The Clancarty heiress;
secretly married to Florence MacCarthy.
Among other devices for balancing the Desmond power in Munster, Elizabeth had made Donnell MacCarthy More Earl of Clancare, and Shane O’Neill had spoken very sarcastically of this attempt to turn a foolish chief into a ‘wise earl.’ His only legitimate son ran away to France, where he died, and all hereditary rights were then vested in his daughter Ellen, who became an important figure in the eyes of English and Irish fortune-hunters. It appears that Clancare sold his daughter to Sir Valentine Browne as a wife for his son Nicholas, Sir Thomas Norris having first given up the idea of wooing her. Sir Valentine was a mortgagee, for the earl had wasted his substance in riotous living, and in the hands of a family of undertakers and land-surveyors every claim of that sort would have its full value. In the eyes of the MacCarthies and of the heiress’s mother, who was a Desmond, the proposed match was a disparagement, and early in 1589 a private marriage was celebrated between Lady Ellen and Florence MacCarthy, who had probably come from London on purpose. Sir Nicholas Browne afterwards married a daughter of O’Sullivan Bere. The heiress does not seem to have been much consulted, and a marriage which began so romantically was not in the end even moderately happy. In 1599 she distrusted her husband, who called her ‘foolish and froward,’ and not long afterwards she was practically a spy upon his actions.
Mac Carthy politics.
Florence and Donnell MacCarthy.
Florence was Tanist of Carbery, which had passed to his uncle, and the result of his runaway match would be to unite the territories of MacCarthy Reagh and MacCarthy More in one hand. Now that the Desmonds were gone, a MacCarthy on this scale would be the strongest man in Munster. To break up these great estates was a fixed object with the English Government, and Florence was sent as prisoner to England, where he remained for several years. His wife escaped from Cork, hid for a long time among her people, and then joined her husband in London. The clans generally acknowledged him as MacCarthy More, but there was another claimant in the person of Clancare’s illegitimate son Donnell, who had many friends among the people, and who was probably his father’s favourite. A peaceable inhabitant was murdered by this spirited young man, whom he had ventured to reprove for his Irish extortions, and who supported himself and his band of followers by promiscuous robbery. ‘It is thought,’ said St. Leger, ‘that this detestable murder was committed by the Earl’s consent, for that the party murdered would not relieve him with money, to bear out his drunken charges at Dublin.’ Florence, on the contrary, was a scholar, and a man who, notwithstanding his gigantic stature, used his pen more readily than his sword. His accomplishments, and the very hard treatment he received, have made him interesting, but there was nothing heroic about him. He was an astute Irishman, and while English writers could rightly accuse him of treasonable practices, his rival Donnell, called him ‘a damned counterfeit Englishman, whose only study and practice was to deceive and betray all the Irish in Ireland.’[190]
Fitzwilliam and the MacMahons.
In June 1589 Sir Ross MacMahon, chief of Monaghan, died without heirs male. He held of the Queen by letters patent, and was regarded as MacMahon, and also as feudal grantee of the whole country, except the districts comprised in the modern barony of Farney, which had been granted to Walter, Earl of Essex. He was liable to a rent of 400 beeves and to certain services. His brother Hugh Roe at once claimed his inheritance. Fitzwilliam’s great object was to break up these principal chiefries into moderate estates, and he thought this a good opportunity. Brian MacHugh Oge also claimed to be MacMahon, but upon purely Celtic grounds, and very much upon the strength of 500 or 600 armed men whom he found means to pay. Fitzwilliam persuaded Hugh Roe that he had not much chance of success, and brought him to agree to a division, but his kinsmen refused, since each gentleman of the name claimed to be the MacMahon himself. Fitzwilliam then acknowledged Hugh Roe as chief, and sent him 400 foot and 40 horse. Brian MacHugh was in possession of Leck Hill and of the stone upon which MacMahons were inaugurated, and was supported by Tyrone and by Hugh Maguire, who had just become chief of Fermanagh upon the death of his father Cuconnaught. On the approach of the Queen’s troops he fled into O’Rourke’s country, and left Hugh Roe in possession. Returning a few days later with help from O’Rourke or Maguire, he drove his rival from Clones, and killed a few soldiers, but without coming into collision with the main body. Hugh Roe did, however, maintain himself, but soon showed that he had no intention of abandoning native customs. He rescued prisoners from the sheriff of Monaghan, drove cattle in Farney, burned houses, and behaved himself generally like a spirited Irish chieftain. These offences legally involved a forfeiture of his patent, and Fitzwilliam found means to arrest him. Tyrone looked upon the cattle-stealing merely as ‘distraining for his right according to custom,’ but Fitzwilliam saw another chance of effecting the much desired partition. The Queen was inclined to think that MacMahon had committed nothing more than ‘such march offences as are ever ordinarily committed in that realm,’ that great caution should be used in punishing a man who undoubtedly depended on the Crown, and that Brian MacHugh in particular was not to be preferred. In the end Hugh Roe was tried and executed at Monaghan. In 1591 the country, with the exception of Farney, was divided between six MacMahons and MacKenna, the chief of Trough. The rent reserved to the Queen was 7s. 6d. for every sixty acres. An ample demesne was assigned to each, and those holding land under them, at a rent of 12s. 6d. for every sixty acres, were called freeholders. A seneschal was appointed to represent the Crown. Brian MacHugh was established in Dartrey, and Ever MacCoolie in Cremorne. The church-lands, and only the church-lands, were leased to private speculators, but the settlement was not destined to remain unquestioned.
Charge of corruption.