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Title: World's Best Histories: Ireland, Volume I (of 2)
Author: Finerty, John F.
Language: English
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IRELAND, VOLUME I (OF 2) ***
[Illustration:
DANIEL O’CONNELL
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WORLD’S BEST HISTORIES
❧
IRELAND
THE PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF IRELAND
IN TWO VOLUMES
BY
JOHN F. FINERTY
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED IRISH LEAGUE OF AMERICA
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
VOLUME I
THE CO-OPERATIVE PUBLICATION SOCIETY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT 1904
BY P. F. COLLIER & SON
Ireland
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY OF IRELAND
VOLUME ONE
Ireland—1
Vol. I
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_CONTENTS_
BOOK I
DEALING WITH THE STORY OF THE IRISH PEOPLE FROM 1
THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE ADVENT OF THE
REFORMATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER I
Prefatory—Territorial Divisions of 3
Ireland—Physical Features of the
Country—Peculiarities of Soil, Climate, and
Scenery
CHAPTER II
Further of the Characteristics and Resources of 12
the Island—Present Form of Government
CHAPTER III
The Original Inhabitants of Ireland 19
CHAPTER IV
The Religion of Ancient Ireland—Many Writers say 24
it was Worship of the Sun, Moon, and Elements
CHAPTER V
Advent of St. Patrick—His Wonderful Apostolic 29
Career in Ireland—A Captive and a Swineherd for
Years, he Escapes and becomes the Regenerator of
the Irish Nation
CHAPTER VI
Ancient Laws and Government of the Irish 35
CHAPTER VII
Period of Danish Invasion 47
CHAPTER VIII
Battle of Clontarf, A.D. 1014—Total Overthrow of 52
the Danish Army and Power in Ireland
CHAPTER IX
Desolating Civil Wars Among the Irish 58
CHAPTER X
The Norman-Welsh Invasion of Ireland—Their Landing 63
in Wexford
CHAPTER XI
Superior Armament of the Normans—Arrival of Henry 72
II
CHAPTER XII
Prince John “Lackland” Created “Lord” of 79
Ireland—Splendid Heroism of Sir Armoricus
Tristram
CHAPTER XIII
Ireland Under the Earlier Edwards—The Younger 86
Bruce Elected King by the Irish—Battle of
Athenry—Death of Bruce at Faughart Hill
CHAPTER XIV
Prince Lionel Viceroy for Edward III—The Statute 91
of Kilkenny
CHAPTER XV
Richard II’s Invasions—Heroic Art MacMurrough 95
CHAPTER XVI
Ireland During the Wars of the Roses 101
BOOK II
TREATING OF IRISH AFFAIRS FROM THE PERIOD OF THE 109
REFORMATION TO THE EXILE AND DEATH OF THE ULSTER
PRINCES IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I
CHAPTER I
The “Reformation”—New Cause of Discord in Ireland 111
CHAPTER II
The Reformation Period Continued—Edward VI, Mary 117
I, Elizabeth, and “John the Proud”
CHAPTER III
The Geraldine War—Hugh O’Neill and “Red Hugh” 123
O’Donnell
CHAPTER IV
Confiscation of Desmond’s Domains—English 130
Plantation of Munster
CHAPTER V
Conditions in Ulster Before the Revolt of O’Neill 133
CHAPTER VI
O’Neill Draws the Sword—Victories of Clontibret 136
and Armagh
CHAPTER VII
Ireland Still Victorious—Battles of Tyrrell’s Pass 141
and Drumfluich
CHAPTER VIII
Irish Victory of the Yellow Ford, Called the 145
Bannockburn of Ireland
CHAPTER IX
How O’Neill Baffled Essex—O’Donnell’s Victory of 149
the Curlew Mountains
CHAPTER X
King Philip Sends Envoys to O’Neill—The Earl of 153
Mountjoy Lord Deputy
CHAPTER XI
Ireland’s Fortunes Take a Bad Turn—Defeat of 158
O’Neill and O’Donnell at Kinsale
CHAPTER XII
Sad Death of O’Donnell in Spain—Heroic Defence of 166
Dunboy
CHAPTER XIII
Wane of Irish Resistance—O’Neill Surrenders to 170
Mountjoy at Mellifont
CHAPTER XIV
Treachery of James I to the Irish Chiefs—“The 174
Flight of the Earls”
BOOK III
RECORDING THE DOINGS OF THE ENGLISH AND IRISH, IN 183
IRELAND, FROM THE TIME OF JAMES I TO THE
JACOBITE WARS IN THE DAYS OF JAMES II AND
WILLIAM III
CHAPTER I
Confiscations and Penal Laws—The Iron Rule of Lord 185
Strafford
CHAPTER II
Irish Military Exiles—Rory O’More Organizes a 192
Great Insurrection
CHAPTER III
Horrors of Civil War in Ulster—Battle of 200
Kilrush—Rory O’More Disappears from History
CHAPTER IV
Proceedings of the Confederation of 208
Kilkenny—Arrival of Owen Roe O’Neill and
Rinuccini
CHAPTER V
Treason of Ormond to the Catholic Cause—Owen Roe 218
O’Neill, Aided by the Nuncio, Prepares to Fight
CHAPTER VI
The Famous Irish Victory of Benburb—Cruel Murder 221
of the Catholic Bishop of Ross
CHAPTER VII
Ormond’s Treacherous Surrender of Dublin—Ireland’s 226
Choice of Two Evils
CHAPTER VIII
“The Curse of Cromwell”—Massacres of Drogheda and 230
Wexford—Death of Sir Phelim O’Neill
CHAPTER IX
Sad Fate of the Vanquished—Cruel Executions and 236
Wholesale Confiscations
CHAPTER X
Ireland Further Scourged Under Charles II—Murder 240
of Archbishop Plunket—Accession of James II
CHAPTER XI
Well-Meant but Imprudent Policy of King 245
James—England Invites William of Orange to
Assume the Throne
CHAPTER XII
Irish Soldiers Ill-Treated in England—Policy of 253
Tyrconnel—King James Chosen by the Irish Nation
BOOK IV
CHRONICLING IMPORTANT EVENTS IN IRELAND FROM THE 259
ARRIVAL OF JAMES II IN THAT COUNTRY UNTIL THE
DEPARTURE OF THE DUKE OF BERWICK TO FRANCE AFTER
THE FIRST SIEGE OF LIMERICK, IN 1690
CHAPTER I
