Ireland Under the Tudors, Volume 3 — Chapter 45 Government of Russell 1594 to 1597 Part 2

[Sidenote: Ormonde and Tyrone.

] It was not without many misgivings that the proclamation against Tyrone was allowed to issue, Burghley dreaming almost to the last moment of a pacification by Ormonde's means.

But Ormonde himself had already made up his mind that Tyrone could not be trusted at all, since he had broken his last promises.

Nevertheless he went to Dublin, and on arriving there found that the humour had changed.

No commission came for him, and without one he could attempt nothing.

His anxiety was lest the Queen should think him lukewarm, whereas his greatest wish, though far beyond his power, was that Tyrone's and every other traitor's head should be at her Majesty's disposal.

He rejoiced at the appointment of Sir John Norris, and wished the Queen had many such to serve her.

'When Tyrone is proclaimed,' he said, 'I wish head-money may be promised for him, as I did for the Earl of Desmond, and pardon to be given to such others of the North as will serve against him.'

[244] [Sidenote: Bingham foresees disaster.

] Bingham came to Dublin to confer with Russell and Norris, and the result was to show clearly how much the work to be done exceeded the available means.

The Governor of Connaught said no quiet could be expected in his province until the Ulster rebels were stopped at the Erne.

Three whole counties were in revolt, and Clanricarde's near kinsmen had been engaged in the Sligo massacre, although he himself was loyal.

Russell agreed with Bingham, but the majority of the Council were for stumbling along in the old rut.

Bingham went back to Athlone, expecting nothing but disaster, and Norris went to Newry with the certain knowledge that he had not men enough to effect anything.

First he tried what negotiation would do, and Tyrone sent in a signed paper which he called a submission.

He was heartily sorry for his offences, and humbly besought pardon first for himself and all the inhabitants of Tyrone, but also for all his adherents who would give the same assurances, 'for that since the time I was proclaimed there have passed an oath between us to hold one course.'

This submission was rejected, as it would have practically acknowledged Tyrone's local supremacy, and of this rejection the Queen quite approved.

[Sidenote: Tyrone resists Norris,] [Sidenote: who is wounded.

] Armagh was victualled without much trouble by Norris in person, and the army then returned to Newry for more provisions.

Bagenal succeeded in surprising 2,000 of the enemy's cows, and Armagh was again reached without fighting.

Some days were spent in fortifying and in making arrangements for a winter garrison, but Norris failed to bring on a general engagement.

Tyrone kept to his vantage-ground, but made a great effort to annoy the English at a little pass which cannot be far from Markethill.

The baggage was sent on in front and escaped, but the rearguard had to fight their best.

There were Scots with Tyrone whose arrows proved very effective, and the Irish horse were much more active than the English.

Norris himself was shot in the arm and side, and his horse was hit in four places.

His brother Thomas was shot through the thigh, and Captain Wingfield through the elbow.

'I have a lady's hurt,' said Sir John; 'I pray, brother, make the place good if you love me, and I will new horse myself and return presently; and I pray charge home.'

Two other officers were killed with ten men, and about thirty men were wounded.

It does not appear that Tyrone's losses were much greater, and it was evident that nothing of moment could be done with the forces at hand.

Norris told Russell that he ought to send him every man he could scrape together, regular or irregular, leaving pioneers and carriers to follow as they might; and that, if this were not done, he would not be responsible for anything.

He sent his brother Henry straight to England, complaining that he had but 150 draught horses, when formerly ten times that number came out of the Pale, and that he was not properly supported in any way.

And yet Russell may have done his best.

He did detach Thomond with five companies and 145 horse to Newry, besides sending Secretary Fenton to help the wounded general in administrative work.

But to get supplies from the unwilling Catholics of the Pale was beyond his power.

The gentry had promised to muster 1,000 foot and 300 horse at Kells for the defence of the border, but a month after the trysting-day only one-third of that number had arrived.

