St. Columkill’s Cross was found amongst the treasure by Perrott, who forwarded it, with a jeering letter, to Burghly. It has since been lost sight of.
The Lord Deputy appointed a pensioner called Peter Carey as constable, and a ward of English soldiers.
Perrott reports that Carey dismissed them, and re-filled their places with Northerns, some of whom were in league with MacDonnel, and that one night fifty men were drawn up the rock by ropes made of wythies. He also says they offered Carey his life, but he refused, and retired to a tower with a few men, where he was eventually slain.
This seems a rather unlikely story, and another account states a good many of the garrison were slain, and that Carey being hanged over one of the walls of the stronghold, the English soldiers fled. Carey’s widow was granted a pension.
Having recovered his castle, Sorley Boy made overtures of peace to the Government, which were eagerly accepted, and he travelled to Dublin and prostrated himself before Elizabeth’s portrait. The Indenture, dated 1586, amongst other things, states he was appointed Constable or Keyholder of Dunluce Castle.
His son, Sir James MacDonnel, occupied the stronghold in 1597, and the Governor of Carrickfergus lodged numerous complaints against him, amongst which were his refusal to give up the ordnance he had taken from Don Alonzo’s ship of the Spanish Armada, and his having fortified himself in Dunluce.
The following year Tyrone’s two sons and their tutor were lodged in the castle, and Sir Geffrey Fenton had suspicions that they were placed there as hostages to the Scotch King.
Shortly afterwards open hostilities began between MacDonnel and the Government until Sir James died suddenly at Dunluce in 1601.
The castle was granted to his son, Randel, by letters patent in 1614, to be surrendered if required for a garrison, and he was created Earl of Antrim in 1620.
His son, who succeeded in 1636, married the widowed Duchess of Buckingham. The castle was summoned by the Irish in 1641, and they also burned the town.