|
Earl of Sussex, Lord Deputy
- Incursions of the Scots - Calvagh O'Donnell imprisons his Father - Shane
O'Neill aids Sussex - O'Donnell defeats O'Neill - Dowdall's Strictures on
Sussex - The Scots attacked by the Lord Deputy - Death of the Baron of
Dungannon - And of Conn O'Neill, first Earl of Tyrone - State of the Irish
- Death of Mary.
In the five years of Mary's
reign, little of moment occurred in Ulster. In 1556 St. Leger finally left
Ireland, his successor being Thomas Radclyffe, Lord FitzWalter, better
known by his later title of Earl of Sussex. One of his first acts was to
lead an army into Ulster against the Scots, then very powerful in the
districts of the Route and Clanaboy. These Scots had long been a menace to
the peace of Ulster. Descended from the Scots of Ireland, they had
extended their sway over all modern Scotland; and in their new home, those
who dwelt on the east coast were content with their lot. Those who lived
on the western coast were of a more restless and adventurous disposition.
These Scots, under their chiefs, the MacDonalds of the Isles, made many
descents on the adjacent Irish coasts. Confined originally to the glens of
Antrim, to which they could show some sort of title, the MacDonalds had
gradually extended their sway over the whole of the eastern counties. It
was calculated, in 1539, that at least 2000 of them were in Ulster. St.
Leger reported, six years later, that he feared an invasion from them in
force, and before the end of the year the Lord of the Isles did come, and
was at Carrickfergus with 4000 men; and Bellingham was instructed to
assist the Earl of Tyrone against them. Often, as we have seen, they hired
themselves out to the Ulster chiefs as mercenaries. But they effected
permanent settlements as well. They had expelled the MacQuillans from the
Route; they had occupied Clanaboy, besieged Knockfergus, and levied Black
Rent from the English colonists in Lecale; but whether in making war
themselves, or in aiding the Irish chiefs to make war, they kept Ulster in
constant unrest, and all attempts to reduce them were unsuccessful.
When Sussex landed, the
Scots in Ulster numbered 7000, and the immigration continued. Their
presence in Antrim was no less unwelcome to the O'Neills than it was to
the English Government. The supremacy of Tyrone was threatened, and Shane
O'Neill therefore gladly assisted the new Deputy in his attempt to subdue
the Scots. A skirmish took place near Glenarm, when some seventy or eighty
Scots were killed. But this was the sole victory gained; and at the end of
six weeks, his provisions being exhausted, Sussex marched back to Dublin
"without receiving submission or hostages". The old Earl of Tyrone did not
despair, but was again unfortunate in an expedition against the same
dangerous intruders in Clanaboy, being defeated by them, with the loss of
300 men.
In 1555 Calvagh O'Donnell employed some Scottish auxiliaries against his
father, Manus, whom he made prisoner and detained in captivity until his
death. In 1557 the Scots penetrated to Armagh, which was plundered twice
in one month by the Earl of Sussex. His object on this occasion was to
assist the Baron of Dungannon against Shane O'Neill. He pitched his camp
near Armagh Cathedral and burnt a great part of the town. Having done
this, he returned to Dublin. Shane, who had contrived to evade meeting
Sussex, retaliated by burning several villages in the Pale. That these
futile efforts on the part of Sussex did not pass without criticism is
proved by a comment given in the State papers in which they are described.
"And when in time of war with any Irishry of power, as of late with
O'Neill, occasion moveth the governor to proclaim a main journey for
thirty or forty days to invade the enemy's country, the governor goeth
with the army and force of the English Pale, to their great charge, where
they continue out their days while their victuals last, and then fain to
return home again, as many times they do, without booty or other harms
done, or yet can be done to a waste country, the inhabitants whereof,
whilst the English host is in their country, shutteth all their cattle
into woods and pastures, where they continue until the English army be
gone; and then do they come into the plains of their country with their
cattle again, where they are ready anew to invade and spoil the English
Pale as before; as commonly they do bring with them great booties out of
the borders of the same, whereof if recovery be not made by hot pursuit of
some part of that they take away, very seldom or never can be found any of
theirs worth the having to be taken from them for the same again. So as,
by these appearances, wheresoever the service is done, the same is a
charge to the Queen's Majesty, a burden to the liege people to the decay
both of them and the English soldiers, fretting one another of themselves,
with small defence to the Pale, nor yet can be any great scourge to the
enemy, who always gaineth by our losses, and we never gain by them,
although we win all we play for, the stakes being so unequal, not a penny
against a pound, for that the English Pale is planted with towns and
villages, inhabited with people resident, having goods and chattels, corn
and household stuff, good booties for the Irish enemies to take from us,
and their countries being kept of purpose waste, uninhabited, as where
nothing is, nothing can be had."
