Ireland under the Tudors. Volume 3 (of 3)

Fate of the survivorsA Jesuit

In this, as in every such Irish siege, the actual capture was comparatively easy; the real difficulty was to reach these distant strongholds, and to maintain an army in the wilds. The garrison, champions of a lost cause and dupes of a feeble tyrant, deserved a better fate; but Carew showed no mercy. Of the survivors fifty-eight were at once ‘hanged in pairs by the Earl of Thomond.’ Twelve of Tyrrell’s best men were respited for a time, but were also hanged when that leader declared that he would remain true to his master the King of Spain. Taylor was taken to Cork, and hanged in chains near the north gate on the discovery that he had taken a principal part in George Bingham’s murder. O’Colan, whom the English called Collins, was closely examined at Cork, and Catholic accounts say that he was tortured. He gave no useful information, but freely told the strange story of his own life. Born at Youghal, and educated at a Jesuit school there, he went at the age of seventeen to France, made some money as a waiter in inns, and served the League for nine or ten years under the Duke of Mercœur. He rose to the rank of captain; and was recommended to the King of Spain by Don Juan D’Aguila, who was then in Brittany. Coming under the influence of the Jesuit Thomas White of Clonmel, who was rector of the Irish seminary at Salamanca, he was admitted, after a time, to the Society of Jesus, whose principles, we are told, he preferred to Dominican vigour or Franciscan rigour, but not to full priest’s orders; and Archer, who knew him only by reputation, asked that he might accompany him to Ireland. His military knowledge was perhaps thought useful at Dunboy. After keeping him a prisoner for about four months, Carew found that nothing would be gained by preserving his life, and he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Youghal, meeting his fate with the greatest courage and in a manner most edifying to his co-religionists.407

O’Donnell in SpainDeath and character of Hugh Roe O’Donnell

The fall of Dunboy prevented the King of Spain from sending prompt help, but he did not give up the idea. Rumours of fresh invasions were rife during the summer, and sooner or later O’Donnell might have returned with another army. That chief had sailed from Castle Haven immediately after the battle of Kinsale, and fugitives from Munster continued to join him whenever opportunity offered. He landed at Corunna, and went straight to the King at Zamora. Falling upon his knees he obtained favourable replies to three requests: that an army should be sent to Ireland; that the King, when he gained Ireland, would set no O’Donnell over him or his successors; and that he would never deny any right that the O’Donnells had ever had. Philip sent him back to Galicia, then under the government of his zealous friend, the Marquis of Caraçena. Exiles are ever sanguine, and he professed to have no doubt of ultimate success; but Spanish vacillation sorely tried his impatient spirit. When the surrender of Kinsale became known in Spain, some vessels intended for Ireland were unloaded, and Don Juan’s report was unfavourable. The disgrace of that unsuccessful commander revived O’Donnell’s credit, and the ship which brought over Bishop MacEgan and his 12,000l. was despatched. O’Donnell began to despair of a great fleet, and begged to be allowed to go with a few small vessels. He asked his friends in Ireland to let him know the whole truth, but to keep bad news from Spanish ears. This, of course, could not be done, and the arrival of Archer and a crowd of fugitives after the disaster at Dunboy, must have outweighed all his arguments. He sought the King again at Simancas, and there he died after an illness of seventeen days. His body was carried, with great pomp, to the royal palace at Valladolid, and buried in the Franciscan monastery with every mark of respect. His solemn requiem was the death-song of the Irish tribal system. Much romance cleaves to his name, but his ideas scarcely rose above those of an ordinary chief. Local supremacy was his main object, and the panegyric of the annalists fails to raise him to the height of a national hero. He was, they say, ‘the vehement, vigorous, stern, and irresistible destroyer of his English and Irish opposers.’ He died at thirty, but there is nothing to show that he would have even attempted the task of building a stable edifice with the shifting sands of Irish life.408

