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IRELAND UNDER THE STUARTS

Vol. I.

By the same Author

IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS

Vols. I. and II.—From the First Invasion of the Northmen to the year 1578.

8vo. 32s.

Vol. III.—1578-1603. 8vo. 18s.

LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.

London, New York, Bombay, and Calcutta

IRELAND
UNDER THE STUARTS

AND

DURING THE INTERREGNUM

BY

RICHARD BAGWELL, M.A.

AUTHOR OF ‘IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS’

Vol. I. 1603-1642

WITH MAP

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA

1909

All rights reserved

[PREFACE]

These volumes have been written at such times and seasons as could be made available during an active life in Ireland, and this may induce critics to take a merciful view of their many shortcomings. I have been diligent, but there is still much extant manuscript material which I have been unable to use. Ireland is the land of violent and persistent party feeling, and no party will be pleased with the present work, for I hold with an ancient critic that the true function of history is to bring out the facts and not to maintain a thesis. If I am spared to finish the third volume, it will bring the narrative down to the Revolution, and will contain chapters on the Church or Churches and on the social state of Ireland.

The dates of all documents relied on have been given, and unless it is otherwise stated they are among the Irish State Papers calendared from 1603 to 1660. Many papers, chiefly, but not exclusively, from the Carte manuscripts, were printed by Sir J. T. Gilbert in the ‘Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland,’ or in the ‘History of the Confederation and War in Ireland.’ As these collections are more generally accessible than the Bodleian Library, I have referred to them as far as they go. The ‘Aphorismical Discovery,’ which forms the nucleus of the first, is cited under that title, and the narrative of Bellings in the second under his name. The original Carte papers at Oxford have been often consulted, as well as the transcripts in the Public Record Office, while the manuscripts in the British Museum and in Trinity College, Dublin, have not been neglected. In the case of old tracts and newsletters, of which I have read a great many, dates and titles are given.

The late Lord Fitzwilliam did not consider it consistent with his duty to let Dr. Gardiner see the Strafford correspondence preserved at Wentworth Woodhouse, and my application to his successor has also been refused. No restriction seems to have been imposed on the editors of Laud’s works, of which the last instalment was published as late as 1860. All the Archbishop’s letters are printed, Strafford’s being omitted only because they would have taken too much room. In 1739 Dr. William Knowler, working under Lord Malton’s directions, published the well-known Strafford Letters, and Mr. Firth has thrown fresh light upon them by printing some of the editor’s correspondence in the ninth volume of the ‘Camden Miscellany.’ ‘There is,’ Knowler wrote, ‘four or five times the number of letters uncopied for one transcribed, and yet I believe those that shall glean them over again won’t find many things material omitted.’ Yet Laud’s editors thought it worth while to publish a good deal of what had been left out, and probably there is still something to be done.

I have made some examination of the famous depositions in Trinity College, Dublin, concerning the rebellion of 1641, but it is unnecessary to repeat Miss Hickson’s arguments, which appear to me conclusive. The documents may be pronounced genuine in the sense that they really are what they profess to be, but they are all more or less ex parte statements, and the witnesses were not cross-examined. Deductions may be made on these grounds, especially in the case of numerical estimates, but there is a vast mass of other evidence as to the main facts. The matter is discussed pretty fully in Chapter XX.

It is unnecessary to describe here the various contemporary histories and memoirs referred to in the text and notes. Sir Richard Cox’s ‘Hibernia Anglicana’ should be used with caution. Cox was a strong partisan, but he was not a liar, and he wrote at a time when there were still living witnesses.

The maps at the beginning of each volume are intended as helps to the reader, and make no pretension to completeness. Fuller details as to the various colonies or plantations may be found in Mr. Dunlop’s map, No. 31 in the Oxford Historical Atlas. As to the short-lived Cromwellian settlement much may be learned from the map in Gardiner’s ‘Commonwealth and Protectorate,’ iii. 312, and from that in Lord Fitzmaurice’s ‘Life of Petty.’ The more lasting arrangements made after 1660 will be the subject of full discussion in my third volume. The innumerable sieges, battles and skirmishes from 1641 to 1653 may be traced in any large map of Ireland, and cannot be shown in a small one. The state of affairs at the critical moment of the first truce in 1643 is illustrated by the map in Gardiner’s ‘Great Civil War,’ i. 264.

My best thanks are due to Mrs. Shirley for lending me fourteen volumes of tracts concerning the rebellion from the library at Lough Fea. They have been very useful.

I received some valuable hints from my friend, the late C. Litton Falkiner, whose untimely death is a loss to Ireland.

Marlfield, Clonmel:

December 26, 1908.

[CONTENTS]

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME

MAP

GEORGE PHILIP & SON L^TD.

Longmans. Green & Co., London, New York, Bombay & Calcutta.

IRELAND UNDER THE STUARTS

[CHAPTER I]
MOUNTJOY AND CAREY, 1603-1605

Accession of James. The new era.

Submission of Tyrone.

The change from Elizabeth to James I. marks the transition from an heroic age to one very much the reverse. The new court was scandalous, and after the younger Cecil’s death public affairs were administered by a smaller race of men, not one of whom gained the love or admiration of his countrymen. Raleigh, the typical Elizabethan, spent thirteen years in the Tower, and died on the scaffold. But outside the sphere of politics the first Stuart reign must be regarded with interest, for it saw the production of Shakespeare’s finest plays and of Bacon’s chief works. Meanwhile England had peace, and silently prepared for the great struggle. Eliot and Pym, Wentworth and Cromwell, were all young men, and Milton was born some three years before Prospero drowned his book. The great Queen died at Richmond very early on March 24. By nine o’clock Sir Robert Carey was spurring northwards with the news, and King James was proclaimed in London the same morning. It was not until the next day that Cecil found time to send Sir Henry Danvers to Ireland, but the news had preceded the official messenger by a full week, so that Mountjoy was quite prepared. Danvers landed at Dublin on April 5, and within an hour after the delivery of his letters King James was duly proclaimed. Oddly enough, Tyrone, who had reached Dublin the day before, was the only peer of Ireland present, and he signed the proclamation which was circulated in the country. Three days later he made submission on his knees to the new sovereign, ‘solemnly swearing upon a book to perform every part thereof, as much as lay in his power; and if he could not perform any part thereof he vowed to put his body into the King’s hands, to be disposed at his pleasure.’ The earl’s submission was ample in substance, and humble enough in form; but Sir William Godolphin, who had brought him to Dublin, warned the English Government that he would not remain a good subject unless he were treated reasonably.[1]

Excitement about the King’s religion.

Agitation in the towns.

Neither his relations with his own mother nor with Queen Elizabeth had given any reason to suppose that the new king was attached to the religion of Rome. Tyrone had offered his services to James years before, and was told that he would be reminded of this when it should please God ‘to call our sister the Queen of England to death.’ After his raid in Munster Tyrone wrote in rather a triumphant strain, but still obsequiously, to the King of Scots. This did not prevent James from offering his help to Elizabeth when the Spaniards took Kinsale, for which she thanked him. A rumour that his Majesty was a Catholic was nevertheless widely circulated in Ireland, and caused a strange ferment in the corporate towns. Much stress was also laid upon his descent from ancient Irish kings. During the Queen’s later years mass had been freely celebrated in private houses, and a strong effort was now generally made to celebrate it publicly in the churches. Jesuits, seminaries, and friars, says the chronicler Farmer, ‘now came abroad in open show, bringing forth old rotten stocks and stones of images, &c.’ The agitation was strong in Kilkenny, Thomastown, Waterford, Limerick, Cork, and in the smaller Munster towns; and even Drogheda, ‘which since the conquest was never spotted with the least jot of disloyalty,’ did not altogether escape the contagion. In the latter town a chapel had long been connived at, but the municipal officers firmly repressed the agitation and even committed a man who had ventured to express a hope of open toleration. Mountjoy declared himself satisfied, but a note in his hand shows that he was still suspicious. Probably he thought it wiser not to have north and south upon his hands at the same time.[2]

Disturbances at Kilkenny and Thomastown.

Kilkenny and other towns submit.

On the evening of March 26, Carey reached Holyrood with the news of Queen Elizabeth’s death, and on the 28th Mountjoy was appointed Lord Deputy by Privy Seal. Before this was known in Ireland the Council there had elected him Lord Justice according to ancient precedent; so that practically there was no interregnum. Ulster was now almost quiet, and the Viceroy could draw enough troops from thence to make any resistance by the corporate towns quite hopeless. On April 27 he marched southwards with about 1,200 foot, of whom one-third were Irish, and 200 horse. At Leighlin he was joined by Ormonde, who had been opposed by the Kilkenny people acting under the advice of Dr. James White of Waterford, a Jesuit, and of a Dominican friar named Edmund Barry, who was said to be James Fitzmaurice’s son. Ormonde was accompanied by Sir Richard Shee, the sovereign, who was an adherent of his, and Mountjoy was easily induced to pardon the townsmen upon their making humble submission. Dr. White was vicar-apostolic in Waterford, and his authority seems to have been recognised in Ossory also, there being at this time no papal bishop in either diocese. He forbade the people to hear mass privately, and enjoined them to celebrate it openly in the churches, some of which he reconsecrated. Barry went so far as to head a mob in attacking the suppressed convent of his order, which was used as a sessions-house. The benches and fittings were broken up, and the conqueror said mass in the desecrated church. This friar came to Mountjoy, said that he had believed himself to be acting in a way agreeable to the King, and promised to offend no further now that his Majesty’s pleasure to the contrary was known. The Lord Deputy did not enter Kilkenny, but went straight to Thomastown, which had behaved in the same way. The town being small and penitent, it was thought punishment enough that the army should halt there for the night. Wexford had already fully submitted by letter, and Mountjoy marched from Thomastown to within four miles of Waterford, and there he encamped on the fourth day after leaving Dublin.[3]

Mountjoy at Waterford.

Odium theologicum

An absolute monarch.

The Suir at Waterford was unbridged until 1794, and the citizens doubtless thought that Mountjoy would be long delayed upon the left bank. But Ormonde, who had proclaimed King James at Carrick some weeks before, now brought enough boats from that place to carry over the whole army. Mountjoy encamped at Gracedieu, about a mile and a half above the city. There could now be no question of resistance, but some of the citizens came out and pleaded that by King John’s charter they were not obliged to admit either English rebel or Irish enemy, though they would receive the Deputy and his suite. As against a viceroy this argument was in truth ridiculous, and the Lord Deputy had only to say that his was the army which had suppressed both rebels and enemies. If resistance were offered he would cut King John’s charter with King James’s sword. It was then urged that the mayor had no force to restrain the mob unless the popular leaders could be gained over. Mountjoy consented to see Dr. White—who had just preached a sermon at St. Patrick’s, in which he called Queen Elizabeth Jezebel—and a Dominican friar who had acted with him. Sir Nicholas Walsh the recorder had been pulled down from the market cross when he attempted to proclaim King James, and Sir Richard Aylward, who was a Protestant, had escaped with difficulty, some citizens expressing regret that they had not both lost their heads. Walsh thought he owed his preservation more to having relations among the crowd than to any dregs of loyal compunction. The Jesuit and the Dominican now came to the camp in full canonicals and with a cross borne before them, which Mountjoy at once ordered to be lowered. White fell on his knees, protesting his loyalty and acknowledging the King’s right. A discussion arose as to the lawfulness of resistance to the royal authority, and the book learning which Essex had made a reproach to Mountjoy now stood him in good stead. According to one not very probable account, the Lord Deputy had a copy of St. Augustine in his tent, and convicted White of misquoting that great authority. ‘My master,’ he said, ‘is by right of descent an absolute King, subject to no prince or power upon the earth; and if it be lawful for his subjects upon any cause to raise arms against him, and deprive him of his regal authority, he is not then an absolute King, but hath only precarium imperium. This is our opinion of the Church of England, and in this point many of your own great doctors agree with us.’ James was of course no absolute king in our sense of the word, for he had no power to impose taxes; but the long reign of Elizabeth, the wisdom which had on the whole distinguished her, and the terrible dangers from which she saved England, had taught men to look upon the sceptre as the only protection against anarchy or foreign rule. Experience of Stuart kingcraft was destined to modify public opinion.[4]

Submission of Waterford.

