Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum, Vol. I (of 3), 1603-1642

The despoiled Protestants flock into Drogheda

Wretched state of the refugees

Sir Faithful Fortescue leaves Drogheda in the lurch. Lord Moore

Tichborne reaches Drogheda, Nov. 4

Lord Moore heard of the Ulster rising on October 23, and of his sister Lady Blaney’s imprisonment. He was then at home at Mellifont, but came into Drogheda at midnight and roused the mayor and aldermen, who cursed the rebels ‘foully,’ but were very slow to make any preparations for resistance. Not forty men answered the call to arms, and they were armed with pitchforks and fowling pieces. On the 26th he brought in his wife and family and his own troop of horse. There were two half standing companies under Netterville and Rockley, but the former’s loyalty was suspected, and the men could scarcely be trusted. Moore posted to Dublin, but could only obtain a commission for Captain Seafowl Gibson to raise a company. Gibson brought down arms and ammunition and got a hundred Protestant recruits in two hours. Some of these watched for ten nights running. In the meantime the Irish had taken Dundalk and were plundering all Protestants not five miles from Drogheda. ‘Miserable spectacles of wealthy men and women,’ says Bernard, ‘utterly spoiled and undone, nay, stripped stark naked, with doleful cries, came flocking in to us by multitudes, upon whom our bowels could not but yearn.’ The majority of the townsmen only smiled, but took care to ring alarm bells when the Protestants were at church. Sir Faithful Fortescue, who was married to Lord Moore’s sister, had been lately appointed governor of the town, and he also went to Dublin for help. Finding none, he resigned his commission in disgust and went to England. ‘By his disheartening letters,’ says Bernard, ‘he gave us over, being willing to hazard his life for us, yet loth to lose his reputation also.’ Moore assumed the command, but he had only about 300 men including Gibson’s recruits, and the Roman Catholic population was all but openly hostile. Bernard summoned all the Protestants privately man by man to meet in the church, and the whole congregation solemnly vowed that if God would defend them they would endeavour to serve Him better in future. Three days later there was a solemn fast. Half of Moore’s troop patrolled the streets every night, while the other half scoured the country, to guard against surprise and to collect cows and other provisions for the garrison. Two hundred of the enemy were killed during these raids and eighty brought in alive. ‘Such was our mercy,’ says Bernard, ‘we only hanged six,’ the remaining prisoners being so well fed by the townsmen that they did not care to escape. A well-written copy of Sir Phelim O’Neill’s proclamation was picked up in the streets, and a general rising of the inhabitants was feared. Then came news that the Scots had retaken Newry. The report proved false, but it strengthened Moore’s hands, and Bernard was reminded of the trampling of horse heard by the Syrians before Samaria. Sir John Netterville fell foul of the acting governor, declaring that the Irish should not be called rebels, and he was suspected of having the guns stuffed so as to render them unserviceable. Many well-to-do Protestants escaped by sea, but Bernard refused to desert his poorer flock. He was also unwilling to part from Ussher’s library, which was in his charge, and which might easily have shared the fate of Lord Conway’s and the Bishop of Meath’s. On November 4 Sir Henry Tichborne appeared with his forces, and after that the townsmen could do nothing; but they showed their discontent by keeping him waiting from two o’clock in the afternoon until nine at night before they would provide him with quarters.[302 - From October 23 to November 4 we are dependent on Dr. Nicholas Bernard’s Whole Proceedings of the Siege of Drogheda. After the latter date we have also Tichborne’s own account.]

