Ireland under the Tudors. Volume 3 (of 3)

Negotiations with Tyrone (October and November)

It was very uncertain as to what would be the consequences of Essex’s escapade, and those who were left in charge could only temporise as best they might. In about two months Sir William Warren had three separate parleys with Tyrone, and in each case it was the English diplomatist that urged a continuance of the cessation of arms. Tyrone, who had his immediate followers extraordinarily well in hand, seems to have kept the truce, and he had reasons to complain of injuries done him by the English party. In the paralysis of government outrage upon the borders could scarcely be avoided, and Tyrone’s allies were less steady than himself. ‘In all the speeches,’ Warren wrote, ‘passed between him and me, he seemed to stand chiefly upon a general liberty of religion throughout the kingdom. I wished him to demand some other thing reasonable to be had from her Majesty, for I told him that I thought her Majesty would no more yield to that demand than she would give her crown from her head.’ Warren laughed at a letter addressed to Lord O’Neill Chief Lieutenant of Ireland. ‘I asked him,’ he says, ‘to whom the devil he could be Lieutenant. He answered me, Why should I not be a Lieutenant as well as the Earl of Ormonde.’ The reasoning is not very clear, and it seems at least probable that many regarded him as the Pope’s viceroy. In making James Fitzthomas an earl he had greatly exceeded even the most ample viceregal powers. From the meeting with Essex to the date at which he resolved to begin fighting again, his official letters are signed Hugh Tyrone, but on November 8 he gave Warren fourteen days’ notice to conclude the truce, on the ground of injuries done him by Thomond and Clanricarde. That letter and those succeeding it, with one significant exception, he signs as O’Neill. In repeating the notice to Ormonde he says, ‘I wish you command your secretary to be more discreet and to use the word Traitor as seldom as he may. By chiding there is little gotten at my hands, and they that are joined with me fight for the Catholic religion, and liberties of our country, the which I protest before God is my whole intention.’ In all these negotiations Tyrone professes to rely entirely upon Essex to see justice done, and declares war ‘first of all for having seven score of my men killed by the Earl of Ormonde in time of cessation, besides divers others of the Geraldines, who were slain by the Earl of Kildare. Another cause is because I made my agreement only with your lordship, in whom I had my only confidence, who, as I am given to understand, is now restrained from your liberty, for what cause I know not.’ And this letter, being intended for English consumption, is signed Hugh Tyrone. Immediately after writing it he again took the field.[331 - The letter to Essex is of Nov. 22, and with seventeen others belonging to the last three months of 1599, is printed by Mr. Gilbert in App. 16 to National Manuscripts, Ireland, part iv. 1. In a letter of Nov. 6, to the Lords Justices, Lord Lieutenant (Ormonde), and Council, the Queen approves of the slaughter by Ormonde ‘in revenge of that that brake the cessation in Wexford… do not irritate nor oppress any such as have submitted … in respect of any private unkindness of your own.’]

Amount of blame imputable to Essex

‘The conditions demanded by Tyrone,’ says Essex himself, ‘I was fain to give my word that I would only verbally deliver.’ The consequence was that there is not and cannot be any absolutely authentic statement of those conditions. There is, however, a paper printed in a collection of repute, and immediately after one of Cecil’s letters, which professes to be a statement of ‘Tyrone’s Propositions, 1599.’ The Queen herself says that Essex, on his return, acquainted her with Tyrone’s offers, but in so confused a manner as could only be explained by supposing that ‘the short time of their conference made him not fully conceive the particular meaning of Tyrone in divers of those articles.’ What probably happened was that Tyrone talked big, and that when Essex came to think over it afterwards, he could not clearly distinguish between extreme claims which had been mentioned, and serious proposals which had been made. But the 16th article in ‘Tyrone’s Propositions’ is clearly not invented by the writer, who was probably hostile to Essex. It demands ‘that O’Neill, O’Donnell, Desmond, and their partakers, shall have such lands as their ancestors enjoyed 200 years ago.’ Whether Tyrone ever demanded any such thing is doubtful, but it is certain that this, or something very like it, was what Essex told the Queen. ‘Tyrone’s offers,’ she says, ‘are both full of scandal to our realm, and future peril in the State. What would become of all Munster, Leix, and Offaly, if all the ancient exiled rebels be restored to all that our laws and hereditary succession have bestowed upon us?’ And again, ‘we will not assent in other provinces [than Ulster] to the restitution of all traitors to their livings, or the displantation of our subjects that have spent their lives in the just defences of their possessions which they have taken and held from us or our ancestors.’ It is quite evident then that Essex actually laid before Elizabeth a proposal which involved the reversal of every attainder and the expropriation of all settlers upon forfeited lands. After this it hardly seems worth discussing matters of commerce, or proposals that Englishmen should be debarred from all preferment in Church and State in Ireland, while all statutes prejudicing the preferment of Irishmen in England should be repealed.’[332 - ‘Tyrone’s Propositions, 1599’ are in Winwood’s Memorials, i. 118, immediately after Cecil’s letter of Oct. 8 to Neville, and are reprinted by Spedding and Abbott. The letter does not mention any enclosure. In Bacon and Essex, pp. 134-148, Dr. Abbott endeavours, not very successfully, I think, to show that the document is entirely unworthy of credit. It is, however, not called ‘Essex’s propositions,’ but ‘Tyrone’s,’ and I have shown that the most outrageous part of it was regarded by the Queen as a serious proposal. Essex should have broken off the conference at the mere mention of such a thing. Sidney would have done so, or Norris, or Mountjoy. The Queen’s letters to Fenton and to the Lords Justices, &c., are of Nov. 5 and 6.]

