Ireland under the Tudors. Volume 3 (of 3)

Defeat of Harrington in Wicklow

In pursuance of his original intention to settle Leinster before going further afield, Essex had proposed to give Sir Henry Harrington, seneschal of Wicklow, 700 foot and 50 horse, 300 of these to be seasoned soldiers. His sudden resolution to attack Munster altered this, and the work was left to ‘four new companies and Captain Adam Loftus, his company of foot, who were all Irish and most of them lately come from the rebels; myself,’ Harrington plaintively adds, ‘without either horse or foot, or any penny of entertainment.’ The O’Byrnes had fortified the passage of the Avonmore near Rathdrum, and, in order to accustom his troops to the presence of an enemy, Harrington led them out several miles and encamped near the river. This was on May 28, when Essex was before Cahir. Phelim MacHugh sent peaceful messages to Harrington, which can have had no object but to disarm his suspicion. Next morning the Irish were in considerable force, and, after reconnoitring, the seneschal ordered a return to Wicklow. The enemy pressed on his rear and hung on his flanks, the ground being for the most part bush, wood, and bog. A stream which crossed the road was safely forded, but some signs of insubordination appeared in Loftus’s company, which was explained by an attempt on the part of his subalterns to gain over some of the hostile kerne who had formerly fought on the Queen’s side. If this was a stratagem on the part of the O’Byrnes it was completely successful. Loftus did his best in the rear, the post of danger in a retreat, but received a wound from which he afterwards died. His men immediately ran away, and, although no one pursued, never stopped till they got to Wicklow. The Irish then charged down the road, and the main body of infantry behaved no better. ‘I persuaded them,’ says Captain Atherton, ‘but to turn their faces and it should be sufficient for their safety, but they never offered to turn, nor speak, but, as men without sense or feeling, ran upon one another’s backs, it not being possible to break by reason of the captains, which endeavoured by all means to stay them, but all in vain.’ As soon as the ground allowed them, the soldiers broke in all directions, throwing away their arms and even their clothes. Captain Charles Montague, who had already done such good service at Blackwater, handled his troop of horse well, and, though wounded in several places, brought off all the colours, and covered the retreat of the few foot soldiers who retained any kind of order. Captain Wardman was killed, and this was the end of Essex’s great scheme for the settlement of Leinster.315

Essex returns to Dublin,

At Waterford, the Lord-Lieutenant was ‘received with two Latin orations, and with as much joyful concourse of people as any other town of Ireland.’ He inspected the fort of Duncannon, and Harrington, who amused himself in country quarters by reading books on fortification, and who hoped at coming home to talk of ‘counterscarps and casemates,’ shoots his wit at the expense of Sir John Norris in his capacity of engineer. Stripped of technicalities and Italian terms of art, the criticism is that the fort was too confined, and that it was commanded from the land side. The wit forgot that Irish rebels had no artillery, and did not notice that the course of the channel forced all ships of any size to come close under the walls. Against a Parma or a Spinola the defences would have availed little, but after-events proved that Duncannon was an important post in Irish warfare. Boats were brought from Carrick and New Ross, and the army was ferried over from Passage to Ballyhack. This proved a long operation, ‘the boats not being great, and the carriage of our army far greater than ever heretofore in this country followed so few fighting men,’ in which statement the reason of Essex’s failure is perhaps contained. The line of march lay by Ballibrennan to a ford over the Slaney, between Enniscorthy and Ferns. The direct road to Dublin was by Carnew, but the Duffry was a land of woods and hills, swarming with rebels and practicable only for a fighting force; whereas Essex could muster no more than 1,200 effective men, clogged with hurt and sick, and ‘with at least thrice as many churls, horseboys, and other like unserviceable people which were of necessity to be guarded.’ It was, therefore, determined to go by the coast, and no enemy appeared until Gorey had been passed. From this, villages and houses were burned on both sides of the road ‘to whet the rebels choler and courage,’ who made a stand at a river four miles south of Arklow.

