Ireland During the Wars of the Roses
AFTER the premature death of Henry IV, an able but unscrupulous
sovereign, in 1413, the attention of England was again directed to the
conquest of France by the chivalrous and skilful Henry V. His capture of
Harfleur and marvelous victory of Agincourt, against overwhelming odds,
in 1415, stamp him as one of the world’s great military leaders. During
the nine years of his reign, he succeeded in subduing France, and,
finally, married Catherine, heiress of Charles VI, an almost imbecile
king, and had himself declared regent and next in succession to the
throne after his father-in-law. France was stupefied, but God,
infinitely stronger than French arms, decreed Henry’s early death. He
died in the conquered country in 1422, leaving an only son, Henry VI, an
infant of nine months, to succeed him, under the regency of his uncle,
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who, for a wonder, considering the history
of the Plantagenets, remained faithful to his trust. John, Duke of
Bedford, a younger brother of Henry, and a very brilliant soldier,
became regent of France. This was the period of the inspired
peasant-girl, Joan of Arc, whose story of victory and death belongs to
the history of France, although, after having performed prodigies, she
died at the stake to which the English, into whose hands she had fallen,
condemned her. The Dauphin, as Charles VII, succeeded to his legitimate
throne, and, about 1453, the English were expelled from France, except
the old town of Calais, which remained in their possession until 1558.
In Ireland, meanwhile, the chief feuds were those between the Geraldines
and the Butlers and the De Burgos and the Connaught chiefs. There were
also minor feuds in different parts of the island, but, as a rule, the
Irish people had things pretty much their own way, and might have thrown
off the English yoke utterly, if they had had an Edward Bruce or Art
MacMurrough to arouse and lead them to victory. Unfortunately they had
not, and, as the English fetter was very light on Ireland during the
Wars of the Roses, which began in 1455, they imagined, perhaps, that the
old enemy, having plenty of fighting to do on their own account, might
leave them alone for evermore—a vain hope if it were seriously
entertained.
After an interval of six years, the Wars of the Roses—so-called because
the red rose was the badge of the House of Lancaster and the white that
of the House of York—broke out more violently than before, because Henry
VI, who had been declared imbecile and unfit to reign, suddenly
recovered his intellect, and Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, who
claimed a prior right to the throne, and had been appointed Regent, with
the right of succession, refused to give up his authority. Henry had a
son by his brave wife, Margaret of Anjou. He might be called a weakling,
but she summoned the people to defend the rights of her son. York was
defeated, captured, and beheaded at Wakefield, in 1461, but his son
Edward, Earl of March, routed the queen’s army immediately afterward and
ascended the throne as Edward IV. Struggle succeeded struggle, but the
House of York achieved a crowning triumph at Tewkesbury and again at
Barnet Heath, where Warwick, the King Maker, fell. The direct male line
of the House of Lancaster perished at Tewkesbury, where, it is alleged,
the gallant Prince Edward, son of Henry VI, was murdered, after having
been made prisoner, by Edward IV and George, Duke of Clarence—the same
afterward drowned in a butt of wine by order of his cruel brother. King
Edward IV, after a reign of twenty-two years, marked by slaughter of his
foes and some of his friends, notorious immorality, and swinish
debauchery, died of a fever brought on by his excesses, in 1483, and his
vile younger brother, the Duke of Gloucester, succeeded the boy-king,
Edward V, by process of murder, in the same year. The last battle of the
Wars of the Roses was fought at Bosworth, near Leicester, August 22,
1485. Richard, last king of the Plantagenet family, fell and was
succeeded by his rival, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, descended, in the
female line, from John of Gaunt, who ascended the throne as Henry VII.
Thus, you will see, Ireland was left pretty much to herself, during
those thirty years of English civil war, in which twelve murderous
pitched battles were fought. Most of the old nobility were killed in
battle or executed, or otherwise destroyed, and more than one hundred
thousand Englishmen of the middle and lower classes were immolated on
the smoking altars of family pride and savage ambition. Every prince of
the race of Plantagenet was exterminated when, in 1599, Henry VII
ordered the beheading of the young Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of
Clarence. Many of the Anglo-Irish lords and their followings took part
in the English wars, mainly on the side of the House of York, and the
Geraldines, in particular, got sadly mixed up in them, for which they
suffered amply in after days. No reigning king of England had set foot
in Ireland since Richard II sailed to his death from Dublin, and Henry
VII proved to be no exception to the rule. He, however, interfered in
the quarrel between the Fitzgeralds and the Butlers—as bitter and
prolonged as that between the Camerons and Campbells in Scotland—and
made the Earl of Kildare viceroy. The Desmonds, the powerful southern
branch of the Geraldines, were also eternally at variance with the
Butlers. It is related that, on one occasion, the Earl of Desmond was
wounded and made prisoner. While being borne on a litter to Butler’s
stronghold, one of the bearers insolently and brutally demanded, “Where
is the great Earl of Desmond now?” To which the heroic captive
immediately replied—“Where he ought to be” (alluding to the litter in
which he was carried by his foes): “still on the necks of the Butlers!”
The most memorable event of Henry VII’s reign, as far as Ireland was
concerned, was the coming over from England of Sir Edward Poynings, as
Lord Deputy during the temporary retirement of Kildare. The English
colonists of the Pale, almost from their first settlement of that
district, possessed an independent parliament, modeled on that of
England. It was, in general, oppressive toward the Celtic-Irish, but
made good laws enough for the Palesmen. Poynings, soon after his
arrival, called this parliament to assemble at Drogheda and there (1495)
the Statute of Kilkenny was reaffirmed, except as regarded the
prohibition of Gaelic, which had come into general use, even in the Pale
itself. The main enactment—the first uttered in the English tongue in
Ireland—was that known as 10 Henry VII, otherwise Poynings’ Law, which
provided that no legislation should be, thereafter, proceeded with in
Ireland unless the bills were first submitted for approval or rejection
to the monarch and privy council of England. In case of approval they
were to be attested by the great seal of the English realm. It was, to
be sure, a most unjust and insolent measure, and it seems almost
incredible that even the Pales people—mere hybrids, neither English nor
Irish—should have tamely submitted to its infamous provisions. It
remained in force 287 years, or until 1782, when it was repealed under
circumstances that will appear hereafter.
The close of this reign witnessed a bloody struggle between the Kildares
and Clanricardes, in which many Celtic tribes also bore a part, and in
which thousands of men lost their lives to no good purpose. In the two
principal battles, those of Knockdoe and Monabraher (1507-10), artillery
and musketry were first made use of on Irish soil.
As most of the Irish Palesmen, including the House of Kildare, were
partisans of the House of York during the Wars of the Roses, the two
pretenders—prepared by Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward
IV, to impersonate, respectively, Edward, Earl of Warwick, only son and
heir of the late Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of York, the second
son of Edward IV, who was murdered in the Tower, by order, it is said,
of his base uncle, Richard III, together with his brother, the boy-king,
Edward V—found adherents when they landed on Irish soil. Indeed, Lambert
Simnel, the first of these pretenders, a handsome young Englishman, who
resembled the princes of the House of York, was crowned king, as “Edward
VI,” in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. Many Pales Irish followed him
to England, where Henry VII defeated and made him prisoner. The real
Warwick was taken from the Tower and paraded through the streets-a sad
spectacle of physical comeliness marred, and intellect clouded, by long
and harsh confinement. Having been sufficiently exhibited to satisfy the
public of Simnel’s imposture, the poor boy was returned to his cell.
Simnel, himself, was made a “turnspit” in the royal kitchen, afterward
raised to the post of falconer, and ended his days in that humble
position. The second pretender, Perkin Warbeck, a Belgian by birth, had
less support from Ireland than his predecessor, but involved some of the
nobles of the Pale with King Henry. But his adherents, remembering the
imposition of the bogus Edward VI, soon fell away, and Perkin went to
Scotland, where James IV received him, as if he were a genuine prince,
and gave him his cousin, the lovely Lady Catherine Gordon, in marriage.
Peace being concluded between James and Henry, Warbeck and his beautiful
bride went to Cornwall. There the pretender, who was really a man of
noble presence and great ability, rallied 3,000 men to his standard.
Successful at first, he proved himself a false Plantagenet by basely
deserting his confiding followers on the eve of decisive battle. He shut
himself up in the sanctuary of Beaulieu, in the New Forest, but soon
surrendered himself, and was shown by the king to the populace of
London. He was well treated for a time, but his position was mortifying.
He ran off to another sanctuary, was again forced to give himself up,
was placed in the public stocks, confessed he was an impostor, and was
finally sent to the Tower, to keep company with the unhappy Warwick.
This circumstance enabled the crafty Henry to get up a so-called plot,
of which it was easy to convict two helpless prisoners. Warwick—last
male of the Plantagenets—lost his head on Tower Hill, and Warbeck died
by the rope at Tyburn. His charming widow became lady-in-waiting to the
Queen.
Many abbeys and monasteries were built in Ireland during this
comparatively tranquil period, and the passion for learning revived to a
great extent among the native Irish nobility. Pilgrimages, as of old,
were made to distant lands for the purpose of worshiping at famous
shrines. Irish teachers and scholars began again to be numerous in
Spain, Germany, and Italy. Henry VII, engaged in saving the wreck of
England’s almost extinguished nobility, and in hoarding money, for which
he had a passion, took little account of Ireland and the Irish. But,
already, low on the horizon, a blood-red cloud was forming, and it
gradually thickened and extended until, at last, it broke in a crimson
torrent on the fated Irish nation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK II
TREATING OF IRISH AFFAIRS FROM THE PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION TO THE
EXILE AND DEATH OF THE ULSTER PRINCES IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
The “Reformation”—New Cause of Discord in Ireland
THE bitterness of race hatred had almost died out when the Reformation,
as the opponents of the Church of Rome called the great schism of the
sixteenth century, began to shake Europe like an earthquake. Luther, and
other dissenters from Catholic faith, carried most of the north of
Europe with them. The Latin countries, South Germany, all of Ireland,
and most of England, clung to the old faith, and Henry VIII, who
succeeded his father at an early age, and was quite learned in theology,
wrote a pamphlet defending the Catholic dogmas against Luther and the
others. This work procured for him from the Pope the title of the
“Defender of the Faith,” which still, rather inappropriately, belongs to
the sovereign of England. But Henry was a good Catholic only so long as
religion did not interfere with his passions and ambitions. He had been
married in early life to Catherine of Aragon, who had been the nominal
wife of his elder brother, another Prince of Wales, who died uncrowned.
