Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 3 (of 3)

by Richard Bagwell

FOOTNOTES:

[80] Grey to the Privy Council, July 10, 1581; Wallop to Walsingham, July 17.

[81] Wallop to Walsingham, March 8, 1581; L. Bryskett to Walsingham, April 21; Grey to the Queen, August 10; G. Fenton to Leicester, September 1; and to Burghley, September 21.

[82] Relation of Sir N. Maltby’s proceedings, March 23, 1581.

[83] Maltby to Walsingham, June 30, 1581; Four Masters, 1581. From Maltby’s letter of September 20, it appears that Burghley approved of William Burke’s execution.

[84] Zouch to Burghley, January 5, 1582; White Knight to Ormonde, same date; William Wendover to Fenton, January 6; Grey to Walsingham, January 13; Russell; O’Daly.

[85] The Queen to Grey, January 28, 1582; G. Fenton to Walsingham, March 28; St. Leger to Fenton, March 24.

[86] G. Fenton to Walsingham, May 8, 1582; St. Leger to Walsingham, and Justice Meade to same, May 28; Loftus and Wallop to Walsingham, June 7; Grey to Walsingham, June 16.

[87] Maltby to Walsingham, June 17, 1582; Wallop to Walsingham, June 21; Walsingham to Grey, June 25; Lady Desmond to Burghley, August 28; Lords Justices to the Privy Council, October 12; Four Masters, 1582; O’Daly.

[88] G. Fenton to Walsingham, November 5, 1581. In a letter to Walsingham of July 2, 1582, Grey complains that Burghley listens to slanderers; the Queen’s opinion, &c., July, No. 76. The sword was delivered August 31.

[89] Spenser’s View of the State of Ireland. This is one of the many passages tending to prove that the original shamrock was the wood-sorrel, and not the white clover, which could never have been edible; consult Bentham’s British Flora under Oxalis, and see below note to chapter 52. St. Leger to the Queen, March 12, 1582, to Burghley, April 20; Justice Meade to Walsingham, May 28. The soldiers were nearly as badly off as the natives, Dowdall to Walsingham, April 24. In the relation of Lord Grey’s services (September 1582) is mentioned ‘the general destruction of the enemy’s churls.’ The churls were the non-combatant country folk.

[90] Grey to the Privy Council, April 12, 1582; to Walsingham, May 7; a friend to Mrs. Nugent, July 5, 1583; Sidney’s Brief Relation, 1583. Sir Robert Dillon, who succeeded Nugent as Chief Justice, was much blamed for his conduct in this case; see his letter to Walsingham, June 25, 1582.

[91] John Nugent’s confession, February 5, 1582; petition to Burghley, September (No. 85); Ormonde to Burghley, May 30, 1583; Janet Nugent’s petition, August 30; warrants for the remission of her fine and for restoration to her property, April 18, 1584. It is stated that the fine was imposed on the information of John Cusack. William Nugent left Ireland in or before January 1582.

[92] Grey to Walsingham, May 7, 1582; Mr. Rawley’s opinion, October 25. Ormonde’s appointment was announced on December 3.

[93] The Bishop of Ross to the Lords Justices, October 9, 1582, with remarks by the Lords Justices; Auditor Jenyson to Burghley, September 4; St. Leger to Burghley, September 22, and to the Lords Justices, September 26; the Portreeve of Cashel to the Lords Justices, September 28.

[94] Letter from Onor Cartye enclosed in one from the Lords Justices to Walsingham, October 3, 1582; St. Leger to Burghley and Walsingham, September 22.

[95] Maltby to Walsingham, June 21, 1582; Clanricarde to Maltby, July 7; Fenton to Leicester, August 13; to Walsingham, August 23. The award is in Carew, under November 17.

[96] Barnaby Gooche to Burghley, August 27, 1582; Justice Meade to the Lords Justices, October 13; Lord Justice Loftus to Burghley, November 5; Lords Justices to Burghley, December 8; Spenser’s State of Ireland.

[97] St. Leger to Fenton, October 31; to the Queen and to Burghley, November 26, 1582; Burghley to Loftus and Fenton, and to St. Leger, December 9; St. Leger to Burghley and Walsingham, February 2, 1583.

[98] Earl of Ormonde’s demands, &c., November 1582; Walsingham to Wallop, December 6; Burghley to the Lords Justices, December 8; Rate for 1,000 men to be sent into Munster, December 15; Lords Justices to Burghley, January 5, 1583; Ormonde to Walsingham, January 27; Wallop to Walsingham, February 7 and March 6; Minute for the Lords Justices, March 5; Ormonde to the Lords Justices, March 20. Ormonde left London, or Windsor, December 22, and landed at Waterford (viâ Milford) January 21, having been long hindered by storms.

[99] St. Leger to Burghley, Oct. 29, 1582, and Jan. 16, 1583; and to Walsingham, Feb. 11.

[100] G. Fenton to Burghley, Feb. 24, 1583; Ormonde to the Privy Council, Feb. 28 and April 5; to the Queen, April 24; to the Privy Council and to Burghley and Walsingham, May 28; to the Lords Justices, June 15; to the Queen, June 18; to Walsingham, June 22; Thomas Mynne to Wallop, April 9.

[101] G. Fenton to Walsingham, Jan. 16; St. Leger to Walsingham, Feb. 11; Sir W. Stanley to Fenton, May 25; Desmond to Ormonde, June 5; Ormonde to Burghley and to the Queen, June 18; to Burghley, June 22.