[245] [Sidenote: Death of Tirlogh Luineach O'Neill, 1595. ] [Sidenote: Tyrone is made O'Neill.

] At the moment of this first fight with Tyrone in his character of proclaimed traitor, old Tirlogh Luineach died.

He had already resigned the chiefry, but it now suited his successor to drop the mask, and he went at once to Tullahogue to be invested.

And yet he was quite ready to renounce the name of O'Neill four months later, though objecting to take an oath on the subject.

The annalists say he had been appointed heir 'ten years before at the Parliament held in Dublin in the name of Queen Elizabeth.'

But it is, of course, quite untrue that Tyrone was made tanist by Act of Parliament, and the Four Masters themselves record that Tirlogh had resigned in his favour more than two years before.

In 1587 it had been intended to make Tirlogh Earl of Omagh, and thus to perpetuate the division of Tyrone.

The old chief had always realised, in a vague way, that an O'Neill could not stand alone, and had listened without enthusiasm to the bards who called upon him to imitate the legendary heroes of his race, and to make himself monarch of Ireland in spite of the English.

The real effect of his death was to make Tyrone chief of Ulster in the popular estimation, as he had long been in real power.

He also saw that the Queen would be too strong for him unless he could make foreign alliances, and he strove to excite sympathy abroad by appearing as the head of a Catholic confederacy.

[246] [Sidenote: Tyrone has dealings with Spain.

] [Sidenote: Conditions of peace or war.

] Nothing, said the Queen, would more become this base traitor whom she had raised from the dust, than his 'public confessing what he knows of any Spanish practices, and his abjuration of any manner of hearkening or combining with any foreigners--a course fit in his offers to be made vulgar--that in Spain and abroad the hopes of such attempts may be extinguished.'

Tyrone protested that he never corresponded with Spain before August 20; but this can hardly be true, for in a letter to Don Carlos, written little more than a month after that date, he complained that the King had returned no answer to frequent previous letters.

He begged Philip to send 3,000 soldiers, at whose approach all the heretics would disappear, and the King Catholic be recognised as the sole sovereign of Ireland.

Elizabeth shrank from the cost of war and from the suffering which it would bring, and Norris was ordered to negotiate.

A general without an army is not usually the most successful of diplomatists, and Sir John had no belief in the work.

There were, he said, but two courses open.

One was to give Tyrone a free pardon, mainly on condition of his abjuring Spain and the Pope, by which means these potentates would be alienated from him.

If there was to be fighting, then he thought it best to leave Connaught alone, and confine himself to Ulster.

He demanded a separate treasurer, as Ormonde had in the Desmond times, 5,000_l.

_ a month for six months, and 2,000_l.

_ more for fortifications, and power to spend the whole as he liked.

With this, but not with less, he thought he could post a garrison at Lough Foyle, for like every other competent soldier he maintained that Tyrone could be bridled only by permanent fortresses.

The course which seemed easiest and cheapest was taken, and the negotiations began without sincerity on Tyrone's part, and with a presentiment of failure on that of Norris, who thought force the only remedy.

[247] [Sidenote: A truce with Tyrone.

] Norris did not himself meet Tyrone, but sent two captains, St. Leger and Warren, who made a truce to last until January 1, and for one month longer should the Lord Deputy desire it.

Peace was to be kept on both sides, but none of the points at issue were decided.

Tyrone and O'Donnell made separate submissions, upon which great stress was laid; but as they were both in correspondence with Spain, it is clear that their chief object was to gain time.

Tyrone further declared his readiness to renounce the title of O'Neill, protesting that he had assumed it only to prevent anybody else from doing so.

Upon these terms, since no better were to be had, the Queen was inclined to pardon the chief rebels; but this only encouraged them to make fresh demands.

Burghley in the meantime was advising that money should be sent into Ireland, where he foresaw nothing but trouble.

'I see,' he said, 'a manifest disjunction between the Lord Deputy and Sir John Norris.

