Desmond’s cruelty
Desmond was strong for the moment, but his cruel and impolitic conduct shows that he was a desperate man. Four gentlemen of the Geraldines, who had refused to follow him were captured and sentenced by his council of war to be hanged. But the Earl said that every Geraldine who failed him should be cut in pieces, and called on as many as loved him to give the prisoner a stroke of the sword. They were accordingly ‘cut in gobbets,’ in Desmond’s presence. He attacked the O’Keefes, a loyal clan upon the upper Blackwater, killed the chief’s son and other prisoners, and took ‘the Vicar of Oskallie, and put out upon him a jury of twelve of the Earl’s men, which jury passed upon him and condemned him to death, seeing he was a true subject to her Majesty, and held office under her highness always.’ Of the whole party, O’Keefe alone was spared, and he was badly wounded.[94 - Letter from Onor Cartye enclosed in one from the Lords Justices to Walsingham, October 3, 1582; St. Leger to Burghley and Walsingham, September 22.]
Death of Clanricarde, whose sons come to terms
From Maltby in Connaught came the only news which could possibly be called good. Old Clanricarde was at last liberated about the end of June, and a few weeks later he died at Galway of jaundice, aggravated by vexation at the sight of his ruined castle and wasted country. With his last breath he cursed his sons should they prove disobedient subjects, and thanked the Queen for her clemency. The young men soon came in and professed their willingness to have disputes settled according to law, but Secretary Fenton observed that it would be easy to make a civil faction between them, and cut off one without disturbing the province. There was little difficulty in proving that Ulick, the elder brother, was Earl, and the more difficult matter of the lands was settled quietly, and with at least some show of amity. Each competitor gave a bond in 10,000l. to abide by the award, which was based upon the principle of equal division, first choice being in some cases given to the Earl. The whole barony of Leitrim was given to John absolutely, and the title was afterwards conferred upon him. The castles of Portumna and Loughrea were awarded to Ulick; the brothers agreed to surrender Ballinasloe to Maltby. The right of some other Burkes were defined, and in general terms it may be said that the baronies of Dunkellin, Loughrea, and Longford remained with the Earl, though some parcels were excepted. The award was accepted, but the hatred of the brothers was of too long standing to be thus appeased, and it was not long before it broke out again.[95 - Maltby to Walsingham, June 21, 1582; Clanricarde to Maltby, July 7; Fenton to Leicester, August 13; to Walsingham, August 23. The award is in Carew, under November 17.]
General famine
Famine and pestilence continued to rage through the summer, autumn, and winter of 1582. All Waterford, Limerick, and Cork, and a great part of Tipperary, were spoiled. 200 or 300 kine for the public service were as much as could be had for love or money. ‘The wolf and the best rebel lodged in one inn, with one diet and one kind of bedding.’ Archbishop Loftus being, as Spenser says, more mildly disposed, as ‘was meet for his profession,’ than his colleague Wallop, was so horrified that he advised Burghley to pardon Desmond. There might, he said, be some question of the Queen’s honour if the war of Ireland was like other wars, between one prince and another, but this was against a subject, bare, rude, and savage. The only honour to be had was by healing the sores of the poor subjects. For the famine was not confined to Munster, but ran its course even in Dublin under the eyes of the Lords Justices.
A horse of Secretary Fenton’s was accidentally burned, and was eaten by the people before it was half-roasted. Another of Wallop’s died, and was devoured, entrails and all, apparently without any preparation. It became, indeed, a regular thing ‘to eat the carcasses of dead horses, and to buy them at the soldiers’ hands.’ The Lords Justices admitted that this was a lamentable thing to happen under a Christian prince. The Irish, however, they explained, were less averse to carrion than other people; still they could not but be grieved that the soldiers should extort money for any such wares. The fact is that all were starving alike.[96 - Barnaby Gooche to Burghley, August 27, 1582; Justice Meade to the Lords Justices, October 13; Lord Justice Loftus to Burghley, November 5; Lords Justices to Burghley, December 8; Spenser’s State of Ireland.]
