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

The permanent effects of the Ulster settlement have been very great, though statesmen like Carew could see that there were many dangers ahead. The tone of the Court and of all who wished to please the King by prophesying smooth things may be gathered from the masque which Ben Jonson produced at Somerset’s marriage. Four Irishmen are brought on the stage, who speak in an almost unintelligible jargon. An epilogue in verse alludes to the plantation, whereby James was to raise Ireland from barbarism and poverty, ‘and in her all the fruits of blessing plant.’ The letter-writer Chamberlain says many people disliked the performance, thinking it ‘no time as the case stands to exasperate the nation by making it ridiculous.’ And most modern readers will be of the same opinion.[81 - Nicoll’s Progresses of King James, ii. 733, where Chamberlain’s letter to Carleton is dated January 5, 1513-14.]

CHAPTER VI

CHICHESTER’S GOVERNMENT TO 1613

Optimism of Sir John Davies

Establishment of circuits

In the course of a very thorough investigation Carew found that while much had been done by the settlers, much still remained to do. There were indeed many surveys and inquiries yet to come, before the outbreaks which he foresaw. He knew Ireland thoroughly, and was not to be deceived by false appearances of quiet and contentment. Davies, whose acquaintance with the island was of much later date, remained optimistic. ‘When this plantation,’ he wrote in 1613, ‘hath taken root, and been fixed and settled but a few years … it will secure the peace of Ireland, assure it to the Crown of England for ever; and finally make it a civil, and a rich, a mighty, and a flourishing kingdom.’ He had been one of the first commissioners of assize who ever sat in Tyrone and Tyrconnel, and the justice which he administered, ‘though it was somewhat distasteful to the Irish lords, was sweet and most welcome to the common people.’ Davies has left a pretty full account of some of his various circuits. He visited every part of Ireland, and as his power of observation and description were unusually great it may be as well to follow him in his journeys. General peace having been made possible, first by arms and afterwards by an Act of Oblivion, it was from the establishment of justice that the greatest good was to be expected, and it was necessary to make it visible by regular assizes held in every county. ‘These progresses of the law,’ Davies wrote, ‘renew and confirm the conquest of Ireland every half year, and supply the defect of the King’s absence in every part of the Realm; in that every judge sitting in the seat of justice, doth represent the person of the King himself.’[82 - Davies’s Discovery, 1613. It appears, however, from his letter to Salisbury, December 1, 1603, that Chief Baron Pelham held the first assize in Donegal without his help, and before his arrival in Ireland. The contemporary letter must prevail against the treatise written ten years later.]

Leinster Assizes, 1604

King’s and Queen’s Counties

Carlow and Wexford

Churches in ruins

Poverty of priests and people

Davies’s first assize appears to have been in Leinster in the spring of 1604. The country was on the whole quiet, and the gaols only half full of petty thieves. As for the King’s and Queen’s counties, the O’Mores and O’Connors had been nearly rooted out by the war: ‘the English families there begin to govern the country, and such of the Irishry as remain, such as M’Coghlan, O’Molloy, O’Doyn, O’Dempsey, they seem to conform themselves to a civil life, and gave their attendance very dutifully.’ Carlow and Wexford, however, were infested by a band of 100 kerne, Donnel Spaniagh Kavanagh and the sons of Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne being at the bottom of the mischief. Pardons had always been granted so easily that the outlaws had little to fear. At Carlow it appeared that there had lately been a conference between Tyrone, Mountgarret, Phelim and Redmond MacFeagh O’Byrne and Donnel Spaniagh. There was much drinking and swords were drawn. Davies did not know the object of the meeting, but dared affirm that it was not that religion and peace might be established in this kingdom. As for religion, indeed, there would be good hope of filling the churches if they were first repaired. In fact he found them everywhere in ruins, and the State clergy were lazy and ignorant, which did more harm than could be done by the diligence of priests and Jesuits whose object was political and not religious, but only ‘to serve the turn of Tyrone and the King of Spain. They would be glad to be banished by proclamation, for they that go up and down the Cross of Tipperary get nothing but bacon and oatmeal, the people are so poor.’[83 - Davies to Cecil, April 19, 1604.]