[102] St. Leger to the Queen, May 8 and Aug. 5 (the latter was intercepted); to Burghley, Aug. 5 and Oct. 19; to Walsingham, Aug. 5, 1583, and Sept. 14, 1584; Ormonde to Burghley, Oct. 20, 1583; to the Privy Council, Jan. 23, 1584; to Burghley, Jan. 26, 1584; Walsingham to Ormonde, March 25 and June 12, 1583; Lords Justices to Walsingham, June 18, 1583; G. Fenton to Walsingham, May 30, 1583. The tone of all Wallop’s and Fenton’s letters is unfriendly to Ormonde.

[103] Ormonde to Burghley and to Walsingham, July 10, 1583. The nobles and gentlemen who came to Ormonde at Cork and gave pledges were as follows:—Earl of Clancare; Lords Barrymore, Roche, Kinsale and Lixnaw; Sirs—Thomas of Desmond, Owen MacCarthy Reagh, Owen O’Sullivan, Barry Roe, Lord Lixnaw’s son Patrick, the White Knight, Patrick Condon, the seneschal of Imokilly, Cormac MacDermot, nephew to Sir Cormac MacTeig, Callaghan MacTeig MacCarthy, brother to Sir Cormac MacTeig, O’Sullivan More, Donell, nephew to Sir Owen O’Sullivan, O’Donoghue More (inhabiting in MacCarthy More’s country), O’Donoghue of Glenflesk, MacDonogh MacCarthy of Duhallow, O’Keefe, MacAuliffe, O’Callaghan, MacFynnyne, William, brother to the Knight of Kerry, Thomas Oge, seneschal of Kerry, Donogh MacCragh (a rhymer), and divers captains of gallowglasses of the MacSwineys and the MacSheehy’s.

[104] St. Leger to Burghley, Aug. 5 and Oct. 19, 1583; N. White to Burghley, Aug. 24; Ormonde to Burghley, Sept. 4 and 23 (the latter enclosing Lord Roche’s letter); Privy Council to Ormonde, Sept. 19.

[105] I have followed the strictly contemporary account printed by Archdeacon Rowan in the Kerry Magazine (Jan. 1854), and reprinted by Miss Hickson in Old Kerry Records. No other account is so full, and it is easily reconciled with the Four Masters and with Ormonde’s letters printed by Mr. Gilbert in vol. iv. of the Irish National MSS, and see Ormonde to Walsingham and Burghley, Nov. 28, and Smith’s Cork.

[106] The spot where Desmond fell is on the right bank, rather low down in the glen. No doubt the cabin where he spent the night was higher up. In the survey made by Sir Valentine Browne and others, and privately printed by Mr. S. M. Hussey, is the following passage: ‘A great wood here and there, filled with oak-trees fit for house timber, but not large enough for the making of ships and castles. But the greater part of the said wood consists in underwood of the age of fifty and sixty years, filled with dotted trees—ash, hazels, sallows, willows, alders, birches, white-thorns and such like.... The wood is called Glanageenty, in which the late Earl of Desmond was slain in his rebellion, containing in length about four miles, and in breadth two miles, which said woods, because no woods there are saleable, and they lie under the mountains of Slew-Logher, far from any river or navigable stream, are here valued at nil.’ I inspected the ground in June 1883.

[CHAPTER XL.]

GOVERNMENT OF PERROTT, 1583-1584.

Sir John Perrott is made Lord Deputy.

As early as December 1582, Sir John Perrott had been spoken of as Grey’s successor. His actual appointment was, however, deferred for more than a year, Loftus and Wallop continuing to act as Lords Justices till June 1584. They were fortunate in seeing the end of the Desmond rebellion, but less so in having to deal with those who had been engaged in it. Lady Desmond, in her poverty, subsisted upon a pension allowed her by Ormonde, until the Queen’s pleasure should be known; and the protections which he had given to the seneschal of Imokilly, Patrick Condon, and other leaders, were respected. Wallop did not like the Lord-General, but he did not thwart him seriously. Piers Grace, an old and notorious offender in the Kilkenny district, was pardoned at the Earl’s intercession, and the Lords Justices observed that they would not have done it for anyone else.[107]

Archbishop O’Hurley.

His treatment at Rome.

In 1581, after the death of Fitzgibbon, Gregory XIII. appointed Dermod O’Hurley to the Archbishopric of Cashel. He had spent fifteen years at Louvain and four at Rheims, and he was deeply engaged in the plans of Irish exiles against Elizabeth’s government. We get a glimpse of him at Rome not long after his appointment, and find him, like his predecessor, occupied in schemes for the invasion of Ireland. The caution of the Italian ecclesiastic is, as usual, contrasted with the sanguine temper of the exiles. Christopher Barnewall, who had been sent to the Continent by Baltinglas, was introduced by O’Hurley to Cardinal Como, and informed him that Kildare and Delvin were in prison, though both had served against the Wicklow rebels. ‘Who,’ said the Cardinal, with an expressive shrug, ‘would trust an Irishman? The Earl promised to take our part.’ O’Hurley thought he had not gone so far. ‘Wilt thou tell me?’ answered the Italian angrily, and produced a letter from Kildare and a document signed by most of the Lords of Ulster, Munster, and Connaught, which made his view good. ‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘that we would have trusted to James Fitzmaurice and Stukeley, or to all these lords which subscribed the great letter, unless we had received this letter from the Earl of Kildare? The Pope has no money for any of your nation.’[108]

O’Hurley reaches Ireland,

where he is tortured

and hanged.

