O'NEILL, SOVEREIGN OF ULSTER.
The moral atmosphere of Elizabeth's court was not favourable to public
virtue. Strange to say at this time Lord Pembroke seemed to be the
only nobleman connected with it whose patriotism could be depended on;
and, according to Cecil, there was not another person, 'no not one'
who did not either wish well to Shane O'Neill, or so ill to the Earl
of Sussex as 'rather to welcome the news than regret the English
loss!' It would be difficult to find 'intriguing factiousness' baser
than this even in barbarous Ireland. The success of O'Neill, however,
had raised him high in the opinion of the Queen, who proposed,
through the Earl of Kildare, to leave him in possession of all his
territories, and let him govern the Irish 'according to Irish ideas'
if he would only become her vassal. Sussex had returned to Dublin with
the remnant of his army, while Fitzwilliam was dispatched to London
to explain the disaster, bearing with him a petition from the Irish
Council, that the troops who had been living in free quarters on the
tenants of the Pale should be recalled or disbanded. 'Useless in the
field and tyrannical to the farmer, they were a burden on the English
exchequer, and answered no purpose but to make the English name
detested.'
To O'Neill the Queen sent a pardon, with a safe conduct to England, if
he could be prevailed on to go. In the meantime Shane sent a message
to the lord deputy, demanding the removal of the garrison from Armagh.
One of his messengers, Neill Grey communicated secretly with Lord
Sussex, affecting to dislike rebellion, and intimating that he might
help the English to get rid of his master. The lord deputy, without
the least scruple or apparent consciousness of the criminality or
disgrace of the proceeding, actually proposed to this man that he
should murder O'Neill. This villanous purpose he avows in his letter
to the Queen. 'In fine,' said he, 'I breake with him to kill Shane;
and bound myself by my oath to see him have a hundred marcs of land by
the year to him, and to his heirs, for his reward. He seemed desirous
to serve your Highness, and to have the land; but fearful to do it,
doubting his own escape after with safety, which he confessed and
promised to do by any means he might, escaping with his life. What he
will do I know not, but I assure your Highness he may do it without
danger if he will. And if he will not do that he may in your service,
there will be done _to him_ what others may. God send your Highness a
good end.'
This English nobleman was, it seems, pious as well as honourable,
and could mingle prayers with his plots for assassination. Mr. Froude
suggests extenuating circumstances: 'Lord Sussex, it appears, regarded
Shane as a kind of wolf, whom having failed to capture in fair chase
he might destroy by the first expedient that came to his hand.' And
'English honour, like English coin, lost something of its purity in
the sister island.' Of course; it was the Irish atmosphere that did it
all. But Sussex was not singular in this mode of illustrating English
honour. A greater than he, the chivalrous Sir Walter Raleigh, wrote to
a friend in Munster, recommending the treacherous assassination of the
Earl of Desmond, as perfectly justifiable. And this crime, for which
an ignorant Irishman would be hanged, was deliberately suggested by
the illustrious knight whilst sitting quietly in his English study.[1]
But what perplexes the historian most of all is that the Queen of
England showed no resentment at the infamous proposal of Sussex. 'It
is most sadly certain, however, that Sussex was continued in office,
and inasmuch as it will be seen that he repeated the experiment a few
months later, his letter could not have been received with any marked
condemnation.' Yet Elizabeth was never in Ireland.
[Footnote 1: See Life of Sir Walter Raleigh.]
Fitzwilliam, however, returned with reinforcements of troops from
Berwick, with which the deputy resolved to repair the credit of the
English arms, and to set the Irish an example of civilised warfare.
How did he do this? Dispatching provisions by sea to Lough Foyle, he
succeeded this time in marching through Tyrone, 'and in destroying on
his way 4,000 cattle, which he was unable to carry away. He had left
Shane's cows to rot where he had killed them; and thus being without
food, and sententiously and characteristically concluding that man by
his policy might propose, but God at His will did dispose; Lord Sussex
fell back by the upper waters of Lough Erne, sweeping the country
before him.' When the Irish peasantry saw the carcasses of their
cattle rotting along the roads, while their children were famished for
want of milk, they must have been most favourably impressed with the
blessings of British rule! Shane, instead of encountering the deputy
on his own territory, amused himself burning villages in Meath.
Neither of those rulers--those chief protectors of the people--seems
to have been conscious that he was doing anything wrong in destroying
the homes and the food of the wretched inhabitants, whom they
alternately scourged. On the contrary, the extent of devastation which
they were able to effect was supposed to put them in a better
position for meeting together, and treating as honourable and gallant
representatives of their respective nations.
In accordance with the desire of the Queen, Shane, fresh from the work
of destruction in the Pale, was invited to a conference with Kildare.
They met at Dundalk, and the Irish chief consented to wait upon
Elizabeth in London, being allowed to name his own conditions. In
doing so he implied 'that he was rather conferring a favour than
receiving one, and that he was going to England as a victorious enemy
permitting himself to be conciliated.' He demanded a safe-conduct so
clearly worded that, whatever was the result of his visit, he should
be free to return; he required 'a complete amnesty for his past
misdeeds, and he stipulated that Elizabeth should pay all expenses
for himself and his retinue; the Earls of Ormond, Desmond, and Kildare
must receive him in state at Dundalk, and escort him to Dublin;
Kildare must accompany him to England; and, most important of all,
Armagh Cathedral must be evacuated. He did not anticipate treachery;
and either he would persuade Elizabeth to recognise him, and thus
prove to the Irish that rebellion was the surest road to prosperity
and power, or, at worst, by venturing into England, and returning
unscathed, he would show them that the Government might be defied with
more than impunity.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Froude.]
These terms, so humiliating to English pride, were advocated in the
Council 'for certain secret respects;' and even Sir William Cecil
was not ashamed to say, 'that, in Shane's absence from Ireland,'
_something might be cavilled against him or his_, for non-observing
the covenants on his side; and so the pact being infringed, the
matter might be used as should be thought fit. With this understanding
Elizabeth wrote, making all the ignominious concessions demanded, save
one, the evacuation of the cathedral. Shane replied in lofty terms
that, although for the Earl of Sussex he would not mollify one iota
of his agreement, yet he would consent at the request of her Majesty.
'Thus,' says Mr. Froude, 'with the Earl of Kildare in attendance, a
train of galloglasse, 1,000 l. in hand, and a second 1,000 l. awaiting
for him in London, the champion of Irish freedom sailed from Dublin,
and appeared on the second of January at the English court.'