St. Leger seeks to treat with Desmond, and foretells Ormonde’s failure
Sir Warham St. Leger, who hated Ormonde and all his works, attributed the evil state of Munster to the ‘cockling and dandling of hollow-hearted wretches,’ in pursuance of the Earl’s policy. In the meantime he intrigued for a capitulation on Desmond’s part. He had taken the Seneschal’s natural son – a boy of seven – ‘as like him as if he had spit him out of his mouth,’ and proposed to hang him in case the father should break out again. In the meantime he endeavoured to treat with Desmond through his means, but the rebel Earl was buoyed up constantly with the hopes of aid from abroad. The Countess persuaded him never to write anything, for fear of compromising himself with foreign princes. St. Leger was authorised to offer him his life, restraint without any imprisonment in some part of England or Ireland, and hope of further mercy for himself and child; but a full restoration was not to be thought of. There seems to have been little sincerity in the negotiation, though doubtless both the Queen and Burghley would have been glad to avoid further expense; and Ormonde, on his arrival, found the state of affairs unaltered. St. Leger foretold his failure. The protectees would fail him, and he would have enough to do to keep his own. ‘He is,’ he said, ‘a person most odious of all men to Desmond’s friends… It is death to all the lords and chieftains of both factions to have English government come among them, for they know that if English government be established here, their Irish exactions is laid aground; the which to forego they had as leave die, such is their devilish consciences.’ How true was the prophecy as to Ormonde’s failure will appear hereafter.[97 - St. Leger to Fenton, October 31; to the Queen and to Burghley, November 26, 1582; Burghley to Loftus and Fenton, and to St. Leger, December 9; St. Leger to Burghley and Walsingham, February 2, 1583.]
Ormonde returns to Ireland with fresh powers 1583
After many delays Ormonde was at last despatched, and 1,000 men were assigned to be under his orders in Munster. He had power to promise pardon to all rebels except Desmond himself. His pay and allowances were calculated on a liberal scale, amounting in all to over 4,000l. a year, and his rents due to the Crown were suspended until he should be able to make the lands profitable. Much was left to his discretion. Thus, rebels who surrendered might have a promise of their lands in consideration of a reasonable rent. 300 men were sent from Devon and Cornwall, Cheshire and Lancashire, Somersetshire and Gloucestershire, to fill up the gaps in the Irish garrisons. A large store of provisions was sent; but, on landing, Ormonde found Waterford, Tipperary, Cork, and Limerick in such a state that he thought it would not last for two months. His personal allowance was fixed at 3l. a day, but Wallop at once made a difficulty about paying this and many other claims. Ormonde, he said, was already too great for Ireland, and desired to be absolute in his government. Money no doubt was scarce in Dublin, but the Vice-Treasurer was advised to satisfy the Earl’s demands. The new governor lost no time in preparing for action, but he complained bitterly that companies were defective, that troops of horse were mounted on borrowed ponies, and that he was expected to perform impossibilities. He was ordered not to have more than four per cent. of Irishmen in any band; whereas Englishmen could not be had, and the Irish were the best shots.[98 - Earl of Ormonde’s demands, &c., November 1582; Walsingham to Wallop, December 6; Burghley to the Lords Justices, December 8; Rate for 1,000 men to be sent into Munster, December 15; Lords Justices to Burghley, January 5, 1583; Ormonde to Walsingham, January 27; Wallop to Walsingham, February 7 and March 6; Minute for the Lords Justices, March 5; Ormonde to the Lords Justices, March 20. Ormonde left London, or Windsor, December 22, and landed at Waterford (viâ Milford) January 21, having been long hindered by storms.]
Gallant defence of Youghal
While Munster waited for its new governor, the Seneschal of Imokilly made two attempts to get possession of Youghal. Just at the beginning of winter, some English soldiers, who were probably unpaid, agreed to open the gates; but the plot was discovered. More than two months later, two goldsmiths, who pretended to be soldiers, were admitted into the town. On the appointed night one kept the guard drinking while the other held a ladder for the assailants, whose plan was to occupy every stone house, and to cut it off from the gates. Fortunately, the soldiers had only a few days before broken down a stair leading from the walls, and thus only a few rebels were able to descend at a time. Two houses were, however, taken, and held for three days, in one of which the seneschal, in cold blood and with his own hands, knocked out the brains of six soldiers. Dermod Magrath, Papal Bishop of Cork and Cloyne, and ‘a very learned man in the papist doctrine,’ was present, and persuaded him not to kill any of the townsmen. The Sovereign, or Burgomaster, Francis Agnes (or Anes), behaved with great gallantry, and on the rumoured approach of troops from Waterford, the seneschal withdrew, having lost some sixty men, but carrying away a great quantity of corn, wine, beef, and hides, and leaving half the town in ashes. Cork was asked to send men to the relief of Youghal, but that city had none to spare, having itself been pressed by the rebels, who came up to the very walls and carried off the linen which was drying on the hedges. One of Ormonde’s first cares was to reinforce the garrison of Youghal.[99 - St. Leger to Burghley, Oct. 29, 1582, and Jan. 16, 1583; and to Walsingham, Feb. 11.]
