[199] Walsingham to Fitzwilliam, July 8, 1589; Fitzwilliam to Burghley, Aug. 9, Sept. 2, Oct. 6, and Dec. 19; Summary of rebellion by John Merbury, Aug. 1. Fitzwilliam calls Bingham ‘atheist,’ but Bishop Jones (to Burghley, May 13) said he was ‘a gentleman of great value, and one that feareth God.’ The Bishop sums up the causes of his great unpopularity under four heads:—1. Hanging gentlemen by martial law. 2. Commissions to prosecute protected persons by fire and sword. 3. Dispossessing men from their land by ‘provincial orders’ without legal trial. 4. Oppression by the soldiers.
[200] Bingham to Walsingham, June 24, 1589; Bingham’s answer to charges, Nov.; Sir N. White to Burghley, Dec. 5; Bishop Jones to Burghley, Dec. 6, and to Walsingham, Dec. 8; Loftus to Walsingham, Dec. 8; Fitzwilliam to Burghley, Dec. 13.
[201] The composition with O’Rourke, and much else concerning Leitrim, may be read in Hardiman’s notes to O’Flaherty’s Western Connaught, pp. 346-352; Bingham’s Discourse, July 1587; Bingham to Burghley, May 15 and 28, 1588; John Crofton and others to Bingham, Oct. 19, 1588; Bingham to Fitzwilliam, March 6, 1589; Fitzwilliam to Burghley, with enclosures, April 30; John Merbury to Burghley, Sept. 27, 1589.
[202] Bingham to Burghley, April 6, 1589; Fitzwilliam to Burghley, April 9, 1589, and Oct. 31, 1591; John Ball’s declaration, April 1590 (No. 96); John Bingham to Burghley, Aug. 8, 1591.
[203] Captain Nicholas Mordaunt to Fitzwilliam, May 11, 1589; Fitzwilliam to Burghley, Oct. 6; Account of O’Rourke’s country by Fenton and Burghley, Feb. 1592 (No. 43).
[204] Theobald Dillon to Burghley, Oct. 18, 1589; Edward Whyte to Sir N. White, Oct. 20; the Queen to Fitzwilliam, Nov. 19; Fitzwilliam to Burghley, Dec. 19; to the Privy Council, Jan. 27 and March 2 and 24, 1590, with enclosures; Bingham to Burghley, April 7.
[205] Fitzwilliam to Burghley, March 24, 1590, with enclosures; Bingham to Burghley, April 23; Camden. Bruce’s Letters of Elizabeth and James VI., April 1591. The charges against O’Rourke are detailed in the Egerton Papers; O’Sullivan Bere, tom. iii. lib. ii. cap. 1; Four Masters, 1590 and 1591. It is stated in O’Donovan’s notes to the Annals, and in many other places, that O’Rourke begged to be hanged with a withe, and Bacon’s essays are given as an authority; but this is not what Bacon says. His words (No. 39, ‘Of Custom and Education’) are: ‘I remember in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s time of England, an Irish rebel condemned put up a petition to the Deputy that he might be hanged in a withe and not in a halter, because it had been so used with former rebels.’
[206] Relation by Carew, May 28, 1590, and his letters of May 31 and July 26 to Burghley, Raleigh, and Heneage, all in Carew. The Master of the Ordnance evidently sympathises with the poor soldiers. See also Loftus to Hatton and Burghley, May 31.
[207] Walsingham’s opinion and other papers in April 1587; Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, March 31 and May 15, 1589; Kildare to Burghley, May 31, 1590; Tyrone’s answer to Articles, March 19, 1590. All Fitzwilliam’s letters during this period bear out the text; see the Four Masters, who say Hugh Gavelagh was greatly lamented, and O’Donovan’s notes under 1590.
[208] Archbishop Magrath’s report to the Queen, May 30, 1592; for Sir Arthur O’Neill see Tirlogh Luineach’s petition, July 1, 1587; for the MacShanes see Tyrone’s answer to Articles, March 19, 1590, and the opinion of Coke, S.G., Aug. 13, 1592.