O’Hurley landed at Drogheda in September, 1583, bringing letters from Rome with him. He was harboured by Lord Slane, whose daughter was married to Ormonde’s natural son Piers, and in the latter’s company he went into Munster after a few days’ rest. The Archbishop, who was soon hunted down, with Ormonde’s help, made no secret of having been engaged in the work of the Inquisition, and charged Kildare and Delvin with the late insurrection—thus showing that Barnewall had spoken truly. Walsingham recommended the use of ‘torture, or any other severe manner of proceeding, to gain his knowledge of all foreign practices against Her Majesty’s states.’ The Lords Justices objected that they had no rack nor other such instrument of terror, and that the Tower of London would be a fitter place for the experiment. Walsingham then advised them to toast the prisoner’s feet at the fire with hot boots. A commission was accordingly made out to Fenton and Waterhouse, and the ordeal was applied with frightful severity. The letters brought by O’Hurley had been intercepted, and could not therefore be denied, but nothing of importance was elicited. A letter which he had written to Ormonde was produced, and the Lords Justices took care to hint at the Earl’s complicity, but without effect. The lawyers held that an indictment for treasons committed abroad would not lie, and in any case a trial by jury was not to be risked. The Lords Justices suggested martial law, to which, as they grimly observed, the landless Archbishop could not fairly object. Seeing that further torture would be useless Walsingham agreed to this course, and noted the Queen’s ‘good acceptation of their careful travail in this matter.’ Throughout the correspondence it is evident that Elizabeth and all her servants looked upon O’Hurley mainly as a traitor and not as a recusant; and that defence of their conduct may stand for what it is worth. The torture is indefensible; but it was only too common in those days, and O’Hurley himself had been an Inquisitor. The Archbishop was hanged privately in the Castle early on June 19, after the arrival of Perrott, but before he had been sworn in.[109]

Help comes from Spain,

but it is too late.

There can be no doubt that the court of Rome had urged upon that of Spain the necessity of relieving Desmond. But Philip II. was never in time, and his energies, such as they were, were absorbed by Portuguese affairs. It was not until the final defeat of Strozzi’s expedition to the Azores that Irish exiles could get their business attended to. The Cardinal of Como became friendly once more, and sent for William Nugent almost as often as the post arrived from Spain, saying that he remembered him at every turn of his beads. The Pope saw Nugent every six weeks, and the intervals were spent in making interest with Gregory’s son Giacomo, whose influence over the aged Pontiff had become very great. It was confidently reported that the whole Spanish fleet would sail for Ireland on its return from the Azores, but only two ships actually arrived. The papal bishop of Killaloe, Cornelius Ryan, had been sent by Desmond to Spain towards the end of 1582. In the spring of 1583 it was announced that help was coming, but it may have been delayed until the return of Santa Cruz and his fleet. Desmond had been dead nearly two months when the tardy succour arrived. Bishop Ryan appeared on the west coast with one large ship laden with artillery. Another, also with munitions of war, anchored in Ringabella Bay outside Cork harbour, and sent a boat, which brought off a countryman. Of those on board the chief spokesman was a friar named Shane O’Ferrall, who wept bitterly on hearing of Desmond’s death. A Spaniard wrote down all the particulars. ‘Is there none of the Earl’s name,’ he asked, ‘that will take upon him to follow and maintain that enterprise? You say none. Well, if any had continued it until now, we had brought here to furnish them treasure and munition good store, and shortly they should have had more, and aid enough.’ There were three bags of silver and two of gold, each as much as a man could carry. A present was sent by O’Ferrall to a lady living close by—marmalade, lemons and figs, a poignard, and a taffeta scarf—and then finding their occupation gone, the strangers left the coast. Don Antonio and Philip Strozzi had not saved Portugal, but they had destroyed Spanish influence in Ireland.[110]

Murder of John Burke;

his popularity.

Clanricarde is pardoned.

Within a week of Desmond’s death the newly made Baron of Leitrim came to a violent end. Public opinion attributed the deed to his brother, and no doubt he profited largely by it. Clanricarde himself said that he had intercepted a band of traitors in the Baron’s company, and that he fell in the scuffle. His sister, Lady Mary, clamoured loudly for vengeance, but the Earl found means to silence her. A competent English observer tells us that ‘Sir John of the Shamrocks,’ as the Irish called him, was the best beloved man in Connaught, perhaps in all Ireland. ‘He was very well spoken, he was courteous, he was liberal to every man that had occasion to try him, in his house he was very bountiful, and he wrote better than any Irishman whose letters I have seen.... First he would speak fair to every man, and mean no truth to any man that was honest. He had always a treasonable mind, and did ever thirst after blood. He was betrothed to one woman, and, leaving her, he was married to two others; they are all three alive. He was a common haunter of women, and men say he had a child by his own sister, and a great maintainer of thieves he was.... The Earl will not steal from one to give to another. He will not spare the offender for any respects; I mean thieves: other offenders are seldom punished in Ireland, and never among the Irish.’ The Earl offered to prove the incest by irrefutable witnesses. The Lord Justice thought the simplest plan was to attribute the murder to the mutual hatred between the half-brothers since their cradles. They advised that Clanricarde’s future good conduct should be secured by a pardon, ‘especially in those remote parts where so many heinous facts contrary to the laws of God and man have been infinitely borne with in all ages.’ Three years before, when Clanricarde was ill, it was generally supposed that his brother had poisoned him. To avoid further confusion the English Government thought it better to allow a pardon. The murdered man had no legitimate children, and the peerage died with him. This long-standing faction fight was now at an end; the Earl was undisputed master over all the possessions of his house, and became the mainstay of English law and order in the West.[111]

Trial by combat.