It is stated that Cecil, Pembroke, and Bacon, received him privately
on his arrival, instructed him how to behave in the royal presence,
gave him the promised money, and endeavoured to impress upon him the
enormity of his offences. But, to every appeal made to his conscience,
Shane answered by a counter appeal about money; 2,000 l. was a poor
present from so great a Queen; he was sure their honours would
give him a few more hundreds. He agreed, however, to make a general
confession of his sins in Irish and English; and, thus tutored,
Elizabeth received him in state on January 6, 1562, attended by
the Council, the peers, the foreign ambassadors, bishops, aldermen,
dignitaries of all kinds, who gazed 'as if at the exhibition of some
wild animal of the desert.' The scene is very graphically described by
Mr. Froude: 'O'Neill stalked in, his saffron mantle sweeping round and
round him, his hair curling on his back, and clipped short below
the eyes, which gleamed from under it with a grey lustre, frowning,
fierce, and cruel. Behind him followed his galloglasse, bare-headed
and fair-haired, with shirts of mail which reached their knees, a
wolf-skin flung across their shoulders, and short broad battle-axes in
their hands. At the foot of the throne the chief paused, bent forward,
threw himself on his face upon the ground, and then, rising upon his
knees, spoke aloud in Irish!' Camden says he 'confessed his crime and
rebellion with howling,' and Mr. Froude adds that, to his hearers, the
sound of the words 'was as the howling of a dog.' He said:--
'Oh! my most dread sovereign lady and queen, like as I Shane O'Neill,
your Majesty's subject of your realm of Ireland, have of long time
desired to come into the presence of your Majesty to acknowledge my
humble and bounden subjection, so am I now here upon my knees by your
gracious permission, and do most humbly acknowledge your Majesty to be
my sovereign lady and Queen of England, France, and Ireland; and I
do confess that, for lack of civil education, I have offended your
Majesty and your laws, for the which I have required and obtained your
Majesty's pardon. And for that I most humbly, from the bottom of my
heart, thank your Majesty, and still do with all humbleness require
the continuance of the same; and I faithfully promise here before
Almighty God and your Majesty, and in presence of all these your
nobles, that I intend, by God's grace, to live hereafter in the
obedience of your Majesty as a subject of your land of Ireland.
'And because this my speech, being Irish, is not well understanded, I
have caused this my submission to be written in English and Irish, and
thereto have set my hand and seal; and to these gentlemen, my kinsmen
and friends, I most humbly beseech your Majesty to be merciful and
gracious.'
Camden remarks that the bare-headed galloglasse, with long dishevelled
hair, crocus-dyed shirts, wide sleeves, short jackets, shaggy cloaks,
&c., were objects of great wonder to the Londoners; while the hauteur
of the Irish prince excited the merriment of the courtiers, who styled
him 'O'Neill the Great, cousin to St. Patrick, friend to the Queen
of England, enemy to all the world besides.' Notwithstanding Shane's
precautions with respect to the safe-conduct, English artifice outdid
Irish cunning. With all their horror of the Jesuits, Elizabeth's
ministers in this case practised mental reservation. True, the
Government had promised to permit him to return to Ireland, but then
the time of his stay had not been specified. Various pretexts were
invented to detain him. He must be recognised as his father's heir;
the cause must be pleaded before the English judges; the young Baron
of Dungannon must come over and be heard on the other side. O'Neill
was told that he had been sent for, while Cecil wrote privately to
Fitzwilliam to keep him safe in Ireland. While the prince was thus
humoured with vain excuses, he was occupied in pleading his own cause
by flattering communications to the Queen, 'whose fame was spoken
of throughout the world.' He wished to study the wisdom of her
government, that he might know better how to order himself in civil
polity. He was most urgent that her Majesty would give him 'some noble
English lady for a wife, with augmentation of living suitable.' If she
would give him his father's earldom, he would make her the undisputed
sovereign of willing subjects in Ulster; he would drive away all her
enemies, save her from all further expense, and secure for her a
great increase of revenue. He begged in the meantime, that he might be
allowed to attend her favourite, Lord Robert Cecil, in order to learn
'to ride after the English fashion, to run at the tilt, to hawk, to
shoot, and use such other good exercises as the said good lord was
most apt unto.' Thus month after month passed away, and Shane was
still virtually a prisoner. 'At length,' says Mr. Froude, 'the false
dealing produced its cruel fruit, the murder of the boy who was used
as the pretext for the delay. Sent for to England, yet prevented from
obeying the command, the young Baron of Dungannon was waylaid at the
beginning of April in a wood near Carlingford by Turlogh O'Neill. He
fled for his life, with the murderers behind him, till he reached
the bank of a deep river, which he could not swim, and there he was
killed.'
This event brought matters to a crisis, and Shane's cause was
triumphant. By articles entered into between him and the Queen it was
agreed that he was to be constituted captain or governor of Tyrone 'in
the same manner as other captains of the said nation called O'Nele's
had rightfully executed that office in the time of King Henry VIII.
And, moreover, he was to enjoy and have the name and title of O'Nele,
with the like authority as any other of his ancestors, with the
service and homage of all the lords and captains called _urraughts_,
and other nobles of the said nation of O'Nele.' All this was upon the
condition 'that he and his said nobles should truly and faithfully,
from time to time, serve her Majesty, and, where necessary, wage war
against all her enemies in such manner as the Lord Lieutenant for the
time being should direct.' The title of O'Neill, however, was to be
contingent on the decision of Parliament as to the validity of the
letters-patent of Henry VIII. Should that decision be unfavourable, he
was to enjoy his powers and prerogatives under the style and title
of the Earl of Tyrone, with feudal jurisdiction over the northern
counties. The Pale was to be no shelter to any person whom he might
demand as a malefactor. If any Irish lord or chief did him wrong, and
the deputy failed within twenty-one days to exact reparation, Shane
might raise an army and levy war on his private account. An exception
was made on behalf of the loyal O'Donel, whose cause was to be
submitted to the arbitration of the Irish earls. The 'indenture'
between the Queen and O'Neill was signed by the high contracting
parties, and bears date April 30, 1562. The English historian
indignantly remarks: 'A rebel subject treating as an equal with his
sovereign for the terms on which he would remain in his allegiance was
an inglorious spectacle; and the admission of Shane's pretensions to
sovereignty was one more evidence to the small Ulster chiefs that no
service was worse requited in Ireland than fidelity to the English
crown. The Maguires, the O'Reillys, the O'Donels--all the clans who
had stood by Sussex in the preceding summer--were given over to their
enemy bound hand and foot. But Elizabeth was weary of the expense,
and sick of efforts which were profitless as the cultivation of a
quicksand. True it was that she was placing half Ireland in the hands
of an adulterous, murdering scoundrel, but the Irish liked to have it
so, and she forced herself to hope that he would restrain himself for
the future within the bounds of decency.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Froude.]
In that hope she was soon disappointed. Shane with his galloglasse
returned in glory, his purse lined with money and honour wreathed
about his brows. He told the northern chiefs that he had gone to
England not to lose but to win, and that they must henceforth submit
to his authority, or feel his power. The O'Donels, relying on English
promises, dared to refuse allegiance to the O'Neill, whereupon,
without consulting the lord deputy, 'he called his men to arms and
marched into Tyrconnel, killing, robbing, and burning in the old style
through farm and castle.' The Irish historians, however, make excuses
for O'Neill, affirming that he was released from his obligations
by the bad faith of the lord deputy. He it was who gave him a safe
conduct to Dublin, that he might take the oath of allegiance according
to promise; but the document was so ingeniously worded that its
meaning might be twisted so as to make him a prisoner. He was informed
of this treachery, and, as Mr. Froude remarks, 'Shane was too cunning
a fish, and had been too lately in the meshes, to be caught again in
so poor a snare.' A most attractive bait was provided by Sussex in
the person of his sister, who had been brought over to Dublin, and who
might be won by the great northern chief if he would only come up to
the viceregal court to woo her. 'Shane glanced at the tempting morsel
with wistful eyes. Had he trusted himself in the hands of Sussex he
would have had a short shrift for a blessing and a rough nuptial knot
about his neck. At the last moment a little bird carried the tale
to his ear. He had been advertized out of the Pale that the lady
was brought over only to entrap him, and if he came to the deputy he
should never return.' He therefore excused himself by alleging that
his duty to the Queen forbade him to leave the province while it was
in such a disturbed condition, the disturbance being caused chiefly by
his own predatory excursions into the territories of the O'Donels and
Maguires.
