Ireland under the Tudors. Volume 3 (of 3)

Fitzmaurice’s one idea was to raise an army in Munster, and he told an Irish merchant who thought his preparations quite inadequate, that ‘when the arms were occupied’ he made no account of all the Queen’s forces in Ireland. He was accompanied by his wife and daughter and about fifty men, who were nearly all Spaniards. Sanders went to Bilbao after a short stay at Lisbon, and two merchants, one of Waterford and one of Wexford, who came together from the Tagus to the Shannon, reported that a descent was imminent. ‘The men,’ they said, ‘be willing; they want no treasure, they lack no furniture, and they have skilful leaders.’ To oppose a landing the Queen had one disabled ship in Ireland, and there were no means of fitting her out for sea.10

The voyage

The French rover, De la Roche, in spite of Catherine de Medici’s assurance, seems to have co-operated with Fitzmaurice. John Picot, of Jersey, bound for Waterford with Spanish wine, was warned at San Lucar by a Brest man that De la Roche and Fitzmaurice spoiled everyone they met. To avoid them Picot kept wide of the coast; nevertheless he fell in with eight sail 60 leagues N.W. of Cape St. Vincent. They fired and obliged him to lower a boat, and then robbed him of wine, oil, raisins, and other things of Spain. Picot saw twelve pieces of cannon in De la Roche’s hold, but was warned significantly not to pry under hatches again. The Jerseymen were beaten, the St. Malo men spared, and all were told, with ‘vehement oaths and gnashing of teeth,’ that if they had been Englishmen they would have been thrown overboard – a fate which actually befell the crew of a Bristol vessel two or three days later. Finding that Picot was going to Ireland, his captors said they would keep company with him; but thick weather came on, and by changing his course, he got clear within twenty-four hours. A few days after Fitzmaurice was in Dursey Sound with six ships, and others were sighted off Baltimore. He picked up a fisherman and bade him fetch in Owen O’Sullivan Bere, but that chief refused, and three days later the invading squadron cast anchor off Dingle.11

Fitzmaurice and Sanders reach Ireland

The portreeve and his brethren went off to speak with the strangers next morning. Some Spaniards whom they knew refused to let them come on board, and they sent at once to Desmond for help. The preparations for resistance were of the slightest. The constable of Castlemaine reported that he had only five hogsheads of wheat, two tuns of wine, three hogsheads of salmon, and some malt; and that he was dependent for meat upon such bruised reeds as Desmond and Clancare. There were neither men nor stores at Dublin, and no hope of borrowing even 500l. Cork had but five barrels of inferior powder, and no lead. At Waterford there were only 2,000 pounds of powder. All that Drury could do was to write letters charging the Munster lords to withstand the traitors, but a fortnight passed before he himself could get as far as Limerick.12

They land at Dingle

Mr. James Golde, Attorney-General for Munster, writing from Tralee, thus describes the manner of Fitzmaurice’s landing, which took place on the day after his arrival at Dingle: —

‘The traitor upon Saturday last came out of his ship. Two friars were his ancient-bearers, and they went before with two ancients. A bishop, with a crozier-staff and his mitre, was next the friars. After came the traitor himself at the head of his company, about 100, and went to seek for flesh and kine, which they found, and so returned to his ships.’13 On the same day they burned the town, lit fires on the hills as if signalling to some expected allies, and then shifted their berths to Smerwick harbour, taking with them as prisoners some of the chief inhabitants of Dingle. At Smerwick they began to construct a fort, of which the later history is famous. It was believed that Fitzmaurice expected immediate help out of Connaught. ‘Ulick Burke is obedient,’ said Waterhouse; ‘but I believe that John will presently face the confederacy.’ Drury could only preach fidelity, and commission Sir Humphrey Gilbert to take up ships and prosecute the enemy by sea and land.14

Proclamation of Fitzmaurice

Fitzmaurice brought to Ireland two printed proclamations – one in English for those who spoke it and were attached to the English crown, the other in Latin for the Irish and their priests.