White was allowed to return to Waterford, being plainly told that he would be proclaimed a traitor unless he pronounced it unlawful for subjects to resist their sovereign. The prospect of being hanged by martial law quickened his theological perceptions, and he came back after nightfall with the required declaration. Lord Power also came to make peace for the townsmen, and Mountjoy promised to intercede for them with the King. Next morning the gates were occupied, at one of which the acting mayor surrendered the keys and the civic sword. The latter was restored to the corporation, but the keys were handed to the provost-martial. Sir Richard Aylward was brought back in triumph, bearing the King’s sword before the Viceroy, who grimly remarked that he would leave a garrison of 150 men in one of the gate-towers so that the mob might not again prove too strong for the mayor. An oath of allegiance was generally taken even by the priests, but White and two other Jesuits seem to have avoided putting their names to it. Mountjoy notes with just pride that his soldiers, drawn out of the hungry north and excited by the hope of plunder, did not do one pennyworth of mischief in the city, though provisions were exorbitantly dear. The place was at their mercy all day, but the whole force, except the 150 men, evacuated it in perfect order before nightfall.[5]

Religious differences in the Pale and elsewhere.

The Irish Catholics were at this time more or less persecuted, and toleration is so excellent a thing that the historical conscience is likely to be in favour of those who claimed it. But in the then state of Ireland it is doubtful whether the public exercise of both religions was possible. The sovereign of Wexford said his fellow townsmen would have been satisfied with the use of one church without any meddling with tithes or other property of the Establishment. But the ultramontane priests, though they might have provisionally accepted this in some large towns, aimed at complete supremacy, and they were the real popular guides. Mr. Pillsworth, the parson of Naas, when he saw the people flocking to high mass, fled to Dublin and thence to England. He may have been a timid man, but his terror was not altogether unfounded. At Navan, another clergyman named Sotherne, accompanied by several gentlemen, saw two friars in the dress of their order and began to question them in the King’s name. ‘James, King of Scotland,’ said the elder of the two in Latin, ‘is a heretic; may he perish with thee and with all who have authority under him.’ Sotherne charged him with high treason, but the constable was foiled by the mob who gathered round him. ‘Thy companions,’ said the friar, ‘are no Christians since they suffer thee among them,’ and he repeated this several times in Irish for the benefit of the bystanders. A Mr. Wafer, who said he had known the friar for twenty years, and that he was an honest man, rebuked Sotherne as a ‘busy companion,’ and pointedly observed that he would get no witnesses to support his charge of treason. As some of the crowd seemed bent on violence, Sotherne bade the constable do nothing for this time, and so returned to his lodging. He remonstrated afterwards with Wafer, who said that he ‘thought no less, but I would grow a promoter, and that was cousin-german to a knave; wishing his curse upon all those that would assist in apprehending either friar or priest.’ And popular opinion was entirely on Mr. Wafer’s side.[6]

A Jesuit report on Ireland.

But perhaps the best testimony is that of two Irish Jesuits, writing to their own general, and not intending that profane eyes should ever see what they had written:—‘From our country we learn for certain that the Queen of England’s death being known in Waterford, Cork, and Clonmel, principal towns of the kingdom, the ministers’ books were burned and the ministers themselves hunted away, and that thereupon masses and processions were celebrated as frequently and upon as grand a scale as in Rome herself. The Viceroy did not like this, and sent soldiers to garrison those towns, as he supposed, but the beauty of it is that those very soldiers vied with each other in attending masses and Catholic sermons. In the metropolitan city of Cashel, to which we belong, there was one solitary English heretic, and, on the news of the Queen’s death being received, they threatened him with fire and every other torment if he would not be converted. Fearing to be well scorched he made himself a Catholic, whereupon the townsmen burned his house, so that even a heretic’s house should not remain in their city. But when the Viceroy came near enough to threaten Cashel, and the Englishmen came forward to accuse the townsmen, he merely ordered them to rebuild the house at their own expense.... I only beg your Paternity to show this letter to the most illustrious and most reverend Primate of Armagh (Peter Lombard), and to excuse me for not having written to him specially because I am unwilling to multiply letters in these dangerous times.’[7]

Insurrectionary movement at Cork.

Refusal to proclaim King James.

Tardy submission

The mere approach of Mountjoy was enough to overawe Cashel, Clonmel, and the other inland towns. Limerick was bridled by the castle, and the disorders there did not come to much. But at Cork things took a much more serious turn. When leaving Ireland Carew had left his presidential authority in the hands of Commissioners, of whom Sir Charles Wilmot was the chief. The corporation of Cork now declared that the Commissioners’ authority ceased on the demise of the Crown, and that they were sovereign within their own liberties. Captain Robert Morgan arrived at Cork on April 11 with a copy of the proclamation and orders for the Commissioners from Mountjoy. Wilmot was in Kerry stamping out the embers of Lord Fitzmaurice’s insurrection, and Sir George Thornton, who was next in rank, called upon the civic authorities to proclaim King James. Thomas Sarsfield was mayor, and he might have obeyed but for the advice of William Meade, the recorder, who defied Thornton to exercise any authority within the city, reminding him that too great alacrity in proclaiming Perkin Warbeck had brought great evils upon the kingdom. Being rebuked by Boyle for breaking out into violent language, he replied that there were thousands ready to break out. Power was claimed under the charter to delay for some days, and Meade sent a messenger to Waterford for information as though the Lord Deputy’s letters were unworthy of credit. Captain Morgan vainly urged that he had himself been present when Ormonde, the most cautious of men, had proclaimed the King at Carrick-on-Suir. Thornton and the other Commissioners, including Chief Justice Walsh and Saxey the provincial Chief Justice, were kept walking about in the streets while the corporation wasted time, and at last they were told that no answer could be given until next day. The mayor and recorder protested their loyalty, but pretended among other things that time was necessary to enable them to make due preparation. In vain did Thornton and his legal advisers insist on the danger of delay, and upon the absurdity of Cork refusing to do what London and Dublin had done instantly. Meade would listen to nothing; and one clear day having elapsed since Morgan’s arrival, Thornton went with his colleagues and about 800 persons to the top of a hill outside the town, where he solemnly proclaimed King James. Lord Roche was present, and the country folk seemed quite satisfied. The mayor soon followed suit at the market cross. The ceremonial of which the corporation had made so much was only the drinking of a hogshead of wine by the people, and no doubt that was a function which the citizens were always ready to perform at the shortest notice.[8]

Cork in possession of the Recusants.

Mass was now openly celebrated, the churches reconsecrated in the recorder’s presence, and the Ten Commandments in the cathedral scraped out so as to make some old pictures visible. The town was full of priests and friars, one of whom claimed legatine authority, and ‘they had the cross carried like a standard before them throughout the streets,’ every one being forced to reverence it. It was openly preached that James was no perfect king until he had been confirmed by the Pope, and that the Infanta’s title was in any case better. Gradually these tumultuary proceedings ripened into open insurrection, and 200 young men in two companies were ordered to be armed and maintained by the citizens. It was indeed proposed to arm the whole population from twelve to twenty-four years, but there was not time for this. Lieutenant Christopher Murrough, who had served the League in France, was active during the whole disturbance. The mayor, who vacillated between expressions of loyalty and acts of disrespect to the new sovereign, had evidently the idea of a free city in his head, and said he was ‘like the slavish Duke of Venice and could not rule the multitude.’[9]

A street procession.

‘I myself,’ says an eye-witness, ‘saw in Cork on Good Friday a procession wherein priests and friars came out of Christ’s Church with the mayor and aldermen, and best of citizens going along the streets from gate to gate all singing, and about forty young men counterfeiting to whip themselves. I must needs say counterfeiting because I saw them (although bare-footed and bare-legged), yet their breeches and doublets were upon them, and over that again fair white sheets, everyone having a counterfeit whip in his hand—I say a counterfeit whip because they are made of little white sticks, everyone having four or five strings of soft white leather neither twisted nor knotted—and always as their chief priest ended some verses which he sung in Latin these counterfeits would answer miserere mei, and therewith lay about their shoulders, sides, and backs with those counterfeit whips; but I never saw one drop of blood drawn, therefore their superstition is far worse than the Spaniards’, who do use such whipping upon their bare skin, that the blood doth follow in abundance, which they do in a blind zeal, and yet it is far better than those counterfeits did.’[10]

The citizens arm themselves,

And bombard Shandon.

Cork was then a walled town, but being commanded by high ground can never have been strong. Outside the south gate and bridge and not far from where the Passage railway station now stands Carew had begun to build a fort with the double object of overawing the town and of intercepting a foreign enemy. After the battle of Kinsale the work had been discontinued, and no guns were mounted. The north gate was commanded by Shandon Castle, which was in safe hands. The east and west sides of the city were bounded by the river, which ran among marshy islands. The approach from the open sea was partly protected by a fort on Haulbowline Island, at the point where the Lee begins finally to widen out into the great harbour, and the seditious citizens had visions of destroying this stronghold, which the recorder pronounced useless and hurtful to the corporation. Inside the town and near the north gate was an old tower known as Skiddy’s Castle, used as a magazine for ammunition and provisions. The citizens refused to allow stores to be carried out to the soldiers and at the same time obliged them to remain outside. One alleged grievance was that two guns belonging to the corporation were detained at Haulbowline, and Thornton against Boyle’s advice exchanged them for two in the town which belonged to the King. Lieutenant Murrough was placed in charge of Skiddy’s Castle, every Englishman’s house was searched for powder, ‘a priest being forward in each of these several searches,’ and the inmates expected a general massacre. Sir George Thornton left the town, Lady Carew took refuge in Shandon, and Lord Thomond’s company was sent for. Wilmot arrived with his men when the disturbances had lasted for more than a week, but the townsmen would not listen to reason, and began to demolish Carew’s unfinished fort. The recorder admitted that he had instigated this act of violence. Wilmot took forcible possession of the work, but forbade firing into the town on pain of death. The inhabitants then broke out into open war, sent round shot through the Bishop’s palace where the Commissioners lodged, and killed a clergyman who was walking past. They severely cannonaded Shandon, but, as Lady Carew reported, ‘never did any harm to wall or creature in it,’ and did not frighten her in the least.

On May 5 Thornton brought up a piece of Spanish artillery from Haulbowline, and when three or four shots had pierced houses inside the walls, a truce was made. Five days later Mountjoy arrived.[11]

Violent proceedings of the citizens.

The question of a legal toleration for the Roman Catholics and of municipal freedom for the town had been carefully mixed up together, and the possession of all Government stores by the citizens made the rising troublesome for the moment if not actually formidable. The chief commissary, Mr. Allen Apsley, was the mayor’s prisoner from April 28 to May 10, and his evidence fortunately exists. First there was an attempt to get the troops out of the neighbourhood by refusing provisions which were undoubtedly the King’s property. At last it was agreed that the stores should be removed by water to Kinsale, but the opportunity was taken to extort an extravagant freight, and when the vessel was laden she was not allowed to leave the quay. After Wilmot’s arrival on April 20 or 21, it was pretended that he wished to get possession of the town by treachery, and the mayor said he was ‘as good a man and as good a gentleman as Sir Charles Wilmot, if the King would but knight him, and give him 200 men in pay, and the like idle comparisons.’ Four days later this valiant doge had guns mounted on the gates, and the provisions and powder were disembarked again. The mayor first tried to make Apsley swear to answer all his questions, and on his refusal confined him to his own house. Two days later the recorder put him into the common gaol, and bail was refused. There seems to have been an attempt to make out that Apsley had committed treason by helping Wilmot to get possession of the stores, but of this even there was no proof.[12]

Cork garrisoned by Mountjoy.

Meade acquitted by a jury.

Meade and his party strongly urged that Mountjoy should be forcibly resisted, but more prudent counsels prevailed, and the town had to receive a garrison of 1,000 men. The chief points having been occupied by his soldiers, the Lord Deputy entered by the north gate, and saw ploughs ranged on both sides of the street as if to show that the extortion of the soldiers had made the land lie idle. The old leaguer Murrough, a schoolmaster named Owen MacRedmond, who had openly maintained the Infanta’s title, and William Bowler, a brogue-maker, were hanged by martial law. The recorder, who had land, was reserved for trial, and was ultimately acquitted by a jury at Youghal, though he was undoubtedly guilty of treason by levying war. The foreman was fined 200l. and the rest 100l. apiece, but it became evident that no verdict could be expected in any case where matters of religion might be supposed in question. Meade went abroad and remained in the Spanish dominions for many years. He is heard of at Naples, too poor to buy clothes for a servant, but in 1607 he was at Barcelona and receiving a pension of 11l. per month. In 1611 he wrote a letter of advice to the Catholics of Munster, grounded on the Act 2 Eliz., chap. 2, in which he showed that they were not bound to go to church, but the attempt to enforce attendance had then been practically abandoned.[13]

Departure of Mountjoy. Carey Deputy.

