Ireland under the Tudors. Volume 3 (of 3)

Confusion in Connaught

Russell’s journey to Galway had resulted in a truce, but there was no peace in Connaught. Bingham managed to victual Ballymote across the Curlew mountains, but not without the help of three veteran companies, who did all the fighting and lost five officers and fifty men. Boyle and Athlone were threatened, while a MacDermot and an O’Connor Roe were set up, as well as a MacWilliam. At last the Burkes, aided by a party of Scots, having done what damage they could on the Galway side of the Shannon, crossed the river and began to harry the King’s County. The Lord Deputy started without delay, was joined by O’Molloy and MacCoghlan, and fell upon the intruders at daybreak. A hundred and forty were killed or drowned in trying to escape, and Russell then turned to the castle of Cloghan, which was strongly held by the O’Maddens. ‘Not if you were all Deputies,’ they replied, on being summoned to surrender, and added that the tables would probably be turned on the morrow. Russell humanely proposed that the women should be sent out, but the O’Maddens refused. Next morning a soldier contrived to throw a firebrand on to the thatched roof, which blazed up at once. A brisk fusillade was directed upon the battlements, and another fire was lit at the gate, while the assailants made a breach in the wall. Forty-six persons were cut down, smothered, or thrown over the walls, while two women and a boy were saved. The Scots who came over the Shannon had been reported as 400, and Russell made a good deal of his success; but Norris reduced the number of strangers to forty, and spoke with contempt of the whole affair.252

The Queen on liberty of conscienceMore negotiations

When the Queen at last consented to hear Chief Justice Gardiner’s account of his proceedings in the North, she expressed great displeasure. The demand for liberty of conscience, she said, was a mere pretext, the result of disloyal conspiracy, and put forward as an excuse for past rebellion more than from any desire to do better in future. Tyrone and the rest had no persecutor to complain of, and what they asked was in reality ‘liberty to break laws, which her Majesty will never grant to any subject of any degree’ – a pronouncement which might well have been quoted by the foes of the dispensing power ninety years later. And, as if it were intended to strike Russell obliquely, a new commission was ordered to be issued to Norris and Fenton. They were to meet the rebels during the truce, and to ‘proceed with them to some final end, either according to their submissions to yield them pardons, with such conditions as are contained in our instructions; or if they shall refuse the reasonable offers therein contained, or seek former delays, to leave any further treaty with them.’ And at the same time there was to be a general inquiry into all alleged malpractices in government which might cause men to rebel. Some of the directions to the new commissioners were rather puzzling; but the Lord Deputy and Council refused to suggest any explanation, for that they were ‘left no authority to add, diminish, or alter.’

Russell indeed gave out that he would go to the North himself, and Norris was in despair. ‘The mere bruit,’ he says, ‘will cross us, and I am sure to meet as many other blocks in my way as any invention can find out. I know the Deputy will not spare to do anything that might bring me in disgrace, and remove me from troubling his conscience here.’ Russell, on the other hand, complained that Burghley was his enemy and sought out all his faults. ‘I wish,’ said the old Treasurer, ‘they did not deserve to be sought out.’253

Captain Thomas Lee

Tyrone must have been an agreeable, or at least a persuasive man, for he often made friends of those Englishmen who came under his personal influence. Such a one was Captain Thomas Lee, who at this juncture made an effort in his favour; saying that he would be loyal ‘if drawn apart from these rogues that he is now persuaded by.’ He would go to England or to the Deputy if he had a safe-conduct straight from the Queen, and Essex and Buckhurst might write to him for his better assurance, since he believed Burghley to be his bitter enemy. Lee confessed that he had not seen Tyrone for some time, and that he founded his opinion upon old conversations; but he was ready to stake his credit, and begged to be employed against the Earl should he fail to justify such an estimate. For having ventured to address the Queen when in England without first consulting Burghley, Lee humbly apologised, and hinted, perhaps not very diplomatically, that a contrary course might have preserved the peace. The Cecils had little faith in Lee’s plausibilities, and it was reserved for Essex to employ him as a serious political agent.254

