Ireland Under the Tudors, Volume 3 — Chapter 38 The Desmond War Second Stage 1580 to 1581 Part 2

[Sidenote: The massacre.

] The interpreter was Oliver Plunkett, who expected no mercy and therefore opposed all negotiations, and his double-dealing may have caused such confusion as to make it possible to say that the garrison had surrendered on promise of their lives.

The strangers may even have thought they had such a promise, but it is clear that Grey's terms were unconditional surrender or storm as soon as practicable.

The unfortunate Sebastian embraced his knees, and promised to evacuate the place unconditionally next morning.

Catholic writers accuse San Josefo of cowardice, but he could not help surrendering, for the fort had been heavily battered, and there was no chance of relief.

To make assurance doubly sure the English worked all night and mounted two fresh guns before sunrise.

On the morrow about a dozen officers came out with their ensigns trailed and surrendered the fort at discretion.

Grey distributed them among his officers to be held to ransom for their profit.

The arms and stores were secured, 'and then,' says Arthegal himself, 'put I in certain bands, who straight fell to execution.

There were 600 slain.'

Hooker adds that Mackworth and Walter Raleigh were the captains on duty, and that they superintended the butchery.

[64] [Sidenote: The massacre approved by the Queen.

] The poor Italians had no commissions and were treated as filibusters, just as the Spaniards would have treated Drake had they been able to catch him; but many blamed Grey, though he does not himself seem to have been conscious that he had done anything extraordinary.

Sussex was among the critics, though he had plenty to answer for himself, but the Queen approved of what had been done.

At the top of the despatch sent in answer to the Lord Deputy's, she wrote as follows, in the fine Roman hand which sometimes contrasts so strangely with her studiously involved and obscure phraseology:--"The mighty hand of the Almighty's power hath shewed manifest the force of his strength in the weakness of feeblest sex and minds this year to make men ashamed ever after to disdain us, in which action I joy that you have been chose the instrument of his glory which I mean to give you no cause to forethink."

She censured Grey rather for sparing some of the principals than for slaying the accessories; not for what he had done, but for what he had left undone; for the object was to prevent such expeditions in future.

Elizabeth, who belonged to her age, probably wondered that anybody should object.

Nor does it appear that the Catholic powers made any official complaint; it was their habit to do likewise.

[Sidenote: Reflections on the event.

] Those who condescended to excuse Grey urged that 600 prisoners would be very inconvenient to an army of 800, and that lack of provisions made delay dangerous.

But there were eight ships of war and four provision-vessels in the bay, which might have carried most of the prisoners, and enough biscuit, bacon, oil, fish, rice, beans, peas, and barley were found in the fort to support 600 men for six months.

The 4,000 stand of arms taken might easily have been conveyed on shipboard.

Between 300_l.

_ and 400_l.

_ was found in Spanish reals, and this money was divided among the soldiers, who were in their habitual half-paid state.

If the Pope recruited for this enterprise, as he did for the former one, among the brigands of Umbria and Samnium, there would be a reason for treating the rank and file rigorously while sparing the officers, but this point is not raised in the official correspondence.

The best defence of Grey, and yet not a very good one, is to be found in the cruelty of the age.

After the fall of Haarlem Alva butchered three or four times as many as perished at Smerwick.

Santa Cruz put to death the crews of several French ships after the fight at Terceira in the Azores.

It would be easy to multiply examples, but it may suffice to say that Captain Mackworth afterwards fell into the hands of the Offaly O'Connors, who mutilated him horribly and flayed him alive.

[65] [Sidenote: Reasons for failure of foreign invaders.

] The Four Masters say that the name of the Italians exceeded the reality, and that either Limerick, Cork, or Galway would at first have opened their gates to them.

This is probable enough, and at any rate Smerwick was a bad place for their enterprise, for it was hardly to be supposed that England would not have the command of the sea.

The same mistake was made more than once by the French in later times, and it may be assumed that Ireland is unassailable except by an overwhelming force.

The Spaniards at one period, and the French at another, might often have landed an army large enough to overtax the actual resources of the Irish Government.

For a time they might have been masters of the country, and would at first have commanded the sympathies of the people.

But the rule of a foreign soldiery would soon become more irksome than the old settled government, and the invading general would find as little real native help as Hannibal found in Latium, or as Charles Edward found in Lancashire.

Had Limerick, Galway, or Cork admitted Sanders and his Italians the struggle might have been prolonged, but while an English fleet kept the sea, the result could hardly have been doubtful.