Sir John was too bold to command the companies in the English Pale for Waterford without assenting of the Deputy, for out of Munster he hath no sole authority.

I fear continually evil disasters.'

[248] [Sidenote: O'Donnell overruns Connaught.

] O'Donnell had in the meantime made himself master of a great part of Connaught.

Bingham failed in a determined attempt to retake Sligo, and his nephew, Captain Martin, was killed by an Irish dart, which pierced the joint of his breastplate as his arm was raised to strike.

Russell went to Galway, and was received with full military honours;

and at first the rebellious Burkes seemed inclined to come to him.

But O'Donnell entered the province, and persuaded them to content themselves with a written submission, accompanied by a statement of their complaints against Bingham.

They accepted a MacWilliam at the northern chief's hands, in the person of Theobald Burke, a young man who had just distinguished himself by surprising the castle of Belleek in Mayo, and inflicting great loss on a relieving force led by Bingham's brother John; and by Christmas there was no county in Connaught, except Clare, in which the inhabitants, or great numbers of them, had not united with O'Donnell.

[249] [Sidenote: Negotiations with Tyrone, 1596. ] [Sidenote: Liberty of conscience demanded] If a peace could be made on anything like honourable terms, Russell was authorised to act without further orders from home, and to pardon every rebel who would come in and submit himself.

Wallop and Gardiner, both of whom were thought rather friendly to Tyrone, were sent as commissioners to Dundalk; but, protection or no protection, Tyrone refused to enter that town.

The commissioners were fain to waive the point, and a meeting of five persons on each side was held a mile outside.

Swords only were worn, and the greatest distrust was shown.

'The forces of either side stood a quarter of a mile distant from them, and while they parleyed on horseback two horsemen of the commissioners stood firm in the midway between the Earl's troops and them, and likewise two horsemen of the Earl's was placed between them and her Majesty's forces.

These scout officers were to give warning if any treacherous attempt were made on either part.'

Tyrone and his brother Cormac, whom the keener spirits among the O'Neills made tanist in defiance of the Queen's patent, O'Donnell, Maguire, MacMahon, O'Dogherty, O'Reilly, and many others, were at the meeting or in the immediate neighbourhood.

The first article of the Irish demand was 'free liberty of conscience'--free liberty of conscience for those who were anxious to exchange the sovereignty of Elizabeth for that of Philip II.

Free pardons and restoration in blood of all of the northern rebels, the maintenance of Tyrone's power over his neighbours, the acknowledgment of O'Donnell's claims in Connaught, a pardon for Feagh MacHugh, and the non-appointment of sheriffs in Ulster, except for Newry and Carrickfergus; these were the other demands, of which they believed the concession would 'draw them to a more nearness of loyalty.'

They amounted, in truth, to an abrogation of the royal authority in nearly all Ulster, and in a great part of Connaught.

The negotiations following lasted eleven days, with growing distrust on both sides, and at last a fresh truce was concluded, for February, March, and April.

The terms, in so far as they differed from the former ones, were in favour of Tyrone and O'Donnell.

On the very day that the truce was concluded, Russell wrote to complain that the commissioners were too easy with men who made immoderate demands, contrary to their former submissions; and on the next day, as if his words were prophetic, an indignant letter came from the Queen, accompanied by a much-needed remittance of 12,000_l.

_ She had good reason to complain that the more inclined to mercy she showed herself the more insolent the rebels became, and was particularly annoyed at the fact that the commissioners addressed Tyrone and his associates by such titles as 'loving friends,' and 'our very good lord.'

[250] [Sidenote: Neither Tyrone nor O'Donnell can be conciliated.

] [Sidenote: Their pretensions.

] So anxious were the commissioners for peace at any price that they withheld the terms on which the Queen was willing to pardon the rebels until the truce was safely concluded.

Nor did they venture to show the actual articles sent from England, thinking the chiefs would be less alarmed by conditions of their own devising.