What Tyrone meant by ‘liberty of conscience.’

Liberty of conscience was what Tyrone continually asked for, but not what he or his friends were prepared to grant. He undertook generally to ‘plant the Catholic faith throughout Ireland,’ and when did Rome bear a rival near her throne? In a letter to the King of Spain he acknowledged his object to be the ‘extirpation of heresy,’ and recalcitrant chiefs were reminded that present ruin and eternal damnation would be their lot if they did not help to ‘erect the Catholic religion.’ Jesuits boasted that his victories had already made it impossible for Protestants to live in certain districts. Tyrone claimed personal inviolability for priests, and treated the imprisonment of one as a breach of the cessation. In the paper already discussed he is said to have demanded that the Catholic religion should be openly preached, the churches governed by the Pope, cathedrals restored, Irish priests released from prison and left free to come and go over sea, and that no Englishmen should be churchmen in Ireland. The article about the release of clerical prisoners is just such a coincidence as Paley would have urged in proof that ‘Tyrone’s Propositions’ form a genuine document. But here again it is probable that this was only laid before the Queen as Tyrone’s extreme claim, and that Essex gave her some reason to suppose that he would be satisfied with less. ‘For any other personal coming of himself,’ she wrote, ‘or constraint in religion, we can be content, for the first, that he may know he shall not be peremptorily concluded, and in the second that we leave to God, who knows best how to work his will in these things, by means more fit than violence, which doth rather obdurate than reform. And, therefore, as in that case he need not to dread us, so we intend not to bind ourselves further for his security than by our former course we have witnessed; who have not used rigour in that point, even when we might with more probability have forced others.’[333 - The Queen to the Lords Justices, &c. Nov. 6; Tyrone to Warren, Dec. 25; to the King of Spain, Dec. 31; to Lord Barry and others, Feb. 1600, in Carew. On Feb. 13, 1600, the Vicar Apostolic Hogan told Lord Barry he had ‘received an excommunication from the Pope against all those that doth not join in this Catholic action.’ James Archer, S.J., in a letter of Aug. 10, 1598, printed in Hibernia Ignatiana, p. 39, informs Aquaviva of ‘frequentes Catholicorum victorias, unde fit ut hæretici ex multis locis migrare cogantur.’ For Henry Fitzimon, S.J., the priest of whose imprisonment Tyrone complained, see his Life by Rev. E. Hogan, S.J., p. 209. ‘I never went to Tyrone,’ Warren wrote to Cecil, on Dec. 24, 1599, ‘but I was forced to bribe his Friars and Jesuits.’]

CHAPTER XLIX.

GOVERNMENT OF MOUNTJOY, 1600

The government is entrusted to Mountjoy

In October 1599 the government of Ireland was offered to Mountjoy, who refused it. He may have thought that Essex would have to go back, or he may have been unwilling to leave Lady Rich. But in the following month he was nevertheless ordered to be ready within twenty days. It became evident that Essex would not be employed again; he made Mountjoy and Southampton guardians of his interests, and for his sake they both went perilously near to treason. Mountjoy undertook the thankless office with a heavy heart. He told the Queen that everyone of his predecessors had without exception been blamed, and that there was no one in Ireland whom he could trust. Very unjustly, he included even Ormonde in this sweeping censure. It was Raleigh who had insisted that he should be appointed, and the Queen listened chiefly to him about Irish affairs. ‘This employment of me is by a private man that never knew what it was to divide public and honourable ends from his own, propounded and laboured to you (without any respect to your public service) the more eagerly, by any means to rise to his long expected fortune. Wherein, by reason of the experience I have heard your Majesty holds him to have in that country, he is like to become my judge, and is already so proud of this plot that he cannot keep himself from bragging of it.’[334 - Mountjoy to the Queen, printed in Goodman’s James I. (ed. Brewer) ii. 23; Letters of Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, Oct. 31, 1599, to Jan. 12, 1600, in Sidney Papers.]

Raleigh’s advice

The usual delays took place, and the twenty days were prolonged to eleven weeks. Raleigh’s advice, like that of everyone who really understood the problem, was for a system of garrisons. A Lord President in Munster with a considerable force, a local governor in Connaught with smaller means, a strong post at Lough Foyle, and the remaining troops under the Lord Deputy’s immediate command – these were the means by which it was hoped to reduce Ireland. A large army under Essex had failed, and his successor was expected to do everything with 12,000 foot and 1,200 horse, though everyone but the Queen thought this force too small. Lord Grey de Wilton, who was Essex’s known enemy, desired the command at Lough Foyle; but Mountjoy resented this idea as an insult, and the choice fell upon Sir Henry Docwra, who had served under Bingham in Connaught and under Essex at Cadiz. Grey consoled himself by sending a challenge to Southampton, who said he was ready to fight when time and place served, but that one so out of favour as himself could hope for no mercy if he broke the law in England. Mountjoy took leave of the Queen on the 24th of January, but was not made a Privy Councillor, that honour being reserved till his return. Those who were to accompany him also kissed hands, and Elizabeth read a little lecture to each upon his duties. A fortnight later the Lord Deputy left London with an escort of 100 horse, and wrote from Daventry to Cecil begging that he might not be kept too closely to the 13,000 men. Southampton was not allowed to go with him.[335 - Rowland Whyte to Sir R. Sidney, Nov. 29, 1599, to Feb. 9, 1600, in Sidney Papers; Fynes Moryson, book ii. chap. i.]