Essex himself passed the deep water with his horse, and Ormonde led the rest of the army over a better ford near the seaside. The Irish, who were about 1,000 strong, did not venture to close, but skirmished on the left flank, the broken ground being too far off for them to do much harm. Captain Lawrence Esmond was, however, killed. Essex endeavoured to draw the enemy down by masking a part of his force, but the natives, as Harrington observes, were not easily to be drawn into an ambuscade. Ormonde and Blount, with the head of the column, advanced to the seaside, hidden from the others by the shape of the ground. The Irish, being on the height, saw their advantage, and very nearly succeeded in cutting off the baggage train in the centre. A hard fight followed, and a charge of Southampton’s horse just saved the army from a great disaster. Several of his men were bogged and in great danger. Captain Constable escaped with two wounds, and Mr. Seth Cox, ‘a gentleman whose industry had adorned him with much both science and language’ was killed. Captain Roche, an Irishman by birth, who had long served the French king, had his leg shattered by a shot.

having effected nothing

After some more fighting, the rebels were beaten off with the loss of 100 men. Donell Spaniagh, Phelim MacFeagh, and Owen MacRory were all present, and were willing to treat upon protection being granted. Essex sent word to Phelim that he might have a safe-conduct as far as Arklow if he would come and sue for mercy as a repentant rebel, but that a messenger sent for any other purpose would be hanged. Dublin was reached without further fighting, and the Irish annalists, with whom Harrington is in almost verbal agreement, may be left to sum up the results of the expedition. While the ‘army was in Munster,’ say the Four Masters, ‘the Geraldines continued to follow, pursue, and press upon them, to shoot at, wound, and slaughter them. When the Earl had arrived in the Decies, the Geraldines returned in exultation and high spirits to their territories and houses… In Leinster they marched not by a prosperous progress, for the Irish were pursuing and environing them, so that they slew great numbers in every road by which they passed… They said it would have been better for the Earl if he had not gone on this expedition, as he returned back without having received submission or respect from the Geraldines, and without having achieved any exploit worth boasting of, excepting only the taking of Cahir.316

Severity of Essex

Essex lost no time in holding a court-martial on the officers and men of Harrington’s force. Piers Walsh, Loftus’s Irish lieutenant, who was certainly guilty of cowardice, and perhaps of treacherously communicating with the enemy, was shot; all, or nearly all, the soldiers, had run away; they were sentenced to be hanged, and were actually decimated. The other officers, ‘though they forsook not their places assigned them, but were forsaken by the soldiers, yet because in such an extremity they did not something very extraordinary… were all cashiered’ and imprisoned. Harrington himself, being a Privy Councillor, was not tried, but was placed under arrest during her Majesty’s pleasure. His thirty years’ service were not forgotten in England, and he soon returned to his duty. The decimation was not approved of, and Wotton notes it as a piece of Roman discipline, and as an instance of Essex’s tendency to severity. On the voyage to the Azores he had thrown a soldier overboard with his own hands.317

Dissatisfaction of Elizabeth

Instead of settling Leinster as announced, the Lord Lieutenant had only succeeded in getting rid of his army. ‘The poor men,’ he wrote, ‘that marched eight weeks together be very weary, and the horsemen so divided that I cannot draw 300 to a head.’ And still he promised to overthrow Tyrone, or be himself slain, if he could find him ‘on hard ground and in an open country,’ which he was as little likely to do as Glendower was to draw spirits from the vasty deep. There had been sharp letters about his making Southampton general of the horse. His commission gave him power to do this, but the Queen had expressed her personal repugnance to such promotion. She disliked the formation of what, in later Irish history, has been called ‘a family party.’ Blount was Essex’s stepfather, though about his own age, and Southampton had without leave married his cousin, Elizabeth Vernon, who was a maid of honour. Essex tried to maintain the appointment against the Queen’s will, mainly on the ground that no volunteer would adhere to him when thus discountenanced; but Elizabeth said she did not see that Southampton’s counsel or experience could be of any particular value, and refused to believe that ‘the voluntary gentlemen are so discouraged thereby as they begin to desire passports and prepare to return.’ The Lord-Lieutenant had to submit, and Southampton continued to serve as a volunteer. The account rendered for two months showed no great balance in the Queen’s favour, and it is evident that she thought pretty much as the Irish did about the futility of the Munster journey. He had, she said, ‘brought in never a capital rebel, against whom it had been worthy to have adventured 1,000 men; for of these two comings in that were brought unto you by Ormonde (namely, Mountgarret and Cahir), whereupon ensued the taking of Cahir Castle, full well do we know that you would long since have scorned to have allowed it for any great matter in others to have taken an Irish hold from a rabble of rogues with such force as you had, and with the help of the cannon, which was always able in Ireland to make his passage where it pleased.’318