King James in Ireland—Enthusiastic Reception of 261
Him by the Irish People—Military Operations
CHAPTER II
Jacobites Foiled at Londonderry—Mountcashel 264
Defeated at Newtown Butler—King James’s Irish
Parliament
CHAPTER III
King James’s Imprudent Acts—Witty Retort of a 268
Protestant Peer—Architectural Features of Dublin
CHAPTER IV
Composition of the Hostile Armies—King William 271
Arrives in Ireland—Narrowly Escapes Death on Eve
of Battle
CHAPTER V
Battle of the Boyne—Death of Marshal 277
Schomberg—Valor of Irish Cavalry—Inexcusable
Flight of King James
CHAPTER VI
Irish Army Retires on “The Line of the 286
Shannon”—Douglas Repulsed at Athlone—King
William Begins Siege of Limerick—Sarsfield’s
Exploit
CHAPTER VII
William’s Assault on Limerick Repulsed with 294
Slaughter—Heroism of the Irish Women—Irish
Humanity to the English Wounded
CHAPTER VIII
Fall of Cork and Kinsale—Lauzun, the French 302
General, Accused by Irish Writers—Sarsfield’s
Popularity—Tyrconnel Returns to Ireland—Berwick
Departs
BOOK V
RECORDING IMPORTANT EVENTS FROM THE ARRIVAL OF 311
GENERAL ST. RUTH IN LIMERICK TO HIS GLORIOUS
DEATH AT THE BATTLE OF AUGHRIM, IN JULY, 1691
CHAPTER I
General St Ruth Arrives at Limerick to Command the 313
Irish Army—His Marvelous Activity—Brave and
Able, but Vain and Obstinate
CHAPTER II
De Ginkel Besieges Athlone—Memorable Resistance of 318
the Irish Garrison—The Battle at the Bridge—St.
Ruth’s Fatuous Obstinacy—Town Taken by Surprise
CHAPTER III
The Irish Army Falls Back and Takes Post at 326
Aughrim—Description of the Field—Disposition of
the Irish Forces—Baal Dearg O’Donnell’s Apathy
CHAPTER IV
De Ginkel Marches After St. Ruth—The Latter 332
Prepares to “Conquer or Die”—His Speech to the
Irish Army on the Eve of Fighting
CHAPTER V
Decisive Battle of Aughrim—It Opens Favorably for 336
the Irish—Desperate Fighting in the Centre and
at Urachree—Fortune or Treason Favors De Ginkel
CHAPTER VI
Battle of Aughrim Continued—Its Crisis—The English 342
Turn Irish Left—St. Ruth Killed by Cannon
Ball—Confusion and Final Defeat of Irish Army
CHAPTER VII
Mortality Among Officers of Rank on Both 350
Sides—Acknowledged English Loss at
Aughrim—English and Irish Comments on Conduct of
Battle
BOOK VI
TREATING OF THE PERIOD FROM THE SECOND SIEGE OF 361
LIMERICK, IN 1691, TO THE DISSOLUTION OF THE
EXILED FRANCO-IRISH BRIGADE A CENTURY LATER
CHAPTER I
Second Siege of Limerick—Terrific Bombardment—The 363
English, Aided by Treachery, Cross the
Shannon—Massacre of Thomond Bridge
CHAPTER II
Capitulation of Limerick—Terms of the Famous 371
“Violated Treaty”—Cork Harbor Tragedy
CHAPTER III
The Irish Troops, as a Majority, Enter the French 383
Service—King James Receives Them Cordially—His
Testimony of Their Devotion and Courage
CHAPTER IV
Early Exploits of the Irish Brigade in the Service 388
of France—At Landen, Cremona, and
Blenheim—Tribute Paid it by an English Historian
CHAPTER V
The Irish Brigade in the Campaigns of North Italy 393
and Flanders—Its Strength at Various
Periods—Count Dillon’s Reply to King Louis XV
CHAPTER VI
The Austrian Succession—Campaign of 399
1745—Magnificent Achievement of the Irish
Brigade at Fontenoy—Prince Louis’s Adieu to the
Heroes
BOOK VII
NARRATING THE MANY PENAL STATUTES AGAINST THE 409
CATHOLICS, AND CARRYING THE STORY DOWN TO THE
ACQUIREMENT OF A FREE COMMERCE BY THE IRISH
PARLIAMENT, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF GRATTAN,
A.D. 1780
CHAPTER I
Anti-Catholic Penal Laws—Their Drastic, Brutal and 411
Absurd Provisions—Professional Informers,
Called “Priest-Hunters”
CHAPTER II
Restrictions on Irish Trade and Manufactures—All 424
Creeds Suffer—Presbyterian Exodus to
America—Death of Royal Personages—Accession of
George I
CHAPTER III
Further Commercial Restrictions—Continued Exodus 431
of Working People—Jonathan Swift—“The Patriot
Party”—Tyranny of Primate Boulter
CHAPTER IV
Official Extravagance—Charles Lucas, Leader of 439
Irish Opposition—Chesterfield Viceroy—His
Recall—Dorset’s Vile Administration
CHAPTER V
More Persecution of Catholics Under George 447
II—Secret Committee Formed—Snubbed by the
Speaker—Received by the Viceroy—Anti-Union Riot
in Dublin
CHAPTER VI
Accession of George III—His Character—Boasts of 452
Being “a Briton”—Death of Dr. Lucas—Lord
Townsend’s Novel Idea of Governing
Ireland—Septennial Parliament Refused
CHAPTER VII
The Peace of Paris—Agrarian Warfare in 457
Ireland—Judicial Murder of Father Sheehy—All who
Swore Against Him Die Violent Deaths—Secret
Societies
CHAPTER VIII
Flood and Grattan—Sudden Rise of the Latter—Speaks 462
for a Free Commerce—The Volunteer
Movement—England Yields to Irish Demand
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK I
DEALING WITH THE STORY OF THE IRISH PEOPLE FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO
THE ADVENT OF THE REFORMATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
Prefatory—Territorial Divisions of Ireland—Physical Features of the
Country—Peculiarities of Soil, Climate, and Scenery
THAT famous English Republican, Thomas Paine—whose political pamphlets
have been admired quite as much as his theological works have been
censured—uttered in “Common Sense,” published in 1776, while he was
serving under Washington in the Continental Army, this striking
aphorism: “Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America.”