The once mighty tribe of the Leinster O’Connors had fallen very low, but even the miserable remnant could not keep from internecine war. Teig MacGilpatrick, who led one party, was accused by Connor MacCormac of killing men who were under protection. Connor retorted that they had broken into rebellion since protection was granted. The Lords Justices persuaded Connor, and Sir Nicholas White persuaded Teig to appear and accuse each other. An appeal of treason was thus technically constituted, and for this they were told that trial by battle was the proper remedy. Fearing, it would appear, that the courage of the litigants might ooze away, the combat was fixed for the next day. The Lords Justices and Council sat solemnly in the inner Castle yard, the display being made more impressive by a large attendance of military officers. The proper ceremonies were observed, and the Lords Justices were careful to excuse any possible want of accuracy by pleading the shortness of the time. The combatants who were allowed only sword, target, and skull-cap, were stripped to their shirts and searched by Secretary Fenton himself. They then took their seats on two stools at opposite ends of the lists, and the pleadings having been read a trumpet sounded the onset. Connor, who was wounded twice in the leg and once in the eye, attempted to close, but his adversary was too strong for him. Having stunned and disarmed his accuser, Teig, who was himself seriously wounded, ‘but not mortally, the more was the pity,’ cut off his head with his own sword and presented it on the point to the Lords Justices, one of whom, be it remembered, was the Archbishop of Dublin. Fenton sent the sword to Leicester, ‘wishing her Majesty had the same end of all the O’Connors in Ireland.’ ‘We commend,’ they said, ‘the diligent travail of Sir Lucas Dillon and the Master of the Rolls, who equally and openly seemed to countenance the champions, but secretly with very good concurrence with us and between themselves for her Majesty’s service.’[112]

A second trial goes by default.

The Lords Justices hoped to make more O’Connors kill one another, but a second combat arranged to take place two or three days later was frustrated by the non-appearance of the accused, a brother of the victorious Teig, who had accepted the challenge for him. His adversary, Morrogh-ni-Cogge, came into the lists and made proclamation for two hours with drums and trumpets. Morrogh was adjudged victorious, but the absent man described him as ‘readiest to fight with those that he knew were farthest off from him.’ He urged that his brother had no right to promise for him, that Morrogh was too base a fellow to place in the balance with him, and that he could not be spared until his brother had recovered. ‘Notwithstanding,’ he added, ‘when my brother is whole of his wounds and able to take charge of his men, if it shall please the Lords Justices to call Morrogh and me face to face, that I may know upon what ground and quarrel I am to fight, I will then make it openly known how little able that vain boaster is to stand in my hands, who at the very sound of my name was wont to trot over whole countries.’[113]

Arrival of Perrott—his instructions.

Sir John Perrott was in no great hurry to take up his government, and five months elapsed between the date of his patent and his arrival in Ireland. It was rumoured in Dublin that he would not come at all. In England and in Ireland, his choleric temper involved him in frequent quarrels, and it is probable that delay was caused by some of these. His instructions did not greatly differ from those which Elizabeth was wont to give to her representatives. To increase the revenue without oppressing the subject, to reduce the army without impairing its efficiency, to punish rebels without driving them to desperation, and to reward loyal people without cost to the Crown—these were the usual orders, and they were easier to give than to carry out. Perrott had already tasted the misery of Irish official life, and his half-brother, Sir Henry Jones, warned him that he would now be envied more than ever, and truly prophesied that he would never see him again.[114]

Perrott and Ormonde.

The settlement of Munster was, of course, the most important part of Perrott’s work, and he was probably chosen because he knew that province well. He was ordered to take Ormonde with him, and to give his opinion due weight. The Earl was directed to come to England as soon as he had given all the information in his power. Tired of the delay, and fearing lest he should be undermined at court, Ormonde slipped over to Wales and met the new Lord Deputy, who handed him a gracious letter from the Queen. This somewhat reassured him, but he complained of hard dealing in being displaced before he had made known in England in how good and quiet order he had left his late charge. At Carew Castle he received orders to accompany his host to Ireland, and complied, though he always hated a sea-passage. He felt that his personal interests were safe in the hands of his old companion in arms, but thought it a little late to consult him about Munster. The journey would only increase his debts, unless, as he hinted to Burghley, the Queen made it worth his while; ‘but over I will, God willing, and back again, seeing you wish it should be so.’[115]

Perrott makes a speech,

which is generally admired.

Perrott made a speech to the great crowd assembled at his installation. He said that the Queen held her subjects of Ireland equal with those of England, and that her care, as well as his own, was to make them equally happy by means of good government. Among other sayings it was noted as worthy of remark, that he wished to suppress ‘the name of a churl and crushing of a churl,’ and to substitute such terms as husbandman, franklin, or yeoman. ‘This,’ says Secretary Fenton, ‘was so plausible to the assembly, that it was carried from hand to hand throughout the whole realm in less time than might be thought credible if I should express it.’

No respecter of persons.

Next day the Lord Deputy ordered a general hosting, according to the ancient custom, for six weeks, beginning on August 10. Tara was assigned as the place of meeting, and Tyrone, Ormonde, Barrymore, and Mountgarret were among those who signed the order. Perrott devoted a few days to the Council, whose help was necessary to enable him to gather up the reins. Fenton found him ‘affable and pleasing, seeking by good means to recover the hearts of the people that were somewhat estranged, quick and industrious, careful of her Majesty’s profit, sincere, just, and no respecter of persons.’ Indeed, he did not respect persons enough. Wallop, whose office of Vice-Treasurer made him the most important man next to the Viceroy, and who had been virtual chief governor for nearly two years past, was on the point of quarrelling with him at the outset, but forced himself to make allowance for the Deputy’s passionate disposition. With Loftus, who had lately been Wallop’s colleague in the government, and who was still Lord Chancellor, Perrott was at open war in a very short time.[116]

John Norris governor of Munster, and Bingham of Connaught.