Shane took charge of the affairs of the Church as well as of the
State. The Catholic primate refusing to acknowledge Elizabeth as the
head of the Church, the see was declared vacant, and a _congé d'élire_
was sent down for the appointment of 'Mr. Adam Loftus,' an Englishman,
who came over as the lord deputy's chaplain. The answer returned and
reported by Sussex to the Queen was 'that the chapter there, whereof
the greater part were Shane O'Neill's horsemen, were so sparkled
and out of order that they could by no means be assembled for the
election. In the meantime the lord deputy began to apprehend that
O'Neill aspired, not without some hope of success, to the sovereignty
of the whole island. It was found that he was in correspondence with
the Pope, and the Queen of Scots, and the King of Spain. No greater
danger, wrote Sussex, had ever been in Ireland. He implored the Queen
not to trifle with it, declaring that he wished some abler general to
take the command, not from any want of will, 'for he would spend his
last penny and his last drop of blood for her Majesty.' Right and left
Shane was crushing the petty chiefs, who implored the protection
of the Government. Maguire requested the deputy to write to him in
English, not in Latin, because the latter language was well known,
and but few of the Irish had any knowledge of the former, in which
therefore the secrets of their correspondence would be more safe. Here
is a specimen of his English: 'I know well that within these four days
the sayed Shan will come to dystroy me contrey except your Lordshypp
will sette some remedy in the matter.' He did indeed go down into
Fermanagh with 'a great hoste.' As Maguire refused to submit, Shane
'bygan to wax mad, and to cawsse his men to bran all his corn and
howsses.' He spared neither church nor sanctuary; three hundred women
and children were piteously murdered, and Maguire himself, clean
banished, as he described it, took refuge with the remnant of his
people in the islands on the lake, whither Shane was making boats to
pursue him. 'Help me, your lordship,' the hunted wretch cried, in his
despair, to Sussex. 'Ye are lyke to make hym the strongest man of all
Erlond, for every man wyll take an exampull by the gratte lostys; take
hyd to yourself by thymes, for he is lyke to have all the power from
this place thill he come to the wallys of Gallway to rysse against
you.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Wright's Elizabeth, vol. i. p.73.]
It is the boast of the Irish that when Shane had subdued all his
opponents, he ruled Tyrone for some time with such order, 'that if
a robbery was committed within his territory, he either caused the
property to be restored, or reimbursed the loser out of his own
treasury.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Haverty's History of Ireland, p.300.]
The perplexity of the Government in this critical emergency is vividly
described by Mr. Froude: 'Elizabeth knew not which way to turn. Force,
treachery, conciliation had been tried successively, and the Irish
problem was more hopeless than ever. In the dense darkness of the
prospects of Ulster there was a solitary gleam of light. Grown
insolent with prosperity, Shane had been dealing too peremptorily with
the Scots; his countess, though compelled to live with him, and to be
the mother of his children, had felt his brutality and repented of her
folly, and perhaps attempted to escape. In the daytime, when he
was abroad marauding, she was coupled like a hound to a page or a
horse-boy, and only released at night when he returned to his evening
orgies. The fierce Campbells were not men to bear tamely these
outrages from a drunken savage on the sister of their chief, and
Sussex conceived that if the Scots, by any contrivance, were separated
from Shane, they might be used as a whip to scourge him.'
At length Sussex, determined to crush the arch-rebel, marched
northward in April, 1563, with a mixed force of English and Irish,
ill-armed, ill-supplied, dispirited and almost disloyal. The diary of
the commander-in-chief is, perhaps, the funniest on record: 'April 6:
The army arrived at Armagh. April 8: The army marches back to Newry
to bring up stores and ammunition left behind. April 11: The army
advances again to Armagh, where it waits for galloglasse and kerne
from the Pale. April 14: The commander-in-chief answers a letter from
James M'Connell. April 15: The army goes upon Shane's cattle, of which
it takes enough to serve it, but would have taken more if it had had
galloglasse.' Next day it returns to Armagh. There it waits three days
for the galloglasse, and then sends back for them to Dublin. On April
20, again writes M'Connell, because he did not come according to
promise. April 21: The army surveys the Trough mountains. April 22:
The pious commander winds up the glorious record in these words: 'To
Armagh with the spoil taken which would have been much more if we had
had galloglasse, and because St. George even forced me, her Majesty's
lieutenant, to return to divine service that night. April 23: Divine
service.' Subsequently his lordship's extreme piety caused him the
loss of 300 horses, which he naïvely confesses thus: 'Being Easter
time, and he having travelled the week before, and Easter day till
night, thought fit to give Easter Monday to prayer, and in this time
certain churls stole off with the horses.' To this Mr. Froude adds the
pertinent remark: 'The piety which could neglect practical duty for
the outward service of devotion, yet at the same time could make
overtures to Neil Greg to assassinate his master, requires no very
lenient consideration.'
In connexion with the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill Lord Elcho
proposed Solomon's plan of settling the dispute of the two mother
Churches about Ireland. He would cut the country in two, establishing
Protestantism in the north and Catholicism in the south. When an
experienced member of the House of Commons makes such a proposition
in this age, we should not be surprised that Sir Thomas Cusack in the
year 1563 proposed to Queen Elizabeth that Ireland should be divided
into four provinces, each with a separate president, either elected by
the people or chosen in compliance with their wishes. O'Neill was to
have the north, the Clanrickards the west, the O'Briens or Desmonds
the south, and thus the English might be allowed the undisturbed
enjoyment of the Pale. This notable scheme for settling the Irish
question was actually adopted by the Queen, and she wrote to Sussex,
stating that, as his expedition to the north had resulted only in
giving fresh strength to the enemy, she 'had decided to come to an end
of the war of Ulster by agreement rather than by force.' To Shane she
was all compliance. He had but to prove himself a good subject, and
he might have any pre-eminence which her Majesty could grant without
doing any other person wrong. 'If he desired to have a council
established at Armagh, he should himself be the president of that
council; if he wished to drive the Scots out of Antrim, her own troops
would assist in the expulsion; if he was offended with the garrison in
the cathedral, she would gladly see peace maintained in a manner less
expensive to herself. To the primacy he might name the person most
agreeable to himself, and with the primacy, as a matter of course,
even the form of maintaining the Protestant Church would be abandoned
also. In return for these concessions the Queen demanded only that
Shane, to save her honour, should sue for them as a favour instead
of demanding them as a right. The rebel chief consented without
difficulty to conditions which cost him nothing, and after an
interview with Cusack, O'Neill wrote a formal apology to Elizabeth,
and promised for the future to be her Majesty's true and faithful
subject. Indentures were drawn up on December 17, in which the Ulster
sovereignty was transferred to him in everything but the name, and the
treaty required only Elizabeth's signature, when a second dark effort
was made to cut the knot of the Irish difficulty.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. viii. p.48.]
