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The Lords Justices summon the Catholic
Lords to a Council Meeting - The Lords refuse to attend - The Companies
raised by them desert, taking their Arms with them - Sir Simon Harcourt
lands with a Large Force - Drogheda besieged by Sir Phelim - A Party of
Irish break in, but are defeated and ejected - Lord Moore defeats the
Irish at Mellifont - Art Roe MacMahon taken Prisoner - His Life spared
in consideration of Lady Blaney - Ormonde marches to Drogheda -
Tichborne takes Dundalk - General Robert Munro arrives with 2500 Scots -
He sweeps all before him.
The coalition of peers and people at
the meeting on
Crofty Hill was no doubt hastened by a summons issued on the 3rd of
December by the Lords Justices, calling upon several of the noblemen and
gentlemen of the Pale to attend in Dublin on the 8th to confer on the
state of the nation. Suspecting that this was only an artifice to draw
them into the capital in order to secure their persons and deprive them
of their liberty, a response to the summons was drawn up and signed by
seven peers at the meeting at Tara, in which reference is made to the
indifference with which their warnings and advice had been received. "We have given your
lordships to understand, that we have heretofore presented
ourselves before your lordships, and freely offered our advice
and furtherance towards the particulars aforesaid, which was
by you neglected, which gave us cause to suspect that our
loyalty was suspected by you." The writers then referred
to the rumours regarding the hostility of Sir Charles Coote
to the Catholics. "We give your lordships further to understand that we
have received certain advertizement that Sir
Charles Coote, Knight, at the Council board, hath uttered
some speeches tending to a purpose and resolution to execute
upon those of our religion a general massacre, by which we
are all deterred to wait on your lordships, not having any
security for our safety from these threatened evils or the
safety of our lives, but do rather think it fit to stand upon
our best guard until we hear from your lordships how we
shall be secured from these perils. Nevertheless, we all protest that we
are and will continue both faithful advisers and
resolute furtherers of His Majesty's service concerning the
present state of the kingdom and the safety thereof to our
best abilities."
The Lords Justices replied to this
letter by a proclamation,
in which they declared that there was no truth whatever in
the allegations made regarding Sir Charles Coote, or that
there was any intention to prosecute the Catholics, and that
anyone who made any such suggestion should be severely
punished; and they again summoned the lords of the Pale
to attend at the Council board on the i7th of December.
Ormonde personally gave his word of honour that they
should return safely, and urged them not to lose this last
opportunity of proving their loyalty. The only reply was
a letter in which the disaffected lords reiterated their accusations of
cruelty against Coote, and sent a final refusal to
attend the meeting of the Council in Dublin.
The immediate consequence of these
proceedings was the
desertion of most of the companies which the gentlemen of
the Pale had been commissioned to raise, "several gentle-
men, who, in the several counties of the Pale, were made
captains, and had received arms from the state for their
companies, departed from their obedience, and addressed
themselves and their companies wholly to the service of the
rebels", and "before it was possible to use any means of
prevention, the men were all gone with their arms and
munition". Immediately after the meeting at Tara the lords
of the Pale began to get together the means of resistance.
Lord Gormanston was appointed General-in-Chief; Hugh
Byrne, Lieutenant-General; and Lord Fingall, General of
the Horse. On the 3ist of December Sir Simon Harcourt,
long and anxiously expected, landed with iioo men. Three
hundred more followed quickly, and Colonel George Monck,
with Leicester's own regiment, was not far behind. Sir
Richard Grenville came with 400 horse about the same time.
It was fortunate that during this period the northern rebels
lay wasting their strength before Drogheda, for had they
marched to Dublin after their success at Julianstown, the
capital would undoubtedly have fallen into their hands; but
it was a noted characteristic of the Irish, from the days of
Shane O'Neill to those of Sir Phelim, that they never followed
up a victory.
Drogheda, though surrounded by the
forces of Sir Phelim
O'Neill, still held out under Sir Henry Tichborne. On
St. Thomas's Eve (2Oth December) a determined effort was
made to take the town by storm, but the rebels were beaten
off with considerable slaughter. Tichborne sent a pinnace
to Dublin for help. In answer to this appeal six vessels
arrived with provisions and ammunition for the garrison,
who were half-starved, and notwithstanding efforts made to
obstruct their passage up the river, the ships overcame them,
and succeeded in landing their cargoes in safety.
Thinking that both officers and men
would be too busy
attending to gastronomic delights to pay strict attention to
means of defence, the besiegers attempted to take the town
by surprise. Finding a weak spot in the wall, they broke
open with pickaxes a passage through which they crept, two
or three at a time, to the number of some 500; but they were
discovered at about four in the morning by Tichborne himself, who immediately gave the alarm, and, turning out the
nearest guard, bade them fire across the river. An accident
contributed not a little to the confusion of the rebels. Tichhome's
horse, which was being led by a groom, broke loose,
and, galloping wildly about the town, led the Irish to believe,
from the clatter of its hoofs, that cavalry were approaching.
