"Still the fairest are his fuell,
When his days are to be cruell;
Lovers' hearts are all his food,
And his baths their warmest blood;
Nought but wounds his hands doth season,
And he hates none like to reason."
_A Hue and Cry after Cupid_.--Ben Jonson.
The dark and romantic history of the Earl of Tyrone would of itself
occupy a larger space than these volumes afford. The following episode,
connected with his concealment in the neighbourhood of Rochdale, the
author does not presume to bring forward as a fact. Yet there are good
reasons for supposing that it formed an important era in his life, and
was followed very soon after by the Queen's pardon. The importance of
this measure may be conceived, when by some Elizabeth's depression, and
the profound melancholy she exhibited in her latter hours, were
attributed to this source. It is said that she repented of having
pronounced his forgiveness; that having always resolved to bring him to
condign punishment, she could receive no satisfaction from his
submission; while the advantages of her high estate, and all the glories
of a prosperous reign, were unable to alleviate her disappointment.
The following is a brief sketch of his life, extracted from
generally-received authorities.
Hugh O'Neale was nephew to Shan O'Neale, or the Great O'Neale, as he was
more commonly called, well known for his eminent courage, a virtue much
esteemed by the half-civilised hordes whom he commanded. He was created
Earl of Tyrone by the Queen; but disliking this servitude, and wishful
to liberate his country from the English yoke, he entered into a
correspondence with Spain; procured from thence a supply of arms and
ammunition; and having united many of the Irish chiefs in a dependence
upon himself, he began to be regarded as a formidable enemy.
[Illustration: TYRONE'S BED, NEAR ROCHDALE.
_Drawn by G. Pickering. Engraved by Edw^d Finden._]
The English found much difficulty in pursuing the rebels into the bogs,
woods, and other fastnesses to which they retreated. Sir John Norris,
who commanded the English army, was rendered thereby more willing to
hearken to the proposals made by Tyrone, and the war was spun out by
these artifices for some years. Sir John dying, as was reported, of
vexation and discontent, was succeeded by Sir Henry Bagnall. "He
advanced to the relief at Blackwater, then besieged by the enemy, but
was surrounded in disadvantageous ground. His soldiers, discouraged by
part of their powder accidentally taking fire, were put to flight; and
though the pursuit was stopped by Montacute, who commanded the English
horse, fifteen hundred men, together with the general himself, were left
dead upon the spot. This victory so unusual to the Irish, roused their
courage, supplied them with arms and munitions of war, and raised the
renown of Tyrone, who was hailed as deliverer of his country and patron
of Irish liberty."[22]
The unfortunate Essex was afterwards appointed to the command; but his
troops were so terrified at the reputation of Tyrone that many of them
counterfeited sickness, and others deserted, fearful of encountering the
forces of that daring chief. Finding himself in a great measure
deserted, "he hearkened to a message from Tyrone, who desired a
conference; and a plain near the two camps was appointed for this
purpose. The two generals met without any attendants. A river ran
between them, into which Tyrone entered to his saddle-girth, but Essex
stood on the opposite bank."
At this meeting where "Tyrone behaved with great submission to the
lord-lieutenant, a cessation of arms was agreed on.[23] Essex also
received a proposal of peace, into which Tyrone had inserted many
unreasonable and exorbitant conditions; and there appeared afterwards
some reason to suspect that the former had commenced a very
unjustifiable correspondence with the enemy." From this time the beam of
Essex's favour was obscured, the issue terminating in his death and
disgrace. In the meantime, Tyrone had thought proper to break the trace,
"and joining with O'Donnel and others, overran almost the whole kingdom.
He pretended to be the champion of the Catholic faith, and openly
exulted in the present of a phoenix plume, which Clement VIII., in order
to encourage him in the prosecution of so good a cause, had consecrated,
and conferred upon him."[24] Essex being recalled, the Queen appointed
Mountjoy as lord-deputy. "He found the island in a desperate condition;
but being a man of capacity and vigour, he immediately advanced against
Tyrone in Ulster. He penetrated into the heart of that country, the
chief seat of the rebels. He fortified Derry and Mount Norris. He chased
them from the field, and obliged them again to shelter in woods and
morasses; and by these promising enterprises he gave new life to the
Queen's authority throughout the island."
