In the time of Queen Elizabeth, there was a celebrated woman living in
the province of Connaught, Ireland, named _Grana Uille_, or Grace
O'Malley. She was the chieftainess of the O'Malley's of Clare Island,
and called herself a princess, but she was most famed as a female
pirate-captain, or vi-_queen_, as, perhaps, she would have preferred to
be called.
She lived in rude, stormy times, when the Irish were nearly as wild and
warlike as savages, and fierce feuds and bold robberies, on land and
sea, were every day affairs. Indeed, for a man to be a peaceful,
honest, sober citizen, was then no ways to his credit; then children
were taught by their quarrelsome parents, to fire up on the slightest
occasion, and fight for their rights,--to revenge all insults, and make
free with the property of their enemies; and little was the
Sunday-school teaching they had to the contrary; then when women became
leaders of lawless predatory bands, they were admired and wondered at;
but few thought of condemning them, or dared to scout at them.
Those must have been the days, or Ireland the country, of "woman's
rights," for throughout the warlike career of the great chieftainess,
nobody seems to have been much shocked, or to have thought that Miss
O'Malley was going out of her "proper sphere," and infringing on the
sacred rights of the nobler sex, in fighting and pirating; except it
may be those men who got the worst of it, in engagements with her.
Grace O'Malley was the daughter of a powerful chief, who, having no
heir, brought up his one little girl as though she were a son--teaching
her all sorts of manly and martial exercises. Instead of dolls and
pets, her childish playthings were pistols and daggers, which she soon
found very useful in scaring her attendants into instant obedience to
her whims; and instead of being allowed to play among the sands and
hunt shells on the wild seashore, she was taught to swim, to fish, to
row, and to shoot the shy water-fowl. Instead of taking her airings,
like a modern nobleman's little daughter, on a well-trained pony, or a
sober, sure-footed donkey, over smooth lawns, and through shady parks
and flowery lanes, she was accustomed to accompany her father and his
rough followers, mounted on one of the wild horses of the country, on
long mountain hunts--to dash through bog and briar, to ford swollen
streams, and leap wide, dark chasms.
Once, when Grace was but a child, while she was out on one of these
hunts, a young fawn that they were chasing, turned suddenly, and
singling her out from all the party, ran to her side, laid its head in
her lap, and lifted its large sorrowful eyes to her face, as though
asking for her protection. "Stand back!" cried she, to the
hunters,--"call off the dogs, and let no one harm her now,--she is
mine!"
"Ah, well, comrades," said one of the men, "let us seek other game, and
leave the fawn to our little lady, for a pet."
"No, by the Rock of Cashel!" cried old Cormac O'Malley, "I will not
have my brave daughter made soft and silly, like other girls, by
tending pets. Draw your hunting-knife across her throat, Grace, while
you have her."
"That will I not, father, for she has trusted in me. I want no pets,
but whoever kills this fawn, must kill me first," she said, flinging
her arms around the poor trembling creature. She looked so fierce and
determined that the men cheered, and the old chief laughingly promised
her that the fawn should be allowed to escape unharmed. Grace
jealously watched the disappointed hunters and yelping hounds till the
swift-footed animal was out of sight, and then rode on with the rest.
Such was Grace O'Malley--stern and proud in temper, fearless and manly
in her habits, but now and then giving way to a kind and generous
impulse. When her father died, she assumed the command of his warlike
retainers, and the sternest and bravest of them were not ashamed to
acknowledge her authority. At first, she only fought in self-defence,
or in revenge for what she considered aggressions and insults, and
finally, for spoil and conquest, and for the habit and love of strife
and adventure. She was a tall, handsome woman, with dark, flashing
eyes, a clear, ringing voice, and a proud, soldier-like step. Her
dress was a singular mingling of the masculine and feminine fashions of
her half barbarous country; but it was picturesque and imposing; made
of the richest materials she could procure, and worn with an air of
majesty which not Queen Bess herself, in all her glory, could surpass.
But the proud Lady Grace professed to be a loyal subject of Elizabeth.
In an Irish rebellion, headed by the Earl of Tyrone, she sided with the
English government, and added immensely to her power and possessions,
by the victories she gained over the rebels. She did not deign to
receive a regular commission from the Queen, but fought in her own wild
way, on her own responsibility, at her own risk, and for her own
advantage. She took castle after castle, confiscated estate after
estate, claiming always the "lion's share" of the plunder.
