle of 
 Fadden, and committed other acts of hosti- 
 lity. Driven out of the two new counties, 
 the O'Connors and Mac Coghlans had re- 
 treated across the Shannon, and established 
 themselves at Meelick and in the surround- 
 ing district. The lord deputy followed 
 them with the English army, and having 
 caused cannons to be carried from Athlone 
 in boats down the Shannon, he soon made 
 himself master of Meelick and other strong 
 positions, and after committing great devas- 
 tation and slaughter, he compelled the 
 O'Maddens and the Mac Coghlans to give 
 hostages for their obedience, and left an 
 English garrison at Meelick. 
 
 This expedition took place in the July of 
 1557. While their chiefs retired to Con- 
 naught, a great portion of the armed popu- 
 lation of the territories of the O'Moores and 
 O'Connors had fled to the extensive and 
 almost impracticable woods which covered 
 part of those districts, especially in Fercall 
 (a part of the King's county), and these 
 now harassed the English with their depre- 
 dations, in which they were joined by the 
 O'Mulloys and the O'Carrolls. The lord 
 deputy marched into this district, after his 
 return from Meelick, committed considerable 
 havock among the possessions of the O'Car- 
 rolls and O'Mulloys, and captured some of the 
 chief people of the latter sept. The O'Car- 
 roU also narrowly escaped, owing his safety, 
 as we are told by the Irish annalists, to the 
 extraordinary swiftness of his horse. 
 
 When lord Fitzwalter was sent to Ireland 
 as lord deputy, he took with liim a man who 
 was destined at a subsequent period to act a 
 very important part in Irish history. This 
 was sir Henry Sydney, the special favourite 
 
 VOL. I. 3d 
 
 and companion of king Edward VI., who 
 had breathed his last in his arms. He was 
 appointed to the important office of trea- 
 surer at war; and when, towards the winter 
 of 1557, the lord deputy was ordered to 
 attend upon the queen in England, Sydney 
 and the lord chancellor, Curwin archbishop 
 of Dublin, were appointed to govern Ireland 
 during his absence. Sydney, like many of 
 the statesmen of this age, bowed to the times 
 in matters of religion, and concealed his own 
 sentiments; and the two lord justices went 
 through the old catholic forms of being 
 censed and sprinkled with holy water and of 
 hearing mass, when they were sworn into 
 office in Christchurch. No sooner was this 
 ceremony over, than sir Henry Sydney was 
 obliged to lead the army a second time into 
 Fercall to punish O'MuUoy for giving pro- 
 tection and support to the " wood-kernes," 
 or outlaws, and the whole country " from 
 the wood eastward" was plundered, and all 
 its buildings, both houses and churches, 
 burnt. This was followed almost imme- 
 diately by a third invasion, in which the 
 lord justice, to use the words of the annalist, 
 "gave neither rest nor peace" to O'Mulloy, 
 who had already lost one of his sons in the 
 contest, until that chief had fled into exile, 
 and then he proclaimed him a traitor, and 
 made one of his kinsmen, who was more 
 submissive, chieftain of his sept. No sooner, 
 however, had the lord justice withdrawn his 
 army, than there was a new rising among 
 the persecuted septs of the O'Connors, 
 O'Moores, O'Mulloys, and O'Carrolls, and 
 what the Irish annalists designate "an awful 
 war " raged over the whole of the country 
 extending from the Shannon to the Slieve 
 Roe mountains on the borders of Dublin 
 and Wicklow, and southward to the neigh- 
 bourhood of Cork, in which the insurgents 
 gained a few partial successes, such as the 
 capture of Leap castle in the King's county 
 by O'Carroll. This war ended in the follow- 
 ing year in the entire defeat of O'Carroll 
 and his allies, and O'Carroll himself was 
 obliged to seek safety in flight. 
 
 These disorders near the seat of govern- 
 ment gave too much occupation to the 
 English to allow them to interfere in the 
 scenes of domestic turbulence which were 
 devastating the northern division of the 
 island. Calvagh O'Donnell, who retained 
 his aged father in prison, still ruled over 
 Tirconnell, and appears to have been popu- 
 lar among his subjects. The comparatively 
 small party who were opposed to him, per- 
 
 393 
 
o'donnell and O'NEILL.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 155* 
 
 liaps more from their love of turbulence than 
 for any otiier reason, were headed by Hugh 
 the younger son of Manus O'Donnell, wlio, 
 finding his party in Tirconnell too weak to 
 shake his brother's authority, fled witli him 
 to Shane O'Neill, and offered to assist him 
 in reducing the Kinel-Connell to subjection 
 to Tyrone. Shane, who during his father's 
 imprisonment by the English assumed the 
 chieftainship of Tyrone, and who was ambi- 
 tious of uniting beneath his sway the whole of 
 Ulster, snatched readily at this opportunity 
 of advancing his designs, to which he was 
 encouraged by the disorders in the south. 
 He had made himself jDopular in the north 
 by those qualities which conciliate the 
 attachment of his barbarous followers as 
 much as by his extravagant hatred of the 
 English, and he soon raised an army far 
 more numerous than had been seen in the 
 north of Ireland for many years. With this 
 host, accompanied by Hugh O'Donnell, he 
 marched into Tirconnell, and formed an im- 
 mense camp at a place called Carrickleith, 
 between the two rivers Finn and Mourne. 
 The people of Tirconnell had prepared for 
 the invasion by removing their property to 
 places of security ; but Shane O'Neill, when 
 informed of this, replied scornfully, that his 
 object was less to gather plunder than to 
 assert his right of supreme ruler over Ul- 
 ster, and that if necessary he would pursue 
 his enemies through Leinster into Munster, 
 until he brought them under subjection, so 
 that thenceforth there should rule but one 
 king over the north. Confident in his numer- 
 ous army, the chieftain of Tyrone allowed 
 nis men to spread themselves negligently 
 through the camp, and thej' spent their time 
 in feasting and rejoicing, as though the vic- 
 tory were already secure. 
 
 On the other side, the ruler of Tirconnell 
 could with difficulty raise an army number- 
 ing one-fourth as many fighting men as were 
 assembled under the standard of O'Neill, 
 but he acted warily and prudently, and in 
 this emergency he went to the prison of his 
 father Manus, who was now rendered a crip- 
 ple by age and infirmities. Manvis recom- 
 mended his son to avoid coming to a battle 
 with his enemies, who were too much supe- 
 rior in numbers to afford him any chance of 
 success, but to watch their movements until 
 he should find an opportunity of attacking 
 them by surprise, and this policy Calvagh 
 O'Donnell adopted. 
 
 Meanwhile Shane O'Neill moved his camp 
 from Carrickleith, and, having crossed the 
 
 am 
 
 river Finn, he advanced into the heart of 
 Tirconnell, and encamped at a place called 
 by the Irish writers Bally- Aighidhchaoin, in 
 the same order as before. Calvagli O'Don- 
 nell was at no great distance, with a com- 
 paratively small body of his men, consisting, 
 in addition to the men of Tirconnell, chiefly 
 of the warlike Mac Sweenys, and, when he 
 heard of the new position taken up by the 
 invaders, he sent two of his most faithful 
 attendants, one of whom was a Maguire, 
 to reconnoitre their camp. These penetrated 
 unsuspected into the midst of O'Neill's 
 forces, which were so numerous and ex- 
 tensive, that it was not easy for them to 
 recognise a stranger, so long as he was like 
 themselves an Irishman from the north, 
 especially when, as was then the case, the 
 shades of night assisted in the deception. 
 The two spies thus proceeded without 
 hindrance or danger from one fire to ano- 
 ther, until they came to the immense fire 
 in the centre of the army, which stood 
 before Shane O'Neill's tent. The entrance 
 to the tent was guarded by the O'Neill's 
 personal guard, sixty fierce galloglasses with 
 their axes ready to strike, and the same 
 number of no less formidable Scots, with 
 their broadswords drawn in their hands. 
 When the time arrived for O'Neill's forces 
 to take their supper, the two spies held 
 out their hands for their portion like the 
 rest, and received a helmet full of meal 
 and a due proportion of butter. These, in- 
 stead of joining in the repast, they carried 
 back with them to O'Donnell as a proof 
 that they had faithfully performed their 
 mission, and when they described to him 
 the carelessness with which his enemies 
 were encamped, he immediately ordered his 
 men to arm and march silently to attack 
 them. They were led by Calvagh O'Don- 
 nell, his son Conn, and the chiefs of the 
 Mac Sweenys. The spies led them directly 
 to the spot occupied by O'Neill's tent, and 
 the enemy appears to have been so entirely 
 taken by surprise, that Shane's body guards 
 were the first who sustained the attack. 
 They were either slaughtered, or beaten 
 away ; O'Neill himself narrowly escaped 
 through the back of the tent; and his fol- 
 lowers were cut to pieces without mercy, or 
 scattered in every direction. Rain and dark- 
 ness added to the confusion, and the flooded 
 rivers were as fatal to the fugitives as the 
 swords of their pursuers. Shane O'Neill 
 was foremost in the flight, accompanied 
 only with one of the party of Hugh O'Don- 
 
A.D. 
 
 1557.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [defeat of shane o'neill. 
 
 nell and a chief of the sept of the O'Galla- 
 ghers. They avoided the road pursued by the 
 mass of the fugitives, pursued ou foot secret 
 paths througli the woods and wilds, swam 
 across the rivers Deel, Finn, and Derg, and 
 never halted till they reached Termonamun- 
 gan on the borders of Tyrone, where Shane 
 purchased a horse, which soon bore him in 
 safety into the heart of his ovm territory. 
 Calvagh and his son Conn took possession 
 of O'Neill's camp, and spent the remainder 
 of the night carousing on the wines and 
 viands of their enemies, and next morning 
 they divided among their army the rich 
 spoils which their enemies had been obliged 
 to desert. Among the horses taken on this 
 occasion was a celebrated steed of Shane 
 O'Neill's, known popularly by the name of 
 Mac-an-Iolair, or the son of the eagle, no 
 doubt from its extraordinary swiftness. 
 
 The power of Shane O'Neill was for a 
 moment broken, and he seems to have laid 
 aside for a while his projects of conquest, to 
 strengthen his power at home. In the 
 course of the following year, Matthew 
 O'Neill, the baron of Dungannon, was slain 
 by assassins in the employ of his brother 
 Shane, and, on the deatli of their father, 
 which occurred soon after in his English 
 prison, Shane assumed the chieftainship of 
 Tyrone to the exclusion of Matthew's sons. 
 
 The lord deputy, who on the death of his 
 father soon after his ai^pointment to the 
 government of Ireland had succeeded to 
 the title of earl of Sussex, had returned to 
 his post at tlie beginning of May, 1558, and 
 the turbulence which was now spreading 
 throughout Ireland kept him constantly 
 employed. Leaving the O'Neills and the 
 O'Donnells to fight out their own quarrels, 
 ' the attention of Sussex had been long occu- 
 pied by the formidable movements of the 
 Scots, who were gradually establishing them- 
 selves along the whole extent of the coast of 
 Ulster. In 1557, they had penetrated south- 
 wards into tlie plains of Ai'magh, where they 
 were supported by the natives, and had even 
 laid siege to Carrickfergus. Sussex mus- 
 tered the forces of the pale, and, joined by 
 the earl of Ormond with a large body of 
 horse and foot, marched in haste to the north. 
 The Irish annalists tell us that on this occa- 
 sion the English army plundered Armagh 
 twice in the space of one month. The Scots 
 assembled their forces to resist the attack, but 
 they were entirely defeated, with the slaugh- 
 ter of about two hundred of their bravest 
 men. In this battle sir Henry Sydney 
 
 was especially distinguished by his personal 
 prowess; he slew in single combat James 
 Mac Connell, one of the Scottish leaders. 
 
 Checked in this direction, the Scots now 
 moved towards the western side of the island, 
 and, after serving alternately the O'Neills 
 and the O'Donnells, they marched into 
 Lower Connaught, to enter the service of 
 that branch of the Burkes, whose chief was 
 known to the Irish by the title of Mac Wil- 
 liam Oughter. This northern Mac William 
 was engaged in a desperate feud with the 
 earl of Clanrickard, and he had invited 
 the Scots to assist in his war. They 
 marched through Sligo and Mayo into the 
 district of Tyrawley, and encamped at Moy 
 in the latter district, where they were joined 
 by the Mac William and his forces. 
 
 The earl of Clanrickard had received early 
 intelligence of the movements of the Scots, 
 and, collecting all the forces at his command, 
 he made a hasty march into the county of 
 Mayo. An obstinate battle, fought at Moy, 
 ended in the entire defeat, and almost in the 
 destruction, of the Scottish invaders. Their 
 two chieftains fell in the battle, and the 
 slaughter of the Scots was so great, that not 
 long afterwards the earl of Sussex, instead 
 of contending with them on Irish ground, 
 was enabled to take revenge by making a 
 hostile descent upon the isles. 
 
 On the return of the earl of Sussex to 
 Ireland in 1558, Munster had sustained 
 a great loss by the death of the earl of Des- 
 mond, the same who had been taught " civi- 
 lity" by sir Edward Bellingham, and who 
 appears to have practised the lessons he had 
 received from that governor to the end of 
 his life. He was universally lamented by 
 the Irish as well as by the English of the 
 south; and the Irish annalists tell us that, 
 through the vast extent of territory which 
 acknowledged him as its lord, " during his 
 time it was not found necessary to infold 
 cattle or to close the doors." His loss was 
 felt especially at this moment, when the 
 north of Munster was shaken by the turbu- 
 lence of the O'Briens of Thomond. Sussex 
 marched into Thomond, captured the chief 
 castles of the O'Briens, Clonroad (Ennis), 
 Bunratty, and Clare, and delivered them and 
 the whole territory, after having banished 
 Donal O'Brien, into the hands of Connor 
 O'Brien, who, as the eldest son of Donough 
 O'Brien, had been invested with the title of 
 earl of Thomond. The native annalists re- 
 cord the "abomination, hatred, disgust, and 
 terror," which seized the Irish, when their 
 
 395 
 
ACCESSION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1558. 
 
 favourite Donal O'Brien was dispossessed of 
 his rule. In the course of this military pro- 
 gress, the earl of Sussex received at Lime- 
 rick the submission of the new earl of Des- 
 mond, and, a few days afterwards, he stood 
 godfather to that lord's young son, who re- 
 ceived the name of James Sussex, on which 
 occasion he presented to the child a chain of 
 gold. 
 
 This act of courtesy seems, however, to 
 have had little effect in conciliating the tur- 
 bulent chieftain who had now succeeded to 
 the earldom of Desmond ; and before a year 
 was past we find him in arms supporting the 
 party of the banished O'Brien against the 
 earl of Thomond. The latter had laid siege 
 to Inchiquin, which was held against him by 
 the sons of Murrough O'Brien, when the 
 earl of Desmond, taking up their cause, 
 marched across the Shannon, and compelled 
 him to raise the siege. The earl of Tho- 
 mond, thus attacked, called to his assistance 
 the earl of Clanrickard, and a great battle 
 was fought on the hill of Knock-Fuarchoilli, 
 about six miles east of Ennis, in which the 
 O'Briens and Burkes were entirely defeated, 
 and many chiefs of the Irish were slain. 
 After this victory, the earl of Desmond re- 
 tired quietly into his own territory. 
 
 A new change had taken place in the for- 
 tunes of England, which was likely to exert 
 an extraordinary influence upon the condi- 
 tion of Ireland. On the 17th of November, 
 1558, queen Mary sank under a complication 
 of disease and chagrin, and the day after died 
 cardinal Pole, who had been looked upon as 
 the main support of the catholic faith in these 
 islands. On the 19th the princess Elizabeth 
 was proclaimed queen, and it was soon evi- 
 dent that the brief triumph of the Romish 
 faith was at an end. No violent change, 
 however, was made until the meeting of par- 
 liament in the spring of 1559, when the 
 queen's sj^iritual supremacy was solemnly 
 declared, and religion was restored to the 
 same condition in which it stood at the close 
 of the reign of Edward VI. 
 
 In tlie apprehension of a war with Scot- 
 land, the earl of Sussex had been again called 
 over to England, in the autumn of 1558, as 
 the soldier best fitted to command an expe- 
 dition against that country, and sir Henry 
 Sydney exercised the office of lord justice 
 in his absence. A few days only before 
 queen Mary's death, Sussex had retui'ned to 
 Ireland with a new commission for his office 
 of lord deputy, and, as a meritorious officer 
 of the crown who had performed his duties 
 
 ;.96 
 
 with zeal and activity, he was allowed to 
 continue in it upon the accession of Eliza- 
 beth. There was at this time more than 
 ever need of a vigorous government, for not 
 only was it probable that there the Romish 
 party would make its most desperate stand 
 against the authority of a protestant princess, 
 but the late reign had left the island in a 
 state of disorder, more or less alarming, from 
 one end to the other. The only Irish sept 
 which was in peace, and appeared well dis- 
 posed to the English government, was that 
 of the Mac Carthys in the south. The earl 
 of Desmond and his kinsmen had already 
 shown, in their interference in Thomond, a 
 disposition to rebel, and he was almost at war 
 with the old rival of the Geraldines, the earl 
 of Ormond. Thomond itself was thrown 
 into confusion by the continued attempts of 
 the banished Donal O'Brien to regain his 
 power. Even in Leinster, the survivors of 
 the old families of Leix and Offiily, who had 
 been ejected from the possessions of their 
 ancestors, and had to complain of much in- 
 justice, had not ceased to give uneasiness to 
 their rulers, and, having sheltered themselves 
 in the inaccessible woods and mountain-dis- 
 tricts, seized every favourable occasion to 
 rush out from their secret haunts, attack and 
 plunder the new inhabitants among whom 
 the lands had been distributed, and then, after 
 committing outrages of every description, 
 they retired to their hiding places to await 
 a new occasion of renewing their inroads. 
 Connaught was still ravaged by the hostili- 
 ties between the two great branches of the 
 Burkes. And in Ulster, Shane O'Neill was 
 recovering from his recent disaster to renew 
 his war with the O'Donnells; while the 
 Scots were again offering themselves on the 
 coasts to take a part in the strife. 
 
 It was the great chieftain of the north 
 whose designs at this moment were looked 
 upon with the greatest anxiety by the Eng- 
 lish government, which could not but regard 
 his assumption of the chieftainship as an act 
 of defiance of its authority. Sir Henry Syd- 
 ney, who had again been entrusted with the 
 government in quality of lord justice on the 
 return of the earl of Sussex to England soon 
 after Elizabeth's accession to the throne, 
 marched with an army to Dundalk, where 
 he summoned O'Neill to appear before him, 
 explain his conduct, and give assurances of 
 his loyalty. The wary chieftain evaded this 
 summons, by inviting Sydney to visit him at 
 his court, and place himself on the honour- 
 able footing of a gossip by standing sponsor 
 
A.D, 
 
 1559.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [protestantism established. 
 
 to his child. The lord justice, in the hojse 
 of conciliating the virtual ruler of Tyrone 
 by this act of condescension, accepted the 
 invitation, and after the ceremonials were 
 over, listened to his defence of his conduct. 
 Shane O'Neill repeated to Sydney his former 
 assertions as to the real parentage of Mat- 
 thew of Dungannon, who was now dead, and 
 explained to him the ancient custom of in- 
 heritance in Tyrone, by which he claimed 
 his chieftainship as his undoubted right. 
 He added that this claim had been confirmed 
 by the free election of the people over whom 
 he ruled ; and he declared that, even if he 
 were willing to forego it himself, there were 
 a number of his kindred whose claims would 
 stand before him and the issue of the spurious 
 Matthew O'Neill, who were ready to take up 
 the sword to defend them. He ended his de- 
 fence, which was urged with great appear- 
 ance of moderation, with tlie strongest pro- 
 fessions of fidelity in his allegiance to the 
 English crown. 
 
 Sir Henry Sydney listened calmly to 
 Shane O'Neill's defence, and, having con- 
 sulted with the members of the privy coimcil 
 who were with him, made reply, that it was 
 not in his power to give an immediate deci- 
 sion on the important questions involved in 
 it, but that he would make an innnediate 
 communication on the subject to the queen. 
 In the meanwhile he thanked O'Neill per- 
 sonally for his entertainment, and urged 
 him to persevere in a peaceful and dutiful 
 demeanour in the assurance that he would 
 receive justice from the throne. The chief- 
 tain of Tyrone promised to follow this 
 advice, and dismissed his visitors with warm 
 professions which were merely the cover for 
 his own ambitious designs. Among his own 
 subjects, the visit of the lord justice was 
 regarded as a tacit acknowledgment of the 
 authority of their chieftain, and his impor- 
 tance was proportionally raised among the 
 Irish septs of the north. 
 
 No steps had yet been taken towards the 
 new regulating of the civil and religious 
 government in Ireland, but in the autumn 
 of 1559, the earl of Sussex was sent over 
 to re-assume the government of Ireland, 
 with special instructions for establishing the 
 reformed worship, which, in the preceding 
 reign, he had been the instrument of 
 abolishing. He was commissioned to call 
 a parliament, for the enacting of statutes 
 on this subject similar to those which had 
 already been passed in England. The 
 queen's intentions were well known in Ire- 
 
 land, and the Romish party, encouraged by 
 foreign agents, exerted all their efforts to raise 
 a violent opposition, but they were mainly 
 successful in confirming the bigotry of those 
 who had no share in the work of legislation. 
 The house of commons was composed chiefly 
 of the representatives of towns where the 
 royal authority had most influence, and 
 where the protestant faith found the greatest 
 number of advocates. Among the lords, 
 the bishops appear to have complied with 
 the royal will more easily than the temporal 
 peers. Many of them were prelates who 
 had quietly enjoyed their sees during most 
 of the changes which had taken place since 
 the reign of Henry VIII. Two of them 
 only, Walsh of Meath (who had been ap- 
 pointed in the late reign for his known 
 zeal in the cause of Rome), and Leveroux 
 of Kildare (whose opinions had been con- 
 firmed during his exile in Italy), are said 
 to have offered any strenuous opposition to 
 the queen's innovations. 
 
 The opposition in parliament was thus 
 more clamorous than powerful, and in the 
 course of a brief session the whole eccle- 
 siastical system of queen Mary was entirely 
 reversed. By the first act of this parlia- 
 ment the crown was again made the head 
 of the church, and a new oath of supre- 
 macy was appointed to be enforced. The 
 recent laws against heresy were repealed, 
 the use of the common prayer, with the 
 alterations newly made in England, was 
 enforced, with a proviso that, as in most 
 places of the realm English ministers could 
 not be found, and as the Irish language was 
 difficult to be printed, and few could under- 
 stand the Irish letters, the queen was 
 humbly prayed that it might be permit- 
 ted that in every church, where the mi- 
 nister had no knowledge of the English 
 tongue, it might be lawful for him to 
 officiate in Latin. This clause appears to 
 have originated in a desire to soften the 
 prejudices of many of those who objected 
 to the reformed ritual, because it was com- 
 piled in the vulgar tongue, by allowing 
 them to perform it in the usual language 
 of their devotions. 
 
 By other statutes, all subjects were 
 obliged to attend the public worship of the 
 church ; the first-fruits and twentieth parts 
 of all church revenues were restored to the 
 crown; and the old form of electing pre- 
 lates by deans and chapters, by virtue of a 
 writ called a conge d'elire, was entirely 
 abolished in Ireland, as attended with un- 
 
 397 
 
THE IRISH COINAGE.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1560. 
 
 necessary delays and costs, and derogatory 
 to the royal prerogative. In regard to this 
 latter point, it was provided that the queen 
 and her heirs, by letters patent under the 
 n-reat seal of England or Ireland, or the 
 chief governor duly authorised should by 
 similar letters patent, collate to all vacant 
 sees; that persons so collated should be at 
 once consecrated and invested with their 
 rights; and that the prelates directed to 
 consecrate them, should pay due obedience 
 to the royal mandate within twenty days, 
 under the penalties of the statute of pre- 
 nmnire. 
 
 The only other acts of importance passed 
 at this time were, the recognition of the 
 queen's title to the crown of Ireland; the 
 extension of an act of the late reign, 
 whereby certain offences were made trea- 
 son to the person of the present queen; 
 and the restoration of the priory of St. 
 John of Jerusalem (at Kilmainham) to the 
 crown. Messingberd, who had been ap- 
 pointed prior of this house during the late 
 reign for his zeal in the Romish cause, 
 became an object of persecution. His 
 behaviour had excited strong suspicions of 
 treasonable practices; and, when sunnnoned 
 to give an account of them, he fled into 
 exile, and thus apparently confirmed the 
 supicions of his guilt. He was summoned 
 by proclamation to surrender himself within 
 forty days, on pain of being attainted of 
 high treason; and, as in the case of arch- 
 bishop Browne of Dublin in the late reign, 
 all tlie dispositions made by him of the 
 revenues of this house were revoked. 
 
 Thus was the protestant faith established 
 finally by law as the religion of Ireland; but 
 that law still extended very little beyond the 
 English pale, and even there it met with a 
 silent yet resolute opposition from the Ro- 
 man catholic part of the population. The 
 question of religion had now become an 
 important element in the motives of confu- 
 sion and strife in this unhappy land, and one 
 which was especially dangerous in the hands 
 of the foreign powers who were now leaguing 
 together against Elizabeth's sceptre. The 
 partizans of Rome were busy everywhere 
 inveighing against the heretical queen and 
 her ministers; the non-conforming clergy 
 abandoned their cures ; and as few reformed 
 ministers could be found bold enough to 
 supply their places, their churches fell to 
 ruin; and the people were thus in many 
 places left without any religious worship or 
 instruction. In other places, whenever it 
 398 
 
 could be done with impunity, the new laws 
 were neglected or evaded. Everywhere 
 people were taught to regard the English 
 government as one which was placed under 
 the ban of the true church, and they were 
 encouraged to look forward to a period not 
 far distant when they would be assisted in 
 asserting the cause of their religion by the 
 pope and the king of Spain. These pro- 
 mises, from the moment that Elizabeth 
 became queen of Ireland, had a powerful 
 influence on all the events which distracted 
 that country. 
 
 The government appears to have foreseen 
 the storm which was threatening, and uncer- 
 tain where or how it would fall, they seem 
 to have vacillated in their councils. Embar- 
 rassed with the increasing power of the 
 opposition in parliament, the carl of Sussex 
 dissolved it after a short session, and repaired 
 to England in the middle of February, 1560, 
 to consult with his sovereign and her minis- 
 ters, leaving the Irish government in the 
 hands of sir William Fitzwilliams. In the 
 June of the same year, Sussex returned 
 to Ireland, bringing with him additional 
 forces, greater powers, and a commission 
 investing him with the higher title of lord- 
 lieutenant. 
 
 Another important measure of the com- 
 mencement of the reign of queen Elizabeth 
 related to the coinage, which, in Ireland, 
 had been extremely debased. This debase- 
 ment had been going on ever since the 
 fifteenth century, and had been the subject 
 of much complaint and of several legislative 
 enactments. Some of the Irish coins in the 
 reign of Henry VIII. were so base, that it 
 was found necessary to pass an act in Eng- 
 land prohibiting their exportation from Ire- 
 land into this country, or being current 
 here. In the Irish currency of queen Mary, 
 struck in 1553, the money of that country 
 is said to have been reduced to its lowest 
 degree of baseness, and the same extreme 
 degeneracy is found in the coinage of the 
 commencement of the following reign.* But 
 towards the end of the year 1560, queen Eliz- 
 abeth having effected a complete reformation 
 in the English currency, the benefit of this 
 measure was extended to Ireland, and the 
 money in that country was raised to the 
 same standard as in England. The general 
 dissatisfaction felt at the old system may be 
 
 * The best work on the English coinage is that by 
 Mr. John Lindsay of Cork, who deservedly enjoys the 
 reputation of being the first of the Ii'ish numisma- 
 tists. 
 
A.D. 
 
 1560.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [turbulence of the septs. 
 
 conceived from the universal joy created bj^ 
 this change, which was welcomed through- 
 out the English pale in popular songs and 
 
 * Simons, in his " Essay on Irish Coins," has pre- 
 served the following fragment of a popular ballad 
 made on this occasion:- — 
 
 " Let bone-fires shine in every place, 
 Sing, and ring the beOs a-pace, 
 
 ballads.* It contributed more than anything 
 else towards rendering the new 
 popular. 
 
 reign 
 
 And pray that long may live her grace, 
 To be the good queene of L-eland. 
 The gold and silver which was so base, 
 That no man could endure it scarce, 
 Is now new coyn'd witli her own face. 
 And made go cui'rent in Ireland." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 every part of 
 
 TROUBLED STATE OF IRELAND 
 ELIZABETH; SHANE O'NEILL 
 
 ORE attention had as yet 
 been paid by the English 
 government to the settle- 
 ment of religion and the 
 civil regulations of the 
 Irish pale than to the 
 feuds and discords which 
 were raging in almost 
 Ireland. Even in Leinster, 
 the old scourges of the English pale, the 
 Cavenaghs, O'Byrnes, O'Tooles, and other 
 smaller septs, were again in arms, following 
 their old custom of robbing and burning. 
 To the south, Munster was in a state of 
 great disorder. The central parts of that 
 province, especially the counties of Tippe- 
 rary and Kerry, were kept in constant agita- 
 tion by the reviving feuds between the earls 
 of Desmond and Ormond, which were car- 
 ried to such a height, that the two earls 
 gathered their followers in arms from every 
 part of the territories over which they ruled, 
 and were on the point of fighting a pitched 
 battle, when unexpectedly pacific councils 
 prevailed with each, and they separated 
 without bloodshed. This and some other 
 circumstances aroused the fears of the Eng- 
 lish government, and orders were sent to 
 invite the earl of Kildare to repair to 
 the English court, or, in case of his refusal, 
 to place him under arrest. 
 
 The young earl of Desmond seems to have 
 reassumed the turbulence which had so long 
 disunguished his family, and we find him 
 and his kinsmen at this moment engaged in 
 hostilities with most of their neighbours. 
 Two of them, with a powerful force, marched 
 
 DURING THE FIRST YEARS OF THE EEIGN OF QUEEN 
 AND CALVAGH o'DONNELL. ; DEFEAT OF THE SCOTS. 
 
 during this year (1560) into Carbury of Cork 
 against the Mac Carthys, whose territory 
 they plundered; but as they were returning 
 with their booty, the Mac Carthy Reagh 
 overtook them on the banks of the river 
 Bandon, and defeated them in a sanguinary 
 engagement. The Irish annalists tell us that 
 not less than two or three hundred of the 
 Geraldines were slain on this occasion. 
 
 In Thomond, the struggle between Connor 
 O'Brien (the earl) and his rivals, continued 
 unabated; but the former, encouraged by 
 the authority of the English government, 
 was gradually establishing himself in the 
 chieftainship. On one occasion, the earl of 
 Thomond pursued his rival Murrough 
 O'Brien, known to the Irish by the title of 
 Murrough of the Battle-axes, through west- 
 ern Connaught, to the coast of Galway ; and 
 soon afterwards, another of the rebels, Teigue 
 O'Brien, was captured by the English of 
 Limerick, and sent a prisoner to Dublin. 
 It was said that the latter was betrayed by 
 his own followers. The O'Briens of Ara 
 were also at this time at war with the Mac 
 Carthys. 
 
 Coimaught was not much more tranquil 
 than Munster ; feuds are recorded among the 
 O'Rourkes, and the O'Haras, and other 
 septs ; and, in the north of Ulster, the Scots 
 were again making themselves troublesome. 
 The chief of the Mac Mahons was slain in 
 1560 in a quarrel with these unwelcome 
 visitors. 
 
 But many of these lesser troubles are 
 overlooked in the greater disorders which 
 were preparing in the north. Shane O'Neill 
 
 399 
 
CALVAGH o'donnell TAKEii.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [.^ 
 
 1561. 
 
 had to a certain degree lulled the suspicions 
 of the English government by his profes- 
 sions of obedience at the interview with sir 
 Henry Sydney, and he had been allowed to 
 continue strengthening himself ever since 
 the mortifying repulse he had experienced 
 in Tirconnell. At this time he was taking 
 into his service large bodies of Scots from 
 the islands ; and he had increased his power 
 by reducing to his obedience under one 
 excuse or other, most of the lesser septs on 
 his borders. As yet he had cautiously 
 avoided giving any direct provocation to 
 the English ; but it was becoming daily 
 more evident that his professions of fidelity 
 were no more than a cover for his ambitious 
 designs. He had written a letter to queen 
 Elizabeth in the j'ear 1560, in which he set 
 forth his title to rule over Ulster, and 
 pleaded his early services, his election by 
 liis subjects, and especially what he calls 
 his prosperous government, under which he 
 pretended that all the waste country had 
 been inhabited. He laid claim to the town 
 of Ballygrillin, intimated some sort of desire 
 to conform to Englisli manners, and made a 
 demand which was often repeated afterwards 
 that he miyht have "some English centle- 
 woman of noble birth" for a wife. Subse- 
 quently he made a more definite request to 
 be allowed to marry the sister of the earl 
 of Sussex. It is singular that, according 
 to the Irish accounts, Shane O'Neill was at 
 this time married to the daughter of his 
 oneni}', Calvagh 0"Donnell. 
 
 Afl'airs were in this position, when at the 
 beginning of February, 1561, the earl of Sus- 
 sex again repaired to London, leaving the 
 government as before in the hands of sir 
 William Fitzwilliams. The lord deputy had 
 scarcely quitted tlie Irish coasts, when the 
 turbulent chieftain of Tyrone jsrepared to put 
 in execution some of his plans of aggran- 
 disement. Their first object was his neigh- 
 bour O'Reilly, whose territory (the modern 
 county of Cavan) he invaded at the end of 
 February, and, after committing frightful 
 ravages, he compelled him to become his vas- 
 sal and deliver hostages for his obedience. 
 
 It appears that, during the preceding year, 
 the English government had suspected Shane 
 O'Neill's designs, and the chieftains who 
 were known to be most opposed to him re- 
 ceived encouraging assurances of the royal 
 favour. A messenger was sent by v/ay of 
 Scotland to Carrickfergus, and thence to 
 Donegal, carrying the queen's letters to 
 Calvagh O'Donnell, offering to create him 
 400 
 
 earl of Tirconnell, with other letters from 
 the earl of Sussex to O'Donnell's wife, who 
 is called in the English State Papers coun- 
 tess of Argyle, informing her of some pre- 
 sents he was bringing over for her from the 
 queen. About the same time O'Reilly, the 
 chieftain of East Brenny, was created earl 
 of Brenny and baron of Cavan. It is pro- 
 bable that these marks of favour had been 
 partly at least the cause of O'Neill's present 
 hostility against the latter chief, and of the 
 still more daring outrage which followed. 
 
 Calvagli O'Donnell was still involved in 
 hostilities with some of his kinsmen who 
 refused to acknowledge his authority, and 
 especially with his younger brother CafRr 
 O'Donnell, who had posted himself and 
 his company in the Crannog of Lough 
 Veagh. Soon after the return of O'Neill 
 from his expedition against O'Reilly, Cal- 
 vagh and his son Conn marched agaist these 
 insurgents, and laid siege to the Crannog. 
 While Conn directed the operations of the 
 siege, his father Calvagh, with his wife, one 
 of his sons, and few attendants except 
 women and poets, had taken up his resi- 
 dence in the monastery of Killodonnell, 
 near the upper end of Lough Svvilly, totally 
 unconscious of the presence of danger. But 
 a traitor — it was commonly reported that 
 the traitor was O'Donnell's own wife — sent 
 secret intelligence to Shane O'Neill of the 
 unguarded confidence of his enemy, and that 
 chieftain collected a large force, made a hasty 
 march to Lough Swilly, surrounded the mo- 
 nastery with his men, seized upon Calvagh 
 O'Donnell and his wife and son, and carried 
 them off into Tyrone. Calvagh was sub- 
 jected to a rigid imprisonment, until, a few 
 months after, he was delivered to his country- 
 men on their payment of a heavy ransom. 
 The lady was generally believed to have 
 been a willing captive ; instead of throwing 
 her into prison, O'Neill took her to his bed, 
 and retained her as his favourite concubine 
 to the end of his life. This was not the 
 only affliction which Calvagh O'Donnell was 
 destined at this moment to experience; his 
 daughter Mary,* Shane O'Neill's wife, died 
 heart-broken at the treatment to which her 
 father was subjected in her husband's house, 
 and about the same time one of her brothers 
 Naghtan O'Donnell was slain by the acci- 
 dental cast of a dart.f 
 
 * Probably bj' a former wife, if the account of the 
 Irish annalist be true. 
 
 t This is the Ii-ish account of the capture of 
 O'Donnell, as given by the " Four Masters," the 
 
A.D. 1561.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [war with o'neill. 
 
 Shane O'Neill set no bounds to his exul- 
 tation at the success of this expedition, and 
 he not only seized upon Tirconnell, and 
 proclaimed himself the sovereign of all 
 Ulster, but in the insolence of his self-con- 
 fidence, he set at defiance the English 
 government, and proceeded to open acts of 
 hostility against it. A proof of this hostile 
 feeling, which seems to have been especially 
 galling to the English authorities, was fur- 
 nished by a strong fortress which he now 
 erected on an island upon his borders, to 
 which he gave the name of Fooghnegall, or 
 "the abomination of Englishmen." And 
 we are told that at this time, one of his 
 followers having been accused, on very 
 vague suspicions, of being a spy of the Eng- 
 lish government, he caused him to be hanged 
 without further investigation ; and another 
 was put death in the same disgraceful manner 
 merely because he had eaten English biscuit. 
 Not content even vntli these marks of national 
 hatred, he led his forces to the borders of 
 the English pale, and plundered parts of 
 Meath and the district then known as Bregia. 
 In the pride of apparent success, and with 
 the ambitious views he now hardly deigned 
 to conceal, he declared that the English 
 were the only enemies he had in Ireland. 
 
 It appears that, at the very moment when 
 Shane O'Neill was attacking the English 
 pale, the earl of Sussex was on his way back 
 to Ireland, with a commission to enter into 
 friendly communication with the northern 
 chieftain, and that he was even the bearer of 
 presents and honours from the queen ; and so 
 much interest was now taken in Irish afiairs, 
 that the necessary steps were at the same 
 time taken to establish a post between the 
 two countries for the regular and rapid 
 transmission of intelligence. He went over 
 to Ireland on the 24th of May, and almost 
 immediately after his departure the court re- 
 ceived intelligence of the new hostilities of 
 O'Neill, and the capture of Calvagh O'Don- 
 nell and his family, which had occurred on the 
 14th of that month. Cecil, now the queen's 
 secretary of state, wrote immediately to Sus- 
 sex, and recommended him to alter the 
 intended policy, for, he observes, " seeing 
 Shane thus useth the matter, I see severity 
 and terror must work your victory." 
 
 This policy had already been adopted by 
 the lord lieutenant. Collecting the forces 
 
 "Annals of Innisfallen," &c., and is no doubt the 
 coiTect one. According to the report gathered by 
 the English authorities, it is represented that O'Neill, 
 having been apprised, through some secret channel, 
 VOL. I. 3 E 
 
 of the pale, and accompanied with the earl 
 of Ormond and other nobles, he had marched 
 northwards to Armagh immediately after his 
 arrival. O'Neill, whose courage had been 
 raised by his recent successes, collected his 
 army and prepared to defend his territory, 
 having previously committed Calvagh O'Don- 
 nell to tlie custody of some of his most faith- 
 ful followers, with orders to convey him 
 from one island to another in the recesses 
 of Tyrone, that he might not fall into the 
 hands of the English. The latter remained 
 at Armagh, casting up vast intrenchments 
 round the church, in order to establish there 
 a garrison as a check upon O'Neill's plun- 
 derers and as a defence to the plains of Uriel. 
 At length Sussex sent out a large body of 
 his troops — the Irish annalists say a thou- 
 sand men — in pursuit of Shane O'Neill, who 
 watched them at a distance until they were 
 returning embarrassed with their plunder, 
 and then he suddenly made his appearance 
 and put in practice the old manoeuvre of 
 Irish warfare in attacking them by surprise. 
 It appears that the forces of Tyrone were 
 defeated, but the loss of the English was so 
 great and their position so critical, that the 
 latter were obliged to make a precipitate 
 retreat, leaving their booty behind them. 
 It is intimated in some of the documents 
 relating to this event, that the ill conduct of 
 some of the English officers had contributed 
 to this disastrous result. Such is the best 
 account we can collect from the rather vague 
 and contradictory records of the time relat- 
 ing to an aflTair the exaggerated reports of 
 which filled the English coui-t with dismay. 
 It was reported in England that the earl of 
 Sussex had been entirely defeated, that the 
 loss of Ulster had been completed by the 
 surrender of Carrickfergus to O'Neill, that 
 Offaly and other districts were in full insur- 
 rection, and, indeed, that the English autho- 
 rity in Ireland was almost overthrown. 
 
 Sussex remained with his army at Armagh, 
 where he resorted again to negotiations. 
 Shane O'Neill now used loftier language than 
 ever; he boasted of his claims to the sove- 
 reignty of Ulster, and one of his subjects of 
 bitterest complaint was the fortifying of 
 Armagh, which, he pretended, entrenched 
 upon his sovereign rights. When Surrey 
 refused to withdraw the queen's garrison, he 
 replied that " as long as the soldiers remained 
 
 that O'Donnell meant, on a certain day, to set out on 
 a journey, accompanied by his wife, he lay in ambush 
 for them on the road, and made the whole party 
 prisoners. 
 
 401 
 
SHANE O'NEILL SUBMITS.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d, 1561. 
 
 in Armagh, he would ask no peace or truce." 
 Such were his outward boasts, but it is pro- 
 bable that he was well aware that, whatever 
 partial successes he might obtain at first, he 
 was unable to compete for any length of 
 time with the power whose hostility he had 
 now provoked. When Sussex demanded the 
 delivery of Calvagh O'Donnell as an opening 
 for negotiations, Shane refused; but, per- 
 haps thinking it prudent to make the most 
 of Iris captive while he could, he about the 
 same time set him at liberty on the payment, 
 as before said, of a heavy ransom by his 
 countrymen, retaining his son in captivity 
 as a hostage. 
 
 Reinforcements meanwhile arrived from 
 England to swell the army of the earl of 
 Sussex, in addition to the new levies which 
 had been made by the Anglo-Irish chieftains ; 
 and the earl of Kildare, who had been in 
 England since the preceding year, was sent 
 back to assist in the wild warfare tliat was 
 going on in the north. On his arrival, the 
 lord-lieutenant had in his company no less 
 than five Irish earls, those of Kildare, Or- 
 mond, Desmond, Thomoud, and Clanrickard ; 
 and, finding that little progress was likely to 
 be made in pacific negotiations so long as he 
 remained at Armagh, the earl of Sussex 
 now advanced with his army into Tyrone, 
 and marched as far as Lough Foyle in Derry 
 without meeting with any opposition. It 
 was at this period that Sussex, alarmed at 
 the increase of O'Neill's personal influence 
 among the natives, had recourse to a detesta- 
 ble policy too frequently adopted in this and 
 the preceding age, and that he had actually 
 employed an agent to carry off his enemy 
 by assassination. This agent met with dif- 
 ficulties in the execution of his design which 
 alone saved Shane O'Neill from his dagger ; 
 but letters relating to the plot are still pre- 
 served in the English State Paper office. 
 It appears that the earl of Kildare, who still 
 stood upon his kindred with the O'Neills, 
 offered himself as a mediator, and at length 
 persuaded Shane to give ear to pacific coun- 
 sels. Kildare was the bearer of an invitation 
 from the queen to the Ulster chieftain to re- 
 pair to her court in England, and, allured by 
 this mark of conciliatory condescension, as 
 well as by the persuasions of his kinsman, he 
 made his submission, and agreed to articles of 
 peace, which were signed by himself and the 
 earl of Kildare, in the presence of the viscount 
 Baltinglass and the lords of Slane and Louth. 
 By this treaty Shane O'Neill was to be 
 acknowledged as the chieftain of Tyrone, 
 402 
 
 with all its rights and pre-eminences, until 
 the validity of the letters-patent granted to 
 his father and base brother Matthew should 
 be decided by parliament, and it was agreed 
 that if they were declared void, Shane should 
 then be created earl of Tyrone, and hold his 
 country by English tenure, still maintaining 
 his old authority over all those who were 
 found to owe him vassalage. It appears that, 
 for a time at least, the English garrison 
 was to remain at Armagh. 
 
 After peace had thus been concluded with 
 Shane O'Neill, the lord deputy marched 
 with his army into Tirconnell, and there 
 restored Calvagh O'Donnell to the chieftain- 
 ship, and placed in his hands its principal 
 castles, which had been usurped by his 
 rivals, including the castle and town of 
 Sligo. Sussex then returned into the 
 English pale, to prepare for O'Neill's jour- 
 ney into England. 
 
 O'Neill made his appearance in Dublin, 
 and was received by the lord-lieutenant at 
 least with outward favour. In the course 
 of his transactions with the Irish chieftain, 
 Sussex appears to have imbibed a strong 
 feeling of personal hostility towards him, 
 and he is accused of having secretly thrown 
 obstacles in the way of conciliation. He 
 had espoused the party of the young baron 
 of Dungannon, the son of Matthew O'Neill, 
 and Shane O'Neill's friends accused Sussex 
 of retaining the chief at Dublin longer than 
 necessary, in order that he might be there 
 himself to confront him. It is certain that 
 the lord-lieutenant wrote to secretary Cecil, 
 on Shane's departure, advising that the queen 
 should " show strangeness " to the Irish chief 
 on his arrival, the report of which policy, he 
 added, " will do the young lord much good." 
 The real hindrance, however, to Shane's 
 departure appears to have sprung from the 
 old difficulty of raising money for his ex- 
 penses. When he reached London, which 
 was about the beginning of January, he was 
 received by Cecil and some of the principal 
 members of the privy council, who arranged 
 the form of his submission before the queen, 
 which was to be made in English and Irish, 
 " after some short rehearsal to him of his 
 general faults," to which, says Cecil, to one 
 of whose letters we owe the account of this 
 interview, " we would not suffer him to re- 
 ply for his defence, meaning to leave that 
 until your lordship come." The Irish chief- 
 tain appeared in London with an ostentatious 
 display of the barbaric state of his court. 
 He was attended everywhere with a guard 
 
 L 
 
A.D. 15G2.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [return of shanf, o'neill. 
 
 of galloglasses, armed with axes, bareheaded, 
 with curled hair hanging down, yellow sur- 
 plices or shirts died with saffron, long sleeves, 
 short coats, and hairy mantles; " whom," 
 says Camden, "the English people gazed at 
 with no less admiration than now-a-days they 
 do them of China and America." He marched 
 in this order to Elizabeth's court,* and there 
 Shane O'Neill was presented to the sovereign 
 in an open presence in the afternoon. He 
 threw himself on his face before the queen, 
 and confessed the crime of rebellion, as Cam- 
 den says, " with howling." Having been 
 reassured by the favourable reception he met 
 with, he proceeded to urge the same argu- 
 ments in his defence which on a former occa- 
 sion he had stated to sir Henry Sydney, and 
 he laid the fault of his insurrection on his 
 enemies in her government, who, he said, 
 had by various injuries goaded him into hos- 
 tilities. The queen listened to his defence, 
 and dismissed him with promises of her 
 favour; but she ordered that further com- 
 munication on the subject at issue, should be 
 deferred until the arrival of the young baron 
 of Dungannon to plead his own cause. 
 
 But a new event had occurred in Tyrone, 
 which materially altered Shane O'Neill's 
 position. This chieftain had not left his 
 dominions in perfect tranquillity, and during 
 his absence they were disturbed by frequent 
 bickerings between the Irish and the gar- 
 rison of Armagh, as well as by the turbu- 
 lence of Shane's competitors, the sons of 
 the late baron of Dungannon, who had asso- 
 ciated themselves with a party of the Hebri- 
 dean Scots, and were employed in despoiling 
 and ravaging his land. When the English 
 court was waiting for the arrival of the 
 young pretender, who had been allowed in 
 right of his father the baron, to assume the 
 title of earl of Tyrone, in order that he 
 might plead his rights against his uncle 
 Shane, intelligence suddenly arrived of a 
 fierce conflict near Carlingford between the 
 young earl and his kinsman Turlough 
 LjTiogh O'Neill, in which the young lord 
 and many of his followers were slain. Shane 
 O'Neill was thus relieved of a powerful 
 competitor; and Elizabeth found no further 
 difficulty in granting his full pardon, ac- 
 knowledging him as his father's succes- 
 sor, and advancing him a loan of three hun- 
 dred pounds for the expenses of his return, 
 
 * It is said by Campion that the English courtiers 
 ■were so much amused by the barbaric haughtiness of 
 the Irish chieftain, and his professions of friendship 
 for the queen, that, in jest, they devised his style 
 
 as the money he had borrowed in Ireland 
 was already expended. He arrived at Dublin 
 on the 26th of May, 1562, and there heard a 
 report that a revolution had taken place in his 
 states, and that Turlough Lynogh had been 
 declared the O'Neill. He hastily presented 
 the queen's letters to the lord-lieutenant, 
 caused her proclamation of his title to be 
 read publicly through the streets, and then 
 departed with his guard to the north. 
 
 The English looked upon Shane O'Neill's 
 visit to court as the humble submission of 
 a repentant rebel, and they were perhaps 
 too ready to exhibit this feeling in their 
 subsequent transactions with him. His Irish 
 subjects regarded it as a compliment from 
 one sovereign prince to another ; their 
 annalists have recorded the "honours and 
 respect" he received from the queen; and 
 they looked upon the manner in which he 
 was sent back as a full acknowledg-ment of 
 his power and independence. The great 
 Irish septs had been in the habit of con- 
 sidering that any direct favour shovsn to 
 them from the crown was a condemnation 
 of the hostility of the pale, and they now 
 imagined tliat they had gained a triumph 
 over the government at Dublin. In their 
 exultation at this supposed result, Shane's 
 subjects began to make depredations on the 
 lands of the septs on their borders, and it 
 appears that he was unable or unwilling to 
 restrain them. The citizens of Armagh 
 and Dundalk, especially, were infested by 
 j)lundering parties of the Mac Mahons, who 
 were now in close alliance with Tyrone; to 
 the former, by O'Neill's order, the plunder 
 was restored, but the bailiffs of Dundalk, 
 a town which appears to have been ex- 
 tremely obnoxious to the O'Neills, could 
 obtain no restitution, for, as they state in a 
 letter to the earl of Sussex, "he would not 
 have looked upon our letter, but sent it 
 back again undisclosed, calling us false 
 churls, with other vile names." 
 
 But the septs which at this moment expe- 
 rienced the personal anger of Shane O'Neill, 
 were those who had constantly fought under 
 the banners of Tirconnell, the Maguires, 
 Magennises, and others. Hugh O'Donnell, 
 the competitor of Calvagh, was still with 
 O'Neill, exciting him against his kinsman, 
 and in the autumn of this year, with the 
 assistance of this chief, whose lands lay on 
 
 thus : " O'Neill the great, cousin to St. Patrick, friend 
 to the queen of England, enemy to all the world be- 
 sides." 
 
 403 
 
THE MAGUIRES.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1562. 
 
 the borders of the Maguires, and whose 
 castles commanded the entrance to their 
 country, O'Neill invaded Fermanagh, and 
 reduced its chief, Shane Maguire, to the 
 greatest extremities. Previous to this inva- 
 sion, we leani from Maguire himself that 
 Shane made a claim of sovereignty over him, 
 as a subordinate sept of Ulster, even " pro- 
 fering to make amends for all the damage that 
 he and all his men did unto my country since 
 this war began («'. e., since O'Neill's war with 
 O'Donnell), and forgive me all the offences 
 that I did against him, upon the condition 
 that I should yield myself unto him as tnie 
 servant and subject." Maguire pleaded his 
 duty to the EngHsh crown, and refused to 
 accede to O'Neill's conditions, on which, in 
 the middle of October, his country was in- 
 vaded and ravaged, and a letter written by 
 Maguire to the earl of Sussex on the 20th 
 of October, ends by pathetically praying him, 
 " to send me word if ever I shall have any 
 succour against Shane O'Neill." 
 
 Driven out of a large portion of his inhe- 
 ritance, Shane Maguire soon after this date 
 repaired to the lord-lieutenant in person, 
 and seems to have been encouraged by his 
 counsels. But immediately on his return 
 he was subjected to a new invasion, of which 
 he complains in a letter written to Sussex 
 on the 25th of November, which gives us 
 too striking a picture of the wretched con- 
 dition of the north of Ireland at this moment 
 to be passed over in silence. In this letter, 
 he " certifies" the lord-lieutenant, " that the 
 last journey that Shane O'Neill made into 
 this country with the help of Hugh O'Don- 
 nell, they left neither house nor corn in all 
 my country upon the main land unwasted, 
 nor church nor ' sentory ' unrobbed ; but 
 there are certain islands in my country, in 
 which islands stand all my goods. But your 
 
 • There is a curious parajfraph in this letter (which 
 is printed in the collection of State Papers, published 
 by the author of the present ■work under the title of 
 " Queen Elizabeth, and her Times "), relating to one 
 of the great grievances of Ireland at this time, the 
 utter faithlessness and dishonesty of a large portion 
 of the persons occupied in inferior stations in public 
 service, whether English or natives. On a former 
 occasion, Maguire had sent the earl of Sussex a 
 present of a gosshawk (then an article of considerable 
 value), which appeared to have been appropriated by 
 the messenger. Since that, the lord-lieutenant had 
 sent to Maguire a present of a valuable horse, and, 
 subsequently, four hand-guns, which, in their trans- 
 mission, had evidently been exchanged by the persons 
 appointed to deliver tbem for similar articles of little 
 or no value, as Maguire informs him : " 'Vour lordship 
 shall understand that 1 heard say, that your honour 
 
 404 
 
 lordship shall understand tliat Hugh O'Don- 
 nell has prepared and provided twelve boats 
 for to rob and waste all these islands, and 
 Shane O'Neill is coming by land with all his 
 power, so that I cannot escape neither by 
 water nor by land, except God and your 
 lordship do help me at this need, for I do pro- 
 mise to God and to your honour that all my 
 country are against me, because of their 
 great losses, and for fear of this next journey 
 that Shane O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell are 
 willing (intending) to come, for all my men's 
 pleasure is that 1 should yield myself unto 
 Shane O'Neill, for the safeguard of them- 
 selves and their goods." After urging on 
 the queen's lieutenant the propriety of giv- 
 ing him assistance in his distress, the Irish 
 chief adds, " If the said Shane should take 
 the possession of my country once into his 
 own hands, I do promise you that he would 
 give enough to do to all the queen's subjects 
 to set him out of this country, and further- 
 more all the north of Ireland will hold with 
 him for fear to be handled as I am." * Al- 
 most at the same time arrived intelligence 
 from Dundalk, that that town was threatened 
 with an attack from the Irish septs in 
 O'Neill's alliance. 
 
 The chieftain of Tyrone still made no 
 secret of his hostile feeling against the 
 O'Donnell, although the favour shown to 
 Calvagh O'Donnell by the English govern- 
 ment restrained him for some time from 
 committing any open act of violence. 
 Shane O'Neill, indeed, now paid an outward 
 deference to the English crown, which en- 
 couraged the English to hope tliat he was 
 growing more civilized and dutiful, while in 
 reality he was taking advantage of their 
 forbearance to subdue and tyrannize over 
 the smaller septs of Ulster, and thus gradually 
 strengthening himself for the time when Tir- 
 
 did give twenty-four marks sterling for the horse that 
 you did send me, wherefore I would be soiTy that 
 you should cast away your money so, for I thought 
 to send the horse back again, if it had not been for 
 fear to displease your honour. And, furthermore, 
 after that, your lordship did command some of your 
 servants to send me four hand-guns, I promise you 
 that I had liever in a manner that they had kept the 
 said guns with themselves. But 1 do thank your 
 lordship for your good will." 
 
 In the same letter Maguire, who appears to have 
 been well acquainted with the English language, a 
 knowledge which was still rare among the Irish chiefs, 
 beseeches the lord-lieutenant, " to write me no more 
 letters in Latin, because that I would not that neither 
 clerk nor no other man of this country should know 
 your mind, wherefore do you write all yoiu: mind in 
 English." 
 
A.D, 
 
 1563.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [CALVAGH o'dONNELL. 
 
 connell would be left alone in the north to 
 struggle against him. The repeated com- 
 plaints of the injured chieftains were not, 
 however, lost upon the English lord-lieuten- 
 ant, who expostulated with O'Neill, and virged 
 him to perform the articles of his agreement 
 with the crown. Shane excused himself by 
 the plea that he was only asserting rights of 
 sovereignty which had been enjoyed by his 
 ancestors, and by the complaint that the 
 English were themselves backward in per- 
 forming their covenants, while he carried on 
 as before his designs against the O'Donnells 
 and the chiefs in alliance with them. The 
 suspicions and alarm of the lord-lieutenant 
 and council at Dublin became at length so 
 great, that they fixed a day to meet Shane 
 O'Neill at Dundalk, and the earls of Sus- 
 sex and Kildare addressed a joint letter to 
 the northern chieftain, urgently requesting 
 him to attend the meeting, and to give a 
 truce to the various chiefs with whom he 
 was at war imtil they should come to some 
 agreement relating to them. 
 
 O'Neill remained deaf equally to expostu- 
 lations and threats, and, treating the sum- 
 mons of the Anglo-Irish government \vith 
 contempt, he silently absented himself from 
 the meeting, and pursued his old course. 
 The English authorities made repeated 
 efforts to draw him to more pacific counsels; 
 but he became more obstinate and scornful, 
 until at length he declared that it was not 
 his intention to perform any of the articles 
 he had promised, but that he would perse- 
 vere in his present policy until he had re- 
 covered, even were it by the sword, the 
 ancient sovereignty over the whole extent 
 of Ulster, which was the birthright of the 
 O'Neills. His tone of defiance gave still 
 greater alarm to the government ; for it was 
 now well known that the catholic powers of 
 Europe were leaguing against Elizabeth's 
 crown, and that they were looking upon this 
 scene of strife with no uninterested eyes. 
 Reports of plots and conspiracies to raise a 
 general rebellion in Ireland, of secret com- 
 munications between O'Neill and foreign 
 powers, and of other transactions equally 
 threatening, were in consequence spread 
 abroad every day, to increase the uneasiness 
 of Elizabeth's government. 
 
 On the 9th of February, 1563, Manus 
 O'Donnell died in the castle of LifFord, and 
 thus Calvagh O'Donnell be<;ame the legiti- 
 mate chieftain of Tirconnell. Calvagh him- 
 self appears to have been struggling with 
 infirmities, and he depended much on the 
 
 activity and intelligence of his son Conn, who 
 is described in one of the letters of the earl 
 of Sussex as "wise, valiant, civil, and brave, 
 and the likeliest plant that ever sprang in 
 Ulster whereon to graft a good subject." 
 This young O'Donnell's prepossessions in 
 favour of English government, as well as 
 his talents, which promised to stand in the 
 way of Shane's ambition, rendered him an 
 object of especial hatred to the latter, who 
 let slip no occasion of annoying his neigh- 
 bours of Tirconnell, or those who espoused 
 their cause. As he became bolder in his 
 tone towards the English, he became at the 
 same time less scrupulous in his bearing 
 towards the O'Donnells. The strong castle 
 of LifFord, built by the late chieftain of 
 Tirconnell in despite of the O'Neills, and 
 considered by its position as the key both 
 of Tyrone and of Tirconnell, was especially 
 a sore in his eyes, and he had made several 
 attempts to gain possession of it, but in vain. 
 A chance at length threw it into his hands, 
 and thus endangered the power of the 
 O'Donnells. 
 
 Early in the year 1564, Calvagh O'Don- 
 nell, accompanied by his faithful vassal 
 Turlough O'Boyle, repaired to Dublin to 
 consult with the lord-lieutenant, probably 
 to concert measures for thwarting the ambi- 
 tious designs of O'Neill. Calvagh returned 
 to Fermanagh, and remained there with the 
 Maguires, while O'Boyle went home to the 
 sept in Donegal which acknowledged him 
 for its chief. In the course of the unnatu- 
 ral strife between O'Donnell's kinsmen, 
 Hugh O'Donnell had obtained possession of 
 the castle and town of Donegal, and, en- 
 couraged, as it appears, by the representa- 
 tions of some of Hugh O'Donnell's adherents, 
 Conn O'Neill joined with O'Boyle and 
 marched against that place. When they 
 arrived, two of Hugh O'Donnell's nephews, 
 who had charge of the town and the " old 
 castle," sxurendered them treacherously to 
 the assailants without striking a blow, and 
 Conn O'Donnell and O'Boyle began to 
 attack the new castle, which was obstinately 
 defended by Hugh O'Donnell himself. But 
 the latter had sent information of his perilous 
 position to Shane O'Neill, who made a 
 rapid march to Donegal with a large army, 
 and, falling upon the besiegers by surprise, 
 surrounded them with his forces, and took 
 Conn O'Donnell prisoner. Calvagh O'Don- 
 nell was driven to despair by this unexpected 
 disaster ; the chieftain expostulated on this 
 improvoked outrage, and demanded the de- 
 
 405 
 
THE HEBRIDEAN SCOTS.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1564. 
 
 liverj of his son; but Shane O'Neill would 
 accept of no other ransom than the surrender 
 of the castle of Lifford, and that fortress 
 was at lengtli -ivrung from the O'Donnells as 
 the price of Conn O'Donnell's liberty. 
 
 This act of hostility, joined with his defi- 
 ance of the English authorities, placed Shane 
 O'Neill again in what the government con- 
 sidered as a state of rebellion against its 
 authority, and the latter talked not only of 
 repressing, but even of extirpating its refrac- 
 tory subject. Shane himself no longer made 
 even an outward show of forbearance; his 
 allies continued to harass the English 
 borders, and, while on one side he made an 
 attempt to surprise the garrison of Armagh, 
 on the other he invaded Tirconnell, com- 
 mitted great havoc, and carried away with 
 him a prey of more than ten thousand head 
 of cattle. The alarm in the English pale, 
 and even in England, was great, and Sussex 
 communicated to the queen his apprehen- 
 sions that the north of Ireland was threatened 
 with some wild explosion. Elizabeth wrote 
 him a letter of encouragement, which con- 
 tained the remarkable declaration, " Let not 
 our friends be alarmed ; if O'Neill rises, it 
 will be for their advantage; there will be 
 estates for them who want." 
 
 Still neither party seemed willing to pro- 
 voke the calamities of war; the English had 
 other enemies to contend with, and O'Neill, 
 ■whose tyranny from time to time produced 
 disgust among his own subjects, was embar- 
 rassed with domestic quarrels, the most im- 
 portant of which was the defection of his 
 kinsman Turlough Lynogh O'Neill. This 
 chieftain, who was considered after Shane 
 the most powerful man in Tyrone, had, by 
 the management of the earl of Sussex, been 
 detached from his alliance with that chief- 
 tain, and was now ready to take arms against 
 him. But the loss in this quarter was 
 balanced by a new alliance with the Scots, 
 large numbers of whom now joined the 
 standard of Tyrone, and Shane pretended 
 to be little daunted by the threats of the 
 English government. 
 
 At this moment a new effort was made to 
 avert rebellion by negotiation, one object of 
 which was to prevail upon him to discharge 
 his Scottish auxiliaries, the employment of 
 whom was itself an act of defiance to the 
 proclaimed will of the English governors. 
 A parley held with him by the earls of Kil- 
 dare and Ormond, was rendered vain by the 
 extravagant pretensions of the Irish chiefs; 
 but another and more experienced mediator, 
 406 
 
 sir Thomas Cusack, was more successful, 
 and, by moderating the demands of both 
 parties, he induced Shane O'Neill to make 
 a new and unreserved submission to the 
 queen, to whom he wrote a humble letter 
 from his camp at Drum-cru. A royal com- 
 mission was issued for treating with the tur- 
 bulent chieftain, and articles of peace were 
 concluded, signed by sir Thomas Cusack on 
 the part of the queen, in which Shane was 
 permitted to retain the ancient title of the 
 O'Neill, with an intimation that he should 
 subsequently be rewarded with a peerage. 
 This peace seems to have given joy to all 
 parties. On the part of the English, the 
 garrison was withdrawn from Armagh, and 
 the cathedral of that city was restored by 
 O'Neill to the dean and chapter. On the 
 part of O'Neill, besides other acts of conces- 
 sion to the English, he broke off his alliance 
 with the Scots. He seems indeed to have 
 himself taken the alarm at the increasing 
 numbers of these new settlers, who crowded 
 to the coast, and had begiui to settle on the 
 territory to the north of the river Bann. He 
 therefore readily listened to the counsel of 
 those of his English friends who recom- 
 mended him to ingratiate himself with the 
 queen by performing some exploit against 
 these people, who were no less obnoxious 
 to the English than to himself. Having 
 constructed boats to cross the river, which 
 was defended by his adversaries, he suc- 
 ceeded in gaining possession of a monastery 
 on the other bank, which he defended against 
 the Scots during an obstinate attack that 
 lasted twenty-four hours, in which nearly a 
 hundred of the assailants were slain. The 
 road was thus open to him into the main 
 settlement of the Scots in Clannaboy, and 
 he marched his anny through " the Route " 
 and the Glyns, exacting from the people of 
 those districts an oath of obedience to his 
 authority. The Scots had meanwhile taken 
 up arms under their chief named Sorleboy, 
 and thus met him on the borders of the old 
 Scottish settlement in Clannaboy, where 
 Sorleboy was defeated and made prisoner. 
 Following up this success, O'Neill attacked 
 and destroyed the castle and towTi of one of 
 the bravest and most celebrated of the 
 Hiberno-Scottish chiefs, James Mac Comiell, 
 The battle was renewed on the arrival of 
 Mac Connell himself, with a reinforcement 
 of Scots, to the relief of his fort; but O'Neill 
 was again victorious; no less than seven 
 hundred of the Scots, with one of their great 
 chieftains, were slain in the battle, and their 
 
A.D. 
 
 1562.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [o'neill and the scots. 
 
 leader Mac Connell was made a prisoner, 
 and died in captivity in consequence, as it 
 was said, of his wounds. 
 
 At first, the news of O'Neill's victory was 
 received with unfeigned joy at the English 
 court, and that chieftain was talked of as 
 one who had done a signal service to the 
 crown. But it was soon found that even this 
 victory furnished serious matter for com- 
 plaint; although O'Neill had been assisted 
 against the Scots with English soldiers, he 
 took homage in the conquered territory in 
 his own name, threw the captives into his 
 own prisons, and acted in everything as the 
 independent sovereign of Ulster. Suspicions 
 that he was strengthening himself against 
 the English government again spread through 
 the English pale and were conveyed to the 
 queen's ministers. On the 3rd of June, 1565, 
 soon after the intelligence of O'Neill's suc- 
 cesses against the Scots had arrived, secretary 
 
 Cecil wrote to sir Thomas Smith, " Shane 
 O'Neill hath overthrown James Mac Connell, 
 and taken him and his brother; wherein a 
 number of English soldiers being with Shane 
 did only gain the victory. If now the queen's 
 majesty may have the possession of these 
 prisoners, it shall be profitable, otherwise 
 Shane's victory will be dangerous for Ire- 
 land." It was not long subsequent to this 
 date that the queen sent instructions to her 
 deputy in Ireland, one of which was that 
 O'Neill should be desired " to answer all 
 disorders committed since the last pardon ; 
 such as his proceedings against the Scots, 
 without advising the lord deputy of his in- 
 tentions ; his using them as his captives, ran- 
 soming whom he liked ; taking into his own 
 possession their castles and countries, and 
 doing all things as though the comitries and 
 subjects were his own." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 DISTURBANCES IN THE SOUTH OF IRELAND; THE EABLS OF DESMOND AND ORMOND; RECALL OF THE 
 EARL OF SUSSEX; SIR HENRY SYDNEY; WAR WITH O'NEILL. 
 
 UR attention has been 
 called off from the other 
 parts of the island by the 
 greater importance now 
 taken by the events of 
 the north, and indeed 
 many of the smaller 
 feuds which desolated 
 almost every part of Ireland seem to have 
 been overlooked in the records of the time. 
 We find slight allusions to insurrections of 
 the O'Moores and other septs in the very 
 heart of the English territory, which gave 
 embarrassment to the government near home. 
 Connaught appears to have .been less turbu- 
 lent than the other provinces, partly because 
 the power of the Burkes of Clanrickard had 
 become too great to be disputed, and partly 
 perhaps because the provinces of the north 
 and the south were too much occupied with 
 their own disorders to interfere. On the 
 borders of Connaught and Ulster, however, 
 a sanguinary feud broke out among the 
 O'Rourkes of Breifny. Brian O'Rourke, 
 the head of this sept, a powerful though a 
 
 peaceful, and, as it would appear, a popular 
 chieftain, died in 1562. His tastes may be 
 understood from the statement of the annalist 
 that he was " a man who had the most select 
 collection of poems and laudatory poets of 
 any of his tribe." His death was the result 
 of an accident, and, being unexpected, had 
 not given room for those preparations for 
 disputing the succession which commonly 
 attended the demise of an Irish chieftain, 
 and his son and heir Hugh Gallda was allowed 
 to assume the chieftainship without opposi- 
 tion. But Shane O'Neill, who was at this 
 time pushing his claims of sovereignty over 
 Fermanagh and Tirconnell, was not unwatch- 
 ful of the political changes in Breffiiy, over 
 which the chieftains of Tirconnell had not 
 unfrequently laid claim to sovereignty. Two 
 years after his accession to the chieftainship, 
 Hugh Gallda O'Rourke was treacherously 
 slain by his own people at Leitrim. The 
 people of his sept were roused to the highest 
 pitch of indignation against his younger 
 brother, Brian, who was falsely accused of 
 being the instigator of the murder ; and the 
 
 407 
 
ruouBLEs IN THOMOND.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1563. 
 
 agitation thus deliberately excited, was 
 turned to account by the O'Neill, by whose 
 intrigues another brotlier, Owen O'Rourke, 
 the friend of the chieftain of Tyrone, was 
 chosen as Hugh Gallda's successor. 
 
 In the south, the troubles of Thomond 
 appeared to have increased in intensity. 
 While the carl of Thomond, Connor O'Brien, 
 was occupied in repressing some of the lower 
 chiefs who rebelled against his authority, 
 the O'Brien of Irish choice (Donal), who had 
 been banished from his sept by the English 
 influence, and who had found protection in 
 Ulster, suddenly returned, probably also at 
 the instigation of O'Neill, and reappeared in 
 Thomond; and at the same time, Teige 
 O'Brien, one of the sons of Murrough who 
 had been the leader of a bold rebellion 
 against the English influence, escaped, as if 
 by a preconcerted plan, from the castle of 
 Dublin, and joined him in arms, as did also 
 Donough, the other son of Murrough 
 O'Brien. The two sons of Murrough O'Brien 
 commenced hostilities by a night attack on 
 a town belonging to their enemies, where 
 they committed some slaughter, and collected 
 a booty ; but the alarm having been given, 
 the people of the earl of Thomond rose and 
 pursued the depredators, and the latter were 
 at daybreak forced to an engagement and 
 defeated with considerable slaughter. 
 
 This unpropitious commencement did not 
 discourage the insurgents, and during the 
 following year (1563), to use the expressive 
 language of the Irish annalists, "Thomond 
 remained a continued wave of war and scene 
 of contention from one calend to the other." 
 Success, however, still attended on the banner 
 of the earl, and he took several castles which 
 had been fortified against him by his oppo- 
 nents. Next year the rebels made head in 
 the north of Thomond, plundered the dis- 
 tricts round Rosscoe and Bunratty, and, 
 attacking the earl's forces unawares, gained 
 a temporary advantage over them. But 
 they only sustained their party by calling 
 in from Connaught the Mac Sweeneys and 
 the Sheehys, who were allured to their stan- 
 dard by the prospect of plunder, and are 
 accused of having carried away with them 
 much more than their share of the spoil. 
 But the favour and assistance of the English 
 enabled the earl of Thomond to defeat all 
 these attempts to wrest from him the chief- 
 tainship, and he took and destroyed the 
 principal fortresses of his enemies by means 
 of the English ordnance and gunners sent to 
 him from Limerick. 
 408 
 
 About the same time there occurred wild 
 disorders among the O'Briens of Ara, as 
 well as among the O'Sullivans of South 
 Munster. But the feud which gave the 
 greatest alarm in this quarter was that be- 
 tween the Butlers and the Geraldines of 
 Desmond. The old personal rivalry of the 
 earls of Desmond and Ormond was perhaps 
 embittered by the circumstance that the 
 latter had been educated in the reformed 
 faith and was considered as its most devoted 
 supporter among the Irish peers, while the 
 earl of Desmond was bigotedly attached to 
 the creed of Rome. This weak and turbu- 
 lent young lord had never ceased since his 
 accession to the title, not only to give ofl'ence 
 to the crown by his disobedience, but to 
 exasperate his own subjects and his less 
 powerful neighbours by his insolent tyranny 
 and exactions. He had begun by meddling 
 in all the native feuds of southern or western 
 Munster, and it was not long after Eliza- 
 beth's succession, that, at the urgent com- 
 plaints of the lords Roche, Barry, Courcy, 
 Fitz Morris, and others, he was summoned 
 before the lord-lieutenant and council to 
 answer for his ofi'ences against those noble- 
 men, as well on the still more serious though 
 general charge of maintaining all open rebels 
 and declared traitors. The strife between the 
 earls of Desmond and Ormond was soon 
 carried to such a height, that the queen 
 found it necessary to summon them both into 
 her presence in court. Desmond attempted 
 to evade the summons, on pretence of a war 
 in which he was engaged, or feigned to be 
 engaged, with his uncle. But the queen's 
 commands were only rendered more peremp- 
 tory by the excuse, and at length, in the 
 course of the year 1502, the two lords pro- 
 ceeded in each other's company by way of 
 Waterford to England. 
 
 The earl of Ormond soon returned to 
 Ireland, and was employed in the negotia- 
 tions with O'Neill. Desmond was retained 
 some time at court, where he suffered from 
 severe illness. The scarcity of money among 
 the Irish nobility receives a curious illustra- 
 tion from the poverty to which the earl of 
 Desmond was reduced by the expenses of 
 his visit to court. In a letter written shortly 
 before he left England, the lord of a princely 
 territory extending over not less than six 
 hundred thousand acres, complains that his 
 whole pecuniary means were then less than 
 four pounds, and prays for protection against 
 his creditors, lest they should arrest him on 
 his way back to Ireland. 
 
A.D. 
 
 1.564.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [the earl of desmond. 
 
 In London, Desmond had made his humble 
 submission to the queen, and in his various 
 interviews v^^ith the council he had entered 
 into agreements to give his honest assistance 
 to the ministers of the crown in reforming and 
 pacifying his native country. He had pro- 
 mised more especially to use his utmost endea- 
 vours for abolishing the bonaght, the coshery, 
 the risings-out, and other oppressive customs 
 and exactions of the Irish, for discouraging 
 the mischievous rhymers and minstrels, who 
 were main instruments in setting the Irish 
 by the ears, and for abolishing the Brehon 
 law. In undertaking this task, the earl of 
 Desmond made a request which hardly 
 covered his views of personal aggrandise- 
 ment ; in order that he might be enabled to 
 compel the Irish chieftains to accept these 
 reforms, he desired to be furnished with 
 ordnance and skilful gunners, to batter down 
 all their castles and strong places. The 
 government had alwaj's been cautious of 
 entrusting cannon and large guns into the 
 hands of the subordinate chiefs in Ireland, 
 and the events which soon followed the 
 return of the earl of Desmond showed how 
 ill they would have been bestowed in the 
 present instance. He preserved for a very 
 short time an appearance of obedience and 
 moderation. As soon, however, as he felt 
 himself again in full possession of his exten- 
 sive territories, and the first impressions of 
 his visit to court had worn off, he forgot all 
 his promises, and renewed his former oppres- 
 sive and hostile conduct. The feud between 
 him and the Butlers broke out with greater 
 fury than ever, and the territories of the two 
 earls and their allies were again desolated 
 by their wars. The earl of Ormond sent 
 repeated complaints to England of the inju- 
 ries and outrages committed by his turbulent 
 adversary ; in one of which he declared that 
 he was on the point of abolishing through 
 his own territory the oppressive tax of coyne 
 and livery, which had been so often pro- 
 scribed and declaimed against, when the 
 devastating inroads of his enemy of Desmond 
 had compelled him to continue one evil in 
 order to withstand the other, as the levying 
 of the obnoxious tax furnished him wdth the 
 only means at the moment of carrying on 
 the war in defence of his own territory. 
 
 In the midst of these wars, in the begin- 
 ning of the year 1565, the earl of Desmond 
 having made a hostile expedition into the 
 Desies, with a small force, the chieftain of 
 that district sent private information to the 
 earl of Ormond, who hastened to his assist- 
 
 VOL. I. 3 F 
 
 ance, with a force nearly double the number 
 of that of his rival. According to the Irish 
 annalists, the Butlers attacked the earl of 
 Desmond by surprise, and, in a battle fought 
 near a village called AfFane in the county of 
 Wexford, slew the greater part of his men. 
 The earl himself was wounded and taken 
 prisoner. As Ormond's soldiers were carry- 
 ing their captive, stretched on a bier, from 
 the field of battle, one of them is said to 
 have exclaimed scornfully, " Where is now 
 the great earl of Desmond ?' To which he 
 gave the haughty rejjly, "Where he ought 
 to be, upon the necks of the Butlers!" 
 
 The earl of Sussex appears for some time 
 to have been weary of the scene of turbu- 
 lence on which he was thus thrown, and to 
 have been desirous of his recall. From 
 other circumstances of his history, we know 
 that his temper was not a conciliating one, 
 and he seems to have had to contend with 
 personal enemies as well as with the enemies 
 of the crown. Among those who had fallen 
 under his personal jealousy was sir Henry 
 Sydney, one of the most upright and ablest 
 statesmen of his age, and one who was per- 
 haps more profoundly acquainted with Irish 
 affairs than any of his contemporaries. After 
 his friendly interview with O'Neill in 1559, 
 Sydney was accused of having entered into 
 a private league with that chieftain, and 
 his condescensions were made the ground 
 of various misrepresentations. These were 
 generally understood to have originated 
 with Sussex, who at a subsequent period 
 had openly adduced, as a foundation for 
 his suspicions against Sydney, the circum- 
 stance that on the occasion just alluded 
 to he had WTitten a letter to the chieftain of 
 Tyrone, which he had addressed to him in 
 the Irish style under the title of the O'Neill. 
 This was considered a serious charge, and 
 the earl was summoned to England to appear 
 at the council board with the accused, in 
 order to substantiate his accusation. Expla- 
 nations were there given by both parties 
 which satisfied the council, and sir Henry 
 was fully acquitted of any ill intentions. 
 He was, however, recalled from Ireland, and 
 entrusted with the high and difficult office 
 of lord president of Wales. 
 
 The frequent visits made by the earl of 
 Sussex to England show clearly the increas- 
 ing uneasiness of his position. At length, 
 in the latter end of the year 1564, he obtained 
 liis final recall, and the government of Ire- 
 land was committed to the hands of sir 
 Nicholas Arnold, who, as lord justice, soon 
 
 409 
 
SIR HENRY SYDNEY.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1566. 
 
 gave proofs of his incompetency for the 
 heavy charge witli wliich he had been en- 
 trusted. In the summer of 1 565, soon after 
 the defeat of the Scots by Shane O'Neill, 
 Elizabeth determined to send Sydney back 
 to Ireland as her lord deputy. He received 
 his appointment about the middle of Octo- 
 ber, but it was not till the 13th of January 
 following that he arrived in Dublin to as- 
 sume his government. 
 
 The appointment of sir Henry Sydney 
 offered an occasion for a revision and refor- 
 mation of the Irish civil establishment, and 
 more especially of the Irish council, which 
 consisted at this time of a number of old 
 officers of the crovni, most of whom had 
 looked on during the recent changes with 
 indifference, and very few of whom were 
 fitted for the vigorous policy which distin- 
 guished Elizabeth's government. A new 
 council was now appointed, and Sydney car- 
 ried with him the list of their names, and 
 the authority to swear them all to strict 
 obedience and reverence towards himself as 
 the immediate representative of the crown 
 in that island. The new governor carried 
 with him a "book" of instructions for his 
 government, not only for the firm establish- 
 ment of the protestant faith, but for the 
 reduction of the island to peace and good 
 rule. It was ordered that the administra- 
 tion of law and justice should be duly and 
 uprightly executed, without respect of per- 
 sons; and that, for the reformation of past 
 disorders, inquiry should be made into the 
 faults of all judges or other ministers of the 
 law, and that all unfit persons should be re- 
 moved from their places, and sufficient persons 
 of English birth be chosen to supj)ly them. 
 Sheriffs were to be appointed and renewed 
 in every county, who were enjoined to exe- 
 cute their offices honestly according to the 
 laws of England. With respect to the army, 
 it was directed that greater attention should 
 be paid to its discipline, and that effective 
 steps should be taken to repress the disor- 
 ders of the soldiers of garrisons and camps, 
 who had been accustomed to oppress the 
 queen's subjects. It was further ordered, 
 that once at least every month a general 
 muster should be made, either by the lord 
 deputy or by such commissioners as he should 
 appoint for that purpose, who should inquire 
 as to the number of soldiers under each 
 captain, the fitness of their persons, their 
 horses, armour, weapons, and other neces- 
 saries, the regular payment of their wages, 
 and whether they were Enghshmen or not. 
 410 
 
 The last of these articles for the reformation 
 of the government, related to the expendi- 
 ture of the public money, of which a very 
 strict account was ordered to be delivered 
 into the queen. 
 
 Sydney was a popular officer among the 
 Englisli of the pale, and the intelligence of 
 his appointment to the head of the Irish 
 government was received with almost turbu- 
 lent manifestations of joy. When he entered 
 Dublin, he was received in great ceremony 
 by the lord justice and the old council, and 
 by the mayor and the officers of the corpo- 
 ration, and the people, to use the words of 
 Stanihui'st (who was perhaps present), " in 
 great troops came and saluted him, clapping 
 and shouting with all the joy they could 
 devise." On the Sunday following, which 
 was the 20th of January, 1566, the new lord 
 deputy, escorted by the lord justice and 
 council, marched in procession to the cathe- 
 dral of Christchurch, where, after the con- 
 clusion of divine service, he took his oath, 
 received the sword, and thus formally assumed 
 the government; after which ceremony he 
 delivered " a most pithy, wise, and eloquent 
 oration." The lord deputy was then con- 
 ducted in state to the castle, " the common 
 people," to use again the words of Stani- 
 hurst, "in every street and corner meeting 
 him, and with great acclamations and joy did 
 congratulate unto his lordship his coming 
 among them in that office." 
 
 Among the various disorders with which 
 Sydney had to contend from the moment he 
 set his foot in Ireland, the one which first 
 called his attention was the turbulent beha- 
 viour of Shane O'NeiU, who was now fast 
 approaching the end of his lawless career. 
 At one period hopes were entertained that a 
 change had taken place in the character of 
 this powerful chieftain, and he seemed sud- 
 denly to show a taste for the luxuries of 
 peace and for the embellishments of civilized 
 life. In his interviews with the English 
 authorities, he had shown sufficient dignity 
 and knowledge of the world to command 
 their respect. On his return from England, 
 the correspondence he carried on with several 
 of the noblemen whose acquaintance he had 
 made there, and the respect which for a while 
 he showed for English institutions, seemed 
 to prove that his brief intercourse with po- 
 lished society had made a profound impres- 
 sion upon him. Of the attempts that were 
 made at court to civilise the Irish chieftain, 
 we have an amusing instance in a private 
 memorandum among some of Cecil's papers, 
 
1566.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [shane o'neill rebels. 
 
 to remind him that Shane O'Neill was to be 
 exhorted " to change his garments and go 
 like a gentleman." And after his return, sir 
 William Fitzwilliams, then acting as lord 
 justice during the absence of the lord-lieu- 
 tenant, expressed the wish, in a letter to 
 Cecil, " that Shane and the nobility of Ire- 
 land would spend four or five months at court 
 occasionally." 
 
 The effect of O'Neill's visit upon his 
 manners appears soon to have passed away, 
 and the natural violence and coarseness of 
 his character resumed their empire over his 
 mind. These are said to have been increased 
 and rendered more obnoxious at the time of 
 which we are now speaking by an immode- 
 rate love of drinking, so that the latter part 
 of his day was spent in habitual intoxication, 
 under the influence of which he set no 
 bounds to his tyranny and cruelty. Stani- 
 hurst has preserved the popular character 
 which the O'Neill enjoyed in the English 
 pale, and which will perhaps be best repeated 
 in the quaint words of that old writer, who 
 informs us that, " albeit he had most com- 
 monly two hundred tuns of wines in his cel- 
 lar at Dundrum, and had his full fill tliereof, 
 yet was he never satisfied till he had swal- 
 lowed up marvellous great quantities of 
 usquebaugh or aqua-vitae of that country 
 (whisky) ; whereof so immeasurably he would 
 drink and bouze, that for the quenching of 
 the heat of the body, which by that means 
 was most extremely inflamed and distem- 
 pered, he was eftsoons conveyed (as the 
 common report was) into a deep pit, and 
 standing upright in the same, the earth was 
 cast round about him up to the hard chin, 
 and there he did remain until such time as 
 his body was recovered to some temperature ; 
 by which means, though he came after in 
 some better plight for the time, yet his 
 manners and conditions daily worse. And 
 in the end his pride, joined with wealth, 
 drunkenness, and insolency, he began to be 
 a tyrant, and to tyrannise over the whole 
 country." " He pretended," continues Sta- 
 nihurst, " to be kmg of Ulster, even as he 
 said his ancestors were, and, afiecting the 
 manners of the great Turk, was continually 
 guarded with six hundred armed men, as it 
 were his Janisaries about him, and had in 
 readiness to bring into the field a thousand 
 horsemen and four thousand footmen. He 
 furnished all the peasants and husbandmen 
 of his country with armour and weapons, and 
 trained them up in the knowledge of the 
 wars ; and as a lion hath in awe the beasts 
 
 of the field, so had he all the people to his 
 beck and commandment, being feared and 
 not beloved." 
 
 At the time when sir Henry Sydney as- 
 sumed the government of Ireland, Shane 
 O'Neill was again in open rebellion, and he 
 had carried into effect his threat of taking 
 forcible possession of the whole of Ulster. 
 Calvagh O'Donnell, Shane Maguire, and 
 other chiefs, driven from their own terri- 
 tories, were obliged to take refuge in the 
 English pale, and the first of these repaired 
 next year to England. Not content with 
 these acts of violence, the O'Neill invaded 
 Lower Connaught with his whole army, on 
 pretence of claiming the tribute formerly 
 paid to the chiefs of Tirconnell by that dis- 
 trict, and having encamped during six or 
 seven days in the territories of the O'Rourkes, 
 O'Connor Sligo, and Mac Dermod, he burnt 
 the corn and spoiled the whole country, 
 carrying off" three or four thousand head of 
 cattle. Meeting wdth a check upon his 
 advance southward in an army raised sud- 
 denly by the earl of Clanrickard to ojspose 
 him, O'Neill returned into Tyrone to secure 
 his plunder, and prepare for the vigorous 
 hostilities he might exjject from sir Henry 
 Sydney, who had not yet arrived in Ireland. 
 
 One of the first cares of the new deputy 
 was to make preparations for a vigorous war 
 against the northern "rebel," and he de- 
 clared it as his opinion that the time was 
 now past for temporising and parleying. 
 The government at home seconded him with 
 money and soldiers on a more liberal scale 
 than on any former occasion, although the 
 queen seems still to have been desirous of 
 reducing O'Neill to obedience by persua- 
 sion rather than by force. Troops were 
 sent from Bristol and from Berwick, and 
 Edward Randolph, a brave and experienced 
 soldier, was despatched in the spring of 
 1566, at the head of a thousand foot. The 
 extent and character of Sydney's prepara- 
 tions showed the determination at last to 
 proceed to the utmost extremities with the 
 refractory chief. The chiefs who remained 
 faithful to the English government were 
 rewarded with new marks of favour, and, 
 among others, the Mac Carthy More of 
 South Munster, have submitted and sur- 
 rendered his estates to the queen, received 
 them back with a peerage and the title 
 of earl of Clancarthy. The subordinate 
 chieftains of the north were encouraged in 
 resisting the tyranny and oppression to 
 which they were constantly exposed, and 
 
 411 
 
O'NEILL'S HAUGHTINESS.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 15(J(). 
 
 in seeking redress at the hands of the lord 
 deputy, who gave them reason to believe 
 that the day of retribution was not dis- 
 tant. 
 
 This policy of the Irish government was 
 powerfully assisted by O'Neill's vindic- 
 tiveness. He employed the spring of the 
 year 1566 in invading the territories of the 
 Ulster chiefs who had shown any favour to 
 the English, or who offered any resistance 
 to his designs. His boldness was said to 
 have received encouragement from Scotland, 
 where the party hostile to England was at 
 this moment in the ascendant. "It was 
 full time," says Cecil, in a letter dated on 
 the 26th of March, "that sir Henry Sydney 
 went into Ireland, for he hath found all 
 out of joint there. The good subjects in 
 all parts oppressed, the Irish bearing rule, 
 but in all no peril, saving in Shane, who 
 will, he saith, in his drunkenness, be lord 
 or king of Ulster; but I trust his head 
 shall be from his shoulders before any crown 
 can be made ready to make him either king 
 or earl." In the course of the month of 
 April, Shane had again invaded Tirconnell, 
 and, after a great slaughter of the inhabit- 
 ants, taken possession of the whole country. 
 O'Donnell's brother was taken prisoner, and 
 afterwards put to death. Similar destruc- 
 tion was committed in Fermanagh, the chief 
 of which district, Shane Maguire, was driven 
 from his home, and obliged to take refuge 
 in the English pale. He then invaded the 
 Newrys, the lands of sir Nicholas Bagnall, 
 who at this time held the office of marshal 
 of Ireland. His oppressions even drove 
 O'Reilly, who had latterly been in alliance 
 with him, to enter into negotiations with 
 the English. The bishop of Meath, writing 
 at this time to the earl of Sussex, declares 
 that Shane O'Neill's "tjTanny joined with 
 his pride is intollerable, daily increasing 
 
 • The folio wing letter was •written by Elizabeth to 
 the lord deputy at the end of March of the year fol- 
 lowing, and shows her unwillingness to enter into 
 further negotiations with Shane O'Neill, and her 
 dissatisfaction at the credit given to Stukely, who 
 appears to have lain under the suspicion of being 
 concerned in some piratical expeditious. 
 
 " By the queene. 
 " Eight trusty and wellbeloved, we grete you well. 
 There are two things come to our memory sithens 
 the writing and closing up of oiu- other letter, wherof 
 •we think meet to remember you. The fiist is, that 
 we think it not for our honour, but rather to th'in- 
 crease of th'obstinate audacite of Shane O'Xeyle, to 
 have you renew any treatie with him. And therefore 
 we wish rather all other good meane were thought 
 412 
 
 in strength and credit, with admiration and 
 fear of the Irishry." 
 
 Still an appearance of moderation was 
 carried on towards him, and soon after the 
 date of these outrages, two commissioners 
 were sent to him to urge him to follow a 
 more peaceful course. These were justice 
 Dowdall and a clever adventurer named 
 Thomas Stukely, whom we shall soon meet 
 again under different circumstances, and 
 whose employment at this moment was dis- 
 approved by the queen.* The O'Neill 
 treated their advances with scorn; in the 
 pride of his temporary success he spoke with 
 disdain of the honour of the peerage, which 
 not many months before he had sought with 
 eagerness. Alluding to the recent elevation 
 of Mac Carthy More, he said, "the queen 
 has made a wise earl of Mac Carthy, but I 
 keep a horse-boy nobler than he. My an- 
 cestors were kings of Ulster; and as Ulster 
 was theirs, so now Ulster is mine, and shall 
 be mine ; with the sword I have won it, and 
 with the sword I will keep it." And before 
 he dismissed them, he told them arrogantly 
 that "he had never made peace with the 
 queen, but by her seeking; nor would he 
 surrender a single advantage his arms had 
 won. He would keep from O'Donnell his 
 country, from Bagnall the Neurys, and from 
 Kildare the strong fortress of Dundrum, 
 claimed by that earl. He had sent envoys 
 to represent him in foreign lands. He could 
 bring into the field a thousand horse and 
 four thousand foot; and was able to burn 
 and spoil to Dublin gates, and come away 
 unfought." In this tone of defiance the 
 Ulster chieftain now replied to all commu- 
 nications from his English enemies; he car- 
 ried on his communications with Scotland, 
 strengthened and garrisoned the castles he 
 had taken from the O'Donnells, the Ma- 
 guires, and other chiefs, and showed a firm 
 
 uppon to stay him, or rather diminish his wicked 
 rebelliouse attempts. The second is, we find it 
 straunge that Thomas Stukley shuld be used there in 
 any service in such credit as we perceve he is, con- 
 sidering the generall discredit wherin he remayneth, 
 not only in our own realm, but also in other coun- 
 trees for such matters as he hath ben chardged with- 
 all : w'herunto also he yet remayneth by bond with 
 sureties aunswerable in our court of the admiraltie, 
 according as of late uppon supplication of his sure- 
 ties, we wrote to you that he should return home to 
 answer in our said court. Of these things being 
 newly come to our mj-nd sithens the depech of our 
 former letter, we thought briefly to make this short 
 letter. Given under our signet, at our manour of 
 Grenewich, the last day of March, the eight yere of 
 cirr reign." 
 
A.D. 
 
 1566.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [death of col. Randolph. 
 
 determination of trusting to his fortunes in 
 a struggle with the English forces. 
 
 Early in the spring, Sydney had sum- 
 moned O'Neill to meet him at Dundalk, but 
 the only answer to this invitation was the 
 sudden appearance of that chieftain at Car- 
 rick-Bradagh, on the 26th of July, with three 
 thousand of his best fighting men. At this 
 time his forces are said to have been increased 
 by fifteen hundred men sent him from Scot- 
 land, so that he could now bring into tlie 
 field an effective force of not less than 
 seven thousand men. Sydney collected his 
 forces in haste, and marched to Dundalk, 
 which town he reached on the 29th, three 
 days after O'Neill had established himself 
 in the neighbouring plain ; and then O'Neill 
 declared proudly that he was come to demand 
 the surrender of his enemy Shane Maguire, 
 who was in the English camp. The two 
 armies remained in view of each other a day 
 or two, and some skirmishing took place, 
 after which the deputy, who had come with- 
 out provisions, marched away his army, having 
 placed Dundalk in a condition of defence. 
 
 This expedition had been undertaken by 
 Sydney with no other object than to try to 
 bring O'Neill to a parley, and he returned 
 to Dublin to meet sir Francis Knollys, who 
 had been sent over by the queen to advise 
 with the lord deputy on the most decisive 
 steps to be taken to humble the turbulent 
 chieftain of Tyrone. It was agreed that a 
 general invasion of O'Neill's territory should 
 take place at the approach of winter. 
 
 But O'Neill appears to have felt that his 
 strength was more likely to diminish than 
 increase, and he no longer hesitated to com- 
 mence the attack. His allies were already 
 beginning to fall off from him, and an attempt 
 to allure the Scots of Clannaboy to his stand- 
 ard had entirely failed. On the return of 
 the lord deputy to Dublin, Shane immedi- 
 ately invaded the English pale, in Ulster 
 and in Meath, gained some slight advantages, 
 and committed great devastation, but he 
 was finally compelled to retire before a much 
 smaller force than his own. In a desperate 
 attack upon the town of Dundalk, he received 
 a still more serious check, for he was beaten 
 away with considerable loss by the small 
 garrison under the command of John Fitz- 
 williams. 
 
 But the most disastrous of O'Neill's war- 
 like expeditions in the summer of 1566 was 
 one against the English garrison of Derry. 
 Colonel Randolph, with the forces he had 
 brought over from England in the spring, 
 
 established himself at this city, and threw 
 up strong entrenchments for its defence. 
 He was there visited by the lord deputy, 
 who furnished the place with stores and 
 munitions, and, leaving Randolph with a 
 part of his forces to hold it, marched home 
 through O'Donuell's country and Connaught. 
 Randolph had now under his command about 
 seven hundred foot soldiers, and fifty horse. 
 After his return from the invasion of the 
 pale, Shane O'Neill marched with two thou- 
 sand five hundred footmen and three hun- 
 dred horse to a place about two miles from 
 Derry, and there encamped, in the hope that 
 he might draw out the garrison from Derry, 
 and overwhelm it by his superiority in 
 numbers. He was probably aware that 
 sickness had thinned the ranks of Randolph's 
 soldiers, and that a great number of them 
 were laid up in the hospital. After a few 
 days had passed, during each of which Shane 
 O'Neill marched out a portion of his forces 
 and defied the English to battle, the com- 
 mander of the latter could no longer restrain 
 the courage of his soldiers, but, in spite of 
 the various disadvantages under which he 
 lay, resolved to accept the challenge. Ac- 
 cordingly, having with difficulty mustered 
 three hundred footmen in a condition for 
 service, he led them with his fifty horse to- 
 wards O'Neill's camp, and posted them in 
 order of battle on a small eminence. The 
 Irish chieftain, when he heard of the advance 
 of his enemies, drew his whole forces out of 
 the camp, and lost no time in attacking the 
 English. But the latter made such good 
 use of their guns, that the assailants were 
 soon thrown into confusion; and then the 
 English rushed upon them with desperate 
 bravery, put O'Neill's whole army to flight, 
 and followed them to a considerable dis- 
 tance. The Irish are said on this occasion 
 to have lost at least four hundred men slain 
 in the field, besides the wounded and pri- 
 soners. Few of the English were slain or 
 hurt, but they had the misfortune to lose 
 their brave leader Randolph, who, engaging 
 himself too eagerly among the enemies, was 
 slain before he could be rescued by his own 
 soldiers. 
 