Tyrone, however, still boasted that he was certain of receiving the
promised aid from Spain; "and everything was put in condition for
resisting the Spanish invasion, which was daily expected. The deputy,
informed of the danger to which the southern provinces were exposed,
left the prosecution of the war against Tyrone, who was now reduced to
great extremities, and marched with his army into Munster."
"At last the Spaniards, under Don Juan d'Aquila, arrived at Kinsale;
and Sir Richard Piercy, who commanded in the town with a small garrison
of one hundred and fifty men, found himself obliged to abandon it on
their appearance. These invaders amounted to four thousand, and the
Irish discovered a strong propensity to join them, in order to free
themselves from the English government, with which they were extremely
discontented. One chief ground of their complaint was the introduction
of trials by jury,[25] an institution abhorred by that people, though
nothing contributes more to the support of that equity and liberty for
which the English laws are so justly celebrated. The Irish also bore a
great favour to the Spaniards, having entertained the opinion that they
themselves were descended from that nation; and their attachment to the
Catholic religion proved a new cause of affection for the invaders.
D'Aquila assumed the title of general in this '_holy war_,' for the
preservation of the faith in Ireland; and he endeavoured to persuade the
people that Elizabeth was, by several bulls of the Pope, deprived of her
crown; that her subjects were absolved from their oaths of religion, and
that the Spaniards were come to deliver the Irish from the dominion of
the devil.[26] Mountjoy found it necessary to act with vigour, in order
to prevent a total insurrection of the Irish; and having collected his
forces, he formed the siege of Kinsale by land, while Sir Richard
Levison, with a small squadron, blockaded it by sea. He had no sooner
begun his operations than he heard of the arrival of another body of two
thousand Spaniards under the command of Alphonso Ocampo, who had taken
possession of Baltimore and Berehaven; and he was obliged to detach Sir
George Carew to oppose their progress. Tyrone, meanwhile, with Randal,
MacSurley Tirel, Baron of Kelly, and other chieftains of the Irish, had
joined Ocampo with all their forces, and were marching to the relief of
Kinsale. The deputy, informed of their designs by intercepted letters,
made preparations to receive them; and being reinforced by Levison with
six hundred marines, he posted his troops on an advantageous ground
which lay on the passage of the enemy, leaving some cavalry to prevent a
sally from D'Aquila and the Spanish garrison. When Tyrone, with a
detachment of Irish and Spaniards, approached, he was surprised to find
the English so well posted and ranged for battle, and he immediately
sounded a retreat; but the deputy gave orders to pursue him, and having
thrown these advanced troops into confusion, he followed them to the
main body, which he also attacked and put to flight, with the slaughter
of twelve hundred men.[27] Ocampo was taken prisoner; Tyrone fled into
Ulster; O'Donnel made his escape into Spain; and D'Aquila, finding
himself reduced to the greatest difficulties, was obliged to capitulate
upon such terms as the deputy prescribed to him. He surrendered Kinsale
and Baltimore, and agreed to evacuate the kingdom. This great blow,
joined to other successes gained by Wilmot, governor of Kerry, and by
Roger and Gavin Harvey, threw the rebels into dismay, and gave a
prospect of the final reduction of Ireland."
The remaining part of Tyrone's history may be gathered from the
narrative.
Among other memorable incidents illustrative of his character, it is
said that Tyrone, appearing in person to execute a treaty, immediately
on the issue of some sanguinary engagement, was requested to sign the
terms. "Here is my signature," said he, laying his bloody hand on the
deed: "'tis the mark of the Kings of Ulster." Hence, tradition gravely
asserts was the origin of "the bloody hand," the arms of Ulster! That
such a derivation is fabulous we need not attempt to prove.