[Sidenote: Composition of the Smerwick garrison.

] The garrison at Smerwick consisted chiefly of Italians, with a contingent from Northern Spain, and the numbers were variously estimated at from 400 to 700. Two hundred are said to have been veteran soldiers, but opinions differed as to the general quality of the men.

Grey, when he saw their corpses, mused over them as gallant and goodly personages, while Bingham said they were beggarly rascals.

Among the officers were a few Spaniards, but the majority were from Italy: Rome, Florence, Milan, Bologna, Genoa, and Bolsena being all represented.

[Sidenote: Executions.

] A few Irishmen who had allowed themselves to be entrapped were hanged, and some women with them.

An Englishman who followed Dr. Sanders, a friar who is not named, and Oliver Plunkett, were reserved for a peculiarly hard fate.

Their arms and legs were broken, and they were hanged on a gallows on the wall of the fort.

Plunkett, who was examined before his death, said that twenty-four sail at Corunna and Santander were ready to sail for Ireland.

Lord Westmoreland was to be sent over by the Pope, and Charles Browne, at Santander, was in correspondence with Inglefield and others.

[66] [Sidenote: Account of Fort Del Oro.

] Not only was the extreme point of Kerry a bad place to attack Queen Elizabeth, but the fort itself was ill suited for defence.

The only water supply was from streams half-a-mile off on each side, and the work was too small for those whom it had to protect.

Its greatest length was 350 feet, and its average breadth was about 100, and 50 square feet of ground to each person is but scanty room.

'The thing itself,' says Sir Nicholas White, 'is but the end of a rock shooting out into the Bay of Smerwick, under a long cape, whereupon a merchant of the Dingle, called Piers Rice, about a year before James Fitzmaurice's landing, built a castle, under pretence of gaining by the resort of strangers thither a-fishing, whereas in very truth it was to receive James at his landing, and because at that very instant time, a ship laden with Mr. Furbisher's new-found riches happened to press upon the sands near to the place, whose carcase and stores I saw lie there, carrying also in his mind a golden imagination of the coming of the Spaniards called his building _Down-enoyr_, which is as much as to say, the "Golden Down."

The ancient name of the bay, Ardcanny...

from a certain devout man named Canutius, which upon the height of the cliffs, as appears at this day, built a little hermitage to live a contemplative there.'

White's description is very good, but it applies only to the little promontory which contains the salient seaward angle of the work, and where embrasures are still clearly traceable.

The lines on the land side, which did not exist at the time of White's visit, are visible enough, being covered with roughish pasture, but the 'mariner's trench' is undecipherable owing to tillage.

There was a bridge between the mainland and the outer rock, and Rice's fortalice was no doubt confined to the 'island.'

[67] [Sidenote: State of Connaught.

] In the meantime, O'Rourke had risen and attacked Maltby's garrison at Leitrim.

The President had but 400 English, half of whom were newcomers and 'simple enough,' and he had to ferry them over the flooded Shannon in cots.

The gentlemen of the county advised him not to face such great odds, but 100 of their kerne behaved well, and he put a bold face on it.

The O'Rourkes and their Scots allies railed exceedingly against the Queen and exalted the Pope; but they did not dare to face the dreaded President, and disappeared, leaving him to burn Brefny at his will.

Ulick Burke seemed at first inclined to serve faithfully, and Maltby was disposed to trust him, but John and William were in open rebellion, and their youngest sister begged for protection.

'I pray you,' she wrote to the President, 'receive me as a poor, destitute, and fatherless gentlewoman....

I found nowhere aid nor assistance, and no friends since my lord and father departed, but what I found at your worship's hands.'

A few days later Ulick styled himself MacWilliam, and joined John, who accepted the position of Tanist, in forcibly collecting corn for the papal garrison.

They announced that they would hang all priests who refused to say mass, and Maltby reported that the papal Bishop of Kilmacduagh was leading them to the devil headlong.

They demolished Loughrea, and most of the castles between the Shannon and Galway Bay.

Communications with Munster were interrupted, and Maltby, self-reliant as he was, began to fear for the safety of Galway, where there was no stock of provisions, and no artillery worth mentioning.

Affairs were at this pass when Grey's success at Smerwick reduced the rebellion in Connaught to insignificance.

[68] [Sidenote: Want of money.

] Grey was not long in Ireland before he encountered the great Elizabethan problem of how to make bricks without straw.

