Fitton and Clanricarde.
On first arriving in Dublin, Clanricarde had been shut up in the castle. After a month he was released on his own recognisances, and three months later he was again committed on Fitton preferring against him a formal charge of being the counsellor, comforter, and procurer of his son’s doings. A few months before Fitzwilliam had pronounced Fitton a wise and sober man, very conscientious, severely just, and not subject to gusts of passion. He now complained that the President had refused to reveal the charge against Clanricarde at the Council Board. This the Lord Deputy considered a stain on his own loyalty, and he demanded an opportunity of clearing himself. The Earl’s offence, if offence there was, fell far short of treason, and he could be very badly spared from his own country. The Queen rebuked Fitton severely for his secret ways, and for arresting the old Earl, who made his submission to the Lord President of Connaught, only asking that he might in future have the assistance of a councillor to keep order. This was granted, and he was soon sent back to Connaught with a general commission to grant pardons at discretion; a wonderful end to a trial for high treason. The Council patched up a truce between Fitton and Fitzwilliam, but the flame soon burst forth again. Clanricarde’s detention in Dublin lasted about six months, and he never quite forgave Fitton. ‘After being set at liberty,’ he said, ‘I did within one twelvemonth hang my own son, my brother’s son, my cousin-german’s son, and one of the captains of my gallowglasses, besides fifty of my own followers that bare armour and weapons; which the Archbishop of Tuam, the Bishop of Clonfert, and the whole corporation of Galway may witness.’[221]
Fitton driven into a corner.
When Fitton wrote to say that he expected soon to have no place in his power except Galway, Fitzwilliam sneeringly answered that he would be a very old man before the rebels came to seek him at Athlone. For a few weeks longer the President kept the field. Clare Galway was yielded at his approach, and a few kerne were shot here and there, but the young Burkes eluded him as completely as David eluded Saul. On one occasion they were close, and Ulick, taking an axe in his hand, declared that he would lead on; but the captain of gallowglasses, wiser in his generation, advised a fitter opportunity. Lady Mary Burke escaped out of Galway, and went to join her brothers. Then provisions ran short, the Mayo Burkes, whom Fitzwilliam had thought it possible to retain as allies, joined their namesake, and Fitton retired to Athlone, leaving the whole province free from any pretence of settled government.[222]
Even Athlone is not safe.
Fitton was only three months older when he saw his dismal prophecy fulfilled. Having demolished most of the castles in Clanricarde, lest they should offer a refuge to the English, the young Burkes, with a force estimated at from 500 to 2,000, and largely composed of Scots mercenaries, plundered the district between the Suck and Shannon, then crossed the great river, and burned all along the left bank as far as Athlone. James Fitzmaurice was with them, chiefly in the vain hope of relieving Castlemaine, before which Perrott had again sat down. Turning to the east, the wild bands harried Roscommon and Westmeath, burned Mullingar, Meelick, and other places, and then doubled back to Athlone, to which they set fire. In spite of the guns in the castle and the musketeers on the steeple of the church, they approached boldly from the north side, broke into the cloister with the help of masons, and, being aided by a high wind, burned most of the malt and biscuit stored above. Of the 350 soldiers promised by Fitzwilliam not one had arrived, and the President could only look on while the town burned. Meeting with no resistance, the rebels again crossed the Shannon and went to Galway. That town was too strong for them to attempt, but they killed an English captain in a skirmish, and on two separate occasions passed the walls without serious opposition and penetrated into Connemara, where they chastised the O’Flaherties for their adherence to English rule. Fitton could do nothing but beg the Lord Deputy not to pardon the treason after the old fashion of Ireland. ‘It is comforted,’ he said, ‘and fostered from under your own elbows, I mean Dublin itself.’[223]
Fitton is forced to leave Connaught to itself.
Fitton lingered at Athlone for a few weeks and then retired, first to Dublin and then to England. Fitzwilliam announced that Connaught would soon be quiet, for there would be no one left to resist the rebels. The unlucky President was not to be blamed, for he ‘could not work miracles as Moses did.’ After one more attempt to give trouble, which was frustrated by Perrott’s energy, Clanricarde’s sons—the MacIarlas, as they were called—saw that there was no fear of punishment, and that they might as well sue for mercy. They told the Deputy that they were in a wretched and damnable state; and this was true, for they were very vicious young men. They knew not where to turn, and they offered to give themselves up and be good subjects for ever if only they might be assured of the pardon which they feared to ask. Their father was powerless to control them, and he supported their petition on the ground that despair might ‘make them follow young counsels.’ He himself was ready for any service, or even to go to prison, and would welcome any president that had no property in Connaught, ‘excepting always Sir Edward Fitton, who sought my blood.’ A good salary, he added fairly enough, would be the best defence against corruption. Believing that Fitton would traduce him, he sent an agent to England to enter a cross case. The late president’s prayer was so far heard that the young Burkes received no immediate pardon. In the meantime Athlone was held by a scanty garrison. In one of the long nights just after the new year Art Maguire, who had the watch, arranged with some of the O’Kellys to betray the castle. A ladder was planted and thirty-four men scaled the walls unobserved, when a chance noise startled the guard. The assailants called out in English to make way for the Earl of Clanricarde’s sons; but they were worsted in the scuffle and jumped off the battlements, several legs being broken. ‘If the devils had not made great shifts they had broken most of their necks.’ Fitzwilliam attributed the result entirely to God’s providence. The Irish had been two hours inside the castle and were probably waiting for reinforcements, very likely for the graceless young men in whose names they professed to act.[224]
Ormonde goes to England.
Fitzmaurice still at large, 1572.