His object was to stimulate the patriotic pride of such American
colonists—and they were many—as were not of English birth or descent,
and to proclaim that the other great branches of the human race, settled
in America, must, of necessity, have a vital interest in the successful
issue of the War for Independence. No other great country of the world
has a population made up of so many divers “previous nationalities,” all
combined into one gigantic political whole, as the United States of
America. Most of the notable nations of the Old World are here
represented not by hundreds or thousands, but by millions of citizens,
“racy of the soil,” and proud to call themselves Americans. A French
patriot once said, speaking in the Chamber of Deputies: “There is no
French race. France is a grand political entity which all true
Frenchmen, of whatever race, worship.” This fine sentiment can be even
more logically applied to America and Americans, for both are still in
the formative period. Several centuries hence, perhaps, a race of people
distinctively American in all respects may occupy this country, but
while the great stream of European immigration continues to flow toward
the setting sun there can not exist such a racial condition in this
Republic, except in those remote districts in which the immigrant rarely
seeks a home.
Most Americans have read something of the political misfortunes of
Ireland, but very many among us have not made her history even a partial
study, and have often taken their views of it, at second hand, from
sources that could not fail to be partial and, therefore, prejudicial.
We do not need to apologize for seeking to throw more light, in a simple
yet comprehensive manner, on the history of that beautiful island the
blood of whose exiled children flows in the veins of not less than
20,000,000 of the American people. The Irish race owes much to America,
and America, in turn, owes much to it. Truly has it been said of the
American Irish that they were with the Republic at its birth, guarded
its infancy, rejoiced in its growth and prosperity, and will endure with
it until the end, which comes, in the fulness of time, to even the
greatest among nations. Thomas Francis Meagher (Mä’her or Marr)—the
young Irish patriot and orator of 1848, and afterward a famous Union
general of the Civil War—in one of the brilliant speeches he delivered
in this country, said: “When, in 1849, I was a political captive on
board an English battleship, I beheld, one bright morning, through the
porthole of my cabin, while we were anchored in an Australian harbor,
the Stars and Stripes floating from the mast of a stately American
frigate and hailed Liberty at my prison-gate!” And this is the sentiment
of every honest immigrant who seeks the shelter of our flag.
Ireland, called poetically, because of its perennial verdure, the
Emerald Isle, lies in the Atlantic Ocean, immediately westward of the
larger island of Great Britain, from which it is separated by, in most
parts, a wide and deep strait, varying in width from 14 miles, where the
headlands of Antrim approach the western coast of Scotland, to about 125
miles, which is the maximum distance from the coast of England. This
strait is called, running from north to south consecutively, the North
Channel, the Irish Sea, and St. George’s Channel. The high shore of
Scotland is always visible, in clear weather, from the northeast coast
of Ireland, and the mountains of Wales, about 65 miles distant, may be
seen, under similar conditions, from Bray Head and other points on the
Leinster coast, but no part of England can be seen at any time from the
Irish shore. Ireland, considered geographically, is of an irregular
rhomboidal shape, by some writers compared to an oblong shield, and is
situated between Latitude 51° 26´ and 55° 21´ North, and Longitude 5°
21´ and 10° 26´ West, projecting farther into the Atlantic Ocean, to the
westward, than any other portion of European soil. Its total area,
including many small islands close to the coast, is about 32,500 square
miles, or 19,000 less than England, 2,000 more than Scotland, 25,000
more than Wales, and nearly 2,000 less than our inland State of Indiana.
Ireland would make, almost to a fraction, thirty-two States the size of
Rhode Island, which has a Legislature of its own—a privilege the Green
Isle does not, at present, enjoy.
The island is divided into four provinces—in ancient times it had five;
namely, Leinster in the east, Ulster in the north, Connaught in the
west, and Munster in the south. These are, again, divided into
two-and-thirty counties—a system of Anglo-Norman, or English, invention,
and, according to the learned Doctor Joyce, savant and historian, they
generally represent the older native territories and sub-kingdoms. King
John, “Lord” of Ireland, formed twelve of them in the twelfth
century—Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Uriel (or Louth), Carlow, Kilkenny,
Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary. Henry VIII
divided Meath proper into two counties and called one Westmeath. King’s
and Queen’s Counties were formed in the reign of Mary I, who married
Philip II of Spain, out of the old districts of Leix and Offaly. Hence
their capitals are called, respectively, Philipstown and Maryborough.
The county Longford was formed out of the territory of Annaly, by Deputy
Sir Henry Sydney, about 1565. The same official divided Connaught into
six counties—Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Roscommon, Leitrim, and Clare. The
latter county, although situated on the Connaught bank of the river
Shannon, was subsequently given to Munster, because it had formed a part
of that province in ancient times. Antrim and Down were organized into
counties early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and Lord Deputy Perrott,
about 1584, formed seven others out of Ulster; namely, Armagh, Monaghan,
Tyrone, Coleraine (now Derry), Donegal, Fermanagh, and Cavan. Dublin
County, at first, included Wicklow, but, in 1605, during the reign of
James I, Sir Arthur Chichester made the latter a separate county.