Essex on his defence

Before the end of May Cecil knew that Essex intended to visit Munster, so as to make things safe there before going to the North, and he expresses no opinion on the subject. But the Queen soon grew uneasy, and complained that she was giving the Earl 1,000l. a day to make progresses with. When the results of two months’ expenditure were known, her indignation burst forth. Nothing had been done but what President Norris might have done as well, and she was especially displeased ‘that it must be the Queen of England’s fortune (who hath held down the greatest enemy she had) to make a base Irish kerne to be accounted so famous a rebel.’ Ireland was in a state worse than that in which Ormonde had left it, and Tyrone was announcing to continental nations ‘defeats of regiments, deaths of captains, and loss of men of quality in every corner.’ Essex entrusted regiments to young gentlemen, and made such a fuss that the rebels were always fully prepared. This was just criticism, and indeed the Earl’s own story tallies with it. He provides the excuse also, but he had only found out what was known to hundreds of officers who had served in Ireland. The rebels, he said, were much more numerous than the soldiers, and for light warfare they were both naturally more active and better trained to fight. The Queen’s gallant officers and gentlemen of quality did more good than all the rest, and the real difficulty was to restrain their ardour, whereas the rebel leaders ‘dare never put themselves to any hazard, but send their kerne and their hirelings to fight with her Majesty’s troops.’ English officers with cavalry could always win in the open, and towns were in no danger; but in bogs and woods he was loth to ‘wager the lives of noblemen and gentlemen against rogues and naked beggars.’

These were the commonplaces of Irish warfare since Surrey’s and Skeffington’s days, and Essex was learning his lesson at an enormous cost.319

Campaign in Leix and Offaly

The Lord-Lieutenant was ill, of the malady which nearly proved fatal in the following year, and the results of overwork and failure were not lessened by rebukes from the Queen. An intended expedition into Leix and Offaly was noticed by her as unworthy of his rank, but yet he determined to go. Blount was first sent to victual Maryborough, and the sergeant-major to Philipstown. Captain William Williams commanded at the latter place, and he had just lost 60 men by allowing them to fall into an ambuscade. There was no difficulty in relieving the forts, but when Essex himself followed, he had some sharp fighting on the border of Westmeath. The Irish were commanded by Captain Tyrrell, a noted English or Anglo-Irish partisan in Tyrone’s pay, who always kept 200 men with him. In days long gone by, the Anglo-Norman Tyrrells had driven the O’Dooleys from Fartullagh, and now they were in arms against the Queen of England’s representative. Sir Conyers Clifford came from Connaught, to meet the Lord-Lieutenant, and his horsemen fought bravely on foot in a country where there was no place for cavalry. ‘In all this journey,’ says Harrington, who came with the Connaught troops, ‘I was comrade to the Earl of Kildare, and slept both on one pillow every night for the most part; here at the parting, my lord gave Sir Griffin Markham great commendations, and made him colonel and commander of all the horse in Connaught; and gave me and some others the honour of knighthood in the field.’