When some of the ships of the great Spanish armada, sent against
England, were driven by a storm upon the Irish coast, she bore down
upon them with her armed galleys, and took several noble prizes. With
these ships, she obtained much magnificent dress, belonging to the
proud Castilian officers and their stately ladies--velvets and
brocades, stiff with woven jewels and broideries of gold, with which
she went bravely dressed for the rest of her life. And the Spanish
Dons and Donnas, what did they do, robbed of their splendid apparel?
Ah, they went where they did not need it any more--down, down into
still, dark ocean-caves, where they reposed on beds of silver sand,
with the long sea-weed wrapping itself about them.
But I am not getting on with that legend of Howth Castle.
In the height of the fame and power of Grace O'Malley, when her rude
bands were the terror of Connaught and the islands of that coast, and
her ships the scourge of the Irish seas, she resolved to pay a visit to
the court of Elizabeth. She went almost as a sovereign princess, and
was royally received and entertained; for the politic English Queen was
only too willing, I am afraid, to close her ears against stories of the
cruelty and lawlessness of so useful a subject.
The warlike Grace made a decided sensation at court. In her strange,
rich, half martial dress, and always wearing some sort of deadly
weapon, she strode about like a terrible giantess among the Queen's
laughing dames, awing them into momentary silence; and even the gay
wits, pert young poets, and pages, shrank abashed from her haughty,
flashing looks.
"Gra' mercy!" whispered one, as she passed, "she hath daggers in her
eyes, as well as in her girdle."
"Ay, and pistols in her voice," said a saucy page, who served at the
Queen's table; "when she saith 'Sirrah!' I have ever a mind to drop
upon my knees and beg for my life."
But Grace O'Malley soon tired of the stately gayeties of the court.
She curled her scornful lip at the safe and easy way of hunting in the
royal parks--calling it "child's play." She laughed at their formal
balls and feasts; and when the Queen, especially to please her, led off
the court dance, the solemn, but graceful minuet, played the
harpsichord with her own royal hands, and sung madrigals, and read
Latin verses of her own composition, Grace only yawned, and said: "I
wonder your Majesty should throuble yourself with things of this sort
at all. Sure in Ireland, we have people to do the likes for us, and
save us the worriment."
Once, on the Queen having expressed some curiosity in regard to the
Irish national dances, Grace made sign to her harper, a wild-eyed,
white-haired, long-bearded old gentleman, who struck up a stirring
Celtic air, and instantly her warlike followers rushed into the midst
of the hall, and began dancing, in the strangest, maddest way
imaginable. Faster and louder played the harper, wilder and more
furiously they danced; they wheeled and leaped and shook their arms in
the air, and shouted fierce Celtic battle-cries, till all the court
ladies trembled, and not a few of the courtiers drew near the throne
for fear, and even the Queen had to thank her rouge for not looking
pale. However, it all ended like a modern Irish jig, in a harmless
"whoop!" and the fiery dancers quietly returned to their places about
their mistress. "That, your Majesty," said Grace, proudly, "is rale
Irish dancing."
"And by our faith, brave Lady Grace, we hope it may ever remain _Irish_
dancing. The fashion suits not our peaceful court," replied Elizabeth,
laughing.
Grace O'Malley returned to Ireland loaded with princely gifts. It is
not recorded in history that Elizabeth ever returned her visit, though
at parting, Grace gave her Majesty a cordial invitation to come over to
Connaught and see some hunting and fighting that were no shams.
"The O'Malley," as Grace called herself, after the fashion of great
Irish chiefs, landed first at Howth, intending to pay the Earl a visit.
But it happened to be dinner time, and the castle gates were shut, as
they always were at that hour, by command of his lordship, who was a
high liver, and had a particular objection to being disturbed at his
meals. When Grace haughtily demanded admittance, the warder not having
a proper sense of the honor she was intending to do his master,
sturdily refused. This surly, inhospitable reception so enraged the
chieftainess, that she was quite ready to storm the castle, and slay
the fat Earl at his own dinner-table, with all his guests and
retainers. But she had not with her a sufficient force for this; so
was obliged to return to her ship, where she strode up and down the
deck in a terribly wrathful state, and made all ring again with her
threats and imprecations against the Earl, for the insult she had
received. Suddenly a gleam of malicious joy flashed over her dark
face. She commanded her men to land her again, and as soon as she
reached the shore, she rushed up to a cottage, where she remembered
that the nurse of the young lord, the Earl's little son, was living.
