[412] Docwra’s Narration, June to September; Tyrone to O’Connor Sligo in Moryson, book iii. chap. ii.; Mountjoy to Lambert, Sept. 12; Lord Dunkellin and Sir A. Savage to Mountjoy, Aug. 7; Mountjoy to Cecil, Oct. 12.
[413] Pacata Hibernia, book iii. chaps. xii. and xiv.; Cecil to Carew, Oct. and Nov. 4; Privy Council to Carew, Dec. 16—all in Carew.
[414] O’Sullivan Bere, Hist. Cath. tom. iii. lib. vii. chaps. viii. to xii. The Four Masters describe this wonderful march to Aughrim, and are perhaps preferable as far as they go. See also Pacata Hibernia, book iii. chap. xvii. The itinerary is as follows, as near as I can make it out:—1. (Jan. 4) Ballyvourney; 2. Pobble O’Keefe (near Millstreet); 3. Ardpatrick (in Limerick); 4. Solloghead (near Limerick Junction); 5 and 6. Ballinakill (in Tipperary); 7. Latteragh (eight miles south of Nenagh); 8. Loughkeen; 9 and 10. Portland; 11. Aughrim (in Galway); 12. Ballinlough (in Roscommon); 13 and 14. Woods near Boyle; 15. Knockvicar; 16. Leitrim. The dates are made clear by Carew’s letter to the Privy Council, Jan. 22, 1603, in Carew.
[415] Tyrone to Mountjoy, Dec. 12/22, 1602, and March 19/29, 1603; Moryson, book iii. chap. i.; Pacata Hibernia, book iii. chap. xx.; Carew to the Privy Council, Jan. 22, in Carew, and Cecil’s letter to Carew, passim; O’Connor Sligo to Cecil, March 1, 1603.
[416] Docwra’s Narration, December; Bodley’s visit to Lecale in vol. ii. of Ulster Arch. Journal; Capt. Thomas Phillips to Cecil, July 27, 1602; Mayor and Sheriffs of Dublin to Cecil, Jan. 17, 1603; Mountjoy to Cecil, Jan. 8 and 20; Docwra to the Privy Council, Feb. 23.
[417] Moryson, part iii. book iii. chaps. i. and v.; O’Sullivan, tom. iii. lib. viii. cap. 6; Four Masters, 1603. In describing his visit to Lecale at the beginning of 1603, Bodley casually remarks that the Irish soldiers ate grass—vescuntur gramine. Moryson says the wild Irish ‘willingly eat the herb shamrock, being of a sharp taste, which as they run and are chased to and fro, they snatch like beasts out of the ditches.’ This passage is conclusive proof that the wood-sorrel was called shamrock in the sixteenth century; see above, note to chap. xxxix. Modern claimants to the title of shamrock are the white clover, the common trefoil (medicago lupulina), and the bog-bean (menyanthes trifoliata); but none of these are edible by men.
[418] Queen Elizabeth to King James VI., June or July, 1585, in Bruce’s Letters of those two sovereigns, also Dec. 2, Feb. 3, 1601-2, and ‘after July,’ 1602; James VI. to Tyrone, Aug. 10, 1597, in Lansdowne MSS.; Tyrone to James VI., April 10, 1600, in Scotch Calendar; and the letters printed in Ulster Arch. Journal, vol. v. pp. 205-8.
[419] Mountjoy to Cecil, Jan. 20, 1603; to Vice-Treasurer Carey, Jan. 25; Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, Feb. 26 (draft in Carew).
[420] Cecil to Mountjoy, Feb. 18, 1603, in Carew; Moryson, book iii. chap. ii.
[421] Moryson, book iii. chap. ii.