The whole Pale being infected, it was difficult to find a safe resting-place. The well-to-do citizens of Dublin fled to Drogheda, where they were grudgingly admitted, and whither they probably brought the pestilence; for deaths occurred in the town soon after the arrival of Essex and of the old and new Deputies, who all reached it on the same day. Immobility was the fault for which Fitzwilliam had been most blamed, and his successor, by starting immediately for Carrickfergus, no doubt meant to show that he was as capable as ever of those rapid movements which had bewildered and charmed the Irish mind. A blow had just been struck in Ulster, which for the time made resistance little to be feared. The terror of Sidney’s name might do the rest.[305]
General results of Essex’s grant.
After his treaty with Tirlogh Luineach Essex had pressed on in pursuit of the Scots from the Antrim side, the people of the country generally showing themselves friendly. Sorley Boy appeared in force at the Bann, on the banks of which river an encounter took place. The Scots were worsted and driven into Tyrone. Clandeboye was for the moment cleared of the intruders, and Essex, as far as in him lay, handed it over to Brian ‘Ertagh’ O’Neill, who said that his people were few, his cattle less, and that in striving to defend his country from the Earl ‘his husbandmen were starved, dead, or run out of the country,’ which he left to the disposal of the man who had reduced it to this condition. Such, so far as the scheme of a settlement went, was the total result of the grant to Essex, who was, however, so deficient in humour as to boast ‘that no man in Clandeboye claimeth property in anything, whereby your Majesty may see what this people are when they are roughly handled.’[306]
Expedition to Rathlin. Massacre.
His provisions failing, the Earl was obliged to quit the field, leaving 300 foot and 850 horse at Carrickfergus under the charge of John Norris, who had secret orders to undertake a combined naval and military expedition against Rathlin. With the soldiers under Norris and three frigates under ‘Francis Drake, Captain of the "Falcon,"’ it is not surprising that the affair was completely successful. All the boats at Carrickfergus were taken up, and in spite of the winds the whole force reached the island together, and landed, notwithstanding a vigorous resistance. The Scots retired into their castle, which Norris proceeded to batter with two heavy guns brought from the ship. A breach was soon made, but the first assault was repulsed, owing to the strength of the inner defences, which were probably erected by an Italian officer who was at this time in Sorley Boy’s service. The same night, however, the garrison, seeing that they could not hold out, offered to surrender for ‘their lives and their goods, and to be put into Scotland, which request Captain Norris refused, offering them as slenderly as they did largely require: viz., to the aforesaid constable his life and his wife’s and his child’s.... The soldiers, being moved and much stirred with the loss of their fellows that were slain, and desirous of revenge, made request, or rather pressed, to have the killing of them, which they did all, saving the persons to whom life was promised.... There were slain that came out of the castle of all sorts 200.... They be occupied still in killing, and have slain that they have found hidden in caves and in the cliffs of the sea to the number of 300 or 400 more.’ Eleven Scottish galleys were burned. Three hundred kine, 3,000 sheep, 100 brood mares, and enough bere to feed 300 men for a year, were found in the island. A spy, moreover, informed Essex that ‘Sorley put most of his plate, most of his children, and the children of most part of his gentlemen, with their wives, into the Rathlin with all his pledges, which be all taken and executed, as the spy saith, and in all to the number of 600. Sorley then also stood upon the mainland of the Glynnes and saw the taking of the island, and was like to run mad for sorrow (as the spy saith), turning and tormenting himself, and saying that he then lost all that ever he had.’ Essex had nothing but praise for all concerned, which indeed they deserved, if barbarity is to incur no blame; but no one seems to have wasted a thought on such considerations, and Queen Elizabeth vouchsafed her unqualified thanks.[307]
A useless fortified post in Rathlin.
The Scots supreme on the Antrim coast.