 Not long after this event, a disastrous 
 accident drove the English from Derry. By 
 some misfortune the town took fire and was 
 burnt, and the flames communicating to the 
 cathedral, which the garrison had made use 
 of as an arsenal, the magazine was blown 
 up, and not only the provisions and amuni- 
 tions of the garrison, but their sick soldiers 
 
 413 
 
DERRY ABANDONED.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1556. 
 
 in the hospital, were all destroyed. The fort 
 itself was thus rendered untenable, and the 
 English soldiers who escaped were obliged 
 to abandon it. 
 
 The Ulster chieftain and his followers 
 resumed courage from this accident, which 
 was represented by the Romish priests in 
 liis interest as a judgment sent by the holy 
 Columb-kill on the heretics who had sacri- 
 legiously profaned his church. The enthu- 
 siasm of the superstitious Irish was raised 
 to the highest pitch, when a tale was indus- 
 triously spread abroad, that an enormous 
 wolf had been seen to issue from the neigh- 
 bouring woods with a firebrand in his mouth, 
 which he had cast into the cathedral of Derry, 
 and tims lit the flames which had caused so 
 much devastation. The courage of O'Neill's 
 followers was kept up by this pretended 
 miracle; but he himself derived greater 
 hopes from the proceedings of tlie earl of 
 Desmond, who, having been again set at 
 liberty on his promise of obedience and 
 loyalty, had renewed his hostilities with the 
 Butlers, and was overrunning the south of 
 Munster with a powerful army. 
 
 Part of the garrison of Derry were sent 
 to Dublin by sea, the remainder, consisting 
 chiefly of the horse, proceeded over land, 
 harassed by the Irish insurgents during 
 nearly the whole of their march. Alarmed 
 by the intelligence brought by the soldiers 
 of Derry, and convinced of the necessity of 
 making a demonstration of strength in the 
 north, Sydney took with him the earl of 
 Kildare and some other members of the 
 councils, and proceeded early in September 
 to Drogheda, where he had collected a 
 considerable force. "With this he marched 
 through the north of Ulster into Tirconnell, 
 and thence soutli to Connaught, and so 
 regained the English pale by way of Ath- 
 lone, without having encountered any oppo- 
 sition. Shane O'Neill had shown himself 
 but twice in the course of this long march, 
 once at Clogher, and the second time near 
 Salmon castle, the fortress of Turlough 
 Lynogh. On the former occasion he ven- 
 tured to attack a portion of the lord deputy's 
 army, but was beaten off without any loss to 
 the English. 
 
 Sydney had carried with him in the army 
 several of the chieftains of Ulster who had 
 espoused the cause of the English crown. 
 Among them was Shane Maguire of Fer- 
 managh, who died on the march on the 
 29th of September. Calvagh O'Donnell 
 was restored to his territory, and the castles 
 414 
 
 of Tirconnell were replaced in his hands; 
 but he also did not live to witness the over- 
 throw of his great enemy, for he was killed 
 by a fall from his horse on the 26th of 
 November, and his brother Hugh was 
 immediately inaugvirated as his successor. 
 Maguire was also succeeded by his brother, 
 whom Sydney established in Fermanagh, and 
 both he and O'Donnell bound themselves to 
 perpetual obedience to the English crown. 
 Several other septs, encouraged by the pre- 
 sence of the English army, threw off" a yoke 
 which had become galling, and strengthened 
 the powerful confederacy which was gra- 
 dually forming against Shane O'Neill. 
 Among these were the O'Rourkes of 
 Breffny, who rose up and slew the chief- 
 tain who had been placed over them by 
 O'Neill's influence, and chose his kinsman 
 Brian O'Rourke in his place. 
 
 The efi'ect of Sydney's policy was soon 
 felt by the turbulent chieftain of Ulster. 
 Hugh O'Donnell was no sooner established 
 in the chieftainship of Tirconnell, than he 
 prepared to carry on the old feud of his 
 family, and before the end of the year he 
 proved himself worthy of the succession by 
 the old Irish fashion of leading a plundering 
 expedition into Tyrone, which committed 
 great havoc before its return. He made a 
 second invasion of the territory of the 
 O'Neill towards the approach of spring, 
 when he crossed Lough Foyle, and ravaged 
 the country on its further borders. Shane 
 O'Neill was stung to the quick by this 
 second insult, and he collected the whole of 
 his forces to pursue the invader into Tir- 
 connell, and take an exemplary vengeance 
 for the double provocation. Hugh O'Don- 
 nell, with his kinsman Hugh Duv O'Don- 
 nell, and one or two other chiefs, and a 
 small force, were encamped at Ardingary, 
 near Letterkenny, on the north side of the 
 river Swilly, at the head of the estuary 
 that river forms with the sea, unprepared 
 to withstand an attack like that which 
 now threatened them; and the O'Donnell, 
 taken thus by svurprise, sent hasty messages 
 to the Mac Sweeneys and other chiefs of 
 the neighbouring districts to call them to 
 his assistance. 
 
 In the meantime Shane O'Neill ap- 
 proached with his formidable armj% and, as 
 the tide was then down, he marched without 
 opposition across the open sands, whereas, 
 had the tide been in, he would have had to 
 force his way through a narrow and difficult 
 pass. O'Donnell perceiving the danger to 
 
A.D, 
 
 1567.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [defeat of shane o'neill. 
 
 which he-was thus exposed, sent a body of 
 his horse under the command of Hugh Duv 
 to attempt to check the advance of the 
 enemy, while he himself, with his foot and 
 the rest of his small army, made their way 
 across the plain to a place of greater secu- 
 rity. Hugh Duv O'Donnell effected his 
 object, although several of his companions 
 in arms, as well as some of the chiefs of the 
 enemy, especially one of the Mac Mahons, 
 was slain; and then, informed of the safety 
 of the O'Donnell, he made his retreat in 
 good order and rejoined his chief. Nearly 
 at the same time the Mac Sweeneys arrived, 
 and having conferred together on the oppres- 
 sive tyranny which they had suffered from 
 O'Neill, and which they were likely still to 
 suffer unless they made an effectual resist- 
 ance, they joined in the resolution to make 
 one desperate attempt to shake off his yoke. 
 Under the influence of this sentiment, and 
 burning to revenge their wrongs, they 
 marched forward in steady array to attack 
 O'Neill's army, which was now broken and 
 occupied in drawing up and fortifying their 
 camp. The Irish annalists record the con- 
 tempt with which the fierce chieftain of 
 Tyrone contemplated the assailants, as he 
 saw them advancing, and his pretended com- 
 passion for men whose folly was such that 
 they did not perceive how much easier it 
 was to submit to him and acquiesce in his 
 terms, than to come before him to fight, and 
 be forthwith annihilated. 
 
 But Shane's anticipations were in this 
 instance singularly disappointed; for, after 
 a long and desperate struggle, the men of 
 Tyrone, who had from the first been thrown 
 into some confusion by the suddenness of 
 the attack, and by their own self-confidence, 
 
 began to give way before the resolute 
 bravery of their opponents, and the flight 
 soon became general. The pursuers yielded 
 to the fury of revenge, and spared none 
 of their enemies who fell into their hands. 
 The terror thus created rendered the flight 
 more precipitate, and when O'Neill's fol- 
 lowers came to the beach, and found that 
 since they passed it in the morning the tide 
 had flowed in and stopped the passage, they 
 rushed wildly into the waves, and more 
 perished by the sea than had fallen by the 
 sword. Some of the Irish annalists estimated 
 the loss experienced by O'Neill's army on 
 this occasion at not less than three thousand 
 men. That chieftain seemed, in the battle, 
 to have been struck with a sudden panic, 
 and to have lost all his confidence and cou- 
 rage. He left his army, as it retreated 
 towards the sea-shore, and fled alone and 
 unobserved along the bank of the river 
 Swilly, westwards, until he reached a ford 
 about two miles from Letterkenny, which 
 he passed under the guidance of some of 
 the O'Gallaghers, who were subjects of the 
 O'Donnells, and probably ignorant of the 
 personage who was thus for a moment in 
 their power. The humbled chieftain made 
 his way thence, through woods and solitary 
 places, until he reached the heart of his own 
 dominions. The native annalists say that 
 O'Neill's reason became deranged in conse- 
 quence of this defeat, and that he ceased to 
 act with his usual prudence ; and they tell 
 us that "few houses or residences from Car- 
 lingford to the rivers Finn and Foyle were 
 without copious weejjing and general lamen- 
 tation." The battle of the Pass of Swilly, 
 which was long remembered by the Irish, 
 was fought on the 8th of May, 1567. 
 
 415 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 DEATH OF SHANE O'NEILL; CONDITION OF IKELAND AFTER THE REPRESSION 
 OF THE REBELLION IN THE NORTH. 
 
 •V""-^- 
 
 other chance now re- 
 mained for the turbulent 
 chieftain of Tjrrone, but 
 to seek the alliance of 
 those whom he had al- 
 ready made liis enemies. 
 His attempts to obtain 
 assistance from France 
 had been fruitless, and 
 as his power seemed now to be tottering 
 upon its base, his own subjects and even his 
 private counsellors began to desert him, 
 driven away partly by his tyrannical conduct 
 and partly by their desire of self-preserva- 
 tion in the ruin which they saw approaching. 
 Had Shane O'Neill been left to his re- 
 sources after his defeat by O'Donnell, he 
 would probably have soon recovered hraself, 
 for the rulers of Tyrone had on former occa- 
 sions sustained defeats as disastrous from 
 their rivals the O'Donnells. But now, at 
 the moment when O'Neill reached his own 
 country, alone and a fugitive, the lord de- 
 puty at the head of a powerful army was 
 advancing into his territories, and the pro- 
 gress of his enemies was rendered more sure 
 by the presence in the English camp of the 
 chieftains who had deserted Shane, and who 
 were acquainted with the passes of the 
 country. For a moment O'Neill seemed 
 bewildered in the midst of his reverses, and 
 then he is said to have suddenly adopted the 
 resolution of presenting himself before Syd- 
 ney, and throwing himself unreservedly upon 
 the queen's mercy. This design however, 
 was relinquished under a confused pressure 
 of pride and fear ; so many were the provo- 
 cations which he had now given to the Eng- 
 lish government, that the mercy of Elizabeth 
 might be a lower degi-ee of humiliation than 
 the precarious freedom which he still enjoyed, 
 and at length he snatched greedily, and as it 
 proved, rashly at the suggestion to seek the 
 alliance of those very Scots whom he had 
 crushed tluree years before. 
 
 The latter had neither forgotten nor for- 
 given the persecution to which they had been 
 subjected, and especially the slaughter of 
 their chieftains, whose kinsmen were at this 
 moment brooding on revenge, and are said 
 416 
 
 even to have offered their assistance to the 
 English lord deputy. A body of the Scots 
 from the islands had recently landed in 
 Clannaboy to aid their kinsmen, and they 
 were encamped near Cushendun bay in 
 Antrim, under the command of the sons of 
 James Mac Connell and their uncle Alex- 
 ander Oge. O'Neill set at liberty one of 
 the sons of the late chief who was still in his 
 prison, and he sent him with his own mes- 
 sengers to the Scottish camp to demand an 
 alliance, while he followed them slowly with 
 his mistress, the wife of Calvagh O'Donnell, 
 and a small company of his more faithful 
 attendants. 
 
 The transactions which immediately fol- 
 lowed are involved in considerable mystery, 
 and it appears not quite certain whether the 
 final catastrophe was the result of deliberate 
 treachery, or whether it originated in the 
 impulse of the moment. But, according to 
 some accounts, it was an English resident 
 in Clannaboy named Piers, who seems to 
 have been employed there to watch the 
 movements of the Scots, who urged them to 
 seize the opportunity of revenge. The 
 Scottish chiefs granted the demands of their 
 old enemy of Tyrone, and sent back his 
 messengers to welcome him to their camp, 
 where a feast was prepared for him in the 
 tent of their commander. O'Neill, his mis- 
 tress, and his secretary, and his small retinue 
 of fifty horsemen, were there received with 
 all outward appearance of friendship, and 
 were placed honourably at the table. They 
 were encouraged to drink copiously, and their 
 heads were soon heated. The wily Scots 
 proceeded gradually to provoke and even to 
 insult them. One of them is said to have 
 accused O'Neill's secretary of spreading a re- 
 port, derogatory to their clan, of a pretended 
 promise of the widow of the slain James mac 
 Connell to wed the O'Neill. The secretary 
 retorted scornfully, that the O'Neill was 
 good enough for a husband for the queen of 
 Scotland herself. The quarrel, grew loud, 
 and Shane O'Neill interfered in it. This 
 was the moment chosen for giving a precon- 
 certed signal, on which a party of Scottish 
 soldiers rushed into the tent, overpowered 
 
A.D. 
 
 1567.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [death of shane o'neill. 
 
 and slew the Irish guests, and then buried 
 their weapons in the body of tlieir chieftain. 
 His corpse was dragged out of the tent, 
 wrapped in a common kerne's shirt, and 
 carried to a ruined church in the neighbour- 
 hood, where it was committed to the earth 
 without ceremony. It was, however, soon 
 afterwards disinterred, and, to conciliate the 
 English, Shane's head was severed from his 
 body and sent to the lord deputy, by whose 
 order it was fixed upon a pole and set on 
 the highest tower of Dublin castle. Such 
 was the ignominious end of the chieftain who 
 had kept the English government in a state 
 of constant alarm during the first eight years 
 of Elizabeth's reign. 
 
 The death of Shane O'Neill was followed 
 by the immediate pacification of Ulster. 
 Sir Henry Sidney marched into Tyrone, 
 where the Irish came into him with large 
 promises of duty and attachment to the 
 queen, and he recommended to them peace, 
 order, and civility. On the intelligence of 
 Shane's death, they had acknowledged as 
 their chieftain, according to the old Irisli rule 
 of succession, Turlough Lynogh O'Neill, the 
 grandson of the O'Neill who had married 
 into the family of Kildare, and he hastened 
 to assume the title of the O'Neill. Tliis 
 act was construed into a defiance of the 
 English authority, and gave great offence to 
 Elizabeth ; but Turlough Lynogh had done 
 many and good services to the English, and 
 he had given too many proofs of his attach- 
 ment to the interests of the crovni, to be 
 visited with severe punishment. When lie 
 was informed of the queen's displeasure, he 
 immediately submitted, humbly sought the 
 royal pardon, utterly renounced the name 
 which, he said, he had assumed inadvertently 
 and ignorantly, and was received to favour. 
 He then bound himself by indentures to be 
 faithful to the crown, to renounce the sove- 
 reignty which -his predecessor had claimed 
 over the lesser Irish chieftains of Ulster, 
 and to suffer the sons of Matthew of Dun- 
 gannon to enjoy their demesnes unmolested. 
 In a parliament held somewhat more than 
 two years later, an act was passed for the 
 attainder of the late Shane O'Neill, wliich 
 enumerated the various outrages and acts of 
 rebellion he had committed, gave a long and 
 ratlier futile exposition of the queen's title 
 to sovereignty in Ireland, abolished for ever 
 the title of the O'Neill, with all the old 
 ceremonies of creation, and made the assump- 
 tion of that title high treason. The lands 
 of Shane and his followers were vested for 
 
 VOL. I. 3 r. 
 
 ever in the crown, with a provision in favour 
 of Turlough Lynogh and his descendants. 
 
 The seat of disorder was now removed 
 from the northern province to the south, 
 where the turbulence of the Geraldines 
 gave the greatest uneasiness to the court in 
 England. The earl of Desmond had not 
 long kept his promise of obedience and 
 good rule; for the war with O'Neill was 
 scarcely entered upon when he resumed his 
 feud with the earl of Ormond, and carried 
 destruction through the territories of his 
 l^ersonal enemies in Munster. Before the 
 suppression of the rebellion of O'Neill, at 
 the end of January, 1567, sir Henry Sydney 
 had found it necessary to make a progress 
 through Munster, to put an end, as far as 
 lay in his power, to the disorders by which 
 that province was desolated, and he has left 
 an interesting account of his proceedings in 
 a long letter to the queen. On the 27th of 
 January, Sydney proceeded into Leix (or, 
 as it was now called. Queen's County), where 
 he caused a session to be held before com- 
 missioners of his own ap2:)ointing, and brought 
 to judgment a number of offenders who had 
 disturbed the peace of that district. Here, 
 he says, " there was such obedience shown 
 and used, as well of the soldiers and English 
 there lately planted, as of the Irishry there 
 inhabiting, as, considering the infancy of 
 any good order in that country, was mar- 
 velled at by as many as saw it ; and so was 
 also the great increase of tillage, that 
 thorough quiet was there seen." Sydney 
 moved from thence to Kilkenny, " where 
 also I caused a session to be held, but such 
 reformation, obedience, with quiet and in- 
 crease of wealth, appeared there, and yet 
 doth continue, as were hard upon report to 
 seem credible to your majesty, for that the 
 miserable state of the same before was utterly 
 unknown unto your higliness; for unto me, 
 that saw both, the amendment thereof seemed 
 to exceed reason." Tlie baron of Upper 
 Ossory's territory he found in " indifferent 
 good order, saving somewhat molested by 
 certain outlaws of the same country breed," 
 who, it appears, found support in the evil 
 rule of the earl of Ormond's territory. 
 Some of these were taken, and, by Sydney's 
 order, executed, which cast a seasonable 
 terror into the rest, and they submitted 
 themselves, and petitioned for favour. The 
 deputy learnt here that the younger sons of 
 the baron of Ujjper Ossory were " very evil 
 doers " upon the county of Kilkenny and 
 the lands of the earl of Ormond, upon which 
 
 417 
 
Sydney's progress.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1567. 
 
 he caused two of them to he arrested and 
 thrown into prison, and this vigorous act 
 striking terror into the others, was the cause 
 of no small quiet. " But surely it will 
 never he thoroughly well, till the same be 
 made shire ground, and your highness's writ 
 current there, as in your other countries." 
 
 The lord deputy next visited Ely, and 
 found that the O'Carroll not only governed 
 his country with good rule, but that he was 
 willing to surrender his lands to the crown 
 to be restored according to English tenure, 
 and he was desirous of being created a baron. 
 O'Magher's country, or Ikerwin, he found 
 "all waste and uninhabited," in consequence 
 of the inroads of the outlaws of Upper 
 Ossory, and the excesses committed by the 
 earl of Orniond's younger brethren. As he 
 proceeded into the interior of Monster, 
 the condition of the county became every 
 day worse. The county of Tipperary was 
 involved in great disorders, arising partly 
 out of the disputes between the earl of 
 Ormond and the baron of Dunbojaie, and 
 partly from the " unnatural contention " 
 between the baron of Dunboyne and his 
 brother, and the great malice between their 
 two wives, "who, maintaining their sons and 
 followers to commit injuries and revenges 
 daily one upon the other, for the most part 
 spoiled the whole country round about them." 
 Sydney gave judgment in the quarrel between 
 the earl of Ormond and the baron of Dun- 
 boyne in favour of the former, and he seized 
 the latter and his brother, as well as their 
 two wives, and threw them into prison. 
 Some of their neighbours, who had joined 
 in the work of devastation, were not to be 
 taken, but he "so plagued them by force, 
 fire, and sword," that the country they had 
 infested was for a while relieved from any 
 further fear of their inroads. The deputy 
 was now apjiroaching the scene of the far 
 greater devastations, committed by the earl 
 of Desmond and his allies and followers, 
 who, even in Ormond, had plundered the 
 manor of Kilshelau and the lands of Oliver 
 Grace. "But," observes Sydney, "doubt- 
 less the greatest cause of all other mischief 
 in that county, is the insufficiency to govern 
 them that have the rule under the earl of 
 Ormond, in whom there appeared manifestly 
 to want both justice, judgment, and stout- 
 ness to execute." "Of the two first," says 
 Sydney, "there were some of them mani- 
 festly detected before me; and of the third 
 (lack of stoutness, I mean, to execute that 
 which thev ought), I also did see manifest 
 418 
 
 argument, for that they being willed by me 
 to bring certain of the O'Kennedys (a great 
 surname in that country, who are and ought 
 to be natural followers and suitors to the 
 earl of Ormond's court) to answer to such 
 matter as was to be objected against them, 
 and likewise certain of the Burkes dwelling 
 within the same countries, the earl's officers 
 aflirmed resolutely that they were not able 
 to do it. Whereupon I, using the service 
 of thirty or forty of my horsemen, did fetch 
 them all in, and made them pay well for 
 their contumacy, and detained them until 
 such time as they had entered into bond and 
 delivered of their best pledges for perform- 
 ance of the same, that they would be hence- 
 forward true subjects and hu-mble and obe- 
 dient suitors to that court, which was such 
 an act for the credit thereof, as by the 
 testimony of all the earl's officers, had not 
 been done by his grandfather's, his father's, 
 or his own days." 
 
 The country next adjoining to the terri- 
 tory of the earl of Ormond was suffering 
 still more from local misgovernment. "The 
 enormities in that country," Sydney tells 
 us, " I conceive not only of mine own expe- 
 rience, through some diligence I used travel- 
 ling there, but by the affirmation and testi- 
 mony of all or the most part of the honest 
 men dwelling in the three incorporate towns 
 of the same county, namely, Clonmel, Cashel, 
 and Fedart, who, agreeing with that which 
 I myself by view conceived, witnessed unto 
 me the unmeasureable tract of land now 
 waste and uninhabited, which of late years 
 was well tilled and pastured. The depopu- 
 lation of so many of your highness's subjects, 
 partly by slaughter, partly by banishment, 
 and a great number through famine, as it 
 was too lamentable to hear or behold, with 
 the subversion of so many villages, ruin of 
 churches, and vacancy of many kinds of 
 ministeries in the same, as any Christian 
 would lament to hear it or see it; and yet 
 suffrance of most detestable idolatry, used 
 to an idol called the Holy Cross, whereunto 
 there is no small confluence of people daily 
 resorting. The profanation also of the 
 cathedral churches, partly growing for want 
 of bishops, is a thing not a Uttle to be 
 bemoaned. The honest men also of these 
 three proper and well-walled towns signified 
 unto me (agreeing in that which in effect I 
 saw) that they were as people besieged, and 
 ready in efl'ect, without redress, either to 
 famish within the walls, or wholly to abandon 
 the places, for all trade and commerce was 
 
A.D, 
 
 1567.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [condition of munster. 
 
 bereft them ; for neither durst the people of 
 the country bring in anything unto them, 
 neither yet durst they issue out of their walls 
 to buy anything in the country, but that, 
 both of the one and of the other, there were 
 oftentimes spoiled (plundered), and many 
 times killed." 
 
 After a short stay at the towns above 
 mentioned, for the reformation of various 
 abuses in the administration of justice and 
 for the trial and judgment of some great 
 offenders, sir Henry Sydney proceeded to 
 the city of Waterford, where he was received 
 with more than ordinary honour and cere- 
 mony. He summoned the lords, gentlemen, 
 and freeholders of the county to meet him 
 there, and, he states, "it well appeared that 
 they had not forgotten tlie good obedience 
 which they had been taught to observe by 
 sir Warhani Sentleger and the other com- 
 missioners, during the time of their abode 
 there," although they were already returning 
 to their old practices, being ready "to play 
 the part of the washed swine, in returning 
 to her foul puddle, unless continuance of 
 justice amongst them detain them from it." 
 The deputy found that the principal dis- 
 orders of this district arose from the turbu- 
 lence of the Powers, through whose outrages 
 the country was "much waste and desolate." 
 Sydney called the lord Power before him, 
 and fixed a day on vt'hich he was enjoined 
 to seize the chief malefactors and bring them 
 to him ; but when the time came he had 
 only arrested two, whom the deputy "in the 
 way of good speed committed to the gal- 
 lows." The lord Power was subsequently 
 committed a prisoner to Dublin castle for 
 his remissness in punishing the offenders. 
 
 Sydney then proceeded to Dungarvan and 
 entered the territory of sir Maurice Fitz 
 Gerald, one of the great enemies of the earl 
 of Desmond, in the hope of putting an end 
 to the hostilities between those two chiefs. 
 The town of Youghal he found in "evil 
 case." not only from the injuries it had suf- 
 fered from pirates, but from the depreda- 
 tions of the earl of Desmond's allies and 
 dependents who resided in the surrounding 
 country. 
 
 At this latter place the earl of Desmond 
 came in to the lord deputy, to plead his 
 cause against the earl of Ormond. After a 
 careful and impartial examination, Sydney 
 gave judgment in favour of the latter, upon 
 which Desmond "did not a little stir, and 
 fell into some disallowal)le heats and pas- 
 sions, which were not sufi'ered to go with 
 
 him, but he was well taught to understand 
 both his duty to your majesty, his obedience 
 to your laws, and reverence that he owed to 
 such as sat by your authority." "From this 
 time forward," Sydney adds, "nor never 
 since, found I any willingness in the earl of 
 Desmond to come to any conformity or good 
 order, but always wayward and unwil- 
 ling to do anything at my appointment that 
 might further the weal of the country or 
 your majesty's service, your name no more 
 reverenced, nor letters of commandment 
 obeyed, within any place within his rule, 
 than it would be in the kingdom of France." 
 The earl would have left the deputy's court, 
 but the latter retained him under various 
 pretences, and placed a secret guard on his 
 person to hinder any attempt at flight. 
 Sydney, who had received intelligence that 
 the earl did all he could to hinder the lords 
 of the south from coming in, acknowledges 
 that he only temporized with him in the 
 expectation that he would subsequently find 
 ground for charges against him of a still 
 more serious character. In spite of the ex- 
 ertions of Desmond to prevent them, most 
 of the great lords of the county of Cork, 
 including the lords Barry, Roche, and 
 Courcy, Mac Carthy Reagh, Mac Carthy 
 of Muskerry, Barry Oge, and others, did 
 however appear before the deputy, all of 
 whom, he says, were by right immediate 
 subjects of the English crown, although 
 they had long been compelled to be the sub- 
 jects of the earl of Desmond, and were "so 
 injured and exacted upon by him, as in 
 effect they are or were become his thrals or 
 slaves." "All which," says the deputy, 
 "with open mouth and held up hands to 
 heaven, cried out for justice, and that it 
 might please your majesty to cause your 
 name to be known amongst them with re- 
 verence, and your laws obeyed, offering to 
 submit themselves, life, lands, and goods, to 
 the same." 
 
 The towns in Cork and Tipperary are re- 
 presented as being in a state of the greatest 
 decay and dilapidation, arising chiefly from 
 the troubled state of the country. We may 
 judge of the latter from the description 
 which Sydney gives of the aspect of the 
 country throughout his whole progress 
 through Desmond and Thomond. " For 
 so much as I saw of it," he says, "having 
 travelled from Youghall to Cork, from Cork 
 to Kinsale, and from thence to the utter- 
 most bounds of it towards Limerick, like as 
 I never was in a more pleasant country in 
 
 419 
 
RAVAGES OF CIVIL WAR.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 15G7 
 
 all my life, so never saw I a more waste and 
 desolate land, no, not in the confines of 
 other countries where actual war hath con- 
 tinually been kept by the greatest princes 
 of Christendom ; and tliere heard I such 
 lamentable cries and doleful complaints 
 made by that small remain of poor people 
 which yet are left, who hardly escaping the 
 fury of the sword and fire of their outrage- 
 ous neighbours, or the famine with the 
 same, which their extorcious lords have 
 driven them unto, either by taking their 
 goods from them, or by spending the same 
 by their extort taking of coyne and livery, 
 make demonstration of the miserable estate 
 of that country. Besides this, such horrible 
 and lamentable spectacles there are to behold, 
 as the burning of villages, the ruin of 
 churches, the wasting of such as have been 
 good towns and castles, yea, the view of the 
 bones and sculls of the dead subjects, who, 
 partly by murder, partly by famine, have 
 died in the fields, as in troth hardly any 
 christian with dry eyes could behold. Not 
 long before my arrival there, it was credibly 
 reported that a principal servant of the earl 
 of Desmond, after that he had burnt sundry 
 villages and destroyed a great piece of a 
 country, there were certain poor women 
 sought to have been reserved; but too late, 
 yet so soon after the horrible fact com- 
 mitted as their children were felt and seen 
 to stir in the bodies of their dead mothers. 
 And yet did the same earl lodge and banquet 
 in the house of the same murderer his ser- 
 vant, after the fact committed. Surely there 
 was never people that lived in more misery 
 than they do, nor, as it should seem, of 
 worse minds. For matrimony amongst them 
 is no more regarded in effect than conjunc- 
 tion between unreasonable beasts. Perjury, 
 robber}', and murder, counted allowable. 
 Finally, I cannot find that they make any 
 conscience of sin, and, doubtless, I doubt 
 whether they christen their children or no, 
 for neither find I place where it should be 
 done, nor any person able to instruct them 
 in the rules of a christian ; or, if they were 
 taught, I see no grace in them to follow it; 
 and when they die, I cannot see that they 
 make any account of the world to come. And 
 for that I have thus written to your majesty 
 of this country, it shall please your majesty 
 to understand that I found the like of the 
 whole county of Li-merick and the county 
 of Thomond (through which I travelled), as 
 well for desolation, waste, and ruin of the 
 country, as also for the lack of reverence to 
 420 
 
 your name, obedience to your laws, and evil 
 disposition of the country." 
 
 Such was the condition of the country under 
 the rule of the earl of Desmond, into the heart 
 of whose territory Sydney was advancing. 
 The earl appears now to have suspected the 
 designs of the deputy, and he importuned 
 him daily for leave to depart, "from time to 
 time blowing out words of evil threat, that 
 he would not put down his idle-men, nor 
 leave his coyne and livery, but keep his 
 galloglasses, and whereas he had in times 
 past one man he would have five, and yet 
 would bring no one to me, not doubting 
 before Midsummer-day he would have a 
 thousand men a-foot at once." The deputy 
 soon discovered, indeed, that the earl had 
 taken measures to raise his men in arms, in 
 the expectation that they would strike terror 
 into the small escort which attended him, 
 and thus effect his release. But when he 
 entered the gates of his town of Kilmallock, 
 in company still with the lord deputy, his 
 heart misgave him, and he became more 
 submissive in his deportment. Sydney 
 having carefully ascertained the truth of the 
 reports relating to the great levies of men 
 made by Desmond's orders, held a public 
 court at which were present all the lords of 
 the council who were with him, the lords 
 of the county of Cork above mentioned, 
 some other Anglo-Irish chiefs, and the chief 
 men of Kilmallock, and in their presence 
 he openly charged the earl "with that stir 
 and levy of men, which he denied not. 
 Then burdening him with grievous and 
 weighty words, for his rash and disloyal 
 doings therein, he, humbling himself upon 
 his knees, confessed that he had so done, as 
 in respect of levying the men, without 
 intendment of evil (as he said). Whereupon, 
 I asked him why he had levied any such 
 number. He answered me, for no evil 
 intent, but only that I had demanded of 
 him his base brother and the white knight, 
 and others, and that he could not tell how 
 otherwise to have them, than by publishing 
 an assembly of his people generally, he should 
 have them to come in company as leaders of 
 the rest, 'whereby,' said he, ' I should have 
 commodity to have taken them!' 'Why,' 
 said I, 'you have ever been a suitor to depart 
 from me, since my coming from Youghall, 
 and this day you have been three sundry 
 times in my lodging, to move me to depart 
 to my lady your wife, as it were in post to 
 the same town,' " — and indeed his wife was 
 delivered of a daughter not long before — i 
 
A.D. 
 
 1567.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [desmond arrested. 
 
 'And your way is in effect directly south to 
 Youghall, and mine almost north to Lim- 
 erick. These men whom I have demanded 
 at your hands be the leaders of your com- 
 pany, being six hundred at the least, and all 
 in the way between me and Limerick. You 
 know I have not in the whole two hundred 
 men in my company. How may it be thought 
 that you being gone away clean contrary to 
 that which I intended to hold, I being ac- 
 companied with so small a number, that 
 such would either present themselves, or 
 that I were able, if they would not, by force 
 to apprehend them V He, still resting upon 
 his knees, offered that if I listed I should 
 see them all, or I should see none, if I would. 
 I, using some rough and rigorous terms, 
 said unto him that I would neither bid him 
 to have them there, nor forbid him; but 
 this I told him, that on to-morrow, accord- 
 ing to my former intendment, I would go 
 to Limerick at the same hour, and pass the 
 same way that I had purposed, and if that 
 he or any of his durst offer any kind of 
 bravery to me, or any of mine, albeit I was 
 not, as he well knew, two hundred men, I 
 bade him do what he or they durst, assuring 
 him, by the way, that if any outrage were 
 offered, he should be the first that should 
 die for it. Hereupon he seemed humble 
 and silent, and therewith I committed him 
 to ward, where he hath ever since remained." 
 The earl of Desmond was thus carried as 
 a prisoner during the remainder of the lord 
 deputy's progress. The latter added to his 
 company eight or nine score footmen from 
 Kilmallock; and on his way towards Lime- 
 rick he met three hundred well appointed 
 footmen sent from that city to escort him. 
 At Limerick he dismissed the great lords of 
 the south, whom he had hitherto detained in 
 his company, and he was persuaded to entrust 
 the government of the counties of Cork, 
 Limerick, and Kerry, to the earl's brother, 
 sir John of Desmond. "The city of Lim- 
 erick," Sydney says, "I found so impaired 
 in wealth, since I last savr it in the queen 
 your sister's days, as was strange to me to 
 behold, much by the disorder of the earl of 
 Desmond, whose country joineth unto it 
 upon the south side, but more by the great 
 spoils committed and suffered to be com- 
 mitted by the earl of Thomond, their next 
 neighbour upon the north side, whose lack of 
 discretion and insufficiency to govern is such, 
 as, if I could have found any one loyal and 
 reasonable man in his country, I would not 
 only have withdrawn him from ruling there. 
 
 but, for a number of sjioils justly approved 
 against him, would have committed him to 
 prison." 
 
 Sydney proceeded through Thomond into 
 Connaught to the town of Galway, "the 
 state whereof he found rather to resemble a 
 town of war frontering upon an enemy, than 
 a civil town in a country under one sove- 
 reign; they watch their walls mightily, and 
 guard their gates daily with armed men." 
 The cause of their uneasiness was the con- 
 tinual war between the earl of Clanrickard 
 and the Mac William Oughter and O'Fla- 
 herty, and, "most of all, the disorder of the 
 earl of Clanrickard's two sons, which he had 
 by two wives, and both alive, and these two 
 young boys, in the life of their father yet 
 likely long to live, do strive who shall be 
 their father's heir, and in the same strife 
 commit no small spoils and damage to the 
 country." Sydney persevered in the same 
 vigorous conduct which he had shown in 
 Munster ; he placed the two sons of the earl 
 of Clanrickard under arrest, and carried them 
 prisoners to Dublin. The two greatest chief- 
 tains of the north-west, O'Donnell and 
 O'Connor Sligo, came to the lord deputy at 
 the town of Galway, renewed their profes- 
 sions of obedience, and made a new surrender 
 of their lands, to receive them from the Eng- 
 lish crown ; the latter announced his intention 
 of repairing to England "to receive regene- 
 ration (as he termed it) at the queen's hands." 
 
 A great part of Connaught seems to have 
 been in little better condition than Des- 
 mond. " From Galway," says Sydney, "I 
 travelled through a great and an ancient 
 town in Connaught called Athenry, where 
 I was offered a pitiful and lamentable pre- 
 sent, namely, the keys of the town, not as 
 to receive them of me again, as all other 
 accustomably do, but for me still to keep, 
 or otherwise dispose at my pleasure; inas- 
 much as they were so impoverished by the 
 extortion of the lords about them, as they 
 were no longer able to keep that town. The 
 town is large and well walled, and it ap- 
 peareth by matter of record there hath been 
 in it three hundred good householders, and 
 since I knew this land there was twenty, 
 and now I find but four, and they poor, and, 
 as I write, ready to leave the place. The 
 cry and lamentation of the poor peojjle was 
 great and pitiful, and nothing but thus, 
 'succour, succour, succour!' The earl of 
 Clanrickard could not deny but that he held 
 a heavy hand over them, for which J ordered 
 liim to make them some recompense, and 
 
 121 
 
STATE OF CONNAUGHT.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1567 
 
 bound him not to exact upon them hereafter; 
 whereunto he willingly consented. As this 
 town for lack of justice is in a manner 
 totally destroyed, so will the rest of your 
 highness's towns be, if with speed you plant 
 not justice amongst them." 
 
 The whole of Clanrii^kard is described by 
 the deputy as being "in good quiet, and 
 universally well tilled and manured." He 
 passed thence tlirough O'Kelly's country to 
 Athlone, and so to Dublin, where he arrived 
 on the 16th of April, after an absence of 
 more than eleven weeks. 
 
 Sir Henry Sydney concludes his interest- 
 ing account of this progress with a suggestion 
 on which Elizabeth seems to have been well 
 inclined to act. "Albeit," he says, " I have 
 touclied unto your highness sundry mischiefs 
 in these two provinces of Munster and Con- 
 naught, yet have I not hitherto spoken of 
 the greatest of all other, which is, that there 
 is not one man in them sufficiently qualified 
 for the reformation thereof, but tliat in the 
 best such imperfection is to be found, as he 
 is not worthy to have the only or chief charge 
 for the reformation of his own jurisdiction, 
 much less of the whole. For the earl of 
 Ormond being absent, and not looked for to 
 return in any short time, as it is thought 
 here, hath no one agent, as far as I can per- 
 ceive, sufficient to govern such a seignory 
 as he hath in Munster. The carl of Des- 
 mond, a man both void of judgment to 
 govern, and will to be ruled. The earl of 
 Clancarthy, I suppose, willing enough to be 
 ruled, but wanting force and credit to rule. 
 The earl of Thomond, the most imperfect 
 of all the rest, hath neither wit of himself 
 to govern, nor grace or capacity to learn of 
 others. The earl of Clanrickard, equal in 
 all good parts with the best of his coat of 
 this country breed, both of good judgment 
 to rule, and also of himself of great humble- 
 ness to obey your majesty and your laws, is 
 yet so overruled by a putative wife, whom he 
 now keepeth, as oft times when he best in- 
 tended she forceth him to do worst. Hereby, 
 madam, if I have any judgment, your majesty 
 may easily perceive there is no way for refor- 
 mation of these two provinces, but by plant- 
 ing justice by presidents and councils in each 
 of them. But, if that cowardly policy be 
 still allowed of, to keep them in continual 
 dissension, for fear lest through their quiet 
 might follow I wot not what, then mine 
 advice unto your majesty both is and shall 
 be, to withdraw me and all charge here. 
 In mine opinion, as little dishonourable were 
 422 
 
 it totally to abandon it as wonted obedience 
 to some to govern it. And so far hath that 
 policy (or rather lack of policy) in keeping 
 dissension amongst them prevailed, as now, 
 albeit all that are alive would become honest 
 and live in quiet, yet are there not left alive 
 in those two provinces the twentieth person 
 necessary to inhabit the same; and so I con- 
 clude for those, that as they were never in 
 memory of man in worse case than now they 
 be, so were they never in more forwardness 
 to reformation, if it please your majesty to 
 go through with it; beseeching your majesty 
 to call to your remembrance, that this was 
 mine opinion half a year before I came 
 hither ; and having been now a year and 
 half, I have continually written of the same, 
 and yet nothing done for the accomplish- 
 ment thereof. For better stay of which 
 countries of Connaught and Thomond, and 
 for ordering of their griefs, which be many, 
 I have resolved to send thither forthwith 
 sir Thomas Cusack, vi'hom I, for his experi- 
 ence, fixithfulness, and willingness, have cause 
 to like and recommend above the rest." 
 
 Nothing could give us a more striking 
 picture of the wretched condition to which 
 this unhappy land had been reduced by the 
 misrule of its lords, than the simple narra- 
 tive of the lord deputy Sydney. Elizabeth 
 appears to have been convinced of the 
 wisdom of his views; but the war against 
 O'Neill was an ungrateful and expensive 
 one, and the queen's habitual reluctance to 
 expend the treasure of her country stood in 
 the way of a full adoption of Sydney's 
 measures of reformation. That reformation 
 must necessarily be difficult and slow; for 
 on one side the government had to deal with 
 a people who were by their long misrule 
 utterly demoralized, and on the other it had 
 to fence against the intrigues of foreign 
 powers, which now kept the Irish chiefs and 
 their followers in a state of perpetual agi- 
 tation. 
 
 The bold seizure of the earl of Desmond, 
 and the public manner in which he was led 
 a captive from Desmond into Connaught, 
 and from Connaught to Dublin, made a pro- 
 found impression throughout Ireland, and 
 is entered in a solemn manner in the Irish 
 chronicles. The queen herself appears to 
 have been alarmed at the temerity of her 
 deputy. She seems to have thought it would 
 have been safer to wait till Desmond en- 
 trusted himself within the English pale, and 
 then arrest him on the personal accusation 
 of one of his rivals, perhaps of the earl of 
 
A.D. 1567.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [desmond in England. 
 
 Ormond. This was but giving encourage- 
 ment to the feuds which had already proved 
 so fatal, and pursuing the old policy of 
 weakening the Irish by sowing divisions 
 among them, which Sydney had so strongly 
 and justly condemned. The dissatisfaction 
 of the queen on this subject was repeated 
 in her communications with Sydney during 
 the summer ; and even on the death of Shane 
 O'Neill, she expressed less joy at the paci- 
 fication of the north than discontent at the 
 still unsettled state of the southern pro- 
 
 vince. At length it was thought necessary 
 that Sydney should repair to England to 
 give a personal explanation of his motives 
 and conduct ; and the earl's kinsman, sir 
 John of Desmond, having repaired to Dublin 
 to communicate with the captive, or sue for 
 his release, that lord also, whose conduct 
 during the late events had been equivocal 
 and unsatisfactory, was also placed under 
 arrest, and sir Henry Sydney then carried 
 both his prisoners over to England to pre- 
 sent them before the queen. 
 
 423 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 IRELAND UNDER ELIZABETH AND THE FIRST MONARCHS OF THE HOUSE OF STUART. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FEUDS IN MUNSTER ; TURBULENCE IN THE IRISH TAKLIAMENT ; 
 REBELLION OF JAMES FITZ MAURICE OF DESMOND. 
 
 ^-«>r- 
 
 ^^s&^P' 
 
 HE condition of Ire- 
 
 If land at the moment 
 when the murder of 
 Shane O'Neill relieved 
 the English govern- 
 ment from its most 
 1 roublesome opponent, 
 
 will be gathered from 
 
 ' ^'' " the report of the 
 
 deputy as given in the preceding chapter. 
 His presence in Munster abated the dis- 
 orders for a moment, but during the sum- 
 mer and autumn of 1567 lioth that province 
 and Connaught were continually in agita- 
 tion, and even Ulster was far from settled. 
 Although the possessions of the O'Neill 
 had been confiscated, and a commission had 
 been issued from the crown to survey them, 
 no step had yet been taken to carry this 
 sentence into effect, and the fidelity of 
 Turlough Lynogh himself began to be 
 doubtful. The English pale alone was in 
 a tolerable state of tranquillity, and even 
 that was not without its disturbers, for no 
 sooner had the lord deputy departed for 
 England, than the O'Moores and the O'Con- 
 nors began to disturb the peace of Leinster. 
 In Munster, Sydney's absence served as 
 the signal for the renewal of all the old 
 disorders, which were the more difficult to 
 control, because the leaders were only half 
 responsible agents, acting in the absence of 
 the real chieftains. Thus the earl of Ormond 
 was attending on the court in England, and 
 had left his extensive territory under the 
 rule of his brother, sir Edmund Butler, who 
 seized upon some frivolous cause of offence 
 to rise up in arms and make war upon one 
 branch of the Geraldines. The two great 
 Geraldine lords of the south, the earl of 
 Desmond and his brother, sir John of Des- 
 mond, were absent under circumstances 
 424 
 
 which gave no hopes of their speedy re- 
 turn; the earl is said to have secretly en- 
 trusted the command of his people to his 
 kinsman, James fitz Maurice, a notorious 
 enemy of the English government and the 
 protestant church, who had already been 
 negotiating with foreign powers for the in- 
 vasion of Ireland. James fitz Maurice 
 now revived an old feud with another of 
 his kinsmen, Thomas fitz Maurice, lord of 
 Lixnaw, in Kerry, and carried devastation 
 through that country. The new earl of 
 Clancarthy, an Irish chieftain recently re- 
 formed, resumed his native manners, de- 
 clared that he would enforce his claim to be 
 king of Munster, and looked, in common 
 with Fitz Maurice, for aid from the catholic 
 powers abroad. He allied himself with the 
 O'SuUivans and other southern septs, and 
 invaded with a large army the lord Roche's 
 country, destroying all his corn, and com- 
 mitting other ravages ; butchering multi- 
 tudes of men, women, and children, and 
 carrying oft" a prey of fifteen hundred kine 
 and a hundred oxen. The chiefs of the 
 south are further said to have entered into 
 communication with Turlough Lynogh, the 
 O'Neill of Tyrone, who, forgetful of his 
 promises to the English, began also to 
 assume the state of an Irish chieftain, and 
 had engaged a thousand of the Ulster Scots 
 to assist him in his enterprises against some 
 of the chiefs on his borders. 
 
 During Sydney's absence in England, 
 which lasted from the middle of October, 
 1567, to the end of the same month in the 
 year following, Ireland was ruled by two 
 lords justices. Dr. Robert Weston (the lord 
 chancellor), and sir William Fitzwilliams, 
 both men experienced in the affairs of that 
 island, but they appear to have avoided 
 taking any vigorous measures against the 
 
A.D. 1568.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [jAMES FITZ MAURICE. 
 
 various insurgents until the return of tlie 
 lord deputy. In Munster, the different 
 combatants were left to fight out their own 
 quarrels, and in the case of the most for- 
 midable of these turbulent subjects, James 
 fitz Maurice, the fortune of war turned 
 against the enemy of the English. At the 
 head of a very numerous army, his ranks 
 swelled with the forces of O'Connor Kerry, 
 the Clan Sheeheys, and other chiefs, rivals 
 of Fitz Maurice of Kerry, James fitz 
 Maurice had invaded Kerry in the summer 
 of 1568, and overrun the country with hor- 
 rible slaughter and devastation. As many 
 of the inhabitants as could escape took 
 shelter in the fortified town of Lixnaw, 
 the seat of the Fitz Maurices of Kerry, 
 and there that chieftain himself was soon 
 blocked up by his enemies, and suffered 
 not less from the presence of the foe 
 than from the extreme heat of the sea- 
 son and the consequent drought. James 
 fitz Maurice had formed two extensive 
 camps on opposite sides of the town, from 
 which his troops issued daily to plunder the 
 surrounding country. The only allies of 
 Fitz Maurice of Kerry who were with him 
 at this moment were Edmund Mac Sweeny, 
 with about fifty galloglasses, and one of the 
 O'Mallcys, a tribe distinguished as the best 
 sailors in Ireland, who was there accidentally 
 with a ship's crew under his command. 
 These determined not to forsake their ally 
 in his extremity; a council was held in which 
 it was determined to try the fortunes of a 
 battle, and it was proposed to make the 
 attack on the camp occupied by O'Connor 
 and the Sheeheys, who were the objects of 
 Fitz Maurice's especial hatred Tliis was 
 accordingly done, and the enemy, on seeing 
 them approach their camp in battle array, 
 came out confidently to meet them, trusting 
 in their superior numbers. But, after a very 
 desperate struggle, the forces of the Geral- 
 dines were thrown into disorder, and driven 
 from the field with terrible slaughter. 
 O'Connor Kerry and several other dis- 
 tinguished chieftains were killed. James 
 fitz Maurice retired into his own territor}-, 
 and remained quiet during the rest of the 
 year, collecting his strength and making his 
 alliances in order to raise new disorders. 
 
 An ecclesiastical feud, which occurred at 
 this period, may serve to show still more 
 distinctly the wretched condition of the 
 country. A "runagate priest," as he is 
 termed, named Maurice, had obtained a 
 bull of the pope appointing him archbishop 
 
 VOL. I. 3 H 
 
 of Cashel, in opposition to the prelate whom 
 queen Elizabeth had placed in that see. 
 The catholic archbishop was supported by 
 the rebellious Irish, and he boldly proceeded 
 into the presence of the archbishop who was 
 in possession, and summoned him to resign 
 the primacy in obedience to the order of 
 the supreme pontiff. The latter, as might 
 be expected, refused obedience to a power 
 which had been abolished by the English 
 legislature ; on which the rival claimant 
 drew a skein, the favourite weapon of the 
 "wild" Irish, and inflicted on the English 
 archbishop of Cashel wounds of so serious 
 a character that for some time the prelate's 
 life was in danger. 
 
 To add still further to the troubles which 
 beset the country on every side, a Devon- 
 shire knight, sir Peter Carew, descended 
 from a family which had long enjoyed the 
 English title of baron Carew, and the Irish 
 title of marquises of Cork and barons of 
 I-drone, with other seignories in the sister 
 island, most of which had been usurped by 
 the Cavenaghs and other Irish septs in the dis- 
 orders of the reign of Richard II., now came 
 before the queen to lay claim to the Irish 
 inheritances of his forefathers. His suit was 
 favourably received, and he was sent to Ire- 
 land with letters from the queen and privy 
 council to the lords justices and other officers 
 of the crown there, who were desired to give 
 him every assistance in making good his 
 claims. He there obtained a judgment estab- 
 lishing his title to the lordship of Maston, 
 then in possession of sir Christopher Chi- 
 vers, and to the barony of I-drone, which was 
 occupied by the Cavenaghs. Chivers bowed 
 to the decision of the law, and compounded 
 with Carew for the lordship of Maston ; but 
 the Cavenaghs opposed the decree of the 
 English court, and it was found necessary to 
 enforce the decision of the law at the point 
 of tlie sword. 
 
 Such was the state of the country under 
 his governance, when sir Henry Sydney re- 
 turned to Ireland at the end of October, 1568. 
 He summoned sir Edmund Butler to answer 
 for the hostilities which he had committed 
 without the licence of the queen or her go- 
 vernment, but that chieftain found sufficient 
 excuses to evade the order. The earl of 
 Clancarthy showed a disposition to submit, 
 but James fitz ]\Iaurice remained in the 
 same equivocal position ; and further north, 
 Thomond was thrown into confusion by the 
 feuds among the O'Briens, while Connaught 
 was disturbed by the wars between the earl 
 
 425 
 
i-,rrosiTioN IN PARLIAMENT.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1569. 
 
 of Clanrickard and the Mac William Oug^litcr, 
 and between O'Connor Sligo, and O'Donnell. 
 It was Ulster, however, which now caused the 
 greatest uneasiness, for there the breach in 
 Turlough Lynogh's obedience to the Eng- 
 lish government was widened by the revival 
 of the ancient rivalry between the O'Neills 
 and the O'Donnells. No sooner had Sydney 
 resumed the reins of government than he 
 made a hasty progress in the north, in the 
 course of which he had an interview with 
 Turlough, who was induced to acknowledge 
 and express repentance for his recent of- 
 fences, and renew his former submission. 
 Sydney then returned to Dublin, and in the 
 midst of faction and discontent he obeyed 
 the orders of Elizabeth in convening a par- 
 liament, which was summoned to meet on the 
 17th of January, 1569. 
 
 The intention in calling this parliament 
 was to authorize by legislative enactment re- 
 forms for which the way had already been 
 cut out by the sword; and in the present 
 state of the country it was easy to foresee 
 that, unless some extraordinary means were 
 adopted to strengthen the government party, 
 all the deputy's plans of reform would be 
 overthrown by the obstinacy of a prejudiced 
 or interested opposition. It was publicly 
 known, among other things, that laws were to 
 be proposed for the abolition of chieftainry, 
 and of the numerous ancient customs and ex- 
 actions which had so long oppressed the land, 
 for extending the influence of the English 
 law, and for various other civil and ecclesias- 
 tical reforms. All those who were opposed 
 to the Protestant religion, most of the native 
 lawyers who were jealous of the appointment 
 of Englishmen to offices of state, all who pro- 
 fited by the old customs, and were likely to 
 lose by their abolition, joined together to op- 
 pose the government, and were formidable 
 by their numbers and influence. To coun- 
 teract these opponents, the government in- 
 terfered extensively in the elections, and the 
 officers of the crown appear in many cases to 
 have been guilty of great irregularities. Even 
 the issuing of the writs was done in a very 
 partial manner. The English influence was 
 strongest in the towns whose representatives 
 were made to form by far the greatest por- 
 tion of the present parliament. A conside- 
 rable number of Englishmen, who had no 
 interest in Ireland, were by government in- 
 fluence elected to represent these towns, and 
 these naturally were the most unscrupulous 
 supporters of the court. Among them was 
 one John Hooker, of Exeter, who had repre- 
 426 
 
 sented that city in the English parliament, 
 and was thus better acquainted with parlia- 
 mentary business than most of his colleagues. 
 He had been elected for Athenry, in Con- 
 naught. This man subsequently wrote the 
 annals of Ireland during the reign of Eliza- 
 beth, published with Hollinshed's Chronicle, 
 and he there gives a detailed account of the 
 proceedings of the Irish parliament of 1569. 
 The leaders of the opposition in the Irish 
 House of Commons were sir Christopher 
 Barnwall, a stanch supporter and great fa- 
 vourite of the old English race, and influ- 
 ential from his political knowledge, and sir 
 Edmund Butler, who represented the house 
 of Ormond during the absence of the earl, 
 and who now appeared in his place. When 
 the parliament met in January, this party 
 brought forward Barnwall as their candidate 
 for the speakership ; but the court party, by 
 a large majority, carried the election in favour 
 of their candidate, Stanihurst, recorder of 
 Dublin. The parliament was now opened 
 with the usual ceremonies, which are de- 
 scribed by Hooker at some length. Next day, 
 when the house of commons met for business, 
 the opposition showed their discontent at the 
 strength of the court party, as evinced in the 
 choice of the speaker. No sooner had the 
 latter taken the chair, than all the knights and 
 burgesses of the English pale, especially those 
 of the counties of Meath and Dublin, rose 
 clamorously to protest against the parliament 
 as illegal and informal, and to oppose the in- 
 troduction of any bill whatever. Sir Chris- 
 topher Barnwall, as the most learned and 
 profound in the law, then stated their objec- 
 tions, which were, first, that there were bur- 
 gesses returned for towns which were not 
 corporate, and had no voice in parliament ; 
 second, that certain sheriff's and maj'ors of 
 towns had returned themselves ; and third, 
 which was represented as the greatest griev- 
 ance of all, that a number of Englishmen 
 were returned to be burgesses for towns and 
 corporations which some of them never saw, 
 and none of them resided in them according 
 to the conditions required by the law. 
 
 Four days were spent in continuous alter- 
 cation on this question, during which the 
 parliament house is described as resembling 
 a bear-garden more than an assembly of rea- 
 sonable people. At length it was resolved 
 that the question should be referred to the 
 lord deputy and the judges; and the speaker, 
 Stanihurst, was deputed to lay the matter 
 before them, explain the objections which 
 had been made, and bring back their answer. 
 
A.D. 1509.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [debates in parliament. 
 
 The judges, after mature consultation, de- 
 cided that the representatives returned for 
 towns which were not corporate, and the 
 sheriffs and mayors who had returned them- 
 selves, were incapable of sitting in parlia- 
 ment, as their elections were all equally 
 illegal; but, with regard to the members not 
 resident in the towns for which they were 
 returned, they were judged to be entitled to 
 their seats, and the returning officers were to 
 undergo the penalty of the irregularity which 
 had been committed in the election. This 
 decision, although it possessed a show of jus- 
 tice, gave no satisfaction to the popular ora- 
 tors, because it still left what they called the 
 English faction in a large majority in the par- 
 liament. Their clamours were more violent 
 than ever; they refused to give credit to the 
 message returned by the speaker; and when 
 the attorney-general was sent to confirm it, 
 they were equally discontented, and de- 
 manded that the judges themselves should 
 come and state their opinions in person. 
 The speaker now made an attempt to divert 
 the attention of the parliament from this 
 object by ordering a bill to be read; this the 
 opposition would not suffer; but, to use 
 Hooker's words, " they all rose up in very 
 disorderly manner, far differing from their 
 duties in that place, and as contrary to that 
 gravity and wisdom which was or should be 
 in them." At length, as the only means of 
 appeasing the clamour, the judges came to 
 the house of commons, and there avowed 
 their opinion. Barnwall and his party now 
 acquiesced, though reluctantly, reserving 
 themselves for an obstinate opposition to all 
 the government measures as they came in 
 detail. " And albeit," says Hooker, " this 
 matter was orderly compassed, and sufficient 
 to have contented every man, yet the same 
 was so stomached, that the placing of the 
 Englishmen to be knights and burgesses 
 could not be digested, and did appear in the 
 sequel of that assembly, where every bill 
 furthered by the English gentlemen was 
 stopped and hindered by them. And espe- 
 cially Sir Edmund Butler, who in all things 
 which tended to the queen's majesty's profit 
 or commonwealth, he was a principal against 
 it, fearing that their captainries should be 
 taken away, and coyne and livery be abo- 
 lished, and such other like disorders re- 
 pressed, which he and his complices mislik- 
 ing, it did even open itself of a rebellion 
 then a brewing and towards." 
 
 Thus was formed two distinct parties in 
 the Irish parliament, which continued to agi- 
 
 tate it down to the latest period at which that 
 country continued to have a separate legisla- 
 ture. Its distance from the seat of supreme 
 government, and the deputed j)ower to which 
 it was immediately responsible, gave courage 
 to the opposition to act with a bold indepen- 
 dence which was as yet unknown in the Eng- 
 lish legislature ; and the English members 
 were astonished at the turbulent spirit with 
 which they had to contend. Hooker, who 
 looked upon the whole with prejudiced 
 feelings, was evidently shocked at the 
 " frowardness and unquietuess" which, he 
 says, rendered their discussions " more like a 
 bear-baiting of disordered persons than a 
 parliament of wise and grave men." 
 
 The attention of the parliament was first 
 called to two bills of special importance, the 
 repeal of Poyning's act (which had of late 
 been found necessary at the commencement 
 of each session), and a bill for granting the 
 queen a new impost upon wines. The latter 
 was exclaimed against as an oppressive inno- 
 vation ; but the bill for the suspension of 
 Poyning's act, though no novelty, was de- 
 claimed against in the most violent manner, 
 as an attempt against the very foundations of 
 public security. Barnwall and his party re- 
 presented it as a deliberate plan to deliver up 
 the realm to the mercy of a viceroy, who 
 thus, with the assistance of his English bur- 
 gesses, might enact, without control, such 
 laws as he judged necessary for his own pur- 
 poses. 
 
 This clamorous opposition excited the in- 
 dignation of Hooker, the member for Athenry, 
 who, to quote his own report of his speech, 
 " when he saw these foul misorders and over- 
 thwarting, being grieved, stood up, and prayed 
 liberty to speak to the bill, who made a pre- 
 amble, saying, that it was an usage in Pytha- 
 goras's schools, that no scholars of his should 
 for certain years reason, dispute, or deter- 
 mine, but give ear and keep silence : mean- 
 ing that when a man is once well instructed, 
 learned, and advised, and hath well delibe- 
 rated of the things he hath to do, he should 
 with more discretion and wisdom speak, or- 
 der, and direct the same. Notwithstanding, 
 now he being but a man of small experience, 
 and of less knowledge in matters of impor- 
 tance, and therefore once minded to have 
 been altogether silent, is enforced even of a 
 very zeal and conscience, and for the dis- 
 charge of his duty, to pray their patience, 
 and to bear with his speeches. And then 
 upon occasion of the bill read, and matter 
 offered, he entered ir.to the discourse; what 
 
 427 
 
PARLIAMENTARY TUMULT.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1569. 
 
 was the office and authority of a prince, and 
 what was the duty of a subject ; and lastly, 
 how the queen's majesty had most honourably 
 and carefully performed the one, and how 
 undutifully they had considered the other; 
 for that she neither found that obedience in 
 that land, which still lived in rebellion against 
 her, neither that benevolence of the better 
 sort, which for her great expenses, spent for 
 their defences and safeties, they ought to have 
 yielded unto her. It appeared manifest in 
 sundry things, and specially in this present 
 assembly, namely, in one bill concerning the 
 repeal of Poyning's act, for this time only 
 meant for your own benefit and for the com- 
 monwealth of this realm, and the other con- 
 cerning tiie bill now in question; the one by 
 you denied, and the other liketh you not. 
 And yet her majesty, of her own royal au- 
 thority, might and may establish the same 
 without any of your consents, as she hath 
 already done the like in England; saving of 
 her courtesy it pleaseth her to have it pass 
 with your own consents by order of law, that 
 she might thereby have the better trial and 
 assurance of your dutifulness and good will 
 towards her . But as she hath and doth find 
 your bent fa5 otherwise, so doth the right 
 honourable the lord deputy find the like. 
 For notwithstanding his long services in times 
 past, his continual and daily travels, journeys. 
 and postings, with the great peril of his life 
 against the rebels, for your sake and safet}', 
 and his endless turmoils and troubles in civil 
 matters and private suits for your quietness, 
 and to you well known, he hath deserved 
 more than well at your hands; yet as the un- 
 thankful Israelites against Moses, the unkind 
 Romans against Camillus, Scipio, and others, 
 and as the ungrateful Athenians against So- 
 crates, Themistocles, Miltiades, and others, 
 3-ou have and do most ungratefully requite 
 and recompense this your noble governor, 
 against whom and his doings you do kick and 
 spurn what in you lieth. But in the end it 
 will fall upon you, as it hath done unto 
 others, to your own shame, overthrow, and 
 confusion. And when he had spent a long 
 time in this matter, and proved the same by 
 sundry histories of other nations, he pro- 
 ceeded to the bill, which by sundry reasons 
 and arguments he proved to be most neces- 
 sary, and meet to be liked, allowed, and con- 
 sented unto." 
 
 Such were the arguments urged by the 
 
 court party against the opposition they 
 
 encountered in parliament. The doctrine 
 
 that the queen might impose duties by her 
 
 428 
 
 prerogative, and that the asking of them 
 from her parliament was a mere act of 
 courtesy, was fashionable at this moment in 
 England; but among the Irish subjects, 
 whose old traditions of sturdy constitutional 
 principles had not been disarmed by the 
 immediate presence of a splendid court nor 
 their spirit tamed by the power of the 
 throne into passive obedience, they were 
 received with the utmost distaste. Hooker's 
 speech was followed by new clamours, amid 
 which a vain attempt was made by some of 
 the gentlemen of the pale to express their 
 indignation; and at length the house broke 
 up at an unusually late hour in such con- 
 fusion, that to protect Hooker from per- 
 sonal outrage, he was accompanied to his 
 lodgings, in the house of sir Peter Carew, 
 whom he had accompanied to Ireland, by 
 an escort of his friends in the house of 
 commons. 
 
 Next day Barnwall and the Anglo-Irish 
 lawyers, who had held a consultation on the 
 subject, rose in their places in the house of 
 connnons to make an energetic protest 
 against the unconstitutional doctrines which 
 had been set forth by Hooker, and they ex- 
 pressed themselves so strongly, that the 
 speaker was at length obliged to call them 
 to order, and he "willed that if they had 
 any matter against tlie said gentleman, they 
 should present and bring it in writing against 
 Monday then next following A.nd for so 
 much as their dealings then were altogether 
 disordered, being more like to a bearbaiting 
 of loose persons than an assembly of wise 
 and grave men in parliament, motion and 
 request was made to the speaker, that he 
 should reform those abuses and disordered 
 beliaviours; who not only promised so to 
 do, but also prayed assistance, advice, and 
 counsel for his doings therein, of such as 
 were acquainted with the orders of the par- 
 liaments in England." John Hooker, as one 
 of the members of this Irish parliament best 
 acquainted with the parliamentary business 
 in England, was commissioned by the 
 speaker to compile a treatise on "the order 
 and usage how to keep a parliament," which 
 was printed and distributed among the mem- 
 bers of tiie commons house. 
 
 By the interposition of temperate advisers 
 the violence of the contending parties was 
 so far pacified, that they allowed the public 
 business to take its usual course. The bill 
 of subsidy was first passed, with an enco- 
 mium on the queen for delivering the realm 
 from the grievous exaction of coyne and 
 
A.D. 
 
 15G9.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [acts of this parliament. 
 
 livery, and on the deputy for the vigour 
 and integrity of his adniinistration. The 
 lands of some delinquents formerly attainted 
 were confirmed to the crown ; and statutes 
 made to prevent the disorders arising from 
 idle retainers, and prohibiting the lords of 
 the realm from fostering with the Irish. 
 After a short prorogation, the bill for sus- 
 pending Poyning's act was passed; but the 
 jealousies and suspicions raised by the 
 leaders of the opposition had produced so 
 much agitation, that, in the hope of appeas- 
 ing it, it was subsequently provided by a par- 
 ticular statute, that no bill should ever be 
 certified into England for the repeal or sus- 
 pension of this law until it had been first 
 agreed to by a majority of the lords and 
 commons in the Irish parliament. Another 
 short prorogation took place, and then this 
 parliament passed the act for the attainder 
 of Shane O'Neill and the confiscation of his 
 lands in Ulster. Another statute abolished 
 captainries, but it defeated its own aim by 
 an exception in favour of captainries which 
 should be allowed by letters patent. The 
 lord chancellor was empowered to appoint 
 commissioners for viewing all territories not 
 reduced to English counties, and authority 
 was given to the deputy to divide them into 
 shires, upon the certificate of the commis- 
 sioners. It was not till the fourth session 
 of this parliament that the act for the impost 
 upon wines was agreed to. Other acts for 
 the reformation of various abuses were 
 subsequently passed, among which the most 
 important was one empowering the chief 
 governor and council to grant letters patent, 
 whereby all those of Irish or of the degene- 
 rate English race, who were disposed to sur- 
 render their lands, might be again invested 
 with them, so as to hold them of the crown 
 by English tenure. We have already seen 
 Sydney complaining of the neglected state 
 of religion in the country through which he 
 made his progress in 1567. An act was 
 now passed authorizing the lord deputy or 
 chief governor to present to the dignities of 
 Munster and Connaught for ten years in 
 consequence of the abuses observed in those 
 promises in "admitting unworthy persons to 
 ecclesiastical dignities, without lawfulness 
 of birth, learning, English habit, or English 
 language, descended of unchaste and un- 
 married abbots, priors, deans, and chaunters, 
 and obtaining their dignities by force, 
 simony, or other corrupt means." With a 
 view to encourage learning and spread the 
 advantages of education, an act was passed 
 
 for the erection of free schools. In otlier 
 respects, a few incidents we trace in what 
 is known of the proceedings of this parlia- 
 ment seem to show that most of the mea- 
 sures calculated to advance the protestant 
 religion met with strong opposition. 
 
 Among those who had made themselves 
 most obnoxious to the government by their 
 violent opposition to the court measures in 
 this parliament, was sir Edmund Butler, 
 Sydney, who attributed this behaviour to 
 his disaffection to the English crown, and 
 who was not unmindful of sir Edmund's 
 turbulent conduct in the preceding year, 
 expressed openly his displeasure, and the 
 feelings of both soon settled into a senti- 
 ment of personal hostility. Sir Edmund 
 Butler retired from the parliament in an ill 
 humour into his own country, and began to 
 plot with the enemies of the crown. Com- 
 plaints had already been made to the lord 
 deputy by some of the chieftains of the 
 south who had suffered from his former tur- 
 bulence, and he now added to these causes 
 of displeasure an act of open violence. 
 Among the lands claimed by sir Peter 
 Carew was a portion in the occupation of 
 Butler. Sir Peter's right had been acknow- 
 ledged by a court of law, under authority 
 of which he proceeded to take possession. 
 Sir Edmund Butler immediately gathered 
 his followers in arms, and drove away the 
 intruders. The lord deputy was desirous 
 of pacifying this feud without having re- 
 course to violence, and he sent commis- 
 sioners into Munster to listen to the repre- 
 sentations of both parties, as well as the 
 complaints of others who had declared 
 themselves aggrieved. Butler spoke of the 
 deputy as his enemy, treated his commis- 
 sioners with contempt, and refused to ap- 
 pear before them. 
 
 This conduct gave the greater alarm, 
 because it was already known that the king 
 of Spain had sent an agent to the south of 
 Ireland to incite rebellion against the queen, 
 under pretence of zeal in the cause of reli- 
 gion. James fitz Maurice at the head of 
 the Geraldines of Desmond, had raised his 
 standard and had drawn the earl of Clan- 
 earthy into another rebellion; and while he 
 was practising with other lords, he had sent 
 the youngest brother of the earl of Desmond 
 with the popish prelates of Cashel and 
 Emly, as envoys to the king of Spain and 
 to the pope, representing their zeal for the 
 religion of Rome, and their desire to co- 
 operate in snatching that island from the 
 
 429 
 
REBELLION OF THE BUTLERS.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 15G9. 
 
 rule of a heretical sovereign like Elizabeth, 
 who had already been placed under the ban 
 of the church. Sir Edmund Butler now 
 formed an alliance with the insurgents of 
 the south; and the lord deputy authorised 
 sir Peter Carew, of whose abilities he had 
 already had experience, to make war upon 
 this new enemy of the government, sending 
 him at the same time reinforcements undt-r 
 some of the bravest English captains then 
 in Ireland. With these Carew invaded 
 Butler's lands, took and plundered Clough- 
 griman, and then established his head quar- 
 ters at Kilkenny. 
 
 While he remained there, intelligence 
 arrived that the Irish were assembled in 
 arms to the number of two thousand, about 
 three miles from the town, with the inten- 
 tion, as it was supposed, of attacking the 
 town. Carew assembled immediately his own 
 small body of men, marched out against the 
 enemy, and, attacking them suddenly, put 
 them to flight with great slaughter. Four 
 hundred galloglasses, besides others, were 
 killed, and the fugitives sought refuge as 
 usual in the mountains and woods. The 
 English are said to have had but one man 
 wounded in this action, which proves, at 
 least, that the attack must have been unex- 
 pected on the part of the Irish, and that they 
 were seized with a panic at the first charge, 
 which had taken from them the courage to 
 defend themselves. 
 
 Sir Edmund Butler was not present on 
 this occasion, but when he heard of it, both 
 he and his younger brother, Edward, openly 
 avowed their alliance with James fitz Maurice 
 of Desmond, who now raised the standard of 
 rebellion, and wasjoined, as the Irish annalists 
 tell us, by " all the English and Irish of 
 Munster, from the Barrow to Cape Clear." 
 The confederates raised a numerous army, 
 and marched directly to lay siege to Kil- 
 kenny, but that place was so bravely defended 
 by Carew's soldiers, that the insurgents were 
 obliged to raise the siege in despair. They 
 then overrun the county of Waterford and 
 the lands of the Powers on one side, and the 
 county of Dublin on the other, and extended 
 their ravages into various jsarts of Kilkenny 
 and Wexford. In the latter county the two 
 Butlers, and their wild followers, attacked 
 the town of Enniscorthy at the time of the 
 fair, and captured an immense booty. The 
 persons of the wretched inhabitants of this 
 town were exposed to every outrage that 
 hatred and lust could devise, and all the nude 
 inhabitants who escaped the slaughter were 
 430 
 
 carried away captives, in the hope of extort- 
 ing a ransom for their delivery. The two 
 brothers then marched into Ossory and the 
 Queen's County, where they spoiled the 
 country, burning towns and villages, and 
 committing every kind of outrage. After | 
 this they again joined the forces of the south \ 
 collected under the command of James fitz 
 Maurice and the earl of Clancarthy, and the ; 
 combined chiefs, in the confidence created by 
 the little opposition they had as yet expe- 
 rienced, sent their messengers to Turlough 
 O'Neill, acquainting him with their successes, 
 and urging him to call in a large body of the 
 Scots, and aid them in overthrowing the 
 heretical government. 
 
 The government was thrown into great 
 alarm by this insurrection, and Sydney 
 marched without delay into Munster at the 
 head of a body of soldiers. Another measure 
 was taken at the same time by Eliza- 
 beth, which had a more direct tendency to 
 divide and weaken the rebels, even than the 
 invasion of Munster. By the absence of the 
 earl of Ormond, his disaffected brothers were 
 virtually at the head of his house, and drew 
 after them his numerous kinsmen and fol- 
 lowers. It was determined in the sunnner of 
 1569, when intelligence of this rebellion 
 reached the English court, to send that 
 nobleman back to Ireland, as the com- 
 mander most likely, from his known attach- 
 ment to the English crown, as well as his 
 enmity to the Geraldines, to act witli vigour 
 against the common enemy. He readily 
 undertook the service imposed upon him by 
 the queen, and it appears that it was deter- 
 mined from the first to show indulgence to 
 his brothers and their followers, and to con- 
 sider them as men led astray by the persua- 
 sions of the queen's enemies of Desmond, 
 rather than as voluntary off'enders. The 
 earl of Ormond arrived at Wexford on the 
 14th of August, 1569, the day of the mas- 
 sacre at Enniscorthy. Sydney was then on 
 his march into Munster, and Ormond, after 
 calling together his retainers, and comnmni- 
 cating with his brother, sir Edmund, joined 
 the lord deputy in his camp at Limerick. 
 Sir Edmund Butler accompanied liim, and 
 there, in open view of the whole camp, con- 
 fessed his faults, and submitted himself to 
 the queen's mercy. Througii his means his 
 two brothers also submitted, and they were 
 subsequently committed to custody at Dub- 
 lin, until the queen's pleasure towards them 
 should be known. 
 
 Meanwhile the lord deputy continued his 
 
A.D. 
 
 1570.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [destruction of kilmallock. 
 
 progress through Munster, and James of 
 Desmond and those who remained faithful 
 to him, retired into the strong-holds of the 
 mountains and forests, to wait the moment 
 of Sydney's departure. Some of the men 
 of highest rank and greatest power in the 
 south renewed their assurances of fidelity 
 to the English crown, and joined in support 
 of the government. Others, who were at 
 heart favourable to the Geraldines, but who 
 had not as yet compromised themselves 
 deeply in the rebellion, made their peace 
 with the English. A few castles, held by 
 those who were in open rebellion, were 
 taken by force, and garrisoned with English 
 soldiers. Among these was the castle of 
 Ballymartyr, held by the seneschal of Imo- 
 killy, who had committed great ravages in 
 the neighbouring country. The military 
 command of the disaffected districts was 
 then entrusted to Humfrey Gilbert, an 
 experienced English officer, who was sta- 
 tioned with a hundred horse and three 
 hundred foot, besides Irish kernes, at Kil- 
 mallock, in the county of Limerick. 
 
 Having thus provided for the present 
 safety of Munster, Sydney continued his 
 progress, and passed rapidly from Limerick 
 to Galway, where he remained some time 
 for the purpose of pacifying the disputes 
 between the Burkes of Clanrickard and 
 other chiefs of Connaught. The old project 
 of appointing local presidents or governors 
 in Munster and Connaught was now carried 
 into effect, and Sydney proceeded from 
 Galway to Athlone, to instal sir Edward 
 Fitton, a man of great abilities, but remark- 
 able for the stern severity with which he 
 executed justice, as lord president of the 
 latter province. There, we are told, his 
 rigid but imj)artial government soon reduced 
 the whole province to obedience to the 
 English laws. " The wicked," says a con- 
 temporary writer, " he spareth not, but 
 being found faulty, either in open sessions, 
 or by martial inquisition, he causeth to be 
 executed ; and by tliese means having rid 
 away the most notable offenders and their 
 fosterers, the whole province rested in good 
 ; quietness and in dutiful obedience to her 
 i Majesty and her laws." Sir John Perrot, a 
 : man of great stature, and remarkable for 
 ' his courage and activity, was soon after- 
 I wards appointed president of Munster. 
 
 Sydney had returned from Athlone to 
 I Dublin, to watcli the progress of affairs in 
 I Ulster, where Turlough O'Neill was sus- 
 pected of the intention of joining the 
 
 southern rebels, as he was known to have 
 taken into his hire a large body of Scots. 
 But here, James of Desmond's practises met 
 with no better success than in Munster. 
 At the moment when it was understood that 
 he was on the point of invading tlie English 
 pale from the north, the accidental explo- 
 sion of the gun of one of his attendants, at 
 a public feast, inflicted a wound upon the 
 chieftain of Tyrone which placed his life in 
 imminent danger. Rival claimants to the 
 succession began to assemble their partisans, 
 and Tyrone was split into factions ; while 
 the Scots and the auxiliaries believing that 
 his death was inevitable, and that it would 
 deprive them of all hope of obtaining their 
 pay, mutinied and dispersed. Thus, when 
 Turlough recovered, he found himself so 
 entirely deserted, that he found no alterna- 
 tive but confessing his fault and making his 
 submission. The Anglo-Irish government 
 recovered its feelings of security, and in the 
 winter even the commander of Kilmallock, 
 Humjjhrey Gilbert, was permitted to leave 
 liis post, in order to repair to England, and 
 his government was entrusted to the earl of 
 Ormond. 
 
 Ormond fell into a false security, from 
 which he was suddenly roused by an attack 
 ill a quarter where such an event seems to 
 have been least expected. James fitz 
 Maurice, who had been actively engaged in 
 forming new plans of hostility in his hiding 
 places, collected together some of the most 
 ferocious and desperate of his adherents, 
 especially the Mac S weeneys and the Sheehys, 
 and, informed, as it was believed, by secret 
 intelligence of the defenceless state of Kil- 
 mallock, he attacked that ill-fated town 
 before day-break on the 2nd of March, 
 1570, scaled the walls unobserved, and took 
 possession of it without any resistance. The 
 invaders, whose anger against this town was 
 sharpened by mortification in seeing the 
 head seat of the Geraldines of Desmond 
 turned into an English garrison, hanged the 
 sovereign or mayor, treated its inhabitants 
 with the greatest barbarity, and plundered 
 their houses of every article it was possible 
 to carry away. They then committed it to 
 the flames, and in a few hours nothing was 
 left of Kilmallock but its bare and blackened 
 walls of stone. " Thus," says the Irish annalist, 
 " Kilmallock became the abode and recep- 
 tacle of wolves, in addition to all the misfor- 
 tunes which had befallen it before that time." 
 An Irish writer, who saw Kilmallock soon 
 after this event, describes it as a heap of 
 
 431 
 
FLIGHT OF THE EARL OF THOMOND.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1570. 
 
 dark and smouldering ruins, and states that 
 its only inhabitant was an English woman, 
 who, having collected the bones of her 
 husband and three sons, had buried them in 
 the dismantled abbey, and sat by their grave 
 crying and tearing her long hair over it. 
 
 The earl of Ormond was blamed by many 
 for the want of vigilance which had exposed 
 this handsome and important town to sudden 
 destruction. The plunderers carried off their 
 booty into their hiding places, but they gave 
 no further evidence of strength or activity 
 during the months which immediately fol- 
 lowed this event. They were probably 
 waiting in vain expectation of assistance 
 from abroad. Meanwhile indications of 
 troubles showed themselves in other quar- 
 ters. The strict administration of justice 
 introduced by sir Edward Fitton in Con- 
 naught, was unpalatable to people who had 
 so long enjoyed an independence of doing 
 ill, and it gave special dissatisfaction to the 
 old chieftains with whose jurisdiction it inter- 
 fered. Among tliese was Connor O'Brien, 
 earl of Thomond. Early in 1570, Fitton 
 proclaimed his court for the O'Briens and 
 the people of south Connaught, to be 
 held in the monastery of Ennis, and at the 
 beginning of February he was met there by 
 Teige O'Brien, who had been appointed to 
 the office of sheriff of Thomond. But the 
 earl of Thomond bade defiance to the presi- 
 dent's summons, attacked those who w'ere 
 sent to compel his attendance, and pursued 
 the president himself witli the intention, it 
 appears, of making him his captive. The 
 Irish sherifl', however, proved faithful to his 
 trust, and guided Fitton by secrect paths 
 till he delivered him safe in Galway. This 
 outrage exasperated the lord deputy, who 
 sent oixlers to the earl of Ormond to invade 
 the territory of the O'Briens. But before 
 any hostilities had been connuitted, he was 
 met by the earl of Thomond, who made 
 a full submission, delivered up his three 
 principal castles of Clonroad, Clare, and 
 Bunratty, and promised to place himself 
 under the guidance of the earl of Ormond 
 and the council at Dublin. But soon after- 
 wards the earl of Thomond repented of his 
 submission, and, having retired to his only 
 remaining castle, that of Ibraken in Clare, 
 he entered into connuunication with other 
 dissatisfied chieftains to concert a general in- 
 sm-rection. One jiart of the plan was to put 
 the lord president, Fitton, whom he now 
 looked upon as a jsersonal enemy, to death. 
 When the intended revolt was on the eve of 
 432 
 
 taking pla ce, the plans of the conspirators were 
 disconcerted by an accident. Fitton, totally 
 ignorant of the earl's designs, and on his 
 way to make a new progress into Thomond, 
 sent him a courteous message announcing 
 his intention of coming with his small retinue 
 to dine witli him on the following day. The 
 (Mrl of Thomond's conscience smote him, and 
 he was seized with alarm, supposing that his 
 plot was discovered, and that the relentless 
 Fitton was prepared to place him under 
 arrest. Instead of waiting to receive his 
 guest, he fled into Kerry, where he remained 
 a short time with the rebellious Geraldines, 
 and thence he made his escajje to France. 
 The secret was kept so well by his fellow 
 conspirators, that Irish as well as English 
 were left in equal astonishment at his flight. 
 But when the immediate danger seemed to 
 be past, he obtained an interview with 
 Norris, queen Elizabeth's ambassador in 
 France, to wh.om he made a full confession, 
 and, through his intercession, he was par- 
 doned, returned to Ireland, and continued 
 afterwards a faithful subject. 
 
 In another part of his jurisdiction, the 
 lord president of Connaught became involved 
 in the old feuds between the different 
 branches of the Burkes, which led to a san- 
 guinary battle, in which both sides claimed 
 the victory. Sir Edward Fitton and the 
 earl of Clanrickard had assembled their 
 forces in the sunmier of this year (1570), 
 to lay siege to Shrule, in the county of 
 Mayo. The northern Mac William made 
 an appeal to all his old allies, and with the 
 Burkes of Mayo and Sligo, the O'Flahertys 
 and Mac Donnells, and other chiefs, and 
 a strong body of Scottish auxiliaries, he col- 
 lected a very formidable army, and marched 
 to attack the president and the earl in their 
 camp. The battle was obstinately disputed, 
 and the loss was great on both sides ; but the 
 Irish troops and the main body of the foot 
 of the lord president's army gave way, and 
 w ere pursued to a considerable distance from 
 the field. The cavalry, with Fitton and the 
 earl, remained in their original position, and 
 not only stood their ground, but attacked 
 and committed considerable havoc on their 
 enemies, as the latter were engaged in the 
 pursuit. The latter, after the battle, marched 
 off from the field, leaving it in the possession 
 of the English cavalry, who therefore claimed 
 the victor}', although the Mac William pro- 
 claimed loudly that he had given the English 
 a signal defeat. Neither party had appa- 
 rently much to boast of, and each had to 
 
1571.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IREl.AND. 
 
 [sir JOHN PERROTT. 
 
 lament the loss of several persons of distinc- 
 tion. The battle of Shrule was long remem- 
 bered by English and Irish. 
 
 After this battle Fitton appears for a 
 while to have met with no serious obstacles 
 in the course of his government, and we find 
 him next year (1571) holding his court at 
 Ennis, as he had intended to hold it at the 
 time of the earl of Thomond's rebellion in 
 
 the year preceding. But he now took the 
 precaution to carry with him a small but 
 well appointed force of horse and foot. He 
 held this court during eighteen days without 
 meeting with any interruption; and he em- 
 ployed himself, to use the words of the Irish 
 annals, "in establishing laws and regula- 
 tions, and suppressing crimes and law- 
 lessness." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SIR JOHN PERROTT IN MUNSTER; REBELLION OF THE SONS OF THE EARL OF CLANRICKARD; 
 SUBMISSION OF JAMES OF DESMOND. 
 
 HILE sir Edward Fitton 
 was thus enforcing the 
 laws in Connaught, 
 some delay had oc- 
 curred in the appoint- 
 ment of a similar officer 
 for Munster. Sydney 
 had first cast his eye 
 
 on sir Warham Sent- 
 
 leger as a fitting man 
 for this post, but the queen objected to him, 
 and finally she fixed upon sir John Perrott, 
 a soldier distinguished for courage and 
 activity; and, in other respects, well calcu- 
 lated for the difficult charge which was thus 
 to be entrusted to him. Perrott at length 
 landed at Waterford on the 27th of Febru- 
 ary, 1571, and proceeded thence to Dublin, 
 where he was detained till April in the 
 various formalities and arrangements con- 
 nected with his government. In the month 
 last mentioned he left Dublin for Cork, at 
 the head of a considerable force, and on his 
 way he passed through the fastnesses of 
 Aherlow or Harlow, an extensive wooded 
 district at the northern base of the Galtee 
 mountains, and a general name at this period 
 for the defiles which intersect them. This 
 district was the refuge of James fitz Maurice 
 and his wild followers, who, since the de- 
 struction of Kilmallock, had led the life of 
 outlaws, and had infested the neighbouring- 
 country. In the course of the year 1570, 
 the earl of Ormond had made a vain attempt 
 to reduce them to obedience; but the new 
 president now showed his intention to com- 
 mence a different and more harassing kind 
 VOL. T. 3 I 
 
 of warfare, against which even the inacces- 
 sible character of their hiding places was no 
 defence. 
 
 After a very brief stay at Cork, sir John 
 Perrott proceeded to Limerick, and on his 
 way passed through Kilmallock on the first 
 of May, "the sight whereof," he says in 
 one of his despatches, " so wholly burnt, and 
 the fair buildings defaced, being no less 
 grievous than the remembrance of the 
 former estate thereof (by report made known 
 to me), is lamentable." This sight increased 
 the vengeful feelings which actuated the 
 English commander and his soldiers, and 
 he never ceased to pursue and hunt out 
 the rebels until their leader was at length 
 compelled to surrender himself. The con- 
 temporary chronicler has told us how he 
 pursued them into the bogs, and followed 
 them into the thickets; how he fought with 
 them in the plains, and besieged them in 
 their castles and strongholds. In his various 
 despatches at this time, Perrott describes 
 himself as marching by night as well as by 
 day, as sleeping on the cold grass like a 
 common soldier, and as enjoying no rest 
 from the constant and rapid movements of 
 the rebel chief and his followers. He seems 
 to have been aware that there was treason 
 even in his own camp, and that Fitz Maurice 
 had his agents there who conveyed to him 
 secret intelligence of the measures which 
 were to be taken against him. 
 
 During two years Munster was convulsed 
 by the partisan warfare carried on between 
 the earl and his partisans and the lord presi- 
 dent, who had threatened that he would 
 
 48.S 
 
JAMES FITZ MAURICE.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 157 
 
 "hunt the fox out of his hole." In the 
 course of this long struggle the woods and 
 mountains of Desmond were the scene of con- 
 tinual encounters and skirmishes, some of 
 which wore more the garb of romance than 
 the character of real history. One of those 
 incidents, told by the biograplier of sir 
 John Perrott, is worth repeating. 
 
 James fitz Maurice, pretending a desire to 
 further the lord president's wish to put an 
 end to the war, while his real intention was, 
 doubtless, to call oft' his attention from some 
 other projects, sent a messenger to Perrott, 
 offering to decide the question by single 
 combat between tliemselves. Perrott, who 
 possessed much of the old chivalrous valour 
 of a former age, immediately accepted the 
 challenge. It was first proposed that each 
 sliould fight at the head of fifty chosen 
 horsemen, and the result of the combat was 
 to decide the war. When the time of per- 
 formance arrived, James fitz Maurice made 
 an excuse for not attending, but offered to 
 fight the lord president liand to hand ; to 
 which the latter replied, that, although he 
 knew there was a difference between their 
 persons and places, yet he would still accept 
 his challenge, as he would consider his own 
 life well adventured to put to death so great 
 a rebel. Tlie place of combat was then ap- 
 pointed at Emly in Tipperary, an old town 
 only a few miles from Kilmallock, and the 
 time was fixed by mutual agreement. The 
 weapons, the choice of which was given to 
 Fitz Maurice, were to be a sword and target, 
 and they were to be clad in Irish " trousses," 
 or pantaloons, which the president provided 
 of cloth of scarlet. The report of this in- 
 tended combat soon spread abroad, and cre- 
 ated so much interest, that, on the appointed 
 day, not only the lord president, but most 
 of the nobility and gentry of the province, 
 came to Emly to wtness it. But James of 
 Desmond again failed to make his appear- 
 ance ; and, on the very day fixed for the 
 combat, when sir John Perrott was already 
 at Emly watching for his appearance, he 
 sent one of his followers, an Irish poet, to 
 inform him that he would not fight with him 
 at all — not because he feared for his life, 
 but because on it depended the safety of all 
 who were of his party. " If," he said, " I 
 should kill sir John Perrott, the queen of 
 England can send another president into this 
 province ; but if he should kill me, there is 
 none other to succeed me, or to command 
 as I do ; therefore, I will not willingly fight 
 with him, and so tell him from nie." When 
 434 
 
 the lord president heard this he was " much 
 discontented" that he had suffered himself 
 to be abused, and that he had lost so much 
 time and opportunity. 
 
 A new rising in the neighbouring province 
 of Connaught occurred at this moment, to 
 sustain the spirit of the Geraldines of Des- 
 mond. The sons of the earl of Clanrickard 
 still disturbed tliat province by their turbu- 
 lence, though hitherto they had j^rofessed 
 obedience to the lord president, sir Edward 
 Fitton. The latter announced his intention 
 of holding a general court for Connaught at 
 Galway, about the middle of March, 1572 ; 
 and he summoned to it all those who were 
 under the queen's authority from Limerick 
 to Sligo. Among others came the earl of 
 Clanrickard, with his two turbulent sons 
 (Ulick and John), and the chiefs of their 
 people, as well as the other great branches 
 of the extensive and powerful family of the 
 Burkes It appears that the conduct of 
 these chiefs had raised strong suspicions that 
 they were preparing to rebel against Fitton's 
 rigorous administi-ation ; and they had no 
 sooner assembled at Galway, than the two 
 sons of the earl, either conscience-stricken, 
 or alarmed by rumours that their designs 
 were known, fled privately, and raised their 
 followers in arms. Fitton immediately 
 ordered the other chiefs of the Burkes 
 to be seized, and thrown into prison in 
 the castle of Galway ; and he placed the 
 earl of Clanrickard under arrest, and car- 
 ried him first to Athlone, and thence to 
 Dublin. 
 
 Meanwhile the forces under the command 
 of sir Edward Fitton, who had immediately 
 returned to Galway, after having delivered 
 his prisoner to the lord deputy, were insuf- 
 ficient to withstand the rebellion. His only 
 military exploit was against the ancient and 
 strong castle of the O'Flahertys (the lords of 
 West Connaught or Connemara), at Augha- 
 more, on Lough Corrib. It appears that 
 there was a domestic feud in this sept, one 
 part of which remained faithful to the gov- 
 ernment, while the other, who were in posses- 
 sion of this stronghold, made common cause 
 with the rebels. The castle of Aughamore 
 was soon taken, and jjartly destroyed, and the 
 town and its appendages were delivered into 
 the hands of Murrough O'Flaherty, the head 
 of that division of the sept which remained 
 loyal to the English. The lord president 
 then returned to Galway, and, having estab- 
 lished a garrison in that important town, 
 marched through Clanrickard and Hy-maine 
 
1572.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [rebellion in desmond. 
 
 to Atlilone, which was the point threatened 
 by the insurgents. 
 
 The latter had assembled in great force 
 of their own followers and their numerous 
 allies, including the extensive sept of the 
 Mac Sweeneys, the Mac l^onnells and their 
 gallowglasses, and a very large body of the 
 Scots from northern Ulster. They began 
 by invading and laying waste a great part of 
 Clanrickard, and destroying nearly all its 
 castles from the Shannon into the county of 
 Clare. They next plundered the country 
 between the rivers Shannon and Suck and 
 the woody districts, sparing none of those 
 who were in alliance or league with the 
 English, up to the very gates of Atlilone. 
 They then turned along the Shannon, east- 
 ward, and proceeded to the SJieve-Bane 
 mountains in Roscommon, and having crossed 
 the ferry of Annaly, they burnt the town of 
 Athleague, or, as it is now called, Lanes- 
 borough, and ravaged the country in the 
 most savage manner to the borders of West 
 Meath, burning Mullingar and other towns. 
 Hence they returned to Athlone, and burned 
 " all the town from the bridge outwards." 
 They next returned through King's county, 
 and came into Galway, committing similar 
 depredations, and entering West Connaught, 
 turned their whole wrath against the O'Fla- 
 hertys, who were allied to the English. On 
 their way they " demolished the walls of the 
 town of Atlienry, its stone houses and castle, 
 and dilapidated the town, so that it was not an 
 easy matter to rebuild it for a long time after." 
 
 The two sons of the earl of Clanrickard, 
 dragging into their rebellion most of the 
 Irish septs with whom they came in contact, 
 carried on their terrible devastations, as it 
 appears, without interruption, from the end 
 of the spring till the middle of harvest. 
 Their hatred of the English (they were 
 themselves of spurious English race) was in- 
 stanced in their conduct at Athenry, where, 
 while setting fire to the town, because it 
 had once been used as an English garrison, 
 one of them was urged to save the church, 
 as his mother lay interred in it ; he replied, 
 " were she there alive, I would burn her, 
 church and all, rather than suffer any Eng- 
 lish churl ever to possess the place ! " The 
 English authorities seem to have been for a 
 moment paralyzed ; and even the government 
 in Dublin was so much alarmed, that it was 
 resolved to pursue a temporizing policy. 
 The earl of Clanrickard, against whom there 
 was probably nothing more than a vague 
 suspicion, was set at liberty, on his promise 
 
 to appease the rebellion of his sons. Ac- 
 cording to the Irish accounts, he performed 
 his promise, and succeeded in drawing his 
 sons to obedience ; and they, at the close of 
 harvest, disbanded their soldiers, and re- 
 turned to their homes. According to the 
 English accounts, he had no sooner reached 
 Connaught, than he joined his sons in their 
 rebellion, which was not appeased until tlie 
 obnoxious president was recalled. 
 
 In the south. Sir John Perrott had fol- 
 lowed up some of the adherents of James of 
 Desmond, the Mac Carthys, Fitz Maurice 
 of Kerry, the Barrys, and the Roches, into 
 the strong fortress of Castlemaine, on the 
 coast of Kerry, which sustained an obstinate 
 siege during three months. James of Des- 
 mond himself had left his hiding places in 
 Munster, to join the sons of the earl of 
 Clanrickard, whom he had accompanied in 
 all their plundering expeditions ; it was his 
 principal object in joining them, to persuade 
 them to march southward into Kerry to the 
 relief of Castlemaine. His hopes in this 
 respect were overthrown by the disbanding 
 of their troops in autumn ; but he prevailed 
 upon a number of the Scottish auxiliaries 
 to follow his fortunes. When he marched 
 with them into Munster, he learnt that 
 Castlemaine castle had already been starved 
 into a surrender, and he led his Scots into 
 the wilds of Desmond, where, with their aid, 
 he was enabled to defeat for a few more 
 weeks all the attempts of the English to 
 hunt him from his haunts. " It is impos- 
 sible," says the Irish annalist, " to relate all 
 that James encountered of perils and great 
 dangers, of want of food and sleep, and witli 
 only a few forces and adherents, from the 
 English and Irish of the two provinces of 
 Munster during that year." 
 
 The rebellion of Munster was, however, 
 now also approaching its end. The efforts 
 of Sir John Perrott to hunt out the rebels, 
 and bring them to a decisive action, had been 
 incessant; but he had hitherto met only with 
 partial success. Kilmallock had been partly 
 rebuilt, and, on account of the importance 
 of its position in the vicinity of the wilds of 
 Harlow, made a principal military station. 
 At the end of October, 1572, the garrison 
 of this ill-fated town marched into the woods 
 of Harlow by night, and succeeded in sur- 
 prising James of Desmond with his Scots, in 
 their lodgings in cabins or tents. They 
 slew thirty of them, and captured thirteen 
 horses and hackneys, and four score kine, 
 with most of their apparel and weapons 
 
 435 
 
SUBMISSION OF FiTZ MAURICE.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1573. 
 
