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Cost of the War with O'Neill
- Sidney's stern Rule - Turlough Lynnagh submits - Parliament at Dublin -
Ulster made Shire-land - Peace in Ulster - The Plantation Spirit starts -
Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, appointed President of Ulster - He
petitions Elizabeth for Lands in Clanaboy, and sails for Carrickfergus.
The death of Shane O'Neill
was followed by a short period of quietude, in which sweeping changes were
made and the cost of the war with Shane ascertained. The figures must
certainly have given the Queen, who was noted for her thrift, great
uneasiness. From the Vth and Vlth of Philip and Mary to the XVIth of
Elizabeth, the expenditure of the Irish Government amounted to £490,779,
7s. 6 3/4d., of which £120,000 represented the Irish receipts, and
£370,779, 7s. 6 3/4d., at the yearly average of £23,179, was transmitted
from England. It is not strange that her ministers dreaded to approach the
Queen on the subject of money for Ireland. She grudged every shilling
which was expended in the government of the country, and was constantly
requiring schemes from her deputies for the making of the Irish Government
self-supporting.
The condition of the
country was indeed serious. The state of Ulster was bad, but, as Sir Henry
Sidney discovered on a visitation to the south and west, which he had now
leisure to make, that of Munster and Connaught was appalling, many
districts being so wasted by the war that they "had but one-twentieth part
of their former population". The Earl of Desmond he found to be "a man
both devoid of judgment to govern and will to be ruled". In the territory
of Ormonde he noted a "want of justice, judgment, and stoutness to
execute", and Clanrickard "was so overruled by a putative wife as ofttimes
when he best intendeth she forceth him to do the worst". The strength and
wisdom of Sidney is seen in his denouncement of the "cowardly policy" that
would rule the nation by sowing divisions among the people, or, as he
himself expressed it, "by keeping them in continual dissension, for fear
lest through their quiet might follow I wot not what"; and, he added, "so
far hath that policy, or rather lack of policy, in keeping dissension
among them, prevailed, as now, albeit all that are alive would become
honest and live in quiet, yet are not left alive, in these two provinces,
the twentieth person necessary to inhabit the same!"
It is not our province to
follow Sir Henry into either Munster or Connaught, but his report is
interesting as showing the general state of the 'country. Suffice it to
say that he dealt so severely with the offenders that even Elizabeth
became alarmed at the number of military executions which marked his
progress; and, as she did not share his sentiments as expressed in his
jubilant remark: "Down they go at every corner! and down, God willing,
they shall go!" he sought permission to explain his conduct in person, and
proceeded to England" for that purpose in October, 1567, taking with him
the Earl of Desmond and his brother John, and being also accompanied by
Hugh O'Neill, Baron of Dungannon, the O'Conor Sligo, and other Irish
chieftains, the country being left in the charge of Lords Justices.
Sidney returned to Ireland
in September, 1568, having been appointed Lord Deputy. He landed at
Carrickfergus, where he received the submission of Turlogh Lynnagh, who,
having assumed the title of O'Neill, was deemed to be guilty of an act of
rebellion, and thus created the necessity for his re-submission to the
Deputy.
A Parliament was summoned
to meet in Dublin on the 17th of January, 1569, with the idea of
formulating a scheme to fill the empty treasury by imposing a new duty on
wines. Four days were spent in clamorous altercation; the discontented
members "declaring with great violence" against receiving any Bill, or
proceeding to any business, it being alleged that, with the view of
packing the Commons, members had been returned by towns which were not
incorporated, and that many sheriffs and mayors had returned themselves.
So unsatisfactory did the executive find this Parliament, that for
fourteen years another was not summoned.
On the 2Oth January, 1570,
a concord and peace was made between the Queen and Turlogh Lynnagh, and
the whole of Ulster was now made shire lands, and divided, in addition to
the two old counties of Down and Antrim, into the counties of Armagh,
Tyrone, Coleraine, Donegal, Fermanagh, Cavan, and Monaghan. The county of
Coleraine comprised the greater part of the present county of Londonderry,
which, however, comprised part of the earlier county of Tyrone, and the
liberties of the present city of Londonderry, which under the earlier
arrangement were in the county of Donegal.