This second 'dark effort' was nothing less than an attempt to murder
O'Neill by means of poison. He could not be conquered; he could not be
out-manoeuvred; he could not be assassinated in the ordinary way. But
the resources of Dublin Castle, and of English ingenuity, were
not exhausted. The lord deputy was of course delighted with the
reconciliation which had been effected with the Ulster prince. What
could be more natural than to send him a present of the choicest
wine from the viceregal cellars? certainly few presents could be more
agreeable. Shane and his household quaffed the delicious beverage
freely enough we may be sure, without the slightest suspicion that
there was death in the cup. But the wine was mingled with poison.
Those who drank it were quickly at the point of death. O'Neill might
thank his good constitution for his recovery from an illness almost
mortal. The crime was traced to an Englishman named Smith, who, if
employed by Lord Sussex, did not betray the guilty secret. Mr. Froude
admits that the suspicion cannot but cling to him that this second
attempt at murder was not made without his connivance; 'nor,' he adds,
'can Elizabeth herself be wholly acquitted of responsibility. She
professed the loudest indignation, but she ventured no allusion to
his previous communication with her, and no hint transpires of
any previous displeasure when the proposal had been made openly to
herself. The treachery of an English nobleman, the conduct of
the inquiry, and the anomalous termination of it, would have been
incredible even in Ireland, were not the original correspondence
extant, in which the facts are not denied.'
O'Neill of course complained loudly to the Queen, whereupon she
directed that a strict investigation should take place, in order
that the guilty parties should be found out and punished, 'of what
condition soever the same should be.' In writing to the lord deputy
she assumed that Smith had been committed to prison and would be
brought to condign punishment. That person, after many denials, at
length confessed his guilt, and said that his object was to rid his
country of a dangerous enemy. This motive was so good in the eye
of the Government that it saved the life of the culprit. Sir Thomas
Cusack, writing to Cecil, March 22, 1564, says, 'I persuaded O'Neill
to forget the matter, whereby no more talk should grow of it; seeing
there is no law to punish the offender other than by discretion and
imprisonment, which O'Neill would little regard except the party might
be executed by death, and that the law doth not suffer. So as the
matter be wisely pacified, it were well done to leave it.' Shane was
probably aware that Smith was but an instrument, who would be readily
sacrificed as a peace-offering.
The sketch which Mr. Froude gives of Ulster and its wild sovereign at
this time is admirably picturesque. 'Here then, for the present,
the story will leave Shane safely planted on the first step of his
ambition, in all but the title, sole monarch of the North. He
built himself a fort on an island in Lough Neagh, which he called
_Foogh-ni-gall_, or, Hate of Englishmen, and grew rich on the spoils
of his enemies, the only strong man in Ireland. He administered
justice after a paternal fashion, permitting no robbers but himself;
when wrong was done he compelled restitution, or at his own cost
redeemed the harm "to the loser's contentation." Two hundred pipes of
wine were stored in his cellars; 600 men-at-arms fed at his table, as
it were his janissaries; and daily he feasted the beggars at his gate,
saying, it was meet to serve Christ first. Half wolf, half fox, he lay
couched in his Castle of Malepartuis, with his emissaries at Rome, at
Paris, and at Edinburgh. In the morning he was the subtle pretender to
the Irish throne; in the afternoon, when the wine was in him, he was
a dissolute savage, revelling in sensuality with his unhappy countess,
uncoupled from her horseboy to wait upon his pleasure. He broke loose
from time to time to keep his hand in practice. At Carlingford,
for example, he swept off one day 200 sheep and oxen, while his
men violated sixty women in the town; but Elizabeth looked away and
endeavoured not to see. The English Government had resolved to stir no
sleeping dogs in Ireland till a staff was provided to chastise them if
they would bite. Terence Daniel, the dean of those rough-riding canons
of Armagh, was installed as primate; the Earl of Sussex was recalled
to England; and the new archbishop, unable to contain his exultation
at the blessed day which had dawned upon his country, wrote to Cecil
to say how the millennium had come at last, glory be to God!'
As a picture of Irish savage life this is very good. But the historian
has presented a companion picture of English civilised life, which
is not at all inferior. Sir Thomas Wroth and Sir Nicholas Arnold were
sent over to reform the Pale. They were stern Englishmen, impatient
of abuses among their own countrymen, and having no more sympathy for
Irishmen than for wolves. In the Pale they found that peculation had
grown into a custom; the most barefaced frauds had been converted by
habit into rights: and a captain's commission was thought ill-handled
if it did not yield, beyond the pay, 500 l. a year. They received pay
for each hundred men, when only sixty were on the roll. The soldiers,
following the example of their leaders, robbed and ground the
peasantry. In fact, the Pale was 'a weltering sea of corruption--the
captains out of credit, the soldiers mutinous, the English Government
hated; every man seeking his own, and none that which was Christ's.'
The purification of the Pale was left to Arnold, 'a hard, iron,
pitiless man, careful of things and careless of phrases, untroubled
with delicacy, and impervious to Irish enchantments. The account books
were dragged to light, where iniquity in high places was registered in
inexorable figures. The hands of Sir Henry Ratcliffe, the brother of
Sussex, were not found clean. Arnold sent him to the Castle with
the rest of the offenders. Deep, leading drains were cut through the
corrupting mass. The shaking ground grew firm, and honest healthy
human life was again made possible. With the provinces beyond the
Pale, Arnold meddled little, save where, taking a rough view of the
necessities of the case, he could help the Irish chiefs to destroy
each other.'
To Cecil, Arnold wrote thus: 'I am with all the wild Irish at the same
point I am at with bears and ban-dogs; when I see them fight, so they
fight earnestly indeed, and tug each other well, I care not who has
the worst.' 'Why not, indeed?' asks Mr. Froude; 'better so than hire
assassins! Cecil, with the modesty of genius, confessed his ignorance
of the country, and his inability to judge; yet, in every opinion
which he allowed himself to give, there was always a certain nobility
of tone and sentiment.' Nobility was scarcely necessary to induce
a statesman to revolt against the policy of Arnold. A little
Christianity, nay a slight touch of humanity, would have sufficed for
that purpose. Sussex was a nobleman, and considered himself, no
doubt, a very godly man, but everyone must admit that, in all heroic
qualities, he was incomparably beneath the uncultured Shane O'Neill,
while in baseness and wickedness he was not far behind his northern
foe, 'half wolf, half fox.' Cecil, however, was a man of a very
different stamp from Sussex. Evidently shocked at the prevailing
English notions about the value of Irish life, he wrote to Arnold:
'You be of that opinion which many wise men are of, from which I do
not dissent, being an Englishman; but being, as I am, a Christian man,
I am not without some perplexity, to enjoy of such cruelties.'