Sir John Davies Solicitor-General.

Mountjoy left Ireland on June 2, 1604, after being sworn in as Lord Lieutenant, and he never returned. He was created Earl of Devonshire, and continued till his death to have a decisive voice in the affairs of the country which he had reduced. Vice-Treasurer Sir George Carey was made Deputy, and was at once engaged with the currency question, for the state of the coinage had furnished a pretext to the Munster malcontents, and may really have had something to do with their late proceedings. He soon had the help of Sir John Davies, a native of Wiltshire, whose name is inseparably connected with Irish history, but who had been hitherto better known as a poet than as a statesman. It was perhaps the striking example of Hatton’s promotion that made the young barrister sing of dancing, but it was a poem on the immortality of the soul which attracted the King’s attention. Devonshire wished him to be made Solicitor-General for Ireland, and James readily complied. He arrived in November, and found the country richer than he supposed after all the wars, but suffering from the uncertainty caused by a base coinage.

Reform of the currency.

The money issued in 1601 contained only 25 per cent. of silver, but it was easily counterfeited with a much greater alloy, and interested people gave out that it contained no silver at all. Soon after his accession James consented to revert to the old practice of Ireland, and to establish a currency containing 75 per cent. of silver; but this was ordered by proclamation to be received as sterling. The name sterling had hitherto been applied to the much purer coinage of England, and a new element of confusion was thus introduced. The base coin of 1601 was cried down at the same time, so that a shilling should be received for fourpence of the new money. When Davies arrived he found that people would not take the dross even at the reduced rate, and they were even more unwilling to do so when another proclamation cried down the new and comparatively pure shillings also from twelvepence to ninepence. The King had granted 20,000 pardons in a few months, but Davies was of opinion that he would gain more popularity by giving twopence for every bad shilling and then recalling the whole issue than by all his clemency. The Solicitor-General could speak feelingly, his fees on all the pardons being paid in copper, while the royal revenue was in the same way reduced almost to nothing. Soldiers and officials were the greatest losers, for they had to take what the proclamations allowed, while traders could not be forced to do so. A few were sent to prison for refusing, but this only caused discontent without securing obedience, and there was a riot at Galway. The matter was brought to a crisis by a case decided in the summer of 1604.[14]

The case of mixed money.

Inconvenience of separate Exchequers.

The bad money was proclaimed current in May 1601, and in April, while the pure coin of England was still current in Ireland, one Brett of Drogheda, merchant, having bought wares from one Gilbert, in London, became bound to Gilbert for 200l. on condition to pay the said Gilbert, his executors or assigns 100l. sterling current and lawful money of England at the tomb of Earl Strongbow in Christchurch, Dublin, on a certain future day, which day happened after the said proclamation of mixed monies. On that day Brett tendered 100l. in mixed money of the new standard. The question was whether this tender was good. Sir George Carey, being Deputy and Vice-Treasurer, ordered the case to be stated for the judges who were of the Privy Council, and they decided after an immense display of learning that Brett had rightly tendered in the only lawful money of Ireland, that Gilbert was worthy of punishment for refusing to receive it, and that the Irish judges could take cognisance of no money except what was established by proclamation. The several courts of record in Dublin accepted this as law, and all the cases pending were so decided. In other words, Ireland repudiated the greater part of her debts. The situation created was intolerable, for credit was destroyed; but it was not till the beginning of 1605 that the English Government made up its mind that the various kinds of coin in Ireland might be lawfully current for their true value. In 1607 English money was made legal tender in Ireland at the rate of sixteen pence Irish to the shilling. All who knew the country best wished to have one coinage for England and Ireland, but official hindrances were constantly interposed, and the difficulty was not got over until after the unification of the two Exchequers in 1820. Some establishment charges are still paid with deductions for the difference between old Irish and sterling money.[15]

Sir Arthur Chichester Lord Deputy.

Carey retained the Vice-Treasurership along with the acting Viceroyalty, the power of the sword and of the purse being thus held in a single hand. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that charges of extortion should have been brought against him, and that he should be accused of having become very rich by unlawful means. He had only one-third of the viceregal salary, two-thirds being reserved for Devonshire as Lord-Lieutenant. There is no evidence that Salisbury or Davies gave much credit to the charges against Carey, who was himself anxious to be relieved, and who suggested that Sir Arthur Chichester should fill his place. Chichester, who had gained his experience as Governor of Carrickfergus, at first refused on the ground that he could not live on one-third of the regular salary, and he was given an extra 1,000l. per annum with 500l. for immediate expenses. He remained at the head of the Irish Government until 1616.[16]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, April 6; Tyrone to Cecil, April 7; submission of Tyrone, April 8; Godolphin to Carew, April 19. Farmer’s chronicle of this reign begins at p. 40 of MS. Harl. 3544 with a panegyric on ‘Elizabeth the virgin Queen and flower of Christendom that hath been feared for love and honoured for virtue, beloved of her subjects and feared of her enemies, magnified among princes and famozed through the world for justice and equity.’ Since these chapters were written Farmer’s book has been printed by Mr. Litton Falkiner in vol. xxii. of the English Historical Review.

[2] In Cambrensis Eversus, published in 1662, John Lynch says ‘the Irish no longer wished to resist James (especially as they believed that he would embrace the Catholic religion), and submitted not unwillingly to his rule, as to one whom they knew to be of Irish royal blood,’ iii. 53. Lynch was a priest in 1622. Stephen Duff, Mayor of Drogheda, to the Lord Deputy and Council, April 13; Mountjoy to Cecil, April 19, 25 and 26; Francis Bryan, sovereign of Wexford, to Mountjoy, April 23. James VI. to Tyrone, December 22, 1597, in Lansdowne MSS. lxxxiv. Tyrone to James VI., April 1600 in the Elizabethan S.P. Scotland. Letters of Elizabeth and James, Camden Society, p. 141. Farmer’s Chronicle.

[3] Muster of the army, April 27; Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, Mountjoy to Cecil, and Sir G. Carey to Cecil, May 4; Humphrey May to Cecil, May 5.

[4] Authorities last quoted; also Smith’s Waterford.

[5] Authorities last quoted; also Hogan’s Hibernia Ignatiana, p. 121.

[6] Hogan’s Hibernia Ignatiana, p. 118; Declaration of Edward Sotherne, June 16.

[7] Barnabas Kearney and David Wale to Aquaviva (Italian), July 7, 1603, from London, in Hibernia Ignatiana, p. 117. The burning of the service-book is mentioned in the official correspondence.

[8] Brief Declaration in Carew, 1603, No. 5; account written by Richard Boyle in Lismore Papers, 2nd series, i. 43. As clerk of the Munster Council Boyle was an eye-witness of all these proceedings. Moryson’s Itinerary, part ii. book iii. chap. 2.

[9] Brief Relation in Carew, 1603, No. 5; Irish State Papers calendared from April 20 to May 14; Lismore Papers, 2nd series, i. 43-73; Mountjoy to the Mayor of Cork, May 4, in Cox, p. 7. The full account in Smith’s Cork is mainly founded on the Lismore collection. Lady Carew’s letter of May 5, 1603, among the State Papers and Lady Boyle’s of March 18, 1609, in the Lismore Papers are both printed verbatim, and are interesting to compare as specimens of ladies’ composition.

[10] Farmer’s Chronicle in MS. Harl. 3544. Farmer was a surgeon.

[11] Authorities last quoted.

[12] Apsley’s account in Lismore Papers, 2nd series, i. 66.

[13] Notices of Meade in the Calendars of State Papers, Ireland, especially No. 355 of 1611, where his tract is entered as among the Cotton MSS. There is another copy in the Bodleian, Laudian MSS. Misc. 612, f. 143. The proceedings at Meade’s trial are calendared under 1603, No. 184.

[14] Davies to Cecil, December 1, 1603; proclamations calendared at October 11 and December 3.

[15] Le Case de Mixt Moneys, Trin. 2 Jacobi in Davies’ Reports, 1628; State of the Irish coin, calendared at June 12, 1606; Lord Deputy Chichester and Council to the Privy Council, calendared at March 2, 1607.

[16] Chichester was sworn in February 3, 1604-5.

[CHAPTER II]
CHICHESTER AND THE TOLERATION QUESTION, 1605-1607

The rival Churches.

The question of religious toleration was one of the first which Chichester had to consider, for the movement in the Munster towns was felt all over Ireland. Priests and Jesuits swarmed everywhere, and John Skelton on being elected Mayor of Dublin refused after much fencing to take the oath of supremacy. Sir John Davies, who had yet much to learn in Ireland, thought that the people would quickly conform if only the priests were banished by proclamation. Saxey, chief justice in Munster, was much of the same opinion, but both these lawyers admitted the insufficiency of the Established Church. The bishops, among whom there were scarcely three good preachers, seemed to them more anxious about their revenues than about the saving of souls.

The penal laws against Recusant

The experience of James’s only Irish Parliament was to show it was scarcely possible to legislate against the Roman Catholics even when many new boroughs had been created for the express purpose of making a Protestant majority. The Act of Uniformity passed at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign remained in force, but little was done under it as long as she lived. It only provided a fine of one shilling for not attending church on Sundays and holidays, and could have little effect except upon the poor, though it might give great annoyance. Another Act prescribed an oath acknowledging the Queen’s supremacy, both civil and ecclesiastical, and denying that any ‘foreign prince, person, prelate, State, or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction,’ &c. This oath might be administered to all ecclesiastical persons, to judges, justices, and mayors, and to all others in the pay of the Crown on pain of losing their offices. The open maintenance and advocacy of foreign authority was more severely visited, the penalties being the forfeiture of all goods and chattels, real and personal, with a year’s imprisonment in addition, for those not worth 20l. The second offence was a præmunire, and the third high treason. And so the law remained during the whole reign of James. The English oath of allegiance prescribed after the Gunpowder Plot involved a repudiation of the Pope’s deposing power; but this was not extended to Ireland.[17]

Power of the priesthood.

Case of the Jesuit Fitzsimon.

The repressive power in the hands of the Irish Government was weak as against the population in general, but so far as law went it was ample against the priests, who, of course, could not take the oath of supremacy; and against officials who were of the same way of thinking. Mountjoy was successful against the recalcitrant towns, but his back was no sooner turned than Sir George Carey reported that the country swarmed with ‘priests, Jesuits, seminaries, friars, and Romish bishops; if there be not speedy means to free this kingdom of this wicked rabble, much mischief will burst forth in a very short time. There are here so many of this wicked crew, as are able to disquiet four of the greatest kingdoms in Christendom. It is high time they were banished, and none to receive or aid them. Let the judges and officers be sworn to the supremacy; let the lawyers go to the church and show conformity, or not plead at the bar, and then the rest by degrees will shortly follow.’ Protestant bishops naturally agreed, though Sir John Davies thought their own neglect had a good deal to say to the matter; but he admitted that the Jesuits came ‘not only to plant their religion, but to withdraw the subject from his allegiance, and so serve the turn of Tyrone and the King of Spain.’ Now that Ireland was at peace, he thought it probable that they would gladly go away, and cites the case of Fitzsimon, a Jesuit who had petitioned to be banished. Fitzsimon, however, had been five years a prisoner in the Castle, during one month of which he had converted seven Protestants, including the head warder. The King released him mainly on the ground that he did not meddle in secular matters, and he was on the Continent till 1630, when he returned to Ireland and lived there till long after the great outbreak of 1641. About the time of Fitzsimon’s release the Protestant Bishop of Ossory was able to give the names of thirty priests who haunted his diocese, including the famous Jesuit James Archer, who was said to have legatine authority. Archer was closely connected with Tyrone, and had been his frequent companion in London, disguised as a courtier or as a farmer, and busy with Irish prisoners in the Tower. Davies advised that priests and Jesuits should be captured when possible and sent to England, where the penal laws could take hold of them; and if this were done, he thought all Ireland would go comfortably to church. Chief Justice Saxey gave much the same advice in a more truculent form. The opinions of all Englishmen officially concerned with Ireland are reflected in the King’s famous proclamation of July 4, 1605, which Chichester, who had then succeeded to the government, found awaiting him in Dublin on his return from the north.[18]

Royal Proclamation against Toleration.

