day Queen Elizabeth died, and the tribal lands had been guaranteed to
him in perpetuity. But within four years plots were set on foot by the
central authorities, possibly acting in good faith, to dispossess him
and the chief of the O'Donnells on a charge of treason; and in 1607
both fled to the Continent. Their example was followed by numberless
others, and the more restless and combative spirits among the tribesmen,
who preferred fighting to the tilling of their fields, entered the
continental armies in large numbers.
When the chiefs of the north fled to the Continent, their lands were
held to have reverted to the crown; and not only was the right to tax
the produce of these lands assigned to adherents of the central power,
but numbers of farmers from the Scottish lowlands, and in lesser degree
from England, were brought over and settled on the old tribal territory.
The tribesmen, with their cattle, were driven to less fertile districts,
and the valleys were tilled by the transplanted farmers of Scotland.
This was the Plantation of Ulster, of 1611,--four years after the flight
of O'Neill and O'Donnell. The religious controversies of Scotland were
thereby introduced into Ireland, so that there were three parties now in
conflict--the old indigenous church, dispossessed of revenues and
buildings, and even of civil rights; the Anglicans who had received
these revenues and buildings, and, lastly, the Dissenters--Presbyterians
and Puritans--equally opposed to both the former.
The struggle between the king and Parliament of England now found an
echo in Ireland, the Anglican party representing the king, while the
Scottish and English newcomers sympathized with the Parliament. A
cross-fire of interests and animosities was thus aroused, which greatly
complicated the first elements of strife. The Parliament at Dublin was
in the hands of the Puritan party, and was in no sense representative of
the other elements of the country. There was a Puritan army of about ten
thousand, as a garrison of defence for the Puritan newcomers in Ulster,
and there were abundant materials of an opposing national army in the
tribal warriors both at home and on the Continent.
These national materials were presently drawn together by the head of
the O'Neills, known to history as Owen Roe, an admirable leader and a
most accomplished man, who wrote and spoke Latin, Spanish, French and
English, as well as his mother-tongue. Owen Roe O'Neill had won renown
on many continental battlefields, and was admirably fitted by genius and
training to lead a national party, not only in council but in the field.
The nucleus of his army he established in Tyrone, gaining numbers of
recruits whom he rapidly turned into excellent soldiers.
This took place at the end of 1641 and the beginning of 1642, and the
other forces of the country were organized about the same time. The
lines of difference between the Anglican and Catholic parties were at
this time very lightly drawn, and the Norman lords found themselves able
to co-operate with the Catholic bishops in forming a General Assembly at
Kells, which straightway set itself to frame a Constitution for
the country.
The Norman lords had meanwhile assembled and organized their retainers,
so that there were now three armies in Ireland: the garrison of the
Scottish settlers under Monroe, strongly in sympathy with the Puritans;
the tribal army under Owen Roe O'Neill; and the army of the Norman
lords. The General Assembly outlined a system of parliamentary
representation in which the Lords and Commons were to form a single
House, the latter, two hundred and twenty-six in number, representing
all the important cities and towns. A supreme Cabinet was to be formed,
composed of six members for each of the four provinces, twenty-four in
all, who might be lords spiritual or temporal, or commoners, according
to the choice of the Parliament. This Cabinet, thus selected from the
whole Parliament, was the responsible executive of the country; and
under the Supreme Council a series of Provincial Councils and County
Councils were to be formed along the same lines.
[Illustration: Donegal Castle.]
This plan was adopted at a general meeting of all the influential forces
of the country, which assembled in May at Kilkenny, where many
Parliaments had sat during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Writs
were issued for elections under the new Constitution, and the date of
the first assembly of the new Parliament was fixed for October. The new
national body enjoyed abundant revenues, and no small state marked its
deliberations in Kilkenny. We read of an endless series of
illuminations, receptions, banquets and balls,--the whole of the Norman
nobility of Leinster lavishing their great wealth in magnificent
display. The Supreme Council journeyed in state from Kilkenny to
Wexford, from Wexford to Waterford, from Waterford to Limerick and
Galway, surrounded by hundreds of horsemen with drawn swords, and
accompanied by an army of officials. We hear of "civil and military
representations of comedies and stage plays, feasts and banquets, and
palate-enticing dishes."