John Norris, the most famous of Lord Norris of Rycot’s six good sons, had been appointed Lord President of Munster. Bingham, whom Perrott knighted at his installation, was, at the same time, made Chief Commissioner of Connaught in Maltby’s room, but with inferior emoluments. The Lord Deputy proposed to settle the two provincial governors in their places at once, and to return in time for the hosting at Tara. Norris went straight to Munster, and Bingham accompanied Perrott to the West. All the chief men of Connaught and Thomond flocked dutifully to the Viceroy, and he decided controversies to their satisfaction. The sheriffs maintained great trains of followers, who became a scourge to the country, and this abuse was sternly repressed. Clanricarde and the rest were ready to make some permanent arrangement with their tenants, ‘so as I,’ said Perrott, ‘would take a time among them to perform it, which, if I have quietness, I will do hereafter.’ He was not fated to have much quietness. Bingham’s first impression of his province was that the Irish should be won by plausible means. It was, he said, their habit to acknowledge their duty to her Majesty on the arrival of a new Lord Deputy, ‘more for fashion than for faithful obedience.’ The fashion and the want of faithful obedience have both continued to our own time. Bingham saw clearly that the Queen’s government would never be really popular—‘the people, for every small trifle, are daily suggesting that they are intolerably oppressed and extorted upon.’ His advice was to keep them down by steady but gentle pressure, ‘so that by having too little the country may not be waste, and by having too much the people may not rebel. Nevertheless, my meaning is rather to better their estate than to make it worse.’ He understood the problem, but he was not much more successful than others in finding the solution.[117]

State of the Church.

John Long, a Cambridge man and a Londoner, was consecrated Primate on the day on which Perrott left Dublin. As a special mark of favour the new Deputy had been allowed to fill the vacant see. Loftus desired the appointment of Thomas Jones, Dean of St. Patrick’s, who ultimately succeeded him in Dublin. Not much, either good or bad, is recorded of Archbishop Long, but he became the chief pastor of a most forlorn flock. ‘There are here,’ says an English visitor to Ireland, ‘so many churches fallen down, so many children dispensed withal to enjoy the livings of the Church, so many laymen—as they are commonly termed—suffered to hold benefices with cure, so many clergymen tolerated to have the profit of three or four pastoral dignities, who, being themselves unlearned, are not meet men, though they were willing, to teach and instruct others, as whoso beholdeth it must not choose but make it known.’[118]

Munster thoroughly cowed.

Many of the chief men of Munster came to Perrott at Limerick, and the rest signified their intention of attending him at Cork. But news arrived that Scots had landed in Ulster, and the Lord Deputy, who liked fighting better than anything, turned aside from Limerick, crossed Tipperary, and returned by Kilkenny to Dublin. Ormonde and Norris, together with all the late rebels whom the Earl had pardoned, were ordered to make ready for the northern enterprise. Malachi O’Moloney, Papal Bishop of Kilmacduagh, was suspected of having a hand in the Ulster plot; he came to Perrott, renounced the Pope, and took the oath of supremacy; but there can be little doubt that this conversion was insincere. A messenger from Tirlogh O’Neill had certainly been in Munster, but found it impossible to stir up the embers of the Desmond rebellion. Lord Fitzmaurice told him plainly that no one would stir as long as Perrott and Ormonde were in Ireland. The Lord Deputy could therefore turn his back safely on Munster, and he hastened to Dublin to make preparations for repelling what he believed to be a serious invasion.[119]

Escheated lands in Munster.

Difficulties of the survey.

Far more important than the perennial but limited trouble with the Scots, was the question of surveying and resettling the attainted lands in Munster. In June 1584, a commission for the purpose was directed to Vice-Treasurer Wallop, Sir Valentine Browne a man of long experience in English revenue business, Surveyor-General Alford, and auditors Jenyson and Peyton. Their survey began early in September, and they did not return till the end of November, having found a great part of the province waste; and Kerry in particular seemed impossible to re-people except by importation from England. Sir Valentine Browne, who was an elderly man, was active and zealous, but he found the work very hard. ‘He hath,’ says his colleague the Vice-Treasurer, ‘been sundry times bogged, yet hath gone better through with it than might be imagined so corpulent a man of his years would have been able.’ Rivers and mountains had to be crossed, and provisions could hardly be procured at any point between Limerick and Dingle. One hundred persons fed at the Commissioners’ table, who had to supply it on credit. Wallop was struck by the great fertility of the land, and estimated that the Queen would have a new revenue of 6,000l. within three years. But the difficulty in making an accurate survey was very great. It was supposed that land worth more than 1,000l. a year had escheated in parts of Tipperary, outside of Ormonde’s jurisdiction; but what he had once claimed no one dared to inhabit in spite of him. The Earl’s palatinate was originally a matter of grace and favour, but he tried to extend it to the whole county, and it seemed doubtful whether any subject ought to be so great. The difficulty of arriving at the truth proved even more serious than Wallop at first supposed. Many months passed without anything being decided, and in the meantime Munster was in the utmost misery. Vice-President Norris could not prevent his starving soldiers from running after his brother into Flanders, and the towns, which truly pleaded poverty, could neither be forced nor persuaded to support them.[120]

Scots in Ulster.