Justice in Connaught

In Ulster

In Munster

Assizes at Waterford

At Cork, 1606

Later in the year Davies was with Lord Clanricarde at Athlone, where he held his presidential court. Clanricarde, though he had but a weak council, not only did his business very well, but kept house in a very honourable fashion. It had been reported on both sides of the Channel that Lady Clanricarde, the daughter of Walsingham, the widow of Sidney and Essex, was not satisfied with her position, but he found her ‘very well contented and every way as well served as ever he saw her in England.’ Davies was in London during part of the following year. He was on circuit as commissioner of assize in Ulster before leaving Ireland, and in the spring of 1606 after his appointment as Attorney-General he was associated with Chief Justice Walshe as circuit-judge in Munster. The arrangement was contrary to modern ideas, but no doubt it was convenient to have a judge who could draw bills of indictment himself and afterwards pronounce upon their validity. He rightly thought Munster the finest province of the four, but it had one thing in common with Ulster, and that was the readiness of the people to accept the services of the judges. The poor northern people were glad to escape from the lewd Brehons who knew no other law but the will of the chief lords, and the Munster men, though not dissatisfied with the President, felt that the local justices might have interested motives, and were ‘glad to see strangers joined with them, and seemed to like the aspect of us that were planets, as well as that of their own fixed stars.’ At Waterford, where they held their first sittings, the judges found very few prisoners that were not ‘bastard imps of the Powers and Geraldines of the Decies.’ They always had cousins on the jury, and no convictions could be had unless the evidence was absolutely clear, when threats of the Star Chamber generally produced a verdict. The ‘promiscuous generation of bastards’ he believed due to slack government both civil and ecclesiastical. They were considered just as good as the lawful children, and commonly shared the inheritance as well as the name. ‘I may truly affirm,’ he said, ‘that there are more able men of the surname of the Bourkes than of any name whatsoever in Europe.’ And so it was with all the great families, whether Anglo-Norman or Celtic. To scatter and break up these clannish combinations appeared to Davies an excellent policy. The judges slept at Dungarvan and Youghal, where they saw the chief people, dined with Lord Barrymore on their way to Cork, and found the gaols there pretty full. They lectured the chief gentry upon their addiction to ‘coshery and other Irish occupations,’ in spite of the King’s proclamation.[84 - Davies to Salisbury, December 8, 1604 and May 4, 1606.]

Assizes for Limerick and Clare

At Mallow Davies stayed at Lady Norris’s house ‘by a fair river in a fruitful soil, but yet much unrepaired and bearing many marks of the late rebellion.’ From Mallow the judges went by Kilmallock through ‘a sweet and fertile country to Limerick, where the walls, buildings, and anchorage were all that could be wished; yet such is the sloth of the inhabitants that all these fair structures have nothing but sluttishness and poverty within.’ They held first the assizes for Clare, of which Lord Thomond was governor. He and Lord Bourke had provided a large house on the right bank of the Shannon, so that Limerick served as quarters for both counties. In Clare, said Davies, ‘when I beheld the appearance and fashion of the people I would I had been in Ulster again, for these are as much mere Irish as they, and in their outward form not much unlike them,’ but speaking good English and understanding the proceedings well enough. He found the principal gentry civilised, but the common people behind those of Munster, though much might be hoped from Lord Thomond’s example. Having delivered the gaols, the judges considered how they might cut off Maurice McGibbon Duff and Redmond Purcell, ‘notorious thieves, or, as they term them, rebels,’ who were allied to and protected by the White Knight and by Purcell of Loughmoe in Tipperary. Purcell was enticed into a private house and given up to the Lord President, who promptly hanged him, as well as ‘many fat ones’ who sheltered Maurice McGibbon, but the latter seems to have escaped for the time, though snares were laid for him on all sides.[85 - Davies to Salisbury, May 4, 1606; Brouncker’s letter of September 12, 1606.]

Assizes at Clonmel

From Limerick by Cashel, ‘over the most rich and delightful valley,’ the judges came to Clonmel, the capital of Ormonde’s palatinate, and ‘more haunted with Jesuits and priests’ than any place in Munster. There was evidence to show that some of them were privy to the Gunpowder Plot, and yet all the principal inhabitants refused any indulgence founded upon a promise to exclude them from their houses. A true bill for recusancy was found with some difficulty against 200 of the townsmen, and the chief of them were handed over to the Lord President ‘to be censured with good round fines and imprisonment.’ From Clonmel Davies went to rest on Easter Sunday at Ormonde’s house at Carrick-on-Suir. The old chief, who was blind and ill, insisted on his staying over St. George’s day, ‘when he was not able to sit up, but had his robes laid upon his bed, as the manner is.’[86 - Davies to Salisbury, May 4, 1606; Brouncker’s letter of September 12, 1606.]