During these years, while
Munster and Connaught were agitated by discord and rebellion, the state of
Ulster was one of almost unbroken calm. Save for some obscure quarrel
between the MacSweeneys of Tirconnell, no battle is recorded for nearly
six years. The Government, evidently gratified by the death of Shane
O'Neill, an event brought about by the battle-axes of the O'Donnells and
the daggers of the MacDonalds, left the Ulster chieftains unmolested while
the Deputy was visiting south and west. But nevertheless a strict watch
was kept on their movements, and precautions were taken to prevent any
joint action on their part against England.
Turlogh Lynnagh in
particular was regarded with no favourable eye, and was held in great
aversion by FitzWilliam, one of the Lords Justices, who wearied the
English Council with his complaints regarding Turlogh's conduct, his
treachery, insincerity, and pride, his friendship for the Scots, and his
marriage with a Scotswoman. In 1569 he was reported to have engaged 1000
Scots, and of working "in the old manner of his lewd predecessors"; and it
was added that the country was swarming with "Spanish flies and vermin".
Irritated by a repetition of these baseless charges, Turlogh, who had been
thanked by the Queen for his services against Shane, and been promised a
title which he did not receive, broke out in revolt in 1569 and demanded
all the rights his ancestors had ever enjoyed. He protested against any
harm being done to Sorley Boy, and even evinced some intention of joining
the southern insurgents; but an injury he received from the accidental
explosion of a gun obliged him to remain inactive, and on his recovery he
found himself deserted by many of his adherents, and therefore deemed it
prudent to submit and sue for pardon. Owing to the emptiness of the
treasury, it was now determined to give a trial to Sussex's plan of
governing the provinces by presidents, and a commencement was made in
Connaught by the appointment of Sir Edward Fitton, a Judge of the Queen's
Bench in Dublin, to the office of President, with a commission to execute
martial law. This, however, ended disastrously and Fitton was recalled.
The celebrated Sir John Perrot was appointed a little later to Munster,
the Pale being reserved by the Deputy for himself. With this scheme there
was also started a system of military colonization, by means of which it
was hoped to reduce the expenses of governing the country. Accordingly in
this spirit of plantation a portion of Shane O'Neill's territory which was
held to have escheated was granted, for the founding of a Protestant
colony, to one Thomas Chaterton, he and his heirs being granted a portion
of the county of Armagh; and in the same year (1570) a grant of the
district of Ardes and Clanaboy, in County Down, was made for the same
purpose to the illegitimate son of Sir Thomas Smith, the Queen's Secretary
of State. These plantations proved failures, the colonists being murdered
by a sept of the O'Neills.
That the project of
planting Ulster from England was present to the mind of Elizabeth even in
the war of Shane O'Neill, is evident from the hints thrown out by her to
the effect that the insurrection was all the better for the loyalists, as
it would leave plenty of lands for them. She was prepared to grant to
those who could deal with them "divers parts and parcels of Her Highness's
earldom of Ulster that laywaste, or else were inhabited with a wicked,
barbarous, and uncivil people; some Scottish, and some wild Irish, and
such as lately had been rebellious to her". The Scots who had settled in
Clanaboy under their chief, Sorley Boy MacDonald, were for a while
countenanced by the English Government as useful allies in removing or
crushing the native inhabitants, who, in order to be "humanized", were to
be first despoiled of their ancestral lands ; but that territory was now
thrown open to a more favoured class of adventurers.
Walter Devereux, Lord
Hereford, was one of the few peers who, in the Norfolk conspiracy, had
been true throughout to the Queen. He had been employed by Elizabeth to
take charge of the Queen of Scots, and had in other ways ingratiated
himself with her. He was rewarded for his services in 1572 by the earldom
of Essex. He was young, enthusiastic, and of a generous disposition, and
he now sought to further please the Queen by devoting himself to securing
for her some portion of Ireland, and desired "to employ himself in the
service of her Majesty for the benefit of his country". Accordingly,
having secured the cooperation of Lord Hunsdon, Sir Arthur Champernowne,
Sir Thomas Wilford, Sir Arthur Bourchier, Sir Peter Carew, and others who
had volunteered to take shares in the enterprise, and either accompany him
to Ireland or send their sons, Essex petitioned the Queen to grant him a
moiety of the seigniories of "that part of Ulster called Clanaboy", which
was represented by a line drawn from Belfast to the foot of Lough Neagh,
and by the River Bann from Lough Neagh to the sea, provided he could expel
the "rebels" there, any rights on the part of the native septs being
wholly overlooked.