She caught the child from the woman's arms, telling her to tell her
master that _she_ would take charge of his heir, and bring him up to
have better notions of hospitality and good manners than could be
learned at Howth Castle. Then she hurried back to her ship, with the
poor little lordling who seemed too frightened to cry, and hid his face
against her bosom, as though shrinking from the look of her dark, angry
eyes. Immediately she ordered all sails to be set, and sped away
toward Connaught. The nurse ran up to the castle with the news, but as
she could not be admitted till the Earl had dined and drunk his punch,
so much time was lost that, before his galley could be manned and sent
on, Lady Grace's sails were already glimmering down the horizon, and
the pursuit was hopeless.
Tristram St. Lawrence, the little lord, was a handsome child, between
two and three years old, with a look of brave, yet quiet dignity in his
face, which roused some kindly feeling in the sternest mariners and
warriors, on board the piratical ship, and even touched the heart of
the Lady Grace herself--that unsuspected womanly heart, which she had
kept sternly pressed down so many years under her breastplate of steel.
When she first went on board, she gave the boy to one of her women,
telling her to tend him and give him food and playthings. But when
they had been at sea some time, the woman came to her mistress, and
said that the child would neither eat, nor play; that he gave no heed
to any one, but stood apart, sullen and silent, looking back over the
sea toward Howth. Then Grace, whose quick anger had cooled down in the
fresh evening breeze, went to him, laid her hand on his shoulder and
spoke his name. He did not start, or answer, but kept his sad, wistful
eyes fixed on the distant towers of his father's castle. So she stood
over him, watching, and so he stood gazing, till the ship rounded a
point which hid the castle from sight. Then, for the first time, the
child burst into tears; but, flinging himself on the deck, he covered
his face with his hands, as though to conceal his crying, and seemed to
try to check the sobs which shook his little breast. So much proud and
delicate feeling in one so young--a mere baby--appealed strongly to the
Lady Grace. She felt her heart soften and yearn over the noble child,
in his grief and loneliness. She knelt at his side and slid her hand
under his head, and speaking his name more tenderly than before, she
told him not to be afraid, not to grieve any more, and he should go
home soon. She made her harsh, commanding voice sound so sweet and
motherly that the child turned a little, and clasped that large brown
hand, and held it against his lips and his eyes, while he wept and
sobbed, till his heavy heart grew lighter. When Grace drew away her
hand, and found it all wet with tears, she looked at it for a moment,
with a strange tenderness in her imperious eyes. It seemed to her that
those tears of a sinless child, were like the holy water of baptism,
and would purify that hand, so often stained with blood.
Great was the astonishment of the rough mariners and warriors when they
saw their stern mistress, whose name was used by mothers and nurses all
over the kingdom, as a bugbear, with which to frighten naughty
children, now comforting and caressing this stolen child; when she fed
him with her own hands, and then took him in her arms and hushed him to
sleep--singing to him a wild, childish ditty, which she remembered,
because her own long dead mother had sung it to her, when she also was
an innocent babe.
So kind and gentle did the bold vi-queen become, that before many days
the baby-lord became passionately attached to her, and ceased to ask
for his nurse and parents. And he, with all his endearing, infantile
ways, was such brave, grand little fellow--a child so after her own
heart--that Grace, who, in her pride and independence, had never envied
anybody any thing, not even Elizabeth her crown--envied the stout Earl
of Howth his only son and heir, with a bitter, hopeless, lonely envy.
It made her sometimes sad, but it made her better, and gentler, and
even almost humble; and the most harmless, if not the happiest part of
her life, was that in which she retained the child with her, at her
gloomy stronghold in Connaught.
At length, after sending several messengers and agents in vain, the
proud and indolent Earl of Howth came himself, with a large ransom, to
buy back his heir. Grace O'Malley refused the money with scorn, but
offered to restore the child to him, if he would solemnly promise that
the gates of Howth Castle should always be thrown wide open when the
family were at dinner. He readily promised this, and the hospitable
custom has remained in his noble house to this day.
The Earl could scarcely believe his eyes when, as he was about to
leave, he saw the stern chieftainess lift little Tristram in her arms
and embrace him tenderly, while the child clung to her and cried. "By
my soul," whispered his lordship to one of his train, "there's a
saisoning of the woman and the Christian about the heathen Amazon,
after all."
The Earl and the Lady Grace parted very good friends, and the baby-lord
went home loaded with presents. Oh, lonely and dreary seemed Grace
O'Malley's old castle when he was gone--doubly dark seemed its great
cavernous hall, without the sunshine of his joyous life--doubly
desolate the lady's shadowy chamber, in the windy old turret alone,
without the brightness of his winsome face and the music of his happy
voice.