The existing division of the counties among the provinces is as follows:
Munster comprises Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, and
Waterford; Ulster contains Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down,
Fermanagh, Derry, Monaghan, and Tyrone; Connaught has Galway, Leitrim,
Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo; Leinster comprises Carlow, Dublin, Kildare,
Kilkenny, King’s County, Longford, Louth, Meath, Queen’s County,
Westmeath, Wexford, and Wicklow.
The reader ought to know, however, that a majority of the Ulster and
Connaught counties, and some in Leinster and Munster, did not recognize
their English designations, or yield to English law, in any shape, until
after the accession of James I to the British throne, in 1603. They were
governed by their own princes, chiefs, and judges, under the old Brehon
law, until “the Peace of Mellifont” in that year.
While the Irish counties differ very materially in extent, the provinces
show the following proportions: Munster, 6,064,579 acres; Ulster,
5,475,458; Leinster, 4,871,118; Connaught, 4,392,043. The island is
further subdivided into 316 baronies, 2,532 parishes, and 60,760
townlands, which average about 300 acres each. These are figures with
which every student of Irish history should be familiar.
The country is, in general, very fertile, and grows cereals luxuriantly.
The green crops, such as turnips, parsnips, cabbages, and kindred
vegetables, are unexcelled. Its grazing capacity is very great, and
Irish horses, homed cattle, sheep, and swine are among the choicest in
Europe. Apples, pears, plums, and the smaller fruits grow abundantly in
the mild, moist climate, but the Irish sun will not ripen peaches,
grapes, or tomatoes, unless they are under glass. Poultry thrive
wondrously, and there is a large exportation of fowl and eggs to the
British markets. Irish butter ranks high also. Yet the country is poor,
chiefly because of the scarcity of manufactures, and for other reasons
that will be explained as we proceed.
The Irish climate is equable, but, in general, damp, when compared with
that of America. Neither summer heat nor winter cold produces
discomfort, except at very rare intervals. Violent storms are
infrequent, except along the western coast, and electrical disturbances
are much rarer than in our atmosphere. Only one cyclonic storm, that of
January 6, 1839, visited Ireland during the nineteenth century, and it
is known to this day as “the Big Wind.”
Irish scenery is peculiar in character—soft, yet bold of outline, as
regards its mountain regions. The cliffs on the Connaught, Ulster, and
Munster coasts are tall and beetling—those of Moher, in Clare, and those
that flank the Giants’ Causeway—a remarkable basaltic formation in
Antrim—being the most notable. All the elevations that rise above a
thousand feet are clothed with the heather, which is also peculiar to
Scotland, and this plant changes its hue with every season so that there
is a constant shifting of color, which adds much to the charm of the
landscape. The Irish sky, too, is changeful, so much so that an Irish
poet, in paying tribute to the beauty of his wife, wrote:
“Eyes like the skies of dear Erin, our mother,
Where shadow and sunshine are chasing each other!”
Snow generally disappears from the summits of the Irish mountains about
the second week of May. The mildness of the climate in a latitude so far
toward the north is due to the powerful influence of the warm Gulf
Stream, and this also explains the verdure of the country at almost all
periods of the year. A striking characteristic of the Irish mountains is
that they, in general, rise abruptly from the plain, which gives them an
appearance of greater altitude than they really possess; the highest
peak in the island—that of Carn Tual in Kerry—being only a trifle over
3,400 feet. There is still another peculiarity of the Irish mountain
system which strikes all tourists—the highland chains, for the most
part, rise near the coast, and follow its course, thus making it one of
the boldest and grandest in Europe, while some detached groups, such as
the Galtee and Slieve Bloom ranges in Munster and Leinster, the Curlews
in Connaught and Slieve Snacht (Snowy range) in Ulster, seem to be
independent formations.
The Irish lakes are numerous and, in general, picturesque. Lough Neagh
(Nay) in the north, Lough Corrib in the west, and Lough Dearg—an expanse
of the Shannon—are the largest, but the most famed for scenery are those
of Killarney in Kerry, Lough Dan in Wicklow, and Lough Gill in Sligo.
The Irish rivers are many, and, in the main, beautiful streams. The
Shannon is the greatest river in the realm of Great Britain and Ireland,
while the Suir, the Barrow, the Nore, the Slaney, the Corrib, the Erne,
the Foyle, the Boyne, and the Liffey are also considerable rivers and
possess enough waterpower, were it scientifically utilized, to turn the
wheels of the world’s machinery. The Munster Blackwater, celebrated,
like its sister river, the Suir, in the charming poetry of Edmund
Spenser, is called, because of its peculiar loveliness, “the Irish
Rhine.” After a winding and picturesque course through the south of
Munster, it falls into the ocean at Youghal—a town of which the famous
Sir Walter Raleigh, of Queen Elizabeth’s Court, was once mayor.
One-seventh of the surface of Ireland is computed to be under
bogs—semi-spongy formations, claimed by some naturalists to be the
decomposed relics of mighty forests with which Ireland was covered in
remote ages. The aspect of these “moors,” as they are called by the
British, is dreary enough in winter, but at other periods they have
their charms; the heather and mosses with which they are, in many
places, thickly clothed, changing hue, as on the mountains, with every
season. Nearly all of these bogs are capable of being reclaimed for
agricultural uses, but the people do not desire their reclamation, for
the reason that they furnish cheap fuel to most of the rural districts,
where there is neither coal nor timber supply. Owing to the mildness of
the climate, the cut and dried sods of “peat,” called “turf,” which
resemble brown bricks, take the place of coal and wood, and make quite a
comfortable fire. “Stone turf,” produced by artificial pressure, and an
extra drying process, makes almost as hot a fire as anthracite, but is
much dearer than the ordinary article, which is softer and lighter.
Indeed, the common Irish turf would be almost useless in our fierce
winter weather. These fuel “reservoirs” can not be exhausted for ages to
come. It is claimed that, by some mysterious process of nature, they
renew themselves from time to time, after they have been “given a rest”
by the turf-cutters. Many large bogs occupy the summits and sides of the
mountains, and seem to be of the same character as those on the level
land. Occasionally the high morasses shift their positions, like
glaciers, only with a much quicker movement, and overwhelm, like the
avalanche, everything in their path. These are called “the moving bogs.”
