Before leaving Lifford Essex commissioned O’Donnell to seize upon all O’Neill’s cattle which had crossed the Foyle to be under Con’s protection, but under no circumstances to allow his nephew’s own herds to be touched. The O’Donnells disregarded the latter injunction, but ‘laid hold on them, and, as their manner is, every man carried his booty home;’ 1,400 head only out of a much larger number being brought into the English camp. In consideration of what his followers had gained, Essex bound the chief to have an extra force of 600 men, and swore him to fight with Tirlogh Luineach as long as her Majesty did. On his road home he carefully burned all O’Neill’s corn, and boasted that the value was not less than 5,000l.—a mode of making war which was certainly not calculated to advance the civilisation of Ulster. Tirlogh’s strength was practically unbroken, and it is evident that few thought Essex capable of doing anything great. He had, he complained, in all his journeys to the North had no help from the Pale but fifteen pack-horses on one occasion and seven on another. Provisions were never given ‘but at such extreme pennyworths as hath not been heard of in this country.’ To his sanguine mind it still seemed easy, if the Lord Deputy would only co-operate cordially, ‘to establish the country as it may be ever preserved from rebellion hereafter.’ Fitzwilliam, who had no illusions left, thought differently, and there can be little doubt that he was right. The Earl himself had privately told Burghley that the Queen was nothing benefited by former pacifications of the North, and that only a permanent garrison could make permanent work. There was little hope of revenue. Every captain in Ulster was, he thought, ready to take an estate of inheritance and give up Irish customs. Many said they had offered as much and had been refused; ‘and yet they allege, that they have ever paid more than would maintain a good garrison, which hath been put in some of their purses which governed here.’ The Crown was in fact too poor to pay its servants, and so they paid themselves. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that expeditions into Ulster were like the fortresses which children build upon the beach: the unresisting sand is easily moulded, the architect’s pride is great, but the next flood washes all the work away.[292]
Essex is summoned to Court.
The Queen, who seems to have had a certain admiration for Essex, was pleased with his last service, and inclined to favour his plans for the permanent plantation of the North. But her council, as she was careful to point out, required more information. Did he propose that the colonists in Clandeboye and between the Blackwater and the Pale should be English or Irish, or a mixture of both? Were his towns to be walled with stone or earth, or with a mixture of both? Had Maguire, Magennis, and MacMahon agreed to contribute towards the maintenance of 100 horse and 200 foot? What arrangements could be made for provisions, for maintaining garrisons, for labour and material? To resolve these doubts, which came rather late in the day, Essex was summoned to appear at Court as soon as he could leave his post. The choice being left to him, he decided not to go, and expressed an opinion that the conditional order came ‘either of her Majesty’s misliking of the cause, or of me as unable to execute the thing, and so make stay of me there, either by disallowing the work as not feasible, or else to essay as the honour of it should be reaped by another.’[293]
FOOTNOTES:
[264] Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, Dec. 23, 1573; Sir Edmund Butler to Lord Deputy, Dec. 12, 1573; P. Sherlock to Burghley, Jan. 3, 1574.
[265] Bourchier to Fitzwilliam, Dec. 17, 1573; Declaration of P. Sherlock, Dec. 18; Desmond to Justice Walshe, Dec. 28, 1573; Edward Castlelyn to Burghley, Jan. 16, 1574. (The latter was written at intervals from Dec. 2.)
[266] Fitzgerald was despatched in Dec. 1573, and arrived in Ireland before Dec. 23; see Fitzwilliam’s letter of that date; Burghley’s notes in Murdin, p. 775. Edward Fitzgerald to Burghley, Feb. 13, 1574; Desmond to Lord Deputy and Council, and to E. Fitzgerald, Jan. 9. In the latter letter Desmond signs himself, ‘Your assured friend and loving cousin.’ The Privy Council to Desmond, Jan. 17, and the Queen to Fitzwilliam, Jan. 18, both in Carew. Instructions for the Lord Deputy of Ireland, March 30, in Carew.
[267] P. Sherlock to Fitzwilliam, Dec. 22 and 23, 1573; to Burghley, Jan. 3, 1574; Mulrony O’Carroll to F. Cosby, Jan. 8 and 21; Carew to Tremayne, Feb. 6.
[268] Edward Fitzgerald to Fitzwilliam, Jan. 18. The negotiations may be easily studied in five papers in Carew; printed under 1573, but belonging to 1573-4.
[269] The Queen to Fitzwilliam, Jan. 31; Perrott’s Life, p. 103; Privy Council to Fitzwilliam, March 29.