The first paper sets forth that Gregory XIII. ‘perceiving what dishonour to God and his Saints, &c… hath fallen to Scotland, France, and Flanders, by the procurement of Elizabeth, the pretensed Queen of England; perceiving also that neither the warning of other Catholic princes and good Christians, nor the sentence of Pope Pius V., his predecessor, nor the long sufferance of God, could make her to forsake her schism, heresy, and wicked attempts; now purposeth (not without the consent of other Catholic potentates) to deprive her actually of the unjust possession of these kingdoms, &c.’ Any attack on the Crown of England is disclaimed; the usurper was alone aimed at, and the help of the English Catholics was considered certain. The Catholics were everywhere, but ‘Wales, Chestershire, Lancastershire, and Cumberland’ were entirely devoted to the old faith, and their proximity to Ireland increased their importance. Throughout England the husbandmen – the raw material of every army – were ‘commonly all Catholics.’ Elizabeth had a few friends indeed, but she would be afraid to send them away from her, and if Ireland remained united, all must go well. One great crime of Queen Elizabeth was her refusal to declare an heir-apparent; by espousing the cause of that heir, whose name is not mentioned, the reward of those who worship the rising sun might fairly be expected. Fitzmaurice explained that the Pope had appointed him general because he alone had been present at Rome, but that he intended to act by the advice of the Irish prelates, princes, and lords, ‘whom he took in great part for his betters.’ And his appeal ends thus: ‘This one thing I will say, which I wish to be imprinted on all our hearts, if all we that are indeed of a good mind would openly and speedily pass our faith by resorting to his Holiness’ banner, and by commanding your people and countries to keep no other but the Catholic faith, and forthwith to expel all heresies and schismatical services, you should not only deliver your country from heresy and tyranny, but also do that most godly and noble act without any danger at all, because there is no foreign power that would or durst go about to assault so universal a consent of this country; being also backed and maintained by other foreign powers, as you see we are, and, God willing, shall be; but now if one of you stand still and look what the other doth, and thereby the ancient nobility do slack to come or send us (which God forbid), they surely that come first, and are in the next place of honour to the said nobility, must of necessity occupy the chief place in his Holiness’ army, as the safeguard thereof requireth, not meaning thereby to prejudice any nobleman in his own dominion or lands, which he otherwise rightfully possesseth, unless he be found to fight, or to aid them that do fight, against the Cross of Christ and his Holiness’ banner, for both which I, as well as all other Christians, ought to spend our blood and, for my part, intend at least by God’s grace, Whom I beseech to give you all, my lords, in this world courage and stoutness for the defence of His faith, and in the world to come life everlasting.’15

Continuity of some Irish ideas

The whole document is a good example of the sanguine rhetoric in which exiles have always indulged, and of the way in which the leaders of Irish sedition have been accustomed to talk. The part assigned to continental powers and to English Catholics in the sixteenth century, was transferred to the French monarchy in the seventeenth, and to the revolutionary republic in the eighteenth; and now, in the nineteenth, it is given to the United States of America, and to the British working-man.

A second proclamation

A translation of the shorter paper may well be given in full: – ‘A just war requires three conditions – a just cause, lawful power, and the means of carrying on lawful war. It shall be made clear that all three conditions are fulfilled in the present case.

‘The cause of this war is God’s glory, for it is our care to restore the outward rite of sacrifice and the visible honour of the holy altar which the heretics have impiously taken away. The glory of Christ is belied by the heretics, who deny that his sacraments confer grace, thus invalidating Christ’s gospel on account of which the law was condemned; and the glory of the Catholic Church they also belie, which against the truth of the Scriptures they declare to have been for some centuries hidden from the world. But in the name of God, in sanctification by Christ’s sacraments, and in preserving the unity of the Church, the salvation of us all has had its chief root.

‘The power of this war is derived first from natural, and then from evangelical, law. Natural law empowers us to defend ourselves against the very manifest tyranny of heretics, who, against the law of nature, force us, under pain of death, to abjure our first faith in the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, and unwillingly to receive and profess a plainly contrary religion; a yoke which has never been imposed by Christians, Jews, or Turks, nor by themselves formerly upon us. And so since Christ in his gospel has given the help of the kingdom of heaven – that is, the supreme administration of his Church – to Peter, Gregory XIII., the legitimate successor of that chief of the Apostles in the same chair, has chosen us general of this war, as abundantly appears from his letters and patent (diploma), and which he has the rather done that his predecessor, Pius V., had deprived Elizabeth, the patroness of those heresies, of all royal power and dominion, as his declaratory decision (sententia), which we have also with us, most manifestly witnesseth.

‘Thus we are not warring against the legitimate sceptre and honourable throne of England, but against a she-tyrant who has deservedly lost her royal power by refusing to listen to Christ in the person of his vicar, and through daring to subject Christ’s Church to her feminine sex on matters of faith, about which she has no right to speak with authority.