 The rest, with their leader, made their escape 
 on foot into the recesses of the forest. 
 
 This surprise seems at last to have broken 
 the spirit of James fitz Maurice. He re- 
 mained concealed in his haunts during the 
 winter which followed; and on tlie 21st of 
 February, 1573, the seneschal of Imokilly 
 (a Geraldine) and Owen Mac Richard (a 
 Burke), two of Fitz Maurice's cliief men, 
 came to the lord president at Castletown 
 Roche, in the county of Cork, where he was 
 residing with tlie lord Roche, to signify that 
 James fitz Maurice was at length ready to 
 make his submission. They brought with 
 them Fitz Maurice's son as a pledge of " the 
 father's repentant mind for his undutiful 
 behaviour:" they stated tliat the chief of tiie 
 rebellion preferred death to longer continu- 
 ance in arms against the queen ; and they 
 declared that it was his intention on the fol- 
 lowing day, without furtlier security than 
 the bare word of the lord president for his 
 safe coming and going, to appear before him, 
 and crave mercy on his knees. Perrott pro- 
 ceeded immediately to Kilmallock, where he 
 was to receive the suppliant, who made his 
 appearance there at the time appointed, be- 
 fore the lord of Galway, accompanied by a 
 considerable number of his followers. The 
 following account of tliis ceremony, whicli 
 toi)k place in the ruined churcli of Kilmal- 
 lock, which he had himself destroyed, is 
 taken almost verbatim from the oificial pa- 
 per still preserved in the state paper office. 
 
 The rebels entered the church in the 
 midst of a multitude of people ; and there 
 James fitz Maurice, the seneschal of Imo- 
 killy, and otliers of his confederacy, kneel- 
 ing on both knees, with their hands joined 
 and cast upward, and with countenances 
 " bewraying their great sorrow and fervent 
 repentance for their former life." James of 
 Desmond acted as spokesman, first in Eng- 
 lish, and tiien in Irish, for himself and his 
 followers. He said, that in the eleventh 
 year of her Majesty's reign, he had been 
 led, partly by his own error and want of 
 knowledge of his duty, and partly by asso- 
 ciating with the earl of Clancarthy and Sir 
 Edmund Butler, into a rebellion with those 
 chiefs against the queen. "And when too 
 late I understood how far I had waded in 
 disloyalty ; that 1, with the rest, was in the 
 cities and towns of the land proclaimed 
 traitor ; I sought to void the realm, and be- 
 ing, by good keeping of the ports, debarred 
 of passage, was so void of friends as, when 
 the rest were received into mercy, I could 
 43U 
 
 not at that time have any who, either for 
 my good or stinting of evil, would be mean 
 for me unto her Majesty or the governors of 
 this realm. But rather as a destitute person 
 left to maintain the quarrels of the rest, and 
 desperate and hopeless of all favour, I have 
 devilishly followed my wickedness, and be- 
 ing in heart full of anguish and sorrow for 
 the mischief that I heaped upon mischief, 
 could never have bewrayed the same, or re- 
 ceive the favour to be but once heard, until 
 this present time. And now, therefore, 
 with the eyes of my heart sore weeping, 
 and bewailing my most devilish life past, I 
 acknowledge myself to have most wickedly 
 rebelled against God, and most undutifully 
 against my prince, and most unnaturally 
 against my native country ; the hearsay 
 whereof in particular were needless in this 
 audience to be made known, which are wit- 
 nesses of them all, and which (woe worth the 
 chance !) have and might condemned me as 
 the rankest traitor alive." 
 
 During this confession, the lord president 
 stood before him, holding his naked sword 
 with the point towards Fitz Maurice's 
 heart. When he had finished the words 
 just recited, the rebel chief humbly deli- 
 vered up his own sword, and continued : " This 
 sword that I wear (wliich by God's appoint- 
 ment should be used in the service of my 
 2)rince, or in my lawful defence ; and not 
 otherwise), I yield, as abused from its pro- 
 per course, unto her majesty, and do bereave 
 myself from the use thereof, until it shall 
 please her majesty for my farther trial to 
 commit unto me any piece of service, wherein 
 I vow as much faith and earnestness as any 
 man can have. Her majesty's sword I cannot 
 but acknowledge hath wearied and over- 
 come me, and unto the same I humbly and 
 willingly do yield, and under the same I 
 vow to fight all the residue of my life, if 
 it may please your lordship to draw your 
 sword, that I may kiss the same as a token 
 of her majesty's sword, and also to be a 
 mean unto her highness to vouchsafe to 
 accept me as her most miserable vassal." 
 
 Having kissed the lord president's sword, 
 Fitz Maurice lastly threw himself prostrate 
 on the ground, exclaiming, "And now this 
 earth of Kilmallock, which town I have 
 most traitorously sacked and burnt, I kiss, 
 and on the same I Lie prostrate, overfraught 
 with sorrow upon this present view of my 
 most mischievous part. And so, right hon- 
 ourable, as my most dread sovereign lady 
 the queen's majesty hath throughout the 
 
A.D. 
 
 !,jT;;.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [return of e. of desmond. 
 
 world most amply spread her glory for 
 mercy, so prostrate here I beseech your 
 good lordships to be a mean unto her high- 
 ness, rather to have an eye unto that mercy 
 which hath made her most honourable, than 
 to her justice, wherewith I confess I have 
 deserved a thousand times to be destroyed." 
 
 Such was the abject, and at the same time 
 most insincere submission of James fitz 
 Maurice ; who was no sooner released, by 
 the leniency of the government, from the 
 perilous position which he had just occu- 
 pied, than he entered into negotiations with 
 foreign powers, and threw himself into those 
 desperate courses which ended in his own 
 destruction. Yet the Irish annalists speak 
 of it as a treaty of peace between James of 
 Desmond and the English president, and 
 they intimate that the delivery of the earl 
 of Desmond and his brother, sir John, was 
 the price of Fitz Maurice's submission. 
 
 At the period when the events just related 
 took place, the earl and his brother had 
 been released from confinement, although 
 they were still detained at court, where they 
 were at times received by the queen even 
 with favour. It was now thought advisable 
 to send them back to Ireland, in the hope 
 that, by being restored to their lands when 
 the turbulence of their kinsman had drawn 
 upon him and them so sore a retribution, 
 they might learn to appreciate the advan- 
 tages of duty and obedience. Sir Thomas 
 Smith, now one of Elizabeth's secretaries 
 of state, writes to lord Burghley on the 8th 
 of January, 1573, " The earl of Desmond 
 hath been before her majesty, whom her 
 highness liked well for his plainness, and 
 hath good hope of his truth and constancy. 
 To sir John 1 perceive she gave a privy nip, 
 that as he hath a good wit,* so he should 
 hereafter use it well. He, like one not un- 
 wise nor unexpert, craved pardon; if any- 
 thing heretofore were amiss, all should be 
 amended. This her majesty would I should 
 show you, that you might give him a good 
 lesson, when he taketh his leave of you; 
 and let him understand that her highness 
 shall always understand of all his doings. 
 Her majesty told me she would give the 
 earl apparel, and some gentle remem- 
 brance at his going away, which is very 
 honourable and princely to do, and some 
 comfort and amends for his long imprison- 
 ment." 
 
 * The earl of Desmond was notoriously wanting 
 in wisdom, and tlie superiority of his brother, sir 
 John, is not unfrequently alluded to. 
 
 Another chief was at the same time to be 
 sent back to his people. This was the earl 
 Ormond, who had been some time in Eng- 
 land, and whose brothers still pursued an 
 equivocal course. Thus the three great 
 earldoms in Ireland, those of Desmond, 
 Ormond, and Clanrickard, were all in a 
 state of rebellion arising from the absence 
 or want of power of their chiefs. The earl 
 of Clanrickard, on his return from Dublin 
 to Connaught, had joined his sons in pro- 
 testing against the rigorous rule of sir 
 Edward Fitton, and had made his complaint 
 to the lord deputy. The earl's grievances 
 had degenerated into a personal feud with 
 the lord president of Connaught, and his 
 complaints appear chiefly to have been of a 
 personal character. Sydney succeeded in 
 effecting a temporary reconciliation, but the 
 earl of Clanrickard had persisted in pressing 
 his complaints, which were now in the hands 
 of Elizabeth's ministers. On the tenth of 
 January, only two days after the date of the 
 letter last quoted, sir Thomas Smith wrote 
 again to Burghley on the subject of the earl 
 of Desmond. "The earl is here," he says, 
 "and I perceive the queen's majesty will 
 give him some silks for apparel, and some 
 money in reward. I hope he will be a good, 
 plain, and faithful subject. He desireth very 
 much that the earl of Ormond might also go 
 into Ireland with him, for he doubteth, when 
 he hath driven all the rebels out of his coun- 
 try (whereof he thinks himself sure soon to 
 do), they will fly to the earl of Ormond's bro- 
 thers and the earl of Clanricard's sons, all 
 those yet rebels and not pardoned, nor 
 assured of their lives, and so make more 
 trouble in some one or other place, that he 
 shall not be able to enjoy that quiet, the 
 which he doth desire, to make himself rich 
 by it." In the sequel of the same letter 
 the writer says, "betwixt Fitton and the 
 earl of Clanrickard, I intend to send, with 
 my lords of the council's letters, both the 
 earl's books (i. e. bills of complaints), and sir 
 Edward Fitton's answers, referring the de- 
 ciding thereof to my lord deputy and the 
 council. If the earl will need have the 
 matters sifted to the full trial, then each 
 one to make himself party against the other, 
 and to say and prove the most and worst 
 they can. Marry ! if my lords, shall think 
 so good, if the deputy can persuade them 
 both to wrap up all things by -past, and to 
 be friends, as they promised to be at their 
 reconciliation before my lord deputy and 
 the council, and to join faithfully for the 
 
 437 
 
SIR THOMAS SMITH.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1572. 
 
 furtherance of the queen's majesty's service, 
 and quiet, and good order of their country 
 liereafter, in my mind it were the best way 
 to tread all underfoot that hath gone before, 
 with a perpetual a/^frjaTia (forgetting), and 
 to begin a new life, without grating upon 
 old sores." "If," he continues, " my lord 
 deputy's man be not gone, as I trust he be 
 not, it were well done that the dispatch to 
 tell of the earl of Desmond's and his bro- 
 ther's coming over, and in what sort, went 
 before, that sir John Perrott may be adver- 
 tised, and his mind known, and so the earl 
 not to be long detained in suspense at 
 Dublin. For seeing the queen's majesty 
 doth mind to tie the carl to her service with 
 
 a benefit, it should be ample, liheraliter, et 
 jyrolixe done, not mnligne et parce, which 
 doth so disgrace it, that, for love, many 
 time it Icaveth a grudge behind in the heart 
 of him which should receive it, that mars 
 the whole benefit." 
 
 This last passage proves that there was no 
 intention on the part of the queen to detain 
 the earl of Desmond unnecessarily at Dub- 
 lin, while it shows that there was an ex- 
 pectation that he would meet with some 
 detention. On their arrival, sir John of 
 Desmond was immediately sent to Munster, 
 but the earl was placed under arrest, for 
 what reason is not stated, and according 
 to some accounts he was thrown into prison. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE COLONY IN THE AEDES: TUE EARL OF ESSEX IN ULSTER. 
 
 E must now again turn 
 '^ our attention to the north, 
 which between the Irish, 
 divided themselves into 
 numerous feuds, the Scots, 
 and the English settlers 
 was in great disorder. It had been, for 
 some time, a favourite project, to establish 
 English colonies in various parts of Ulster, 
 which had been partially depopulated by 
 the continual ravages to which they had been 
 exposed for so many years. As early as 
 1570, the celebrated statesman and scholar, 
 sir Thomas Smith, who then held the oiEce 
 of secretary of state, had obtained a grant 
 of the district called the Ardes, a long pe- 
 ninsula on the coast of Down, separated 
 from the mainland by Strangford Lough. 
 To the north lay the district of Clannaboy, 
 inhabited by the Hebridean Scots, who were 
 at this time governed by a chief named Sar- 
 leboy, the same who had been made a pri- 
 soner by Shane O'Neill, when that chieftain 
 invaded this Scottish territory. The district 
 of the Ardes was a rich and pleasant country, 
 commodiously situated for trade by sea ; but 
 it appeal's to have had at this time few in- 
 habitants, and to have been in many parts 
 little better than a wilderness. 
 
 The preamble of the indenture between 
 438 
 
 the queen and sir Thomas Smith states, that 
 " there were in her highness's earldom of 
 Ulster divers parts and parcels that lay 
 waste, or else were inhabited with a wicked, 
 barbarous, and uncivil people, some Scot- 
 tish, and some wild Irish, and such as lately 
 had been rebellious to her, and commonly 
 were out of all good order, and, as it were, 
 in continual rebellion ;" in consequence of 
 which "her majesty considered how great 
 a benefit it would be to her realm of Ireland, 
 and what honour and commodity to herself, 
 to have the same peopled with good and 
 obedient subjects, who should be a force at 
 all times to aid her deputy, or other officer, to 
 repress all rebels and seditious people, and 
 be an occasion, by their examjile, to bring the 
 rude and barbarous nation of the wild Irish 
 to more civility of manners ; and had, there- 
 fore, often desired and wished that some 
 occasion to this purpose might be offered." 
 
 By the patent granting the Ardes to sir 
 Thomas Smith, sir Thomas, who was in- 
 vested with power to make war, and to dis- 
 tribute lands, orders, and laws, was to be at 
 the expense of obtaining and governing the 
 country, according to instructions and orders 
 from the queen and her council. But at 
 the end of seven years, the government was 
 to return to such officers as were appointed 
 
A.D. 1573.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [colony of the ardes. 
 
 by the customs and laws of England, unless 
 the queen should thmk proper to appoint 
 him governor of it as a frontier country, he 
 alone to retain the right of inheritance, the 
 authority to muster and call together his 
 soldiers throughout this district, and to dis- 
 pose of them upon the frontiers as he should 
 see cause for its defence. 
 
 In this patent Sir Thomas had joined 
 with himself his illegitimate son, Thomas 
 Smith, who, in 1571, went over to take 
 possession of the Ardes at the head of a 
 considerable body of colonists and soldiers, 
 to each of whom was given a portion of land. 
 Sir Thomas drew up for his son a paper of 
 orders and instructions, and another of ad- 
 vice. His orders were arranged under two 
 heads, — the first, for the military rule of 
 the colony ; the second, for the civil govern- 
 ment ; and he was particularly anxious to 
 establish provisions to hinder the colonists 
 from forgetting the English manners, laws, 
 and customs, and degenerating into the 
 rudeness and barbarity of the people among 
 whom they were going to settle. In fact, 
 we are informed that one of the chief ob- 
 jects of the expedition was, that " those 
 half barbarous people might be taught some 
 civility." 
 
 On his arrival in Ireland, the young 
 Smith found in the Ardes a few families of 
 old English blood, the chief of whom was a 
 branch of the Savages, and these at once 
 united with the new English settlers. He 
 not only attempted to conciliate to his in- 
 terests the few Scottish families who were 
 in the Ardes, but he entered into communi- 
 cation with his neighbour Sarleboy and the 
 Scots of Clannaboy, and after much con- 
 verse they came to articles of agreement ; 
 the conditions of which were, that Sarleboy 
 should be denizened, and thenceforward hold 
 his lands of the queen as her faithful sub- 
 ject, paying a yearly rent in acknowledgment. 
 Sir Thomas Smith writes to lord Burghley on 
 the 27th of February, 1573, " I have received 
 this day letters from my son out of Ireland. 
 Still he proceedeth with his communication 
 with Sarleboy, to make those two nations 
 all one ; and, as it appears, the Scot is the 
 more earnest, considering, indeed, that if 
 the English and Scottish should strive to- 
 gether, when the one hath weakened the 
 other, the wild Irish, like the jjut-hawk, 
 might drive them out, or carry away both. 
 In mine opinion, the queen's majesty can 
 lose nothing if Sarleboy be made denizen 
 and homages to her highness with oath and 
 
 yearly rent, to acknowledge the hold which 
 he hath, to have it only of the queen's 
 majesty's gift, and to be a faithful subject, 
 or else to lose his right. The making of 
 him denizen may be considered, whether he 
 and all his, in general words, or him and so 
 many as he particularly named ; and like- 
 wise the giving of the lands from the queen's 
 majesty to him above all, or to divers per- 
 sons named, or by particular means from me 
 and my son. But if her majesty be resolved 
 once of the end, that is, to make him denizen 
 and as near Engbsh, the manner now may 
 the easilier be considered and directed." 
 
 At their first arrival, the colonists received 
 some support and countenance from theEng- 
 lish garrison placed in the important post of 
 Carrickfergus ; but the parsimonious policy 
 of Elizabeth led her to take advantage of 
 this expedition to withdraw at least a por- 
 tion of that garrison, and so leave the de- 
 fence of Carrickfergus to the soldiers in the 
 private pay of the new adventurer. The co- 
 lonists appear to have been much harassed 
 by the natives during the winter which fol- 
 lowed their arrival, and to have felt severely 
 the want of reinforcements. Even Carrick- 
 fergus was threatened, and the settlers were 
 compelled to apply to the queen for support. 
 " I trust," says Elizabeth's secretary, in the 
 letter just quoted, " the queen's majesty, if 
 her highness will bestow no foot or horsemen 
 upon my son, will at least this year suffer 
 those bands to be there to countenance and 
 support that new begun aid and fort, and not 
 leave it so naked as it hath been all this win- 
 ter, by cassing (breaking) of those bands 
 which heretofore were the defence of Carrick- 
 fergus and the harbour of the north. Certain 
 it is, that if my son had not relieved the lord of 
 Harvey's band at his own charge, Carrickfer- 
 gus had been in great danger, or else clean 
 lost." 
 
 Thomas Smith appears to have acted with 
 quite as much prudence and moderation as 
 could be expected under the circumstances. 
 As a colonizer, he came upon lands inha- 
 bited by peoj)le who had the prior claim of 
 possession, and who, although they were few, 
 and derived little enjoyment from them, 
 were not willing to surrender them at dis- 
 cretion. Hence there was from the first a 
 war of hatred and extermination between 
 the English and the wild Irish. The treaty 
 with Sarleboy was not brought to a final 
 conclusion. It was probably cut short, like 
 so many of sir Thomas Smith's projects in 
 Ireland, by the untimely fate of his son. Not 
 
 439 
 
THE EARL OF ESSEX.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 
 
 many daj's after the date of the letter quoted 
 above, tlie leader of tlie colony of the Ardes 
 was treacherously attacked and slain by one 
 of the O'Neills, of the family of the old Irish 
 rulers of Clannaboy, at the very moment when 
 these new adventurers, who had purchased 
 portions of the land, were preparing to start 
 to join the colony. The latter continued 
 still to hold its ground, and sir Thomas Smith 
 watched over its welfare till his death, in 
 1577. The territory of the Ardes remained 
 in his family till the accession of James I., 
 when they were unjustly deprived of it 
 through the intrigues of some of that king's 
 Scottish favourites. 
 
 The prospect of self-aggrandizement in 
 Ulster was, at the time of Thomas Smith's 
 death, attracting the attention of personages 
 of higher rank and influence. Some com- 
 motions liad taken place in the district of 
 Clannaboy, wliich gave alarm to the govern- 
 ment, and Walter Devereux earl of Essex, 
 a nobleman of an enterprizing temper, offered 
 his services to reduce that district, and plant 
 it with English settlers. The plan is said to 
 have received secret encouragement from the 
 aspiring earl of Leicester and others who 
 were anxious to remove the earl of Essex 
 to a distance from court, and the proposal 
 was readily accepted. It was agreed that 
 the earl should be invested with a moiety 
 of the country to be thus planted ; that an 
 army of one thousand two hundred forces 
 should be maintained, and fortifications 
 raised, at the joint expense of the queen 
 and Essex ; that every horseman who should 
 voluntarily engage in this expedition for two 
 years, should receive a grant of four hundred 
 acres of land, and every footman, two hun- 
 dred, at a rent of two pence the acre ; and 
 that the earl should be commander-in-chief 
 for seven years, and, in concurrence with 
 the crown, continue the plantation until a 
 thousand English settlers should be estab- 
 lished in each moiety. 
 
 So sanguine were the hopes entertained of 
 this expedition, that the earl of Essex mort- 
 gaged his estates to the queen for ten thou- 
 sand pounds ; and the lords Dacre and Rich, 
 sir Henry Knollys, and liis four brothers, 
 three sons of lord Norris, and several other 
 Englishmen of distinction, determined to 
 risk their lives and fortunes in it. But the 
 earl met with delays and impediments at 
 every step, cldefly promoted, it was said, by 
 his secret enemies, which eventually broke 
 his spirit and paralyzed his exertions. The 
 first of these arose from a dispute concerning 
 440 
 
 the degree of authority with which the com- 
 mander of the expedition was to be entrusted. 
 Sir Henry Sydney had obtained his recal from 
 the government of Ireland, which was now 
 entrusted to sir William Fitzwilliams. This 
 deputy saw in the powers which were to be 
 given to the earl of Essex a diminution 
 of his own authority, and he remonstrated 
 warmly against the earl's commission, and 
 what he treated as an unreasonable attempt 
 to form a settlement in Ulster, which was 
 then, he said, in a state of violent commotion, 
 and required the authority and power of the 
 deputy himself, and not the presence of a 
 band of new adventurers, to reduce it to 
 order. Essex's friends, and still more, it is 
 said, his enemies, prevailed with the queen 
 to persist in her plan, but she now appeased 
 the jealousy of sir William Fitzwilliams, by 
 arranging that the earl should receive his 
 commission from the lord deputy, so as to 
 appear to act under his orders. Other ex- 
 cuses for delay soon presented themselves, 
 and it was not till the summer of 1573 that 
 the earl was enabled to proceed to Ireland. 
 He sent an official information to the lord 
 deputy Fitzwilliams, that he was coming 
 to take possession of the forfeited lands in 
 the Glj'ns, Routes, and Clannaboy, and a 
 proclamation was made, that the object of 
 his coming was not hostility to the Irish, but 
 that it was his design merely to expel the 
 Scots. 
 
 No sooner, however, was it known that 
 the earl had landed with his formidable 
 force at Carrickfergus, than the Irish of 
 Clannaboy arose in arms under their chief- 
 tain, Brian mac Felim O'Neill, and they 
 were assisted in resisting the English not 
 only by Hugh, the son of Matthew of Dun- 
 gannon, but by Turlough O'Neill himself. 
 These chieftains, following the old system 
 of warfare of their countrymen, harassed 
 the forces of the earl of Essex by continual 
 attacks and skirmishes; and he soon found 
 that his men were many of them unfitted 
 for the service, and that he had agents of 
 his enemies in his own ranks who were busy 
 thwarting his plans, nor was he himself 
 fitted by superior energies or talents to over- 
 come the difficulties with which he had to 
 contend. To add to his mortification, the 
 lord Rich, sir Henry Knollys, and others of 
 the more distinguished of his associates, de- 
 serted his standard, and, making one excuse 
 or another, returned to their native country'. 
 
 Attacked by the combined strength of the 
 O'Neills, Essex appears to have tried to 
 
A.D. 
 
 1575.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [Elizabeth's irresolution. 
 
 strengthen himself by alliance with the 
 O'Donnells and Mac Mahons, and Con the 
 son of Calvagh O'Donnell repaired to him 
 in his camp. But his conduct having given 
 ground for suspicion, he was there placed 
 under arrest, and sent a prisoner to Dublin, 
 and the earl of Essex seized upon his strong 
 castle of Lifford. Soon after this event, 
 the earl met Brian mac Felim in the field, 
 and the Irish chieftain was defeated with 
 the slaughter of nearly two hundred of his 
 men, Brian himself and his wife being made 
 prisoners. According to the Irish accounts, 
 which make no mention of this defeat, 
 Essex now made a treaty of peace with 
 Brian mac Felim, and the latter, in sign of 
 reconciliation, invited the English, with the 
 earl and the lord deputy, to a tumultuous 
 feast, where they eat and drank in the midst 
 of great rejoicing during three days and 
 three nights. At the end of that time, 
 without any previous intimation of displea- 
 sure, the earl, we are told, called in his 
 soldiers, and caused all the Irish to be put 
 to the sword, without regard to sex or age, 
 sparing only Brian and his wife and brother, 
 who v/ere sent in chains to Dublin, where 
 they were treated as rebels, and put to 
 death and quartered. Perhaps we may still 
 be permitted to doubt the truth of this tale 
 of atrocity, until some more substantial 
 authorities be discovered in support of it. 
 It seems difficult to explain why the earl, 
 after having taken the Irish chieftain pri- 
 soner in a decisive battle, should set him at 
 liberty with the mere object of recapturing 
 him by a disgraceful act of treachery. 
 
 These were the only exploits performed 
 by the earl of Essex in fulfilment of the 
 extravagant hopes held out at the com- 
 mencement of the expedition, and he now 
 only became involved every day in greater 
 perplexities, and the high title given to him 
 of earl marshal of Ireland, seemed but a 
 mockery of his incapacity. He wrote to 
 the queen pathetically describing his diffi- 
 culties and mortifications ; but Elizabeth, 
 in spite of the influence of her courtiers, 
 was evidently convinced in her own mind 
 of the futility of Essex's plans, and she 
 was reluctant to embark further in it. 
 The manner in which she went on resolving, 
 and as often revoking her resolutions, is 
 described in the private correspondence of 
 her secretary, sir Tliomas Smith, wlio took 
 a greater interest in this expedition, because 
 on its success depended in no small degree 
 the value of his own lands in the Ardes. In 
 
 VOL. I. 3 K 
 
 the spring of 1575, the queen's irresolution 
 on this matter seems to have given great 
 anxiety to her secretary, who communicated 
 his sentiments somewhat freely to the lord 
 treasurer Burghley. After many conversa- 
 tions on the subject, at length one night, 
 towards the end of the month of March in 
 the j'ear just mentioned, the queen opened 
 tlie subject to sir Thomas Smith, and de- 
 clared her dislike of the entei-prise of Ulster 
 on account of the incapacity of those em- 
 ployed in it. She asked him what men of 
 counsel and wisdom there were into whose 
 hands might be committed so great a mass 
 of money and so great a charge as was now 
 required. The conversation which followed, 
 as described by the secretary himself, was 
 highly characteristic. The latter replied to 
 the queen that the counsel what and how 
 to do therein was already taken, and that a 
 " plat," or plan, had been laid down by 
 the earl of Essex, allowed of by the lord 
 deputy and council in Ireland, and approved 
 by the lords of her council in London, and 
 that she, by letters to the lord deputy and 
 to the earl of Essex, had given her consent 
 to it. Consultation, he said, had been taken, 
 and now was the time for action, to which 
 her majesty had set a good beginning by 
 giving a warrant for the half year's charges. 
 And, said he, "counsels be commonly of 
 old men, grave men, and full of exjjerience, 
 and at home ; the execution is to be done 
 by young men, captains, and soldiers, 
 abroad. And my lord of Essex hath 
 shown great wisdom, courage, and boldness 
 hitherto, and brought it to a very good pass 
 for a beginning ; and now, having more ex- 
 perience, and Malby and other captains 
 with him of courage, it was to be hoped 
 that he should bring it to a good end." 
 "Yea," said the queen, "but who hath he 
 with him but Malby? Shall I trust so great 
 a matter to him, and such a mass of 
 money? Who shall have the charge of it?" 
 " Madam," replied the secretary, " the 
 money is to be committed to the treasurer 
 there; and upon his accounts to be em- 
 ployed upon the captains and soldiers for 
 their wages and victuals, and upon fortifica- 
 tions. If he do keep his plat, then he fol- 
 loweth that wliich the wisest heads of the 
 counsellors in England think fit and best to 
 be done; otherwise he deceiveth them, and 
 your highness, and most of all himself; 
 which it is not likely that he should, and I 
 trust he will not do." Still the queen 
 harped upon the want of able ministers, 
 
 411 
 
DEATH OF ESSEX.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1576. 
 
 and some time again passed before she came 
 to a final resolution. 
 
 In the meanwhile the earl had obtained 
 leave to return to England, and there solicit 
 his own cause.* In 1576 he returned with 
 considerable reinforcements, to make a new 
 attempt to carry out the plan for settling the 
 district of Clannaboy ; but it was only to 
 meet with new disappointments. He is said 
 to have been still persecuted by the intrigues 
 of the earl of Leicester ; a difference arose 
 between him and the queen as to the pro- 
 portion in which the two thousand settlers 
 were to be distributed ; and, at last, wearied 
 and broken-spirited, the earl returned to 
 Dublin, and the plan was abandoned. From 
 Dublin, Essex addressed to the lord deputy 
 Sydney bitter complaints and remonstrances 
 against the injustice with which he considered 
 he had been treated, and the impolicy of not 
 carrying out the engagement he had entered 
 into with some of the lords of Ulster, best 
 affected to the English government, such as 
 O'Donnell, Mac Mahon, and others, " whom, 
 on the pledged word of the queen, he had, 
 as it were, undone, abused, and bewitched 
 with fair promises." It was not long after 
 this that he was seized with an attack of 
 dysentery at Dublin, and of this disease, 
 combined perhaps with a broken heart, he 
 died in Dublin, on the 22nd of September, 
 1576. It was generally believed that this 
 nobleman was poisoned by an agent of his 
 enemy, the earl of Leicester, and the his- 
 torian Camden assures us, that the sus- 
 pected poisoner had been pointed out to 
 him in public. The suspicion of unfair 
 play was strengthened by the circumstance, 
 that, immediately after his death, the earl 
 of Leicester obtained a divorce from his 
 own wife, in order to marry the widowed 
 countess of Essex. 
 
 At no period since Elizabeth's accession 
 to the throne, had Ireland presented such a 
 general picture of turbulence, as under the 
 government of sir William Fitzwilliams. 
 For a moment, after the submission of 
 James fitz Maurice of Desmond, tliat island 
 seemed to give some promise of returning 
 to peace. The vigour of Sir .John Perrott's 
 government, and tlie impartial and unhesi- 
 tating mamier in which the law was adminis- 
 tered and executed under his presidency, 
 seemed to have changed the face of Mun- 
 
 * The Ii'ish " Annals of the Four Masters" pretend 
 
 that the earl of Essex was expelled from Ireland by 
 
 sir Henry Sydney on his re-appointment to the 
 
 government. The name of Sydney was popular 
 
 442 
 
 ster. Hooker, who as an attendant on sir 
 Peter Carew, took a special interest in the 
 affairs of the southern province, tells us 
 how Perrott, " after their deserts, executed 
 in infinite numbers" the lawless followers 
 of James fitz Maurice ; " and having thus 
 rid the garden from these weeds, and rooted 
 up the fields from these thorns, he entered 
 into the government by order of law ; and 
 from place to place throughout all Munster, 
 he travelleth and keepeth his sessions and 
 courts, hearing every man's complaints, and 
 redresseth their griefs ; and in short time 
 brought the same to such a quietness and 
 peaceable estate, that whereas no man before 
 could pass through the country but was in 
 danger to be murdered and robbed ; and no 
 man diu-st turn his cattle into the fields 
 without watch, and keep them in barns in 
 the night-time ; — now, every man, with a 
 white stick only in his hands, and with great 
 treasures, might and did travel without fear 
 or danger where he would (as the writer 
 hereof by trial knew it to be true) ; and the 
 white sheeji did keep the black, and all the 
 beasts lay continually in the fields, without 
 any stealing or preying. And now," con- 
 tinues Hooker, " when he had thus quieted 
 this province, and settled all things in good 
 order, than he beginneth to reform their 
 manners in life, and common conversation, 
 and apparel, suffering no glibes, nor like 
 usages of the Irishry, to be used among the 
 men, nor the Egyptiacal rolls upon womens' 
 heads to be worne ; whereat, though the 
 ladies and gentlewomen were somewhat 
 grieved, yet they yielded, and, giving the 
 same over, did wear hats after the English 
 manner." Even the Irish annalists of the 
 time speak of the extraordinary manner in 
 which sir John Perrott had " pacified and 
 subdued the country ; " and they acknow- 
 ledge, that when not long afterwards he was 
 recalled, " the departure of the president 
 was lamented by the poor, the widow, the 
 infirm, and indigent of the country." 
 
 The sentiments of Elizabeth were, in 
 general, far more liberal towards the Irish, 
 than those of her officers in that country. 
 She seems to have contemplated with horror 
 the green plains of the Emerald isle reddened 
 continually with the blood of its inhabitants; 
 she wished to conciliate the Irish chieftains 
 to her rule by forbearance and lenity ; and 
 
 among the Irish, while that of the earl of Essex was 
 an object of great detestation, on account of his pre- 
 tended treachery and cruelty. 
 
A.D. lb 
 
 i76.1 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [rebellions in leinster. 
 
 she was willing to look upon their religious 
 prejudices with indulgence. But she had 
 to deal with people who, habituated from 
 long custom to turbulence and suspicion, 
 did not appreciate her intentions ; whose 
 religious hostility was continually stirred up 
 by foreign emissaries, and whose character 
 and condition, from their distance from her 
 court, she only partially understood. Her 
 deputies went always with directions to put 
 in practice the policy which her inclinations 
 suggested; but they no sooner began to act, 
 than, irritated by the opposition they en- 
 countered on every side, they found them- 
 selves dragged irresistibly into the severer 
 measures of their predecessors. Such was 
 the case with the new lord deputy, sir Wil- 
 liam Fitzwilliams, although a man, by long 
 experience, well acquainted with the con- 
 dition of Ireland and the character of the 
 people he was called to rule. We are told, 
 that he found the country " somewhat 
 quiet ; " and, in the hope, not only of con- 
 tinuing, but of increasing, this tranquillity, 
 he began by establishing certain principles 
 of government which were to rule his con- 
 duct, and that of all his ministers. The first 
 of these related to the encouragement of 
 religion ; the second was, " that the common 
 peace and quietness throughout the whole 
 land might and should be conserved, and all 
 occasions of the breach thereof and of all 
 quarrels and divisions to be cut off;" the 
 third, that the revenues should be more 
 carefully husbanded, and an attempt made 
 to diminish the queen's " excessive charges;" 
 and the last was, " that the laws and justice 
 might have their due course, and be current 
 throughout the whole land, and the judges 
 and oificers should uprightly minister justice 
 to each man according to his desert, and that 
 all the soldiers should be kept in that dis- 
 cipline as to them appertaineth." 
 
 But it was soon found that rules like these 
 were more easily made than practised ; and 
 the new deputy had hardly taken into his 
 hands the reins of government, when the 
 hvdra head of discord raised itself through- 
 out the land. It showed itself first among 
 the Cavenaghs of Leinster. Brian mac 
 Cahir Cavenagh, of Knocking in the county 
 of Carlow, having quarrelled with an Eng- 
 lish gentleman of that neighbourhood, 
 Robert Browne of Malrenkam, invaded his 
 lands, ravaged them with fire and sword, 
 and slew Browne himself. The English 
 landowners of Wexford took up Robert 
 Browne's quarrel, and made war upon Brien 
 
 mac Cahir, and their hostilities threw that 
 part of the country into wild commotion. 
 At length the Wexford gentlemen allowed 
 themselves to be drawn into a snare by their 
 enemies, and Brian mac Cahir defeated 
 them with great slaughter, although much 
 inferior to them in numbers. Havingr once 
 taken up arms, the Cavenagh remained in 
 rebellion during two years, and then he 
 made his submission, " confessing in writing 
 his foul disorders and outrages, and yet 
 firmly avouching that the quarrel did not 
 begin by him, nor by his means." He 
 thenceforth became a faithful subject, and 
 became warmly attached to sir Peter Carew. 
 
 Next after the Cavenaghs, the O'Connors 
 and the O'Moores rebelled, and carried 
 devastation through the districtsin their occu- 
 pation. The south of Munster was thrown 
 into new agitation by the escape of the earl 
 of Desmond, who had been retained in 
 Dublin on his parole. Under pretence of 
 hunting, he is said to have mounted a fleet 
 horse, and, flying to the south, reached his 
 own country in safety. There his retainers 
 and friends soon assembled around him, and 
 he took possession of his castles and estates; 
 without actually declaring war against the 
 government, he assumed a position which 
 gave so much alarm, that preparations were 
 made even in England in full apprehension 
 of a new and formidable rebellion in the 
 south. In the spring of the following year, 
 Desmond turned his arms against those 
 chiefs of the south who had been the here- 
 ditary enemies of his family, or who had 
 trespassed on his possessions during his ab- 
 sence, and he gained a signal victory over 
 Mac Carthy More. The earl's brother, sir 
 John of Desmond, also took wp arms, and 
 captured a strong castle in the district of 
 Clonmel. The lord deputy, informed of 
 these disorders, raised the forces of the pale, 
 and, joining with the earl of Ormond and 
 the Butlers, marched into Desmond, and 
 took the castle of Derry-an-Lair, the garrison 
 of which were immediately executed as 
 rebels. This act of severity produced an 
 immediate effect ; many of the earl of Des- 
 mond's adherents forsook him ; and the earl 
 himself made his submission and obtained 
 his peace by the voluntary surrender of his 
 strong fortresses of Castlemaine, Dungarvan, 
 and Kenry. 
 
 The more northern district of Thomond 
 was at the same time involved in still greater 
 commotion. Besides the quarrels between 
 the O'Briens and tlie Burkes, there arose a 
 
 4A3 
 
SIR HENRY SYDNEY.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1575. 
 
 violent dissension among the O'Briens them- 
 selves. On one side were the earl of Tho- 
 mond and his brother Turlough O'Brien, and 
 on the other, Donal O'Brien and Teige 
 O'Brien, their near kinsmen. The cause of 
 hostilities betvi'een the two parties in 1573 
 was the desertion of one of the party of 
 Donal and Teige to the party of the earl. 
 The former were assisted by the Geraldines 
 of the south, while the latter were supported 
 by the Butlers and the Mac Sweeneys. 
 The earl of Thoniond was absent from his 
 territory, which perhaps encouraged the 
 other party to give the provocation, upon 
 which the earl's brother, Turlough, raised 
 his forces and called in his allies, and invaded 
 south Thomond, laying waste the lands of 
 his enemies with wild ferocity. But the 
 latter, goaded by this attack, rose under Do- 
 nal O'Brien, and pursued the invaders as 
 
 they were carrying off their plunder. A 
 battle was fought by the two parties in the 
 county of Clare, and the people of south Con- 
 naught gained a complete victory, slaughter- 
 ing great numbers of their enemies, and 
 retaking the plunder. 
 
 Connaught was not much more tranquil 
 than Munster. There the sons of the earl 
 of Clanrickard were again in rebellion, and 
 most of the Irish septs were engaged in mu- 
 tual strife. To crown all, the retreat of the 
 earl of Essex having given encouragement 
 to the disaffected in tJlster, Sarleboy, and 
 the Scots under his rule, rose in arms and 
 made a desperate attack upon Carrickfergus, 
 and, though the Scots were eventually driven 
 away by the garrison, it was not without 
 considerable loss to the latter, as well as to 
 the townsmen. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GRAND PROGEESSES OF SIR HENRY SYDNEY. 
 
 ARASSED and wearied 
 by such an accumula- 
 tion of disorders, we 
 need not be surprised 
 if sir William Fitzwil- 
 liams gladly resigned 
 his charge into the 
 hands of sir Henry 
 Sydney, whose talents 
 were again called in to grapple with difficul- 
 ties which he had already more than once 
 encoimtered with success. In the latter part 
 of September, 1575, sir Henry Sydney came 
 to Ireland for the last time, and, to use the 
 words of the Irish annalist, he " found all 
 Ireland in one wave of war and commotion." 
 It was the moment of the attack upon Car- 
 rickfergus by Sarleboy, and, for this and 
 other causes, the lord deputy's attention was 
 naturally called first to the northern province. 
 About the time of his arrival, two chiefs of 
 the north. Con O'Donnell and Con O'Neill, 
 both imprisoned in Dublin, made their 
 escape, and took refuge in the wilds of Tir- 
 connell and Tyrone. Sydney landed at the 
 Skerries on the 12th of September, and after 
 leaving good order for the government of the 
 144 
 
 pale, proceeded immediately with an army to 
 Drogheda, on his way to Carrickfergus. The 
 Irishry of Ulster he found " grown very 
 insolent, and of such force and head, as cap- 
 tain Selby and Bawmford, clerk of the 
 check, coming from Knockfergus (Carrick- 
 fergus), with fifty horsemen in their com- 
 pany, were set upon and chased by the Irishry 
 two or three times by the way, and iiardly 
 escaped without danger of taking." From 
 Dundalk Sydney entered the Newry, a dis- 
 trict then held by the marshal, sir Nicholas 
 Bagnall ; and he observes : " I found such 
 good policy and order in the countries where 
 the marshall dwelleth, his lands so well 
 manured, his tenants so cherished and main- 
 tained, the town so well planted with inha- 
 bitants, and increased in beauty and building, 
 as he is much to be commended, as well that 
 he useth the tenants to live so wealthily 
 under him, as his own bounty and large hos- 
 pitality and housekeejjing ; so able and wil- 
 ling to give entertainment to so many, and 
 chiefly to all those that have occasion to 
 travel to or fro northwards, his house lying 
 in the open highway to their passage." 
 When the lord deputy approached the 
 
A.D. 1575.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [condition of ulster. 
 
 scene of the earl of Essex's enterprise, and 
 the territories granted to the new Englisli 
 settlers, the country presented a different 
 appearance, having been repeatedly ravaged 
 and wasted in the strugglesbetween the natives 
 and the invaders. " The Fews," he says, " the 
 country of Felini Roe's sons, and Orrery, the 
 O'Hanlon's country, I found in extreme dis- 
 order, not only for universal waste of them- 
 selves, but for the intollerable annoyances 
 and spoils of their neighbours in both borders, 
 as well English as Irish. The lands of both 
 which countries were given by her majesty 
 by indenture to Chatterton, who now re- 
 maineth there in England, I suppose half 
 dismayed of the untoward success of this 
 enterprise, and the little possibility he findeth 
 either in himself or his partners to do any 
 good." He suggests that the queen should 
 compound with the English grantees, and 
 make new grants to the original holders, who 
 would probably thus become good subjects. 
 " Next," says Sydney, " I came to Enagh, 
 or Maguire's country, which is not yet reco- 
 vered, but feeleth still the heavy burthen of 
 former spoils, and impeached with present 
 ill neighbourhood, and the worse planted, 
 manured, and inhabited, for that he is not 
 sure of it, by any certain estate, and there- 
 fore desireth by petition that he may have 
 it confirmed unto him from her majesty. 
 He hath, since the first time I brought him 
 out of subjection to O'Neill, remained a con- 
 stant and assured good subject, grown civil 
 and very tractable, accompanied me this 
 journey himself and his force with that for- 
 wardness to serve her majesty, as there 
 wanted no token of good will wherein he 
 might express any note of assured fidelity 
 and obedience." 
 
 The country beyond this, which had 
 been granted to Nicholas Malby, was found 
 "all desolate and waste, full of thieves, out- 
 laws, and unreclaimed people;" the old 
 Irish holders not daring to occupy the land 
 from fear of the English, and the English 
 not venturing to occupy it on account of 
 the Irish. In Lecale Sydney "found divers 
 very honest freeholders, but much of the 
 country waste, but now on the mending 
 hand, and far the better since the earl of 
 Essex had it, and that by his planting of 
 tenants and placing of soldiers, so that it 
 doth very well defend itself." Beyond this 
 district he found the country in a state of 
 insurrrection, and the Irish under some of 
 their chieftains, presented themselves in 
 arms, and dogged him on his way. The 
 
 Ardes were in an improving condition, and 
 the English settlers were taking courage to 
 cultivate their lands. Thence he proceeded 
 to Belfast, and so into Clannaboy, which 
 he found utterly disinhabited, and its Irish 
 ruler refused to hold any conference with 
 him. "The town of Carrickfergus," Sydney 
 continues, " I found much decayed and im- 
 poverished, no ploughs going at all where 
 before were many, and of great store of 
 kine and cattle belonging to the town now 
 few or none left. Church and houses, saving 
 castles, burnt; the inhabitants fled; not 
 above six householders of any countenance 
 left remaining, so that their miserable state 
 and servile f&ar was to be pitied; yet they 
 so comforted to hear of her majesty's gra- 
 cious disposition to wall their town (whereby 
 they assured themselves of safety and quiet 
 dwelling hereafter), as that hope hath and 
 doth procure and draw divers to resort and 
 build there, which when it shall be done, 
 the townsmen will multiply in number, and 
 thereby will follow an increase of a yearly 
 growing revenue to her majesty." 
 
 The neighbouring district of the Glynnes 
 and Route were inhabited by the Scots, 
 under Sarleboy. " The country full of 
 corn and cattle, and the Scot very haughty 
 and pi'oud, by reason of the late victories 
 he hath had against our men." Sydney, 
 however, brought the Scottish chief to a 
 treaty, and they concluded a suspension of 
 all hostilities until the petition of Sarle- 
 boy should have been considered by the 
 queen. 
 
 Having thus effected the main object of 
 his visit, Sydney returned by another route 
 to the Newry and to Armagh, at which city 
 he found " the churcli all down, the town 
 miserable, the fort imperfect, not worth the 
 charge of keeping, if there be peaceful pro- 
 ceeding." Here came to him the wife of 
 Turlough O'Neill, who is described as a 
 lady "very well spoken, of great modesty, 
 good nurture, parentage, and disposition ; a 
 great desire slie hath to have her husband 
 live like a good subject, and to have him 
 nobilitated." The day following Turlough 
 himself came to the lord deputy's camp, 
 without requiring pledge, promise, or hos- 
 tage, and remained there two days, "using 
 himself with such subjection and reverence, 
 and reposing such confidence and trust in 
 me, as in all his sjoeeciies he referred himself 
 to be adjudged, directed, and satisfied by 
 me." His first demands were not acceded 
 to, because he asked in general terms for as 
 
 445 
 
UNSETTLED STATE OF LEINSTER.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1575. 
 
 ample an estate and rule as others of his 
 surname had had before him. He there- 
 upon abated his pretensions, and made his 
 submission on terms which tlie deputy 
 judged right to be accepted. Other chiefs 
 of the north showed a willingness to become 
 peaceful subjects of the English crown, on 
 tlieir lands being assured to them according 
 to the English laws. 
 
 Towards the middle of November, Sydney 
 returned to Drogheda, and immediately af- 
 terwards, having visited tlie county of Louth, 
 which he also found in an impoverished state, 
 he proceeded on a progress through the pro- 
 vince of Leinster, which had not escaped 
 from the disorders that broke out under his 
 predecessor, and wliich had now more re- 
 cently suil'ercd from a visitation of the 
 plague. Meath was " cursedly scorched on 
 the outside" by the incursions of the O'Con- 
 nors and the O'Molloys in a late rebellion ; 
 but it was already recovering, and received 
 benefit, not only from the faithful manner 
 in wliich the Irish chiefs were now per- 
 forming the conditions of their submission, 
 but by the "just dealing" of their neighbour 
 O'Reilly, whom and his country Sydney 
 describes as " the justest Irishman and the 
 best ruled Irish country by an Irishman that 
 is in all Ireland." The borders of Westmeath 
 were also " sore spoiled" by rebels, and the 
 whole of that country was in need of refor- 
 mation. In some parts the queen's writ 
 was not yet current. The borders of the 
 county of Dublin were still greatly annoyed 
 by some of the turbulent O'Byrnes. The 
 counties of Kildare and Carlow were over- 
 run with outlaws, in consequence of whose 
 depredations nearly half the country lay 
 waste. The depredators belonged chiefly to 
 the septs of the O'Moores, the Bj'rnes, and 
 the Cavenaghs. Wexford was in a similar 
 condition ; and the districts forming the 
 King's and Queen's counties were, in part, 
 almost desolated by the ravages of male- 
 factors, who had their chief harbour in the 
 county of Kilkenny, which the lord deputy 
 designates as the " sink and receptacle of 
 innumerable cattle and goods stolen out of 
 many other countries, but undone by their 
 own idle men, and partly by harbouring of 
 persecuted rebels." Here, in the cathedral 
 church of Kilkenny, Rory Oge, an Irish 
 chief who had already given great trouble to 
 the English government, came in on the 
 word of the earl of Ormond, presented him- 
 self before the lord deputy, and made his 
 submission, " repenting, as he said, his 
 446 
 
 former faults, and promising hereafter to 
 live in better sort ; for," adds Sydney, 
 " worse than he hath been, he cannot be." 
 From Kilkenny the deputy proceeded, ac- 
 companied by the earl of Ormond, to Wa- 
 terford, where he was received, about the 
 middle of December, " with all shows and 
 tokens of gladness and pomp, as well upon 
 tlie water as the land, presented with the 
 best commodities they liad." 
 
 In his hasty progress through the English 
 pale, Sydney had taken measures in each 
 county for the reformation of its government, 
 the repression of disorders, and the eifectual 
 administration of the laws. He now pre- 
 pared to make a still more rigorous visitation 
 of tlie province of Munster. The respect 
 which Sydney's name commanded throughout 
 Ireland ; his reputation for wisdom and 
 justice ; and the known firmness of his 
 character, gave strength, after his departure, 
 to the reforms he effected by his presence. 
 
 On his departure from Waterford the lord 
 deputy proceeded to Corraglimore, where 
 he was hospitably entertained by the lord 
 Power, whose district this was, and of whose 
 good government Sydney speaks in terms 
 of admiration. He lodgded three nights at 
 Dungarvan, a town " of late much decayed 
 by the rebellion of James fitz Maurice and 
 his graceless followers." Here he was 
 visited by the earl of Desmond, who "very 
 humbly offered me any service that he was 
 able to do to her majesty." He j'^ssed by 
 Youghall, " for that they were not (as they 
 protested) able to receive me and my train, 
 by reason of their spoils done upon them 
 and their people in the time of the rebellion 
 of James fitz Maurice ;" and on the 23rd of 
 December entered the city of Cork, "where 
 I was received with all joyfulness, tokens, 
 and shows, the best they could express, of 
 their dutiful thanksgiving to her majesty. 
 They received willingly my English footmen 
 and galloglasses, lodged and entertained 
 them during my abode there (which was six 
 weeks), without grudging or complaints, 
 either of townsmen or of soldiers ; the towns- 
 men receiving in ready money the one-half 
 of the soldier's wages for his board, fire, and 
 lodging, wherewith he held himself very 
 well satisfied ; and the soldier, in like man- 
 ner, well contented to give it." 
 
 During his residence at Cork the lord de- 
 puty was attended by the earls of Desmond, 
 Thomond, and Clancarthy, the bishops of 
 Cashel and Cork, and the bishop elect of 
 Ross, the viscounts Barry and Koche, the 
 
A.D. 10( 
 
 6.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [SYDNEY AT CORK. 
 
 barons of Courcy, Lixna%v, Dunboyne, Barry 
 Oge, and Louth. " The htter," says the 
 lord deputy, " only to do me honour came 
 out of the English pale to that city, and did 
 great good amongst great ones ; for, being 
 of this country birth and of their language, 
 and well vmderstanding their conditions and 
 manners, did, by example of himself, being 
 but a mean man of lands in respect of their 
 large patrimonies and livings, both at home 
 and abroad, live more orderly and more com- 
 mendably than they did or were able to do, 
 which did much persuade them to leave their 
 barbarity, and to be ashamed of their wilful 
 misery." Of the other Irish chieftains of 
 Munster came divers, " not yet nobilitated," 
 such as sirDonal mac Carthy lord of Carbury, 
 and sir Cormac mac Teige mac Carthy lord 
 of Muskerry, " neither of these, but in re- 
 spect of their territories, were able to be a 
 viscount, and truly I wish them both to be 
 made barons, for they be both good subjects, 
 and in special the latter, who, for his obedi- 
 ence to her majesty and her laws, and dis- 
 position to civility, is the rarest man that 
 ever was born in the Irishry." Among other 
 Irish septs who sent their representatives to 
 wait on Sydney at Cork were the O'Sulli- 
 vans, O'Carrolls, Mac Donaghues, O'Kynes, 
 Mac Fynnans, Mac Auleys, O'Callaghans, 
 O'Mahons, and O'Driscolls, besides several 
 of the chiefs of English descent, all of whom 
 were ti'eated with honour and courtesy. The 
 earl of Desmond's brethren, sir Thomas, sir 
 John, and sir James, were also constant at- 
 tendants upon the court at Cork. " And, 
 the better to furnish the beauty and filling 
 of the city, all these principal lords had with 
 them their wives during all the Christmas, 
 who truly kept very honourable, at least 
 very plentiful, houses ; and, to be brief, 
 many widow ladies were there also, who erst 
 had been wives to earls and others of good 
 note and account." 
 
 A magnificent court like this was unknown 
 to the people of the south of Ireland, and 
 could not fail to produce an effect upon them 
 which would not easily be eradicated. Yet 
 the lord deputy did not pass the time in idle 
 pageantry. He was indefatigable in his la- 
 bours to convince the Irish chieftains of the 
 advantages they would derive from the in- 
 troduction of English manners and laws. 
 He held a court of sessions daily from 
 Twelfth-day to the end of January, in which 
 many civil causes were tried and ended, and 
 above two dozen " notable malefactors" con- 
 victed and executed. The deputy's justice 
 
 reached some members of the greatest fa- 
 milies in Munster, who had encouraged the 
 turbulence of others by their examples. 
 After having effected a variety of other re- 
 forms in the county of Cork, and provided 
 for its military defence, he left that city on 
 the 1st of February, and proceeded to a 
 house of the lord Roche's, where he re- 
 mained two nights, and then passed into the 
 county of Limerick. 
 
 The first place at which he stopped in this 
 county was the town of Kilmallock, " which 
 was lamentably spoiled and burned by that 
 vile traitor and rebel, James fitz Maurice, 
 but so speedily again re-edified, as surely it is 
 not almost to be credited, but by the con- 
 stant report of them that knew it and saw it 
 then, and now have perused and seen it again, 
 for where there was not one roof or floor left 
 unburnt, few or no houses are now within 
 the wall uncovered, whereby the benefit and 
 good fruit of English laws and forces most 
 sensibly is felt, without which the people 
 confess themselves they would for ever have 
 abandoned that place, and sought some other 
 habitation, and the like desolation become of 
 that town, as may be seen by ruins of many 
 other within this land, which Irish rebels 
 have suppressed, and, English forces and 
 government failing, were never since re- 
 stored." 
 
 On the 4th of February the lord deputy 
 entered Limerick, in company with the earl 
 of Desmond, the bishops of Cashel and Cork, 
 the lord of Louth, and some others of the 
 nobility, divers knights, and some of the prin- 
 cipal gentlemen of the country. " Here," 
 says Sydney, " I was received with far greater 
 pomp than either I myself have heretofore 
 had, or saw yielded to any other in this land." 
 Most of the chiefs of the original Irish of the 
 county repaired to the dejauty at Limerick, 
 " all lamenting the peril and waste of the 
 country; and in troth wasted they be, and 
 therefore crave that they may have the forces 
 of their mean lords suppressed, and that they 
 may be equally cessed to bear an English 
 force, and to have English laws planted 
 amongst them, and English sheriffs to exe- 
 cute those laws, and to surrender their lands 
 to her majesty (as many as may, and have not 
 done already) ; and herein, God willing, some 
 pain shall be taken, and, I hope, such rent 
 and service either created or renewed to her 
 majesty, as hath not these many years." 
 
 The earl of Ormond and the baron of 
 Upper Ossory came to Sydney at Limerick, 
 and gave hiin a good report of the conditio!i 
 
 447 
 
STATE OF MUNSTER.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1576. 
 
 of the territories under their charge. The 
 two sons of tlie earl of Clanrickard, Ulick 
 Burke and John Burke, who had been tlie 
 cause of so mucli turbulence in Connaught, 
 also came, and were dismissed, on their pro- 
 mise to meet the lord deputy on his arrival 
 at Galway, whither he was now directing his 
 progress. Here also came the earl of Tho- 
 mond, and all the principal gentlemen of 
 the O'Briens, being "near kinsmen," yet 
 " extreme enemies" to one another. At 
 the same time came tlie two Mac Namaras 
 of Thomond, " lamenting the ruin and waste 
 of their country, craving to have tlie exe- 
 cution of English laws, and have English 
 sheriffs planted amongst them." 
 
 Sydney did not, on this occasion, enter 
 Kerry and Tipperary, which formed the vast 
 palatinate of the house of Desmond, but 
 passed them over in his dispatch with a slight 
 observation ; " for that," says he, " I think 
 the queen hath little to do there, her writ 
 not being allowed currently in them ; but 
 this much I conjecture, and in mine opinion 
 affirm, and so do others of great experience 
 too, that so long as any subject hath any ju- 
 risdiction palatine in either of them both, 
 there will hardly be any sound and perfect 
 reformation in Munster, for undoubtedly 
 they are no small impediments to it." 
 
 There was at this time no president in 
 Munster, sir John Perrott having been re- 
 called ; and, although sir William Drury had 
 been pointed out as the person destined to 
 fill this office, some appear to have been of 
 opinion that it was an unnecessary appoint- 
 ment, and that the lord-deputy was sufficient 
 himself to attend to all its duties. Sydney 
 alludes to this opinion, and expresses him- 
 self strongly against it. " In my simple 
 opinion," he says, " Munster never needed 
 at any time more than at this present to 
 have a discreet and active governor to be 
 continually resident in it, for these people 
 are for the most part all papists, and that in 
 the malitiousest degree, delighting in ravin 
 and licencious life, though the same be void 
 of profit, surety, or pleasure to any but 
 themselves. James fitz Maurice (who had 
 retired to France) lieth in St. Malo's, and 
 keepeth a great port, himself and family 
 well apparelled, and full of money. He 
 hath oft intelligence from Rome, and out of 
 Spain, not much relief from the French 
 king, as I can perceive, yet oft visited by 
 men of good countenance. Thus much I 
 know of certain report by spies of mine own 
 from thence. The man subtle, malicious, 
 448 
 
 and hardy, a papist in extremity, and well 
 esteemed, and of good credit among the 
 people. If he came and be not wholly dealt 
 wth all at the first (as without an English 
 commander I know he shall not) all the 
 loose people of this province will flock vmto 
 him ; yea, the lords, though they would do 
 their best, shall not be able to keep them 
 from him. So as if he come, and in show 
 and appearance like a man of war (as I know 
 he will), and that I be in the north, as God 
 willing, I will be at Carrickfergus before 
 Midsummer-day, he may take and do wliat 
 he will with Kinsale, Cork, Youghall, Kil- 
 mallock, and happily this city, too, (Lime- 
 rick), before I shall be able to come to the 
 rescue thereof." The deputy adds that a 
 president was equally necessary for the peace 
 of Connaught, which was also at this time 
 without one, sir Edward Fitton having been 
 recalled. 
 
 On the 27th of February, 1576, Sj'dney 
 departed from Limerick, and entered Tho- 
 mond, having in his company the earl of 
 Thomond, sir Donal O'Brian, Teige mac 
 Murrough O'Brien, Teige mac Connor 
 O'Brien, Turlough (the earl's brother), and 
 Donogh mac Murrough O'Brien, the chiefs 
 of that country. " These," says the deputy, 
 "are the greatest doers and only undoers of 
 their own country and neighbours, yet so 
 near kinsmen as they descended of one grand- 
 father." The two Mac Namaras, the Mac 
 Mahons of Thomond, and other Irish chiefs, 
 also waited upon the lord deputy, "com- 
 plaining upon the O'Briens, and each of 
 them upon other, for the ruin of their coun- 
 try ; and truly in such desolation and waste 
 it is, as if they were not a people of more 
 spare diet than others are, both of flesh, 
 bread, and di'ink made of corn, it were not 
 possible that a soil so wasted could sustain 
 them, and yet many they are not in number." 
 It was a matter of some dispute at this 
 time whether, in the appointments of pre- 
 sidencies and provincial courts, Thomond 
 should be included in Munster or Con- 
 naught. It had hitherto been considered 
 as belonging to the latter, and Sydney, in 
 his passage through it, ordered the chief- 
 tains to appear before him at Galway, there 
 to state their grievances and wait his judg- 
 ment. There, says he, "I entered into 
 consideration of their troubles, griefs, and 
 losses, complained on to me by them, 
 wherein I found plenty of murder, rape, 
 burning, and sacrilege, and besides such 
 spoil of goods and cattle as in number 
 
A.D. 
 
 1576.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [state of connaught. 
 
 might be counted infinite, and in quantity 
 unmeasurable, and indeed the whole country 
 not able to answer a quarter of that wliich 
 was aflirmcd to be lost amongst them, and 
 yet by the great labour of sir Lucas Dillon, 
 who examined every particular matter, as it 
 was booked, reduced the same to a reason- 
 able and certain quantity, which the parties 
 themselves were driven to confess to be true, 
 and so by their own consents commissioners 
 appointed to take the proofs and to see the 
 goods returned to the loosers. And finding 
 in this examination, that the mutual hurts 
 and ravages done betwixt the earl and 
 Teige mac Murrough, was one great cause 
 of the ruin of the country, I commanded 
 them both, and after twice or thrice public 
 dealing in their causes, I bound them by 
 bonds in great sums to abandon their coun- 
 try during my pleasure, as well in sort to 
 restrain them, as to bind them to perform 
 such orders as I took with them, which they 
 have humbly submitted themselves unto, and 
 since that obediently observed the same, and 
 at that time I took the earl's brother, and 
 still detain him in iron, and Teige mac Con- 
 nor I detained likewise, until he had deli- 
 vered a sufficient hostage for his good beha- 
 viour. I made sir Donal O'Brien sheriff 
 of the shu'e, and appointed some other of 
 the country birth to be Serjeants, cessors, 
 and other mean officers in that countr}', 
 men that were no evil doers, and such in 
 effect as were unimpeached of any or com- 
 plained of by any. The country yielded by 
 general consent to be at the charge of a 
 provost marshall of mine appointment, and 
 give him entertainment both of wages and 
 food, for himself, twelve horsemen, and 
 twenty-four footmen, for that the country 
 swarmed of idle men, and by this means 
 they thought best to suppress them." 
 
 Sir Henry Sydney had before formed the 
 territory of Thomond into a county under 
 the name of Clare, as having been formerly 
 a chief branch of the Irish inheritance of the 
 earls of Clare. He now divided the pro- 
 vince of Connaught into four counties, Sligo, 
 Mayo, Galwaj', and Roscommon. If Tho- 
 mond had been ravaged by the mutual 
 hatred of its chieftains in the preceding 
 year, the desolation caused by the wild 
 rebellion of the sons of the earl of Clanrick- 
 ard in Connaught was not less lamentable. 
 From Sligo, which Sydney describes as "well 
 inhabited and rich, and more haunted with 
 strangers than I wish it were, unless the 
 queen were better answered of her custom," 
 
 vor,. I. S h 
 
 he received only messages promising sub- 
 mission. The principal men of the Clan- 
 donnells of Mayo, a sept particularly cele- 
 brated for its galloglasses, who served as 
 mercenaries in diffl-rent parts of the island, 
 came to the lord deputy at Galway, and 
 made their formal submission. One of the 
 most turbulent and unyielding septs of the 
 west was that branch of the Burkes whose 
 chieftain was known by the title of the Mac 
 William Oughter. He, however, proved 
 more submissive than was expected, and 
 voluntarily presented himself before the lord 
 deputy at Galway. " I found Mac William," 
 says Sydney, "very sensible, though want- 
 ing the English tongue, yet understanding 
 the Latin ; a lover of quiet and civility, 
 desirous to hold his lands of the queen, to 
 suppress Irish extortion, and to expulse the 
 Scots, who swarm in those quarters, and 
 indeed have almost suppressed them." The 
 Mac William made a formal surrender of his 
 territory, and received it back at the lord 
 deputy's hands, " by way of seneschalship." 
 Sydney at the same time bestowed upon 
 him the order of knighthood, " whereof he 
 seemed very j oyous,and some other little trifles 
 I gave him, as tokens between him and me, 
 wherewith, very well satisfied, he departed." 
 At Mac William's express desire Sydney 
 appointed an English sheriff" to the county 
 of Mayo, as he did also to the other counties 
 in Connaught. Many of the subordinate 
 chieftains of Mayo, both of Irish and of 
 degenerate English blood, came also before 
 the lord deputy, " all lamenting their devas- 
 tation, and, with one consent, crying for jus- 
 tice and English government in so miserable 
 (and yet magnanimous) manner, as it would 
 make an English heart to feel compassion 
 with them." 
 
 The town of Galway itself, in which Syd- 
 ney held his court, was in a state of great 
 decay, which had " grown through the hor- 
 rible spoil done upon them by the sons of 
 the earl of Clanrickard, insomuch as it was 
 evidently proved before me that fifty house- 
 holders of that town do now inhabit under 
 Mac William Oughter. And it seemeth they 
 have not only lost their wealth, but with it 
 their wits and hearts, surely it may well 
 seem tliey were in point to have given up 
 all, and almost to have forgotten that they 
 received any corporation of the crown." The 
 deputy was attended here by the earls of 
 Clanrickard and Thomond, the archljishop 
 of Tuara, the bishops of Clonfert and Kil- 
 macduagh, the baron of Athenry, who was a 
 
 449 
 
riiE DEPUTY IN coNNAUGHT.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1576. 
 
 Bermiiigham, "as poor a baron as livetli, 
 and yet agreed on to be the ancientest baron 
 in this land." Of the Irisli chiefs of this 
 county there came O'Flalierty, O'Kelly, 
 O'Madden, O'Naghtan, and many otliers, 
 " all confessing tliat they owed service, and 
 craving tliat tliey might hold their lands 
 immediately of her highness." It was the 
 same with a number of the Burkes who held 
 of the earl of Clanrickard, " by due service, 
 as he saith, but through oppression, say they, 
 but all, longing for reformation, cry for 
 Englisli government, and would fain hold of 
 the queen and her crown." Many others 
 kept away, from fear, because they had 
 joined in the rebellion of the earl of Clan- 
 rickard's sons. " These two hopeless sons," 
 says Sydney, " came into the church of Gal- 
 way on a Sunday at public service, there 
 lamentably craved their pardon, and most 
 humbly submitted themselves, confessing 
 their fault, and one of them simjily renounc- 
 ing his protection, the other came in of him- 
 self witliout protection. I said as I thought 
 good to them, reprehended them, committed 
 them to my marshal, led them away, and 
 have them prisoners in the castle of Dublin, 
 whereat the people comforted greatly, and 
 were roused in hearts and minds to see this 
 example of justice. 
 
 On the 22nd of March Sydney proceeded 
 on his progress from Galway, and passed 
 through Athenry, which he describes as "the 
 most woful spectacle that ever I looked on 
 in any of the queen's dominions, totally 
 burnt, college, parish church, and all that 
 was there, by the earl's sons, yet the mother 
 of one of them was buried in the church." 
 Sydney immediately gave orders for rebuild- 
 ing the town, and the work was commenced 
 before he left it, a tax being levied on the 
 county for that purpose. The lord deputy 
 proceeded thence through Clanrickard and 
 the territory of the O'Kellys to Roscommon, 
 in the castle of which he passed one night, 
 and then went to hold his court at Athlone. 
 Many of the chiefs of the Irish septs of tlie 
 county of Roscommon repaired to him here. 
 " These people and some more petty lords 
 inhabit the plains of Connaught, and are all 
 destroyed by the Scots chiefly ; the country 
 is large and of excellent soil ; the best and 
 all the rest beggars desirous to be delivered 
 from the tyranny of their stronger neigh- 
 bours, they all crave to be subjected to the 
 English government." Sydney remained 
 nine days at Athlone, hearing causes and 
 deciding them ; and one of the chief perpe- 
 450 
 
 trators of the recent outrages, a Burke of 
 distinction, who had been arrested by order 
 of the lord deputy at Galway, was here 
 condemned and executed. 
 
 Sydney sent from Athlone commissioners 
 to hold sessions in Annaly, " where good 
 service was done by the country, and due 
 justice ministered by the commissioners." 
 He at the same time made that district shire 
 ground, and gave it the name of the county 
 of Longford. He found it more difficult to 
 deal with East Breffny, or O'Reilly's coun- 
 try, though the captain was " a very honest 
 man, but old, very impotent, and bed-rid ; 
 he cannot live but awhile, by all likelihood, 
 and his death will breed great trouble, if in 
 due time the same be not looked to. The 
 competitors for his place will hazard the 
 destruction of their country, themselves, 
 and their neighbours." On the 2nd of 
 April Sydney left Athlone, and after hold- 
 ing sessions in the counties of Westmeath, 
 Louth, Longford, Meath, and Kildare, made 
 his entry into Dublin on the 14th day of 
 the same month. " I write not," he says 
 in his dispatch giving an account of his pro- 
 ceedings during this part of his progress, 
 " the names of each particular varlet that 
 hath died since I arrived, as well by the ordi- 
 nary course of the law, and the martial law, 
 as flat fighting with them, when they would 
 take food without the good will of the 
 giver, for I think it no stuff worthy the 
 loading of my letters with ; but I do assure 
 you the number of them is great, and some 
 of the best, and the rest tremble, for most 
 part they fight for their dinner, and many 
 of them lose their heads before they be 
 served with their supper ; down they go in 
 every corner, and down they shall go, God 
 willing ! " 
 
 In concluding, Sydney gives briefly his 
 opinion of the measures required to promote 
 the general " reformation of the island." The 
 first point to which he calls attention is the 
 miserable condition of the church, " now so 
 spoiled, as well by the ruin of the temples, 
 as the dissipation and embezzling of the 
 patrimony, and most of all for want of suffi- 
 cient ministers, as so deformed and over- 
 thrown a church there is not, I am sure, in 
 any region where Christ is professed." In a 
 letter which Sydney wrote at this time to 
 the queen, he paints the condition of the 
 Irish church instill stronger colours; "being 
 advertised," he says, "of the particular state 
 of the church in the bishoprick of Meath 
 (being the best inhabited country of all this 
 
A.D. 
 
 1576.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [state of the irish church. 
 
 realm) by the honest, zealous, and learned 
 bishop of the same, Mr. Hugh Bradye, a 
 godly minister for the gospel, and a good 
 servant to your highness, who went from 
 church to church himself, and found tliat 
 there are within his diocese two hundred 
 and twenty-four parish churches, of which 
 number a hundred and five are impropriated 
 to sundry possessions now of your highness, 
 and all leased out for years, or in fee-farm 
 to several farmers, and great gain reaped out 
 of them above the rent which your majesty 
 receiveth ; no parson or vicar resident upon 
 any of them, and a very simple or sorry 
 curate, for the most part, appointed to serve 
 them, amongst v?hich number of curates only 
 eighteen were found able to sj^eak English, 
 the rest Irisli priests, or rather Irish rogues, 
 having very little Latin, less learning and 
 civility. AH here live upon the bare alte- 
 ragies (as they term them), which, God know- 
 eth, are very small, and were wont to live 
 upon the gain of masses, dirges, shrivings, 
 and such like trumpery, godly abolished by 
 your majesty, no one house standing for any 
 of them to dwell in. In many places the very 
 walls of the churches down, very few chan- 
 cels covered, windows and doors ruined and 
 spoiled. There are fifty-two other parish 
 churches more in the same diocese, which 
 have vicars endued upon them, better served 
 and maintained than the other, yet but badly. 
 There are fifty-two parish churclies more, 
 residue of the first number of two hundred 
 and twenty-four, which pertain to divers 
 particular lords, and these, though in better 
 estate than the rest commonly, are yet far 
 from well. If this be the estate of the 
 church in the best peopled diocese and best 
 governed country of this your realm ( as in 
 truth it is), easy it is for your majesty to 
 conjecture in what case the rest is." Sydney 
 recommends that the farmers of the queen's 
 lands and others should be compelled to 
 repair the churches ; that ministers should 
 be sent over from England and Scotland, pro- 
 perly qualified for the service of the churches, 
 and instructed in the Irish and English lan- 
 guages; and that certain commissioners, of 
 good learning and religion, should be ap- 
 pointed to examine into the state of the 
 church in Ireland, and make provisions for 
 its reformation. 
 
 The second of Sydney's measures for 
 reformation related to the army, concerning 
 which he says, " Let tliis be a maxim indis- 
 
 putable, that a garrison of three hundred 
 horsemen and seven hundred footmen may 
 continually be kept here, without any 
 great charge to England. This charge now 
 must be reared by the new rents of the 
 Irishry, and by an alteration of the old 
 burthen of the English pale ; for though the 
 Irishry be now mollified and malleable, so 
 that you may have of them what reasonably 
 you will ask, but yet never without an 
 army." "And," he continues, "with this 
 number of a thousand complete in garrison, 
 I will undertake to keep Ireland in quiet, 
 and to appease all accidents and civil stir 
 that may arise in any part within the coun- 
 try, by practise, rebellion, or otherwise 
 (strangers and foreign invasion only ex- 
 cepted)." 
 
 Sydney's last measure of reformation was 
 an improvement of the Irish law establish- 
 ment, by the sending over of the chief 
 justice and an attorney-general, well ac- 
 quainted with English law ; for, he says, 
 there was not a lawyer in Ireland of suffi- 
 cient skill to fill those important offices.* 
 
 Thus did Sydney commence his govern- 
 ment, by a six month's progress through 
 the greater part of Ireland, making himself 
 acquainted with the condition of each pro- 
 vince on the spot, and taking measures 
 for the repression of disorder and the es- 
 tablishment of good rule. That this pro- 
 gress made a great impression on the minds 
 of the Irish is proved by the notice taken 
 of it in the Irisli annals, which have recorded 
 how the lord deputy "destroyed and be- 
 headed a vast number of insurgents and bad 
 subjects in all the countries through which 
 he passed," and " abolished and suppressed 
 the custom of keeping jjoets and literary 
 men, public festivals, kernes, bonaghts or 
 retained soldiers, and their leaders." That 
 his appointments and regulations were in 
 general judicious we have every reason for 
 believing; and the same annalists record of 
 Donal O'Brien, Sydney's Irish sheriff of 
 Thomond, that he governed that district so 
 well, "by executing vicious malefactors, bad 
 characters, and rebels, that no one thought 
 it necessary to watch their cattle or close 
 their doors while Donal was in office." 
 
 * The foregoing account of Sydney's progress 
 through Ireland is taken from his original dispatches 
 to the lords of the council in England, and to the 
 queen, preserved in MS. Cotton. Tilus B. X. in the 
 British Museum. 
 
 451 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 NliW INSUERECTIOiNS; THE SONS OF THE EARL OF CLANRICKARD IN CONNAUGHT; DRURY AND THE EARL OP 
 DESMOND; THE CESS; RORT OGE O'MOORE; SIR HENRY SYDNl.Y RECALLED. 
 
 ATISFACTORY as the 
 results of Sydney's 
 progress may have ap- 
 jjcarcd at first, a few 
 I weeks showed how little 
 faith was to be placed 
 in the dutiful expres- 
 sions of the Irish chief- 
 end of summer the 
 O'Rourkes of Annaly had risen in the new 
 county of Longford, and committed great 
 devastations ; and Roderic or Rory Oge 
 O'Moore, who in the commencement of the 
 year had waited submissively upon the lord 
 deputy at Limerick, and Connor O'Connor 
 confederated together and raised the banner 
 of rebellion in the old districts of Leix and 
 Oflaley. But more serious alarm was given 
 by a new outburst of the turbulent sons of 
 the earl of Clanrickard. 
 
 After his return to Dublin, the lord 
 deputy indulged his prisoners, the O'Briens 
 and the two sons of the earl, with their 
 liberty, on a formal promise that they would 
 not return to their respective countries of 
 Thomond and Connaught ; and then he pro- 
 ceeded to the south to instal sir William 
 Drury, who, in consequence of Sydney's 
 representations, had been appointed lord 
 president of Munster. He had not gone 
 far on his way, when the intelligence arrived 
 that the two young Burkes, disregarding 
 their promise, had thrown away their Eng- 
 lish dress, crossed the Shannon, and called 
 their wild followers to arms. The first place 
 which experienced their vengeance was the 
 town of Athenry, where they plundered and 
 destroyed the houses newly built, drove away 
 the masons and labourers who had been em- 
 ployed by Sydney to restore the town, set 
 the new gates on fire, and broke to pieces the 
 queen's arms, which had just been finished 
 by the workmen. Then, having invited their 
 old allies, the Scots, to their assistance, they 
 began to commit horrible devastations on 
 the country around. " Bad and wicked they 
 were before," says the contemporary histo- 
 rian, " but now ten times worse than ever 
 they were ; being come even as it is said in 
 the scriptures, that the wicked spirit was 
 452 
 
 gone out of the man, and wanting his wonted 
 diet, returned into tlie house from whence 
 he came, and finding the same swept clean, 
 he goeth and seeketh out other seven wicked 
 spirits, and entereth and dwelleth where h? 
 did before, and the last state of that man is 
 worse than the first." 
 
 When Sydney heard of this new rebellion, 
 he relinquished his journey to the soutii, 
 and returned to Dublin, vs^here he made his 
 arrangements with so much expedition, that 
 three days afterwards he was at tlie head of 
 his small army in Connaught. The rebe s, 
 astonished at the rapidity of his movements, 
 retired before him, and sought shelter in their 
 fastnesses ; and after having taken possession 
 in the queen's name of the towns and castles 
 of Clanrickard, the deputy placed under arrest 
 the earl, against whom there were strong sus- 
 picions of having connived at the rebellion 
 of his sons, and sent him to Dublin, where 
 he was committed to close prison. Sydney 
 left the main body of his troops in Con- 
 naught, which province was terribly devas- 
 tated by the contending parties during the 
 remainder of the year. The Irish annahst, 
 in exjiressive language, tells us, that "the 
 wilds, the recesses, the rugged and rough- 
 topped mountains, the hilly and intricate 
 woods of their native territory, were the 
 only parts of it possessed by the sons of the 
 earl at this time ; while the English were 
 masters of its chief fortresses and its green- 
 sided and delightful hills." After visiting 
 Galway, and providing for the security of 
 the townsmen, who had been struck with 
 dismay at the havoc that was making around 
 them, the lord deputy proceeded through 
 Thomond, which was now finally united to 
 the presidency of Munster, to Limerick, 
 where he performed the ceremony of instal- 
 ling sir William Drury in his ofiice, and 
 then departed for Dublin. 
 
 Sir William Drury, having tlius entered 
 upon his government, took uj) his residence 
 at Cork, to be nearer the disaff'ected dis- 
 tricts in the south. He there " did bear 
 himself so uprightl}-," to use the words of 
 John Hooker, who was almost an eye-witness 
 of his doings, " and in so honourable a sort. 
 
1577.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [drurv and desmond. 
 
 that he reformed the same marvellously, 
 both in life and manners, and of a fierce 
 people he tamed them to obedience. For 
 the evil men he spared not, but by law ^and 
 justice in the open session, and by sword, 
 without respect of persons, he punished 
 according to their deserts — even, as of the 
 contrary, the good subjects he would favour 
 and protect. If any service were to be done 
 upon the enemy and rebel, he would be the 
 first in the field, and never cease to pursue 
 him, until lie had either taken him, or driven 
 him out of the country. If any matters 
 were in variance between man and man, or 
 any bills of complaints exhibited unto him, 
 the same he would either determine, or refer 
 them to the law, for which he kept courts 
 continually, where the same were heard and 
 ended, and at which, for the most jiart, he 
 would be present. The rude people he 
 framed to a civility, and their manners he 
 reformed and brought to the English order." 
 
 In the course of this rigorous adminis- 
 tration of justice, Drury soon came in 
 collision with the proud earl of Desmond. 
 We have seen how the lord deputy Sydney 
 disapproved of the palatine character of 
 Desmond's jurisdiction, as a thing utterly 
 incompatible with the peace and welfare of 
 the south ; and it appears to have been now 
 resolved, that the privileges the earl claimed 
 should not be allowed to stand in the way 
 of the orderly jurisdiction of the queen's 
 courts. Finding that the county palatine 
 of Kerry had become the refuge of all the 
 evil-doers of the surrounding counties, where, 
 by the earl's privileges, tliey were maintained 
 in imjjunity, Drury announced his intention 
 of proceeding thither, to hold a session for 
 the trial of offenders against the queen's 
 laws. The earl of Desmond expostulated 
 and protested; but finding the lord president 
 inflexible in his intentions, he dissimulated 
 his anger, offered his aid and services to 
 Drui'y in the execution of his office, and 
 invited him to take up his residence in his 
 own castle at Tralee, an invitation which 
 was unhesitatingly accepted. 
 
 Drury accordingly proceeded into Kerry, 
 with his ordinary retinue of six or seven 
 score followers in arms, and, as he passed 
 through the country, kept his courts and 
 sessions, and heard and judged every man's 
 complaint. At length, as his course lay, he 
 approached Tralee, where it was his inten- 
 tion to pass the night as the earl of Des- 
 mond's guest. The latter, it is asserted by 
 the English authorities of the time, had no 
 
 other design in his apparently friendly invi- 
 tation, than to draw the lord president into 
 a snare, and then "to have cut him off from 
 ever coming more there." A similar act of 
 treachery was perpetrated in the same place 
 about two years afterwards. It is certain 
 that the earl had assembled seven or eight 
 hundred of the most trusty of his followers 
 in arms, and that when Drury approached 
 Tralee he found them drawn up in hostile 
 attitude in a position which cut him off from 
 all chance of retreat if attacked. In this 
 emergency the lord president drew up his 
 men, acquainted them with their danger, 
 which he encouraged them to avert by com- 
 mencing the attack. They accordingly 
 marched steadily forward against their pre- 
 sumed enemies, who, astonished at the bold- 
 ness of men so much their inferior in point 
 of numbers and perhaps with some dread of 
 the authority witli which Drury was in- 
 vested, gave way at the first charge and fled 
 to the woods. 
 
 The countess of Desmond was thrown 
 into the greatest consternation by the turn 
 which events had thus taken; she is said to 
 have disapproved of her husband's wayward 
 conduct, and she now went out from Tralee 
 to meet the lord president, and falling on 
 her knees, with tears in her eyes and uplifted 
 hands, supplicated his patience and pardon. 
 She declared tliat the earl had no hostile 
 intentions, and that he had assembled his 
 men for no otlier purpose than to proclaim 
 a general hunting, not at that time expect- 
 ing the president's visit. The latter con- 
 sidered it the best policy to accept her 
 excuses and to temporise with the earl; but 
 he proceeded in his judicial visitation of the 
 palatinate, and held sessions at Tralee itself. 
 The earl of Desmond scarcely deigned to 
 conceal his anger, and no sooner had the 
 lord president departed, than, taking up the 
 matter as a personal c^uarrel, the earl drew 
 up a bill of complaints against Drury, and 
 dispatched it to the lord deputy at Dublin. 
 
 The latter had not long returned from 
 Munster when he received intelligence that 
 the turbulent sons of the earl of Clanrickard 
 had been joined by a new force of two thou- 
 sand Scots, and that their courage being 
 revived by this great accession of strength, 
 they had again taken the field, committed 
 great depredations, and were besieging their 
 father's castle of Bally-riegh, which had 
 been entrusted by the deputy to Thomas 
 Lestrange, with an English garrison of a 
 hundred footmen and fifty horse. Sydney 
 
 453 
 
THE IRISH REVENUES.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1577. 
 
 immediately marclied towards Connaught, 
 and on hearing of his approach, the earl's 
 sons raised the siege of the castle, and threw 
 themselves into the territory of Mac William 
 Oughter, wliicli they laid waste and ravaged 
 in a barbarous manner. The Mac William, 
 provoked at their invasion, became at once 
 a loyal subject, and, with all the forces he 
 could raise, joined the army of the lord 
 deputy. The latter followed the rebels 
 wherever they showed themselves, but, 
 unable to bring them to any decisive action, 
 he was obliged to be satisfied with hunting 
 them out in small companies when they were 
 occupied in plundering, and with obtaining 
 possession of some of their chief strong-holds, 
 while they eluded his utmost vigilance by 
 continually removing from one phice to the 
 other in the woody and mountainous recesses 
 of the country. 
 
 At length Sydney received intelligence 
 that the Scots had arrived in considerable 
 force to join the rebels, and that they were 
 encamped on the borders of Mac William's 
 country. Witliout a moment's delay he 
 marched against them, upon which, alarmed 
 at the rapidity of liis movements, and dis- 
 couraged at tiie wcaivuess of those they had 
 come to assist, they left tlieir camp and dis- 
 persed. The greater part of them returned 
 into the north of Ulster, while the rest joined 
 the rebels, and shared for a time their wild 
 life in the woods. After the flight of the 
 Scots Sydney returned to Dublin. It was 
 during his absence that the earl of Essex, 
 whom he had recommended to the queen as 
 a fit successor to sir Edward Fitton in the 
 presidency of Connaught, died in Dublin ; 
 and on Sydney's arrival at that city he found 
 dispatches from the English court autlioriz- 
 ing him to entrust the government of that 
 turbulent province to sir Nicholas Malby, 
 one of the ablest commanders then serving 
 in Ireland. Perhaps it was thought that the 
 title of lord president would be unpopular 
 there at that time, and therefore Sydney 
 installed Malby in liis government under tlie 
 title of colonel of Connaught. 
 
 By the vigilance and activity of Drury and 
 Malby the two provinces of Munster and 
 Connaught were now kept in tolerable tran- 
 quillity, and remained so during the year 
 1577. The old feud between the earl of 
 Desmond, andFitz Maurice lord of Lixnaw, 
 was renewed in the south, but was soon 
 appeased. The earl himself, and his brother, 
 John of Desmond, at the same time made 
 some shew of resistance to the government, 
 454 
 
 and it was generally understood that John of 
 Desmond had entered into a close alliance 
 with John Burke, one of the rebels of Con- 
 naught, and that he had encouraged the 
 earl's sons to persist in their hostility to the 
 English government. He was summoned to 
 Cork by sir William Drury, and immediately 
 committed to ward, and sent under an escort 
 to Dublin. The earl, who had shown an 
 inclination again to resist the interference of 
 the superior court of the lord president 
 witliin his palatinate, was alarmed when he 
 heard of his brother's arrest, and he made 
 his peace by seizing immediately some male- 
 factors whom Drury had demanded at his 
 hands, and delivering them up to justice. 
 
 While the disorders of the distant pro- 
 vinces seem to be thus gradually subsiding, 
 a new subject of contention arose within the 
 English pale. One of the chief subjects of 
 complaint of tlie English court Jiad been 
 from time immemorial the great dispropor- 
 tion between the Irish revenue and the 
 heavy charges required to support the Eng- 
 lish government in that country. The 
 former was never large, and it had been con- 
 tinually diminished on the one side by the 
 lavisli and imprudent grants from tlie govern- 
 ment of exemption from taxation to those 
 who were most able to pay, and on the other 
 by the poverty brought by civil war and bad 
 government on those who were not ex- 
 empted. The large sums of money thus 
 annually drawn from England had always 
 been felt as a burthen in the latter country, 
 and parliament had sometimes expressed 
 strong dissatisfaction. In the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries, the financial embar- 
 rassments of the English court, and the con- 
 sequent impossibility of furnishing the 
 money required for carrying on the subordi- 
 nate government in Ireland, had been the 
 chief cause of the neglect and of the cor- 
 ruptions which crept into the latter, and the 
 consequent decline of the Englisli power in 
 that island. The greater regularity with 
 which the supplies had been sent over since 
 the commencement of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, and especially during the present 
 reign, had, on the other hand, conduced 
 more than any other cause to the position 
 which Ireland now held in face of the Eng- 
 lish crown. 
 
 Still Elizabeth gave the supplies required 
 by the Irish establishment with great reluc- 
 tance, and, among the reforms contemphited 
 by sir Henry Sydney, none were likely to 
 1 be more acceptable to the queen than one 
 
A.D. 
 
 15T7.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [opposition to the cess. 
 
 j which contributed to lighten this burthen. 
 It had been usual for many years to iinpo>e 
 
 1 upon the districts of the English pale a cer- 
 tain proportion of provisions for victualling 
 
 j the royal garrisons and maintaining the 
 
 j household of the lord deputy or chief gov- 
 ernor. The principal inhabitants of each 
 district were called before the deputy and 
 council, and with them settled the rates at 
 which the provisions were to be paid, and 
 agreed to a certain assessment or contribu- 
 tion to defray the charge. Sydney now con- 
 ceived the design of converting this occa- 
 sional subsidy into a regular and permanent 
 revenue, by substituting a composition in 
 place of the assessment, and exacting it from 
 all the subjects of the crown. The English 
 court encouraged him to pursue this plan ; 
 upon which he issued a proclamation dis- 
 solving those liberties which had previously 
 claimed an exemption from the ancient 
 charge of purveyance, or at least curtailing 
 the privileges of those the legality of which 
 could not be impeached, for it appears that 
 a very large proportion of them, wlien ex- 
 amined, proved to be mere usurpations. The 
 lord deputy then proceeded to a general 
 imposition of the new tax, or, as it was 
 called, the cess, by the sole authority of the 
 Irish privy council, and by virtue of the 
 queen's prerogative. 
 
 Soon after his landing in Ireland, in the 
 autumn of 1575, Sydney became aware that 
 his plan was likely to meet with a deter- 
 mined opposition, and when at length he 
 proceeded to put it in execution the imme- 
 diate consequence was a general and violent 
 expression of discontent. We have seen on 
 more than one occasion that the old English 
 constitutional principles of government were 
 in the sixteenth century better understood 
 among the English in Ireland than in Eng- 
 land ; and, on the present occasion, not only 
 those whose liberties had been suppressed, 
 and those who were secretly disaffected to 
 the protestant government, but those whose 
 loyalty was above suspicion, and who had 
 hitherto cheerfully contributed to the assess- 
 ment in its former shape, were provoked at 
 a tax which appeared to them at once oppres- 
 sive and unconstitutional, and tliey joined in 
 a spirited remonstrance to the lord de- 
 puty and council, with whom their num- 
 bers and condition insured a respectful 
 audience. The remonstrants complained of 
 the arbitrary dissolution of those ancient 
 liberties and privileges which had been 
 granted by letters patent and enjoyed for 
 
 ages undisputed ; they protested against a 
 new tax, illegal and oppressive, imposed 
 they knew not by whit authority, and ex- 
 acted with intolerable severity ; they repre- 
 sented that formerly they had of their own 
 free will and benevolence concurred in an 
 equitable and moderate assessment, which 
 they now found converted into an arbitrary 
 imposition, amounting to no less than ten 
 or twelve pounds upon every plough-land, 
 and which was, they said, utterly contrary 
 to all law and reason. Finally, they claimed 
 the natural rights of freemen, and the pri- 
 vileges of the English constitution, acknow- 
 ledging no power of imposing taxes but in 
 the grand council of parliament ; nor would 
 they so shamefully betray the rights of Eng- 
 lish subjects as to submit to any tax to which 
 they had not consented by their representa- 
 tives, and freely granted in parliament for 
 the public service. The deputy and council 
 took some days to deliberate on this remon- 
 strance, and then made reply, that, as to the 
 liberties dissolved, they were such as, on an 
 attentive examination of the public records, 
 appeared to be invalid or had expired ; as to 
 the burthen of the tax, her majesty was 
 contented that it should not exceed the rate 
 of five marks on every plough-land ; and, as 
 to the authority by which it was raised, that 
 it was imposed by the queen's prerogative, 
 which must not be impeached, and was war- 
 ranted by the constant usage of occasional 
 assessments made by the chief governor and 
 council, with the concurrence of the nobility 
 in the several counties, and that this usage 
 had existed since the reign of Henry IV. 
 The remonstrants replied that the distinc- 
 tion between the former assessment and the 
 present mode of composition was obvious ; 
 and tlie doctrine of raising money by pre- 
 rogative appeared so novel and so repugnant 
 to every constitutional principle of law and 
 justice, that, confident in the validity of their 
 plea, they humbly besought permission of 
 the lord deputy to repair to the court in 
 England, and there lay their cause before 
 the queen. Sydney was provoked at this 
 opposition to his favourite scheme, and he 
 replied coldly, that he neither gave his sanc- 
 tion to their appeal to the queen, nor in any 
 way restrained them from it ; but, when he 
 found they were preparing Co carry their 
 designs into execution, he took care by his 
 letters to the queen and her council to 
 impress them with an unfavourable opinion 
 of the characters of the appellants, and of 
 the cause they had taken in hand. 
 
 455 
 
OPPOSITION TO THE CESS.] HISTORY or IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1577. 
 
 In Ireland, liowever, this cause became 
 everywhere popular, and increased daily in 
 strength. The principal lords throughout 
 the realm refused obedience to the edict of 
 council imposing the cess, and enjoined their 
 tenants and dependents to decline paying it. 
 The inhabitants of the pale assembled and 
 deliberated, and finally resolved to entrust 
 their cause to three agents, Barnaby Scur- 
 locks, Richard Netterville, and Henry Bur- 
 nell, eminent for their knowledge of the 
 laws, and distinguislicd for their zealous 
 opposition to the present tax. They were 
 sent with letters to the queen and privy 
 covmcil, signed by the lords Baltinglass, 
 Delvin, Howth, Trimleston, Bellew, and 
 Nangle, some of the families of Plunket, 
 and Nugent, and other distinguished inha- 
 bitants of the counties of Meatli and Dub- 
 lin, in the names of all the subjects of the 
 English pale, who complained of the griev- 
 ances they sustained by the new cess, and of 
 the denial of the lord deputy to give them 
 redress ; and they urged the illegality of this 
 oppressive burthen, and described tlie various 
 abuses committed in exacting it. When they 
 arrived at court, the matter was referred to 
 the council, and received a prejudiced and 
 partial hearing. Four Irish lords, who hap- 
 pened to be attendant at court, the earls of 
 Kildare and Ormond, and lords Gornians- 
 town and Dunsany, were summoned to 
 attend, and, being required to give their 
 opinions on the allegations of their country- 
 men, they declared that an assessment had 
 always been customary for the maintenance 
 of the queen's garrisons and the household 
 of her deputy, but cautiously avoided 
 touching on the point of prerogative, by con- 
 fining themselves to the necessities and con- 
 dition of her subjects in Ireland, and humbly 
 pleaded the grievousness of the present im- 
 position, and prayed that it might be mode- 
 rated. The queen listened, at least with 
 affected tenderness and compassion to these 
 allegations, and on this occasion she is said 
 to have uttered the exclamation, " Ah ! how 
 I fear lest it be ohjected to us, as it was to 
 Tiberius by Bato, concerning the Dalmatian 
 commotions; 'You, you it is that are in 
 fault, who have connuitted your flocks not 
 to shepherds but wolves !' " This compassion, 
 however, if real, was but the weakness of a 
 moment, for she was very easily persuaded 
 by her ministers that the most important 
 principle involved in the question was the 
 maintenance of her prerogative. Under the 
 influence of this consideration, the Irish 
 456 
 
 agents, instead of being allowed to appeal to 
 law and justice, were committed to the Fleet, 
 for their alleged contumacy in opposing the 
 royal authority. The queen then addressed 
 letters to sir Henry Sydney and the Irish 
 council, reprimanded them for their oversight 
 in not having immediately committed and 
 punished those who had presumed to deny 
 the legality of their measure, and directing 
 that all who had subscribed the application 
 to the throne should be summoned before 
 them, and that, if they still persevered in 
 questioning her prerogative, they should be 
 committed to prison until they acknowledged 
 their offence. She further commanded that 
 such of her servants and counsellors, learned 
 in the law, as had been present at the original 
 complaint, and had neglected to maintain her 
 royal prerogative, sliould be removed from 
 their offices. At the same time, with an 
 expression of tenderness for the individual 
 welfare of her subjects, she recommended 
 moderation in the new assessment, with a 
 strict caution to prevent all abuses in exact- 
 ing it. 
 
 These severe proceedings failed in pro- 
 ducing the effects which were anticipated. 
 The lords and gentlemen of the pale were 
 called before the council, but they there 
 boldly adhered to their former declarations, 
 and denied the legality of any tax not regu- 
 larly imposed by parliament. The agents in 
 England were brought a second time before 
 the privy council, and as they appeared 
 equally determined in their resistance to 
 the court measures on tliis new examination, 
 they were removed from the Fleet to the 
 Tower, which implied that their offence was 
 considered to be of a treasonable nature. 
 This new rigour excited a general feeling of 
 alann and indignation through the Irish pale, 
 and the flame was fanned by the practices of 
 those who were secretly disaffected to the 
 present government. A violent clamour was 
 raised aginst the deputy, which daunted the 
 queen and her councillors, who knew that 
 not only was the country filled with enemies 
 who were ready to seize upon any pretext or 
 encouragement to rebel against her authority, 
 but that their friends and agents were at that 
 very moment actively employed abroad in 
 negotiating with the catholic princes to send 
 in a foreign army to their aid. Elizabeth 
 saw the danger of alienating the affections 
 of the only portion of her Irish subjects on 
 whose fidelity she could reckon in this emer- 
 gency ; and, after some vain denunciations 
 of vengeance, the Irish agents having been 
 
A.D. 10< ( 
 
 .] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [rory oge o'moore. 
 
 brought with difficulty to make an equivocal 
 submission, by which they acknowledged 
 that the manner of their application had 
 been undutiful, while they disavowed all 
 intention of impeaching the queen's just 
 prerogative, were set at liberty. They gave 
 security to render themselves before the lord 
 deputy, after which they were allowed to 
 return to Ireland. They there repeated 
 their submissson, and were dismissed ; and 
 some of the confined lords and gentlemen 
 regained their liberty by a similar concession, 
 while even those who continued obstinate 
 were not visited with any further severity. 
 Sydney received instructions to bring this 
 violent and dangerous dispute to a speedy 
 accommodation ; and a composition for pur- 
 veyance for seven years was arranged by the 
 deputy and council, with the concurrence of 
 the lords and gentlemen of the pale. 
 