This decided many to beat a hasty retreat through the passage by which
they had entered. The rest fought, and were
for the most part killed. Outside St. James's Gate large
numbers awaited admittance by their comrades. They were
admitted by Tichborne's men, who, to induce them to enter
unsuspectingly, made an Irish bagpiper whom they had
taken earlier in the morning play lively airs. Once inside
the gate their fate was sealed.
Besiegers and besieged now indulged in
a series of
attempts to harass each other. On the nth of February
Tichborne obtained a signal advantage in an engagement
with a large body of the rebels. At four o'clock in the
morning of Sunday the 2ist, O'Neill, after his army had
been considerably reinforced, attempted an escalade at a
quiet spot near St. Laurence's Gate. The assailants had
planted their ladders, and reached the top of the walls, but,
the sentries being on the alert, the rebels were discomfited
and fled, leaving thirteen ladders behind them. These successes
encouraged the garrison to make further sallies. On
the 27th, while protecting his foragers, Tichborne defeated
the rebels on the fatal field of Julianstown, when 300 of the
Irish were killed. The foraging parties from Drogheda now
ranged to a distance over the country, and on 1st March four
companies of foot and a troop of horse met with some resistance.
Tichborne, hearing of this, determined to go himself,
and in the afternoon met the Irish advancing from the
hamlet of Stameen under the command of Sir Phelim. The
Irish fled on the approach of horse, and O'Neill only escaped
capture by hiding in a furze bush.
On 5th March 500 men, under Lord
Moore, marched to
Mellifont, followed by Sir Henry Tichborne with a reserve
force. Moore attacked the rebels, leaving 400 men and many
officers dead on the field. The prisoners made on this occasion included
Art Roe MacMahon, whose head, for which
a reward of £400 was offered, would have been cut off, but
that he prayed for mercy, offering to ensure the safety of
Lady Blaney and her children if his life was spared. His
offer was accepted. Ormonde was now marching from
Dublin at the head of 3000 foot and 500 horse, a fact which
decided Sir Phelim to raise the siege of Drogheda, if siege
it can be called, and he retired north precipitately.
The Lords Justices had worried
Tichborne with orders not
to venture farther abroad "than so as he might return the
same day", and, these continuing, Tichborne remonstrated
with such good effect that he was able to record: "I was left
again to my own way of proceeding, with a grave and sound
advice to be vigilant and careful in all my undertakings".
In much the same manner as they had treated Tichborne,
Parsons and Borlase proceeded to deal with Ormonde, giving
him orders not to go beyond the Boyne and to return in eight
days. Having arrived at Drogheda, Ormonde, on learning
from Tichborne and his officers the state of affairs there,
asked the Lords Justices for permission to proceed to Newry,
which was peremptorily refused ; but he was allowed to give
Tichborne 500 men and one or two guns to aid him in a proposed attack on
Dundalk, which being done, Ormonde was
forced to comply with orders and returned to Dublin.
The rebels, as much surprised at
Ormonde's departure as
they had been at his sudden advance, recovered their courage,
and, collecting their forces, again threatened Drogheda. But
Sir Henry Tichborne, feeling the freedom of being left to his
own discretion, and reinforced with the men Ormonde left
him, dislodged the Irish from Slane and burnt the town. On
the 2ist of March he set out for Ardee with 1200 foot, four
troops of horse, and provisions for two days. Here he found
2000 Irish posted in a good position on the right bank of the
Dee. He drove them over the bridge into the town, in which
some 600 of them were slain, and, turning their position by
fording the river with his cavalry, he pursued them into the
open country with great slaughter. He then turned his
attention to Dundalk, and, with the approval of Lord Moore
and the other officers, he suddenly presented himself before
that town at nine o'clock in the morning of the 26th of April.
He approached the outer gate and forced it under a heavy
fire. Sir Phelim and his horse now opposed him, but finding
the wind was in his favour Sir Henry ordered some houses to
be fired, and under cover of the smoke reached the inner gate
of the town. Seeing that resistance was useless, O'Neill and
his men beat a hasty retreat through the north gate over the
bridge, and left the town in the hands of the victors.
When the day was won, Tichborne tells
us he "caused
the quartermasters to divide the town into quarters, proportionable to
the companies of horse and foot; and what booty
was in any quarter, that I left to the officers and soldiers that
were quartered in it, by a proportionable dividend amongst
them, whereby the confusion about pillaging was taken away,
and I had the soldiers in a readiness to answer the rebels'
motion and attempts, who rumoured great words, and still
swarmed very thick in those parts. The number of the slain
I looked not after, but there was little mercy shown. ..."