James begins by repudiating the idea prevailing in Ireland since the Queen’s death that he intended ‘to give liberty of conscience or toleration of religion to his subjects in that kingdom contrary to the express laws and statutes therein enacted.’ He insisted everywhere on uniformity, resenting all rumours to the contrary as an imputation on himself, and even, as was reported, declaring that he would fight to his knees in blood rather than grant toleration. Owing to false rumours, the Jesuits and other priests of foreign ordination had left their lurking-places and presumptuously exercised their functions without concealment. The King therefore announced that he would never do any act to ‘confirm the hopes of any creature that they should ever have from him any toleration to exercise any other religion than that which is agreeable to God’s Word and is established by the laws of the realm.’ All subjects were therefore charged to attend church or to suffer the penalties provided. As to the Jesuits and others who sought to alienate their hearts from their sovereign, ‘taking upon themselves the ordering and deciding of causes, both before and after they have received judgments in the King’s courts of record ... all priests whatsoever made and ordained by any authority derived or pretended to be derived from the See of Rome shall, before the 10th day of December, depart out of the kingdom of Ireland.’ All officers were to apprehend them and no one to harbour them, on pain of the punishments provided by law. If, however, any such Jesuit or priest would come to the Lord Lieutenant or Council, conform, and repair to church, he was to have the same liberties and privileges as the rest of his Majesty’s subjects.

The Proclamation fails.

Devonshire, however, who was still Lord Lieutenant, was opposed to making any curious search for priests who did not ostentatiously obstruct the Government, and his views prevailed with the English Council. Chichester willingly acquiesced, and reported some weeks after the appointed day that no priests, seminaries, or Jesuits of any importance had left the country and that searches, even if desirable, would be useless, ‘for every town, hamlet, or house is to them a sanctuary.’ Just about Carrickfergus, where he was personally known, some secular priests had conformed, and Davies, who thought Government could do everything, believed the multitude would naturally follow. ‘So it happened,’ he said, ‘in King Edward the Sixth’s days, when more than half the kingdom of England were Papists; and again in the time of Queen Mary, when more than half the kingdom were Protestants; and again in Queen Elizabeth’s time, when they were turned Papists again.’ He did not see that the national sentiment of England was permanently hostile to Roman aggression, while the authority of the Crown was accepted as the only refuge against anarchy. The state of feeling which existed in Ireland was just the opposite.[19]

Sir John Everard’s case.

Sir John Everard, second justice of the King’s Bench, was ordered to conform or resign, though admitted to be a very honest and learned man. It was so difficult to find a successor for this able judge that he was continued in office for eighteen months after the King’s order, when he resigned rather than take the oath of supremacy. Of his loyalty in civil matters there was no question, and he received a pension of a hundred marks, which Chichester wished to make a hundred pounds. In 1608, when the Irish refugees in Spain contemplated a descent upon Ireland, Everard refused to take part in the plot, and he lived to contest the Speakership with Sir John Davies in the Parliament of 1613.[20]

Vacillation of Government.

December passed, and yet none of the priests had left the country. The Gunpowder Plot was discovered in the meantime, but there was no evidence of ramifications in Ireland, and the English Government half drew back from the policy of the late royal proclamation. It was decided, and apparently at Chichester’s suggestion, that no curious search should be made for clergymen of foreign ordination. The immediate result of the severe measures taken in England was to drive the Jesuits and other priests over to Ireland, where the law was weaker and less perfectly enforced, and where they were sure of a good reception.

Robert Lalor’s case, 1606.

Præmunire.

Submission of Lalor.

Robert Lalor, who had for twelve years acted as Vicar-General in Dublin, Kildare, and Ferns, was, however, arrested. He had powerful connections in the Pale, and it was thought that his prosecution might strike terror into others, more especially as he was a party to many settlements of land. Lalor was convicted under the Irish Act of 1560 as an upholder of foreign jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical, and remained in prison for some months. He then petitioned the Deputy for his liberty, and was induced to confess in writing that he was not a lawful Vicar-General, that the King was supreme governor, without appeal, ‘in all causes as well ecclesiastical and civil,’ and that he was ready to obey him ‘either concerning his function of priesthood, or any other duty belonging to a good subject.’ After this his imprisonment was greatly relaxed, and he was allowed to see visitors freely, to whom he boasted that he had not allowed the King any power in spiritual causes. It was then resolved to indict him under the Statute of Præmunire (16 Richard II.), which was of undoubted force in Ireland, for receiving a papal commission, for assuming the office so conferred, and for exercising every kind of episcopal jurisdiction under it, especially ‘by instituting divers persons to benefices with cure of souls, by granting dispensations in causes matrimonial, and by pronouncing sentences of divorce between divers married persons.’ The case was tried by a Dublin city jury, and all the principal gentlemen in town were present as spectators. Lalor tried to draw a distinction between ecclesiastical and spiritual, but this was quickly overruled, and his former confession was read out in open court. Davies went into the legal argument at great length, and in the end Lalor was fain to renounce the office of Vicar-General and to crave the King’s pardon. The jury then found the prisoner guilty, and in the absence of Chief Justice Ley, Sir Dominick Sarsfield gave judgment accordingly. Part of the penalty was the forfeiture of goods, and this was important, because the Earl of Kildare and other great proprietors had used the late Vicar-General’s services as a trustee, and the Crown lawyers had thus a powerful engine placed in their hands. Lalor was probably banished according to law, as his name disappears from the State correspondence. He had ceased to be of any importance, for his confession destroyed his influence with the recusants.[21]

Enforced conformity.

The Mandates.

Effect of the Gunpowder Plot.

The Irish Statute of 1560 was the only one available for coercing the laity, and its fine of one shilling, even when swelled by costs, was altogether insufficient to impress the gentry or wealthier traders, and it was resolved to eke it out by recourse to the prerogative pure and simple. All men’s eyes naturally turned to the seat of government, and the first example was made there. Mandates under the Great Seal were directed to sixteen aldermen and merchants, of whom Skelton, the late mayor, was one, ordering them to go to church every Sunday and holiday, ‘and there to abide soberly and orderly during the time of common prayer, preaching, or other service of God.’ They refused upon grounds of conscience, and the case was tried in the Castle Chamber. During the proceedings and while the court was crowded, Salisbury’s dispatch arrived with the news of the Gunpowder Plot, and Chichester ordered it to be read out by Bishop Jones, who had just been made Lord Chancellor, and who took the opportunity to make a loyal speech. This dramatic incident may or may not have influenced the decision which imposed a fine of 100l. upon six aldermen and of 50l. each upon three others, one of whom, being an Englishman, was ordered to return to his own country. Five days later similar sentences were passed upon three more, while three were reserved to try the effect of a conference with Protestant theologians. One of the sixteen escaped altogether by conforming to the established religion, and he was the only one who did conform. This could not be thought a brilliant success, and the mandates were soon subjected to a direct attack.[22]

The Act Uniformity in Munster. Sir H. Brouncker.

In the province of Munster, where Sir Henry Brouncker succeeded Carew in the summer of 1604, a more energetic course was followed. Brouncker had for many years farmed the customs of wine imported into Ireland, and had probably in that way learned much of the underground communications with Spain. He found Cork swarming with priests and seminaries who said mass almost publicly in the best houses and strenuously maintained that it was ‘his Majesty’s pleasure to tolerate their idolatry.’ For a time he was interrupted by the plague, but soon resumed his efforts to fill the churches and to apprehend the priests of Rome. His idea was to clear the towns while leaving the country districts alone, but he had little success, for the proscribed clergy were everywhere favoured and harboured in gentlemen’s houses under the name of surgeons and physicians. Brouncker maintained that he was of a mild disposition, but that he was driven by the obstinacy of the people to take sharp courses. In one circuit of his province he deposed the chief magistrates in every town except Waterford, ‘where the mayor was conformable,’ and he threatened them all with the loss of their charters. He thought it possible to collect enough fines to make the black sheep support the white.

Priest-hunting.

The Mayor of Cork goes to church.

At Limerick he captured Dr. Cadame, a notable priest long resident there, but at Carrick-on-Suir two of the worst priests in Ireland just eluded him. William Sarsfield, mayor of Cork, had been fined 100l. for disobedience to the mandates in the summer of 1606. The general answer given by him and others in the same position was ‘that their forefathers had continued as they were in the Popish religion, and that their consciences tied them to the same,’ not one of them, according to Brouncker’s return, ‘being able to define what conscience was.’ Before the year was out, the President was able to report that Sarsfield, in spite of his Spanish education and his first stubbornness, had ‘by a little correction been brought to church, and so in love with the word preached, and so well satisfied in conscience, that he offered to communicate with him.’ This sounds rather like a profane joke by a man who had been brought up among the countrymen of Suarez and Escobar, and in any case conformity so obtained was of little value. Bishop Lyon, however, had done his duty in providing preachers in his diocese, and perhaps some real progress might have been made if all bishops had been like him. At all events there was a congregation of 600 at Youghal, and some tendency to conformity was apparent even to Chichester’s eyes. Both President and Bishop received the thanks of the English Council, and Salisbury encouraged Brouncker to persevere, but when he died in the following spring James found that ‘his zeal was more than was required in a governor, however allowable in a private man.’ It was not easy to serve a sovereign who insisted on proclaiming the duty of persecution while shrinking from the unpopularity which his own words naturally produced. The fines imposed at Kinsale were altogether remitted in regard to the poverty of the town, elsewhere they were much reduced. The total, however, was considerable, while individuals were ‘reasonably well contented’ at escaping so easily.[23]

The Mandates in Connaught.

In Connaught Clanricarde had been made Lord President for his services at Kinsale, and no doubt his influence had been increased by his marriage to Essex’s widow. He was in England at the end of 1605, and Sir Robert Remington, the Vice-President, made some show of proceeding like Brouncker. Mandates were issued and a few fines imposed upon citizens of Galway, but these were not fully paid, and there is no evidence that anything was done outside that single town.[24]

Opposition to the Mandates. Sir P. Barnewall.

Barnewall and others imprisoned.

Sowing the dragon’s teeth.

A petition against interference ‘with the private use of their religion and conscience’ was presented to the Lord Deputy, and signed by two hundred and nineteen gentlemen of the Pale, of whom five were peers. The principal framer of this document was probably Henry Burnell, the lawyer, who was now very old, but who was still the same man who had opposed Sidney thirty years before, and Richard Netterville, who had then been his colleague. The chief promoter was Sir Patrick Barnewall, who was Tyrone’s brother-in-law, and from whose house of Turvey the northern chief had eloped with Mabel Bagenal in 1591. According to Carew, he was ‘the first gentleman’s son of quality that was ever put out of Ireland to be brought up in learning beyond the seas.’ The petition was presented to Chichester by Sir James Dillon and others during the last days of November, and an answer was soon pressed for. The movement being evidently concerted, and Catesby’s plot being very recent, Burnell and Netterville were restrained in their own houses on account of their infirmity, while Barnewall, Lord Gormanston, Dillon, and others were imprisoned in the Castle. Gormanston and three other peers forwarded a copy of the petition to Salisbury, and complained bitterly of the severe measures which had been taken against the aldermen for no offence but absence from the Protestant service. With something of prophetic instinct Barnewall expressed a fear that the Irish Government were laying the foundation of a rebellion, ‘to which, though twenty years be gone, the memory of those extremities may give pretence.’ Most of the prisoners were soon released on giving bonds to appear when called upon, but Barnewall had to go to England.[25]

Toleration not understood.

France.

Spain.

Germany.

Italy.

Bacon’s advice.

What we mean by toleration was nowhere understood in the early part of the seventeenth century. Even Bacon, who admired the edict of Nantes, which had not wiped out the memory of St. Bartholomew, had no idea of abrogating the Elizabethan penal code. Henry IV.’s famous edict was an exception; it was one of the kind that proves the rule, for he saw no way of securing the French Protestants but by giving them a kind of local autonomy which could not last. Rochelle was an impossibility in a modern state, and when that frail bulwark was destroyed persecution gradually resumed its sway. Of Spain, the birthplace and fixed home of the Inquisition, it is unnecessary to speak. In Germany neither party practised any real toleration. In Italy Spanish interests were dominant, and Elizabeth died an excommunicated Queen. Clement VIII. abstained from treating her successor in the same way, but he had hopes by mildness to obtain better terms for the faithful in England. Both in England and Ireland any intention of forcing men’s consciences was always disclaimed, while outward conformity was insisted on. And in the case of the Roman Catholics, who took their orders from a foreign and hostile power, it was really very difficult to say exactly how much belonged to Cæsar. Bacon was more liberal than anyone else, but his ideas fell very far short of what is now generally accepted. In Ireland, he advised Cecil, after the Spaniards had been foiled at Kinsale, ‘a toleration of religion (for a time not definite), except it be in some principal towns and precincts, after the manner of some French edicts, seemeth to me to be a matter warrantable by religion, and in policy of absolute necessity. And the hesitation in this point I think hath been a great casting back of the affairs there. Neither if any English Papist or recusant shall for liberty of his conscience transfer his person, family, and fortunes thither do I hold it a matter of danger, but expedient to draw on undertaking and to further population. Neither if Rome will cozen itself, by conceiving it may be some degree to the like toleration in England, do I hold it a matter of any moment, but rather a good mean to take off the fierceness and eagerness of the humour of Rome, and to stay further excommunications or interdictions for Ireland.’ Bacon saw the difficulty clearly, and perhaps he saw the working solution, but to persevere steadily in such a course was not in James’s nature, though Chichester might conceivably have done so if he had had a free hand.[26]

Barnewall and Chichester.