Ormonde, who was in a hurry to get to London, deferred his journey that he might accompany Perrott to Ulster. The young Earl of Thomond, who had been educated in England, and who lived to be called ‘the great Earl,’ was glad to take part in the expedition. His great object was to have the county of Clare acknowledged as part of Munster, and freed from the jurisdiction of the Connaught government; and in this he ultimately succeeded. Clanricarde also gave his services, and so did Lord President Norris. Perrott had 2,000 trained men with him, besides Irish allies, and he thought they would all be necessary. It had been his intention to govern plausibly, and ‘to look through his fingers at Ulster as a fit receptacle for all the savage beasts of the land;’ but the Scots were said to be 4,000, and there were the usual reports about Spanish ships. Norris, who had a cooler head than Perrott, afterwards said that he thought the Scots were bent ‘only on their customary fetching of meat.’ They took 3,000 cows from Tyrconnell, but their numbers were larger than usual. Macleans, as well as MacDonnells, were engaged, and the whole movement had probably more to do with Hebridean politics than with any intention of hurting Queen Elizabeth. The Scots disappeared as quickly as they had come, and when Perrott reached Newry, he found that no foeman worthy of his steel awaited him. He resolved, however, to go on, and to show that Ulster was within his reach.[121]

The Scots clans,

and the Ulster Irish.

Secretary Davison was in Scotland at this time, and he ridiculed Perrott’s fear of Scottish invasion. The obscure politics of Isla and Cantire were not well understood even at Edinburgh, and the Englishman’s judgment may have been warped by the contempt which he certainly felt for Arran. The whole thing, he said, had been greatly exaggerated. But, notwithstanding his opinion and that of Norris, it seems clear that the uneasiness among the western clans had something to say to the fall of Gowrie, and to Arran’s short-lived triumph. The islanders would hardly move for king or regent, unless they saw some advantage to themselves. Some of them at least were paid by cattle taken from the O’Donnells, and all were willing to make interest at court if it could be done cheaply. Perrott’s ships just failed in intercepting the Scots at Lough Foyle, and he could only speak from report. ‘Yet truly,’ he maintained, ‘although they ran away thus cowardly, howsoever Mr. Davison was abused by his intelligence, they were in number little fewer, their training and furniture no worse, and their purpose no better, than I wrote.’ Tirlogh Luineach was not minded to oppose Perrott, and he came to him at Newry without pardon or protection. The old chief’s adhesion proved of little value, for, like other Irish leaders before and since, ‘the better subject he became, the weaker he waxed, and the less regarded of his followers.’ In fact he required help against his own people. But O’Cahan and the crafty Baron of Dungannon also came in, and Perrott proceeded to invest Dunluce Castle.[122]

Slight connection of the western clans with Edinburgh.

Perrott takes Dunluce.

The legal government of Scotland accepted no responsibility for the raids of Macleans and MacDonnells in Ulster. Formerly attempts to retaliate on the Hebrides had not been successful, though Perrott wished to repeat them; but James and Elizabeth were at peace, and the Queen was quite justified in treating the intruders as filibusters. Whether or not they were partly moved by Catholic intriguers in Mary Stuart’s interest really mattered very little, for they could not influence seriously the fate of creeds or kingdoms. But they were a constant source of expense, and the officer who dealt them a crushing blow would deserve well of his sovereign. This honour was, however, denied to Perrott, and reserved for Bingham. The Scot who commanded the garrison of Dunluce declared that he held the castle for the King of Scots’ use, and would defend it to the last. He can, however, have had no valid commission. The position of this place was at once its strength and its weakness. Situated on a precipitous rock rising out of a stormy sea, and connected with the mainland by a narrow ledge, it was almost unapproachable by any enemy. On the other hand it could scarcely be relieved, and it was impossible for the garrison to escape. The fire of three pieces converging on the small castle soon made it untenable, and the forty men whom it contained surrendered at discretion on the second or third day.[123]

Claims of the MacDonnells.

The MacDonnells had always rested their Irish claims upon their relationship to the extinct Bissetts. The extent of the lands once held by that family was very uncertain; but Sorley Boy never ceased his efforts to get rid of the MacQuillins, who had long held the Route, and upon whom the garrison of Coleraine habitually depended for provisions. Lady Agnes O’Neill, on the other hand, had the Campbell instinct for annexation, and endeavoured to set up her own son Donnell Gorme Macdonnell against his uncle. As the elder brother’s son he had perhaps the better legal right; but Sorley was supported by the clan. Tirlogh Luineach was under his wife’s influence, but had enough to do to hold his own against Shane O’Neill’s sons, and against the Baron of Dungannon. Norris said Tirlogh could do nothing without the Queen’s help; but even he seems to have been persuaded by Lady Agnes that Sorley’s followers resented his tyranny, and were ready to leave him.

After the loss of Dunluce Sorley went to Scotland for help, and Perrott agreed that Donnell Gorme should have a grant of the Bissetts’ lands in consideration of reasonable service. Donnell, on his part, undertook to entertain none but Irish-born Scots, to book the men of his country and be responsible for them, and to serve against his uncle or any other foreign Scot. MacQuillin made a contract for victualling Coleraine, and O’Donnell, whose wife was Donnell Gorme’s sister, made a treaty with Tirlogh Luineach, who agreed to maintain 300 English soldiers and to perform other services. Magennis and the Clandeboye O’Neills also made terms, and Perrott, finding no enemy in the field, returned to Dublin.[124]

Perrott, Ormonde, and Norris lift 50,000 cows.

