Ireland under the Tudors. Volume 3 (of 3)

The survivors are stripped and robbed by the Irish, who rejoice over their preyBut some are more humane

The smallest of the three ships was that which carried Don Martin de Aranda, who acted as judge-advocate-general or provost-marshal to the Armada, and who had been ordered by the Duke of Medina Sidonia to hang Don Cristobal de Avila and Captain Francisco de Cuellar for leaving their places in the line. The first was actually hanged, and carried round the fleet at the yard-arm of a despatch boat to encourage the rest. Cuellar was spared at the provost-marshal’s earnest request, and with him he remained until the loss of the ship. He stood on the poop to the last, whence he saw hundreds perish and a few reach the shore astride on barrels and beams, to be murdered in many cases, and stripped in all, by ‘200 savages and other enemies,’ who skipped and danced with joy at the disaster which brought them plunder. Don Martin de Aranda came to Cuellar in tears, both sewed coin into their clothes and after some struggles found themselves together upon the floating cover of a hatchway. Covered with blood and injured in both legs, Cuellar was washed ashore, but Don Martin was drowned. ‘May God pardon him,’ says the survivor, and perhaps he needed pardon, for it was he who had signed the order to kill all the French prisoners after the fight at Terceiras. Unobserved by the wreckers, Cuellar crawled away, stumbling over many stark naked Spanish corpses. Shivering with cold and in great pain he lay down in some rushes, where he was joined by ‘a cavalier, a very gentle boy,’ who was afterwards discovered to be a person of consequence, stripped to the skin, and in such terror that he could not even say who he was. He himself was a mere sponge full of blood and water, half-dead with pain and hunger; and in this state he had to pass the night. Two armed natives who chanced to pass took pity on them, covered them with rushes and grass which they cut for the purpose, and then went off to take their part in the wrecking. Green as the covering was, it probably saved Cuellar’s life, but at daybreak he found, to his great sorrow, that the poor, gentle lad was dead.174

Adventures of Francisco de CuellarA devout damsel

Slowly and painfully Cuellar made his way to what he calls a monastery, probably the round tower and church of Drumcliff, which is about five miles from the scene of the shipwreck. He found no living friends in this ancient foundation of St. Columba, but only the bodies of twelve Spaniards, hanged ‘by the Lutheran English’ to the window gratings inside the church. An old woman, who was driving her cows away for fear of the soldiers, advised him to go back to the sea, where he was joined by two naked Spaniards. Miserable as they were, they picked out the corpse of Don Diego from among more than 400, and buried him in a hole dug in the sand, ‘with another much-honoured captain, a great friend of mine.’ Two hundred savages came to see what they were doing, and they explained by signs that they were saving their brethren from the wolves and crows, which had already begun their ghastly work. As they were looking for any chance biscuits which the sea might have cast up four natives proposed to strip Cuellar, who alone had some clothes, but another of higher rank protected him. While on his way to this friendly partisan’s village, he met two armed young men, an Englishman and a Frenchman, and a ‘most extremely beautiful’ girl of twenty, who prevented the Englishman from killing, but not from stripping, the wretched Spaniard. A gold chain worth 1,000 reals was found round his neck, and forty-five ducats sewn up in his doublet, being two months’ pay received before leaving Corunna. He protested that he was only a poor soldier, but it was nevertheless proposed to detain him as worth ransom. Cuellar records, with some complacency, that the girl pitied him much, and begged them to return his clothes and to do him no more harm. His doublet was restored, but not his shirt, nor a relic of great repute which he had brought from Lisbon, and which ‘the savage damsel hung round her neck, saying, by signs, that she meant to keep it, and that she was a Christian, being as much like one as Mahomet was.’ A boy was ordered to take him to a hut, to put a plaster of herbs on his wound, and to give him milk, butter, and oatmeal cake.175