Norris and Fenton go to DundalkA hollow peace follows

Fenton foresaw that Tyrone and O’Donnell would probably ‘stand upon their barbarous custom to commune with us in the wild fields.’ And so it proved. They refused to come into any town, and proposed a meeting-place near Dundalk, with a river, a thicket, and a high mountain close at hand. This was rejected, and they then suggested that the commissioners should come on to the outer arch of a broken bridge, and back across the water, while they themselves stayed on dry land. This was considered undignified, and indeed the proposal looks like studied impertinence; and in the end it was decided that Captains St. Leger and Warren should act as intermediaries. Tyrone at once waived the claim to liberty of conscience, ‘save only that he will not apprehend any spiritual man that cometh into the country for his conscience’ sake.’ While protesting against the continuance of a garrison at Armagh, he agreed not to interrupt the communications, and in the end he received a pardon upon the basis of the existing state of affairs. The gaol and the shrievalty were left in abeyance during the stay of the garrison; but the Queen made no objection to Armagh and Tyrone being treated as one county, or to the demand that the sheriff should be a native. The Earl disclaimed all authority to the east of the Bann and of Lough Neogh, and, while renouncing foreign aid, promised to declare how far he had dealt with any foreigner. He refused to give up one of his sons, but surrendered his nephew and another O’Neill as pledges, on condition that they should be exchanged at the end of three months. The Queen, upon whom the cost of the great Cadiz expedition weighed heavily, professed herself satisfied except on one point. Tyrone had promised some time before to pay a fine either of 20,000l. or of 20,000 cows, but he now maintained that the figure had been mentioned for show, and that it was an understood thing that it should not really be paid. The promise had been made to Russell, and Norris had left the matter in doubt. But it must be acknowledged that the Lord Deputy saw the real state of the case more clearly than his sovereign, and he maintained that the rebels were only gaining time till help came from Spain, and that Norris was overreached by ‘these knaves.’ The peace was a feigned one, the pledges were of no account, and there was no safety for the English in Ireland but in keeping up the army.

Russell’s strictures on Norris

Tyrone and O’Donnell had not met the commissioners at all, and O’Rourke had run away immediately after signing the articles. On the other hand, Norris and Fenton could report that Maguire, with several chiefs of scarcely less importance, had come into Dundalk and made humble submission on their knees. Russell acknowledged that the Queen was put to great expense in Ireland, and that there was very little to show for it, ‘which,’ he urged, ‘is not to be laid to my charge, but unto his who being sent specially to manage the war, and for that cause remaining here about a twelvemonth, hath in that time spent nine months at the least in cessations and treaties of peace, either by his own device contrary to my liking, as ever doubting the end would prove but treacherous, or else by directions from thence.’255

Story of the Spanish letter

Captain Warren remained with Tyrone for a month after the departure of Norris and Fenton for Dundalk. He then brought with him to Dublin a letter from Philip II. to the Earl, encouraging him to persevere in his valiant and victorious defence of the Catholic cause against the English. Warren promised, and his servant swore, that the letter should be returned or burned without any copy being taken. Tyrone at first vehemently refused to produce it at all, but at last agreed that the Lord Deputy should see it on these terms. Russell at once proposed to keep the document, and the Council supported him; only Norris and Fenton voting against this manifest breach of faith. The Lord Deputy had been blamed for not detaining Tyrone when he might perhaps have done so honourably, and now he was determined not to err in the direction of over-scrupulousness. Warren was naturally indignant at being forced to surrender what he had promised to keep safely, and the official excuses were of the weakest. The Earl was thanked for giving such a proof of his sincerity, and urged to say what verbal messages the Spanish bearer had brought from so notorious an enemy to her Majesty as the King of Spain.

Tyrone retorted that Warren had produced an undertaking, under the hands of the Lord Deputy and Council, to perform whatever he promised, and that they had broken his word and their own, ‘wherein,’ he said, ‘if I be honourably and well dealt with, I shall refer myself to the answer of her most excellent Majesty.’