The forest of Glenconkein.

The war being at an end for want of an enemy, Perrott thought that Scottish raids could best be prevented by clearing the country of cattle. Norris and Ormonde entered Glenconkein, now the south-western portion of Londonderry, but then considered part of Tyrone, and 50,000 cattle were collected in what was then an almost impenetrable stronghold. Twenty-five years later Sir John Davies described Chichester’s march though the district, ‘where the wild inhabitants wondered as much to see the King’s Deputy as the ghosts in Virgil wondered to see Æneas alive in hell.’ The woods were then said to be among the best in Ireland, and to be as extensive as the New Forest; but they had been wastefully treated, and it was feared that they would soon be exhausted. So completely was the work of destruction carried out that a report written in 1803 declared the county of Londonderry to be the worst wooded in the King’s dominions. In the sixteenth century a considerable population inhabited Glenconkein, who tilled such portions as were fit for tillage, and who looked upon the O’Neills as their superior lords. As had been the case in Kerry, fires marked the course of Ormonde’s march. Norris took much the same view of the Ulster problem as Sidney had done. Permanent garrisons must be maintained, and this would be the cheapest way in the long run. ‘Ireland,’ he said, ‘is not to be brought to obedience but by force; and albeit that some governments have been performed with fewer men, yet have these times served for nothing but to give breath for a further trouble, and then the country ruled by entreaty and not by commandment.’[125]

Perrott proposes to dissolve St. Patrick’s,

and to endow a university.

Among the private instructions given to Perrott by the Privy Council was one directing him to consider ‘how St. Patrick’s in Dublin, and the revenue belonging to the same, might be made to serve, as had been theretofore intended,’ for the erection of a college. This old plan of Archbishop Browne’s had been revived in 1564, and again abandoned in deference to the remonstrances of the threatened foundation; but it was very much to Perrott’s liking, and he adopted it with additions. The dean, Thomas Jones, had just been promoted to the see of Meath, and a principal obstacle had thus been removed. The Courts of Justice were at this time held in the Castle over the powder magazine, but the lawyers had also claims upon the house of Black Friars, on the left bank of the Liffey, where the Four Courts now stand. Ormonde and others had conflicting interests, but the Judges and Bar petitioned that they might be otherwise compensated, and that the law might be permanently lodged by the riverside. This was the plan favoured by the late Lords Justices, but Secretary Fenton, with whom Perrott agreed, cast eyes on the Friars as a convenient landing-place, and wished to turn it into a Government victualling-store. The Lord Deputy’s idea was to combine the two schemes; to let the judges sit in St. Patrick’s church, to convert the residence of the chapter into inns of court, and to found a university with the revenues. The two cathedrals, he urged, were too near together to be both useful, and St. Patrick’s was ‘held in more superstitious veneration’ than the one named after Christ. He thought 2,000l. might suffice for the erection of two colleges, and the surplus, which he estimated at about 700l., could go to eke out the revenue of Christ Church. ‘For the conversion of the whole church of St. Patrick,’ he told Burghley, ‘whatsoever shall or can be said to the contrary, it proceedeth from particular covetous humour without regard to the general good. I could name the sink if I listed whereinto the whole profit falleth under the colour of maintenance of a few bad singers.’ A reformer who begins in this way, though he be a king and not merely a viceroy, very seldom succeeds in effecting reforms.[126]

Loftus and Jones are too fond of money.

Adam Loftus was fond of money. He begged so unblushingly for himself and his relations, that the chapter of Christ Church, on granting one of his requests, made him promise, before them all, not to ask for anything more. Even this promise he afterwards tried to evade. He was accused of jobbing away the revenues of St. Patrick’s, and the late dean, who was married to his sister-in-law, earned a very bad name for wasting the substance of his deanery first, and afterwards of his bishopric. One extant deed in particular bears Swift’s indignant endorsement, made in 1714, as ‘a lease of Coolmine, made by that rascal Dean Jones, and the knaves, or fools, his chapter, to one John Allen for eighty-one years, to commence from the expiration of a lease of eighty years made in 1583; so that there was a lease of 161 years of 253 acres in Tassagard parish, within three miles of Dublin, for 2l. per annum... now worth 150l., and, so near Dublin, could not then be worth less than 50l. How the lease was surrendered, I cannot yet tell.’

St. Patrick’s rescued;

though Loftus liked a university in the abstract.

Archbishop Bancroft.

Loftus was accused of being interested in many such leases, and it was said that in defending St. Patrick’s he was really defending his own pocket. He had been dean himself, too, and very possibly he was not anxious for the inquisition which must have taken place had the cathedral been dissolved. On the other hand, the Archbishop could give good reason why Perrott’s plan should not take effect. St. Patrick’s, he said, was the only place in Ireland where a learned man, and especially a learned Englishman, ‘could, without imminent danger, thrust his head.’ There were twenty-six dignitaries, some of them very slightly endowed, and of these fifteen were university graduates. With the exception of one bishop, there were no good preachers in Ireland but those furnished by St. Patrick’s, and amongst them were Dean Jones, Thompson, the treasurer, Conway, the chancellor, and Henry Ussher, the archdeacon, who lived to be Archbishop of Armagh. Of three bishops who could preach, two had been promoted out of St. Patrick’s, and Christ Church neither had done nor could do anything in that way. He was ready to give what help he could towards the establishment of a university, but a university could not be maintained long if there were no benefices to bestow upon fellows. The prebends did not depend upon temporalities, but were all attached to parishes. Kildare was patron of two, but the others were in the Archbishop’s gift, and they were all opposed to Perrott’s scheme. Loftus himself was ready to resign rather than leave himself ‘a perpetual blot and infamy’ to his successor, for having consented to the destruction of his cathedral. Archdeacon Ussher was sent to England, and Loftus also employed Richard Bancroft, one of the prebendaries, to plead the cause of St. Patrick’s at Court. Bancroft became Archbishop of Canterbury, and gained lasting fame for his services in connection with the authorised version of the Bible, but appears to have resided very little in Dublin, though he held his preferment there for at least thirty years.[127]

The scheme makes Perrott and Loftus enemies.

