[368] Fenton to Cecil, April 20, 1598. William Power, writing from Cork to Cecil, Jan. 17, 1602, says ‘you were a father to the unfortunate young Earl, as himself often told me.’—Carew to the Privy Council, Dec. 20, 1600, and March 6, 1601; Pacata Hibernia, book i. chap. xviii.; Desmond Pedigree in Irish Arch. Journal, 3rd series, vol. i.; Desmond to Cecil, Aug. 31, 1601. Among the 1602 papers at Hatfield, there are petitions from two of the Desmond ladies asking Cecil for part of the allowance meant ‘for our poor brother, that we might end the rest of our unfortunate days without being troublesome.’
[CHAPTER L.]
GOVERNMENT OF MOUNTJOY, 1601.
Mountjoy felt that his own hands were not quite clean, and he knew that Carew was more thoroughly trusted than he was. The President’s excellent temper prevented anything like a rupture, but the Deputy’s letter shows how sensitive he was. It was in answer to one of these despatches, in which he had likened himself to a scullion, that Elizabeth wrote with her own hand one of those letters which go far to reveal the secret of her power. ‘Mistress Kitchenmaid,’ she said, ‘I had not thought that precedency had been ever in question, but among the higher and greater sort; but now I find by good proof that some of more dignity and greater calling may by good desert and faithful care give the upper hand to one of your faculty, that with your frying-pan and other kitchen stuff have brought to their last home more rebels, and passed greater break-neck places, than those that promised more and did less. Comfort yourself, therefore, in this, that neither your careful endeavour, nor dangerous travails, nor heedful regards to our service, without your own by-respects, could ever have been bestowed upon a prince that more esteems them, considers, and regards them than she for whom chiefly, I know, all this hath been done, and who keeps this verdict ever in store for you; that no vainglory nor popular fawning can ever advance you forward, but true vow of duty and reverence of prince, which two afore your life I see you do prefer. And though you lodge near Papists, and doubt you not for their infection, yet I fear you may fail in an heresy, which I hereby do conjure you from; that you suppose you be backbited by some to make me think you faulty of many oversights and evil defaults in your government. I would have you know for certain that, as there is no man can rule so great a charge without some errors, yet you may assure yourself I have never heard of any had fewer; and such is your good luck that I have not known them, though you were warned of them. And learn this of me, that you must make difference betwixt admonitions and charges, and like of faithful advices as your most necessariest weapons to save you from blows of princes’ mislike. And so I absolve you a pœna et culpa, if this you observe. And so God bless and prosper you as if ourself was where you are.—Your Sovreign that dearly regards you.’ It is easy to understand what an effect such a letter must have had, and how Mountjoy must have been encouraged in his difficult work.[369]
Final reduction of the Wicklow Highlanders (January).
It was supposed at the time that the death of Feagh MacHugh would free Dublin from the depredations of the O’Byrnes; but his son, Phelim MacFeagh, continued to give trouble, and the suburbs of the capital were in almost nightly alarm. Shortly before Christmas Mountjoy set out for Monasterevan, whither he had sent Arras hangings and other baggage betokening a long stay there. But he himself suddenly turned off near Naas, crossed the snowclad mountains with a strong force, and entered Glenmalure quite unexpectedly. Ballinacor was surrounded, and Phelim’s wife and son captured, the chief himself escaping naked out of a back window into the woods, while Mountjoy and his followers consumed the Christmas stock of provisions. The cattle were swept out of the country, the corn and houses destroyed, and at the end of three weeks the Lord Deputy retired. Garrisons were placed at Tullow on one side and Wicklow on the other, and these highlanders gave no further trouble. Phelim MacFeagh, who was saved by the mountain floods, came to Dublin, and submitted with due humility.[370]
Mountjoy in the central districts (February).
The early months of 1601 were spent by Mountjoy in devastating the central districts. Starting from Monasterevan on January 29, he passed by Kildare, which was in ruins and quite deserted, to Trim, and from thence by Castletown Delvin to Mullingar, ‘the shiretown of Westmeath, compassed with bogs.’ Athlone was reached on February 17, and then, without resting more than a night, he doubled back to Macgeohegan’s castle of Donore. Between Lough Ennell and the place still called Tyrrell’s pass, he found the redoubtable Captain Tyrrell in his stronghold, ‘seated in a plain and in a little island compassed with bogs and deep ditches of running water.’ An attempt to cross with hurdles and faggots was frustrated by the current, and an officer was shot. Moryson, the historian, had a narrow escape. The English horse kept always on the move, which generally protected them against the fire of matchlocks, but the secretary, who was no soldier, and whose white horse gave a good mark, felt one bullet whistle past his head, while another struck his saddle. Proclamation was then made that no one, on pain of death, should succour the rebels in any way, that the country people should bring provisions to the camp, and that soldiers, also on pain of death, should pay the market price. Two thousand crowns were placed on Tyrrell’s head, who thought it prudent to steal away by night to another island in Queen’s County, which was for the time inaccessible, on account of the floods.[371]