Drogheda besieged, 1641-2

A successful sally

Provisions introduced by sea

A night attack repulsed

Sir Phelim gains the chief command

Tichborne found that the Julianstown disaster had virtually decided the whole wavering population of the Pale. He saw that he would have to maintain himself for some time without much help, and that food would soon be scarce. He strengthened the fortifications of the Millmount on the southern bank of the Boyne, and mounted four guns there. The rebels had destroyed most of the provisions in the neighbourhood, but there was still a quantity of unthreshed wheat at Greenhills, near the eastern or St. Lawrence’s gate on the south side of the Boyne. On December 3 he sent a body of cavalry round by a gate further to the north, and leaving other men under arms in the town, he himself marched straight to his point. The advanced guard was driven in panic-stricken, and for a moment it seemed as if there would be another Julianstown. But Tichborne managed to rally his men, dismounting to show that he would share their fate, and shouting, ‘They run!’ while the first volleys hid the field. ‘It appeared somewhat otherwise,’ says Tichborne, ‘upon the clearing up of the smoke,’ but his courage inspired his followers and they gained a complete victory, pursuing the enemy for nearly a mile. Of the besiegers two hundred were killed, while Tichborne had only four men wounded. After this success the garrison were always ready to fight, while the besiegers were always beaten in the open field. An attempt to carry the town by assault during the long night of December 20 failed, and several successful sallies were made during the following three weeks. Tichborne sent a pinnace to Dublin for help. At first no one could be got to steer her, but he placed some of the aldermen on board in situations exposed to the fire of the besiegers. The result was that pilots were quickly found. In answer to this appeal six vessels were sent with provisions and ammunition for the garrison, and on January 11 they came from Skerries to the Boyne in one tide. Clumsy efforts had been made to block the channel with a chain and with a sunken ship, but the bar was nevertheless passed and the stores safely landed. The garrison, who had been half-starved, feasted that night, and the officers, though specially cautioned, could not keep as strict discipline as usual. Tichborne was writing despatches all night, and about four in the morning he heard a muttering noise which differed from the sounds caused by wind and rain. He ran out with his pistols and found that five hundred of the enemy had entered an orchard between St. James’s Gate and the right bank of the river. A weak spot in the wall had been opened with pickaxes, and the Irish had crept in two or three at a time. Tichborne turned out the nearest guard, bade them fire across the river, and ran towards the bridge, where he found his own company under arms. Leaving these trusty men to maintain the passage, he ran to the main guard, where he found a good deal of confusion, but many followed him, and he regained the bridge just in time to reinforce those who were holding it against great odds. Tichborne’s horse was led out by a groom, but broke away from him and galloped madly about the paved streets. Believing that cavalry would soon be upon them, the assailants broke. Nearly half escaped by the gate at which they had entered; the rest were killed or hidden by friendly townsmen. The whole attack had been planned by a friar, and shots were fired at Tichborne’s men out of a convent, but the assailants were so badly led that they never thought of seizing St. James’s Gate, though they might easily have done so from the inside. A strong body was drawn up outside, expecting to be let in. A bagpiper was among those who had been taken, and some officers made him play while they opened the gate. Those who entered were at once overpowered. The result of this failure was to show the lords of the Pale that divided counsels were dangerous, and they gave Sir Phelim O’Neill command over all the forces about Drogheda.[303 - Sir Henry Tichborne’s Letter; Bellings. The date of Sir Phelim’s accession to the chief command is fixed by Henry Aylmer’s examination in Contemp. Hist. i. 403. Bernard’s Whole Proceedings.]

Tichborne at Drogheda

Mellifont destroyed

‘After Tichborne’s arrival,’ says Bernard, ‘we took heart to call the enemy rebels instead of “discontented gentlemen.”’ The garrison consisted of 1500 foot and 160 horse, so that the malcontents within the walls were afraid. One Stanley, a town councillor, who had been an officer in the enemy’s army, came in on protection accompanied by the sheriff of Louth, who was a member of Parliament. These two advised Moore to go to Mellifont, reminding him that his father had lived there safely all through Tyrone’s rebellion, and suggesting that he might be general if he pleased. Moore knew better, and being now released from the cares of command, went in the middle of November to Dublin, where Parliament was about to meet. He offered to raise six hundred men, and to pay and clothe them himself until money came from England, provided he should be their colonel, with the addition of about four hundred men at Drogheda, who were not part of Tichborne’s own regiment. As soon as the Irish heard of this offer they destroyed Mellifont. The garrison of twenty-four musketeers with fifteen horsemen and some servants refused Macmahon’s first offer of quarter, and were overwhelmed by numbers after their powder was spent. The mounted men escaped to Drogheda, but all the others were killed. The women were stripped stark naked. The scum of the country were allowed to plunder at will, and they carried away the doors and windows and smashed all the glass and crockery. The chapel was selected as a proper place to consume the contents of the cellar, the bell was broken, and a large Bible thrown into the millpond. Finding some tulips and other bulbs, they ate them with butter, but this food disagreed with them, and they cursed the heretics as poisoners.[304 - Bernard’s Whole Proceedings; Carte’s Ormonde, i. 239.]