Grand jury and petty juries at Monaghan How the gentry lived

Assizes for Fermanagh, and Cavan, 1606

On July 21 Chichester, accompanied by the Lord Chancellor and the Chief Justice, and by Davies, who was again joined in commission with the judges, left Drogheda for Monaghan. Fifty or sixty horse and as many foot soldiers were now considered escort enough where a thousand were formerly necessary. At Monaghan, which was only a collection of cabins, the grand jury found true bills without any difficulty, but when it came to the trial of prisoners the petty juries ‘did acquit them as fast and found them not guilty, but whether it was done for favour or for fear it is hard to judge.’ The whole county was inhabited by three or four clans, and every man was tried by his relations, who were naturally very unwilling to serve as jurors. If they convicted any one they were in danger of being killed or robbed, and of having their houses burned. The only plan suggesting itself to the judges was to fine and imprison those who had given verdicts manifestly against the evidence, and two notorious thieves were then found guilty and executed. The principal gentlemen of the district lived upon beef stolen out of the Pale, ‘for which purpose every one of them keepeth a cunning thief, which he calleth his Cater.’ Two of these gentlemen were indicted as receivers, but were pardoned after confession upon their knees, ‘so that I believe stolen flesh will not be so sweet unto them hereafter.’ In Fermanagh, being further from the Pale, this system of purveyance was not so perfectly established, but there was no lack of malefactors. The assizes were held at Devenish near Enniskillen, but all prisoners were acquitted, owing to the careless way in which the evidence had been prepared by the sheriff and the local justices. At Cavan better order was kept, and several civil suits were decided, and the circuit through the three counties was completed in a month. While the Chief Justice and the Attorney-General were delivering the gaols and hearing causes, the Lord Deputy and the Lord Chancellor were occupied with inquiries into the tenure of land. The inhabitants were invited to say what lands they actually possessed, and to set forth all their titles. The evidence thus collected was carried back to Dublin, where it could be sifted and compared with the records.[87 - Davies to Salisbury, written at Waterford in September 1606, and printed in Davies’s Tracts.]

The Act of Supremacy at Waterford, 1606, at New Ross, at Wexford, and at Wicklow

Rival hierarchies

In September, 1606, Davies accompanied the Chief Justice to Waterford, where the chief business was to impose fines for recusancy. Aldermen were prosecuted in the presidency court, the total sum exacted being less than 400l. Others were indicted under the statute of Elizabeth to recover the penalty of one shilling for absence from Church, and about 240l. was raised in this way. A special jury was empanelled and a sort of commission to inquire into the ecclesiastical state of the county, and the judges then proceeded to New Ross, where they found that occasional conformity was practised, and that there was sometimes riotous brawling to ‘disturb the poor minister from making a sermon which he had prepared for his small auditory,’ and even in celebrating the Sacrament. The sovereign of the town was foremost on these occasions. The leaders were cited before the Star Chamber, and the common people were prosecuted for the shilling fine. At Wexford there were many prisoners, and one was condemned and executed for burning down the Protestant vicar’s house. There were 300 civil bills, and even Donell Spaniagh showed an inclination to substitute litigation for cattle-stealing. At Wicklow assizes were held for the newly made shire, and two ‘notable thieves in the nature of rebels’ were hanged. Here, as at Wexford, there seemed a general inclination to accept the new system, and Feagh McHugh’s son was as litigious as Donell Spaniagh. Here, as at Waterford, an inquisition was ordered into the state of the church, but Davies could not see how fitting incumbents were to be provided. The bishoprics were ‘supplied double,’ one by the King and one by the Pope, but the result was not to advance religion.[88 - Davies to Salisbury, November 12, 1606.]