What a paradox is love!--the most selfish and yet the most disinterested
of the passions; the gentlest and yet the most terrible of impulses that
can agitate the human bosom; the most ennobling and the most humble; the
most enduring and the most transient; slow as the most subtle venom to
its work, yet impetuous in its career as the tornado or the whirlwind;
sportive as the smile of infancy, and appalling as the maniac's shriek,
or the laugh of his tormentor. 'Tis a joy nursed in the warm glow of
hope; but who shall reveal the depths of its despair? 'Twas given to man
as his best boon--his most precious gift; but his own hands polluted the
shrine--marred the beauteous and holy deposit. The loveliest image was
then smitten with deformity, and that passion, the highest and noblest
that could animate his bosom, became the bane of his happiness, the
destroyer of his peace, and the source whence every attribute of woe
hath sprung to afflict and darken the frail hopes of humanity. This may
be the dark side of the picture; but unless the breath of heaven
sanctify even the purest affections of our nature, they are a withering
blast, blighting its fairest verdure--a torment and a curse!
The following narrative, floating but indistinctly on the author's
memory, and in all probability attached to other names in localities
widely apart, is yet, he believes, true as to the more important
particulars. The site of a few cottages in a romantic dell in the
neighbourhood of Rochdale is still associated with the memory of the
unfortunate Earl of Tyrone. It is yet called "Tyrone's Bed." In history,
this noble chief is depicted in colours the most hideous and detestable;
but if the lion had been the painter, we should have had to contemplate
a different portrait. By his countrymen he was held in the most profound
reverence and respect. Beloved by all, he was hailed as the expected
deliverer of his native land from wrong and oppression. The most
bigoted of his persecutors cannot deny that oppression, the most foul
and inhuman, did exist; and the men who took up arms for the rescue of
their brethren may be pitied, if not pardoned, for their noble,
elevated, and enduring spirit. Let us not be misunderstood as the
advocates of rebellion; but surely there are occasions when the galling
yoke of oppression may be too heavy to sustain--when the crushed reptile
may, writhing, turn against him who tramples on it. Let us not do this
wrong, even to our enemies, by refusing to admire in them the
disinterestedness and magnanimity which in others would have insured our
admiration and applause.
About a mile from the spot we have just named stood the ancient mansion
of Grizlehurst. Surrounded on every side by dark and almost trackless
woods, sprung through a long line of ancestry from primeval forests, it
reposed in undisturbed seclusion, still and majestic as the proud swan
that basked upon the dark lake before it, secure from intrusion and
alarm. Gable-ends and long casements broke the low piebald front into a
variety of detail--a-combination of effect throwing an air of
picturesque beauty on the whole, which not all the flimsy and frittered
"Gothic" can convey to the mansions of modern antiques. For the timber
employed in its erection a forest must have been laid prostrate. Huge
arched fire-places; chimney-pieces carved with armorial bearings; oak
tables absolutely joisted to sustain their vast bulk; bedsteads that
would not have groaned with the weight of a Titan;--the whole intended
to oppose a ponderous resistance to the ravages of time and fashion. Not
a vestige is left. Those laughing halls echo no more with the loud and
boisterous revel; the music of the "many twinkling" feet is gone;
scarcely a stone is left upon its fellow; a few straggling trees alone
mark the site. The beech and willow are waving o'er its hearth! Who
would build for the destroyer? And yet man, with the end of these
vanities in prospect, daily, hourly still builds on; his schemes and his
projects extending through the long vista of succeeding ages, as though
his dwelling were eternal, and his own fabric should survive the ruin
and the doom of all!
A long train of ancestors bearing the name of Holt occupied this
dwelling as the family mansion. The manor of Spotland, forfeited by the
rebellion of Paslew, Abbot of Whalley, was granted by Henry the Eighth
to Thomas Holt, afterwards knighted in Scotland by Edward, Earl of
Hertford, in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of that monarch. The
present possessor of the same name, grandson to Sir Thomas, resided at
Grislehurst during the latter part of Elizabeth's reign and that of
James. He married Constance, the daughter of Sir Edward Littleton of
Pillaton Hall, Stafford. One son, Francis, and a daughter named
Constance, were the fruit of this union. At the commencement of our
narrative he had been for some years a widower, and his son was then
absent on foreign travel.