 The popular odium now fell upon Sydney, 
 who was loudly accused of wantonly alien- 
 ating the affections of the Irish subjects ; of 
 ruling without temper or policy ; of lavishing 
 the revenue ; and of discouraging the well 
 affected, while he showed indulgence to 
 rebels and offenders. The lord deputy, 
 aware of the public resentment against him, 
 became weary of his government, of which 
 he began now to press the queen that he 
 might be relieved. 
 
 While discontent was thus spreading in the 
 pale, symptoms of restlessness among the 
 Irish in different parts of Ireland gave the 
 government grounds for alarm of a different 
 kind. Rory Oge O'Moore again raised the 
 standard of rebellion in Leix, and being 
 joined by the O'Connors, and other old septs 
 in that part of Ireland, and encouraged by 
 the alliance of the sons of the earl of Clan- 
 rickard, and promises of a simultaneous 
 movement in Connaught, committed great 
 depredations on the open country of Kildare. 
 Encouraged by the little resistance which 
 they experienced at first, the insurgents 
 began to aim at greater exploits, and they 
 determined to make an attack by night on 
 the town of Naas, within sixteen miles of 
 Dublin. The night chosen for this expedi- 
 tion was " the patron day of the said town, 
 commonly called the church holyday, which 
 day, after the manner of that country, and 
 not much unlike the festival days which the 
 Ethnics and Pagans were wont to celebrate 
 to their idol gods of Bacchus and Venus, they 
 spent in gluttony, drunkenness, and sur- 
 feiting ; and after they had so filled their 
 paunches, and the day was gone, they some- 
 
 VOL. I. 3 M 
 
 what late in the night went to their beds, 
 having forgotten to make fast their town 
 gates, or put any watch to guard them." 
 Rory Oge, who was well informed of the 
 neglect of the townsmen, came in the dead 
 of tlie night, " with all his company, who, 
 like unto a set of furies and devils new come 
 out of hell, carried upon the ends of their 
 poles flanks of fire, and did set as they went 
 the low thatched houses on fire ; and the 
 wind being then somewhat great and vehe- 
 ment, one house took fire of another, and so 
 in a trice and moment the whole town was 
 burnt ; and yet in the town supposed to be 
 five hundred persons in outward appearance 
 able to have resisted them. But they being 
 in their dead sleeps suddenly awaked, were 
 so amazed, that they wot not what to do, 
 for the fire was round about them and past 
 quenching, and to pursue the enemy they 
 were altogether unfurnished, and durst not 
 do it ; neither if they would could they tell 
 which way to follow him. For he tarried 
 very little in the town, saving that he sat a 
 little while upon the cross in the market- 
 place, and beheld how the fire round about 
 him was in every house kindled, and whereat 
 he made great joy and triumph that he had 
 done and exploited so devilish an act. And 
 then after a short space he arose and departed 
 with great triumph, acccording to his accus- 
 tomed usage in all his evil actions, but yet, 
 contrary to his usage, he killed no one per- 
 son in the town." 
 
 From Naas, Rory Oge and his followers 
 ranged over the surrounding country, plun- 
 dering and burning, till they came to Leigh- 
 lin, where they burned part of the town. 
 But here one of the Carews, who was sta- 
 tioned with a very small garrison in the fort 
 of Leighlin, on a sudden sallied forth with his 
 whole troop, consisting of seven horsemen and 
 five shot, and falling upon the plunderers, 
 whose forces amounted to two hundred and 
 forty men, put them to flight with some loss, 
 and pursued them to some distance. But 
 then the Irish, recovering from their first 
 surprise, and perceiving the small force of 
 their opponents, turned upon them, and 
 obliged them to make a very hasty retreat. 
 With the loss of two men and one horse, 
 Carew's small party, all more or less 
 wounded, regained their fort, and there 
 kept the assailants at bay, until the latter, 
 having suffered severely, retired without 
 doing further harm to the town. 
 
 Rory Oge continued his depredations on 
 the borders of the English pale, and plun- 
 
 467 
 
RORY OGE o'mOORE.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1578. 
 
 dered and destroyed several villapjes and 
 small towns. Although frequently watclied 
 and pursued by the English soldiery, the 
 insurgents were so quick in their motions 
 and so well acquainted with the wild coun- 
 try which served for their haunts, that they 
 always escaped to the bogs and woods, where 
 it was in vain and even dangerous to follow 
 them. In one of these pursuits the wily 
 chieftain agreed to a parley with two English 
 officers, named Harrington and Cosby, and 
 so deceived them by his submissive lan- 
 guage, and his professions of obedience, 
 that they allowed themselves to be entrapped 
 by his followers, and they were both made 
 prisoners. Rory caused his two prisoners to 
 be "hand-fasted" together, and dragged 
 them along with him in a sort of barbarous 
 triumph, "as his water-spaniels, through 
 woods and bogs," continually threatening to 
 put them to death. The English authorities 
 were much concerned at the treatment to 
 which these two Englishmen were exposed, 
 and negotiations were entered into through 
 intermediate agents for their delivery, which 
 were nearly brought to a conclusion, when 
 the object was effected by an accident. 
 
 Robert Harepool, the constable of Carlow, 
 having received private information of the 
 place in the wooded wilds of the neighbour- 
 ing district, where Rory Oge and a party of 
 his followers had their secret lodging in a 
 cabin, marched with a party of about fifty 
 English soldiers in the dead of the night, 
 and arrived at the spot where the rebels 
 were sleeping, two hours before day-break. 
 The English surrounded the cabin, and were 
 breaking open the door, when Rory, roused 
 by the sudden tumult without and supposing 
 that he was betrayed, attempted to wreak 
 his vengeance on his two unfortunate pri- 
 soners, one of whom. Captain Harrington, 
 was severely wounded and only escaped 
 death through the darkness of the night 
 which caused his assailant to strike at ran- 
 dom. Rory and one companion then slipped 
 through the door unperceived by their ene- 
 mies, and concealed themselves in the thick 
 bushes of the surrounding forest. The rest 
 of his companions were slaughtered on the 
 spot, and Harrington and Cosby carried 
 away in triumph. A few days afterwards 
 the rebel chief sought his revenge in an 
 attack upon Carlow, where he came early 
 in the morning and burnt a few houses, 
 but he was obliged to retreat, so closely 
 pursued by captain Harepool and the gar- 
 rison, that he narrowly escaped capture, and 
 458 
 
 sixteen or seventeen of his best men were 
 slain. 
 
 The only incident which the Irish annal- 
 ists have recorded in this war was the savage 
 massacre of Irish chieftains in the rath of 
 Mullaghmast. The Irish chiefs of Leix and 
 Olfaly, with their followers, to the number 
 of three or four hundred, were invited, we 
 are told, to a friendly conference in this 
 great rath, or ancient earthen fortification, 
 and while there, with what motive we are 
 not told, they were suddenly surrounded 
 by English soldiers, and all indiscrimi- 
 nately put to the sword. This event is 
 mentioned by some contemporary English 
 writers, who tell us that it was perpetrated 
 with the connivance of the lord deputy. 
 
 At length, in the summer of 1578, Rory 
 Oge fell a sacrifice to a snare which he had 
 himself laid for his enemy, the baron of 
 Upper Ossory. One of the rebels came to the 
 baron as a deserter, and informed him that 
 Rory had been into the county of Kilkenny, 
 where he had taken "a great prey and spoil of 
 pots, pans, and other household stufr,"and that 
 he was retiring through the woods with a very 
 small company ; he said, that with a few 
 men the baron of Upper Ossory might easily 
 surprise the rebels at the place which 
 he indicated, and there capture Rory Oge 
 and the whole of his plunder. The baron 
 suspected the motives of his informant ; but, 
 with a large body of horse and foot, he pro- 
 ceeded to the spot, where Rory Oge with a 
 considerable force lay in ambush to attack 
 him. Instead of adventuring himself in 
 the woods with a few companions, as Rory 
 expected, the baron remained with his horse- 
 men and shot in the plain, and sent a com- 
 pany of thirty of his kernes into the wood 
 to spy out the rebels. When Rory Oge 
 saw these men approaching, he chose thirty of 
 his own men, and went out to meet them, in 
 the confidence that his name had become so 
 terrible that no Irishmen would venture to 
 attack him, and in the hope, probably, that 
 he might draw the baron of Ossory into a 
 parley and entrap him, as he had done the 
 English captain Harrington. In this, how- 
 ever, he was deceived, for lord Ossory 's kerne 
 no sooner saw him, than they rushed upon 
 him and his party, and at the first onset one 
 of the kerne thrust his sword through Rory's 
 body. At the same moment two or three 
 others fell upon him with their swords, and 
 dispatched him. The Irish annalists tell us 
 that Rory Oge O'Moore was slain by Bryan 
 Oge Mac Gillapatrick ; and they add, that 
 
A.D. 1578.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [disorders in thomond. 
 
 " Rory was the chief spoiler and insurgent 
 of the men of Ireland in his time, and no 
 one was disposed to fire a shot at the crown 
 for a long time after him." 
 
 Rory Oge O'Moore was thus slain on the 
 last day of June, 1578. He had been long 
 the terror of the English pale, and at the 
 moment of his death the lord deputy Sydney, 
 irritated by his continual depredations, had 
 marched with an army to the borders of 
 Offaly and Leix, with the resolution of 
 putting an end to the insurrection of the 
 O'Moores and O'Connors, of which this 
 chieftain was the leader, by closely besieg- 
 ing the rebels in their secret haunts. The 
 history of Rory's exploits is that of many 
 other outlawed chieftains of his age, and 
 wdll help much to illustrate the unhappy 
 state of the island at this period, ravaged 
 continually by great outlaws and little 
 outlaws, until there was no security except 
 under protection of the greater walled towns. 
 The insurgents met with sympathy and aid 
 even in those places which seemed most 
 devoted to the English government, and the 
 private intelligence they thus obtained ex- 
 plains the impunity with which they so 
 frequently committed extensive depreda- 
 tions. When he found that the insurrection 
 was put an end to by the death of its chief, 
 Sydney marched to Kilkenny, and " there 
 by sundry examinations found people of all 
 degrees in that town to have relieved the 
 said Rory with victuals, and all other neces- 
 saries for his feeding and defence, with 
 whom he took order according to their 
 deserts." 
 
 This was one of the last acts of any im- 
 portance of sir Henry Sydney's government 
 in Ireland. While he remained at Kilkenny, 
 the lord president of Munster repaired to 
 him to report on the state of the country 
 under his charge, and he there made his 
 complaint against the earl of Desmond, who 
 had not only refused to obey his summons 
 on several occasions v/hen he had sent for 
 him, but " had of his own authority, without 
 any warrant, gathered together a rabble of 
 lewd and unruly followers, which harried 
 up and down the country, eating and spend- 
 ing upon the same, contrary to all good 
 orders, and which was not to be suffered." 
 The earl, at Sydney's sununons, presented 
 himself at Kilkenny, and was there recon- 
 ciled to the lord president, and promised 
 future obedience. The rest of Munster was 
 quiet, and the only disturbance at this time 
 in Connaught arose from a quarrel with 
 
 O'Rourke of BrefFny, who harboured in his 
 territory some coiners of false money. It 
 appears that a number of coiners had at this 
 time taken up their residence in Ireland, 
 under the belief that imitating the queen's 
 coin was not treason by the laws of that 
 island, and O'Rourke had no doubt derived 
 a considerable income from this dishonest 
 manufacture. O'Rourke at first refused to 
 deliver up the offenders, upon which act of 
 contumacy, sir Nicholas Malby sent a body 
 of soldiers, who captured O'Rourke's castle 
 of Leitrim, which was delivered up to the 
 sons of Teige O'Rourke, who appear at this 
 time to have been, after the old Irish fashion, 
 at war with their kinsman, the chief of the 
 sept. O'Rourke afterwards confessed his 
 fault, and submitted; and he was assisted by 
 the English in recovering his castle from the 
 sons of Teige. 
 
 Thomond had shown a spirit of insubor- 
 dination in the autumn of 1577, when sir 
 William Drury, the president of Connaught, 
 went with a large force of English sol- 
 diers, accompanied by most of the nobles of 
 Munster, to hold his court of sessions at 
 Ennis. The people of Thomond, encouraged 
 by the opposition which had been shown to 
 the cess in the English pale, refused to pay 
 the tribute levied upon them by the govern- 
 ment. The lord president having left, to 
 use the words of the Irish annalist, " a vio- 
 lent and merciless body of soldiers to reduce 
 them," returned to Limerick, and there 
 brought to judgment and executed in various 
 ways a number of Irish chiefs and others 
 who had made themselves remarkable by 
 their insubordination. Among these was a 
 Murrough O'Brien, who is described by the 
 Irish chroniclers as " the most distinguished 
 man, in fame and excellence, of the heirs 
 of Carrigogunnell and Aherlow." The 
 oppressive conduct of the English marshal, 
 who levied a forced tax of ten pounds on 
 each barony, gave great offence to the Irish 
 chiefs of that district, and the earl of Tho- 
 mond hurried over to England to lay his 
 complaints before the queen. He was treated 
 with honour and kindness at the English 
 court, and having obtained a grant by letters 
 patent from the crown, of his estates, towns, 
 and church livings, he returned to Ireland 
 about Christmas, carrying with him a gene- 
 ral pardon and amnesty for his people. 
 
 This was not the only case in which the 
 queen interfered in favour of her Irish sub- 
 jects. In the sununer of 1578, when the 
 English troops marched to surround the 
 
 459 
 
SYDNEY'S DEPARTURE.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1578. 
 
 insurgents under Rory O'Moore, sir Nicholas 
 Bagnall, with a strong body of English foot 
 soldiers, took up his lodgings for a night in 
 the castle of Baltinglass. The viscount of 
 Baltinglass had distinguished himself by his 
 persevering opposition to the cess, and he 
 probably was not on the most friendly 
 terms with the government authorities. He 
 complained that Bagnall's soldiers had com- 
 mitted great and wanton depredations on 
 himself and his tenants, and perhaps finding 
 the Irish government unwilling to enter 
 upon the subject, made direct application 
 for redress to the queen through the earl of 
 Ormond, who was still at court. The queen 
 was induced to lend an ear to this complaint, 
 so recommended to her attention, and a letter 
 was immediately written to the lord deputy, 
 directing him to cause an inquisition to be 
 made into the circumstances of the case, with 
 a viev^ to justice in this instance, and to the 
 correction of such abuses in future. We 
 are told that the result of this enquiry was a 
 satisfactory proof that the complaint of the 
 viscount of Baltinglass was unfounded. But 
 these petty complaints and interruptions 
 helped to make Sydney weary of his uneasy 
 charge, and soon after the conclusion of this 
 affair, he obtained the queen's permission to 
 resign it. He delivered the sword of state 
 to sir William Drury, as lord justice, on the 
 26th of May, 1578, and embarked for Eng- 
 land. It is said that he had no sooner set 
 his foot on board the ship, than he recited 
 in Latin the words of the Psalm, In exitu 
 Israel de jEgypto, et domus Jacob de populo 
 harbaro ; "alluding thereby," says the old 
 annalist, " to the troublesome state of Moses 
 in the land of Egypt, and his departure from 
 out of the same ; who, notwithstanding he 
 had in great wisdom, care, and policy, 
 governed the stiff-necked people of Israel, 
 had done many miracles and wondrous works 
 
 to their comfort, had delivered them from 
 many great perils and dangers, had preserved 
 and kept them in peace and safety, and in 
 the end, through the mighty hand of God, 
 brought tliem out of the hand of Pharoah, 
 and from out of the land of Egypt, and had 
 given them the sight of the land of promise, 
 yet he found them always a froward and 
 perverse generation, a stiff-necked and an 
 ungrateful people. Even no less as this 
 noble man and most worthy governor hath 
 found of the people of this nation, who, not- 
 withstanding he was a very painful labourer, 
 both by day and night, in foul and in fair 
 weather, in storms and in tempests, in trou- 
 bles and in dangers, in scarcity and in 
 penury, in danger of the enemy and peril of 
 his life, and yet continually studying, devis- 
 ing, travelling, toiling, and labouring to do 
 them good (as he did full many and often 
 times), which, so long as they felt the ease 
 and comfort, so long were they contented 
 and quiet, but otherwise most ungrateful 
 and unthankful. And offering unto him the 
 like reward as Lycurgus received of the 
 most unthankful Lacedemonians, who, when 
 he had recovered that savage nation to a civil 
 life and a politic government, and in the end 
 reduced them to that order and manner as 
 they became to be feared of all their neigh- 
 bours, they, in recompense, evil entreated 
 him in very bad speeches, and strake out 
 one of Lycurgus's eyes ; but these men, for 
 thousands and infinite commodities, would 
 not only have bereft his lordship of both his 
 eyes, but also done him a further inconve- 
 nience, if success had happened according to 
 their malice." 
 
 Such were the sentiments of the English- 
 man Hooker, a stanch supporter of Syd- 
 ney's Irish policy, and a strongly prejudiced 
 admirer of Elizabeth's government. 
 
 460 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FOREIGN INTRIGUES; JAMES FITZ MAtlRIOE; THOMAS STUKELET; LANDING OF 
 FITZ MAURICE, AND NEW REBELLION OF THE EARL OF DESMOND. 
 
 IR HENRY SYDNEY 
 
 left no easy legacy to 
 his successor. While 
 the lord deputy had 
 :• been struggling with 
 
 C>r£'^-^-g£Hfa9iF the multitudinous dis- 
 ■^-~'^^-:r orders which tore inter- 
 
 nally the island com- 
 mitted to his charge, a number of adventurers 
 were busily occupied in different parts of 
 Europe in stirring up a storm from without. 
 Among these the man of most weight was 
 James fitz Maurice of Desmond, who, after 
 having obtained his pardon from the queen 
 in 1573, had fled with his family to France, 
 and taken up his residence at St. Malo's, as 
 a convenient port for communication with 
 Ireland. He wearied the French king with 
 applications, representing the ease with which 
 Ireland might be wrested from the hands of 
 queen Elizabeth, and urging him to place 
 troops under his command for the purpose 
 of effecting this important conquest. Sydney, 
 as we have already seen, had his spies about 
 the fugitive traitor, who gave him frequent 
 information of his movements, and the Eng- 
 lish ambassadors and agents in France took 
 care to anticipate him at the French court. 
 Fitz Maurice remained in France two years, 
 at the conclusion of which time the only 
 grace he could obtain from the king was the 
 offer to use his intermediation with Elizabeth 
 to obtain the confirmation of his pardon. 
 Disappointed and mortified at this proposal, 
 Fitz Maurice left France, and repaired to 
 Spain, where he experienced a more favour- 
 able reception from Elizabeth's arch-enemy, 
 Philip II., who sent him to Rome with 
 letters of recommendation to pope Gregory 
 XIII. Two ecclesiastics celebrated for their 
 fiery zeal against heresy, the Englishman 
 Saunders, and an Irish priest named Allen, 
 assisted in pleading the cause of the Irish 
 
 * The name of Stukeley occurs very frequently in 
 the popular literature of the reign of Elizabeth, which 
 shows how much must have been thought of him 
 among the middle and lower classes of society. The 
 ballad alluded to will be found in the third volume 
 of Evans's collection. Another popular ballad on 
 Stukeley has been reprinted in the little collection of 
 ballads edited by Mr. Collier for the Percy Society. 
 
 rebels before the pontiff, who was induced 
 to grant them a papal bull, addressed to the 
 prelates, princes, nobles, and people of Ire- 
 land, exhorting them to join James fitz 
 Maurice in fighting for the recovery of their 
 liberty and the defence of holy church, and 
 promising to all his adherents the same spi- 
 ritual indulgences granted to those who 
 fought against the Turks. A banner was 
 solemnly consecrated and delivered to this 
 new champion of the faith ; and as both the 
 priests volunteered to accompany the expe- 
 dition to Ireland, Saunders was invested with 
 the high dignity of papal legate. Thus 
 strengthened in their cause by the authority 
 and benediction of the pope, and furnished 
 by him with a supply of money, the conspi- 
 rators returned to king Philip, who had pro- 
 mised to furnish them with men, and they 
 soon raised a considerable body of Italian 
 and Spanish soldiers. 
 
 Meanwhile another adventurer, of a very 
 different character, had been at Rome on 
 the same errand as Fitz Maurice, and with 
 similar success. This was the notorious 
 Thomas Stukeley, a man whose name was 
 once sung in popular ballads throughout the 
 streets and highways of England.* This 
 remarkable man deserves a somewhat more 
 lengthened notice than many who acted 
 outwardly a more prominent part in Irish 
 history. He is said to have been a younger 
 son of an old and respectable family near 
 Ilfracombe, in Devonshire, one of whom was 
 sheriff of that county early in the reign of 
 queen Elizabeth. The ballads tell us, that 
 his father was a wealthy clothier, and that 
 young Stukeley obtained a place in the 
 household of "a bishop of the west," in 
 which situation he soon distinguished him- 
 self by his extravagance and restless spirit. 
 He is said to have subsequently married the 
 daughter of a wealthy alderman of London, 
 
 There was an anonymous play, which appears also to 
 have been popular, entitled, "The famous historye of 
 the life and death of Captaine Thomas Stukeley; with 
 his marriage to alderman Curteis' daughter, and 
 valiant ending of his life at the battaill of Alcazar." 
 Stukeley also acts a prominent part in George Peele's 
 play of •' The Battle of Alcazar," printed in 1594. 
 
 461 
 
THOMAS STUKELEY.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 15TS. 
 
 named Curtis, whom, after squandering away 
 all her patrimony, he deserted. He then 
 followed the example of so many men of 
 his age, who sought to retrieve their broken 
 fortunes by foreign adventure, and be joined 
 in and obtained the command of an expe- 
 dition of private speculators, to establish an 
 English colony in the then newly discovered 
 countryof Florida, of which colony Stukeley, 
 it appears, was to be made governor. Fuller, 
 Stukeley's earliest biographer, tells us, as an 
 illustration of his aspiring character, that, 
 when introduced to court to receive directions 
 relating to his expedition, "he blushed not 
 to tell queen Elizabeth, that he preferred 
 rather to be sovereign of a molehill, than 
 tlie highest subject to the greatest king in 
 Christendom ; adding, moreover, that he was 
 assured he should be a prince before his 
 death. ' I hope,' said Elizabeth, ' I shall 
 hear from you when you are instated in your 
 principality.' ' I will write unto you,' quoth 
 Stukeley. ' In what language ?' saith the 
 queen. He returned, ' In the style of 
 princes — to our dearest sister.' " 
 
 A letter from the queen to the earl of 
 Sussex, then deputy in Ireland, dated the 
 30th of June, 1563, states that, "our servant 
 Thomas Stukeley, associated with sundry of 
 our subjects, hath prepared a number of 
 good ships, well armed and manned, to pass 
 to discover certain lands in the west towards 
 Terra Florida, and by our licence hath taken 
 the same voyage," and orders that he 
 should be received in Ireland, if driven 
 thither by stress of weather, "which, if he 
 shall, he hath agreed to do any manner of 
 service there that shall be thought agreeable 
 by you for our purpose." The only effect 
 of this expedition, which is said to have 
 failed from want of money to carry it out, 
 was the capture of some French ships, and 
 Stukeley appears to have landed in Ireland 
 and taken military service in that country, 
 where he distinguished himself so much by 
 his bravery and abilities, that he gained the 
 confidence of sir Henry Sydney. His real 
 
 • On the 16th of March, 1573, one of lord Burgh- 
 ley's correspondents writes to him from court: — 
 " Lastly, I have to advertise your lordship of a new 
 conspiracye that is intended by certain decayed men, 
 to go over into Spajiie, and to jo)-ne with Stukeley in 
 his practises for the invading of L-eland, and the 
 subversion of this state, as far as in them lyes. The 
 matter is handled in Saint Liger's howse, and there 
 conchided upon. The chief parties be sir Warham 
 Seint Liger hj-mself, and Jerem Brett, having allured 
 to them Martin Furbisher, (the celebrated navigator) 
 with the promis of 20/. land by the year, or with the 
 vallew of hit in ready money, to transport them over 
 462 
 
 character, however, was soon understood in 
 England, aiKl various complaints of his con- 
 nexion with piratical exploits brought him 
 under the displeasure of the court. His 
 continued employment in Ireland may per- 
 haps be considered as a proof the low 
 morality of the generality of the English 
 officials to whom the fate of that country 
 was then entrusted. We have already seen 
 that the queen, in 1567, rebuked her deputy 
 with some severity foy employing Stukeley 
 in his negotiations with Shane O'Neill in 
 Ulster. 
 
 At length, Stukeley, having demanded the 
 somewhat responsible post of steward of 
 Wexford, was refused, and in anger he 
 threw aside his allegiance to the English 
 crown, entered into the intrigues of the 
 rebellious party in Ireland, and rejjaired to 
 Spain in the latter part of the year 1570, 
 where he is said to have presented an in- 
 strument to the king, subscribed with the 
 names of the greater part of the Irish nobles 
 and chiefs, as well as with those of divers 
 disaffected people in England " of good 
 quality," who assured Philip that they were 
 ready to be at his devotion in case he would 
 fit out an expedition to reduce Ireland 
 under the crown of Spain. Stukeley was 
 highly honoured by the Spanish monarch, 
 from whom he received a pension, and Philip 
 made great preparations for the invasion of 
 Ireland, which gave considerable uneasiness 
 to Elizabeth and her ministers, and Stukeley's 
 motions were closely watched. By degrees, 
 however, the king was somewhat disabused 
 of his confidence in the English adventurer; 
 his preparations were slackened while he 
 attended to other affairs; and Stukeley at 
 last, despairing of bringing them to a con- 
 clusion, repaired to Rome to lay his pro- 
 ject of conquering Ireland before the pope. 
 We trace, in a variety of little incidents, 
 the active correspondence that was carried 
 on during Stukeley's residence in Spain with 
 the disaffected in England as well as Ire- 
 land.* 
 
 to their cosin Stukeley. They have jojTied to them 
 one Haselby, a seaman, and John Poole my friend, 
 for whom I am most sorry, but I preferre loyalty to 
 any friendship. They also intend to bring in some 
 more decayed gentlemen, and some other, suche as 
 they note either discontented or addicted this waye, 
 and among those they wold have younge Browne with 
 them, a base brother to the lord Montacute. 
 
 " Their pretence wil be to ship corne over to Ire- 
 land, and thcrwith to passe into Spayne, to whicli 
 end, if Jerem Brett have not bene already to your 
 lordship to obtayne a lycense for the sayd corne, he 
 meanes to be." 
 
A.D. 
 
 1578.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [death of stukeley. 
 
 After leaving Spain, his communications 
 with England and Ireland were evidently 
 much less frequent, and he seems for a while 
 to have been almost forgotten. He remained 
 at Rome and in Italy between two and 
 three years, and gained great favour with 
 the pope, who entered eagerly into all his 
 projects of conquest in Ireland,, and flat- 
 tered the ambition of this reckless adven- 
 turer by bestowing upon him the high 
 sounding titles of baron of Ross and I-drone, 
 viscount Murrough and Kinsellagh, earl of 
 Wexford and Carlow, marques of Leinster, 
 and general of the army of the holy pontiff. 
 The pope furnished Stukeley with eight hun- 
 dred men, who were to receive their pay 
 from the king of Spain ; and with these he 
 set sail for Ireland in the spring of 1578, 
 and on his way put in at Lisbon about the 
 beginning of May, in order, as it appears, 
 to repair his ships. 
 
 The simultaneous expeditions of Stukeley 
 and James fitz Maurice, created considerable 
 uneasiness in England, and preparations were 
 made to resist them by levying men to be 
 sent over to Ireland on the first alarm of 
 their approach, and sending a fleet to inter- 
 cept them. The government was, how- 
 ever, soon relieved from any apprehensions 
 from Stukeley, who, on his arrival in Lis- 
 bon, found Sebastian, king of Portugal, pre- 
 paring to accompany two Moorish kings on 
 his celebrated expedition into Africa to 
 dethrone the emperor of Morocco, and they 
 persuaded the English adventurer to join 
 them. It is said that, had Stukeley's advice 
 been followed in the conduct of this ill-fated 
 expedition, it would probably have had a 
 far diflerent result. King Sebastian was 
 eager to enter upon hostilities, and refused 
 to give his soldiers time for rejDose and re- 
 freshment after landing, before he marched 
 against the enemy ; in consequence of which 
 the Portuguese army was entirely destroyed 
 in the ill-fated battle of Alcazar, and Sebas- 
 tian and his two Moorish allies were among 
 the slain. Stukeley overpowered by the mul- 
 titude of his assailants, fell bravely com- 
 bating at the head of his eight hundred 
 Italians. The popular ballad on Stukeley's 
 adventures, represents him as having been 
 slain by his own men, who were enraged that 
 he had taken them from their hopes of con- 
 quest in Ireland to perish by the hand of 
 infidels. 
 
 James fitz Maurice, in the meanwhile, 
 was actively employed in Spain, collecting 
 troops to follow Stukeley into Ireland, and 
 
 he was joined by a few of the Italians who 
 had escaped the slaughter of Alcazar. About 
 four score Spaniards, a small body of Italians, 
 and a few English and Irish fugitives, formed 
 the force with which Fitz Maurice em- 
 barked in three ships, and, accompanied with 
 the titular bishop of Killaloe, the legate 
 Saunders, and the Jesuit Allen, directed his 
 course to the Irish shores. Rumours of the 
 expected arrival of foreign ships to excite a 
 rebellion in Ireland, were spread in that 
 country and in England, and one of Eliza- 
 beth's ablest sea-captains, William Winter, 
 was sent out with a fleet to watch on the 
 coast ; but, after remaining there some 
 time, and seeing nothing resembling an 
 enemy, he returned to port. During his 
 absence the small armament under James 
 fitz Maurice entered the bay of Smerwick, 
 on the coast of Kerry, and having driven 
 away the English authorities who attempted 
 to oppose them, they eff'ected a landing 
 there in the July of 1579. The invaders 
 immediately erected a little fort, the spot 
 having first been consecrated with impos- 
 ing religious ceremonies by Saunders and 
 Allen. It happened that there was, at 
 this moment, in Kinsale harbour, an Eng- 
 lish man-of-war under the command of 
 one of the Courtneys of Devonshire, who, 
 doubling the point of land, came suddenly 
 into the bay of Smerwick, and captured the 
 three transports, thus cutting off Fitz Mau- 
 rice and his followers from retreat by sea. 
 
 Fitz Maurice had calculated on being 
 joined, as soon as he landed, by the earl of 
 Desmond ; but that nobleman, wavering be- 
 tween obedience and rebellion, held aloof 
 for a while, though he began to collect his 
 followers with the professed object of sup- 
 porting the English government. His two 
 brothers, John and James, with greater bold- 
 ness, assembled their forces, and marched to 
 join their kinsman at Smerwick, and share 
 in his fortunes. The vacillating conduct of 
 the earl of Desmond hindered the natives 
 from repairing to Fitz Maurice in such 
 numbers as was expected. That nobleman 
 sent a messenger to the earl of Clancarthy 
 (Mac Carthy More) to invite him to join in 
 the catholic cause, and then, when the Mac 
 Carthy had signified his consent, found cause 
 for hesitation and delay, which disgusted 
 that cliieftain. At length, after having 
 waited in Smerwick a month, James fitz 
 Maurice signified his intention of proceeding 
 on a pilgrimage with his soldiers to the holy 
 cross, in the county of Tipperary, in fulfil- 
 
 463 
 
FiTz MAURICE'S INVASION.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1579. 
 
 ment of a vow which he had made in Spain. 
 Tipperary was at that time the region in 
 which the fuel of rebellion was always most 
 ready to kindle, and Fitz Maurice's object 
 was to endeavour to give a fresh movement 
 of success in that quarter to his desperate 
 enterprise. 
 
 It was in the course of this expedition, 
 which appears to have partaken more of the 
 character of a plundering raid than of a pil- 
 grimage, that Fitz Maurice was engaged in 
 an unexpected encounter, which terminated 
 his personal career. The septs who remained 
 faithful in their attachment to the English 
 government, took alarm at the depredations 
 committed by Fitz Maurice's followers, and 
 especially the Burkes of Clanwilliam and 
 Castle-Connell, in Limerick, assisted by Mac 
 I-Brien Ara of Tipperary, assembled to op- 
 pose their progress through the barony of 
 Connello, in the former county, where a des- 
 perate battle was fought between the two 
 opposing parties. The followers of Fitz 
 Maurice triumphed, but they found it neces- 
 sary to retire after the conflict into the 
 woods. Their restless leader had received a 
 shot in the breast early in the engagement, 
 which proved mortal soon after its conclu- 
 sion, and at no great distance from the field. 
 Tradition says that Fitz Maurice expired in 
 the arms of doctor Allen. According to the 
 Irish annalists, when he was convinced that 
 his wound was mortal, he begged that his 
 friends would cut off his head, and carry it 
 with them, that his body might not be recog- 
 nised and mutilated by his enemies. Whe- 
 ther this last request was performed or not, 
 we are not told ; but it was a vain precau- 
 tion, if it be true, as we are informed by 
 other authorities, that the English obtained 
 possession of his mangled remains, which 
 were carried to Kilmallock, and there set on 
 the gates of the town. The three sons of 
 sir William Burke, the leaders of the force 
 thus opposed to the rebels, were slain in the 
 battle, the eldest, it is said, by Fitz Mau- 
 rice's own hand. The queen wrote a letter 
 to their father to thank him for the service 
 rendered by his family, and to console him 
 for his loss, and he was shortly afterwards 
 raised to the peerage, by the title of baron 
 of Castle-Connell. 
 
 On the death of Fitz Maurice, his two 
 kinsmen, sir John and sir James of Des- 
 mond, assumed the command of the so-called 
 Catholic army, which was now beginning to 
 increase in numbers by the accession of some 
 of the smaller Irish chiefs. The lirst of 
 464 
 
 these leaders had abeady sealed his devotion 
 to the cause by the commission of a base 
 and sanguinary outrage. There was an 
 Englishman of the name of Henry Davels, 
 respected throughout Munster for his great 
 and honourable qualities, and an intimate 
 and warm friend of sir John of Desmond. 
 On the first news of the landing of the 
 Spaniards, this man was chosen by sir Wil- 
 liam Drury as the messenger best fitted to 
 secure the wavering allegiance of the earl of 
 Desmond and his brothers, and, accompanied 
 by the provost marshal of Munster, he pro- 
 ceeded into Kerry, and went first to the earl, 
 to whom he delivered his message as to a 
 subject whose fidelity was not doubted, 
 urging him to prepare to assist the lord 
 deputy against the enemy. He then pro- 
 ceeded to the fort, and perceiving the small 
 force of the enemy, he returned to the earl 
 to persuade him and his brothers to prove 
 their attachment to the queen by attacking 
 Fitz Maurice by land, while Courtney's 
 ship, which was still off Smerwick, attacked 
 them by sea. The earl, while he repeated 
 his professions of allegiance, made an excuse 
 for keeping aloof; and Davels, satisfied of 
 his disaffection to the queen's cause, pro- 
 ceeded on his way back as far as Tralee, 
 where he lodged "in one Rice's house, 
 who kept a victualling house and a wine 
 tavern, the house being both strong and 
 defensible, but so little that their companies 
 and servants were dispersed, and lay abroad 
 in other places where they might have 
 lodging." 
 
 Sir John of Desmond had watched the 
 motions of his old friend Davels, and fol- 
 lowed him late at night to Tralee. It is 
 said that sir John, who was considered, after 
 Fitz Maurice, as the leader of the enterprise, 
 was regarded with some susjiicion by his 
 foreign allies, who feared that he might seek 
 his own safety by betraying them to the 
 English, and that he resolved to appease the 
 discontent by the sanguinary tragecly he now 
 contemplated, which must necessarily destroy 
 on his part all hope of pardon from the 
 government. Having entered the town of 
 Tralee unobserved, he placed spies upon the 
 house in which Davels was lodged, and bribed 
 the porter to leave the outer doors unfas- 
 tened. His victim meanwhile, unsuspicious 
 of danger, went to bed with the provost 
 marshal, and his followers did the same in 
 different parts of the house. About the 
 dead of the night, sir John of Desmond and 
 his whole company beset the house, and him- 
 
A.I). 
 
 1579.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [murder of davels. 
 
 self and a sufficient number of his men, 
 finding the doors ojjen, entered with drawn 
 swords direct to the room occupied by 
 Davels. The latter suddenly awoke, and 
 seeing sir John at his bedside with his sword 
 drawn, was at first alarmed, but immediately 
 recovering his courage when he recognised 
 his friend, he exclaimed with some surprise, 
 but in his usual familiar manner, " What, 
 son! what is the matter?" But sir John 
 merely replied, with a fierce gesture, " No 
 more son, nor no more father, but make thy- 
 self ready, for die thou shalt !" And imme- 
 diately both he and his followers struck them 
 with their weapons as they rose from the 
 bed in their shirts, and soon despatched them. 
 As it appears, the only other person who 
 slept in the chamber was a boy named 
 Smolkin, who was a favourite servant of 
 Davels, and had been frequently employed 
 as a private messenger between him and sir 
 John of Desmond. When he saw his mas- 
 ter's danger, he threw himself in desperation 
 upon John of Desmond, and clung to his 
 arms, crying, "What, wilt thou kill my mas- 
 ter?" Upon which the murderer, touched 
 apparently with a brief sentiment of com- 
 passion, replied, " Go thy ways, Smolkin, 
 thou shalt have no harm ! " Cast off from the 
 assailant, Smolkin threw himself on the 
 body of Davels, and remained clinging to 
 him after he was dead. This boy was the 
 only one of Davels' attendants allowed to 
 escape alive, and it seems to be intimated 
 that his verbal relation was the foundation 
 of the foregoing narrative of this barbarous 
 murder. When the assassins had assured 
 themselves that Davels and the provost mar- 
 shal were dead, they spread themselves over 
 the house, and put to the sword all the 
 inmates, after which they made their retreat 
 from Tralee with the same privacy which 
 had concealed their arrival. 
 
 The intelligence of this sanguinary exploit 
 excited everywhere a mingled feeling of 
 horror and indignation. It was only some 
 of the most bigoted of the popish leaders 
 who ventured to speak of it with approba- 
 tion, such as the legate Saunders, who is 
 said to have called it in public " a sweet 
 sacrifice before God," and to have rewarded 
 the perpetrator with a plenary remission of 
 all his sins. Even James fitz Maurice, who 
 was preparing for his fatal pilgrimage into 
 Tipperary, and who was believed to be in- 
 wardly glad that his kinsman had thus com- 
 mitted himself, could not help expressing 
 his detestation when the latter came to him 
 
 VOL. I. 3 N 
 
 with a joyful countenance, and exclaimed, 
 " I have now killed an English churl; thou 
 mayest at jjresent be assured of me, and 
 trust in me, for now that I have begun to 
 dip my hand in blood, I will stand to the 
 matter with thee to my uttermost." 
 
 The earl of Desmond is said to have been 
 "marvellously grieved and off'ended " with 
 his brother, when he heard of the slaughter 
 of Davels and his companions, and to have 
 shown outwardly an inclination to break off 
 all further communication with the invaders. 
 An English officer in the earl's company, 
 who enjoyed his especial confidence, took 
 advantage of the temper of mind in which 
 the earl seemed to have been thrown, to urge 
 him to collect his followers, and move to 
 his chief castle at Askeaton, in Limerick, 
 and there wait the coming of the lord justice 
 and his army, to offer his services against the 
 common enemy. The earl acted in accor- 
 dance with this council, and removed to 
 Askeaton ; but a great number of his fol- 
 lowers joined the rebels, and it was generally 
 believed that they received encouragement 
 from Desmond himself. 
 
 The Spaniards, already disappointed at 
 the small prospect of success which had 
 opened to them on their arrival, are said to 
 have been so dismayed at the death of James 
 fitz Maurice, that they were only hindered 
 from throwing down their arms and sur- 
 rendering to the English authorities by the 
 earnest exhortations of John of Desmond. 
 This leader used every effort to effect a 
 general rising among the native Irish, and 
 in company with the legate he was proceeding 
 to the north, to engage in his cause the tur- 
 bulent clans of Ulster, when his party was 
 attacked by the garrison of Kilmallock, and 
 he was driven back into Kerry. The mo- 
 ment was now approaching when it would 
 require all his energy to make head against 
 a skilful and disciplined enemy; for no sooner 
 had the news reached Dublin that Fitz 
 Maurice had landed in the south, than sir 
 William Drury, who ruled Ireland with the 
 title of lord justice, made a hasty muster of 
 his forces, which amounted to no more than 
 four hundred footmen and two hundred 
 horsemen, and marched into Munster. He 
 was accompanied with some of the ablest 
 officers at that time in the English service, 
 such as sir Nicholas Bagnall, the marshal of 
 Ireland ; sir Nicholas Malby, who came from 
 his government in Connaught ; James Wing- 
 field, master of the ordnance, who had learnt 
 military tactics on the battle-field of Flan- 
 
 465 
 
SIR WILLIAM I'ELilAM.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1579. 
 
 ders ; and several others ; and on his way he 
 was joined by the earl of Kildare, the vis- 
 count Mountgarret, the baron of Upper 
 Ossory, and the baron of Dunboyne, whose 
 followers helped to swell the numbers of 
 Drury's little army. 
 
 Sir William Drury had no sooner en- 
 camped in the neighbourhood of Kilmallock, 
 than he summoned the earl of Desmond, 
 whose conduct had excited the suspicions of 
 government, to appear before him. The earl 
 obeyed, and came to Drury's camp, where he 
 was immediately placed under arrest ; but, 
 as there was nothing but suspicions against 
 him, and he persisted in the strongest asser- 
 tions of his devotions to the queen,* he was 
 soon set at liberty. Other chiefs of Munster 
 attended with their forces, at Drury's sum- 
 mons, and cheerfully ranged tliemselves 
 under his banner. But the earl made his 
 recent arrest an excuse for keeping aloof, 
 and when he received a second summons to 
 attend on the lord justice, he did not obey 
 it, although he not only repeated his assur- 
 ance of fidelity, but his countess went to the 
 camp and delivered up her infant son as a 
 hostage. 
 
 The Irish insurgents now resorted to their 
 usual method of warfare, by occupying the 
 woods and fastnesses ; and the Spaniards 
 having submitted entirely to the guidance 
 of sir John of Desmond, abandoned their 
 station at Smerwick, and were distributed 
 into different quarters among the disaffected 
 of Kerry, the palatinate of the earl of 
 Desmond, whose followers were secretly 
 intructed to entertain them. They were 
 thus placed in security until the moment 
 when the rebels were in a condition to attack 
 a regular and formidable army. The Eng- 
 lish meanwhile were obliged to carry on 
 the war by pursuing the rebels into their 
 secret haunts, a service full of fatigue 
 and hazard, in which the soldiers were 
 in constant danger of surprise. For nine 
 weeks the army of the lord justice was in 
 constant movement, endeavouring to come 
 up with sir John Desmond and his forces, 
 who hovered about the English army and 
 kept them in constant alarm, without once 
 giving them an opportunity to attack. On 
 one occasion, a party of two hundred men, 
 luider two experienced officers, attempted in 
 vain to surprise a detachment of the rebels, 
 
 _ * The assertion }ie made in wi-iting on this occa- 
 sion was one which is repeated more than once in 
 the earl's correspondence in the State Paper Office: 
 "For my good mind towards the queen's majestie, 
 
 466 
 
 and on their return through the woods they 
 were surrounded by the enemy and cut to 
 pieces. 
 
 This petty advantage raised to an extraor- 
 dinary degree the spirits and expectations of 
 the insurgents, and drew many new recruits to 
 their standard. The popish ecclesiastics were 
 indefatigable in preaching in support of what 
 they called the cause of holy church ; and 
 their eftbrts were seconded by the arrival of 
 a new papal bull, whicli vested sir John of 
 Desmond with the full authority that had 
 previously been given to Fitz Maur.ice, and 
 renewed the indulgences promised to all 
 those who should fight under his banner. 
 The English army was at the same time 
 encouraged by the arrival of six hundred 
 soldiers, sent from Devonshire and Cornwall 
 to Waterford ; while a fleet of six ships of 
 war, under the command of sir John Perrott, 
 the late president of Munster, arrived off the 
 Irish coast, and took up their station at 
 Cork. 
 
 Such was the state of the war when a new 
 governor was appointed to rule over Ireland. 
 The harassing fatigues of the service in 
 which he was engaged soon put the finishing 
 stroke to sir William Drury's sinking con- 
 stitution ; and, about the time of the arrival 
 of the supplies just mentioned, he entrusted 
 the command of the army to sir Nicholas 
 Malby, and proceeded by slow journeys to 
 Waterford, where he died not long after his 
 arrival, on the last day of September, 1579. 
 The council in Dublin, as soon as they heard 
 of Drury's death, met and chose to fill the 
 office of chief justice, sir William Pelham, 
 an English gentleman who had lately arrived 
 in Ireland, and who had been knighted by 
 Drury at Waterford a few days before his 
 death. 
 
 Before Drury's death, the war, under the 
 direction of sir Nicholas Malby, had assumed 
 a still more decisive character. That able 
 officer had now under his command, of re- 
 gular soldiers, nine hundred foot and a 
 hundred and fifty horse. Of these he left 
 three hundred foot and fifty horsemen in 
 garrison at Kilmallock, and with the rest he 
 marched towards Limerick to attack sir 
 John of Desmond, who as he was informed 
 had assembled a large force in the neigh- 
 bourhood of an old abbey, named Monaster- 
 nenagh. John of Desmond was at first un- 
 
 God, who knoweth the secrets of all men's harts, 
 save me or do dampnose me as my hart is well bent 
 towards her highness." 
 
1579.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [desmond rebels. 
 
 willing to risk a battle, although much 
 superior in numbers to his opponent, for his 
 army is said to have amounted to two thou- 
 sand men. But Allen, the Jesuit, urged 
 him to remain, pointed to the papal banner, 
 wliich he said carried with it assurance 
 of victory, and declared that although a 
 priest he had assumed arms in this holy 
 cause, and was prepared to strike the first 
 blow. He then proceeded along the ranks 
 to encourage the soldiers by his benedic- 
 tions and exliortations. When the English 
 army advanced to the attack, tliey beheld 
 the novel sjjectacle of Irishmen marshalled 
 in regular military array, under the eye of 
 experienced officers, for it was the Italian and 
 Spanish commanders who directed the move- 
 ments of the Irish. John of Desmond is 
 said, in the English accounts, to have done 
 little more than remain a passive spectator 
 of the struggle, the result of vphich re- 
 mained for some time doubtful. At length, 
 after retiring from two inefi'ectual charges, 
 the English rallied a third time, and rushed 
 on with irresistable force. The Irish army 
 staggered and gave way, and then dispersed 
 in the woods, leaving the field of battle 
 covered with their slain. John of Desmond 
 himself escaped only by a headlong flight. 
 Whether Alien had fulfilled his promise of 
 striking the first blow, or not, is unknown ; 
 but his body was found among the slain, 
 and among the papers discovered on his per- 
 son were letters which are said to have left 
 no doubt of the earl of Desmond's treason- 
 able correspondence with the rebels. 
 
 Tliat nobleman, with Fitz Maurice, lord 
 of Lixnaw, had watched the battle from a 
 wooded eminence that overlooked the scene 
 of strife. The English army rested during 
 that night close to the field, on the river 
 side of the monastery; and at midnight a 
 messenger came to sir Nicholas Malby, 
 bringing a dissembling letter from the earl 
 of Desmond, full of professions of good- 
 will to the queen's cause, and congratulating 
 him on his victory, but accompanied with the 
 interested advice to withdraw from his pre- 
 sent position. Malby, however, was now 
 acquainted by the papers taken from doctor 
 Allen with the earl's correspondence with the 
 rebels, and he replied, by reminding him in 
 severe terms of his solemn and repeated 
 engagements to the queen, exhorting him 
 to prevent the ruin of his ancient and noble 
 family by returning at once to his allegiance, 
 and entering without further delay, in the 
 queen's service. Finding his expostulations 
 
 witliout effect, the English commander re- 
 moved, some days afterwards, to the earl's 
 town of Rathkeal, where he established his 
 head quarters. The earl treated this as an 
 act of hostility, and, joining with his bro- 
 ther John, made an attempt to siu'prise 
 Malby in his camp, and then the two Irish 
 chiefs retreated in company to the castle of 
 Askeaton, which, with his otlier castles, 
 Desmond caused to be strengthened and for- 
 tified under the direction of his foreign 
 officers. Malby pursued the rebels to 
 Askeaton, to which he prepared to lay 
 siege ; preparatory to which he sent another 
 letter to the earl making a last appeal to 
 liim to return to his allegiance. He at this 
 moment received intelligence of the death 
 of sir William Drury, and of the prepara- 
 tions of the new lord justice, sir William 
 Pelham, to carry on the war with vigour; 
 and he distributed his forces into garrisons 
 in the towns and villages around, and pre- 
 pared to return to his own government in 
 Connaught. 
 
 The rebels took the inactivity of their 
 enemies for weakness, and under John and 
 James of Desmond they assembled in great 
 force on different points, and began to ha- 
 rass the English soldiers in their garrisons, 
 and cut off their provisions. These attacks, 
 however, soon ceased on the intelligence of 
 the approach of sir William Pelham to the 
 seat of war. It appears that the earl of 
 Desmond, who continued to follow his old, 
 weak and temporising policy, and had not 
 as yet, himself, committed an overt act of 
 hostility, had made complaints to the govern- 
 ment in Dublin of the injustice he had re- 
 ceived from sir Nicholas Malby. After 
 appointing the earl of Ormond governor, and 
 sir Nicholas Bagnall provost-marshal of 
 Munster, and leaving the earl of Kildare to 
 look to the defence of the northern borders, 
 the new lord justice proceeded to Kilkenny, 
 where he remained two days holding ses- 
 sions, and he there effected a reconcilia- 
 tion between the earl of Ormond and the 
 baron of Upper Ossory, for a bitter fued 
 had existed for some time between those 
 two noblemen In the latter end of October 
 he arrived at Cashel, and thence sent a sum- 
 mons to the earl of Desmond to repair to 
 him at Cashel or Limerick, in order that liis 
 complaints against Malby might he heard 
 and investigated. Receiving no answer, 
 Pelham proceeded to Limerick, where he ' 
 was met by Malby, who now surrendered 
 the command of the army, and who accora- 
 
 467 
 
THE deputy's proclamation.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1579. 
 
 panied him to a small town, named by the 
 old iiistorian Fanings, where the countess of 
 Desmond came to deliver her husband's 
 excuses for not venturing to prese? t himself 
 in person before the lord justice. 
 
 Sir William Pelham now called together 
 the members of the council who were pre- 
 sent with him, and it was resolved to act 
 against the earl with greater decision. The 
 earl of Ormond was first sent to him with 
 certain definite demands, to which he was 
 summoned to give a peremptory answer. In 
 tlie first place, he was required to deliver up 
 to the lord justice doctor Saunders and the 
 other foreigners who had come to make war 
 upon the queen, and who were now living 
 under his protection. He was required to 
 deliver into the queen's hands, as jjledges for 
 his future good behaviour, his castles of 
 Carrig-o-foyle and Askeaton, and to submit 
 himself unreservedly to her majesty, refer- 
 ring his cause to the judgment of her ma- 
 jesty and council in England, or to the lord 
 justice and council in Ireland. On his com- 
 pliance with these requests, and his inune- 
 diate repair to the lord justice, to assist him 
 with his followers in quelling the rebellion, 
 it was intimated that the earl would receive 
 the queen's free pardon for his past offences. 
 The interview between the earl of Or- 
 mond and the earl of Desmond took place 
 on the 30th of October, 1579, and produced 
 no other result but an evasive letter from 
 the latter, who demanded restitutions for old 
 wrongs and injuries, with implied threats of 
 the confusion in which the refusal to listen 
 to his demands might involve the kingdom, 
 accompanied with a repetition of his old 
 assertions of his fidelity to the crown, in 
 despite of his refusal to obey the summons 
 for his personal appearance before the lord 
 deputy. The patience of the latter was now 
 exhausted, and he caused proclamation to be 
 made in the beginning of November, rehear- 
 sing the various acts of treason with which the 
 earl of Desmond was charged, and declaring 
 him a traitor if he neglected to make his ap- 
 pearance and submission within twenty days. 
 The publication of this proclamation was 
 the signal for recommencing hostilities, and 
 the lord justice immediately marched his 
 army into the earl's palatinate, and there 
 next day, (the 3rd of November,) reviewed 
 the army, which had been considerably in- 
 creased by reinforcements brought witii him 
 from Dublin ; and having entrusted the 
 connnand to the earl of Ormond, proceeded 
 to Limerick on his way back to Dublin. 
 468 
 
 The old Irish annalists, describing the devas- 
 tations which marked the latter end of tliis 
 year, tells us chat, from the Slievelogher 
 mountains to the river Suir, and fiom the 
 neighbourhood of Kilmallock to the Shan- 
 non, " there was not a fortress or town, any 
 corn or a dwelling, to which the sons of the 
 earl (John and James of Desmond) had come 
 that they did not demolish, destroy, burn, 
 and completely consume by fire, lest the 
 English should possess them ; and the Eng- 
 lish, in retaliation against the Geraldines, 
 left not a house, dwelling, rick, or corn stack 
 in their course, which they did not destroy 
 in the same manner, so that between them 
 the whole country was nmde bare ground 
 without corn or dwellings." 
 
 The earl of Desmond having now openly 
 joined his brothers in rebellion, they raised 
 their forces and marched into the county of 
 Cork, where they laid waste the baronies of 
 Barrymore and Iniskilly, the lands of the 
 lords Barry and Roche. The earl assembled 
 his forces before the town of Youghel, which 
 he obtained possession of, it was said, by 
 the treachery of the mayor ; and after plun- 
 dering it during five days, burnt it to the 
 ground. The Irish annalists exult over the 
 riches which were carried away by the 
 plunderers from this unfortunate town. 
 
 The barbarous devastations committed at 
 Youghal, and the subsequent destruction of 
 a small force sent to recover the town, pro- 
 voked the earl of Ormond to make fierce 
 reprisals. He invaded Connello and other 
 territories belonging to the earl of Desmond, 
 burnt towns and villages, slaughtered the 
 inhabitants, and reduced the country to 
 a desert. He then marched to Cork, plun- 
 dering the lands of the disaffected in his 
 way ; and from Cork he repaired to Cashel, 
 committing similar devastations. In their 
 march to Cashel the English captured the 
 mayor of Youghal, whose readiness to open 
 the gates of the town to Desmond's plun- 
 derers, combined with the fact that just 
 before the attack he had refused to admit a 
 small garrison of English troops for its de- 
 fence, made him a just object of resentment. 
 The earl of Ormond carried him a captive 
 to Youghal, and there caused him Lo be 
 hanged before the door of his own house. 
 " The lord governor, when he came into the 
 town, found it all desolate, rifled and 
 spoiled, and no one man, women, or child 
 therein, saving one friar, whom he spared 
 because he had fetched the corpse of Henry 
 Davels from Tralee, and had carried it to 
 
 I 
 i 
 
A.D. 15S0.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [munster ravaged. 
 
 Waterford, where it was buried in the chan- 
 cel of the cathedral church ; and his lordship, 
 much pitying the desolate state of the 
 town, did take order for the re-edifying of 
 the walls and gates, and placed therein a 
 garrison of three hundred footmen who did 
 very good service in the country, and by 
 good means drew home the people and old 
 inhabitants, and impeopled the town again." 
 
 The chief part of the plunder of Youghal 
 was said to have been carried to the earl's 
 castles of Strangically and Lefinnen, in the 
 county of Cork, which were both garrisoned 
 with the Spaniards. After measures had 
 been taken for the restoration of Youghal, 
 the earl of Ormond consulted with his cap- 
 tains, and it was determined to make an 
 attempt against the Spaniards in the former 
 fortress, in order, as the old historian ex- 
 presses it, " to try their value," for as yet 
 the government troops appear to have held 
 the foreign soldiers in some degree of dread. 
 But when the earl of Ormond's men now 
 approached to lay siege to Strangically, tlie 
 Spaniards deserted the fort where they might 
 have defended themselves, and, in their flight 
 across the water to seek shelter in the woods, 
 they were overtaken, and nearly all put to 
 the sword. 
 
 The vain presumption of the earl of Des- 
 mond was raised to a degree of intoxication 
 by liis successes at Youghal, and he no 
 longer thought it necessary to preserve the 
 flimsy mask of allegiance which he had 
 hitherto assumed. He wrote a letter to sir 
 William Pelham, announcing that he and 
 his brethre-n had entered into a league for 
 the defence of the catholic faith, under the 
 protection of the pope and the king of Spain, 
 and actually inviting the lord justice to join 
 in the confederacy. He wrote letters of a 
 similar kind to many of the Irish and Anglo- 
 Irish lords, especially to such as were sus- 
 pected of disaffection to the crown ; and lord 
 Baltinglass, and some others, encouraged by 
 the declaration that powerful assistance was 
 expected from Spain, joined the standard of 
 rebellion, though they were at first too weak 
 to raise any serious insurrection in the Eng- 
 ligh pale. The papal legate, Saunders, had 
 now become Desmond's confidential adviser, 
 and it was probably his persuasions which 
 drew the earl at length into these violent 
 courses. This turbulent priest had, before 
 the proclamation of treason against the earl 
 of Desmond, written a letter to Ulick Burke, 
 of Connaught, urging him to join the papal 
 standard; but that chief forwarded the letter 
 
 to sir Nicholas Malby, who communicated 
 it to Pelham, at Limerick. Instead of re- 
 turning direct to Dublin, the lord justice pro- 
 ceeded with a portion of his troops through 
 Thomond to Galway, to encourage the well- 
 affected in Connaught. 
 
 The earl of Desmond had thrown himself 
 into rebellion inconsiderately, and he seems 
 to have had no concerted plan of operations, 
 nor to have made any provisions for a length- 
 ened struggle against an enemy with the 
 extent of wliose resources he must have been 
 well acquainted. At the commencement of 
 the new year, 1580, sir William Pelham 
 again marched in person to the south to 
 grapple with the insurgents ; and Desmond 
 soon beheld his vast territories overrun and 
 depopulated from one extremity to the other, 
 whilst he was himself glad to find a shelter 
 in his woods, from which he issued by night 
 to harass the invaders, by cutting off their 
 straggling parties when chance threw them 
 into his way. The war was reduced to a 
 succession of petty sieges of castles, which 
 one after another fell into the hands of the 
 lord justice. Carrig-a-foyle, one of the 
 most formidable of these fortresses, was de- 
 fended by about fifty Irishmen and nineteen 
 Spaniards, under the command of an Italian 
 officer named Julio, who provoked the be- 
 siegers by the obstinacy with which they 
 defended the trust, which they pretended 
 they had undertaken for the king of Spain. 
 The castle was soon taken by storm, and its 
 garrison were all put to tlie sword or hanged, 
 Julio himself being subjected to the latter 
 fate, after he had been reserved two days. 
 
 In the midst of such ravages, the rich 
 plains of the south of Ireland presented a 
 hideous sjaectacle of desolation. The tenants 
 and vassals of Desmond were continually 
 abandoned to slaughter, or perished by the 
 still more fearful tortures of famine. Some 
 of them, hearing that the English admiral. 
 Winter, was off the coast, and informed that 
 he came with a commission to execute mar- 
 tial law, instead of being terrified at his 
 approach, hastened to meet him ; and by 
 the piteous representations of their calama- 
 ties obtained from him protection against 
 their persecutors by land. John Hooker 
 informs us drily that the soldiers " did very 
 much mislike" this proceeding, believing 
 " the same to be somewhat prejudicial to 
 her majesty's service, because they persuaded 
 tliemselves that if they had followed the 
 course which they began, tliey should either 
 have taken or slain them all." "Such," the 
 
 469 
 
ARTHUR LOUD GREY.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1580. 
 
 historian Leland with some justice ohserves, 
 " was the temper of this man (Hooker), who 
 could express regret at a little mercy shown 
 to wretches who scarcely knew any duty, 
 but that of implicit obedience to their lords ; 
 when, at tlie time that their lives were 
 spared, they were frequently bereft of all 
 means of svipport ; and when their cattle 
 had been seized, he assures us, that they 
 were seen following the army with their 
 wives and children, and begging that all 
 might be rescued from their miseries by the 
 sword, rather than thus condemned to waste 
 by famine." 
 
 While his people were reduced to this 
 miserable condition, the earl of Desmond 
 himself, with his countess and their compa- 
 nion, Saunders, were ranging as fugitives 
 from hiding place to hiding place, in frequent 
 danger of being captured by their enemies, 
 who now pursued him into his fastnesses, 
 and often recaptured the prey which had 
 been carried away by his followers. One of 
 these hair-breadth escapes occurred in the 
 middle of June, 1580, when the lord justice 
 after plundering the lands of the Mac 
 Auleys, penetrated into the dangerous passes 
 of the Slievelogher mountains. A rising of 
 the lord Baltinglass and the O'Byrnes in 
 Leinster, at this moment, threw the English 
 pale into alarm, and seemed to hold out 
 better hopes to the rebels of the south. 
 Sir James of Desmond, and Saunders, with 
 a body of their followers, made a desperate 
 attempt to force their way over the moun- 
 tains to join these new insurgents, but they 
 were encountered by the Irish sheriff of the 
 county of Cork, sir Cormac mac Teige (a 
 Mac Carthy), by whom sir James was made 
 prisoner, and many of his party slain. 
 Saunders narrowly escaped, and rejoined 
 the earl and his other brother sir John. 
 James of Desmond was delivered to sir 
 "Warham Sentleger (the provost marshal) 
 and captain Raleigh (the celebrated sir 
 Walter Raleigh, who had newly entered 
 upon service in Ireland), and by them he 
 was immediately tried by a court martial, 
 and executed as a traitor. His body was 
 quartered, and with the head set upon the 
 gates of the city of Cork. 
 
 The death of this rebel chief cast a new- 
 damp upon the spirits of his companions, 
 who, in their despondency, began to quar- 
 rel among themselves. John of Desmond 
 and his brother the earl, proceeded to bit- 
 ter recriminations, each charging the other 
 with the calamities to which they were now 
 470 
 
 reduced; and at length sir John, and the 
 legate Saunders, resolved to abandon the 
 earl, and make another attempt to join the 
 insurgents under lord Baltinglass. But 
 they also were encountered in the night by 
 a party of the queen's troops, who captured 
 some of their followers, while the leaders 
 escaped almost by a miracle. The earl, 
 hunted from one hiding-place to another, 
 was now reduced to despair, and his countess 
 repaired to the lord justice, and on her 
 knees, with tears in her eyes, petitioned for 
 mercy for her husband. But it seems to 
 have been now resolved that no mercy should 
 be shown, and her prayers were not Ustened 
 to. The earl was equally unsuccessful, when 
 he tried a last desperate expedient of sur- 
 rendering to admiral Winter, on condition 
 of being conveyed a prisoner into England, 
 that he might supplicate for mercy at the 
 foot of the throne. At this moment a new 
 ray of hope was unexpectedly cast over the 
 rebel cause. 
 
 Sir William Pelham, elected to the office 
 of lord justice by the Irish council, had only 
 been considered as a temporary governor, 
 and the queen now appointed to succeed 
 him Arthur lord Grey of Wilton. The 
 new lord deputy landed at Howth, near 
 Dublin, on the 12th of August, 1580, and 
 expressed his impatience to receive the 
 sword of justice from the hands of Pelham. 
 The latter immediately distributed his 
 troops, which now amounted to between 
 three and four thousand men, in garrisons, 
 and making a rapid progress through Con- 
 naught, reached Dublin on the first of Sep- 
 tember. The next day the lord Grey 
 received the sword with the accustomed 
 ceremonies in St. Patrick's cathedral. It is 
 said that symptoms of jealousy were already 
 visible in the lord justice and his succes- 
 sor, the former being anxious to secure to 
 himself the credit of having reduced the 
 rebels to extremities, while lord Grey was 
 equally eager to enter upon the duties of 
 his office, and perform some exploit which 
 might give glory to his incipient adminis- 
 tration, if it did not eclipse the successes of 
 his predecessor. While in this temper intel- 
 lig-ence arrived which seemed to hold out a 
 prospect of gratifying the ambition of the 
 new deputy, who rushed into it rashly, 
 without having first made himself well 
 acquainted with the nature of the service 
 he was undertaking. 
 
 On the day of his arrival at Dublin, lord 
 Grey had written to the queen his liasty 
 
1580.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [defeat of glenmalure. 
 
 impressions on the condition of Ireland, in 
 which he complained especially that the pale 
 was " sore vexed through the undutifulness 
 of viscount Baltinglass and his associates, 
 many of your subjects by them spoiled and 
 burnt, which still will now be the hardlier 
 suppressed, having liad head in the longest 
 afforded it; and the good that is in hope to 
 be done in them by English bands only in 
 manner is to be expected, the chielfest of 
 your highness's good subjects having in mis- 
 trust or rather in despairing of their own 
 followers. So, contrary to my former pur- 
 pose, am I stayed from the west for the 
 prosecution of these, which indeed is so 
 much the more perillous action, as it is 
 nearer to the heart. Well, the event is 
 God's only, but that somewhat is undertaken 
 very shortly, I doubt not but your highness 
 shall hear." 
 
 Whether the new deputy at this moment 
 contemplated the disastrous expedition which 
 followed is not certain ; but within a day or 
 two after, his indignation was moved by the 
 intelligence that one of the Fitz Geralds of 
 Kildare, who had been entrusted with the 
 command of a body of soldiers in the English 
 service for the defence of the pale, had se- 
 duced his men from their duty, and joined 
 the rebels under the command of lord Balt- 
 inglass. Lord Baltinglass, Fitz Gerald, and 
 the cliief of the old sept of the O'Byrnes, 
 were thus at the head of a very considerable 
 force, which they assembled in the moun- 
 tainous district of Slieve-Roe and Glen- 
 malure, popularly known as the glynnes, in 
 tlie county of Wicklow, within twenty-five 
 miles of Dublin. Lord Grey, who was in- 
 experienced in the Irish wars, was provoked 
 at being thus almost bearded in his capital 
 by the rebels, and, disregarding the cautious 
 advice of those who were better acquainted 
 with the country and with the manner of 
 fighting of the Irish, gave instant orders to 
 the officers who had repaired to him on his 
 arrival, to prepare with their companies to 
 march into the disturbed district. Lord Grey 
 was perhaps eager to perform some brilliant 
 exploit before Pelham's arrival, which might 
 make people forget for a moment the dis- 
 tinguished services of his predecessor. 
 
 It was the 25th of August when the army, 
 under the personal command of lord Grey, 
 accompanied by the earl of Kildare, entered 
 the defiles which were occupied by the rebel 
 leaders. The fastness of Glenmalure is de- 
 scribed by Hooker, who, it is not impro- 
 bable, was present with his friends the 
 
 Carews, as "a valley or combe, lying in 
 the middle of tlie wood, of a great length, 
 between two hills, and no other way is tliere 
 to pass through. Under foot it is boggy 
 and soft, and full of great stones and slip- 
 pery rocks, very hard and evil to pass 
 tin-ough; the sides are full of great and 
 mighty trees upon the sides of the hills, and 
 full of bushments and underwoods." Among 
 these bushments and underwoods the Irish 
 leaders had concealed their men, in such a 
 manner that as the English approached they 
 were totally unconscious of the presence of 
 an enemy. While the deputy, with the earl 
 of Kildare, James Wingfield, George Carew 
 (afterwards ennobled for his services), and 
 several other experienced commanders re- 
 remained with one division of the army on 
 the wooded hill at the entrance to the val- 
 ley, the others commenced their dangerous 
 march. Already weary with struggling 
 th]-ough the boggy eartli, or clambering over 
 tlie stones, they had advanced about half a 
 mile into the vale of Glenmalure, wiien on a 
 sudden a heavy fire from the brushwood 
 around thinned their ranks, and officers as well 
 as men fell thickly by the hands of an unseen 
 foe, without any chance of retaliating or 
 defending themselves. Of those who were 
 in advance few escaped; and these carried 
 the alarm to the division which followed, 
 and which also took to flight. The Irish 
 now rushed from their hiding places, and 
 slaughtered the English soldiers with their 
 pikes and skeins as they struggled to over- 
 come the difficulties of the ground over 
 wliich they had advanced. More, a brave 
 officer who had recently arrived from Ber- 
 wick, Audley, Cosby, and other commanders 
 had already fallen; and sir Peter Carew, 
 weary with running in his armour, of which 
 he was unable to divest himself, was at 
 length obliged to lie down on the sod. The 
 Irish, when they came to rob him of his 
 armour and clothes, found that he was alive, 
 and were carrying him away as a prisoner. 
 But no sooner was he stripped, than one of 
 these barbarous warriors, contrary to the 
 will of his companions, hacked him to death 
 with his sword. His younger brother George 
 Carew fortunately escaped from this san- 
 guinary massacre. Wingfield, the uncle of 
 the Carews, whose experience in Irish war- 
 fare had made him anticipate the disastrous 
 result of rash orders against which he had 
 expostulated in vain, used his utmost per- 
 suasions to retain his nephews in the com- 
 pany which attended on the lord deputy, 
 
 471 
 
LANDING OF THE SPANIARDS.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 15S0. 
 
 but both eager to distinguish themselves in 
 the expected engagement declared their 
 resolution to accompany the advancing divi- 
 sions. Unable to restrain the impetuosity 
 of the elder brother, sir Peter, Wingfield 
 used the authority of a kinsman in holding 
 back the younger by force, and thus pre- 
 served George Carew from his brother's fate 
 for a future and brilliant career. 
 
 Lord Arthur Grey, covered with dismay 
 
 and confusion at the misfortunes of this 
 "black day," as Hooker calls it, made a 
 hasty retreat to Dublin with the wieck of 
 his army. This ill-judged and ill-fated ex- 
 pedition gave new courage to the rebels and 
 new life to the rebellion, which, fi-om this 
 moment, assumed again a threatening cha- 
 racter. Events in the south, equally unex- 
 pected, added to the embarrassments of the 
 new deputy. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ._ LANDING AND DEFEAT OF THE SPANIARDS ; SUPPRESSION OF THE REBELLION, 
 
 <f\y ''■-'<■ , i AND DEATH OF THE EARL OF DESMOND. 
 
 ^^r^HILIP of Spain 
 
 of the rebels of Desmond to such a degree, 
 
 ment by 
 the Irish. 
 
 '.i^s%. J>^„ not yet laid aside his 
 
 •k^^2p hopes of embarrassing, 
 
 1^ ,' ^ if not overthrowing, 
 
 '\* Elizabeth's govern- 
 
 encouraging the disaifection of 
 
 During the spring and summer 
 of the year 1580, admiral Winter had been 
 stationed on the coast of Kerry, to cut off 
 any hopes that the Irish insurgents might 
 entertain of assistance from abroad ; but, 
 towards autumn, the English fleet was com- 
 pelled to return home by tempestuous wea- 
 ther and lack of provisions. Winter had 
 not long left his station when some Spanisii 
 ships suddenly made tiieir appearance, and 
 landed at Smerwick a body of about seven 
 hundred Spanish and Italian soldiers, under 
 a Spanish commander named Sebastian de 
 San Josepo. San Joscpo brought with him 
 a considerable sum of money, and arms for 
 five thousand men, which were destined for 
 the earl of Desmond, his brother John, and 
 the legate Saunders, to enable those leaders 
 to collect and arm their followers, and make 
 head against the forces of government until 
 the arrival of new supplies from Spain. 
 
 The Spaniards and Italians landed in the 
 old fort thrown up by the companions of 
 Fitz Maurice, which they strengthened and 
 completed, and to which they gave the name 
 of the Golden Fort (Fort del Or). The ships 
 returned to Spain, to carry back the intel- 
 ligence of their landing, and be ready for 
 the transport of new troops, which were to 
 follow them speedily. The arrival of these 
 472 
 
 foreigners raised at once the drooping spirits 
 
 rebels of Desmond to such a 
 that no exploit less than the conquest of the 
 whole island seemed sufficient to satisfy their 
 expectations. 
 
 AMien the earl of Ormond heard of the 
 arrival of foreign soldiers in Ireland, he as- 
 sembled the troops under his command as 
 military chief of Munster, and marched im- 
 mediately against them, each party being 
 equally ignorant of the force of their oppo- 
 nents. The Spaniards, by the advice of 
 their allies, as soon as they heard of Ormond's 
 approach, left their fort, and retired to the 
 woods; but when they were better informed 
 of the smallness of his force, and of his being 
 entirely unprovided with the necessaries for 
 a siege, San Josepo and three hundred of 
 his men returned to take possession of their 
 fort, and prepare it for a defence. In the 
 slight skirmishing which attended their march 
 to the woods, the earl had taken some pri- 
 soners, by whose information he learnt the 
 numbers of the invaders, and the intentions 
 with which they came ; and, having expe- 
 rienced himself some loss from a successful 
 sally by the garrison of the fort, he made 
 his retreat to Rathkeale, there to wait the 
 determination of the lord deputy. 
 
 The intelligence of this invasion reached 
 lord Grey soon after he had taken the oaths 
 of office, and filled the council at Dublin with 
 alarm. Taking with him eight hundred 
 men under experienced officers, the lord 
 deputy lost no time in marching to the scene 
 of action, and joining the earl of Ormond 
 
'a.d. IjSO.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [capture of the Spanish fort. 
 
 at Rathkeale. Among the captains was 
 Walter Raleigh, who from this moment per- 
 formed an active part in the wars of 
 Munster. An anecdote related of him on 
 the present occasion, when the lord deputy 
 and the earl of Ormond marched with their 
 combined forces from Rathkeale to lay siege 
 to the Spanish fort, is characteristic of the 
 man, and of the sort of warfare in which he 
 was engaged. " Captain Raleigh," says 
 Hooker, " notwithstanding that the lord 
 deputy had raised his camp at Rathkeale, 
 and was gone towards the fort, yet he 
 tarried and stayed behind, minding to prac- 
 tise some exploit. For it was not unknown 
 unto him, that it was a manner among the 
 Irish kernes, that whensoever any English 
 camp was dislodged and removed, they would, 
 after their departure, come to those camps 
 to take what they there found to be left. 
 Thus, therefore, lying and keeping himself 
 very close, he tarried and abode the coming 
 of the said kernes, who suspecting no such 
 trap to be laid for them, came after their 
 manners and old usages to the said place, 
 and there took their pleasure ; who when 
 they were in their security, the captain and 
 his men came upon them and took them all. 
 Among them there was one who carried 
 and was laden with withs, which they used 
 instead of halters ; and being demanded 
 what he would do with them, and why he 
 carried them, gave answer, that they were 
 to hang up English churls, (for so they 
 call Englishmen). ' Is it so ?' quoth the 
 captain, — well, they shall now serve for an 
 Irish kerne ; and so commanded him to be 
 hanged up with one of his own withs. The 
 residue he handled according to their 
 deserts." 
 
 When the English army came before the 
 fort, a messenger was sent to the garrison 
 to demand who they were, and for what 
 purpose they had presumed to invade and 
 fortify themselves in the dominions of the 
 queen of England. The commander an- 
 swered with a proud bearing that they were 
 the soldiers of tlie pope, and of king Piiilip 
 of Spain, that they were sent to extirpate 
 heresy from that island, and to reduce it to 
 obedience to king Philip, to whom it had 
 been formerly granted by the holy father ; 
 and on being summoned to surrender, they 
 set the lord deputy at defiance, and declared 
 their intention not only to hold what they 
 had got, but to persist in their purposes 
 until they had gained more. The lord 
 deputy then began to make deliberate pre- 
 
 voL. I. 3 o 
 
 parations for a regular blockade. A division 
 of the English fleet, under the command of 
 sir Richard Bingham, had already entered 
 the haven of Smerwick, and on the 5th of 
 November admiral Winter made his appear- 
 ance with the rest of the fleet, so that the 
 English were able to invest the fort on all 
 sides. 
 
 The Spaniards, who were apparently un- 
 acquainted with the real strength of the 
 enemy with whom they had now to contend, 
 still treated the English with proud defiance, 
 and they tried to embarrass them by making 
 a desperate sally against their camp, but 
 they were beat back by the companies of 
 captains Deny and Raleigh. Lord Grey is 
 said now to have summoned the Spanish 
 commander a second time to surrender, with 
 offers of mercy ; but he only received the 
 same answer, that he would keep what he 
 had, and do his best to obtain more. During 
 the night, artillery was landed from the ships, 
 and Winter, having cut through a bank which 
 lay between the shore and the fort, estab- 
 lished a battery unperceived by the besieged. 
 On the 7th of November the trenches were 
 opened, and the English batteries continued 
 to play upon the fort till the evening of the 
 9th, when a white flag, hoisted from the 
 point of a rampire, which had been severely 
 battered, announced the wish of the Spanish 
 commander for a parley He requested that 
 his men might be allowed to depart with 
 a safe conduct as to their lives, if not with 
 their arms, " according to the custom of 
 war and the law of nations." The lord deputy 
 replied, that they had no right to jjlead either 
 the custom of war or the law of nations, 
 unless they were " lawful enemies;" to prove 
 which he demanded to see by what commis- 
 sion they came thither into another prince's 
 dominions to make war, " whether from the 
 pope, or the king of Spain, or any other." 
 They then said that they had no commission, 
 but were only adventurers who came to seek 
 fortune abroad, and that they had engaged 
 to serve in war amongst the Irish who had 
 hired them. The deputy told them, that 
 the Irish whom they came to serve, under 
 the earl and John of Desmond, were them- 
 selves no lawful enemies, but were rebels 
 and traitors, and that those who came thus 
 to assist them without any regular license 
 or commission from their own king, could 
 only be looked upon as pirates ; " so as it 
 should be dishonoui-able for him, in the name 
 of his queen, to condition or make any terms 
 with such rascals ; but he left them to their 
 
 473 
 
MASSACRE OF THE GARRISON.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 15S0. 
 
 choice, to yield or submit themselves, or 
 no."* Upon this they agreed the same 
 night to surrender themselves and the fort 
 unconditionally, referring themselves entirely 
 to the deputy's discretion. " Yet for that it 
 was night, and no time to get them forth, 
 they were by my lord respited till the mor- 
 row, but the best of them taken forth for 
 hostages or pledges. And we, that notwith- 
 standing, followed our trench, whereto we 
 finished the same night within three score 
 paces of their fort, and so ran the same 
 all alongst their front, where we meant to 
 place our battery, to which we brought the 
 same night two pieces. In the morning, 
 which was Thursday and the tenth, early in 
 the morning my lord sent in divers gentlemen 
 to take order that such munitions of powder 
 and victuals should be preserved toher majes- 
 ty's use as there was. There order was taken, 
 that the colonel (don Sebastian de San 
 Josepo), with the captains and chief officers, 
 should come forth and deliver up their 
 ensigns, with order and ceremony thereto 
 belonging, which done, the band that had 
 the order of the day (it is said to have been 
 Raleigh's) then entered, which was put 
 down. But, in the mean time, were entered 
 a number of mariners upon the part next 
 the sea, which, with the soldiers aforesaid, 
 having possessed the place, fell to rifling 
 and spoiling, and withal killing, which they 
 never ceased while there lived one. The 
 number slain might be betwixt four and five 
 hundred ; but as some do judge, betwixt 
 five and six hundred. They had, as I hear, 
 of powder left fifty barrels, of pikes four 
 thousand, other furniture of arms in such 
 like proportion ; of victuals they had great 
 store, saving that they wanted water, which 
 they had not in their fort. Thus hath my 
 lord most worthily achieved this enterprise, 
 and so nobly and liberally dealt with all 
 sorts, that he hath given a great satisfaction 
 and content to all his followers." 
 
 Such is the account of this affiiir given by 
 the naval commander, sir Richard Bingham, 
 in a private letter to the earl of Leicester, 
 dated from Smerwick-road, on the 11th of 
 November, the day after the capture of the 
 
 * The account of this conference is taken almost 
 verbatim from the narrative of Spenser, who intimates 
 that he was present, no doubt in his capacity as secre- 
 tary to lord Grey. 
 
 t This important letter is printed in Wright's 
 " Queen Elizabeth and her Times," vol. ii., p. 120. 
 
 X " Their captains came to the lord justice (deputy), 
 for the purpose of entering upon terms of peace with 
 him, upon which the lord justice's people passed 
 
 474 
 
 fort.-f Other accounts were subsequently 
 circulated, and the massacre of the garrison 
 has been made the ground of much, perhaps 
 unmerited odium, thrown on the government 
 of lord Grey. The Irish writers declare, 
 that the Spanish commander surrendered on 
 condition that the lives of his men should 
 be spared ; but this statement, although it 
 was industriously spread abroad by the Roman 
 Catholics, is fully disproved by the state- 
 ment of Spenser. Even the writers of our 
 own country believe that the slaughter was 
 perpetrated by a deliberate order of a court 
 martial, and they blame the deed, or ex- 
 cuse it on the ground of expediency. But 
 it must be acknowledged, that Bingham's is 
 the only authentic account, written at the 
 time and on the spot, and without any appa- 
 rent motive for misre2)resenting the truth. 
 It is confirmed to a certain degree by the 
 Irish account of the transaction, given in 
 the Annals of the Four Masters.^ And, 
 indeed, the English were in general so much 
 exasperated against the Spaniards, on ac- 
 count of the sanguinary massacres they had 
 been guilty of in the Low Countries, that we 
 can easily imagine them taking revenge in a 
 moment like this when they were suddenly 
 relieved from restraint. Both parties, in 
 these wars, were too much habituated to such 
 sanguinary scenes. The siege of Smerwick 
 is curiously connected with the history of 
 the English literary men of the Elizabethan 
 age ; for not only were Raleigh and Spenser 
 present, but a son of the celebrated Greek 
 professor, sir John Cheeke, was slain in the 
 attack. 
 
 This ill-fated invasion had already served 
 to encourage the disaff'ected in other parts 
 of Ireland, and between the lord Baltinglass 
 and his confederates in Leinster, and the 
 sons of the earl of Clanrickard, who were 
 again in arms in Connaught, every part of 
 the island was in open rebellion, except 
 Ulster, which, formerly the most turbulent 
 of all, was now the only province that en- 
 joyed 2)eace. After having destroyed the 
 fortifications at Smerwick, the lord deputy 
 restored the chief government of Munster 
 to the earl of Ormond, as its president ; 
 
 onward unawares to the island, and began to kill and 
 slaughter the Italians, so that not one of the seven 
 hundred Italians escaped from the destruction on the 
 spot." Hooker says, " When the captain had yielded 
 himself, and the fort appointed to be surrendered, 
 captain Raleigh, together with captain /vlacworth, who 
 had the ward of that day, entered into the castle and 
 made a great slaughter, many, or the most part of 
 them, being put to the sword." 
 
 < 
 
A.D. 
 
 1580.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [movements of the rebels. 
 
 appointed captain Zoucli, a brave English 
 officer, governor of Kerry ; and entrusted to 
 Raleigh the command of Cork. He then 
 hastened back to take measures for repressing 
 the disorders of Connaught, and of the 
 English pale. 
 
 On the borders of the former province 
 the O'Rourkes had risen in arms during the 
 autumn of 1580, and, after demolishing the 
 castle of Leitrim, plundered the districts 
 bordering on the Shannon. These and the 
 two insurgent Burkes, John and Ulick, 
 who destroyed most of the castles of Clan- 
 rickard, gave sufficient employment to sir 
 Nicholas Malb3^ John Burke surprised 
 the town of Loughrea by night, slaughtered 
 the garrison and inhabitants, and set at 
 liberty some of his kinsmen who were im- 
 prisoned there. The O'Briens of Thomond 
 followed the example of the Burkes and the 
 O'Rourkes, the earl of Thomond, who ex- 
 ercised the English office of sheriff, being 
 the only chieftain of his family of any 
 importance who remained faithful to the 
 English. 
 
 John of Desmond was the most active of 
 the insurgents of the south, and his plun- 
 dering exploits caused his name to be asso- 
 ciated in Irish story with those of James 
 fitz Maurice, and the still more celebrated 
 Shane O'Neill. In the month of July he 
 assembled a small force in the woods of 
 Aherlowin Ti])perary, with which he moved 
 along the banks of tlie Shannon, and then 
 pursued an easterly direction to Ikerrin. In 
 the course of his march he was repeatedly 
 attacked by parties of the English or their 
 allies, chiefly the Burkes of Ormond, but 
 he defeated his assailants in every encounter ; 
 and at length, with a considerable quantity 
 of plunder, reached the dense and solitary 
 woods of Ballaghmore on the borders of 
 Tipperary and Queen's County. Here he 
 was joined by the Mac Gillapatricks (sons 
 of the baron of Upper Ossory), and the son 
 of O'Carroll, " along with a great number 
 of insurgents and depredators," to use the 
 words of the Irish annalists, who, being a 
 native of Tirconnell, which took no part in 
 these troubles speaks, with some impartiality 
 of the affairs of Munster With his forces 
 thus increased, John of Desmond removed 
 to the Slieve-bloom mountains, which sepa- 
 rates the Queen's and King's counties, 
 where the O'Connors and O'Moores, of 
 Offaly and Leix, flocked to his standard. 
 The inaccessible cho.racter of the district he 
 had now chouen for his retreat, afforded a 
 
 secure shelter for his plundering parties 
 which ravaged the surrounding country 
 almost with impunity. These insurgents 
 committed great depredations on the posses- 
 sions of the Butlers in Ossory, and they 
 ravaged the district of Leix so perseveringly 
 tliat they are said to have plundered seven 
 towns in one day. The monastery of Leix 
 was plundered and burnt, as well as the 
 town of Portarlington. The Irish annalist 
 just quoted, in describing the manner ot 
 life of the insurgents on the wild moun- 
 tains of the Slieve-bloom ridge, tells us 
 that John of Desmond " slept only on 
 heaps of stones or earth, and drank nothing 
 but the cold water of the limpid stream, 
 from the palms of his hands, or out of his 
 shoes ; his cooking utensils were the long 
 rods of the wood, with /hich he dressed 
 the flesh meat he took from his enemies." 
 
 Afterhavingperpetrated all kinds of devas- 
 tation in Ossory and Leix, John of Desmond 
 sought another locality, and he thus moved 
 with his wild followers from place to place, 
 till he reached the mountains of Glenmalure, 
 where he joined the insurrection which was 
 daily gaining head under the lord Baltinglass. 
 The formidable force thus collected in the 
 very heart of the English pale gave serious 
 alarm to the government; and the affairs ot 
 Ireland seemed at this moment so desperate 
 that new troops were hurried over from Eng- 
 land. The absence of t'ne lord deputy in the 
 south left John of Desmond and lord Bal- 
 tinglass almost without opposition, and the 
 formidable force which now obeyed their 
 standard encouraged them to attempt a deci- 
 sive blow, by joining with the Irish insur- 
 gents of Munster to relieve the Spanish 
 garrison of Smerwick. But before they had 
 reached the scene of action, their plans were 
 entirely disconcerted by intelligence of the 
 capture of the fort and the slaughter of their 
 foreign allien; and as the deputy returned 
 tov/ards the north, and the English army, 
 relieved from the siege, was distributed into 
 the more disturbed districts, the greater part 
 of the Irish insurgents disappeared in the 
 woods. 
 
 The lord deputy entered Dublin in triumph, 
 but he was no sooner arrived there than he was 
 alarmed by information of a secret conspiracy 
 formed in his capital, and having, as it was 
 said, for its object, not only to seize on the 
 lord deputy and his household, and obtain 
 possession of Dublin Castle, but to massacre 
 the English soldiers and settlers, and over 
 throw the English government. The nrotives 
 
 475 
 
PLOT AGAINST GOVERNMENT.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1581. 
 
 of this plot were said to be disgust at the 
 sanguinary severity of lord Grey's govern- 
 ment, and at the monopoly of the offices of 
 state by new comers, who had no personal 
 connection with Ireland. It vas even said 
 that the earl of Kildare had undertaken to 
 betray the castle of Dublin into the hands of 
 the conspirators. Tiie history of this pre- 
 tended conspiracy is wrapped in great mys- 
 tery, and most of the statements relating to 
 it appear to be the exaggerated reports of a 
 subsequent period. But it afforded an excuse 
 for committing to custody a number of per- 
 sons whose loyalty was not free from sus- 
 picion. Lord Nugent, a baron of the Irish 
 exchequer, and some other persons, were 
 brought to the scafibld, but we are totally 
 unacquainted with the evidence upon which 
 they were condemned. The earl of Kildare, 
 and his son-in-law, lord Dclvin, were placed 
 imder arrest, and committed to the custody 
 of James Wingfield, the master of the ord- 
 nance. The earl's son, lord Henry fitz 
 Gerald, alarmed at the imprisonment of his 
 father, took the advice of his friends and fled 
 into Oifaly, where he was concealed and 
 protected by his Irish fosterers, the O'Con- 
 nors, who were ready to rise in arms in his 
 favour After several ineffectual attempts 
 to prevail upon them to surrender him to 
 the government, they at length consented to 
 deliver him up to the carl of Ormond, and 
 he was then sent with his father and lord 
 Delvin to England, where, after a careful 
 examination of the charges brought against 
 them, they were acquitted, and set at liberty. 
 The hasty execution of Nugent and others, 
 which was blamed even in England, and the 
 acknowledged futility of the charges against 
 the other pretended conspirators, combined 
 with the massacre at Smerwick, and other 
 acts of severity, threw great odium upon lord 
 Grey, and helped to embitter the animosities 
 of the rival parties in Ireland. 
 
 The savage character which the war in 
 Munster had now taken, and the obstinacy 
 with which it was continued by the rebels, 
 excited a degree of hatred on the part of 
 the English soldiers and officers, who were 
 influenced by a combination of political 
 and religious prejudices, which led them into 
 frequent acts of cruelty and oppression. 
 Raleigh, also, as gxjvernor of Cork, was pro- 
 voked by the hostile tone assumed by the 
 lords Barry, Roche, and others, and the 
 repeated outrages which were committed 
 under the cover of their names, hastened to 
 Dublin, and obtained an order to take pos- 
 
 session of their castles, and treat these lords 
 as traitors, unless they immediately made 
 their submissions. Lord Barry set fire to 
 his castle, rather than abandon it to the 
 rapine of the queen's soldiers, and then 
 retired into the woods. The seneschal of 
 Imokilly made an attempt to cut off Raleigh, 
 as he returned to Cork with a very small 
 retinue, but he escaped by his intrepidity, 
 and continued during the summer of 1581 to 
 distinguish himself by his active services 
 against the insurgents in South Munster. 
 When, about this time, the earl of Ormond 
 was relieved of his charge, and sent over to 
 England, Raleigh was appointed one of three 
 conunissioners for the government of Mun- 
 ster; and while acting in that capacity, he 
 nearly lost his life in an attempt to capture 
 lord Barry, who was now an active leader of 
 the I'ebels. With a small force he proceeded 
 to the castle of lord Roche, against whom 
 there were some suspicions of treason, and 
 carried away tliat lord and his lady prisoners 
 in the very midst of their strength ; but they 
 established their innocence, and were acknow- 
 ledged as faithful subjects. 
 
 The chief anxiety of the Englisn com- 
 manders in Munster was, however, to discover 
 and capture the earl of Desmond, who, by 
 his continual movements, and by the fidelity 
 of his followers, escaped every snare that was 
 laid for him. The war carried on against 
 tliis chieftain was peculiarly harrassing to 
 the English soldiers. When defeated and 
 closely pursued, the earl took shelter with 
 one or two companions into the fastnesses 
 with which he and his followers were so well 
 acquainted, and into which it was in vain for 
 his pursuers to attempt to penetrate ; and 
 the moment the English garrisons, supposing 
 that he was a solitary wanderer, reduced to 
 great distress, were off their guard, he 
 re-appeared at the head of a great force, cut 
 off their foraging parties, and plundered the 
 country under their protection. "The Eng- 
 lish and the Geraldines," says the Irish 
 annalist, " carried on war and strife against 
 each other without any cessation, nor was 
 there a truce of one month from the begin- 
 ning of the war; and it is impossible to enu- 
 merate, reckon, or relate all the evils they 
 committed against each other." 
 
 The insurgents having been encouraged 
 by some partial successes gained by John of 
 Desmond during the months of May and 
 June, in Tipperary and Kerry, the earl 
 assembled a considerable force, amounting, 
 according to report, to three thousand men, i 
 
 I 
 I 
 
A.D. 
 
 1581.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [death of SAUNDERS. 
 
 and proceeded to Aghadoe, in Kerry, where 
 he lay carelessly encamped. Captain Zouch, 
 one of the ablest of the queen's officers in the 
 south of Munster, marched secretly by night 
 with all his cavalry, came upon the Irish by 
 surprise early in the morning, and defeated 
 them with terrible slaughter, pursuing the 
 scattered remains of Desmond's army as far 
 as Castlemaine. The earl himself narrowly 
 escaped, in his shirt, as it was said; and, in 
 dismay at this disaster, he collected as many of 
 his men as he could, and removed in all haste 
 to seek tlie securer shelter of the woody 
 mountain recesses of Aherlow. On their 
 way across the plain of Kilmallock, the 
 garrison of that place, under captain Dowdall 
 and other officers, marched in pursuit of 
 them, and slew many of them in several 
 skirmishes, both in the open country and 
 in the plains. Yet Desmond soon became 
 formidable in his new position ; while his 
 kinsman, the seneschal of Imokilly, bearded 
 the garrison of Lismore at their very doors, 
 and his brother John, and the lord Barry, 
 were equally active in other parts. 
 
 In the month of August the lord deputy 
 made a journey into Munster, where he 
 installed captain Zouch as governor or presi- 
 dent of that j^rovince, and then made a 
 progress through Connaught, which was then 
 pacified, and returned back through the 
 English pale to Dublin. Zouch, on entering 
 upon his office, attached to his own person 
 captains Raleigh and Dowdall, with their 
 companies, and took up his chief residence 
 at Cork, from whence he made continual 
 excursions in different directions against the 
 insurgents. These, like so many hydra- 
 heads, as fast as they were put down in one 
 place, seemed to rise up with fresh vigour in 
 another. In the month of September, the 
 earl of Desmond found himself again at the 
 head of a formidable force, and he overrun 
 the plain of Cashel, and partly plundered 
 that city. The garrisons from the neigh- 
 bourhood, joined with the natives who 
 remained loyal, collected together and pur- 
 sued the depredators, but in their incautious 
 haste they fell into an ambush laid by the 
 earl of Desmond, and, according to the Irish 
 annalists, they were defeated with a loss of 
 not less than four hundred men. Not long 
 after this the garrison of Adare, in Lime- 
 rick, while on an expedition into the barony 
 of Kenry, was cut to pieces by a body of 
 insurgents under young David Barry. When 
 the garrison of Kilmallock heard of this dis- 
 aster, they marched into Kenry to seek 
 
 revenge upon David Barry and his followers; 
 and, when they came to Ballycahane, the 
 place where the slaughter of their comrades 
 had taken place, finding no one in arms to 
 oppose them, they massacred, according to 
 the Irish annalists, one hundred and fifty 
 helpless women and children, who were the 
 only inhabitants left in the little town. 
 David Barry himself was surprised by the 
 Mac Mahons in the following December, 
 while lying in supposed security with a party 
 of his men in the island of Iniscattery. His 
 followers were taken to Ballymacolman, and 
 there unceremoniously hanged upon the near- 
 est trees. David was sent to Limerick, where 
 he Was executed as a traitor. 
 