The last phenomenon of the kind occurred in the County Kerry a few years
ago, when much property was destroyed and several lives were lost.
Scientists claim that these bogs are undermined by bodies of water,
which, when flooded, lift the crust and carry it with them, in their
effort to find their natural level. It is well known in Ireland that
several small, but deep, lakes now occupy places that were formerly
covered by these strange formations. We will devote a separate chapter
to other features of this interesting country.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
Further of the Characteristics and Resources of the Island—Present Form
of Government
GOLD, silver, copper, lead, iron, and other malleable minerals are found
in Ireland. The gold is discovered in small quantities, at least in
modern times, but the beautiful ornaments, composed of that precious
metal, and much used by the ancient Irish nobility, preserved in the
Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, and elsewhere in Ireland and
Great Britain, would indicate that it was at one time plentiful in the
island. Silver is found in paying quantities in several districts, and
silver mines are now in operation in the northern portion of Munster.
The lead, copper, and iron deposits have never been seriously worked,
and, therefore, it is impossible to arrive at any satisfactory estimate
of their extent. Coal is found in many counties, but the most extensive
fields are in Ulster. Much light is thrown on this subject by Kane’s
“Resources of Ireland,” which can be found, most likely, in the public
libraries. It gives most interesting statistics, but they would be far
too heavy for our more condensed narrative.
Ireland possesses over seventy harbors. Fourteen are of the first class
and can shelter the very largest sea-going vessels, whether naval or
mercantile. Unhappily, excepting those of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and
Belfast, they are comparatively little used for commerce, for reasons
that will present themselves in succeeding chapters.
Although in olden times a thickly wooded country, Ireland of to-day is
rather bare of forests. There are numerous luxuriant groves and
woodlands, and many of the highroads are bordered with stately trees.
The “quick-set hedges,” planted with thorn shrubs, give, particularly in
summer, a well-furnished appearance to the country, except in a few
rather barren districts, where stone walls, as in portions of New
England, are quite common. Irish farms are nearly all divided and
subdivided by these formidable fences, quick-set or stone, so that, when
viewed from any considerable height, the surrounding country looks like
a huge, irregular checker-board—a much more picturesque arrangement of
the landscape than our American barbed-wire obstructions, but at the
cost of a vast amount of good land, in the aggregate.
The island contains many populous, finely built cities, well governed
under local municipal rule. Dublin, the capital, contains, including
suburbs, about 300,000 people, and is considered a very handsome
metropolis. It is surrounded by enchanting hamlets, and the sea-bathing
resorts in the neighborhood are delightful. Belfast, the great
commercial city of Ulster, is almost as populous as Dublin, and has many
of the thrifty characteristics of an American municipality. Cork,
Waterford, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Londonderry, and Drogheda are still
places of much importance, although some of them have greatly declined,
both in wealth and population, during the last century.
Owing to persistent agitation, and some fierce uprisings, which caused
the imperial government to listen to the voice of reason, the social and
political conditions of the Irish people have been somewhat improved of
late years. The Irish Church was disestablished by the Gladstone
Ministry, in 1869, and, under the leadership of Isaac Butt, Parnell,
Davitt, and other Irish patriots, Protestant as well as Catholic, the
harsh land laws have been greatly modified, and the Irish people have a
better “hold on their soil,” and are much less subject to the capricious
will of their landlords than formerly. They are, also, much better
lodged and fed than in the last generation, and education, of a
practical kind, has become almost universal. The national school system
has many features in common with our own, and is improving year by year.
In the higher branches of education, Ireland is well supplied. Trinity
College, Dublin, the Alma Mater of many celebrated men, has existed
since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but, until the end of the eighteenth
century, was not open to Catholics. Maynooth College, in Kildare, is the
great Catholic ecclesiastical seminary of Ireland, and there is also a
Catholic university in Dublin. Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, and other
cities have Catholic colleges, and there are Protestant seats of
learning in Ulster and other provinces. Cork, Belfast, and Galway have
each branch universities, called “Queen’s Colleges,” which are conducted
on a non-sectarian basis. These are only a few of Ireland’s educational
institutions, but they serve to illustrate the agreeable fact that a
dearth of opportunity for acquiring learning is no longer a reproach to
the Irish people, or, rather, to their English law-makers. The taxes
which support the institutions maintained by Government are paid by
Ireland into the Imperial Treasury, so that Great Britain is not
burdened by them, as many suppose. Recently, a commission appointed by
the British Parliament to inquire into the financial relations between
Great Britain and Ireland reported back that the latter country was
overtaxed annually to the amount of $15,000,000. This grievance,
although complained of by all classes, has not yet been redressed.
Dublin, Belfast, and other leading Irish cities possess very choice and
extensive libraries. That of Trinity College, in the first-mentioned
city, is considered one of the best in Europe, and it is particularly
rich in ancient Irish manuscripts, some of which have been translated
from the original Gaelic into English by the late Dr. John O’Donovan,
Professor Eugene O’Curry, and other Irish savants. There are many large
circulating libraries in all the principal municipalities, and most of
the smaller towns. These are patronized, in the main, by poor people of
literary taste, who can not afford satisfactory libraries of their own.
There is now a revival of Irish literature in Great Britain as well as
in Ireland itself. Many English and Scotch firms have taken to printing
Irish prose and poetry in the English tongue, so that Irish authors are
no longer confined, as they were, with a few exceptions, of old, to an
insular constituency. Irish literary work of merit, when not strongly
patriotic, sells readily in Great Britain to-day. This is due, partly,
to a growing appreciation of Irish talent among the more liberal classes
of the English people, and still more, perhaps, to the very large Irish
population that has developed itself on the soil of “the predominant
partner” within the last half of the nineteenth century. There is a
strong Chartist, or republican, element in England friendly to the Irish
claim of legislative independence, and this element, which we hear
comparatively little of in America, for reasons it is not necessary to
discuss in this history, is growing more powerful as time rolls by, and
some day, not very distant, perhaps, is bound to greatly modify the
existing governmental system of the British Empire, and render it more
popular.