After many years, Henry, who was a slave to his passions, tired of
Catherine, and pretended to believe that it was sinful to live with his
brother’s widow, even though the latter relationship was but nominal. In
truth, he had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, one of Queen Catherine’s
maids-of-honor. The Pope was appealed to for a divorce and refused to
grant it, after having carefully examined into the case. Then Henry
severed England’s spiritual connection with Rome, and declared himself
head of the English “Reformed” Church. In this he was sustained by
Wolsey, Cromwell, and other high churchmen, all of whom were either
ambitious or afraid of their heads, for Henry never hesitated, like his
grand-uncle, Richard III, at the use of the axe, when any subject,
clerical or lay, opposed his will. But the tyrant, while refusing
allegiance to the Pope, still maintained the truth of Catholic dogma,
and he murdered with studied impartiality those who gave their adhesion
to the Holy See and those who denied its doctrines; no Englishman of
note felt his head safe in those red days. As for the common people,
nobody of “rank” ever gave them a thought. Henry now seized upon the
Church property, and, therewith, bribed the great lords to take his side
of the controversy. The boors followed the lords, and so most of England
followed Henry’s schism and prepared to go farther.
Henry married Anne Boleyn when he had “divorced” Queen Catherine. After
the Princess Elizabeth was born, he tired of his new wife, had her tried
for faithlessness and high treason and beheaded. Scarcely was she dead
when the inhuman brute married Lady Jane Seymour, of the great Somerset
family. She gave birth to Prince Edward and died. Then he married Anne
of Cleves, but, not liking her person, “divorced” her and sent her back
to Germany. For “imposing” her on him, he disgraced, and finally
beheaded, the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, who had been his great
friend. The monster next espoused Lady Catherine Howard, of the House of
Surrey, but he had her beheaded, on charges almost similar to those
urged against Anne Boleyn, within the year. At last he married a widow
of two experiences, Lady Catharine Parr, who, being a woman of tact and
cleverness, managed to save her head, although frequently in danger,
until the ferocious king, who must have been somewhat insane, finally
fell a victim to his own unbridled vices. “The plain truth,” says
Charles Dickens, in his “Child’s History,” “is that Henry VIII was a
most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of
blood and grease upon the history of England.”
This was the crowned “fiend in human shape” who sought to effect his
“Reformation in Ireland,” where both the Old Irish and the Old English
had united against his tyranny. The weight of his wrath fell first upon
the Leinster Geraldines, whom he dreaded. He contrived to pick a quarrel
with Gerald, ninth Earl of Kildare, who had been for many years his
favorite viceroy in Ireland, and summoned him to London in hot haste, on
flimsy, notoriously “trumped-up” charges of treason. He flung him into a
dungeon in the Tower of London. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, son of the Earl,
called “Silken Thomas,” because of the beauty of his person and the
splendor of his apparel, was appointed deputy by his father, who thought
his absence in England might be brief. Lord Thomas was young, brave, and
rash, and, in short, the very man to fall an easy victim to the wiles of
his House’s enemies. Tradition says that the false news of Earl Gerald’s
execution, by order of King Henry, was spread in Dublin by one of the
Butlers. The privy council, over which he usually presided, was already
in session at St. Mary’s Abbey, when “Silken Thomas” heard the story.
He, at once, with a large escort, proceeded to the abbey, renounced his
allegiance to the English monarch, and, seizing the sword of state from
the sword-bearer, threw it, with violent gesture, on the council table,
“the English Thanes among.” Protests availed nothing. He rushed to arms,
and for nearly two years held at bay Henry’s power. Had he but laid his
plans with care and judgment, he would, no doubt, have ended the rule of
England over Ireland, which, although not his primary, became his
ultimate, object. In the end, his stronghold of Maynooth Castle was
betrayed into the hands of the English general, Sir William Skeffington,
by Lord Thomas’s foster-brother, Parez, for a sum in gold. General
Skeffington paid the money on the surrender of the castle, and
immediately hanged the traitor. For this act of chivalric justice, the
name of that stern Englishman is still held in respect by all readers of
Irish history. The loss of Maynooth depleted the strength of “Silken
Thomas.” He struggled on for some time longer, but, at last, accepted
the terms of Lord Deputy Gray, who offered him his life and guaranteed
the safety of his five uncles—two, at least, of whom had had no hand in
the outbreak. They were invited to a banquet by the Lord Deputy, and
there, while drinking with their false hosts, were treacherously seized,
placed in irons, and sent to England in a ship called the _Cow_. One of
the uncles, hearing the name of the vessel, said: “We are lost! I have
dreamed that six of us, Geraldines, would be carried to England in the
belly of a cow and there lose our heads!” The augury was fulfilled.
Henry VIII, with his usual disregard of terms, had them beheaded
immediately after their arrival in London, at Tyburn. The old Earl of
Kildare had not been executed after all, but died of a broken heart in
the Tower on learning of the revolt and misfortunes of his son. Only one
heir-male of the noble House of Kildare now survived, and for him,
although only twelve years old, Henry sought, through his agents, with
the relentless ferocity of a Herod. The boy was related to the great
Celtic houses, for the Geraldines of that period preferred Irish wives,
and his mother was a princess of the House of O’Neill of Ulster. By her,
and by other noble Irish ladies, he was concealed and protected until he
was enabled to escape to France. Thence he proceeded to Rome, where he
was educated as befitted his rank and lineage. This young Gerald was
restored to his titles and estates by Queen Mary I, but he accepted
Protestantism when Elizabeth came to the throne, because, otherwise, he
could not have saved land and title—a most unworthy motive, but one very
common in that violent and sanguinary era. In his descendants the elder
Geraldine branch still lives in Ireland—the present head of the family
being Maurice Fitzgerald, “the boy-Duke” of Leinster.
“Bluff King Hal,” as the English called their royal Bluebeard, never did
anything by halves, if he could help it. He did not think the title of
“Lord of Ireland” sufficient for his dignity, and set about intriguing
to be elected king. Accordingly, he caused to be summoned a parliament,
or rather what we of to-day would call a convention, composed of
Anglo-Irish barons and Celto-Irish chiefs, to meet in Dublin, A.D. 1541.
This parliament or convention, at which the great Ulster princes,
O’Neill and O’Donnell, did not attend, voted Henry the crown of
Ireland—something the Irish chiefs, at least, had no power to do, as
they held their titles by election of their clans and not by right of
heredity. The outcome was, however, that Henry became King of
Ireland—the first English monarch to achieve that distinction. In order
to emphasize his power, he at once decreed that the old titles of the
Irish princes should give way to English ones. Thus “The O’Brien” became
“Earl of Thomond”; “The MacWilliam,” “Earl of Clanricarde”; “The
MacMurrough” became “Baron of Ballynun,” and changed his family name to
Kavanagh. Shameful to relate, O’Neill and O’Donnell, both old men,
broken in health, “came in” and joined the titled serfs. The former
became “Earl of Tyrone” and the latter “Earl of Tyrconnel.”
When the news reached the Irish clansmen, there was a general revolt and
new chiefs of the same families, with the old Irish designations
unchanged, were elected. The English interest supported “the King’s
O’Donnell” and the others of his type, while the bulk of the Irish
people stood for the newly chosen leaders. Thus was still another
firebrand cast by English policy among the Irish people, and there was
civil war, thenceforth, for generations in the clans themselves.
Nor was Henry satisfied with mere civil supremacy in Ireland. He also
set himself up as head of the Irish Church. Many Anglo-Irish Catholic
bishops basely acquiesced in his policy, but the Celtic bishops, almost
to a man, spurned his propositions. The masses of the Irish nation,
whether of Celtic, Norman, or Saxon origin, remained steadfastly
Catholic, although, in the past, they had had little cause to be pleased
with the political action of the Vatican, which had generally sided with
the Catholic monarchs of England against Ireland’s aspirations after
independence. Now, however, the favored country had become Rome’s most
deadly enemy in Europe, while Ireland, inhabited by a highly spirited
and stubborn people, who venerated the creed taught their fathers by St.
Patrick, became the foremost European champion of the old faith.
We can not dwell at greater length on this lurid dawn of the Reformation
in Ireland, because, fierce as was the persecution under Henry, it was
trivial compared with what followed his reign, and made the distracted
island a veritable den of outrage and slaughter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
The Reformation Period Continued—Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth, and “John
the Proud”
WHEN Edward VI, another boy-king, came to the throne, in 1547, Ireland
was pretty well distracted, owing to the seeds of discord sown by his
ferocious father. The young monarch was under the absolute control of
his maternal kinsmen, the Seymours, and all that was done to forward the
Reformation in Ireland during his brief reign may be justly attributed
to them. On his death, in 1553, Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and
Catherine of Aragon, and wife of Philip II of Spain, succeeded. She was
a bigoted Catholic and soon made things decidedly warm for the
Protestants in England. Many of these fled for safety to Ireland, where
the Catholic people—incapable of cruelty until demoralized by the
ruthless tyranny of religious persecution—received and sheltered them—a
noble page of Anglo-Irish history.
The Reformation, of course, came to a standstill in Ireland, during
this queen’s reign, but the plunder and persecution of the Irish
people did not, therefore, abate. There were raids and massacres and
confiscations, as usual. Of course there were bloody reprisals on the
part of the Irish, also—as was but natural. Some of the old Irish
districts—particularly Leix and Offaly—were, under the sway of Mary,
called the King’s and Queen’s Counties—the chief town of the one being
named Philipstown, after the queen’s Spanish husband, and the capital
of the other Maryborough, after herself. The Irish Reformers “laid
low,” as was prudent in them, during Mary’s period of power, because
she had the unpleasant Tudor habit of putting to death, by divers
violent modes of punishment, those who presumed to differ from her
rather strong opinions. The English, who sincerely rejoiced when,
after reigning about five years, she passed to her account, nicknamed
her “Bloody Mary,” although she was not a whit “bloodier” than her
awful father, and had a very formidable rival for sanguinary “honors”
in her younger half-sister, Elizabeth. Mary Tudor was the last
_avowed_ Catholic monarch who reigned in England, except the ill-fated
James II. In this reign, the English law of primogeniture was first
generally introduced into the Celtic districts annexed to the Pale,
which had been divided into “shire-ground,” and this was the cause of
much internal disorder among the Irish tribes that clung to the old
elective system of chieftaincy.