Treasurer Wallop estimated the soldiers' pay at 6,000_l.

_ worth, exclusive of extraordinaries, and the victualling difficulties were as great as ever.

The English officials in Dublin seldom gave Ormonde a good word, but on this head their complaints chimed in with his.

The victualler at Cork warned him not to reckon on more than twelve days' biscuit and wine, and there were no means of brewing at Cork.

'I know,' said the Earl, 'it is sour speech to speak of money; I know it will be also wondered at how victuals should want....

I never had for me and my companies one hundred pounds worth of victual, and this being true, I can avow that some have told lies at Court to some of your councillors--yea, not only in this, but in many other things.'

'The soldiers,' said Sir William Stanley, 'are so ill chosen in England that few are able or willing to do any service, but run away with our furniture, and when they come into England there is no punishment used to them, by means whereof we can hardly keep any.'

Meantime there were loud complaints of abuses in purveyance for the Viceregal household, and the Irish Council could think of no better plan than to swear the purveyors, and cut off their ears in case of perjury.

Wallop reported that bribes were openly taken in official circles; that was the usual course, though he had never given or taken any himself.

[69] [Sidenote: Kildare in charge of the Pale.

] When Grey went to Munster he left Kildare to act as general in the Pale.

With the whole force of the country, and with 1,400 men in the Queen's pay, including garrisons, he undertook to defend Dublin to the south, and to do some service against the rebels.

Six hundred men were on the Ulster frontier, and these also were to be at his disposal in case of necessity.

He and his son-in-law, the Baron of Delvin, were accused of conspiring to turn the war to their own advantage, by promising everything and doing nothing.

Should the Pope's title prevail, they would be all-powerful; should the Queen be victorious they would at least make money out of the business.

It was arranged that Kildare should have 600 men paid by the country in addition to the Queen's troops.

He preferred to take the money, and to raise 400 kernes himself; 'but I think,' said Wallop, 'he will put all that in his purse and three parts of his entertainment of his horsemen, and fifty shillings a day for his diet.

In this town he lieth for the most part, and spendeth not five pounds a week, keeping his chamber with a board not anyways an ell long.'

A civilian named Eustace, 'properly learned, but a papist in the highest degree,' was accused of fomenting treason among the nominally loyal, and Gerard, by remaining 'a secret ghostly father to him for a time,' made him fear for his own neck, and induced him to give information against many persons in the Pale.

Maltby took care to remind the Irish Government that both Kildare and Ormonde had given security for John and Ulick Burke, and that Kildare was the same man that he had always been and always would be.

It was plain that those to whom the conduct of the war was entrusted did not care to end it, and that only English officers and soldiers could really be depended on.

An occasional raid into the Wicklow mountains did not advance matters much, and Feagh MacHugh was able to burn Rathcoole, a prosperous village ten miles from Dublin, and to make the very suburbs tremble for their own safety.

Kildare made light of the burning of Rathcoole, and threw the blame on inferior officers; but this was not the view taken by the Council generally.

[70] [Sidenote: Kildare is strongly suspected.

] When Grey returned to Dublin he found the whole official circle bent upon disgracing Kildare, and after some days' consideration he summoned the general body of nobles to meet the Council, ostensibly for the discussion of military dispositions.

Delvin saw that he was suspected, and vehemently demanded an enquiry, putting in a written declaration in answer to rumoured accusations.

The full Council, including Kildare, found this statement inconsistent with known facts, and committed him to the Castle.

Then Gerard, who had conducted the private investigation, rashly disclosed his whole case, and openly accused the Earl of complicity with the treason of Baltinglas.

Wallop, who believed that no good thing could come out of Galilee, observed that the Chancellor 'would needs have the attorney and serjeant by, who are of this country birth, and so were many councillors then present, by means of which it is now in every man's mouth what the Earl is to be charged with.'

The Vice-Treasurer adds that his lands were worth 3,000_l.

_ a year, but that he had taken good care to return them to England as worth only 1,500_l.

_, that the only road towards good government lay through severity, and that unless traitors were made to pay both in person and lands, Ireland would always be what it long had been,--'the sink of the treasure of England.'

Waterhouse, whose office it was to look after unconsidered trifles of revenue, thought the original cause of war was Kildare's military commission, and that treason should be made to pay its own expenses.