Elizabeth held the language of a merciful sovereign, who was ready to pardon rebels, but who had their lands and lives at her mercy.

Tyrone had forfeited his patent and should only receive back portions of his estate, while his jurisdiction over his neighbours was ousted altogether.

He was to give several substantial pledges, and to send his eldest son to be educated in England.

O'Donnell, Maguire, O'Rourke, and the MacMahons were to be treated with separately, and in every case members of their septs who had not rebelled were to have some of their lands.

If the Earl held out, efforts were to be made to detach O'Donnell from him.

All this was inconsistent with what the chiefs had demanded from the commissioners;

and the latter could only give the Queen's ideas in their own language, and solicit observations from the parties concerned.

Tyrone said he was anxious to send over his son, but that his people would not allow him, and, indeed, it is likely that he was afraid of his brother Cormac's doings as tanist.

He had no objection to a gaol, nor to a sheriff--provided that official were an inhabitant of Tyrone--was ready to renounce the name of O'Neill, though not upon oath, and agreed to give reasonable pledges.

But he would not consent to a garrison at Armagh, insisting that Tyrone and Armagh should be one county; nor would he bind himself, without the consent of his clansmen, to pay a fine in support of the garrisons at Monaghan, Blackwater, and Newry.

O'Donnell was even less accommodating, ironically offering to build a gaol in Donegal, whenever he agreed to receive a sheriff there.

He claimed the county of Sligo as his own, and maintained that O'Dogherty held all his territory of him.

Having received these answers, the commissioners returned to Dublin, and when Gardiner went thence to England, the Queen for some time refused to see him.

[251] [Sidenote: Confusion in Connaught.

] Russell's journey to Galway had resulted in a truce, but there was no peace in Connaught.

Bingham managed to victual Ballymote across the Curlew mountains, but not without the help of three veteran companies, who did all the fighting and lost five officers and fifty men.

Boyle and Athlone were threatened, while a MacDermot and an O'Connor Roe were set up, as well as a MacWilliam.

At last the Burkes, aided by a party of Scots, having done what damage they could on the Galway side of the Shannon, crossed the river and began to harry the King's County.

The Lord Deputy started without delay, was joined by O'Molloy and MacCoghlan, and fell upon the intruders at daybreak.

A hundred and forty were killed or drowned in trying to escape, and Russell then turned to the castle of Cloghan, which was strongly held by the O'Maddens.

'Not if you were all Deputies,' they replied, on being summoned to surrender, and added that the tables would probably be turned on the morrow.

Russell humanely proposed that the women should be sent out, but the O'Maddens refused.

Next morning a soldier contrived to throw a firebrand on to the thatched roof, which blazed up at once.

A brisk fusillade was directed upon the battlements, and another fire was lit at the gate, while the assailants made a breach in the wall.

Forty-six persons were cut down, smothered, or thrown over the walls, while two women and a boy were saved.

The Scots who came over the Shannon had been reported as 400, and Russell made a good deal of his success; but Norris reduced the number of strangers to forty, and spoke with contempt of the whole affair.

[252] [Sidenote: The Queen on liberty of conscience.

] [Sidenote: More negotiations.

] When the Queen at last consented to hear Chief Justice Gardiner's account of his proceedings in the North, she expressed great displeasure.

The demand for liberty of conscience, she said, was a mere pretext, the result of disloyal conspiracy, and put forward as an excuse for past rebellion more than from any desire to do better in future.

Tyrone and the rest had no persecutor to complain of, and what they asked was in reality 'liberty to break laws, which her Majesty will never grant to any subject of any degree'--a pronouncement which might well have been quoted by the foes of the dispensing power ninety years later.

And, as if it were intended to strike Russell obliquely, a new commission was ordered to be issued to Norris and Fenton.

They were to meet the rebels during the truce, and to 'proceed with them to some final end, either according to their submissions to yield them pardons, with such conditions as are contained in our instructions; or if they shall refuse the reasonable offers therein contained, or seek former delays, to leave any further treaty with them.'