 Numbers of the lesser insurgent leaders 
 perished on the scaffold during the course of 
 this year. The Irish annals tell us that no 
 less than forty-five persons were hanged 
 for treason at Dublin alone. Disease and 
 famine, which the insurgents brought upon 
 themselves by their reckless waste and de- 
 struction, and the hardships they endured, 
 helped also to tliin the rebel ranks. Among 
 those who perished from the latter cause 
 was one of the heroes of the first foreign 
 expedition to Smerwick, the fanatic and in- 
 defatigable Saunders, whose body, or, at least, 
 a body believed to be his, was found in the 
 latter part of the year, half devoured by 
 wolves, in the woods of Claonglass, in the 
 barony of Connello (Limerick). He had 
 never for a moment separated himself 
 from the desperate cause in which he was 
 engaged since he landed in Ireland with 
 James fitz Maurice ; and the Irish in 
 general lamented his loss as that of the 
 great prop of the catholic cause. He is said 
 to have died in extreme misery and desti- 
 tution, attended only by a brother priest, 
 Cornelius O'Ryan, titular popish bishop of 
 Killaloe, who was obliged to leave his friend 
 unburied. 
 
 At Christmas the earl of Desmond again 
 issued from his hiding place, and, with a large 
 body of his wild followers, plundered and 
 destroyed the town of Kilfeacle in Tippe- 
 rary. But a few petty successes of this 
 kind were soon afterwards more than 
 balanced by the greatest loss which the rebel 
 cause had yet sustained. The Barrys and 
 the seneschal of Imokilly had together in- 
 vaded the country of tlie Roches, who had 
 latterly been distinguished by their loyalty, 
 in the April of 1582, and committed there 
 great slaughter and devastation. Soon after 
 a violent feud arose between the lord Barry 
 
 477 
 
JOHN OF DESMOND KILLED.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d, 158;?. 
 
 and the seneschal, which was carried to such 
 a height, that the two rebel chiefs separated 
 their foi-ces, and lay defying each other in 
 the neighbourhood of the Blackwater. The 
 earl and sir John of Desmond lay at some 
 distance on the other side of the river, in the 
 territory of one of their stanche-st allies, 
 Patrick Condon ; and, alarmed at a division 
 among their friends, which might lead to 
 fatal consequences, sent confidential messen- 
 gers to both parties in the hope of pacifying 
 them. Irish traitors were now passing back- 
 wards and forwards among the rebels as 
 spies in the pay of the English authorities, 
 who thus became better acquainted with 
 their movements; and captain Dowdall, 
 having by these means been made accjuainted 
 with the quarrel between Barry and the 
 seneschal of Imokillj^ sent a special spy 
 to the camp of the latter to obtain more 
 correct information. Dowdall's spy drawing 
 himself to the company of the rebels, and 
 lying among them in their cabins in the 
 woods, fell into familiarity with one who was 
 a messenger from the Desmonds to the 
 seneschal, who, supposing him to be one of 
 the seneschal's company, began to discourse 
 to him of the business on which he came, 
 and from him he learnt that the day follow- 
 ing sir John of Desmond had appointed to 
 come thither for the purpose of making 
 peace between Barry and the seneschal. The 
 spy immediately returned to Cork to his 
 employer, and it was agreed between Dow- 
 dall and Zouch, that they should at once 
 take their own companies, and that, under 
 pretence of urgent business which required 
 their presence at Limerick, they should 
 march secretly to intercept the rebel leader. 
 The narrative of this exploit may be again 
 given in the words of Hooker, as a pic- 
 ture of the kind of warfare which cha- 
 racterized this long rebellion. " The same 
 night," he says, " he left the charge of the 
 garrison unto captain Raleigh as lieutenant ; 
 and themselves taking their leave, as though 
 they were bound for Limerick, they marched 
 out at the gates, and by break of the day 
 they came to castle Lions (a castle of lord 
 Barry's), the weather being very misty and 
 thick, and in the castle they found but one 
 poor man, who told them that David of 
 Barry (lord Barry) was gone but a little 
 before them unto Humacquillum. The 
 governor (Zouch) and the captain (Dowdall) 
 being very eager and desirous to do some 
 service, they followed the tract of tlie horses 
 a good pretty way ; but the captain mis- 
 478 
 
 trusting that no good service would be done 
 that way, persuaded the governor that he 
 should rather enter and search the woods 
 which were fast by, where, as he thought, 
 some good service would be done. Whose 
 advice the governor followed, and they had 
 ridden but a little way, but they saw two 
 horsemen come riding towards them, but 
 as soon as they had seen the governor and 
 captain, they returned back again. Then the 
 captain told him that there was a bog in the 
 wood, and his advice and counsel was, that 
 some of his shot should be sent to stand 
 between the bog and the wood ; which being 
 done, they followed these two men so short, 
 that they were driven to forsake their horses, 
 and to run on foot towards the bog. But 
 the loose shot being in readiness, did put 
 them back again upon the horsemen, who 
 gave the onset upon them ; and the one of 
 them, which was sir John of Desmond, they 
 so hurt with a horseman's staff, that he 
 spake very few words after. And the other, 
 whose name was James fitz John of Strong- 
 cully, they took ; and both they carried 
 with them to Cork. Sir John's head was 
 sent to Dublin, but his body was hanged up 
 by the heels upon a gibbet, and set upon 
 the north gate of Cork. And James fitz 
 John was drawn, hanged, and quartered," 
 
 Not long after the execution of sir John 
 of Desmond, another of the leaders, lord 
 Barry, wearied with the uneqvial contest in 
 which he was now engaged, his followers hav- 
 ing been defeated and dispersed by the acti- 
 vity of Zouch and Dowdall, at length made his 
 humble submission, and obtained his pardon. 
 Dismayed at these repeated losses, the earl 
 of Desmond retired for a while from active 
 hostility, and concealed himself so effectually 
 that it was reported he was dead. The Irish 
 government felt so secure in the belief that 
 the rebellion was virtually at an end, that the 
 lord deputy withdrew a great portion of the 
 forces from Munster, and left but a few 
 weak garrisons for the defence of that pro- 
 vince. Fitz Maurice, lord of Lixnaw, seized 
 this moment to break out in a formidable 
 rebellion. His family had been for some 
 time looked upon with suspicion, and his 
 three sons were imprisoned at Limerick, 
 but they contrived to make their escape, 
 and then they joined themselves with the 
 rebellious Geraldines. Their first exploit 
 was to attack and plunder Ardfert, where 
 they slew the captain of the small English 
 garrison. The English immediately inva- 
 ded the territory of the baron of Lixnaw, 
 
A.D, 
 
 158^'.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [lord grey recalled. 
 
 and their devastcations are said to have driven 
 the baron to join in the rebellion of his sons. 
 Imitating the example of lord Barry, he 
 destroyed his four castles of Lixnaw, Lis- 
 towel, Beaulieu, and Ballybunnion, and 
 took to the woods. At first he gained a 
 temporary advantage, and drove the English 
 garrisons from his territories. But Zouch, 
 with the strong garrison of Cork, soon 
 arrived at the scene of turbulence, and he 
 not only overrun the baron's country, but 
 with soldiers well exercised in this kind of 
 warfare he scoured the woods in search of 
 Maurice and his sons, and committed great 
 slaughter and havoc. Fitz Maurice, says 
 the Irish annalists, "suffered much above all 
 others in that war, for his people were ex- 
 terminated, and his corn, buildings, and 
 dwellings were destroyed ; he had no secu- 
 rity even in taking refuge in the hollows 
 of trees, or of rocks, or caves of the earth, 
 for in those recesses he dreaded his enemies 
 might find him." 
 
 At length, driN^en entirely from liis own 
 land, the baron of Lixnaw fled to the 
 wilder regions which afforded so secure a 
 shelter to the earl of Desmond, who, joined 
 with him, suddenly re-appeared, and began 
 to plunder and ravage the land of his old 
 enemy, the earl of Ormond, who was at this 
 time in England. Encouraged by the ab- 
 sence of the English soldiers, the insurgents 
 had re-appeared in every quarter, and the 
 ravages they committed were so terrible, 
 that it was said " the lowing of a cow or the 
 voice of a ploughman was not heard from 
 Dunkeen in Kerry to Cashel." The earl 
 of Desmond moved from one place to 
 another with extraordinary, rapidity, now 
 plundering in the plains of Ormond, and 
 immediately afterwards making his appear- 
 ance suddenly in the district of Lixnaw iii 
 Kerry, and everywhere carrying destruction 
 along with him. But as the English gar- 
 risons took the field, the rebels again 
 dispersed, and hid themselves in the woods. 
 The baron of Lixnaw, repented of his rash 
 outbreak, and having made an affecting 
 supplication for pardon, obtained the queen's 
 grace through the intercession of the earl of 
 Ormond ; and the earl of Desmond was 
 again reduced to extremities. 
 
 The baron of Lixnaw pleaded as an ex- 
 cuse for his conduct that he had been driven 
 into rebellion by the tyranny of the queen's 
 officers, and the complaints against lord 
 Grey's cruelty and oppressions were re- 
 peated, and were carried to the English 
 
 in a variety of forms. The queen, 
 was assured that her deputy would 
 
 court 
 
 who 
 
 soon leave her nothing but ashes and car 
 
 cases to reign over, listened to these com 
 
 plaints, and showed a wish to try a policy 
 
 of indulgence and lenity. Lord Grey 
 obtained, what he had been long seeking, his 
 recal ; and Zouch was ordered to accompany 
 him home. The duke of Ormond was en- 
 trusted with the government of Munster, 
 and he returned to Ireland with fresh troops. 
 At the end of August, 1582, lord Grey 
 delivered up his sword of office to the lord 
 chancellor (Loftus, archbishop of Dublin,) 
 and sir Henry Wallop, the treasurer at war, 
 who had been appointed lords justices. 
 
 The earl of Ormond commenced his go- 
 vernment of Munster by an active pursuit of 
 the remains of the great Desmond rebellion. 
 The rebel earl, almost the last leader of his 
 party, still held his ground in the wilds of 
 Aherlow, where, hunted like a wild beast 
 by the garrisons established at Kilmallock 
 and other places around, he was often reduced 
 to extreme distress. In this condition we 
 are told the earl passed the Christmas of 
 1582, in the wood of Kilquane, near Kilmal- 
 lock. The details of the remainder of this 
 rebellion are told by Hooker, who seems to 
 have been personally acquainted with the 
 people engaged in it. This writer tells us 
 that "about the fourth of January (1583), 
 one John Welsh, a valiant and a good sol- 
 dier, was resolved to make a draught upon 
 the said earl, and he made acquainted there- 
 with captain Dowdall, captain Bangor, and 
 George Thorington, provost marshall of 
 Munster, all which lay then in garrison in 
 Kilmallock; and according to the order 
 between them then agreed upon, they 
 marched in the night time to the place and 
 wood where the earl lay. But being come 
 thither, they were to pass over a great river 
 before they could come to enter into the 
 wood of Kilquieg (Kilquane), and by reason 
 of the great rains then falhng, it was impos- 
 sible for man or horse to pass over the same, 
 which thing John Welsh did before mistrust. 
 Wherefore, the niglit before he went thither 
 very closely, with such few persons as he 
 had chosen for the purpose, and there he 
 caused a number of stakes and hurdles to be 
 made of liaison, allers, and withy rods, which 
 he caused to be drawn over the river by one 
 whom he had there of purpose, which could 
 swim very well. And this fellow, when he 
 had fastened some of the hurdles to a tn.'e in 
 the further side of the water, and then by a 
 
 479 
 
DESMOND CLOSE PURSUED.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1oS3. 
 
 rope drew over the residue one after another, 
 did so fasten and tie one unto another, and 
 so cunningly handled the matter, that when 
 tlie captains came, they passed over the river 
 very well, without danger or peril. And so 
 from thence the said Welsh did guide and 
 bring them by the break of the day unto the 
 earl's cabin ; but the wood was so full of 
 thickets, and so miry, that they were fain to 
 go a sj)ear's length wide from the cabin to 
 come unto it. The earl hearing a great 
 noise, and suspecting some extraordinary 
 and a greater company to be in place more 
 than his own, and doubting the worst, ran 
 out of his bed in his shirt, and ran into the 
 river fast by his cabin, and there hid himself 
 close under a bank hard up to his cliin, by 
 which means he escaped, and his wife with 
 him. The soldiers made dihgent search for 
 him, both by searching of the river and of 
 the wood, but could not find him; where- 
 upon they did put to the sword so many as 
 they found there, and carried away the goods 
 with them, and so returned to Kilmallock." 
 The earl of Ormond, on his arrival about 
 the end of January, soon after the event just 
 related, beset the forest of Aherlow with 
 garrisons, and commenced a pursuit of so 
 harassing and unremitting a character, that 
 Desmond was never again able to collect any 
 large body of followers. Most of his com- 
 panions of any rank came in one after ano- 
 ther, and made their submissions. Others 
 of his followers dispersed and laid down their 
 arms, or were overtaken and put to the 
 sword. " In the month of August," says 
 Hooker, "in the year of Christ 15S3, it was 
 advertised to the garrisons in Kilmallock 
 and Cashel, that the earl of Desmond was 
 come again to harbour himself in Harlow 
 wood, and had above three score galloglasses, 
 besides kerne a great number, upon whom 
 captain Dowdall, having good esjoials, made 
 a journey thither, and being entered into the 
 wood very early, lay close all the forenoon. 
 For these galloglasses had been so dared 
 from time to time, that now, like a sort of 
 deer, they lay upon their keepings; and so 
 fearful they were, that they would not tarry 
 in any one place any long time; but where 
 they did dress their meat, thence they would 
 remove and eat it in another place, and from 
 thence go unto another place to lie. In the 
 nights they would watch; in the forenoons 
 they would be upon the hills and mountains, 
 to descry the countrj'; and in the afternoon 
 they would sleep. The captain, breaking time 
 witli them, made stay in the wood accordingly, 
 480 
 
 and in the afternoon he learnt by his espials 
 that they were returned from the mountains, 
 and were entered into their cabins, where 
 some of them were asleep, and some of them 
 occupied in dressing of a horse for to eat, 
 for other victuals were scant. The captain 
 suddenly entered upon them, and took them 
 at such advantage, that they were all for the 
 most part put to the sword, of which five 
 and twenty were taken in their cabins. After 
 the disj)atch of these galloglasses, which are 
 counted the best men of war among the 
 Irishry, the residue of the Irish rebels were 
 so dismayed, that a man might, without any 
 great danger, pass throughout Munster." 
 
 The eventful history of this long rebel- 
 lion was now drawing to a conclusion. The 
 earl of Desmond, driven from Aherlow, and 
 hunted from place to place, returned to 
 the south, and with a small number of 
 followers concealed himself in the wilds of 
 Kerry, in the midst of his ovsai wasted pa- 
 trimony. Here he took his revenge by petty 
 depredations on those who had deserted his 
 standard and placed themselves under the 
 protection of the English government. 
 One evening a small party of his men, con- 
 sisting of two horsemen and a few kernes, 
 proceeded over the strand of Tralee and 
 carried away a prey of cattle. Among 
 these were the kine of a poor woman of the 
 clan of the Moriartys. Driven to despair 
 at being thus despoiled of all her property, 
 the woman hastened over the mountains to 
 claim the protection of her brother, who 
 dwelt in a small castle near Drome ; and he, 
 when he learnt the small force of the plun- 
 derers, took three of his brethren with him, 
 and they pursued the track of the cattle in 
 the hope of recovering them. On their 
 way they came to Castlemaine, where there 
 was an English garrison, the commander of 
 which lent them seven shot or musketeers, 
 and a dozen kerne to help them in recover- 
 ing their property. The number of the 
 pursuers, Irish and English, now amounted 
 to three and twenty ; and as they approached 
 Tralee, they agreed to take as their leader 
 one of their party named Kelly, who from 
 tlie circumstances of his long service under 
 the English could speak both languages. At 
 length they came to a winding path which 
 led them down into the deep and woody 
 valley of Glenakilty. As the night had 
 now set in, they determined to rest till morn- 
 ing under the shelter of some thick brush- 
 wood, and continue the pursuit next day. 
 But while they were prcjiaring to put this 
 
A.D. 
 
 158;].] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [death of DESMOND. 
 
 L 
 
 design in practice, they perceived througli 
 the trees the light of a fire at no great 
 distance, and their curiosity being excited 
 by this circumstance, one of their party 
 was sent to approach the place secretly 
 and discover what people the}' were who 
 liad taken up their lodgings in that lonely 
 spot. He brought word back that it was 
 an old ruinous house, with only five or six 
 persons in it. Suspecting that these might 
 be the plunderers, they determined at once 
 to surround the place, and Moriarty led the 
 way, while Kelly drew up his company in 
 order of service, and marched behind. 
 Wlien they reached the house, the inmates 
 had taken the alarm and fled, and they found 
 only one old man, who lay stretched before 
 the fire. Kelly rushed in, and striking with 
 his sword, at the first blow nearly cut off 
 the old man's arm, and with another gave 
 him a severe wound on the head, upon 
 which he cried out, "'' Spare me, I am the 
 earl of Desmond." Kelly then bound him, 
 vnth the intention of carrying him away 
 prisoner, but he soon became faint with 
 loss of blood ; and his captors, despairing of 
 being able to carry him off alive, and fearing 
 that his followers might come to his rescue 
 and thus deprive them of the reward which 
 was set upon him, smote off his head and 
 took it to the earl of Ormond, who im- 
 mediately sent it to England, and it was 
 there set up over London Bridge. The body, 
 which they left behind in the woods, was 
 found by the earl's friends, and, after being 
 concealed for some weeks, was buned in the 
 small chapel of Killanamanagh, not far from 
 Castle Island.* The earl of Desmond was 
 thus slain in the morning of the 11th of 
 November, 1583. 
 
 Thus ended one of the most remarkable 
 rebellions in Irish history, memorable 
 equally for its causes and its effects. It 
 originated in the struggle between the old 
 and barbarous claims of feudalism and the 
 work of civilization which was gaining the 
 mastery in other parts of Europe ; but it 
 was fanned into a flame and kept alive by 
 
 • The above is the most authentic account of Des- 
 mond's death, whicli naturally became the subject of 
 many popular stories. In the Annals of the Four 
 Masters it is related as follows : — " A party of Uibh 
 Jiluirceartaigh (O'Moriartys), along the rirer Mang 
 (Kerry), of the tribe of Hugh Beandain, got an op- 
 portunity of surprising the earl of Desmond, who 
 was in a fianbhoth (a hut), concealed in the cavern of 
 a rock, in Glen-an-Giomtigh ; this party were recon- 
 noitreing and surrounding that habitation in which 
 tne earl was from the beginning of the night till 
 
 VOL. I. 3 P 
 
 that religious fanaticism, which, in a great 
 measure imported from abroad, became from 
 this moment one of the most important in- 
 gredients of Irish politics. The measures of 
 reform introduced in Ireland during the 
 earlier part of Elizabeth's reign were almost 
 overthrown, and the work of pacification 
 was to begin again, but with the influence 
 of the crown strengthened by the overthrow 
 of its great feudal opponents and the con- 
 fiscation of their extensive territories. The 
 few insurgents who remained in arms threw 
 them away on the intelligence of Desmond's 
 death, sought their pardons, and returned to 
 their duties as peaceful subjects. Two 
 ecclesiastics, whom he had sent to Spain to 
 procure assistance, returned with arms and 
 ammunition just in time to receive the first 
 news of the disorder which had overthrown 
 their cause, and to make a precipitate re- 
 treat. They were followed by the viscount 
 of Baltinglass, who had long been living in 
 the same destitute condition as the earl of 
 Desmond, and was " very weary of his 
 trotting and wandering on foot amongst 
 bogs, woods, and desert places." He em- 
 barked secretly, and succeeded in reaching 
 Spain ; but he there found less sympathy 
 than he expected, and died, it was said, bro- 
 ken-hearted, in poverty and want. 
 
 While this rebellion was going on in 
 Munster, the other provinces were remark- 
 ably free from disorders. One or two rather 
 severe executions in Connaught had kept in 
 awe the Burkes of that province, who at 
 first showed an inclination to make common 
 cause with the Geraldines. Ulster, which 
 had usually been the most turbulent pro- 
 vince in the island, was at this time distin- 
 guished by its loyalty ; but while the 
 English government was occupied with the 
 great troubles of the south, some of the 
 more remote parts of the north were dis- 
 turbed by renewals of the old family feuds 
 among the native chiefs, which sometimes 
 called for the interference of the superior 
 authorities, and the quarrels between the 
 O'Donnells and the O'Neills were sowing 
 
 towards morning, when they rushed in on hira in the 
 cold hut, by the break of day, being on the Tuesday, 
 and the festival day of St. Martin (11th of Novem- 
 ber), precisely; the carl was wounded and taken 
 prisoner by them, for he had no persons to fight or 
 make resistance along with him, except one woman and 
 two boys ; they had not, however, gone far from the 
 wood, when they instantly beheaded the earl, and had 
 he not been engaged in plundering and rebeUing as 
 he was, that earl of Desmond would have been one of 
 the greatest losses in Ireland." 
 
 481 
 
DISORDERS IN ULSTER.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Ta.d. 1582. 
 
 the seeds of future troubles. The Irish 
 I annalists inform us that in 1582, captain 
 Brabazon, who supplied temporarily the 
 place of sir Nicholas Malby in Connaiight, 
 "proceeded into Tyrawley (the north of 
 Connaught) in the spring of the year, and 
 laid waste and plundered the entire country 
 from one end to the other, marcliing amongst 
 them from one camp to another ; neither 
 the sanctuary of saint or poet, nor wood or 
 sequestered glen, nor town or fortress, were 
 a security against that captain or his people, 
 and he devastated the entire country." 
 
 As early as the year 1581, the conduct of 
 Turlough Lynogh O'Neill had given inieasi- 
 ness to the English government. The ambi- 
 I tion of that chieftain began to show itself in 
 various encroachments on the territories of 
 his Irish neighbours. Some of the O'Neills 
 having invaded BrefTny, began to plunder 
 the lands of the O'Reillys, when they were 
 suddenly attacked by the latter, and defeated 
 with great slaughter. Turlough immediately 
 I marched into Breffny, committed great havoc, 
 I and compelled the fJ'Rcillj's to make repara- 
 tion with a heavy ransom. About the same 
 time, Con O'Donnell, the nephew of Hugh 
 O'Donnell, the then chieftain of Tyrone, 
 rose up in arms against his uncle, and Tur- 
 lough O'Neill, with the assistance of a large 
 body of Scottish confederates, came to the 
 assistance of the insurgents. A battle was 
 fought, in which O'Donnell was defeated 
 with great slaughter. Alarmed at these pro- 
 ceedings, lord Grey, with the few troops 
 which the exigencies of the war in the south 
 left at his disposal, marched into Ulster, and 
 effected a compromise among the belligerents 
 there. " If," the lord deputy says, in a letter 
 to sir Christopher Hatton, dated from Dubhn 
 on the 12th of August, "her majesty would 
 have been pleased to have granted my de- 
 mands (probably of reinforcements from 
 England), I would not have doubted, with 
 the assistance of God, but to have settled 
 some better order in this journey, as well in 
 suppressing the pride of Turlough, as also in 
 expulsing the Scots. But being now tied to 
 those directions which were set down by the 
 table there, and her majesty's disposition to 
 peace, I have done my best endeavour to fol- 
 low the one and to satisfy the other. I have, 
 against my will, concluded, or rather patched 
 up a peace with Turlough, being such, 
 indeed, as I can neither repose any assu- 
 rance in for a continuance of it, nor, for the 
 honour of it, justly commend it." 
 
 During the year 1582, Ulster remained 
 482 
 
 tolerably tranquil, although the two great 
 chieftains of the north continued to look on 
 each other with suspicion, and each, but 
 more especially O'Neill, called in privately 
 new bodies of the Scots. During the sum- 
 mer they remained encamped with their 
 forces on opposite sides of Lough Foyle, 
 watching each other's movements. In the 
 spring of the next year the two rival chief- 
 tains again broke out into open hostilities, 
 and O'Donnell invaded Tyrone, and plun- 
 dered and burned the town of Strabane, 
 which was the chief town of the O'Neill. 
 Turlough, indignant at this outrage, marched 
 to the neighbourhood of Lifford, to take 
 revenge by plundering Tirconnell, but he 
 was met by the O'Donnells, and experienced 
 a signal defeat. At the same time the Eng- 
 lish settlers in Ulster were involved in some 
 liostilities witli Sarleboy and the Scots of 
 Clannaboy. 
 
 In general, however, the island had assumed 
 an unusual appearance of tranquillity upon 
 the repression of the great Geraldine rebel- 
 lion; and the Irish annals record as one of 
 the last acts of the administration of the two 
 lords justices, that "a general peace was 
 proclaimed all over Ireland." The same 
 authorities add, that " it resulted from that 
 proclamation, that people from the neigh- 
 bouring districts flocked in to reside in Con- 
 nello, Kerry, and in the county of Limerick 
 (the districts which had been most devas- 
 tated); and there was not a man who bore 
 arms, of the race of Maurice fitz Gerald in 
 Ireland, who had been engaged in plunder 
 and insurrection, that did not come under 
 the law, except alone Maurice, the son of 
 John Oge, son of John, son of Thomas the 
 earl; and he even came under peace, on 
 the word of the earl of Ormond; and having 
 after that separated from his people, he fled, 
 accompanied by five persons, across the blue- 
 streamed Shannon, northward through Tho- 
 mond, and from one territory to another, 
 until he arrived in the Routes of Mac Guil- 
 lan (in Antrim), with Sarleboy, the son of 
 Mac Donnell; from thence he went to Scot- 
 land, and afterwards to Spain, where he 
 died." 
 
 A change seemed to be gradually coming 
 over the native Irish, who, within a short 
 period, had experienced all the worst sufi'er- 
 ings of war, as well as the advantages of 
 peace and justice. We are told that the 
 Irish chiefs, instead of their old way of 
 assembling their followers and deciding their 
 quarrels in the field, now came voluntarily 
 
A.D. 1584.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a judicial combat. 
 
 to Dublin to lay their causes before the lords 
 justices. Among these were two of the 
 O'Connors, whose quarrel led to one of those 
 judicial combats, which were remnants of feu- 
 dalism now of rare occurrence ; and this, for its 
 singularity, may be repeated in the quaint 
 language of the same John Hooker, perhaps 
 liimself a witness, whom we have so often 
 liad reason to quote for the events of this 
 period. The two antagonists were very near 
 " cousins and kinsmen ; the one was named 
 Teige mac GiUpatrick O'Connor, appel- 
 lant ; the other was named Con mac Cor- 
 mac O'Connor, defendant. One of these 
 appealed and charged the other for sundry 
 treasons in the late rebellion, and which 
 could have no other trial but by combat, 
 which was granted unto them. Whereupon, 
 according to the laws and orders of England 
 for a combat to be tried, all things were 
 prepared, the date, time, and place ap- 
 pointed ; and, according to the same, the 
 judges and the counsellors came and sat in 
 the place appointed for tlie same, every man 
 in his degree and calling. And then the 
 court was called, and the appellant or plain- 
 tiff was brought in before the face of the 
 court, being stripped into his shirt, having 
 only his sword and target (which were the 
 weapons appointed), and when he had done 
 his reverence and duty to tlie lord justices 
 and to the court, he was brought to a 
 stool set in the one of the ends within the 
 lists, and there sat. After him was the de- 
 fendant brought in in the like manner and 
 order, and with the like weapons ; and 
 when he had done his duty and reverence to 
 the lord justices and to the court, he was 
 brought to his chair placed in the other end 
 of the lists. Then were their actions and 
 pleadings openly read, and then the appel- 
 lant was demanded whether he would aver 
 his demand or not. Who when he had 
 affirmed that he would, the party defendant 
 
 was likewise asked whether he would con- 
 fess the action or stand to the trial of the 
 same, who did answer as did the other, 
 that he would aver it by the sword. Upon 
 this their several answers, they were sever- 
 ally called, the one after the other, every 
 of them taking a corporal oath that their 
 quarrel was true, and that they would 
 justify the same both with sword and blood. 
 Thus they being sworn are brought back 
 again every of them to their several places 
 as before. And then, when by the sound 
 of a trumpet, a sign was given unto them 
 when they should enter into the fight, they 
 arose out of their seats, and met each one 
 the other in the middle within the lists, and 
 there with the weapons assigned unto them 
 they fought. In which fight the appellant 
 did prevail, and he not only did disarm the 
 defendant, but also with the sword of the 
 said defendant did cut off his head, and upon 
 the point of the same sword did present it 
 to the lord justices, and so with the victory 
 of his enemy he was acquitted." 
 
 " Thus much," observes Hooker, " I 
 thought good to say somewhat of much of 
 the manner of a combat, which, together 
 with many circumstances thereunto belong- 
 ing, is now for want of use almost clean 
 forgotten, and yet very necessary to be 
 known. And as for this combat, it was so 
 valiantly done, that a great many did wish 
 that it had rather fallen upon the whole 
 sept of the O'Connors, than upon these two 
 gentlemen." 
 
 At length the queen determined to send 
 over a deputy, and she chose for this pur- 
 pose sir John Perrott, who had already dis- 
 tinguished himself as the lord president of 
 Munster. Perrott landed at Dublin on the 
 21st of June, 1584, and the lords justices 
 immediately delivered into his hands the 
 sword of state. 
 
 483 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 STATE OF IRELAND AFTER THE GERALDINE REBELLION; SPENSER'S " VIEW OF 
 THE STATE OF IRELAND." 
 
 Sft GENERAL feeling 
 now showed itself in 
 England of the ne- 
 cessity of attempting 
 some grand reforma- 
 tion in the condition 
 of Ireland, and the 
 circumstances of the 
 moment seemed to promise hopes of suc- 
 cess. Over a large portion of the island 
 the native population was now willing to 
 submit to be governed by the laws. Im- 
 mense tracts of land had come into the 
 possession of government desolate and de- 
 populated, and thus afforded a favourable 
 opportunity to try the experiment of new 
 planting parts of the country with English 
 settlers. Many minds were occupied in 
 discussing questions like these, and men 
 who had served in tliat country in various 
 capacities made public their experience and 
 observations, in the belief that they might 
 serve as guiding posts to public opinions, 
 and as suggestions for public measures. 
 Among men actuated by these sentiments 
 was Edmund Spenser, the poet, who, in his 
 capacity as secretary to the lord deputy 
 Grey, had enjoyed great advantages for ob- 
 serving and forming a judgment, and whose 
 dialogue entitled " A view of the state of 
 Ireland," is the best of the writings of this 
 class which appeared in the latter part of 
 the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The obser- 
 vations and opinions of a writer like 
 Spenser will, of themselves, furnish us with 
 a sketch of the manners and condition of 
 the inhabitants of Ireland, which cannot 
 fail to be interesting as explaining the history 
 of the period of which we are now WTiting. 
 
 Spenser arranges his treatise in two divi- 
 sions, in the first of which he points out 
 the evils that afflicted Ireland in his time ; 
 and in the second he makes his suggestions 
 for the remedies. He opens with the 
 complaint, which then seems to have been a 
 common one, that " there have been divers 
 good plots devised, and wise counsels cast 
 already about reformation of that reahn, 
 but they say it is the fatal destiny of that 
 land that no purposes whatsoever, which are 
 484 
 
 meant for her good, will prosper or take 
 good effect, which, whether it proceed from 
 the very genius of the soil, or influence of 
 the stars, or that Almighty God hath not 
 yet appointed tlie time of her reformation, 
 or that he reserveth her in this unquiet 
 state still for some secret scourge which 
 shall by her come unto England, it is hard 
 to be known, but yet much to be feared." 
 
 One of the most serious of Ireland's evils 
 Spenser considered to be the confusion and 
 mal-administration of the laws by which it 
 was governed, and he seems to think that, 
 as far as the native Irish were concerned, 
 they wanted some new law, calculated to 
 restrain them in their evil propensities, and 
 one which they could neither resist nor 
 evade. The old Brehon law had now been 
 abolished over a large extent of the island, 
 but it still prevailed among the native septs 
 more remote from the influence of the 
 English government, and by the degree of 
 impunity which it gave to deeds of violence, 
 and the injury of various kinds which was 
 practised under it, was perhaps rightly con- 
 sidered as the original cause of much of 
 tlie disorders that troubled the land ; another 
 principle of Irish law, that of tanistry, al- 
 though uniformly proscribed by the English 
 government, was found difficult to eradicate ; 
 and it was looked upon as one of the greatest 
 obstacles to the establishment of any per- 
 manent peace with those septs who were 
 not held in awe by force of arms. Accord- 
 ing to the doctrines of the natives on this 
 subject, the actions of the chief could only 
 bind the sept during the period he ruled 
 over it, and the moment the chieftainship 
 passed into other hands, the sept was re- 
 lieved at once from all promises previously 
 made or liabilities assumed. Spenser has 
 given us a curious description of the mode 
 of electing chiefs and tanists as practised 
 among the independent septs in his time. 
 " It is a custom," says Spenser, " amongst 
 all the Irish, that after the death of any of 
 their chief lords, or captains, they do pre- 
 sently assemble themselves to a place gener- 
 ally appointed and known unto them, to 
 choose another in his stead, when they do 
 
A.D, 
 
 1581..] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [inefficiency of the laws. 
 
 nominate and elect for the most part, not 
 the eldest son, nor any of the children of 
 the lord deceased, but the next to him of 
 blood that is the eldest and worthiest, as 
 commonly the next brother unto him, if he 
 have any, or the next cousin, or so forth, as 
 any is elder in that kindred or sept; and 
 then next to him do they choose the next 
 of the blood to be tanist, who shall next 
 succeed him in the said captaincy, if he live 
 thereunto. They used to place him that 
 shall be their captain upon a stone always 
 reserved for that purpose, and placed com- 
 monly upon a hill ; in some of which I have 
 seen formed and engraved a foot, which they 
 say was the measure of their first captain's 
 foot, whereon he standing receives an oath 
 to preserve all the ancient former customs 
 of the country inviolable, and to deliver up 
 the successiou peaceably to his tanist, and 
 then hath a wand delivered unto him by 
 some whose proper office that is ; after 
 which, descending from the stone, he turn- 
 eth himself round, thrice forward and 
 thrice backward." With regard to the elec- 
 tion of the tanist, we are told, "they say he 
 setteth but one foot upon the stone, and re- 
 ceiveth the like oath that the captain did." 
 
 Spenser next proceeded to the considera- 
 tion of the English common law as applied 
 to Ireland, in which he finds almost as great 
 inconveniences as in the Irish customs. "The 
 common law," he says, " appointeth that all 
 trials, as well of crimes, as titles and rights, 
 shall be made by verdict of a jury, chosen 
 out of the honest and most substantial free- 
 holders. Now most of the freeholders of 
 that realm are Irish, which when the cause 
 shall fall betwixt an Englishman and an 
 Irish, or between the queen and any free- 
 holder of that country, they make no more 
 scruple to pass against an Englishman and 
 the queen, though it be to strain their oaths, 
 than to drink milk unstrained. So that be- 
 fore the jury go together, it is all to nothing 
 what the verdict shall be." " The trial," 
 says Spenser, " have I so often seen, that I 
 dare confidently avouch the abuse thereof." 
 Thus was there little impartiality to be 
 looked for in an Irish court, and even the 
 crown could not without great difficulty 
 obtain a verdict in cases of manifest right. 
 The Irish population were thus, we are told, 
 "' not only perjured in their verdicts, but 
 also in all other their dealings, especially 
 with the English, they are most wilfully 
 bent ; for though they will not seem mani- 
 festly to do it, yet will some one or other 
 
 subtle-headed fellow amongst them put some 
 quirk, or devise some evasion, whereof the 
 rest will likely take hold, and suffer them- 
 selves easily to be led by him to that them- 
 selves desired. For in the most apparent 
 manner that may be, the least question or 
 doubt that may be moved will make a stop 
 unto them, and put them quite out of the 
 way. Besides that of themselves, for the 
 most part, they are so cautelous (tricky) and 
 wily-headed, especially being men of so 
 small experience and practise in law matters, 
 that you would wonder whence they bor- 
 rowed such subtleties and sly shifts." This 
 inconvenience, it was suggested, might be 
 obviated by the judges and chief magistrates, 
 who should choose as jurymen only English- 
 men, or such of the Irish as were of the 
 " soundest judgment and disposition." " This 
 might be done," Spenser replies; " but then 
 would the Irish party cry out of partiality, 
 and complain he hath no justice, he is not 
 used as a subject ; he is not suffered to have 
 the free benefit of the law ; and tliese out- 
 cries the magistrates there do much slum, 
 as they have cause, since they are readily 
 hearkened unto here." 
 
 It must be acknowledged that the constant 
 sensitiveness thus shown in England to 
 any irregularity in the administration of 
 justice, or any reported act of oppression in 
 the sister island, shows that the feeling of 
 Elizabeth's government was not one of 
 harshness or injustice towards Ireland, how- 
 ever its practical effect may have been 
 modified by the disorders with which she 
 had to contend. The position of the gov- 
 ernor, with a people, on one side, against 
 whom he was constantly called upon to em- 
 ploy brute force, and the perpetual fear, 
 on the other, of incurring blame for his 
 harshness, was evidently not an agreeable 
 one. The difficult)' which Spenser here 
 points out, the constant struggle with a 
 population who had not yet been taught to 
 respect their rulers of a different race, or to 
 appreciate the instructions they brought 
 with them, was felt generally, and people 
 began to look upon it as the only measure 
 likely to have a permanently good effect, to 
 plant the country on an extensive scale with 
 new English settlers. The desolation caused 
 by tlie recent rebellions, wiiich had left large 
 tracts of land literally without inhabitants, 
 seemed to ofi'er a good opportunity for try- 
 ing this experiment. 
 
 The dishonesty of the jurors, was more- 
 over, as we are assured, but one of the 
 
 485 
 
IRISH CUSTOMS.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 [a.d. 1584. 
 
 evils with which justice had to contend in 
 Irish courts. " Were it so that the jurors 
 could be picked out of such choice men as 
 suggested, there would nevertheless be as 
 bad a corruption in the trial ; for the evi- 
 dence being brought in by the baser Irish 
 people, will be as deceptive as the verdict ; 
 for they care much less than the others wliat 
 tliey swear, and here their lords may compel 
 them to say anything." " For I myself," 
 Spenser adds, " have heard where one of 
 the baser sort (which they call churls) being 
 challenged and reproved for his false oath, 
 hath answered confidently, that his lord 
 commanded him, and it was the least thing 
 that he could do for his lord to swear for 
 him ; so unconscionable are these common 
 people, and so little feeling have they of 
 God or their own soul's good." 
 
 Other difficulties in the way of an efficient 
 administration of the laws are successively 
 enumerated, the most serious of which arose 
 from the long habitual love of the native 
 Irish for plundering. Even in times of 
 peace, the country was perpetually disturbed 
 by petty raids of one sept or family upon 
 another, and every kind of trick and chica- 
 nery was employed to screen the perpetra- 
 tors from justice. The disorders arising 
 from the old privileges of the great counties 
 palatinate had been considerably diminished 
 by the late extensive forfeitures. Still there 
 remained one county palatinate, that of Tip- 
 perary, and although it belonged to the loyal 
 house of Ormond, yet it was used " as a 
 privileged place of spoils and stealths, and 
 a receptacle to rob the rest of the counties 
 about it." 
 
 Spenser's next complaint is against the 
 anomalous character of the Irish statutes, 
 which consisted of an undigested mass of 
 laws, many of which, made to contend with 
 grievances of the most temporary kind, were 
 now either useless, or obstacles in the way 
 of improvement. Such were the severe laws 
 against wearing saffron frocks, or letting the 
 hair grow on the upper lip, or riding with 
 gilt bridles, and many other statutes, which 
 made what were then but trifling offen- 
 ces felony, whereby the severity of the 
 punishment hindered the offenders from 
 being prosecuted. Such was the law which 
 made th* taking of coin and livery treason, 
 which was now beginning to be looked upon 
 as an unnecessary grievance ; " for thereby 
 now no man can go into another man's house 
 for lodging, nor to his own tenant's house 
 to take victual by the way, notwithstanding 
 486 
 
 that there is no other means for him to have 
 lodging, nor horse meat, nor man's meat, 
 there being no inns, nor none otherwise to 
 be bought for money, but that he is en- 
 dangered by that statute for treason, when- 
 soever he shall happen to fall out with his 
 tenant, or that his said host list to complain 
 of grievance, as oftentimes I have seen them 
 very malitiously do through the least provo- 
 cation." 
 
 Spenser then enumerates the customs of 
 the Irish which stood in the way of their 
 civilization, and most of which he derives 
 from the ancient Scythians. Some of these 
 indeed were characteristic of a very rude 
 state of society, and more than one exhibited 
 the manners of a nomadic race. Such was 
 their custom of keeping their cattle, and 
 living a great part of the year in what they 
 called boolies, pasturing on the mountains and 
 wilds, and continually removing to a new 
 spot as soon as they had depastured the one 
 on which tliey had previously fixed. In this 
 wandering life they drove their cattle con- 
 tinually with them, and fed only on their 
 milk and white meats. " By this custom of 
 boolying," Spenser says, " there grow many 
 great enormities urto that commonwealth. 
 For first, if there be any outlaws or loose 
 people (as they are never without some) 
 which live upon stealths and spoils, they are 
 evermore succoured and find relief only in 
 these boolies, being upon the waste places, 
 whereas else they should be driven shortlj"^ 
 to starve, or to come do%vn to the towns to 
 seek relief, where by one means or other 
 they would soon be caught. Besides, such 
 stealths of cattle as they make, they bring 
 commonly to those boolies, being upon those 
 waste places, where they are readily received, 
 and the thief harboured from danger of law, 
 or such officers as might light upon him. 
 Moreover, the peojjle that thus live in those 
 boolies, grow thereby the more barbarous, 
 and live more licenciously than they could 
 in towns, using what manners they list, and 
 practising what mischiefs and villanies they 
 will, either against the government there, 
 by their combinations, or against private 
 men, whom they maligne, by stealing their 
 goods, or murdering themselves. For there 
 they think themselves half exempted from 
 law and obedience, and having once tasted 
 freedom, do, like a steer that hath been long 
 out of his yoke, grudge and repine ever after 
 to come under rule again." 
 
 The next custom to which exception is 
 made, was the old fashion, wliich they stiU 
 
1584.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELANIX [ma^jners of the irisii. 
 
 iretaiiied, of wearing long glihs, or thick 
 'curled bushes of hair hanging down over 
 their eyes. The chief objection to these 
 two articles was that they served for dis- 
 guise, and that the mantle, which seems to 
 have been originally the principal or only 
 article of clothing of the Irish, serving them 
 for bed and house, enabled them to move 
 from one place to another with a rapidity 
 inconsistent with the possession of any other 
 household property. It was itself "a fit 
 house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, 
 and an apt cloak for a thief. First, the 
 outlaw being for his many crimes and vil- 
 lanies banished froni the town and houses 
 of honest men, and wandering in vsaste places, 
 far from danger of law, maketh his mantle 
 his house, and under it covereth himself 
 from the wrath of heaven, from the offence 
 of the earth, and from the sight of men. 
 When it raineth, it is his pent house ; when 
 it bloweth, it is his tent ; when it freezeth, 
 it is his tabernacle. In summer he can wear 
 it loose, in winter he can wrap it close ; at 
 all times he can use it, never heavy, never 
 cumbersome. Likewise for a rebel it is as 
 serviceable. For in his war that he maketli, 
 if at least it deserve the name of war, when 
 he still flyeth from his foe, and lurketh in 
 the thick woods and strait passages, waiting 
 for advantages, it is his bed, yea and almost 
 his household stuff. For the wood is his 
 house against all weathers, and his mantle 
 is his couch to sleep in. Therein he wrap- 
 peth himself round, and coucheth himself 
 strongly against the gnats, which in that 
 country do more annoy the naked rebels 
 whilst they keep the woods, and do more 
 sharply wound them, than all their enemies' 
 swords or spears, which can seldom come 
 nigh them; yea, and oftentimes their mantle 
 serveth them when they are near driven, 
 being wrapped about their left arm instead 
 of a target, for it is hard to cut through with 
 a sword, besides it is light to bear, light to 
 throw away, and being (as they commonly 
 are) naked, it is to them all in all. Lastly, 
 for a thief it is so handsome, as it may seem 
 it was first invented for him, for under it he 
 may cleanly convey any fit pillage that 
 Cometh handsomely in his way ; and when 
 he goeth abroad in the night in freebooting, 
 it is his best and surest friend ; for lying, 
 as they often do, two or three nights to- 
 gether abroad to watch for their booty, with 
 that they can prettily shroud themselves 
 under a bush or a bankside, till they may 
 conveniently do their errand ; and when all 
 
 is over, he can in his mantle pass through 
 any town or company, being close hooded 
 over his head, as he useth, from knowledge 
 of any to whom he is endangered. Besides 
 this, he, or any man else that is disposed to 
 mischief or villainy, may under his mantle 
 go privily armed without suspicion of any, 
 carry his head-piece, his skein, or pistol, if 
 he please to be always in readiness." The 
 Irish glibs, it is added, " are as fit masks 
 as a mantle is for a thief ; for whensoever 
 he hath run himself into that peril of law, 
 that he will not be known, he either cutteth 
 off his glib quietly, by which he becometh 
 nothing like himself, or pulleth it so low 
 down over his eyes that it is very hard to 
 discern his thievish countenance." 
 
 From the Scythians Spenser derived the 
 Irish war-cries and their weapons, especially 
 the short bows and arrows, and shields made 
 of platted wicker rods, used by the Irish of 
 the north. These and some other peculi- 
 arities of Irish manners and customs in the 
 time of Elizabeth, were, no doubt, of remote 
 antiquity among the native Irish ; but al- 
 though the mode of life of the lower orders 
 remained nearly the same, the frequent in- 
 tercourse with England, the gradual influ- 
 ence of English laws, and, above all, the 
 intermarriages and fosterings with the de- 
 generate English, the Geraldines, Butlers, 
 Burkes, &c., had produced a considerable 
 change in other classes since the period of the 
 English invasion. The Irish chiefs had long 
 begun to love finery in their apparel, and 
 they no longer rode without saddles, like 
 the Irish kings in the time of the Normans. 
 The equipments of the Irish warriors were 
 imitated from those of their English enemies; 
 and the better families had adojsted English 
 manners and furniture in their households, 
 although their fashions were in general Eng- 
 lish of a century or two old. Thus the 
 accoutrements of the Irish horse soldier, as 
 well as those of tlie galloglass or heavy armed 
 foot soldier, who wore a shirt of mail down 
 to the calf of his leg, and carried a heavy 
 axe in his hand, were considered by Spencer 
 to have been of English origin. Spencer 
 looked upon the kernes as the only real Irish 
 soldiers, and he describes them as in the 
 habit of committing the most brutal out- 
 rages on the persons and property of those 
 with whom they were at war, but as soldiers 
 " very valiant and hardy, for the most part 
 great indurers of cold, labour, hunger, and 
 all hardness, very ^ictive and strong of hand, 
 very swift of foot, very vigilant and circum- 
 
 487 
 
THE BARDS.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1584. 
 
 spect in their enterprises, very present in 
 perils, very great scorners of death." It is 
 added tliat, "when he cometh to experience 
 of service abroad, or is put to a piece (a 
 musket), or a pike, he maketh as worthy a 
 soldier as any nation he meeteth with." 
 
 The same reason which induced the Eng- 
 lish writers to speak with so much warmth 
 against these old customs and manners, and 
 their effect in perpetuating national feelings 
 and prejudices, influenced Spenser's judg- 
 ment with respect to the bards. " There 
 is," he says, " amongst the Irish a certain 
 kind of people called bards, which are to 
 them instead of poets, whose profession is 
 to set forth the praises or dispraises of men 
 in their poems or rhymes, the wliich are had 
 in so high regard and estimation amongst 
 them, that none dare displease them for fear 
 to run into reproach through their offence, 
 and to he made infamous in the moutlis of 
 all men; for their verses are taken up with a 
 general applause, and usually sang at all 
 feasts and meetings, by certain other per- 
 sons whose proper function that is, who also 
 receive for the same great rewards and repu- 
 tation amongst them." 
 
 Bardism in the earlier ages, as we have 
 observed on a former occasion, seems to have 
 had its head-seat in Ireland, and in the 
 course of our history we have had many occa- 
 sions to note the important influence exerted 
 by the bardic class on Irish society and on 
 Irish politics. That influence continued in 
 full force in the sixteenth century, and it 
 was the minstrelsy of their bards which kept 
 up, more almost than any other circumstance, 
 the spirit of clanship, and of opposition to 
 foreign government and laws. " These Irish 
 bards," says Spencer, " are so far from in- 
 structing young men in moral discipline, 
 that they themselves do more deserve to be 
 sharply disciplined ; for they seldom used to 
 choose unto themselves the doings of good 
 men for the aggregate of their poems, but 
 whomsoever they find to be most licentious 
 of life, most bold and lawless in his doings, 
 most dangerous and desperate in all parts of 
 disobedience and rebellious disposition, him 
 they set up and glorify in their rhymes, him 
 they praise to the people, and to young men 
 make an examjjle to follow." " There is 
 none so bad," he continues, " but shall find 
 some to favour his doings ; but such licen- 
 tious parts as these, tending for the most 
 part to the hurt of the English, or main- 
 tenance of their own land liberty, they 
 themselves being most desirous thereof, do 
 488 
 
 most allow. Besides this, evil things, being 
 decked and attired with the ga}^ attire of 
 goodly words, may easily deceive and carry 
 away the affections of a young mind, that is 
 not well stayed, but desirous of some bold 
 adventures to make proof of himself; for 
 being (as they all be brought up idly), 
 without awe of parents, without precepts of 
 masters, and without fear of offence, not 
 being directed nor employed in any course of 
 life which may carry them to virtue, will 
 easily be drawn to follow such as any shall 
 set before them. For a young mind cannot 
 rest ; if he be not still busied in some 
 goodness, he will find himself such business 
 as shall soon busy all about him. In which, 
 if he shall find any to praise him, and to 
 give him encouragement, as these bards and 
 rhymers do for little reward, or a share of a 
 stolen cow, then maketh he him most insolent 
 and half mad with the love of himself and 
 his own lewd deeds. And as for words to 
 set forth such lewdness, it is not hard for 
 them to give a goodly and painted show 
 thereunto, borrowed even from the praises 
 which are jsroper to virtue itself. As of a 
 most notorious thief, and wicked outlaw, 
 which had lived all his life-time of spoils 
 and robberies, one of their bards in his 
 praise will say, ' that he was none of the 
 idle milksops that was brought up by the 
 fire-side, but that most of his days he spent 
 in arms and vali-ant enterprises, that he did 
 never eat his meat before he had won it with 
 his sword, that he lay not all night slugging 
 in a cabin under his mantle, but used com- 
 monly to keep others waking to defend their 
 lives, and did light his candle at the flames 
 of their houses to lead him in the darkness ; 
 that the day was his night, and the night his 
 day ; that he loved not to be long wooing of 
 wenches to yield to him, but where he came 
 he took by force the spoil of other men's 
 love, and left but lamentation to their lovers ; 
 that his music was not the harp, nor lay of 
 love, but the cries of people and clash- 
 ing of armour ; and, finally, that he died not 
 bewailed of many, but made many wail when 
 he died, that dearly bought his death.' Do 
 you not think that many of these praises 
 might be applied to men of best deserts ? 
 Yet are they all yielded to a most notable 
 traitor, and amongst some of the Irish not 
 smally accounted of. For the song, when 
 it was first made and sung to a person of 
 high degree there, was bought (as their 
 manner is) for forty crowns." 
 
 The kernes, we have said, were the regu- 
 
A. D. 
 
 1584.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [condition of Ireland. 
 
 lar soldiers of the Irish chieftains. But 
 there was a numerous class of the popula- 
 tion, with certain or uncertain duties, but 
 which was in reality brought up in idleness, 
 and was, therefore, addicted to all kinds of 
 evil courses. The number of people which 
 under cover of the lavish profusion of the 
 feudal lords was sustained without any de- 
 finite means of gaining their liveliliood, 
 was the curse of medieval society, and this 
 curse appears to have been felt more bitterly 
 in Ireland than elsewhere. Thus, it was 
 the pride of every Irishman who was in the 
 position to have a horse, to be followed by 
 as many attendants as possible in the shape 
 of horseboys, and arm-bearers, and even 
 the foot soldiers had sometimes lads to carry 
 their arms. They helped to carry away 
 plunder, and lived upon the spoils. "Next 
 after the Irish kerne," says Spencer, " me- 
 thinks the Irish horseboys would come well 
 in order, the use of which, though necessity 
 (as times may be) do enforce, yet in the 
 thorough reformation of that realm they 
 should be cut off. For the cause why 
 they are now to be permitted, is want of 
 convenient inns for lodging of travellers on 
 horseback, and of hostlers to tend their 
 horses by the way. But when things shall 
 be reduced to a better pass, this needeth 
 specially to be reformed. For out of the 
 fry of their rakeliell horseboys, growing up 
 in knavery and villany, are their kerne con- 
 tinually supplied and maintained. For 
 having been once brought up an idle horse- 
 boy, he will never after fall to labour, but 
 is only made fit for the halter. And these 
 also (the which is one foul oversight) are 
 for the most part bred up amongst the 
 Englishmen, of whom learning to shoot in a 
 piece, and being made acquainted with all 
 the trades of the English, they are after- 
 wards when they become kerne, made more 
 fit to cut their throats. Next to this, there 
 is another much like, but much more lewd 
 and dishonest, and that is, of their carrows, 
 which is a kind of people that wander up 
 and down to gentlemen's houses, living only 
 upon cards and dice, the which, though 
 they have little or nothing of their own, 
 yet will they play for much money, which 
 if they win, they waste most lightly, and 
 if they lose, they pay as slenderly, but make 
 recompense with one stealth or another, 
 whose only hurt is not that they tliemselves 
 are idle losels, but that through gaming 
 they draw others to like lewdness and idle- 
 ness. And to these may be added another 
 
 VOL. I. 3 Q 
 
 sort of like loose fellows, which do pass up 
 and down amongst gentlemen by the name of 
 jesters, but are indeed notable rogues, and 
 partakers not only of many stealths, by set- 
 ting forth other men's goods to be stollen, 
 but also privy to many traitorous practises, 
 and common carriers of news, with desire 
 whereof you would wonder how much the 
 Irish are fed ; for they use commonly to 
 send up and down to know news, and if 
 any meet with another, his second word is, 
 ' What news ?' Insomuch that hereof is 
 told a pretty jest of a Frenchman, who hav- 
 ing been sometimes in Ireland, where he 
 marked their great inquiry for news, and 
 meeting afterwards in France an Irishman 
 whom he knew in Ireland, first saluted hiin, 
 and afterwards said thus merrily, ' O sir, I 
 pray you tell me of courtesy, have you 
 heard anything of the news that you so 
 much inquired for in your country ?' " 
 
 The agricultural condition of Ireland ap- 
 pears at this time to have been in the lowest 
 degree of wretchedness. It was a country 
 eaten up by Irish insurgents and English 
 soldiers, and the latter seem after all to have 
 been by no means the least burthensome. 
 We have seen what an outcry was raised in 
 sir Henry Sydney's parliament on the cess, 
 which still seems to have remained a sub- 
 ject of agitation. " There are," says Spenser, 
 "cesses of sundry sorts. One is the cessing 
 of soldiers upon the country, for Ireland 
 being a country of war, as it is handled, and 
 always full of soldiers, they which have the 
 government, whether they find it the more 
 ease to the queen's purse, or the most ready 
 means at hand for victualling of the sol- 
 dier, or that necessity enforceth them 
 thereunto, do scatter the army abroad in 
 the country, and place them in villages to 
 take their victuals of them, at such vacant 
 times as they lie not in camp, nor are other- 
 wise employed in service. Another kind of 
 cess is the imposing of provision for the 
 governor's housekeeping, which, though it 
 be most necessary, and be also (for avoiding 
 of all the evils formerly therein used) lately 
 brought to a composition, yet it is not with- 
 out great inconveniences, no less than here 
 in England, or rather much more. The like 
 cess is also charged upon the country some- 
 times for victualling of the soldiers when 
 they lie in garrison, at such times as there 
 is none remaining in the queen's store, or 
 that the same cannot be conveniently con- 
 veyed to their place of garrison. But these 
 two are not easily to be redressed when 
 
 489 
 
I CONDITION OF IRELAND.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 r.A..P. 1.584. 
 
 necessity thereto compelleth ; but as for the 
 former, as it is not necessary, so it is most 
 hurtful and offensive to the poor country, 
 and nothing convenient for the soldiers 
 themselves, who, during tlieir lying at cess, 
 use all kind of outrageous disorder and 
 villany, both towards the poor men which 
 victual and lodge them, as also to all the 
 country round about them, whom they 
 abuse, oppress, spoil, and afflict by all the 
 means they can invent, for they will not 
 only not content themselves with such vic- 
 tuals as their hosts, nor yet as the place per- 
 haps affords, but they will have other meat 
 provided for tliem, and aquavita? sent for, 
 yea and money besides laid at their tren- 
 chers, which if they want, then about the 
 house they walk with the wretched poor 
 man and his silly wife, who are glad to pur- 
 chase their peace with anything. By which 
 vile manner of abuse the country people, 
 yea and the very English which dwell abroad 
 and see and sometimes feel this outrage, 
 grow into great detestation of the soldiers, 
 and thereby into hatred of the very go- 
 vernment which draweth upon them such 
 evils." 
 
 Thus it appears that all the causes of the 
 misery of Ireland at this time did not rest 
 with the Irish themselves. The irregular 
 exactions of coyne and livery for the Irish, 
 cess for the English, and plunder for both, 
 naturally affected the cultivation of the land. 
 " The lords of land and freeholders," we 
 again quote the words of Spenser, "do not 
 there use to set out their land in farm, or 
 for term of years, to their tenants, but only 
 from year to year, and some during plea- 
 sure, neither indeed will the Irish tenant or 
 husbandman otherwise take his land than so 
 long as he list himself. The reason hereof 
 in the tenant is, for that the landlords there 
 use most shamefully to rack their tenants, 
 laying upon them coyne and livery at plea- 
 sure, and exacting of them (besides his cove- 
 nants) what he pleaseth. So that the poor 
 husbandman either dare not bind himself to 
 him for longer term, or thinketh by his con- 
 tinual liberty of change, to keep his land- 
 lord the rather in awe from wronging of 
 him. And the reason why the landlord 
 will no longer covenant with him, is, for 
 that he daily looketh after change and alter- 
 ation, and hovereth in expectation of new 
 worlds." 
 
 The result of this system was, naturally 
 enough, that the tenant was not encouraged 
 to imj)rove the land or build upon it, and 
 490 
 
 that it thus became less profitable to the 
 landlord himself. " For what reasonable 
 man will not think that the tenement shall 
 be miide much better for the lord's behoof, 
 if the tenant may by such good means be 
 drawn to build himself some handsome 
 habitation thereon, to ditch and enclose 
 his ground, to manure and husband it as 
 good farmers use ? For when his tenant's 
 term shall be expired, it will yield him, in 
 the renewing his lease, both a good fine 
 and also a better rent. And also it shall be 
 for the good of the tenant likewise, who by 
 such buildings and inclosures shall receive 
 many benefits ; first, by the handsomeness 
 of his house he shall take more comfort of 
 his life, more safe dwelling, and a delight to 
 keep his said house neat and cleanly, which 
 now being, as they commonly are, rather 
 swine-sties than houses, is the chiefest 
 cause of his so beastly manner of life and 
 savage condition, lying and living together 
 with his beast, in one house, in one room, 
 in one bed, that is, clean straw, or rather a 
 foul dunghill. And to all these other com- 
 modities he shall in short time find a greater 
 added, that is his own wealth and riches in- 
 creased, and wonderfully enlarged, by keep- 
 ing his cattle in inclosures, where they 
 shall always have fresh pasture, that now is 
 all trampled and overrun ; warm covert, 
 that now lieth open to all weather ; safe 
 being, that now are continually filched and 
 stolen." 
 
 When we come to the article of religion, 
 Spenser, the English protestant of Eliza- 
 beth's age, speaks with more prejudiced 
 feelings than on other subjects, and papistry 
 is of course in his eyes an abuse of the 
 greatest magnitude ; yet the state of reli- 
 gious instruction among the Irish at this 
 jjcriod was no doubt at a low ebb. " The 
 fault which I find in religion," he says, " is 
 but one, but the same is universal through- 
 out all that country, that is, that they be 
 all papists by their profession ; but in the 
 same so blindly and brutishly informed (for 
 the most part), that not one amongst a hun- 
 dred knovveth any ground of religion, or 
 any article of his faith, but can perhaps say 
 his pater-noster, or his ave-maria, without 
 any knowledge or understanding what one 
 word thereof meaneth." Spenser's opinion 
 coincides with what we know from other 
 sources to have been that of Elizabeth, 
 that the first care ought to be to look to the 
 reformation of the civil government, and 
 the extension of education, and that refor- 
 
A.D. 
 
 1584.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [irish misgovernment. 
 
 mation in religion was a thing which would 
 naturally follow. Yet there were numer- 
 ous disorders peculiar to the church estab- 
 lishment in Ireland which seemed to call 
 for an immediate interference from the 
 civil government. " All Irish priests, which 
 now enjoy the church livings, are in a man- 
 ner mere laymen, saving that they have 
 taken holy orders, but otherwise they do 
 go and live like laymen, follow all kinds of 
 husbandry and other worldly affairs, as 
 other Englishmen do. They neither read 
 scriptures, nor preach to the people, nor 
 administer ths communion ; but bajitism 
 they do, for they christen, yet after the 
 popish fashion ; only they take the tithes 
 and offerings, and gather what fruit else 
 they may of their livings, the which they con- 
 vert as badly, and some of them (they say) 
 pay as due tributes and shares of their liv- 
 ings to their bishops (I speak of those which 
 are Irish) as they receive them duly." The 
 causes of the miserable condition of the 
 church among the Irish are stated in much 
 the same terms as those used by Sydney 
 some years before, and the remedies recom- 
 mended are of the same description, good 
 orders taken for church rule, and, above all, 
 good ministers sent over ; but it is acknow- 
 ledged that the political state of the island 
 offered an almost insuperable objection to 
 any hope of speedy reformation. 
 
 After having pointed out the chief dis- 
 orders among the people governed in Ire- 
 land, Spenser proceeds to touch slightly on 
 the sins of the governors. These were 
 chiefly such as are the usual attendants on 
 a deputed command, at a distance from and 
 almost out of the immediate cognizance of 
 the supreme power, which gave opportunity 
 and encouragement to extortions on the part 
 of the officials, and to the spirit of self-aggran- 
 disement in place of feelings of public duty 
 in those to whom the power is deputed. 
 " To count the particular faults of private 
 men," Spenser observes, " should be a work 
 too infinite ; yet some there be of that 
 nature, that though they be in private men, 
 yet, their evil reacheth to a general hurt, 
 as the extortion of sheriffs and their sub- 
 sheriffs, and bailiffs, the corruption of vic- 
 tuallers, cessors, and purveyors, the disorders 
 of seneschals, captains, and their soldiers, 
 and many such like. All which 1 will only 
 name here, that their reformation may be 
 mended in place where it most concerneth." 
 "But," he goes on to say, "there is one 
 very foul abuse, which by the way I may 
 
 not omit, and that is in captains, who not- 
 withstanding that they are specially em- 
 ployed to make peace through strong 
 execution of war, yet they do so dandle 
 their doings and dally in the service to them 
 connnitted, as if they would not have the 
 enemy subdued or utterly beaten down, for 
 fear lest afterwards they should need em- 
 ployment, and so be discharged of pay ; for 
 which cause some of them that are laid in 
 garrison, do so handle the matter, that they 
 will do no great hurt to the enemies, yet for 
 colour sake some men they will kill, even 
 half with the consent of the enemy, being 
 persons either of base regard, or enemies to 
 the enemy, whose heads aftesoones they 
 send to the governor for a commendation of 
 their great endeavour, telling how weighty 
 a service they performed, by cutting of such 
 and such dangerous rebels." Disorders of 
 this kind, it appears, were winked at some- 
 times even by the chief governors them- 
 selves, who found their own advantage in 
 prolonging the troubles of the country over 
 which they were sent to rule. " Some, who 
 are put in special trust of those great affairs, 
 being martial men, will not do always 
 what they may for quieting of things, but 
 will rather wink at some faults, and will 
 suffer them mipunished, lest that, having 
 put all things in that assurance of peace 
 that they might, they should seem after- 
 wards not to be needed, nor continued in 
 their governments with so great a charge to 
 her majesty. And, therefore, they do cun- 
 ninglj- carry their course of government, and 
 from one hand to another do bandy the 
 service like a tennis-hall, which they will 
 never strike quite away, for fear lest after- 
 wards they should want." Others, " seeing 
 the end of their government to draw nigh, 
 and some mischiefs and troublous practise 
 growing up, which afterwards may work 
 trouble to the next succeeding governor, 
 will not attempt the redress or cutting off 
 thereof, either for fear they should leave 
 the realm unquiet at the end of their go- 
 vernment, or that the next that cometh 
 should receive the same too quiet, and so 
 happily win more praise thereof than they 
 before. And, therefore, they will not (as 
 I said) seek at all to repress that evil, but 
 will either by granting protection for a 
 time, or holding some emparlance with the 
 rebel, or by treating of connnissioners, or 
 by other like devices, only smother and 
 keep down the flame of the mischief, so as 
 it may not break out in their time of 
 
 491 
 
PLANS OF REFORM.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 15S4., 
 
 government : what comes afterwards they 
 care not, or rather wish the worst." More- 
 over, as the writer we are quoting observes, 
 " the sequel of things doth in a manner 
 prove and plainly speak so much, that the 
 governors generally are envious one of 
 another's greater glory, which if they would 
 seek to excell by better governing, it should 
 be a most laudable emulation. But they 
 do quite otherwise. For this, as you may 
 mark, is the common order of them, that 
 who cometh next in place will not follow 
 that course of government, however good, 
 which his predecessors held, either for dis- 
 dain of himself, or doubt to have his doings 
 drowned in another man's praise, but will 
 straight take a way quite contrary to the 
 former : as, if the former thought, by keep- 
 ing under the Irish to reform them, the 
 next, by discountenancing the English, will 
 curry favour with the Irish, and so make 
 his government seem plausible, as having all 
 the Irisii at his couunand ; but he that 
 comes after, will perhaps follow neither the 
 one nor the other, but will dandle the one 
 and the other in such sort, as he will suck 
 sweet out of them both, and leave bitter- 
 ness to the poor country, which if he that 
 comes after shall seek to redress, he shall 
 perhaps find such crosses as he shall hardly 
 be able to bear, or do any good that might 
 work the disgrace of his predecessors." 
 There can be no doubt that the disordered 
 condition of Ireland in the latter part of 
 the reign of queen Elizabeth arose in no 
 little degree from the frequent changes in 
 its government and in the policy of its 
 rulers. 
 
 Spenser had evidently studied the con- 
 dition of Ireland with great care, and his 
 position and character of mind were favour- 
 able to the task of examination, but he was 
 still strongly English in his views and pre- 
 iudices, and as he certainly overlooked some 
 of the causes of disorder, so we may per- 
 haps not fully agree with all his notions 
 for reformation. We must bear in mind 
 that he wrote at a period when the island 
 was again thrown into confusion by the 
 turbulence of the earl of Tyrone (Spenser's 
 " View of the state of Ireland" is dated in 
 1596). He assumes, and not without rea- 
 son, that from the first the sj'stem adopted 
 by the English government towards Ireland 
 had been radically defective, and that 
 " since, through other oversights, it came 
 more out of square to that disorder which 
 it is now come unto, like as two indirect 
 492 
 
 lines, the further that they are dravm out, 
 the further they go asunder." " The lon- 
 ger," he says, " that government thus con- 
 tinueth, in the worse course will the realm 
 be ; for it is all in vain that they now strive 
 and endeavour by fair means and peaceable 
 plots to redress the same, without first re- 
 moving all those inconveniences, and new- 
 framing as it were in the forge all that is 
 worn out of fashion. For all other means 
 will be but as lost labour, by patching up 
 one hole to make many ; for the Irish do 
 strongly hate and abhor all reformation 
 and subjection to the English, by reason 
 that having been once subdued by them, 
 they were thrust out of all their posses- 
 sions." 
 
 As the only efficient step towards the re- 
 formation so eagerly sought after, Spenser 
 advocates a total change in the whole system 
 of Irish policj'. The prejudices of courtiers 
 against change, and its supposed equivalent, 
 revolution, were at this period perhaps 
 stronger than at any other ; " but that in 
 the realm of Ireland we see much otherwise, 
 for every day we perceive the troubles grow- 
 ing more upon us, and one evil growing upon 
 another, inasmuch as there is no part now 
 sound or ascertained, but all have their ears 
 ujjvight, waiting when the watchword shall 
 come, that they should all arise generally 
 into rebellion, and cast away the English 
 subjection." To the question, how this great 
 change was to be commenced, Spencer bold- 
 ly answers, "Even with the sword; for all 
 these evils must first be cut away with a 
 strong hand before any good can be planted, 
 like as the corrupt branches and unwhole- 
 some boughs are first to be pruned, and the 
 foul moss cleansed and scraped away, before 
 the tree can bring forth any good fruit." 
 For this purpose he would put an end to the 
 old plan of carrying on an endless war with 
 small bodies of forces which only tended to 
 keep hostilities alive, without bringing them 
 to any decisive termination, and recommends 
 the sending into Ireland of such a powerful 
 army " as should tread down all tliat stand- 
 eth before them on foot, and lay on the ground 
 all the stiff-necked people of that land." 
 Spenser's plan for using these forces is one 
 which had been recommended more than 
 once. Instead of scattering them over the 
 country in parties, emploj'ed in a precarious 
 and never-ceasing conflict among woods and 
 bogs, he would break the neck of rebellion 
 by establishing powerful garrisons in various 
 parts of the island, which might check in an 
 
I A.D. 1584] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [military establishment. 
 
 instant all attempts at insurrection or depre- 
 dation. By this means, he saj's, the Eng- 
 lish soldiers would be kept constantly under 
 the review of the superior commanders, 
 would be exposed to less risks, and retained 
 in better discipline, and many of the corrupt 
 practices would be hindered which had 
 been a chief cause of squandering unne- 
 cessarily the money of the state. He would 
 have the soldiers in these garrisons regu- 
 larly paid, victualed, and clothed, so that 
 they might be no burthen on the country in 
 which they were quartered, the inhabitants 
 of which had been gradually brought to con- 
 sider them as a hateful oppression rather 
 than a protection. It appears that, as things 
 were managed, a large portion of the pay of 
 ■ the soldiers was embezzled by their officers, 
 who kept them in silence by conniving at the 
 plunder and outrages which they committed 
 on the population of the districts in which 
 they were quartered. 
 
 These great garrisons, placed so as to com- 
 mand all the disaffected districts, were to 
 have the effect of reducing the insurgents to 
 absolute starvation, by cutting them off from 
 all relief, and gradually destroying and con- 
 suming their resources. " It is not," we are 
 told, " with Ireland as it is with other coun- 
 tries, where the wars flame most in summer, 
 and the helmets glister brightest in the fair- 
 est sunshine ; but in Ireland the winter 
 yieldeth best services, for then the trees are 
 bare and naked, which use both to clothe and 
 house the kerne : the ground is cold and wet, 
 which useth to be his bedding ; the air is sharp 
 and bitter, to blow through his naked sides and 
 legs ; the kine are barren and without milk, 
 which useth to be his only food, neither if 
 he kill them will they yield him any flesh, 
 nor if he keep them will they give him food, 
 besides being all with calf (for the most part), 
 they will, through much chasing and driving, 
 cast all their calves and lose their milk, which 
 should relieve him the next summer." 
 
 The war recommended by Spenser was a 
 war of extermination against all who did not 
 make an immediate submission to the gov- 
 ernment. " At the beginning of those wtirs," 
 he says, " and when the garrisons are well 
 planted and fortified, I would wish a procla- 
 mation were made generally, to come to their 
 knowledge : That what persons soever would 
 within twenty days absolutely submit them- 
 selves (excepting only the very principals 
 and ringleaders) should find grace. I doubt 
 not but upon the settling of these garrisons, 
 such a terror and near consideration of their 
 
 perilous state would be stricken into most of 
 them, that they will covet to draw away from 
 their leaders. And again I well know that the 
 rebels themselves (as I saw by proof in Des- 
 mond's war) will turn away all their rascal (i. e. 
 useless) people, as old men, women, children, 
 andhinds (which they call churls), which would 
 only waste their victuals,and yield them no aid; 
 but their cattle they wdll surely keep away: 
 these therefore, though policy would turn 
 them back again, that they might the rather 
 consume and afflict the other rebels, yet in a 
 pitiful commiseration I would wish them to 
 be received ; the rather for that this sort of 
 base people doth not, for the most part, re- 
 bel of themselves, having no heart thereun- 
 to, but are by force drawn by the grand 
 rebels into their actions, and carried away by 
 the violence of the stream, else they should 
 be sure to lose all that they have, and per- 
 haps their lives too : the which they now 
 carry unto them, in hope to enjoy them there, 
 but they are there by the strong rebels them- 
 selves soon turned out of all, so that the 
 constraint hereof may in them deserve par- 
 don. Likewise, if any of their able men or 
 gentlemen shall then offer to come away, 
 and to bring their cattle with them, as some 
 no doubt may steal them away privily, I 
 wish them also to be received, for the dis- 
 abling of the enemy, but withall that good 
 assurance may be taken for their true beha- 
 viour and absolute submission, and that then 
 they be not suffered to remain any longer in 
 those parts, no nor about the garrisons, but 
 sent away into the inner parts of the realm, and 
 disposed in such sort as they may not come to- 
 gether, nor easily return if they would. For if 
 they might be suffered to remain about the gar- 
 risons, and there inhabit, as they will offer to 
 till the ground, and yield a great part of the 
 profit thereof and of their cattle to the colo- 
 nel, wherewith they have heretofore tempted 
 many, they would (as I have by experience 
 known) be ever after such a gall and inconve- 
 nience to them, as that their profit shall not 
 recompense their hurt; for they will privily 
 relieve their friends that are forth ; they will 
 send the enemy secret advertisement of all 
 their purposes and journeys which they mean 
 to make upon them ; they will not also stick to 
 draw the enemy privily upon them, yea and to 
 betray the fort itself, by discovery of all her de- 
 fects and disadvantages (if any be) to the cut- 
 ting of all their throats. For avoiding whereof, 
 and many other inconveniences, I wish that 
 they should be carried far from hence into 
 some other parts, so that (as I say) they come 
 
MISERY OF THE REBELS.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1584. 
 
 in and submit themselves upon the first sum- 
 mons. But afterwards I would have none 
 received, but left to their fortune and mis- 
 erable end : my reason is, for that those 
 which will afterwards remain without are 
 stout and obstinate rebels, such as w ill never 
 be made dutiful and obedient, nor brought 
 to labour or civil conversation, having once 
 tasted that licencious life, and being ac- 
 quainted with s])oil and outrages, will ever 
 after be ready for the like occasions, so as 
 there is no hope of their amendment or re- 
 covery, and they are therefore needful to be 
 cut off." 
 
 By such means, it was believed, the re- 
 bellious temper of the Irish would soon be 
 tamed. " The end will, I assure you, be 
 very short and much sooner than can be in 
 so great a trouble, as it seemeth, hoped for, 
 although there should none of them fall by 
 the sword, nor be shiin by the soldier, yet 
 thus being kept from manurance, and their 
 cattle from running abroad, by this hard re- 
 straint they will quickly consume them- 
 selves and devour one another. The proof 
 whereof I saw suHicicntly exampled in these 
 late wars of Munster; for notwithstanding 
 that the same was a most rich and plentiful 
 country, full of corn and cattle, that you 
 would have thought they should have been 
 able to stand long, yet ere one year and a 
 half they were brought to such wretched- 
 ness, as that any stoney heart would have 
 read the same. Out of every corner of the 
 woods and glynns, they came creeping forth 
 upon their hands, for their legs could not 
 bear them ; they looked like anatomies of 
 death, they spake like ghosts crying out of 
 their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, 
 happy where they could find them, yea, and 
 one another soon after, insomuch as the 
 very carcasses they spared not to scrape out 
 of their grave; and, if they found a plot of 
 water-cress or shannocks, there they fiocked 
 as to a feast for the time, yet not able long 
 to continue therewithall, that in sliort space 
 there were none almost left, and a most 
 populous and plentiful country suddenly 
 left void of man and beast; yet sure in all 
 that war, there perished not many by the 
 sword, but all by the extremity of famine 
 which they themselves had wrought." 
 
 In reading this story of lamentable waste 
 and devastation, we cannot forbear repeat- 
 ing the exclamation made by Spenser on 
 another occasion. " Thus was all that goodly 
 country utterly wasted! And sure it is yet 
 a most beautiful and sweet country as any 
 494- 
 
 is under heaven, being stored throughout 
 with many goodly rivers, replenished with 
 all sorts of fish most abundantly, sprinkled 
 with many sweet islands and goodly lakes 
 like little inland seas, that will carry even 
 ships ujjon their waters, adorned with 
 goodly woods, even fit for building of 
 houses and ships, so commodiously, as that 
 if some princes in the world had them, they 
 would soon hope to be lords of all the seas, 
 and ere long of all the world; also, full of 
 very good ports and havens opening ujjon 
 England, as inviting us to come unto them, 
 to see what excellent commodities that 
 country can afford, besides the soil itself 
 most fertile, fit to yield all kind of fruit 
 that shall be committed thereunto. And, 
 lastly, the heavens most mild and temperate, 
 though somewhat more moist than the parts 
 towards tlie west." 
 
 The rebels having been by force of arms 
 rooted out or reduced to obedience, Spenser 
 would have the different septs removed 
 from the districts they originally occupied, 
 and separated into diflerent parts of the 
 island. By this means he expected to de- 
 stroy the old system of clanship, which no 
 doui)t stood in the way of improvement. 
 This movement was to be combined with an 
 extensive importation of English settlers, 
 to whom the proprietorship of the forfeited 
 lands was to be transferred. " All the 
 lands," he says, " will I give unto English- 
 men, whom I will have drawn thither, who 
 shall have the same with such estates as 
 shall be thought meet, and for such rent as 
 shall eftsoons be rated. Under every of 
 those Englishmen will I place some of those 
 Irish to be tenants for a certain rent, 
 according to the quantity of such land as 
 every man shall have allotted unto him and 
 shall be found able to wield, wherein this 
 special regard shall be had, that in no place 
 under any landlord there shall be many of 
 them placed together, but dispersed wide 
 from their acquaintance, and scattered far 
 abroad through all the country. For that 
 is the evil which now I find in all Ireland, 
 that the Irish dwell all together by their 
 septs and several nations, so as they may 
 practise or conspire what they will ; where- 
 as if there were English well placed among 
 them, they should not be able once to stir or 
 to murmur, but that it should be known, 
 and they shortened according to their de- 
 merits." With this new poi^ulation Spencer 
 also proposes to found some new corporate 
 towns under protection of the great garri- 
 
A.ti. 
 
 15S4.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [plans of reform. 
 
 sons, which would be an additional check 
 upon insurrection, while they would con- 
 tribute towards raising the country in a 
 commercial jjoint of view. After bringing 
 people from England to inhabit the land — ■ 
 "whereunto though I doubt not but great 
 troops would be ready to run, yet for that, 
 in such cases, the worst and most decayed 
 men are most ready to remove, I would wish 
 them rather to be cliosen out of all parts of 
 tliis realm, eitlier by discretion of wise men 
 thereunto appointed, or by lot, or by the 
 drum, as was the old use in sending forth of 
 colonies, or such other good means as shall 
 in their wisdom be thought meetest," — the 
 whole island was to be divided into counties, 
 hundreds, and parishes. 
 
 The remainder of Sjienser's book is oc- 
 cupied with the development of his scheme 
 for the reformation and government of Ire- 
 land, which, as not likely to be carried into 
 practice at once, has now no great interest. 
 Others proposed other plans, which were 
 equally difficult to carry into execution. 
 Spenser's plan was a strong armed occupa- 
 tion, until the inhabitants should become so 
 far habituated to peace and civil govern- 
 ment, that the controlling force might be 
 withdrawn without risk. It was indeed 
 the condition of Irish society which the 
 English government had to contend with, 
 quite as much as the hostile feeling of the 
 population, and the old lawless habits had 
 a stronger root even in the more elevated 
 classes, than among the lower orders. " For 
 this you nmst know, that all the Irish 
 almost boast themselves to be gentlemen, 
 no less than the Welsh; for if he can de- 
 rive himself from the head of any sept (as 
 most of them can, they are so expert by 
 their bards), then he holdeth himself a 
 gentleman, and thereupon scorneth to work, 
 or use any hard labour, which he saith is 
 the life of a peasant or churl ; but thence- 
 forth becometh either a horseboy, or a 
 stocah (attendant) to some kerne, inuring 
 himself to his weapon and to the gentle- 
 manly trade of stealing (as they count it). 
 So that if a gentleman, or any wealthy man 
 yeoman of them, have any children, tlie 
 eldest of them perhaps shall be kept in 
 some order, but all the rest shall shift for 
 themselves and fall to this occupation. 
 And, moreover, it is a common use amongst 
 some of their gentlemen's sons, that so soon 
 as they are able to use their weapons, they 
 straight gather to themselves three or four 
 stAigglers, or kerne, with whom wandering 
 
 a while up and down idly the country, 
 taking only meat, he at last falleth unto 
 some bad occasion that shall be offered, 
 which being once made known, he is thence- 
 forth counted a man of worth, in whom 
 there is courage ; whereupon there draw 
 to him many other like loose young men, 
 which stirring him up with encouragement, 
 provoke him shortly to flat rebellion ; and 
 this happens not only sometimes in the 
 sons of their gentlemen, but also of their 
 noblemen, specially of them who have base 
 sons. For they are not only not ashamed to 
 acknowledge them, but also boast of them, 
 and use them to such secret services as they 
 themselves will not be seen in, as to plague 
 their enemies, to spoil their neighbours, to 
 oppose and crush some of their own too 
 stubborn freeholders which are not trac- 
 table to their wills." 
 
 The great aim of the government during 
 the period the island was to be occupied with 
 these powerful garrisons, was to compel and 
 gradually habituate the natives to a con- 
 formity with the English customs and man- 
 ners. With this object, it is recommended 
 that the retaining of the names distinctive 
 of the difierent septs should be prohibited 
 by law, that people should be obliged to 
 take names according to their trades and 
 occupations, and that the O's and Macs 
 should be entirely abolished. This was 
 making suddenly a change whic'n it had 
 tiiken some ages to effect in other countries. 
 Then all the natives, who had not freeholds 
 to live upon, were to be compelled to adopt 
 some trade or honest method of gaining 
 his livelihood. This was establishing on a 
 very extensive scale the same persecution 
 against idlers and masterless men which was 
 already carried on in England, where it was 
 attended with many difficulties, although the 
 evil existed on a much smaller scale. The 
 breaking up of the medieval system had in 
 all countries thrown upon society a con- 
 siderable mass of population which had no 
 longer any employment, and which was the 
 cause of extensive disorders. Among his 
 other projects of reformation, Spenser did 
 not overlook the necessity of providing for 
 the instruction of a population which was 
 then sunk in the greatest ignorance. " As 
 for other occupations and trades, they need 
 not be inforced to, but every man to be 
 bound only to follow one that he thinks 
 himself aptest for. For other trades of 
 artificers will be occupied for very necessity 
 and constrained use of them ; and so like- 
 
 i95 
 
FLANS OF REFORM.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.v. ir.s-i. 
 
 wise will merchandise for the gain thereof ; 
 but learning and bringing up in liberal 
 sciences, will not come of itself, but must 
 be drawn on with strait laws and ordinances. 
 And, therefore, it were meet that such an 
 act were ordained, that all the sons of lords, 
 gentlemen, and such others as are able to 
 
 j bring them up in learning, should be trained 
 up therein from their childhoods. And for 
 that end every parish should be forced to 
 keep a petty SLhoolmaster, adjoining unto 
 the parish church, to be the more in view, 
 which should bring up their children in the 
 first elements of letters ; and that, in every 
 country or barony, they should keep an 
 other able schoolmaster, which should in- 
 struct them in granunar, and in the prin- 
 ciples of sciences, to whom they should be 
 compelled to send their youth to be dis- 
 cijslined, whereby they will in short space 
 grow up to that civil conversation, that both 
 the children will loath their former rude- 
 ness in which they were bred, and also their 
 parents will, even by the example of their 
 young children, perceive the foulness of their 
 own behaviour, compared to theirs. For 
 learning hath that wonderful power in it- 
 self, that it can soften and tcmjoer the most 
 stern and savage nature." 
 
 Spenser concludes with some general re- 
 commendations for improvement, which may 
 
 ' be given in his own words, as they help to 
 show the difficulties with which the govern- 
 ment had to contend. " First," he says, " I 
 wish that orders were taken for the cutting 
 
 i and opening of all places through woods, so 
 that a wide way of the space of a himdred 
 yards might be laid open in every of them 
 for the safety of travellers, which use often 
 in such perilous places to be robbed, and 
 sometimes murdered. Next, that bridges 
 were built upon the rivers, and all the fords 
 marred and spoilt so as none might pass 
 any other way but by those bridges, and 
 every bridge to have a gate and a gatehouse 
 set thereon, whereof this good will come, 
 that no night stealths, which are commonly 
 driven in by-ways and by blind fords unused 
 of any but such like, shall not be conveyed 
 out of one country into another, as they use, 
 but they must pass by those bridges, where 
 they may either be happily encountered, or 
 easily tracked, or not suffered to j)ass at all, 
 by means of those gatehouses thereon. Also, 
 that in all straits and narrow passages, as 
 
 496 
 
 between two bogs, or through any deep 
 ford, or under any niountiiin side, there 
 should be some little fortilage or wooden 
 castle set, which should keep and command 
 that straight, whereby any rebels that 
 should come into the country might be 
 stopped that way, or pass with great peril. 
 Moreover, that all the high-ways should be 
 fenced and that upon both sides, leaving 
 only forty foot breadth for passage, so as 
 none shall be able to pass but through the 
 highways, whereby thieves and night rob- 
 bers might be more easily pursued and 
 encountered, when there shall be no other 
 way to drive their stollen cattle but therein. 
 Further, that there should be in sundry 
 convenient places, by the highways, towns 
 appointed to be built, the which should be 
 free burgesses, and incorporate under bailiffs, 
 to be by their inhabitants well and strongly 
 intrenched or otherwise fenced, witli gates 
 on each side thereof, to be shut nightly, 
 like as there is in many places in the Eng- 
 lish pale, and all the ways about it to be 
 strongly shut up, so as none should pass 
 but through these towns. To some of 
 which it were good that the privilege of a 
 market were given, the rather to strengthen 
 and enable them to their defence ; for there 
 is nothing doth sooner cause civility in any 
 country than many market towns, by reason 
 that people repairing often thither for their 
 needs, will daily see and learn civil man- 
 ners of the better sort." 
 
 Such are the general heads of the poet 
 Spenser's views relating to the disorders of 
 Ireland, and their reformation. Some of 
 them distinguished by acuteness and good 
 sense, others were totally impracticable at 
 that periocF, as was seen whenever any step 
 was taken towards putting them in force. 
 They show us, however, what were the 
 principal apparent difficulties with which 
 the Irish legislators had to contend, and we 
 shall see how they influenced the course of 
 events. Latterly, the Irish government had 
 assumed a character unusually warlike, and 
 it was distinguished by a hostile feeling 
 towards the Irish race. The appointment 
 of sir John Perrott in 1584, marked one of 
 those sudden changes in Elizabeth's policy 
 towards the sister island, and was the com- 
 mencement of a government remarkable for 
 its indulgence towards the native Irish. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF SIR JOHN' PERROTT; MEASURES OF REFORM; OPPOSITION IN PARLIAMENT; PLANTATION 
 OF MUNSTER; STATE OF CONNAUGHT AND ULSTER; HUGH O'NEILL. 
 
 HE first care of sir John 
 Perrott, whose policy vvas 
 in a great measure a con- 
 tinuation of that of sir 
 Henry Sydney, was to visit 
 the various districts which 
 were placed under his com- 
 mand at a moment when 
 ^^ " many of them were ex- 
 
 hausted and waste from the struggle of 
 whicli they had recently been the scene. 
 He began by publishing a general amnesty, 
 with an assurance of pardon and protection 
 to all who should return to their allegiance. 
 After remaining about a month in Dublin, 
 to settle the administration there, he pro- 
 ceeded by way of Athlone into Connaught, 
 to repress the turbulence of the Burkes, 
 and establish sir Ricliard Bingham in the 
 office of lord president of that province. 
 At Galway most of tlie chieftains of Con- 
 naught waited upon him, and among the 
 rest the rebellious sons of the earl of Clan- 
 rickard made the most submissive profes- 
 sions of loyalty. He announced to them 
 his intention of giving full effect to the divi- 
 sion of Connaught into counties, by appoint- 
 ing sheriffs and other officers necessary for the 
 due administration of the laws, and they 
 declared their willingness to assist in carry- 
 ing out his intentions. Connaught was thus 
 divided into the six counties of Clare, Gal- 
 way, Sligo, Mayo, Roscommon, and Leitrim. 
 After remaining some time at Galway, 
 Perrott continued his progress into Munster, 
 of which province sir John Norris was ap- 
 pointed lord president, and he marched first 
 to Kilmacduah, and then to Quinn (in the 
 barony of Dunratty) where he was received 
 by the sheriff and the chief men of the 
 county of Clare. The sheriff then delivered 
 up to the lord deputy his prisoner Donogh 
 Beag O'Brien, who is described by the Irish 
 annalists as "the high traitor and ring- 
 leader of the despoilers of the province of 
 Connaught." This malefactor was put to 
 death with circumstances of great severity, 
 as an example to his companions and 
 followers, for the authorities just quoted 
 have recorded how, to use their own words, 
 
 VOL. I. 3 R 
 
 this man's " ill fate attended him," so that 
 " he was executed on a cart or scaffold, 
 and his bones were dislocated and smashed 
 in pieces with the back of a weighty thick 
 large axe, and his body, completely broken 
 and half dead, was tied with hard tough 
 hempen ropes, and placed on the top of 
 the church steeple of Quinn, under the feet 
 of the birds and fowls of the air, in order 
 that it might be a warning and example to 
 evil doers to see him in that state." From 
 Q-uinn the lord deputy marched to Lime- 
 rick, with the resolution, it was said, of 
 doing similar justice on some offenders in 
 that neighbourhood, but he was there met 
 on his arrival by messengers bringing intel- 
 ligence of an alarming character from the 
 north. 
 
 According to the Irish authorities, intel- 
 ligence had been conveyed to Sarleboy, the 
 chieftain of the Scottish colony which then 
 occupied the Routes of Antrim, that it was 
 the intention of the new deputy to dispos- 
 sess him, and expel the Scots from the 
 island. Alarmed at this intelligence the 
 northern chieftain sent to Scotland and the 
 isles for assistance, and a large body of 
 Scots had landed in Clannaboy, and were 
 busy in the work of devastation at the 
 moment sir John Perrott was proceeding in 
 his peaceful progress. He immediately 
 summoned the troops garrisoned in Munster 
 and Leinster to meet him at Drogheda, and 
 hastened in person to Dublin, where he re- 
 ceived the submissions and engagements of 
 some of the chiefs of the pale who were 
 suspected of disaffection. When the Scots 
 heard of the approach of the lord deputy, 
 their courage forsook them, and they re- 
 embarked in their sliips and fled. Sarle- 
 boy collected his people from the Routes, 
 and led them with their cattle to Glencon- 
 kene in Derry, leaving only one garrison at 
 the castle of Dunluce, which was captured 
 by the English after a siege of two days. 
 Not only the Scots, but the other chieftains 
 of Ulster now crowded to the lord deputy's 
 camp to make profession of their loyalty. 
 They all made the most abject submission, 
 and renewed their oath of allegiance ; and 
 
 497 
 
SUBMISSION OF ULSTER.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 158 1. 
 
 many of them surrendered their lands, and 
 received them back as grants from the queen 
 on English tenures. 
 
 The lord deputy seized upon this favour- 
 able disposition of the chiefs of the north, to 
 induce them by persuasion to agree to his 
 measures of reform. He was so far success- 
 ful, that they consented to an assessment or 
 composition, by which eleven hundred troops 
 might be maintained in their piovince with- 
 out charge to the queen. The Irish of the 
 nortli now suddenly expressed a general de- 
 sire to participate in the benefits of English 
 law. Some of them, among whom were 
 Turlough O'Neill, and his kinsman Hugh 
 O'Neill, son of Matthew of Dungannon, 
 agreed to imjslead each other in the queen's 
 courts, instead of settling their disputes by 
 force of arms. And sir John Perrott, jsro- 
 cceding still further, divided the hitherto 
 independent parts of Ulster into seven new 
 counties, under the names of Armagh, 
 Monaghan, Tyrone, Coleraine, Donegal, 
 Fermanagh, and Cavan, for each of which 
 he appointed sheriffs, commissioners of the 
 peace, coroners, and other officers. 
 
 These first successes encouraged Perrott to 
 extend liis hopes, and form still more exten- 
 sive projects of reformation and improve- 
 ment. In a long despatch to the English 
 privy council, he detailed the progress he 
 had already made, and showed the impor- 
 tance of the concessions which he had in- 
 duced the Irish to make ; and he then of- 
 fered what he termed the cheapest purchase 
 which England had made this many a day. 
 He proposed that fifty thousand pounds, at 
 which he rated the annual expenditm-e of the 
 crown for maintaining its dominion in Ire- 
 land, should be granted to him for three 
 years, engaging on this condition to maintain 
 an army of two thousand foot and four hun- 
 dred horse ; to fortify seven towns, each of 
 the extent of one mile ; to build the same 
 number of bridges, and to erect the same 
 number of forts in proper situations, so as to 
 encompass and strengthen the whole realm 
 Avith royal garrisons, connected by a ready 
 and safe communication. This plan bears 
 
 * The wife of sir Richard Burke, the Mae 'William 
 liere alluded to, was a personage celebrated in Irish 
 poetry and romance, Grace O'MaUey, daughter of 
 ■Owen O'MaUey, chief of Umaile in Mayo, a sept 
 more especially distinguished as mariners! The fol- 
 lowing account of this celebrated lady is given in a 
 note to Connellan's translation of the Annals of the 
 Four Masters. Grace O'MaUey, called in Irish 
 Graine-ni-Mhaile, commonly pronounced Graiiu 
 Wcale, was first married to O'Flaherty, chief of West 
 
 498 
 
 some resemblance to tlie more extensive re- 
 commendations of the poet Spenser, as de- 
 tailed in the treatise of which we have given 
 an abstract in tlie preceding cliapter. 
 
 But the lord deputy now found obstacles 
 where he had least expected them, in the 
 prejudices of the queen and the English par- 
 liament. Both, at a time of great agitation, 
 when preparations were already known to 
 be making for that formidable Spanish ar- 
 mada, which within four years afterwards 
 made its appearance on our shores, were 
 jealous of granting so great a deputed autho- 
 rity. The queen, especially, was impatient 
 of the expenses of her Irish government, and 
 was anxious to diminish it to the lowest 
 possible amount. Instead of increasing the 
 military establishment in Ireland, she re- 
 quired that Ireland should supply forces to 
 be sent into the Low Countries. All the 
 deputy could obtain, was a small sum in aid 
 of the composition with Ulster, and a rein- 
 forcement of six hundred men, which he had 
 represented as absolutely necessary to be 
 incorporated with the Ulster forces. These 
 grants were accompanied with many com- 
 mendations of his good services, but he was 
 left to pursue liis course of reform in the 
 best manner he could devise. 
 
 Meanwhile, the whole island continued in 
 peace, with very slight exceptions, and the 
 lord deputy met there with few obstacles to 
 his measures. A sanguinary domestic feud 
 among the O'Flahertys of West Connaught 
 in 1584, and another among tlie O'Rourkes 
 of Breffny in 1585, led to no serious conse- 
 quences, as far as the English government 
 was concerned. Two great chieftains died 
 in the latter year: the earl of Kildare, who 
 had been for some time detained under 
 arrest in England; and the Mac William of 
 northern Connaught. The lord Henry fitz 
 Gerald, the earl's son, who had been detained 
 witli his father in England, was acknowledged 
 as his successor to the earldom, and was sent 
 back to Ireland to take possession of his 
 inheritance. The death of the Mac William 
 (Burke)* promised to create greater embar- 
 rassment: " None," we are told by the Irish 
 
 Connaught, and secondly to sir Richard Burke, by 
 whom she had a son named Theobald, who was a 
 commander of note in the English service in Con- 
 naught, and was created viscount of Mayo by 
 Charles I. In the Antholoria Hibernica for 1793 
 and 1794, we find some curious notices relating to 
 this celebrated lady. Her father, Owen O'MaUey, 
 was a noted cliief, and had a small fleet with which 
 he made many expeditions, partly i'or commercial 
 purposes, or under that pretence, but in reality for 
 
A.D. 1585.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [grace o'malley. 
 
 annalist, "was appointed in his place but the 
 blind abbot, who considered himself his suc- 
 cessor, despite of the English." 
 