The General Assembly, duly elected, finally met on October 23, 1642, at
Kilkenny. On the same day was fought the battle of Edgehill, between
the king of England and the forces of the English Parliament. This
battle was the signal for division of counsels in the new Assembly. The
Norman lords of Leinster, who stood on the ground of feudalism, and
lived under the shadow of royal authority, were strongly drawn to take
the side of the king against the English Parliament, and overtures of
negotiation were made, which came near gaining a recognition and
legalization of the General Assembly by the English Crown.
While the leaders at Kilkenny were being drawn towards the royalists of
England, Owen Roe O'Neill was successfully holding Ulster against the
Puritan forces under Monroe and Leslie, with their headquarters at
Carrickfergus. Thus matters went on till the autumn of 1643, when we
find him inflicting a serious defeat on the English army under Monk and
Moore at Portlester in Meath, in which Moore was killed and his forces
driven back within the walls of Drogheda.
The General Assembly continued to exercise sovreign authority at
Kilkenny, collecting revenues, maintaining courts of justice in the
provinces, and keeping several armies in the field, most effective of
which was undoubtedly that of Owen Roe O'Neill. We find matters still in
this condition three years later, in May, 1646, when Monroe and the
Scottish forces prepared to inaugurate an offensive campaign from their
base at Carrickfergus. General Robert Monroe had about seven thousand
men at Carrickfergus; his brother George had five hundred at Coleraine;
while there was a Scottish army at Derry, numbering about two thousand
men. It was decided to converge these three forces on Clones, in
Monaghan, and thence to proceed southwards against the government of the
General Assembly, then centered at Limerick. Clones was sixty miles from
Derry, and rather more from Coleraine and Carrickfergus, the two other
points of departure.
Owen Roe O'Neill was then at Cavan, fourteen miles south of Clones, with
five thousand foot and five hundred horse, all "good, hopeful men," to
use his own words. General Robert Monroe, starting from Carrickfergus,
and marching by Lisburn and Armagh, expected to reach Glasslough, some
sixteen miles from Clones, on June 5th. By a forced march from Cavan,
Owen Roe O'Neill reached Glasslough a day earlier, and marching along
the northern Blackwater, pitched his camp on the north bank of the
river. Here he was directly in the line between the two Monroes, who
could only join their forces after dislodging him; and Robert Monroe,
who by that time had reached Armagh, saw that it would be necessary to
give battle without delay if the much smaller forces from the north were
not to be cut off.
Robert Monroe began a movement northwards towards Owen Roe's position at
dawn on June 5th, and presently reached the Blackwater, to find himself
face to face with Owen Roe's army across the river. The two forces kept
parallel with each other for some time, till Robert Monroe finally
forded the Blackwater at Caledon, Owen Roe then retiring in the
direction of the current, which here flows north. Owen Roe, in his
movement of withdrawal, brought his army through a narrow pass, which he
left in charge of one of his best infantry regiments, with orders to
hold it only so long as the enemy could be safely harassed, meanwhile
carrying his main body back to the hill of Knocknacloy, the position he
had chosen from the first for the battle, and to gain which he had up to
this time been manoeuvering.
At Knocknacloy he had the center of his army protected by the hill, the
right by a marsh, and the left by the river, so that, a flanking
movement on Monroe's part being impossible, the Scottish general was
forced to make a frontal attack. Under cover of the rearguard action at
the pass, which caused both delay and confusion to Monroe's army, Owen
Roe formed his men in order of battle. His first line was of four
columns, with considerable spaces between them; his cavalry was on the
right and left wings, behind this first line; while three columns more
were drawn up some distance farther back, behind the openings in the
front line, and forming the reserve. We should remember that not only
was Owen Roe's army outnumbered by Monroe's, but also that Owen Roe had
no artillery, while Monroe was well supplied with guns.