Ormonde shuts Desmond up in Kerry, and his adherents fall away
In order to put down the Munster rebellion, the first thing was to localise it. The Queen herself had suggested that if Desmond could be kept out of Tipperary and Waterford, it would be comparatively easy to deal with him, and this was the plan adopted by Ormonde. At first he fixed his headquarters at Clonmel, whence the woods of Aherlow were easily accessible, and the Seneschal of Imokilly, who lay there, was harassed by the garrisons of Limerick and Kilmallock. In a month after Ormonde’s arrival, Desmond fled to the borders of Kerry, and his adherents began to desert him fast. Patrick Condon and over 300 others received protections, which they showed a disposition to pay for with the heads of their late comrades. The Baron of Lixnaw submitted about the end of March and was followed in a few days by Gerald MacThomas, called Toneboyreagh, who had long kept the county of Limerick disturbed, and now served well against his late associates. About the same time Lady Desmond came to Ormonde under a twenty days’ protection, but as she still demanded life, liberty, and property for her husband, no terms were granted to her. She then surrendered unconditionally, rather than return to such misery as she had lately endured. Early in June the Seneschal of Imokilly also made his submission, and Desmond was thus deprived of his last important supporter. The rebellion was now confined to Kerry and West Cork, and thither Ormonde repaired about the end of June.[100 - G. Fenton to Burghley, Feb. 24, 1583; Ormonde to the Privy Council, Feb. 28 and April 5; to the Queen, April 24; to the Privy Council and to Burghley and Walsingham, May 28; to the Lords Justices, June 15; to the Queen, June 18; to Walsingham, June 22; Thomas Mynne to Wallop, April 9.]
Desmond is hard pressed;
A few days before Ormonde’s arrival Desmond and his wife had a narrow escape from a night attack by the garrison of Kilmallock. The bed in which they had lain was found warm by the soldiers, into whose hands ‘the countess’s gentlewoman’ and others fell. A fog covered the flight of the two principal personages; but cattle, plate, jewels, and wardrobes were all captured. The presence of a lady and her attendants no doubt acted as a clog, and Desmond himself was becoming infirm. The old hurt received at Affane was likely to be aggravated by cold and fatigue, and a month later he had to be carried in his shirt by four men into a bog, and ferried over a river in a trough to escape from a sudden attack by Captain Thornton. After this he fled into Kerry, and it was reported that he would be glad if possible to escape by sea. He was too closely watched for this, but after the failure of his wife’s mission, he still refused to come to Ormonde. The following letter to St. Leger may well be given entire: —
but will not come to Ormonde,
‘Sir Warham, where I understand that the Earl of Ormonde giveth forth that I should submit myself before him as attorney to Her Majesty, you may be sure he doth report more thereof than I have sent him either by word or writing. But this I have offered in hope to prove the unreasonable wrong and injuries done unto me by her Highness’s officers in this realm from time to time, unguilty in me behalf as God knoweth. I am contented upon these conditions so as me country, castles, possessions, and lands, with me son, might be put and left in the hands and quiet possession of me counsel and followers, and also me religion and conscience not barred, with a pardon, protection, and passport for me own body to pass and repass. I would have gone before her Majesty to try all those causes just and true on me part, as I still do allege if I might be heard or may have indifference, and likewise hoping that I might have more justice, favour, and grace at her Majesty’s hands when I am before herself than here at the hands of such of her cruel officers as have me wrongfully proclaimed, and so thereby thinking that her Majesty and I may agree; if not that I may be put safe in the hands of me followers again, and I to deliver me son and me said possessions back to her Majesty’s officers. Dated at Feale the 28th of April, 1583. – Gerot Desmond.’
who insists on an unconditional surrender
Ormonde would hear of nothing but an unconditional surrender, and continued to ply his double policy of war and clemency. Before the end of May he could announce that 134 had been slain, and 247 protected, since those last mentioned. The few remaining rebels were reduced to horseflesh or carrion, and Desmond himself knew not where to lay his head. He had still eighty men with him, but his pride was sufficiently humbled to make him address Ormonde directly. He could not, he said, accuse himself of disloyalty, but confessed that he had been misled, and pleaded that he had been tyrannously used. He begged for a conference, ‘humbly craving that you will please to appoint some place and time where I may attend upon your honour.’ Ormonde, who was justly proud at this falsification of St. Leger’s prediction, would not alter his terms, and a few days afterwards reported that the rebel’s eighty followers were reduced to twenty. A little later, when he was himself marching towards Kerry, he learned that the fugitive’s retinue consisted of only five persons – a priest, two horsemen, one kerne, and a boy. The people of the South-West had already experience enough of an invasion by Ormonde, and hastened on all sides to make terms for themselves. There were rumours that the Queen was getting tired of the war, and that he would be recalled. He was, he said, so confident of success that he was ready to begin the reduction of the forces under his command. Success was very near when he had been removed before, and he begged that the mistake might not be repeated. ‘Thus,’ he said, ‘am I handled, and do break the ice for others to pass with ease.’[101 - G. Fenton to Walsingham, Jan. 16; St. Leger to Walsingham, Feb. 11; Sir W. Stanley to Fenton, May 25; Desmond to Ormonde, June 5; Ormonde to Burghley and to the Queen, June 18; to Burghley, June 22.]
