where he is well received.
The report circulated at St. Malo was that Fitzmaurice came to seek help against Desmond; but Mrs. Fitzmaurice made no secret of her proclivities, for she refused an invitation to dine on board a Bordeaux vessel, ‘because Englishmen, her enemies, were to be there.’ Nor were the better informed ignorant that the whole enterprise was directed against England. A Devonshire merchant talked with a French officer who, in ignorance of his nationality, said that the King would have no peace with the wicked English, that St. Malo had furnished ships against Rochelle which would have been attacked long ago but for fear of the English naval power, and that a war with England was the one thing needful to unite all parties.[319]
His life at St. Malo.
After his visit to the French Court, Fitzmaurice returned again to St. Malo, and in the early days of 1576 Sidney thus reported concerning him:—
‘He keepeth a great port, himself and family well apparelled and full of money; he hath oft intelligence from Rome and out of Spain; not much relief from the French King, as I can perceive, yet oft visited by men of good countenance. This much I know of certain report, by special of mine own from St. Malo. The man, subtle, malicious, and hardy, a Papist in extremity, and well esteemed and of good credit among the people. If he come and be not wholly dealt withal at the first (as without an English commander I know he shall not), all the loose people of Munster will flock unto him: yea, the lords, though they would do their best, shall not be able to keep them from him. So if he come while I am in the North, he may do what he will with Kinsale, Cork, Youghal, Kilmallock, and haply Limerick too, before I shall be able to come to the rescue thereof.’
From St. Malo Fitzmaurice wrote to the General of the Jesuits for a confessor, offering to pay all his travelling expenses and to support him liberally. After a time he might, if it were thought desirable, be sent into Ireland as a missionary to the rude and unlearned people.[320]
Sidney at Limerick. Thomond. Connaught.
After his tour in Munster, Sidney proceeded from Limerick to take a like survey of Connaught and Thomond. He was attended by the Earl of Thomond and the other chiefs of the O’Briens, ‘of one surname, and so near kinsmen as they descend of one grandfather, and yet no one of them friend to another;’ the east and west Macnamaras, Macmahon, O’Loghlen, and many other gentlemen. Few as the people were, the Lord Deputy found the country too poor to feed them, ‘if they were not of a more spare diet than others are.’ He spent his first night comfortably enough in the dissolved friary at Quin, the beautiful ruins of which still remain, the second at Kilmacduagh, which is also interesting to the antiquarian, but which must have been a poor cathedral city at its best. Here Clanricarde met him, and he passed by Gort to Galway, whither all the principal men of Thomond repaired to him. He found that there had been no lack of murders, rapes, burnings, and sacrileges. So hard was the swearing that the injuries to property might be esteemed infinite in number, immeasurable in quantity, until the legal acumen of Sir Lucas Dillon reduced them within reasonable bounds. On examination it appeared that the greatest harm had arisen from the feud between Thomond and his cousin Teige MacMurrough, and they were required to enter into heavy recognizances. Sir Donnell O’Brien, the Earl’s brother, was made sheriff of the county of Clare, a shire of Sidney’s own creation. Connaught was now divided into four counties—Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo. From Mayo came seven men to represent the seven septs of Clandonnells, the hereditary gallowglasses of North-West Connaught, and in effect the tyrants of the country. They agreed without difficulty to hold their lands of the Queen, and so did MacWilliam Eighter himself, who communicated with the Lord Deputy in Latin, and made a very favourable impression. MacWilliam agreed to pay 250 marks yearly, and to support 200 soldiers for two months in each year, and an English sheriff was established in Mayo at his request. Besides the various septs of Burkes, Sidney enumerates five great English families who had taken Celtic names, and who now followed MacWilliam’s lead; as did O’Malley, ‘an original Irishman, strong in gallies and seamen.’ The five chiefs of English race claimed to be Barons of Parliament, ‘and they had land enough, but so bare, barbarous barons are they now that they have not three hackneys to carry them and their train home.’[321]
Galway.