[1] i.e. in the Devereux line.
ESSEX, WALTER DEVEREUX, 1ST[1] EARL OF (1541-1576), the eldest son of
Sir Richard Devereux, was born in 1541. His grandfather was the 2nd
Baron Ferrers, who was created Viscount Hereford in 1550 and by his
mother was a nephew of Henry Bourchier, a former earl of Essex. Walter
Devereux succeeded as 2nd Viscount Hereford in 1558, and in 1561 or 1562
married Lettice, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys. In 1569 he served as
high marshal of the field under the earl of Warwick and Lord Clinton,
and materially assisted them in suppressing the northern insurrection.
For his zeal in the service of Queen Elizabeth on this and other
occasions, he in 1572 received the Garter and was created earl of Essex,
the title which formerly belonged to the Bourchier family. Eager to give
proof of "his good devotion to employ himself in the service of her
majesty," he offered on certain conditions to subdue and colonize, at
his own expense, a portion of the Irish province of Ulster, at that time
completely under the dominion of the rebel O'Neills, under Sir Brian
MacPhelim and Tirlogh Luineach, with the Scots under their leader Sorley
Boy MacDonnell. His offer, with certain modifications, was accepted, and
he set sail for Ireland in July 1573, accompanied by a number of earls,
knights and gentlemen, and with a force of about 1200 men. The beginning
of his enterprise was inauspicious, for on account of a storm which
dispersed his fleet and drove some of his vessels as far as Cork and the
Isle of Man, his forces did not all reach the place of rendezvous till
late in the autumn, and he was compelled to entrench himself at Belfast
for the winter. Here, by sickness, famine and desertions, his troops
were diminished to little more than 200 men. Intrigues of various sorts,
and fighting of a guerilla type, followed with disappointing results,
and Essex had difficulties both with the deputy Fitzwilliam and with the
queen. Essex was in straits himself, and his offensive movements in
Ulster took the form of raids and brutal massacres among the O'Neills;
in October 1574 he treacherously captured MacPhelim at a conference in
Belfast, and after slaughtering his attendants had him and his wife and
brother executed at Dublin. Elizabeth, instigated apparently by
Leicester, after encouraging Essex to prepare to attack the Irish chief
Tirlogh Luineach, suddenly commanded him to "break off his enterprise";
but, as she left him a certain discretionary power, he took advantage of
it to defeat Tirlogh Luineach, chastise Antrim, and massacre several
hundreds of Sorley Boy's following, chiefly women and children,
discovered hiding in the caves of Rathlin. He returned to England in the
end of 1575, resolved "to live henceforth an untroubled life"; but he
was ultimately persuaded to accept the offer of the queen to make him
earl marshal of Ireland. He arrived in Dublin in September 1576, and
three weeks afterwards died of dysentery. There were suspicions that he
had been poisoned by Leicester, who shortly after his death married his
widow, but these were not confirmed by the post-mortem examination. The
endeavours of Essex to better the condition of Ireland were a dismal
failure; and the massacres of the O'Neills and of the Scots of Rathlin
leave a dark stain on his reputation.
See Sidney Lee's article in the _Dict. Nat. Biog.; Lives of the
Devereux Earls of Essex_, by Hon. Walter B. Devereux (1853); Froude's
_History of England_, vol. x.; J.S. Brewer, _Athenaeum_ (1870), part
i. pp. 261, 326.