The whole proceeding was as useless as it was discreditable, for the letter was quite short, and Norris, after once hearing it read, was able to repeat all that it contained. O’Donnell, who was even more determined than Tyrone upon the plan of war to the knife with Spanish aid, wrote to say that he wished for peace, but could not restrain his men, and that he would give no pledge, ‘inasmuch as Captain Warren performed not his promise in not returning the letter he took with him to Dublin upon his word and credit.’256

Spaniards in Ulster

It was not likely that Tyrone would tell the Government what passed between him and the Spanish messenger Alonso de Cobos; for he took care to see him in the presence only of those he most trusted, such as his brother Cormac, his secretary Henry Hovenden, O’Donnell, and O’Dogherty. The Spanish ship put into Killybegs, where munitions were landed for O’Donnell, but De Cobos came forty miles by land to see Tyrone. An interpreter was necessarily employed, and he told all he knew. Cormac dictated a letter in Irish, reminding the King that he had begun the war, gloating over his successes, and promising wonders if Philip would give him 500 men in pay. The Pope sent beads, stones, and relics, which the interpreter saw, and also an indulgence for flesh every day in war time. The northern Irish, he observed, had but lately taken to fish, butter, and eggs on Fridays and Saturdays. Cormac himself told him that he expected the Spaniards very soon.257

Bingham in ConnaughtHis severityNorris and Bingham

Immediately after the receipt of the Spanish letter Norris and Fenton set out for Connaught. Tyrone himself had pointed out that the two northern provinces hung together, and the understanding between the western and northern chiefs was at this time pretty close. The Burkes insisted that all their quarrel was with Bingham and his kinsfolk only, and Norris was ready to believe the charges against him of injustice in his government, and of seizing the lands of those who opposed him. Of Bingham’s severity there can be little doubt; but he had ruled cheaply and successfully, and it was not his fault if O’Donnell’s road into Connaught was still open. In August 1595 the hostages in Galway gaol knocked off their irons after a drinking-bout, and passed through the open gate of the town. They found the bridge held against them, and on trying to cross the river they were intercepted by the soldiers on the other bank. All who escaped instant death were recaptured. Bingham sent a warrant to hang all the prisoners who had taken part in the attempt, and hanged they accordingly were – Burkes, O’Connors, and O’Flaherties from the best houses in Connaught. To mutinous soldiers Bingham showed as little mercy. Some recruits in Captain Conway’s company made a disturbance at Roscommon, and Bingham ordered that the mutineers should be brought to the gallows, as if for execution, and then spared. This was done, but next day things were worse than ever, and a ringleader, named Colton, threatened Conway and took the colour from his ensign’s hand. Captain Mostyn, whose company was also tainted, was knocked down, and the mutiny was not quelled until over thirty men were hurt. Bingham hanged Colton promptly, and most soldiers will think that he did right. But Norris had made up his mind that Connaught could be pacified by gentle means, and his hand was heavy against Bingham, especially as Russell seemed inclined to shield him. Sir Richard, on the contrary, pleaded that all his arguments had been overruled in Dublin, that he had not been allowed to defend his province for fear of hindering the negotiations in Ulster, and that the reinforcements sent to him were a ‘poor, ragged sort of raw men.’ Everything had turned out as he foretold, and he had never asked for money from Dublin until the neglect of his warnings had encouraged a general revolt. O’Donnell had exacted 1,200l. sterling from the county of Sligo since the castle there was betrayed, and his brother plundered Connaught with a rabble of Scots, while he himself helped to amuse the commissioners at Dundalk. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘this is partly scarcity of meat at home, the people of the North being always very needy and hungry.’ The Irish Council, he declared, wished to draw all eyes upon Connaught so as to hide their own failures; and as for his provincials they had a thousand times better treatment than they deserved, for their real object was to re-establish tanistry and its attendant barbarism.258

Charges against Bingham,

Finding the Lord General favourable to them, the Mayo Burkes plied him hard with charges against Bingham ‘and his most cruel and ungodly brother John.’ They had seized most of the cattle, it was urged, upon various pretences, and in three years had become possessed of many castles and of 200 ploughlands, offering no title ‘but a high gallows to the possessor.’ ‘Her Majesty’s clemency,’ they said, ‘is better known to strange nations than to us her poor misers, being altogether racked and governed by the Binghams, the dregs of all iniquity, here in culâ mundi far from God and our sovereign.’