Compulsory church-going, 1607

In the following summer Davies made a circuit in Meath, Westmeath, Longford, King’s County and Queen’s County. The country was peaceful and the relentless enforcement of the shilling fine for every Sunday’s and holiday’s absence from service had the effect of filling the town churches, but this reformation was ‘principally effected by the civil magistrate,’ for ruined churches and absentee incumbents were general throughout the country. The flight of Tyrone and Tyrconnel soon after made no difference at all in the state of the country generally, and the courts in Dublin were crowded with suitors from all parts of the kingdom.[89 - Davies to Salisbury, August 7 and December 11, 1607.]

The Act of Uniformity in Ulster, 1611

Andrew Knox

The rival churches in Dublin

One of the most active promoters of uniformity was Andrew Knox, Bishop of the Isles, who was appointed to Raphoe in the summer of 1610, but without resigning the first see. After visiting his new diocese, he went to Court and gave such an account of Ulster as to bring on one of the King’s hot fits in the matter of enforced conformity. In his old age Knox learned that Protestants in Ireland could not afford to be divided, and was ready to stretch a point so as to include his Presbyterian fellow-countrymen in the ministry. But in his more pugnacious days he was intent on the impossible task of driving the Roman Catholic population to conform. The result of his representations was an order from James himself directing that the Ulster bishops should meet for the purpose of suppressing Papistry and enforcing uniformity. Each prelate was to visit every parish in his diocese annually, to administer the oath of allegiance to all persons of note, whether spiritual or temporal, to have Jesuits, seminary priests, and friars arrested and brought to the Lord Deputy, and to let no ecclesiastic of foreign ordination enjoy benefice or cure unless he would use the book of Common Prayer. The bishops were to be active in teaching and catechising for the purpose of reclaiming recusants, to repair ruined churches, and to appoint fit pastors, ‘or at least for the present such as can read the service of the Church of England to the common people in the language which they understand’ – that is to say, for the most part in Irish. The exact method was left to Chichester’s discretion, and only four days after the date of James’s letter the Council informed the Lord Deputy that his Majesty had considered how the people were blinded by the Jesuits, and that he might introduce reforms gradually. The latter letter reached Chichester long before the other, but a meeting of bishops not confined to those of the northern province was held in Dublin in June, and while waiting for the arrival of his brethren Knox preached in the Dublin churches. He found that congregations of several hundreds had been reduced to half a dozen, that the clergy of the Establishment, with few exceptions, were careless and inefficient, and that the Papal clergy were active and well supported. The cargoes of ships unloading in Dublin harbour seemed to consist principally of ‘books, clothes, crosses, and ceremonies.’ And still he had good hopes of banishing all these things out of Ulster. Chichester, who was better informed and therefore less sanguine, reported that he had carried out the King’s orders as far as possible, and he republished the proclamation of June 1605. The oath of allegiance he had no legal power to administer. The only practical result of it all was the execution of Bishop O’Devany and some other priests, which certainly did not help the cause of the Reformation.[90 - The King to Chichester, April 26, 1611, sent by Knox and delivered June 15; Lords of the Council to Chichester, April 30; Bishop Knox to Abbot, July 4; Report by Chichester and Archbishop Jones, October 7. O’Sullivan has a full account of Knox’s proceedings, violent in tone but not substantially disagreeing with the official correspondence. He says the Catholics were bound to place in all parish churches at their own expense ‘biblias corruptæ, mendosæque versionis in vulgarem sermonem traductas.’ —Compendium, 221.]