St. Leger thwarts Ormonde
Sir Warham St. Leger did all that he possibly could to thwart Ormonde. Protections to rebels were, he said, bad things, which enabled traitors to extort from good subjects. Henry VIII., he reminded the Queen, had quieted the Pale for years by first making a somewhat dishonourable peace with the rebels, ‘and then paying them home.’ His advice was that Desmond should be received to life and liberty. ‘I dare,’ he added, ‘adventure the loss of one of my arms, which I would not willingly lose for all the lands and livings that ever he had, he will, within one quarter of a year after he is so received (if the matter be well and politically handled), be wrought to enter into new treasons, and thereby apprehended, and his head cut off according to his due deserts.’ Any other course would be too expensive. In other words, the wretched man was to be lulled into fancied security, watched by spies and tempted by false friends until he was induced to do something technically equivalent to treason. This abominable advice was not taken, happily for Elizabeth’s honour; but constant detraction was very near shaking Ormonde’s credit. Wallop and Fenton, who knew the Queen’s weak point and who hated the Earl for his independent conduct and position, lost no opportunity of showing what a costly luxury her Lord-General was. Walsingham urged Ormonde to make a quick end lest her Majesty should repent, and he afterwards repeated St. Leger’s sentiments and almost his very words about the impolicy of granting protections. Burghley, however, stood firm, and it was probably through his influence that some of St. Leger’s letters to the Queen were kept from her eye and sent back to Ormonde, who accused his adversary of offering to secure mercy for Desmond if he would only hold out until the Earl was no longer governor of Munster, and of giving out that his supersession was resolved on. Ormonde says he heard this from rebels who were likely to know the truth, that it was confirmed by a priest who had long been with Desmond, and that the latter had thus been ‘animated’ to hold out although in great straits. Ormonde thought Wallop disliked him nearly as much as St. Leger, and the Vice-Treasurer’s own letters bear out this opinion.[102 - St. Leger to the Queen, May 8 and Aug. 5 (the latter was intercepted); to Burghley, Aug. 5 and Oct. 19; to Walsingham, Aug. 5, 1583, and Sept. 14, 1584; Ormonde to Burghley, Oct. 20, 1583; to the Privy Council, Jan. 23, 1584; to Burghley, Jan. 26, 1584; Walsingham to Ormonde, March 25 and June 12, 1583; Lords Justices to Walsingham, June 18, 1583; G. Fenton to Walsingham, May 30, 1583. The tone of all Wallop’s and Fenton’s letters is unfriendly to Ormonde.]
Ormonde scours Kerry
Fate, or Burghley, had, however, decreed that Ormonde should be allowed to finish the business in his own way, and the sad story may now be told to the end. There was no more fighting to be done, and at the end of June the Lord General passed through Tipperary and Limerick into Kerry. He visited Castle Island, Castlemaine, and Dingle, a principal object of the journey being to prevent Desmond escaping by sea. Castlemaine he found roofless and in ruins, and that famous hold was never again destined to resist the royal power. Clancare, the two O’Sullivans, and other gentlemen came to him with assurances of fidelity, and not the slightest resistance was offered anywhere. The protected people, he said, had generally served well, and were supported by their friends without charge to the Queen. Those who did no service had given hostages, and the work of reducing the garrisons might now be at once begun. The rebels were weary of the war and were ploughing the land; sword, law, and famine had done their work. In all his journey to the farthest point of Kerry, and back by Kinsale to Cork, Ormonde had to tell of no enemy but Sir Warham St. Leger, ‘who dwelleth in Cork Castle to small purpose for any good service he doth… drinking and writing (saving your honour) shameful lies.’[103 - Ormonde to Burghley and to Walsingham, July 10, 1583. The nobles and gentlemen who came to Ormonde at Cork and gave pledges were as follows: – Earl of Clancare; Lords Barrymore, Roche, Kinsale and Lixnaw; Sirs – Thomas of Desmond, Owen MacCarthy Reagh, Owen O’Sullivan, Barry Roe, Lord Lixnaw’s son Patrick, the White Knight, Patrick Condon, the seneschal of Imokilly, Cormac MacDermot, nephew to Sir Cormac MacTeig, Callaghan MacTeig MacCarthy, brother to Sir Cormac MacTeig, O’Sullivan More, Donell, nephew to Sir Owen O’Sullivan, O’Donoghue More (inhabiting in MacCarthy More’s country), O’Donoghue of Glenflesk, MacDonogh MacCarthy of Duhallow, O’Keefe, MacAuliffe, O’Callaghan, MacFynnyne, William, brother to the Knight of Kerry, Thomas Oge, seneschal of Kerry, Donogh MacCragh (a rhymer), and divers captains of gallowglasses of the MacSwineys and the MacSheehy’s.]