Tyrone’s Holy War in Munster

Whether Tyrone cared much or little for religion, it became an object with him to appear publicly as the champion of Rome, and as such he sought help from Spain and Austria. He then marched into Munster, and, acting in concert with Desmond and the ecclesiastics there, called upon all to take part in the holy war. He wasted a considerable part of Westmeath, and carefully ravaged Ely O’Carroll. ‘All its movable possessions,’ say the Four Masters, ‘were carried away, and nothing left but ashes instead of corn, and embers in place of mansions. Great numbers of men, women, sons, and daughters were left in a dying state.’ The reason or pretext for this severity was that O’Carroll had hired certain warriors of the Macmahons, and had killed instead of paying them when the settling day came round. At Holy Cross Abbey the relic, which had been hitherto preserved in spite of the dissolution, was brought out to do him honour. Ormonde and Delvin watched his course, but did not venture to attack him. The annalists oddly remark that on his progress by Cashel to the neighbourhood of Bandon he only injured those who were opposed to him. Among these was David Lord Barry, who had remained firmly loyal since his pardon in Lord Grey’s time. Tyrone reviled him for deserting the cause of the Church, and as the principal means of preventing the southern nobility from joining him in rebellion. ‘Her Highness,’ replied Barry, ‘hath never restrained me for matters of religion,’ and he demanded the restoration of some of his followers who had been captured, and of 4,000 kine and 3,000 horses. He defied Tyrone, and promised to have his revenge some day, with her Majesty’s assistance. He had hoped to save the island on which Queenstown now stands, but the castle commanding the bridge over the narrow strait was of no avail to protect his property. Tyrone landed his parties in boats, and not a single house was left unburned.[336 - Letters in Carew, Dec. 31, 1599, and Feb. 13, 23, and 26, 1600; Tyrone to Barry with the answer, in Pacata Hibernia, Feb, 26, 1600; Four Masters, 1599 and 1600.]

Arrival of Mountjoy and Carew (February)

In the meantime Mountjoy had been appointed Deputy, and Carew President of Munster. They landed together at Howth on February 26, and found things in as bad a state as possible, almost the whole island being virtually under the sway of the victorious rebel. The Queen realised that the country could not be bridled without fixed garrisons, but she cautioned Mountjoy against frittering away his strength by multiplying small posts. It had long been recognised that fortifications at Lough Foyle would do more than anything to cripple the O’Neills, and 4,000 foot and 200 horse were assigned for this service to Docwra; while 3,000 foot and 250 horse were allotted, by official orders from England, to the presidency of Munster. The force left under Mountjoy’s immediate control did not, therefore, exceed 5,000 men, and he was thus prevented from repeating Essex’s mistake, that of ‘making progresses’ at a great expense without achieving any permanent results.[337 - Docwra’s Narration; Pacata Hibernia, lib. i. cap. 1.]

Tyrone plays the king in Munster

Carew was necessarily delayed in Dublin for about six weeks, and in the meantime Tyrone went where he pleased in Munster. His principal camp was at Inniscarra on the Lee, and thither came friendly messages or hostages from nearly all the neighbouring magnates, whether of English or Irish race. Among his trustiest lieutenants was his son-in-law, Hugh Maguire, who, on or about the last day of February, made a raid in the immediate neighbourhood of Cork. Sir Warham St. Leger and Sir Henry Power, the acting commissioners for Munster, went out for a ride, in no expectation of an attack so near the town. Their men were marching at ease and in loose order when they suddenly came in contact with Maguire’s party. St. Leger fired his pistol at the chief with fatal effect, but the latter had strength enough to retaliate with his half-pike; and so the two leaders fell by each other’s hands, and with few or no other casualties on either side. To Tyrone the loss was great, and probably decided him to leave the province before Carew could appear. Marching through the eastern part of Cork, and leaving Cashel on his right hand, he passed through Westmeath and reached his own country without striking a blow or ever seeing an enemy. Ormonde and Thomond came out from Limerick with a considerable force, but no battle took place, though Carew has recorded his opinion that the loyal Earls were very anxious to fight.[338 - Pacata Hibernia, lib. i. caps. 2 and 14. The Four Masters say St. Leger’s encounter with Maguire was premeditated, but the English account is here to be preferred. Compare O’Sullivan Bere, tom. iii. lib. v. cap. 12. Lady St. Leger had been previously married to Davells and Mackworth, and was thus by violence left a widow for the third time.]

Tyrone’s march through Ireland

Tyrone left about 1,800 men behind him in Munster, chiefly under the command of Richard Tyrrell, and with 600, which were probably his best, he travelled so fast as to elude Mountjoy, who had made preparations for intercepting him in Westmeath. The Ulster men marched twenty-seven miles in one day, and reached Tyrone in less than a quarter of the time that it had taken them to perform the outward journey. The Queen and her viceroy did not escape ‘the great dishonour of this traitor passing home to his den unfought with.’ Ormonde and Thomond, who had been keeping Easter together at Kilkenny, then repaired to Dublin; and Mountjoy matured his plan for the re-conquest of Ireland in detail. Carew was ready before Docwra, and on April 7 he set out for his province, the two Earls having preceded him to Kilkenny.[339 - The Queen to Mountjoy, March 10, in Carew; Carew and Thomond to the Privy Council, April 18, ib.]