 Under these circumstances, sir John Per- 
 rott proceeded to summon an Irish parlia- 
 ment, which met in the April of 1585, and 
 was memorable for tlie number of native 
 Irish lords by wliom it was attended. The 
 Irish annalists take a pride in enumerating 
 the long list of chiefs who on this occasion 
 met in Dublin, among whom were the 
 O'Neills and O'Donnells of Tyrone and 
 Tirconnell, the chiefs of the Maguires, 
 O Doghertys, O'Boyles, Mac Mahons, 
 O'Kanes, O'Neills of Clannaboy, Magen- 
 nises, and others of the north; theO'Rourkes, 
 O'Reillys, O'Ferralls, O'Connors, Mac Der- 
 motts, and other great chiefs of Connaught; 
 the O'Briens of Thomond and Clare ; the 
 Mac Namaras, O'CarroUs, O'Briens, Mac 
 Carthys, O'Sullivans, and numerous other 
 septs of Munster; the Mac Gillf)atricks, 
 Mac Geoghegans, O Mulloys, and others of 
 the borders of the English pale. In fact 
 there were few of the greater Irish septs, 
 whose chieftains did not attend on this occa- 
 sion as lords of parliament in the Irish 
 capital. The Irish representatives in the 
 house of commons were less numerous. 
 Cavan, tlie only one of the new northern 
 counties which yet elected its knights in 
 
 piracy. Grace, in her youth, frequently accompanied 
 her father on these expeditions, and after his death, 
 her brother being a mhior, she assumed the com- 
 mand of her gallies in person, and made with her 
 crews many bold expeditions. Her chief rendez- 
 vous was at Clare island off the coast of Mayo, 
 where she kept her large vessels moored, and had a 
 fortress, but her chief residence and stronghold was 
 Carrigahooly castle, where a hole was pointed out in 
 the ruined walls through which it was said that a 
 cable used to be run from one of her ships, for the 
 purpose of communicating an alarm to her apartment 
 on any sudden danger. It is said that her piracies 
 became so frequent, that a reward of five hundred 
 pounds was offered for her apprehension, and troops 
 were sent from Galway to take the castle of Carriga- 
 hooly, but after a siege of more than a fortnight they 
 were forced to retire, defeated by the valour of 
 Grace and her men. The traditions of Connauglit 
 relate many adventures and remarkable actions per- 
 formed on the sea by this heroine, before and after 
 
 j her marriage with O'Flaherty ; but after his death 
 and her marriage with sir Richard Burke she be- 
 
 I came reconciled to the government, and with her 
 followers assisted the English forces in Connaught. 
 
 ; For these services it is said that queen Elizabeth 
 
 j wrote her a letter inviting her to court, in conse- 
 sequence of which, Grace O'Malley set sail with 
 some of her gallies for London about the year 
 
 . 1575, and she was received at court with great 
 honours. The queen, it is said, offered to create her 
 a countess, an honour which she proudly declined. 
 
 parliament, was represented by two loyal 
 members of the family of the O'Reillys ; sir 
 Hugh Magennis was member for the county 
 of Down ; sir Turlough O'Brien for Clare ; 
 Shane mac Brien for Antrim ; and two of 
 the O'Ferghals for Longford. 
 
 This motley assemblage is said to have 
 given for a time a singular physiognomy to 
 the streets of Dublin. Many of the chiefs 
 wore reluctantly, and with no good grace, 
 their English apparel ; and their attempts at 
 imitating the manners of the Enolish cour- 
 tiers were awkward in the extreme. Their 
 attendants and followers retained their Irish 
 manners. Turlough O'Neill, obliged thus 
 in his old age to appear in the fashionable 
 garb of the English court, is said to have ex- 
 pressed his discontent in the good-humoured 
 request that his chaplain might be allowed 
 to attend him in his Irish mantle: "Thus," 
 said he, " will your English rabble be 
 diverted from my uncouth figure to laugh at 
 him." 
 
 For some years the Irish house of com- 
 mons had shown every successive session a 
 stronger spirit of independence ; and no 
 sooner had the present parliament assembled, 
 than the lord deputy encountered a formi- 
 dable opposition from the gentlemen of the 
 pale, who composed what in England was 
 termed the country party. It had become a 
 
 alleging that both of them being princesses, they 
 were equal in rank, and could therefore confer no 
 honour on each other, but she said that the queen 
 might confer any title she pleased on her young son 
 Theobald, which is reported to have been born on 
 ship-board during her voyage to England. Elizabeth, it 
 is added, immediately knighted the infant, which was 
 usually known among the Irish by the name of 
 Tioboid-na-Lung, or Theobald of the ships. It is said 
 farther that, on her return from England, Grace landed 
 at Howth to procure provisions, and on proceeding 
 to the castle, found the gates closed, the family being 
 at dinner. Indignant at this dereliction of Irish 
 hospitality, and happening to see a little boy with an 
 attendant near the sea-shore, which she was informed 
 was the young heir of Howth, she caused it be 
 seiied, and carried it away in her ship to Connaught. 
 She refused all ap])lication for its restoration, until 
 lord Howth, as the price of its ransom, entered into 
 a stipulation that the gates of his castle should never 
 again be closed at dinner time, a custom which is 
 said to have been preserved ever since. She endowed 
 a monastery on Clare island, where she was buried,, 
 and where it is stated some remains of her monument 
 are still to be seen. Grace O'Malley has been long 
 famous as an Irish popular heroine, and her name is 
 still remembered in song, Ireland itself beng often 
 in their po])ular poetry personified in the designation 
 of Graiiu Weal. Her name was adopted as tlie 
 burthen of some of the violent party songs in the j 
 political turmoils of the eighteenth century. 
 
 499 
 
perrott's parliament.] history OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1585. 
 
 kind of test of the confidence which the 
 parliament reposed in the chief governor, 
 to call at the commencement of the session 
 for consent to the suspension of Poyn- 
 ings' act. The friends of sir John Perrott 
 accordingly moved for the suspension of this 
 law in the house of commons, in order, as 
 they said, that the proceedings of parlia- 
 ment might be conducted with greater free- 
 dom and expedition. The members for the 
 pale at once offered a resolute opposition to 
 this measure. They had been of late years 
 systematically excluded from the govern- 
 ment offices, and they felt or pretended to 
 feel distrust of the intentions of their gover- 
 nors, with whose plans they were very imper- 
 fectly acquainted. They wrote repeated 
 letters to the English council, in which they 
 expressed strong apprehensions of some op- 
 pressive scheme of taxation. Their strength 
 in parliament was so great, that they not 
 only threw out the bill for the suspension of 
 Poynings' act, but several other of the 
 government measures experienced the same 
 fate. The temper of the commons was such, 
 that they even rejected a bill for renewing 
 the usual subsidy of thirteen shillings and 
 four-pence upon every ploughland, and re- 
 fused to vest the queen with the lands of 
 attainted persons, without office or inquisi- 
 tion, or to declare those guilty of treason 
 who should rebelliously detain any of her 
 castles. After a short but stormy session, 
 in which two bills only were passed, one for 
 the attainder of the viscount of Baltinglass 
 and his adherents, and the other for the 
 restoration in blood of a person suffering 
 from the attainder of his family in the reign 
 of Henry VIII., the lord deputy in despair 
 prorogued the parliament. 
 
 Perrott's attention was now called to new 
 troubles in the north of Ulster. The Scots 
 had again made a descent on the coast of 
 Antrim, and, joined with the older settlers, 
 began to molest the small English garrisons 
 which the deputy had left there in the pre- 
 ceding year. The intelligence of their pro- 
 ceedings was rendered more alarming by 
 private reports that reached the ears of 
 the deputy, of extensive designs maturing 
 among the popish clergy of the north for the 
 introduction of a foreign army into Ulster. 
 It was further asserted that preparations 
 were making for a general rising in Tyrone, 
 on the death of Turlough O'Neill, who was 
 now aged, and who had rendered himself 
 unpopular by his willing compliances to the 
 ';i government. It was said that the 
 500 
 
 sons of Shane O'Neill had already arranged 
 their plans for seizing upon the chieftain- 
 ship, and rebelling against the queen's 
 government. 
 
 The lord deputy was not without fears and 
 suspicions in regard to the fidelity of the 
 people of Tyrone, and he resolved by a sud- 
 den march into Ulster to anticipate their de- 
 signs. But on his arrival at Dungannon, he 
 learnt that the Scots, who were led by the 
 son of Sarleboy, had already been encoun- 
 tered by the queen's troops, and entirely de- 
 feated. Their leader, having been captured, 
 was executed as a traitor, because he had 
 formerly taken the oath of allegiance to the 
 English crown. Sarleboy himself made an 
 immediate submission, renewed his engage- 
 ments to the government, and accompanied 
 Perrott on his return to Dublin. The latter, 
 before leaving Dungannon, summoned the 
 Irish chieftains to attend him there, exacted 
 hostages from those whose fidelity was sus- 
 pected, composed the private differences of 
 others, and entrusted the government of the 
 northern province to Turlough O'Neill, 
 Hugh baron of Dungannon, and Sir Henry 
 Bagnall, who was possessed of large estates 
 in Ulster. 
 
 At Dublin the lord deputy found nothing 
 but discontent. Sir John Perrott experi- 
 enced the same fate as most of his predeces- 
 sors in the chief government, in drawing 
 upon himself a load of personal jealousy and 
 hatred. The courtesy and indulgence he 
 exhibited in his intercourse with the Irish 
 chiefs displeased the new English settlers ; 
 while the officers of the army were dissatis- 
 fied at his pacific policy. The activity which 
 he employed in detecting and punishing the I 
 abuses in the lower offices of the administra- j 
 tion created a number of secret enemies. 
 Even his favourite design of founding an ; 
 Irish university only drew upon him the im- 
 placable resentment of archbishop Loftus, | 
 because he was accused of intending to dissolve 
 the cathedral of St. Patrick in order to ob- 
 tain its revenues for his foundation. The 
 feeling of the military officers with regard to 
 Perrott's policy is exhibited in a private let- 
 ter from sir Henry Wallop to the earl of Lei- 
 cester, dated on the 15th of March, 1586, in 
 which he informs him that " This broken 
 and patched estate is for the present in ciuiet, 
 but of the continuance I dare not assure. 
 Lenity and temporizing (in my simple judg- 
 ment) is not the way to reduce Ireland to 
 dutifulness and civility. But such her ma- 
 jesty will have it for, and the disobedient in 
 
A.D, 
 
 1586.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [plantation of munster. 
 
 religion not to be touched. Her directions 
 must be obeyed, tliough I fear it will prove 
 dangerous in the end." 
 
 The deputy's enemies in Ireland did not, 
 however, confine their dissatisfaction to pri- 
 vate lamentations of this description. They 
 adopted every means of undermining him in 
 the queen's favour, and making him odious 
 to the English party. They encouraged the 
 lords and gentlemen of the pale to send 
 complaints of their imaginary grievances to 
 the court in England, accompanied with ex- 
 aggerated statements of their apprehensions 
 from his arbitrary rule. They trumped up 
 false charges accusing him of oppressive and 
 overbearing conduct, and even insinuating 
 that he was aiming at making himself inde- 
 pendent of his sovereign ; and to support 
 their allegations, they hesitated not to forge 
 letters and other documents. Thus a letter 
 was sent over to England in the name of 
 Turlough Lynogh O'Neill, complaining of 
 the most oppressive injuries sustained from 
 the deputy ; but the chieftain of Tyrone, 
 who was on the contrary actuated by a sin- 
 cere feeling of gratitude for numerous ser- 
 vices and acts of kindness he had received 
 from Sir John Perrott, immediately dis- 
 patched a messenger to England, to disavow 
 the letter and bear testimony in the deputy's 
 favor. Another forgery was more successful 
 in producing an unfavourable impression on 
 the queen's mind : this imported to be a 
 protection granted by Perrott to a popish 
 priest, containing the expressions of " our 
 kingdom of Ireland," and " our castle of 
 Dublin." The Irish secretary of state, named 
 Eenton, who had considerable experience in 
 Irish matters, acted as a sort of spy upon 
 Perrott's conduct ; and, having been sent for 
 to the court of England, he returned with 
 such instructions as showed that the lord 
 deputy had lost the queen's confidence, and 
 that she was more especially dissatisfied 
 with his management of her revenue. In 
 reply to this mortifying communication Per- 
 rott made an humble request to be allowed 
 to repair to England, to justify himself to 
 her majesty ; and he represented that he 
 should be enabled to bring with him some 
 of the most powerful of the Irish chiefs, who 
 would be hostages for the safeguard of 
 Ireland at the moment when it was threat- 
 ened with invasion from Spain. But his 
 request was not listened to. 
 
 In the meanwhile the lord deputy con- 
 tinued to administer his government with 
 fidelity and zeal. The same system he had 
 
 adopted in Ulster was pursued with success 
 in Connaught, and a composition was agreed 
 to in that province, in place of the former 
 assessments for the maintenance of troops. 
 He held another session of parliament, to 
 pass a bill of attainder against the late earl 
 of Desmond and his adherents. Even this 
 measure was not carried without consider- 
 able opposition, and the Geraldines of the 
 south still found friends to raise up in their 
 favour every possible legal quibble and 
 difficulty. An attempt was made to prevent 
 the confiscation of the great estates of the 
 house of Desmond, by producing a feoffment 
 to one of his kinsmen, said to have been 
 executed by the earl of Desmond before his 
 rebellion. The house seemed inclined to 
 acquiesce in the validity of this document, 
 when the court lawyers produced the original 
 of an association, dated prior to the pre- 
 tended grant, and containing the signature 
 not only of Desmond and a great number of 
 his kinsmen and partizans, but that of the 
 very Geraldine to whom this feoffment was 
 made, declaring their defiance of and oppo- 
 sition to Elizabeth's government. After 
 some further debate, the bills were allowed 
 to pass, and the earl and about one hundred 
 and forty of his accomplices, were attainted 
 by name, and their honours and estates de- 
 clared to be forfeited to the queen. Tluis 
 all difficulties were removed that stood in 
 the way of a project, which had become a 
 favourite one with queen Elizabeth, that of 
 re-peopling the wasted and de-populated 
 districts of Munster with an English colony. 
 This scheme was now entered upon with 
 eagerness, and extraordinary advantages were 
 promised to all who would join in it. Letters 
 were written to every county in England to 
 encourage younger brothers to become un- 
 dertakers in Ireland. Estates were offered 
 in fee at a small acreable rent of threepence, 
 and in some places twopence, to commence 
 at the end of three years, and for three years 
 more only half the stipulated rent was to be 
 paid. The undertakers were allowed seven 
 years to complete their plantation. Each 
 person who obtained so much as twelve 
 thousand acres, was bound to plant eighty- 
 six families on his estate; those who engaged 
 for less, were to provide colonists in propor- 
 tion. None of the native Irish were to be 
 admitted among their tenantry; and, among 
 other advantages, they were assured that 
 sufficient garrisons should be stationed on 
 their borders, and that commissioners should 
 be appointed to decide their controversies. 
 
 501 
 
TURBULENCE OF THE BURKES.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1586. 
 
 At first there were plenty of applicants for 
 shares in the forfeited estates ; and Sir 
 Christopher Hatton, Sir "Walter Raleigh, Sir 
 Thomas Norris, Sir Warham Sentleger, Sir 
 George Bourchier, and many other gentlemen 
 of rank and distinction, obtained grants of 
 different portions. For a while this scheme 
 of plantation promised to be crowned with 
 success, and the English ministers seemed to 
 have been sanguine in their expectations. 
 Lord Burghley in a letter to the earl of 
 Leicester (then in Flanders) written on the 
 20th of June, 15S(), informs him that, " in 
 Ireland all things are quiet, and a number 
 of gentlemen of Somerset, Devon, Dorset, 
 Cheshire, and Lancashire, are making them- 
 selves to go to Munster, to plant two or 
 three thousand people meer English there 
 this year, and it is pretended by them to 
 plant above twenty thousand people English 
 within a few years." 
 
 Had this magnificent prospect ever been 
 carried into effect, it would have exerted 
 an incalculable influence on the future 
 prospects of Ireland. But it was rendered 
 nugatory, not by the difficulties attending 
 the project itself, but by the conduct of 
 the undertakers, and the facility of evading 
 the stipulations on which the grants were 
 made ; and the greater the rank and conse- 
 quence of the persons who obtained them, 
 the more were they emboldened to neglect 
 the terms of their grant. Instead of com- 
 pleting their stipulated numbers of tenantry, 
 the same persons were admitted tenants to 
 different undertakers ; and in the same 
 seignory one person sometimes served at 
 once as freeholder, leaseholder, and copy- 
 holder, in order to fill up the required 
 number in each denomination. Leases and 
 conveyances were also made to many of the 
 Irishry.* In some places the lands were 
 abandoned to the old possessors, while in 
 others the planters unjustly encroached on 
 the estates of the loyal inhabitants. In ad- 
 dition to these evils, a great number of the 
 undertakers, not residing themselves, en- 
 trusted the settlement and supjiort of their 
 respective colonies to agents, who increased 
 the general disorder by their ignorance, neg- 
 
 * "The lands forfeited by Desmond's rebellion are 
 generally said to amount to five hundred and seventy- 
 four tliousand six hundred and twenty-eight acres. 
 Cox, from the MSS. of Lambeth, reckons up thirty 
 seignories granted to as many adventurers, and 
 amounting to two hundred and eight thousand and 
 eighty-nine acres. In a manuscri])t of Trinity Col- 
 I lege, Dublin, the number of seignories granted to un- 
 ) dertakers is said to be thirty-three. Supposing then 
 502 
 
 ligence, and corruptness. And to crown all, 
 no effectual provisions for defence were made, 
 either by the planters or by the government. 
 The effects of this mismanagement were 
 severely felt in the subsequent disorders of 
 the province. 
 
 The first infraction of the general peace 
 of the island occurred in the province of 
 Connaught, and appear to have been pro- 
 duced by the severity of the government of 
 sir Richard Bingham. That province had 
 been for some time distinguished by its 
 turbulence, which had been half tolerated 
 during the more serious embarrasments of 
 the rebellion in Desmond. The restless 
 Burkes were ill-satisfied to find that, instead 
 of tyrannizing over their inferiors, they were 
 now themselves subjected to the harsh rule 
 of a governor who would admit of no evasion 
 of his orders. The Irish annals relate, that 
 at one session only, held at Galway, in the 
 month of January, 1586, no less than seventy 
 men and women, some of them persons of 
 distinction, were condemned and executed. 
 The inferior officers acted with greater vio- 
 lence even than the lord president ; they 
 proceeded from place to place, escorted by 
 large bodies of armed followers, who pillaged 
 and oppressed the inhabitants, and treated 
 their complaints with contempt. 
 
 These harsh proceedingscontrastedstrange- 
 ly with the indulgent policy of the lord dep- 
 uty, and some of the Burkes were encouraged 
 not only to complain, but to resist. One of 
 the chiefs of this extensive family, named 
 Thomas Roe, refused to obey the lord pre- 
 sident's summons to attend the session of 
 judges held in the county of Mayo. Sir 
 Richard Bingham issued an order for the 
 arrest of the disobedient chieftain, and, in 
 resisting, he was slain. Two of his adherents 
 were taken and executed. The whole sept^ 
 alarmed at this violent proceeding, sent a 
 complaint to the lord deputy ; and Perrott, 
 who was perhaps already displeased with 
 Bingham as one of the opponents of his own 
 pacific jjolicy, sent him positive orders not 
 to proceed to such acts of severitj' in future 
 without his knowledge and approbation. 
 The Burkes were thus encouraged in their 
 
 the three additional seignories to be of the largest 
 kind (which is not probable), the grants will amount 
 to two hundred and forty-tive thousand and eighty 
 acres. There remained then three hundred and 
 thirty thousand five hundred and forty-eight acres ! 
 restored to such as had been pardoned, or abandoned ! 
 to the old possessors." — Leland who is here chiefly 
 foUowed. 
 
A.D. 15SG.J 
 
 JtlJSlORY OB' IRELAND. 
 
 [bingiiam's severity. 
 
 disohedience, and occasions were soon found 
 for further acts of resistance to the authority 
 of the lord president. 
 
 The next who provoked Bingham's ven- 
 geance was one of the O'Briens of Clare, a 
 turbulent chieftain, who fortified his castle 
 of Clan Owen against the English authori- 
 ties. AVhen Bingham proceeded against 
 him, he defended his castle obstinately during 
 three weeks, at the end of which period he 
 was killed with a musket shot, as he was di- 
 recting the operations of his men on the 
 ramparts. The garrison immediately sur- 
 rendered, hut they were put to the sword, 
 and the castle was partially demolished. 
 " That exploit," says the Irish annalist, 
 " exalted the fame and honour of sir Rich- 
 ard Bingham, for there was not on dry land 
 in Ireland a stronger or more impregnable 
 castle." 
 
 While Bingham was occupied with this 
 siege, several of the Burkes threw them- 
 selves into their castles to defend themselves, 
 as they said, against the oppressions of the 
 English. One of these was Richard Oge 
 Burke, the brother of Thomas Roe, who 
 seized upon the fortress now called Hag's 
 castle, in lough Mask, in the county of 
 Mayo, considered as one of the strongholds 
 of the province of Connaught. Immediately 
 on the surrender of the castle of Clan Owen, 
 Bingham marched to lough Mask, and at- 
 tacked Richard Burke's castle by the only 
 way in which it was approachable, that is, 
 in boats. The first attack was resisted with 
 success, and most of the assailants were slain 
 in the attack or drowned. The rebels, how- 
 ever, were afraid to risk a second attack, but 
 crossed the lake secretly in boats, and fled to 
 the woods, v/hither they were closely pur- 
 sued by the lord president's forces. Richard 
 Oge (who was popularly known by the title 
 of Fal-fa-Eirin, or the fence of Ireland), 
 was taken prisoner, and, in spite of the for- 
 mer admonition of the lord deputy, he and 
 some of his adherents were immediately exe- 
 cuted, and their castles demolished. 
 
 Sir John Perrott was irritated beyond 
 measure at this new severity, and he sent a 
 peremptory order to Bingham, to desist from 
 all further hostilities against the Burkes, to 
 accept their submissions, and to receive them 
 into the protection of government. The 
 president obeyed, but he contrived that the 
 protections should be the consequence of a 
 humble petition on the part of the insur- 
 gents, and then he hastened to Dublin, to 
 give an account of his proceedings and ex- 
 
 press his discontent to the council. The lord 
 deputy there stated his disapprobation of 
 Bingham's harsh policy in very strong terms, 
 and related a number of cases which had 
 been brought to his knowledge in which the 
 old inhabitants had been goaded into rebel- 
 lion by oppression and injustice. Bingham 
 in reply urged the necessity of a sti'ict and 
 severe government in a state so disordered 
 as Ireland was at that moment, pleaded the 
 restlessness and insincerity of the natives, and 
 expressed his opinion of the danger to be 
 apprehended from the lenity of sir .Tohn 
 Perrott. It appears that the majority of the 
 council were inclined to approve the more 
 violent measures of the president of Con- 
 naught, and this so irritated the deputy, that 
 the difference of opinion had been carried to 
 a personal quarrel, when new intelligence 
 added to his mortification. Messengers arrived 
 from the west, bringing to the lord president 
 the alarming intelligence that the Burkes had 
 confederated together and suddenly risen in 
 open rebellion against the queen's govern- 
 ment, declaring that they would no longer 
 submit to the extortions of sheriffs, but that 
 they would be governed by a chieftain 
 according to their ancient custom, and that, 
 having declared themselves the subjects of 
 Spain and Rome, they had already driven 
 out the queen's officers, and were plunderini;: 
 and burning the country. 
 
 In his exultation at this unexpected proof 
 of the far-sightedness of his own views, 
 Bingham carried his letters to Perrott with 
 expressions of triumph, which widened the 
 breach between them. The lord deputy now 
 prepared to march against the insurgents in 
 person, when he met with an obstacle where 
 he seems least to have expected it. By one 
 of the rules of the Irish government at this 
 time, the deputy could not enter upon any 
 military expedition without the express per- 
 mission of the council, and the latter body, 
 who appear throughout to have taken part 
 with Bingham, and to have believed that his ' 
 power was sufficient to the emergency, re- 
 fused their consent. The president was thus 
 necessarily entrusted with the conduct of the 
 new war in Connaught, and he proceeded 
 with the same vigour and severity which had 
 previously characterised all his proceedings. 
 He began by executing the hostages which 
 the Burkes had given for their allegiance, 
 and then he marched against the insurgents, 
 who were pursued to their retreats, and re- 
 duced to such a state of desperation, that 
 Bingham's soldiers had little left to do but 
 
BATTI,E OF ARDNAREF..] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [A.n. 1586, 
 
 plunder their lands and slaughter the help- 
 less inhabitants. 
 
 At this moment the flame of rebellion was 
 suddenly rekindled by the unexpected arri- 
 val of a large body of Scottish adventurers. 
 These Scots had arrived with a fleet at the 
 peninsula of Inisowen, which they plundered, 
 and then proceeded along the rivers Finn 
 and Mourne, through Donegal and Ferman- 
 agh, to the banks of Lough Erne. Here 
 they were met by messengers from the in- 
 surgent Burkes, who, hearing of their force, 
 had sent to invite them into Connaught, 
 promising them a rich harvest of plunder in 
 that province. The Scots immediately cross- 
 ed the Erne, and entering the borders of 
 Sligo and Leitrim, where they were joined 
 by the Burkes and the galloglasses of the 
 clan Donnell, began to plunder the districts 
 of Dartry and Carbery. Bingham hastened 
 to Sligo, to watch these formidable depre- 
 dators, on which they marched in a south- 
 erly direction, plundering Breflhy, Moylurg, 
 and Tirerrell; and Bingham proceeded nearly 
 in the same direction, to watch their move- 
 ments, till he came to Ballinafad, a village 
 on the road from Boyle to Sligo, on the 
 north of the Carlow mountains. The com- 
 bined Scots and Irish having experienced a 
 slight check in attempting to force a passage 
 over the bridge of Collooney, passed the river 
 by a ford, and marched by the Slieve Gauch, 
 or Ox-mountain, to Ardnaree, adjoining the 
 town of Ballina. 
 
 Bingliam now took a direction as though 
 he were avoiding the Scots, and in his 
 march through a part of Connaught collected 
 to his standard the English garrisons and the 
 loyal septs of the province, so that, when, a 
 fortnight after, he again approached the 
 county of Sligo, and collected his forces at 
 the village of Banada,in the barony of Licny, 
 he found himself at the head of a formidable 
 army, although still much inferior in num- 
 bers to the enemy, of whose movements he 
 was perfectly well informed by his spies 
 and reconnoitring parties. The Scots, on 
 the contrary, imagining that the queen's 
 troops were afraid of them, acted as though 
 they were undisputed masters of the coun- 
 try, collecting their plunder in perfect 
 security, and encamping without care or 
 caution at Ardnaree, which was still their 
 liead quarters. At the beginning of a very 
 dark night in autumn, Bingham left his 
 camp at Banada, and, marching with the 
 greatest secrecy, reached the Scottish camp 
 at Ardnaree about noon next day, and took 
 504 
 
 the invaders by surprise, wlien they were 
 unprepared for a battle. A considerable 
 body of their Irish auxiliaries, under the 
 young Burkes, had separat?d from them m 
 search of plunder. The Scots fought with 
 obstinacy, but they were defeated with great 
 slaughter, and driven into the river Moy, 
 where numbers of them were drowned. 
 Nearly two thousand are said to have fallen 
 in the battle, and most of those who escaped 
 thence were slaughtered in their precipitate 
 flight through Ulster. The Burkes, when 
 tliey heard of this disaster, separated thfeir 
 forces, and fled again to their fastnesses, 
 leaving such of their kinsmen as fell into the 
 hands of the victors to make expiation on 
 the gallows. The Irish annalists record, as 
 one of the results of this decisive victory, 
 which was gained on the 22nd of September, 
 1586, that "a session was held in Galway, 
 in the month of December of this year, at 
 which many men and women were put to 
 death." 
 
 The first intelligence of the arrival of this 
 formidable army of Scots had thrown the 
 government at Dublin into the greatest con- 
 sternation. The deputy at once determined 
 to break through all restraints, and to march 
 in person to the seat of hostility, although 
 the queen's instructions left the conduct of 
 the war entirely to the president of Con- 
 naught. He therefore raised the army of 
 the pale, and advanced direct into that pro- 
 vince; but he was arrested on his way by 
 intelligence of the decisive victory of Ard- 
 naree. 
 
 All resistance to the English government 
 in Ireland seemed now at an end, and Eliza- 
 beth, with a remarkable impolicy, continued 
 to weaken her military establishment in Ire- 
 land, in order to reinforce her forces in 
 Flanders. The Irish rulers were thus com- 
 pelled to use the natives as volunteers in 
 support of the queen's authority, and, by 
 training them to arms, prepared the way for 
 still more serious disorders. These began 
 to threaten first in Ulster, where the Eng- 
 lish sheriflfs and other officers acted most 
 oppressively. It appears that great irregu- 
 larities had from the first crept into these 
 appointments, among which was that of pur- 
 chasing them for money. Such purchases 
 were naturally only made for the profit of 
 the individuals who obtained them, who, 
 therefore, during their period of office, 
 plundered and outraged the people com- 
 mitted to their charge. These naturally 
 souglit protection from their old chieftains. 
 
i;j8T.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [o'neill at court. 
 
 whose sympathies were excited at the same 
 time that their personal ambition was j2;ra- 
 tified. All these subjects of discontent were 
 seized with avidity by the disaffected and by 
 foreign agents; and although a considerable 
 body even of the Romish clergy, who had 
 witnessed the calamities which fell on their 
 country after each outbreak of rebellion, 
 recommended patience and submission to 
 the English government, there were others 
 who preached a totally different doctrine, 
 and who, pointing with exultation to the 
 vast preparations which were now known to 
 be in progress in Spain, encouraged them to 
 look forwards to the moment when king 
 Philip would restore Irishmen to their 
 national liberties and independence, and to 
 the free exercise of the religion of their fore- 
 fathers. 
 
 The old rivalry between different branches 
 of the dynasty of the O'Neills still continued 
 in Tyrone, and it was used by the English 
 authorities as a means of weakening the 
 natives. Turlough Lynogh was now old 
 and feeble, and his unbroken attachment to 
 the English government had lessened his 
 authority in his sept. His rival, Hugh 
 O'Neill, the son of the illegitimate Matthew 
 of Dungannon, was in the vigour of his age, 
 ambitious, daring, and, above all, subtle and 
 insinuating in his manners. The position 
 in which he found himself placed at an early 
 age by the prejudice raised among his sept 
 against him by his father's persecutor, the 
 celebrated Shane O'Neill, made the pro- 
 tection of the English government necessary 
 for his preservation, and he entered into its 
 service, and in the war against Desmond's 
 rebellion he distinguished himself by his 
 activity and valour. He thus became trained 
 in the science of war, while his intercourse 
 with the English gave him the polish and 
 manners of a courtier, which, however, he 
 could readily lay aside when it served his 
 purpose to assume the rude manners of an 
 O'Neill. Presuming on the services which 
 he had rendered in Munster, and on the 
 attachment which he had hitherto shown 
 to the English, he presented a petition to 
 sir John Perrott's parliament, that in virtue 
 of the royal grant to his grandfather Con 
 O'Neill, and to his father Matthew O'Neill 
 and his heirs, he might be admitted to the 
 place and title of earl of Tyrone, as well 
 as to the inheritance annexed to that earl- 
 dom. The title was granted ; but with 
 regard to the inheritance, which, by the 
 attainder of Shane O'Neill, was vested in 
 
 VOL. I. S s 
 
 the crown, he was referred to the qncen's 
 pleasure. Accordingly, he repaired to Eng- 
 land, and he had so far gained the confi- 
 dence of sir John Perrott, that that deputy 
 recommended him by letters in the warmest 
 terms to the queen. By his profound obse- 
 quiousness and flattery he gained rapidly 
 in her good opinion ; and when, on her 
 interrogating him as to the state of Ire- 
 land, he lamented with an appearance of 
 ingenuous zeal the distaste of his countrymen 
 for order and civility, and their strong pre- 
 judices in favour of their ancient and bar- 
 barous manners, Elizabeth could no longer 
 withhold her favour. He pleaded artfully 
 the necessity of strengthening the attach- 
 ment of the natives to the English govern- 
 ment, and implored the queen to take 
 effectual measures for suppressing entirely 
 the title of the O'Neill as the first step 
 towards civilizing Ulster; and she no longer 
 hesitated in sending him back with a title 
 that might enable him to put his specious 
 professions into effect. She therefore granted 
 him by letters patent under the great seal of 
 England, and without reservation, the eai^l- 
 dom of Tyrone with the inheritance attached 
 to it. The only exceptionary provisions 
 were, that the bounds of Tyrone should be 
 explicitly marked out ; that two hundred 
 and forty acres should be reserved on the 
 banks of the Blackwater, for the use of a 
 fort to be erected there ; that the new earl 
 should challenge no authority over the 
 neighbouring lords ; that sufficient pro- 
 visions should be allotted to the sons of 
 Shane and Turlough O'Neill ; and that 
 Turlough himself should be continued in 
 his position of Irish chieftain of Tyrone, 
 with a right of superiority over the two 
 subordinate lords, Maguire and O'Kane. 
 
 Hugh O'Neill returned to Ireland with 
 great honours, and was received by the lord 
 deputy, as well as by his countrymen, with 
 all the respect due to his new title. In 
 Ulster he was looked upon as a special 
 favourite of queen Elizabeth ; and this 
 added so much to his power and conse- 
 quence, that Turlough O'Neill was induced 
 to surrender his authority as chieftain of 
 the sept of the O'Neills, into the hands of 
 the earl of Tyrone. The latter continued 
 to profess his attachment to the English 
 government, which was thus induced to look 
 upon him as its main defence against the 
 disaffected in the north. Under this pre- 
 text, he insidiously proposed to keep a 
 standing force of six companies of Irish, 
 
 505 
 
CAPTURE or o'donnell.] PIISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 1587. 
 
 regularly trained to arms, to serve as a per- 
 manent check to any insurrection which 
 might threaten the peace of the north ; and 
 this offer being somewhat incautiously ac- 
 cepted by the Irish government, he had an 
 opportunity, by daily changing the men of 
 these companies, when they had once learned 
 the use of arms, and substituting new un- 
 trained men in their places, of forming all 
 his followers to military discipline. With 
 the same cunning, he made use of the pre- 
 tence of building himself a new jsalace at 
 Dungannon, and various other excuses, to 
 obtain insensibly considerable quantities of 
 lead and other stores which might be turned 
 to purposes of war. As his power became 
 strengthened among his own people, he 
 began insensibly to take opportunities of 
 extending it over his neighbours, and the 
 English autliorities were soon beset with 
 complaints against him, which, however, he 
 had still sufficient influence to stifle. Mac 
 Mahon thus accused him of arbitrary exac- 
 tions, while Maguire pleaded his wrongs 
 against them both ; and even Turlough 
 O'Neill was not allowed to remain undis- 
 turbed in his private estates. As the smaller 
 chiefs obtained no redress against him when 
 they applied to the government, they found 
 it advisable to make their peace with him ; 
 he bound the influential sept of the O'Kanes 
 to his interests, by entrusting them with the 
 fostering of his son ; and he practised se- 
 cretly with the Ulster Scots, assisting them 
 in their petty depredations, and stipulated 
 in return for their assistance whenever he 
 should need it. Thus was the English 
 government gradually creating and nourish- 
 ing a dangerous enemy. 
 
 The partiality shcwii of late years to the 
 O'Neills, had gradually estranged the 
 O'Donnells from their attachment to the 
 English crown, and their position remote 
 from the seat of English government, and on 
 the coast most favourable for communication 
 with Spain, had made the shores of Donegal 
 a field for the agents of the catholic powers 
 to sow sedition. In 1587, at the very 
 moment when Hugh O'Neill's insidious 
 practices were becoming almost too appa- 
 rent to be overlooked, news amved that 
 Hugh O'Donnell, the present chieftain of 
 Tirconnell, had set the English government 
 at defiance, and, aware probably of the tyran- 
 nical conduct of those officers in other parts, 
 refused absolutely to receive a sheriff in 
 Donegal. It is not improbable that he was 
 secretly instigated to this step by Hugh 
 506 
 
 O'Neill, to whom he was related by marriage. 
 There appeared no hopes of bringing the 
 lord of Tirconnell to submission, except by 
 force; and the continual draughts of soldiers 
 from Ireland, which had been made for for- 
 eign service, left the government of that 
 island weak in military array. There were 
 divisions in the Irish council, and between 
 the council and the lord deputv, and, how- 
 ever provoked at the insolence of the Ulster 
 chieftain, they were unwilling to enter upon 
 a war with the prospect that O'Neill might 
 join with the enemy. In this dilemma, sir 
 John Perrott, scorning the hesitating conduct 
 of the council, offered to take the whole 
 affair upon his own shoulders, and promised, 
 if they would leave it entirely to his con- 
 duct, that before many days were past, he 
 would bring in O'Donnell himself or his son 
 as a hostage for the obedience of Tirconnell, 
 without war, and without entailing any ex- 
 traordinary expenditure on tl^e queen. Left 
 accordingly to himself, the deputy performed 
 his engagement, but in so doing he per- 
 petrated an act of treachery which disgusted 
 the natives, and remained a stain upon his 
 government. 
 
 The agent of sir John Perrott, in this 
 transaction, was a merchant of Dublin, who 
 was directed to fit out a ship with a cargo of 
 wines and spirituous liquors, and to proceed 
 to the coast of Tirconnell as though with no 
 other object than to traffic with the natives. 
 With the advantage of a fair wind, the ship 
 soon arrived in the old harbour of Lougli 
 Swilly in Donegal, opposite the village of 
 Rathmullen. This part of the coast was the 
 territory of the Mac Sweenys, whose chief was 
 the foster-father of young Hugh O'Donnell, 
 the O'Donnell's eldest son, a youth of extra- 
 ordinary promise, who was then in his fif- 
 teenth year, and was popularly known as 
 Hugh Roe, or Red Hugh. The ship cast 
 anchor in the harbour, and the captain with 
 a part of the crew, landed in a boat, mixed 
 with the inhabitants, spoke of their merchan- 
 dise, and gave a hint that they were well 
 stocked with wine and liquors. These articles 
 seem to have had an especial attraction for 
 the "wild" Irish; and the Dublin captain 
 rose high in their estimation, and was imme- 
 diately introduced to their chief, Mac 
 Sweeny. The captain soon made another 
 visit to shore, bringing with him some of 
 his wines, with which Mac Sweeny and 
 his friends immediately drunk themselves 
 into a state of intoxication. The news 
 soon spread, and the chief people of the 
 
A.ij. 1588.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [PERROTT RECALLED. 
 
 surrounding districts flocked to the spot, 
 which presented the appearance of one gene- 
 ral drinking-bout. At length young Hugh 
 Roe O'Donnell, who was on a visit at some 
 of the Mac Sweenys in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood, heard of the carousal, and came 
 with one or two of his friends to join in it. 
 
 The captain meanwhile had sent his spies 
 abroad, and was soon made acquainted with 
 the fact that young O'Donnell was there, 
 and that he was on his way to pay him a 
 visit ; on which, as though called away by 
 his own aflairs, he collected his sailors, and 
 hastened on board his ship. When Hugh 
 Roe arrived, he was honourably received by 
 Mac Sweeny, but the wine and liquors were 
 already drunk. Ashamed to be thus ob- 
 liged to disappoint his guests, Mac Sweeny 
 despatched a messenger to the ship with a 
 pressing request for a new supply of wine 
 and liquors, but he received for reply, that 
 there was no more left than was necessary 
 for the ship's crew, with an absolute re- 
 fusal to send any more on shore. The 
 captain, however, sent an invitation to the 
 chief and a few of his friends to come on 
 board and share in a carousal at parting. 
 Mac Sweeny, having no suspicion of trea- 
 chery, took with him Hugh Roe O'Donnell 
 with one or two other chiefs, and went on 
 board the ship, where they were received 
 with every show of welcome, and were 
 placed at table in a small cabin. No sooner, 
 however, had the liquors taken the usual 
 effect upon the guests, than their arms were 
 carried away by stealth, and their wily 
 companions left the cabin, the door of 
 which was immediately locked upon them. 
 In spite of all the expostulations of the 
 friends of the captured chieftain, the cap- 
 tain immediately put to sea, and soon 
 arrived with the young O'Donnell at Dub- 
 lin, where he was committed by the lord 
 deputy to safe custody in the castle, as a 
 hostage for his father's fidelity. 
 
 This act of treachery had by no means 
 strengthened the English influence in the 
 north, nor did it give ease to the govern- 
 ment of sir John Perrott. The lord deputy 
 received constant mortifications in his cor- 
 
 respondence with the queen, and was left 
 without necessary resources ; he was in- 
 sulted by his inferiors even at the council 
 board, and was traduced by the unceasing 
 malice of his enemies ; until at length he 
 became importunate in his prayers to the 
 queen to be relieved from a charge which 
 had now become insupportably burthen- 
 some. It was the perverseness of the 
 queen's subjects of the English race against 
 which the deputy's complaints were most 
 bitter, for it appears that, in his anxiety to 
 protect the natives from oppression, he had 
 provoked the others beyond hope of for- 
 giveness. He said in his letter to the queen, 
 " I can please your majesty's Irish subjects 
 better than the English, who, I fear, will 
 shortly learn the Irish customs, sooner than 
 the Jews did those of the heathens. My 
 soul is a witness to my Saviour, this is truth 
 which your true and faithful subject speak- 
 eth. I am weary of my place, but never to 
 serve your highness." 
 
 Ferrott's last care, while in office, was to 
 take measures of security against the great 
 danger from abroad which now threatened 
 Elizabeth's dominions. The Spanish ar- 
 mada was known to be already on its way 
 to our shores. In this emergency, the de- 
 puty again followed his old plan of con- 
 ciliation and persuasion. He called before 
 him a number of the lords and chieftains 
 who might be suspected of favouring the 
 enemy, and exhorted them to give assur- 
 ances of their attachment to the govern- 
 ment of queen Elizabeth by voluntarily 
 delivering hostages. They listened to his ex- 
 hortation, and thus enabled him to boast that 
 he left Ireland in security. On the oOth 
 of June of the memorable year 15SS, the 
 government of Ireland was transferred to 
 the hands of sir William Fitzwilliams, who 
 had already ruled the island as lord justice 
 on more than one occasion. Perrott re- 
 turned to his native country accompanied 
 with the regrets of a large part of the 
 people over whom he had held rule, espe- 
 cially of the lower order ; and the aged 
 Turlough O'Neill attended him to the 
 water side, where he quitted him in tears. 
 
 507 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF SIR WILLIAM FITZWILLIAMS; THE F.AKL OF TYRONE PURSUES HIS DESIGNS; 
 DISSATISFACTION OF THE IRISH; FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 
 
 HE new deputy, as usual, 
 brought into the manage- 
 ment of Irish affairs a 
 policy totally at variance 
 with that of his prede- 
 cessor, and one ill fitted 
 for the state in which 
 he found the island. It appears 
 that Fitzwilliams was a man of an 
 avaricious character, and, having formerly 
 complained that his services were not suffi- 
 ciently remunerated, he determined to pay 
 himself by the indiscriminate sale of govern- 
 ment offices and government favours. The 
 subordinate officers naturally followed the 
 example of their chief; and as they all made 
 the most of what they bought, the whole 
 country was filled with injustice and oppres- 
 sion, which raised the discontent among the 
 native Irish to the last pitch. 
 
 The fate of the Spanish armada is a mat- 
 ter of English history. Many of the ships 
 of that vast armament were wrecked and lost 
 in the Irish seas. Seventeen, containing 
 about five thousand four hundred men, 
 were driven to the coasts of Ulster, and the 
 Spaniards who escaped met with a hospitable 
 reception from the Irish, and were concealed 
 and protected from their enemies by the 
 chiefs. The latter, every day more dissatis- 
 fied with the government under which they 
 now suffered, talked to these foreigners of 
 their own former greatness, and of their pre- 
 sent grievances, and they received from them 
 flourishing accounts of the grandeur and 
 power of the king of Spain, and assurances 
 of his resolution to rescue them from the 
 tyranny of the heretics, and restore them to 
 their independence. It was stated and 
 believed that the earl of Tyrone had entered 
 into a treasonable alliance with the Spanish 
 monarch, through the agency of some of 
 these fugitives, and that he had concerted 
 measures for a future invasion. Otlier cliiefs 
 acted with less secrecy, and drew upon them- 
 selves the vengeance of the English autho- 
 rities. Two of these were O Rourke of 
 Breffny, and Mac Sweeny of Donegal, the 
 foster-father of Red Hugh O'Donnell, who 
 still remained a close prisoner in Dublin 
 
 castle. No less than a thousand Spanish 
 soldiers, under the command of an officer 
 named Antonio de Leva, took refuge in the 
 territory of O'Rourke; and that chief, look- 
 ing upon them as a powerful army, repre- 
 sented to Leva the weakness of Elizabeth's 
 government in Ireland at that moment, and 
 urged him to declare war, assuring him that 
 his declaration would be the signal for a 
 general insurrection. The Spaniard hesi- 
 tated; probably he had no faith in the mili- 
 tary strength of his new ally ; and he was 
 already in danger of being attacked by the 
 forces under sir Richard Bingham. He told 
 O'Rourke that he could not act without a 
 commission from the king of Spain ; but that, 
 having obtained that commission, he would 
 speedily return with such an army as would 
 effectually serve his purpose. The Spaniards 
 embarked and set sail, but a violent storm 
 arose before they had quitted the shore, and 
 the ship and all who were in it were lost 
 within sight of land. Bingham, assisted by 
 the lord deputy, who had marched into 
 Ulster, entered the territories of O'Rourke 
 and Mac Sweeny, and committed great havoc 
 and devastation. O'Rourke was obliged to 
 seek safety in flight, and at last escaped to 
 Scotland; but the policy of that court towards 
 England had undergone a change, and the 
 Irish chief was immediately placed under 
 arrest, and delivered to Elizabeth. After a 
 long confinement in the Tower, he was af- 
 terwards executed as a traitor at London. 
 
 The motives of the expedition of sir Wil- 
 liam Fitzwilliams into Ulster, in the unfa- 
 vourable season of the month of November, 
 were, however, of a more interested kind 
 than the mere punishing a few Irish chief- 
 tains for giving harbour to the queen's ene- 
 mies. Reports had reached the deputy's 
 ears that considerable treasures had been 
 landed in Ireland from the Spanish ships, 
 and that they had been taken and concealed 
 by Mac Sweeny and other chiefs. Fitzwil- 
 liams immediately conceievd the idea of 
 making himself master of this mass of wealth, 
 and he issued a commission to search for it 
 and secure it as the jJroperty of the queen. 
 The personal visit of the deputy to the north, 
 
A.D. 
 
 1589.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [tyranny of fitzwilliams. 
 
 which followed, proved as inefFectual as the 
 commission; and, not succeeding in meeting 
 with any treasure, the lord deputy gave vent 
 to his anger by seizing two of the queen's 
 most loyal subjects in the north, sir Owen 
 mac Toole and sir John O'Dogherty, on the 
 mere popular report that they had obtained 
 some of the Spanish treasure, and throwing 
 them into prison in Dublin castle. Mac 
 Toole died from the rigour of his imprison- 
 ment; O'Dogherty was not released till two 
 years later; and then he is said to have 
 obtained his liberty by means of a conside- 
 rable bribe. 
 
 This act of unprovoked persecution caused 
 a general feeling of discontent, and most of 
 the Irish chieftains were filled with alarm, 
 which, however, did not hinder them from 
 indulging in the old feuds that had so 
 often divided them and rendered them 
 weak before their enemies. Several such 
 feuds broke out during the years 1589 and 
 1590, among the septs of Ulster and Con- 
 naught, and led to sanguinary encounters. 
 Scarcely, indeed, was there one of the great 
 clans which threatened the English govern- 
 ment at this time, that did not contain with- 
 in its own bosom the materials of domestic 
 sedition and treason. The death of Cucho- 
 nacht Maguire on the 17th of June, 1589, 
 gave rise to a violent contention for the 
 chieftainship of Fermanagh, which was only 
 appeased by the armed intervention of 
 Donal O'Donnell, one of the most powerful 
 chiefs of the O'Donnell family. There was 
 a division in the great sept of the O'Don- 
 nells itself, some of the younger members 
 of which took part with the family of Tur- 
 lough Lynogh against the O'Donnell and 
 his ally the earl of Tyrone. The Scots 
 served on both sides in this quarrel, and 
 some cruel acts of revenge were committed. 
 The chieftain of Tyrconnell was now old 
 and feeble, and his favourite son, Red Hugh 
 remaining still a prisoner at Dublin, his 
 brother by another wife, Donal O'Donnell, 
 attempted to assume the government of his 
 father's sept. Red Hugh's mother, who 
 was the daughter of Alexander mac Don- 
 nell (the Scot), took up the cause of her 
 son, and she naturally led with her a large 
 proportion of the Scottish settlers, as well 
 as the O'Doghertys and Mac Sweenys of 
 Donegal, who were distinguished by their 
 attachment to young Hugh. Donal O'Don- 
 nell was joined by the O'Boyles, and by 
 other septs of the Mac Sweenys, and an 
 obstinate battle was fought between the 
 
 two parties on the 14th of September, 
 1590, ill which the force of the Scots de- 
 cided the victory against Donal, who was 
 slain on the field. Peace was thus restored 
 to Tirconnell, and the party of Red Hugh, 
 and of the earl of Tyrone, gained the mastery. 
 About the time of this battle died Sarleboy, 
 tlie celebrated chieftain of the Scots of An- 
 trim. 
 
 The death of Mac Mahon in 1589 had 
 left the country of Monaghan to a disputed 
 succession, which led to one of those op- 
 pressive acts that are said to have rendered 
 sir William Fitzwilliam's government hate- 
 ful to the Irishry. The deceased chieftain 
 had surrendered his territory into the queen's 
 hands to receive it back by English tenure, 
 thus abolishing the old law of tanistry. 
 His brother, Hugh Roe mac Mahon, claimed 
 the succession according to the English 
 grant, but was opposed, as it appears, by 
 two of his kinsmen under the ancient law. 
 Hugh Roe repaired to Dublin to plead his 
 right, expecting there at least to meet with 
 no opposition. But the lord deputy Fitz- 
 william extorted from him a bribe of about 
 six hundred cows (" for such," says Fynes 
 Morison, our authority for this history, 
 " and no other are the Irish bribes") before 
 he would listen to his suit ; and then he 
 threw him into prison, because (as it was 
 reported) he failed to pay his part of the 
 bribe. In a few days, however, Hugh Roe 
 mac Mahon was released from captivity, 
 and then the lord deputy proceeded with 
 him, as he said, " to settle him in his 
 country of Monaghan." 
 
 No sooner had they reached Monaghan, 
 than Fitzwilliams again threw the Mac Mahon 
 into fetters, on an old charge now trumped 
 up against him, and within two days he 
 was indicted of treason, arraigned, and exe- 
 cuted in his own house. His alleged crime 
 was that some two years before, claiming a 
 rent due to him out of Ferney, the pay- 
 ment of which was refused or delayed, had 
 then raised his armed followers, marched 
 into Ferney, and levied a distress by his 
 own authority, a proceeding common among 
 the Irish, and overlooked at the time, but 
 now construed into a treasonable offence. 
 The Irish had often been told of the justice 
 and equality of English law, but on too 
 many occasions they experienced only its 
 rigour. In the present case they said, that 
 Mac Mahon was found guilty by a jury of 
 soldiers, none of whom were gentlemen or 
 freeholders, and they asserted that four, 
 
 509 
 
Tyrone's articles.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 159P. 
 
 being English soldiers, were allowed to go in 
 and out of the jury-room, while the others, 
 being Irish kernes, were kept confined until 
 they gave their verdict ; and that one, being 
 a Mac Mahon, was offered a pardon from 
 the deputy for his son, who was in danger 
 of the law, as the price of finding his kins- 
 man guilty. 
 
 Fitzwilliams next declared the whole ter- 
 ritory of Monaghan forfeited, and seized it 
 into the hands of the queen. He divided it 
 into several estates, granting a large portion 
 to sir Henry Bagnall, and the rest to other 
 English and Irish landlords who agreed to 
 pay rents to the queen. It was universally 
 believed that the deputy had privately re- 
 ceived considerable bribes in the shape of 
 fines from the persons among whom the 
 lauds ol' the Mac Malions were divided, and 
 the Irish asserted that these bribes had been 
 agreed for before Mac Mahon was brought 
 to trial or accused. 
 
 In the midst of these petty troubles and 
 disorders, the earl of Tyrone, conscious of 
 his own secret practices, suddenly took the 
 alarm, and, to escape from some prosecu- 
 tions he anticipated from the deputy, hur- 
 ried over to England in the May of 1590, 
 to excuse himself before the queen. His 
 hostilities with Turlough O'Neill and with 
 the sons of Shane O'Neill had increased, and 
 his opponents were preparing to revenge 
 themselves upon him by exposing his secret 
 treason to the council of state, and his main 
 object in visiting the English court ajjpears 
 to have been to gain the queen's ear before 
 them. The queen was notoriously preju- 
 diced in Tyrone's favour ; yet, as he had 
 quitted Ireland without the deputy's licence, 
 he was committed to prison innnediately on 
 his appearance in London. But report 
 said that his confinement was not rigorous, 
 and on his submission he was soon freed 
 from restraint. 
 
 What passed between the earl of Tyrone 
 and the English council we are not informed, 
 but in the month of June he agreed to enter 
 into bonds with good sureties of the pale 
 to keep peace with all his neighbours, and 
 especially with sir Turlough Lynogh, who 
 since his resignation of the chieftainship 
 had been knighted ; and he promised on his 
 return to put in pledges to be chosen by the 
 lord deputy and council for the assurance 
 of his loyalty, and for the performance of 
 certain articles now signed by him ; but he 
 in:?isted on the proviso that the pledges 
 should not lie iu the castle, but with some 
 510 
 
 gentlemen in the pale, or merchants in Dub- 
 lin, and that they might be changed every 
 three months during her majesty's pleasure. 
 The articles alluded to recounted in more 
 express terms the various engagements which 
 the earl was bound to perform, and they show 
 not only what were then considered the most 
 grievous disorders among the Irish which it 
 was necessary to reform, but they seem to 
 intimate the growing suspicions of the designs 
 of the wily chieftain of the north. He bound 
 himself to continue loyal and to keep the 
 peace, to renounce the title of O'Neill, and 
 to cease from intermeddling with the neigh- 
 bouring lords. He consented that Tyrone 
 should be divided into shire-ground, with 
 gaols to be built for holding sessions. He 
 promised not to foster with any of the lords 
 his neighbours, or with any gentleman out 
 of his country, or to ally himself with the 
 Scots. If, for his defence, he should be in 
 need of other forces than his own subjects, 
 he was bound to levy none out of his own 
 country without special licence of the state, 
 in which case he might be assisted with 
 English soldiers. This was aimed against 
 O'Neill's private dealings with the Scots. 
 The earl further stipulated to conclude with 
 the lord deputy, within ten months, for a 
 composition for rents and services to the 
 queen for all his country, according to the 
 composition of Connaught made in 1577; 
 not to impose any extraordinary exactions 
 on his country without licence of the govern- 
 ment ; not to make any inroads into the coun- 
 tries of his neighbours, except they be within 
 five days after a prey taken ; to hinder any 
 of his country from receiving the plunder of 
 neighbouring coiui tries, or steal from them, 
 and in all cases to deliver up the depredators, or 
 expel them from Tyrone ; to execute no man, 
 excejjt by commission from the lord deputy 
 under the broad seal for martial law, and 
 that to be limited ; to keep his troop of fifty 
 horse in her majesty's pay complete for ser- 
 vice, and besides to be ready to answer a 
 rising out at every general hosting; not to 
 meddle with spiritual livings, or lay any 
 charge on them; not to maintain any monks 
 or friars in the country; not to have intelli- 
 gence with foreign traitors; to take no 
 black-rent of any of his neighbours; to com.- 
 pel the wearing of English apjjarel, and to 
 forbid all his men from wearing glibbes ; to 
 be answerable for his brother Turlough mac 
 Henry, captain of the Fews; and, in time 
 of necessity, to sell provisions to the fort of 
 the Blackwater. These conditions he pro- 
 
A.D. 1590.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [flight of o'donnell. 
 
 mised, upon his honour, to perform, in pre- 
 sence of the English council; and an order 
 was given that all the neighbouring lords 
 slionld ho drawn to similar conditions, that 
 they might not infest Tyrone while its ruler 
 was thus bovnid to the peace. 
 
 Scarcely had the earl of Tyrone signed 
 these articles, when his kinsman Con O'Neill, 
 one of the sons of Shane O'Neill, made his 
 appearance in London to prefer against him 
 articles of treason, and he was brought to the 
 council board in the month of July. He 
 accu.sed the earl of secret practices to extend 
 his power in the north, so as to make it dan- 
 gerous to the English government; and he 
 declared from his own knowledge, that after 
 the wreck of the Spaniards in Ulster, Tyrone 
 had plotted with them to form a league with 
 the king of Spain, who was to assist him in 
 levying war against the queen of England. 
 The earl met these charges with a flat denial, 
 and he imputed them to Con's inordinate 
 j ambition, which he said had led Con O'Neill 
 to aspire to the chieftainship of Tyrone and 
 the title of the O'Neill, a title which the earl 
 declared it was his earnest wish to prove his 
 duty to the queen in labouring to abolish. It 
 was his zeal in the queen's service which, as 
 he rcj)resented, had drawn upon him the 
 hatred of his countrymen. The earl's sub- 
 missive and flattering carriage had so gained 
 upon the queen's favour, that his assertion 
 was admitted as a sufficient defence, and his 
 accuser returned without obtaining a further 
 hearing. 
 
 The earl now also returned to Ireland, 
 and on the last day of August (1590), con- 
 firmed the above articles before the lord 
 deputy and council in Dublin, and pro- 
 mised faithfully by word and under his 
 hand to perform them. Yet when pressed 
 to the due execution of them, he found 
 pretences for delaying from one time to 
 another, replying artfully to every demand 
 that all his neighbouring lords stood en- 
 gaged equally with himself, and that when 
 thpy came forward to enter into the neces- 
 sary securities, he should be found equally 
 ready. If, he said, he executed his inden- 
 tures singly while they continued free, he 
 should only expose his country to be in- 
 vaded by them, while he deprived himself 
 of the power of defence. 
 
 Shortly before these events, the earl's 
 youi!g kinsman, Red Hugh of Tirconnell, 
 who still languished in the dungeon of Dub- 
 lin castle, had made a desperate attempt to 
 escajje. The plot had been concerted by 
 
 Hugh's friends in the country, and it was 
 even whispered abroad that the lord deputy's 
 connivance had been purchased by a large 
 bribe. In a dark night at the close of win- 
 ter. Red Hugh and one or two of his fellow 
 prisoners succeeded in letting themselves 
 down from the castle by means of a rope, 
 and they were met outside by one of his 
 kinsmen, who furnished them with weapons. 
 Guided by one of the Cavenaghs, they reached 
 the Slieve Roe or Red Mountain, on the 
 borders of Dublin and Wicklow, where the 
 young chieftain of Tirconnell, wearied with 
 the long flight , and torn and wounded with 
 the thorns and rough bushes through which 
 they had been obliged to force their way, 
 was found to be utterly unable to proceed 
 any further. His companions took him to 
 a neighbouring wood, shared their provisions 
 with him, and then, fearful of their own 
 safety, left him in the charge of a servant, 
 who was sent to the house of a neighbouring 
 gentleman of the sept of the O'Tooles, to 
 recommend Hugh O'Donnell to his pro- 
 tection. While Felim O'Toole, for that 
 was the gentleman's name, was hesitating 
 on the best course to follow in this unex- 
 pected emergency, he received intelligence 
 that a party of the troops of Dublin were 
 approaching in pursuit of the fugitive pri- 
 soner ; and then O'Toole came to the reso- 
 lution of taking to himself the credit of 
 making the capture. Red Hugh was ac- 
 cordingly led back once more a captive to 
 Dublin, where he was loaded with heavy 
 fetters, and imprisoned far more rigorously 
 than before. 
 
 The execution of Mac Mahon and the con- 
 fiscation of his territory, had meanwhile 
 confirmed the northern Irish chieftains in 
 their aversion to the English government, 
 and in their opposition to the introduction 
 of English law, and they combined in refus- 
 ing to admit sheriffs, and other officers into 
 their counties. Where they were forced 
 upon the natives, the crown officers were 
 only safe under j^rotection of a strong guard. 
 When the lord deputy intimated to Maguire 
 his intention of sending a sherflT into Ferma- 
 nagh, that chieftain answered with a well- 
 aft'ected simjjlicity, " Your sheriff' shall be 
 welcome ; but let mc know his eraic, that if 
 my people should cut off" his head, I may 
 lay it upon the country." 
 
 In the midst of these disorders the earl of 
 Tyrone followed his old course, outwardly 
 professing his attachment to the English 
 government, and from time to time rendering 
 
 511 
 
o'donnell's escape.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1591. 
 
 some public service, in order to cover bis 
 secret designs, or to atone for some open 
 breach of his allegiance. In 1 590, be found 
 means to secure the person of bis late accu- 
 ser, Hugh O'Neill, whom, as one too well 
 acquainted with bis practices, be brought to 
 a pretended trial, and then caused him to be 
 hanged; but such was the reverence felt for 
 the descendants of the redoubtable Shane, 
 that no one of the sept could be found to 
 act the part of executioner, and it was found 
 necessary to send for a hangman from a dis- 
 tance. The queen was highly offended at 
 this presumptuous act of violence; but the 
 earl pleaded that he had only exercised his 
 power of martial law in cutting off a noto- 
 rious traitor; and, as he had been regularly 
 invested with this power, the government 
 could only express its displeasure by with- 
 drawing the conunission. Thus did this 
 artful chieftain turn to his own account every 
 mark of trust or favour that he received 
 from the English government. In the sum- 
 mer of 1591, he committed some hostilities 
 upon Turlough Lynogh, in the course of 
 which the aged chieftain was wounded. 
 When Turlough complained to the English 
 council, the earl replied by accusing him of 
 having provoked hostilities, and of having 
 received his injury in attacking him; and he 
 conciliated the government by suffering his 
 country of Tyrone to be made shire ground, 
 and divided into eight baronies, the town of 
 Dungannon to be the shire town. Imme- 
 diately after this event, sir Henry Bagnall 
 made his complaint to the council, charging 
 the earl with the forcible abduction of his 
 sister, and with marrying her while his for- 
 mer wife was living. His reply was that he 
 had married the lady with her consent, as 
 she had voluntarily gone away with him 
 because her brother had placed obstacles in 
 the way of their match, and that as he had 
 been lawfully divorced from his former wife, 
 he was at liberty to marry again. He then 
 retaliated by accusing his brother-in-law of 
 usurping an authority in Ulster inconsis- 
 tent with his just rights as earl of Tyrone, 
 but at the same time actually petitioned the 
 coiuicil to prevail on Bagnal to be reconciled 
 with him, that they might concur amicably 
 in the service of government. By conduct 
 like this Tyrone succeeded for a time in 
 averting the attention of the Irish rulers 
 from his secret plots and intentions. "About 
 this time," says Morison, "the northern 
 lords are thought to have conspired to de- 
 fend the Romish rebgion (for now first 
 512 
 
 amongst them religion was made the cloak of 
 treason), to admit no English sheriffs in the 
 their countries, and to defend their liberty 
 and rights atrainst the Eng-lish." 
 
 Almost immediately after this quarrel with 
 Bagnall, the disorders of Ulster received a 
 new complication by the escape of young- 
 Hugh O'Donnell from his prison in Dublin 
 castle. The Tirconnell annalists (the four 
 Masters), give us an interesting account of 
 the romantic adventures of this young chief- 
 tain. His escape is said to have been assisted 
 by the connivance of some person high in 
 the government, and common report pointed 
 to the lord deputy himself. It is understood 
 to have been towards the end of December 
 of 1591, that Red Hugh, with his fellow 
 prisoners, Henry and Art, the two remaining 
 sons of Shane O'Neill, having been together 
 in the early part of the night, seized an op- 
 portunity while their guards were absent to 
 deliver themselves from their fetters, and 
 then with a long rope they let themselves 
 down the hole of the privy, which, as was 
 usual in castles, communicated with the out- 
 side of the wall, and thus they reached the 
 trench, where an old and trusty servant of 
 O'Donnell's was waiting for them by ap- 
 pointment. It was the festive time of the 
 year, and mixing with the people in the 
 streets without attracting notice, they passed 
 through the gates of the city, which were 
 open, without meeting with any obstacle. 
 
 It appears that Glenmalure, in the Wick- 
 low mountains, was at this time in possession 
 of the insurgent O'Byrnes, and that it was 
 the common place of asylum for fugitives 
 from the prisons of Dublin. Thither, as on 
 the former occasion, the young chieftains 
 directed their flight; but before they reached 
 the foot of the Slieve Roe, or Red Moun- 
 tain, in the haste of the flight and the dense 
 darkness of the night, Henry O'Neill, who 
 was the oldest of the three, was accidentally 
 separated from his companions, and they 
 heard no more of him, though it appears 
 that he reached Tyrone in safety. Red 
 Hugh and Art O'Neill continued their 
 flight, having O'Donnell's servant for their 
 guide. The inclemency of the night was 
 now increased by a heavy and continued fall 
 of snow, to which they were the more sen- 
 sible, as they were very lightly clothed, and 
 had been obliged to leave their outer gar- 
 ments behind ; and, to add to their embar- 
 rassment, Art O'Neill, who had grown very 
 corpulent during his long confinement, was 
 soon unable to proceed any further. Young 
 
A.D. 1592.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [adventures of red hugh. 
 
 Hugh, who was strong and active, when he 
 perceived that his companion was exhausted, 
 and that his pace became slow and unsteady, 
 requested him to put one hand on his shoul- 
 der, and the other on that of the servant, 
 and in this manner they proceeded until they 
 had crossed the Red Mountain. 
 
 They now became so fatigued that it was 
 found impossible to carry Art O'Neill any 
 further, and as Red Hugh also began to 
 suffer from the labour of the journey and 
 the inclemency of the night, Hugh and Art 
 laid tliemselves down in a state of exhaus- 
 tion under the shelter of a high projecting 
 rock, while the servant hastened forward to 
 Glenmalure, to inform Feague O'Byrne, the 
 chief of the Wicklow rebels, of the condition 
 of the two fugitives, that he might bring 
 them immediate assistance and refreshment. 
 On his arrival at Glenmalure, no time was 
 lost in sending a party of men in search of 
 the young chiefs, with food, ale, and mead. 
 When they arrived at the spot where O'Don- 
 nell and O'Neill had laid themselves down, 
 they found them both at the point of death. 
 " Their bodies," to use the words of the 
 Irish annalist, " were covered as it were in 
 beds of white hail-stones, like blankets, 
 which were frozen about them, and con- 
 gealed their thin light dresses and their thin 
 shirts of fine linen to their skins, and their 
 moistened shoes and leathern coverings to 
 their legs and feet, so that they appeared 
 to the people who came as if they were not 
 actually human beings, having been com- 
 pletely covered with the snow; for they 
 found no life in their members, but they 
 were as if dead. They took them up from 
 where they lay, and requested them to take 
 some of the food and ale, but they were not 
 able to do so, for every drink they took they 
 cast it up immediately, so that Art at length 
 died, and was buried in that place. As to 
 Hugh, he afterwards took some of the meat, 
 and his faculties were restored after drinking 
 it, except the use of his feet alone, for 
 they became dead members without feeling, 
 having been swelled and blistered by the 
 frost and snow." 
 
 Red Hugh was carried to Glenmalure, 
 whei-e he remained some time in a helpless 
 condition, concealed in a house in one of the 
 deepest recesses of the forest. Here, ac- 
 cording to the account given by his friends, 
 a private messenger came to him from the 
 earl of Tyrone, apparently for the purpose 
 of informing him that measures had been 
 taken to transport him to his own country 
 
 VOL. I. 3 T 
 
 without the knowledge of the English au- 
 thorities. His limbs were still in such a 
 condition, from the effects of his inclement 
 lodging on the Red Mountain, that it was 
 necessary to lift him on his horse, and to 
 take him from it. Yet, immediately after 
 the arrival of the earl of Tyrone's messenger, 
 he began his journey to the north, accom- 
 panied at first with a strong body of the 
 O'Byrnes. As the English of Dublin had 
 received intelligence that Red Hugh had 
 taken shelter in Glenmalure, and suspected 
 that he would make an attempt to escape to 
 Ulster, they had placed guards at the fords 
 of the river Liffey where he was likely to 
 cross it, to keep a strict watch on all passers. 
 This was well known to his friends in the 
 mountains, and therefore, instead of ventu- 
 ring across the usual fords, his escort boldly 
 carried him nearly to the walls of Dublin, 
 and there crossed at a very dangerous ford, 
 and one that was seldom made use of. They 
 quitted him under the frowning walls of 
 the fortress from which he had twice 
 escaped, and then he and the earl of Ty- 
 rone's messenger, mounted on two swift 
 horses, rode all night over the plains of 
 Meath, and early in the morning reached 
 the banks of the Boyne. a short distance to 
 the west of Droglieda The earl's messen- 
 ger spoke the English language fluently, 
 and was so well acquainted with the roads 
 and the people who dwelt on the way, that 
 their passage in the night excited no sur- 
 prise. But they were afraid to pass in 
 company through the town of Drogheda ; and 
 they therefore went along the bank of the 
 river to a place where a poor fisherman was 
 in the habit of ferrying travellers across in 
 his curack, or small fishing boat. Hugh's 
 companion accompanied him to the other 
 side ; and then, as the boat vv-as too small to 
 carry a horse, he returned, took their steeds, 
 and passing unnoticed through the streets 
 of Drogheda, joined the young chieftain at 
 a retired spot on the other side of the river. 
 They then mounted again, and continued 
 their flight till they came to the house of an 
 English gentleman, who was a trusty friend 
 of the O'Neills. Here they remained con- 
 cealed during that night and the following 
 day, and at nightfall they again mounted 
 their horses, and continued their flight across 
 the Slieve Breagh mountains, and through 
 Machaire Conaill (in Louth), and arrived at 
 Dundalk before day-break. As soon as the 
 town gates were open, and people began to 
 pass backwards and forwards, the fugitives 
 
 513 
 
INSURRECTION OF MAGUIKE.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1592. 
 
 ventured into the town of Dundalk, and 
 succeeded in passing it safely ; and then 
 they proceeded to the house of another of 
 the O'Neills, who concealed them during 
 the following night and day. They then 
 continued tlieir course across the Fews 
 mountains, and arrived at Armagh in the 
 evening. Tliere they passed that night in 
 concealment, and the following day they 
 reached the earl of Tyrone's town of Dun- 
 gannon. The earl " was rejoiced at their 
 arrival, and they were led to a secret apart- 
 ment, without the knowledge of any except- 
 ing a few of his trusty people who were 
 attending them, and Hugh remained there 
 for the space of four nights, recovering 
 himself from the fatigue of his journey and 
 troubles, after which he prepared to depart, 
 and took lea\e of the carl, who sent a troop 
 of horse with him until he arrived at the 
 eastern side of Lough Erne." 
 
 He was now in the territory of a friendly 
 chief, a Maguire, w4io conducted him across 
 the lake in safety, and he reached his 
 own country, filled with the most implac- 
 able hatred of the English, to whom he 
 found it a prey. No sooner was it known 
 that Red Hugh had arrived at his father's 
 castle of Ballyshannon, than the chiefs and 
 people of Tirconnell crowded about him to 
 rejoice at his return from captivity. A 
 part}' of English who had penetrated to 
 Donegal, retreated hastily into Connaught. 
 Young O'Donnell had, however, returned a 
 cripple, and it was not till after several 
 months' confinement under the care of his 
 doctor, and, after losing his toes, that he 
 was able to assume the activity which his 
 followers demanded. The principal chief- 
 tains of Tirconnell then assembled at Kil- 
 makrennan in Donegal, the spot at which 
 the O'Donnells were inaugurated in the 
 chieftainship, and there on the 3rd of May, 
 1592, old Hugh O'Donnell formally re- 
 signed the chieftainsiiip of Tirconnell to his 
 son Red Hugh. 
 
 The latter aspired to follow the example 
 ot his forefathers in marking his accession 
 to the cliieftainship by a warlike expedition 
 against his enemies, and with the force then 
 assembled he inarched into the territory of 
 Turlough Lynogh O'Neill, and laid it waste 
 with fire and sword. This hostility was 
 itself an act of defiance against the English 
 crown ; and the weak government of Dub- 
 lin sent a small force to Turlough's aid. 
 The earl of Tyrone, who was secretly look- 
 ing on at these proceedings with the utmost 
 514 
 
 joy, now came forward to act as a mediator 
 between O'Donnell and the English, and 
 made a merit with the government of 
 his endeavours to brinsr Red Hutrh to 
 loyalty. The lord deputy met the latter at 
 Dundalk, and there agreed to acknowledge 
 him as the chieftain of Tirconnell. The 
 only result of this was to increase O'Don- 
 neli's power by the accession to his standard 
 of a number of subordinate chieftains who 
 had held back till they saw the young chief- 
 tain's title confirmed. 
 
 The spirit of disaffection had now spread 
 widely through the northern province, and 
 the conduct of the earl of Tyrone became 
 daily more equivocal. Sir Henr}' Bagnall, 
 having received information against the earl 
 sufficient to establish a treasonable charge, 
 laid it before the Irish coun^'il, by which it 
 was sent to the court in England. The earl 
 adopted his usual method of appeasing the 
 English government, for which the oppor- 
 tunity was afforded him by a war that 
 broke out with Maguire of Fermanagh in 
 the beginning of the year 1598. That 
 chief asserted that he had given the lord 
 deputy a bribe of three hundred cows to 
 leave his territory without a sheriff during 
 the period he held the government. Not- 
 withstanding this agreement, one captain 
 Willis was made sheriff of Fermanagh, 
 having for his guard a hundred men, and 
 leading about a train of as many women 
 and boys, who all lived upon the spoil of 
 the country. Maguire, taking his advan- 
 tage, set upon the sheriff and his motley 
 company, and drove them into a church, 
 where he would have put them all to the 
 sword, if the earl of Tyrone had not inter- 
 posed his authority, and made a composition 
 for their lives, on condition that they should 
 depart from his country. 
 
 It is said that sir William Fitzwilliam.s 
 expressed his anger against the earl of Tyrone 
 on the apparent partiality which he hadshown 
 for Maguire, and that he went so far as to 
 call him a traitor,- — words which, if true, 
 were repeated to the earl, and were seized 
 upon as an excuse for drawing closer his 
 alliance with O'Donnell. He despatched a 
 messenger into England, by whom he repre- 
 sented the services he had rendered to the 
 crown, complained of the enmity of the 
 deputy, and made answer to Bagnall's 
 charges, offering, if required, to repair to 
 England and defend his cause in person. 
 The English council continued to be deceived 
 by his professions, and he was cleared of the 
 
A.D. 1593.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [war with maguire. 
 
 imputations thrown upon him by his brother- 
 in-law, while Fitzwillianis received a gentle 
 admonition to act with more impartiality. 
 
 Maguire, meanwhile, long disaffected and 
 now provoked by the introduction of a she- 
 riff" into his territory, and by an attack on 
 his neighbour O'Rourke of Breffiiy, joined 
 the latter in open rebellion. This war arose 
 from a dispute relating to a rent which the 
 English claimed in Breff'ny, and which they 
 levied by force ; upon which O'Rourke, hav- 
 ing obtained assistance from Tyrone, Tircon- 
 nell, and Fermanagh, made an expedition 
 into lower Connaught, defeated the forces 
 opposed to him, and plundered Ballymote 
 and several other towns. The disaffection 
 and turbulence of the Irish was at this time 
 fed by agents from the catholic powers 
 abroad. One of these agents was Edmund 
 mac Gauran, of an old family of chiefs in 
 Cavan, who had been consecrated at Rome 
 archbishop of Armagh, and returned to Ire- 
 land early in 1593. As soon as the English 
 received intelligence of his arrival, a reward 
 was offered by the lord deputy for his appre- 
 hension, but he found a shelter in the house 
 of Maguire of Fermanagh, who refused to 
 deliver him up. It is said that Mac Gauran 
 now instioated Maguire to invade Connaught 
 in support of O'Rourke. He had proceeded 
 with a formidable force as far as the neigh- 
 bourhood of Tulsk in Roscommon, where, 
 on the 3rd of July, he met unexpectedly the 
 governor of the province, sir Richard Bing- 
 ham, who, having a very small body offerees, 
 was obliged to make his retreat after a short 
 contest, in which one of his commanders, sir 
 William Clifford, was slain. Maguire also 
 lost many of his men ; and among others, the 
 bishop Mac Gauran, and the abbot Cathal 
 Maguire, while encouraging the Irish fight- 
 ing men, were both slain. After committing 
 the usual havoc, Maguire returned with his 
 plunder to Fermanagh witliout further oppo- 
 sition, and his success brought him new allies 
 in the discontented Burkes and the Mac 
 Mahons. 
 
 A more formidable antagonist had, how- 
 ever, now entered the field; for the lord 
 deputy, summoning together in haste the 
 troops of the pale, marched into Fermanagh, 
 where he was joined by the forces under 
 Bagnall, and by the earl of Tyrone, who 
 now seemed anxious to display his attach- 
 ment to the English government. As they 
 approached his territory, Maguire sent his 
 cattle and flocks into Tirconneli for security, 
 and stationed himself and his forces in the 
 
 neighbourhood of Enniskillen, between the 
 upper and lower lakes, to oppose the pas- 
 sage of the river Erne by the invaders. The 
 men of Fermanagh had in their favour 
 the natural advantages of the position, but 
 the English were superior in the possession 
 of artillery, and Maguire was defeated with 
 great loss. The earl of Tyrone exposed his 
 person in this engagement with so much 
 show of zeal in the service of the crown, that 
 he received a wound in the thigh. When they 
 had passed the river Erne, the English were 
 joined by the forces of Connaught, under sir 
 Richard Bingham, and by the earl of Tho- 
 mond. After plundering and devastating 
 Fermanagh in every direction, the combined 
 forces separated to seek their several homes, 
 and Fitzwillianis followed a policy which 
 had been usual in similar cases before, of 
 setting up a rival Maguire in Fermanagh 
 against the ruling chieftain. 
 
 The war, however, was by no means at an 
 end, and early in the next spring the lord 
 deputy again marched into the territory of 
 Maguire, and laid siege to the castle of 
 Enniskillen. That chieftain now applied for 
 assistance to Red Hugh O'Donnell, who de- 
 clared war upon the English, and marched 
 to Fermanagh with a large army Ennis- 
 killen castle had surrendered, and had been 
 left in charge of an English garrison, who 
 were now in their turn closely besieged by 
 the forces of Fermanagh and Tirconneli ; and 
 having held out from June to the middle of 
 August, were then reduced to distress for 
 want of provisions. A strong force from 
 Meath and Connaught, under the command 
 of young George Bingham, then made an 
 attempt to relieve them, and had approached 
 with a convoy of provisions within about 
 four miles of Enniskillen, when they were 
 attacked by the Irish under Maguire, at a nar- 
 row pass where there was a ford of the river, 
 and, after an obstinate engagement, were 
 defeated with great loss. From the quantity 
 of biscuit captured on this occasion, Maguire's 
 victory obtained among the Irish the popular 
 name of Bal-Atha-na-m Briosgaidh, or the 
 ford of the biscuits. 
 
 During the siege of Enniskillen, a new 
 change had taken place in the government of 
 Ireland, which was no doubt the reason that 
 more active measures were not taken to 
 relieve the garrison of that fortress. Wearied 
 with the disorders which were every day 
 increasing around him, and sensible, perhajjs, 
 that his policy had not tended to diminish 
 them, sir William Fitzwillianis at length 
 
 515 
 
SIR WILLIAM RUSSELL.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1594. 
 
 obtained his recal; and on tlie 11th of Au- 
 gust, 1594, he received a successor in the 
 person of sir William Russell, a son of the 
 duke of Bedford. One of the most durable 
 and honourable monuments of the adminis- 
 tration of sir William Fitzwilliams, was tlie 
 scholastic foundation now known as Trinity 
 College, Dublin. It originated in the wish 
 to provide a supply of learned ministers for 
 the protestant church in Ireland, and was 
 first projected under the administration of 
 sir Henry Sydney. The design, however, 
 seemed to have been laid aside amid the 
 troubles which followed, to be taken up 
 with better prospects of success by sir John 
 Perrott. Perrott proposed to dissolve the 
 cathedral of St. Patrick, and turn it into a 
 
 college of learning, but he met with a deter- 
 mined opposition from archbishop Loftus; 
 and this prelate, after Perrott's recall, took 
 up the project, and obtained for the proposed 
 foundation a grant of the dissolved monastery 
 of All-Hallows. The charter of incorporation 
 was obtained at the end of the year 1591, 
 and the work went on so rapidly under the 
 patronage of Fitzwilliams, that on the 9th of 
 January, 1593, the students were admitted. 
 The wars of Ulster which soon followed, 
 and the unsettled state of the whole island, 
 checked the progress of the new establish- 
 ment for a while; but it soon recovered, and 
 gradually grew up to the important institu- 
 tion now existing. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF SIR WILLIAM RUSSELL; REBELLION OF ULSTER; DECEPTIVE 
 CONDUCT OK THE EARL OF TYRONE; HOSTILITIES IN CONNAUGHT. 
 
 he said he had been deprived, not by his own 
 conduct, but by the slanders of those who 
 secretly hated him. The same professions 
 and promises were repeated in letters to 
 some of the lords of the council in England. 
 Russell appears to have been inclined at first 
 to believe in these professions, when the 
 marshal, sir Henry Bagnall, came forward, 
 declaring that he was prepared to prove 
 against the earl of Tyrone that it was he 
 who incited Maguire and the papal primate 
 to the invasion of Connaught, and that he 
 had counselled and aided that chieftain and 
 O'Donnell in all their recent hostilities. 
 The Irish council debated on the policy of 
 arresting the earl of Tyrone on these charges, 
 and connnitting him to close custody until 
 they had been answered. Many members of 
 the council were, however, opposed to the 
 hasty adoption of harsh measures, and some 
 were suspected of being secretly favourable 
 to Tyrone, who was allov/ed to return to the 
 north to carry on his mischievous designs. 
 But the eyes of the ministers in England 
 appear now to have been opened with regard 
 to his character and practices, and they imme- 
 diately wrote to the lord deputy, blaming him 
 for permitting this dangerous enemy to escape, i 
 
 O sooner had the new 
 lord deputy entered 
 upon his government 
 in the summer of 1594, 
 than he began to adopt 
 measures which promised the active and 
 vigorous administration, which was now ren- 
 dered necessary by the threatening attitude 
 of the two provinces of Ulster and Con- 
 naught. The misgovernment of the last few 
 years vias already producing its effects, and 
 soon led to troubles of a more serious cha- 
 racter than any which the island had wit- 
 nessed for a length of time.* 
 
 Although there could now be little doubt 
 of the part which the chief of the O'Neills 
 was acting in the troubles of Ulster, yet 
 before a month had passed over the head of 
 the new governor, the earl suddenly made 
 his appearance at Dublin, where he pre- 
 sented himself before the deputy and coun- 
 cil, made earnest professions of his faithful- 
 ness to the queen's government, and prayed 
 to be restored to her majesty's grace, of which 
 
 • Our chief and very full authorities for the events 
 of the next few years, are the " History," by Fynes 
 Moryson (secretary of lord Mountjoy), and the Irish 
 " Annals of the Four Masters." 
 516 
 
A.u. 1595.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELA.ND. 
 
 [sir 
 
 JOHN NORRIS. 
 
 Immediately after the departure of the 
 earl of Tyrone, sir William Russell sum- 
 moned the forces of the pale and of Con- 
 naught to meet him at Athlone, in order to 
 march to the relief of Enniskillen, but they 
 reached Roscommon only in time to hear of 
 the capture of that fortress and the massacre 
 of the garrison. The Irish under O'Donnell 
 and Maguire had then invaded Connaught, 
 where they committed great outrages, cap- 
 tured the English fort of Belleek, and 
 slaughtered its garrison, and established 
 one of the Burkes as chieftain of northern 
 Connaught, under the old title of the Mac 
 William. 
 
 Alarmed at the boldness of the Irish, and 
 at the formidable character which their con- 
 federacy was assuming, the lord deputy now 
 exposed the weakness of the Irish govern- 
 ment by offering pacific overtures, which 
 were agitated during the winter. Under 
 cover of these negotiations, the Ulster chief- 
 tains carried on their preparations for war, 
 while Russell communicated his wants and 
 apprehensions to the queen and her council. 
 The earl of Tyrone was the more especial 
 object of Elizabeth's indignation ; she talked 
 of showing no favour to one whose ingrati- 
 tude for the many favours he had received 
 at her hands was so apparent ; but she recom- 
 mended her deputy to temporize with O'Don- 
 nell, in the hope of detaching him from his 
 alliance witli the earl. Sir William Russell 
 had solicited new forces, and had suggested 
 that some veteran commander should be 
 appointed to assist him in carrying on the 
 war, which now seemed imminent; upon 
 which the queen determined to send sir John 
 Norris with two thousand old soldiers which 
 had distinguished themselves under his com- 
 mand in Brittany, along with a thousand 
 men newly levied in England. 
 
 While the attention of the government 
 had been monopolised by the greater troubles 
 of the north, the mountains of Wicklow 
 still afforded a secure retreat to the insur- 
 gent O'Byrnes, whose chief, Fiacha or 
 Feague mac Hugh, had been joined by one 
 of the Geraldines of Kildare, popularly 
 known as Walter Riavach. Feague mac 
 Hugh's chief town or fort was Ballinacor in 
 Wicklow. During the interval allowed him 
 by the negotiations with O'Donnell in winter, 
 Russell determined to make an attempt to 
 repress these troublesome neighbours, and 
 he marched against Ballinacor in the month 
 of January. This place was taken by sur- 
 prise and easily captured, but Feague mac 
 
 Hugh had had the time to remove ovit of it 
 his people and their property, which were 
 deposited in a safer place. This was the 
 lord deputy's only exploit, and immediately 
 after his departure the insurgents regained 
 their courage. Walter fitz Gerald gathered 
 together a body of the O'Byrnes, marched 
 into the plain of Dublin by night, and 
 plundered and burnt the town or village of 
 Crumlin, close to the capital, carrying away 
 a large portion of the lead from the roof 
 of the church. Although the conflagra- 
 tion was visible from the streets in Dublin, 
 so unprepared were the citizens for this 
 attack, that the insurgents were allowed to 
 carry off their plunder with perfect impu- 
 nity. A month afterwards Walter fitz 
 Gerald was betrayed by a physician who 
 attended him for a wound he had received 
 in one of these predatory conflicts, and car- 
 ried a prisoner to Dublin and hanged. 
 
 The report soon spread in Ireland that 
 Norris was to be sent over with the veteran 
 troops from Brittany, and this, with the 
 kno%vn design of the English government to 
 form a chain of forts round the territories 
 of the disaffected chiefs of Ulster so as to 
 keep them in continual awe, so alarmed the 
 earl of Tyrone that he determined to throw 
 off the mask. Early in the year, 1595, 
 under pretence of some misconduct on the 
 part of the English garrison of the fort of 
 the Blackwater, Tyrone attacked and cap- 
 tured the fortress and expelled the garrison. 
 At the same time, with still greater rash- 
 ness, he wrote to the earl of Kildare, to 
 seduce him from his allegiance to the Eng- 
 lish crown, and sent messengers to Spain to 
 request immediate succours from the catholic 
 powers of the continent. 
 
 Sir John Norris had come over to Ireland 
 with the title and ofhce of lord general, and 
 the command under the deputy of all the 
 queen's forces in Ireland. His great repu- 
 tation as a military commander, and the 
 power thus conferred upon him, seems to 
 have created from the first a certain degree 
 of jealousy between the general and the de- 
 puty ; and for some time after the landing 
 of the new troops they remained inactive. 
 Towards the beginning of June, however, 
 the deputy and the general marched towards 
 Armagh, upon which the earl of Tyrone, 
 alarmed, and still pursuing the course of 
 duplicity which appears to have been a dis- 
 tinguishing trait of his character, sent letters 
 to Russell and Norris, with new professions 
 of loyalty, and especially entreating the 
 
 517 
 
REBELLION OF TYRONE.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1595. 
 
 latter, whom he reckoned upon as one less 
 intimately acquainted with Irish affairs, to 
 proceed with moderation, and not force him 
 into rebellion. The deputy had announced 
 publicly his intention of proceeding directly 
 to Dundalk, where he intended to summon 
 the refractory earl to a meeting ; and it was 
 thither that these letters were to have been 
 carried, but they fell into the hands of 
 Tyrone's personal enemy, marshal Bagnall, 
 who is said to have kept them back inten- 
 tionally, that the course of vengeance against 
 the rebel might have no interruption. 
 When Tyrone did not attend at Dundalk, 
 he was at once proclaimed a traitor, and 
 then the deputy returned towards the pale. 
 On his way back he received the earl's 
 letters, but, as he now understood the value 
 of Tyrone's jarofessions, he merely observed 
 that it was too late to listen to them, con- 
 sistently with the queen's honour. 
 
 The most active of the insurgent leaders 
 was, as usual, O'Donnell, who, as early as 
 the beginning of March, crossed the Erne 
 with a force of about four hundred disci- 
 plined fighting men, besides the usual atten- 
 dance of plunderers and drivers, and proceeded 
 through BrefFny into the district of Tirrerill 
 in Sligo. Sir Richard Bingham, informed 
 of the advance of O'Donnell, assembled the 
 English forces in haste at Boyle, in the 
 belief that the Irish would proceed in that 
 direction. O'Donnell, however, escaped the 
 EnaHsh commander by taking another direc- 
 tion, and crossing the Boyle at Knockvicar, 
 near Lough Rea, made a rapid march 
 through Moylurg to Crogan in Roscommon. 
 His forces then separated, and spread over 
 the surrounding country, plundering and 
 burning, and having collected a great prey, 
 they next day made their retreat with it 
 across the Shannon into Leitrim. The Eng- 
 lish forces, who had left Boyle in pursuit of 
 them, as soon as they were made acquainted 
 with their altered course, attacked their rear 
 as they were passing the Shannon, and killed 
 several of them ; but they had already secured 
 their plunder. 
 
 The next month (April, 1595), Red Hugh 
 O'Donnell again crossed the river Erne, but 
 with a much larger army, and entering the 
 county of Roscommon, plundered and burnt 
 the districts which had escaped from liis 
 ravages on the former occasion. He then 
 marched into Leitrim, and while the English 
 were watching to intercept him in his return 
 to Tirconnell, he formed a junction with 
 Maguire, and their united forces entered the 
 518 
 
 Annalys (north and south Longford), the 
 territory of the O'Ferralls, which, in the 
 course of the hostilities and insurrections of 
 this reign, had been transferred to the pos- 
 session of English lords. The head castle 
 of the O'Ferralls, called Longport (the pre- 
 sent town of Longford) was in the possession 
 of an Englishman named Christopher Brown. 
 The Irish historian of the exploits of the 
 O'Donnells tells us exultingly how, through- 
 out the whole of Longford, Red Hugh's 
 people " set everything before them on large 
 columns of fire and dense dark clouds of 
 smoke;" and he adds, "they took the castle; 
 of Longport, and set fire to every corner and 
 side of it, so that it was by a long rope they 
 brought out Christopher Brown, together 
 with his relative by marriage, and their [ 
 women; but fifteen men of the hostages of 
 the country, who were held by the above- 
 mentioned Christopher, whom they could 
 not save or rescue, were burned by the blaze 
 and flames of the fire." Several other castles 
 in Longford were taken, and a multitude of 
 persons slain; and then the combined forces 
 of O'Donnell and Maguire removed into 
 Cavan, and there perpetrated similar havoc. 
 Their movements had, as before, been eff'ected 
 with so much rapidity, that they plundered 
 the whole country and carried off the spoils, 
 before any sufficient force could be brought 
 to the spot to check their depredations. 
 
 It was shortly after O'Donnell's return 
 from this second expedition, that the English 
 army first marched into Ulster against the 
 Earl of Tyrone. The chieftain of Tirconnell 
 immediately marched to the assistance of the 
 O'Neills, and the united forces of Ulster 
 were thus assembled together, and made an 
 imposing show in the plain in the neighbour- 
 hood of Dundalk. O'Donnell was soon 
 called back to protect his own country against 
 a plundering expedition which had made its 
 appearance on the coast of Donegal, under 
 the command of young George Bingham, the 
 English commander of Sligo. But he was 
 soon obliged to listen to the Earl of Tyrone's 
 necessities, who was collecting all his forces 
 to withstand the advance of the English army 
 under Russell and Norris, who had their 
 head quarters at Armagh. Sir William Rus- 
 sell, after having (as already stated) pro- 
 claimed the earl of Tyrone a traitor, gave 
 up the command of the army left in Ulstei 
 (not a large one) to sir John Norris, who was 
 accompanied with his brother sir Thomas, 
 who had been removed thither from Mun- 
 ster, and returned to Dublin. 
 
A.D. 
 
 1595.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [negotiations broken off. 
 
 The incipient war was now suspended for 
 a while, in tlie hope that by negotiating the 
 insurgent chieftains might be persuaded to 
 listen to reason. A commission was sent by 
 the queen, empowering the treasurer-at-war 
 (Wallop) and the chief justice (Gardiner) to 
 treat with Tyrone and his associates, and to 
 hear their complaints. The northern leaders 
 saw in this measure only a proof of the weak- 
 ness of the English government, and their 
 presumption was thereby increased. They 
 refused to meet the commissioners at Dun- 
 dalk, and the conference was held in an open 
 field, where Tyrone and his confederates 
 spoke as though they were dictating terms 
 rather than negotiating for a pardon. The 
 grievances set forth by Tyrone were chiefly 
 personal quarrels, and were certainly no jus- 
 tification for his own conduct; he complained 
 of Bagnall for interfering in his jurisdiction; 
 he revived the old quarrel relating to Bag- 
 nail's sister, who was already dead of the 
 cruel treatment she had experienced as 
 Tyrone's wife ; nevertheless he demanded 
 that Bagnall should be compelled to pay 
 him a thousand pounds as her portion; and 
 he asserted that Bagnall's false accusations 
 alone had brought upon him the queen's 
 displeasure, and driven him to take up arms 
 for his own protection. He required, as the 
 condition on which he was willing to lay 
 down his arms, a full pardon for himself and 
 followers; the full and free exercise of their 
 religion; that his country should be freed 
 from English garrisons and sheriffs; that his 
 troop of horse should be restored to him ; 
 and that all who in the recent troubles had 
 plundered his territory, should be com- 
 pelled to make due restitution. O'Donnell, 
 with more reason, complained of the arbitrary 
 injustice of his treacherous capture and long 
 imprisonment in Dublin castle. He also 
 demanded a full pardon, and freedom of reli- 
 gion ; that no garrisons or sheriff's should be 
 intruded into his country; and that certain 
 castles and lands in the county of Sligo 
 should be restored to him. The Mac Mahons 
 complained of the injuries done to their sept 
 by sir William Fitzvvilliams. Other chiefs 
 had similarly their grievances to state. 
 
 Some of these were judged reasonable, 
 and upon others no opinion was pronounced, 
 but the Irish were informed that it would 
 be necessary to refer the whole to the final 
 decision of the queen. But the chiefs be- 
 came more insolent, as the commissioners 
 talked more moderately, and when the latter 
 proposed as conditions that the insurgents 
 
 should lay down their arms, admit sheriff's 
 into their countries (which they had formerly 
 agreed to do), repair the forts they had de- 
 molished, leave the garrisons unmolested, 
 make restoration on their side, and disclose 
 their transactions with foreign princes, they 
 indignantly broke off the conference, and 
 refused their consent to any further suspen- 
 sion of hostilities than a truce of a few 
 days. 
 
 At the conclusion of this truce, in the 
 latter part of July, the lord deputy and the 
 lord general again marched to Armagh with 
 an imposing force, with the design of penetrat- 
 ing into the heart of the insurgent country. 
 Tyrone immediately abandoned the fort of 
 the Blackvvater, pulled down his own castle 
 at Dunganhon, burned that town and the 
 surrounding villages, and then sought an 
 asylum with his followers in the woods. 
 The two English commanders entered 
 Tyrone, and proclaimed the earl a traitor, 
 but he had so effectually wasted the 
 country, that tliey were soon obliged to 
 return to Armagh, where they fortified the 
 cathedral church, the town having been 
 burnt before their arrival. As the English 
 army retired, Tyrone and O'Donnell again 
 made their appearance at the head of a large 
 army, and followed in its track, harassing 
 the English soldiers whenever an opportu- 
 nity presented itself. The country was still 
 too much wasted to support the English 
 army, which, therefore, after leaving gar- 
 risons with provisions and stores in Armagh 
 and Monaghan, fell back to Nevvry. At 
 Dundalk, the lord deputy placed the entire 
 command of the army left in Ulster in the 
 hands of sir John Norris, and with a por- 
 tion of the forces under his own command 
 returned to Dublin, to proceed against the 
 insurgents who still held out in the Wick- 
 low mountains. 
 