Assassination plots

The Irish accounts do not suggest foul play, but Carew believed that O’Donnell had been poisoned by one James Blake, of Galway, who had announced his intention of killing him. Blake was not hired by Carew, but he would hardly have made him his confidant if he had not expected reward, and he it was who brought the first news of O’Donnell’s death to Munster. John Anias, who had been implicated in a plot to murder Elizabeth, had offered to kill Florence MacCarthy, and afterwards gave out that he had been suborned by Cecil to poison that troublesome person. Cecil and Carew employed Anias as a spy, but denied that he had ever said anything about poison, and had him hanged out of the way as soon as he could be caught. Neither Blake nor Anias would have dared to speak of such things to a modern statesman, but the morality of that age was different. A similar suspicion attaches to the death of Hugh O’Donnell’s brother, Rory, afterwards Earl of Tyrconnell. An Italian came to Sir Henry Wotton, who was then ambassador at Venice, and offered to kill Tyrone or Tyrconnell, but without mentioning their names or even seeming to know them correctly. Wotton said the Earls were of no importance, having run away because they could do no harm at home. No doubt proclaimed rebels might be justly slain; ‘yet,’ he added, ‘it was somewhat questionable whether it might be done honourably, your Majesty having not hitherto proceeded to the open proscription of them to destruction abroad, neither was it a course so familiar and frequent with us as in other states.’ Three months later Tyrconnell and his page died rather mysteriously at Rome, others of his party also sickening. Roman fever was probably to blame, though Wotton seems to have half-suspected poisoning, but in the interest of the papacy, and not of the King of England.’409

Last struggles in Connaught

When O’Donnell sailed for Spain he left his brother Rory in charge of the clan, who led them through all Munster and Connaught. The vast herds which Hugh had taken from his neighbours were found grazing peacefully in Sligo, and Ballymote was given up by O’Gallagher to the acting chief. Sir Niel Garv was co-operating with Docwra, and kept his rival out of Donegal; but Rory allied himself with O’Connor Sligo, and sought help from Brian O’Rourke against Sir Oliver Lambert, who was pressing him from the Connaught side. Tibbot-ne-Long and others of the lower Burkes solicited Lambert’s help, and he came up from Galway with a strong force, while O’Rourke fought for his own hand and refused to help O’Donnell. Lambert says he might easily have been stopped either at Ballina or Ballysadare, but he reached Sligo without serious fighting. The town had been burned by O’Connor, and the castle was in ruins. O’Donnell passed his cattle over the Curlews, and across the Shannon into Leitrim. Lambert, though camping in places ‘where no Christians have been since the war begun,’ could never catch him, but took 200 cows and a keg of Spanish powder. When the English were in Leitrim, and when Leitrim was invaded in turn, O’Donnell was safe in Roscommon; but Lambert established communications with his friends at Ballyshannon. The O’Malleys and O’Flaherties infested the coast, and Sir Oliver had to provide a galley with fifty mariners and fifteen oars on a side, for these pirates spared no one, and Bingham had found it necessary to take similar precautions. Lambert thought Sligo would be a dainty place for a gentleman if walled, and he placed a garrison there, which was able to maintain itself until the end of the war.410

Progress of Docwra in Ulster

The absence both of Tyrone and of Hugh Roe O’Donnell in Munster left a comparatively clear field to Sir Henry Docwra; ‘the country void, and no powerful enemy to encounter withal, more than the rivers.’ Castle Derg and Newtown (Stewart), both lately garrisoned, had since been betrayed by Tirlogh Magnylson, a follower of Sir Arthur O’Neill, who had become a favourite with the English officers. Tirlogh first curried favour with Captain Atkinson at Newtown by helping him to seize some cattle. Having dined with this officer, he persuaded him to take a walk outside the castle. Three or four confederates suddenly appeared, who made the captain prisoner, while others got possession of the courtyard and of the hall-door. The soldiers ‘lying in the Irish thatched house’ were all killed. Captain Dutton lost Castle Derg by a similar stratagem. But in the absence of the great chiefs Docwra was clearly the strongest man: O’Cahan’s country was harried to punish his perfidy, and even women and children were killed. Donegal was victualled, and Ballyshannon, ‘that long desired place,’ taken and garrisoned. Tirlogh Magnylson’s turn soon came. Countrymen in Docwra’s pay pursued him from place to place, and his followers were killed one by one without knowing their pursuers; those who were taken, says Sir Henry, ‘I caused the soldiers to hew in pieces with their swords.’ The hunted man travelled about the woods at night, sometimes occupying three or four cabins successively, and lighting fires to attract attention where he did not intend to stay. A boy was set to watch, and at last the poor wretch was seen to take off his trousers and lie down. Four men, says Docwra, ‘with swords, targets, and morions, fell in upon him; he gat up his sword for all that, and gave such a gash in one of their targets as would seem incredible to be done with the arm of a man, but they dispacht him and brought me his head the next day, which was presently known to every boy in the army, and made a ludibrious spectacle to such as listed to behold it.’ Captain Dutton’s betrayers had better luck. They had killed no one, and were twice spared by Docwra, after swearing ‘with the most profound execrations upon themselves, if they continued not true.’ They broke out, nevertheless, and the ringleaders kept the woods till Tyrone’s submission, when they were pardoned by Mountjoy’s express command.411