The work of reform, however, did not prove so easy a task. Arnold's
vigour was limited by his powers. The paymasters continued to cheat
the Government by false returns. The Government allowed the pay to
run in arrear, the soldiers revenged themselves by oppressing and
plundering the people; and 'so came to pass this wonderful phenomenon,
that _in O'Neill's country_ alone in Ireland--defended as it was from
attacks from without, and enriched with the plunder of the Pale--_were
the peasantry prosperous, or life or property secure_.' This fact
might suggest to the English historian that the evils of Ireland do
not all proceed from blood or race; and that the Saxon may be placed
in circumstances which make him as false, as dishonest, as lazy, as
disordered, as worthless as the Celt, and that even men of 'gentle
blood' may become as base as their most plebeian servants. Nor did
zeal for religious reformation redeem the defects of the Anglo-Irish
rulers. The Protestant bishops were chiefly agitated by the vestment
controversy. 'Adam Loftus, the titular primate, to whom,' says
Mr. Froude, 'sacked villages, ravished women, and famine-stricken
skeletons crawling about the fields, were matters of everyday
indifference, shook with terror at the mention of a surplice.' Robert
Daly wrote in anguish to Cecil, in dismay at the countenance to
'Papistry,' and at his own inability to prolong a persecution which he
had happily commenced. An abortive 'devise for the better government
of Ireland' gives us some insight into the condition of the people.
'No poor persons should be _compelled_ any more to work or labour
by the day, or otherwise, without meat, drink, wages, or some other
allowance during the time of their labour; no earth tillers, nor any
others inhabiting a dwelling, under any lord, should be distrained or
punished, in body or goods, for the faults of their landlord; nor
any honest man lose life or lands without fair trial by parliamentary
attainder, according to the ancient laws of England and Ireland.'
Surely it was no proof of incurable perversity of nature, that the
Irish peasantry were discontented and disaffected, under the horrid
system of oppression and slavery here laid before the English
Government.
As remedial measures, it was proposed that a true servant of God
should be placed in every parish, from Cape Clear to the Giant's
Causeway; that the children should be taught the New Testament and the
Psalms in Latin, 'that they, being infants, might savour of the same
in age as an old cask doth;' that there should be a university for the
education of the clergy, 'and such godly discipline among them that
there should be no more pluralities, no more abuse of patronage, no
more neglect, or idleness, or profligacy.' Mr. Froude's reflection
upon this projected policy is highly characteristic:--
'Here was an ideal Ireland painted on the retina of some worthy
English minister; but the real Ireland was still the old place. As it
was in the days of Brian Boroihme and the Danes, so it was in the days
of Shane O'Neill and Sir Nicholas Arnold; and the Queen, who was
to found all these fine institutions, cared chiefly to burden her
exchequer no further in the vain effort _to drain the black Irish
morass_, fed as it was from the perennial fountains of Irish
NATURE.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Vol. viii. p.377.]
The Queen, however, thought it more prudent to let Shane have his way
in Ulster. To oblige him, she would remove the Protestant primate,
Loftus, to Dublin, and appoint his own nominee and friend, Terence
Daniel. The Pope had sent a third archbishop for the same see,
named Creagh; but, when passing through London, he was arrested, and
incarcerated in the Tower, 'where he lay in great misery, cold, and
hunger, without a penny, without the means of getting his single
shirt washed, and without gown or hose.' At last he made his escape
by gliding over the walls into the Thames. The events of 1565 made the
English Government more than ever anxious to come to terms with the
chieftain 'whom they were powerless to crush.' Since the defeat of the
Earl of Sussex, continues Mr. Froude, 'Shane's influence and strength
had been steadily growing. His return unscathed from London, and the
fierce attitude which he assumed on the instant of his reappearance
in Ulster, convinced the petty leaders that to resist him longer would
only ensure their ruin. O'Donel was an exile in England, and there
remained unsubdued in the North only the Scottish colonies of Antrim,
which were soon to follow with the rest. O'Neill lay quiet through the
winter. With the spring and the fine weather, when the rivers fell
and the ground dried, he roused himself out of his lair, and with
his galloglasse and kerne, and a few hundred harquebussmen, he dashed
suddenly down upon the Red-shanks, and broke them utterly to pieces.
Six or seven hundred were killed in the field, James M'Connell and
his brother, Sorleyboy, were taken prisoners, and, for the moment, the
whole colony was swept away. James M'Connell, himself badly wounded
in the action, died a few months later, and Shane was left undisputed
sovereign of Ulster.'
Primate Daniel announced to the Queen this 'glorious victory over a
malicious and dangerous people' who were gradually fastening on the
country; and Sir Thomas Cusack urged that now was the time to make
O'Neill a friend for ever, an advice which was backed up by the stern
Arnold. 'For what else could be done? The Pale,' he pleaded, 'is poor
and unable to defend itself. If he do fall out before the beginning of
next summer, there is neither outlaw, rebel, murderer, thief, nor any
lewd nor evil-disposed person--of whom God knoweth there is plenty
swarming in every quarter among the wild Irish, yea and in our own
border too--which would not join to do what mischief they might.'
But Shane did not wait for further royal overtures. He saw that with
the English Government might was right, and that the justice of his
cause shone out more brightly in proportion to the increase of his
power. Thus encouraged in his course of aggression and conquest, he
seized the Queen's Castles of Newry and Dundrum. He then marched into
Connaught, demanding the tribute due of old time 'to them that were
kings in that realm.' He exacted pledges of obedience from the western
chiefs, and spoiled O'Rourke's country, and returned to Tyrone driving
before him 4,000 head of cattle. While proceeding at this rate he
wrote soothing and flattering words to the Queen. It was for her
majesty he was fighting; he was chastising her enemies and breaking
stiff-necked chiefs into her yoke; and he begged that she would not
credit any stories which his ill-willers might spread abroad against
him. On the contrary he hoped she would determine his title and rule
without delay, and grant him, in consideration of his good services,
some augmentation of living in the Pale. Elizabeth, however, excused
his conduct, saying 'we must allow something for his wild bringing-up,
and not expect from him what we should expect from a perfect subject.
If he mean well he shall have all his reasonable requests granted.'
But there was among Elizabeth's advisers a statesman who felt that
this sort of policy would never do. Sir Henry Sidney, on being
requested to take charge of the Government of Ireland, urged the
absolute necessity of a radical change. The power of O'Neill, and such
rulers as he, must be utterly broken, and that by force, at whatever
cost. And this, he argued, would not only be sound policy but true
economy. The condition of Ireland was unexampled; free from foreign
invasion, the sovereignty of the Queen not denied, yet the revenue so
mean and scanty that 'great yearly treasures were carried out of the
realm of England to satisfy the stipends of the officers and soldiers
required for the governance of the same.' He must have 10,000 l.
or 12,000 l. to pay out-standing debts and put the army in proper
condition. As for his own remuneration, the new viceroy, as he could
expect nothing from the Queen, would be content with permission to
export six thousand kerseys and clothes, free of duty.