Ormonde is taken prisoner by the O’Mores (April)

The Jesuit Archer

Carew reached Kilkenny on the third day, and his company of 100 horse were billeted in the neighbourhood by Ormonde’s directions. Each day the Earl proposed that the President should accompany him to a parley with Owen MacRory at a point between Ballyragget and Ballinakill in the Queen’s County. So little did he dream of danger on the border of his own county, that he refused Carew’s proffered escort, and set out with about forty mounted men, of whom more than one half were ‘lawyers, merchants, and others, upon hackneys,’ and with no weapons but the swords ordinarily worn. His company of 200 foot were left two miles short of the place of meeting. O’More brought a picked troop of spearmen with him, leaving in the rear 500 foot and twenty horse, ‘the best furnished for war and the best apparelled that we have seen in this kingdom,’ 300 of them being Ulster mercenaries, left by Tyrone on his return to the North. The two parties met upon a heath sloping down towards a narrow defile, and with a bushy wood on each side, ‘the choice of which ground,’ says Carew, ‘we much misliked.’ An hour’s conversation then ensued between Ormonde and O’More about such questions as would naturally arise between warlike neighbours. Carew, who noticed that the Irish kept edging further forward in the covert on each side, was for departing before mischief could happen; but Ormonde, who was quite unsuspicious, desired first to speak with Archer, who as a Kilkenny man might be open to the arguments of his natural chief. The Jesuit came forward, and after some talk the Earl called him a traitor, and upbraided him with seducing the Queen’s subjects into rebellion. Archer replied that the Pope was the Sovereign of Ireland, and that he had excommunicated Elizabeth. Ormonde then spoke of the Pope in contemptuous terms, whereupon Archer threatened him with his stick. At this signal, whether premeditated or not, the two parties became suddenly intermingled, and Melaghlin O’More pulled the Earl off his pony. Others, wrote Carew, and Thomond, ‘tried to seize us too. We had more hanging upon us than is credibly to be believed; but our horses were strong and by that means did break through them, tumbling down on all sides those that were before and behind us; and, thanks be to God, we escaped the pass of their pikes, which they freely bestowed and the flinging of their skeynes… Owen MacRory laid hands on me the President, and, next unto God, I must thank my Lord of Thomond for my escape, who thrust his horse upon him. And at my back a rebel, newly protected at my suit, called Brian MacDonogh Kavanagh, being a-foot, did me good service. For the rest I must thank my horse, whose strength bore down all about him.’ Thomond received the stab of a pike in his back, but the wound did not prove dangerous.[340 - Carew and Thomond to the Privy Council, April 18, in Carew and Pacata Hibernia. See also the Catholic accounts of the Four Masters and of O’Sullivan and Peter Lombard. All the documents are collected in a memoir by the Rev. James Graves, in the Irish Archæological Journal, N.S. vol. iii. pp. 388 sqq. There are two contemporary drawings, one of which is reproduced in Pacata Hibernia and the other in Facsimiles of Irish MSS., part iv. 1. I have endeavoured to harmonise the various accounts.]

Mountjoy and Ormonde

Ormonde a prisoner, (April to June)

His release (June)

Mountjoy distrusted Ormonde, more perhaps from jealousy than because there was any real pretext for doing so. ‘Taking notice,’ the Queen told her Deputy, ‘of our cousin of Ormonde’s good services, and in respect that he hath been much toiled now in his latter years, we have left unto him the choice whether he will retain the place of Lieutenant under you or not. We would have himself and all the world know that we make extraordinary estimation of him.’ He retained his post with an allowance of three pounds a day, and his almost independent position galled Mountjoy, as it had galled other Deputies before his time. Ormonde had trusted to his own vast influence, and he would certainly have been warned had the intention of seizing him been known generally among O’More’s followers. If there was any premeditated design, it was probably divulged only to a few. At first he was confined at Gortnaclea Castle, near Abbeyleix, where he was allowed to have his own cook and other comforts, but not to see anyone, except in Owen MacRory’s presence. Archer plied him hard with religious argument, and some believed that he conformed to Rome; but this is at least extremely doubtful. Tyrone was anxious to get him into his power, but O’More had no idea of giving up such a hostage, and it is probable that the Leinster men would, in any case, have refused to let him be carried out of their province. A rescue was feared, and after a month the Earl was removed from Gortnaclea, and carried from cabin to cabin in the woods. From the intolerable hardship of this life he was relieved by Sir Terence O’Dempsey, who allowed his castle of Ballybrittas, near Portarlington, to be used as a prison. It was supposed that the Ulster mercenaries, or Bonaghts, wished to carry off the Earl to Tyrone by force, and the transfer was made by the O’Mores without their knowledge. Besides this, Dermot MacGrath, papal bishop of Cork, who is called legate by the English, and who was, perhaps, vicar-apostolic, was of opinion that the capture had been treacherous, and was thus opposed to Archer. Fenton managed to get access, for his spies, to the Earl, among whom a ‘gentlewoman’ named Honora is particularly mentioned. Finding, perhaps, that his prisoner was not likely to be as useful as he first supposed, and fearing that he might lose all advantage by death, O’More gradually relaxed his demands. The first terms offered were that all garrisons should be removed out of both Leix and Offaly; that the former county should be given up to Owen MacRory; that all his nominees should have protection for six weeks; and that during that time there should be no invasion of Ulster. Afterwards there was an attempt to make Ormonde sign a paper, which would have involved him in the guilt of O’More’s rebellion, but he eluded these snares, and was released after two months’ detention. ‘It may please your sacred Majesty to be advertised,’ he wrote to the Queen, ‘that it pleased God of his goodness to deliver me, though weak and sick, from the most malicious, arrogant, and vile traitor of the world, Owen MacRory, forced to put into his hands certain hostages for payment of 3,000l. if at any time hereafter I shall seek revenge against him or his, which manner of agreement, although it be very hard, could not be obtained before he saw me in that extremity and weakness, as I was like, very shortly, to have ended my life in his hands.’ He believed that he owed his liberty to the report that Leinster would be overrun with troops, to prevent which the Irishry of the province themselves offered hostages, and were ready to quarrel with O’More should he refuse them. They were twelve in number, one being Sir Terence O’Dempsey’s son, and Ormonde’s intention was to ransom them one by one. Sir Terence had married a Butler, and whatever became of the other hostages, a ransom appears to have been paid for this one.