‘In what belongs to the conduct of the war, we have no thoughts of invading the rights of our fellow-citizens, nor of following up private enmities, from which we are especially free, nor of usurping the supreme royal power. I swear that God’s honour shall be at once restored to Him, and we are ready at any moment to lay down the sword, and to obey our lawful superiors. But if any hesitate to combat heresy, it is they who rob Ireland of peace, and not us. For when there is talk of peace, not with God but with the Devil, then we ought to say, with our Saviour: I came not to bring peace on earth, but a sword. If then we wage continual war to restore peace with God, it is most just that those who oppose us should purchase their own damnation, and have for enemies all the saints whose bones they spurn, and also God himself, whose glory they fight against.

‘Let so much here suffice, for if anyone wishes to understand the rights of the case he need but read and understand the justice and reasonableness of the fuller edict which we have taken care should be also published.’16

How Fitzmaurice understood liberty of conscience

In these papers the arguments derived from the right to liberty of conscience, which all Protestants should respect, and from the Papal claims which all Protestants deny, are blended with no small skill; but Fitzmaurice, while demanding liberty of conscience for himself, expressly denies it to those who disagree with him.

Desmond and Fitzmaurice

There can be no doubt that Desmond was jealous of James Fitzmaurice; and historians well-affected to the Geraldines have attributed the latter’s rebellion to the ill-feeling existing between them. It is said that Lady Desmond, who was a Butler, had prevented her husband from making any provision for his distinguished kinsman. It was reported to Drury that Fitzmaurice had called himself Earl of Desmond on the Continent, and that this would be sure to annoy the Earl, whose pride was overweening. But this does not seem to have been the case. Fitzmaurice is not called Earl either in his own letters or in those written to him. The general of the Jesuits addresses him as ‘the most illustrious Lord James Geraldine’; the Pope speaks of him as James Geraldine simply, and so he calls himself, sometimes adding ‘of Desmond.’ But that he should have been appointed general of a force which was to operate in Desmond’s country was quite enough to excite suspicion. No sooner did the news of his arrival reach the Earl than he wrote to tell Drury that he and his were ready to venture their lives in her Majesty’s quarrel, ‘and to prevent the traitorous attempts of the said James.’ He had nevertheless been in correspondence with Fitzmaurice, and had urged his immediate descent upon the Irish coast some eighteen months before.17

Nicholas Sanders, the Jesuit

Not less important than Fitzmaurice was Dr. Nicholas Sanders, who acted as treasurer of the expedition. He was known by the treatise De Visibili Monarchia which Parker said was long enough to wear out a Fabius, and almost unanswerable, ‘not for the invincibleness of it, but for the huge volume.’ Answers were nevertheless written which no doubt satisfied the Anglican party, but the Catholic refugees at Brussels thought so highly of Sanders that they begged Philip to get him made a cardinal.

Making the best of both worlds

The English were then in disgrace at Rome, where the appointment of a Welshman as Rector of the new college had caused a mutiny among the students, and Allen doubted whether his own credit was good, but it was upon him that the red hat was at last conferred. To Sanders must be ascribed most of what was written in Fitzmaurice’s name, and that was a small part of what fell from his prolific pen. Queen Elizabeth, said the nuncio, was a heretic. She was childless, and the approaching extinction of Henry VIII.’s race was an evident judgment. She was ‘a wicked woman, neither born in true wedlock nor esteeming her Christendom, and therefore deprived by the Vicar of Christ, her and your lawful judge.’ Her feminine supremacy was a continuation of that which the Devil implanted in Paradise when he made Eve Adam’s mistress in God’s matters.’ When a knowledge of Celtic was necessary Sanders’s place might be taken by Cornelius O’Mulrian, an observant friar, lately provided to the see of Killaloe, or by Donough O’Gallagher, of the same order, who was provided to Killaloe in 1570. Letters in Irish were written to the Munster MacDonnells, Hebridean gallowglasses serving in Desmond, whom Fitzmaurice exhorts to help him at once – ‘first, inasmuch as we are fighting for our faith, and for the Church of God; and next, that we are defending our country, and extirpating heretics, barbarians, and unjust and lawless men; and besides that you were never employed by any lord who will pay you and your people their wages and bounty better than I shall, inasmuch as I never was at any time more competent to pay it than now… We are on the side of truth and they on the side of falsehood; we are Catholic Christians, and they are heretics; justice is with us, and injustice with them… All the bonaght men shall get their pay readily, and moreover we shall all obtain eternal wages from our Lord, from the loving Jesus, on account of fighting for his sake… I was never more thankful to God for having great power and influence than now. Advise every one of your friends who likes fighting for his religion and his country better than for gold and silver, or who wishes to obtain them all, to come to me, and that he will find each of these things.’18

Fitzmaurice appeals to Desmond

In the letter written by Sanders to Desmond in Fitzmaurice’s name, the Earl is reminded that the latter ‘warfareth under Christ’s banner, for the restoring of the Catholic faith in Ireland.’ Then, flying into the first person in his hurry, he says His Holiness ‘has made me general-captain of this Holy War.’ There are many allusions to Christ’s banner and to the ancient glories of the Geraldines, and the epistle ends with a recommendation to ‘your fellows, and to all my good cousins your children, and to my dear uncle your brother, longing to see all us, all one, first as in faith so in field, and afterwards in glory and life everlasting.’