Ireland is very rich in monastic and martial ruins. The round towers
which sentinel the island are declared by many antiquaries to antedate
the Christian period, and are supposed to have been pagan temples
dedicated to the worship of the sun, which, some historians claim, was
Ireland’s chief form of the Druidic belief.
“The names of their founders have vanished in the gloom,
Like the dry branch in the fire, or the body in the tomb,
But to-day, in the ray, their shadows still they cast—
These temples of forgotten gods, these relics of the past.”
The grass-grown circular raths, or “forts,” as the peasantry call them,
varying greatly in diameter, are supposed to be remnants of the Danish
invasion, but many archæologists place them at a much earlier date, and
give them not a Danish but a Danaan origin—the latter tribe being
claimed as among the first settlers of Ireland. The largest “fort” or
“dun” in the island is that near Downpatrick, which is sixty feet high
and three-quarters of a mile in circumference. Much of the stately
architecture seen in the ruins of abbeys, churches, and chapels belongs
to the Anglo-Norman period, as does also the military architecture,
which survives in such types as the keeps of Limerick, Nenagh, and Trim;
but the Celtic type of church construction is preserved, after the lapse
of more than a thousand years, in its primitive purity, at Glendalough
in Wicklow, Clonmacnois in King’s County, and Cong in Galway.
[Illustration:
(_Click on the map to see a larger version._)
]
Three hundred years of warfare with the pagan Danes, and five hundred
with the Anglo-Normans and Anglo-Saxons, made Ireland the Island of
Ruins, as well as the Island of Saints and Scholars.
Before January 1, 1801, Ireland was a distinct and separate kingdom,
having a Parliament of her own and connected with Great Britain by what
has been called “the golden link of the crown.” How that Parliament was,
unfortunately for all concerned, abolished will appear in its proper
order. Since 1801 Ireland has been governed by the Imperial Parliament,
sitting in London, composed of representatives from England, Scotland,
Ireland, and Wales—670 in all, of whom 103 are Irish members. Of these
latter, 82 are Nationalists, or Repealers of the Act of Union, while 21
are Unionists, or adherents of the present political connection. The
preponderating vote of Great Britain hopelessly overwhelms the Irish
representation, and hence the work of reform, as far as Ireland is
concerned, is slow and difficult. The executive functions are intrusted
to a Lord Lieutenant, who is appointed by each succeeding Ministry, to
represent the monarch of Great Britain. He is assisted in his duties by
a Chief Secretary, two Under Secretaries, a Lord Chancellor, a Lord
Chief Justice, a Master of the Rolls, a Chief Baron of the Exchequer,
many less prominent officers, and a Privy Council, which comprises
several of the officials mentioned, together with the leading supporters
of the crown in the capital and throughout the country. Some of the
official members of this Council are not natives of Ireland; and the
Lord Lieutenant himself is almost invariably an English or Scotch
aristocrat of high rank and liberal fortune. No Catholic can fill the
office of Viceroy of Ireland. The authority of the latter is, to all
intents and purposes, absolute. In seasons of political agitation, even
when there is no violence, he can suspend the ordinary law without
having recourse to Parliament. This power has been frequently exercised
even in this generation. The Lord Lieutenant’s official residence is
Dublin Castle, but he has also a commodious viceregal lodge in the
Phœnix Park. His salary is $100,000 per annum—just twice that of our
President—but, in general, he spends much more out of his private
fortune, as he is, nearly always, chosen for his wealth as much as for
his rank. When he goes among the people, he is, almost invariably,
attended by a strong cavalry escort and a dashing staff of
aides-de-camp, glittering in silver, steel, and gold. The military
garrison of Dublin is strong, not often under 10,000 men, and at the
Curragh Camp, about twenty miles distant, in Kildare, there is a much
larger force. Most of the large towns are also heavily garrisoned. Thus,
after an occupation, either nominal or actual, of seven and one-third
centuries, England still finds it expedient to govern Ireland as a
military district—a sad commentary on the chronic misgovernment of ages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III
The Original Inhabitants of Ireland
VAGUE poetical tradition flings a mystical veil over the origin of the
earliest inhabitants of Ireland. The historian, McGee, who would seem to
have made a serious study of the subject, says that the first account
given by the bards and the professional story-tellers attributes the
settlement of the island to Parthalon of the race of Japhet, who, with a
number of followers, reached it by way of the Mediterranean and
Atlantic, “about three hundred years after the Universal Deluge.” The
colonists, because of the unnatural crimes of their leader, were, we are
told, “cut off to the last man by a dreadful pestilence.”
The second colony, also a creature of tradition, was said to have been
led by a chief called Nemedh from the shores of the Black Sea across
Muscovy to the Baltic, and from that sea they made their way to the
Irish shore. In Ireland, they encountered a stronger race, said to have
been of African origin, called Formorians, with whom they had many
severe battles and were by them finally defeated and either killed or
driven from the country, to which some of their descendants returned in
after years.
After Nemedh came the Firbolgs, or Belgæ, under the five sons of their
king, Dela, who divided the island into five parts and held it
undisputedly until the Tuatha de Danaans, said to be descended from
Nemedh, and having magical power to quell storms, invaded the island,
carrying with them the “lia fail,” or “Stone of Destiny,” from which
Ireland derived its fanciful title of “Innis fail,” or the “Island of
Destiny.” The Danaans are said to have been of the Greek family. In any
case, it is claimed, they subdued the Belgæ and made them their serfs.
They ruled mightily, for a time, but, in turn, were compelled to give
way to a stronger tide of invasion.
