Sidney was wind-bound for nearly two months in Wales and Cheshire. He and his wife were forced to flit about the coast, staying sometimes in places where food, drink, and lodging were alike bad, weary of their lives, and with no news more cheering than that one vessel carrying their horses and furniture had foundered with all hands, and that the cargo of another had been much damaged, though the men were saved. ‘God send me a better proceed,’ said he, ‘and a good end of this froward beginning.’ He lost all his wine and other property, worth 1,500l., and was inclined to attribute to witchcraft an extraordinary series of storms which shattered nearly all the ships between Liverpool and Chester. William Thwaites, a faithful and useful servant, perished, and Sidney mourned his loss more than any quantity of property. The Lord gave, he said, and the Lord hath taken away. The stone pier at Chester was ruined, and Sidney, not forgetting that he was Lord President of Wales, declared that the city would be irreparably damaged unless the Queen sent help. Yet great as the storm was, he feared lest his jealous mistress should accuse him of loitering, and begged the Vice-President of the Welsh Marches to corroborate his accounts of the weather. He wished Cecil a long life, and himself a speedy departure from ‘this hungry head.’ Elizabeth afterwards expressed sorrow for Sidney’s losses, but it does not appear that she did anything in the way of compensating him. At last the wind changed, and Sidney found himself in charge of a country as unquiet as the sea that washed her shores.[111]
Sidney and Shane O’Neill.
Sidney’s first care was to let Shane O’Neill know of his arrival, and to urge him to appoint a meeting at Drogheda or Dundalk. Shane answered by praising Arnold’s government, and proposed that his successor should be at Dundalk on February 5, which he thought would be conducive to business. Sidney thought the date too early, especially as Cusack was not at hand, and suggested that if O’Neill were sincere he might fix a better day, promising, in the meantime, to punish a satirical versifier who had offended him. Shane then declined a meeting until his latest suits were favourably determined, but promised to wait on the border for seven days, during which he hoped the Lord Deputy would come to Dundalk. To this it was answered that the treaty of Nov. 18, 1563, had not come to hand, that Cusack, who knew all about it, was sick in Munster, and that in the meantime Shane might as well come under safe-conduct. The slippery chief was kind enough to say that he took the Lord Deputy’s delay in good part, and that Sidney could not desire his presence more than he desired Sidney’s. He knew the latter’s sweet nature and readiness for all good things, and reminded him of their former friendly relations. His people, he said, would not allow him to come to the Lord Deputy’s presence, on account of the many hurts done by official people to the O’Neills during the last twenty years. The imprisonment of his father, the handcuffs which secured his own safety on the way to Court, the two attempts of Sussex to murder him, were duly recapitulated, as well as many outrages upon Irishmen of less importance.
Sidney pronounces Shane hopeless.
Sidney could only say that Shane ought to know him better, and that he was quite willing to meet him at Dundalk. But he declined to enter any house or town, desiring the Lord Deputy to meet him at a bog-side where he had 1,000 men with him. Sidney could not bring half as many men, and he did not think such a meeting for the Queen’s honour. Shane stickled for the old treaty with Cusack, who was absent, and Kildare, who was present, remembered nothing about it. It had never been on record in Ireland, and the copies produced by O’Neill and by Leicester agreed, ‘as well as Luke the Evangelist and Huon of Bordeaux.’ Lucifer was never more puffed up with pride and ambition than O’Neill, who was the only strong and rich man in Ireland, able to bring 4,000 foot and 1,000 horse into the field. If he did not come to Sidney, he would come to no Englishman, and since the first conquest there had not been any man in Ireland more likely to bring it under the dominion of a foreign prince. ‘In the morning he is subtle, and then will he cause letters to be written either directly otherwise than he will do, or else so doubtfully as he may make what construction he likes, and ofttimes his secretary penneth his letters in more dulled form than he giveth him instruction, but in the afternoon when the wine is in, then unfoldeth he himself, in vino veritas, then showeth he himself what he is, and what he is likely to attempt.’
Shane’s pretensions to be greater than any earl.
Formerly he had condescended to request that his parliamentary robes might be sent into his own country. ‘Now he cares not to be an Earl unless he can be something higher and better. "I am," he said, "in blood and power better than the best of them. I will give place to none but my cousin of Kildare, for that he is of my House. You have made a wise Earl of Macarthy More, I keep as good a man as he. For the Queen, I confess she is my sovereign lady, yet I never made peace with her but by her own seeking. And whom would you have me trust, Mr. Stukeley? I came unto the Earl of Sussex upon the safe-conduct of two Earls and protection under the Great Seal, and the first courtesy that he offered was to put me in a handlock and to send me into England. When I came there upon pardon and safe-conduct, and had done my business and would have departed according the same, the Queen herself told me that indeed safe-conduct I had to come safe and go safe, but she had not told me when, and so there held me till I had agreed to such inconvenience against my honour and profit as I would never perform while I live, and that made me make war. If it were to do again, I would do it, for my ancestors were kings of Ulster, Ulster was theirs, and shall be mine. And for O’Donnell, he shall never come into his country if I can keep him out of it, nor Bagenal into the Newry, nor the Earl of Kildare into Dundrum or Lecale. They are mine; with this sword I won them, with this sword I will keep them. This is my answer, commend me to my gossip the Deputy. God be with you, my masters." "Nay," said the envoys, "we brought you letters, and by letters we look for answer." "Well, letters you shall have," said he, and he caused his secretary to write. We send a true copy, so that you shall see how well speech and writing agree.’[112]
Sidney is obliged to temporise.
Persuasion had failed, as Sidney doubtless foresaw, and he was in no condition to carry things with a high hand. He reiterated the demands he had already made in England, and declared he could do nothing till they were granted. A competent Chancellor, a President for Munster, money to pay off the demoralised soldiers and get new ones who had not graduated in idleness and extortion; these were the most pressing wants. 4,000l. should be spent out of hand in fortifications, and means should be given to victual all garrisons at once, instead of waiting till the last moment and then paying double. The Lord Deputy had not even a good clerk whom he could trust to copy despatches, still less could he do good service with soldiers who lived by plunder and were everywhere allied with the Irish. With 500 well-paid and well-appointed men he would chase Shane before him within forty-eight hours, or be accounted a traitor. Otherwise he might come to the walls of Dublin and go away unfought. Ulster was ready for the foreigner to seize, and a whole province would be worse to England than the single town of Calais had been to France. He had rather die than have the name of losing Ireland, and yet he could do nothing without proper tools. Six thousand times a day did he wish himself in any part of Christendom, so that he might escape from the Irish purgatory, with its endless and thankless toil.[113]