Essex, amongst other
requirements, asked for permission "to build castles and forts", "to plant
towns and incorporate them by charters", "power to make laws necessary for
his government", "power to levy war upon the Irish", "to assemble forces",
"to spoil, besiege, raze, or destroy the towns and castles of Irish
outlaws", "to annoy them by fire and sword, or any manner of death", "to
take to his use the goods and chattels of traitors, pirates, and felons,
with all shipwrecks that should happen within his grant"; and, strangest
request of all, "power to make slaves and to chain to ships and galleys
all or any such of the Irishry or Scots Irish as should be condemned of
treason, for the better furtherance of his enterprise". Sir William Fitz
William, the Lord Justice, complained of the excessive power about to be
conferred on Essex as incompatible with and subversive of his own
authority, and it was accordingly arranged that the Earl should receive
his commission from the Lord Deputy, to make it appear that he acted under
him, and thus avoid that "foundation of Irish disturbances", an
independent jurisdiction.
The petition being now in
order, it was granted; the Queen making a grant to Essex of half the
county of Antrim and the barony of Farney in Monaghan. She advanced a sum
of £10,000, for the fitting out of the expedition, upon a mortgage of the
Earl's English estates, and gave him the title of President of Ulster. An
army of 1200 men was placed at his disposal, one-half to be provided and
maintained at the Queen's expense, and the other half at that of the Earl;
every horseman who volunteered in the expedition was to receive 400 acres
of land at 2d. per acre, and every foot soldier 200 acres at a like rate;
and Essex was to be commander-in-chief for seven years. So equipped, and
everything being now ready, the young Earl of Essex and his companions set
sail in the autumn of 1573, their destination being Carrickfergus.
Before he sailed, Essex had
an interview with the Queen, which he himself described in a letter to
Burleigh: "Upon the taking of my leave, she told me that she had two
special things to advise me on: the one was, that I should have
consideration of the Irish there, which she thought had become her
disobedient subjects rather because she had not defended them from the
force of the Scots than for any other cause. Her Majesty's opinion was,
that upon my coming they would yield themselves good subjects, and
therefore wished them to be well used. To this I answered, that I
determined to deal with them as I found best for her service when I came
there, and for the present I could not say what is best to be done; but
Her Majesty should be sure that I should not imbrue my hands with more
blood than the necessity of the case requireth. The other special matter
was, that I would not seek too hastely to bring the people who have been
trained up in another religion from that in which they have been brought
up in. To this I answered that, for the present, I thought it best to
learn them to know their allegiance to Her Majesty, and to yield her their
due obedience, and after they had learned that they would be easily
brought to be of good religion."
The voyagers little knew
the land to which they were going in such high hope. True, Sir Peter Carew
and one or two more of the company had some little experience of Ireland,
but it was terra incognita to the vast majority. Its mountain fastnesses
and shaggy woods were peopled by a half-savage race, eternally at war with
each other, and prepared to part with their lands only with their blood.
No pathways or roads had been cut through the wild woods, where wolves
still roamed at will, no attempt having been made to exterminate them. As
Froude says: "The three southern provinces had been explored with
tolerable care; but Ulster was a desert, heard of only as a battle-ground
where the O'Donnells, the O'Neills, and the Red Shanks had murdered each
other from time immemorial".
Such was the land which a
light-hearted company of English youths had come prepared to apportion to
heir followers at " 2d. per acre"! Their coming was prepared for; the
Scots made an alliance with the O'Neills and Sir Brian MacPhelim, and a
storm having dispersed the approaching fleet, the delay caused thereby
gave time to the Scots and Irish to welcome the invaders with a bonfire
consisting of the flaming towns of Down, Newry, and Knockfergus, so that
on landing they should be without shelter or any comfort. |