This was formed by a people who called themselves, according to most
Irish annalists, Gaels, from an ancient ancestor; Milesians, from the
appellation of their king, who ruled in distant Spain, and Scoti, or
Scots, from Scota, the warlike mother of King Milesius. These Milesians
are said to have come into Spain from the region of the Caucasus, and
all agree that they were formidable warriors. Tradition says that
Ireland was first discovered, as far as the Milesians were concerned, by
Ith, uncle of the Spanish king, who, while on a voyage of exploration,
sighted the island, and, attracted by its beauty, landed, but was
attacked by the Danaans and mortally wounded. His followers carried him
to his galley, and he died at sea, but the body was brought back to
Spain. His son, Loci, who had accompanied Ith, summoned all the Milesian
family to avenge their kinsman’s death and conquer the Promised Island
of their race. Milesius, or Miledh, had expired before Loci’s return,
but his sons, Heber the Fair, Amergin, Heber the Brown, Colpa, Ir, and
Heremon rallied to the call of vengeance and conquest, set sail for
Ireland, landed there, and, in spite of Danaan witchcraft and Firbolgian
valor, beat down all opposition and became masters of the beautiful
island. Thomas Moore, in his immortal Irish Melodies, thus deals with
this legendary event:
“They came from a land beyond the sea,
And now o’er the Western main,
Set sail in their good ships gallantly
From the sunny land of Spain.
‘Oh, where’s the isle we’ve seen in dreams,
Our destined home or grave?’
Thus sang they as, by the morning’s beams,
They swept the Atlantic wave.
“And, lo, where afar o’er ocean shines
A sparkle of radiant green,
As though in that deep lay emerald mines
Whose light through the wave was seen.
‘’Tis Innisfail! ’tis Innisfail!’
Rings o’er the echoing sea,
While bending to heaven the warriors hail
That home of the brave and free.
“Then turned they unto the Eastern wave,
Where now their Day-God’s eye
A look of such sunny omen gave
As lighted up sea and sky,
Nor frown was seen through sky or sea,
Nor tear on leaf or sod,
When first on their Isle of Destiny
Our great forefathers trod.”
The migration of those Celto-Iberians to Ireland is generally placed at
from 1500 to 2000 years before the birth of Christ; but there is not
much certainty about the date; it stands wholly on tradition. On one
point, at least, a majority of Irish annalists seem to be agreed—namely,
that the Milesians were of Celtic stock and Scythian origin, but the
route they took from Scythia to Spain, as well as the date of their
exodus, remains an undetermined question. Celtic characteristics, both
mental and physical, are still deeply stamped on the Irish people,
notwithstanding the large admixture of the blood of other races,
resulting from the numerous after invasions, both pagan and Christian.
Thomas Davis, the leading Irish national poet of the middle of the
nineteenth century, sums up the elements that constitute the present
Irish population, truly and tersely, thus:
“Here came the brown Phœnician,
The man of trade and toil;
Here came the proud Milesian
A-hungering for spoil;
And the Firbolg, and the Kymry,
And the hard, enduring Dane,
And the iron lords of Normandy,
With the Saxons in their train.
And, oh, it were a gallant deed
To show before mankind,
How every race, and every creed,
Might be by love combined;
Might be combined, yet not forget
The fountains whence they rose,
As filled by many a rivulet
The stately Shannon flows!”
And the fine verses of the Irish poet may be applied with almost equal
propriety to the cosmopolitan population of the United States—more
varied in race than even that of Ireland. No good citizen is less of an
American simply because he scorns to forget, or to allow his children to
forget, “the fountains whence they rose.” Anglo-Americans never forget
it, nor do Franco-Americans, or Americans of Teutonic origin; or, in
fact, Americans of any noted race. Americans of Irish birth or origin
have quite as good a right to be proud of their cradle-land and their
ancient ancestry as any other element in this Republic; and the study of
impartial Irish history by pupils of all races would do much to soften
prejudices and remove unpleasant impressions that slanderous, partial
historians have been mainly instrumental in creating.
The language—Gaelic, or Erse, as it is called in our day—spoken by the
Milesian conquerors of Ireland so many thousand years ago, is not yet
nearly extinct on Irish soil; and it is often used by Irish emigrants in
various parts of the world. More than thirty centuries have faded into
eternity since first its soft, yet powerful, accents were heard on
Ireland’s shore, but still nearly a million people out of four and a
half millions speak it, and hundreds of thousands have more or less
knowledge of the venerable tongue in its written form. Great efforts
have been put forth of late years to promote its propagation throughout
the island, and it is a labor of love in which all classes, creeds, and
parties in Ireland cordially work together. It is not intended, of
course, to supplant the English language, but to render Gaelic co-equal
with it, as in Wales—a thoroughly Celtic country, in which the native
language—Kymric—has been wondrously revived during the past and present
century.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV
The Religion of Ancient Ireland—Many Writers say it was Worship of the
Sun, Moon, and Elements
WE have mentioned that sun-worship was one of the forms of ancient Irish
paganism. There is much difference of opinion on this point, and the
late learned Gaelic expert, Professor Eugene O’Curry, holds that there
is no reliable proof of either sun-worship or fire-worship in antique
Irish annals. On the other hand, we have the excellent historian, Abbé
McGeoghegan, chaplain of the famous Franco-Irish Brigade of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, supported by other authorities,
instancing the sun as, at least, one of the objects of Irish pagan
adoration. Other writers, including the painstaking McGee, seem to
accept the startling assertion that human victims were occasionally
sacrificed on the pagan altars. This, however, is open to doubt, as the
Irish people, however intense in their religious convictions, have never
been deliberately cruel or murderously fanatical. We quote on these
sensitive subjects—particularly sensitive where churchmen are
concerned—from McGeoghegan and McGee, both strong, yet liberal, Catholic
historians. On page 63 of his elaborate and admirable “History of
Ireland,” McGeoghegan remarks: “Great honors were paid to the Druids and
Bards among the Milesians, as well as to those among the Britons and
Gauls. The first, called Draoi in their language, performed the duties
of priest, philosopher, legislator, and judge. Cæsar has given, in his
Commentaries, a well-detailed account of the order, office,
jurisdiction, and doctrine of the Druids among the Gauls. As priests,
they regulated religion and its worship; according to their will, the
objects of it were determined, and the ‘divinity’ often changed; to
them, likewise, the education of youth was intrusted. Guided by the
Druids, the Milesians generally adored Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Apollo,
the sun, moon, and wind; they had also their mountain, forest, and river
gods. These divinities were common to them and to other nations of the
world.... According to the Annals of Ulster, cited by Ware, the
antiquarian, the usual oath of Laegore (Leary) II, King of Ireland, in
the time of St. Patrick, was by the sun and wind.”