'I will hear your honour's opinion,' he wrote to Walsingham, 'whether her Majesty will be content to have her great charges answered out of the livings of the conspirators, and to use a sharp and a severe course without respect of any man's greatness, wheresoever law will catch hold, or whether all faults must be lapped up in lenity with pardons, protections, and fair semblance, as in times past; if severity, then is there hope enough of good reformation; if mildness, then discharge the army and officers, and leave this nation to themselves, for sure the mean will do no good.

We must embrace one of these extremities.'

[71] [Sidenote: Kildare and Delvin prisoners in England.

] Grey could not deny that appearances were strong against the Earl, and he ordered his arrest, giving full credit for their exertions to Gerard and Loftus.

He believed that 'greediness of pay and arrogant zeal to Popish government' were the stumbling-blocks of great personages in Ireland, and that Delvin certainly was 'a wicked creature who had cut the poor Earl's throat.'

As if to add to the suspicion, Kildare's son and heir ran off to the O'Connors, and they refused to let him go when Grey sent for him.

At last, fearing the construction that might be put upon this, they handed him over to Ormonde, and he was shut up in the Castle with his father and Lord Delvin.

All three were sent over to England, Secretary Fenton carrying the despatches, and Gerard going with him to tell his own story.

[72] [Sidenote: The Munster rebellion drags on.

] The capture of Smerwick did not put down the Munster rebellion; but Ormonde, or some of those about him, contemptuously reported that Desmond, his brother, and Baltinglas had 'but a company of rascals and four Spaniards, and a drum to make men believe that they had a great number of the strangers.'

Both Youghal and Ross thought themselves in danger, and Wallop reported that communications between the capital and Limerick were only kept up by 'simple fellows that pass afoot in nature of beggars, in wages not accustomed.'

Grey and Ormonde having turned their backs, Desmond appeared again near Dingle, and Bingham felt that there might be an attack at any moment.

Half of Captain Zouch's men were dead and buried, the survivors being too ill to work or fight.

Captain Case's company were little better, and they would have made no resistance without Bingham and his sailors, who worked with a will and raised a breastwork tenable by 20 men against 2,000 kernes and gallowglasses.

The men were put on short allowance, and having thus made the provisions last thirteen days longer than they would otherwise have done, Bingham was compelled to return to England.

His crew were so reduced by spare diet that they were unable to work the ship up Channel, and had to run into Bristol.

He left Ireland, to quote a correspondent of Walsingham, 'in as great confusion as the Tower of Babylon was a building.'

There were more soldiers in Munster than had been since the first conquest, and war material was abundant.

But no two officers agreed with each other personally, or were agreed upon the policy to be pursued.

Ormonde was in Dublin, looking after his own interests, and leaving his lieutenants to shift for themselves.

Sir Warham St. Leger, Chief Commissioner at Cork, claimed superiority over Sir George Bourchier at Kilmallock, while the latter acted as a captain of free lances and granted protections to whom he pleased.

Sir William Morgan at Youghal would give way to neither, and there seemed no escape from the difficulty but once more to appoint an English President, 'upright, valiant, severe, and wise.'

In the meantime the rebellion was as strong as ever, and what the rebels spared the soldiers ravaged.

In Connaught the young Burkes daily razed houses and fences, northern Leinster lay waste, in Munster nothing was left standing save towns and cities, and Ulster was ready to break out on the smallest provocation.

[73] [Sidenote: Official attack upon Ormonde.

] The English officials all maintained that Ormonde had shown himself unfit to conduct the war.

One writer estimates his emoluments at 215_l.

_ a month, and another at 3,677_l.

_ a year, and the first result of a peace would be to deprive him of these comfortable subsidies.

He was mixed up with Irish families and Irish lawsuits, and could not have a single eye to the public service.

He owed the Queen over 3,000_l.

_ in rents, and the war was an excuse for not paying.

Nor was his system of warfare calculated to finish a rebellion, for all experienced officers said that could be done only by settled garrisons.

'He followeth,' says his enemy St. Leger, 'with a running host, which is to no end but only wearing out and consuming of men by travel, for I can compare the difference between our footmen and the traitors to a mastiff and wight greyhound.'

According to the same authority Ormonde was generally disliked, and those whom he was set over would 'rather be hanged than follow him, finding their travel and great pains altogether in vain.'

He procured the imprisonment of the Baron of Upper Ossory, whom he accused of treason, of harbouring papists and consorting with rebels, and of meeting Desmond after he had been proclaimed; but Wallop thought the Earl coveted his neighbour's land, being 'so imperious as he can abide none near him that dependeth not on him.'