Elizabeth, called by her admiring English subjects “Good Queen Bess,” on
very insufficient grounds, ascended the throne in 1558. She had,
apparently, “conformed” to Catholicity during the lively reign of her
half-sister, fearing, no doubt, for her head in case of refusal. Henry
VIII’s daughter, by Anne Boleyn, she inherited great energy of
character, a masculine intellect, superabundant vanity, a passion for
empire, and a genius for intrigue. Her morals were none of the best,
according to many historians. She was, for that age, highly educated,
could speak divers tongues, and possessed many of the polite
accomplishments. Indeed, she was somewhat of a female pedant. In person,
while yet young, she was not ill-favored, being well-formed and of good
stature. Her complexion was fair, her hair auburn, and her eyes small,
but dark and sparkling. Her temper was irritable; she swore when angry,
and, at times, her disposition was as ferocious as that of “Old Hal”
himself. Like his, her loves were passing passions, and her friendship
dangerous to those on whom she lavished it most freely. Flattery was the
surest way by which to reach her consideration, but, in affairs of
state, not even that could cloud her powerful understanding or balk her
resolute will. She resolved to finish what her father and brother had
begun, and finish it to the purpose—namely, the Reformation—in both
England and Ireland. In the former country, her will soon became law,
and Rome ceased to be considered, for generations, as a factor in
English affairs. In Ireland, it was different. The people there refused,
as a great majority, to conform to the new order of things. They obeyed
the Pope, as their spiritual chief, and went to mass and received the
sacraments as usual. In Ulster, particularly, the people, headed by John
O’Neill, Prince of Tyrone, surnamed “The Proud,” resisted all English
encroachments, civil and religious. A bloody war resulted. The English
generals and some of the Anglo-Irish lords were commissioned by
Elizabeth to force the new religion down the throats of the Irish people
at the point of the sword. The Liturgy, she proclaimed, must be read in
English, the mass abandoned, and she herself be recognized as Pope in
Ireland, as well as in England. Accordingly, the English armies burned
the Catholic churches and chapels, assassinated the clergy, and
butchered the people wherever resistance was offered. But John O’Neill
was a great soldier and managed, for many years, to defend his country
with great success, defeating the best of the English captains in
several fierce conflicts. Elizabeth, struck with his bravery and
ability, invited him to visit her at her palace of Greenwich. The
invitation was sent through Gerald of Kildare, O’Neill’s cousin. The
Irish prince accepted and proceeded to court with a following of three
hundred galloglasses, or heavy infantry, clad in saffron-colored
jackets, close-fitting pantaloons, heavy shoes, short cloaks, and with
their hair hanging down their backs, defiant of Poynings’ Law, and all
other English enactments. They were gigantic warriors—all more than six
feet tall—and with huge mustaches, the drooping ends of which touched
their collarbones. They also carried truculent-looking daggers and
immense battle-axes, such as might have won the admiration of Richard
Cœur de Lion himself. The English courtiers—pigmies compared with the
galloglasses—might have been inclined to make fun of their costumes, but
those deadly appearing axes inspired awe, and no unpleasant incident
occurred during the visit. “Shane the Proud” made a deep impression on
Elizabeth, for he was physically magnificent and as fierce as her
dreaded father. “By what right do you oppose me in Ulster?” she asked.
“By very good right, madam,” he answered. “You may be queen here, but I
am king in Ulster, and so have been the O’Neills for thousands of
years!” Then she offered to make him Earl of Tyrone by letters patent.
“Earl me no earls, madam,” he replied. “The O’Neill is my title! By it I
stand or fall!” There was nothing more to be said, so the queen made him
rich presents, after asking him to be her “good friend,” which, being a
gallant, he promised, and then he went back to Ulster.
But Shane, although a good general and a great fighter, was a bad
statesman, and by no means a conscientious character. He oppressed the
neighboring Irish chiefs, being, indeed, half mad with pride, and made a
most unjust and unnecessary attack on the Clan O’Donnell, next to the
O’Neills the most powerful of Ulster tribes. He not alone ruined the
O’Donnell, but also dishonored him, by carrying his wife away and making
her his mistress, in mad disregard of Irish public opinion. He also
quarreled with the old MacDonald colony of Antrim—said by some writers
to be Irish, not Scotch, in their origin—and used them with extreme
harshness. In the end, his misconduct produced a revolt even among his
own followers. His enemies, including the injured O’Donnells, speedily
multiplied, and he who had been fifty times victorious over the English,
was, at last, signally defeated by his own justly indignant
fellow-countrymen. In this extremity, he fled with his mistress and a
few followers for refuge to the MacDonalds, who, at first, received the
fugitives hospitably, but soon, instigated, it is said, by one Captain
Piers, an Englishman, fell upon O’Neill at a banquet and stabbed him to
death. Had he loved his own people as much as he hated the English, he
might have lived and died a conqueror. The MacDonalds did not respect
the body of this dead lion. They severed the head from the trunk,
pickled it, and sent the ghastly present to the English Lord Deputy in
Dublin, who caused it to be spiked on the tower of Dublin Castle.
O’Neill’s death, in the very prime of his military genius, relieved
Elizabeth of her most dangerous Irish enemy. But another scion of that
warrior race was under the queen’s “protection” in London, and was
destined to raise the Bloody Hand, the cognizance of his house, to a
prouder eminence than it had attained in Irish annals since the far-off
days of Nial of the Hostages.
Treacherous massacres of Irish chieftains dangerous to England’s
supremacy in their country would appear to have been a special feature
of Elizabeth’s reign. Under the Lord Deputy Sydney’s régime, A.D. 1577,
Sir Francis Cosby, the English general commanding in the ancient
territories of Leix and Offaly, unable to obtain the submission of the
native chiefs by force of arms, invited several hundred of them to a
banquet at the rath of Mullaghmast, in the present county of Kildare.
The principal families represented were the O’Mores, O’Nolan’s,
O’Kelly’s, and Lalors. The rath, or fort, was fitted up for the
occasion, and, through the entrance, the unsuspecting Irish chieftains
and their friends rode with happy hearts and smiling faces. But one of
the Lalors who was rather belated, had his suspicions aroused by the
dead silence which seemed to prevail in the rath, and by the peculiar
circumstance that none of those who had entered came out to welcome the
later arrivals. He bade the few friends who had accompanied him to
remain outside, while he entered the fort to investigate. He took the
precaution to draw his sword before he went in. Proceeding with caution,
he was horrified at stumbling over the dead bodies of some of his
neighbors just beyond the entrance. He retreated at once, but was set
upon by assassins placed there to murder him. A powerful man, he wielded
his blade with such good effect that he cut his way out, mounted his
horse, and set off with his horrified associates at full gallop to his
home at Dysart. More than four hundred confiding Irish gentlemen had
entered the rath that day, and of all of them, only the sagacious Lalor
escaped. The tribe of O’More alone lost nearly two hundred of its
foremost members, but was not entirely exterminated. Rory Oge O’More,
son of the slaughtered head of the tribe, made relentless war on the
English Pale, and never desisted until he had more than avenged his
kindred slain in the foul massacre of Mullaghmast.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III
The Geraldine War—Hugh O’Neill and “Red Hugh” O’Donnell
ULSTER was subdued, for a time, but, in Munster, the younger branch of
the Geraldines, known as Earls of Desmond, rose against the edicts of
Elizabeth and precipitated that long, sanguinary, and dreary conflict
known as the Geraldine War. Most of the Irish and Anglo-Irish chiefs of
the southern province bore a part in it, and it only terminated after a
murderous struggle, stretching over nearly seven years. The Desmonds and
their allies gained many successes, but lack of cohesion, as always,
produced the inevitable result—final defeat. South Munster became a
desert. Elizabeth’s armies systematically destroyed the growing crops,
and, at last, famine accomplished for England what the sword could not
have done. The Munster Geraldines were mainly led by Sir James
Fitzmaurice, a kinsman of the earl, who was a brave man and an
accomplished soldier. The earl himself, and his brother, Sir John
Fitzgerald, had been summoned to London by the queen, and were made
prisoners and placed in the Tower, after the usual treacherous fashion.
After a period of detention, they were transferred, as state prisoners,
to Dublin Castle, but managed to effect their escape (doubtless by the
connivance of friendly officials) on horseback and reached their own
country in due time. The earl, foolishly, held aloof from Fitzmaurice
until a dangerous crisis was reached, when he threw himself into the
struggle and, in defence of his country and religion, lost all he
possessed. The Pope and King of Spain, in the Catholic interest, sent
men and money, but the Papal contingent, led by an English military
adventurer, named Stukley, was diverted from its purpose, and never
reached Ireland. The Spanish force—less than a thousand men—was brought
to Ireland by Fitzmaurice himself. He had made a pilgrimage to Spain for
that purpose. Smerwick Castle, on the Kerry coast, was their point of
debarkation. With unaccountable timidity, Earl Desmond made no sign of
an alliance, and Fitzmaurice was in search of other succor, when he
fell, in a petty encounter with the De Burgos of Castle Connell. The
Spaniards, who occupied Smerwick, were besieged by a large Anglo-Irish
force, under the Earl of Ormond and other veteran chiefs. They made a
gallant and desperate defence, but they were invested by land and sea,
and were perfectly helpless against the shower of shot and shell rained
upon them night and day by the English batteries. Seeing that further
resistance was useless, the Spanish commander finally surrendered at
discretion, but, disgraceful to relate, Lord Deputy De Grey refused
quarter and the hapless Spaniards were butchered to the last man. It is
not pleasant to have to state that among the fierce besiegers were the
celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh, the great English poet Edmund Spenser,
and Hugh O’Neill, then serving Elizabeth, “for policy’s sake,” in a
subordinate capacity, but afterward destined to be the most formidable
of all her Irish foes. The Munster Geraldines were exterminated, except
for a few collateral families—the Knight of Kerry, the Knight of Glin,
and some other chiefs whose titles still survive. But the great House of
Desmond vanished forever from history, when Garret Fitzgerald, the last
earl, after all his kinsmen had fallen in the struggle, was betrayed and
murdered by a mercenary wretch, named Moriarty, in a peasant’s hut in
Kerry, not far from Castle Island. The assassin and his brutal
confederates decapitated the remains and sent the poor old head to
Elizabeth, in London, who caused it to be spiked over the “traitor’s
gate” of the Tower. So ended the Geraldine revolt, which raged in
Munster from 1578 to 1584, until all that fair land was a desert and a
sepulchre. The bravest battle fought during its continuance was that of
Glendalough, in the summer of 1580. This was on the soil of Leinster,
and the victory was won by the heroic Clan O’Byrne, of Wicklow, led by
the redoubtable chief, Fiach MacHugh. The English, who were led by Lord
De Grey in person, suffered a total rout, and the Lord Deputy, at the
head of the few terrified survivors, fled in disgrace to Dublin, leaving
behind him the dead bodies of four of his bravest and ablest
captains—Audley, Cosby, Carew, and Moore.
“Carew and Audley deep had sworn the Irish foe to tame,
But thundering on their dying ear his shout of victory came;
And burns with shame De Grey’s knit brow and throbs with rage his eye,
To see his best, in wildest rout, from Erin’s clansmen fly.”
