Wanderings of Cuellar.
A narrow escape.
A friendly bishop.
Cuellar helped MacClancy to defend his castle against the Lord Deputy, and the chief was as unwilling to let him go as the smith had been. He escaped with four other Spaniards, during the first days of the new year, and after three weeks’ hardship in the mountains found himself at Dunluce in Antrim, where Alonso de Leyva had been lost. He was told that his only chance of a passage to Scotland was by some boats belonging to O’Cahan, which were expected to sail soon. The wound in his leg had broken out afresh, and he was unable to stand for some days. His companions left him to shift for himself, and after a painful walk to Coleraine he found that the boats had gone. There was a garrison there, and he had to take shelter in a mountain hut, where some women compassionately nursed him. In six weeks his wound was well enough to enable him to seek an interview with O’Cahan, but that chief, who was afraid to help any Spaniard, had gone upon a foray with the soldiers. ‘I was now,’ he says, ‘able to show myself in the town, which was of thatched houses, and there were some very pretty girls, with whom I struck up a great friendship and often visited their house to converse. One afternoon when I was there, two young Englishmen came in, and one of them, who was a sergeant, asked me if I was a Spaniard, and what I did there. I said yes, and that I was one of Don Alonso de Luzon’s soldiers who had surrendered, that my bad leg had prevented me from going with the rest, and that I was at their service to do their bidding. They said they hoped soon to take me with them to Dublin, where there were many Spaniards of note in prison. I replied that I could not walk, but was very willing to accompany them. They then sent for a horse, and their suspicions being set at rest, they began to romp with the girls. The mother made me signs to leave, which I did very quickly, jumping over ditches and going through thick covert till I came within view of O’Cahan’s castle. At nightfall I followed a road which led me to a great lagoon.’ This was probably Lough Foyle, and here he was befriended by herdsmen, one of whom, after a visit to Coleraine, told him that he had seen the two Englishmen ‘raging in search’ of him. He kept his counsel, but advised Cuellar to remove into the mountains. He was conducted to the hiding-place of a bishop, ‘a very good Christian,’ who prudently dressed like the country folk. ‘I assure you,’ writes the devout Spaniard, ‘that I could not restrain my tears when I came to kiss his hand.’ It seems almost certain that this was Redmond O’Gallagher, papal bishop of Derry and acting Primate, one of the three Irish prelates who had attended the Council of Trent. He had twelve other Spaniards with him, and by his help Cuellar managed to reach Scotland. ‘He was a reverend and just man,’ says the latter; ‘may God’s hand keep him free from his enemies.’
Final escape of Cuellar.
Four shiploads of castaways from the Armada were ultimately despatched from Scotland, and were not molested by the English, to whom they were no longer dangerous; but Cuellar was wrecked once more near Dunkirk, and saw 270 of his companions butchered by the Dutch. At last, in October 1589, fourteen months after his narrow escape from swinging at the Duke of Medina Sidonia’s yard-arm, did this much-enduring man reach Antwerp, which was then in the hands of Alexander Farnese, and from thence he wrote the account which has been so largely used.[178]
More than twenty ships lost in Ireland
It is not possible to trace the history of every ship lost on the Irish coast. Bingham, in a letter written when all was over, says twelve ships were wrecked in his province, which included Clare, and that probably two or three more foundered about various islands. He particularly excluded those lost in Ulster and Munster. In a paper signed by Secretary Fenton the total number of vessels lost is given as eighteen, but full accounts had not yet come in, and that number certainly falls short of the truth. Cuellar says that more than twenty were lost in the kingdom of Ireland, with all the chivalry and flower of the Armada.[179]