On her voyage home Granu Weal landed at Howth for provisions. She was greatly surprised to find the gates of the castle closed, because the family were at dinner. Indignant at this dereliction from Irish hospitality, Granu seized a little boy whom she found playing with an attendant near the sea-shore. Finding that he was the infant heir of Howth, she brought him to Connaught: refusing to restore him till Lord Howth had entered into an agreement that his gates should never again be closed during dinner. The abduction of the infant heir of St. Lawrence forms the subject of a painting at Howth Castle.
Grace O'Malley was buried in a monastery which she had herself endowed, on Clare island. There are yet some remains of her monument to be seen there. Her name has always been familiar in the mouths of Irish peasants; and she is still sung as a heroine in various ballads, English and Irish.
During the fiercely contested wars brought about by the efforts of the Roman Catholic princes to stop the Reformation, women, as usual, took their share of the dangers and privations endured by all for the sake of their faith. They displayed as much courage and fortitude as the men, whether, as the wives and daughters of citizens they aided to defend their homes, or whether as princesses they boldly headed their troops in defence of their religion and their dominions.
Kenan Simonsz Hasselaar was heroine of the famous siege of Haarlem. The revolting cruelty of Spain in her first efforts to stamp out the rebellion in the Netherlands, only stimulated the Dutch to bolder and more desperate efforts for freedom. Haarlem was one of the most important cities; and the Spaniards, resolved to capture it at any price, despatched twelve thousand men, commanded by Frederic of Toledo, to besiege the city in December, 1572. On the 12th, during a severe frost, the place was invested. Bravely did the inhabitants, both soldiers and citizens, resist the Spaniards. Women cheerfully shared in all the toils and dangers, the manifold privations of the defence.
Kenan Simonsz Hasselaar, a widow about fifty years old, of a noble family, raised a troop of three hundred women for the defence of the walls. At the head of her corps she was constantly seen pressing forward to attack the Spaniards, or aiding in the erection of new defences. Even the besiegers, who were repulsed with great slaughter in several assaults, could not help admiring the courage of this Amazon band.
Holland still holds the name of Kenan Hasselaar very dear. One of the ships launched from the government dock-yards every year receives her name. A huge painting suspended in the hall of the Haarlem Stadthuis transmits her glorious deeds to posterity; and her portrait hangs in the Treasure Chamber of the Municipality, amongst the commanders of St. John, the relics of the Spanish wars, the town insignia, and the other precious nick-nacks and antiquities collected together, accumulated by generations of thrifty and patriotic burghers.
The women of Alkmaar (which was besieged by Don Frederic immediately after the fall of Haarlem) displayed the same courage. During the general assault made by the Spaniards on the 18th September, 1573, the women aided the soldiers by hurling down fragments of stones and red-hot iron, and pouring boiling oil, molten pitch, rosin, and lead on the besiegers, of whom a terrible carnage was made.
Mary Queen of Scots, the unfortunate rival of Elizabeth, was a high-spirited, courageous woman, possessing great talents for ruling; and had she lived before the Reformation, she might possibly have been more successful than her ancestors, most of whom came to an untimely end. But the bitter hostility of John Knox was too powerful for the queen, though for some years she contrived to keep her throne. In 1565, shortly before her ill-starred marriage with Darnley, the Congregational citizens of Edinburgh, stirred up to rebellion by the secret machinations of the queen's "base brother, Moray," turned out in hostile array, and encamped at St. Leonard's Crags. Mary, undismayed by the fierce looks and big words of these staunch Protestants, rode to meet them at the head of a mere handful of troops. The rebel leaders fled, and the rest, under promise of pardon, returned to their homes.