It was in the memorable year 1603, the last of Elizabeth. The rebellion
in Ireland had been smothered, if not extinguished; and the great
O'Neale, Earl of Tyrone and King of Ulster, together with many other
chiefs, were forced to remain concealed in woods and morasses. Outlawed
and outcast, some of them crossed over into England, remaining there
until pardoned by the Queen.
Constance was now in her nineteenth year. Bright as her own morn of
life, she had seen but few clouds in that season of hope and delight.
Sorrow was to her scarce known, save in the nursery tales and wild
ballads of the surrounding district. When the glowing morn was overcast,
she was unprepared, unfitted for the change. The storm came, and the
little sum of her happiness, launched on this frail and perishing bark,
was wrecked without a struggle!
One evening, in the full glare of a dazzling sunset, the light streaming
like a shower through the dark foliage of the valley, she had loitered,
along with her old nurse, in the dell to which we have before alluded.
The glowing atmosphere was just fading into the dewy tint which betokens
a fair morrow. To enjoy a more extended gaze upon the clouds, those
gorgeous vestures of the sun, Constance had ascended, by a winding path,
to the edge of a steep cliff overhanging the river. She stood for some
minutes looking towards the west, unconscious of the loose and slippery
nature of the materials beneath her feet, and of her near approach to
the brink. On a sudden the ground gave way, and she was precipitated
headlong into the river! Nurse Agnes, who stood below, watching her
young mistress, not without apprehension as to the consequences of her
temerity, was stricken motionless with horror. There seemed to be no
help. Fast receding from all hope of succour, Constance was borne
rapidly down the stream. Suddenly, with the swiftness of a deer from
the brake, a figure bounded from an opposite thicket. He seemed scarcely
to leave his footmarks on the long herbage ere he gained the river's
brink. Plunging into the current he succeeded in rescuing the maiden
from her perilous condition. He laid her gently on the bank, beckoning
to her attendant, and was speedily out of sight. The aged Agnes, with
trembling hands, relieved Constance by loosening the folds from her
throat; and almost ere she had wrung out the water from the raven locks
of her inanimate mistress, the stranger returned. He carried a cordial,
with which he moistened her lips; the old woman chafed her temples,
resorting to the usual modes of resuscitation then in practice; and in
the end, Constance opened her eyes. A heavy sob accompanied this effort.
She looked wildly round, when she met the deep gaze of the stranger.
With a faint shriek, she hid her face in the bosom of her attendant,
who, overjoyed at her recovery, could scarcely refrain from falling at
the feet of her deliverer. She turned to express her thanks, but he was
gone.
It was not long ere several domestics, alarmed at their absence, came in
search; and Constance, borne gently along, was soon restored to her
anxious parent. But he looked thoughtful and disturbed when the
stranger's person was described, evidently averse to hold any
communication on the subject. Nurse Agnes grew eloquent in his praise,
until the following conversation that same evening in the kitchen turned
aside the current of her opinions.
"A rough grey cloak, gossip, thou sayest?" again inquired a
hard-featured hind from the chimney-corner.
"I tell thee a cloak, and a cap turned up in front. He doused it off
nobly, and took to the water like a spaniel!"
"Why, 'tis the wild man of the woods!" said another listener, who had
hitherto been silent, but whose remark seemed to strike terror into the
whole group. They looked round as if anticipating a visit from this
fearful personage. Dame Agnes crossed herself, and muttered her prayers
with great despatch; something was at length audible and articulate, as
follows:--
"Mercy on me! my days are numbered. If it should indeed be this
incarnate,--forgive the thought!--we are all dead creatures. The very
horses and kine stagger, and fall into fits at times, when they come
home, and it is all along of 'em having seen or smelt the brimstone
from the pit. Davy had two died last week, and he was sure they had
either seen the deil or his deputy,--this same grey man of the woods.
