Ireland under the Tudors. Volume 3 (of 3). Bagwell Richard

were stricken by panic. Sir Peter Carew was clad in complete armour, which proved more fatal than even a red coat. Suffocated from running up hill he was forced to lie down and was easily taken. It was proposed to hold him to ransom, ‘but one villain,’ says Hooker, ‘most butcherly, as soon as he was disarmed, with his sword slaughtered and killed him, who in time after was also killed.’

      Three months afterwards George Carew rejoiced that he had the good fortune to slay him who slew his brother, and announced that he meant to lay his bones by his or to be ‘thoroughly satisfied with revenge.’ No doubt the survivor under such circumstances would be filled with remorseful bitterness; but his thirst for revenge, fully slaked by a murder three years later, can be scarcely justified even according to that ancient code which prescribes an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.54

Consequences of the affair

      When a civilised government receives a check from its revolted subjects, the moral effect is generally out of all proportion to the actual loss. But Pelham had effectually bridled Munster, and Maltby had for the moment nearly neutralised Connaught and Ulster also. O’Rourke and O’Donnell now both took arms in the Catholic cause, and there was every prospect of a general conflagration. Maltby rode post from Dublin northwards, and such was the dread which he had inspired, that O’Donnell at once disbanded his men, and wrote to say that nothing should make him swerve from his allegiance. The President hastened to Leitrim, where he found that O’Rourke had dismantled the castle. He immediately began to repair it, though he had to draw lime eight miles. The tanist Brian O’Rourke, who regarded the chief as his greatest enemy, helped the work, and gladly acted as sheriff under the President.

      O’Rourke appeared at the edge of a wood with 1,200 men, of whom 500 were Scots; but Ulick Burke, who begged for the place of honour, charged at the head of 200 soldiers and 500 kerne. Some Scots were killed, and the building was not further interrupted. Leaving a strong garrison in the castle, Maltby then hurried back to Dublin, and arrived there in time to be a witness and a critic of the Glenmalure affair. He warned the English Government that Ulster was in a dangerous state, and that Tirlogh Luineach’s wife was determined to make a new Scotland of that province. ‘She has already planted a good foundation, for she in Tyrone, her daughter in Tyrconnell (being O’Donnell’s wife), and Sorleyboy in Clandeboy, do carry all the sway in the North, and do seek to creep into Connaught, but I will stay them from that.’55

Results of the defeat – in Ulster,

      The news of Grey’s defeat did not reach the officials at Cork for eleven days, and then only in a fragmentary way, but its effect upon the natives was instantaneous. Tirlogh Luineach, whom Captain Piers had just brought to terms, suddenly swept round the lower end of Lough Neagh, drove off the cattle of the loyalist Sir Hugh Magennis, and killed many of his men, demanded the title of O’Neill, and the old hegemony claimed by Shane, declared that he would stand in defence of religion while life lasted, and proposed to invade the Pale with 5,000 men. The Scots’ galleys lay in Lough Foyle, and effectual resistance seemed impossible. The Baron of Dungannon sent his cattle to the mountains, and hid himself in the woods, protesting his loyalty even ‘if all the Irishry in Ireland should rebel,’ and if he had nothing left but his bare body. But Magennis, after crouching for a while at Narrow Water, was forced to go as a suppliant to Tirlogh’s camp.

In the Pale, and in Connaught

      The southern side of the Pale was in no better case. A strong force under John of Desmond besieged Maryborough, and the constable was so closely watched that he dared not write. A private settler living in the unfinished castle of Disert, and expecting to be attacked every moment, sent the news to Dublin, but was forced to entrust his letter to a poor beggar-man. Ladders were ready in the woods to attack all posts. Some of Ormonde’s villages were burned, and his brother Piers, though he maintained his own ground, could not save Abbeyleix from the flames. The remnant of the O’Connors rose once more, and Ross MacGeohegan, the most loyal and useful subject in the midlands, was murdered by his half-brother Brian, whose mother was an O’Connor. ‘All is naught here,’ wrote Maltby from Dublin, ‘and like to be worse.’ He had to reach Athlone by a circuitous route, and found his province already in an uproar.56