Clifford lost many men before effecting the juncture, and yet the natives were so completely surprised that they had no time even to hide their children. Many hundred cows were taken, but the result of the expedition was that Essex returned to Dublin and Clifford to Connaught.320

Anger of ElizabethThe cheap defence of nations

At the beginning of August, the Irish Council demanded 2,000 fresh men for the expedition to the North, but before an answer came, they declared that nothing could be done for the year. It is difficult to say how far this inconsistency was caused by the fluctuations of Essex’s own temper, but it was clear that he did not inspire confidence. The Queen granted the reinforcements, while severely criticising the conduct of both Lord-Lieutenant and Council. She had been repeatedly told, and could very well believe, that a garrison at Lough Foyle was the chief thing needful. ‘We doubt not,’ she said, ‘but to hear by the next that it is begun and not in question.’ In the meantime the garrisons in Connaught and Munster and in the midland forts seemed scarcely able to maintain themselves. ‘We can hope of no success,’ she said sarcastically, ‘than to be able to keep our towns which were never lost, and some petty holds of small importance, with more than three parts of our army, it being decreed for the head of the rebellion, that our forces shall not find our way this year to behold him.’ She could not understand how no more than 5,000 men were available, instead of at least double that number; and, indeed, it is not easy to understand even now. And there were other things to make her angry. Essex had been specially ordered to make no knights except for some striking service, and he now made no less than fifty-nine, without having anything to show for it. The court news-writer, from whom we learn so much, notes that he had begun by dozens and scores, and had now fallen to ‘huddle them up by half-hundreds; and it is noted as a strange thing, that a subject, in the course of seven or eight years, should, upon so little service and small desert, make more knights than in all the realm besides; and it is doubted, that if he continues this course, he will shortly bring in tag and rag, cut and long-tail, and so bring the order into contempt.’321

Defeat of Sir Conyers Clifford (August)Death of Clifford

It may be doubtful whether Essex intended again to take the dilatory advice of his Council, or whether he would have been stung into action by the Queen’s taunts. A great disaster seems to have finally determined him, though it should probably have had the contrary effect. O’Connor Sligo had been with Essex in Munster, whence he returned to Collooney, the only castle which he had preserved from O’Donnell, and where he was at once beleaguered by him. Essex ordered Clifford to relieve him and to occupy Sligo, by which means he hoped to distract Tyrone’s attention. Clifford, with a force of something under 2,000 men, went to Boyle, and, in spite of the Lord Lieutenant’s caution against over-confidence, resolved to pass the Curlew mountains without resting his men, after two days’ march in the hot harvest weather. He does not seem to have expected any opposition, but O’Donnell had been watching the pass for weeks, and had given orders that the army should be allowed to get well on to the mountain before they were attacked. The Irish scouts saw them leave the abbey of Boyle, so that there was plenty of time for O’Donnell to bring up his forces. On arriving at the narrowest part of the pass between Boyle and Ballinafad, Clifford found it strongly defended by a breastwork, and held by 400 men, who fired a volley, and then fell back. The road up the mountain, which consisted of ‘stones six or seven foot broad, lying above ground, with plashes of bog between them,’ ran through boggy woods, from which the Irish galled the soldiers, who exhausted their powder with little effect. Sir Alexander Radclyffe, commanding the advance guard, was mortally wounded, and as no reinforcement came up, a panic ensued, and the whole array were driven pell-mell back to Boyle. Sir John Mac Swiney, an Irish officer in the Queen’s service, faced the enemy almost alone, cursing the vileness of his men, and ‘died fighting, leaving the example of his virtue to be intituled by all honourable posterities.’ Only the horse under Sir Griffin Markham behaved well, covering the retreat and charging boldly up hill ‘among rocks and bogs, where never horse was seen to charge before.’ Markham had his arm broken by a shot, and Sir Conyers Clifford was killed while trying to rally his men. Harrington thought the imagination of the soldiers was bewitched, and cites the extraordinary escape of Rory Oge from his cousin Sir Henry in 1577, when they thought ‘he had, by magic, compelled them not to touch him’; but this panic is easily explained by the moral effect of recent defeats. So far as Ireland went, people were losing their faith in Elizabeth’s star.322