Mountjoy was fain to confess that ‘the Earl doth continue with as great affection as ever to her Majesty, and with much more spleen against the rebel; but the tie upon him to the contrary are the pledges he hath put in, whom no doubt the traitors will retain upon their own conditions whatsoever his were. I do not think he will deliver his daughter, although I believe he hath promised to do it… I cannot but bear a kind of reverence to so ancient a servant of her Majesty, and a compassion to the miserable fortune he was in… it shall be hard, but I will put the Earl and the fathers of the pledges in blood against the rebels, and that will soon mar all contracts between them. I have many plots upon Owen MacRory to take him, and I think it is a thing that the Earl doth very much practise, and will go very near to perform.’[341 - Ormonde to the Queen, June 16; F. Stafford to Cecil, June 18; Mountjoy to Cecil, July 4 – all in Mr. Graves’s memoir cited above. And see his further note in Irish Arch. Journal, N.S. vol. v. p. 333. On Aug. 21, Redmond Keating submitted to Mountjoy, on condition to deliver the Earl’s pledges remaining in his hands; see in Carew under Aug. 26, 1600. The Kellies and Lalors did the same.]

Tyrone and Ormonde

Lady Ormonde was in bad health at this time, and her death in the following year was perhaps hastened by anxiety. She begged that her husband’s military allowance might still be paid, as absolutely necessary for her support. Mountjoy took proper measures for her protection, and even if he had not done so from kindness, the custody of her daughter was a matter of public importance. She was Ormonde’s only child, and there were sure to be many candidates for her wardship, and for her hand. Besides which, possible heirs male would be ready to advance their claims should anything happen to the Earl. Tyrone was supposed to desire the heiress for his son, and he took the trouble to deny the imputation, but this may not have been until he saw that O’More had no idea of surrendering his great prisoner. ‘Use him honourably,’ he wrote from Dungannon, ‘but keep him very sure until he be sent hither by the help of yourself and such as we have appointed for that purpose. Therefore be not tempted to enlarge him upon any proffer, for if you will desire ransom you shall have money and gold at my hands.’

It was not till more than a month later that he denied any wish to have the young ‘lady’ or ‘my lady mistress,’ as he calls Lady Elizabeth, ‘for by demanding her, men would say that I should have her for my son.’ It seems clear that his first object was to get Ormonde into his hands, and failing that he wished to have credit for liberality and kindness. ‘For any motion,’ said Ormonde contemptuously, ‘of marriage of my daughter to any of that base traitor Tyrone’s brood, upon my duty of allegiance to your highness, I never thought of any like matter, neither was it demanded of me.’[342 - Fenton to Cecil, April 12; Carew and Thomond to the Privy Council, April 18; Tyrone to O’More April 22/May 2; to Ormonde April 29/May 9 and May 26/June 6; to Lady Ormonde May 25/June 5; Ormonde to the Queen June 16 – all these are in the memoir cited. Elizabeth, Lady Ormonde, was the Earl’s second wife, and daughter of John, second Lord Sheffield. In Eugene Magrath’s Irish panegyric on her husband (circ. 1580) every laudatory epithet is lavished on the ‘amiable, lovely, &c. countess.’ See this curious poem in Irish Arch. Journal (Kilkenny), i. p. 470.]