The defeat and death of “Shane the Proud” had left Ulster, temporarily,
without a military chief competent to make head against the English,
and, therefore, the Desmonds were left, practically, without help from
the northern province. Notwithstanding, the new Lord Deputy, Perrott,
kept his eyes fixed steadily on Ulster, the fighting qualities of whose
sons he knew only too well. In Tyrconnel young Hugh Roe, or Red Hugh,
O’Donnell, was growing fast to manhood, and his fame as an athlete, a
hunter, and hater of the English, spread throughout Ireland. Hugh
O’Neill, the son of Matthew, Baron of Dungannon, was enjoying himself at
Elizabeth’s court, where he made the acquaintance of Cecil, Essex,
Bacon, Marshal Bagnal, Mountjoy, and numerous other celebrities, and
basked in the sunshine of the royal favor, which he took particular
pains to cultivate. He was a handsome young man, of middle size, rigidly
trained to arms, and “shaped in proportion fair.” The queen’s object was
to make him an instrument in her hands for the final subjugation of
Ireland. He seemed to enter readily into her plans, which his quick
intellect at once comprehended, and he met her wiles with a
dissimulation as profound as her own. If any man ever outwitted
Elizabeth, politically, that man was Hugh O’Neill, whom she finally
created Earl of Tyrone—a title which, in his inmost heart, he despised,
much preferring his hereditary designation of “The O’Neill.” But it was
not Hugh’s immediate purpose to quarrel with Elizabeth about titles, or,
in fact, anything else. He was graciously permitted to raise a bodyguard
of his own clansmen, and to arm and drill them at his pleasure. Nay,
more, the queen allowed him to send from England shiploads of lead
wherewith to put a new roof on his castle of Dungannon. And he went to
Ireland to look after his interests in person. Soon, rumors reached
Elizabeth that O’Neill, when he had sufficiently drilled one batch of
clansmen, substituted another; and that enough lead had been shipped by
him from England to Tyrone to roof twenty castles. It was further
rumored that the clanswomen of Tyrone were employed casting bullets at
night, instead of spinning and weaving. O’Neill, learning of these
rumors from English friends, repaired to London, and, at once, reassured
the queen as to his “burning loyalty and devotion to her person.” So he
was permitted to return to Dungannon unmolested. Unlike his fierce
kinsman, John the Proud, Hugh cultivated the friendship of all the
Ulster chiefs, within reach, and more particularly that of the brave and
handsome young Red Hugh O’Donnell. Nor did he confine his friendly
relations to the chiefs of Ulster. He also perfected good understandings
with many in the other three provinces, and managed to keep on good
terms with the English also. Indeed, he did not hesitate to take the
field occasionally “in the interest of the queen,” and, on one occasion,
during a skirmish in Munster, received a wound in the thigh. How could
Elizabeth doubt that one who shed his blood for her could be otherwise
than devoted to her service? O’Neill, no doubt, liked the queen, but he
loved Ireland and liberty much better. In his patriotic deceit he only
followed the example set him at the English court. He kept “open house”
at Dungannon Castle for all who might choose or chance to call. Among
others, he received the wrecked survivors of the Spanish Armada cast
away on the wild Ulster coast, and shipped them back to Spain, at his
own expense, laden with presents for their king. A kinsman, Hugh of the
Fetters—an illegitimate son of John the Proud by the wife of O’Donnell,
already mentioned—betrayed his secret to the English Government. He
explained his action to the satisfaction of the Lord Deputy, for he had
a most persuasive tongue. Having done so, he exercised his hereditary
privilege of the chief O’Neill, arrested Hugh of the Fetters, had him
tried for treason, and, it is said, executed him with his own hand,
because he could find no man in Tyrone willing to kill an O’Neill, even
though proven a craven traitor.
Lord Deputy Perrott, in 1587, or thereabout, concocted a plan by which
he got the young O’Donnell, whose rising fame he dreaded, into his
power. A sailing-vessel, laden with wine and other merchandise, was sent
around the coast of Ireland from Dublin and cast anchor in Lough Swilly,
at a point opposite to Rathmullen. Red Hugh and his friends, young like
himself, were engaged in hunting and fishing when the vessel appeared in
the bay. The captain, in the friendliest manner, invited O’Donnell and
his companions on board. They consented, and were plied with wine. By
the time they were ready to return to shore, they found the hatches
battened down and the ship under way for Dublin. And thus, meanly and
most treacherously, was the kidnapping of this noble youth and his
friends accomplished by, supposedly, an English gentleman.
O’Donnell, after a confinement of three years in Dublin Castle, managed
to effect his escape, in company with some fellow captives. But they
missed their way, and were overtaken and captured in the territory of
O’Tuhill, at a place now called Powerscourt, in the county Wicklow. A
second attempt, made two years later on, proved more successful, and the
escaping party managed to reach the tribe-land of the O’Byrnes, whose
brave chief, Fiach MacHugh, received and sheltered them. Art O’Neill,
one of Red Hugh’s companions, perished of cold and hunger—the season
being winter—on the trip; and O’Donnell’s feet were so badly frozen that
he was partially disabled for life. This fact did not, however,
interfere with his warlike activity. O’Byrne at once informed Hugh
O’Neill of Red Hugh’s escape and whereabouts, and the Ulster chief sent
a guide, who brought him safely to Dungannon, where he was royally
entertained and admitted to the knowledge of O’Neill’s secret policy,
which, as may have been surmised, aimed at the overthrow of English rule
in Ireland.
After resting sufficiently, O’Donnell proceeded to Tyrconnel, where he
was joyfully received by his people. His father, old and unenterprising,
determined to abdicate the chieftaincy in his favor, and, accordingly,
Red Hugh was proclaimed “The O’Donnell,” with all the ancient forms. He
proceeded with characteristic rigor to baptize his new honors in the
blood of his foes. Old Turlough O’Neill had weakly permitted an English
garrison to occupy his castle of Strabane. O’Donnell attacked it
furiously and put all of the garrison to the sword. He followed up this
warlike blow with many others, and soon struck terror into the hearts of
all the “Englishry” and their much more despicable Irish allies, on the
borders of Ulster and Connaught. His most active and efficient ally in
these stirring operations was Hugh McGuire, Prince of Fermanagh—the best
cavalry commander produced by either party during the long and
devastating Elizabethan wars.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV
Confiscation of Desmond’s Domains—English Plantation of Munster
THERE had been, of course, a general “confiscation to the Crown”—that
is, to the English “carpet-baggers”—of the broad domains of the defeated
Desmonds, and their allies, and among the aliens who profited greatly
thereby, for a time, at least, were the poetic Edmund Spenser, who
obtained the castle and lands of Kilcolman, in Cork, and Sir Walter
Raleigh, who fell in for extensive holdings in Youghal, at the mouth of
the southern Blackwater, and its neighborhood. In the garden of Myrtle
Grove House, Sir Walter’s Youghal residence, potatoes, obtained from
Virginia, were first planted in Ireland, and the first pipeful of
tobacco was smoked. In connection with the latter event, a story is told
that a servant-girl, about to scrub the floors, seeing smoke issuing
from Sir Walter’s nose and mouth, conceived him to be on fire, and
emptied the contents of her pail over him, in order, as she explained,
“to put him out.” Sir Walter, we may be sure, did not relish her method
of fighting “the fire fiend.”
The Desmond confiscation was by no means the first case of the kind on
record in Ireland. The original Geraldines took the lands by force from
the Celtic tribes, but they speedily amalgamated with the natives, and,
within a few generations, became full-fledged Irish in every
characteristic, except their family name. Neither was this great
confiscation the last, or greatest, as will be seen in the progress of
this narrative. The queen’s ministers caused letters to be written to
the officers of every “shire” in England, “generously” offering
Desmond’s plundered lands in fee simple—that is, practically, free of
cost—to all younger brothers, of good families, who would undertake the
plantation of Munster. Each of these favored colonists was allowed to
“plant” a certain number of British, or Anglo-Irish, families, but it
was specifically provided that none of the native—that is, the Celtic
and Catholic and the Norman-Catholic—Irish were to be admitted to the
privilege. The country had been made “a smoking desert” before this
plantation of foreigners was begun. Most of the rightful owners had
perished by famine and the sword, and those who still survived,
“starvation being, in some instances, too slow, crowds of men, women,
and children were sometimes driven into buildings, which were then set
on fire” (Mitchel’s “Life of Hugh O’Neill,” page 68). “The soldiers were
particularly careful to destroy all Irish infants, ‘for, if they were
suffered to grow up, they would become Popish rebels.’” (_Ibid._ pp. 68,
69.) It is related by the historian Lombard that “women were found
hanging upon trees, with their children strangled in the mother’s hair.”
And all this was done in the name of the “reformed religion.” In good
truth, although Elizabeth herself may have wished to make the Irish
people Protestant in order that they might become more obedient to her
spiritual and temporal sway, her agents in Ireland wished for nothing of
the kind. They wished the Irish masses to remain Catholic. Otherwise,
they would have had no good pretext for destroying them and usurping
their lands. And this, too, satisfactorily explains why, for a very long
period, the Irish national resistance to England was considered and
described as a purely Catholic, sectarian movement. Protestantism, in
the period of which we write, meant, to the average Irish mind,
England’s policy of conquest and spoliation in Ireland. It is hardly
wonderful, therefore, that there grew up between the followers of the
old and new creeds an animosity doubly bitter—the animosity of race
supplemented by that of religion. In our own days, we have seen the same
result in the Polish provinces of Russia and the Turkish principalities
in the Danubian region of Europe. Well might the poet ask—
“And wherefore can not kings be great,
And rule with man approving?
And why should creeds enkindle hate
And all their precepts loving?”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V
Conditions in Ulster Before the Revolt of O’Neill
THE first jury “trial” in Ulster was that of Hugh Roe MacMahon,
chieftain of Monaghan, who became entangled with Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam
in some one-sided “alliance,” and, failing in some slight particular to
keep his side of the contract, was “tried” by twelve soldiers in
Elizabeth’s pay, condemned to death and shot at his own door. This and
other brutal murders, attested by the English historian, Moryson, filled
the north with rage, and the very name of English “law” became a menace
and a terror throughout the length and breadth of Ulster. From that
bloody period dates the hatred and distrust of English “justice” which
still survives among the Irish people. Indeed, instances of judicial
murder, almost rivaling that of MacMahon Roe, might be cited by living
Irishmen as having occurred within their own experience. Elizabeth’s
deputy, Fitzwilliam, who was a consummate scoundrel and jobber in
bribes, and would have made a champion modern “boodle alderman,”
succeeded in making the very name of “shire,” or county, land detested
in Ireland. When he informed McGuire, the bold chief of Fermanagh, that
he was about to send a sheriff into his “county” to “empanel juries,”
the chief answered grimly, “Let him come; but, first, let me know his
eric (price of his blood), so that, if my people should cut off his
head, I may levy it on the country.” This was the Irish method under the
Brehon law. No sheriff appeared in Fermanagh for many a year after
McGuire’s significant statement.