Effects of this disaster

O’Rourke, who remained in possession of the field, cut off Clifford’s head and sent it to O’Donnell, and MacDermot, in a letter which Harrington very justly characterised as ‘barbarous for the Latin, but civil for the sense,’ announced that, for the love he bore the governor, he had carried his headless trunk to the neighbouring monastery of Lough Cé. He was ready to exchange it for his own prisoners or to give it decent burial himself, and he would offer no obstacle to the burial of other officers. ‘The Irish of Connaught,’ say the Four Masters, ‘were not pleased at the Governor’s death, for he had been a bestower of jewels and riches upon them, and he had never told them a falsehood.’ The same authorities say the Irish did not attribute their victory to arms, but to the miracle of the Lord and to the special intercession of the Blessed Mary. Nor was superstition confined to the victorious party, for not only did the English soldiers talk of magic, but Clifford himself was said to have prophetically dreamed of his capture by O’Donnell, and of being carried by monks into their convent. The defeat was particularly disastrous, because Clifford’s troops were not raw recruits, as Harrington’s had been. Essex determined to employ them no more, except to defend walls. The immediate result of the battle was that O’Connor Sligo submitted to Tyrone, and became a loyal subject of the real king of Ireland.323

A council of war decides to do nothing

Essex’s first and natural impulse was ‘to revenge or follow worthy Conyers Clifford,’ but others thought that very little could be done. In early spring it had been decided to wait till the summer, and now in harvest-time the season for fighting was considered to be past. Again the General placed his fate in the hands of a council of war, and again his advisers resolved to do nothing. ‘The Lords, Colonels, and Knights of the army,’ as they style themselves, declared that there were less than 4,000 men available for a campaign, that many soldiers deserted to the rebels, ran away to England, feigned sickness, or hid themselves. The uniform ill-success of the Queen’s army had lately been such that her troops had no heart for the Ulster enterprise, and it was certain that they would be greatly outnumbered by the rebels. ‘The Connaught army consisting of a great part of old companies being lately defeated,’ there was no chance of establishing a post at Lough Foyle, and in any case there were not men enough to garrison it, and the same would apply still more strongly to Armagh and Blackwater, whither provisions could not be brought by sea. For these reasons, and being thoroughly aware of the state of the army, the officers declared against any journey far north. ‘In which resolution,’ they say, ‘if any man suspected it proceeded of weakness or baseness, we will not only in all likely and profitable service disprove him, but will every one of us deal with his life, that we dissuaded this undertaking with more duty than any man could persuade unto it.’ The Queen was very angry with the Lord Lieutenant for calling in ‘so many of those that are of so slender judgment, and none of our council,’ to keep men from censuring his proceedings, and there can be little doubt that it was a weak device to shift the responsibility. Seven days after the officers’ declaration, Essex left Dublin, resolved to go as far and do as much ‘as duty would warrant, and God enable him.’ This meant that he would fight Tyrone if the arch-rebel would forego his advantage of position and come out to battle. ‘If he have as much courage as he pretendeth, we will, on one side or the other, end the war.’ He had come to see that the ‘beating of Tyrone in the field’ depended upon the good pleasure of that chief, and it would have been well for his fame had he mastered that elementary truth before he undertook to censure better soldiers and wiser men than himself.324