Carew in Munster. Florence MacCarthy

Barbarous warfare

As soon as Mountjoy had provided for the safety of Kilkenny, Carew started for his own province, where St. Leger’s death had left Sir Henry Power in temporary charge of a very troubled community. The rebels in the county of Waterford came in to the Lord President at once, and it was thought wiser not to ask questions. In Cork, Florence MacCarthy was trying to play the impossible part of a neutral, while Dermot O’Connor, at the head of a strong body of mercenaries, was really the most powerful person in the province. Essex had been authorised to give Florence a patent of inheritance to his father-in-law, with discretionary power so to limit it as might seem best for the public safety, but his sudden departure prevented this being done. St. Leger and Power wished the patent to issue, and thought the best way of restraining Donell’s violence would be to acknowledge Florence as MacCarthy More. To show his power, or to annoy a personal enemy, Florence soon afterwards ravaged Lord Barry’s barony of Ibane with ‘700 of the traitors’ bonies, otherwise called here among us cabbage-soldiers.’ Yet he continued constantly to protest his loyalty, while maintaining that he dared not declare openly for the Queen, lest Dermot should forsake him and secure the triumph of that ‘bastardly rascal Donell MacCarthy,’ whom Tyrone had acknowledged as MacCarthy More. O’Connor was not originally a person of much importance, but he had married Lady Margaret Fitzgerald, the late Earl of Desmond’s daughter, and, being a valiant man, found himself at the head of 1,40 °Connaught free companions. Tyrone had given him the chief command in Munster, and the loose swordsmen flocked to his standard. He was, however, ‘a mere mercenary serving in Munster only for pay,’ and probably quite ready to sell himself to the highest bidder. Lady Margaret could speak English, and it was thought that she would do anything to procure her brother’s restoration to the earldom of Desmond. According to Florence’s account it was the fear of Dermot, and the necessity of doing something to make his own people believe in him, that induced him to appear in arms on the rebel side; and provocation was not wanting which might justify such action on his part. Sir Henry Power sent 1,000 men into Carbery, under Captain Flower, with general orders to spoil all who failed to give securities for their good behaviour. It does not appear that any time or much notice was given, but Flower carried out the work of destruction thoroughly. From Kinsale to Glandore harbour, and from that to Dunmanus Bay, not a grain of corn was left unburned within ten miles of his line of march, 500 cows were drowned to save the trouble of driving them, and ‘the churls and poor people’ were treated as enemies and killed. On his return Flower was threatened by Florence with a superior force, but reached Kinsale without any serious encounter. Near Ballinhassig, between that town and Cork, the troops were near falling into an ambuscade, and even for a time put to flight. In the end they made good their retreat, but the victory was not much to boast of. When Carew heard of the affair, he regretted deeply what had been done. He could not reckon on much above 1,700 effective men in the field, too few to fight the Sugane Earl and the MacCarthies at once, and it was better to have Florence as a faithless, but on the whole peaceable neutral, than as an open enemy.[343 - Note of Captain Flower’s journey, April 1; Joshua Aylmer to Cecil, April 21; Sir Henry Power to the Privy Council, April 30; Carew to Cecil, May 2; Florence MacCarthy to Cecil, May 6; Pacata Hibernia, lib. i. cap. 5. Cecil’s letter to Essex, April 1599, St. Leger’s and Power’s to Cecil, Dec. 10, and Lord Barry’s to Cecil, Feb. 12, 1600, are printed in Florence MacCarthy’s Life, chap. 9.]

Sir Henry Docwra occupies Derry (May)

While Carew was preparing to re-conquer the South by a mixture of force and fraud, a successful lodgment was made in the extreme north. On May 6, Sir Henry Docwra sailed from Carrickfergus with 4,000 foot and 200 horse. Boards and spars for building, master carpenters and master masons, and a great quantity of tools and victuals were provided. The mortality among Randolph’s men was not forgotten, and there were 100 flock-beds for a hospital. Three pieces of cannon were thought sufficient in view of an Irish siege. On the seventh day the ships grounded at the entrance of Lough Foyle, waited for the tide, advanced a little, and then grounded again. At last, on May 16, the work of unloading began at Culmore. One hundred men fired a volley from the shore, and horse were also visible; but they did not venture to dispute the landing, and in six days an entrenchment capable of sheltering 200 men was thrown up about some ruined walls. O’Dogherty had dismantled his castle of Ellogh in the immediate neighbourhood; but it was easily repaired, and received a garrison of 150 men. Having thus made good his ground, Docwra marched with his main body to Derry on the 22nd, and this is how he describes its then condition: – ‘A place in manner of an island comprehending within it forty acres of ground, whereon were the ruins of an old abbey, of a bishop’s house, of two churches, and at one of the ends of it an old castle, the river called Lough Foyle encompassing it all on one side, and a bog, most commonly wet and not easily passable except in two or three places, dividing it from the mainland… the ground being high, and therefore dry, and healthy to dwell upon. At that end where the old castle stood, being close to the water side, I presently resolved to raise a fort to keep our store of ammunition and victuals in, and in the other a little above, where the walls of an old cathedral church were yet standing, to erect another for our future safety and retreat unto upon all occasions.’ Wisely refusing to be tempted into pursuit of cunning enemies on their own ground, Docwra devoted his whole strength to the task of making the place habitable for the winter. Two ships were sent to coast along for timber and building materials, and a strong party was sent to cut birch in O’Cahan’s woods on the other side of the Foyle. ‘There was,’ he said, ‘not a stick brought home that was not well fought for.’ The ruins of old Derry and of Randolph’s settlement were utilised, stone and slate were found hard by, and ‘of cockle shells to make a lime we discovered infinite plenty of in a little island in the mouth of the harbour as we came in.’[344 - Docwra’s Narration, edited by O’Donovan for the Celtic Society’s Miscellany. The cockle-shell island was probably one of the ‘kitchen-middens’ which are common on the Irish coast.]