Red Hugh O’Donnell continued to make things exceedingly lively for the
English garrisons in Ulster and Connaught, and made them take to the
cover of their strong places after nearly every encounter. Near
Inniskillen, the gallant Hugh McGuire, aided by a small body of the
clansmen of Tyrone, who came “on the quiet,” under the command of
O’Neill’s brother, Cormac, met a large English escort, who were
conveying supplies to the town, to which Red Hugh O’Donnell had laid
siege, at a ford of the river Erne. The English suffered a total rout,
and their bread-wagons having been lost in the current, or overturned in
the shallows, the spot is known to this day as Bael-atha-an-Biscoid—in
English “the Ford of Biscuits.” Red Hugh, who had gone to Derry to meet
a body of the Antrim Scots, who were coming to his aid, was necessarily
absent when the battle was fought, and, on hearing of the victory,
remarked he was “sorry he had not been in the fight, as he would have
prevented the escape of so many of the English.” The latter began to
perceive, by this time, that they had to “strip for the combat” in
earnest if they meant to retain their foothold on the borders of Ulster.
Rumors of O’Neill’s disaffection had again reached the queen, and again
he journeyed to London and reassured her of his “loyalty.” He even made
great show of accepting the English title of Earl of Tyrone, and
returned to Dungannon encumbered with the gold chain symbolical of his
new “rank.” This did not please his clansmen, who could not see into his
dissembling schemes, so he was obliged to placate them by consenting to
be installed as The O’Neill—a title he very much preferred to his
English one of Earl—at the rath of Tulloghoge (Hill of the Youths), in
his native Tyrone. Thomas Davis, the poet of Young Ireland—a party of
Irish literary men and high-souled patriots who flourished from 1842
until 1848—in his fine ballad of the “True Irish King,” gives a vivid
picture of the scene in the following lines:
“Unsandaled he stands on the foot-dinted rock;
Like a pillar-stone fixed against every shock.
Round, round as the rath, on a far-seeing hill,
Like his blemishless honor and vigilant will.
The graybeards are telling how chiefs by the score
Had been crowned on the rath of the kings heretofore:
While crowded, yet ordered, within its green ring,
Are the dynasts and priests round the True Irish King.
“The chronicler read him the laws of the clan,
And pledged him to bide by their blessing and ban.
His skian and his sword are unbuckled to show
That they only were meant for a foreigner foe;
A white willow wand has been put in his hand—
A type of pure, upright, and gentle command,
While hierarchs are blessing, the slipper they fling
And O’Cahan proclaims him a True Irish King.
“Thrice looked he to heaven with thanks and with prayer,
Thrice looked to his borders with sentinel stare—
To the waves of Lough Neagh, to the heights of Strabane;
And thrice to his allies, and thrice to his clan—
One clash on their bucklers—one more—they are still—
What means the deep pause on the crest of the hill?
Why gaze they above him? A war eagle’s wing!
‘’Tis an omen—hurrah for the True Irish King!’”
Those who may condemn the apparently tortuous policy of O’Neill must
bear in mind that he was only practicing against the enemies of his
country the double-dealing and subtle acts they had themselves taught
him, in order to make him a more facile instrument in their hands for
that country’s subjugation. The dark and crooked policy inculcated by
Machiavelli was then in vogue at all the European courts, and at none
was it practiced more thoroughly than at that of Elizabeth of England.
It must be admitted that the English found in Hugh O’Neill a very apt
pupil—a true case of “diamond cut diamond.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI
O’Neill Draws the Sword—Victories of Clontibret and Armagh
MARSHAL SIR HENRY BAGNAL—one of Elizabeth’s most potent military
commanders—had never liked Hugh O’Neill, whom he had often met in London
and Dublin, but this hatred of the Irish prince was not shared by the
marshal’s fair sister, the Lady Mabel Bagnal, who presided over his
mansion at Newry, where were established the headquarters of the English
army in Ulster. Lady Mabel was one of the most beautiful of women, and
O’Neill, who had become a widower, grew desperately enamored of her. He
managed to elude the vigilance of the hostile brother, and, assisted by
a friendly “Saxon,” succeeded in eloping with and making her his wife.
The elopement filled Sir Henry with fury. He entered into a conspiracy
against O’Neill with other Englishmen and Palesmen. A new Lord Deputy
had come over from England in the person of Sir William Russell. Charges
against O’Neill were laid before him. He communicated with the Court of
London and commands soon came to arrest the Chief of Tyrone without
delay. O’Neill, as usual, had means of secret information and soon knew
all about the plot laid for his destruction. Instead of being dismayed,
he hastened, at once, to Dublin and surprised his treacherous accusers
in the midst of their deliberations. His old-time friend, the Earl of
Ormond, stood by him and refused to be a party to the treachery planned
by the new Lord Deputy. When a similar order had reached Ormond himself
from Lord Burleigh—ancestor of the late Prime Minister of England—the
earl replied scornfully in these words: “My lord, I will never use
treachery to any man, for it would both touch her Highness’s honor and
my own credit too much; and whosoever gave the queen advice thus to
write is fitter for such base service than I am. Saving my duty to her
Majesty, I would I might have revenge by my sword of any man that thus
persuadeth the queen to write to me.” Noble words, gallant Ormond!
The earl, feeling convinced that Lord Russell, who was not much affected
by honorable scruples, would obey the order from the queen and arrest
O’Neill, advised the latter to fly from Dublin the very night of his
arrival. The Ulster prince thought this very good advice and accepted
Ormond’s friendly offices. He managed to make his way in safety to
Dungannon and at once set about perfecting his preparations for open
warfare with the generals of Elizabeth. The latter were not idle either,
for Russell surmised O’Neill’s intention and sent Sir John Norreys
(Norris), an experienced general, just returned from the wars in
Flanders, to command against him. The remainder of the year 1594, as
well as some of the succeeding year, was spent in useless negotiations,
for both parties well knew that war was now inevitable. O’Donnell,
McGuire, and some other chiefs kept up a fierce, but rather desultory,
warfare, greatly annoying the English garrisons in the border
strongholds. At last, in the early summer of 1595, O’Neill threw off the
mask, unfurled the Red Hand of Ulster, and marched against the Castle of
Monaghan, held by the enemy. In the midst of a siege but feebly carried
on for lack of a battering train, he heard that Norreys, with a powerful
force, was advancing northward to raise the siege. O’Neill at once
decided to anticipate his movement and moved to Clontibret, about five
miles off, and there took post. Norreys soon appeared, and, being a hot
soldier, attacked at once. He was met with a veteran firmness that
astonished him, and both he and his brother, Sir Thomas Norreys, were
wounded in the main attack on the Irish battle-line. At the moment when
all seemed lost for England, Colonel Segrave, an Anglo-Norman of Meath,
charged the Irish home, with a body of horse, and, for a time, restored
the battle. Segrave, himself, rushed madly on O’Neill and the two
leaders fought hand to hand for some time, while both armies stood still
to witness the result. Mr. Mitchel thus eloquently describes what
followed: “Segrave again dashed his horse against the chief, flung his
giant frame upon his enemy, and endeavored to unhorse him by the weight
of his gauntleted hand. O’Neill grasped him in his arms, and the
combatants rolled, in that fatal embrace, to the ground.
‘Now, gallant Saxon! hold thine own—
No maiden’s hand is round thee thrown!
That desperate grasp thy frame might feel
Through bars of brass and triple steel.’
“There was a moment’s deadly wrestle and a death groan. The shortened
sword of O’Neill was buried in the Englishman’s groin beneath his mail.
Then from the Irish ranks rose such a wild shout of triumph as those
hills had never echoed before. The still thundercloud burst into a
tempest; those equestrian statues became as winged demons, and with
their battle-cry of Lamh-dearg-ahoo! (‘The Red Hand to Victory’), and
their long lances poised in eastern fashion above their heads, down
swept the chivalry of Tyrone upon the astonished ranks of the Saxon. The
banner of St. George wavered and went down before that furious charge.
The English turned their bridle-reins and fled headlong over the stream
(which they had crossed to attack the Irish), leaving the field covered
with their dead, and, worse than all, leaving with the Irish that proud
red-cross banner, the first of their disgraces in those Ulster wars.
Norreys hastily retreated southward, and the castle of Monaghan was
yielded to O’Neill.”
About the same time, Red Hugh O’Donnell “prevailed mightily” in the
west, “so that,” says Mitchel, “at the close of the year 1595, the Irish
power predominated both in Ulster and Connaught.” O’Neill followed up
his success by laying siege to Armagh, which he captured by an ingenious
stratagem. Colonel Stafford had been appointed to the command of the
English in the old city, and he proved himself equal to the occasion, so
far as fighting bravely to hold it went. But provisions were running
low, and it was known to Stafford that Norreys was sending to him, from
Dundalk, a large convoy of provisions. O’Neill’s scouts had the same
information, so a body of Irish was detached to attack the convoy and
capture the rations. The movement proved successful. About three hundred
English soldiers were made prisoners. O’Neill ordered them to be
stripped of their red surtouts, and bade the same number of his clansmen
to put the garments on their own backs. Then he commanded the convoy to
march toward Armagh as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, he had caused
his relative, Con O’Neill, to occupy an old ruined abbey near the main
gate of the city. All this was accomplished under cover of the night. At
sunrise, Stafford and his hungry soldiers, from the ramparts, gazed
wistfully southward, and, to their great joy, beheld, as they imagined,
the convoy marching rapidly to their relief. Almost on the instant, it
was, seemingly, attacked by the Irish army. Volleys—blank cartridges
being used—were exchanged, and many men appeared to fall on both sides.