Drogheda was not closely invested

Narrow escape of Sir Phelim, who retires from Drogheda

Ormonde relieves the town, March 11

During the first three weeks of February several successful sallies were made by the garrison. They were, however, at one time reduced to small rations of herrings, malt, and rye, and it seemed doubtful whether they could hold out. Many horses died for lack of provender. At four o’clock on the morning of Sunday, February 21, Sir Phelim attempted an escalade at a quiet spot near St. Lawrence’s Gate, but the sentries were on the alert, and the assailants fled, leaving thirteen ladders behind them. On the 27th there was another sally, and three hundred of the Irish were killed on the fatal field of Julianstown. On March 1 Tichborne sent out four companies of foot and a troop of horse to forage on the south side of the Boyne. There was some resistance, and in the afternoon the governor went out himself. The Irish advanced from the little village of Stameen, but fled at the approach of horse. The redoubtable Sir Phelim only escaped capture by crouching like a hare in a furze-bush, and the Meath side was thenceforth safe. ‘The noise of vast preparations for besieging the town,’ says Bellings, ‘which at first was frightful, grew contemptible.’ Food supplies were now secure, and Tichborne assumed the offensive more boldly than before. On March 5 Lord Moore led out five hundred men to Tullyallen, near Mellifont, Tichborne following him with a reserve force. Moore engaged the Irish and defeated them with a loss of four hundred men and many officers. Among the prisoners was Art Roe Macmahon, for whose head a reward of 400l. had been promised by Government. The soldiers were going to cut it off when he cried out that Lady Blaney and her children should be saved if his life was spared. Macmahon kept his word, though the result was long doubtful. After this disaster the rebels abandoned their headquarters at Bewley, and Sir Phelim was seen before Drogheda no more. On March 11 Ormonde arrived with 3000 foot and 500 horse, and the so-called siege came to an end. Plattin and Slane were soon in Tichborne’s hands. The Irish army had at one time numbered at least 16,000, but they had neither the skill nor the means for reducing a strong place.[305 - Tichborne’s Letter; Bernard’s Whole Proceedings; Bellings; Sir Simon Harcourt to his wife, February 12, in Harcourt Papers, vol. i.]

Fire and sword in the Pale

Ormonde hampered by the Lords Justices

Ormonde had orders from the Irish Government, who would have preferred to send Sir Simon Harcourt, to ‘prosecute with fire and sword all rebels and traitors, and their adherents and abettors in the counties of Dublin and Meath,’ and to destroy their houses. He was not to go beyond the Boyne, not to do any mischief within five miles of Dublin, and not to be absent more than eight days. He carried out these orders, and reached Drogheda without opposition, after devastating a great part of Meath. There, after consultation with Harcourt, Sir Thomas Lucas, Sir Robert Farrar, Tichborne, and Moore, he asked to be allowed more time and to have leave to advance as far as Newry. This was peremptorily refused, and Temple wrote privately to say that the proposal was ‘absolutely disliked’ by all the Council, and ‘more sharply resented by some.’ The question of proclaiming the lords of the Pale traitors had been referred to England, and Ormonde suggested that it might be well to wait for an answer before burning their houses. He was told that it was no business of his, and that he was to burn. He did so, merely remarking that he had never supposed there was ‘any difference between a rebel lord and a rebel commoner.’ Tichborne had certain information that an attack on Dundalk was feasible, and Ormonde was allowed to give him 500 men and one or two guns. A large force might have been provisioned from Drogheda, but as it turned out Tichborne was strong enough to do the work. Newry fell to the share of the Scots.[306 - Letters from March 3 to 12 printed in Carte’s Ormonde, vol. iii. Bellings.]