A visit to O’RourkeCuellar is enslaved by a smith;but escapes to MacClancy

Cuellar was directed towards the territory of O’Rourke, narrowly escaped a band of English soldiers, was beaten and stripped naked by forty ‘Lutheran savages’ not easily identified, mistook two naked Spaniards for devils in the dark, joined them, and at last, after enduring almost incredible hardships, reached the friendly chief’s house, partly wrapped in straw and fern. O’Rourke had many houses. This one may have been Dromahaire, near to the eastern extremity of Lough Gill. It was a castle, and Cuellar calls it a hut, the probability being that thatched outhouses were generally occupied, and that the stone keep was little used except for defence. Everyone pitied the stranger, and one man gave him a ragged old blanket full of lice. Twenty other Spaniards came to the same place, reporting a large ship not far off. Cuellar was unable to keep up with them, and thus failed to embark on a vessel which was soon afterwards wrecked. All that escaped the sea were killed by the soldiers. Cuellar then fell in with a priest, who was dressed in secular habit for fear of the English, and who spoke in Latin. Following his directions the Spaniard sought the castle of MacClancy, a chief under O’Rourke who held the country south and west of Lough Melvin, and who was a great enemy of Queen Elizabeth. A savage whom he met enticed him to his cabin in a lonely glen. The man turned out to be a smith, who set his prisoner to blow the bellows. This lasted for eight days, and as the old man of the sea refused to let Sindbad go, so did this old man of the mountains declare that Cuellar should stay all his life with him. The Spaniard worked steadily for fear of being thrown into the fire by this ‘wicked, savage smith and his accursed hag of a wife.’ The friendly priest then appeared, and owing to his exertions, four natives and one Spaniard were sent by MacClancy to release Cuellar. He found ten of his shipwrecked countrymen with MacClancy, and everyone pitied him, especially the women, for he had no covering but straw. ‘They fitted me out,’ he says, ‘as well as they could with one of their country mantles, and during my stay of three months I became as great a savage as they were.’ Cuellar seems to have been susceptible to female influences, for he remarks that his host’s wife was extremely beautiful and very kind to him, and he spent a good deal of time in telling her fortune and those of her fair relatives and friends. This was amusing at first, but when men and less interesting women began to consult him he was forced to apply to his host for protection. MacClancy would not let him go, but gave general orders that no one should annoy him.176

A wild Irish household

An account of an Irish household by a foreigner who had lived among the people for months, and whose sight was not coloured by English prejudice, is so rare a thing that Cuellar’s may well be given in full.

The menThe womenThe Irish rob the Spaniards, but save their lives

‘The habit of those savages is to live like brutes in the mountains, which are very rugged in the part of Ireland where we were lost. They dwell in thatched cabins. The men are well-made, with good features, and as active as deer. They eat but one meal, and that late at night, oat-cake and butter being their usual food. They drink sour milk because they have nothing else, for they use no water, though they have the best in the world. At feasts it is their custom to eat half-cooked meat without bread or salt. Their dress matches themselves – tight breeches, and short loose jackets of very coarse texture; over all they wear blankets, and their hair comes over their eyes. They are great walkers and stand much work, and by continually fighting they keep the Queen’s English soldiers out of their country, which is nothing but bogs for forty miles either way. Their great delight is robbing one another, so that no day passes without fighting, for whenever the people of one hamlet know that those of another possess cattle or other goods, they immediately make a night attack and kill each other. When the English garrisons find out who has lifted the most cattle, they come down on them, and they have but to retire to the mountains with their wives and herds, having no houses or furniture to lose. They sleep on the ground upon rushes full of water and ice. Most of the women are very pretty, but badly got up, for they wear only a shift and a mantle, and a great linen cloth on the head, rolled over the brow. They are great workers and housewives in their way. These people call themselves Christians, and say Mass. They follow the rule of the Roman Church, but most of their churches, monasteries, and hermitages are dismantled by the English soldiers, and by their local partisans, who are as bad as themselves. In short there is no order nor justice in the country, and everyone does that which is right in his own eyes. The savages are well affected to us Spaniards, because they realise that we are attacking the heretics and are their great enemies. If it was not for those natives who kept us as if belonging to themselves, not one of our people would have escaped. We owe them a good turn for that, though they were the first to rob and strip us when we were cast on shore. From whom and from the three ships which contained so many men of importance, those savages reaped a rich harvest of money and jewels.’177