Chichester deports Irishmen to Sweden, 1609-1613

The Swedish service unpopular

Others are sent to Poland

When giving an account of his stewardship in 1614, Chichester took credit for having sent 6,000 disaffected Irishmen to the wars in Sweden. In the main these were the Ulster swordsmen, for whom it was found impossible to find room in Ireland, but some masterless Englishmen and not a few town idlers were included contrary to the Lord Deputy’s orders, and privates sought the ranks as an alternative for the gallows. The majority were partly coaxed into going and partly pressed, nor was the transfer effected without disorder. In the autumn of 1609 three ships left Lough Foyle with 800 men, and another was ready with a full cargo at Carlingford, but the Irish mutinied at the instigation of Hugh Boy O’Neill, ran the vessel on a bank, smashed the compasses, and would have done more mischief if troops had not been soon at hand. Three or four mutineers were ordered for ‘exemplary punishment,’ and were probably hanged, but Hugh Boy escaped and is no more heard of. The ship was got off, but was still unlucky, losing all her rigging in a storm and being with difficulty towed off the coast of Man into a Scotch harbour. There another craft was hired and the voyage continued, but it is not likely that all the men got to Sweden, for the captain in charge wrote from Newcastle to describe their misdoings. Chichester, however, was able to report that before the end of 1609 900 of those who troubled the quiet of Ulster had been got rid of. For example’s sake he had begun with his own territory of Inishowen, and sent away thirty tall fellows who had been in O’Dogherty’s rebellion. Many hundreds were also sent from Leinster who were either loafers in the Pale or belonging to the Kavanaghs, O’Byrnes and O’Tooles, ‘and to speak generally they were all but an unprofitable burden of the earth, cruel, wild, malefactors.’ Among the penniless young men of good Irish family who knew no trade but fighting some were willing enough to serve Sweden as they or their fathers had served Queen Elizabeth. Some had acquired a taste for camp life in Flanders, and others volunteered with a wild idea of joining Tyrone on the Continent, or because their position at home was desperate. Such men had their personal followers, but there seems little doubt that the rank and file were for the most part pressed. The Swedish service had not a good name, perhaps because the discipline was too severe, and the priests from abroad, ‘all lusty able young men, always well armed,’ did what they could to make it unpopular. Some said that it was intended to throw all the Irish swordsmen overboard; others with better reason maintained that it was ‘altogether unlawful to go to such a war, where they should fight for a heretic and an usurper agains a Catholic and a rightful King.’ The description might apply to Charles of Sweden first and later to the Elector Palatine. Chichester persevered, but assuming that he actually sent off 6,000 there were still plenty left in Ireland. Sir Robert Jacob, the Solicitor-General, said there were 2,000 idle men who had no means ‘but to feed upon the gentlemen of the country … he is accounted the bravest man that comes attended with most of those followers.’ There were 4,000 of the same sort still in Ulster, 3,000 in Leinster, and as many in Munster. In 1619, St. John thought 10,000 might well be spared to any foreign prince. There are no better soldiers than disciplined Irishmen, but there seem to have been difficulties in Sweden with these wild men, for Gustavus Adolphus, the year before his death, declined the services of an Irish regiment as not being trustworthy. Irish friars dressed like soldiers were often busy in persuading their comrades to desert Sweden or Denmark and join the Spanish forces in the Netherlands. The King of Poland was, however, allowed a little later to raise men in Ireland. The religious question did not arise in this case, yet the Lord Deputy was ordered to watch the recruits lest they should run away, ‘as it has been ofttimes in such case,’ as soon as they had received their first pay. When the Spanish match was broken off it was thought that the Poles would exert themselves to prevent the northern powers from interfering in case the Spaniards and their allies were to invade King James’s dominions.[91 - Jacob, S. G., to Salisbury, October 18, 1609; Davies to same, October 19; Chichester to same, October 31; Captain Lichfield to same, December 31, Lords of the Council to Chichester, June 8, 1610; Richard Morres (‘a poor soldier to my lord’) to Salisbury, 1611, No. 353; Note of Lord Chichester’s services calendared at May 1614, No. 825; Vice-Treasurer Ridgeway’s minute, August 1615, No. 166; Lord Esmond to Dorchester, June 20, 1631. Court and Times of Charles I., ii. 135. For the Polish element in the matter see the State Papers, Ireland, calendared at September 29, 1619, August 1621, No. 773, and June 17, 1624.]

Prevalence of piracy

The preamble of the Act of 1614, against piracy, sets forth that ‘traitors, pirates, thieves, robbers, murderers, and confederators at sea’ often escaped punishment through defects in the law, and alterations were made which may have abated the evil but without curing it. The weak and corrupt administration of the navy, which was long sheltered by Nottingham’s great name, had made the sea unsafe, and the harbours of Munster lay open to the rovers. Before the end of 1605 a pirate named Connello was imprisoned in England for robbing some Exeter merchants, but was saved by the intercession of the Howard faction, some of whom were very probably paid. Those who had been active in apprehending him were threatened with vengeance, and Connello attacked a Barnstaple vessel and carried the oil and wool which she contained to the neighbourhood of Wexford, where he was captured. The captain, master, and one other old offender were sent to England and there hanged, though they hoped to escape through the same help as before; but Devonshire, who was still Lord-Lieutenant, probably prevented this. They could all read well, but Chichester begged that such offenders might be deprived by law of ‘the benefit of their book.’[92 - Chichester to Devonshire, January 2, 1606; to Salisbury, April 13, 1608.]