The Spaniards appear at last

      It was in foreign aid that all Irish rebels mainly trusted; and it was supposed that the fleet would prevent any descent upon Munster, the only district where strangers from the South would have much chance of maintaining themselves. Winter had been directed to cruise about the mouth of the Shannon, having first sent some light craft to the Biscay coast for news. He was not to land himself, but if necessary to employ a naval brigade under Captain Richard Bingham. The admiral was not in good health; he hated the service, he hated Captain Bingham, and he was ready to run home as soon as there seemed the least chance of victuals running short. The fleet reached Ireland about the beginning of April, and early in July Winter threatened to sail away. But the Queen’s positive orders restrained him for a time, and Pelham was at hand to inculcate obedience, reminding him that there was generally a Michaelmas summer in Ireland. Pelham left Munster on the last day of August, on December 5th Winter sailed for England, and on the 12th the long-expected Spaniards arrived at Smerwick. The admiral was required to explain his very unseasonable departure, and it must be admitted that he had reasons, though a Drake or a Nelson might not have allowed them much weight. The ships were foul, and sailed too badly either for flight or chase, the sails and ropes were rotten from the unceasing wet of a Kerry summer, victuals were running short, there was a most plentiful lack of news, and the Shannon was a bad anchorage at the best. Whatever the Queen may have thought of the admiral’s conduct, it did not prevent her from sending him to Ireland again.57

An English sea-dog in Spain

      An attack on England could not be secretly prepared in Spain, for the carrying trade was in England’s hands. Armed rovers like Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, half merchants and half buccaneers, came and went as they pleased upon the peninsular coast, in the confident hope that no Spaniard could catch them. Such a one was Captain James Sidee, an excellent seaman but not altogether free from suspicion of piracy, whom it had been necessary to pardon some years before. He sailed boldly into the splendid harbour of Ferroll, and wrote to the governor demanding the surrender of certain English subjects whom he supposed to be living there. He had perceived, he said grimly, that the country folk were in terror at his approach, but he was no pirate and would take no one by force, for Ferroll was the ‘king’s chamber which he was commanded not to break.’ But he wanted his own fellow-subjects, who had plundered a Plymouth ship at sea, and hinted plainly that he could take them if he liked. He said they were only cowkeepers who had left their cows, and John Fleming, James Fitzmaurice’s admiral, had run away from his creditors. The Irish bishop who was with them might find some better employment than keeping kine in Ireland. The Spanish governor’s answer does not appear; but one Barnaby O’Neill wrote to say that the bishop was noble, chaste, virtuous, and learned, while the heretic bishops of England were shoe-makers, scavengers, and pudding-makers, that Fleming was Lord Slane’s cousin, and that Sidee had served under that rebel, traitor, and coward, the Prince of Orange. Sidee retorted that the Silent Prince was far above his praise, and that he did not believe his correspondent was an O’Neill at all, for he had never heard his name. He might of course be some bastard, but he rather inclined to think that he was really one William Hall, a murderous thief well known in Ireland and Spain. Sir William Winter was of opinion that Sidee’s proceedings would not facilitate English diplomacy in Spain, and indeed it was an uncomfortable time for Englishmen there. But Philip was most anxious to avoid war – much too anxious indeed for the taste of his ambassadors in England – and Elizabeth’s subjects suffered more petty annoyance than actual hardship.58

Irish refugees in Spain

      William Carusse of Drogheda sailed from Tenby to Spain, with a cargo, in the ‘Gift of God,’ a vessel of only nineteen tons. Being chased by a man-of-war, he put into Santander, where he found an English ship and an English bark, and where he was boarded by the corregidor, and by two or three ecclesiastics who vainly searched for books, and seem to have helped themselves to six shillings. The national proverb that in Spain a little oil sticks to every hand was exemplified

54

George Carew to Walsingham, November 20, 1580. For the defeat in Glenmalure, see Stanley, Maltby, and Gerard to Walsingham, August 31 Grey to Walsingham, August 31; to Burghley, September 12; Wallop to Walsingham, September 9; Hooker; Four Masters, 1580; Camden, who exaggerates the loss; O’Sullivan, ii. iv. 14, who ridiculously estimates the slain at 800.

55

Maltby to Leicester and Walsingham, August 17; the former in Carew; Gerard to Walsingham, August 14.

56

Hugh Magennis to Grey, August 29, 1580; Dungannon and Sir Hugh O’Reilly to Grey, September 3; Gormanston to Grey, September 4; Sir N. Bagenal to Grey, September 2; Mr. John Barnes to Grey (from Disert), September 4; Nathaniel Smith to Maltby, September 3; Maltby to Walsingham, September 7 and 8.

57

Pelham to the Privy Council, July 14, 1580; to the Irish Council, July 22; to Winter, August 16, all in Carew. Instructions to Sir William Winter, March 17; and considerations which moved him, September 23; Sir R. Bingham to Walsingham, September 20; Baron of Lixnaw to the Munster Commissioners, September 15.

58

The correspondence about Sidee is between March 19 and 21, 1580; Winter to the Privy Council, April 27; Notes for the Privy Council, May 14.