Barnewall puzzles the Council.

Barnewall sent to England.

Victory of Barnewall

Sir Patrick Barnewall was committed prisoner to the Castle on December 2, 1605. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘we must endure as we have endured many other things, and especially the miseries of the late war.’ ‘No, sir,’ answered Chichester, ‘we have endured the misery of the war, we have lost our blood and our friends, and have indeed endured extreme miseries to suppress the late rebellion, whereof your priests, for whom you make petition, and your wicked religion, was the principal cause.’ In writing to Salisbury afterwards Sir Patrick attributed the invention of the mandates to Chief Justice Ley, but it is much more likely that Davies was their author. After an imprisonment of three months, Barnewall was again brought before the Irish Council, and argued soundly in maintaining that recusancy was only an offence in so far as it was made one by statute, and that therefore all prosecution of it except that prescribed by Act of Parliament was illegal. At a further examination when the Chancellor, who was a bishop and ought to have known better, spoke of the King’s religion, Barnewall saw his advantage and exclaimed ‘That is a profane speech.’ He was not sent to England till near the end of April, and at the end of May the English Government had not yet found time to attend to him. At first he was allowed to live under restraint at his own lodgings in the Strand, but was afterwards sent to the Tower, probably with the idea of making an impression upon the public mind in Ireland. It was found impossible to answer his arguments, and the Privy Council asked the Irish Government for information as to the ‘law or precedent for the course taken in issuing precepts under the Great Seal to compel men to come to church.’ They admitted that such authority was ‘as yet unknown to them,’ but rather sarcastically supposed that the Lord Deputy and Council were better informed. The Irish Government were acting entirely by prerogative; but several of the judges in England pronounced the mandates not contrary to precedent or authority. Barnewall was induced to make some sort of submission more than a year after his original arrest. Being called upon to make one in more regular form he refused, and was then sent to the Fleet prison for a month. Having signed a bond to appear within five days of his arrival, he was returned to Ireland at the beginning of March, 1607, and Chichester at once saw that no progress had been made.

The Mandates are abandoned.

Barnewall refused to make any submission in Dublin, and in the end it was found necessary to drop all proceedings against him. His detention in London was really a triumph, for the Irish recusants regarded him as their agent, and subscribed largely for his support. Waterford contributed 32l. and the collection was general all over Ireland. He gained in fact a complete victory, and such progress as Brouncker had made in procuring outward conformity was at once arrested. The mandates were never again resorted to.[27]

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Irish Statutes, 2 Eliz. chaps. i. and ii. James I.’s Apology for the Oath of Allegiance against the two breves of Pope Paulus Quintus, &c., in his Works, 1616 (the oath is at p. 250).

[18] Enclosure in letter of John Byrd to Devonshire, September 8, 1603. Archbishop of Dublin and Bishop of Meath to the Privy Council, March 5, 1604. Davies to Cecil, April 19 and December 8. Bishop of Ossory to the Deputy and Council, June 8, 1604. Chief Justice Saxey to Cranbourne, 1604, No. 397. Hogan’s Life of H. Fitzsimon, pp. 58 sqq.

[19] Proclamation of July 4, 1605; Davies to Salisbury, No. 603 in Cal. Lords of the Council to Chichester, January 24, 1606; Chichester to Salisbury and to Chichester, February 26; Roger Wilbraham’s Diary, in vol. x. of the Camden Miscellany.

[20] Davies to Cecil, December 8, 1604, January 6, 1605; Saxey to Cecil, 1604, No. 397; the King to Chichester, June 27, 1605; his proclamation against toleration, July 4; Cornwallis to the Privy Council, April 19, 1608, in Winwood.

[21] The Case of Præmunire in Sir John Davies’s Reports, London, 1628. Lalor was arrested in March 1605-6, and finally convicted early in the following year.

[22] Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, December 5, 1605; Chichester to Salisbury, December 7.

[23] Brouncker to Cecil, August 23 and October 17, 1604; Salisbury to Brouncker, March 3, 1606; Brouncker’s letter of September 12; Return of fines imposed 4 James I. printed in Irish Cal. ii. 41; Brouncker to the Privy Council, November 18; Chichester to Salisbury, December 1, 1606, and February 10, 1607; The King to Chichester, July 16, 1607; Privy Council to Chichester, January 17, 1608-9; Davies to Salisbury, June 10, 1609.

[24] Brouncker to Cecil, August 23, 1604; observation by Sir John Davies, May 4, 1606; Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, September 12, 1606; Brouncker to the Privy Council, February 10, 1606-7. For Connaught see preface to State Papers, Ireland, 1606-1608, p. 46.

[25] Chichester to Salisbury, December 7 and 9, 1605; petition by the nobility and gentry of the English Pale, No. 593; Lords Gormanston, Trimleston, Killeen, and Howth to Salisbury, December 8; Davies to Salisbury, No. 603; Barnewall to Salisbury, December 16. Carew’s Brief Relation of passages in the Parliament of 1613 in Carew.

[26] Letter to Cecil, 1602, Spedding, iii. 49.

[27] Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, from December 1605 to September 1607.

[CHAPTER III]
THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS, 1607

Mountjoy leaves Ireland, 1603.

Tyrone in favour at Court.

Mountjoy created Earl of Devonshire.

He supports Tyrone.

When Mountjoy left Ireland at the beginning of June 1603 he was accompanied by Tyrone, and by Rory O’Donnell, whose brother’s death had made him head of the clan. The party, including Fynes Moryson the historian, were nearly wrecked on the Skerries. On the journey through Wales and England Tyrone was received with many hostile demonstrations, mud and stones being often thrown at him; for there was scarcely a village which had not given some victims to the Irish war. The chiefs were entertained by Mountjoy at Wanstead, and after a few days were presented to the King, who had declared by proclamation that they were to be honourably received. Their reception was much too honourable to please men who had fought and bled in Ireland. Sir John Harrington, who had last seen Tyrone in his Ulster fastness sitting in the open air upon a fern form and eating from a fern table, gave his sorrow words in a letter to Bishop Still of Bath and Wells. ‘How I did labour after that knave’s destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land, was near starving, ate horse-flesh in Munster, and all to quell that man, who now smileth in peace at those who did hazard their lives to destroy him; and now doth Tyrone dare us old commanders with his presence and protection.’ Tyrone and O’Donnell were present at Hampton Court on July 21 when Mountjoy was made Earl of Devonshire. Before that date Tyrone was in communication with Irish Jesuits in London, and among others with the famous Archer. Devonshire’s one idea seems to have been to decide every point in his favour, and he was in a situation, so far as Ulster was concerned, not very different from that which the Earls of Kildare had formerly occupied in the Pale. He was made the King’s Lieutenant in Tyrone, and even obtained an order for 600l. on the Irish treasury, which Carey hesitated to pay, since the result would be to withhold their due from others whose claims were not founded on rebellion, but on faithful service. When he went back to Ireland in August, the sheriffs of the English and Welsh counties through which he passed were ordered to convey him safely with troops of horse, for fear of the people.[28]

Tyrone unpopular in Ireland, 1604.

After his return Tyrone lived some time at Drogheda, the gentry of the Pale being unwilling to entertain him. The horrors of the late war were remembered, and the beaten rebel was generally unpopular. He had not means to stock or cultivate the twentieth part of his country, yet he took leases of more to give him a pretext for interference. He pretended that all fugitives from Tyrone should be forced to return, and Sir John Davies thought it evident that he wished exceedingly to ‘hold his greatness in his old barbarous manner.’ Otherwise there could be no object in his opposition to having a sheriff appointed for Tyrone, and yet he could hardly hope to raise another rebellion, for he was old and poor and his country extremely depopulated.[29]

Case of O’Cahan.

Mountjoy’s promise to O’Cahan,

which is not kept.

O’Cahan’s righteous indignation.

Violence of Tyrone. 1606.

Donnell O’Cahan, chief of what is now Londonderry county, once known as Iraght O’Cahan, and more lately as the county of Coleraine, submitted to Sir Henry Docwra in July 1602. The lands had been in possession of the clan for centuries, but certain fines and services were due to the O’Neills. Tyrone was still in open rebellion for several months afterwards, and it was thought that the loss of O’Cahan’s district had much to say to his final discomfiture. O’Cahan, whose hereditary office it was to cast a shoe at the installation of an O’Neill, agreed to give up the land between Lough Foyle and the Faughan water to the Queen, and also land on the Bann for the support of the garrison at Coleraine. The rest of his tribal territory was to be granted to him by patent. This agreement was reduced to writing, signed by O’Cahan and Docwra and ratified under his hand by Lord Deputy Mountjoy. Pending the settlement of the question, O’Cahan was granted the custody of his country under the Great Seal. When it afterwards seemed probable that Tyrone would be received to mercy O’Cahan reminded Docwra that he had been promised exemption from his sway. At O’Cahan’s earnest request, Docwra wrote to Mountjoy, who again solemnly declared that he should be free and exempt from the greater chief’s control. No sooner had Tyrone been received to submission than he began to quarter men upon O’Cahan, who pleaded the Lord Deputy’s promise, and was strongly supported by Docwra. ‘My lord of Tyrone,’ was Mountjoy’s astonishing answer, ‘is taken in with promise to be restored, as well to all his lands, as his honour of dignity, and O’Cahan’s country is his and must be obedient to his command.’ Docwra reminded him that he had twice promised the contrary in writing, to which he could only answer that O’Cahan was a drunken fellow, and so base that he would probably rather be under Tyrone than not, and that anyhow he certainly should be under him. Tyrone’s own contention was that O’Cahan was a mere tenant at will, and without any estate in the lands which had borne his name for centuries. Docwra reported Mountjoy’s decision to O’Cahan, who ‘bade the devil take all Englishmen and as many as put their trust in them.’ Docwra thought this indignation justified, but realised that nothing could be done with a hostile Viceroy, and advised O’Cahan to make the best terms he could with Tyrone. Chichester was from the first inclined to favour O’Cahan’s claim, but the Earl managed to keep him in subjection until 1606, when the quarrel broke out again. Tyrone seized O’Cahan’s cattle by the strong hand, which Davies says was his first ‘notorious violent act’ since his submission, and the whole question soon came up for the consideration of the Government. Early in 1607 the two chiefs came to a temporary agreement by which O’Cahan agreed to pay a certain tribute, for which he pledged one-third of his territory, and in consideration of which Tyrone gave him a grant of his lands. O’Cahan was inclined to stand to this agreement, but Tyrone said it was voidable at the wish of either party. A further cause of dispute arose from O’Cahan’s proposal to repudiate Tyrone’s illegitimate daughter, with whom he had lately gone through the marriage ceremony, and to take back a previous and more lawful wife. His fear was lest he should have to give up the dowry also, and especially lest his cattle should be seized to satisfy the claim.[30]

Death of Devonshire, 1606.

Claims O’Cahan and Tyrone.

The Crown intervenes.

Devonshire died on April 3, 1606, and Tyrone thus lost his most thoroughgoing supporter at court. It was in the following October that O’Cahan’s cattle were seized, and in May 1607 that chief petitioned for leave to surrender his country to the King, receiving a fresh grant of it free from Tyrone’s interference. He afterwards expressed his willingness to pay the old accustomed services to Tyrone. The two chiefs were summoned before the Council, and Tyrone so far forgot himself as to snatch a paper from O’Cahan’s hand and tear it in the Viceroy’s presence; but for this he humbly apologised. The case was remitted to the King, and it was afterwards arranged that both parties should go over to plead their several causes; peace being kept in the meantime on the basis of the late agreement. The Irish lawyers were of opinion that O’Cahan’s country was really at the mercy of the Crown on the ground that, though it had been found by inquisition to be part of Tyrone’s, the Earl’s jurisdiction only entitled him to certain fixed services and not to the freehold. That they held to have been the position of Con Bacagh O’Neill, and Tyrone’s last grant only professed to restore him to what his grandfather had.[31]

Assizes in Donegal.