A like appeal was made to the Earl of Kildare, and we may be sure that none of the Munster lords were forgotten. Friars were busy with O’Rourke, O’Donnell, and other northern chiefs, and the piratical O’Flaherties brought a flotilla of galleys, which might have their own way in the absence of men-of-war. Three of Fitzmaurice’s ships sailed away, and were expected soon to return with more help. Thomas Courtenay of Devonshire happened to be at Kinsale with an armed vessel, and was persuaded by his countryman Henry Davells, one of the Commissioners of Munster, to come round and seize the remaining Spanish ships. Courtenay seems not to have been in the Queen’s service; like so many other men of Devon, he was probably half-pirate and half-patriot. To cut out the undefended vessels from their anchorage was an easy and congenial task, and thus, to quote another Devonian, ‘James Fitzmaurice and his company lost a piece of the Pope’s blessing, for they were altogether destituted of any ship to ease and relieve themselves by the seas, what need soever should happen.’ The O’Flaherties sailed away with the two bishops on Courtenay’s arrival, but Maltby afterwards found their lair upon the shores of Clew Bay. One was promptly hanged by martial law; a second, who had property to confiscate, was reserved for the sessions, and a third was killed for resisting his captors; the rest were to be hanged when caught. Fitzmaurice had with him at Smerwick but twenty-five Spaniards, six Frenchmen, and six Englishmen, besides twenty-seven English prisoners whom he forced to work at the entrenchments. Provisions were scarce, and the whole enterprise might have collapsed had it not been for a crime which committed the Desmonds irretrievably.19

Murder of Davells and Carter

On hearing of the landing in Kerry Drury had despatched a trusty messenger to confirm the Earl and his brother in their allegiance. The person selected was Henry Davells, a Devonshire gentleman who had served Henry VIII. in France, had afterwards seen fighting in Scotland, and had long lived in Carlow and Wexford, where he was well known and much respected. His countryman Hooker, who knew him, says he was not only the friend of every Englishman in Ireland, but also much esteemed by the Irish for his hospitality and true dealing. ‘If any of them had spoken the word, which was assuredly looked to be performed, they would say Davells hath said it, as who saith “it shall be performed.” For the nature of the Irishman is, that albeit he keepeth faith, for the most part, with nobody, yet will he have no man to break with him.’ The same writer assures us that the mere fact of being Davells’ man would secure any Englishman a free passage and hospitable reception throughout Munster and Leinster. He was equally valued by Desmond and Ormonde, an intimate friend of Sir Edmund Butler, and on such terms with Sir John of Desmond, whose gossip he was and whom he had several times redeemed out of prison, that the latter used to call him father. Davells now went straight to Kerry, saw the Earl and his brothers, whom he exhorted to stand firm, and visited Smerwick, which he found in no condition to withstand a resolute attack. Returning to the Desmonds he begged for a company of gallowglasses and sixty musketeers, with whom and with the aid of Captain Courtenay, he undertook to master the unfinished fort. Desmond refused, saying that his musketeers were more fitted to shoot at fowls than at a strong place, and that gallowglasses were good against gallowglasses, but no match for old soldiers. English officers afterwards reported that sixty resolute men might have taken Smerwick, and were thus confirmed in their belief that Desmond had intended rebellion from the first, and that Fitzmaurice, whose ability was undeniable, would not have taken up such a weak position without being sure of the Earl’s co-operation. But religious zeal might account for that.

Davells, who was accompanied by Arthur Carter, Provost Marshal of Munster, and a few men, started on his return journey, prepared no doubt to tell Drury that nothing was to be expected of the Desmonds. John of Desmond, accompanied by his brother James and a strong party, followed to Tralee, surrounded the tavern where the English officers lay, and bribed the porter to open the door. Davells and Carter were so unsuspicious that they had gone to bed, and allowed their servant to lodge in the town. When Davells saw Sir John entering his room with a drawn sword he called out, ‘What, son! what is the matter?’ ‘No more son, nor no more father,’ said the other, ‘but make thyself ready, for die thou shalt.’ A faithful page cast himself upon his master’s body; but he was thrust aside and Sir John himself despatched Davells.

