|
The "First Beginnings" of
Deny - O'Neill writes to Cardinals of Lorraine and Guise - The Black Death in
Derry - Hugh O'Donnell defeats O'Neill - Shane repairs to the Scots of Clanaboy, and is murdered
- A Great Irishman.
Colonel Edward Randolph,
whose untimely death left the garrison of Derry "a headless people", had
proved himself a man of prudence, foresight, strength, and skill,
qualities lacking in his followers, who, though none of them dared to
assume the command, endeavoured hopelessly to fill his place. The dead
commander had looked well after the troops, possessed as he was of that
careful eye for detail that ensures success. His men did not lack even
small creature comforts, for Randolph saw to it that they had "shirts,
kerseys, canvas and leather" when they needed such things, and food and
forage were forthcoming when required. Not alone did he look carefully
after the commissariat, but he watched with zealous eyes the health of the
troops, keeping them happily busy in building when they were not in the
field, and they were therefore in good fighting trim. His men presented a
great contrast to the idle, dissolute garrison of the Pale, of whom the
Deputy had written "better have no soldiers than those that are here ".
But Randolph, removed by a
random shot, left no one to take his place, and disorder prevailed where
order had hitherto reigned, and, no one taking the initiative, supplies
fell short, and with lack of food and clothing disease crept in. In the
cold and murky days of mid-November a mysterious malady made its
appearance and struck down the strongest. "The flux", a deadlier enemy
than the Irish, "was reigning among them wonderfully," and decimated them
with alarming rapidity. This dread disease had its origin in the fact that
through some strange oversight the sleeping quarters had been built over
the crypt of the ancient monastery, and the vapours from the charnel-house
rose in the night and choked the slumbering soldiers. Christmas brought no
relief. Supplies, intended for Derry, by a stupid blunder found their way
to far-away Florida, and the melancholy story of the state of things is
given by one who wrote in sadness of heart saying: "Many of our best men
go away because there is none to stay them; many have died; God comfort
us!"
But the new year (1567)
brought better days, and Colonel St. Loo, who arrived with it, revived the
drooping spirits of the soldiers by giving them an opportunity to have a
brush with the enemy. He was so signally successful that 700 horses and
1000 cattle were secured after a few days' fierce fighting, and the
Colonel was so well satisfied with the outlook that he wrote the Lord
Deputy saying that had he but 300 more men " he could so hunt the rebel
that ere May was past he should not show his face in Ulster".
The power of O'Neill,
founded not upon a voluntary alliance of the, chieftains of Ulster, but
upon their compulsory subjection to the ruling house, began rapidly to
break up. His followers, divided and dispirited, commenced to mutiny
against a leader who no longer commanded success. Daily the Deputy's
encircling forces closed around the unhappy Shane, while their ranks were
swelled by deserters from his cause. He felt that his strength was ebbing,
and no doubt much "as the trapped beast feels when he hears the trapper
coming through the woods". Recognizing that he must seek help elsewhere
than in his own land, he wrote to the Cardinals of Lorraine and Guise,
begging them for the sake of their brother, the great Duke, to come to his
aid. "Help us!" he cried, endeavouring to arouse their enthusiasm by a
personal reference. "When I was in England I saw your noble brother the
Marquis d'Elboeuf transfix two stags with a single arrow. If the Most
Christian King will not help us, move the Pope to help us. I alone in this
land sustain his cause." But, alas for Shane's cause! no help came from
the Cardinals.
Map of Ireland in 1567
Help, however, came from an
unlooked-for quarter, and in strange guise. The Black Death visited Derry
and took hundreds that had escaped the flux, those who had successfully
evaded the miasma of November now falling victims to even a more terrible
disease in March, only 300 men out of 1100 being left in a fit condition
to take the field. Men were raised in Liverpool and put on board the
transports for Derry, but reconsideration resulted in cancellation of the
orders, as it was felt that it would be folly to send them to certain
death. Concluding that something must be done to save the remnant of the
stricken garrison, the English Council now decided that it would be wiser
to remove the colony to other quarters on the Bann, and this would have
been done but that an unlooked-for occurrence upset the project. Fire came
to finish the work commenced by the flux and Black Death. Starting in a
blacksmith's forge, it raged through the rough wooden buildings which had
been built in close proximity to each other for purposes of fortification,
and, reaching the powder magazine, blew it up, and with it some thirty
men. Their comrades, paralysed by this overwhelming stroke of ill fortune,
decided to abandon the city to its fate, and getting into their provision
boats, from which they watched the conquering flames, they sailed away
from the scene of the conflagration. Such was the beginnings of Derry, a
city destined in later years to be the scene of epoch-making events.