Bingham came to Dublin, and both he and Norris, who agreed in nothing else, were loud in their complaints of official inaction. He strongly maintained, and he certainly was right, that the Queen’s true policy was to separate the two rebellious provinces and not to include them in the same treaty. The Dundalk articles now made it impossible to garrison Ballyshannon, and Sligo was the next best thing. The Connaught rebels, he said, ‘will seek to retain their titles of Macs and O’s with their unhonest law, even as Ulster does.’ But Norris was probably right in believing that there would be no peace between Bingham and the Burkes, since they were ‘so much embrued in each other’s blood;’ and when he went to Connaught the accused governor was detained in Dublin by Russell, lest the sight of him should hinder the negotiations at Galway or Athlone. Bingham took care to remind Burghley that the composition was better both for Crown and subject than anything yet devised, ‘for the Irish lord is the greatest tyrant living, and taketh more regality by the tanist law than her Majesty doth, or ever did, by her princely prerogative.’

who leaves Ireland suddenly

The summer passed in futile diplomacy, while O’Donnell lived upon the western province and spared his own country. ‘If Bingham,’ said the Queen, ‘appear guilty, he shall be removed; but we must not condemn a governor unheard and without good proof.’ Tired of waiting, the suspected chief commissioner left Ireland without leave, on September 25, and on his arrival in London was committed to the Fleet.259

Catholic confederacy, and general attack on English settlers

It suited the Queen to take an optimistic view of the situation, but the confederacy against her was spreading gradually over all Ireland. The Connaught rebels put Norris off from month to month and from week to week, while the Ulster chiefs used the respite afforded them to draw in Munster, with which the Clan Sheehy, the old Desmond gallowglasses, gave a ready means of communication. Tyrone had just received full pardon, yet he wrote as follows: —

‘We have given oath and vow that whosoever of the Irishry, especially of the gentlemen of Munster, or whosoever else, from the highest to the lowest, shall assist Christ’s Catholic religion, and join in confederacy and make war with us… we will be to them a back or stay, warrant or surety, for their so aiding of God’s just cause, and by our said oath and vow, never to conclude peace or war with the English, for ourselves or any of us, during our life, but that the like shall be concluded for you, &c.’

Many of the scattered settlers in Munster were murdered about this time, and it was upon the property of Englishmen only that the MacSheehys and other robbers maintained themselves. In Tipperary, says the Chief Justice of Munster, there was ‘a school of thieving of horses and cows where boys from every Munster county, some the bastard sons of the best of the country,’ were trained in this patriotic exercise. The master and usher and seven of their pupils were tried and hanged. Care was taken that Protestant clergymen should not go scathless. One James, parson of Kilcornan near Pallaskenry, was visited by a party of swordsmen, but they were under protection and he unsuspectingly offered them refreshments. Nevertheless they murdered poor James, wounded three other Englishmen, and burned down the house; the leader swearing upon his target that he would never again seek protection, nor ‘leave any Englishman’s house unburned nor himself alive.’ The same spirit was shown in the inland parts of Leinster, where Owen MacRory O’More was specially protected by Russell’s order; but this did not prevent him from making a perfectly unprovoked attack upon Stradbally. Alexander Cosby, whose father had been slain at Glenmalure and who was himself married to a Sidney, sallied out with his two sons and the kerne under his orders. A fight took place on the bridge and the Irish were driven off, but Cosby and his eldest son fell. Dorcas Sidney (‘for she would never allow herself to be called Cosby’) and her daughter-in-law watched the fight out of a window and saw their husbands killed. In southern Leinster the death of Walter Reagh had not quite destroyed the old Geraldine leaven, and some of the Butlers were also engaged, greatly to Ormonde’s indignation. Whatever Tyrone’s own ideas were about religion, it is quite evident that out of his own district he was regarded as the leader of a crusade. The new English in Ireland were Protestants, and the instinctive horror of the natives for settlers whose notions about land were irreconcilable with their own was sedulously encouraged by priests and friars.260

The soldiers are disorderly and oppressive,

Elizabeth persisted in believing Tyrone’s professions, only because she saw no way of forcibly subduing ‘him whom she had raised from the dust.’ She was ‘greedy,’ said her secretary, ‘of that honourable course’; but Russell, who advocated the reduction of Tyrone, forgot to say how it was to be done. It was more clear to her that there was much oppression and extortion, and that her poor subjects in Ireland had a right to complain. The intolerable tyranny of sheriffs, provost-marshals, and other officers was the constant complaint from Ulster and Connaught; but those provinces were confessedly in a state of armed peace at best, and much might be said upon both sides. In Leinster and Munster the charges were more definite, and are more easily understood. They may be summed up in a declaration on the part of the inhabitants of the Pale that ‘the course of ranging and extorting is become so common and gainful as that many soldiers (as is said) have no other entertainment for their captains; and many that are not soldiers, pretending to be of some company or other, have, in like outrageous sort, ranged up and down the country, spoiling and robbing the subjects as if they were rebels. And most certain it is that the rebels themselves, pretending to be soldiers, and knowing how gainful the course is, have often played the like parts.’