Woe's me that I should ha' lived to behold this child of perdition!" The
old woman here gave way to an outburst of sorrow, that prevented any
further disclosures.
"It is about a three month agone since this same wild man was first
seen," said the old seneschal, whose office, though of little use, was
still filled up in the more ancient establishments. "I saw him myself
once, but I shook until the very flesh seemed to crawl over my bones.
They say he neither eats nor drinks, but is kept alive in the body by
glamour and witchcraft. He'll stay here until his time is done, and then
his tormentors will fetch him to his prison-house again. Ye should not
have tarried in the wood after sunset."
"That would I not," sharply replied Agnes; "but the child, poor thing,
would look at the daylight as it lingered on the hill-top, and I thought
no harm in't."
"Like enough. He dares not abroad, if so much as the value or size of my
thumb-nail of the sun's rim were left above the hill!"
"Come, Gaffer, strike up a merry trowl," said a thin, squeaking voice,
from a personage almost hidden behind a copious supper of broken meat
and pastry. But whether the party thus addressed was too much alarmed to
let the current of his spirit run bubbling from the spring of either
mirth or minstrelsy, or he was too deeply buried in his own thoughts, it
were needless to inquire. The request for a while passed by unheeded.
Gaffer Gee was the ballad-monger of the whole district. He kept on a
comfortable and vagabond sort of existence, by visiting the different
mansions where good cheer was to be had, and where he was generally a
welcome guest, both in bower and hall. His legendary lore seemed
inexhaustible; and, indeed, his memory was like an old chest full of
scraps continually rummaged. He knew all the scandal and family secrets
throughout the parish, and had a quick eye at detecting either a love
affair or a feud. He composed a number of the wild ballads that he sang
or recited, or at least put them into that jingling and quaint rhythm,
acquired by habitual intercourse with the phraseology peculiar to these
popular descants. On hearing a story he could readily shape it into
verse, extempore, too, upon occasion; and many were the jokes that
rebounded from his theme, whether in hall or kitchen. It was pleasant to
watch his little grey eye, and the twinkling lashes, as they rose and
fell, varying the expression of his lips. A slight lisp gave an air of
simplicity to his ditties, which never failed to charm his auditors. He
could throw the simplest expression over his features, which made the
keen edge of his rebukes infinitely more cutting and effective. But the
prevailing tone of feeling in him was sad and oppressive. These
wandering minstrels had, from remote ages, been held as seers, and a
peep into futurity was often supposed to accompany their poetical
inspirations--a superstition not confined to any particular locality,
but obtaining a widely disseminated belief in all climes and nations
where imagination assumes her sway, and dares to assert her power.
After a short space, and without any invitation, the ballad-maker, like
some Pythian priestess on her tripod, began to exhibit manifestations of
the _afflatus_. The spirit of song seemed to be stealing upon him, and
in a moment the listening auditory were still. In substance, he half
recited, half sung, the following ballad:--
"'Maiden, braid those tresses bright,
Wreathe thy ringlets from the blast;
Why those locks of curling light
Heedless to the rude winds cast?
"'Maiden, why that darkened brow?
From those eyes, once dimmed with weeping,
Lurid gleams are gathering now,
O'er their pale wan shadows creeping.'
"Silent still the maid passed by,
Near nor voice nor footstep came.
Sudden cleaving earth and sky,
Flashed a brand of arrowy flame!
"'Maiden, turn that gaze on me,
Onwards why so madly bent?'
Still no stay, no pause made she
Through that kindling element.
* * * * *
"Now, the midnight chant is stealing,
Mass and requiem breathing near;
Hushed the blast, as if revealing
Sounds to earth that Heaven might hear.
"From yon pile, soft voices swelling
Dirge and anthem for the dead;--
Demon shrieks, their lost doom yelling,
Tend Lord Rudolph's dying bed.
"Holy men, with song and prayer,
Fain would shrive the passing soul;
Fiend-like whispers, to his ear.
Winds, in muttering curses, roll.