Rory O’Donnell created Earl of Tyrconnel.

Extreme pretensions of Tyrconnel.

His character.

Discontent of Neill Garv.

While Rory O’Donnell was in England, Chief Baron Pelham was going circuit in Donegal. The multitude, he told Davies, treated him as an angel from heaven and prayed him upon their knees to return again to minister justice to them; but many gentlemen refused the commission of peace until they had Tyrone’s approval. A sheriff was appointed, but at first he had little to do. Rory O’Donnell was treated nearly as well as Tyrone himself. On his return to Ireland in September 1603, he was knighted in Christchurch, Dublin, by Sir George Carey, and at the same time created Earl of Tyrconnel. He received a grant of the greater part of Donegal, leaving Inishowen to O’Dogherty, the fort and fishery of Ballyshannon to the Crown, and 13,000 acres of land near Lifford to Sir Neill Garv O’Donnell. On the wording of the patent Lifford itself was reserved to the Crown. Neill Garv’s very strong claim to the chiefry was passed over, he having assumed the name and style of O’Donnell without the leave of the Government. Rory was also made the King’s Lieutenant in his own country, with a proviso that martial law should not be executed except during actual war, nor at all upon his Majesty’s officers and soldiers. These ample possessions and honours were, however, not enough for the new Earl, who aimed at everything that his ancestors had ever had, and who was unwilling to leave a foot of land to anyone else. Five years after the death of Queen Elizabeth Chichester reported that the lands belonging to the Earldom of Tyrconnel were so mortgaged that the margin of rent was not more than 300l. a year. Nor is this to be wondered at for the Four Masters, who wrote in Donegal and who wished to praise its chief, said he was ‘a generous, bounteous, munificent, and hospitable lord, to whom the patrimony of his ancestors did not seem anything for his spending and feasting parties.’ The last O’Donnell being of this disposition, the attempt to change him into the similitude of an English Earl was not likely to succeed. O’Dogherty was for the time well satisfied; but Sir Neill Garv, who had destroyed his chances by anticipating the King’s decision, was angry, for Docwra and Mountjoy had formerly promised that he should have Tyrconnel in as ample a manner as the O’Donnells had been accustomed to hold it. And by the word Tyrconnel he understood, or pretended to understand, not only Donegal but ‘Tyrone, Fermanagh, yea and Connaught, wheresoever any of the O’Donnells had at any time extended their power, he made account all was his: he acknowledged no other kind of right or interest in any man else, yea the very persons of the people he challenged to be his, and said he had wrong if any foot of all that land, or any one of the persons of the people were exempted from him.’

Here we have the pretensions of an Irish chief stated in the most extreme way, and they were evidently quite incompatible with the existence of a modern government and with the personal rights of modern subjects.[32]

Discontent of Tyrone.

Secret service.

Tyrone was too wise to make claims like Neill Garv’s, but he resented all interference. He had disputes with the Bishop of Derry about Termon lands, with English purchasers of abbeys, and with several chiefs of his own name who had been made freeholders of the Crown. Curious points of law were naturally hateful to one who had always ruled by the sword, but he may have had real cause to complain of actions decided without proper notice to him. He and his predecessors had enjoyed the fishery of the Bann, which was now claimed by the Crown as being in navigable waters. Queen Elizabeth had indeed let her rights, but no lessee had been able to make anything out of the bargain. In his very last letter to Devonshire Chichester said Tyrone was discontented and always would be, but he could see no better reason for his discontent than that he had lost ‘the name of O’Neill, and some part of the tyrannical jurisdiction over the subjects which his ancestors were wont to assume to themselves.’ Davies, however, admitted that his country was quiet and free from thieves, while Tyrconnel was just the contrary. Tyrone complained that officials of all kinds were his enemies, and that he was harassed beyond bearing. His fourth wife, Catherine Magennis, was known to be on bad terms with him, and he had threatened to repudiate her. She ‘recounted many violences which he had used and done to her in his drunkenness,’ and wished to leave him, but resisted any attempt at an ecclesiastical divorce. Chichester admitted that it was ‘a very uncivil and uncommendable part to feed the humour of a woman to learn the secrets of her husband,’ but gunpowder plots were an exception to every rule, and he thought himself justified in hunting for possible Irish ramifications by equally exceptional means. James Nott, employed by Tyrone as secretary or clerk, had a pension for bringing letters to the Government. Sir Toby Caulfield was directed to see Lady Tyrone, and to examine her on oath. She repeated her charges of ill-treatment and declared that she was the last person in whom her husband would confide, but that in any case she would do nothing to endanger his life. She expressed her belief that Tyrone had no dealings with the English recusants, but that he was discontented with the Government: Tyrconnel depended on him, and that nearly all the Ulster chiefs were on good terms with the two earls. Lady Tyrone continued to live, not very happily, with her husband for many years, during which his habits did not improve. Sir Dudley Carleton, the English ambassador at Venice, reported in 1614 that ‘Tyrone while he is his own man is always much reserved, pretending ever his desire of your Majesty’s grace, and by that means only to adoperate his return into his country; but when he is vino plenus et irâ (as he is commonly once a night, and therein is veritas) he doth then declare his resolute purpose to die in Ireland; and both he and his company do usually in that mood dispose of governments and provinces, and make new commonwealths.’ Nothing seriously affecting Tyrone’s relations with the State happened until August 1607, when Chichester informed him that both he and O’Cahan were to go to England, where their differences would be decided by the King himself. Sir John Davies was warned to be in readiness to accompany them.[33]

The Maguires.

Maguire at Brussels.

A ship hired with Spanish money.

Tyrone’s farewell.

After the death of Hugh Maguire in 1600 his brother Cuconnaught, whom Chichester describes as ‘a desperate and dangerous young fellow,’ was elected chief in his stead. The English Government decided to divide Fermanagh between him and his kinsman, Connor Roe, and to this he agreed because he could not help it, but without any intention of resting satisfied. Spanish ships often brought wine to the Donegal coast, and communications were always open through these traders. In August 1606 Tyrconnel and O’Boyle inquired of some Scotch sailors as to the fitness of their little vessel for the voyage to Spain, but Chichester could not believe that he had any idea of flight, and supposed that he was only seeking a passage for Maguire. The latter found a ship after some delay, and was at the Archduke Albert’s court by Whitsuntide in 1607. While at Brussels he associated with Tyrone’s son Henry, who commanded an Irish regiment 1,400 strong. Sir Thomas Edmondes had tried to prevent this appointment two years before, but the Archduke succeeded in getting it approved by James I. The Gunpowder Plot had not then been discovered, and Devonshire’s influence was paramount in all that concerned Ireland. Tyrone sometimes professed himself anxious to bring his son home, but in other company he boasted of the young man’s influence at the Spanish court and of his authority over the Irish abroad. The Archduke now gave Maguire a considerable sum of money, with which he went to Rouen, bought or hired a ship, of which John Bath of Drogheda had the command, and put into Lough Swilly about the end of August. The ship carried nets and was partly laden with salt, under colour of fishing on the Irish coast. Tyrone was with Chichester at Slane on Thursday, August 28 (old style), conferring with him about his intended visit to England. Here he received a letter telling him of Maguire’s arrival, and on Saturday he went to Mellifont, which he left next day after taking leave of his friend, Sir Garrett Moore. He ‘wept abundantly, giving a solemn farewell to every child and every servant in the house, which made them all marvel, because in general it was not his manner to use such compliments.’ It was afterwards remembered that his farewell to Chichester also was ‘more sad and passionate than was usual with him.’ On Monday he passed through Armagh to a house of his own near Dungannon, and there rested two nights. On Wednesday he crossed the Strabane mountains, and appears to have remained in the open during the night. During this day’s journey, says Davies, ‘it is reported that the Countess, his wife, being exceedingly weary, slipped down from her horse, and, weeping, said she could go no further; whereupon the Earl drew his sword, and swore a great oath that he would kill her on the place if she would not pass on with him, and put on a more cheerful countenance withal.’ On Thursday morning they reached Burndennet, near Lifford. The Governor asked him and his son to dinner, but he perhaps feared detention, and pushed on during the afternoon and night to Rathmullen, where the French ship was lying. Tyrconnel had already arrived, and they appear to have sailed the next morning. Chichester afterwards discovered that O’Cahan wished to go too, but was unable to join the others in time.[34]

Departure of Tyrone, Tyrconnel, and Maguire.

Ninety-nine persons sailed in the vessel which carried Tyrone, Tyrconnel, and Maguire. Among the O’Neills were Lady Tyrone, her three sons Hugh, John, and Brian, and Art Oge, the son of Tyrone’s brother Cormac. Among the O’Donnells were Tyrconnel’s brother Caffar, with his wife Rose O’Dogherty, and his sister Nuala, who had left her husband Neill Garv. What, the Irish annalists ask, might not the young in this distinguished company have achieved if they had been allowed to grow up in Ireland? ‘Woe to the heart that meditated, woe to the mind that conceived, woe to the council that decided the project of their setting out on this voyage without knowing whether they should ever return to their native principalities or patrimonies to the end of the world.’

Sir Cormac MacBaron.

The fugitives reach France,

but are not allowed to stay there.

Tyrone’s brother, Sir Cormac MacBaron, waited until they were clear gone and then hurried to Slane so as to be Chichester’s first informant. ‘Withal,’ says Davies, ‘he was an earnest suitor to have the custodiam of his brother’s country, which perhaps might be to his brother’s use by agreement betwixt them; and therefore, for this and other causes of suspicion, the constable of the Castle of Dublin has the custodiam of him.’ Chichester returned to Dublin at once, and made arrangements for intercepting the fugitives should they put into Galway or into any of the Munster harbours. A cruiser on the Scotch coast was ordered to be on the look out, and the Earl of Argyle was warned by letter. Bath kept well off the coast, and, after sighting Croagh Patrick mountain, endeavoured to run for Corunna. After thirteen days tossing he despaired of reaching Spain and tried to go to Croisic in Brittany. Losing their bearings, the fugitives were driven up channel nearly to the Straits of Dover, but escaped the English cruisers and landed at Quillebœuf in Normandy after being twenty-one days at sea. They had but little provisions and were much crowded, but in no pressing want of money, for Tyrone had taken up his rents in advance. Boats were hired to convey the women and children to Rouen, while Tyrone rode with seventeen companions to meet the Governor of Normandy at Lisieux. Both parties were hospitably treated and supplied with wine and provisions by the country people. An application for their extradition was of course refused by Henry IV., but they were not allowed to stay in France nor to visit Paris. A month after leaving Lough Swilly they left Rouen, and made their way to Douai by Amiens and Arras.[35]

The Earls in Flanders, Douai.

Entertained by Spinola at Brussels.

The Earls not allowed to go to Spain.

At Douai the Earls were met by Tyrone’s son Henry, who commanded the Irish regiment, and by all the captains serving under him. Among those captains was Tyrone’s nephew, Owen MacArt O’Neill, afterwards so famous as Owen Roe, and Thomas Preston, scarcely less famous as his colleague, rival, and at last enemy. The Irish students in the seminary feasted them and greeted them in Latin or Greek odes and orations. Florence Conry and Eugene MacMahon, titular archbishops of Tuam and Dublin, met them also. At Tournai the whole population with the archbishop at their head came out to meet them. They then went on to Hal, where they were invited by Spinola and many of his officers. The captor of Ostend lent his carriage to take them to the Archduke at Binche, where they were received with much honour, and he afterwards entertained them at dinner in Brussels. Tyrone occupied Spinola’s own chair, with the nuncio and Tyrconnel on his right hand, the Duke of Aumale, the Duke of Ossuna, and the Marquis himself being on his left. The Earls left the city immediately afterwards and withdrew to Louvain, where they remained until the month of February. Edmondes remonstrated with the President Richardot about the favour shown to rebels against his sovereign, but that wily diplomatist gave him very little satisfaction. The greater part of the Irish who came over with Tyrone or who had since repaired to him were provided for by the creation of two new companies in Henry O’Neill’s regiment, but the Earls were not allowed to go to Spain, and when they left Louvain in February 1608 they passed through Lorraine to avoid French territory, and so by Switzerland into Italy. According to information received by the English Privy Council, the Netherlanders were glad to be rid of them, they having ‘left so good a memory of their barbarous life and drunkenness where they were.’[36]

Reasons for Tyrone’s flight.

Lord Howth.

Howth gives information.

Lord Delvin.

Uncertainty as to the facts.