It was now May, the month
which St. Loo had threatened should not end without witnessing Shane's
expulsion from Ulster, and it was determined that the forces of the Deputy
should, with those of O'Donnell, make a joint movement to bring about
O'Neill's overthrow. That indomitable chieftain had collected a motley
army and invaded Tirconnell, crossing the estuary of the River Swilly at
low water, near Letterkenny. He found Hugh O'Donnell encamped at
Ardnagarry, on the north side of the river, with but a small body of men,
and at once attacked him. The position of O'Donnell was for a moment
desperate, but skilful generalship and enthusiasm made up for paucity in
numerical strength, and the result to Shane's forces was appalling, for
they were routed and fled panic-stricken towards the water, which during
the fight had in returning covered the sands which earlier had afforded a
ready passage. Plunging in they essayed to reach the other side, but, the
waves being exceptionally strong, hundreds were drowned. O'Neill himself
fled alone along the banks of the river westward to a ford at a little
distance from Letterkenny, where he crossed under the guidance of a party
of O'Donnell's men, by whom he could not have been recognized or he would
have had short shrift. The Annalists aver that Shane's "reason and senses
became deranged after this defeat".
Possibly overwrought by the
sudden collapse of all on which he had prided himself, and "feeling
himself all weakened, and beholding his declination and fall near at hand,
he avowed and fully, determined to come in disguised manner, for fear of
intercepting, with a collar about his neck, to the presence of the Lord
Deputy, and to submit himself as a most wretched man, hoping by that order
of humility to" find "some mercy and grace" at the hands of the Queen.
From this course the fallen King of Ulster was dissuaded by his secretary,
Neil Mackever, who maintained that his cause was not yet quite lost, and
urged the stricken man, for the sake of his mistress ("the Countess of
Argyll"), who had been faithful to him throughout his varying fortunes, to
seek refuge amongst the Scots of Clanaboy, taking with him, as a sop to
Cerberus, his prisoner Sorley Boy, who was still in durance at the castle
of Foogh-ne-Gall. O'Neill consented, and "thereupon took his journey
towards the Scots", accompanied by "the Countess" and Sorley Boy, and
attended by his secretary and some fifty horsemen. Arriving on Saturday,
the last day of May, at the sea-side camp of Allaster MacDonald and his
nephew Gillespie, Shane entered Allaster's tent and craved his
hospitality. His appearance had been un looked for, but he was received
with apparent friendship expressed in "a few dissembled gratulatory
words".
At first all went well, the
hatchet appeared to be buried, and for two days no gleam of resentment for
past penalties inflicted by O'Neill seems to have been allowed to show
itself; but on the evening of Monday, the 2nd of June, all "fell to
quaffing and drinking of wine", and a quarrel over the cups took place.
Gillespie MacDonald, "all inflamed with malice and desire of revenge for
the death of his father and uncle, began to minister quarrelling talk to
O'Neill, who took the same very hot, and after some reproachful words
passed between them," Gillespie demanded of the secretary whether it was
he who "had bruited abroad that the lady, his aunt, wife unto James
McDonnell, did offer to come out of Scotland into Ireland, to marry with
O'Neill. The Secretary affirmed himself to be the author of that report,
and said withal, that if his aunt were Queen of Scotland, she might be
well contented to match herself with O'Neill; the other with that gave him
the lie, and said that the lady, his aunt, was a woman of that honesty and
reputation as would not take him, that was the betrayer and murderer of
her worthy husband. O'Neill, giving ear to the talk, began to maintain his
secretary's quarrell, and thereupon Gillespie withdrew himself out of the
tent, and came abroad amongst his men, who forthwith raised a fray, and
fell to the killing of O'Neill's men; and the Scots, as people thirsty of
O'Neill's blood, for requiting the slaughter of their master and kinsfolk,
assembled together in a throng, and thrust into the tent where O'Neill
was, and there, with their slaughter swords, hewed him to pieces, slew his
secretary and all those who were with him, except a very few which escaped
by their horses."
So perished Shane the
Proud.