Desmond is driven into a corner
Early in August St. Leger reported that Desmond had crossed the Shannon and escaped to Scotland; but there was no truth in this. He was confined to that part of Kerry which lies north of Castlemaine and to the mountainous corner of Cork where the Blackwater rises. Ormonde was pretty confident that he would be captured, and none of the protected men relapsed except Goran MacSwiney, a captain of gallowglasses. Orders were sent to reduce the army in Munster from 1,000 to 600, and to prepare, if possible, for a further reduction to 200. On the very day that this order was penned Lord Roche was able to announce that he had very nearly taken Desmond, and that he had actually taken his chaplain, who was not so well horsed as the rest. ‘I would,’ Ormonde wrote to Burghley, ‘this chaplain and I were for one hour with you in your chamber, that you might know the secrets of his heart, which by fair means or foul he must open unto me.’ The poor man was coupled with a handlock to one of Ormonde’s servants, so that no one could speak to him privately. And thus the hunted chief was deprived of his last adviser.[104 - St. Leger to Burghley, Aug. 5 and Oct. 19, 1583; N. White to Burghley, Aug. 24; Ormonde to Burghley, Sept. 4 and 23 (the latter enclosing Lord Roche’s letter); Privy Council to Ormonde, Sept. 19.]
Death of Desmond
On November 1, Goran MacSwiney was killed, and Ormonde proceeded to discharge 110 foot and 12 horse. Even yet a few desperate men adhered to Desmond, and he might have long eluded his pursuers but for an outrage done in his name. On November 9, he sent twenty men on a plundering expedition to the south side of Tralee Bay, and they drove off forty cows and some horses belonging to Maurice O’Moriarty, whose house they robbed, and whose wife and children they barbarously stripped naked. Next day, having first asked leave from Lieutenant Stanley at Dingle, the O’Moriarties, with near a score of kerne and some half-dozen soldiers of the garrison of Castlemaine, traced the lost cattle to the woods of Glanageenty, about five miles to the east of Tralee. Owen O’Moriarty climbed the hill by moonlight, and looking down into the deep glen saw a fire beneath him, which was found to proceed from a cabin. The hut was surrounded, and at daybreak the O’Moriarties entered. Taken unawares and but half-awake, Desmond’s companion only thought of escaping, and he was left behind and wounded in the arm with a sword-cut by a soldier named Daniel O’Kelly. ‘I am the Earl of Desmond,’ he cried, ‘save my life!’ ‘Thou hast killed thyself long ago,’ said Owen O’Moriarty, and now thou shalt be prisoner to the Queen’s Majesty and the Earl of Ormonde, Lord General of Munster.’ They carried him some distance, but a rescue was imminent, and Owen ordered O’Kelly to strike off the prisoner’s head, since it was impossible to fight thus encumbered. The soldier obeyed, and the head was carried to Castlemaine, and from thence to Ormonde at Kilkenny. The ghastly trophy was by him sent to the Queen. As the best evidence against those who ‘spoke malicious lies touching the service and state of Munster,’ it was exposed on London Bridge. The like exposure at Cork was designed for the headless trunk, but friendly hands hid it for eight weeks, and finally deposited it in a neighbouring chapel where only Fitzgeralds were buried, and which is still called ‘the church of the name.’[105 - I have followed the strictly contemporary account printed by Archdeacon Rowan in the Kerry Magazine (Jan. 1854), and reprinted by Miss Hickson in Old Kerry Records. No other account is so full, and it is easily reconciled with the Four Masters and with Ormonde’s letters printed by Mr. Gilbert in vol. iv. of the Irish National MSS, and see Ormonde to Walsingham and Burghley, Nov. 28, and Smith’s Cork.]
Desmond a popular hero
The spot where Desmond was decapitated is marked by a mound, and retains the name of Bothar-an-Iarla, or the Earl’s way. A gigantic elder formerly overshadowed the place, and in our own day it is covered by a young oak, a holly, and a bright tangle of ferns and foxgloves. A good carriage-road runs through the once inaccessible glen, and marks the difference between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Desmond’s death closes the mediæval history of Munster, and it is no wonder that much legendary glory attaches to his name. He was a man of little talent or virtue, though he need not be too severely condemned for refusing to see that the days of feudal or tribal independence were over. But the past has an irresistible attraction for Irish sentiment, and the popular ear is more readily opened to fable than to historical truth. With nothing heroic about him, the unhappy Earl is still honoured as a hero; but even the fidelity of tradition to his memory is less than that of the natives to him while he yet lived. Let thus much be said in honour of the poor kerne, who stood so staunchly in a doubtful cause. The Earl’s ghost, mounted on a phantom steed with silver shoes, is said sometimes to rise at night from the waters of Lough Gur; and when the west wind comes up fitfully from the sea and makes slates and windows rattle, the Kerry people still call upon travellers to listen to the Desmond howl.[106 - The spot where Desmond fell is on the right bank, rather low down in the glen. No doubt the cabin where he spent the night was higher up. In the survey made by Sir Valentine Browne and others, and privately printed by Mr. S. M. Hussey, is the following passage: ‘A great wood here and there, filled with oak-trees fit for house timber, but not large enough for the making of ships and castles. But the greater part of the said wood consists in underwood of the age of fifty and sixty years, filled with dotted trees – ash, hazels, sallows, willows, alders, birches, white-thorns and such like… The wood is called Glanageenty, in which the late Earl of Desmond was slain in his rebellion, containing in length about four miles, and in breadth two miles, which said woods, because no woods there are saleable, and they lie under the mountains of Slew-Logher, far from any river or navigable stream, are here valued at nil.’ I inspected the ground in June 1883.]