Docwra fortifies Derry (May to June)

To prevent Tyrone’s whole force from being directed against Docwra before he was in a position to stand a siege, Mountjoy himself moved northwards at the same time. He advanced as far as Newry, and Tyrone immediately faced him and turned his back to Lough Foyle. Southampton followed the Deputy with a small force, and the Irish attempted to cut him off in the Moyry pass. There was some sharp fighting, but the Earl, who behaved valiantly, charging more than 200 horse with only six followers, made good his junction with the main army, and Mountjoy, having waited at Newry till he heard that Docwra was safe, turned back to Dublin. Tyrone and O’Donnell, with about 5,000 men, then threatened the new settlement at Derry, but the garrison stood strictly on the defensive and nothing was done. Docwra thought it prudent to abandon the project of detaching 1,000 men to Ballyshannon, and losses by sickness soon showed the wisdom of his decision. Sir Arthur O’Neill, son of old Tirlogh Luineach, came to the fort with a few followers, and the garrison found abundant occupation in hunting cows for their own consumption, and in skirmishing with the O’Cahans and O’Dogherties.[345 - Docwra’s Narration; Fynes Moryson’s Itinerary, part ii. lib. i. cap. 2; Four Masters, 1600. Mountjoy left Dublin on May 6, and remained out till the end of the month. See also his letter to Carew of July 1 in Carew. ‘The garrison of Derry,’ say the annalists, ‘were seized with disease on account of the narrowness of the place and the heat of the summer. Great numbers died of this sickness.’]

Carew in Munster. Florence MacCarthy

Carew’s great idea was to divide his enemies by policy before he proceeded to crush them by force. His first object was to disarm the active hostility of Florence MacCarthy, and to that end he sought an interview with him. ‘So fearful a creature,’ he said, ‘I did never see, mistrusting to be killed by every man he saw,’ but both Lord Thomond and Sir Nicholas Walshe swore solemnly that he should return safely. The practical result of the conference was that Florence promised the President to remain neutral, while the Sugane Earl reminded him that he would be more than 1,700 strong, and that he would take no excuse. Another means of weakening the rebels was to make them distrust each other, and to this end Carew encouraged a protected rebel, named John Nugent, who had been in the service of Sir Thomas Norris and had deserted, to kill John Fitzthomas, the Sugane Earl’s brother. The attempt failed, and Nugent was promptly hanged; but it was known that the would-be assassin had obtained money, a horse and arms from the President, and the feeling of insecurity among the Irish became as great as if the murder had actually taken place.[346 - Carew to Cecil, May 6 and Aug. 17; Pacata Hibernia, lib. i. chaps. v. and vi.]

Carew employs Dermot O’Connor, who arrests Desmond (June)

Another plot was directed against the Sugane Earl himself, and it came very near succeeding. Dermot O’Connor and his wife proved quite ready to do the President’s work, and Lady Margaret’s unwillingness to acknowledge any Desmond but her brother was an excuse which would have some weight with the people of Munster. The jealousy between Dermot’s mercenaries and the followers of James Fitzthomas was already excessive. At all events Dermot agreed to deliver up the Sugane Earl for 1,000l. Archbishop MacGrath had been active in the matter, and his two sons became securities for Carew, along with two of Lady Margaret’s foster-brothers, named Power. To give up these hostages openly would have disclosed the plot, and it was arranged that they should fall as it were accidentally into Dermot’s hands. They very nearly fell victims to the violence of his men, who were not in the secret. To give Dermot the desired opportunity of seizing his ally, the President ostentatiously dispersed his force, by way of putting him off his guard. As a further protection Carew wrote a letter to the Sugane Earl, which made it appear that he had undertaken to deliver O’Connor alive or dead; and it was calculated that this would be sufficient defence for the latter when the treachery should have taken effect. The letter was placed in Dermot’s hands in such a way that he could say he had intercepted it. All precautions having been taken, O’Connor asked for an interview with the man whom he intended to betray. They distrusted one another, and each brought an armed force with him. The ill-feeling already existing between the followers of Tyrone and Desmond soon found a vent, and, to avoid further disunion, the two leaders agreed to dismiss their men. Dermot had a few trusty adherents in ambush, and with their help he arrested the Sugane Earl in O’Neill’s name, producing Carew’s letter as sufficient warrant. The prisoner was secured at Castle Ishin, near Charleville, and word was sent to the President to come to Kilmallock, where Lady Margaret was to meet him and receive the promised thousand pounds.[347 - Pacata Hibernia, lib. i. ch. vii.; Four Masters. June 18 is the proper date of this capture; the annalists wrongly say that it was in January.]