"Ere his last lone shuddering cry,
To his couch the maiden came;
On his breast she silently
Bent an eye of ravening flame.
"One wild shriek the sufferer sent,
Ere life's last frail link might sever;
Laughed the maiden, as she leant
O'er that form, to cling for ever.
"Closer to his heart she pressed;
Scorched, the quivering flesh recoiled;
Unconsumed his burning breast,
While that grim tormentor smiled.
"'Now revenge!' the maiden cried,
'I have bartered heaven for this;
Mine thou art, proud Rudolph's bride,
Mine, by this last demon kiss.'
"Tower, and battlement, and hall,
Scathed as with the thunder-stroke,
Flashed through midnight's dusky pall,
Twined in wreaths of livid smoke.
"O'er that gulph of yawning flame
Horrid shapes are hovering;
Monstrous forms, of hideous name,
To the bridal-bed they bring.
"'They come!--they come!' their frantic yell.
On a wave of billowy light
Sudden rose (so marvellers tell)
The maiden and her traitor knight.
"The moon looks bright on Rudolph's towers,
The breeze laughs lightly by,
But dark and silent sleep the hours,
The lone brook murmuring nigh.
"The lank weed waves round thy domain,
The fox creeps to thy gate;
Dark is thy dwelling, proud chieftain,
Thy halls are desolate!"
The legend we have thus rendered. His own idiom and versification, as we
have already observed, were of a more unintelligible sort, though better
suited, perhaps, to the fashion of the time and the capacity of his
hearers.
But a gloom still pervaded the once cheerful hearth, and the night wore
on without the usual symptoms of mirth and hilarity.
Holt of Grislehurst held the manorial rights, and was feudal lord over a
widely-extended domain, the manor of Spotland descending to him by
succession from his grandfather. His character was that of a quiet,
unostentatious country gentleman; but withal of a proud spirit, not
brooking either insult or neglect. This night, an unaccountable
depression stole upon him. He strode rapidly across the chamber, moody
and alone. The taper was nigh extinguished; the wasted billet grew pale,
a few sparks starting up the chimney, as the wind roared in short and
hasty gusts round the dwelling. The old family portraits seemed to flit
from their dark panels, wavering with the tremulous motion of the blaze.
Holt was still pacing the chamber with a disturbed and agitated step. A
few words, rapid and unconnected, fell from his lips.
"Rebel!--Outcast! I cannot betray thee!"
"Betray me!" echoed a voice from behind. Turning, the speaker stood
before him. It was the athletic form of the stranger, wrapped in his
grey cloak and cap of coarse felt, plumed from the falcon's wing.
"And who speaks the word that shall betray me? A king,--a fugitive! Yet,
not all the means that treachery can compass shall trammel one hair
upon this brow without my privity or consent."
"Comest thou like the sharp wind into my dwelling?" inquired Holt, in a
voice tremulous with amazement.
"Free as the unconfined air; yet fettered by a lighter bond,--a woman's
love!" returned the intruder. "Thou hast a daughter."
The Lord of Grislehurst grew pale at these words. Some terrific meaning
clung to them. After a short pause the stranger continued:--
"Thus speak the legends of Tigernach, and the bards of Ulster, rapt into
visions of the future:--'_When a king of Erin shall flee at the voice of
a woman, then shall the distaff and spindle conquer whom the sword and
buckler shall not subdue_.' That woman is yon heretic queen. A usurper,
an intruder on our birthright. Never were the O'Neales conquered but by
woman! I have lingered here when the war-cry hath rung from the shores
of my country. Again the shout hath come, and the impatient chiefs wait
for my return. But"----
The warrior seemed to writhe during the conflict. His hands were
clenched, and every muscle stiffened with agony. Scorn at his own
weakness, and dread, horrible undefinable dread, as he felt the
omnipotent power mastering his proud spirit. The man who would have
laughed at the shaking of a spear, and the loud rush of the battle,
quailed before a woman's hate and a woman's love.
"And what is thy request to-night?" said Holt.