CHAPTER XL.
GOVERNMENT OF PERROTT, 1583-1584
Sir John Perrott is made Lord Deputy
As early as December 1582, Sir John Perrott had been spoken of as Grey’s successor. His actual appointment was, however, deferred for more than a year, Loftus and Wallop continuing to act as Lords Justices till June 1584. They were fortunate in seeing the end of the Desmond rebellion, but less so in having to deal with those who had been engaged in it. Lady Desmond, in her poverty, subsisted upon a pension allowed her by Ormonde, until the Queen’s pleasure should be known; and the protections which he had given to the seneschal of Imokilly, Patrick Condon, and other leaders, were respected. Wallop did not like the Lord-General, but he did not thwart him seriously. Piers Grace, an old and notorious offender in the Kilkenny district, was pardoned at the Earl’s intercession, and the Lords Justices observed that they would not have done it for anyone else.[107 - Birch’s Memoirs, i. 27; Ormonde to Burghley, Jan. 26, 1584; Lords Justices to Ormonde, Dec. 31, 1583.]
Archbishop O’Hurley
His treatment at Rome
In 1581, after the death of Fitzgibbon, Gregory XIII. appointed Dermod O’Hurley to the Archbishopric of Cashel. He had spent fifteen years at Louvain and four at Rheims, and he was deeply engaged in the plans of Irish exiles against Elizabeth’s government. We get a glimpse of him at Rome not long after his appointment, and find him, like his predecessor, occupied in schemes for the invasion of Ireland. The caution of the Italian ecclesiastic is, as usual, contrasted with the sanguine temper of the exiles. Christopher Barnewall, who had been sent to the Continent by Baltinglas, was introduced by O’Hurley to Cardinal Como, and informed him that Kildare and Delvin were in prison, though both had served against the Wicklow rebels. ‘Who,’ said the Cardinal, with an expressive shrug, ‘would trust an Irishman? The Earl promised to take our part.’ O’Hurley thought he had not gone so far. ‘Wilt thou tell me?’ answered the Italian angrily, and produced a letter from Kildare and a document signed by most of the Lords of Ulster, Munster, and Connaught, which made his view good. ‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘that we would have trusted to James Fitzmaurice and Stukeley, or to all these lords which subscribed the great letter, unless we had received this letter from the Earl of Kildare? The Pope has no money for any of your nation.’[108 - Second examination of Christopher Barnewall, Aug. 12, 1583.]
O’Hurley reaches Ireland, where he is tortured and hanged
O’Hurley landed at Drogheda in September, 1583, bringing letters from Rome with him. He was harboured by Lord Slane, whose daughter was married to Ormonde’s natural son Piers, and in the latter’s company he went into Munster after a few days’ rest. The Archbishop, who was soon hunted down, with Ormonde’s help, made no secret of having been engaged in the work of the Inquisition, and charged Kildare and Delvin with the late insurrection – thus showing that Barnewall had spoken truly. Walsingham recommended the use of ‘torture, or any other severe manner of proceeding, to gain his knowledge of all foreign practices against Her Majesty’s states.’ The Lords Justices objected that they had no rack nor other such instrument of terror, and that the Tower of London would be a fitter place for the experiment. Walsingham then advised them to toast the prisoner’s feet at the fire with hot boots. A commission was accordingly made out to Fenton and Waterhouse, and the ordeal was applied with frightful severity. The letters brought by O’Hurley had been intercepted, and could not therefore be denied, but nothing of importance was elicited. A letter which he had written to Ormonde was produced, and the Lords Justices took care to hint at the Earl’s complicity, but without effect. The lawyers held that an indictment for treasons committed abroad would not lie, and in any case a trial by jury was not to be risked. The Lords Justices suggested martial law, to which, as they grimly observed, the landless Archbishop could not fairly object. Seeing that further torture would be useless Walsingham agreed to this course, and noted the Queen’s ‘good acceptation of their careful travail in this matter.’ Throughout the correspondence it is evident that Elizabeth and all her servants looked upon O’Hurley mainly as a traitor and not as a recusant; and that defence of their conduct may stand for what it is worth. The torture is indefensible; but it was only too common in those days, and O’Hurley himself had been an Inquisitor. The Archbishop was hanged privately in the Castle early on June 19, after the arrival of Perrott, but before he had been sworn in.[109 - The text is taken from the official correspondence, Lords Justices to Robert Beale, Oct. 8, 1583; to Walsingham, Oct. 20, Dec. 10, March 7 and 8, 1584, April 14, and July 9; Walsingham to the Lords Justices, April 28, 1584. It appears from the Catholic accounts that combustibles were poured into the boots. That of the Jesuit Holing, who died in 1599, may be taken as contemporary; it is printed in Spicilegium Ossoriense, i. 87. ‘Tormenta nova illi parantur; nam ejus pedibus atroces hæreticorum ministri ocreas, butiro, oleo, et sale oppletas, ac – quod longe crudelius fuit – crudo ex corio conditas subjecerunt; postea, vero, catenis simul et compedibus alligatum, aperto in loco, nempe in medio castri – ubi spectaculum mundo, hominibus, et angelis – ubi ab omnibus videri potuit, lento igne apposuerunt, illicque detinuerunt, donec ipso corio consumpto, butiro, oleo, et sale ferventibus, ossa non cute pro carne tecta verum etiam omnino munda fuerint relicta… Postea in ergastulum et obscurissimum carcerem reducitur, et post sex menses tanquam traditor et reus criminis læsæ majestatis, ab iniquo judice ad mortem condemnatus est. Ad extremum, post inaudita tormenta et carceris molestias, albescente cælo, ne forte tumultus fieret in populo qui ejus exemplo, doctrina, et constantia permotus ad ejus defensionem perveniret, ignorantibus civibus patibulo suspensus martyrium consummavit Dublinii circa annum 1585, mense Maio.’ Other accounts, which agree in essentials, are collected in Brady’s Episcopal Succession, ii. 11, 599. The Valicellian MS. there quoted, says a withen rope was used to protract his agony; but Bacon tells us that this kind of halter was generally used in Ireland, and that a rebel objected to any other.]
Help comes from Spain, but it is too late
There can be no doubt that the court of Rome had urged upon that of Spain the necessity of relieving Desmond. But Philip II. was never in time, and his energies, such as they were, were absorbed by Portuguese affairs. It was not until the final defeat of Strozzi’s expedition to the Azores that Irish exiles could get their business attended to. The Cardinal of Como became friendly once more, and sent for William Nugent almost as often as the post arrived from Spain, saying that he remembered him at every turn of his beads. The Pope saw Nugent every six weeks, and the intervals were spent in making interest with Gregory’s son Giacomo, whose influence over the aged Pontiff had become very great. It was confidently reported that the whole Spanish fleet would sail for Ireland on its return from the Azores, but only two ships actually arrived. The papal bishop of Killaloe, Cornelius Ryan, had been sent by Desmond to Spain towards the end of 1582. In the spring of 1583 it was announced that help was coming, but it may have been delayed until the return of Santa Cruz and his fleet. Desmond had been dead nearly two months when the tardy succour arrived. Bishop Ryan appeared on the west coast with one large ship laden with artillery. Another, also with munitions of war, anchored in Ringabella Bay outside Cork harbour, and sent a boat, which brought off a countryman. Of those on board the chief spokesman was a friar named Shane O’Ferrall, who wept bitterly on hearing of Desmond’s death. A Spaniard wrote down all the particulars. ‘Is there none of the Earl’s name,’ he asked, ‘that will take upon him to follow and maintain that enterprise? You say none. Well, if any had continued it until now, we had brought here to furnish them treasure and munition good store, and shortly they should have had more, and aid enough.’ There were three bags of silver and two of gold, each as much as a man could carry. A present was sent by O’Ferrall to a lady living close by – marmalade, lemons and figs, a poignard, and a taffeta scarf – and then finding their occupation gone, the strangers left the coast. Don Antonio and Philip Strozzi had not saved Portugal, but they had destroyed Spanish influence in Ireland.[110 - Ormonde to the Privy Council and to Burghley, Jan. 11, 1584, with enclosures; Wallop to Walsingham, Jan. 21.]