The Archbishop of Armagh
was naturally wroth with the new Lord Deputy, for had he not pitched his
camp in the cathedral! The vice-regal army had pillaged the cathedral and
burnt several churches. Ireland, wrote Dowdall to the Archbishop of York,
was in a worse state than ever it had been "except the time only that
O'Neill and O'Donnell invaded the English Pale and burnt a great piece of
it". The north, he said, was "as far out of frame as ever it was", and the
Scots were "not only in such lands as they did lately usurp, but also in
Clanaboy".
In this same year (1557)
Shane O'Neill, observing the weak condition to which Calvagh's rebellion
had reduced Tirconnell, thought the opportunity a favourable one to
recover the power of which his ancestors had been deprived by the
O'Donnells. He accordingly mustered a large army and pitched his camp at
Carrigliath, between the Rivers Finn and Mourne, where he was joined by
Hugh, the brother of Calvagh O'Donnell, and several of the men of
Tirconnell who were disaffected towards their chief for his rebellion to
his father. Calvagh in this emergency consulted Manus, and by his advice
resolved to avoid a pitched battle, and to have recourse to stratagem. He
caused his cattle to be driven to a distance, and when O'Neill entered his
territory, and marched 'as far as the place now called Balleeghan, near
Raphoe, he sent two spies into the Tyrone camp, while he himself hovered
not far off with his small force. The spies mixed with Shane's soldiers,
received rations which they carried back. as evidence of their success,
and undertook to guide O'Donnell's army that night to O'Neill's tent,
which is described as being distinguished by a great watch-fire, a huge
torch burning outside, guarded by sixty grim gallowglasses on one side of
the entrance, armed with sharp axes, ready for action, and on the other
side by as many wild and awe-inspiring Scots with their broadswords in
their hands.
Overweening confidence had
rendered O'Neill careless. He boasted that no one should be king in Ulster
save himself, and despised the power of his crafty foe; but O'Donnell
penetrated under cover of the darkness into the heart of O'Neill's camp,
and proceeded without resistance to slaughter the men of Tyrone, and the
whole were routed or cut to pieces, while Shane himself, escaping through
the back of his tent, fled unattended save by two of O'Donnell's men, and
by swimming across three rivers made his way, covered with confusion, to
his own territory.
Dowdall's strictures on
Sussex naturally irritated the Lord Deputy, and he complained of the
Archbishop's accusations to the Queen, who immediately commanded the
Archbishop "to be ordered as appertaineth for slandering unjustly of a
minister in so great a charge". Dowdall defended himself vigorously in a
speech which gives incidentally a picture of Ulster as it then was. He
advocated the abandonment of all hostility to the native Irish. If this
were done, he said, the Scots would be driven out of the country, and it
would be an easy matter to induce all the Irishmen of Ulster, "whom you
call 'the wild Irish"', to make war upon the MacDonalds; Tyrone,
O'Donnell, and O'Neill of Clanaboy, and O'Cahan might be trusted to do
their parts, and the expulsion of the Scots would be effected without
expense to the Crown ; and if the Scots were expelled a great reduction
could be made in the army.