Sir Henry Sidney struck out the only line of policy by which the
English government of Ireland could be made successful or even
possible. He said: 'To go to work by force will be chargeable, it is
true; but if you will give the people justice and minister law among
them, and exercise the sword of the sovereign, and put away the sword
of the subject, _omnia hæc adjicientur vobis_--you shall drive the now
man of war to be an husbandman, and he that now liveth like a lord
to live like a servant, and the money now spent in buying armour, and
horses, and waging of war, shall be bestowed in building of towns and
houses. By ending these incessant wars ere they be aware, you shall
bereave them both of force and beggary, and make them weak and
wealthy. Then you can convert the military service due from the lords
into money; then you can take up the fisheries now left to the French
and the Spaniards; then you can open and work your mines, and the
people will be able to grant you subsidies.'[1] When the lord deputy
arrived in Ireland he found a state of things in the Pale far worse
than he could have imagined. It was 'as it were overwhelmed with
vagabonds; plunder and spoils daily carried out of it; the people
miserable; not two gentlemen in the whole of it able to lend 20 l.;
without horse, armour, apparel, or victual. The soldiers were worse
than the people: so beggarlike as it would abhor a general to look on
them; never a married wife among them, and therefore so allied with
Irishwomen that they betrayed secrets, and could not be trusted on
dangerous service; so insolent as to be intolerable; so rooted in
idleness as there was no hope by correction to amend them.' In Munster
a man might ride twenty or thirty miles and find no houses standing
in a country which he had known as well inhabited as many counties in
England. 'In Ulster,' Sidney wrote, 'there tyrannizeth the prince of
pride; Lucifer was never more puffed up with pride and ambition than
that O'Neill is; he is at present the only strong and rich man in
Ireland, and he is the dangerest man and most like to bring the whole
estate of this land to subversion and subjugation either to him or
to some foreign prince, that ever was in Ireland.' He invited this
Lucifer to come into the Pale to see him, and Shane at first agreed to
meet him at Dundalk, but on second thoughts he politely declined, on
the ground that the Earl of Sussex had twice attempted to assassinate
him, and but for the Earl of Kildare would have put a lock upon
his hands when he was passing through Dublin to England. Hence his
'timorous and mistrustful people' would not trust him any more in
English hands. In fact O'Neill despised any honours the Queen could
confer upon him. 'When the wine was in him he boasted that he was in
blood and power better than the best of their earls, and he would give
place to none but his cousin of Kildare, because he was of his own
house. They had made a wise earl of M'Carthymore, but Shane kept as
good a man as he. Whom was he to trust? Sussex gave him a safe-conduct
and then offered him the courtesy of a handlock. The Queen had told
him herself that, though he had got a safe-conduct to come and go, the
document did not say when he was to go; and, in order to get away
from London, he was obliged to agree to things against his honour
and profit, and he would never perform them while he lived.' That
treachery drove him into war. 'My ancestors,' he said, 'were kings
of Ulster; and Ulster is mine, and shall be mine. O'Donel shall
never come into his country, nor Bagenal into Newry, nor Kildare into
Dundrum, or Lecale. They are now mine. With this sword I won them,
with this sword I will keep them.' Sidney, indignant at these
pretensions, wrote thus to Leicester: 'No Atila nor Yotila, no Vandal
nor Goth that ever was, was more to be dreaded for over-running any
part of Christendom, than this man is for over-running and spoiling of
Ireland. If it be an angel of heaven that will say that ever O'Neill
will be a good subject till he be thoroughly chastised, believe him
not, but think him a spirit of error. Surely if the queen do not
chastise him in Ulster, he will chase all hers out of Ireland. Her
majesty must make up her mind to the expense, and chastise this
cannibal.' He therefore demanded money that he might pay the garrison
and get rid of the idle, treacherous, incorrigible soldiers which
were worse than none. Ireland, he said, would be no small loss to the
English crown. It was never so likely to be lost as then, and he would
rather die than that it should be lost during his government. The
queen, however, sent money with the greatest possible reluctance, and
was strangely dissatisfied with this able and faithful servant, even
when his measures were attended with signal success.
[Footnote 1: Opinions of Sir H. Sidney, Irish MSS., Rolls House;
Froude, p.385.]
In the meantime O'Neill zealously espoused the cause of Mary Queen of
Scots. His friendship with Argyle grew closer, and he proposed that it
should be cemented by a marriage. 'The countess' was to be sent away,
and Shane was to be united to the widow of James M'Connell, whom he
had killed--who was another half-sister of Argyle, and whose daughter
he had married already and divorced. Sidney wrote, that was said to be
the earl's practice; and Mr. Froude, who has celebrated the virtues
of Henry VIII., takes occasion from this facility of divorce to have
another fling at 'Irish nature.' He says:--'The Irish chiefs, it
seemed, three thousand years behind the world, retained the habits
and the moralities of the Greek princes in the tale of Troy, when
the bride of the slaughtered husband was the willing prize of the
conqueror; and when only a rare Andromache was found to envy the fate
of a sister
Who had escaped the bed of some victorious lord.'
After a brief and brilliant campaign, in which Shane 'swept round by
Lough Erne, swooped on the remaining cattle of Maguire, and struck
terror and admiration into the Irishry,' he wrote a letter to Charles
IX. of France, inviting his co-operation in expelling the heretics,
and bringing back the country to the holy Roman see. The heretic
Saxons, he said, were the enemies of Almighty God, the enemies of the
holy Church of Rome, the King's enemies, and his. 'The time is come
when we all are confederates in a common bond to drive the invader
from our shores, and we now beseech your Majesty to send us 6,000
well-armed men. If you will grant our request there will soon be no
Englishmen left alive among us, and we will be your Majesty's subjects
ever more.' This letter was intercepted, and is now preserved among
the Irish MSS.
Sidney resolved to adopt a new plan of warfare. His campaigns would
not be mere summer forays, mere inroads of devastation during the few
dry weeks of August and September. He would wait till the harvest
was gathered in, place troops in fortresses, and continue hostilities
through the winter. He adopted this course because 'in the cold Irish
springs, the fields were bare, the cattle were lean, and the weather
was so uncertain that neither man nor horse could bear it, whereas
in August _food everywhere was abundant_, and the soldiers would have
time to become hardened to their work.' They could winter somewhere on
the Bann; harry Tyrone night and day without remission, and so break
Shane to the ground and ruin him. There was no time to be lost.
Maguire had come into Dublin, reporting that his last cottage was in
ashes, and his last cow driven over the hill into Shane's country;
while Argyle, with the whole disposable force of the western isles,
was expected to join him in summer. O'Neill himself, after an abortive
attempt to entrap Sidney at Dundalk, made a sudden attack on that town
in July; but his men were beaten back, 'and eighteen heads were left
behind to grin hideously over the gates.' He then returned to Armagh
and burned the cathedral to the ground, to prevent its being again
occupied by an English garrison. He next sent a swift messenger to
Desmond, calling for a rising in Munster. 'Now was the time or never'
to set upon the enemies of Ireland. If Desmond failed, or turned
against his country, God would avenge it on him. But Desmond's reply
was an offer to the deputy 'to go against the rebel with all his
power. The Scots also held back.' Shane offered them all Antrim to
join him, all the cattle in the country, and the release of Sorleyboy
from captivity; but Antrim and its cattle they believed that they
could recover for themselves, and James M'Connell had left a brother
Allaster, who was watching with eager eyes for an opportunity to
revenge the death of his kinsman, and the dishonour with which Shane
had stained his race.
In the meantime troops and money came over from England, and on
September 17, Colonel Randolph was at the head of an army in Lough
Foyle; and the lord deputy took the field accompanied by Kildare, the
old O'Donel, Shane Maguire, and O'Dogherty. So that this war against
O'Neill was waged for the dispossessed Irish chiefs as well as for
England. Armagh city they found a mere heap of blackened stones.
Marching without obstruction to Ben brook, one of O'Neill's best and
largest houses, which they found 'utterly burned and razed to the
ground,' thence they went on towards Clogher, 'through pleasant
fields, and villages so well inhabited as no Irish county in the realm
was like it.' The Bishop of Clogher was out with Shane in the field.