At last, the supposititious English seemed about to give way. Stafford
and his famished men could stand the sight no longer. They rushed
through the now open gate to the aid of their countrymen, as they
thought. To their amazement, both red coats and saffron shirts fell upon
them, and they perceived they had been tricked. A brave attempt was made
by them to re-enter the town, but Con O’Neill and his party, rushing
from the old ruin, seized the gate. All the English outside the walls
were captured. Soon afterward, the city itself surrendered to the Irish
leader. O’Neill made humane use of his victory. He disarmed and paroled
the English prisoners and sent them, under safe escort, back to General
Norreys. He was a man of strict honor, and, no doubt, the terms of the
capitulation were properly observed. The Irish dismantled Armagh, as
O’Neill had no need of fortresses, but, during his absence elsewhere,
some English made their way to the place and refortified it; only,
however, to have it retaken by the Irish army.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII
Ireland Still Victorious—Battles of Tyrrell’s Pass and Drumfluich
THE year 1597 witnessed the recall of Lord Deputy Russell from the
government of Ireland, and the substitution of Lord De Burgh. A
temporary truce was entered into by the belligerents, and neither side
lost any time in augmenting its strength. All Ulster was practically
freed from English rule, but they had garrisons shut up in the castles
of Carrickfergus, Newry, Dundrum, Carlingford, Greencastle, and
Olderfleet—all on the coast. When the truce came to an end, the Palesmen
organized a large force and prepared to send it northward, to aid those
garrisons, under young Barnewall, son of Lord Trimleston. O’Neill
detached a force of 400 men under the brave Captain Richard Tyrrell and
his lieutenant, O’Conor, to ambush and destroy it. Tyrrell moved
promptly to accomplish his mission, and rapidly penetrated to the
present county of Westmeath. There, at a defile now known as Tyrrell’s
Pass, not far from Mullingar, he awaited the coming of the Palesmen. In
the narrow pass, the latter could not deploy, so that the battle was
fought by the heads of columns, which gave the advantage to the Irish.
Some of the latter managed to get on the flanks of the Palesmen, and a
terrible slaughter ensued. Of the thousand Palesmen, only Barnewall
himself and one soldier escaped the swords of the vengeful natives. The
former was brought a prisoner to O’Neill, who held him as a hostage, and
the soldier carried the dread news of the annihilation of the Meathian
force to Mullingar.
But the Lord Deputy and the Earl of Kildare, with all the force they
could muster, were in full march for Ulster. Sir Conyers Clifford,
another veteran Englishman, attempted to join them from the side of
Connaught, but was met by Red Hugh O’Donnell and compelled to go back
the way he came, leaving many of his men behind him. At a place called
Drumfluich, the Lord Deputy and Kildare, who were en route to recapture
Portmore, which had fallen into the hands of O’Neill, encountered the
Irish army. The latter was strongly posted on the banks of the northern
Blackwater, but the English attacked with great resolution, drove its
vanguard across the river and took possession of Portmore. O’Neill,
however, held his main body well in hand, and while De Burgh was
congratulating himself on his success, fiercely attacked the English who
had crossed to the left bank of the river, and inflicted on them a most
disastrous defeat. The Lord Deputy and the Earl of Kildare were both
mortally wounded, and died within a few hours. The English army was
practically destroyed. Red Hugh O’Donnell had arrived in the nick of
time to complete the victory, and, with him, the Antrim MacDonalds,
whose prowess received due honor. The historian of Hugh O’Neill says,
succinctly: “That battlefield is called Drumfluich. It lies about two
miles westward from Blackwater-town (built on the site of Portmore), and
Battleford-bridge marks the spot where the English reddened the river in
their flight.”
But Captain Williams, a valiant “Saxon,” held Portmore, in spite of
O’Neill’s great victory, and this fortress, in the heart of his country,
proved a thorn in the side of Tyrone, who, as we have already mentioned,
was destitute of battering appliances for many a day. The result at
Drumfluich struck dismay into the hearts of the stoutest soldiers of the
English interest, and the dreaded names of O’Neill and the Blackwater
were on every trembling lip throughout the Pale. The queen, in London,
grew very angry, and rated her ministers with unusual vehemence. It was
fortunate for De Burgh and Lord Kildare that they died on the field of
honor. Otherwise, they would have been disgraced, as was General Norreys
for his defeat at Clontibret. He died of a broken heart soon after being
deprived of his command in Ulster.
The English were also unfortunate in Connaught and Munster, and when the
Earl of Ormond assumed the government of Ireland, by appointment, after
the defeat and death of De Burgh, the English interest had fallen lower
in the scale than it had been since the days of Richard II. The earl
entered into a two months’ armistice with O’Neill, and negotiations for
a permanent peace were begun. O’Neill’s conditions were: perfect freedom
of religion not only in Ulster but throughout Ireland; reparation for
the spoil and ravage done upon the Irish country by the garrisons of
Newry and other places, and, finally, entire and undisturbed control by
the Irish chiefs over their own territories and people. (Moryson,
McGeoghegan, and Mitchel.)
Queen Elizabeth was enraged at these terms, when transmitted to her by
Ormond, and sent a list of counter-terms which O’Neill could not
possibly entertain. He saw there was nothing for it but the edge of the
sword, and grew impatient at the tardiness of King Philip of Spain in
not sending him aid while he was prosecuting the war for civil and
religious liberty so powerfully. The English Government, in order to
discourage the Catholic powers and keep them from coming to the aid of
Ireland, concealed or minimized O’Neill’s splendid victories. Lombard,
cited by McGeoghegan—a most conscientious historian—avers that an
English agent was employed, at Brussels, “to publish pretended
submissions, treaties, and pardons, so that the Spanish governor of
Flanders might report to his master that the power of the Irish
Catholics was broken and their cause completely lost.” (Mitchel.) The
same charge has been made against England in our own day—only in a
different connection. Germany, France, and Russia have semi-officially
declared that English agents at Berlin, Paris, and St. Petersburg have
persistently misrepresented the attitude of those countries toward
America during the recent Spanish War. Whatever may have been the truth
regarding the Brussels agent, it is undeniable that King Philip
abandoned Ireland to her fate until it was too late to hinder her ruin;
and that, when Spanish troops landed at Kinsale, in 1601, they proved
more of a hindrance than a help. O’Neill gave up all hope of assistance
from Philip in the fall of 1597 and resolved to stake all on his genius
as a commander, and on the tried valor of the glorious clansmen of
Tyrone and Tyrconnel.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII
Irish Victory of the Yellow Ford, Called the Bannockburn of Ireland
WE dwell at greater length on the Elizabethan era in Ireland than,
perhaps, on any other, because then began the really fatal turn in the
fortunes of the Irish nation. Notwithstanding splendid triumphs in the
field, cunning and treachery were fated to overcome patriotism and
heroic courage. But, before this great cloud gloomed upon her, Ireland
was still destined to witness many days of glory, and to win her most
renowned victory.
The spring and early summer of 1598 saw Captain Williams still holding
Portmore, on the Blackwater, stubbornly for England, but his rations
were nearly exhausted and he managed to get word of his desperate
condition to Marshal Bagnal, who, at the head of a splendidly appointed
army of veteran troops, horse and foot, marched northward from Newry to
his succor. His first operations were successful and he came very near
to capturing O’Neill himself, at a place called Mullaghbane, not far
from Armagh. Then Bagnal pushed on to raise the siege of Portmore, where
Williams was living on his starved horses and suffering all the pangs of
hunger.
O’Neill, having been fully informed of Marshal Bagnal’s progress,
summoned O’Donnell and his other allies to join him immediately, which
they did. He left Portmore to the famine-stricken garrison, and turned
his face southward fully resolved to give battle to his redoubted
brother-in-law before he could reach the Blackwater. Thoroughly
acquainted with the character of the country through which the English
were to pass, he had no difficulty in choosing his ground. He took post,
therefore, in the hilly, wooded, and marshy angle formed by the Callan
and Blackwater Rivers, at a point where a sluggish rivulet runs from a
large bog toward the main river, and which is called, in the Gaelic
tongue, Beal-an-atha-buidhe, in English, “the Mouth of the Yellow Ford,”
destined to give title to the Irish Bannockburn. This field is about two
and one-half miles N.W. from Armagh.
The superb English array, all glittering in steel armor and with their
arms flashing back pencils of sunlight, Bagnal himself in the van,
appeared at the opening of the wooded pass, which, all unknown to the
marshal, was garrisoned by five hundred Irish kerns early on the sultry
morning of August 10th—T. D. McGee says the 15th—1598. The head of the
column was attacked immediately by the Celtic infantry, who, however,
obedient to orders, soon fell back on the main body, which was drawn up
behind a breastwork, in front of which was a long trench, dug pretty
deep, and concealed by wattles (dry sticks) and fresh-cut sods—a
stratagem borrowed by O’Neill from the tactics of Bruce, so successfully
put in practice at Bannockburn, nearly three centuries before. Having
finally cleared the pass, not without copious bloodshed, Bagnal
debouched from it, and deployed his forces on the plain in face of the
Irish army. His cavalry, under Generals Brooke, Montacute, and Fleming,
shouting, “St. George for England!” charged fiercely up to the Irish
trench, where the horses floundered in the covered trap set for them,
and then the Irish foot, leaping over their breastwork, piked to death
the unfortunate riders. Bagnal, in no wise daunted, pressed on with his
chosen troops, animating them by shout and gesture. A part of the Irish
works, battered by his cannon, was carried, and the English thought the
battle won. They were preparing to follow up their success when,
suddenly, O’Neill himself appeared, at the head of his main body, who
had abandoned their slight defences, and came on to meet the English
with flashing musketry and “push of pike.” Bagnal’s artillery, with
which he was well provided, did much damage to O’Neill’s men, but
nothing could withstand the Irish charge that day. O’Donnell’s dashing
clan nobly seconded their kinsmen of Tyrone, and a most desperate
conflict ensued. Bagnal and his soldiers deported themselves bravely, as
became tried warriors, but, in the crisis of the fight, the marshal
fell, a wagon-load of powder exploded in the English lines, their ranks
became confused, and few of their regiments preserved their formation.
The Irish cavalry destroyed utterly what remained of the English horse.
“By this time,” says Mitchel, “the cannon were all taken; the cries of
‘St. George’ had failed or were turned to death-shrieks, and once more,
England’s royal standard sank before the Red Hand of Tyrone.” The
English rout was appalling, and the chronicler of O’Donnell says: “They
were pursued in couples, in threes, in scores, in thirties, and in
hundreds.” At a point where the carnage was greatest, the country people
still show the traveler the Bloody Loaming (lane) which was choked with
corpses on that day of slaughter. Two thousand five hundred English
soldiers perished in the battle and flight; and among the fallen were
the marshal, as already related, twenty-two other superior officers, and
a large number of captains, lieutenants, and ensigns. The immediate
spoils of the victory were 12,000 gold pieces, thirty-four standards,
all the musical instruments and cannon, and an immense booty in wagons,
loaded with clothing and provisions. The Irish army lost 200 in killed
and three times that number wounded. By O’Neill’s orders, the dead of
both sides were piously buried. (Irish annals cited by Curry and
Mitchel.)