Weakness of the navy

Chichester was willing to hang a thousand pirates if he could catch them, but this was not at all easy. Englishmen and Flemings infested the Spanish coast and fell back upon Ireland for provisions. In one year they robbed more than 100 fishing boats on the Munster station, and all trade was unsafe; but the Admiralty gave very little help. Sometimes there was a King’s ship at hand and sometimes there was not, and the Irish Government had to do as best they could with the help of private craft, or, Chichester wrote in the summer of 1607, ‘to descend to such little acts and strategems as of late has been done at Youghal.’ There were two Bristol vessels in that harbour together, one commanded by Captain Coward, who was supposed to be a pirate. Captain Hampton, instigated by the acting vice-admiral, hid eighty men under hatches, and seizing his opportunity, took possession of Coward’s and killed some of his crew. Coward’s guns fell into the hands of authority, and Chichester would have sent him over to England for trial, but Lord Thomond ‘found it more expedient to cherish him for his better part, being a good seaman and an excellent pilot upon this coast.’ It is no wonder that the Privy Council found it hard to understand such proceedings, and that they were at their wits’ ends ‘to satisfy the ambassadors of foreign princes.’ Coward naturally relapsed into his old courses in the following year, but at last he was captured with a scarcely less formidable comrade named Barrett, on the Connaught coast, by fishermen under the command of a Dutch engineer in the service of the Irish Government. These pirates appear to have been sent to England for trial, but Chichester was now in favour of pardoning them lest their allies should carry out their threat of burning the Newfoundland fishing fleet. Hitherto they had attacked foreigners chiefly, but if driven to desperation they would certainly not spare Englishmen. Whether Coward and Barrett were hanged or not, they appear no more in the Irish correspondence, but there were plenty of others to do the work.[93 - Wilmot’s letter, January 16, 1606; Chichester to the Council, July 16, 1607; Lords of Council to Chichester, March 8, 1608, and his answer, March 30; Chief Baron Winch to Chichester, April 2; Council to Chichester, April 27, 1609; Chichester to Salisbury, July 19, 1610; to Salisbury and Nottingham, September 21; Council to Chichester, July 31.]

Land thieves and water thieves

Settlement at Baltimore

Baltimore, the scene of a terrible tragedy in the next reign, was at first thought of as a suitable haven for the pirates, but the vigilance of Mr. Thomas Crooke made it unsafe for them. Their many allies and abettors on land accused Crooke of complicity in their misdeeds, but of this there was no evidence at all. Were he never so guiltless, the Privy Council wrote, his accusers would never believe it, and he was therefore sent to London, where he was triumphantly acquitted. Like other energetic men who have helped to root English power in distant lands, Crooke had no want of detractors, but Lord Danvers, the President of Munster, was instructed to help him, and he was very willing to do so, being determined to prevent the coast of his province from being ‘like Barbary, common and free to all pirates.’ He had been specially charged by Salisbury and other ministers to look after a Spanish ship which had been seized by some rovers and was likely to reach Ireland. She was in fact brought or washed into Baltimore, and Danvers, ‘knowing she was no better than Drake’s monument at Deptford,’ was ready to believe that she had gold hidden among her rotten timbers, and undertook to save her from being broken up by the pirates or their sympathisers on land, ‘who would not leave the gates of hell unripped open in hope of gain.’ As to Crooke, the Lord President enclosed a letter from the Bishop of Cork and others which shows how precarious the position of the best English settlers was. The bishop was William Lyon, a man of the highest character and a shining light among Irish Reformation prelates, who knew the district thoroughly. In two years Crooke had ‘gathered out of England a whole town of English people, larger and more civilly and religiously ordered than any town in this province that began so lately, which has made him to be violently opposed and accused by divers persons who would weaken him in his good work.’ He had been constantly employed against the pirates and both Brouncker and Danvers had acknowledged the value of his services. When Baltimore was incorporated with a view to the Parliament of 1613, Crooke became a burgess, and was its first representative in the House of Commons.[94 - Lords of Council to Chichester, March 8, 1608, and his answer, March 30; James Salmon (afterwards first Provost of Baltimore) to Thomas Crooke, June 23; Danvers to Salisbury, November 20, enclosing the letter from Bishop Lyon and others; Privy Council to Danvers, November 20; Liber Munerum Publicorum, vii. 50, where Crooke is described as ‘armiger in legibus eruditus.’]