Mountjoy breaks up the O’Neill throne

Throughout the summer and autumn of 1602 Docwra and Chichester continued steadily to reduce small strongholds, to drive cattle, and to make a famine certain should Tyrone hold out till the spring. In August Mountjoy again went northwards and planted a garrison at Augher. At Tullaghogue, says Moryson, ‘where the O’Neills were of old custom created, he spent some five days, and there he spoiled the corn of all the country, and Tyrone’s own corn, and brake down the chair where the O’Neills were wont to be created, being of stone, planted in the open field.’ But he could not get within twelve miles of the rebel Earl himself, who had retreated into thick woods at the lower end of Lough Erne, and who endeavoured to keep his friends together by letters in which he urged them to make no separate terms for themselves; ‘if you do otherwise,’ he said, ‘stand to the hazard yourselves, for you shall not have my consent thereunto.’ One transient gleam of success rewarded Rory O’Donnell and O’Connor Sligo. In an attempt to force the passage of the Curlews from the Roscommon side a panic seized the English soldiers, who may have remembered the fate of Sir Conyers Clifford, and they fled in confusion to Boyle, but without any great loss.412

Last struggle in Munster

It was in Munster that hopes of Spanish succour were strongest; but Carew was able to send troops and supplies to help Mountjoy, and at the same time to finish his own work. Sir Cormac MacDermot, the chief of Muskerry, whose intriguing nature was well known to Carew, was found to have received 800 ducats from Bishop Owen MacEgan, and to have placed Blarney Castle at the disposal of the Spaniards. Captain Roger Harvey was sent, on pretence of hunting the buck, to call at the castle and ask for wine and usquebaugh, ‘whereof Irish gentlemen are seldom disfurnished,’ and if possible to get possession of the place. But the warders were on their guard, and Harvey could not even get into the courtyard. Sir Cormac himself was at Cork, not having dared to refuse attendance at the assizes, and his wife and children were also secured. Finding himself in the lion’s mouth, he ordered his people to surrender Blarney, while he made preparations for his own escape. After dark on the evening of Michaelmas-day he got out of the window in his shirt, several gentlemen being outside to receive him. A passing Englishwoman raised the alarm, but the runaway was befriended by town and country and got safe away over the walls, only to find that he could do nothing. His castle of Kilcrea had already surrendered, and Macroom was taken, owing to an accidental fire which arose while the warders were singeing a pig. No Spaniards were visible, and Tyrrell, who had eaten up Bere and Bantry, proposed to quarter his men in Muskerry. At last, towards the end of October, Sir Cormac came to Carew, and sued for mercy on his knees. A protection was granted to him, for he was helpless without his castles, his eldest son was at Oxford well watched, and Tyrrell had destroyed his corn. Raleigh advised Elizabeth not to pardon him, his country being worth her while to keep, and its situation being such as to leave him always at her mercy. Orders were accordingly given that his pardon should be withheld, at least until he had provided an estate for his cousin Teig MacCormac, who had first revealed his intrigues with the Spaniards.413

