Nor can it be said that in the use of torture thus used to wring from the Irish clergy admissions to justify their execution, the authorities in Dublin acted without the knowledge or consent of the queen. Any such pretext is at once scattered to the winds by English records in the case of one of the most illustrious martyrs in the whole honored list of Ireland's witnesses for the faith—Dermod O'Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel.
"The birthplace of this glorious martyr was a little village in the diocese of Limerick, less than three miles from that city, called Lycodoon, where his parents lived respectably by farming, both of tillage and cattle; they were held in good estimation by their neighbors, both rich and poor, especially James Geraldine, Earl of Desmond.
"Having then been raised to the episcopacy by Gregory XIII., and named Archbishop of Cashel, he took his route toward Ireland."
At Waterford he was detected by a Protestant named Baal, on whose information he was pursued to the Castle of Slane, where he had, indeed, taken refuge for a time, but had proceeded further. When Lord Slane found himself in danger, he joined in the pursuit of the archbishop, and, overtaking him at Carrick-on-Suir, induced him to proceed to Dublin, where his arrival is noted by Archbishop Loftus and Sir H. Wallop, in a letter to Robert Beale, temporary chief secretary to the queen, dated Oct. 8th, 1583, and still preserved in the Public Record Office in London. In a subsequent letter, on the 10th of December, addressed to Sir Francis Walsingham, they say: "Among other letters directed to us, and brought by this last passage, we received one from your honor declaring her Majesty's pleasure for the proceeding with Dr. Hurley by torture or any other severe manner of proceeding to gain his knowledge of all foreign practices against her majesty's state, wherein we partly forebore to deal till now." Then they remark, "for that we want here either rack or other engine of torture to terrify him … the Tower of London should be a better school than the Castle of Dublin … we do wish that we had directions to send him thither."
The pretext here was shallow; there was wit enough in the dominant party in Ireland to invent any necessary racks. Walsingham evidently directed them to proceed in Dublin, and himself suggested the mode of torture. On the 7th of March, 1584, they again write, "We made commission to Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. Secretary Fenton to put him to the torture such as your honor advised us, which was, to toast his feet against the fire with hot boots." What these Walsingham boots were, we learn from contemporary statements taken down from eye-witnesses. "The executioners placed the archbishop's feet and calves in tin boots filled with oil; they then fastened his feet in wooden shackles or stocks, and placed fire under them. The boiling oil so penetrated the feet and legs that morsels of the skin and even flesh fell off and left the bone bare. The officer whose duty it was to preside over the torture, unused to such unheard-of suffering, and unable to look upon such an inhuman spectacle, or to hear the piteous cries of the innocent prelate, suddenly left his seat and quitted the place." (Pages 91-2.) All this failed to extort from him anything to justify his arraignment even, though the torture was continued till the executioners believed life extinct, and hastily endeavored to restore animation; for he "lost all voice and sense, and when taken out lay on the ground like dead." (Ib. 93.)
The lords justices were in great perplexity. The judges, on being consulted, had positively declared that, as no act of treason had been committed by him in Ireland, he could not by law be arraigned. Their opinion, still preserved in the Public Record Office, is given by our author, (p. 109.) Again they apply to Walsingham, and the whole passage is so curious that we cite it at length:
"And herein we thought good to remember your honor by way of our opinion that, considering how obstinate and wilful we find him every way, if he should be referred to a public trial, his impudent and clamorous denial might do great harm to the ill-affected here, who in troth have no small admiration of him. And yet, having had conference with some of the best lawyers in the land, we find that they make a scruple to arraign him here, for that his treasons were committed in foreign parts, the statute in that behalf being not here as it is in England. And therefore we think it not amiss (if it be allowed of there) to have him executed by martial law, against which he can have no just challenge, for that he hath neither lands nor goods, and as by that way may be avoided many harms, which by his presence, standing at ordinary trial, and retaining still his former impudence and negative protestations, he may do to the people."
The idea of any man impudently objecting to submit to the honor of being executed by martial law, when a trial at law must result in his acquittal, is indeed extraordinary, and sufficient to disquiet Christian rulers.
Elizabeth relieved them. A letter of April 29th, 1584, announced her majesty's resolution for the course to beholden with Hurley, namely, "that they should proceed to his execution (if it might be) by ordinary trial by law, or otherwise, by martial law."