The Lady Grace became sadder and more silent than before, but she
seemed less haughty and warlike. She still followed the chase as
fiercely as ever, but she gradually gave over fighting and plundering.
She began to notice kindly little children--to give more generously to
the poor, and was even suspected of praying sometimes, and of wearing a
concealed crucifix. Her men said that the baby-lord had spoiled their
fiery vi-queen, who led them no longer on marauding and piratical
expeditions; but her women blessed the saints that their mistress had
"softened down a bit, and made it more comfortable like to sarve her."
Once every year, Grace O'Malley went in state to Howth Castle, to see
her beloved little friend and carry him presents, till at last, just as
he was growing into manhood, a cruel sickness came upon her, and she
was unable to go. Yet she sent her galley and the presents, as usual,
to prove her faithful love.
Tristram, who had grown up a noble, generous youth, was grieved to hear
of the illness of this strange, proud woman, who had seemed to lay
aside her very nature to love him, and as he had always kept his old
childish affection for her, he resolved to go and see her once more.
So the galley, on its return, took the young Lord of Howth to the
O'Malley's Castle, in Connaught.
It was night when they arrived--a wild November night. The sky was
heavy with storm-clouds, and the sea was running high before a strong
wind, and breaking with a sound like thunder upon that bleak, black
shore. There was a great fire burning in the vast chimney of the old
hall, but in the farther corners, dark shadows were lurking, and the
stone walls were glistening with a chill dampness.
As the heavy hall door swung open, to admit the young lord and his
train, so much of the tempestuous night rushed in with them, that the
old armor and the banners hanging on the walls clanged and flapped, and
the fire roared fiercely and whirled out an angry cloud of smoke. In
the midst of the hall the Lady Grace was lying, surrounded by her
retainers, her warriors, and seamen, on a rude couch, piled with skins
of deer she had slain, but curtained with rich crimson drapery,
suspended from the ceiling by enormous antlers of elks. She was
dressed in her old way, except that she had no arms in her girdle, and
wore a rosary about her neck. By her side stood a venerable priest,
holding a crucifix and the Lady Grace was repeating after him very
devoutly a prayer for the dying; but when she saw Tristram, she forgot
both priest and prayer. She sprang up from her couch to meet him, with
a glad cry; and though she sank back at once, in weakness and mortal
pain, she was content, for her arms were about the neck of her darling.
She wiped the rain-drops from his face and pressed them out of his soft
brown hair, and gazed at him with a fierce joy of love in her great
dark eyes, which seemed larger and darker now, and shone with new
splendor, since her long black locks had turned to silvery white.
"It was noble and like thee, _mavourneen deelish_," she said, "to give
my dying eyes this last best blessing of life--beholding thee once
more. For this boon, I bestow upon thee the proudest legacy I have to
leave--this ring of most precious stones--the gift of my sister,
Elizabeth of England. With the ring, I would give thee my benison, but
that I fear the blessing of so sinful a woman might do thee harm. And
yet, as I have loved thee purely, as a mother might, the saints may
make it good. So, I _will_ bless thee, jewel of my heart!"
The young lord knelt reverently to receive her blessing, and after she
had ceased to murmur the fervent words, he still kept his place, for
her large hand yet pressed heavily upon his head. After a moment's
silence, she recommenced speaking, but rapidly and wildly, for her mind
was wandering. It seemed to have gone back to the night when she had
taken the heir of Howth from his nurse. She began railing against the
old Earl's churlishness, and vowing she would teach him a lesson in
hospitality Then she called out in loud, stern tones to her mariners to
set sail for Connaught, and laughed fiercely over her prize. But soon
her mood changed; she began to stroke the head of Tristram, and comfort
him by gentle words and kind promises. She did not seem to perceive
that the firm, manly face now before her, was not the smooth little
face all wet with tears, she once caressed. The young lord was again a
baby-boy to her; and presently she drew him closer, and began singing
that same nursery song with which she used to soothe him to sleep.
It was a strange sight to see,--that dying woman, rocking herself back
and forth, and singing that wild lullaby, with her staring servitors
and grim old fighters grouped around her, hardly able to believe that
this was indeed their haughty mistress, their brave leader, their bold
sea-captain.
At first, her voice rang out clear and full, but soon it faltered and
failed, and sunk lower and lower. And lower and lower sunk the head of
the old chieftainess, till her long white locks mingled with the dark
curls of the young lord; then her voice ceased altogether, and her
forehead lay heavy and cold against his, and he knew that Grace
O'Malley was dead.