Meanwhile Monroe's army came into touch with Owen Roe's force, and the
Scottish general opened fire with guns and muskets, to which the muskets
of Owen Roe as vigorously replied. The Scottish artillery was planted on
a hillock a quarter-mile from Owen Roe's center, and under cover of its
fire an infantry charge was attempted, which was brilliantly repulsed by
the pikemen of Owen Roe's army. A second attack was made by the Scottish
cavalry, who tried to ford the river, and thus turn the left flank of
the Irish army, but they were met and routed by the Irish horse. This
was about six in the evening, and the sun, hanging low in the sky, fell
full in the faces of the Scottish troops. Owen Roe promptly followed up
the rout of the Scottish horse by an advance, making a sweeping movement
from right to left, and thereby forcing Monroe towards the junction of
two streams, where he had no space to move. At this point Owen Roe's
army received a notable accession of strength in the form of four
squadrons of cavalry, sent earlier in the day to guard against the
possible approach of George Monroe from Coleraine.
At a signal from Owen Roe, his army advanced upon Monroe's force, to be
met by a charge of the Scottish cavalry, instantly replied to by a
charge of the Irish cavalry through the three open spaces in the front
infantry line of Owen Roe's army. Monroe's first line was broken, and
the Irish pikemen, the equivalent of a bayonet charge, steadily forced
him backwards. It was a fierce struggle, hand to hand, eye to eye, and
blade to blade. The order of Owen Roe's advance was admirably preserved,
while the Scottish and English forces were in confusion, already broken
and crowded into a narrow and constricted space between the two rivers.
Finally the advancing Irish army reached and stormed the hillock where
Monroe's artillery was placed, and victory was palpably won. The defeat
of the Scottish and English army became an utter rout, and when the sun
set more than three thousand of them lay dead on the field.
It is almost incredible that the Irish losses were only seventy, yet
such is the number recorded, while not only was the opposing army
utterly defeated and dispersed, but Monroe's whole artillery, his tents
and baggage, fifteen hundred horses, twenty stand of colors, two months'
provisions and numbers of prisoners of war fell into the hands of Owen
Roe; while, as a result of the battle, the two auxiliary forces were
forced to retreat and take refuge in Coleraine and Derry, General Robert
Monroe escaping meanwhile to Carrickfergus. It is only just to him to
say that our best accounts of the battle come from officers in Monroe's
army, Owen Roe contenting himself with the merest outline of the result
gained, but saying nothing of the consummate generalship that gained it.
For the next two years we see Owen Roe O'Neill holding the great central
plain, the west and most of the north of Ireland against the armies of
the English Parliamentarians and Royalists alike, and gaining victory
after victory, generally against superior numbers, better armed and
better equipped. We find him time after time almost betrayed by the
Supreme Council, in which the Norman lords of Leinster, perpetually
anxious for their own feudal estates, were ready to treat with whichever
of the English parties was for the moment victorious, hoping that,
whatever might be the outcome of the great English struggle, they
themselves might be gainers. At this time they were in possession of
many of the abbey lands, and there was perpetual friction between them
and the ecclesiastics, their co-religionists, who had been driven from
these same lands, so that the Norman landowners were the element of
fatal weakness throughout this whole movement, willing to wound, and yet
afraid to strike. While praying for the final defeat of the English
parliamentary forces, they dreaded to see this defeat brought about by
Owen Roe O'Neill, in whom they saw the representative of the old tribal
ownership of Gaelic times, a return to which would mean their own
extinction.
Matters went so far that the Supreme Council, representing chiefly these
Norman lords, had practically betrayed its trust to the Royalist party
in England, and would have completed that betrayal had not the
beheading of King Charles signalized the triumph of the
Parliamentarians. Even then the Norman lords hoped for the Restoration,
and strove in every way to undermine the authority of their own general,
Owen Roe O'Neill, who was almost forced to enter into an alliance with
the Puritans by the treachery of the Norman lords. It is of the greatest
interest to find Monroe writing thus to Owen Roe in August, 1649: "By my
own extraction, I have an interest in the Irish nation. I know how your
lands have been taken, and your people made hewers of wood and drawers
of water. If an Irishman can be a scourge to his own nation, the English
will give him fair words but keep him from all trust, that they may
destroy him when they have served themselves by him."