Spenser's friend Ludovic Bryskett said the Lord General did nothing of moment with his 2,000 men, and as for his toil and travel, 'the noble gentleman was worthy of pity to take so much labour in vain.'

Wallop, Waterhouse, Fenton, and St. Leger agreed that Ireland could only be pacified by severity, and that Ormonde was not the man to do it.

But perhaps the heaviest, as it is certainly the most graphic, indictment was that which Captain Raleigh forwarded to Walsingham.

[74] [Sidenote: Adventures of Raleigh.

] Lord Barrymore's eldest son David, Lord Roche's eldest son Maurice, Florence MacCarthy, Patrick Condon, and others, long professed loyalty because it seemed the winning side.

But Barry's country lay open to the seneschal of Imokilly, and in passing through it Raleigh had an adventure by which the world was near losing some of its brightest memories.

On his return from Dublin, and having at the time only two followers with him and as many more within shot, he was attacked at a ford by the seneschal with seventy-four men.

The place seems to have been Midleton or Ballinacurra, and Raleigh's aim was to gain an old castle, which may have been Ballivodig, to which his Irish guide at once fled.

In crossing the river Henry Moile was unhorsed, and begged his captain not to desert him.

Raleigh rode back into the river, and recovered both man and horse; but in his hurry to remount, Moile fell into a bog on the off side, while his horse ran away to the enemy.

'The captain nevertheless stood still, and did abide for the coming of the residue of his company, of the four shot which as yet were not come forth, and for his man Jenkin, who had about 200_l.

_ in money about him; and sat upon his horse in the meanwhile, having his staff in one hand, and his pistol charged in the other.'

Like an Homeric hero he kept the seneschal's whole party at bay, although they were twenty to one.

Raleigh modestly left the details to others, and only reported that the escape was strange to all.

[75] [Sidenote: Raleigh's policy.

] Two days later David Barry was in open rebellion, and Raleigh minded to take possession of Barry's Court and of the adjoining island--the 'great island' on which Queenstown now stands.

He had been granted the custody of these lands by Grey, but Ormonde interposed delays, and Raleigh, who was as fond of property as he was careless of danger, greatly resented this.

'When,' he said, 'my Lord Deputy came, and Barry had burned all the rest, the Lord General, either meaning to keep it for himself--as I think all is too little for him--or else unwilling any Englishman should have anything, stayed the taking thereof so long, meaning to put a guard of his own in it, as it is, with the rest, defaced and spoiled.

I pray God her Majesty do not find, that--with the defence of his own country assaulted on all sides, what with the bearing and forbearing of his kindred, as all these traitors of this new rebellion are his own cousins-german, what by reason of the incomparable hatred between him and the Geraldines, who will die a thousand deaths, enter into a million of mischiefs, and seek succour of all nations, rather than they will ever be subdued by a Butler--that after her Majesty hath spent a hundred thousand pounds more she shall at last be driven by too dear experience to send an English President to follow these malicious traitors with fire and sword, neither respecting the alliance nor the nation....

This man having been Lord General of Munster now about two years, there are at this instant a thousand traitors more than there were the first day.

Would God the service of Sir Humfry Gilbert might be rightly looked into; who, with the third part of the garrison now in Ireland, ended a rebellion not much inferior to this in two months.'

A little later, Raleigh reported that he had repaired Belvelly Castle, which commands the strait between the island and the mainland, but that Ormonde meant to rob him of the fruits of his trouble and expense, and to undo what he had done.

The soldiers, he declared, cursed the change which made them followers of the Earl rather than of the Lord Deputy, and spent their strength in 'posting journeys' with convoys to Kilkenny instead of in service against the rebels.

[76] [Sidenote: Ormonde loses his command.

] Grey yielded to the arguments of those about him, and announced that there was no help while Irish government and Ormonde were continued, adding that neither Walsingham nor Leicester would believe it.

Leicester at least, who corresponded frequently with Maltby, was quite willing to believe anything against their common enemy, and it may be that the present favourite prevailed over the absent friend.

At all events the Queen yielded, and Grey was allowed to tell Ormonde that his authority as Lord Lieutenant of Munster was at an end.

The Earl submitted cheerfully and with many loyal expressions, saying that he would do such service without pay as would prove him no hireling.

His property, he declared, was wasted in her Majesty's service and the loss of salary would be therefore great, but to lose his sovereign's favour and to be traduced in England was far worse.

There was now a disposition in high quarters to grant pardons freely; had he known it he could have brought in every man in Munster.