O’Donnell harries Clare

In the meantime Hugh Roe O’Donnell had resolved to follow up Tyrone’s plan of persecuting all native lords who refused to join the confederacy. Lord Barry had already suffered, and the Earls of Clanricarde and Thomond were now to have their turn. It was seen that Docwra was not strong enough to take the offensive, and Tyrone, therefore, required no help as against him. Leaving a corps of observation under O’Dogherty and Nial Garv O’Donnell, Hugh Roe mustered all his forces at Ballymote. The chiefs who came to him were O’Rourke, O’Connor Sligo, O’Connor Roe, MacDermot, and Theobald Burke, calling himself MacWilliam Iochtar. The allies marched without fighting to the neighbourhood of Gort, and then suddenly burst into Clare. A camp was pitched near Ennis, where only the monastery was spared, and plundering parties were sent in all directions west of the Fergus. ‘Many a feast,’ say the annalists, ‘fit for a goodly gentleman, or for the lord of a territory, was enjoyed throughout Thomond this night by parties of four or five men, under the shelter of a shrubbery or at the side of a bush.’

and Clanricarde

Retreating slowly to Corcomroe Abbey, and scouring the country right and left, the invaders burned every house; and we are particularly told that the smoke enveloped the whole line of march, and that it was dense enough to make them lose their way. The rocky passes of Burren were passed without opposition, and the victorious raiders encamped near Oranmore, where they divided their immense booty of cattle. A few had been killed and wounded in the foray, especially in the attack on Clare Castle, and the survivors were sent home in charge of Theobald Burke and of those who guarded the cattle. O’Donnell himself, with 500 foot and 60 horse, went to Loughrea, and drove off all the herds they could find to Ballymote. The English account says that Thomond punished his enemies with the help of Captain Flower and of over 800 English soldiers, and that he recovered a great part of his cattle; but of this the annalists – ever favourable to O’Donnell – make no mention. In Clanricarde there seems to have been no opposition at all.[348 - This raid was at midsummer. —Four Masters and Pacata Hibernia, lib. i. ch. viii.]

The Sugane Earl rescued

O’Donnell’s enterprise restored the spirits of the Irish, and perhaps prevented Carew from seizing his prey promptly. Piers Lacy collected 4,000 men and suddenly surrounded Castle Ishin. Carew had vainly awaited Lady Margaret for a week at Kilmallock, and he now, in spite of Flower’s absence, advanced to the rescue. But it was too late. A priest had persuaded the garrison, and the Sugane Earl was already in Lacy’s hands. Dermot O’Connor excused himself, and no doubt this failure was not his fault; but the chance of 1,000l. was lost, and he soon made friends with the rebels once more. The Munster Irish still very naturally mistrusting him, he withdrew into Connaught, and on his brother-in-law’s restoration to the honours of Desmond again offered his services to Carew. A safe-conduct was accordingly sent to him, but he was waylaid near Gort by Tibbot-ne-Long Burke, with 100 men in the Queen’s pay, taken prisoner, and put to death. Private revenge was Burke’s motive, but Clanricarde and the President were ‘exceedingly incensed’ at a murder which threw doubts upon the good faith of both.[349 - Pacata Hibernia, lib. i. cap. 18. The date of the murder was Oct. 24.]

Mountjoy’s share in the Essex conspiracy

Elizabeth’s dislike to name a successor was well known, and should have been respected by one who owed so much to her as Essex did. That there was, in fact, no dispute about the matter was due to Cecil’s admirable management, but the Earl’s uneasy ambition was not likely to lose the chance of establishing a claim on the coming man. He entered into negotiations with James in 1598, representing that Cecil favoured the claims of the Infanta and was plotting to make them good. James had little to fear from any rival; but it was in his nature to be busy, and he intrigued with Tyrone as well as with Essex. In August 1599, immediately before his journey to the north, the latter thought seriously of taking 2,000 or 3,000 men over to Wales, and broached the design privately to Southampton and Blount, who both earnestly dissuaded him. It was about that time that Mountjoy also opened communications with James, and with him the influence of Lady Rich may have counted for much. His first proposals to the Scottish king are not known, but we may judge of their nature by what happened afterwards. When Essex after his return from Ireland, was committed to the Lord-Keeper’s house, and in daily fear of being sent to the Tower, he called upon Mountjoy and Southampton to look after his interests. They were willing to help him to escape, but he declared himself ready ‘rather to run any danger than to lead the life of a fugitive.’ When it was finally decided that Mountjoy should undertake the government of Ireland, Essex pressed him to take some more decided course. ‘He then swore,’ says one who was present, ‘exacting the like oaths from my Lord of Southampton and myself, to defend with the uttermost of our lives her Majesty’s person and government during her life against all persons whatsoever, and it was resolved to send Henry Lee again into Scotland, with offer that if the King would enter into the cause at that time, Lord Mountjoy would leave the kingdom of Ireland defensibly guarded, and with 4,000 or 5,000 men assist that enterprise, which, with the party that my Lord of Essex would be able to make, were thought sufficient to bring that to pass which was intended.’ It seems that James was not expected to do more than show himself on the border, while his ambassador in London pressed for a public acknowledgment of his right to the succession. Lee was still in Scotland when Mountjoy went to Ireland, and he was arrested as soon as he returned. What Essex intended, or whether he had any definite plan at all, may be doubted; but Mountjoy made it clear that he at least was playing only ‘for the establishment of the succession, and not for private ambition.’[350 - Declaration of Sir Charles Danvers in the correspondence of James VI. with Cecil (Camden Society). The evidence of Cuffe, Blount, and Southampton in the same collection bears this out. Southampton saw James’s answer to Mountjoy’s first letter. It contained nothing but compliments, allowing of his reservations, and referring him for the matter to the bearer (Lee), who delivered unto him that the King would think of it, and put himself in readiness to take any good occasion.’ There is a letter to Essex at Hatfield dated from the Court at Nonsuch, Aug. 18, 1599, in which Thomas Wenman warns the Earl that he had been slandered to the King of Scots as being opposed to his succession, that James would work all craft for his destruction, and that he should be careful who he had about him.]