On November 6, 1649, this great general died after a brief illness,
having for seven years led his armies to constant victory, while the
Norman lords, who were in name his allies, were secretly plotting
against him for their own profit. Yet so strong and dominant was his
genius that he overcame not only the forces of his foes but the
treacheries of his friends, and his last days saw him at one with the
Normans, while the forces of the Parliamentarians in Ireland were
calling on him for help.
We sea, therefore, that for full eight years, from the beginning of 1642
to the close of 1649, Ireland had an independent national government,
with a regularly elected Representative Assembly, and a central
authority, the Supreme Council, appointed by that Assembly, with judges
going circuit and holding their courts regularly, while the Supreme
Council held a state of almost regal magnificence, and kept several
armies continuously in the field. While Owen Roe O'Neill lived, that
part of the army under his command was able not only to secure an
unbroken series of victories for itself, but also to retrieve the
defeats suffered by less competent commanders, so that at his death he
was at the summit of power and fame. If regret were ever profitable, we
might well regret that he did not follow the example of the great
English commander, his contemporary, and declare himself Lord Protector
of Ireland, with despotic power.
After his death, the work he had done so well was all undone again, in
part by treachery, in part by the victories of Oliver Cromwell. Yet ten
years after the Lord Protector's arrival in Ireland, his own work was
undone not less completely, and the Restoration saw once more enthroned
every principle against which Cromwell had so stubbornly contended.
XIV.
THE JACOBITE WARS.
A.D. 1660-1750.
The Restoration saw Cromwell's work completely undone; nor did the class
which helped him to his victories again rise above the surface. The
genius of the Stuarts was already sowing the seeds of new revolutions;
but the struggle was presently to be fought out, not between the king
and the people, but between the king and the more liberal or more
ambitious elements of the baronial class, who saw in the despotic
aspirations of the Stuarts a menace to their own power.
These liberal elements in England selected as their champion Prince
William of Nassau, before whose coming the English king found it
expedient to fly to France, seeking and finding a friend in that apostle
of absolutism, Louis XIV. We have already seen how the interests of the
feudal lords of Ireland, with the old Norman families as their core,
drew them towards the Stuarts. The divine right of the landowner
depended, as we saw, on the divine right of kings; so that they
naturally gravitated towards the Stuarts, and drew their tenants and
retainers after them. Thus a considerable part of Ireland was enlisted
on the side of James II, and shared the misfortunes which presently
overtook him--or in truth did not overtake him, as the valiant gentleman
outran them and escaped. Nothing is more firmly fixed in the memories of
the whole Irish people than a good-natured contempt for this runaway
English king, whose cause they were induced by the feudal lords to
espouse. We shall follow the account of an officer in the Jacobite army
in narrating the events of the campaigns that ensued.
James, having gained courage and funds from his sojourn at the court of
Louis XIV, presently made his appearance in Ireland, relying on the
support of the feudal lords. He landed at Kinsale, in Cork, on March 12,
1688, according to the Old Style, and reached Dublin twelve days later,
warmly welcomed by Lord and Lady Tyrconnell. The only place in the
country which strongly declared for William was the walled city of
Derry, whence we have seen the Puritan forces issuing during the wars of
the preceding generation. James, this officer says, went north to Derry,
in spite of the bitterness of the season, "in order to preserve his
Protestant subjects there from the ill-treatment which he apprehended
they might receive from the Irish," and was mightily surprised when the
gates were shut in his face and the citizens opened fire upon him from
the walls.
[Illustration: Tullymore Park, Co. Down.]
James withdrew immediately to Dublin, assembled a Parliament there, and
spent several months in vain discussions, not even finding courage to
repeal the penal laws which Queen Elizabeth had passed against all who
refused to recognize her as the head of the church. James was already
embarked on a career of duplicity, professing great love for Ireland,
yet fearing to carry out his professions lest he might arouse animosity
in England, and so close the door against his hoped-for return.