Wanderings of CuellarA narrow escapeA friendly bishop

Cuellar helped MacClancy to defend his castle against the Lord Deputy, and the chief was as unwilling to let him go as the smith had been. He escaped with four other Spaniards, during the first days of the new year, and after three weeks’ hardship in the mountains found himself at Dunluce in Antrim, where Alonso de Leyva had been lost. He was told that his only chance of a passage to Scotland was by some boats belonging to O’Cahan, which were expected to sail soon. The wound in his leg had broken out afresh, and he was unable to stand for some days. His companions left him to shift for himself, and after a painful walk to Coleraine he found that the boats had gone. There was a garrison there, and he had to take shelter in a mountain hut, where some women compassionately nursed him. In six weeks his wound was well enough to enable him to seek an interview with O’Cahan, but that chief, who was afraid to help any Spaniard, had gone upon a foray with the soldiers. ‘I was now,’ he says, ‘able to show myself in the town, which was of thatched houses, and there were some very pretty girls, with whom I struck up a great friendship and often visited their house to converse. One afternoon when I was there, two young Englishmen came in, and one of them, who was a sergeant, asked me if I was a Spaniard, and what I did there. I said yes, and that I was one of Don Alonso de Luzon’s soldiers who had surrendered, that my bad leg had prevented me from going with the rest, and that I was at their service to do their bidding. They said they hoped soon to take me with them to Dublin, where there were many Spaniards of note in prison. I replied that I could not walk, but was very willing to accompany them. They then sent for a horse, and their suspicions being set at rest, they began to romp with the girls. The mother made me signs to leave, which I did very quickly, jumping over ditches and going through thick covert till I came within view of O’Cahan’s castle. At nightfall I followed a road which led me to a great lagoon.’ This was probably Lough Foyle, and here he was befriended by herdsmen, one of whom, after a visit to Coleraine, told him that he had seen the two Englishmen ‘raging in search’ of him. He kept his counsel, but advised Cuellar to remove into the mountains. He was conducted to the hiding-place of a bishop, ‘a very good Christian,’ who prudently dressed like the country folk. ‘I assure you,’ writes the devout Spaniard, ‘that I could not restrain my tears when I came to kiss his hand.’ It seems almost certain that this was Redmond O’Gallagher, papal bishop of Derry and acting Primate, one of the three Irish prelates who had attended the Council of Trent. He had twelve other Spaniards with him, and by his help Cuellar managed to reach Scotland. ‘He was a reverend and just man,’ says the latter; ‘may God’s hand keep him free from his enemies.’

Final escape of Cuellar

Four shiploads of castaways from the Armada were ultimately despatched from Scotland, and were not molested by the English, to whom they were no longer dangerous; but Cuellar was wrecked once more near Dunkirk, and saw 270 of his companions butchered by the Dutch. At last, in October 1589, fourteen months after his narrow escape from swinging at the Duke of Medina Sidonia’s yard-arm, did this much-enduring man reach Antwerp, which was then in the hands of Alexander Farnese, and from thence he wrote the account which has been so largely used.178

More than twenty ships lost in Ireland

It is not possible to trace the history of every ship lost on the Irish coast. Bingham, in a letter written when all was over, says twelve ships were wrecked in his province, which included Clare, and that probably two or three more foundered about various islands. He particularly excluded those lost in Ulster and Munster. In a paper signed by Secretary Fenton the total number of vessels lost is given as eighteen, but full accounts had not yet come in, and that number certainly falls short of the truth. Cuellar says that more than twenty were lost in the kingdom of Ireland, with all the chivalry and flower of the Armada.179

Great loss of lifeDonegalConnaughtMunster

According to Fenton’s account 6,194 men belonging to the eighteen ships whose loss he records, were ‘drowned, killed, and taken.’ This does not include those who escaped, nor the men belonging to ships not comprised in his list. At the end of October the number of Spaniards alive in Donegal alone was not far short of 3,000. About 500 escaped from Ulster to Scotland – ‘miserable, ragged creatures, utterly spoiled by the Irishry’ – and some of their descendants remain there to this day, and preserve the tradition of their origin. Very few of them reached Spain, and on the whole, we may believe that the number of subjects lost to Philip II. out of that part of the fleet which was lost in Ireland, cannot have been much short of 10,000. ‘In my province,’ says Bingham, ‘there hath perished at the least 6,000 or 7,000 men, of which there hath been put to the sword by my brother George, and executed one way and another, about 700 or 800, or upwards. Bingham spared some Dutchmen and boys, as probably engaged against their wills, but these were executed by the Lord Deputy himself when he visited Athlone. Twenty-four survivors from a wreck were executed at Tralee, but this was done in a panic, and was quite unnecessary. Munster was indeed too thoroughly subdued to make the presence of a few Spaniards dangerous. In Ulster the arm of the Government scarcely reached the castaways until they were no longer of much importance. Even the native Irish did not always spare those who had come to deliver them. The MacSwineys killed forty at one place in Donegal. Plunder was no doubt the object, as it had been in Tyrawley and in Clare island, but a desire to curry favour with the Government had also a good deal to say to it. It was only in those parts of Ulster and Connaught where the power of the chiefs was still unbroken, that the Spaniards received any kind of effectual help.180