Murder of John Burke;
his popularity
Clanricarde is pardoned
Within a week of Desmond’s death the newly made Baron of Leitrim came to a violent end. Public opinion attributed the deed to his brother, and no doubt he profited largely by it. Clanricarde himself said that he had intercepted a band of traitors in the Baron’s company, and that he fell in the scuffle. His sister, Lady Mary, clamoured loudly for vengeance, but the Earl found means to silence her. A competent English observer tells us that ‘Sir John of the Shamrocks,’ as the Irish called him, was the best beloved man in Connaught, perhaps in all Ireland. ‘He was very well spoken, he was courteous, he was liberal to every man that had occasion to try him, in his house he was very bountiful, and he wrote better than any Irishman whose letters I have seen… First he would speak fair to every man, and mean no truth to any man that was honest. He had always a treasonable mind, and did ever thirst after blood. He was betrothed to one woman, and, leaving her, he was married to two others; they are all three alive. He was a common haunter of women, and men say he had a child by his own sister, and a great maintainer of thieves he was… The Earl will not steal from one to give to another. He will not spare the offender for any respects; I mean thieves: other offenders are seldom punished in Ireland, and never among the Irish.’ The Earl offered to prove the incest by irrefutable witnesses. The Lord Justice thought the simplest plan was to attribute the murder to the mutual hatred between the half-brothers since their cradles. They advised that Clanricarde’s future good conduct should be secured by a pardon, ‘especially in those remote parts where so many heinous facts contrary to the laws of God and man have been infinitely borne with in all ages.’ Three years before, when Clanricarde was ill, it was generally supposed that his brother had poisoned him. To avoid further confusion the English Government thought it better to allow a pardon. The murdered man had no legitimate children, and the peerage died with him. This long-standing faction fight was now at an end; the Earl was undisputed master over all the possessions of his house, and became the mainstay of English law and order in the West.[111 - John Browne to Hatton and Walsingham, Nov. 19, 1583; Clanricarde to the Privy Council, Jan. 31, 1584; Lords Justices to the Privy Council, March 28, 1584; Wallop to Leicester, Jan. 26, 1581, in Wright’s Elizabeth. The Four Masters bear out Browne’s statement as to John Burke’s popularity; see also a damaged paper calendared under Nov. 1583 (No. 99). The Earl’s pardon passed the Irish Council, June 28, 1584. Lady Mary married O’Rourke. ‘That honest woman,’ Bingham wrote some years later, ‘is deceased in childbirth’ (to Gardiner, June 10, 1589).]
Trial by combat
The once mighty tribe of the Leinster O’Connors had fallen very low, but even the miserable remnant could not keep from internecine war. Teig MacGilpatrick, who led one party, was accused by Connor MacCormac of killing men who were under protection. Connor retorted that they had broken into rebellion since protection was granted. The Lords Justices persuaded Connor, and Sir Nicholas White persuaded Teig to appear and accuse each other. An appeal of treason was thus technically constituted, and for this they were told that trial by battle was the proper remedy. Fearing, it would appear, that the courage of the litigants might ooze away, the combat was fixed for the next day. The Lords Justices and Council sat solemnly in the inner Castle yard, the display being made more impressive by a large attendance of military officers. The proper ceremonies were observed, and the Lords Justices were careful to excuse any possible want of accuracy by pleading the shortness of the time. The combatants who were allowed only sword, target, and skull-cap, were stripped to their shirts and searched by Secretary Fenton himself. They then took their seats on two stools at opposite ends of the lists, and the pleadings having been read a trumpet sounded the onset. Connor, who was wounded twice in the leg and once in the eye, attempted to close, but his adversary was too strong for him. Having stunned and disarmed his accuser, Teig, who was himself seriously wounded, ‘but not mortally, the more was the pity,’ cut off his head with his own sword and presented it on the point to the Lords Justices, one of whom, be it remembered, was the Archbishop of Dublin. Fenton sent the sword to Leicester, ‘wishing her Majesty had the same end of all the O’Connors in Ireland.’ ‘We commend,’ they said, ‘the diligent travail of Sir Lucas Dillon and the Master of the Rolls, who equally and openly seemed to countenance the champions, but secretly with very good concurrence with us and between themselves for her Majesty’s service.’[112 - Lords Justices to the Privy Council, Sept. 12, 1583. Fenton to Leicester and Warwick, Sept. 13, in Carew; Hooker. This is one of the last, if not the very last trial by combat in the British Islands. Lord Reay’s case, in 1631, is in Howell’s State Trials, vol. iii., with a minute account of the ridiculous ceremonies proper to such a mode of trial; but in that case the fight did not actually take place.]
A second trial goes by default
The Lords Justices hoped to make more O’Connors kill one another, but a second combat arranged to take place two or three days later was frustrated by the non-appearance of the accused, a brother of the victorious Teig, who had accepted the challenge for him. His adversary, Morrogh-ni-Cogge, came into the lists and made proclamation for two hours with drums and trumpets. Morrogh was adjudged victorious, but the absent man described him as ‘readiest to fight with those that he knew were farthest off from him.’ He urged that his brother had no right to promise for him, that Morrogh was too base a fellow to place in the balance with him, and that he could not be spared until his brother had recovered. ‘Notwithstanding,’ he added, ‘when my brother is whole of his wounds and able to take charge of his men, if it shall please the Lords Justices to call Morrogh and me face to face, that I may know upon what ground and quarrel I am to fight, I will then make it openly known how little able that vain boaster is to stand in my hands, who at the very sound of my name was wont to trot over whole countries.’[113 - Reasons of Brian MacGilpatrick O’Connor &c. (translated out of Irish), Oct. 15, 1583. The brothers seem to have subsided, or as some would say risen, into farmers.]