Remarkable retreat of O’Sullivan BerePassage of the ShannonA disinterested guide

O’Sullivan Bere still maintained himself in Glengariffe, but his position had become hopeless. In December Tyrrell gave up the contest and marched eighty miles without a halt from near Castleisland into the King’s County, ‘leaving all his carriages and impediments, as they tired, scattered to hazard.’ Wilmot then attacked O’Sullivan’s position, and succeeded, after six hours’ sharp fighting, in driving off 2,000 cows, 4,000 sheep, and 1,000 hackneys. Sir John Shamrock’s son, William Burke, refused to stay a moment longer, cursing himself for lingering in Munster and losing his brave followers. O’Sullivan was thus forced to fly, and on the night of the 3rd of January he slipped away, with all his family and retinue. When Wilmot came to his late camping-ground he found only sick and wounded men, ‘whose pains and lives by the soldiers were both determined.’ The fugitives had a sharp skirmish with Lord Barry near Liscarroll, but reached the Shannon at Portland on the ninth day, fighting all the way and not venturing to turn aside after cattle, although often very hungry. Finding no boats, they killed twelve horses, and Dermot O’Driscoll, who was used to the canoes or curraghs of the west-coast fishermen, constructed one with osiers, twenty-six feet long, six feet wide, five feet deep, and capable of holding thirty men. Eleven horseskins were used to cover this ark, and the twelfth was devoted to a round vessel planned by Daniel O’Malley and intended to carry ten men. The O’Malleys were more given to the sea than even the O’Driscolls, but the round ferry-boat sank, while the long one answered its purpose. Ormonde’s sheriff of Tipperary failed to prevent O’Sullivan from crossing the great river, and he reached Aughrim on the eleventh day from Glengariffe. Sir Thomas Burke, Clanricarde’s brother, who had the help of some English soldiers, attacked him here with a superior force, but was worsted with loss after a hard fight, and O’Kelly’s country was passed on the same day. On the borders of Galway and Roscommon MacDavid Burke showed the will, but not the power, to stop the fugitives, who eluded pursuit by leaving great fires in the woods near Castlereagh. They suffered horribly from snow and rain, their shoes were worn out, and their last horses furnished a scanty meal. O’Connor Kerry’s feet were a mass of sores, and he reproached those members for their cowardice, which was likely to imperil his head and his whole body. He struggled on with the rest, and in a wood near Boyle, heaven, as the pious historian believed, provided them with a guide. A barefooted man, in a linen garment and with a white headdress, and carrying an iron-shod staff in his hand, came to meet them. His appearance was such as to strike terror, but he told O’Sullivan that he had heard of his glorious victory at Aughrim, and was ready to lead him safely into O’Rourke’s country. O’Sullivan, who was perhaps less credulous than his kinsman, secured the stranger’s fidelity with 200 ducats, which he magnanimously accepted, ‘not as a reward, but as a sign of a grateful mind.’ He lead them by stony ways to Knockvicar near Boyle, where they bought food and dried themselves at fires. The blood upon O’Connor’s blisters hardened with the heat, and he had to be carried by four men until they found a lean and blind old horse, on whose sharp backbone the sufferer was rather balanced than laid. The Curlews were safely passed, and at daybreak on the sixteenth day of their pilgrimage O’Rourke’s castle of Leitrim was in sight. Of over a thousand persons who started from Glengariffe, but eighteen soldiers, sixteen horseboys, and one woman reached the house of refuge. A few more afterwards straggled in, but the great bulk had died of wounds and exposure, or had strayed away from their leaders. ‘I wonder,’ says the historian, ‘how my father, Dermot O’Sullivan, who was nearly seventy, or how any woman, was able to sustain labours which proved too much for the most muscular young men.’ The distance traversed was about 175 miles as the crow flies.414

Rory O’Donnell submitsTyrone sues for mercy

Like many chief governors before him, Mountjoy contemplated spending much time at Athlone, and the Queen approved of this. He went there in November 1602, and both Rory O’Donnell and O’Connor Sligo came to him there before Christmas. Rory called to mind the hereditary loyalty of his family since Henry VIII.’s days, adding that he himself had agreed with Sir Conyers Clifford to serve against his brother Hugh, and had been put in irons by him. O’Connor claimed to have brought in Rory, and to have suffered likewise for his fidelity to Clifford. His legs, he said, had never healed properly, being ‘almost rotted’ with the irons. Tyrone lurked in Glenconkein in very wretched case, whence he wrote in most humble terms, and, as he said, with a most penitent heart. Mountjoy had sent back his last letter because it contained no absolute submission. ‘I know the Queen’s merciful nature,’ he now said, ‘though I am not worthy to crave for mercy… Without standing on any terms or conditions, I do hereby both simply and absolutely submit myself to her Majesty’s mercy.’ Sir Christopher St. Laurence conducted some negotiations on his own account, but the Lord Deputy earnestly repudiated any knowledge of these, and continued almost to the end to say that he might possibly intercede with the Queen, but would do nothing more. Elizabeth’s instinct told her that Tyrone was no longer formidable unless she set him up again, and this it is most probable she would have never done. A month after the letter last quoted, and barely two months before the Queen’s death, Mountjoy talked of hunting the arch-traitor into the sea. He and Carew were together at Galway soon after Christmas, and it was agreed that the latter should go to England. Both of them wished to get away, but the Queen would not hear of the Deputy quitting his post, nor would she let the President go without his superior’s leave; and Cecil cleverly contrived that the suggestion should seem to come from Mountjoy himself. Never, we are told, was ‘a virgin bride, after a lingering and desperate love, more longing for the celebration of her nuptial’ than was Carew to go to England; but he returned to Munster and made things quite safe there before he started. Now that Tyrrell and O’Sullivan were gone, he ventured to send to Athlone 500 men out of 700, which were all he had available after providing for the garrisons and making allowances for the sick and missing. He feared that O’Sullivan might return, but of this there was no real danger. The war was now confined to a corner of Ulster, and if Elizabeth had lived the fate of Tyrone might have been like that of Desmond. To run him down was, however, a matter of extreme difficulty, and he seems to have thought that he could get out of Ireland if the worst came to the worst.415