'His well-fattened flock were devoured by Sidney's men as by a flight
of Egyptian locusts.' 'There we stayed,' said Sidney, 'to destroy the
corn; we burned the country for 124 miles compass, and we found by
experience that now was the time of the year to do the rebel most
harm.' But he says not a word of the harm he was doing to the poor
innocent peasantry, whose industry had produced the crops, to the
terrified women and children whom he was thus consigning to a horrible
lingering death by famine. This was a strange commencement of his own
programme to treat the people with justice.
The lord deputy expected to meet Randolph at Lifford; but struck with
the singular advantages presented by Derry, then an island, for a
military position, he pitched his tents there, and set the troops to
work in erecting fortifications. Nothing then stood on the site of
the present city, save a decrepid and deserted monastery of Augustine
monks, which was said to have been built in the time of St. Columba.
Sidney stayed a few days at Derry, and then, leaving Randolph with
650 men, 350 pioneers, and provisions for two months, he marched on
to Donegal. This was once a thriving town, inhabited by English
colonists. At the time of Sidney's arrival it was a pile of ruins,
'in the midst of which, like a wild beast's den, strewed round with
mangled bones, rose the largest and strongest castle which he had seen
in Ireland. It was held by one of O'Donel's kinsmen, to whom Shane,
to attach him to his cause, had given his sister to wife. At the
appearance of the old chief with the English army, it was immediately
surrendered. O'Donel was at last rewarded for his fidelity and
sufferings; and the whole tribe, with eager protestations of
allegiance, gave sureties for their future loyalty.' Sidney next
directed his march to Ballyshannon, and on by the coast of Sligo.
Passing over the bogs and mountains of Mayo, they came into Roscommon,
and then, 'leaving behind them as fruitful a country as was in
England or Ireland all utterly waste,' the army crossed the Shannon at
Athlone, swimming 'for lack of a bridge.' The results of this progress
are thus summed up by Mr. Froude. 'Twenty castles had been taken as
they went along and left in hands that could be trusted. In all that
long and painful journey Sidney was able to say that there had not
died of sickness but three persons; men and horses were brought
back in full health and strength, while her majesty's honour
was re-established among the Irishry, and grown to no small
veneration--"an expedition comparable only to Alexander's journey into
Bactria," wrote an admirer of Sidney to Cecil--revealing what to Irish
eyes appeared the magnitude of the difficulty, and forming a measure
of the effect which it produced. The English deputy had bearded Shane
in his stronghold, burned his houses, pillaged his people, and had
fastened a body of police in the midst of them, to keep them waking
in the winter nights. He had penetrated the hitherto impregnable
fortresses of mountain and morass; the Irish who had been faithful to
England were again in safe possession of their lands and homes. The
weakest, maddest, and wildest Celts were made aware that, when the
English were once roused to effort, they could crush them as the lion
crushes the jackal.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Vol. viii. p.407.]
O'Neill had followed the lord deputy to Lifford, and then marched on
to the Pale, expecting to retaliate upon the invaders with impunity.
But he was encountered by Warren St. Leger, lost 200 men, and was at
first hunted back over the border. He again returned, however, with
'a main army,' burned several villages, and in a second fight with St.
Leger, compelled the English to retire, 'for lack of more aid;' but
they held together in good order, and Shane, with the Derry garrison
in his rear, durst not follow far from home in pursuit. 'Before he
could revenge himself on Sidney, before he could stir against the
Scots, before he could strike a blow at O'Donel, he must pluck out the
barbed dart which was fastened in his unguarded side.'
In order to accomplish this object, he hovered cautiously about
the Foyle, watching for an opportunity to attack the garrison. But
Randolph fell upon him by surprise, and after a short sharp action,
the O'Neills gave way. O'Dogherty with his Irish horse chased the
flying crowd of his countrymen, killing every person he caught; and
Shane lost 400 men, the bravest of his warriors. The English success
was dearly bought, for Randolph leading the pursuit, was struck by a
random shot, and fell dead from his horse.
Before the Irish chief could recover from this great disaster, Sidney
'struck in again beyond Dundalk, burning his farms and capturing his
castles. The Scots came in over the Bann, wasting the country all
along the river side. Allaster M'Connell, like some chief of Sioux
Indians, sent to the captain of Knockfergus an account of the cattle
that he had driven, and _the wives and bairns_ that he had slain. Like
swarms of angry hornets, these avenging savages drove their stings in
the now maddened and desperate Shane on every point where they could
fasten; while in December the old O'Donel came out over the mountains
from Donegal, and paid back O'Neill with interest for his stolen wife,
his pillaged country, and his own long imprisonment and exile. The
tide of fortune had turned too late for his own revenge: worn out
with his long sufferings, he fell from his horse, at the head of his
people, with the stroke of death upon him; but before he died, he
called his kinsmen about him, and prayed them to be true to England
and their queen, and Hugh O'Donel, who succeeded to his father's
command, went straight to Derry, and swore allegiance to the English
crown.
'Tyrone was now smitten in all its borders. Magennis was the last
powerful chief who still adhered to Shane's fortunes; the last week in
the year Sidney carried fire and sword through his country, and left
him not a hoof remaining. It was to no purpose that Shane, bewildered
by the rapidity with which disasters were piling themselves upon him,
cried out now for pardon and peace; the deputy would not answer his
letter, and nothing was talked of but his extirpation by war only.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Froude, p.413.]
The war, however, was interrupted by a singular calamity that befel
the Derry garrison. By the death of their commander left 'a headless
people,' they suffered from want of food and clothing. They also
became the prey of a mysterious disease, against which no precautions
could guard, which no medicine could cure, and by which strong men
were suddenly struck dead. By the middle of November 'the flux was
reigning among them wonderfully;' many of the best men went away
because there was none to stay them. The secret of the dreadful
malady--something like the cholera--was discovered in the fact that
the soldiers had built their sleeping quarters over the burial-ground
of the abbey, 'and the clammy vapour had stolen into their lungs and
poisoned them.' The officer who succeeded to the command applied the
most effectual remedy. He led the men at once into the pure air of the
enemies' country, and they returned after a few days driving before
them 700 horses and 1,000 cattle. He assured Sidney, that with 300
additional men, he could so hunt the rebel, that ere May was passed,
he should not show his face in Ulster. But the 'Black Death' returned
after a brief respite; and, says Mr. Froude, in the reeking vapour of
the charnel-house, it was indifferent whether its victims returned in
triumph from a stricken field, or were cooped within their walls by
hordes of savage enemies. By the middle of March there were left out
of 1,100 but 300 available to fight. Reinforcements had been raised at
Liverpool, but they were countermanded when on the point of sailing.
The English council was discussing the propriety of removing the
colony to the Bann, when accident finished the work which the plague
had begun, and spared them the trouble of deliberation. The huts
and sheds round the monastery had been huddled together for the
convenience of fortification. At the end of April, probably after
a drying east wind, a fire broke out in a blacksmith's forge, which
spread irresistibly through the entire range of buildings. The flames
at last reached the powder magazine: thirty men were blown to pieces
by the explosion, and the rest, paralysed by this last addition
to their misfortunes, made no more effort to extinguish the
conflagration. St. Loo, with all that remained of that ill-fated
party, watched from their provision boats in the river the utter
destruction of the settlement which had begun so happily, and then
sailed drearily away to find a refuge in Knockfergus. Such was the
fate of the first efforts for the building of Londonderry; and below
its later glories, as so often happens in this world, lay the bones
of many a hundred gallant men who lost their lives in laying its
foundations. Elizabeth, who in the immediate pressure of calamity
resumed at once her noble nature, 'perceiving the misfortune not
to come of treason, but of God's ordinance,' bore it well; she was
willing to do that should be wanting to repair the loss; and Cecil was
able to write cheerfully to Sidney, telling him to make the best of
the accident and let it stimulate him to fresh exertions.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Page 410.]