He had thought nothing worth notifying while Desmond was still at large, but he would now make a collection of his services, and the Queen should see that he had not been inactive, and that his activity had not been fruitless.

In private he had confessed to having borne too long with some for old acquaintance' sake; but blamed Sussex for forgetting his friends, and could not excuse Captain Zouch, who by sickness had lost 300 men out of 450. Walsingham, in a moment of irritation, had said that his appointment had resulted in the death of only three rebels.

Three thousand would be nearer the mark, and that he was ready to prove.

[77] [Sidenote: An amnesty.

] The dismissal of Ormonde was intended by Grey and those about him to form part of a policy of the severest and most unsparing repression, and it was assumed that Gilbert, or some equally uncompromising person, would be appointed President.

The Queen, on the other hand, considered it merely as a piece of economy, for she determined at the same time to grant a general pardon, or as the Lord Deputy despairingly put it, to 'leave the Irish to tumble to their own sensual government.'

It was the easiest way perhaps for a Lord Deputy; but he had a conscience, and could not see it with equanimity.

A considerable number were excepted by name, but even on these terms a proclamation of amnesty was a confession of failure.

The news leaked out prematurely through the treachery of a servant, and the rebels bragged loudly of the revenge they would have when their past offences had been condoned.

[Sidenote: Grey's despair.

] The change of policy did not prevent Maltby from executing Clanricarde's son William, and he reported to Walsingham the opinion of an ancient Irish counsellor that her Majesty was only casting pearls before swine.

Desmond still had 1,600 able men with him, and a brilliant night attack by Zouch on his camp, though it was made much of, had no particular result.

As to Leinster, Grey reported it generally rebellious; but the bogs and woods were far smaller than in Munster, and the remains of castles showed that Wexford and Carlow at least, with the flatter portions of Wicklow, had formerly been well bridled.

The object of the rebels was to have no stronghold, for the open country would be always at their mercy.

As the Lord Deputy's train passed through Wicklow the O'Byrnes showed themselves on the hills and even cut off some plate-waggons; but he made his way to Wexford, where he hanged some malefactors, and garrisoned Arklow, Castle Kevin, and other places.

Grey felt he had done nothing worth speaking of, and begged earnestly for a recall, since he had been overruled in opposing the amnesty as 'not standing with the reason which he had conceived for her Majesty's service.'

Sheer severity, was in fact, all he had to recommend, for 'fear, and not dandling, must bring them to the bias of obedience...

it is a pity that the resolutions in England should be so uncertain....

If taking of cows, killing of their kerne and churls, had been thought worth the advertising, I could have had every day to trouble your Highness....

He that to-day seems a dutiful subject, let him for any of those, or for other less crimes be to-morrow called upon to come and answer, straightway a protection is demanded and in the mean he will be upon his keeping, which in plain English is none other than a traitor that will forcibly defend his cause and not answer to justice....

Beggars fall to pride, rail at your Majesty, and rely only upon the Pope, and that changes shall in the end free them.

[78] [Sidenote: Death of Sanders.

] Just before Ormonde's dismissal became known, his enemy, Sir Warham St. Leger, told Burghley that he lost twenty Englishmen killed for every one of the rebels.

But famine and disease succeeded where the sword failed, and in the same letter St. Leger was able to announce that Dr. Sanders had died of dysentery.

For two months the secret had been kept, his partisans giving out that he had gone to Spain for help;

but at last one of the women who had clothed him in his winding-sheet brought the news to Sir Thomas of Desmond.

Since the fall of Fort Del Oro, he had scarcely been heard of, and had spent his time miserably in the woods on the border of Cork and Limerick.

Some English accounts say that he was out of his mind, but of this there does not seem to be any proof.

All agree that he died in the wood of Clonlish, and it seems that he was buried in a neighbouring church.

His companion at the last was Cornelius Ryan, the papal bishop of Killaloe, and according to O'Sullivan--who had evidently himself good means of knowing the truth--the following scene took place:-- 'In the beginning of the night, Dr. Sanders, whose naturally strong frame was worn out by dysentery, thus addressed the Bishop of Killaloe,--"Anoint me, illustrious lord, with extreme unction, for my Creator calls me, and I shall die to-night."

"You are strong," answered the bishop, "and your case is not bad, and I think there will be no dying or anointing just now."

Nevertheless, he grew worse, and was anointed at midnight, and at cockcrow resigned his spirit to the Lord, and the following night he was secretly buried by priests, and borne to the grave by four Irish knights, of which my father, Dermot, was one.