Tyrone driven into a corner

While Mountjoy was conferring with Carew at Galway, Docwra and Chichester were pressing Tyrone hard. He was confined to about 200 square miles of glens and woods in the south-eastern part of Londonderry and the easternmost corner of Tyrone, and his fighting men scarcely exceeded 50. His numerous cattle were on the inaccessible heights of Slieve Gallion, and he himself had several resting-places surrounded with felled trees and protected by streams which were only fordable in dry weather. Docwra came to Dungannon with 450 English foot and 50 horse, and with 200 O’Cahan and 100 O’Dogherty kerne. Chichester had a fortified post at Toom, where the Bann leaves Lough Neagh, and he gathered there all the forces that the Ulster garrison could spare. Letters between the two leaders for the most part miscarried, and it was found quite impossible to converge upon Tyrone. From the very entrance of the woods the O’Cahans ran away to their own country, and the O’Dogherties pronounced the travelling impossible. The men sickened fast; one guide went off to Tyrone and was followed by another, who first contrived that cattle coming to Docwra’s relief should be stolen. Chichester penetrated farther into the woods, and fought two skirmishes without doing much harm to his light-footed adversary. Docwra returned to Derry two or three days after Christmas, and Chichester also abandoned the enterprise. The country about Toom was eaten as bare as an English common, and things were rather worse at Derry, which was quite out of the course of trade, and equally deprived of local supplies. It was no better in the Pale, and the whole army, now reduced to a nominal 13,000, depended entirely upon victuals sent from England. Even Dublin feared famine, and everyone was so worn out that it was difficult to get any service done.416

Famine

The confusion in the currency crippled trade and caused distress in the towns. But the winter war had worked a far greater mischief among the poor rebels in the country. Mountjoy had clearly foreseen a famine, had done his best to bring it about, and had completely succeeded. Multitudes lay dead in the ditches of towns and other waste places, ‘with their mouths all coloured green by eating nettles, docks, and all things they could rend up above ground.’ Sir Arthur Chichester saw children eating their mother’s corpse. Captain Trevor found that certain old women lit fires in the woods, and ate the children who came to warm themselves. Rebels received to mercy killed troop-horses by running needles into their throats, and then fought over the remains. Not only were horses eaten, but cats and dogs, hawks, kites, and other carrion birds. The very wolves were driven by starvation from the woods, and killed the enfeebled people. The dead lay unburied, or half-buried, for the survivors had not strength to dig deep, and dogs ate the mouldering remains. Some fled to France or Spain, but they were few compared to those who perished at home.417

Tyrone and James VIElizabeth and James VI

Had Tyrone escaped from Ireland he would have gone to Scotland, or perhaps only to the Scotch islands. In 1597 he had offered his services to James, complaining of hard treatment at the hands of Deputies, and apologising for not having paid his respects sooner. While accepting these overtures and declaring himself ready to befriend him in all his ‘honest and lawful affairs,’ the King, with characteristic caution, noted that the time had not come. ‘When,’ he wrote, ‘it shall please God to call our sister, the Queen of England, by death, we will see no less than your promptitude and readiness upon our advertisement to do us service.’ Tyrone took care to be on good terms with the sons of Sorley Boy MacDonnell, to one of which, Randal, created Earl of Antrim in the next reign, he afterwards gave his daughter. A channel of communication with Scotland was thus always open, and it was certainly used on both sides. Early in 1600 Tyrone thanked James for his goodwill, and assured him that Docwra’s expedition was intended to end in the writer’s extermination. This letter came into Cecil’s hands, and no doubt he was constantly well-informed. He had a Scotch spy, one Thomas Douglas, who also acted as a messenger between James, Tyrone, and the MacDonnells, and who carried a letter from the Duke of Lennox to Ireland early in 1601. This did not prevent James from offering to help Elizabeth with Highlanders against Tyrone in the same year. The Queen thanked him heartily, but remarked that ‘the rebels had done their worst already.’ It is plain that she saw through her good brother like glass. ‘Remember,’ she once wrote to him, ‘that who seeketh two strings to one bow, may shoot strong but never straight; if you suppose that princes’ causes be vailed so covertly that no intelligence may bewray them, deceive not yourself; we old foxes can find shifts to save ourselves by others’ malice, and come by knowledge of greatest secret, specially if it touch our freehold.’418