Essex wished to found a permanent fortified post in Rathlin. Norris remained behind to reap the harvest and to hold the island until Sidney’s pleasure should be known. In the meantime, Sorley Boy, though he had lost his children, had not lost heart. He chose his time and swept away all the cattle from Carrickfergus. The garrison pursued him, got into difficult ground, and were disgracefully beaten, owing to one of those panics to which regular troops were always subject in their encounters with Highlanders. Some attributed all to the prevailing dissipation, and yet Carrickfergus was hardly a Capua. About forty Scots put the English to flight and killed sixty of them, including Captain Baker and his lieutenant. When Sidney came to Carrickfergus a month later he found it ‘much decayed and impoverished, no plough going at all, where before were many; ... cattle few or none left; churches and houses, save castles, burned; the inhabitants fled, not above six householders of any countenance left remaining; so that their miserable state and servile fear were to be pitied.’ Of so little use had the Rathlin massacre been that the Lord Deputy found the Scots ‘very haughty and proud by reason of their late victories had against our men, finding the baseness of their courage.’ The coast from Larne to the Bann was full of corn and cattle, and in the undisputed possession of Sorley, who was willing enough to come to terms, but very suspicious and afraid of the opinion of his own followers. Sidney abandoned Rathlin at once, saying that it was easy at any time to take, but very expensive and useless to keep. There was a scarcity of water about the fort, and the ‘Race of Rathlin’ is one of the stormiest pieces of sea on our coast. ‘The soldiers brought thence being forty in number, they confessed that in this small time of their continuance there, they were driven to kill their horses and eat them, and to feed on them and young colts’ flesh one month before they came away.’ Such was the real value of a position where, in the opinion of Essex, 100 men ‘would do her Majesty more service, both against the Scots and Irish, than 300 can do in any place within the north parts.’ Sidney thought that the Glynnes might be handed over to Sorley Boy, no better claimant appearing, but that the Route ought to be given back to the MacQuillins, having been lost only because their late chief was a ‘dissolute and loose fellow, feeble both of wit and force.’ Lady Agnes O’Neill, a true Campbell, met Sidney and asked for a grant of the Glynnes for her son by James MacDonnell, offering to defend it against Sorley Boy, and to pay a higher rent to the Crown; but this did not recommend itself to the Lord Deputy, wise as he thought the lady, and much as he admired her manners and address.[308]
Hopeless condition of Ulster. Sidney’s advice.
The northern part of Armagh under the Baron of Dungannon Sidney found all waste, and the cathedral in ruins. The southern part had been granted by the Queen to the brothers Chatterton, who were totally unable to manage the country, and were rapidly losing all. ‘They wrestle and work,’ said Sidney, ‘and go to the worse, ... tall and honest gentlemen, who have lost in that enterprise all that ever they had, and all that anybody else would trust them with, and their blood and limbs too.’ The O’Hanlons would not come to Sidney on protection, lest they should be cajoled into acknowledging the Chattertons’ title. Lecale in Down, which was Kildare’s property, had been partially, but only partially, peopled by the exertions of Essex. Ards was a little better, less owing to Sir Thomas Smith than to the natural tendencies of its old English inhabitants, whose chief, Edmond Savage, was received into protection. Kinelarty, or MacCartan’s country, was ‘all desolate and waste, full of thieves, outlaws, and unreclaimed people. None of the old owners dared occupy the land, because it hath pleased her Majesty to bestow the same upon Captain Nicholas Maltby, tied, nevertheless, to such observation of covenant and condition as Chatterton had his.’ Maltby deserved a much better provision, but could do no good with this one either to himself or to anyone else. He could only ‘make the country altogether abandoned of inhabitants.’ It was absolutely necessary for the Queen’s service that both Chatterton’s and Maltby’s grants should be revoked. Dufferin, long the property of the White family, was ‘all waste and desolate, used as they of Clandeboye list.’ Neill MacBrian Ertagh, whom Essex had acknowledged as captain, made some show of opposition at the ford of Belfast. ‘We passed over,’ said Sidney, ‘without loss of man or horse, yet, by reason of the tide’s extraordinary return, our horses swam, and the footmen in the passage waded very deep.... Clandeboye I found utterly disinhabited. The captain refused to have conference with me, and answered, "That Con MacNeill Oge was captain, and not he" (who being appointed to be delivered to the Marshal, by negligence of his keepers, made an escape in his coming from Dublin, where before he remained prisoner).’ It cannot be said that the slaughter of Sir Brian MacPhelim and his family had done much for the civilisation of Eastern Ulster, or that the system of private conquest was any great improvement upon native usages.[309]