Others were forbidden to attend, lest the English should find the body, and make their usual cruel spectacle of the dead.'

[Sidenote: What he did for Ireland.

] Sanders had been three years in Ireland.

He had brought upon the country only bloodshed, famine, and confiscation, and yet among the starving people, none could be found to earn a reward by betraying him.

[79] FOOTNOTES:

[51] Lord Grey's instructions, July 15, 1580, are printed in _Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica_.

[52] Gerard, C. , to Burghley, July 29 and August 3, 1580, to Walsingham, August 3 (with enclosures); to Wallop, August 7; Lord Deputy Grey and Council to the Privy Council, August 14; Zouch and Stanley to Walsingham, July 29; Pelham to Gerard, July 30, in _Carew_.

[53] _Four Masters_: Stanley to Walsingham, August 31, 1580. [54] George Carew to Walsingham, November 20, 1580. For the defeat in Glenmalure, see Stanley, Maltby, and Gerard to Walsingham, August 31 Grey to Walsingham, August 31; to Burghley, September 12; Wallop to Walsingham, September 9; Hooker; _Four Masters_, 1580; Camden, who exaggerates the loss; O'Sullivan, ii.

iv.

14, who ridiculously estimates the slain at 800. [55] Maltby to Leicester and Walsingham, August 17; the former in _Carew_; Gerard to Walsingham, August 14. [56] Hugh Magennis to Grey, August 29, 1580; Dungannon and Sir Hugh O'Reilly to Grey, September 3; Gormanston to Grey, September 4;

Sir N. Bagenal to Grey, September 2; Mr. John Barnes to Grey (from Disert), September 4; Nathaniel Smith to Maltby, September 3; Maltby to Walsingham, September 7 and 8. [57] Pelham to the Privy Council, July 14, 1580; to the Irish Council, July 22; to Winter, August 16, all in _Carew_.

Instructions to Sir William Winter, March 17; and considerations which moved him, September 23; Sir R. Bingham to Walsingham, September 20; Baron of Lixnaw to the Munster Commissioners, September 15. [58] The correspondence about Sidee is between March 19 and 21, 1580;

Winter to the Privy Council, April 27; Notes for the Privy Council, May 14. [59] Examination of William Carusse, August 12, 1580; Viscount Gormanston to Gerard, July 28. [60] Grey to the Queen, October 5, 1580; Bingham to Walsingham, September 20 and October 18; and to Leicester same date in _Carew_;

James Golde and Thomas Arthur to Wallop and Waterhouse, September 30;

Commons of Lixnaw to same, September 27; Thomas Clinton to the Attorney of Munster, September 26. [61] Ormonde to R. Shee, October 8, 1580, to an unnamed correspondent, Nov.

(No. 71), to the Conde 'the Lemes' (?

De Lerma) October 31. [62] Captain R. Bingham to Walsingham, October 13, 18, and 23, 1580; to Leicester, October 18, in _Carew_.

[63] Hooker; Grey to the Queen, November 12, 1580; Bingham to Walsingham, November 3. [64] Strype's Life of Cheke, ch. vi.

Bingham to Leicester, November 11, 1580, in Wright's _Elizabeth_; to Walsingham, November 12; Grey to the Queen and to Walsingham, November 12; Anonymous to Walsingham, November (No. 27).

Bingham says the confusion and slaughter were increased by the sailors who swarmed in over the sea-face of the fort, but Grey makes no excuse.

See also G. Fenton to Walsingham, November 14, Hooker, Camden, and Spenser's _State of Ireland_.

The poet expressly says that he was present.

All the above agree that Grey made no promise, and the _Four Masters_ do not materially contradict the English writers, for their 'promise of protection' may only refer to the negotiations.

O'Daly and O'Sullivan, whose accounts seem to have been drawn from the same source, and very probably from Sanders, accuse Grey of bad faith;

but they also say the siege lasted forty days, and that the English had recourse to fraud because force had failed.

Now it is certain that only one clear day elapsed between the turning of the first sod and the surrender of the fort.

_Graia fides_ became a by-word in Catholic Europe, but that would be a matter of course, and it is a pity that so great a scholar as O'Donovan should give implicit faith to rumour, while scouting as 'mere fiction' the solemn statement of such an eye witness as Edmund Spenser.

[65] The Queen to Grey, December 12, 1580; Anonymous to Walsingham, November (No. 27); Dowling _ad ann.