owing to irregular payment

Real soldiers were so terrible that the poor people had no heart to resist even sham ones, and so the country went from bad to worse. The very fruit trees were cut down to feed barrack fires, and houses, if the wretched inmates deserted them to avoid their oppressors, were demolished for the same purpose. Very severe orders were issued, rape and theft being made capital offences, and these were not suffered to remain a dead letter; but the next Viceroy did not find that matters had been much improved. In Munster also there was plenty of military violence, and even lawyers, while complaining that the gown was quite subordinate to the sword, could not but acknowledge that sheriffs and gaolers were as bad as the soldiers. It is easy to see, and it is proved by a cloud of witnesses, that most of these horrors were caused by irregular payment of the troops, nor does Burghley himself leave us in any doubt. ‘I cannot,’ he says, ‘forbear to express the grief I have to think of the dangerous estate of her Majesty’s army in Ireland, where all the treasure sent in August is expended.’ Besides pensioners and supernumeraries, there were 7,000 regular soldiers, for which the monthly charge was 8,560l. sterling, which necessary reinforcements would soon increase to 10,422l. ‘for which the treasurer hath never a penny in Ireland.’ And it was certain that the increase would be progressive. ‘What danger this may be I do tremble to utter, considering they will force the country with all manner of oppressions, and thereby the multitude of the Queen’s loyal subjects in the English Pale tempted to rebel.’261

Feagh MacHugh is hunted down, killed, and beheaded

In November, 1595, Feagh MacHugh came to Dublin and submitted on his knees. The Queen was inclined to pardon him, but his terms were not at first considered reasonable. If confirmed in his chiefry, he professed himself ready to restrain his people, to attend assizes like other gentlemen, and to kneel before the Queen herself, ‘which I more desire than anything in the world.’ Even this rough mountaineer, who pointed out to Elizabeth that his property was not worth confiscating, had caught the prevailing tone of flattery. Nevertheless Feagh remained in close alliance with Tyrone, and in September 1596 he struck a blow which undid most of Russell’s work in Leinster. Elizabeth had in the end agreed to pardon him, with his wife, sons, and followers, to confirm him in his chiefry by patent, and even to restore Ballinacor, which she found a very expensive possession. Eight days after this was decided at Greenwich, Feagh wrote to Tyrone, offering to trouble the English well, and begging for a company of good shot; and a month later he surprised Ballinacor. After this there was no further talk of pardon, and Russell pursued the old chief to the death. A new fort was built at Rathdrum, and Captain Lee, who was perhaps anxious to efface the memory of his ill-success with Tyrone, scoured the mountains during the winter. Cattle by the score and heads by the dozen were collected, and the end may as well be told at once. One Sunday morning in the following May Feagh was forced into a cave, ‘where one Milborne, sergeant to Captain Lee, first lighted on him, and the fury of our soldiers was so great as he could not be brought away alive; thereupon the said sergeant cut off Feagh’s head with his own sword and presented his head to my lord, which with his carcase was brought to Dublin… the people all the way met my lord with great joy and gladness, and bestowed many blessings on him for performing so good a deed, and delivering them from their long oppressions.’ The head and quarters of this formidable marauder were exhibited upon Dublin Castle, and a sympathiser says the sight pierced his soul with anguish. Four months after, one Lane brought what purported to be the head to Essex, who sent him to Cecil for his reward. Cecil said head-money had already been paid in Ireland, and Lane gave the now worthless trophy to a lad to bury, who stuck it in a tree in Enfield chase, where it was found by two boys looking for their cattle. The Four Masters say Feagh was ‘treacherously betrayed by his relatives,’ for the O’Byrnes of the elder branch had never acquiesced in the dominion of the Gaval-Rannall. Thus one by one did the chiefs of tribal Ireland devour each other.262