Though there is no reason to suppose that any treachery was intended, Tyrone can hardly be blamed for mistrusting the English Government and avoiding London. He told Sir Anthony Standen at Rome that it was ‘better to be poor there than rich in a prison in England.’ And yet this may have only been a pretext, for his eldest son Henry told Edmondes that he believed the principal grievances to be religion, the denial of his jurisdiction over minor chiefs in Ulster, and the supposed intention of erecting a presidency in that province. Many obscure rumours preceded his flight. In February 1607 George St. Lawrence or Howth gave evidence of a plot to surprise Dublin Castle and to seek aid from Spain; but he incriminated no one except Art MacRory MacMahon and Shane MacPhilip O’Reilly. He was probably a relation of Sir Christopher St. Lawrence, who became twenty-second Baron of Howth in the following May, but it does not appear how far they acted in unison. The new Lord was a brave soldier, who had fought for Queen Elizabeth at Kinsale and elsewhere, but was both unscrupulous and indiscreet. In 1599, according to Camden, he had offered, should Essex desire it, to murder Lord Grey de Wilton and Sir Robert Cecil. Under Mountjoy he had done good service in command of a company, but the gradual reduction of the forces after Tyrone’s submission left him unemployed, and he was very needy. Chichester wished to continue him in pay, or at least to give him a small pension, so that he might be saved from the necessity of seeking mercenary service abroad. Nothing was done, and he went to Brussels in the autumn of 1606, but had little success there. Chichester suggested that the Archduke’s mind should be poisoned against him, so that he might come home discontented and thus dissuade other Irish gentlemen from seeking their bread in the Spanish service. That Howth was known to be a Protestant, even though he might occasionally hear a mass, was probably quite enough to prevent the Archduke from employing him. Among the Irish residents there was his uncle the historian, Richard Stanihurst, and another priest named Cusack, also related to him, and from them he heard enough to make him return to London and to give information to Salisbury. By the latter’s advice probably he returned to the Netherlands, where he met Florence Conry, the head of the Irish Franciscans, who told him that it was decided to make a descent on Ireland ‘within twenty days after the peace betwixt the King our master and the King of Spain should be broken.’ Spinola or some other great captain was to command the expedition, Waterford and Galway to be the places of disembarkation. Conry himself was to go to Ireland to sound the chief people, and it appears from the evidence of a Franciscan that he was actually expected to arrive in the summer of 1607, but that he did not go there. Howth advised a descent near Dublin, and according to his own account he made this suggestion so as to ensure failure. He said there was a large sum ready for Tyrconnel’s use at Brussels, and this was probably the very money afterwards given to Maguire for the purchase of a ship. This information was supplemented by that of Lord Delvin, and there was doubtless a strong case against Tyrconnel. Against Tyrone there was nothing but hearsay rumours as to his being involved with the others. Tyrconnel divulged to Delvin a plan for seizing Dublin Castle with the Lord Deputy and Council in it: ‘out of them,’ he said, ‘I shall have my lands and countries as I desire it’—that is, as they had been held in Hugh Roe’s time. His general discontent and his debts were quite enough to make him fly from Ireland, and this disposition would be hastened by the consciousness that he had been talking treason, and perhaps by the knowledge that his words had been repeated. Spanish aid could not be hoped for unless there was a breach between England and Spain; and of that there was no likelihood. Tyrone must have understood this perfectly well, but Chichester had long realised that he would always be discontented at having lost the title of O’Neill and the tyrannical jurisdiction exercised by his predecessors. Perhaps he really believed there was an intention to arrest him in London. Some sympathy may be felt for a man who had lived into an age that knew him not, but the position which he sought to occupy could not possibly be maintained.[37]

Rumoured plot to seize Dublin.

Chichester’s surmises as to Tyrone’s flight.

The question involved in obscurity.

On May 18, 1607, an anonymous paper had been left at the door of the Dublin council chamber, the writer of which professed his knowledge of a plot to kill Chichester and others. According to this informer the murders were to be followed by the seizure of the Castle and the surprise of the small scattered garrisons. If James still refused to grant religious toleration, the Spaniards were to be called in. Howth was not in Ireland, but Chichester noticed that the anonymous paper was very like his communications to Salisbury. He arrived in Ireland in June, when he was at once subjected to frequent and close examinations. Chichester was at first very little disposed to believe him, but the sudden departure of the Earls went far to give the impression that he had been telling the truth. ‘The Earl of Tyrone,’ said the Deputy when announcing the flight, ‘came to me oftentimes upon sundry artificial occasions, as now it appears, and, by all his discourses, seemed to intend nothing more than the preparation for his journey into England against the time appointed, only he showed a discontent, and professed to be much displeased with his fortune, in two respects: the one, for that he conceived he had dealt, in some sort, unworthily with me, as he said, to appeal from hence unto his Majesty and your lordships in the cause between Sir Donald O’Cahan and him; the other because that notwithstanding he held himself much bound unto his Majesty, that so graciously would vouchsafe to hear, and finally to determine the same, yet that it much grieved him to be called upon so suddenly, when, as what with the strictness of time and his present poverty, he was not able to furnish himself as became him for such a journey and for such a presence. In all things else he seemed very moderate and reasonable, albeit he never gave over to be a general solicitor in all causes concerning his country and people, how criminal soever. But now I find that he has been much abused by some that have cunningly terrified and diverted him from coming to his Majesty, which, considering his nature, I hardly believe, or else he had within him a thousand witnesses testifying that he was as deeply engaged in those secret treasons as any of the rest whom we knew or suspected.’ There is here nothing to show that any treachery was intended to Tyrone in England, but there was a report in Scotland that he would never be allowed to return into Ireland. And so the matter must rest. Tyrone was now old, his nerves were not what they had been, and if he believed that he would be imprisoned in London, that does not prove that any such thing was intended.[38]

Lord Delvin is suspected.

Delvin escapes from the Castle.

Lord Howth was not the only magnate of the Pale who was concerned in the intrigues which led to the flight of Tyrone and the plantation of Ulster. Richard Nugent, tenth Baron of Delvin, a young man of twenty-three, was son to the Delvin who wrote an Irish grammar for Queen Elizabeth and nephew to William Nugent who had been in rebellion against her. He had been knighted by Mountjoy in Christchurch, Dublin, at the installation of Rory O’Donnell as Earl of Tyrconnel, and had a patent for lands in Longford which the O’Farrells had asked him to accept on the supposition that they were forfeited to the Crown. It turned out that there had been no forfeiture, and he was forced to surrender, Salisbury remarking that the O’Farrells were as good subjects as either he or his father had been. The business had cost him 3,000l., and he was naturally very angry. His mother was an Earl of Kildare’s daughter, and Sir Oliver St. John told Salisbury that he was ‘composed of the malice of the Nugents and the pride of the Geraldines.’ He became involved in Howth’s schemes, and confessed that he had ‘put buzzes into the Earl of Tyrone’s head,’ telling him that he had few friends at Court and that the King suspected his loyalty. For his own part he was willing to join in an attack on the Castle, provided a Spanish army landed, but he would not agree to the murder of the Lord Deputy, ‘for he hath ever been my good friend.’ Delvin was lodged in the Castle, but there was evidently no intention of dealing harshly with him, for he was allowed the society of his secretary, Alexander Aylmer, a good old name in the Pale, and of a servant called Evers. Aylmer and Evers with some help from others managed to smuggle in a rope thirty-five yards long, though the constable had been warned that an escape was probable, and the young lord let himself down the wall and fled to his castle of Cloughoughter on a lake in Cavan. The constable, whose name was Eccleston, was afterwards acquitted by a jury, but lost his place. From Cloughoughter Delvin wrote to Chichester pleading his youth and his misfortune in being duped by Howth. He had run away only to save his estate, which would surely have been confiscated if he had been carried to England. Chichester was willing to believe him, and offered to accept his submission if he would surrender within five days and throw himself on the King’s mercy. His wife and his mother, who was supposed to have brought him up badly, were restrained at a private house in Dublin, but were afterwards allowed to go for a visit fourteen miles from Dublin.[39]

Delvin tires of his wanderings,

submits,

and is pardoned.

Being pressed by the troops Delvin stole out of Cloughoughter with two companions, leaving his infant son to be captured and taken to Dublin. He had married Jane Plunkett, and her brother Luke, afterwards created Earl of Fingal, made matters worse by reporting that Delvin had expressed a wish to kill Salisbury, a charge which was stoutly denied. Howth was mixed up with this as with all the other intrigues. Delvin was ‘enforced as a wood kerne in mantle and trowsers to shift for himself’ in the mountains, and was doubtless miserable enough. After wandering about for more than four months he appeared suddenly one day in the Council chamber, and submitted unconditionally with many expressions of repentance. Salisbury had already pardoned any offence against himself, and the King was no less merciful. Delvin was sent to England a prisoner, but the charge of complicity in O’Dogherty’s conspiracy was probably not believed, for he received a pardon under the Great Seal of Ireland. He enjoyed a fair measure of favour at Court, though he became a champion of the Recusants, and in 1621 he was created Earl of Westmeath.[40]

Florence Conry.

When Hugh Roe O’Donnell died at Valladolid in 1602 he was attended by friar Florence Conry, whom he recommended to Philip III. Conry, who was Tyrone’s emissary in Spain, became provincial of the Irish Franciscans and later Archbishop of Tuam, but never ventured to visit his diocese. He passed and repassed from Madrid to Brussels and employed Owen Magrath, who acted as vice-provincial, to communicate with his friends in Ireland.

Lady Tyrconnel.

Delvin gives evidence against a friar.

Lady Tyrconnel at Court

Magrath brought eighty-one gold pieces to Lady Tyrconnel and tried to persuade her to follow her husband abroad. Other priests gave the same advice, but the lady, who had been Lady Bridget Fitzgerald, had not the least idea of identifying herself with rebellion. She was unwilling to forswear the society of the clergy, but ready to give Chichester any help in her power. She knew nothing of her husband’s intention to return as an invader, but ‘prayed God to send him a fair death before he undergo so wicked an enterprise as to rebel against his prince.’ Magrath was mixed up with Howth and Delvin; but Chichester, though he succeeded in arresting the friar, could get little from him. He was tried for high treason and actually found guilty, mainly upon Delvin’s evidence, who swore that he had disclosed to him a conspiracy for a Spanish descent on Ireland. Philip indeed would not show himself, ‘but the Pope and Archduke will; at which the King of Spain will wink, and perchance give some assistance under hand.’ Chichester saw that Magrath was old and not very clever, and advised that he should be allowed to live in Ulster, for Delvin was repentant and would be glad to impart anything that he learned from him. James readily pardoned Magrath, the English Council shrewdly remarking that it was more important that Delvin should have given evidence against a friar ‘than to take the life of one where there are so many.’ Lady Tyrconnel was sent to England and received a pension, and James is said to have wondered that her husband could leave so fair a face behind him. She afterwards married the first Lord Kingsland; her daughter by Tyrconnel had a curiously adventurous career.[41]

Manifesto of James as to the flight of the Earls.

James thought it necessary to publish a declaration for the enlightenment of foreign countries as to the true reason of the Earls’ departure, not in respect of any worth or value in those men’s persons, being base and rude in their original. They had no rights by lineal descent, but were preferred by Queen Elizabeth for reasons of State, and fled because inwardly conscious of their own guilt. The King gave his word that there was no intention of proceeding against them on account of religion. Their object was to oppress his subjects, and the less said about their religion the better, ‘such being their condition and profession to think murder no fault, marriage of no use, nor any man to be esteemed valiant that did not glory in rapine and oppression.’ They had laboured to extirpate the English race in Ireland and could not deny their correspondence with foreign princes ‘by divers instruments as well priests as others.’ James assured himself that his declaration would ‘disperse and discredit all such untruths as these contemptible creatures, so full of infidelity and ingratitude, shall disgorge against us and our just and moderate proceedings, and shall procure unto them no better usage than they would should be offered to any such pack of rebels born their subjects and bound unto them in so many and such great obligations.’[42]

Tyrone and Tyrconnel expose their grievances.

While at Louvain, and no doubt by way of answer to the royal declaration, both Tyrone and Tyrconnel caused expositions of their grievances to be drawn up, and these documents are still preserved in London, but do not appear to have been ever transmitted to the Irish Government. No rejoinder to them or criticism of them is known to exist, and they must be taken for what they are worth as ex parte statements. Religion is placed in the forefront of both manifestoes, in general terms by Tyrconnel, but more specifically by Tyrone, the proclamation of July 1605 having been promulgated by authority in his manor of Dungannon.

Their position in Ulster was impossible.