Allaster MacDonald "caused
his mangled carcass to be carried into an old ruinous church near the
camp, where, for lack of a better shroud, he was wrapt in a kerne's old
shirt, and there miserably interred". Even there the remains of O'Neill
found no rest, for we are told that "after being four days in earth" the
body "was taken up by William Piers", captain of Knockfergus, who hacked
off the head, which "was brought unto the Lord Deputy to Drogheda, the
2ist day of June, 1567, and from thence carried into the city of Dublin,
where it was bodied with a stake", and placed to bleach on the top of the
castle.
Such was the end of one of
the greatest figures in Irish history, a man whose name has been blackened
by historians to such an extent that he has never been taken as the
subject of the dramatist, or of the writer of romantic fiction, although
his meteoric career would seem to lend itself, with its many dramatic
episodes, to poetic treatment. Even George Darley, himself an Irishman,
appears to have found in the story of Becket, and that of Ethelstan, more
congenial themes for his pen than this purely Hibernian one. In the
tragedy of Irish history no figure stands forth in such striking relief as
does that of Shane O'Neill. Semi-savage as he was, he was nevertheless a
great Irishman. There was a tender strain in the man of whom Campion tells
us, that when "sitting at meate, before he put one morsell into his mouth,
he used to slice a portion above the dayly almes, and send it namely to
some begger at his gate, saying it was meet to serve Christ first".
Elizabeth, who was not prodigal of her favours, was impressed by Shane,
the proof of which is "shown by her retaining towards him the same
friendly bearing through all the strife, confusion, and what, in her eyes,
was even still worse lavish expenditure, of which he continued for several
years to be the unceasing cause". She frequently discountenanced the
hostile movements against him, and so well was her leniency towards him
understood that, in 1566, Sir William FitzWilliam complained in a letter
to Cecil that "the Council were not permitted to write the truth of
O'Neill's evil doings". He was popular even in the Pale, for his generous
and high spirit commanded the respect of both friends and foes. By the
Irish he was affectionately styled Shane andiomais, or Shane the Proud or
Ambitious. He has been described as barbarous in his manners; but he held
his own in the Court of Queen Elizabeth. He knew that his very existence
was an insult to the English Government; he had great pretensions, and
small means to carry them into execution; he was always involved in a net
of intrigue and treachery; he had fierce passions, and had never learned
to regulate them. But Shane must be judged by the ethical code of his own
day a day in which much was done with the sanction and even approval of
the moralists, that to-day would be censured or condemned. If Shane
imprisoned his enemy O'Donnell, and monopolized his wife, his action must
be judged by the standard of morality which permitted a monarch to execute
his wife in the morning and be married again immediately after the
execution. If language seems to have aided him to conceal his thoughts, he
was not the only sophister of his time, and, misleading as were many of
the sentiments expressed in his letters to Elizabeth, they did not surpass
in mendacity many of the Queen's assurances of love to her ever dear
sister Mary of Scotland, nor those of Sussex when he agreed to give Shane
his sister as wife. Had there been a United Ireland, Shane would have been
unsubduable. He defied for years the forces of the great Queen, and would
have continued to do so but for the action of his arch-enemy, O'Donnell,
who thus affords another instance of the blindness of the Irish to their
own interests, otherwise it is impossible to account for the fact that
they did not foresee that the ruin of Shane would in the long run be the
prelude to their own. As Judge O'Connor Morris said: "They joined Sidney
to destroy a great man of their race; for the idea of nationality did not
exist in them; they could not look beyond their septs and their clans;
they were still slaves of mere tribal discord ".
The attainder of Shane
O'Neill quickly followed his defeat. An Act was passed for the attainder
and for the extinguishment of the name of O'Neill, and the entitling of
the Queen's Majesty, her heirs and successors, to the County of Tyrone and
to other countries and territories in Ulster. In a preamble to the Act,
crimes of great enormity are placed to Shane's credit, and he is accused
of being guilty of deeds of which we have ample evidence he was innocent.
Turlogh Lynnagh O'Neill, to whom Shane, on the occasion of his visit to
London, had left the charge of Tyrone, was placed in possession of parts
of his lands, as he had proved himself on sundry occasions a friend of the
English during Shane's wars. Turlogh was the son of Niall Culanagh, son of
Art Oge, younger brother of Con Bacagh O'Neill, first Earl of Tyrone.
|
