Arrival of Mountjoy and Carew (February).
In the meantime Mountjoy had been appointed Deputy, and Carew President of Munster. They landed together at Howth on February 26, and found things in as bad a state as possible, almost the whole island being virtually under the sway of the victorious rebel. The Queen realised that the country could not be bridled without fixed garrisons, but she cautioned Mountjoy against frittering away his strength by multiplying small posts. It had long been recognised that fortifications at Lough Foyle would do more than anything to cripple the O’Neills, and 4,000 foot and 200 horse were assigned for this service to Docwra; while 3,000 foot and 250 horse were allotted, by official orders from England, to the presidency of Munster. The force left under Mountjoy’s immediate control did not, therefore, exceed 5,000 men, and he was thus prevented from repeating Essex’s mistake, that of ‘making progresses’ at a great expense without achieving any permanent results.[337]
Tyrone plays the king in Munster.
Carew was necessarily delayed in Dublin for about six weeks, and in the meantime Tyrone went where he pleased in Munster. His principal camp was at Inniscarra on the Lee, and thither came friendly messages or hostages from nearly all the neighbouring magnates, whether of English or Irish race. Among his trustiest lieutenants was his son-in-law, Hugh Maguire, who, on or about the last day of February, made a raid in the immediate neighbourhood of Cork. Sir Warham St. Leger and Sir Henry Power, the acting commissioners for Munster, went out for a ride, in no expectation of an attack so near the town. Their men were marching at ease and in loose order when they suddenly came in contact with Maguire’s party. St. Leger fired his pistol at the chief with fatal effect, but the latter had strength enough to retaliate with his half-pike; and so the two leaders fell by each other’s hands, and with few or no other casualties on either side. To Tyrone the loss was great, and probably decided him to leave the province before Carew could appear. Marching through the eastern part of Cork, and leaving Cashel on his right hand, he passed through Westmeath and reached his own country without striking a blow or ever seeing an enemy. Ormonde and Thomond came out from Limerick with a considerable force, but no battle took place, though Carew has recorded his opinion that the loyal Earls were very anxious to fight.[338]
Tyrone’s march through Ireland.
Tyrone left about 1,800 men behind him in Munster, chiefly under the command of Richard Tyrrell, and with 600, which were probably his best, he travelled so fast as to elude Mountjoy, who had made preparations for intercepting him in Westmeath. The Ulster men marched twenty-seven miles in one day, and reached Tyrone in less than a quarter of the time that it had taken them to perform the outward journey. The Queen and her viceroy did not escape ‘the great dishonour of this traitor passing home to his den unfought with.’ Ormonde and Thomond, who had been keeping Easter together at Kilkenny, then repaired to Dublin; and Mountjoy matured his plan for the re-conquest of Ireland in detail. Carew was ready before Docwra, and on April 7 he set out for his province, the two Earls having preceded him to Kilkenny.[339]
Ormonde is taken prisoner by the O’Mores (April).
The Jesuit Archer.
Carew reached Kilkenny on the third day, and his company of 100 horse were billeted in the neighbourhood by Ormonde’s directions. Each day the Earl proposed that the President should accompany him to a parley with Owen MacRory at a point between Ballyragget and Ballinakill in the Queen’s County. So little did he dream of danger on the border of his own county, that he refused Carew’s proffered escort, and set out with about forty mounted men, of whom more than one half were ‘lawyers, merchants, and others, upon hackneys,’ and with no weapons but the swords ordinarily worn. His company of 200 foot were left two miles short of the place of meeting. O’More brought a picked troop of spearmen with him, leaving in the rear 500 foot and twenty horse, ‘the best furnished for war and the best apparelled that we have seen in this kingdom,’ 300 of them being Ulster mercenaries, left by Tyrone on his return to the North. The two parties met upon a heath sloping down towards a narrow defile, and with a bushy wood on each side, ‘the choice of which ground,’ says Carew, ‘we much misliked.’ An hour’s conversation then ensued between Ormonde and O’More about such questions as would naturally arise between warlike neighbours. Carew, who noticed that the Irish kept edging further forward in the covert on each side, was for departing before mischief could happen; but Ormonde, who was quite unsuspicious, desired first to speak with Archer, who as a Kilkenny man might be open to the arguments of his natural chief. The Jesuit came forward, and after some talk the Earl called him a traitor, and upbraided him with seducing the Queen’s subjects into rebellion. Archer replied that the Pope was the Sovereign of Ireland, and that he had excommunicated Elizabeth. Ormonde then spoke of the Pope in contemptuous terms, whereupon Archer threatened him with his stick. At this signal, whether premeditated or not, the two parties became suddenly intermingled, and Melaghlin O’More pulled the Earl off his pony. Others, wrote Carew, and Thomond, ‘tried to seize us too. We had more hanging upon us than is credibly to be believed; but our horses were strong and by that means did break through them, tumbling down on all sides those that were before and behind us; and, thanks be to God, we escaped the pass of their pikes, which they freely bestowed and the flinging of their skeynes.... Owen MacRory laid hands on me the President, and, next unto God, I must thank my Lord of Thomond for my escape, who thrust his horse upon him. And at my back a rebel, newly protected at my suit, called Brian MacDonogh Kavanagh, being a-foot, did me good service. For the rest I must thank my horse, whose strength bore down all about him.’ Thomond received the stab of a pike in his back, but the wound did not prove dangerous.[340]
Mountjoy and Ormonde.