The Lords Justices, on hearing of
Tichborne's success,
were by no means elated thereat, and in a grandmotherly
manner wrote stating that they considered he had "engaged
into too imminent danger", and sent him "advice to abandon
the place". This extraordinary attitude on the part of the
Government can only be accounted for by the fact that Borlase
was suffering from senile stupidity, and that Parsons, who
was a man of mean extraction, and had little or no education, devoted
his whole attention to the acquisition of wealth.
He clearly saw that the more rebels there were the more
lands there would be to confiscate, and thereby he could
gratify his cupidity. Tichborne, however, with noble independence,
rejected the advice given him, and finding, as he
said, "the town to be of importance for the service, I neither
thought it fit nor honourable to do so, except I received a
positive command and direction to that purpose; for I was
confident to hold it against all the rebels' forces that durst
appear before it; besides, I conceived the ten thousand Scots
would not be idle when they should hear that I was advanced
so far northward, with a handful of men in comparison with
their numbers". Sir Henry here refers to the fact that early
in November the English Parliament had, as already stated,
resolved to send 12,000 men from England, and to ask the
Scots to send 10,000 more, the arrival of the latter being now
expected daily.
Tichborne did well to ignore the
advice of the Lords
Justices, for the Irish soon returned to Dundalk, and appeared
in such imposing numbers that they kept Sir Henry and his
men in a state of continual activity. On one occasion he
''took Toby Guinne, an especial favourite of Sir Phelim
O'Neill, prisoner; this man", Tichborne tells us, "had been
bred amongst us, and married to an Englishman's daughter,
but now a degenerated, active, and notorious rebel; in which
respect, notwithstanding many promises of large ransom or
exchanges, I caused him to be presently hanged in the sight
of Sir Phelim O'Neill and his battalions". On the arrival of
the Scots in April, the Irish fired and deserted Carlingford,
whereupon Sir Henry marched along the strand and took
possession of the town.
The long-looked-for expeditionary
force of the Scots was
under the command of Major-General Robert Munro, and
consisted of about 2500 men, who landed at Carrickfergus on
the 15th of April. The King had hesitated in giving up the
town to the Scottish regiments, but on the Commissioners expressing a
hope that His Majesty, "being their native king,
would not show less trust in them than their neighbouring
nation", their hope was fulfilled, and it was agreed if any
troops joined the Scots, the Scots general was to command
them also. It is well that this was so, for Munro was not the
man to brook opposition, as anyone familiar with his idiosyncrasies as
displayed by Sir Walter Scott in the form of Dugald Dalgetty, for whom he served as a lay figure, will
readily admit. The Scots occupying Carrickfergus, Lord
Conway and Colonel Chichester retired with their regiments
to Belfast.
On the 28th April Munro marched
towards Newry, leaving
a garrison behind him, and joining forces with Lord Conway,
Sir James Turner, and the rest he had under his command,
in all nearly 4000 men. At Enniskillen the next day the
Irish, under Lord Iveagh, fled into Kilwarlin Woods at his
approach. On the 30th, Dromore was razed to the ground,
nothing being left standing save the church. A garrison
in an island at Loughbrickland were put to the sword, no
quarter being given. At Newry no attempt at defence was
made, and on the 3rd of May the garrison were permitted to
march out weaponless; but Munro, to Sir James Turner's
disgust, on second thoughts, deeming mercy a mistake, on
the following day hanged sixty townsmen. Leaving a garrison at Newry,
and making a circuit of County Down, Munro
on the 12th May returned to Carrickfergus.
"Sir Phelim O'Neill and his partizans,"
Tichborne tells
us, "grew very jolly upon the Scots' return, and persuaded
themselves of doing great matters against me, but their courage proved
to be only in words, for I drew forth for some
days together into a convenient field near unto them; but
finding that they did only put themselves in arms, and would
no more now than formerly forsake their strength to draw
into equality of ground, notwithstanding their advantage of
numbers, I concluded they were in another sort to be dealt
with; and from thenceforth, for the most part, I fell every
morning into their quarters, and continued these visitations
for several weeks together, with the slaughter of very many
of them, especially the new plantation in the county of
Monaghan, and at the taking in of Harry O'Neill's house
in the Fews; insomuch that by this course, and the like
acted often by the garrison of Drogheda, there was neither
man nor beast to be found in sixteen miles between the two
towns of Drogheda and Dundalk, nor on the other side of
Dundalk, in the county of Monaghan, nearer than Carrick-ma-cross, a
strong pile twelve miles distant."
Sir Henry Tichborne, during his stay,
carefully repaired
and strengthened the fortifications of Dundalk, and thus
placed a very important town, which the Lords Justices in
their folly had advised him to desert, in an efficient state of
defence. |