Tyrone and O’DonnellThe Spaniards powerless

Tyrone did what he could for the Spaniards by sending them provisions, and he bitterly reproved O’Donnell, who with his eldest son had helped the Government against them. Other O’Donnells joined the strangers, and the chief does not seem to have carried his country with him. His MacDonnell wife made no secret of her intention to employ the foreigners for her own purposes. Tyrone himself was careful not to commit any overt act, and indeed professed the utmost loyalty, but he took the opportunity to renew his complaints against Tirlogh Luineach. Two brothers named Ovington or Hovenden, who were partly in his service and partly in the Queen’s, skirmished with the Spaniards wrecked in Innishowen and brought most of them prisoners to Dungannon; but many of their soldiers ran away, and their own good faith was much suspected. The MacSwineys all helped the Spaniards more or less, and O’Dogherty complained that they transferred them to his country as soon as their own had been eaten up. With men and boats he had saved many hundreds from a wreck, but this was little more than common humanity demanded. There were at one time about 3,000 Spaniards alive in Ulster. O’Rourke had given them arms; MacClancy interrupted the communications; Ballymote, where George Bingham had a house, was burned by the O’Connors, O’Dowds, and O’Harts, who said they were making way for King Philip, and it was thought that Sligo must inevitably fall into their hands. Bingham’s vigour disconcerted the plans of the confederates, and a good many of the Spaniards made their way to Scotland. A few continued to lurk in different parts of Ireland, down to 1592 at least, but it is hardly possible to believe, what is so often stated, that they were in numbers sufficient to leave traces upon the features and complexions of the natives. Spanish blood there may be in Ireland, but it is surely more reasonable to attribute it to the commerce which existed for centuries between a land of fish and a land of wine.181

Wreck in Lough FoyleOfficers ransomed

The ship wrecked in O’Dogherty’s country was the ‘Trinidad Valencera’ of Venice. She had on board about 600 men – Spaniards, Greeks, and Italians; and of these 400, including more than 100 sick, were brought to shore, some of them with arms, but ‘without even one biscuit.’ ‘The natives, who are savages,’ had retired into the mountains, but they found some horses at grass, which they killed and ate. They were attacked by Tyrone’s foster-brethren, Richard and Henry Hovenden, who made much of the glorious victory of 140 over 600. The Spaniards said that they had surrendered on promise of their lives and of decent treatment; but that their captors nevertheless stripped them naked and killed a great many, not more than eighty being reserved as prisoners. Among these was one who seemed to carry ‘some kind of majesty.’ This was probably Don Alonso de Luzon, chief of the tercio or brigade of Naples, who was distinguished by a pointed beard and a large moustache. De Luzon with several other officers was brought to Drogheda, where they were told that those who had plundered them were not Englishmen but sons of the soil. Don Diego de Luzon and two others died after their arrival, and several had perished on the road. Don Alonso and Rodrigo de Lasso, who were both knights of Santiago, were sent to London for ransom, as well as Don Luis de Cordova and his nephew, the only prisoners whom Fitzwilliam allowed to live of those which Bingham had saved. More than fifty others were afterwards sent over, and something like 800l. appears to have been paid by way of ransom for them all.182