Whatever may be thought of Loftus’s character, his arguments on this occasion were good, and Burghley felt them to be unanswerable. The thing could not be done, he said, without the consent of the prebendaries, and he asked Perrott how he would like to have his own salary diverted to some other use. Preaching was necessary as well as teaching, and there was no greater abuse in the Church of England than the transfer of livings to abbeys and colleges. Tithes had been instituted for the service of parishes, and he would never do evil that good might come. Perrott answered that the idea had not been originated by him, and that his instructions from the Privy Council, signed by Burghley himself with many others, would have warranted him in proceeding far more roughly than he had done. Where he seems really to have done wrong was in not showing this order of the Privy Council to Loftus, and in letting him suppose that he was acting of his own motion. Even after Burghley had given his opinion, he was unwilling to give up the scheme, and the Archbishop begged for a letter signed by the Queen herself. This was granted, and the royal missive was read to Perrott in the presence of Waterhouse and Sir Lucas Dillon. Even then the Lord Deputy was not silenced, and the result was bitter hostility between the Queen’s representative and the Chancellor Archbishop, who should have been his chief adviser.[128]

Three hundred executions in Munster.

While Norris was absent in the North, Sir William Stanley governed Munster, and improved the occasion by 300 executions. ‘This,’ he said, ‘doth terrify them so that a man now may travel the whole country, and none to molest him.’ The Lord President on his return declared the country was waste and depopulate. Even malefactors were scarce, and there was no chance of resettling the province but by importing people.

State of Connaught.

Forty-eight executions in Leinster.

Feagh MacHugh a prosecutor of thieves.

In Connaught Bingham complained that he was denied means to maintain the strict government necessary for a people who were not naturally inclined to civility. He hoped nevertheless to increase the revenue in time. From Leinster alone was there anything like a good report. The Master of the Rolls went circuit, and 48 prisoners out of 181 were executed on verdicts found by their own clansmen. Among them were two landowners of the Kavanaghs, who had regularly preyed upon the Barrow navigation, and whose property near Leighlin thus escheated to the Crown. White settled some dispute between chiefs and sheriffs, and visited Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne at Ballinacor, ‘where law never approached.’ Nor was the reconciliation with the notable partisan altogether hollow. About three months afterwards, fifty head of cattle were lifted in the Pale, and ‘carried with a pipe to the mountain.’ Feagh MacHugh followed, brought back the cows, and sent three of the reivers’ heads to Perrott. The piper and another were sent alive, and speedily hanged, and O’Byrne declared his willingness to send his own son, who had been implicated in the robbery. ‘Your lordship,’ said Perrott, ‘perhaps will marvel to hear that Feagh is such a prosecutor of theft, and will think it a great change that the O’Connors are ready to do good service; and the O’Mores, having put in pledges, do live without doing harm. In Munster only one of the Burkes is abroad in Aherlow woods with a 20 or 30 swords.’[129]

State of Ulster.

Perrott addresses the Parliament of England.

The Queen spares both money and thanks.

Exhaustion or despair had for a time quieted East, South, and West, but the North was still unsubdued, and Perrott felt that only permanent garrisons could secure it. He asked for 600 men, 25 to be levied in each of the 24 handiest counties of England and Wales. In common years the Queen had hitherto spent 30,000l. or 40,000l. a year over and above the Irish revenue, and the average expense was considerably more. If he might have 50,000l. for three years only, he would at the end of them hand over Ireland provided with a trained garrison of 2,000 foot and 400 horse, with seven walled towns of a mile in circumference, with seven bridges, and with seven castles; and the whole country might then be governed infinitely better and more cheaply than it had ever been before. He went so far as to write a letter to the English Parliament, addressing it as ‘most high and noble assembly.’ The malice of the Pope was urged, and also the certainty that foreign princes would again attempt Ireland, and make it a noisome neighbour to England. ‘Choke up the sink at once,’ he exclaimed, ‘make one charge of all, conceiving you do but lend so much upon large interest.’ But even Perrott was not rash enough to address Parliament without Elizabeth’s leave, and the despatch was forwarded through Walsingham, who consulted Burghley and promptly suppressed it. The Queen, they said, would certainly resent anyone but herself moving Parliament. She had now resolved to help the Dutch, and was the more determined to spare treasure in Ireland. No real danger was to be apprehended from the Scots, about whom she meant to deal roundly with King James. But Perrott was thanked for his services, and some minor requests were granted. A few weeks later, fearing perhaps lest he should be puffed up, she wrote with her own hand as follows:—‘Let us have no more such rash, unadvised journeys without good ground as your last journey in the North. We marvel that you hanged not such saucy an advertiser as he that made you believe so great a company was coming. I know you do nothing but with a good intention for my service, but yet take better heed ere you use us so again.’

He could only reiterate, what seems to have been the fact, that thousands of Scots had really landed, and had run away before he could reach them.[130]