For long after the battle of Lepanto, the Spanish galleys had been supreme in the western half of the Mediterranean. The Armada proved that in a rough sea oars could do but little against sails, and in the winter the rovers had it all their own way. In summer they sought the Irish coast, where there were plenty of quiet harbours and of people who were willing to receive stolen goods.

The Lord President blockaded by pirates

A penitent corsair

At the beginning of 1609, Lord Danvers was afraid to leave Cork harbour without the protection of a man of war, and after that date pirates continued to multiply. Their principal resort was Long Island Sound, to the west of Schull in the county of Cork. It was a fine anchorage for the largest ships then afloat, and the estuary now called Croagh harbour was available for careening. A squadron of eleven ships with a thousand men appeared on the coast in command of Edward Bishop, whom the pirates had chosen admiral, and as many more were expected to join them. Bishop was an able man, who was perhaps sorry for having chosen such a dirty trade, and it was thought possible to reclaim and employ him. He did not like siding with Turks against Christians in the Mediterranean, and he hated the ruffian John Ward, who had seduced so many English sailors from their allegiance. The Venetians hung thirty-six men at Scio, which may have increased Bishop’s dislike to the work. When his fleet appeared off Ireland negotiations were soon opened, and after a while he submitted, and seemed really repentant, for he twice refused to accept the very lucrative command of all the corsairs in the Mediterranean at the Duke of Florence’s hands, saying ‘I will die a poor labourer in mine own country, rather than be the richest pirate in the world.’ He did some service, but was unable to prevail with most of his late comrades, and incurred the enmity of the more desperate. ‘Our intent,’ said Peter Easton, ‘when we went hence was not to rob any man, much less our countrymen, but only to find out and fight with the Hollander ships of war, who had of late carried themselves so insolently to his Majesty as to come into his harbour and seize on Bishop and his ship, being then under his Majesty’s protection.’ He had some quarrels with traders who did not understand this reasoning, and lives were lost. ‘I told the merchants,’ Easton added, ‘that I would surrender up their ship and goods if I might have any pardon; but now in respect of the Duke of Florence’s offer and the greatness of this wealth, I am otherwise resolved.’ A little later Easton and his consorts had nine ships with 500 men and 250 guns. Many of them had wives and children living in comfort at Leamcon, and the ‘land pirates’ thereabouts supplied the rovers with provisions. Spanish and Moorish money was current, and it was believed that treasure had been buried on land. Quarrels among these rascals were frequent, and Easton made away with a noted colleague named Salkeld or Sakewell, but he himself continued to give trouble, though there were hopes of reclaiming him at times. In the summer of 1613 he was surprised by the Dutch at Crookhaven, and carried to Holland, where he was most likely hanged.

Bishop retired from business himself, but he did not altogether break with the rovers, for one Fleming who had murdered a Dutch merchant was taken in his house in 1617. St. John described him as ‘an old pardoned pirate that lives suspiciously near Leamcon and Schull haven, ever plotting with and relieving of pirates.’[95 - Danvers to the Council, January 19, 1609; Sir R. Moryson to Salisbury, August 22; Henry Pepwell to Salisbury, August 22; Chichester to Salisbury and Nottingham, September 21, 1610; Captain Henry Skipwith (deputy vice-admiral) to Chichester, July 25, 1611; Roger Myddleton to Salisbury, August 23; Petition of Robert Bell to the King, July 1616, No. 277; Skipwith to Sir Dudley Carleton, August 24; St. John to Winwood, April 4, 1617, in Buccleuch Papers, Hist. MSS. Comm. Leamcon is now the name of a house and watch-tower opposite Long Island, but in the time of James I. it was given to the whole of the sheltered water between Castle Point and Schull Harbour.]