 The efforts of the insurgents were now 
 directed chiefly against the garrisons of 
 Armagh and Monaghan, which from their 
 strong ramparts set their assailants at defi- 
 ance. At the beginning of September, 
 however, it was found necessary to revictual 
 both ports, and the two Norrises, with the 
 army, marched from Newry to Armagh for 
 this purpose, which they effected without 
 any difficulty, but the Irish determined to 
 intercept them on their return, and for this 
 purpose they seized upon the pass of Clon- 
 tibret, near a little river in a valley enclosed 
 by small hills. Here the earl of Tyrone 
 had posted himself with a large body of 
 
 519 
 
BATTLE OF CLONTIBRET.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. isor). 
 
 horse, besides his galloglasses and kernes; 
 and, when, on the 5th of September, the 
 English army appeared, unconscious it 
 would seein of the presence of an enemy, 
 O'Neill suddenly attacked them with his 
 cavalry. Sir John Norris, who was in his 
 doublet and hose mounted on an English 
 gelding, and, therefore, not accoutred for 
 heavy service, '• did," as we are told " most 
 valiantly encounter" the earl of Tyrone. 
 The English, according to their own account, 
 were hard pressed, and suffered from the 
 disadvantage of the ground and the galling 
 fire of the Irish shot from a position which 
 overlooked them, as well as from their supe- 
 riority in cavalry. Sir John Norris's horse 
 received four shots, and sunk under him, 
 so that he was obliged to withdraw from his 
 troop and new mount himself. He received 
 himself two wounds, one across the belly, 
 the other in his right arm. His brother, 
 sir Thomas, was shot through the left thigh. 
 Another of the English officers, Richard 
 Wringfield, was severely wounded. Neither 
 party seems to have gained any great ad- 
 vantage in this encounter, but the English 
 were glad to continue their march to Newry 
 without any further interruption. The 
 earl of Tyrone drew off his soldiers and re- 
 treated, with a loss, according to the Eng- 
 
 lish account of sixty of his men. The loss 
 of the English was estimated at twelve slain 
 and thirty wounded. 
 
 The Irish claimed this as a great victory, 
 and their account of it shows how much 
 exaggeration there is in the native anna- 
 lists of this period.* Some of the historians 
 who wrote subsequently to the event, tell 
 us that the life of their great champion, 
 Tyrone, was on this occasion in imminent 
 danger. An English commander from 
 Meath, named Sedgrave, said to be the 
 strongest and most vahaiit man in the pale, 
 galloped with a troop of horse across the 
 ford to charge O'Neill's cavalry, which was 
 on the other side. The Ulster chieftain rode 
 forward to receive him, and the two com- 
 manders met in single combat, while the 
 troops on both sides stood as spectators of 
 the contest. Both were cased in armour, 
 and their spears shivered to pieces against 
 their breast-plates at the first encounter. 
 They then fought with their swords ; but 
 as Tyrone was expert at the use of his 
 
 * Our account of this encounter is taken chiefly 
 from a contemporary letter printed in " Queen Eliza- 
 beth and her Times." It must relate to the same 
 affair as that called by the Irish historians the battle 
 520 
 
 weapon, Sedgrave obtained no advantage, 
 upon which, determined to trust to his own 
 strength, he closed in with his antagonist, 
 grasped him by the throat, and they both 
 rolled from their horses to the ground. 
 There they struggled for a few moments in 
 deadly strife, until Sedgrave, getting the earl 
 under him, seized his sword to cut off his 
 head. At this instant, Tyrone making a 
 desperate effort, succeeded in gaining pos- 
 session of his dagger, which he plunged 
 into the bowels of his antagonist, who rolled 
 from him in the agonies of death. 
 
 A few days after this, the English army 
 maixhed again from Newry to victual 
 Monaghan, and Tyrone's forces again dogged 
 them on the road. But they kept at a 
 respectable distance, and when, on one 
 occasion, Norris attempted to bring them to 
 an engagement, the Irish cavalry, which ap- 
 pears to have been numerous, fled from the 
 foot, and left the latter to shift for them- 
 selves, which they did by throwing away 
 their mantles to facilitate their escape, and 
 leaving a part of their baggage to the pur- 
 suers. 
 
 These were almost the only exploits per- 
 formed by the English army at Newry during 
 the year 1595. Tyrone, whose motives 
 were only those of personal ambition, was 
 reluctant in carrying his hostilities beyond 
 the point at which he believed he could 
 frame an excuse in case he found it neces- 
 sary to sue for the queen's pardon ; and the 
 English ministers still hesitated in depriving 
 him of all hopes of mercy. In the letter 
 of lord Burghley's secretary, giving an ] 
 account of the battle of Clontibret, the 
 writer says in conclusion, " We do still say 
 the earl offereth to come to good condition 
 for his pardon ; and pray God it prove true, 
 and her majesty would be pleased to accept 
 thereof." 
 
 O'Donnell, who was actuated by bitter 
 revenge for the wrongs he had received 
 from the English government in his long and 
 severe imprisonment in Dublin, made war 
 on a much more extensive scale. He had 
 formed a close alliance with the turbulent 
 Burkes of northern Connaught, and he 
 aimed at regaining through it the influence 
 which the O'Donnells had formerly pos- 
 sessed in Sligo and Roscommon. Soon after 
 George Bingham's return from his plun- 
 
 of Clontibret, from the circumstance of the two 
 
 Norrises being severely wounded. Some Irish 
 
 writers pretend that seven hundi-ed of the English 
 were slain. 
 
A.D. 
 
 1595.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [o'donnell in connaught. 
 
 dering expedition to Donegal, he was trea- 
 cherously murdered in Sligo castle by one 
 of the Burkes who served under him. 
 Ulick Burke, the perpetrator ol this deed, 
 having seized upon the castle, sent a mes- 
 senger in all haste to O'Donnell, who was 
 then in Tyrone, but who lost no time in 
 repairing to Sligo, where he took formal 
 possession of the fortress which in former 
 days had been so often the object of con- 
 tention between the chieftains of Tirconnell 
 and those of Connaught. Tliis was in the 
 month of June, 1695. The arrival of 
 O'Donnell at Sligo castle became in an in- 
 stant the signal for a general insurrection 
 in lower Connaught. The chiefs of the 
 Burkes, the Mac Donnells, tlie O'Connors, 
 the O'Rourkes, the Mac Dermotts, the Mac 
 Donoghs, and others who had suffered 
 from the severity of sir Richard Bingham's 
 government, crowded round Red Hugh, and 
 offered him their alliance, and within a 
 month most of the forts of the surrounding 
 country were in the hands of the Irish. In 
 August he returned to Donegal, to collect all 
 his own forces to secure his recent good for- 
 tune, and he took into his pay a large body of 
 Scots who had just landed in Lough Foyle. 
 
 With this reinforcement, O'Donnell 
 marched into Connaught, leading a numer- 
 ous army along the borders of Sligo into 
 Mayo, where he captured the fortress of 
 Castlemore in Costello, and then plundered 
 and burnt the country as far as the barony 
 of Clare in Gahvay. Sir Richard Bing- 
 ham, when he was informed of these ravages, 
 assembled the English forces under his com- 
 mand, and proceeded to the borders of the 
 Curlew mountains to intercept O'Donnell 
 in his return. That chieftain, however, 
 took a different route, and made his way 
 with his plunder to the neighbourhood of 
 Sligo, where Bingham arrived before him, 
 and had already commenced the siege of 
 Sligo castle, when O'Donnell's advanced 
 parties came in view of the town. But all 
 Bingham's attempts against the castle failed, 
 and, apparently for want of stores and pro- 
 visions, he found it necessary to retrace his 
 steps across the Curlew mountains into Ros- 
 connnon. Red Hugh, however, knew too 
 well the strength of the English in sieges 
 and in the open field, and, having secured 
 his plunder, and dismissed his Scottish 
 auxiliaries who were anxious to carry home 
 their share of the spoils, he demolished 
 Sligo castle for fear the English should 
 again obtain possession of it. 
 
 VOL. I. 3 u 
 
 Theobald Burke, who was popularly known 
 as Theobald mac Walter Ciotach (or, accord- 
 ing to the Englisli pronunciation of the term, 
 Kytagh), was the chief of the insurgent 
 Burkes of the nortli, and, supported by the 
 alliance of O'Donnell, he had now assumed 
 the title of Mac William. During O'Don- 
 nell's absence, this chieftain attacked and 
 captured the castle of Belleek in Mayo, and 
 defeated a body of English troops sent to its 
 relief. But this old Anglo-Irish sept was 
 soon thrown into confusion by the personal 
 rivalry of a number of claimants to the title 
 which Theobald had assumed, and they were 
 on the point of turning against one another 
 the arms which they had taken up against 
 their English rulers, when, in the month of 
 December, O'Donnell hastened into Con- 
 naught with his army to settle the dispute. 
 By his influence, his friend and adherent, 
 Theobald Burke, was confirmed in the chief- 
 tainship, and was solemnly inaugurated with 
 the title of the Mac William. Red Hugh 
 kept his Christmas in Connaught, and his 
 presence was the signal for a general rising 
 of the Irish, whose chiefs attended his court 
 as that of their sovereign prince. In a short 
 time a number of castles throughout the pro- 
 vince were surprised, and in general demo- 
 lished, for the insurgents continued to carry 
 on a war of plunder and surprise. The dif- 
 ferent septs were irritated by the severity of 
 Bingham, who held the hostages of Con- 
 naught in the castle of Galway. When the 
 first rising of the Burkes and other septs of 
 the north took place in the previous autumn, 
 these hostages, aware of what was going on, 
 made an attempt to escape, but they were 
 intercepted by the soldiers of the garrison, 
 some of them slain, and the rest conducted 
 back to the prison. Sir Richard Bingham 
 immediately ordered them all to be hanged. 
 The inactivity of sir John Norris at Newry 
 was ascribed partly to his desire to persuade 
 the earl of Tyrone to submit to the queen's 
 pardon, and partly to difference of opinion 
 on the subject of the war between Norris and 
 the lord deputy, who, better acquainted with 
 Tyrone's crafty disposition, and awai'C that 
 his only reason for negotiating was to gain 
 time, in expectation of receiving powerfid 
 assistance from Spain, urged that the war 
 should be pushed forwards witli vigour, and 
 that no further attention should be given to 
 the professions or promises of the rebel. 
 Norris, on the contrary, accused sir William 
 Russell of dragging the queen unnecessarily 
 into a harassing war by his harsh and un- 
 
 521 
 
NEW NEGOTIATIONS.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. \rm. 
 
 conciliatory bearing towards men wlio had 
 grievances to complain of, and who miglit 
 perhaps be pacified by their redress. In 
 fact, it was now too late to apply the lenient 
 remedy, which might have been effectual two 
 or three years before; but the queen and her 
 ministers, who dreaded the expense of this 
 Irish war, favoured the policy advocated at 
 this moment by Norris, and they gave encou- 
 ragement to him, while they treated the 
 deputy with disfavour, which naturally 
 widened the breach between them. This 
 must necessarily have rendered Russell's 
 position extremely disagreeable. A letter 
 from Elizabeth's aged minister and favourite 
 adviser, lord Burghley, to his son, sir Robert 
 Cecil, dated the 30th of March, 1596, will 
 show how sir William Russell was looked 
 upon at this time in the court of thai queen. 
 "I understand," says Burghley, "that my 
 lorddejjuty hath given connnandment by his 
 Frenchman, that no letters shall be suffered 
 to pass out of Ireland to me, but bj' his lord- 
 ship's own warrant. What his lordship 
 meaneth hereby I know not, though 1 can 
 probably guess, for herein you are also in- 
 cluded. I wish my lord had such skill or 
 good luck in his government as there needed 
 no advertisement or advise but from himself. 
 I hear there conieth over with his lordship's 
 passport many soldiers out of Ireland, more 
 able than such as now are ready to go over ; 
 for so Proby writeth to me, how much it is 
 misliked, to send from hence new men, where 
 sufficient men come from thence. But I will 
 not deal herein, for my lord deputy is pri- 
 vately advertised that all his faults are sought 
 out by me. I wish they did not deserve to 
 be sought out." 
 
 At this time a new experiment was being 
 made in negotiating, at the request, it ap- 
 pears, of Tyrone himself, who with his asso- 
 ciates are said to have sent letters of humble 
 submission to the queen. Early in the year 
 1596, the queen sent a new commission to 
 sir John Norris and sir Geoffrey Fenton, 
 giving them authority to promise pardon of 
 life and restoration of lands and goods to the 
 insurgent chieftains, with a favourable hear- 
 ing and consideration of all their complaints, 
 upon their humble submission to her royal 
 mercy. At Dundalk, on the 20th of April, 
 the earl of Tyrone made an abject submis- 
 sion on his knees, signing with his hand a 
 submission in writing, vowing "faith in the 
 presence of Almighty God who seeth into 
 the secrets of all men's hearts, and most 
 humbly craving her majesty's mercy and 
 522 
 
 pardon on the knees of his heart." He 
 then formally accepted the queen's judgment 
 upon his various petitions. His first, for 
 liberty of religion, was not granted. In 
 answer to his demand of freedom from gar- 
 risons and sheriffs, he was told that the 
 queen of England would not be prescribed 
 how to govern. Having interceded for the 
 pardon of his confederate O'Reilly, he was 
 told that the queen misliked his attempt to 
 capitulate for others, but hope was given 
 that O'Reilly would be pardoned on his own 
 submission. One or two other demands were 
 answered negatively or conditionally. He 
 himself promised to desist from aiding the 
 insurgents or from intermeddling with the 
 neighbouring lords; to make his country a 
 shire, and admit a sheriff; to renounce the 
 title of O'Neill, which he had formally 
 assumed on the death of Turlough Lynogh 
 in the summer preceding; to confess all his 
 intelligences with foreign princes and all his 
 past actions which might concern the good 
 of the state ; to rebuild the fort and bridge 
 of the Blackwater, and furnish the garrison 
 at all times when required, on condition of 
 immediate payment; to deliver hostages; to 
 dismiss all his forces; and to pay such rea- 
 sonable fine to the queen's use as her 
 majesty should think meet. O'Donnell, 
 Maguire, O'Rourke, O'Reilly, and other 
 chieftains, made similar submissions, and a 
 proclamation was made that no further hos- 
 tilities should be committed against them. 
 
 Scarcely had this treaty been concluded, 
 when three Spanish pinnaces arrived on the 
 northern coast, bringing a few men and some 
 ammunition and stores, with letters from 
 king Philip to the Irish chieftains, promising 
 them speedy succours, and urging them to 
 persevere in their meritorious exertions in 
 the catholic cause. The stores were ad- 
 dressed to O'Donnell, who immediately took 
 possession of them ; and that chieftain and 
 some of the lesser Irish lords scarcely con- 
 descended to hide their intention of evading 
 the late articles of submission. Some of 
 them signed a paper inviting the king of 
 Spain to invade the island, and promising to 
 join their arms with his in any enterprise 
 against the English government. Tyrone is 
 understood to have announced verbally that 
 he acceded to this league, and he sent secret 
 intelligence to Feage mac Hugh, the chief 
 of the insurgents in Leinster, as well as to 
 the disaffected in Munster, that the Spaniards 
 were preparing to assist them powerfully, 
 and urging them to take arms and unite with 
 
A.D. \59G.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [negotiations resumed. 
 
 their brethren of the north in supporting the 
 holy Cathohc faith; yet he carried his dis- 
 simulation so far, as to send the letter he had 
 received from king Philip to the lord deputy, 
 with a protestation of the sincerity of his 
 late submission. 
 
 We have a proof of the kind of effect 
 which these conciliatory attempts of the 
 English government produced on the Irish 
 chieftains, in the vain-glorious account of 
 these transactions given by the native annal- 
 ists. They assure us that when the lord 
 justice (deputy) and the council of Ireland 
 perceived the strength and power of the 
 Irish against them, and that all those whom 
 they had brought under subjection to them- 
 selves before that time were joining in alli- 
 ance with the insurgent Irish in opposing 
 them, the resolution they came to was " to 
 send ambassadors" to O'Neill and O'Donnell, 
 to "sue for peace and truce from them." The 
 commissioners, they say, proceeded to Dun- 
 dalk, and sent messengers thence to O'Neill, 
 informing him of their object, which he 
 communicated to O'Donnell, and the two 
 chiefs went in company, with a large body 
 of cavalry, to Foghard, near Dundalk. 
 There the commissioners, having "come to 
 them, related to the chiefs the object which 
 had brought them, namely, that it was to 
 treat for peace they were sent; and they 
 related the terms which the lord justice pro- 
 posed, which were the confirmation of the 
 province of Ulster to them, except the tract 
 of country from Dundalk to the Boyne, 
 which was inhabited by the English for a 
 long period before that time; and along mth 
 that they promised, that the English should 
 not encroach upon them beyond that boun- 
 dary, except the English who were in Car- 
 rickfergus, in Carlingford, and in Newry, 
 who were always permitted to carry on com- 
 merce and traffic; that no officers or collec- 
 tors of rents or tributes should be sent to 
 them, but they to transmit to Dublin the 
 rent which had been formerly imposed on 
 their ancestors; that no hostages or sureties 
 would be demanded from them for that pur- 
 pose, and that the same terms should be 
 extended to the Irish who were in alliance 
 witli O'Donnell in the province ofConnaught. 
 O'Neill and O'Donnell, and all the chiefs of 
 the province who were along with them, then 
 held a council concerning those terms v/hich 
 were conveyed to them ; and they, and the 
 chiefs in general, having considered for a 
 long time on all the treachery which had 
 been committed by the English since their 
 
 arrival in Ireland, by their false promises to 
 them, which they had never fulfilled towards 
 them; the numbers oftheir high-born princes, 
 nobles, and chiefs, who, although they had 
 been guilty of no actual crimes, came to an 
 untimely death, merely for the purpose of 
 robbing them of their patrimonies, they 
 greatly dreaded that what was then promised 
 would not be fulfilled towards them, and 
 they finally resolved on rejecting the peace."* 
 Such is the statement, which bears untruth 
 on its face, of an Irish chronicler who was 
 alive at the time these events occurred. 
 
 During this deceitful pacification of 
 Ulster, the earl of Tyrone continued to 
 train his men to arms, and multitudes of the 
 Irish of other septs crowded to him to be 
 disciplined for the greater struggle which it 
 required not much penetration to see was 
 inevitable. Sir John Norris seized upon 
 the interval to march into Connaught, to 
 grapple with the insurrection in that pro- 
 vince, which had already become too strong 
 for sir Richard Bingham. Having been 
 joined at Athlone by the earls of Clanric- 
 kard and Thomond, with all their forces, 
 Norris marched with a formidable army 
 through Roscommon into Mayo, against 
 O'Donnell's protegee the new Mac William, 
 who still continued in arms. O'Donnell 
 came to the assistance of the Burkes, and 
 being joined also by O'Rourke, O'Connor 
 Roe, Mac Dermott, O'Kelly, and others of 
 the old chiefs of Connaught, the army of 
 the insurgents was superior to that of their 
 opponents, and the two parties lay for some 
 time encamped in face of each other on the 
 opposite banks of the river Robe in Mayo, 
 neither army venturing to attack the other. 
 In this position, to use the words of the 
 Irisii annalist, " there was a correspondence 
 carried on between them from both sides, 
 as if through peace and amity, though such 
 in truth was not the case, but to inspect and 
 reconnoitre, and to deceive each other if 
 they possibly could." At length the Eng- 
 lish army fell short of provisions, and then 
 made a retrograde movement into Galway. 
 
 When the lord general sent pressing mes- 
 sages to the deputy for provisions and rein- 
 forcements, the latter, secretly rejoicing at 
 Norris's embarrassments, replied merely that 
 the country might supply the wants of his 
 
 * " Annals of the Fonr Masters," nnder the year 
 1596. These Annals, it may be observed, arc always 
 partial, and more or less exafjf^erated. where the 
 hononr of the O'Donnells and their allies arc con- 
 cerned. 
 
 523 
 
BINGHAM ACCUSED.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [-' 
 
 1596. 
 
 army, and that he required all his men 
 nearer home ; for he was then engatred in 
 an expedition against Feige mac Hugh and 
 the mountaineers of Wicklow. Subse- 
 quently, however, Russell marched to 
 Norris's assistance, and then their united 
 force soon quelled the insurrection in Con- 
 naught. One stronghold after another sur- 
 rendered to their arms, and the rebels 
 submitted, or fled to their secret haunts; 
 those who adopted the former course, 
 pleaded in their own defence that they had 
 been forced into rebellion by the intolerable 
 tyranny of sir Richard Bingliam. Impa- 
 tient at the ready ear with which these 
 complaints were listened to in England, 
 Bingliam left Ireland without permission, 
 and presented l)iniself at court. Instead of 
 hearing Ins defence, the queen ordered him 
 to be committed to prison, and appointed, 
 as his successor in the government of Con- 
 naught, sir Conyers Clifford, a gentleman 
 who appears to have enjoyed a great repu- 
 tation in Ireland, for the Irish annalists 
 assure us tliat " there did not come of the 
 Englisli into Ireland in the latter times a 
 better man." On Clifford's arrival at Gal- 
 way, two of the more distinguished of the 
 insurgents, O'Connor Roe and Mac Der- 
 niott, deserted the Irish confederacy, and 
 presented themselves before him, to confirm 
 their allegiance to the crown. 
 
 Bingham, who was now in disgrace, was 
 sent over to Ireland in the custody of sir 
 Conyers Clifford, and commissioners were 
 ajjpointed to hear his cause in Connaught, 
 where his accusers had every opportunity 
 of proving the charges which had been so 
 loudly urged against him. Yet they appear 
 to have been so frivolous or unfounded, that 
 he was entirely acquitted, and subsequently 
 restored to the queen's favour. 
 
 As Connaught was tlius appeased, the 
 position of afliiirs in Ulster became again 
 threatening. The earl of Tyrone had shown 
 no disposition to fulfil his treaty. On the 
 contrary, he began to talk loudly of his 
 wrongs, and he insolently added to the list 
 the recent hostilities against " his friend," 
 Feage mac Hugh and his adherents in 
 Leinster, who were actually in arms 
 against the crown. Under pretext of retal- 
 iation for this injury, Tyrone suddenly 
 marched to Armagh, cut off that fortress 
 from communication with the other gar- 
 risons, and succeeded in forcing it to sur- 
 render before sir John Norris could arrive 
 to its relief. The capture of Armagh is said 
 
 to have been the result of a stratagem. A 
 convoy of provisions had been sent thither 
 from Dundalk when Tyrone was approach- 
 ing against it, and this was surprised by 
 night by the Irish chieftain, and its escort 
 made prisoners. Tyrone ordered the Eng- 
 lish soldiers to be stripped, and clothed an 
 equal number of his own men in their uni- 
 forms, whom he posted in the ruins of a 
 monastery on the eastern side of the city of 
 Armagh, under the command of Con O'Neill. 
 At break of day, the earl suddenly appeared 
 with a larger body of his men, and attacked 
 Con's party in the ruin. The English in 
 Armagh imagined that it w'as their convoy 
 from Dundalk attacked by the Irish, and 
 one half of the garrison was immediately 
 sent out to their assistance. Hitherto, the 
 sham combatants had only loaded their 
 guns with powder ; but when the soldiers of 
 the garrison reached the spot, they were 
 astonished at being attacked by both parties, 
 and at the same moment the rest of the 
 Irish forces, which had been concealed in 
 the ruin, came upon them behind. Thus 
 surrounded, the English were all slaughtered; 
 upon which Armagh was surrendered, on 
 condition that the remainder of its garrison, 
 under its commander, Francis Staffoi-d, 
 should be allowed to retire without inter- 
 ruption to Dundalk. 
 
 When Norris arrived on the borders of 
 Ulster, instead of exacting a severe ven- 
 geance for this unprovoked insult, recourse 
 was had again to the weak and infatuated 
 policy of negotiating. A commission had 
 Just arrived from England for treating once 
 again with the earl of Tyrone ; and as that 
 chieftain appears to have entered into these 
 petty hostilities for the mere sake of keeping 
 the insurrection alive, and in the confidence 
 that as usual he should be able to find an 
 excuse to plead before the English govern- 
 ment, he gladly embraced the opportunity 
 of pursuing his old system of dissembling. 
 He was probably disappointed in the pros- 
 pect of immediate succour from Spain, and 
 thought that his plans of insurrection were 
 not sufficiently matured to allow him to ven- 
 ture on raising the mask. He, therefore, 
 entered into treaty with the commissioners, 
 and, still refusing to present himself within 
 the walls of a town, he met them in the 
 open fields near Dundalk, where, he being 
 on one side of a brook and they on the other, 
 he took off his hat, and holding it with great 
 show of reverence in his hand, he declared j 
 that he was come there not only to show his. 
 
A.D. 1597.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [o'cONNOR SLIGO. 
 
 duty to them as her majesty's commissioners, 
 but his earnest desire to become and con- 
 tinue a dutiful subject. After some con- 
 versation, in which he dwelt on the wrongs 
 he pretended to have received, and they on 
 his misdeeds, he confessed the latter with 
 expressions of great remorse, and protested 
 before God and heaven tliat " there was no 
 prince nor creature whom he honoured as 
 he did her majesty, nor any nation of people 
 that he loved or trusted more than the 
 English." And he further protested that, 
 if the queen would again please to accept 
 of him as a subject, and take such course 
 with liim as he might be so continued, he 
 doubted not but to redeem all his faults 
 past with some notable services. After 
 making a feigned confession of all he knew 
 of the negotiations with the king of Spain, 
 in wliich he laid most of those transactions 
 to the charge of O'Donnell, the earl passed 
 over the brook to the commissioners, and 
 there with great reverence saluted them, 
 and with hat in hand, lifting up his eyes to 
 heaven, desired God to take vengeance on 
 him, if (her majesty vouchsafing to make 
 him a subject, and to cause the articles of 
 Dundalk to be kept to him) he would not 
 continue faithful, and desired never to see 
 Christ in the face, if he meant not as he 
 spoke. 
 
 At the very moment that Tyrone was 
 making these deceitful professions, his friend 
 and ally O'Donnell was engaged in the 
 vnldest acts of hostility against the English. 
 When sir Conyers Clifford was appointed to 
 the lord presidency of Connaught, an Irish 
 chieftain of that province, O'Connor Sligo, 
 tlie head of the O'Connors of northern Con- 
 nauglit, who had been in England, was sent 
 back in the hope that he would form a 
 counterpoise to the Burkes and the O'Don- 
 nells, and on his arrival he was joined by 
 the O'Donoghs and the O'Harts and others, 
 who deserted the banner of tlie insurgents 
 to join that of their old and legitimate supe- 
 rior. The territory of these chiefs was 
 immediately invaded and plundered merci- 
 lessly by O'Donnell's troops. In the begin- 
 ning of the year (1597) Red Hugh prepared 
 for more extensive havoc. At the commence- 
 ment of January he assembled a large army, 
 amounting to three thousand foot and two 
 hundred liorse, in Breffny, and with the 
 Mac William and other new chiefs of Con- 
 naught, marclied thence through the plains 
 of Roscommon into the very heart of Clan- 
 rickard, a great part of which extensive 
 
 district was soon laid waste by their fearful 
 ravages. On the 15th of January, they 
 attacked and gained possession of the town 
 of Athenry, which had entirely recovered 
 from the damages of former wars, and was 
 again become a flourishing town. The in- 
 surgents remained that night in the town, 
 all the inhabitants of which they turned 
 out, after stripping them stark naked, with- 
 out leaving them a rag to cover themselves 
 with. Next day they carried out of the 
 town every article of any value that could 
 be removed, and tlien committed the town 
 to the flames. O'Donnell then attacked 
 Galway, and burnt some houses in the sub- 
 urbs, but ho was eventuall_y repulsed by the 
 citizens. The Mac Dermotts and several 
 other Irish septs who had recently made 
 their peace with the English government, 
 encouraged by their great force and suc- 
 cess, deserted the English standard to join 
 these invaders. The O'Reillys rose in a 
 simultaneous rebellion, and burnt the town 
 of Kells. O'Connor Sligo remained faith- 
 ful to his allegiance, and placing himself at 
 the head of a considerable body of English 
 and Irish, he made an attempt to intercept 
 the plunderers as they were returning em- 
 barrassed with their spoils to the north. 
 O'Donnell, however, reached his home with- 
 out any serious interruption, having left his 
 allies in Connaught to continue the war 
 against the friends of O'Connor. 
 
 The latter found an efficient ally in one 
 of the Burkes in rivalry with O'Donnell's 
 Mac William, a chief of considerable in- 
 fluence known popularly by the name of 
 Theobald of the ships, the son of the cele- 
 brated Grace O'MalJey. This chief, wlio 
 had remained faithful to the English amid 
 the general turbulence of his sept, gathered 
 his friends and followers and joined O'Con- 
 nor Sligo and sir Conyers Clitford, who had 
 now taken possession of his presidency, 
 having arrived with fresh English troops ; 
 under his command they all entered the 
 country of the Mac William, deposed Theo- 
 bald mac Walter Ciotach, and retaliated for 
 the ravages committed in Clanrickard by 
 plundering his adherents. At the com- 
 mencement of summer, during the absence 
 of the English army, O'Donnell marched 
 again into Mayo and restored the Mac 
 William, leaving him a large body of his 
 own troops, under liis brother Rory O'Don- 
 nell, the tanist of Tirconnell, to support 
 him. O'Connor and Theobald of the ships 
 joined again to march against the Mac 
 
 5;i5 
 
RUSSELL RECALLED.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1597. 
 
 William; while Clifford, with the earl of 
 Clanrickard and Thoniond, the baron of 
 Inchiquin, and other cliiefs, marched north- 
 ward by the Slieve Gauts, or Ox Moun- 
 tain, to Colloony on the main road into 
 Tirconnell, hoping to intercept O'Donnell's 
 troops in their retreat. The latter, with the 
 Mac William, gathered tog-ether their people 
 and property, and marcliing over the Ox 
 Mountain and proceeding by a different 
 route to that whicli their enemies expected 
 they would have taken, reached Tirconnell 
 with the loss only of a part of their booty. 
 
 The earl of Tyrone remained during tliis 
 time at peace, and when, early in March, 
 the commissioners announced to him that 
 they had received full power from England 
 to conclude the treaty, he agreed witli ex- 
 pressions of joy to meet them at Dundalk 
 on the second of April for that purpose. 
 Within two or three days after, on the 15th 
 of March, he began to adopt his old subter- 
 fuges, pretending that his pledges were not 
 changed according to covenant, and that it 
 was too early to bring together his confed- 
 erates. The commissioners now adopted a 
 higher tone, showing the futility of his 
 
 excuses, and protesting that it was his last 
 chance of pardon, as the queen would no 
 longer be abused by his fair promises and 
 delays. At the same time they received 
 letters from the secretary of state, inform- 
 ing them of her majesty's displeasure that 
 the execution of the treaty was so long de- I 
 layed, and ordering them to hold the meet- 
 ing in a town as a submission of rebels, [ 
 not in a field as a parley ; declaring the ' 
 queen's resolution, that if the treaty were 
 not concluded at once, she would hear no 
 more of it, but use her utmost exertions to 
 destroy her enemies ; and concluding with 
 excuses for not addressing a communication 
 on the subject to the lord deputy. 
 
 The latter seemed now to have lost en- 
 tirely the confidence of the court. The 
 young earl of Essex, who was now the 
 favourite, is said to have been his secret 
 enemy, and to have done everything in his 
 power to discredit him with the queen. 
 Wearied with the annoyances to which he 
 was every day exposed, sir William Russell 
 at length obtained his recal, and was suc- 
 ceeded in the month of May, 1597, by lord 
 Burifh. 
 
 GOVERNMKNT OF LORD BURGH ; 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HIS DEATH; INCREASING TROUBLES IN CONNAUGHT AND ULSTER; 
 BATTLE OF THE BLACKWATER. 
 
 CRD BuRGii, or Borougli, 
 a Lincolnshire baron, 
 and a commander who 
 had distinguished him- 
 self in the continental 
 wars, was said to have 
 been appointed through 
 the interest of the earl 
 of Essex, as a mortification to sir John 
 Norris, with whom he had had a quarrel 
 in England, and to wliom he was therefore 
 likely to be especially disagreeable. A vio- 
 lent jealousy liad arisen between Essex and 
 Norris, from the circumstance that the latter 
 had received a command in Brittany to which 
 the earl aspired. It was now made a subject 
 of complaint that Norris had done no exploit 
 
 the arrival of the deputy, at the very moment 
 when there seemed to be promise of occupa- 
 tion for his talents, he was deprived of his 
 command in the north, and sent to administer 
 the presidency of Munster, which he had for 
 some time nominally held. He there pined 
 away under the feeling of unmerited neglect 
 which had been shown to him, and in an 
 office which was not suited to his taste and 
 talents, and he soon afterwards died, as it 
 was understood, of chagrin. 
 
 The new deputy found a large portion of the 
 island in open rebellion. Only a few strong 
 places remained in the possession of the Eng- 
 lish in Ulster; nearly all Connaught was in 
 arms; and the sons of Feage mac Hugh, who 
 had been assassinated by one of his kinsmen, 
 
 worthy of his military reputation in this war I hired (it was said) by the deputy in the pre- 
 against the rebels in Ulster; and, soon after I ceding autumn, continued to head the insur- 
 526 
 
A.D. 
 
 1597.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IllELAND. 
 
 [lord burgh. 
 
 gents in Leinster; while, to complicate the 
 difficulties of the govei-nment, the nephews 
 of the earl of Ormond rose in rebellion in 
 Munster. Lord Burgh came with the pro- 
 fessed intention of putting an end to the 
 system of negotiations, and reducing the 
 insurgents by force of arms. 
 
 The earl of Tyrone, who had been feign- 
 ing different excuses for delaying from time 
 to time the conclusion of the treaty of Dun- 
 dalk, and who, when he heard that sir Wil- 
 liam Russell was to be recalled, pretended 
 unwillingness to treat further with a governor 
 who was sfoing out of office, wrote to lord 
 Burgh immediately on his arrival, demand- 
 ing a farther truce, which was granted for a 
 month, but the lord deputy refused to listen 
 to any further negotiations. At the end of 
 the month, the deputy, having assembled his 
 army at Drogheda on the 20th of July, 
 marched boldly into Tyrone, and having 
 forced his way through the passes in the 
 neighbourhood of Armagh, attacked and 
 captured the fort of Blackwater, which had 
 been in the possession of the insurgents ever 
 since the commencement of Tyrone's rebel- 
 lion. The English then crossed the river, 
 and erected a new fort on the other bank of 
 the Blackwater. While thus occupied, the 
 earl of Tyrone, who with his army occupied 
 the neighbouring forest, showed himself with 
 the design of interrupting the works, and 
 was only driven back to the woods after a 
 very obstinate skirmish, in which the lord 
 deputy's brother-in-law, sir Francis Vaughan, 
 
 : with some other English officers, and two 
 foster-brothers of the earl of Kildare, were 
 slain. The earl of Kildare, with true Irish 
 feelings, took the death of his foster-brothers 
 
 I so much to heart, that he left the army 
 broken-spirited, and died of a sudden sick- 
 ness almost immediately after reaching 
 Drogheda. The deputy remained with the 
 army at the Blackwater, until he had finished 
 the new fort, and then, leaving a garrison in 
 it, he returned to Dublin. The Irish leaders 
 magnified the skirmish near that river into a 
 magnificent victory, and, under the title of 
 the battle of Druimfliuch, it was related 
 
 I exultingly as an encouragement to the insur- 
 gents in other parts of the island. 
 
 When the deputy was preparing to march 
 into Ulster, he sent directions to sir Conyers 
 Clifford to make a simultaneous attack upon 
 O'Donnell, in order to hinder that chieftain 
 from joining his forces with those of the 
 earl of Tyrone. The latter had been no less 
 active in endeavouring to create embarrass- 
 
 ments to his enemies, by stirring up revolts 
 in other parts of the island. Tyrrell, one of 
 the degenerate English, who now and subse- 
 quently distinguished himself by his daring 
 exploits against the government, was sent 
 into Leinster with a body of five hundred 
 men, to assist the disaffected septs of that 
 province in making a formidable diversion in 
 his favour; and Tyrone's agents were dis- 
 patched to every part of Connaught to urge 
 them to rise and obstruct the progress of sir 
 Conyers Middleton in his march to the north. 
 
 Clifford had been joined by the earls of 
 Clanrickard and Thomond, the baron of 
 Inchiquin, and other chiefs, and their com- 
 bined forces assembled at Boyle on the 24th 
 of July. They marched thence to Sligo, 
 and then proceeded to the river Erne, the 
 fords of which were occupied by the enemy 
 in strong bodies. In forcing a passage across 
 this river, the baron of Inchiquin was slain 
 by a musket shot. They now continued 
 their march, and on the same day, the 31st 
 of July, they reached Ballyshannon, whither 
 their ordnance and stoi'es were brought in 
 ships. The castle of Ballyshannon was de- 
 fended by a strong garrison, under an expe- 
 rienced Scottish commander, and, in spite 
 of the formidable battery to which it was 
 exposed, promised to stand a long siege. 
 While occupied with it, towards the middle 
 of August, Clifford found himself threatened 
 by O'Donnell and an army of no less than 
 two thousand men; and his small force, not 
 exceeding six or seven hundred men, and on 
 foot, was in danger of being surrounded by 
 their enemies. He was thus compelled to make 
 a precipitate retreat, which he executed with 
 so much skill and courage, that, although 
 constantly harassed by O'Donnell's forces in 
 a march of thirty miles, he performed it with 
 little loss. 
 
 A more serious disaster had fallen upon 
 the English arms in another quarter. As 
 Tyrrell advanced into Meath with the men 
 sent by Tyrone to the assistance of the 
 insurgents of Leinster, he was joined by 
 young O'Connor Faly, with some of the dis- 
 affected Irish of the old district of Offaly. 
 A body of a thousand men was hastily col- 
 lected in the English pale, and marched, 
 under command of young Barnwall, son of | 
 lord Trimbleston, to oppose these insurgents; ! 
 but they were drawn into an ambush in a ! 
 difficult pass, since known as Tyrrell's Pass, j 
 where the disadvantages of the position, and 
 the experienced valour of their Irish assail- 
 ants, overbalanced the inequality of numbers. 
 
 527 
 
BEATH OF LORD BURGH.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Fa.d. 1597. I 
 
 The government troops were nearly all cut 
 to pieces, and their young leader was sent a 
 prisoner to the earl of Tyrone. 
 
 This disaster, added to the defeat of the 
 Connaught expedition into Tirconnell, and 
 the return of the lord deputy from the 
 Blackwater, discouraged tlie English, and 
 raised everywhere tlie spirits of the insur- 
 gents. The earl of Tyrone had assembled 
 his forces on the Blackwater, and used his 
 utmost efforts to obtain possession of lord 
 Burgh's new fort. The latter, pressed with 
 solicitations from the garrison, reassembled 
 his army, and marched to Armagh, from 
 whence he proceeded with victuals and stores 
 to the Blackwater, harassed on the way by 
 the Irish, who, however, after an ineffectual 
 attcmj)t to stop liis progress, were obliged to 
 withdraw into their woods. After having 
 relieved the fort of the Blackwater, the 
 deputy declared his intention of continuing 
 his march into the very heart of Tyrone, and 
 visiting the carl's chief fortress at Dungan- 
 non, a design condenmed by some of his 
 officers as an act of great temerity, in which 
 he might have compromised the safety of his 
 army. But it was frustrated by a sudden 
 malady with which the lord deputy was 
 attacked so severely that it was found neces- 
 sary to carry him back in a horse litter to 
 Armagh, harassed all the way by the attacks 
 of the enemy, and his disease gained so fast 
 upon him, that he died in the course of his 
 further progress from Armagh to Newry. 
 The Irish boasted, apparently without any 
 foundation in truth, that lord Burgh died of 
 the wounds which he had received in skir- 
 mishing with them ; and they hailed the 
 intelligence of his death with feelings of 
 triumph and joy, for their leaders are said to 
 have dreaded the military talents which this 
 deputy was believed to possess. His loss was 
 an equal discouragement to the English, who 
 had formed high expectations of the services 
 which he was to perform against the rebels. 
 The council at Dublin met and chose for his 
 temporary successor, with the usual title of 
 lord justice, sir Thomas Norris, who had 
 succeeded his brother sir John in the presi- 
 dency of Munster. Norris repaired imme- 
 diately to Dublin, but he appears to have 
 accepted the government with reluctance, 
 and he is said to have desjjatched a messenger 
 to court to request that he might not be 
 continued in it. He was already suffering 
 from a severe malady ; and after exercising 
 his office about a month, he died before 
 giving up the reins into the hands of a suc- 
 528 
 
 cessor. The civil government of Ireland was 
 now committed to the lord chancellor (arch- 
 bishop Loftus) and the chief justice (sir Ro- 
 bert Gardiner), while the military command 
 was placed in the hands of the earl of Ormond, 
 with the title of lord lieutenant of the army. 
 The sudden change in the government 
 added to the confusion which at this mo- 
 ment reigned in almost every part of 
 Ireland. Shortly after the retreat of sir 
 Conyers Clifford, O'Donnell marched into 
 Connaught, and entering Roscommon by 
 surprise, ravaged the country, and escaped 
 without interruption. Maguire, in conjunc- 
 tion with one of the O'Neills, invaded Meath, 
 and plundered and burnt the town of Mul- 
 lingar. The new Mac William and other 
 insurgents in Connaught remained in arms, 
 and kept that province in a continual state 
 of excitement. Even the death of the baron 
 of Inchiquin was a cause of turbulence, for 
 a dispute between the O'Briens and Burkes 
 for the succession to a part of his property 
 led to a pitched battle between the two 
 parties, in which many persons were slain. 
 The rebels in Leinster, encouraged by 
 Tyrrell's victory and under his guidance, 
 kept the government in continual alarm 
 during the latter part of the year. To in- 
 crease the mortifications of the English, the 
 garrison of Carrickfergus, under its gover- 
 nor, sir John Chichester, experienced a 
 severe check from the Scots of Clannaboy. 
 James mac Donnell, the son of Sarleboy, 
 having placed a large body of his followers 
 in ambush in a cave about four miles from 
 Carrickfergus, marched with another portion 
 of his army to make a pretended attack 
 upon the town. Sir John Chichester, with 
 part of the garrison, sallied forth to fight 
 their assailants, who, after making a brief 
 show of resistance, turned their backs and 
 fled. Chichester, deceived by this feint, 
 pursued eagerly until he had passed the 
 cave where the other Scots lay concealed, 
 when these latter rushed forth, and the 
 English were surrounded and a great part 
 of them slain. Sir John Chichester was 
 captured by some of Mac Donnell's men, 
 and he was immediately taken to a stone at 
 the head of the Glynn in which this battle 
 was fought, and beheaded.* 
 
 * Some years afterwards, when Mac Donnell went 
 to view the monuments of the Chichcsters in the 
 church of Saint Nicholas at Carrickfergus, seeing the 
 statue of his old enemy, sir John, he is said to have 
 inquired, " How the de'il he came to get his head 
 again, for he was sure he had once cut it off ?" 
 
A.D. 1.597.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [tyro 
 
 NE NEGOTIATES. 
 
 In the midst of these disorders, the earl 
 of Tyrone had recourse to his okl practices. 
 The appointment of the new lords justices, 
 and of the earl of Ormond to the military 
 command, took place on the thirteenth of 
 October, and it was no sooner known to 
 Tyrone, than he despatched a messenger to 
 the new commander, with protestations of 
 his loyalty and complaints of the wrongs 
 which had driven him into rebellion, appeal- 
 ing to his feelings as a fellow-countryman to 
 procure him the means of obtaining justice 
 and pardon and returning to his obedience. 
 Ormond communicated this new overture to 
 the queen, and was authorised to confer 
 with the insurgent chieftain at Dundalk, 
 where they met on the twenty-second of 
 December, and Tyrone made his most hum- 
 ble submission in writing, acknowledging 
 the queen's great mercy in pardoning him 
 and his associates on their former submis- 
 sions, and (repeating his favourite phrase) 
 " upon the knees of his heart" professing 
 penitence for his disloyalty. It was agreed 
 that there should be a cessation of arms for 
 eight weeks, in order to give the insurgent 
 chiefs the opportunity of making a full 
 statement of their grievances, and trans- 
 mitting it to the queen. The earl of Tyrone 
 engaged to recal his forces from Leinster ; 
 to hold no correspondence with Spain 
 during the cessation, and to communicate 
 to the English government any communica- 
 tion he might receive from thence ; not to 
 commit or countenance any outrage, or aid 
 those who should presume to violate the 
 truce ; to give safe conduct to her majesty's 
 officers ; and to victual the fort of the 
 Blackwater. As a proof of his sincerity, 
 he offered as a voluntary gift a supply of 
 forty beeves for the garrison of this for- 
 tress. The earl of Ormond, on behalf of 
 the English government, promised that the 
 earl's followers and dependents should have 
 the same licence to purchase provisions in 
 the pale which was to be allowed to the 
 queen's subjects in Ulster; that none of 
 Tyrone's associates who agreed to the truce 
 should be arrested without his consent ; 
 and that a strict peace should be kept 
 towards him and his. 
 
 In February, the hopes of the govern- 
 ment that Tyrone's professions were at last 
 sincere, were strengthened by the humble 
 submission of O'Rourke and some other of 
 the disaffected chieftains of Connaught to 
 sir Conyers Clifford. Another conference 
 with the Ulster chief was held on the 
 
 VOL. I. 3 X 
 
 fifteenth of March, after the queen's deter- 
 mination on his complaints and promises 
 had been held, and he was then required to 
 renew his submission publicly and solemnly; 
 to separate himself from his confederates, 
 disperse his forces, and dismiss strangers ; 
 to renounce the title of the O'Neill, with 
 its pretended rights and jurisdictions; to 
 repair the damages he had formerly made 
 in the fort and bridge of the Blackwater, 
 and to furnish the garrison with provisions 
 at an equitable rate; to discover all his 
 transactions with Spain ; to admit a sheriff 
 into his country ; to pay a fine in satisfac- 
 tion of his offence ; to deliver up all traitors 
 who should take refuge in his territory ; to 
 surrender the sons of Shane O'Neill, whom 
 he kept prisoners, into the lands of the earl 
 of Ormond ; and to deliver up his eldest 
 son as an hostage for the performance of 
 these articles. 
 
 But Tyrone saw the facility with which 
 the English government listened to his pro- 
 mises, and, not without reason, attributing 
 it to weakness and irresolution, he assumed 
 a bolder tone in carrying on the negotia- 
 tions. He now canvassed the queen's 
 articles one by one, and spoke dictatorially as 
 to which he would accept or refuse. He 
 would not engage to desert his confederates, 
 unless time were given them to come in and 
 submit ; and he demanded a safe conduct 
 for all strangers whom he should be obliged 
 to dismiss. He consented to renounce the 
 title of the O'Neill, but he reserved to himself 
 the rights formerly annexed to the chief- 
 taincy of his country. He refused to give 
 up the sons of Shane O'Neill, because 
 although they had escaped from prison in 
 Dublin, he had not received them as pri- 
 soners from the state. He agreed to receive 
 a sheriff, but he stipulated that the office 
 should be conferred on a gentleman of the 
 country, and he begged that the appoint- 
 ment might be deferred for a time. In 
 consenting to deliver up political offenders 
 who might seek refuge in Tyrone, he made 
 an exception in favour of those who might 
 be obliged to fly to him for succour in 
 causes of conscience, and to which he might 
 evidently give what interpretation he liked. 
 He farther refused to give his eldest son as 
 a hostage. 
 
 It was necessary again to communicate 
 with England, in doing which the earls of 
 Clanrickard and Thomond and other dis- 
 tinguished persons of Irish origin were 
 chosen as the agents, to sooth the prejudices 
 
 529 
 
HOSTLITIES RECOMMENCED.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1598. 
 
 of tlie insurgents. They as well as tlie 
 ( earl of Onnond seem to have believed in 
 I Tyrone's sincerity. He had blinded them 
 by a few ostentatious displays of good-will 
 towards tlie government, under circumstances 
 which did not affect his own interest. He 
 had stopped the war in Leinster, and there 
 was a free intercourse between the insur- 
 gents and Elizabeth's faithful subjects, 
 which appears to have been used by the wily 
 leader of the north to extend his plans of 
 future insurrection. He had acted with 
 generosity towards the garrison of the 
 Blackwater. The earl of Ormond's brother, 
 James Butler, sheriff of Tipperary, having 
 been made a prisoner in a fray witli Brian 
 O'Moore, during the period of the truce, the 
 earl of Tyrone compelled O'Moore to set his 
 prisoner at liberty. In consideration of these 
 circumstances, and influenced by the strong 
 representations of the earl of Onnond, the 
 queen consented to abate some of her claims, 
 and his pardon, bearing date the 11th of 
 April, 1598, was drawn out and sealed with 
 the great seal of Ireland. 
 
 It was soon, however, seen tliat Tyrone, 
 who was more and more convinced of the 
 weakness of his enemies, intended to pay no 
 more attention to these new promises and 
 treaties than he had shown to former ones 
 He scorned even to plead the pardon which 
 had been granted him, or to go througli the 
 forms of law necessary to reinstate him in 
 the condition of a loyal subject. He had 
 artfvdly endeavoured to obtain a cessation of 
 hostilities for a year, no doubt in the expec- 
 tation that within that period an army woidd 
 be sent to Ireland by the king of Spain, 
 which would enable him to recommence the 
 war with better prospects of success ; but, 
 unable to efiect his object in this respect, he 
 determined not to let the spirits of the Irish 
 cool, or give the English government leisure 
 to undermine him. He knew that the earl 
 of Ormond's army was weak ; and he was 
 ready with excuses for recommencing hos- 
 tilities on any point he liked. One of his 
 first acts of rebellion vpas to send assistance 
 privately to the O'Byrnes, to enable them 
 to recommence hostilities in Wicklow. He 
 gave ear to the complaints of Redmond 
 Burke against his brother the earl of Clan- 
 rickard, in order to revive the troubles of 
 Connaught. He encouraged O'Rourke to 
 break his agreement with sir Conyers Clif- 
 ford, and plunder some districts of West- 
 meath. 
 
 The earl of Ormond marched in person 
 530 
 
 against the insurgents in Leinster, while 
 Bagnall, who passed over to England durins; 
 the period of the negotiations, landed in 
 Wicklow with a strong body of new forces. 
 These latter were harassed by the enemy, and 
 lost many of their men in the march. The in- 
 surgents in Leinster, who were now com- 
 manded by captain Tyrrel, Anthony O'Moore, 
 and Redmond Burke, became every day 
 more formidable, and the earl of Ormond, 
 after a disastrous skirmish in one of the 
 mountain passes, where his nephew was slain, 
 found himself obliged to retreat. 
 
 The forces under Bagnall had jjroceeded to 
 the north, where their presence was rendered 
 necessary by the open hostilities of the earl 
 of Tyrone. That turbulent chieftain began 
 with an attemj^t to cut off from its supplies 
 the English garrison of Armagh ; for which 
 purpose he encamped witli a formidable ar- 
 ray of force between that city and the tovm 
 of Newry. The earl of Tyrone's brother, 
 Turlough O'Neill, was serving at this time 
 in the English army, and he and Ty- 
 rone's illegitimate son. Con O'Neill, who had 
 deserted on some sudden disgust, aided as 
 guides, and enabled Bagnall, whose head quar- 
 ters were established at Newry, to pass the 
 Irish army by an unfrec[uented road, and not 
 only to relieve Armagh, but to make a sud- 
 den attack upon Tyrone's camp, which caused 
 that chief to retire. Bagnall was, however, 
 too weak to pursue him, and he returned to 
 Newry, leaving the insurgent leader to form 
 the siege of the fort of the Blackwater. 
 
 Tyrone was foiled in his attempt to over- 
 come this brave garrison by force, and he 
 formed the siege into a blockade, determined 
 to reduce them by famine. The Irish gov- 
 ernment was alarmed at the danger of this 
 important post, but it was too much occu- 
 pied with the formidable insurrection in 
 Leinster to throw all its force on the rebel- 
 lion of the north. While Ormond remained 
 to grapple with the enemy in the pale, rein- 
 forcements were sent to Bagnall, and he was 
 ordered at any risk to relieve the fortress of 
 the Blackwater. Tyrone had, in the mean- 
 while, been joined by O'Donnell and the 
 other chieftains in alliance with him, and 
 his whole force is acknowledged by the 
 Irish annalists to have amounted to four 
 thousand five hundred foot, and six hun- 
 dred horse, men who, by the experience of 
 late years, had been disciplined into skil- 
 ful soldiers. We have none but the Irish 
 estimate of the force which Bagnall led from 
 Armagh to relieve the fort of the Blackwater, 
 
A.D. 1598.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [defeat of the blackwater. 
 
 according to which it amounted to four thou- 
 sand five hundred foot and five hundred 
 horse, but a comparison of the otliei Irish 
 accounts of the number of the Englisli forces 
 employed in these wars, would lead us to be- 
 lieve that this may be a little exaggerated. 
 
 The Irish army was posted at a place 
 where the plain was contracted into a nar- 
 row pass, bounded on one side by a marsii, 
 and on the other by a bog and a wood. It 
 was about a mile in advance of the ford of 
 the Blackwater, and was known as the pass 
 of Ath-Buidhe, or the Yellow Ford. Tyrone 
 had caused a rampart and a deep ditch to be 
 thrown across the pass, behind which his 
 army was stationed; and the confidence of 
 his men had been raised by the publication 
 of a prophecy said to have been made by St. 
 Ultan, that in this spot the Irish should gain 
 a great victory. The Irish had cut nume- 
 rous pits and trenches over the plain in front 
 of their position, which were covered with 
 wattles and green sods, and they had con- 
 cealed among the woods and thickets five 
 hundred of their kernes to harass the Eng- 
 lish in their approach. 
 
 On the morning of the 10th of August, 
 the English approached the Irish position in 
 battle array. As they advanced, they were 
 embarrassed by the pits and trenches, and 
 sustained some loss from the fire of the 
 kernes who had been placed in the woods. 
 The English were thus thrown into a mo- 
 mentary confusion, of which the Irish made 
 a vain attempt to take advantage; but Bag- 
 nail, who commanded in person the first 
 division of his army, encouraged and recov- 
 ered his men, and led them steadily onwards, 
 and the rest followed with equal courage. 
 At length they reached the entrenchment, 
 and this having been partly beaten down by 
 Bagnall's cannon, the first division of tlie 
 English, under their commander, forced its 
 way over, and were followed by a second. 
 At this moment the whole Irish army, led 
 by Tyrone and O'Donnell, rushed despe- 
 rately upon them, and, after a furious 
 struggle, the English were repulsed. Bag- 
 nail soon rallied his men, and, fresh troops 
 having crossed the rampart, he led tliem 
 again to the charge. At this jnoment, rais- 
 ing his helmet to take a view of the field, 
 he was struck by a musket-ball on the 
 
 * As we have already had more than one occasion 
 of observing, there were few of the great scjits wliich 
 were not divided into loyal and disloyal, under rival 
 chieftains, and these often fought against each other 
 in the wars which we are now describing. Among 
 
 forehead, and fell lifeless to the ground. 
 Nearly at the same time, by the carelessness 
 of a gunner, the ammunition of the Englisli 
 was blown up, and a great number of men 
 were killed by the explosion, which ren- 
 dered the ordnance useless. While the 
 English were struck with momentary dismay 
 at this double disaster, Tyrone rallied his 
 men, and rushed upon them with irresistible 
 fury, and the whole English army wavered 
 and fled. Embarrassed in their flight by 
 the same difficulties of the ground with which 
 they had to contend in their advance, the 
 slaughter was great, and would have been 
 still greater, had not O'Reilly of Cavan, the 
 queen's O'Reilly,* who commanded a body 
 of Irish cavalry in the English service, and 
 was the last to quit the field, covered their 
 retreat with great bravery. He sealed his 
 attachment to the English government on 
 this occasion with his life. According to the 
 English accounts, their loss in this disastrous 
 afliliir was, besides their commander, thirteen 
 officers and fifteen hundred men. The 
 remainder of the army made its way to 
 Armagh. 
 
 The Irish, according to their own account, 
 lost only two hundred men slain and six 
 hundred wounded; in fact the greatest 
 slaughter took place not in the battle, but 
 in the flight. Tyrone exulted in the death 
 of his personal enemy, Bagnall. He gained 
 an immense booty in arms, ammunition, and 
 militarj' accoutrements, besides the artillery, 
 all which was to him at that time of the 
 utmost importance. The fort of the Black- 
 water was delivered up to him, and the gar- 
 rison joined their comrades at Armagh, but 
 the English were soon afterwards compelled 
 to evacuate that city. 
 
 This disastrous engagement, which was 
 known among the English as the defeat of 
 the Blackwater, was the conmiencement of 
 a series of misfortunes to the English cause 
 in Ireland. The intelligence was received 
 with joy by the natives in all parts of the 
 island ; and the earl of Tyrone, who was 
 known to his countrymen as the O'Neill, 
 was universally regarded as the saviour of his 
 country. Insurrections broke out on every 
 side ; and the Irish government, dismayed 
 at the multiplicity of dangers with which 
 it was threatened, sent pressing demands 
 
 the Irish, the loyal chieftains were commonly desig- 
 nated by the epithet " the queen's." Thus there 
 were the queen's O'Brien, the queen's O'Donnell, 
 the queen's O'Reilly, the queen's ^laguire, the queen's 
 O'Hanlon, and so on. 
 
 531 
 
RISING IN MUNSTER.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1598. 
 
 for reinforcements from England. Eliza- 
 beth, in her anger, blamed the earl of Or- 
 mond for not undertaking the northern war 
 in person, instead of entrusting it to Bag- 
 nail, and ordered him to purge tlie army of 
 Irish. She appointed sir Richard Bing- 
 ham, now restored to favour, to Bagniill's 
 office of marshal, and, on the sudden death 
 of Bingham, sent over sir Samuel Bagnall, 
 with two thousand men who had been 
 originally destined to form a garrison at 
 Lough Foyle, in the rear of the northern 
 rebels. 
 
 The first result of the defeat of the 
 Blackwater was a general rising of the Irish 
 of Ulster ; and Tyrone, who was looked 
 upon by all as the head of the grand Irish 
 confederacy, began to carry into effect his 
 plans of insurrection in other parts of the 
 island. His influence was felt most disas- 
 trously in the province of Munster, where 
 secret preparations for revolt had been long 
 organized under his auspices. Soon after 
 his victory over the English, the northern 
 earl sent his orders to the commanders of 
 tlie Irish in Lcinster, Antliony O'Moore, 
 Redmond Burke, and captain Tyrrell, who 
 had just inflicted a severe check on the earl 
 of Ormond, that they should march direct 
 into Munster as a signal for the rebellion of 
 the south. As they passed through Ossory, 
 they were joined by most of the Irish of 
 that district. They then threw themselves 
 into Ormond, and committed fearful ravages 
 and destruction among the earl's lands and 
 castles. Then moving through Tipperary 
 into Limerick, the insurgent force was in- 
 creased at every step by tiie remains of the 
 old Irish septs of the south who were drawn 
 to their standard by love of plunder or 
 hatred of the English power. Sir Thomas 
 Norris, who was stationed at Kilmallock, 
 was obliged to retire to Cork, harassed on 
 his way by the insurgents. Thus, unob- 
 structed in their progress, they advanced 
 into the borders of Desmond, to raise up 
 the old power of the Gcraldines ; and they 
 were met by James fitz Thomas, the nephew 
 of the last earl, whom they solemnly in- 
 vested with the title of the earl of Desmond, 
 he having stipulated to hold his earldom 
 and lands in vassalage to the O'Neill. This 
 James fitz Thomas of Desmond is described 
 as the handsomest man of his age, and his 
 bravery and talents as a soldier were not 
 unworthy of the house whose name he bore ; 
 but, as his title was never acknowledged, 
 except amongst his own rude followers, 
 532 
 
 he became popularly known by the title ot 
 the Sugan earl, or earl of straw. No sooner, 
 however, was the name of Desmond raised 
 as a signal for rebellioii, than many, who 
 had hitherto concealed their discontent, 
 openly declared their adherence to him. 
 The lords of Lixnaw, Fernioy, Mountgarret, 
 and Cahir united with the Irish clans against 
 the queen ; and the two Geraldine chiefs 
 known as the knight of Glyn (or of the 
 valley), and the wliite knight, joined in the 
 rebellion. 
 
 The vengeance of the insurgents fell upon 
 the English settlers in the forfeited lands, 
 who had exposed themselves to this dis- 
 astrous fate by their short-sighted security, 
 and by their neglect of the terms stipulated 
 in the original grants for the plantation of 
 Munster which were designed for the de- 
 fence of the English settlement. Many of 
 the English settlers had abandoned their 
 lands, or performed so negligently the 
 articles of their covenant that they swarmed 
 with disaffected Irish, who were ready to 
 join in the work of havoc. The insurgents, 
 unopposed, spread desolation over the 
 country, destroying the farms and villages. 
 The English families were slaughtered on 
 the spot, or turned out naked to be exposed 
 to the brutality of the rebel soldiery. The 
 weaker sex, especially, was exposed to every 
 outrage. The Irish annalists boast that the 
 plunder was so great, that a full grown 
 heifer or a milch cow was commonly sold in 
 the insurgent camp for sixpence, and a 
 brood-mare for threepence, and the very 
 best hog for a penny. 
 
 Within the space of a month nearly all 
 the Irish of Munster were in rebellion. The 
 earl of Ormond had followed the northern 
 forces to the south, and he formed a junc- 
 tion with sir Thomas Norris at Kilmallock 
 and Mallow, but their united power was 
 unequal to a contest with the rebel army, 
 and they were obliged to remain on the 
 defensive, until the insurgents separated to 
 carry off their plunder to their several 
 homes, and the northern forces returned to 
 Ulster. Tyrrell was left with tlie Sugan 
 earl to organise and direct the insurgents in 
 the south. 
 
 Connaught was hardly more tranquil than 
 Munster during this disastrous autumn of 
 the 3'ear 1598. O'Donnell, relieved from 
 the necessity of supporting his ally of 
 Tyrone against the English, purchased the 
 castle of Ballymote in Sligo, of its original 
 proprietors, the Mac Donoughs, who had 
 
A.D. 
 
 1599.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, [o'donnell in connaught. 
 
 recently gained possession of it, and takinsr 
 up his residence there, he made it his head 
 quarters for oro;anisinfr insurrection and 
 plunder. The Mac William of his creation, 
 who had fought at the head of his followers 
 in the battle of the Blackwater, zealously 
 seconded his efforts. Red Hugh remained 
 at Ballymote until the end of December, 
 when he marched southward into Clanric- 
 kard, and began to plunder and burn the 
 plains of Galway, where the forces of 
 government were equally paralysed as in 
 other parts. In such cases, the earl of Clan- 
 rickard had generally sent for assistance to 
 his neighbour, the earl of Thomond, but at 
 this moment Thomond itself was thrown 
 into confusion by the feuds of its turbulent 
 lords. 
 
 After a short repose in his new residence 
 at Ballymote, Red Hugh assembled his fol- 
 lowers for a new expedition southward, 
 probably invited by one of the parties who 
 were disturbing the peace of Thomond. 
 His recent successes in plundering had 
 drawn hosts of new adventurers to his 
 standard, and the muster at Ballymote at 
 the beginning of February, 1599, was so 
 great, that O'Donnell was obliged to leave a 
 large division to prey upon north Con- 
 naught, whilst with the rest he marched to 
 Claurickard. By moving rapidly by a cir- 
 cuitous course through an unfrequented 
 country, they arrived in the county of Gal- 
 way unexpectedly, and established their 
 first encampment between Kilcolgan and 
 Ardrahan in the barony of Dunkellin. 
 " They then," says the Irish annalist, " held 
 a consultation to determine the best means 
 of attacking the strange country to which 
 they had marched, and, having taken some 
 of their provisions, they went to sleep be- 
 fore undertaking that great journey and toil, 
 except their sentinels, who were along with 
 them, and in that state they remained till 
 midnight, when O'Donnell commanded them 
 to rise forthwith, in order to march into 
 the territory before light of day rose on 
 them." 
 
 Such was the kind of warfare to which the 
 Irish had been habituated for many cen- 
 turies. Soon after day-break they entered 
 Clare, and in a very short space of time the 
 whole of the barony of Inchiquin was plun- 
 dered and laid waste. Predatory parties 
 had been sent out in other directions, and 
 thus in two or three days Thomond was 
 overrun from one end to the other. The 
 scattered divisions of this great army reas- 
 
 sembled with their plunder at Kilfenora in 
 the barony of Corcomroe. There " O'Don- 
 nell beheld the hills becoming crowded and 
 blackened in all directions about him with 
 the droves and numerous flocks of every 
 country through which his forces had 
 passed." Quitting his camp again soon after 
 midnight. Red Hugh returned along the 
 chain of rugged hills of Burren, marching 
 through the upper part of Clanrickard and 
 by the walls of Athenry, and at length 
 reached Ballymote without encountering any 
 obstruction. A bard of the Dalcassians of 
 Thomond flattered the hero of Tirconnell 
 by telling him that he was the chosen agent 
 of the holy Columbkille in revenging the 
 destruction of the palace of Oileach by 
 Murdough, the grandson of Brian Boru, 
 by this merciless devastation of the territory 
 of the O'Briens ; and Red Hugh paid him 
 for the compliment by ordering all the prey 
 which had been taken from the poet to be 
 immediately restored. 
 
 We gather what was the real cause of this 
 expedition from what followed, as described 
 in the Irish annals. Sir Conyers Clifford 
 collected in haste all the troops he could in 
 Galway at the beginning of March ; but in 
 stead of pursuing the depredators northward, 
 he marched into the county of Clare, '■' to 
 ascertain who were obedient and disobedient 
 to the queen in it." It appears that during 
 the havoc made by O'Donnel's army, the 
 earl of Thomond was absent with the earl 
 of Ormond, acting against the insurgents in 
 Munster ; and the first object of sir Conyers 
 Clifford's invasion was to establish the tem- 
 porary authority of his kinsman, Turlough 
 O'Brien. Another kinsman, Feage O'Brien, 
 who appears to have been the head of the 
 Irish or O'Donnell's party, made an attempt 
 to arrest Clifford's progress, by seizing a pass 
 through which he had to march. But the 
 English, after a short struggle, forced the 
 pass, and slew several of the leaders of the 
 other party ; the consequence of which was 
 that next day Feage O'Brien deserted his 
 cause, and made his peace with the govern- 
 ment. Upon this, the English, in conjunc- 
 tion with Turlough O'Brien, laid siege to the 
 town of Cathain-mionain, in the barony of 
 Corcomroe, which is described by the Irish 
 annalists as being then " a den for thieves, 
 and a cover for insurgents, to which all the 
 plunder and prey of the surrounding country 
 were conveyed." This place was soon taken, 
 and after holding sessions at Ennis for the 
 trial and execution of rebels, the English 
 
 533 
 
TROUBLES IN THOMOND.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1599. 
 
 returned to Galway, but not till the earl of 
 Thoniond had returned to execute his own 
 justice on his enemies. He brouglit with 
 him ordnance from Limerick, with which he 
 proceeded to reduce the castles that were 
 still in the hands of what was considered as 
 the Irish party. The castle of Carrigaholt 
 was given up after a siege of four days ; and 
 the garrison of Dunbeg surrendered without 
 a shot, and "got quarter only during the 
 time they were being conveyed to Garmain- 
 na-Croiche (the scaffold of the gallows), where 
 they were hanged together in couples." Be- 
 tween Red Hugh, wlio plundered the friends 
 of the earl and the queen, and the earl him- 
 self and the English, who plundered the other 
 party, the whole of Thomond presented a 
 picture of deplorable desolation. 
 
 Thus was Ireland in a moment thrown into 
 a state of distraction which had not been 
 witnessed for many years — certainly not dur- 
 ing Elizabeth's reign. Ulster was alone 
 quiet, because it was in the undisturbed pos- 
 session of the queen's enemies. Connaught, 
 Munster, and Leinster were being plundered 
 in evtfry direction, while the queen's troops, 
 glad to iind security within a few walled 
 
 towns, were constrained to look upon the 
 havoc around without daring to interfere. 
 Dispatch after dispatch informed the council 
 in England of the lamentable condition of the 
 island and of the necessity of speedy rein- 
 forcements. The queen, advanced in years, 
 began to care less for the real interests of 
 Ireland, than for the expenditure and trou- 
 ble which it entailed upon her, and she would, 
 perhaps, have left it to its ovni grievances, 
 had she not at this moment received certain 
 intelligence that her inveterate enemies, the 
 Spaniards, were making new preparations to 
 shake her throne, and that the immediate in- 
 vasion of Ireland was one of the most impor- 
 tant parts of their plan of operations. The 
 danger which seemed to threaten England 
 opened her eyes to the importance of secur- 
 ing Ireland, and it was therefore determined 
 to send over a new and powerful army, and 
 to give the command to some officer of dis- 
 tinction. Unfortunately, the popular voice, 
 as well as the queen's favour, called into ac- 
 tion a young nobleman whose government 
 forms a disastrous episode in Anglo-Irish 
 history. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 the eakl of esses in ireland; death of sir conters clifford; essex and tteonej 
 Tyrone's visit to munster. 
 
 >REAT expectations had 
 been raised among Eli- 
 zabeth's enemies abroad, 
 and the reputation of 
 the Irish hero, Hugh 
 O'Neill, earl of Tyrone, 
 quickly spread from one 
 end of Europe to the other. The king of 
 Spain entered into a closer alliance and cor- 
 respondence with him, sent accredited agents 
 to his court, and raised his pride and conse- 
 quence b}' treating him as the champion of 
 the catholic cause against the English here- 
 tics. The pope sent him, by the hands of 
 the Spanish envoys, one of whom had been 
 dignified with the title of archbishop of 
 Dublin, a number of indulgences; and he 
 added to them, as a special mark of his per- 
 sonal favour, a consecrated plume, pretended 
 534 
 
 to be made of the feathers of the mysterious 
 phoenix. 
 
 The intelligence of these transactions, and 
 of the preparations making in Spain for an 
 invasion, excited more alarm in the court 
 of Elizabeth than the insurrection itself. 
 Repeated meetings of the council were held 
 to consider of the grave state of Irish affairs, 
 and various plans for combating the danger 
 were canvassed. The person who at this 
 time ruled in court was the young earl of 
 Essex, the son of that earl of Essex whose 
 connexion with Ireland had ended so unfor- 
 tunately. The young earl had been first 
 introduced to court favour by his step- 
 father, the earl of Leicester, and had subse- 
 quently exhibited a good deal of that 
 showy chivalrous character which so easily 
 gains the attachment of the multitude. 
 
A.D. 1599.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [the earl of ESSEX. 
 
 The bravery rather than the talents of this 
 youns? nobleman had been attested in some 
 exploits against the Spaniards; and a mix- 
 ture of ambition and military ardour led 
 him to aspire to higher employments of a 
 similar character. He now professed the 
 deepest interest in Irish politics, as the sub- 
 ject which then engrossed public attention. 
 He ventured often to oppose the ojjinions of 
 the queen and her wisest ministers on Irish 
 measures in council, and on one of these 
 occasions his impetuous opposition is said to 
 have procured him from irritated majesty a 
 box on the ear. The offence, however, was 
 soon forgiven, and the favourite vfas still 
 allowed to overrule the advice of more pru- 
 dent counsellors. 
 
 "When the affairs of Ireland took the 
 threatening aspect they now presented, it is 
 said that the queen, with the deep penetra- 
 tion of personal character which characterised 
 her mind, determined to commit the govern- 
 ment of Ireland to Charles Blount, baron 
 Mountjoy, a nobleman who had held a com- 
 mission in the fleet which opposed the Spanish 
 armada, and who was now governor of Ports- 
 mouth, but who in other respects was little 
 known to the world, except as a lover of 
 literature and science. The earl of Essex 
 warmly opposed this appointment. He 
 represented that this lord was destitute of 
 the military experience necessary for a post 
 of so much importance, and that his retired 
 and studious life ill fitted him for that active 
 vigour which would be called for in the 
 governor of a country torn to pieces with 
 disorders, as Ireland then was. His words 
 on this occasion, as given by the historian 
 Camden, are too remarkable, and were too 
 soon contradicted by his practice, to be 
 passed over in silence. Speaking strongly 
 against the conduct of all who had of late 
 commanded the queen's forces in Ireland, he 
 said that "they had suffered themselves to 
 be amused with insidious overtures and pro- 
 mises; they had neglected to strike at the 
 very head of the rebellion; and instead of 
 planting their garrisons in the north, so as to 
 hem in the rebels of that province, and keep 
 them in perpetual agitation and distress, 
 they had wasted the queen's forces in unne- 
 cessary expeditions, without glory to them- 
 selves or advantage to the crown." In the 
 course of his arguments, Essex took little 
 pains to conceal his own ambition of under- 
 taking this service, which in his self-confi- 
 dence he probably looked upon only as a new 
 means of extending his popularity, and a 
 
 further step towards a still higher object of 
 his ambition. 
 
 At court Essex had made himself numer- 
 ous eneinies, open and secret, and these, less 
 short-sighted than his friends, joined warmly 
 with them in recommending him to the 
 government of Ireland, not only for the 
 sake of removing him to a distance, but 
 in the belief that he was undertaking a 
 charge far beyond his abilities, and one 
 which, therefore, could only end in his dis- 
 grace. The high military office he then 
 held of lord marshal of England seemed to 
 recommend him to the post it was now pro- 
 posed to confer upon him. Yet, whatever 
 secret pleasure he may have felt when the 
 unanimous opinion of the council called him 
 to it, he affected a coyniess and reluctance 
 which had to be overcome by the exhorta- 
 tions of his friends, and he only consented 
 to assume the government of Ireland on 
 condition that it should be accompanied with 
 powers and supported by a force which had 
 been granted to no deputy of late years. 
 His patent was granted with the title of 
 lord lieutenant, and, besides an extraordi- 
 nary authority of pardoning all treasons, 
 even such as touched the queen's person, 
 and of removing officers and conferring 
 dignities, he was left to conduct the war at 
 his own discretion, except on certain grand 
 points which were enjoined to him, and he 
 was furnished with an army of twenty thou- 
 sand men, a force which it was supposed 
 must be irresistible. The queen had given 
 her special charge to the earl, that as soon 
 as possible after his landing in Ireland, he 
 should proceed with all his forces against 
 the earl of Tyrone, and thus at once strike 
 at the head of the rebellion. It was the 
 course which he himself had repeatedly 
 urged in the council. 
 
 The earl departed for his government at 
 the end of March, 1599, amid the loud ac- 
 clamations of the populace, althougli there 
 were some who gathered ill-omens at liis first 
 starting. It was observed by these that he 
 left England with sunshine thunder, which 
 popular superstition set down as a token of 
 the most ominous character. Yet the new 
 lord lieutenant landed safely at Dublin a few 
 days afterwards and was invested with the 
 sword in the usual form. 
 
 It was anticipated that the arrival of so 
 large an army would at once strike terror 
 into the rebels, and that many of the insur- 
 gent chiefs would come forward voluntarily 
 to make their submission. But this expec- 
 
 535 
 
STRENGTH OF THE REBELS.] HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 [a.d. 1599. 
 
 tation was entirely overthrown, when it was 
 understood that, instead of being dismayed, 
 the insurgents, emboldened by the recent 
 impunity with which they had overrun the 
 country, and the promises of speedy assist- 
 ance from abroad, had confirmed one another 
 in their determination to resist, and that the 
 formidable preparations against them had 
 only rendered them more desperate, because 
 the leaders of the rebellion made them be- 
 lieve that the object of Essex's great army 
 was to destroy the Irish race, and give their 
 patrimony to strangers. Tliey represented 
 that their grievances had been frequently 
 laid before the throne, but had received no 
 redress ; that the treaties made with them 
 had been violated ; that their submissions 
 had been received, with a shameful and con- 
 temptuous disregard of the most solemn 
 promises ; that their fortunes had been torn 
 from them, and their consciences enslaved ; 
 yet that their oppressors, not yet satisfied, 
 were now preparing to exterminate the 
 wretched natives who had presumed to 
 assert their liberty, and thus desired to 
 establish a tyrannical dominion, even over 
 those who had called themselves English 
 subjects, and who were so infatuated as not 
 to discern that the cause in defence of which 
 they had risen was the common cause of all. 
 The effect of exhortations like these was, that 
 when the queen's proclamation was published 
 on Essex's arrival, contradicting these state- 
 ments, announcing that her anger was ex- 
 cited only against those who were in actual 
 rebellion against her throne, and offering a 
 free pardon to those who would repent and 
 submit, nobody came forward to take ad- 
 vantage of her offer. 
 
 The earl of Essex first became acquainted 
 with the difficulties of his position when he 
 called together the council at Dublin, and 
 learnt from them the real state of the 
 country. He found that rebellion had 
 spread itself up to to the very gates of the 
 capital. The O'Byrnes, O'Tooles and other 
 septs of the mountainous districts bordering 
 upon Dublin, were all in arms. The coun- 
 ties of Kildare, Carlow, and Wexford were 
 all laid waste, the government having only 
 possession of the walled towns and castles. 
 In the former, some of the Geraldines, the 
 Delahides, the O'Dempsys, and of the family 
 of the attainted lord Baltinglass, were in 
 open rebellion. In Carlow, the Cavenaghs 
 and the Keytons were in arms, as were the 
 O'Morrouglis and other septs in Wexford. 
 Queen's county or Leix had fallen almost 
 536 
 
 entirely under the power of its ancient lords, 
 the O'Moores and their confederates. The 
 O'Connors, O'Molloys, and their friends 
 were similarly in possession of Offiily (or 
 King's county), and had laid waste the 
 country. Louth and part of Meath were 
 ruined by the devastations of the Ulster 
 rebels, while the rest was infested by the 
 Mac Geoghegans, O'Melaghlins, and some 
 rebellious branches of the Nugents and 
 Geraldines. A large part of the O'Farrells 
 had revolted in Longford ; and, to the south, 
 one of the loyal family of the Butlers, lord 
 Mountgarret, was in arms against the queen. 
 The forces of the insurgents in Leinster, 
 well armed and disciplined, were estimated 
 on the lowest calculation at upwards of 
 three thousand foot, and nearly two hundred 
 horse. The rebel forces in Ulster were 
 reckoned at upwards of seven thousand foot, 
 and seventeen hundred horse ; those of Con- 
 naught at above three thousand foot, and 
 between two and three hundred horse ; and 
 those of Munster at about five thousand foot, 
 and about three hundred and fifty horse. 
 Thus the sum total of the rebel forces then in 
 the field was not far short of that of Essex's 
 army, and by attempting to take them in 
 detail he would only give them the full ad- 
 vantage of their position and knowledge of 
 the country. The new lord lieutenant learnt 
 at the same time that the earl of Tyrone, 
 who was now universally acknowledged by 
 the Irish as the head of their confederacy, 
 was actively encouraging them by his emis- 
 saries, and that he had resolved to make 
 head against the queen's forces on two 
 points, in Ulster with about six thousand 
 horse and foot, under his own command, 
 and in Connaught with four thousand horse 
 and foot under O'Donnell. The rebellion 
 at the same time was extending in Munster, 
 where the insurgents were urged on by their 
 priests, who administered to them a solemn 
 oath of fidelity to the cause at a public 
 cross of great holiness in that province. 
 
 The proceedings of the earl of Essex from 
 the first were just such as his enemies ex- 
 pected from his vsalful disposition. Contrary 
 to the queen's directions, he made his inti- 
 mate friend, the earl of Southampton, his 
 general of horse, and he continued him in 
 that command in spite of her remonstrances. 
 He lavished the honour of knighthood with 
 reckless partiality and extravagance on every 
 one whom he thought worthy of purchasing 
 to his private party. He had promised to 
 turn all his force against the earl of Tyrone 
 
A.D. 
 
 1599.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [essex in munster. 
 
 in Ulster, but he only strengthened the gar- 
 risons of Carrickfergus, Newry, Dundalk, 
 and Drogheda; and then, on the pretence 
 that the time of year was not yet arrived for 
 the campaign in tlie north, he took the opi- 
 nion of the council at Dublin, and, on the 
 20th of May, left the capital to march against 
 the Geraldines in south Munster, taking with 
 him seven thousand foot and nine hundred 
 horse, chosen troops, the flower of his army. 
 On his way through Leinster he was harassed 
 in his march and attacked in every wood and 
 mountain pass by the insurgents, by which 
 he lost great numbers of his men. On one 
 occasion, when passing the mountains a few 
 miles from Maryborough, in the Queen's 
 County, the Irish of Leix, under their chief 
 Anthony O'Moore, fell furiously upon the 
 English rear, and are stated by the Irish 
 authorities to have killed no less than five 
 hundred of Essex's best men. The spot 
 where this conflict occurred was subsequently 
 known by the popular appellation of Bearna- 
 na-g-Cleiteach, or the pass of plumes, from 
 the great quantity of plumes collected from 
 the helmets of the English slain there. 
 
 When the earl of Essex entered the coun- 
 try of the Butlers, he was joined by the earl 
 of Ormond and by the lord Mountgarret, 
 who now made his submission to the govern- 
 ment. With the Butlers in his train, the 
 lord lieutenant laid siege to the castle of 
 Cahir, which was obstinately defended by its 
 lord. Much time was lost in the siege of 
 this fortress, which was only surrendered 
 after it had been partly battered down with 
 artillery brought from Waterford; and it 
 proved in the end but an unprofitable con- 
 quest, for two months afterwards, when 
 Essex had quitted Munster, the insurgent 
 Butlers recaptured Cahir, and put the Eng- 
 lish garrison to the sword. 
 
 When it was known in the south that the 
 lord lieutenant was marching into Munster, 
 sir Thomas Norris, assembling the forces at 
 his disposal, marched to Kilmallock, to meet 
 him on his way to Limerick. During the 
 fortnight which the lord president of Munster 
 passed at this place waiting for Essex, he 
 carried on a continual warfare with the insur- 
 gents who were in posession of the surround- 
 ing district, being, to use the words of the 
 Irish annalist, " in the habit of scouring the 
 hills of the county of Limerick every other 
 day, in the hope of slaying or taking pri 
 soners some of the queen's enemies." In one 
 of these excursions he accidentally encoun- 
 tered a body of Irish under the command of 
 
 VOL. I. 3 Y 
 
 one of tlie Burkes of Castleconnell, at Kil- 
 teely, on the borders of Limerick, and a 
 fierce battle battle ensued, in which many 
 of the Irish were slain ; but Norris, in the 
 heat of the action, receiving a dangerous 
 wound from the thrust of a spear in his 
 neck, was carried off" the field by his men, 
 and after languishing six weeks, died of his 
 wound at Kilmallock. 
 
 After reducing Cahir, Essex proceeded to 
 Limerick, where he was met by sir Conyers 
 Cliflbrd, the earl of Clanrickard, and the 
 earl of Thomond. The two former, after re- 
 ceiving the lord lieutenant's orders, returned 
 into Connaught, but the earls of Thomond 
 and Ormond accompanied him in his march 
 into Desmond, on the second day of which, 
 to use the words of the native annalist, the 
 Geraldine forces " showed them their faces, 
 and fierce and grim was the welcome and 
 reception they gave their sovereign's viceroy 
 on his first visit to them, for they shot a 
 cloud and smoke of black powder, and a 
 shower of balls from their sure aiming guns, 
 into their eyes; he also heard the loud shouts, 
 cries, and clamour of the commanders and 
 champions, instead of the submission, honour, 
 and the mild and bland expressions which 
 should be used towards him." The Irish 
 were commanded on this occasion by the 
 Sugan earl, with Mac Carthy More, Redmond 
 Burke, and other distinguished chiefs, and 
 were strong in numbers and courage. The 
 result of this first conflict, which took place 
 between Adare and Askeaton, was not of a 
 decisive character. The English remained 
 on the field, and encamped at a short distance 
 to the east of Askeaton, but their loss was 
 very considerable ; and next day Essex con- 
 tented himself with strengthening and pro- 
 visioning the queen's garrison in Askeaton; 
 and then, as though this was the only object 
 of his march into Munster, resolved to make 
 his retreat towards Waterford. The Irish 
 crowded on every side to obstruct his march, 
 and another severe battle was fought witli 
 the pretended earl of Desmond on the first 
 day, at a place between Askeaton and Croom, 
 in which the English again sustained a con- 
 siderable loss. 
 
 After reposing three days at Kilmallock, 
 Essex continued his march towards Fermoy, 
 in Cork, and then, as if his intention in tak- 
 ing this route were merely to deceive his 
 enemies and escape their pursuit, he sud- 
 denly changed his course, and hurried to 
 Lismore in the county of Waterford. It was 
 not till he reached this place that the Geral- 
 
 537 
 
STATE OF IRELAND.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 15S1>. 
 
 (line forces ceased their pursuit, and the 
 English army took some repose after its fa- 
 tigues and sufferings. These, however, were 
 not yet at and end, for on his return through 
 the disturbed districts of Leinster, Essex 
 was exposed to continual attacks from the 
 hardy mountaineers, the Mac Murrouglis, 
 the Cavenaghs, O'Tooles, O'Byrnes, and 
 O'Moores, and he reached Dublin in July 
 with the mere wreck of the fine army he 
 had led thence little more than two months 
 before. He is said to have lost not less than 
 five thousand men in this ill-judged exjoedi- 
 tion. 
 
 On the 25th of June, while apparently at 
 "Waterford, the earl of Essex wrote a letter 
 to the queen, giving not an account of his 
 proceedings against the Irish, but sending 
 her, as he says, " some advertisement of the 
 state of this kingdom, not as before by hear- 
 says, but as I beheld it with mine own eyes;" 
 as though he had made this lavish expendi- 
 ture of time, money, and life for no other 
 purpose than to gain personal experience of 
 the country. It is, however, interesting as 
 a brief picture of the state of Ireland drawn 
 upon the spot, and displays considerable 
 acuteness of observation. " The people in 
 general," he tells her majesty, " have able 
 bodies by nature, and have gotten by custom 
 ready use of arms, and by their late successes 
 boldness to fight with your majesty's troops. 
 In their pride they value no man but them- 
 selves ; in their affections they love nothing 
 but idleness and licenciousness ; in their re- 
 bellion they have no other end but to shake 
 off the yoke of obedience to your majesty, 
 and to root out all remembrance of the Eng- 
 lish nation in this kingdom. I say this of 
 the people in general, for I find not only the 
 greater part thus affected, but that it is a 
 general quarrel of the Irish, and they who 
 do not profess it are either so few or so false, 
 that there is no account to be made of them. 
 The Irish nobility and lords of countries do 
 not only in their hearts affect this plausible 
 quarrel, and are divided from us in religion, 
 but have an especial quarrel to the English 
 government, because it mindeth and trieth 
 them, who ever have been and ever would 
 be as absolute tyrants as any are under the 
 sun. The towns, being inhabited by men of 
 the same religion and birth as the rest, are so 
 carried away with the love of gain, that for 
 it they will furnish the rebels with all things 
 that may arm them or enable them against 
 the state or against themselves. The 
 wealth of the kingdom, which consisteth in 
 538 
 
 cattle, oatmeal, and other victuals, is almost 
 in the rebel's hands, who in every province 
 till my coming have been masters of the 
 field." 
 
 It was the evident object of the earl to 
 conceal as much as possible his own mishaps, 
 while he magnified the dangers which sur- 
 rounded him, as well as the errors of his pre- 
 decessors. " The expectation of all these 
 rebels," he continues to inform the queen, 
 " is very present and very confident, that 
 Spain will either so invade your majesty that 
 you shall have no leisure to prosecute them 
 here, or so succour them that they will get 
 most of the towns into their hands ere your 
 majesty shall relieve and reinforce your army. 
 So that now if your majesty resolve to sub- 
 due these rebels by force, they are so many 
 and so framed to be soldiers, that the war of 
 force will be great, costly, and long. If your 
 majesty will seek to break them by factions 
 amongst themselves, they are covetous and 
 mercenary, and must be purchased ; and their 
 Jesuits and preaching priests must be hunted 
 out and taken from them, which now do sod- 
 der them so fast and so close together. If 
 your majesty will have a strong party in the 
 Irish nobility, and make use of them, you 
 must hide from them all purpose of estab- 
 lishing English government, till the strength 
 of the Irish be so broken, that they shall see 
 no safety but in your majesty's protection. 
 If your majesty will be assured of the pos- 
 session of your towns, and keep them from 
 supplying the wants of the rebels, you must 
 have garrisons brought into them able to 
 command them, and make it a capital offence 
 for any merchant in Ireland to trade with the 
 rebels, or buy or sell any arms or munition 
 whatsoever." 
 
 After some observations on the necessity 
 of preparing against an invasion of England, 
 designed apparently to work upon the 
 queen's apprehensions, and impress her with 
 the necessity of continuing to support him 
 in Ireland, he returns again to the condition 
 of the latter country. " As I have shewn your 
 majesty the dangers and disadvantages which 
 your servant and ministers here shall and do 
 meet withall, in this great work of reducing 
 this kingdom, so I will now (as well as I can) 
 represent to your majesty your strength and 
 advantages. First, these rebels are neither 
 able to force any walled town, castle, or house 
 of strength, nor to keep any that they get, 
 so that while your majesty keeps your army 
 in strength and vigour, you are undoubtedly 
 mistress of all towns and holds whatsoever. 
 
A.lJ, 
 
 1599.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [Essex's opinions. 
 
 By wliicli means, if your majesty have good 
 ministers, all the wealth of the land shall be 
 drawn into the hands of your subjects; your 
 soldiers in the winter shall be carefully lodg- 
 ed, and readily sjpplied of any wants ; and 
 we that command your majesty's forces, may 
 make the war offensive and defensive, may 
 fight and be in safety, as occasion is offered. 
 Secondly, your majesty's horsemen are so 
 incomparably better than the rebels, and their 
 foot are so unwilling to fight in battle or 
 gross (howsoever they be described to skir- 
 mish and fight loose), that your majesty may 
 be always mistress of the champaigne coun- 
 tries, which are the best parts of this king- 
 dom. Thirdly, yourmajesty victualling your 
 army out of England, and with your garri- 
 sons burning and spoiling the country in all 
 places, shall starve the rebels in one year, 
 because no place then can supply them. 
 Fourthly, since no war can be made without 
 munition, and munition this rebel cannot 
 have, but from Spain, Scotland, or your own 
 towns here, if yourmajesty will still continue 
 your ships and pinnaces upon the coast, and 
 be pleased to send a printed proclamation, 
 that upon pain of death no merchant, towns- 
 man, or other subject, do traffic with the 
 rebel, or buy or sell in any sort any kind of 
 munition or arms, I doubt not but in short 
 time I shall make them bankrupt of the old 
 store, and I hope our seamen will keep them 
 from receiving any new. Fifthly, your ma- 
 jesty hath a rich store of gallant colonels, 
 captains, and gentlemen of quality, whose 
 example and execution is of more use than 
 all the rest of your troops; whereas the men 
 of best quality among the rebels, which are 
 their leaders and their horsemen, dare never 
 put themselves to any hazard, but send their 
 kerne and their hirelings to fight with your 
 majesty's troops ; so tluit although theircom- 
 mon soldiers are too hard for our new men, 
 yet are they not able to stand before such 
 gallant men as will charge them. Sixthly, 
 your majesty's commanders, being advised 
 and exercised, know all advantages, and by 
 the strength of their order will, in all great 
 fights, beat the rebels. For they neither 
 march, nor lodge, nor fight in order, but only 
 by the benefit of tlieir Ibotmanship can come 
 on and go off at their pleasure, which makes 
 them attend a whole day, still skirmishing, 
 and never engaging themselves. So that it 
 hath been ever the fault and weakness of 
 your majesty's leaders, whensoever you have 
 received any blow ; for tiie rebels do but 
 watch and attend upon all gross oversights." 
 
 The rest of Essex's letter consists of pas- 
 sionate complaints against his rivals and 
 enemies, who he suspected were labouring 
 to put the worst construction upon his- 
 actions, and supplant him in the queen's 
 favour. His enemies, indeed, were not inac- 
 tive, and they had agents and spies in Ire- 
 land, who reported his mistakes and his 
 conduct in the worst light. The expedition 
 into Munster, freely discussed in the council, 
 gave great offence to the queen, who wrote 
 to the lord lieutenant, reprehending him 
 sharply for his disobedience to her original 
 directions, and ordering him peremptorily to 
 march without further excuses against the 
 rebels in the north. In reply, Essex threw 
 all the blame of the Munster expedition 
 upon the Irish council, whose advice he said 
 he had followed because he considered them, 
 by their experience of Irish affairs, better 
 able to direct his operations than himself; 
 and he promised to lose no time in marching 
 against the earl of Tyrone. This letter was 
 hardly on its way to England, when ano- 
 ther followed it, announcing that Essex had 
 found it necessary to inarch into Leix and 
 Offaly against the O'Moores and the O'Con- 
 nors. Fifteen hundred men, commanded by 
 Essex in person in Offaly, and a thousand 
 under some of his subordinate officers in 
 Leix, soon reduced the rebels in those dis- 
 tricts; but it entailed a further loss of men; 
 and when, on his return to Dublin, the earl 
 reviewed his army, he found it so reduced 
 and weakened, that he was obliged to write 
 to the queen for a reinforcement of two 
 thousand men, as necessary to enable him to 
 proceed against her enemies in the north. 
 
 Elizabeth was astonished and confounded 
 at the inexplicable conduct of her deputy ; 
 but his enemies in the couiirti, resolved that 
 he should not want the means of pursuing 
 his own ruin, persuaded her to grant his 
 request ; and he was indulged with what, ac- 
 cording to his own statement, was sufficient to 
 enable him to act with vigour against Tyrone. 
 
 In the meanwhile a new disaster fell upon 
 the English arms in another part of the 
 island. The lord lieutenant had directed 
 sir Conyers Clifford, the governor or presi- 
 dent of Connaught, to march with his own 
 troops, a portion of lord Southampton's 
 cavalry, and some of the chiefs who re- 
 mained faithful to the English, to the relief 
 of O'Connor Sligo, who was besieged by 
 O'Donnell in his castle of Collooney, and 
 then to rebuild the castle of Sligo, and place 
 an English garrison in it. He was to be 
 
 589 
 
CLIFFORD SLA 
 
 ,N.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1599. 
 
 assisted with the fleet under the command 
 of the well-known Theobald of the Ships. 
 Having assembled his forces in Roscommon, 
 he marched from thence to Boyle, to pass 
 the Curlew mountains into Sligo. 
 
 O'Donnell was accompanied with Brian 
 O'Rourke and other cliieftains; and, after 
 leaving a force in Sligo to oppose Theobald 
 Burke, and another at Collooney to blockade 
 the castle of O'Connor Sligo, he marched 
 with the rest, estimated at about fifteen hun- 
 dred men by the Irish writers, to take pos- 
 session of the defiles of the Curlew mountains, 
 which he rendered more difficult to pass by 
 felling the trees and plashing the underwood. 
 Red Hugh then encamped on the adjoining 
 plain, with the main body of his forces, con- 
 sisting as usual of kernes and galloglasses, 
 with somebodies of musketeers and archers. 
 The forces under the command of sirConyers 
 Cliflbrd are estimated by the Irish authori- 
 ties at between two and three thousand men; 
 but there is much confusion and discrepancy 
 in the accounts of this battle, whicli was 
 itself an unexpected and confused encounter, 
 and all we really know of the numbers is 
 that those of the English were considerably 
 greater than those of the Irish. 
 