_ 1583; Maltby to Leicester, May 28, 1582. The chronology of the Smerwick affair is as follows: Friday, November 4, fleet enters Ventry harbour; 5th, moves to Smerwick; 6th, reconnoitring; 7th, Grey shifts camp from Dingle and opens trenches;

8th, battery opens; 9th, battery continued and surrender agreed upon at night; 10th, the foreign officers come out, and their men are massacred.

[66] The above details are in the letter of November 11 and 12, already cited; the examination of Plunkett in a letter of the latter date from Grey to Walsingham.

[67] Sir N. White to Burghley, July 22, 1580. I have heard that Mr. Hennessy interprets 'Ard canny' as 'hill of Arbutus,' and without reference to any saint.

There is a contemporary map of Fort _del oro_ in the Record Office, which seems correct, and it is printed on a reduced scale in the _Kerry Magazine_.

I inspected the place and took measurements in June 1883. _Dun-an oir_ is the 'earthwork of gold.'

Poor Frobisher's gold was pyrites, as the London goldsmiths knew, but an Italian alchemist was believed.

The 'carcase' mentioned by White was that of the ship, not of the owner.

[68] Lady Honora Burke to Maltby, October 29, 1580; Maltby to Walsingham, October 25, October 27, and November 17; Gerard to Burghley, November 27; _Four Masters_.

[69] Ormonde to Walsingham and to Burghley, September 28, 1580; J. Thickpenny to Ormonde, September 27; Stanley to Walsingham, October 2;

order by the Lord Deputy and Council, October 3; Wallop to Walsingham, November 12. [70] Wallop to Walsingham, October 9 and 25, and November 27; to Burghley, November 11, 1580; Waterhouse to Walsingham, October 13;

Lord Chancellor and Council to the Privy Council, November 3; Gerard to Burghley, October 18; Captain R. Pypho to Walsingham, November 9;

Kildare to Walsingham, December 10. Writing to Wallop, on November 17, Maltby says of Kildare, 'sicut erat in principio et tel il sera toute sa vie.'

The letter is a queer mixture of Latin, French, and cypher.

[71] Wallop and Waterhouse to Walsingham, December 23, 1580. [72] Grey to the Queen, December 22, 1580; Lord Deputy and Council to the Queen, December 23; Wallop to Walsingham, December 30; White, M. R.

, to Burghley, February 2, 1581. [73] James Sherlock, Mayor of Waterford to Walsingham, November 18, 1580, with the enclosures; Wallop to Walsingham, November 30; Bingham to Walsingham, December 12 and January 9; John Myagh to Walsingham, January 26, 1581; White, M. R.

, to Burghley, February 2. [74] Notes of Ormonde's entertainments December, 1580 (No. 45); Wallop to Walsingham, January 14, 1581; to Burghley, May 13; L. Bryskett to Walsingham, April 21; St. Leger to Burghley, June 3. See also 'Observations on the Earl of Ormonde's government,' drawn up probably by Maltby and St. Leger, and calendared in _Carew_ at March 1582. For Ormonde's quarrel with Upper Ossory see his letter to Walsingham, July 21, 1580; and to Grey, August 28; and Waterhouse to Walsingham, August 13. King Edward's old playfellow was six months in prison, and his lands at the mercy of the Butlers.

He earnestly desired a trial, adding that his enemy's hands were perhaps less clean than his; see his letter to Leicester of June 7, 1581, in _Carew_.

[75] Captain W. Rawley to Burghley, Feb.

23, 1581; Hooker in _Holinshed_.

[76] Raleigh to Walsingham, February 25, 1581; to Grey, May 1. [77] Grey to Leicester, March 20, 1581; to Walsingham, May 12, June 9;

to the Privy Council, June 10; Wallop and Waterhouse to Walsingham, June 10; Ormonde to Burghley, July 15. [78] Grey to the Queen, April 26, 1581; to Walsingham, May 14; to the Privy Council, June 10 and July 10; Zouch to Walsingham, June 15;

Maltby to Walsingham, June 30; Lord Grey's services, September, 1582. [79] St. Leger to Burghley, June 3, 1581; where it appears that Sanders died about the beginning of April; O'Sullivan, lib.

iv.

cap.

16;

_Four Masters_, 1581; Camden; Hooker; Holing, S. J.

, in _Spicilegium Ossoriense_, i. 94. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE DESMOND WAR--FINAL STAGE, 1581-1583.