Carter was also killed, and so were the servants. In a curious print the two Englishmen are represented as sleeping in the same bed. Sir John holds back the servant with his left hand and transfixes Davells with the right, while Sir James goes round, with a sword drawn, to Carter’s side. Outside stand several squads of the Desmond gallowglasses, and armed men are killing Davells’ followers, while Sanders appears in two places, carrying the consecrated papal banner, hounding on the murderers, and congratulating the brothers on their prowess. According to all the English accounts Sanders commended the murder as a sweet sacrifice in the sight of God, and two Irish Catholic historians mention it. But Fitzmaurice was a soldier, and disapproved of killing men in their beds. There is no positive evidence as to Desmond. Geraldine partisans say he abhorred the deed, but he never punished anyone for it, and Sir James was said to have pleaded that he was merely the Earl’s ‘executioner.’ Desmond accepted a silver-gilt basin and ewer, and a gold chain only a few days after the murder.20

Fitzmaurice and John of Desmond

‘Landed gentlemen,’ says Sidney Smith, ‘have molar teeth, and are destitute of the carnivorous and incisive jaws of political adventurers.’ The Munster proprietors held aloof with the Earl of Desmond, ‘letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”’ while the landless men followed his bolder and more unscrupulous brother. When Fitzmaurice disembarked, Desmond had 1,200 men with him; shortly after the murder of Davells he had less than 60; but Sir John was soon at the head of a large force. The activity of Maltby not only prevented any rising in Connaught, but also made it impossible for Scots to enter Munster. He lay at Limerick waiting till Drury was ready, and when the latter, who was ill, came to Limerick at the risk of his life, it was Maltby who entered the woods and drove the rebels from place to place. For a time Fitzmaurice and his cousin kept together, though it may be that the latter’s savagery was disagreeable to the man who had seen foreign courts, and who was evidently sincerely religious, though the English accused him of hypocrisy. According to Russell, who gives details which are wanting elsewhere, the two marched together unopposed into the county of Limerick, where one of Sir John’s men outraged a camp-follower. Fitzmaurice ordered him for execution, but Sir John, ‘little regarding the Pope’s commission, and not respecting murder or rape,’ refused to allow this, and Fitzmaurice, seeing that he could not maintain discipline, departed with a few horsemen and kernes, nominally on a pilgrimage to Holy Cross Abbey, really perhaps to enter Connaught through Tipperary and Limerick, and thus get into Maltby’s rear. In doing so he had to pass through the territory of a sept of Burkes, of whom some had been with him in his former enterprise. Fitzmaurice was in want of draught animals, and took two horses out of the plough. The poor peasants raised an alarm, and at a ford some miles south of Castle Connell the chief’s son Theobald, who was learned in the English language and law, and who may have had Protestant leanings, appeared with a strong party. He was already on the look-out, and had summoned MacBrien to his aid.

Death of Fitzmaurice

Fitzmaurice urged Burke to join the Catholic enterprise; he answered that he would be loyal to the Queen, and a fight followed. Burke had but two musketeers with him, one of whom aimed at Fitzmaurice, who was easily known by his yellow doublet. The ball penetrated his chest, and feeling himself mortally wounded, he made a desperate dash forward, killed Theobald Burke and one of his brothers, and then fell, with or without a second wound. ‘He found,’ says Hooker characteristically, ‘that the Pope’s blessings and warrants, his agnus Dei and his grains, had not those virtues to save him as an Irish staff, or a bullet, had to kill him.’ The Burkes returned after the death of their leader, and, having confessed to Dr. Allen, the best of the Geraldines breathed his last. Lest the knowledge of his death should prove fatal to his cause, a kinsman cut off Fitzmaurice’s head and left the bare trunk under an oak – an evidence of haste which shows that there was no great victory to boast of. The body was nevertheless recognised, carried to Kilmallock, and hanged on a gibbet; and the soldiers barbarously amused themselves by shooting at their dead enemy. ‘Well,’ says Russell, ‘there was no remedy – God’s will must be done, punishing the sins of the father in the death of the son. Fitzmaurice made a goodly end of his life (only that he bore arms against his sovereign princess, the Queen of England). His death was the beginning of the decay of the honourable house of Desmond, out of which never issued so brave a man in all perfection, both for qualities of the mind and body, besides the league between him and others for the defence of religion.’21