The Scots, however,
continued to give trouble, and the Lord Deputy prepared to attack them on
their own ground. A fleet was equipped in August, 1558, and on the 14th
day of September Sussex sailed from Dublin, "trusting to accomplish your
Highness' commandment if wind and weather serve". He arrived on the 19th
at Lough Gylkeran, in Kintyre, and, landing, burned the country around,
"and therewith James MacDonald's chief house, called Sandell, a fair pile
and a strong". On the day following he crossed over by land and burned
twelve miles on the other side of the lough, "wherein were burned a fair
house of his called Mawher Imore, and a strong castle called Donalvere".
From Kintyre he proceeded to Arran, "and did the like there", and thence
to the Great and Little Cumbraes, which he also burned. "And riding at
anchor between Cumbrays and Bute," he told Queen Mary, "where I also
thought to have landed, there arose suddenly a terrible tempest, in which
I sustained some loss."
The prosecution of the
Scots absorbed the attention of the Irish Government during the last
months of Mary's reign. In October Sussex again invaded the Route, and
might possibly have effected some lasting good, but a mysterious disease
attacked the army, and out of a force of 1100 men only 400 were fit to
take the field. Under these circumstances he reluctantly retired to
Dublin.
In the autumn of 1558,
Ferdoragh, Baron of Dungannon, in attempting to invade Tyrone, was killed.
His death was followed in the beginning of 1559 by that of Conn O'Neill,
the Earl of Tyrone, and thereby "Shane the Proud", as he was called by his
followers, became in name what he had long been in fact, the chief of the
O'Neills. Only one life lay between him and the earldom: Ferdoragh had
left a young son to succeed to the title of Tyrone. Shane professed to
hold all such titles in disdain. He appealed to his people, and was
unanimously elected chief of Tyrone as The O'Neill, and at once became the
idol of every fighting man from Lough Foyle to the banks of the
Blackwater.
Queen Mary died in
November, 1558, and Elizabeth, her successor, was too preoccupied to give
Ireland the attention which she deserved. Ulster was preparing for war,
and "the Lords and Gentiles of the Irish Pale that were not governed under
the Queen's laws were compelled to keep and maintain a great number of
idle men of war to rule their people at home, and exact from their
neighbours abroad working everyone his own wilful will for a law to the
spoil of his country and decay and waste of the commonweal of the same".
"The idle men of war ate up altogether"; the lord and his men took what
they pleased, "destroying their tenants and themselves never the better";
"the common people, having nothing left to lose", became "as idle and
careless in their behaviour as the rest", "stealing by day and robbing by
night". But though thus occupied all "were always ready to bury their own
quarrels to join against the Queen and the English ".
A sad picture is drawn of
the people at the time when the crown passed to Elizabeth. "The appearance
and outward behaviour of the Irish", we are told, "sheweth them to be
fruits of no good tree, for they exercise no virtue, and refrain and
forbear from no vice, but think it lawful to do every man what him listeth.
. . . They neither love nor dread God nor yet hate the devil. They are
worshippers of images and open idolaters. Their common oath they swear is
by books, bells, and other ornaments which they do use as holy religion.
Their chief and solemnest oath is by their lord's or master's hand, which
whoso forsweareth is sure to pay a fine or sustain a worse turn. The
Sabbath day they rest from all honest exercises, and the week days they
are not idle, but worse occupied. They do not honour their father or
mother so much as they do reverence strangers. For every murder they
commit they do not so soon repent; for whose blood they once shed, they
lightly never cease killing all that name. They do not so commonly commit
adultery; not for that they profess or keep chastity, but for that they
seldom or never marry, and therefore few of them are lawful heirs, by the
laws of the realm, to the lands they possess. They steal but from the
strong, and take by violence from the poor and weak. They know not so well
who is their neighbour as whom they favour; with him they will witness in
right and wrong. They covet not their neighbour's goods, but command all
that is their neighbour's as their own. Thus they live and die, and there
is none to teach them better. There are no ministers. Ministers will not
take pains where there is no living to be had, neither church nor parish,
but all decayed.
People will not come to
inhabit where there is no defence of law."
Such was Ireland in the
first year of Elizabeth's reign. The report of 1559 concluded with an
earnest prayer to the Queen "to bring the poor ignorant people to better
things, and to recover so many thousand lost souls that were going
headlong to the devil ". |