Sir Walter Scott, in his graphic poem of “Rokeby,” which should be read
by all students, as it deals with a stirring period of English history,
thus refers to the battle of the Yellow Ford:
“Who has not heard, while Erin yet
Strove ’gainst the Saxon’s iron bit,
Who has not heard how brave O’Neill
In English blood imbrued his steel;
Against St. George’s cross blazed high
The banners of his tanistry—
To fiery Essex gave the foil
And reigned a prince on Ulster soil?
But chief arose his victor pride
When that brave marshal fought and died,
And Avonduff[2] to ocean bore
His billows red with Saxon gore.”
Footnote 2:
Blackwater.
The survivors of Bagnal’s heroic, if defeated, army, fled to Armagh,
which had again fallen into the possession of the English, and there
took shelter. O’Neill invested the place and, being now provided with
artillery, captured from the enemy, speedily compelled its surrender.
The gallant Williams, starved out at Portmore, also capitulated.
O’Neill, with his customary magnanimity, after depriving the prisoners
of both places of their arms, took their parole and sent them in safety
to the Pale, and, for a time, all English power whatever vanished from
the soil of Ulster.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX
How O’Neill Baffled Essex—O’Donnell’s Victory of the Curlew Mountains
THE limits of this simple narrative of Irish history will not permit us
to go into the details of the numerous “risings” of the Irish and
encounters with the disheartened English in the other three provinces.
O’Donnell swept through Connaught, like a very besom of destruction,
drove the English generals into their castles, and other strong places,
and carried Athenry by storm, “sword in hand.” He also made a raid into
Munster, and punished a degenerate O’Brien of Inchiquin for accepting an
English title, and hugging his English chain as “Earl of Thomond.” Then
he returned to Connaught and finished up what English garrisons still
remained there, with few exceptions. O’Neill himself also made a visit
to Munster, said his prayers at the noble shrine of Holy Cross Abbey, on
the winding Suir, and, the legitimate—according to English notions—Earl
of Desmond being dead, set up an earl of his own. He “put heart into”
the rather slow and cautious Catholic Anglo-Normans of this province,
and caused them to join hands with their Celtic brothers in defence of
country and creed. Under the new earl, they attacked the English with
great spirit, and, although occasionally beaten, managed to hold the
upper hand in most cases.
In Leinster, the O’Mores, the O’Byrnes, the O’Tuhills, and the Kavanaghs
had also risen in arms, and never had Ireland presented so united a
military front, since the first landing of the English on her shore.
There was fighting everywhere, but, outside of O’Neill and O’Donnell,
and, perhaps, the new Desmond, there would not seem to have been a
concerted military plan—probably owing to the rather long distances
between the respective bodies and the difficulty of communication.
Queen Elizabeth, when she heard of the Irish triumph at the Yellow Ford,
was violently exasperated, and stormed against Ormond, her Lord
Lieutenant, for remaining in Leinster, skirmishing with the O’Mores and
other secondary forces, and leaving everything in the hands of O’Neill
in Ulster. She was now an aged woman, but still vain and thirsty for
admiration. Her reigning favorite was the brilliant Robert Devereux,
Earl of Essex, who had made a reputation in the Spanish wars. In the
middle of 1599, this favored warrior, accompanied by a picked force of
at least 20,000 men, landed in Dublin and assumed chief command. Instead
of at once moving with his fine army, reinforced by the Palesmen and the
relics of Norreys’ and Bagnal’s troops, against O’Neill, he imitated the
dilatory tactics of Ormond and wasted away his strength in petty
encounters with the hostile tribes of Leinster and the Anglo-Irish of
Munster, most of whom sided, because of common religious belief, with
their Celtic neighbors. He also committed the grave fault of bestowing
high command on favorites who possessed no capacity for such duties.
While marching to besiege Cahir Castle, in the present county of
Tipperary, he was obliged to pass through a wooded defile in Leix
(Queen’s County), where his rearguard of cavalry was attacked by the
fierce O’Mores and cut to pieces. The Irish tore the white plumes from
the helmets of the fallen English troopers, as trophies, and so great
was their number that the gorge has been called, ever since that
tragical day, Bearna-na-cleite—in English, the “Pass of Plumes.” Essex,
notwithstanding this disaster, which he made no immediate effort to
avenge, marched to Cahir and took the castle; but, in subsequent
encounters with the Munster Irish, he suffered severe reverses. Near
Croom, in Limerick, he was met by the Geraldines and their allies and
badly defeated. Sir Thomas Norreys, Lord President of Munster—brother of
the defeated English commander at Clontibret—was among the slain. Thus
baffled, the haughty Essex made his way sadly back to Dublin, pursued
for a whole week by the victorious Geraldines. Smarting under his
disgrace, he caused the decimation of an English regiment that had fled
from the O’Mores—something he himself had also been in the habit of
doing. He had no heart to try conclusions with the terrible O’Neill in
his Ulster fastnesses, and sent many letters of excuse to the queen, in
which he dwelt on the strength and courage of the Irish clansmen in war,
and asked for further reinforcements, before venturing against O’Neill.
These were sent him, to the number of several thousand, and, at length,
he seemed ready to move. Sir Conyers Clifford, a very brave and skilful
officer, commanded for Elizabeth in Connaught. Essex ordered him to
march into Ulster and seize certain strategic points that would open the
way for the main army when it should finally appear in the North.
Clifford obeyed his orders with veteran promptitude. He was soon at
Boyle, in the present county of Roscommon, where he went into camp near
the beautiful abbey, whose ruins are still the admiration of
antiquarians. Thence, he marched northward through the passes of the
Corslibh, or Curlew, Mountains, bent upon penetrating into Ulster. But,
in a heavily timbered ravine, he was fallen upon by the fierce clansmen
of Red Hugh O’Donnell, commanded by their fiery chief in person. When
the English heard the terrible war-cry of “O’Donnell Aboo!” “O’Donnell
to Victory”) echoing along the pass, they knew their hour had come.
However, they met their fate like brave men, worthy of their gallant
commander, and fought desperately, although in vain. They were soon
totally broken and fell in heaps under the stalwart blows of the Clan
O’Donnell. General Clifford and his second in command, Sir Henry
Ratcliffe, were killed, and their infantry, unable to stem the tide of
battle, fled in disorder, carrying with them the cavalry, under General
Jephson, a cool commander who displayed all the qualities of a good
soldier although completely overmatched. Had he not gallantly covered
the retreat, hardly a man of the English infantry would have reached
Boyle in safety. But the valor of Jephson did not extend to all of his
men, some of whom abandoned the field rather precipitately. The English
historian, Moryson, excuses them on the ground that “their ammunition
was all spent.” Sligo, the key of North Connaught, fell to O’Donnell, as
one result of this sharp engagement.
The defeat and death of Clifford would seem to have utterly demoralized
Essex. He again hesitated to advance against O’Neill, and, instead of
doing so, weakly sought a parley with his able enemy. O’Neill agreed to
the proposal, and they met near Dundalk, on the banks of a river and in
presence of their chief officers. The Irish general, with chivalrous
courtesy, spurred his charger half-way across the stream, but Essex
remained on the opposite bank. This, however, did not prevent the two
leaders from holding a protracted conversation, in the course of which
the wily O’Neill completely outwitted the English peer. They called five
officers on both sides into the conference, and O’Neill repeated the
terms he offered after the victory of Clontibret, in 1595. The
Englishman said he did not think them extravagant, but his sincerity was
never tested. Soon afterward, angered by an epistolary outburst from the
old queen, he threw up his command, and returned to the London court,
where Elizabeth swore at him, ordered him under arrest, had him tried
for treason, and, finally, beheaded—the only cruel act of her stormy
life she ever repented of. The axe that severed the head of Essex from
his body left a scar in Elizabeth’s withered heart that never healed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER X
King Philip Sends Envoys to O’Neill—The Earl of Mountjoy Lord Deputy
PHILIP II of Spain died in September, 1598, and was succeeded by his son
Philip III, who, it would seem, took more interest in the Irish struggle
against Elizabeth’s temporal and spiritual power than did his father.
Philip, in all likelihood, cared very little about Ireland’s national
aspirations, but, like all of his race, he was a zealous Catholic, and
recognized the self-evident fact that the Irish were, then, fighting not
alone their own battle but also that of the Church, with heroic vigor.
O’Neill began negotiations with the young monarch immediately after his
accession, and Philip responded by sending two envoys to the Irish
general—Don Martin de la Cerda and the Most Rev. Matthias de Oriedo, who
had been appointed by the Pope Archbishop of Dublin—a purely titular
office, seeing that the English were in full possession of that capital.
The bishop presented O’Neill with “a Phœnix plume,” blessed by his
Holiness, and also with 22,000 pieces of gold—a generous contribution in
that age, when money was much more valuable in proportion than it is
now. (O’Sullivan, Moryson, and Mitchel.)
O’Neill, having sufficiently awed the English generals for a period,
made a sort of “royal progress” through Munster and Leinster, visiting
holy places, settling feuds, and inspecting military forces. He met
with, practically, no opposition, but, near Cork, had the misfortune to
lose his gallant cavalry commander, Hugh McGuire, chief of Fermanagh.
The latter was leading a body of horse on a reconnoitring mission, when
suddenly there appeared a force of English cavalry, bent on a similar
errand, under Sir Warham St. Leger and Sir Henry Power, Queen’s
Commissioners, acting in place of Sir Thomas Norreys. St. Leger rode up
to McGuire and discharged a horse pistol at close range. The heroic
Irish chief reeled in his saddle from a mortal wound, but, before
falling, struck St. Leger a crushing blow on the head with his
truncheon, and killed him on the spot. McGuire, having avenged himself
on his enemy, died on the instant. These were the only two who fell. The
English retreated to Cork and kept within its walls until O’Neill had
left the neighborhood. The Ulster prince turned back through Ormond and
Westmeath and arrived in his own country, “without meeting an enemy,
although there was then in Ireland a royal army amounting, after all the
havoc made in it during the past year, to 14,400 foot and 1,230
horse”—this, too, exclusive of irregular forces. (Moryson.) This force
was well provided with artillery and all military stores. (Mitchel.)
But O’Neill’s days of almost unclouded triumph were drawing to a close.
He was, at last, about to meet an English commander who, if not as able
as himself, was infinitely more cunning and unscrupulous. This was
Charles Blount, Earl of Mountjoy, a trained soldier, a veteran diplomat,
a fierce Protestant theologian, and a ripe scholar. His motto, on
assuming the duties of Lord Deputy in Ireland, would seem to have been
“Divide and Conquer.” Mountjoy saw, at once, that steel alone could not
now subdue Ireland, and he was determined to resort to other methods,
more potent but less manly. About the same time, there also came to
Ireland two other famous English generals, Sir George Carew and Sir
Henry Dowcra. The new deputy brought with him large reinforcements, so
that the English army in Ireland was more powerful than it had ever been
before; and Mountjoy’s orders were, in effect, that Ulster, in
particular, should be honeycombed with royal garrisons, especially along
its coast-line. Although Mountjoy himself was checked, at the outset, by
O’Neill’s army, Sir Henry Dowcra, with a powerful force, transported by
sea from Carrickfergus, occupied and fortified the hill of Derry, on the
Foyle—the ground on which now stands the storied city of Londonderry.