The Irish got the plunderSmall gain to the QueenRelics and traditions

The amount of plunder secured did not at all satisfy expectation. Much treasure fell into the hands of the Irish, who regarded the wreckage as a godsend. The small arms and the lighter pieces of artillery were appropriated in the same way. The larger cannon were not so easily moved, and a few were recovered by Carew and others. One wedge of gold found its way to the Queen, and there were rumours of various costly articles which had been seized by officers or adventurers. The guns rescued for her Majesty hardly exceeded a dozen, and a few others were sent into Scotland by the MacDonnells, who also got hold of a good many doubloons. The relics which have been handed down to us are very few, but the memory of the invincible Armada is preserved by the names which have clung to some points of the Irish coast.183

The Armada a crusadeIrish priests on boardOther Irishmen

By a strange reading of history it has lately been attempted to divest the Armada of its religious character. It is very true that some of Queen Elizabeth’s subjects were conspicuous by their loyalty, though they adhered to the communion of Rome: they were Englishmen first and Catholics afterwards. But it was against heresy and against the queen of heresy that Philip shot his bolt. One Spanish poem in honour of the Armada begins with an invocation of the Virgin ‘conceived without sin,’ and ends with some lines about turning the Lutherans into good Christians. Another poet laments that the wise, powerful, and warlike island of Britain had been changed from a temple of faith into a temple of heresy. The land which produced the Arthurs, the Edwards, and the Henrys, was now, he says, condemned to eternal infamy for submitting to a spindle instead of the sceptre and sword; and he apostrophises Elizabeth as anything but a virgin queen, but rather as the wolfish offspring of an unchaste mother. Lope de Vega, who served in the Armada, contents himself with calling Philip the Christian Ulysses, and the Queen of England a false siren; and he avers that faith only despatched the vast fleet from the Spanish shore. 180 Spanish and Portuguese friars sailed in the Armada, Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, Augustinians, and Theatins being all represented; and there were certainly some Irish ecclesiastics. ‘Tomas Vitres’ is probably Thomas White of Clonmel, who became a Jesuit in 1593. There was also a friar named James ne Dowrough, who originally went to Spain with James Fitzmaurice, and who was cast upon the coast of Donegal, where the people paid him much respect. Some few Irish laymen there were also on board, of whom the most important was a son of James Fitzmaurice, who died at sea and who was buried with a great ceremonial in Clew Bay. One or two other Desmond Geraldines are also mentioned. There were a few who belonged to good families of the Pale, the most important being Baltinglas’s brother, Edmund Eustace. Eustace was reported dead, but he got back to Spain. Cahil O’Connor, who killed Captain Mackworth, was another, and he also was afterwards alive in Spain. James Machary, a native of Tipperary, said he was impressed at Lisbon. On the whole it is clear that there was no thought at all of a descent on Ireland, though some Spaniards taken in Tralee Bay said that on board the Duke of Medina’s ship was an Englishman called Don William, a man of a reasonable stature, bald, and very like Sir William Stanley. But Stanley had not left the Netherlands, and there were other Englishmen in the Spanish fleet.184

Rumours from SpainA tradition

As late as February, 1589, Irish merchants spread flattering reports in Spain. Alonso de Leyva was alive, they said, and held Athlone against the Lord Deputy with 2,000 men; but an Irish bishop at Corunna said there were no Spaniards in Ireland, and the tellers of both tales were arrested until the truth should be known. Norris had recommended that Irish auxiliaries should be used in retaliating on the coast of Spain, and when he visited Corunna with Drake they lamented that the advice had not been taken. ‘Had we had either horse on land, or some companies of Irish kerne to have pursued them, there had none of them escaped.’ There is a tradition in Munster, and the local historian fixes the date in 1589, that Drake was pursued by Spaniards into Cork harbour, that he took refuge among the woods in the secluded Carrigaline river, and that the foreigners sailed round the harbour and departed without being able to find him. It is not easy to say when this happened, but the place is called ‘Drake’s hole’ unto this day.185

The last of the Armada

The Scotch Government did what it could to get rid of the Spaniards peaceably, but some were not shipped off until July 1589, and even then a remnant was left. They hung about the Orkneys, taking stray English vessels and even committing some murders on Scottish soil. In the correspondence to which they gave rise Bothwell’s name is frequently mentioned, and they continued to give trouble for some years. The few who lingered in Ireland could do but little harm, and the years which followed Philip’s great enterprise were unusually quiet.186

CHAPTER XLIII.