Essex goes to the northTyrone in sight

Essex left Dublin on August 28, with the intention of placing a garrison at Donaghmoyne in Farney. That land of lakes and hills was his own inheritance by the Queen’s patent to his father, and he may have had some idea of securing his own as well as of annoying Tyrone. He travelled through Navan and Kells, and at Castle Keran, beyond the latter town, he mustered an army of 3,700 foot and 300 horse. But the idea of establishing an outpost either in Monaghan or Cavan was quickly abandoned for three reasons, any of which would have been ample by itself. It was not worth doing, since there was nothing to defend beyond Kells. It could not be done, because it would be impossible to bring provisions on horseback from Drogheda. Last and not least, Tyrone was in Farney, ready to burn the Pale up to Dublin gates as soon as the Lord Lieutenant’s rearguard had passed. It was resolved that Kells should be the frontier garrison, and the army marched to Ardee. The camp was so placed that Tyrone’s could be seen on the other side of the Lagan, and there was some small skirmishing when a party was sent down to cut firewood near the river. Next day Essex advanced to the Mills of Louth, and encamped on the left bank of the Lagan. Tyrone made a flank march at the same time, and the two armies were quite close together, the Irish keeping the woods, though 10,000 or 11,000 strong. Sir William Warren, who was used to treating with Tyrone, went to seek the enlargement of a prisoner, and next day Henry O’Hagan came to ask for a parley. ‘If thy master,’ Essex is reported to have said, ‘have any confidence either in the justness of his cause, or in the goodness and number of his men, or in his own virtue, of all which he vainly glorieth, he will meet me in the field so far advanced before the head of his kerne as myself shall be separated from the front of my troops, where we will parley in that fashion which best becomes soldiers.’ Vainglory there was, but rather upon the challenger’s own side; it was as a general, and not as a champion, that Elizabeth had sent her favourite to Ireland.325

Essex meets Tyrone, and retires without fighting

Next day Essex offered battle, which of course was refused by the enemy, but Tyrone again sent to desire a parley. A garrison was placed at Newrath near the mill of Louth, and on the following day the army marched towards Drumcondra. They had scarcely gone a mile when O’Hagan came again, and ‘speaking,’ like Rabshakeh, ‘so loud as all might hear that were present,’ announced that Tyrone ‘desired her Majesty’s mercy, and that the Lord Lieutenant would hear him; which, if his lordship agreed to, he would gallop about and meet him at the ford of Bellaclinthe, which was on the right hand by the way which his lordship took to Drumcondra.’ Essex sent two officers to see the place, who reported that the ford was too wide for the purpose; but Tyrone, who knew the ground, found a spot ‘where he, standing up to his horse’s belly, might be near enough to be heard by the Lord Lieutenant, though he kept to the hard ground… Seeing Tyrone there alone, his lordship went down alone. At whose coming Tyrone saluted his lordship with much reverence, and they talked above half-an-hour together, and after went either of them to their companies on the hills.’ Of all the foolish things Essex ever did, this was the most foolish. By conversing with the arch-rebel without witnesses he left it open to his enemies to put the worst construction on all he did, and he put it out of his own power to offer any valid defence. Two days before he had declared war to the knife, and now he was ready to talk familiarly with his enemy, and practically to concede all without striking a blow. A more formal meeting followed with six witnesses on each side. Tyrone’s were his brother Cormac MacBaron, Magennis, Maguire, Ever MacCowley, Henry Ovington, and Richard Owen, ‘that came from Spain, but is an Irishman by birth.’ Southampton, St. Leger, and four other officers of rank accompanied the Lord Lieutenant. By way of humility, the Irish party rode into the river, ‘almost to their horse’s bellies,’ while Essex and his followers kept on the bank. Tyrone spoke uncovered, saluting the viceregal party ‘with a great deal of respect,’ and it was arranged that a further conference should take place next morning. Essex continued his march to Drumcondra, but Tyrone came himself to the place of meeting – a ford where the Lagan bridge now stands. Wotton was one of the commissioners on the Lord Lieutenant’s part, and it is not likely that the negotiation suffered in his hands. He was chosen as the fittest person ‘to counterpoise the sharpness of Henry Ovington’s wit.’ The result was a cessation of arms for six weeks to six weeks until May, either side being at liberty to break it on giving fourteen days’ notice. If any of Tyrone’s allies refused to be bound, the Lord Lieutenant was left at liberty to attack them. To save Essex’s honour it was agreed to that his ratification should be by word simply, but that Tyrone’s should be on oath. Next day the Lord Lieutenant went to take physic at Drogheda, and Tyrone retired with all his forces into the heart of his country, having gained without fighting a greater victory than that of the Yellow Ford. Bagenal was defeated, the Earl of Essex was disgraced; one had lost his life, the other his reputation.326