Other border garrisons were strengthened by the Lord Deputy, and
everything was made ready for a vigorous prosecution of the war. The
penal laws against the Irish Catholics were softened, so as, if
possible, to detach the Anglo-Irish Catholics from the Celtic Catholic
Irish, and also to impress the weak-kneed among the latter with “the
friendly intentions of her Majesty’s government”—very much like the
court language in use to-day. The bait took, as might have been
expected—for every good cause has its Iscariots—and we soon hear of
jealous kinsmen of the patriot chiefs “coming over to” the queen’s
“interest” and doing their utmost—the heartless scoundrels—to divide and
distract the strength of their country, engaged in a deadly struggle for
her rights and liberty. These despicable wretches are foul blotches on
the pages of Ireland’s history. But for them, she could have finally
shaken off the English yoke, which would have saved Ireland centuries of
martyrdom and England centuries of shame. And so we find Sir Arthur
O’Neill becoming “the queen’s O’Neill”—his branch of the family had long
been in the English interest; Connor Roe McGuire becoming “the queen’s
McGuire,” and so on _ad nauseam_. These creatures had no love for
England or Elizabeth, but simply hoped to further their own selfish ends
by disloyalty to their chiefs and treason to their country. We confess
that this is a chapter of Irish history from which we would gladly turn
in pure disgust did not our duty, as a writer of history, compel us to
dwell upon it yet a while longer. Dermot O’Connor, who held a command
under O’Neill’s Desmond in Munster, yielded to the seductions of Carew
and turned upon his leader, in the interest of his brother-in-law, son
of the “great earl,” who was held as a hostage in London Tower by
Elizabeth, and was now used as a firebrand to stir up feud and faction
among the Munster Irish. Mountjoy had not been many months in Ireland,
when, to use the words of the historian Mitchel, “a network of English
intrigue and perfidy covered the land, until the leaders of the (Irish)
confederacy in Munster knew not whom to trust, or where they were safe
from treason and assassination.” Dermot O’Connor was willing to
surrender Desmond, whom he had kidnapped, to Mountjoy, for a thousand
pounds, but, before he could receive his blood-money, the “Suggawn
(hay-rope) Earl,” as he was called in derision by the English faction,
was rescued by his kinsman, Pierce Lacy. But the White Knight—frightful
misnomer—another relative of the earl—was more fortunate than O’Connor.
He managed to receive the thousand pounds, delivered Desmond to Carew,
and earned enduring infamy. The “Suggawn Earl” was sent to London and
died a miserable prisoner in the Tower.
Thus, the policy of the Lord Deputy was doing its deadly work in Munster
and also in Leinster, where the Irish were of mixed race, and where
racial animosity could be more easily worked upon than in Ulster and
Connaught, where most of the ancient clans still remained unbroken and
uncontaminated by foreign influences. Yet Ulster and Connaught had their
Benedict Arnolds, too, as we have shown in the cases of O’Neill and
McGuire, and will show in other cases which yet remain to be mentioned.
But in these provinces the war was national as well as religious, while
in Munster it was almost entirely religious. Most of the Catholic
Anglo-Irish would have fought with the English rather than the
Celtic-Irish, if their religion had been tolerated from the first. Among
the Celtic Irish chiefs who went over to the English in Munster, were
O’Sullivan More and McCarthy More (the Great). The latter had the
cowardly excuse that his strong-minded wife had coerced him into
treason, and refused to live with him until he came to terms with the
enemy. Was there ever anything more disgraceful in the history of
manhood and womanhood? They were, indeed, a couple entirely worthy of
each other. The Lord Deputy, in the meantime, had ravaged the
“rebellious” portions of Leinster, burning houses and crops, and doing
other evil things common to the savage warfare of that period. His
greatest piece of luck, however, was the killing of the brave O’More of
Leix in a skirmish. (Mitchel.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XI
Ireland’s Fortunes Take a Bad Turn—Defeat of O’Neill and O’Donnell at
Kinsale
THE English force in Ireland was now (1600-1601) overwhelming, and as
the Irish had no fleet whatever, the English were enabled to plant
garrisons, almost wherever they wished to, around the Ulster coast, and
sometimes posts were also established in the interior of the country.
Thus Derry, Dun-na-long, Lifford, and numerous other places held strong
garrisons, and these sallied forth at will—the small Irish army being
actively engaged elsewhere—and inflicted heavy damage on the harmless
people of the surrounding districts. The process of crop-burning was in
full blast again, and such Irish people as escaped the sword and the
halter had the horrible vision of perishing by famine ever before their
eyes. O’Neill and O’Donnell were aware of all this, and did the best
they could, under such discouraging circumstances. They were almost at
the end of their resources, and awaited anxiously for the aid, in men
and money, solemnly promised them by the envoy of Philip of Spain. To
add to their ever-growing embarrassment, Niall Garbh (“the Rough”)
O’Donnell, cousin of Red Hugh, and the fiercest warrior of Clan-Conal,
revolted, because of some fancied slight, and also, no doubt, inflamed
by unworthy ambition, against the chief, and went over to the enemy.
Unfortunately, some of the clansmen, who did not look beyond personal
attachment, followed his dishonored fortunes, but this was about the
only serious case of clan defection. The great body of the Irish
galloglasses and kerns—heavy and light infantry—remained true to their
country and their God, and died fighting for both to the last.
Niall Garbh, after allying himself with the English, occupied the
beautiful Franciscan monastery of Donegal, in which the Annals of the
Four Masters, Ireland’s chronological history, were compiled. Red Hugh,
fiercely indignant, marched against the sacrilegious traitor and laid
siege to him in the holy place. After three months’ investment, it was
taken by storm, and utterly destroyed by fire, except for a few walls
which still remain. The traitor’s brother, Conn O’Donnell, and several
of the misguided clansmen were killed in the conflict, but,
unfortunately, Niall Garbh himself escaped, to still further disgrace
the heroic name of O’Donnell and injure the hapless country that gave
birth to such a monster.
Mountjoy, after frequent indecisive skirmishes with O’Neill, amused
himself by offering a reward of £2,000 for that chieftain’s head, and
smaller amounts for those of his most important lieutenants. But no man
was found among the faithful clansmen of Tyrone to murder his chief for
the base bribe of the Lord Deputy. Yet Mountjoy continued to gain ground
in Ulster, little by little, and he built more forts, commanding
important passes, and garrisoned them in great force. He also caused
most of the woods to be cut away, and thus laid the O’Neill territory
wide open for a successful invasion. O’Neill was an admirable officer,
and still, assisted by Hugh O’Donnell, presented a gallant front to
Mountjoy, but he could do little that was effective against an enemy who
had five times the number of soldiers that he had, and could thus man
important posts, filled with all the munitions of war, without sensibly
weakening his force in the field. Destitute of foundries and powder
factories, he could make no progress in the matter of artillery, and
such cannon as he had were destitute of proper ammunition. All this the
Spaniards could have supplied, but their characteristic dilatoriness, in
the end, ruined everything. Another circumstance also militated against
the success of the brave O’Neill—the English and their allies were
solidly unified for the destruction of the Irish, while the latter, as
we have seen, were fatally divided by corruption, ambition,
jealousy—fostered by their enemies—and endless English intrigue. No
wonder that his broad brow grew gloomy and that his sword no longer
struck the blows it dealt so fiercely at Clontibret and the Yellow Ford.
At last, however, out of the dark clouds that surrounded his fortunes,
there flashed one sun-ray of hope and joy. News suddenly reached the
north, as well as the Lord Deputy, that a Spanish fleet had landed in
Kinsale Harbor, on the coast of Cork. It carried a small force—less than
6,000 men, mostly of poor quality—under the command of the arrogant and
incompetent Don Juan de Aguila. He occupied Kinsale and the surrounding
forts at once, but was disappointed when the Munster Irish—already all
but crushed by Mountjoy—did not flock at once, and in great numbers, to
his standard. Of all the Munster chiefs there responded only O’Sullivan
Beare, O’Connor Kerry, and the brave O’Driscoll. They alone redeemed, in
as far as they could, the apathy of South Munster, and were justified in
resenting the Spanish taunt, bitterly uttered by Don Juan himself, that
“Christ had never died for such people.” The Spaniard did not, of
course, take into consideration, because he did not know, the exhaustion
of South Munster after the Geraldine war and the wars which succeeded
it. Constant defeat is a poor tonic on which to build up a boldly
aggressive patriotism.
The news of the landing at Kinsale reached Red Hugh O’Donnell while he
was in the act of besieging his own castle of Donegal, surreptitiously
seized by Niall Garbh, “the Queen’s O’Donnell,” while he was absent “at
the front,” with O’Neill. He instantly raised the siege, and, summoning
all of his forces, marched southward without an hour’s delay, as became
his ardent and gallant nature. Neither did O’Neill hesitate to abandon
“the line of the Blackwater,” which guarded his own castle of Dungannon,
to its fate, and at once marched his forces toward Kinsale. The
Clan-Conal marched at “the route step,” through Breffni and Hy-Many,
crossing the Shannon near where it narrows at the east end of Lough
Dearg. On through the Ormonds, where “the heath-brown Slieve Bloom”
mountains rise in their beauty, they pressed, burning, at every
footstep, to reach Kinsale, join the Spaniards, and “have it out” with
Mountjoy and the English. O’Donnell, marching in lighter order and by a
different route, outstripped his older confederate, but narrowly escaped
being intercepted in Tipperary by a superior English force, under
General Carew, detached by the Lord Deputy for that purpose. As Red Hugh
had no intention of giving battle until reinforced by O’Neill, or he had
joined the Spaniards, he made a clever flank movement, by forced march,
over the Slieve Felim Hills, which interposed between him and Limerick.
But the rains had been heavy of late, the mountain passes were boggy,
and neither horses nor carriages (wagons) could pass. Fortunately, it
was the beginning of winter, and, one night, there came a sharp frost,
which sufficiently hardened the ground, and the Irish army, taking
advantage of the kindness of Providence, marched ahead throughout the
dark hours, and, by morning, had left Carew and his army hopelessly in
rear. O’Donnell made thirty-two miles (Irish), about forty-two English
miles, in that movement and halted at Croom, having accomplished the
greatest march, with baggage, recorded in those hard campaigns. (Pacata
Hibernia, cited by Mitchel.)