Enniskillen, on an island in Lough Erne, dominated by a strong castle,
was, like Derry, a settlement of Scottish and English colonists brought
over by the first of the Stuarts. These colonists were up in arms
against the grandson of their first patron, and had successfully
attacked his forces which were besieging Derry. James, therefore, sent a
small body of troops against them; but the expedition ended in an
ignominious rout rather than a battle, for the Jacobite army seems
hardly to have struck a blow. The Irish leader, Lord Mountcashel, who
manfully stood his ground in the general panic, was wounded and
taken prisoner.
The armies of James, meanwhile, made no headway against the courageous
and determined defenders of Derry, where the siege was degenerating into
a blockade, the scanty rations and sickness of the besieged being a far
more formidable danger than the attacks of the besiegers. James even
weakened the attacking forces by withdrawing a part of the troops to
Dublin, being resolved at all risks to protect himself.
So devoid of resolution and foresight was James that we only find him
taking means to raise an army when Schomberg, the able lieutenant of
William, was about to invade the north of Ireland. Schomberg landed at
Bangor in Down in August, 1689, and marched south towards Drogheda, but
finding that James was there before him, he withdrew and established a
strongly fortified camp near Dundalk. James advanced to a point about
seven miles from Schomberg, and there entrenched himself in turn, and so
the two armies remained; as one of Schomberg's officers says, "our
General would not risk anything, nor King James venture anything." The
long delay was very fatal to Schomberg's army, his losses by sickness
and disease being more than six thousand men.
Early in November, as winter was already making itself felt, James
decided to withdraw to Dublin; as our narrator says, "the young
commanders were in some haste to return to the capital, where the ladies
expected them with great impatience; so that King James, being once more
persuaded to disband the new levies and raising his camp a little of the
soonest, dispersed his men too early into winter quarters, having spent
that campaign without any advantage, vainly expecting that his
Protestant subjects of England who were in the camp of Schomberg would
come over to him. And now the winter season, which should be employed in
serious consultations, and making the necessary preparations for the
ensuing campaign, was idly spent in revels, in gaming, and other
debauches unfit for a Catholic court. But warlike Schomberg, who, after
the retreat of James, had leisure to remove his sickly soldiers, to bury
the dead, and put the few men that remained alive and were healthy into
winter quarters of refreshment, took the field early in spring, before
Tyrconnell was awake, and reduced the castle of Charlemont, the only
place that held for James in Ulster, which was lost for want of
provisions; and the concerns of the unfortunate James were ill-managed
by those whom he entrusted with the administration of public affairs."
We come thus to the spring of 1690. Derry was still holding out
valiantly against the horrors of famine and sickness, the blockade being
maintained, though nothing like a determined storm was attempted. A
little of the courage shown by the apprentices of Derry, had he
possessed it, might have revived the drooping fortunes of the fugitive
English king. It seems, however, that even Schomberg's withdrawal to
Carrickfergus failed to arouse him to more vigorous and valiant
measures. It is clear that he was ready to abandon his Irish allies,
hoping by their betrayal to gain favor with his "subjects in England,"
whom he confidently expected to recall him, as they had recalled his
brother Charles thirty years before. James found an able lieutenant in
Tyrconnell, who thoroughly entered into his master's schemes of
duplicity; and it is fairly clear that these two worthies, had occasion
offered, would have betrayed each other with a perfectly good grace.
Thus matters dragged on quite indecisively until June, 1690, when King
William landed at Carrickfergus with a mixed force of English, Scottish,
Dutch, Danish, Swedish and German troops, and joined his forces to the
remnant of Schomberg's army. James, as we saw, had disbanded his army on
breaking up his camp in the previous autumn, and had made no effective
effort to get a new army together. Nor could he have used a strong army,
had he possessed one. Nevertheless James marched north with such troops
as were available, leaving Dublin on June 16th. He took up a strong
position on the borders of Ulster and Leinster, thus blocking William's
way south to the capital, only to abandon it again on the news of
William's approach, when he retired to Drogheda and encamped there. He
thus gave the whole advantage of initiative into the hands of his
opponent, a brave man and a skillful general.