Devastation of the Pale.
Munster refuses O’Neill’s help.
Rinuccini, though O’Neill was his only champion, came to hate him almost as much as he hated Ormonde. He even made excuses for Preston, whose intrigues with the latter might be explained by O’Neill’s ambition ‘under cover of religion.’ After Benburb, the northern general had increased his army without orders, and he thirsted for the plunder of Leinster. Monck took care that he should have no supplies from Eastern Ulster. ‘If I had not sent my confessor to dissuade him from so unjust a resolution,’ said the nuncio, ‘Kilkenny would have been sacked and much innocent blood shed.’ Wherever O’Neill went, the Ulster soldiers, ‘barbarous enough by nature, although good Catholics,’ spread terror and destruction around. The worst of it was that they called themselves the army of Pope and Church, and when they ‘perform any act of cruelty or robbery, the sufferers execrate his Holiness and me, and curse the clergy, whom they consider the patrons of this army.’ Two regiments harried the property of Mountgarret, who brought a crowd of women to the nuncio’s house, ‘where they made a dreadful uproar with howls and lamentations, thus giving it to be understood that I countenanced the cruelties perpetrated by the Ulster men.’ After the failure of the attack on Dublin, O’Neill was made general of Connaught, and devoted himself to the affairs of that province. He was at Boyle, preparing to march against Sligo, when the news of Dungan Hill reached him, with a pressing summons to enter Leinster again, so as to prevent Inchiquin from joining hands with Jones. Muskerry was a party to this, for he could see no other means of safety; but O’Neill refused to move. The personal entreaties of Bishop Macmahon at last prevailed, but many of his officers, with Alexander MacDonnell at their head, refused to obey. Partly by persuasion and partly by turning his guns on the mutineers, the general pacified them for the time, and established his quarters at Castlejordan in Meath, until November 1647. He had then collected about 12,000 foot and 1500 horse, and with these he proceeded to make a famine round Dublin. Tichborne followed the northern army everywhere, and cut off many stragglers. The destroyers passed near the scene of Preston’s defeat to Dunboyne and Clonee, and all southern Meath was burned or spoiled. Turning northwards, they went almost to Balbriggan. Two hundred fires were counted at one time from St. Audoen’s steeple in Dublin. On the sixth day, between Ratoath and Garristown, Jones and Tichborne showed themselves; and the latter wished to fight, but was overruled, so that O’Neill returned to Castlejordan without having to strike a blow. He offered to quarter 4000 men in Munster, who were to spare the Confederates while galling Inchiquin’s partisans; but the provincials refused such help. Inchiquin’s methods of making war were not gentle, but there was some excuse for doubting whether the deliverers would be much better.[117]
Inchiquin’s soldiers hungry,
but anxious to fight.
Battle of Knocknanuss Nov. 13.
Alaster Macdonnell again.
Inchiquin completely victorious.
Death of Macdonnell.
Having access to a sea which their friends commanded, neither Jones nor Inchiquin were easy to assail. They could always retire into their coast towns and exist there somehow. Yet the Munster Protestants were in miserable state enough. ‘It would make your soul bleed,’ writes a resident in Cork to his cousin in England, ‘to see the poor common soldier march out with never a whole rag to his back, nor shoe to his foot, feeble and faint for want of what should suffice nature.’ The prospect of a battle was a relief, and ‘those that were sickish skipped for joy.’ Taaffe, says the author of the ‘Aphorismical Discovery,’ ‘was a well-spoken man of both art and delivery, a fencer, a runner of a tilt, a brave, generous gamester, and an exceeding good potator in any liquor you please.’ He was a brave soldier, but more diplomatist than general. In the King’s interest, Digby had urged him to avoid a general action, but Fabian tactics require a Fabius, and probably he was forced to fight by the feeling which Inchiquin’s doings at Cashel had excited. At all events, he drew his forces together early in November, when Inchiquin concentrated his at Mallow, and went to look for him. Taaffe, with 7000 foot and 1200 horse, was strongly posted on the hill of Knocknanuss, about three miles to the eastward of Kanturk. A bog and stream ran along his front. Inchiquin with a much smaller force advanced to a place called Garryduff on November 12, where he received a letter from Taaffe, who declared that he was fighting in the King’s cause, and proposed a contest between 2000 foot a side, ‘more for recreation’ than for any serious military reason. Inchiquin retorted that Taaffe was not really preserving the King’s interest, and that he would wait till the morning before engaging in a battle for recreation. He sheltered his army in a wood for the night, and when the first light disclosed Taaffe’s position, suggested in his turn that he should descend from his hill, cross the stream, and fight ‘upon a very fair piece of ground.’ Taaffe answered verbally that he was soldier enough to improve the advantage that he had. He refused to abandon his position, but did what was nearly as bad by shifting his men in sight of the enemy and finally posting them so that the bend of the hill hid his two wings from one another. The right, under Alexander MacDonnell, consisted of Scots islanders and Ulstermen, the Munster troops being on the left, where Taaffe himself stood. Inchiquin began the attack with his artillery, but the Highlanders, having fired a volley, threw away their muskets and rushed sword-in-hand upon the guns, of which they retained possession for an hour. Inchiquin’s left was driven back towards Mallow, but on the right he was completely victorious. Rupert’s faults were not his, and he did not pursue, but turned back to look after his defeated wing. The Highlanders and Purcell’s horse, believing the battle won, were scattered all over the country, and made no effective resistance. Half of Taaffe’s army were slain, the remainder flying to Liscarroll and Newmarket; while Inchiquin lost only about 150 men. ‘We were killing till night,’ he says; and few prisoners were made, except among the officers. The arms of 6000 men strewed the field, and Taaffe’s commission from the Confederates as general of Munster was taken with his baggage. Bellings had heard that Alexander Macdonnell was killed by an officer in cold blood, after quarter given; but the English accounts give no hint of this; and Rinuccini says distinctly that he refused quarter. The result of the battle was to place all Munster at Inchiquin’s discretion, except Limerick, Waterford, Clonmel, and Kilmallock. He received the thanks of Parliament, and 1000l. were voted to buy horses.[118]