In the meantime Shane O'Neill, hard pressed on every side, earnestly
implored the cardinals of Lorraine and Guise, in the name of their
great brother the duke, to bring the _Fleur-de-lys_ to the rescue of
Ireland from the grasp of the ungodly English. 'Help us,' he cried,
blending _Irish-like_ flattery with entreaty: 'when I was in England,
I saw your noble brother, the Marquis d'Elboeuf, transfix two stags
with a single arrow. If the most Christian king will not help us,
move the pope to help us. I alone in this land sustain his cause.' To
propitiate his holiness, Primate Daniel was dismissed to the ranks
of the army, and Creagh received his crosier, and was taken into
O'Neill's household.
'All was done,' says the English historian, 'to deserve favour
in earth and heaven, but all was useless. The Pope sat silent or
muttering his anathemas with bated breath. The Guises had work enough
on hand at home to heed the _Irish wolf_, whom the English, having in
vain attempted to trap or poison, were driving to bay with more lawful
weapons.' His own people, divided and dispirited, began now to desert
the failing cause. In May, by a concerted movement, the deputy with
the light horse of the Pale overran Tyrone, and robbed the farmers
of 3,000 cattle, while the O'Donels mustered their forces for a great
contest with Shane, now struggling, almost hopelessly, to maintain
his supremacy. The O'Neills and O'Donels met on the banks of the Foyle
near Lifford. The former were superior in number, being about 3,000
men. After a brief fight 'the O'Neills broke and fled; the enemy was
behind them, the river was in front; and when the Irish battle cries
had died away over moor and mountain, but 200 survived of those fierce
troopers, who were to have cleared Ireland for ever from the presence
of the Saxons. For the rest, the wolves were snarling over their
bodies, and the seagulls whirling over them with scream and cry, as
they floated down to their last resting-place beneath the quiet waters
of Lough Foyle. Shane's foster-brethren, faithful to the last, were
all killed; he himself with half-a-dozen comrades rode for his life,
pursued by the avenging furies. His first desperate intention was to
throw himself at Sidney's feet, _with a slave's collar upon his neck_;
but his secretary, Neil M'Kevin, persuaded him that his cause was not
yet absolutely without hope. Sorleyboy was still a prisoner in the
castle at Lough Neagh, the Countess of Argyle had remained with her
ravisher through his shifting fortunes, had continued to bear him
children, and notwithstanding his many infidelities, was still
attached to him. M'Kevin told him that for their sakes, or at their
intercession, he might find shelter and perhaps help among the kindred
of the M'Connells.'
Acting on this advice, O'Neill took his prisoner, 'the countess, his
secretary, and fifty men to the camp of Allaster M'Connell, in the
far extremity of Antrim. He was received with dissembled gratulatory
words.' For two days all went on well, and an alliance was talked of.
But the vengeance of his hosts was with difficulty suppressed. The
great chief who was now in their power, had slain their leaders in the
field, had divorced James M'Connell's daughter, had kept a high-born
Scottish lady as his mistress, and had asked Argyle to give him for a
wife M'Connell's widow, who, to escape the dishonour, had remained in
concealment at Edinburgh. On the third evening, Monday June 2, when
the wine and the whiskey had gone freely round, and the blood in
Shane's veins had warmed, Gilespie M'Connell, who had watched him from
the first with an ill-boding eye, turned round upon M'Kevin, and asked
scornfully, 'whether it was he who had bruited abroad that the lady
his aunt did offer to come from Scotland to Ireland to marry with his
master?'
M'Kevin meeting scorn with scorn said, that if his aunt was Queen of
Scotland she might be proud to match with the O'Neill. 'It is false,'
the fierce Scot shouted; 'my aunt is too honest a woman to match with
her husband's murderer.'
'Shane, who was perhaps drunk, heard the words, and forgetting where
he was, flung back the lie in Gilespie's throat. Gilespie sprung to
his feet, ran out of the tent, and raised the slogan of the Isles. A
hundred dirks flashed into the moonlight, and the Irish, wherever they
could be found, were struck down and stabbed. Some two or three
found their horses and escaped, all the rest were murdered; and Shane
himself, gashed with fifty wounds, was wrapped in a kern's old shirt,
and flung into a pit, dug hastily among the ruined arches of Glenarm.
Even there, what was left of him was not allowed to rest. Four days
later, Piers, the captain of Knockfergus, hacked the head from the
body, and carried it on a spear's point through Drogheda to Dublin,
where, staked upon a pike, it bleached on the battlements of the
castle, a symbol to the Irish world of the fate of Celtic heroes.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Froude, p.418, &c.]
Mr. Froude might have added: Celtic heroes struck down by Celtic
hands. No lord deputy could boast of a victory over Shane O'Neill
in the field. Irish traitors in English pay, Irish clans moved by
vengeance, did the work of England in the destruction of the great
principality of the O'Neills, and it was by _their_ swords, not
by English valour, that Sidney 'recovered Ireland for the crown of
Elizabeth.' Whatever may have been the faults of Shane O'Neill, and no
doubt they were very great, though not to be judged of by the morality
of the nineteenth century, his talents, his force of character, his
courage and capacity as a general, deserved more favourable notice
from Mr. Froude, who, in almost every sentence of his graphic and
splendid descriptions, betrays an animosity to the Celtic race,
very strange in an author so enlightened, and evincing, with this
exception, such generous sympathies. After so often reviling the
great Irish champion by comparing him to all sorts of wild beasts, the
historian thus concludes:--
'So died Shane O'Neill, one of those champions of Irish nationality,
who under varying features have repeated themselves in the history of
that country with periodic regularity. At once a _drunken ruffian_,
and a keen and fiery patriot, the representative in his birth of the
line of the ancient kings, the ideal in his character of all which
Irishmen most admired, regardless in his actions of the laws of God
and man, yet the devoted subject in his creed of the holy Catholic
Church; with an eye which could see far beyond the limits of his own
island, and a tongue which could touch the most passionate chords
of the Irish heart; the like of him has been seen many times in that
island, and the like of him may be seen many times again till the
Ethiopian has changed his skin, and the leopard his spots. Numbers of
his letters remain, to the Queen, to Sussex, to Sidney, to Cecil,
and to foreign princes; far-reaching, full of pleasant flattery and
promises which cost him nothing, but showing true ability and insight.
Sinner though he was, he too in his turn was sinned against; in the
stained page of Irish misrule there is no second instance in which
an English ruler stooped to treachery, or to the infamy of attempted
assassination; and it is not to be forgotten that Lord Sussex, who has
left under his own hand the evidence of his own baseness, continued a
trusted and favoured councillor of Elizabeth, while Sidney, who fought
Shane and conquered him in the open field, found only suspicion and
hard words.'