But the case for the Earls mainly consists in an enumeration of their difficulties with the Irish Government officials, and it may well be believed that many underlings exercised their powers harshly and corruptly. What appears most clearly is that the local domination of an O’Neill or an O’Donnell, even though they wore earls’ coronets, was inconsistent with the modern spirit. They found the position of subjects intolerable. By their flight they hastened the progress of events, but their stay in Ireland could not very long have retarded it.[43]

Tyrone and his company leave the Netherlands.

The Duke of Lorraine.

Arrival in Italy.

Tyrone and the rest left Louvain on February 17, the Spanish authorities having with much difficulty and delay found money enough to speed the parting guests. Edmondes wrote to Charles of Lorraine reminding him of his near relationship to the King of England and also of the fact that ‘these fugitives and rebels had found the door shut in Spain, where the King would not admit them out of respect and friendship to King James.’ The Duke let them pass through his country, and afterwards appeared to have been greatly impressed in their favour, as such a champion of the Roman Church would naturally be. Their expenses were paid by him while in Lorraine, and he entertained them sumptuously in his palace at Nancy. They travelled by Basel and Lucerne to the St. Gothard, and one of O’Donnell’s sumpter horses fell over the Devil’s Bridge and was lost, with a large sum of money. The monks received them at the hospice, and on their descent into Italy they were well received at Faido, Bellinzona, and Como. Fuentes, the Governor of Milan, went out to meet them with his staff. They were lodged at the hostelry of the Three Kings and handsomely entertained there at the governor’s expense. Cornwallis at Madrid and Wotton at Venice complained loudly, and received soft answers. Salisbury told Cornwallis to make little of the fugitive Earls and to describe them as mere earthworms; and the ambassador bettered the instruction by saying that he esteemed them and all their company as so many fleas. The Spanish officials replied that Fuentes was generally hospitable to strangers, but that the King’s government had no idea of countenancing the exiles.

The Earls are excluded from Venetian territory.

They reach Rome.

Wotton easily persuaded the anti-Romanist and lately excommunicated Doge to exclude the Irish party from Venetian territory, and a person in his confidence followed Tyrone privately wherever he went. The exiles received 1,000 crowns from Fuentes, of which they complained as much below their expectations. They were well received at Parma and Reggio, and reached papal territory at Bologna, where Cardinal Barberini, afterwards Urban VIII., was then governor. From Ancona they made a pilgrimage to Loretto, and travelling by Foligno, Assisi and Narni, they came in sight of Rome on April 29. Several cardinals, in much state and with great retinues, went out to meet them at the Milvian bridge. One coach, which, according to Wotton’s informant, was borrowed by Parsons, contained Englishmen, and others came to see Tyrone inside the city. The Salviati palace in the Borgo was assigned to the exiles as a residence by Paul V. After this Tyrone sometimes showed himself in a coach with Tyrconnel and Peter Lombard the titular Primate of Ireland, who had never seen his see.[44]

The return of the Earls long expected.

‘I know not,’ said Chichester, ‘what aid or supportation the fugitives shall receive from the Spaniard or Archduke, but the kind entertainment they have received compared with the multitude of pensions given to base and discontented men of this nation, makes them there and their associates and well wishers here to give out largely, and all wise and good subjects to conceive the worst. I am many ways assured that Tyrone and Tyrconnel will return if they live, albeit they should have no other assistance nor supportation than a quantity of money, arms, and munition, with which they will be sufficiently enabled to kindle such a fire here (where so many hearts and actors affect and attend alteration) as will take up much time with expense of men and treasure to quench it.’ These rumours continued while Tyrone lived, and after his death his son was expected. Exiles are generally sanguine, and the friars and Jesuits kept up constant communication with Spain and the Netherlands; but the decadent Spanish monarchy could never make an attempt on Ireland or give any serious trouble until England was at war with herself.[45]

FOOTNOTES:

[28] John Byrd to Devonshire, September 8, 1603, with enclosure; Meehan’s Tyrone and Tyrconnel, p. 36; Fynes Moryson, book iii. chap. 2; Harrington’s Nugæ Antiquæ.

[29] Davies to Cecil, April 10, 1604.

[30] Docwra’s Narration, pp. 260-277; Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, October 4, 1605; Davies to Salisbury, November 12, 1606; agreement between Tyrone and O’Cahan, February 17, 1606-7; Bishop Montgomery of Derry to Chichester, March 4; Chichester’s instructions to Ley and Davies, October 14, 1608, p. 60.

[31] Petition of O’Cahan, May 2, 1607; Chichester to Salisbury, June 8; Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, June 26; Davies to Salisbury July 1; Docwra’s Narration, 284.

[32] Docwra’s Narration, p. 249; Davies to Cecil, December 1, 1603; Four Masters, 1608.

[33] Davies to Cecil, December 8, 1604; Chichester to Devonshire, February 26, 1605-6, endorsing Caulfield’s report; to Devonshire, April 23; to the Privy Council, August 4, 1607; examination of Sir Neill O’Neill, August 7, 1606 (State Papers, Ireland); Carleton to James I., March 18/28, 1614, in Hist. MSS. Comm. (Buccleuch), 1899.

[34] Examination of Gawen Moore and William Kilmeny, mariners of Glasgow, August 30, 1606; Chichester to Salisbury, September 12, with enclosures; examination of John Loach, under 1607, No. 493; Davies to Salisbury, September 12, 1607; notes to O’Donovan’s Four Masters under 1607; Meehan, chap. iv. As to O’Cahan see Chichester’s statement calendared at 1608, No. 98.

[35] Four Masters, 1607; James Loach’s examination, 1607, No. 493; Davies to Salisbury, September 12; Meehan, chap. iv. The latter narrative is mainly founded on an Irish manuscript by Teig O’Keenan written in 1608 and preserved at St. Isidore’s, Rome, a specimen of which was printed by O’Donovan in his notes to the Four Masters, 1607.

[36] Meehan, chap. iv.; list of Irish captains in Archduke’s army, July 22, 1607; Letters of Sir Thomas Edmondes to the English Government, October 1607 to the following March; Privy Council to Chichester, March 8, 1607-8. ‘A most lewd oration’ spoken before the Earls at Douai is calendared at January 25, 1608.

[37] Statements made by Christopher Lord Howth between June 29 and August 25, 1607, No. 336; Lord Delvin’s confession, November 6, 1607; examination of John Dunn, February 14, 1606-7; examination of the Franciscan James Fitzgerald, October 3, 1607; secret information in Wotton’s handwriting, 1607, No. 897; Chichester to Devonshire, April 23, 1606, after the latter’s death, but before it was known in Ireland.

[38] State Papers, Ireland, 1607, especially Chichester to Salisbury, May 27, September 8; Discourses with Lord Howth, No. 336; Chichester to the Privy Council, September 7 and 17.

[39] Lodge’s Peerage (Archdall), i. 237, and the State Papers, Ireland, calendared from September 8 to November 27, 1607; Lords of the Council to Chichester, May 11, 1611.

[40] Instructions for Sir A. St. Leger, December 21, 1607; Chichester to the Privy Council, June 3, 1608; Warrant for pardon, July 18.

[41] Chichester to Salisbury with enclosure, October 2, 1607; Examination of Father Fitzgerald, October 3; Chichester to Salisbury, July 2, 1609, and the answer, August 3; Delvin’s Confession, November 6, 1607. The account of Lady Tyrconnel at p. 235 of the Earls of Kildare is very incorrect. A short notice of Mary Stuart O’Donnell is in the Dict. of National Biography, xli. 446 b.

[42] Declaratio super fugam comitum de Tyrone et Tyrconnel, non propter virtutes sed ob rationes status ad honores promotorum—Rymer’s Fœdera, xvi. 664, November 15, 1607. Bacon probably had a hand in this, having received a full account from Davies, which he answered on October 23—Spedding’s Life, iv. 5.

[43] Cal. of State Papers, Ireland, 1607, Nos. 501 and 503; James Bathe to Salisbury, January 9, 1607-8.

[44] Edmondes to the Duke of Lorraine, January 12, 1607-8; to Salisbury, January 28, February 18 and March 30; Wotton’s letters for April and May, 1608; information in Wotton’s hand, No. 897, State Papers, Ireland; Meehan, chap. 7, with the Doge Donato’s letter at p. 270; Salisbury to Cornwallis, September 27, 1607, in Winwood’s Memorials, and Cornwallis to the Privy Council, April 19, 1608, ib.

[45] Chichester to Northampton, February 7, 1607-8, printed in Ulster Journal of Archæology, i. 180, from Cotton MS. Tit. B. x. 189.

[CHAPTER IV]
REBELLION OF O’DOGHERTY, 1608

Antecedents of Sir Cahir O’Dogherty.

Docwra leaves Derry, 1606,

and is succeeded by Sir George Paulet.

O’Dogherty is suspected.

The wild territory of Inishowen between Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly had been for ages in possession of the O’Dogherty clan, who were, however, not quite independent either of O’Neill or O’Donnell. Sir John O’Dogherty, who held Inishowen by patent, died in December 1600, and Hugh Roe O’Donnell set up his brother Phelim in his stead, to the exclusion of his son Cahir, whom he kept in his own power. Cahir’s foster-brethren, the MacDavitts, appealed to Sir Henry Docwra, and he persuaded O’Donnell to release the young man, whom the Government then adopted as chief. After the accession of James, though not with Devonshire’s good will, Sir Cahir, who had been knighted for good service in the field, was confirmed by the King in his father’s possessions. The island of Inch was leased to another, but after Devonshire’s death the King agreed to restore it. Tyrconnel complained bitterly that Inishowen was excepted from his grant, and Tyrone grumbled at losing an annual rent of sixty cows out of it, ‘never before your Majesty’s reign brought to any question.’ Docwra was Sir Cahir’s steady friend, but Devonshire’s extreme leaning to Tyrone’s side made his position intolerable, and he left Ireland in 1606, having sold his land at Derry to George Paulet, the Marquis of Winchester’s son. He was allowed to compound with Paulet for his company of foot and the vice-provostship of Derry, and this was done with Devonshire’s approval on the ground that there was ‘no longer use for a man of war in that place.’ The King’s letter describes Paulet as ‘of good sufficiency and of service in the wars,’ but Chichester was not of that opinion. He was established at Derry at the beginning of 1607, and was soon at daggers drawn, not only with the neighbouring Irish chiefs, but with the Protestant bishop Montgomery. At the same time he neglected, notwithstanding Chichester’s repeated warnings, to post sentries or to keep any regular look-out. His ill-temper made him disliked by his own men, and they despised him for his evident incompetence. After the flight of the Earls Sir Cahir O’Dogherty was one of the commissioners especially appointed for the government of Tyrone, Donegal, and Armagh, Paulet and Bishop Montgomery being among his colleagues. His ambition at this time was a place at Court. He excited suspicion by landing a few armed men upon Tory island, but the inhabitants seem to have consented. Sir Richard Hansard, who gave the first information, did not think that O’Dogherty meant much harm, for he never had more than seventy men, armed only those of Inishowen, and refused recruits from other districts. But Paulet took a view of the case which made his want of preparation inexcusable. He went with Captain Hart, the governor of Culmore, and others to O’Dogherty’s castle of Burt on Lough Swilly, where Lady O’Dogherty, Lord Gormanston’s sister, was living. He told O’Dogherty afterwards that he only went on a friendly visit, but to Chichester he said that he meant to seize the castle had he not found it well defended.

Paulet’s violent behaviour.

O’Dogherty remonstrated in a temperate letter and subscribed himself ‘your loving friend,’ but Paulet retorted that he was a traitor and that he left him to a provost-marshal and a halter. Three weeks later O’Dogherty went to Dublin, and protested his loyalty; but he was on good terms with O’Cahan, whose actions were also suspicious, and Chichester hardly knew what to think. Sir Cahir was at last suffered to depart after entering into a recognisance, himself in 1,000l. with Lord Gormanston and Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam in 500 marks each, to appear at all times upon twenty days’ notice in writing, and not to leave Ireland without licence before Easter 1609. About the close of the year 1607, Sir Cahir was foreman of the Grand Jury who found a true bill for treason against Tyrone, Tyrconnel, and their chief adherents.[46]

Paulet insults O’Dogherty,

In February 1608 O’Dogherty wrote to the Prince of Wales protesting his fidelity, and asking to be made one of the gentlemen of his privy chamber. On April 18, the very day on which he plunged into rebellion, an order was sent by the English Government to restore the island of Inch, and all other lands withheld from Sir Cahir, excepting only the fort of Culmore, which stood at the mouth of the Foyle, and thirty acres of land with it.

who becomes an open rebel,

and seizes a fort.