Battle of Scariffhollis, June 21.
An old soldier’s comments.
The Bishop of Clogher styled his followers ‘the confident, victorious Catholic army of the North,’ but its career of success was not long. Ballycastle, on the northern shore of Antrim, was taken without resistance, and garrisoned; but it could be of little use, and the army, amounting at this time to about 4000 foot and 400 horse, returned through the mountains. The Foyle was crossed at a little-frequented passage below Lifford, Coote being encamped higher up with a much inferior force. A smart skirmish took place in which the Irish had the best of it, Captains Taylor and Cathcart being killed. If the Bishop had followed up this success, he might have gained a great victory, for Coote had to retire by a narrow causeway through bogs. The Scotch settlers were numerous between Lifford and Londonderry, and agreed to give some provisions to the Bishop’s army; but Coote persuaded them all to retire into Inishowen with their cattle, so that there was little left for the enemy to eat. Macmahon occupied Lifford, which Major Perkins surrendered as soon as he saw Ormonde’s commission, and remained there for a week, when supplies began to run short. He then imprudently weakened his force by sending a large detachment to take the remote castle of Doe on Sheephaven, and smaller ones to forage about the country, so that when he took up a position at Scariffhollis on the Swilly, some two miles above Letterkenny, he had not with him more than 3000 foot and 400 horse. In the meantime, Coote was growing stronger: 1000 foot, under Colonel Fenwick, came to him from Venables at Belfast, and every available man was drawn out of Enniskillen, so that he had a large force by the fatal 21st of June. The principal officers in the Irish army were for adhering to the Fabian tactics of their late chief, his only son among them. Their arguments were sound and based on experience; but we may be sure that the speech put into Henry O’Neill’s mouth is very different from that uttered by him. The report occupies little more than a page, but in it are mentioned by name Mars, Ulysses, Ajax, Antiochus, Hannibal, Fabius Cunctator, Scipio Africanus, Scanderbeg, Spinola, and Maurice of Nassau. The Bishop retorted by actually accusing him of want of courage; and after that there was nothing left but to fight. They were, says Coote, posted on a mountain-side, ‘inaccessible to either horse or foot,’ but descended on the enemy’s appearance into ground ‘which was extreme bad,’ but yet possible to traverse. The infantry on both sides were perhaps nearly equal, but the English had a great superiority in cavalry, so that when the Irish broke after an hour’s hard fighting it was easy to pursue them in all directions. About 3000 were killed, including a large part of the officers, and few unmounted men can have escaped. Sir Phelim O’Neill got away to Charlemont, and the Bishop managed to keep some 200 horse together, with which he fled southwards. All his colours, arms, ammunition, and baggage fell into the victors’ hands. Coote’s casualties of all sorts were under a hundred, and only one officer was killed outright. Colonel Fenwick, who fell at the first fire, afterwards died of his wounds. ‘Now the reader may observe,’ says the British Officer, ‘the sequel of making the Bishop a general that was nothing experienced in that lesson, nor becoming his coat to send men to spill Christian blood; and how that for want of conduct and prudency in martial affairs he lost himself and that army that never got a foil before he led them.’[181]
The Bishop is captured.
and executed.
O’Neill put to death.
One of the Maguires, who knew all the short cuts, hurried off to Enniskillen as soon as he saw the result of the fight, and warned Major John King that the Bishop was coming his way. King got out one hundred fresh horsemen and fell upon the fugitives, who were in no condition to resist. Macmahon’s leg was broken in the scuffle, and he was taken prisoner. During his captivity he made a good impression, bewailing his many shortcomings and foretelling the course of events. King tried to save his life, but he was hanged after some weeks and his head fixed upon one of the gates of Londonderry. The responsibility for this must be shared between Ireton and Coote, but particulars are wanting. ‘I do not know,’ says the historian Lynch, ‘what the Bishop foretold, but I am certain that our nation never experienced worse calamities than she has done since he was taken from our midst.’ Ormonde praised him long afterwards as a truthful man who kept to his agreements. Several officers of rank were put to death by Coote after the battle, some of them, if we accept O’Neill’s Journal, with circumstances of great brutality. Henry O’Neill was among them, who reminded Coote that his father had saved him when he was near having to surrender Londonderry. To this Sir Charles replied that those services had been paid for at the time, and that he owed him nothing. The Irish accounts say that these officers had all been received to quarter and should have been treated as prisoners of war; and it is remarkable that the English accounts say nothing about it, though Ludlow notes that there were few prisoners, ‘being for the most part put to the sword.’ It is never possible to ascertain exactly what happened in a battle, but the probability is that immediate quarter for life given on the field was not supposed to cover acts of treason or rebellion, and all Coote’s victims would have come within those qualifications of the subsequent Act of Settlement which barred pardon for life and estate.[182]
Ormonde is unsupported.
Assembly at Loughrea, April 27.
Ormonde kept out of Limerick,