And at the same time there was to be a general inquiry into all alleged malpractices in government which might cause men to rebel.

Some of the directions to the new commissioners were rather puzzling; but the Lord Deputy and Council refused to suggest any explanation, for that they were 'left no authority to add, diminish, or alter.'

Russell indeed gave out that he would go to the North himself, and Norris was in despair.

'The mere bruit,' he says, 'will cross us, and I am sure to meet as many other blocks in my way as any invention can find out.

I know the Deputy will not spare to do anything that might bring me in disgrace, and remove me from troubling his conscience here.'

Russell, on the other hand, complained that Burghley was his enemy and sought out all his faults.

'I wish,' said the old Treasurer, 'they did not deserve to be sought out.'

[253] [Sidenote: Captain Thomas Lee.

] Tyrone must have been an agreeable, or at least a persuasive man, for he often made friends of those Englishmen who came under his personal influence.

Such a one was Captain Thomas Lee, who at this juncture made an effort in his favour; saying that he would be loyal 'if drawn apart from these rogues that he is now persuaded by.'

He would go to England or to the Deputy if he had a safe-conduct straight from the Queen, and Essex and Buckhurst might write to him for his better assurance, since he believed Burghley to be his bitter enemy.

Lee confessed that he had not seen Tyrone for some time, and that he founded his opinion upon old conversations; but he was ready to stake his credit, and begged to be employed against the Earl should he fail to justify such an estimate.

For having ventured to address the Queen when in England without first consulting Burghley, Lee humbly apologised, and hinted, perhaps not very diplomatically, that a contrary course might have preserved the peace.

The Cecils had little faith in Lee's plausibilities, and it was reserved for Essex to employ him as a serious political agent.

[254] [Sidenote: Norris and Fenton go to Dundalk.

] [Sidenote: A hollow peace follows.

] Fenton foresaw that Tyrone and O'Donnell would probably 'stand upon their barbarous custom to commune with us in the wild fields.'

And so it proved.

They refused to come into any town, and proposed a meeting-place near Dundalk, with a river, a thicket, and a high mountain close at hand.

This was rejected, and they then suggested that the commissioners should come on to the outer arch of a broken bridge, and back across the water, while they themselves stayed on dry land.

This was considered undignified, and indeed the proposal looks like studied impertinence; and in the end it was decided that Captains St. Leger and Warren should act as intermediaries.

Tyrone at once waived the claim to liberty of conscience, 'save only that he will not apprehend any spiritual man that cometh into the country for his conscience' sake.'

While protesting against the continuance of a garrison at Armagh, he agreed not to interrupt the communications, and in the end he received a pardon upon the basis of the existing state of affairs.

The gaol and the shrievalty were left in abeyance during the stay of the garrison; but the Queen made no objection to Armagh and Tyrone being treated as one county, or to the demand that the sheriff should be a native.

The Earl disclaimed all authority to the east of the Bann and of Lough Neogh, and, while renouncing foreign aid, promised to declare how far he had dealt with any foreigner.

He refused to give up one of his sons, but surrendered his nephew and another O'Neill as pledges, on condition that they should be exchanged at the end of three months.

The Queen, upon whom the cost of the great Cadiz expedition weighed heavily, professed herself satisfied except on one point.

Tyrone had promised some time before to pay a fine either of 20,000_l.

_ or of 20,000 cows, but he now maintained that the figure had been mentioned for show, and that it was an understood thing that it should not really be paid.

The promise had been made to Russell, and Norris had left the matter in doubt.

But it must be acknowledged that the Lord Deputy saw the real state of the case more clearly than his sovereign, and he maintained that the rebels were only gaining time till help came from Spain, and that Norris was overreached by 'these knaves.'

The peace was a feigned one, the pledges were of no account, and there was no safety for the English in Ireland but in keeping up the army.