 Early in the morning of the 15th of August 
 the English army marched to pass the moun- 
 tains, not expecting apparently to meet with 
 any opposition. About the middle of the 
 forenoon sir Alexander RadclifFe, who com- 
 manded the advanced guard, proceeded at the 
 head of his men up the hill along a causeway 
 which ran between a bog and a wood, when 
 they were exposed to a sudden attack from 
 the Irish musketeers planted in the woods. 
 For some time the English supported the 
 attack with firmness, but their commander, 
 RadclifFe, being slain, they wavered, and 
 began to fly. Clifford, who brought up 
 another body of foot, rushed forwards into 
 the middle of the conflict to encourage and 
 rally his men, when this brave veteran fell, 
 pierced through the body with a shot. Dis- 
 couraged by the loss of their two com- 
 manders, and, as it is said, by the want of 
 ammunition, with which, in no expectation 
 of a battle, they had been sparingly supplied, 
 the English began to give way on all sides. 
 At this moment O'Rourke, who had been 
 posted at a distant part of the mountain to 
 
 * The Irish chief sent with it the following letter, 
 which is a remarkable specimen of doggrcl Latin : — 
 
 " C'onstabulario tie Boyie salutem. Scias quod ego 
 traduci corpus Gubernatnris ad nionasterium Sanctfe 
 Trinitatis projier ejus dilcctionera et alia de causa 
 
 540 
 
 guard another pass to Sligo, and who had 
 heard the sound of the musketry, arrived 
 with his men, and falling with fury on 
 the already defeated English, committed 
 great havoc among the flying troops. It is 
 said that few would have escaped, had it not 
 been for the bravery of the commander of 
 the English cavalry, captain Jephson, who 
 made a desperate charge up the hill, on 
 ground where the Irish supposed it impos- 
 sible for horses to act. The English were 
 closely pursued to Boyle, where they halted 
 under protection of the English fort. In the 
 night the English chiefs held a council of 
 war, at which some of them were in favour 
 of renewing the attack upon the Irish next 
 morning, which proves that their loss must 
 have been much less considerable than it is 
 represented by the Irish writers. But others, 
 representing the discouragement which must 
 ensue from the loss of their two commanders, 
 and probably the doubt in which they were 
 as to the real numbers of their opponents 
 (for it seems that the English were not aware 
 that they had been attacked by O'Donnell 
 himself), it was finally resolved to continue 
 their retreat to a place where they might 
 wait for further orders and reinforcements. 
 Jephson therefore stationed himself with his 
 cavalry at the ford of Boyle, where he kept 
 guard all night while the foot marched away, 
 and in the morning, when he knew they 
 were safe, he marched slowly after them to 
 Athlone. When the body of sir Conyers 
 Clifi'ord was recognized among the slain, 
 O'Rourke caused his head to be cut off and 
 delivered to O'Donnell, who carried it to the 
 castle of Collooney, and showed it to O'Con- 
 nor Sligo as a testimony of his victory over 
 the forces which had been sent to his relief. 
 O'Connor immediately surrendered, joined 
 the banner of Red Hugh, and was received 
 into his friendship. One of the chief losses, 
 indeed, caused by the defeat at the Curlew 
 mountains, was the immediate defection of 
 most of the chieftains of north Connaught 
 who had hitherto persevered in their fidelity 
 to the English government. Among these 
 deserters was Theobald Burke, with his fleet. 
 Mac Dermott obtained possession of the body 
 of sir Conyers Clifford, which was left naked 
 on the field, and he sent it to Boyle to be 
 buriedin the monastery of the Holy Trinity.* 
 
 si velitis mihi reaire meos captives ex prsedicto eor- 
 pore, quod paratus sum ad conferendura vobis ip- 
 sum ; alias sepultus erit honeste in prsedicto monaR- 
 terio. Et sic vale. Scriptum apud Gaywash, 15° 
 August, 1599. Interim pono bonum linteamen ad 
 
A.n. 1599.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [ESSEX AND TYRONE. 
 
 After receiving intelli<jence of this disaster, 
 the earl of Essex, although reinforced by 
 the arrival of the two thousand new troops 
 he had asked of the queen, was so far dis- 
 couraged, that he wi-ote again to England, 
 announcing that the whole number of forces 
 under his immediate command amounted to 
 no more than four thousand men ; that the 
 season was too far advanced to enter into 
 Tyrone, even if his army were sufficient for 
 that purpose ; and that all he could do was 
 to move towards the borders of Ulster with 
 three thousand five hundred foot and three 
 hundred horse. To justify this statement, 
 he sent with it the opinion of his principal 
 officers, subscribed and attested with their 
 signatures. With his diminished and sickly 
 forces, Essex marched at the beginning of 
 September into Ulster, until he arrived on 
 the banks of the Brenny, in the county of 
 Louth, where he beheld the northern chief- 
 tain encamped with a formidable army on 
 the elevated ground on the other side of the 
 river. 
 
 Tyrone, however, had not come to fight, 
 but to try again his old arts of negotiating, 
 in order to protract the war until the arrival 
 of the expected armament from Spain. He 
 sent a messenger to the earl of Essex to desire 
 a parley, to which the lord lieutenant replied 
 proudly that the only meeting he would give 
 him would be the next morning at the head 
 of his army. But Tyrone knew too well the 
 condition of the English army to take this 
 for anything more than a vain-glorious boast; 
 and he sent his messenger again, entreating 
 a conference, and repeating his assurances 
 that he would cast himself on the royal 
 mercy. At length it was agreed that the 
 two leaders should repair to opposite banks 
 of the river, at the ford of Ballyclinch, 
 near the principal town of the county of 
 Louth, where it was ascertained that a con- 
 versation might be carried on across the 
 river. 
 
 During the whole of this transaction the 
 conduct of the lord lieutenant was closely 
 watched by spies in the employment of his 
 enemies, and every suspicious circumstance 
 was carried to their ears. It is said that one 
 of Tyrone's creatures was busilv employed 
 
 praedictum corpus, et si velitis sepelire omnes alios 
 nobiles, non impediam vos erga eos." 
 
 The meaning of this is not very clear, but it 
 appears to be this : — " To the constable of Boyle, 
 health — Know that I have sent the body of the 
 governor to the monastery of the Holy Trinity, and 
 for another cause, that, if you will deliver to me my 
 
 during the night preceding the conference in 
 passing between the two generals, and hold- 
 ing private interviews with each. It was 
 further observed that the two leaders con- 
 versed alone at the river for some time before 
 they called any witnesses to the conference. 
 The Irish chieftain assumed the frank and 
 confiding manner which he knew would 
 conciliate the English earl. When the latter 
 arrived on the opposite bank, Tyrone ap- 
 proached the stream, and, although the water 
 was then unusually high, he spurred his horse 
 into the river, and remained during the con- 
 ference immersed to the saddle, and holding 
 his hat in his hand, in testimony of respect 
 for the queen's representative. It was whis- 
 pered abroad that during their private con- 
 versation, Tyrone had so far insinuated him- 
 self into the confidence of the incautious and 
 aspiring earl, that the latter, whose ambition 
 aimed as high as the throne, entrusted him 
 with his secret designs, and received a pro- 
 mise of his co-operation. It was stated more 
 confidently that Tyrone had assured the earl, 
 that if he would be guided by him, he would 
 make him the greatest lord in England; and 
 that not long after this conference he told 
 his own followers that new disorders would 
 soon arise in England which would require 
 his presence in that country. 
 
 At length, when this private interview had 
 lasted some time, the lord lieutenant called 
 the earl of Southampton and five others of 
 his principal officers to attend upon him, 
 and the Irish chieftain summoned his brother 
 Cormac, and the same number of his confi- 
 dential followers. The conference was then 
 opened in due form, and the earl of Tyrone 
 made a statement of the grievances which had 
 induced the Irish to take up arms, and pro- 
 posed the conditions on which they were 
 willing to return to their allegiance. These 
 were, a general amnesty, the free exercise of 
 religion, the restoration of their lands, and 
 the exemption from English government, 
 that is, from sheriffs and other officers. 
 Essex is said to have admitted that these 
 proposals were reasonable and equitable; 
 and he promised to send them to the queen 
 and use his influence in persuading her to 
 grant them. It was further agreed between 
 
 prisoners in exchange for the aforesaid body, I am 
 ready to give it up to you, otherwise it shall be 
 decently buried in the aforesaid monastery. And so 
 farewell. Written at Gaywash on the 15th of April, 
 1599. In the mean time I put a good linen over the 
 aforesaid body, and if you wish to bury all the other 
 chiefs, I will not hinder you." 
 
 541 
 
THE queen's anger.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1599. 
 
 the two generals that, in the mean time, a 
 a truce should be made for six weeks, to be 
 renewed for similar periods until the follow- 
 ing May, each party being at liberty to 
 renew the war after giving notice fourteen 
 days previously. Tyrone engaged on his 
 part, that if any of the confederate Irish 
 should refuse to adhere to this agreement, 
 he would leave them to be prosecuted by 
 the queen's troops at the pleasure of her 
 government. 
 
 Meanwhile the consternation and angsr 
 of the queen was increased by every new 
 dispatch of her lord lieutenant. She could 
 hardly believe that an army of twenty 
 thousand men, with the late reinforcement 
 of two thousand new recruits, should have 
 been so quickly diminished to little nicn'e 
 than three thousand, and she was not only 
 mortified at so great a loss of men and 
 money, but her suspicions began to be 
 roused by the inexplicable proceedings of 
 one who had promised so much and with 
 whose ambitious temper she was probably 
 not unacquainted. Her council recom- 
 mended the inunediate recal of Essex, but 
 in this also she hesitated, fearing to pro- 
 voke this rash nobleman to some act of still 
 greater imprudence ; and at last, on the 
 15th of September, she wrote him a letter 
 in which she expressed in severe language 
 her great dissatisfaction at the misconduct 
 of the war. She reminded him of his own 
 opinion, so often repeated before his de- 
 parture into Ireland, that the first thing to 
 be done was to attack the earl of Tyrone in 
 Ulster, and that, until that step was taken, 
 all other expeditions in other parts of the 
 island were a mere useless waste of men and 
 treasure. She accused him of not only 
 acting contrary to his own opinion, but to 
 her express directions, when he entered 
 upon vain progresses, first into Munster, 
 and next into Oflaly and Leix, and spoke 
 with some asperity of his repeated excuses 
 and prevarications. " In which kind of pro- 
 ceeding," Elizabeth continues, alluding to 
 his pretence that he had been turned from 
 his original design by following the advice 
 of the Irish council, " we must deal plainly 
 with you and that council, that it were more 
 proper for them to leave troubling them- 
 selves with instructing us by what rules our 
 power and their obedience are limited, and 
 if the courses have been only derived from 
 their councils, how to answer this part of 
 theirs, to train us into a new expense for 
 one end, and employ it uoon another, to 
 542 
 
 which we could never have assented, if we 
 could have suspected it should have been 
 undertaken, before we heard it was in ac- 
 tion. And, therefore, we do wonder how 
 it can be answered, seeing your attempt is 
 not in the capital traitor's country, that you 
 have increased our list. But it is true, as 
 we havp often said, that we are drawn on 
 to expense by little and little, and by pro- 
 testations of great resolutions in general- 
 ities, till they come to particular execution. 
 Of all which courses, whosoever shall ex- 
 amine any of the arguments used for ex- 
 cuses, shall find that your own proceedings 
 beget the difficulties, and that no just 
 causes do breed the alteration. If lack of 
 numbers, if sickness of the army, be the 
 causes, why was not the action undertaken 
 when the army was in better state ? If 
 winter's approach, why were the summer 
 months of July and August lost ? If the 
 spring was too soon, and the summer that 
 followed otherwise spent, if the harvest that 
 succeeded was so neglected as nothing hath 
 been done, then surely must we conclude 
 that none of the four quarters of the year 
 will be in season for you and that council 
 to agree of Tyrone's prosecution, for which 
 all our charge was intended. Further, we 
 require you to consider whether we have 
 not great cause to think that the purpose is 
 not to end the war, when yourself have so 
 often told us that all the petty undertakings 
 in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, are 
 but loss of time, consumption of treasure, 
 and waste of our people, until Tyrone him- 
 self be first beaten, on whom the rest de- 
 pend. Do you not see, that he maketh the 
 war with us in all parts by his ministers, 
 seconding all plans where any attempts be 
 offered ? Who doth not see that, if this 
 course be continued, the wars are like to 
 spend us and our kingdom beyond all mo- 
 deration, as well as the report of the success 
 in all parts hath blemished our honour, and 
 encouraged others to no small proportion ? 
 We know you cannot so much fail in judg- 
 ment, as not to understand that all the 
 world seeth how time is dallied, although 
 you think the allowance of that council, 
 whose subscriptions are your actions, should 
 serve and satisfy us. How would you have 
 derided any man else that should have fol- 
 lowed your steps ? How often have you 
 told us that others which preceded you had 
 no intent to end the war ? How often have 
 you resolved us that, until Lough Foyle 
 and Ballyshannon were planted, there could 
 
A.D. 
 
 1599.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [ESSEX RETURNS. 
 
 be no hope of doing service upon the capital 
 rebels ? We must, tlierefore, let you know, 
 that as, it cannot be ignorance, so it can- 
 not be want of means, for you had your 
 asking, you had choice of times, you had 
 power and authority more than ever any 
 had or ever shall have. It may well be 
 judged with how little contentment we 
 search out this and other errors ; for who 
 doth willingly seek for that which they are 
 so loath to find ? But how should that be 
 hidden which is so palpable ? And, there- 
 fore, to leave that which is past, and that 
 you may prepare to remedy matters of 
 weight hereafter, rather than to fill your 
 papers with many impertinent arguments, 
 being in your general letters savouring still 
 in many points of humours that concern the 
 private of you our lord lieutenant, we do 
 tell you plainly that are of that council, that 
 we wonder at your indiscretion, to subscribe 
 to letters which concern our public service, 
 when they are mixed with any man's pri- 
 vate, and directed to our council table, 
 which is not to handle things of small im- 
 portance." The allusion in this last para- 
 graph is to the peevish complaints against 
 the supposed influence and practices of his 
 rivals and enemies which had filled Essex's 
 official letters ; and the queen's letter, after 
 demanding an immediate and strict account 
 of the state of the earl's resources, and the 
 plans he had formed for the public service 
 during the remainder of the year, concludes 
 with an angry reproach of his disrespect 
 in troubling his sovereign and her council 
 with these irrelevant matters. " We have 
 seen a writing in form of a cartel, full of 
 challenges that are impertinent, of and com- 
 plaints that are needless, such as have not 
 been before this time presented to a state, 
 except it be done now with a hope to terrify 
 all men from censuring your proceedings. 
 Had it not been enough to have sent us the 
 testimony of the council, but that you must 
 call so many of those that are of slender ex- 
 perience and none of our council to such 
 a form of subscription ? Surely, howsoever 
 you may have warranted them, we doubt 
 not but to let them know what belongs to 
 us, to you, and to themselves." 
 
 The time had now arrived when the ene- 
 mies of Essex were to have their full triumph 
 over him. This letter, which reached him 
 immediately after his conference with Ty- 
 rone and the conclusion of the truce, stung 
 the high-spirited favourite to the quick. His 
 first impetuous resolutions carried him to- 
 
 wards the most violent courses ; he formed 
 the wild plan of passing over to England with 
 a portion of the army under his command, in 
 the belief that his popularity would draw 
 numbers to his standard and enable him to 
 overthrow the government if necessary, and 
 take vengeance on his enemies at court. 
 Intelligence of these designs was secretly 
 carried to Elizabeth's ministers, and, under 
 pretence that a Spanish invasion was threat- 
 ened, six thousand men were suddenly levied 
 in London, three thousand of whom were 
 appointed as a guard upon the queen's per- 
 son. Meanwhile the earl of Essex had been 
 drawn to more prudent counsels by his friends 
 the earl of Southampton and sir Christopher 
 Blunt. Taking advantage of a permission 
 he had formerly obtained, authorising him lo 
 return to England without leave at any time 
 that his absence was not prejudicial to the 
 affairs of Ireland, he hurried over, accom- 
 panied only by a few friends, hastened to the 
 court, where he arrived on the 2Sth of Sep- 
 tember, and, making his way unexpectedly to 
 the queen's private chamber, threw himself 
 at her feet. She is said on the first impulse 
 to have been inclined to forgive her offend- 
 ing favourite ; but, on reflection, her demean- 
 our became more severe, she ordered him to 
 confine himself to his chamber until her fur- 
 ther pleasure, and from thence he was car- 
 ried to be examined before the privy council. 
 His explanations not proving satisfactory, 
 and his enemies probably being in the majo- 
 rity, he was transferred from the council to 
 the custody of the lord-keeper as a prisoner. 
 Thus ended his connexion with Ireland, and 
 it is no part of our plan to follow the unfor- 
 tunate favourite in his subsequent brief 
 course to the scaffold. 
 
 Essex, on his departure, had left the gov- 
 ernment of Ireland in the hands of archbishop 
 Loftus and sir George Carew, who, as long 
 as Tyrone preserved the peace, met with no 
 embarrassment in their government. Scarcely, 
 however, had the lord lieutenant quitted his 
 post, when new supplies of ammunition and 
 money arrived from Spain ; and the encou- 
 ragement he at the same time received from 
 the king of Spain and the pope, joined with 
 the consciousness of his own power, and a be- 
 lief in the weakness of Elizabeth's govern- 
 ment, determined the nortliern chieftain to 
 reommence the war. Ulster is described in 
 the somewhat flowery language of the Irish 
 annalist as being " as a full pool, a well 
 ready to overflow, or an unruffled wave, in 
 this year, without danger of battle, preying, 
 
 54-8 
 
Tyrone's manifesto.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1599. 
 
 fighting, or capture, from any quarter of 
 Ireland, while, in truth, their terror was over 
 ever}' country." Essex's policy in carrying 
 the war to the south, had, indeed, left the 
 great chieftain leisure and ease to prepare 
 extensively for the coming war ; and now, 
 in expectation of the speedy arrival of foreign 
 auxiliaries, he was every day more anxious 
 to hinder the agitation among the Irish from 
 subsiding. With Tyrone, where there was 
 a will, an excuse was seldom wanting, and 
 the inoment the first six weeks of the truce 
 were expired, here commenced hostility, giv- 
 ing for his pretence the imprisonment of 
 the earl of Essex in England, and, we are 
 told, confidently assuring his confederates 
 that England was now on the eve of disor- 
 ders which would effectively hinder her 
 from making any serious opposition to them. 
 When expostulated with on this breach of 
 his agreement, which was to renew the truce 
 from six weeks to six weeks until the fol- 
 lowing May, giving fourteen days' notice of 
 any intention of not renewing it, he did 
 little more than state coldly that he had 
 already given notice to his confederates, who 
 had been sent into different parts to renew 
 
 * The following is TjTone's manifesto, as given by 
 Leland, in Englisn, from a manuscript in tlie library 
 of Trinity College, Dublin : — 
 
 " Using hitherto more than ordinary favour to- 
 wards all my countrymen, both i'or that you are 
 generally by your professions Catholics, and that 
 naturally I am inclined to affect you, 1 have for these 
 and other considerations abstained my forces from 
 attempting to do you hinderance ; and the rather for 
 that I did expect in process of time you would enter 
 into consideration of the lamentable estate of your 
 poor country, most tyrannically oppressed, and of 
 your own gentle consciences in maintaining, re- 
 lieving, and helping the enemies of God and our 
 country, in wars infallibly tending to the promotion of 
 heresy. 
 
 " But now seeing you are so obstinate in that 
 in which you have hitherto continued, of necessity I 
 must use severity against you, whom otherwise I 
 most entirely loved, in reclaiming you by compulsion, 
 when my long tolerance and hapjjy victories, by God's 
 particular favour doubtlessly obtained, could work 
 no alteration in your consciences. 
 
 " Considering, notwithstanding, the great cala- 
 mity and misery whereunto you ax'e most likely to 
 fall, by persevering ia that damnable state in which 
 hitherto ye have lived, having thereof commissera- 
 tion, hereby 1 thought good and convenient to fore- 
 warn you, requesting every of you to come and join 
 with me against the enemies of God and our poor 
 country. If the same ye do not, 1 will use means not 
 only to spoil you of all your goods, but according to 
 the utmost of my power shall work what 1 can to 
 dispossess you of all your lands, because you are 
 the means whereby wars are maintained against the 
 exaltation of the Catholic faith. Contrary wise, what- 
 soever you shall be that shall join with me, upon my 
 544. 
 
 the war, and that it was too late to recal his 
 orders. 
 
 The earl of Ormond, who had been rein- 
 stated in his old command as lord lieutenant 
 of the army, now assembled the forces at the 
 disposal of government, and marched to the 
 north against the turbulent chieftain. The 
 latter, who still vs'aited for men from Spain, 
 found it expedient to parley again ; and, after 
 some threatening speeches, he consented to 
 renew the truce for a month. As he did not 
 conceal his determination to recommence the 
 war at the end of that period, he prepared 
 seriously for the struggle, held consultations 
 with his confederates, and addressed a mani- 
 festo to all the catholics of Ireland who had 
 not yet joined his standard. In tliis docu- 
 ment, which is remarkably characteristic of 
 the wily character of the man, he urged the 
 duty of sacrificing private interests to the 
 public cause of the church of Rome, which 
 he professed alone to have for his motive in 
 the war; and, while he promised his protec- 
 tion to all who took up arms with him, he 
 threatened vengeance on those who held 
 back.* The chief object of this manifesto 
 was to draw from their allegiance those who 
 
 con.'-cience, and as to the contrary I shall answer be- 
 fore God, I will em))loy myself to the utmost of my 
 power in their defence, and for the extirpation of 
 heresy, the planting of the Catholic religion, the de- 
 livery of our country of infinite murders, wicked 
 and detestable policies, by which this kingdom was 
 hitherto governed, nourished in obscurity and igno- 
 rance, maintained in barbarity and incivility, and 
 consequently of infinite evils which are too lament- 
 able to be rehearsed. 
 
 " And seeing these are motives most laudable be- 
 fore any man of consideration, and before the 
 Almighty most meritorious, which is chiefly to be 
 respected, I thought myself in conscience bound, 
 seeing God hath given me some power, to use all 
 means for the reduction of this our poor afflicted 
 country unto the Catholic faith, which can never be 
 brought to any good pass, without your destruction 
 or helping hands; hereby protesting that I neither 
 seek your lands nor goods, nor do I purpose to plant 
 any in your places, if you will adjoin with me, but 
 will extend what privileges and liberties that hitherto 
 ye have had, if it shall stand in my power ; giving 
 you to understand, upon my salvation, that chiefly 
 and principally I fight for the Catholic faith to be 
 planted throughout all our poor country, as well in 
 cities as elsewhere, a.s manifestly might appear by 
 that I rejected all other conditions proft'ered to me, 
 this not being granted ; which eftsoon before by word 
 of mouth I have protested, and do hereby protest, 
 that if 1 had gotten to be king of Ireland, without 
 having the Catholic religion which before I have 
 mentioned, I would not the same accept. 
 
 " Yet some other very catholicly given, to cover 
 their bad consciences with cloaks of afi'ected igno- 
 rance, will not seem to understand my good meaning 
 therein, but according to their own corrupt con- 
 
A.D. 1600.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [tyrone in the south. 
 
 were still wavering, and he speaks with the 
 consciousness or with the apprehension that 
 less worthy motives were attributed to him. 
 Tyrone's eye was now chiefly turned upon 
 Munster, for it was there that he hoped to 
 embarrass the government, so as again to 
 save his own territory from invasion ; and to 
 keep up the agitation in that province, he 
 determined, under pretence of making a pil- 
 grimage to the holy cross of Tipperary, to 
 pay it a visit in person. He thus not only 
 impressed his ignorant and superstitious fol- 
 lowers with a profound idea of his piety, but 
 he procured an opportunity of consulting 
 with the chieftains of the south, who were 
 no less zealous in the cause than himself. 
 The Geraldine who had assumed the title of 
 earl of Desmond — the Sugan earl — was ele- 
 vated with his petty successes, and wrote a 
 letter to the king of Spain, inveighing against 
 the tyrannical government of queen Eliza- 
 beth, which he said exceeded that of Pharaoh 
 or Nero; boasting of his own great exploits 
 in rooting out heresy from Munster, and 
 begging to be supplied with men and money, 
 
 sciences and judgments, construe my wars to be for 
 my particularities, affirming that I never mentioned 
 any points of religion in any articles of agreement 
 which were to pass between the queen's governors 
 and me ; contrary to my first article of agreement, 
 which was to pass between me and the lord of Or- 
 mond, the general of all the queen's forces in 
 Ireland; though very craftily the same, as I was 
 given to understand long after, was suppressed by 
 them. 
 
 " But some no doubt maliciously given are not 
 contented to admit my wars to be lawful, affii'ming 
 that the same were begun upon some particular 
 causes ; which I admit as a thing impertinent, seeing 
 the continuance thereof, as plainly to all men ap- 
 peareth, is for the chiefest motive, or at least was a 
 principal part thereof, albeit the same was not then 
 manifest, because so good a cause should not be com- 
 mitted to so doubtful an entertainment as my power 
 was then like to afford ; and lest a catholic cause 
 should receive any disgrace, or should be scandalized 
 by heretics, I refrained myself from giving others to 
 understand my intentions. 
 
 " Which, notwithstanding, many catholics under- 
 standing, do think themselves bound to obey the 
 queen as their lawful prince ; which is denied, in re- 
 spect that she was deprived of all such kingdoms, 
 dominions, and possessions, which otherwise perhaps 
 should have been due unto her, and consequently of 
 all subjection, inasmuch as she is left a private per- 
 son, and no man bound to give her obedience; and 
 beyond all this, such as were sworn to be faithful to 
 her, were by his hoUness absolved from performance 
 thereof, seeing she is, by a declaration of excom- 
 munication, ])ronounced a heretic ; neither is there 
 any revocation of the excommunication, as some 
 catholics do most falsely, for particular affection, 
 surmise ; for the sentence was in the beginning given 
 for heresy, and for continued heresy the same was 
 
 VOL. I. 3 z 
 
 that he might be enabled to reduce tlie towns 
 in wliich his enemies had sought shelter. 
 
 O'Neill commenced his progress to the 
 south, with a considerable force, at the 
 beginning of the year 1600, proceeding 
 along the borders of Meath and Breffny into 
 the barony of Delvin, committing every kind 
 of plimder and devastation as he proceeded 
 on this pious pilgrimage. He thus put in 
 effect the terms of his manifesto, by forcing 
 the chiefs on his way to join his standard. 
 He remained nine days in the King's County, 
 ravaging the country around; and as he 
 passed the Slieve Bloom mountains, he 
 dispatched a division of his army into Ely 
 to plunder the country of the O'Carrolls, 
 against whom he bore a special grudge ; and, 
 to use the expressive language of the Irish 
 chronicler of this march, " ill fate befel the 
 territory of Ely on that occasion, for all its 
 cattle, wealth, and great property, tliat could 
 be conveyed, were carried away out of it, so 
 that nothing was left in it but ashes instead 
 of its corn, and embers in place of its dwel- 
 lings; immense numbersoftheirmen, women, 
 
 continued. It is a thing void of all reason, that his 
 holiness should revoke the sentence, she persevering 
 in heresy, yea, in mischiefing and persecuting the 
 catholics. 
 
 " But it may be, there was a mitigation made in 
 favour of catholics, by which they might be licensed 
 in civil matters precisely to give her, during their 
 unability, obedience; but not in any matter tending 
 to the promotion of heresy. Wherefore, I earnestly 
 beseech you all catholics and good loving country- 
 men, as you tender the exaltation of the catholic 
 faith, and the utter extirpation of heresy in this our 
 poor distressed country, to consider tlie lamentable 
 and most miserable state thereof And now let us 
 join together, to deliver this poor kingdom from that 
 infection of heresy, with which it is, and shall be,_ if 
 God do not specially favour us, most miserably in- 
 fected ; taking example by that most christian and 
 catholic country of France, whose subjects, for de- 
 fence of the catholic faith, yea, against their most 
 natural king maintained wars so long, as by then- 
 means he was constrained to profess the catholic 
 religion, duly submitting himself to the apostolic see 
 of Rome; to which doubtless we may bring our 
 country, you putting your helping hands to the 
 same. 
 
 " As for myself, I protest before God, and upon 
 my salvation, I have been proffered oftentimes 
 such conditions, as no man seeking his own private 
 commodity could refuse. But I, seeking the public 
 utility of my native country, and means for your 
 salvation, will prosecute these wars until that gene- 
 rally religion be planted throughout all Ireland. 
 
 " So I rest, praying the Almighty to move your 
 flinted hearts, to prefer the commodity and profit of 
 our country before your own private ease. 
 
 "Dunaveag, the fifteenth day of November, 
 1599. 
 
 " O'Neill." 
 
 545 
 
DEATH OF MAGUIRE.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1600. 
 
 sons, and daughters, were left in a dying, 
 perishing state." Having left some of his 
 own people to hold possession of O'Carroll's 
 country, Tyrone marched with the hulk of 
 his army through Tipperary, till they came 
 before the gate of the monastery of Holy- 
 cross. " They were not long there, when 
 the holy cross was brought to them, to shield 
 and protect them, and the Irish gave large 
 presents, alms, and many offerings, to its 
 conservators and monks, in honour of Al- 
 mighty God; and they protected and re- 
 spected the monastery, with its buildings, 
 the lands appropriated for its use, and its 
 inhabitants in general." After having thus 
 effected the ostensible object of his journey, 
 Tyrone remained some time preying on the 
 lands of the Butlers. 
 
 Here, however, he was soon held in check 
 by the earl of Ormond, who, having exerted 
 himself in supplying and strengthening the 
 English forts and garrisons, collected the 
 forces of the pale, and, with the earl of Kil- 
 dare and the baron of Delvin, marched into 
 Munster, where he gained some advantages 
 over the insurgents. Tyrone, whose force 
 was too considerable to make him apprehen- 
 sive of an attack by the English, moved off 
 as Ormond approached, and marched to 
 Cashel, where the titular earl of Desmond 
 came to meet him, and then they marched 
 together into Cork against the lord Barry, 
 who was at this time faithful in his allegiance 
 to the queen. Tyrone, who among the 
 insurgents passed under the Irish title of the 
 O'Neill, sent a message to the lord Barry, 
 accusing him of "impiety to God and cruelty 
 to liis own soul and body, and tyranny and 
 ingratitude both to his foOowers and his 
 country," and of being the cause why all the 
 nobility of the south "were not linked 
 together to shake off the cruel yoke of heresy 
 and tyranny," and urging him to join tlie 
 national standard. The lord Barry's answer, 
 dated the twenty-sixth of February, was a 
 letter of defiance; whereupon, to quote again 
 the words of the Irish annalist, "O'Neill 
 remained in the country until he preyed and 
 burnt and ransacked it from one corner to 
 the other, both plains and high grounds, and 
 smooth and rugged districts, so that no one 
 considered or expected it would be occupied 
 or inhabited for a long time." 
 
 The northern chieftain then passed farther 
 south, and pitched his camp between the 
 rivers Lee and Bandon, on the borders of 
 Muskerry and Carberry, to settle the family 
 disputes among the Mac Carthys, and 
 strengthen them in their fidelity to his 
 cause. He deposed their chief, Donal mac 
 Carthy, because he was not sufficiently ini- 
 mical to the English, and substituted in his 
 place, with the old title of the Mac Carthy 
 More, his cousin Florence mac Carthy, who 
 possessed qualities which fitted him better 
 to be an active instrument in the troubles of 
 that time. Most of the other Irish chiefs 
 came to Tyrone's camp, and declared their 
 devotion to his cause. 
 
 Wliile O'Neill lay thus encamped, an acci- 
 dental encounter deprived both the English 
 and the Irish of a distinguished chieftain. 
 Sir Warham Sentleger at this time held the 
 office of president of Munster, and was sta- 
 tioned at Cork with a not very numerous 
 garrison. Unable to face the formidable 
 forces of the Irish in the field, he yet kept a 
 watchful eye upon their movements, and 
 made excursions against them when they 
 appeared in smaller parties. Tyrone appears 
 at one moment to have harboured a design 
 upon the city of Cork, and he sent Maguire 
 of Fermanagh, one of the ablest and bravest 
 of the Irish commanders, to reconnoitre the 
 neighbourhood. Maguire, who was attended 
 only by a priest and a few of his followers, 
 had advanced to within a mile of Cork, when 
 he suddenly found himself face to face with 
 sir Warham Sentleger and a small party of 
 English horse. It was the boast of Maguire 
 that he never turned from a foe, and he was 
 rushing upon Sentleger, when the latter 
 drew a dagg or pistol, and shot him through 
 the body. At the same moment Sentleger 
 himself received a blow on the head from 
 one of Maguire's men, which proved mortal. 
 According to the Irish accounts, it was 
 Maguire who cleft the head of the English 
 leader with his sword, and subsequently 
 slew five of his attendants, before he was 
 carried off the field by his own men fainting 
 from his wound, of which he died the same 
 day. The death of Maguire was a serious 
 loss to O'Neill, and he was sincerely lamented 
 by the Irish. 
 
 546 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LORD MOTJNTJOT; CAPTURE OF THE EARL OF ORMOND BY THE IRISH; MOUNTJOY'S CAMPAIGN IN ULSTER; 
 
 MUNSTER, AND THE SUGAN EARL. 
 
 rmond's vigilance had cer- 
 tainly warded off much 
 of the danger which 
 threatened the English 
 establishment in Ireland 
 at this moment; but the 
 government was still be- 
 set with embarrassments 
 on every side, and his repeated letters made 
 the English ministers well acquainted with its 
 wants. After mature deliberation the queen 
 returned to her original design, which had 
 been frustrated by Essex's interested oppo- 
 sition, and lord Mountjoy was appointed to 
 the ofSce of lord deputy of Ireland, while sir 
 George Carew, the same who had escaped so 
 fortunately from the defeat of Glenmalure, 
 and who was now one of the lords justices, 
 was named to succeed Sentleger as lord 
 president of Munster.* 
 
 Mountjoy entered Dublin on the 25th of 
 February, 1600, with none of the parade or 
 pomp which had distinguished the arrival of 
 former governors, but it was not the first 
 time that great talents have been concealed 
 under the absence of outward show. He 
 came with the full resolution of carrying into 
 effect the queen's directions, which had been 
 so strangely neglected by his predecessor; 
 and he brought with him similar instruc- 
 tions, which were to plant strong garrisons 
 at Lough Foyle and Ballyshannon, which 
 would be points from which the Ulster rebels 
 might be attacked at any moment, and which 
 would keep them in constant alarm; and to 
 station others at Armagh, the Blackwater, 
 and such other places as might check their 
 irruptions into the pale. Thus the insur- 
 gents of Ulster must either remain at home, 
 or leave their lands and properties at the 
 mercy of the queen's troops. 
 
 The earl of Tyrone was still in south 
 Munster, and so totally unacquainted was 
 he with the character of his new antagonist, 
 that, taking Mountjoy's refinement of man- 
 ners for effeminacy, he is said to have exulted 
 
 * The history of lord Mountjoy's government has 
 hecn handed down rather copiously by his lordship's 
 secretary, Fynes Moryson, and in the " Pacata Hiber- 
 nia," which relates more at large the proceedings of 
 
 in the choice of a commander who would 
 "lose the season of action while his break- 
 fast was being prepared." Yet, no sooner 
 was he made acquainted with his arriv.al in 
 Dublin, than he made haste to return to 
 Ulster, and he left a large portion of his 
 army under Dermott O'Connor, in Desmond, 
 as much to lessen his own company, that he 
 might retreat more rapidly, as to keep up the 
 spirits of the Geraldines. Before his depar- 
 ture, the O'Neill joined with Desmond, Mac 
 Carthy More (Florence), and Dermott mac 
 Carthy, in signing a letter to pope Clement, 
 expressing their zeal in the catholic cause, 
 and praying for his assistance. They earnestly 
 solicited his holiness to make a provision of 
 pious and learned pastors for their afflicted 
 church, whom they promised to cherish and 
 protect; and they beseeched him to renew 
 the sentence of excommunication fulminated 
 by his predecessors against Elizabeth, which 
 would enable them, his subjects, to act with 
 more success in the defence of his kingdom 
 of Ireland. The pope, as an acknowledgment 
 of their zeal, and of the interest he took in 
 their proceedings, published a bull which 
 granted to the illustrious prince Hugh 
 O'Neill and all his confederates, the same 
 spiritual indulgences usually given to those 
 who fought against the Turks for the reco- 
 very of the Holy Land. 
 
 The day after Mountjoy's arrival in Dub- 
 lin, he received intelligence from the earl of 
 Ormond that Tyrone lay in the west of 
 Munster ready to depart, and that he and 
 the other commanders in that province had 
 taken their positions in such a manner that 
 every route by which the rebel chief could 
 retreat to the north, was closed up to him, 
 except the western borders of the English 
 pale. The lord deputy immediately hurried 
 to Mullingar, to intercept the northerns in 
 their march, but there he learnt that he was 
 too late, as Tyrone had already reached 
 Ulster. He had crossed the Suir, and jja.ss- 
 ing not far from Cashel, had marched with 
 
 the lord president of Munster. The Irish version of 
 the history of this period will be found in the latter 
 pages of the " Annals of the Four Masters." 
 
 547 
 
ORMOND CAPTURED.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1600. 
 
 so much precipitation, taking his route 
 between Athlone and Mullingar, through 
 Westmeath and BrefFny, that it was evident 
 he was in great alarm lest his retreat should 
 be cut off. The facility with which he was 
 allowed to escape threw suspicions on the 
 sincerity of some of the Irish chiefs who 
 commanded in Elizabeth's service, and these 
 fell more especially upon the earl of Clan- 
 rickard. It was even rumoured that this 
 nobleman only waited the return of his 
 eldest son from England, to declare openly 
 for the catholic cause. 
 
 An event happened at this moment which 
 served to increased the distrust with which 
 the queen began to regard her commanders 
 in Ireland. The earls of Ormond and Tho- 
 mond, having pursued the earl of Tyrone 
 to the borders of Munster, satisfied with 
 devastating the territory of one of his ad- 
 herents, returned together to Kilkenny, 
 where they kept the festival of Easter. 
 They then proceeded to Dublin to pay their 
 respects to the new deputy, and returned in 
 company with sir George Carew, who was 
 on his way to take possession of his office 
 of president of Munster, and who was hos- 
 pitably received at Kilkenny in the castle 
 of the Butlers. Next day Ormond had 
 appointed to hold a parley with Anthony 
 O'Moore, the most considerable of the 
 rebels of Leinstcr, to arrange some personal 
 disputes with that chief, and he invited 
 Carew and the earl of Thomond to attend 
 him, an invitation which they willingly 
 accepted. Accordingly, they rode in com- 
 pany to the place of meeting, a wild spot 
 named Corrone-dufFe, on the borders of Kil- 
 kenny and Queen's county. The earl of 
 Ormond had been strongly advised by his 
 companions to take his own troop of two 
 hundred horse and Carew's guard, consisting 
 of a hundred more, with him to the place 
 of conference, but he treated this counsel 
 lightly, averring that the precaution was alto- 
 gether unnecessary. He even left his own 
 troop at a distance from the spot where the 
 meeting was to be held, to which he advanced 
 with only seventeen armed men, while 
 O'Moore was attended with a complete band 
 of pikemen, and had posted a body of five 
 hundred foot and twenty horse in a wood 
 close adjacent, ready to rush out at the 
 first signal. Carew disliked the look of the 
 place, the circumstances of the meeting, 
 and the behavour of O'Moore, and he urged 
 the earl of Ormond to retire, but in vain. 
 After the conference had lasted some time, 
 5-18 
 
 Ormond desired to speak with a Jesuit 
 named Archer, who was in O'Moore 's com- 
 pany, and a noted incendiarj-. In the course 
 of their conversation, high words arose, and 
 the earl called the priest a traitor, which 
 added to the irritation of the Irish. What 
 followed, however, had every appearance of 
 being the result of a premeditated plan. 
 During the conversation with Archer, the 
 Irish had approached and gradually siu'- 
 rounded the party, and at length one of 
 them seized the earl of Ormond and dragged 
 him from his horse. His followers advanced 
 to his assistance, but in the attempt to 
 rescue their lord one of them was killed by 
 O'Moore's pikemen, and the rest were taken 
 prisoners, five of them seriously wounded 
 in the scufHe. O'Moore at the same time 
 laid hands on Carew, but he was imme- 
 diately relieved by the earl of Thomond, 
 who received a wound in the back with a 
 pike before he escaped. The earl of Tho- 
 mond and the president of Munster then 
 forced their way through their assailants, 
 and by the swiftness of their horses escaped. 
 The O'Moores carried off their prisoners into 
 the fastnesses of Leix. 
 
 This bold outrage created a considerable 
 sensation throughout Ireland. A strong 
 suspicion was entertained by the friends of 
 government, from the imprudent temerity 
 with which Ormond had fallen into the 
 snare, that he had formed a secret scheme 
 for thus delivering himself into the hands 
 of the rebels, from sudden motives of dis- 
 loyalty. No subsequent conduct of the 
 earl seemed, however, to confirm such a 
 charge. Mountjoy was probably not sorry 
 to be thus temporarily relieved from the 
 presence of one who might have given him 
 embarrassment, for, in her apprehensions of 
 the course which the new deputy might 
 pursue, Elizabeth had continued the earl of 
 Ormond in the chief military command. 
 When O'Moore sent his messenger to the 
 lord deputy, with the insolent offer to de- 
 liver up his prisoners on condition of the 
 withdrawal of the English garrison from 
 Leix and Offaly, and a truce of six weeks, 
 during which no operations were to be car- 
 ried on against the Ulster rebels, his pro- 
 posal was rejected with contempt. 
 
 Mountjoy had satisfied Elizabeth of the 
 wisdom of his first measures, and he now 
 prepared to put in execution his plans 
 against the insurgents of Ulster. He began 
 by sending detachments of his forces to 
 Dundalk, Ardee, Kells, Newry, and Car- 
 
A.D. 
 
 IGOO.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [sir henry docwra. 
 
 lingford, to form garrisons for the protection 
 of tlie pale, and to keep the enemies in 
 Ulster in alarm. The establishment of a 
 garrison at Ballyshannon was delayed for a 
 while, but an armament of four thousand 
 men, under the command of sir Henry 
 Docwra, was sent by sea to make a descent 
 on Lough Foyle, and establish themselves 
 in a position there which was equally con- 
 venient for infesting the territories of 
 O'Neill or O'Donnell. Tyrone at first pre- 
 pared to oppose the landing of Docwra's 
 forces, but his attention was suddenly called 
 in another direction by the intelligence that 
 lord Mountjoy was advancing into Ulster 
 from the south. The Irish chief returned 
 in all haste to Dungannon, and marching on 
 in the hope of arresting Mountjoy's pro- 
 gress, he razed the old fort of the Black- 
 water, burnt Armagh, and distributed his 
 men in the strong fastnesses of Lough- 
 Lurken, where he threw up entrenchments 
 and constructed rude fortifications along a 
 line of three miles in extent. 
 
 The lord deputy meanwhile, after taking 
 all the measures which prudence required 
 for the security and defence of Leinster, 
 had proceeded to Newry, with such forces 
 as he could collect together. Tyrone took 
 possession of the dangerous pass of Moyry, 
 to stop the English in their march, but, 
 after some severe skirmishing, the Irish 
 were driven to the woods, and Mountjoy, 
 restraining his men from the pursuit, in 
 which they might have suffered more, pro- 
 ceeded in his march with little loss. He 
 continued to advance slowly and cautiously 
 upon Tyrone's territory, till he received in- 
 telligence from the governor of Carrickfer- 
 gus, that Docwra had arrived at Lough 
 Foyle and made good his landing after 
 encountering some little opposition ; that 
 he was already strongly intrenched ; and 
 that he was busy fortifying Derry. The 
 object of his march into Ulster being thus 
 effected, Mountjoy returned into Leinster, 
 where new disturbances had broken out 
 during his absence. 
 
 The Irish at first took the caution and 
 prudence which marked the operations of 
 lord Mountjoy for cowardice and irresolu- 
 tion, and their chronicles are filled at this 
 time with successes and victories against the 
 English commander, marked with the ex- 
 aggerations of numbers and circumstances 
 which was a natural result of their national 
 enthusiasm. O'Donnell had proceeded on 
 a new predatory expedition into Connaught 
 
 and Thomond, where he was perhaps drawn 
 by the general belief that the earl of Clan- 
 rickard was wavering in his fidelity to the 
 English. The Irish annalists of these events 
 pretend that he undertook this expedition 
 in order to show his contempt for the 
 English who had landed at Lough Foyle, 
 and who were spoken of as timid adven- 
 turers, not possessing the courage to venture 
 outside their entrenchments ; but he had 
 not hindered them from plundering the ter- 
 ritory of his dependents. 
 
 The heat of the rebellion was, however, 
 now giving way to a certain degree of re- 
 action, of which the present rulers of Ire- 
 land were not slow to take advantage. 
 Plunder began to be more scarce, and many 
 of the lesser chieftains, who joined in the 
 war chiefly with this object, were willing 
 to take any course which would leave them 
 in quiet possession of what they had 
 gained, and they now applied to the English 
 lord deputy for pardon and protection. 
 Success brought new domestic feuds in the 
 larger septs, which were equally advanta- 
 geous to the English cause. The O'Neill's 
 retreat from Munster was looked upon 
 generally as a flight ; it had not been 
 counterbalanced by any subsequent succes- 
 ses when his own territory was threatened; 
 and the establishment of the English at 
 Lough Foyle, however O'Donnell may have 
 affected to despise it, discouraged the par- 
 tizans of the two northern chieftains, many 
 of whom deserted to sir Henry Docwra, 
 and by moderate concessions and promises 
 of favour and protection they were retained 
 in the English interests. In Tyrone, Art 
 O'Neill, son of the late chieftain Turlough 
 Lynogh, rose up in rivalry against his 
 kinsman the earl, and, aspiring to the chief- 
 tainship, joined the English as the surest 
 method of forwarding his ambitious pro- 
 jects. The same part was acted in Tircon- 
 nell by one of the O'Donnells named Niell 
 Garv, or Niell the boisterous, by whose 
 means the English obtained possession of 
 the castle of Lifford. 
 
 To add to these causes of reaction, the 
 insurgents in various parts now experienced 
 a series of defeats in their petty encounters 
 with the English garrisons, to which they 
 had not lately been accustomed, and they 
 began themselves to experience severely the 
 miseries naturally entailed by the horrible 
 desolation they had been carrying through 
 the island. Since his return from Ulster, 
 Mountjoy had been occupied chiefly in re- 
 
TROUBLES OF LEINSTER.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1600. 
 
 pressing the rebels of Leinster. He had 
 already restored the army in a great measure 
 to the discipline and efficiency which it 
 appears to have lost under the earl of Essex. 
 We learn from Moryson, that on the 19th of 
 June the lord deputy wrote to sir Robert 
 Cecil (who then held the office of secretary 
 of state), that "he was more troubled to 
 govern the friends than to suppress the ene- 
 mies; tliat finding the army a mere chaos, 
 he had given it form; that finding it without 
 spirit, he had given it life ; that in all attempts 
 he had preserved the whole body of it, and 
 every part, from any blow; restored the 
 reputation of it; and possessed it with a dis- 
 position to undertake and a likelihood to 
 effect great services; that he had omitted 
 nothing which might be performed by tliis 
 army, in this estate, during this time; that 
 the assurance the Irish had received of suc- 
 cours from Spain was the only fuel of the 
 last blaze of this rebellion; therefore praying 
 that, except master Secretary had some cer- 
 tainty that Spain would not at that time 
 assist the rebels, the army might by all means 
 be strengtiiened, which would be necessary 
 if sucli assistance were sent, and would make 
 an end of the wars if none were sent." 
 
 It was in the montli of August, that, hav- 
 ing taken measures of protecting against any 
 attack from Ulster, whither he announced his 
 intention of making a general hosting, and 
 having received the submissions of the Ma- 
 guires and Mac Mahons, Mountjoy marched 
 with an army of somewhat more than six 
 hundred men, of whom sixty only were 
 cavalry, into Offaly and Leix, counties which 
 had been long in the undisturbed possession 
 of the Irish, and which therefore offered rich 
 plunder to the English troops. The army 
 committed great havoc, retaliating on the 
 Irish with the same devastation which had 
 been so often perpetrated by the insurgents 
 in other parts. These districts were the 
 chief support of the rebels of Leinster, and 
 it was therefore a part of Mountjoy's policy 
 to destroy their provisions. "Our captains," 
 says Moryson, "and by their example (for it 
 was otherwise painful) the common soldiers, 
 did cut down with their swords ail the rebels' 
 corn to the value of ten thousand pounds 
 and upwards, the only means by which they 
 were to live, and to keep their bonaghts or 
 hired soldiers. It seemed incredible, that 
 by so barbarous inhabitants the ground 
 should be so manured, the fields so orderly 
 fenced, the towns so frequently inhabited, 
 and the highways and paths so well beaten, 
 550 
 
 as the lord deputy here found them. The 
 reason whereof was, that the queen's forces, 
 during these wars, never till then came 
 among them." 
 
 In the course of this expedition the Eng- 
 lish were engaged in continual skirmishing 
 with the natives, commanded by Anthony 
 O'Moore and captain Tyrrell, in which the 
 former had generally the advantage, and 
 slew many of the rebels. On the 17th of 
 August, Mountjoy marched towards one of 
 these strongholds, with the intention of 
 destroying the extensive stores of corn he 
 was informed they had laid up there. In 
 passing a ford between a bog and a wood, 
 his advanced guard was attacked at a disad- 
 vantage, and his own life was for a time in 
 imminent danger, his horse being killed 
 under him by one of the enemy's shot. But 
 the rest of his men coming up, the Irish 
 were soon beat off with loss, and among the 
 slain was the celebrated and dreaded Leinster 
 leader, Anthony O'Moore, besides one or 
 two other chieftains. This disaster was the 
 greatest check which the insurgents of Lein- 
 ster had yet experienced. O'Moore had 
 shortly before released his captive, the earl 
 of Ormond, on his delivering hostages for the 
 payment of a heavy ransom, and these hos- 
 tages were now recovered by the deputy 
 without the payment of the ransom. 
 
 It was judged that the famine which must 
 result from the wholesale destruction com- 
 mitted by the English soldiery, would natu- 
 rally be the most effectual means of reducing 
 the rebels to obedience. The same expe- 
 dient was practised in Ulster. Chichester, 
 the governor of Carrickfergus, with a 
 strengthened garrison, and no longer held 
 in check by the insurgents, marched out 
 and reduced the country to a desert through 
 a circuit of twenty miles. Sir Samuel Bag- 
 nail, with the garrison of Newry, laid waste 
 in a similar manner the district round that 
 town. The consequences of this destruction 
 sometimes fell upon the English themselves; 
 and the impossibility of obtaining jirovisions 
 in the neighbourhood, had rendered it neces- 
 sary to withdraw the English garrison from 
 Armagh. 
 
 The last military expedition undertaken 
 by Mountjoy before the winter which fol- 
 lowed his appointment, had for its object 
 to build a new fort on the borders of Ty- 
 rone, on this side. On the 14th of Septembei 
 the lord deputy marched with his army to the 
 hill of Faghard, a short distance beyond Dun- 
 dalk, where the extraordinary inclemency 
 
A.D. 
 
 1600.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [CARLINGFORD FIGHT. 
 
 of the weather compelled him to remain in 
 camp nine days. The earl of Tyrone, in- 
 formed of the deputy's march, had collected 
 " his uttermost strength," and again hurried 
 to the pass of Moyry, whicli he fortified in 
 the best manner he could. Mountjoy "re- 
 solved to march over him," attacked him in 
 his intrenchnients during two days with so 
 much vigour, that on the third day (the 8th 
 of October), the Irish were compelled to 
 retreat, and left the pass open. The Eng- 
 lish remained in the neighbourhood some 
 days, levelling the intrenchments in the 
 pass, and cutting down the woods on each 
 side ; and then, on the 21st of October, 
 they marched through it in triumph, and 
 proceeded to Newry, where they were again 
 detained by want of provisions. Having 
 obtained the necessary supplies, they left 
 Newry on the second of November, and en- 
 camped in the neighbourhood of Armagh, 
 where Tyrone's cavalry showed itself on a 
 neighbouring hill, but immediately retired 
 on being threatened with an attack. Here 
 Mountjoy having surveyed a spot which had 
 been formerly designed for a military post 
 by sir John Norris, and being satisfied with 
 the advantages of the situation, immediately 
 commenced building a strong fort, which 
 was finished in the space of a week, and to 
 which in honour of the great commander 
 he gave the name of Mount Norris. During 
 this work, Tyrone hovered about with his 
 army, and, although he did not venture to 
 attack the English army, continually skir- 
 mished with its outposts, and attacked the 
 foraging parties. But, by the vigilance of 
 the lord de2)uty, he appears to have received 
 more injury than he inflicted. 
 
 Having finished this fort, and placed a 
 sufficient garrison in it, Mountjoy prepared 
 to return, and various reasons determined 
 him on this occasion to change his route, 
 and march, not through the pass of Moyry, 
 but by way of Carlingford, the more dangerous 
 march of the two, and his progress was 
 rendered much more disagreeable by the 
 unfavourable state of the weather. In the 
 neighbourhood of Carlingford, the only pass 
 lay along the sea shore at the foot of a steep 
 mountain, which descended to the beach, 
 and was covered with a dense forest. A 
 narrow path ran through the wood, but the 
 only practicable road for an army was on the 
 beach, where, at widest, about seven soldiers 
 could march abreast, while at high tide it 
 was impassable. On the 13th of November, 
 Mountjoy's army was put in motion at day- 
 
 break, in order to march through Carlingford 
 Pass while the tide was out, and then it was 
 discovered that Tyrone had anticipated them, 
 and that his whole army was not only lodged 
 in the pass and amongst the woods, but that 
 they had fortified themselves with ditches 
 and intrenchments. The English were im- 
 mediately drawn up under the eye of their 
 leader, and marched resolutely to the at- 
 tack, and, after an obstinate and protracted 
 engagement, beat the enemy away, and 
 gained possession of the pass, through which 
 they marched, and arrived at Dundalk with- 
 out meeting with any further obstacle. This 
 battle of Carlingford Pass was one of the 
 most celebrated in the war of this year, and 
 tended very much to diminish the military 
 reputation of the earl of Tyrone. He him- 
 self narrowly escaped with Ins life, for the 
 shot of an English musket killed the man 
 on whose shoulder he was leaning. The 
 Irish, according to report, lost above eight 
 hundred men, while the loss of the English 
 was only about two hundred killed, and four 
 hundred wounded. At Dundalk, Mount- 
 joy received cheering letters from court, as- 
 suring him that the queen approved entirely 
 of his conduct since his appointment. 
 
 This encouragement was the more accept- 
 able to lord Mountjoy at this moment, be- 
 cause he had had more than one reason to 
 feel that he only partially enjoyed the con- 
 fidence of his sovereign, which, however, 
 he was gradually meriting by the wisdom of 
 his measures, when he was suddenly exposed 
 to an unexpected danger. During the dis- 
 grace of the earl of Essex, Mountjoy had 
 generously solicited the queen's ministers in 
 his favour, and had even ventured to urge 
 excuses in favour of his conduct in Ireland. 
 That weak nobleman, who was soon after- 
 wards brought to the scaffold, attempted 
 to save himself by a pretended confession, 
 and among a numerous list of distinguished 
 individuals whom he accused of being privy 
 to his designs, appeared the name of the 
 present lord-deputy of Ireland. Mountjoy 
 received speedy information of his undesir- 
 able position, and, although the charge against 
 him was of a very vague character, he made 
 urgent applications to be recalled. His 
 alarm, indeed, was so great, that he declared 
 in private to his friends that he was " fully 
 resolved not to put his neck under the file 
 of the queen's attorney's tongue," and it was 
 understood among his intimate acquaintance 
 that, the moment he was authorized to lay 
 down his office, he intended to fly to France. 
 
 551 
 
THE SUGAN EARL.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1600. 
 
 It was even said that he had made prepara- 
 tions for the voyage. His services were, 
 however, now better appreciated, and Eliza- 
 beth's policy had always been one of indul- 
 gence towards her servants. The queen 
 wrote him a gracious letter, expressing the 
 value she set on his services, and her unwil- 
 lingness at that moment to dispense with 
 them. She informed him of the death of 
 the earl of Essex, and flattered him by the 
 declaration that, in regard of his approved 
 fidelity and love, it was no small alleviation 
 of her grief that she could pour it out to 
 him. Under cover of a caution to him 
 against those under his command, who, 
 owing their advancement to the earl of 
 Essex, might have embraced treasonable 
 projects, she contrived to insinuate that she 
 could not but pardon those " who, by his 
 popular fashion, and outward profession of 
 sincerity, had been seduced and blindly led 
 by him." The lord-deputy's fears were thus 
 entirely dispelled, and he applied himself 
 with new vigour to prosecute his plans 
 against the rebellious Irish. He had already 
 renewed the operations against the insur- 
 gents of Leinster. 
 
 While Mountjoy was thus gradually re- 
 storing the queen's power in Ulster and 
 Leinster, Sir George Carew's proceedings in 
 the southern province were no less success- 
 ful. The rebellion there was headed, as it 
 has been already stated, by the Geraldine, 
 who under cover of O'Reilly's protection, 
 had assumed the title of earl of Desmond — 
 the Sugan earl, who, besides the number of 
 followers which that title always com- 
 manded in Munster, was assisted by two bo- 
 dies of men from Connaught and the North, 
 amounting together, it was said, to no less 
 than five thousand men, under the command 
 of Redmond Burke and Dermott O'Connor. 
 We must add to these the force under 
 Florence mac Carthy. The rebel forces, if 
 united, were fiir too numerous to give any 
 chance to Carew, at the head of his small 
 army of three thousand foot and two hun- 
 dred and fifty horse, including garrisons, 
 to face them with any success in the field. 
 But fortunately for the English government 
 the insurgents were, as usual, a disunited 
 body, under a number of chieftains who had 
 so many different and often clashing inter- 
 ests, who were ever ready to quarrel vrith 
 each other in the moment of success, and 
 who upon the first serious disaster began 
 each to provide for his own safety in the 
 way he thought best. 
 552 
 
 After witnessing the capture of the earl 
 of Ormond by Anthony O'Moore, sir George 
 Carew proceeded to Cork, then looked upon 
 as the capital of the presidency of Munster, 
 where he arrived on the 24th of April, 
 closely watched by the forces of the Sugan 
 earl, with which his men had frequent 
 skirmishes. According to the Irisli accounts, 
 the insui-gents actually besieged the new 
 lord president in Cork, but disunion among 
 his enemies, and a serious defeat experienced 
 by Florence mac Carthy soon relieved him 
 from any serious fears on that side. Carew 
 remained quiet in Cork for a short time, 
 studying the several characters of the rebel 
 leaders, and pursuing the policy which had 
 always been found the most effectual in 
 those cases, that of sowing division amongst 
 them. A considerable number of the lesser 
 Irish chieftains came in and made their 
 submission, and were received into the 
 queen's protection. Florence mac Carthy, 
 who had been created by O'Neill the chief 
 of his sept or the Mac Carthy Mores dis- 
 couraged and mortified by his recent defeat, 
 consented to a conference with the lord 
 president, and was brought to agree to a 
 neutrality, which, if it was not expected to 
 be durable, assisted for the moment Carew's 
 designs. 
 
 Many of the chiefs who submitted had 
 had for a main object in joining the rebel- 
 lion to protect their country from plunder, 
 with which it will be remembered, all those 
 who neglected or refused to join his standard 
 were menaced in Tyrone's manifesto issued 
 before the progress of the northern chief- 
 tain to the south. The untouched condi- 
 tion of the territories of some of those who 
 now submitted to Carew soon attracted the 
 rapacity of those who remained in rebel- 
 lion, — it was in fact a mere choice whether 
 they would be plundered by the English or 
 the Irish, and their probable motive in pre- 
 ferring the protection of the fcrmer was 
 that they began to foresee they would be 
 the strongest. Thus, for an example, on 
 the 27th of April, or three days after 
 Carew's arrival in Cork, Redmond Burke 
 invaded the country of O'Dwyre ; but this 
 chieftain collecting his people in haste, fell 
 upon the invaders, and drove them away. 
 Irritated by this defeat, Redmond Burke 
 returned into O'Dwyre's country on the 
 sixth of May, and there "he slew man, 
 woman, and child, burnt all the houses 
 (castles excepted), and drove away all the 
 cattle of the country.' 
 
1600.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [dermott o'conxor. 
 
 It is inconsistent with the duty of the 
 historian to repeat the long list of exploits 
 of this description by which Munster was 
 continually desolated. The adherents of 
 the Sugau earl were gradually falling off 
 from his banner. Among those who were 
 brought to negotiate were Redmond Burke 
 himself, who was allured by the hope of 
 obtaining the barony of Leitrim, and Der- 
 mott O'Connor. And on the 23rd of May, 
 as Carew was on his march to Kilmallock, 
 which was still one of the most important 
 of the English military stations hi Munster, 
 he received the submission of the White 
 Knight, another important memoer of the 
 rebel confederacy. 
 
 The war in Munster was in fact gradually 
 dwindling into one of treachery and assas- 
 sination, which was turning to the evident 
 advantage of the English government. One 
 of the first who turned traitor was Dermott 
 O'Connor, who was looked upon as the 
 Sugan earl's chief commander of the bon- 
 aghts, or mercenary soldiers. " This Der- 
 mott O'Connor," we are told in the Pacata 
 Hibernia, " was a poor man in the begin- 
 ning of his fortune, and not owner of two 
 plough lands, in Connaught, his native 
 country ; his rejDutation grew partly by his 
 wife, who was daughter to the old earl of 
 Desmond, and partly by his valour, being 
 reputed one of the most valiant leaders and 
 best commanders amongst the Irish rebels. 
 By means whereof he had now the command 
 of fourteen hundred men in his own 
 bonaght, and besides that might strike a 
 great stroke with the other, being by Tyrone 
 at his departure out of Munster ordained 
 chief commander of them all." O'Connor, 
 who felt the honour of being so nearly con- 
 nected with the great house of Desmond, 
 was entirely under the influence of his wife, 
 who had been educated in England and 
 imbibed a taste for English manners, and 
 an attachment for the English government, 
 and who hoped any services rendered to the 
 queen would forward the fortunes of her own 
 brother, the rightful heir to the earldom, 
 who had been conveyed to England after his 
 father's death. By the influence of this 
 woman, Dermott O'Connor was induced to 
 agree for a certain sum of money to execute 
 a scheme for the capture of the Sugan earl 
 and his delivery to the lord president. 
 
 In the interval between the devising and 
 the execution of this design, another act of 
 treachery was attempted, which was near 
 proving fatal to the Sugan earl's brother, 
 
 VOL. I. 4 A 
 
 John iitz Thomas. There was an old ser- 
 vant of sir Thomas Norris, named Nugent, 
 who had deserted to the rebels, and gained 
 their confidence by the numerous outrages 
 he had committed in their service. This 
 man was now anxious to obtain his pardon, 
 and had made a pressing application to that 
 effect, which was denied. After repeated 
 solicitations, at length, in an interview with 
 Carew, he undertook, as the price of his 
 pardon, to destroy either the Sugan earl or 
 his brother. As Dermott O'Connor had 
 already undertaken to secure the former, 
 Nugent was employed against the latter. 
 Accordingly, he seized the opportunity 
 when John fitz Thomas was proceeding with 
 him and another attendant, named Cop- 
 pinger, to join his men, who were concealed 
 in the fastnesses of the Aherlow district, the 
 old and favourite retreat of the insurgents. 
 Coppinger appears also to have been a 
 renegade Englishman, and he so far enjoyed 
 Nugent's confidence, that he had been 
 secretly made acquainted with his intention, 
 and probably had joined in the plot. As 
 these three rode together towards the wood, 
 Nugent suddenly fell back a few steps into 
 the rear, drew a pistol loaded with two balls, 
 and took deliberate aim at the Geraldine's 
 back. Coppinger, who had observed the 
 movement, was suddenlj^ struck with re- 
 pentance, and turning his horse round, 
 snatched the pistol from Nugent's hand, 
 exclaiming, " treason !" and the intended 
 victim turned at the same moment, and saw 
 the danger with which he had been threat- 
 ened. Nugent, who was mounted on a 
 very swift horse, made an attempt to es- 
 cape, but it accidentally stumbled, and threvi- 
 him to the ground, where he was seized 
 and bound. Next day the traitor was 
 hanged by the rebels in the wood ; but he 
 first made a full confession of his design, 
 and of the motives which had urged him to 
 it, and he further declared (with what ob- 
 ject it is difficult to perceive, as he did not 
 give their names) that there were a number 
 of persons wlio had taken a solemn oath to 
 the lord president to slay John fitz Thomas 
 and the Sugan earl. John fitz Thomas 
 left his companions and hastened to his 
 brother's camp to acquaint him with what 
 had happened, and Nugent's declaration so 
 affected the two brothers, that for some time 
 after they lived in continual fear, neither 
 daring to appear at the head of their troops, 
 nor even to lodge together in one place. 
 Dermott O'Connor was more successful 
 
 553 
 
THE EARL DEFEATED.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1600. 
 
 in the execution of his plot, which was laid 
 in the most artful manner. At a season 
 when everybody expected that the lord 
 president was at the point of opening a vigor- 
 ous campaign against the rebels, he sud- 
 denly dispersed his forces into different 
 garrisons, and thus threw the Irish entirely 
 off their guard. Carew then wrote a letter, 
 addressed to James fitz Thomas, the only 
 name by which the English commanders 
 would condescend to speak of the Sugan 
 earl, in which he thanked that leader for 
 his secret services to the state, and urged 
 him to deliver up Dermott O'Connor, alive 
 or dead. This letter was given to a mes- 
 senger privately directed to allow himself 
 to be taken by the men of Dermott O'Con- 
 nor, and the latter having it in his posses- 
 sion, appointed a parley with the Sugan earl 
 on the ISth of June, and, at the place of 
 meeting, accused him of treason to the Irish 
 cause, produced the letter as a corrobo- 
 ration of the charge, and arrested him in 
 the name of the great O'Neill. 
 
 But O'Connor overreached himself by his 
 own cunning. Instead of immediatel}' car- 
 rying his prisoner to the lord president, in 
 whose hands he would have been secure, he 
 confined him in a strong castle of his own 
 called Castle-ishin, in order that he might 
 make sure of the reward before he completed 
 his own part of his compact with Carew. 
 While he was arranging this part of the 
 business with the president, John fitz Thomas 
 and Pierce Lacy, one of the most desperate 
 of the rebel commanders, raised four thou- 
 sand of their followers, suiTounded Castle- 
 ishin, and rescued the prisoner. 
 
 Although neither of these plots was at- 
 tended with the result expected from them, 
 they succeeded fully in spreading distrust 
 and suspicion among the insurgent leaders, 
 while their power was gradually broken by 
 the continual movements of the president 
 and his army. A series of petty defeats and 
 disasters broke the spirits of the rebels. 
 Carew marched against the castle of Glynn, 
 the chief fortress of one of the stanchest 
 adherents of the Sugan earl, the Knight of 
 the Valley, which was taken by storm, and 
 the garrison put to the sword. Two thou- 
 sand five hundred of the mercenaries from 
 Connaught, despairing of the cause in which 
 they were engaged, deserted it, and obtained 
 Carew's permission to return unmolested to 
 their own country. Ken-y was next invaded, 
 and the castle of Lixnaw and several others 
 captured by the English troops. The Geral- 
 554 
 
 dine lord of Lixnaw died shortly afterwards, 
 it was said, of grief at the devastations com- 
 mitted upon his territory. His son, the 
 young lord, in spite of his inveterate hatred 
 of the protestants, was under the necessity 
 of submitting, as were also the White Knight 
 and other chiefs. In the scattered warfare 
 which was now carried on throughout the 
 south of Munster, the English followed with 
 merciless severity the policy which was work- 
 ing its effects so surely in Leinster and Ulster, 
 that of laying the rebels' country waste, and 
 it had its immediate effect in producing a 
 number of submissions which were not sin- 
 cere. But the priests were now zealously 
 inculcating the doctrine that no promises 
 made to heretics were binding ; and some of 
 the rebels actually sought a disjjensationfrom 
 the pope for making a temporary submission 
 to the " enemies of the church." 
 
 The strength of the Sugan earl was thus 
 continually diminished, and he was soon 
 obliged to take to the same wild life which 
 had marked the latter years of the last un- 
 fortunate nobleman who bore the title he 
 assumed. A disastrous attack from the gar- 
 rison of Kilmallock put the last blow to his 
 power, which, had the Spanish force subse- 
 quently sent to Ireland landed a few months 
 before, might have given the most serious 
 embarrassment to Elizabeth's government. 
 On the IGth of September the governor of 
 Kilmallock received intelligence that the 
 Sugan earl was proceeding from Kerry 
 towards the old refuge of Munster insur- 
 gents, the fastnesses of Aherlow, with his 
 baggage and a force of six hundred of his 
 best men. A party of the garrison innne- 
 diately sallied forth to attack them, and in 
 the fight which ensued the gallantry of a 
 captain of cavalry named Grymes, has been 
 recorded as especially deserving of notice. 
 At the head of thirty-six horsemen only, 
 who had hurried forwards in advance of the 
 infantry, captain Grymes charged upon the 
 baggage guard, and possessed himself of the 
 baggage. Although charged in return by 
 the main body (in four columns), he held his 
 ground until some footmen came up to the 
 support of his small troop. After an obsti- 
 nate combat, the Irish at length gave way, 
 leaving " sixty of the chiefest men and 
 leaders" dead on the field, besides " many 
 churls and boys," and a considerable number 
 of wounded. 
 
 Shortly before this event, it had been de- 
 termined by the English coui't, at the sug- 
 gestion probably of the lord president of 
 
I GOO.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. [the earl of desmond. 
 
 Munster, to set up a rival earl of Desmond in 
 the person of the son and heir of the late 
 earl, who, as it has been previously remarked, 
 was retained in London. It was thought, 
 that when the title, even assumed by one of 
 the family who had no claim to it, could 
 draw together so many followers, the influ- 
 ence of the real earl nuist be still more 
 extensive. This would, no doubt, under 
 ordinary circumstances, have been the case ; 
 but in the present instance there were cir- 
 cumstances which materially lessened the 
 chances of success. The young heir of Des- 
 mond, who was now known to those who 
 still acknowledged the title of his rival by 
 that of the queen's earl, had been brought 
 up in England and was attached to the 
 English government and measures; and, 
 which was perfectly unpardonable in the 
 temper to v.'hich the Irish population of 
 Munster had been worked up by the fiery 
 zeal of the incendiary priests, he was a sin- 
 cere professor of the Protestant faith. 
 
 Towards the end of August Sir George 
 Carew received official information that pre- 
 parations were making to send the young 
 earl over into Ireland, upon which he sent 
 a footman into Kerry dressed up "as the 
 manner is, having his master's arms upon 
 his coat before and behind, to sliow himself 
 in most places of tlie country, that tliereby 
 they might be the better persuaded of his 
 (the young earl's) coming, and be a means 
 to alienate their hearts from the counterfeit 
 Desmond." A large proportion of the inhabi- 
 tants of the English towns in the south of 
 Ireland, as well as the wild Irish, were 
 bigoted Catholics, and this circumstance is 
 not unfrequently alluded to in the despatches 
 of the officers connuanding in these late 
 rebellions, who were embarrassed by the 
 assistance they gave to the rebels. This hap- 
 pened to be the case at Cork, where it being 
 known accidentally that the young earl was 
 a Protestant, he met with a reception pecu- 
 liarly inhospitable, sir George Carew hap- 
 pening to be then at Mallow. The earl's 
 own account of his voyage, in a letter to 
 sir Robert Cecil, preserved in the State 
 Paper office, is so remarkably curious, that 
 we shall hardly be blamed for quoting it in 
 his own words. 
 
 " Upon Monday, the loth of October," 
 he says, " we set sail from Shirehampton for 
 Cork, where we having so fair a passage, as 
 the honest gentleman the bearer can tell you, 
 the master and sailors said they never for 
 this time of the year knew the like. We 
 
 held our course for the place appointed by 
 your honour's instructions, but that I was so 
 sea-sick, as whilst I live I shall never love 
 that element, being two days and a night at 
 sea, I besought them to land me anywhere. 
 So being not able to reach Cork on Tuesday 
 night, being the 14th of this montli, we fell 
 in at Youghal, where, that your honour may 
 know the truth of my proceedings, I had 
 like, coming new of the sea, and therefore 
 somewhat weak, to be overthrown with the 
 kisses of old calleakes (women), and was re- 
 ceived witli that joy of the poor people as 
 did well show they joyed in the exceeding 
 mercy her sacred majesty showed towards 
 me. From thence we went to Mr. John 
 fitz Edmond's house at Cloyne, where v/e 
 had a great deal of cheer after the country 
 fashion and show of welcome. From thence 
 to Cork (where I humbly beseech your ho- 
 nour to take notice of this). I write from 
 tliat town, as captain Price can witness. 
 Coming thither three or four hours before 
 niglit we could not get lodging in a long 
 time, neither place to send my cook to pro- 
 vide supper for us, until I was fain (except 
 I would go supperless to bed) to bid myself 
 to the mayor's house, a lawyer, one Meagh, 
 (Meade), who, if he have no better insight 
 in Littleton than in other observances of this 
 place, mav for her majesty's service be well 
 called Lacklaw; for it was nuich ado that we 
 got anything for money, but that the most 
 of my people lay without lodging, and cap- 
 tain Price had the hogs for his neighbours. 
 From that town, which had so great a char- 
 ter and so little honesty, I came to my lord 
 president to Mallow." The mayor of Cork 
 was afterwards severely reprimanded for his 
 rude reception of the new earl, and he made 
 some futile excuses. 
 
 It was the ISth of October when captain 
 Price, who had the charge of the young earl, 
 presented him to the lord president at Mal- 
 low, vnth dispatches from the queen, who 
 expressed her doubts of the prudence of this 
 measure, and with the patent for the young 
 Geraldine's restitution in blood and honour. 
 In her letter to Carew the queen, apprehen- 
 sive of the effect which might follow the 
 measure now ruidertaken, gave him autlio- 
 rity to make the earl a close prisoner, or 
 even to refuse the recognition of his title 
 should he judge it necessary for her service; 
 and he was restricted from the delivery of 
 the patent out of his own hands, although it 
 migiit be shown to any whom he might 
 think it advisable to convince of its exist- 
 
 555 
 
THE EARL OF DESMOND.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1600. 
 
 ence. In addition to these precautions, spies 
 were employed about the person of the earl 
 and his immediate companions. 
 
 At first the appearance of the new earl of 
 Desmond produced the enthusiasm which 
 was expected from it. We have seen his 
 own account of his reception at Youa;hal. 
 When he reached Mallow " there was so 
 great and wonderful alacrity and rejoicing of 
 the people, both men, women, and children," 
 says an eye-witness, " and mighty crying 
 and pressing about him, as there was not 
 only much ado to follow him, but also a 
 great number overthrown and overrun in the 
 streets in striving who should come first imto 
 him. The like whereof I never heard or 
 saw before, nor would I think it could ever 
 be, except it were about our prince." " Yea," 
 the same informant adds, " the very infants, 
 hearing but this Desmond named, could not 
 contain themselves from showing the affec- 
 tion they bear to that house." 
 
 The sequel cannot be told better than in 
 the words of the Pacata Hibernia, written 
 also by a witness, or taken from the informa- 
 tion of one who was present. " The pre- 
 sident, to make trial of the disposition and 
 affection of tlie young earl's kindred and 
 followers, at his desire consented that he 
 should make a journey from Mallow into the 
 county of Limerick, accompanied with the 
 archbisliop of Cashel and master Boyle, 
 (both spies on his conduct, and the latter 
 subsequently celebrated as the ' great earl of 
 Cork.') And to master Boyle his lordship 
 gave secret charge, as well to observe the 
 earl's ways and carriage, as what men of qua- 
 lity or others made tlieir address unto him ; 
 and with what resjject and behaviour they 
 carried themselves towards the earl; who 
 came to Kilmallock upon a Saturday in the 
 evening, and by the way, and at their entry 
 into the town, there was a mighty concourse 
 of people, insomuch as all the streets, doors, 
 and windows, yea, the very gutters and tops 
 of the houses, were so filled with them, as if 
 they came to see him whom God had sent to 
 be that comfort and delight their souls and 
 hearts most desired, and they welcomed him 
 with all the expressions and signs of joy, 
 every one throwing upon him wheat and 
 salt, an ancient ceremony used in that pro- 
 vince, upon the election of their new mayors 
 and officers, as a prediction of future peace 
 and plenty. That night the earl was invited 
 to sir George Thornton's, who then kept 
 his house in the town of Kilmallock; and 
 although the earl had a guard of soldiers 
 556 
 
 which made a lane from his lodgings to sir 
 George Thornton's house, yet the conflu- 
 ence of people that flocked thither to see 
 was so great, as in half an hour he could 
 not make his passage through the crowd ; 
 and after supper he had the like encoun- 
 ters at his return to his lodging. The next 
 day being sunday, the earl went to church 
 to attend divine service ; and all the way 
 his country people used loud and rude de- 
 hortations to keep him from church, unto 
 which he leant a deaf ear ; but after service 
 and the sermon was ended, the earl, coming 
 forth of the church, was railed at and spat 
 upon by those that before his going to 
 church were so desirous to see and salute 
 him. Insomuch, as after that public ex- 
 pression of his religion, the town was cleared 
 of tliat multitude of strangers, and the earl 
 from thenceforward might walk as quietly 
 and freely in the town, as little in effect 
 followed or regarded, as any other private 
 gentleman." " This true relation," observes 
 the writer we are quoting, " I the rather 
 make, that all men may observe how hate- 
 ful our religion and the professors thereof 
 are to the ruder and ignorant sort of people 
 in that kingdom. For from thenceforward 
 none of his father's followers (except some 
 few of the meaner sort freeholders) resorted 
 unto him ; and the other great lords in 
 Munster, who had evermore been over- 
 shadowed by the greatness of Desmond, did 
 rather fear than wish the advancement of the 
 young lord. But the truth is, his religion, 
 being a protestant, was the only cause 
 that had bred this coyness in them all ; for 
 if he had been a Romish catholic, the 
 hearts and knees of all degrees in the pro- 
 vince would have bowed vmto him. Be- 
 sides, his coming was not well liked by the 
 undertakers,* who were in some jealousy, 
 that in after times he might be restored to 
 his father's inheritances, and thereby be- 
 come their lord, and their rent now paid to 
 the crown would in time be conferred upon 
 him. These considerations assured the jDre- 
 sident that his personal being in Munster 
 would produce small effects, but only to 
 make trial what power he had." 
 
 The young earl, thus slighted and despised 
 by those who owed him most respect, was 
 soon tired of his residence in Ireland, and he 
 obtained permission to return to England, 
 where he arrived in the latter days of the 
 
 * The settlers in Munster, \\-ho had obtained grants 
 of the forJ'eited estates of Desmond. 
 
A.D. 
 
 IGOi.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [jAMES FITZ THOMAS. 
 
 March of 1601. He died at the end of the 
 same year. 
 
 The rebellion in Munster seemed now 
 almost at an end, and the Sugan earl and his 
 followers were driven to the same needy and 
 wandering life in the wild woods which had 
 characterised the latter yeai-s of the former 
 earl. He made a vain application for assist- 
 ance from his friends in Ulster and Con- 
 naught. The chieftains of the north had 
 enough to do to defend themselves against 
 the lord deputy Mountjoy; and most of his 
 other friends had either made their peace 
 with the government, or they were too weak 
 to assist him. The former was the case with 
 Redmond Burke and Florence mac Carthy. 
 Dermott O'Connor had been captured by 
 some Irish enemies in a feud in his own sept, 
 and put to death. Sir George Carew began 
 to hold sessions and administer justice in 
 Munster as in time of profound peace. So 
 little fear was now entertained by the govern- 
 ment, that the queen consented to pardon 
 any of the southern rebels whom Carew 
 might nominate to the lord deputy, with the 
 exception only of the Sugan earl, his brother 
 John fitz Thomas, Pierce Lacy, the knight of 
 the valley, and the baron of Lixnaw. Four 
 thousand persons thus obtained their pardon, 
 and the whole province seemed so far tran- 
 quillized, that Carew found himself in a 
 condition to detach a thousand of his forces 
 to the assistance of the lord deputy. 
 
 The hairbreadth escapes of the persons 
 expressly excepted from this pardon, from 
 the attempts of their pursuers to capture 
 them, were of the most romantic description, 
 and none more so than those of the Sugan 
 earl. In one instance the lord president 
 having received information of his being con- 
 cealed in a wood not far from Kilmallock, 
 sent the earl of Thomond, sir George Thorn- 
 ton, and captain Harvey, with their com- 
 panies, in search of him. " No sooner," says 
 the Pacata Hibernia, "were they entered 
 into the fastness, but presently the sentinels 
 which were placed in the skirt of the wood 
 raised the cry, which, as it should seem, 
 roused the counterfeit earl of Desmond and 
 Dermott mac Craghe, the pope's bishop of 
 Cork, who were lodged tliere in a poor ragged 
 cabin. Desmond fled away barefoot, having 
 no leisure to pull on his shoes, and was not 
 discovered ; but Mac Craghe was met by 
 some of the soldiers, clothed in a simple 
 mantle and torn trousers, like an aged churl; 
 and they, neglecting so poor a creature not 
 able to carry weapons, suffered him to pass 
 
 unregarded." We cannot relate the inci- 
 dents which preceded his final capture better 
 than in the words of the same authority. 
 "There was," we are told, "no man of ac- 
 count in all Munster whom the president 
 had not oftentimes laboured about the tak- 
 ing of the reputed earl still lurking secretly 
 within this province, promising very boun- 
 tiful and liberal rewards to all or any such as 
 would draw such a draught whereby he 
 might be gotten alive or dead. Every man 
 entertained these proffers, as being resolute 
 in performing the same service, although 
 they never conceived any such thoughts; 
 but at last it happened after this manner. 
 The lord Barry having one hundred men in 
 pay from the queen, employed them many 
 times about such service as either the presi- 
 dent should command or himself thought 
 requisite, namely, about the fourteenth of 
 May (of the year 1601), knowing that one 
 Dermott O'Dogan, as a harper, dwelling at 
 Garryduffe, used to harbour this arch-rebel, 
 or else upon occasion of some stealth that 
 iiad been made in his country, the thieves 
 making towards this fastness, his soldiers 
 pursued them into this wood, where by good 
 fortune this supposed earl, with two of the 
 Baldones, and this Dermott, were gathered 
 together, being almost ready to go to supper; 
 but having discovered these soldiers, they left 
 their meat and made haste to shift for them- 
 selves. They were no sooner gone out of 
 the cabin, but the soldiers were come in, 
 and finding this provision and a mantle which 
 they knew belonged to James fitz Thomas, 
 they followed the chase of the stag now roused. 
 By this time the harper had conveyed the 
 Sugan earl into the thickest part of the fiist- 
 ness; and himself, with his two other com- 
 panions, of purpose discovered themselves to 
 the soldiers, and left the wood, with the lap- 
 wing's policy, that they being busied in pur- 
 suit of them, the other might remain secure 
 within that fastness. And so indeed it fell 
 out; for the soldiers supposing that James 
 fitz Thomas had been of that company, made 
 after them till evening, by which time they 
 had recovered the white knight's country, 
 where, being past hope of any farther ser- 
 vice, they returned to Barry Court, and 
 informed the lord Barry of all these acci- 
 dents. On the next morning the lord Barry, 
 glad of so good a cause of complaint against 
 the white knight, whom he hated, hastened 
 to the president, and relating unto him all 
 these particulars, signified what a narrow 
 escape the arch-traitor had made, and that if 
 
 . 557 
 
CAPTURE OF FiTz THOMAS.] PIISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a.d. 1601. 
 
 the white knight's people had assisted his 
 soldiers, he could not possibly have escaped 
 their hands. Hereupon the white knijiht 
 was presently sent for, who being called 
 before the president, was rebuked with sharp 
 words and bitter reprehensions for the negli- 
 gence of his country in so important a busi- 
 ness, and was menaced, that for so much as 
 he liad undertaken for his whole country, 
 therefore he was answerable, both with his 
 life and lands, for any default by them 
 made. 
 
 " The white knight receiving these threat- 
 enings to heart, humbly entreated the presi- 
 dent to susjjend his judgment for a few days, 
 vowing upon his soul, that if the said Des- 
 mond were now in his country (as was 
 averred), or should hereafter repair tliither, 
 he would give the president a good account 
 of him, alive or dead, otherwise he was con- 
 tented that both his lands and goods should 
 remain at the queen's mercy; and with 
 these protestations he departed, and pre- 
 sently repairing to sir George Thornton (at 
 Kilmallock), he recounted unto him the 
 sharp reproofs which from the president he 
 had received. Sir George, finding him tlius 
 well nettled, took hold of the occasion, and 
 never left urging him to perform the service, 
 until he had taken his corporal oath (upon a 
 book) that he would employ all his endea- 
 vours to eifect the same. As soon as he 
 returned to his house, he made the like moan 
 unto some of his faithful followers, as he had 
 done to sir George Thornton ; and to stir up 
 their minds to help him in the peril he stood, 
 he promised him that could bring him word 
 where James fitz Thomas was, he would 
 give him fifty pounds in money, the inheri- 
 tance of a plough-land to him and his heirs 
 for ever, with many immunities and free- 
 doms. One of his followers, which loved 
 him dearly, compassionating the perplexity 
 he was in, — 'But would you, indeed,' said 
 he, 'lay hands upon James fitz Thomas, if 
 you knew where to find him ?' The knight 
 confirmed it with protestations. ' Then fol- 
 low me,' said he, ' and I will bring you where 
 he is.' The white knight and he, with six 
 or seven more (whereof Redmond Burke of 
 Maskryquirke was one), presently upon the 
 nine and twentieth of May, took horse, and 
 were guided to a cave in the mountain of 
 Slewgort, which had but a narrow mouth, yet 
 deep in the ground, where the caitiff earl 
 (accompanied only with one of his foster- 
 brothers, called Thomas O'Phegie) was tlien 
 lurking. The white knight called James 
 558 
 
 fitz Thomas, requiring him to come out and 
 render himself his prisoner. But contrary- 
 wise, he presuming upon the greatness of his 
 quality, coming to the cave's mouth, required 
 Redmond Burke and the rest to lay hands 
 upon the knight (for both he and they were 
 his natural followers). But the wheel of 
 his fortune being turned, with their swords 
 drawn they entered the cave, and without 
 resistance disarming him and his foster- 
 brother, they delivered them bound to the 
 white knight, who carried him to the castle 
 of Kilvenny, and presently dispatched a 
 messenger to sir George Thornton, to pray 
 him to send some of tlie garrison of Kilmal- 
 lock to take charge of him, which employ- 
 ment was committed to the care of captain 
 Francis Shingsby, who, marching with his 
 company to Kilvenny, had the prisoner de- 
 livered unto him; and froTn thence, with as 
 much expedition as might be, the white 
 knight, sir George Thornton, and captain 
 Shingsby, brought them unto the president, 
 then residing at Shandon castle, adjoinmg to 
 Cork. But how the white knight performed 
 his promise to his servant, it may be doubted, 
 though he had one thousand pound given 
 him from her majesty for the service." 
 
 The cave in which the Sugan earl was 
 captured is still pointed out not far from 
 Clogheen in the county of Tipperary, and 
 is known by the name of the cave of Ski- 
 lieen-a-rinky. The captive made a vain 
 attempt to obtain the queen's pardon. He 
 was tried at Cork, and condemned as a 
 traitor ; but from motives of policy his life 
 was spared, in order that his brother John 
 might not be able to assume the title, and 
 he was committed to close prison in the 
 Tower of London. 
 
 Thus was the head of the rebellion of 
 the south cut off at the very moment when 
 the preparations to revive it by foreign 
 assistance had been brought to a comple- 
 tion. The Sugan earl, when under exami- 
 nation, declared positively that a Spanish 
 fleet was daily expected ; and others who 
 had deserted from the rebels made the same 
 declaration with equal confidence. They 
 said that a council had been held by the 
 insurgent chieftains in Ulster with the 
 Spanish agent to consult of the fittest 
 plan for the foreigners to debark; that some 
 were for Limerick, and others for Cork, 
 but that it was certain that the Spanish 
 army was destined for some part of the 
 coast of Munster. Carew was further in- 
 formed that many of the chiefs who had 
 
^.^>. 1601.] 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 [a base currency. 
 
 made their submissions, and wei-e professing 
 allegiance to the queen, would rise to join 
 the Spaniards on their arrival. 
 
 In the north, Mountjoy displayed no less 
 activity than Carew, and the end of the year 
 1600, and beginning of the year following, 
 were spent in constant skirmishes with the 
 insurgents. Having returned from the north, 
 the lord deputy turned his arms against the 
 plunderers of Leinster, especially the Byrnes, 
 who, from their proximity to the cajiital, 
 were in the habit almost nightly of infesting 
 even the suburbs of the city. His designs 
 were masked with so much secrecy, that, 
 after a laborious march over steep mountains 
 covered with snow, he entered the rebels' 
 country by surprise, on Christmas day, when 
 they were keeping their Christmas, and 
 entered the house of their chief so suddenly, 
 that "his wife and eldest son were taken, 
 and himself hardly escaped at a back win- 
 dow, and naked, into the woods, where he 
 kept a cold Christmas, while my lord lived 
 plentifully in his house with such provisions 
 as were made for him and his bonaghts and 
 kerne, to keep a merry Christmas." The 
 months of January and February were occu- 
 pied with military excursions of a similar 
 description into different parts of Leinster. 
 At the same time a plot was laid against the 
 life of the earl of Tyrone, somewhat in the 
 same manner as Carew's plot against the 
 Sugan earl ; one of the earl's kinsmen was 
 the chief conspirator^ but his courage failed 
 at the moment of putting it into effect. 
 
 By this time the greater part of Ireland, 
 by continual wasting and spoiling, had been 
 reduced to a mere desert, and the insurgents 
 deprived of supplies at home, were compelled 
 to depend upon importation from abroad ; 
 and this they were enabled to procure with 
 the queen's own treasure, a large portion of 
 which fell into their hands. The annual 
 expenditure of the Irish war amounted now 
 to from four to five hundred thousand pounds, 
 and it was found that, by the regular pay- 
 ment of the army in sterling money, an alarm- 
 ing quantity went into the hands of the 
 insurgents, either directly by inroads and 
 plunder, or indirectly, through commerce, 
 and was used in procuring from the conti- 
 nent a regular supply of arms, ammunition, 
 and provisions. The government hit upon 
 an extraordinary method for remedying this 
 inconvenience, which the queen is said to 
 have adopted with great reluctance. It was 
 no less than the total exchange of the ster- 
 ling coin then used in Ireland, for a base 
 
 currency, the use of which was restricted to 
 Ireland. A proclamation was issued, estab- 
 lishing an exchange in several towns in Eng- 
 land as well as in Ireland, where the subjects 
 of either kingdom might commute their 
 coins, allowing a difference of one shilling in 
 the pound between the Irish and English 
 standard. 
 
 As this new coin passed at a nominal 
 value much above its intrinsic worth, it was 
 of little use in purchasing provisions or 
 ammunition in foreign countries, so that of 
 course the new scheme reduced the rebels to 
 greater distress than ever. But it was soon 
 found that it had inconveniences quite as 
 great as any advantages expected to be derived 
 from it. Merchants made it an excuse for 
 raising the prices of all articles of commerce 
 excessively, and great sums of counterfeit 
 money, coined by rebels and strangers, were 
 thrown into circulation, "so that," says Mory- 
 son, speaking in the name of the queen's 
 officers and soldiers, "the exchange soon 
 failed, and our hearts therewith ; for we 
 served there in discomfort, and came home 
 beggars, so that only the treasurers and pay- 
 masters, who were thereby infinitely enriched, 
 had cause to bless the authors of this inven- 
 tion." 
 
 Lord Mountjoy is said to have felt some 
 alarm lest this Irish currency measure should 
 excite a mutiny in the army ; and, to pre- 
 vent this, he kept the soldiers in continual 
 employment against the rebels in diflerent 
 quarters, so that they made up in some mea- 
 sure by plunder for the real deficiency in 
 pay caused by the change. Thus the deso- 
 lation of the country was increased, and the 
 rebels, deprived of their last resources, were 
 daily reduced to a greater degree of distress. 
 Even Tyrrell himself, the most formidable of 
 the insurgent leaders of Leinster, was forced 
 out of his greatest fastness, and driven, "with 
 a few base kerne following him," to wander 
 in woods and bogs, until he found an oppor- 
 tunity of escaping to the north. Many 
 others now made their submission, among 
 the principal of whom was the chief of the 
 O'Doghertys of the north ; and during the 
 spring of 1601 a great number of pardons 
 were granted to persons who had taken part 
 in the insurrection. These successes were 
 now beginning to be disturbed by the fre- 
 quent rumours of invasion from Spain, which 
 it was now confidently stated would take 
 place in the south; and it was even reported 
 that more than one of the large maritime 
 towns of Munster had promised to receivo 
 
 55[) 
 
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.] HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 |A.D. 1601. 
 
 the Spaniards without opposition. At the 
 beginning of May, however, the prospects 
 were so encouraging, that the lord deputy 
 was enabled to write to the lords of the 
 English privy council, " that Munster was 
 not only well reduced, but began to taste the 
 sweetness of peace; that the like might be 
 said of Leinster, except the Moores and 
 Connors, who were scattered, and had sought, 
 but could not obtain of him the queen's 
 mercy ; that the northern borders of Ulster 
 ■were assured, namely, O'Hanlon's country, the 
 Fewes, Clancarvil, the Ferney, most of the 
 galloglasses, and many of the Mac Mahons, 
 and that a garrison was planted in the 
 Brenny, and the queen's Maguire settled in 
 Fermanagh ; that sir Henry Docura at 
 Lough Foyle, and sir Arthur Chichester at 
 Carrickfergus, had made their neighbours 
 sure to the state, and both had done her 
 majesty excellent service; that only Con- 
 naught, most easily to be reduced, was most 
 out of order; that for this reason he thought 
 fit to plant Ballyshannon garrison through 
 Connaught, which might be reduced with 
 the very passing of the army; and therefore 
 he had stationed the magazine of victuals 
 at Galway, specially since from those parts 
 his lordship might easily join with the lord 
 president in Ulster, and, for a time, borrow 
 thence five hundred foot and fifty horse for 
 Connaught journey, the forces remaining 
 being sufficient to guard Munster, and 
 greater than he had left in Leinster, in the 
 peace whereof he might seem to have more 
 proper interest. But if Spain should invade 
 Munster, then all the army was to be drawn 
 thither, and great supplies sent out of Eng- 
 land, since the defection of the Irish was 
 like to be great, even of those who yet had 
 never declared any malice against the state ; 
 yet that his lordship desired at present no 
 supplies, in regard of her majesty's excessive 
 charge in levying and transporting them, 
 trusting that, by the rebels' forces being 
 diminished, occasion would be given to cast 
 some of the army, with which cast com- 
 panies the defects of the standing might be 
 supplied, wherein his lordship promised to 
 proceed without preferring such as even 
 with their blood shed in his sight deserved 
 advancement, or satisfying some worthy com- 
 manders (whose entertainment he had rather 
 less need), or pleasuring those who might 
 justly challenge preferment from him." 
 
 Such, according to the statement drawn 
 by Moryson from Mountjoy's ow-n letters, 
 was the condition of Ireland on the second 
 5(i0 
 
 of May, 1601. The lord deputy was then 
 preparing for an expedition against the earl 
 of Tyrone in the summer. In the north the 
 plantation of the garrison at Lough Foyle 
 had its full effect in embarrassing the Ulster 
 chieftains, especially O'Donnell. Docura's 
 soldiers plundered the country far and 
 near, detached some of the lesser chieftains 
 from O'Donncll's alliance, and fostered the 
 feuds in Tirconnell. Towards summer, pre- 
 parations were made for a general attack 
 upon the Ulster insurgents, and the garrisons 
 on the northern border were strengthened 
 to serve as points from which to direct the 
 operations, and to protect the English pro- 
 vince. In the warfare which was now carried 
 on against the rebels, Mountjoy followed the 
 policy frequently adojjted in former times, 
 of making those who had submitted serve 
 against their countrymen who remained in 
 insurrection. It appears, indeed, that the 
 English regiments had at this time been 
 recruited with Irishmen, and that this prac- 
 tice was looked upon with so much alarm, 
 that the Irish recruits were only looked 
 upon as temporary soldiers, to be dismissed 
 as soon as recruits came over from England. 
 The lord deputy speaks with singular satis- 
 faction of the slaughter which took place of 
 these reclaimed rebels, while in arms against 
 their own countrymen, and of the consequent 
 saving of English blood. "We think them," 
 he says in a letter to the lords of the English 
 council, written on the.Htii of June, "neces- 
 sarily entertained, for we take so many men 
 from the rebels, and by them give unto our- 
 selves facility to plant the foundation of 
 their own ruin, and both with us and against 
 us to waste them by themselves. For if we 
 should not entertain them, they would lie 
 upon some country of the subject, and except 
 it were defended by as many as themselves, 
 they would waste and live upon it, so that 
 in effect the very numbers entertained would 
 grow all to one reckoning. And for a more 
 particular instance of the benefit that ensue th 
 the entertaining these Irish, we think we can 
 give your lordships an account of above a 
 hundred that have this year been killed with 
 the bullet, fighting on our side, who were 
 formerly rebels (for of such we sjjeak), and 
 questionless would have been so again, if 
 they had lived, and should have been put out 
 to the king's pay." 
 
 Ai"ter having built and garrisoned a new 
 fort at the Moyry in the month of June, he 
 marched about the middle of that month 
 by Dundrum castle into Lecale, and took 
 

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