[Footnote 6: This lady afterwards married Raymond, Count de St. Gilles, son
of the Count of Toulouse. Eleanora, another of Richard's sisters, married
Alphonso, third king of Castile.]
[Footnote 7: The Clubs, in Spanish cards, are not, as with us, trefoils,
but cudgels, i. e. _bastos_: the Spades are swords, i. e. _espadas_.--Fosb.
_ut sup._; see the plate of "Sports, Amusements," &c.]
_Spanish Vessels wrecked on the Irish Coast_ (Vol. v., p. 491.).--A fair
account of this eventful visitation may be expected from the _Annals of the
Four Masters_, a work compiled within forty years of the occurrence, and
not near so many miles removed from the waters over which most of its
fatalities were felt:
"A large fleet (says this work) consisting of eight sure ships, came on
the sea from the King of Spain this year (1588), and some say it was
their intention to take harbour and land on the coasts of England
should they obtain an opportunity; but in that they did not succeed,
for the Queen's fleet encountered them at sea, and took four of their
ships, and the rest of the fleet was scattered and dispersed along the
coasts of the neighbouring countries, viz., on the eastern side of
England, on the north-eastern shores of Scotland, and on the
north-western coast of Ireland. A great number of the Spaniards were
drowned in those quarters, their ships having been completely wrecked;
and the smaller proportion of them returned to Spain, and some assert
that 9,000 of them were lost on that occasion."
This narrative is utterly innocent of the wholesale, or of any _execution_
of the unfortunate invaders; and, in truth, our Lord Deputies have too much
to answer for, without throwing the barbarism of such a massacre upon one
of them. Some colouring is, however, given to the charge by the writings of
Smith, _History of Kerry_; Cox, _Hibernia Anglicana_; and even Leland,
_History of Ireland_, vol. ii. p. 322. The deviation of these Spaniards
northwards can be, I think, accounted for by the discomfitures they
sustained from the English and Dutch fleets, who so kept the seas east and
south of England, as to make a circuit round the Orkney Islands, with a
descent to the westward of Ireland, the most advisable, though as it
proved, not the less dangerous line of return.