Tichborne takes Ardee and Dundalk

English prisoners released

Harsh warfare

On March 21 Tichborne marched with 1200 foot, four troops of horse, and provisions for two days to Ardee, where on the 23rd he found more than 2000 Irish pretty strongly posted on the right bank of the Dee. He drove them over the bridge into the town, with a loss of 600 men, turned their position by fording the river with his horse, and pursued them with further slaughter far into the open country. After consulting Lord Moore and the other officers Tichborne then decided to make a dash at Dundalk, before which he arrived about nine in the morning of April 26. Sir Phelim showed himself with his horse, but made no fight until the English came up to the first gate, which they forced open under a heavy fire. The suburbs were then occupied, but a castle annoyed them there, an officer and some men were killed, and many wished to retire. But the wind was in their favour, and Tichborne ordered some houses to be fired, and came up to the gate of the inner town under cover of the smoke. The Irish in the castle were driven out by heaping fuel against the door, and from the walls Tichborne’s musketeers could fire right into the market place. Sir Phelim and his men then began to pour out at the north gate over the bridge, and the whole town was soon in English hands. Dean Bernard, who was present, remarks on the amount of plunder which the Irish had collected in Dundalk. The victors found plentiful dinners ready dressed in many cases, and consumed 4000 turkeys and other fowls in a week. A hundred and twenty Protestants had been imprisoned by O’Neill under threat that they would be killed if the town were in danger. There had been no time to hurt them, if, indeed, that was intended, and they were released. Ardee and Dundalk were both plundered by their captors, the former in a tumultuary way, and the latter more systematically. ‘The number of the slain,’ says Tichborne, ‘I looked not after, but there was little mercy shown in those times.’[307 - Tichborne and Bernard, ut sup.]

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME

notes

1

Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, April 6; Tyrone to Cecil, April 7; submission of Tyrone, April 8; Godolphin to Carew, April 19. Farmer’s chronicle of this reign begins at p. 40 of MS. Harl. 3544 with a panegyric on ‘Elizabeth the virgin Queen and flower of Christendom that hath been feared for love and honoured for virtue, beloved of her subjects and feared of her enemies, magnified among princes and famozed through the world for justice and equity.’ Since these chapters were written Farmer’s book has been printed by Mr. Litton Falkiner in vol. xxii. of the English Historical Review.

2

In Cambrensis Eversus, published in 1662, John Lynch says ‘the Irish no longer wished to resist James (especially as they believed that he would embrace the Catholic religion), and submitted not unwillingly to his rule, as to one whom they knew to be of Irish royal blood,’ iii. 53. Lynch was a priest in 1622. Stephen Duff, Mayor of Drogheda, to the Lord Deputy and Council, April 13; Mountjoy to Cecil, April 19, 25 and 26; Francis Bryan, sovereign of Wexford, to Mountjoy, April 23. James VI. to Tyrone, December 22, 1597, in Lansdowne MSS. lxxxiv. Tyrone to James VI., April 1600 in the Elizabethan S.P. Scotland. Letters of Elizabeth and James, Camden Society, p. 141. Farmer’s Chronicle.

3

Muster of the army, April 27; Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, Mountjoy to Cecil, and Sir G. Carey to Cecil, May 4; Humphrey May to Cecil, May 5.

4

Authorities last quoted; also Smith’s Waterford.

5

Authorities last quoted; also Hogan’s Hibernia Ignatiana, p. 121.

6

Hogan’s Hibernia Ignatiana, p. 118; Declaration of Edward Sotherne, June 16.

7

Barnabas Kearney and David Wale to Aquaviva (Italian), July 7, 1603, from London, in Hibernia Ignatiana, p. 117. The burning of the service-book is mentioned in the official correspondence.

8

Brief Declaration in Carew, 1603, No. 5; account written by Richard Boyle in Lismore Papers, 2nd series, i. 43. As clerk of the Munster Council Boyle was an eye-witness of all these proceedings. Moryson’s Itinerary, part ii. book iii. chap. 2.

9

Brief Relation in Carew, 1603, No. 5; Irish State Papers calendared from April 20 to May 14; Lismore Papers, 2nd series, i. 43-73; Mountjoy to the Mayor of Cork, May 4, in Cox, p. 7. The full account in Smith’s Cork is mainly founded on the Lismore collection. Lady Carew’s letter of May 5, 1603, among the State Papers and Lady Boyle’s of March 18, 1609, in the Lismore Papers are both printed verbatim, and are interesting to compare as specimens of ladies’ composition.

10

Farmer’s Chronicle in MS. Harl. 3544. Farmer was a surgeon.

11

Authorities last quoted.

12