McGee, writing of the same subject, on pages 5 and 9 of his “Popular
History of Ireland,” says: “The chief officers about the kings, in the
first ages, were all filled by the Druids or pagan priests; the Brehons,
or judges, were usually Druids, as were also the Bards, the historians
of their patrons. Then came the Physicians, the Chiefs who paid tribute
to or received annual gifts from the sovereign, the royal Stewards, and
the military leaders, or Champions.... Their religion in pagan times was
what the moderns call Druidism, but what they called it themselves we
now know not. It was probably the same religion anciently professed by
Tyre and Sidon, by Carthage and her colonies in Spain; the same religion
which the Romans have described as existing in great part of Gaul, and,
by their accounts, we learn the awful fact that it sanctioned, nay,
demanded, human sacrifices. From the few traces of its doctrines which
Christian zeal has permitted to survive in the old Irish language, we
see that Belus or Crom, the god of fire, typified by the sun, was its
chief divinity—that two great festivals were held in his honor on days
answering to the first of May and last of October. There were also
particular gods of poets, champions, artificers, and mariners, just as
among the Romans and Greeks. Sacred groves were dedicated to these gods;
priests and priestesses devoted their lives to their service; the arms
of the champion and the person of the king were charmed by them; neither
peace nor war was made without their sanction; their own persons and
their pupils were held sacred; the high place at the king’s right hand
and the best fruits of the earth and the water were theirs. Old age
revered them, women worshiped them, warriors paid court to them, youth
trembled before them, princes and chiefs regarded them as elder
brethren. So numerous were they in Erin, and so celebrated, that the
altars of Britain and Western Gaul, left desolate by the Roman legions,
were often served by hierophants from Ireland, which, even in those
pagan days, was known to all the Druidic countries as the Sacred
Island.”
The two greatest battles fought in Ireland during the early Milesian
period were that near Tralee, in Kerry, where the Milesian queen-mother,
Scota, perished, and the conflict at Taltean, in Meath, where the three
Danaan kings, with their wives and warriors, were slain. After these
events, Heber and Heremon divided Ireland between them, but eventually
quarreled. A battle ensued, in which Heber fell, and Heremon was
thereafter, for many years, undisputed monarch of all Ireland. A large
majority of the Celtic families of the island are descended from the two
royal brothers and bitter rivals. Their most famous Milesian successors
in pagan times were Tuathal (Too-hal), the Legitimate, who formed the
royal province of Meath, which existed for many ages, and is now
represented, but on a much smaller scale, by the modern counties of
Meath and Westmeath. The province itself was dismembered centuries ago,
and, since then, Ireland has had but four provincial divisions instead
of five. Tuathal is also credited with having originated the Borumah
(Boru) or “Cow Tribute,” which he imposed on Leinster as a penalty for a
crime committed against two of his daughters by the king of that
province. This tribute was foredoomed to be a curse to the Irish nation
at large, and its forceful imposition by successive Ard-Righs caused
torrents of blood to be shed. It was abolished toward the end of the
seventh century by the Christian king of all Ireland, Finacta II,
surnamed the Hospitable. “Conn of the Hundred Battles” made a record as
a ruler and a warrior. Cormac MacArt, because of his great wisdom, was
called the Lycurgus of Ireland. Niall of the Nine Hostages—ancestor of
the O’Neills—was a formidable monarch, who carried the terror of his
arms far beyond the seas of Ireland. His nephew, King Dathi (Dahy) was
also a royal rover, and, while making war in northern Italy, was killed
by a thunderbolt in an alpine pass. Dathi was the last king of pagan
Ireland, but not the last pagan king. His successor, Leary, son of the
great Niall, received and protected St. Patrick, but never became a
Christian. After Leary’s death, no pagan monarch sat on the Irish
throne.
Ancient Ireland was known by several names. The Greeks called it Iernis
and Ierni; said to have meant “Sacred Isle”; the Romans Hibernia, the
derivation and meaning of which are involved in doubt, and the Milesians
Innisfail, said to mean “the Island of Destiny,” and Eire, or Erinn, now
generally spelled Erin, said to signify “the Land of the West.” Many
learned writers dispute these translations, while others support them.
Within the last six centuries, the island has been known as Ireland,
said to signify West, or Western, land, but, as the savants differ about
this translation also, we will refrain from positive assertion.
The Roman legions never trod on Irish soil, although they conquered and
occupied the neighboring island of Britain, except on the extreme north,
during four hundred years. Why the Romans did not attempt the conquest
of the island is a mystery. That they were able to conquer it can hardly
be doubted. Strange as the statement may seem to some, it was
unfortunate for Ireland that the Romans did not invade and subdue it.
Had they landed and prevailed, their great governing and organizing
genius would have destroyed the disintegrating Gaelic tribal system,
which ultimately proved the curse and bane of the Irish people. They
would also have trained a nation naturally warlike in the art of arms,
in which the Romans had no superiors and few peers. With Roman training
in war and government, the Irish would have become invincible on their
own soil, after the inevitable withdrawal of the Legions from the
island, and the Anglo-Normans, centuries afterward, could not have
achieved even their partial subjection.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V
Advent of St. Patrick—His Wonderful Apostolic Career in Ireland—A
Captive and a Swineherd for Years, he Escapes and becomes the
Regenerator of the Irish Nation
A MAJORITY of learned historians claim that Christianity was introduced
into Ireland by Catholic missionaries from the continent of Europe long
before the advent of the accepted national apostle, St. Patrick, who, in
his boyhood, was captured on the northern coast of Ireland, while
engaged in a predatory expedition with the Gauls, or some other foreign
adventurers. In regard to this period of the future apostle’s career, we
are mainly guided by tradition, as the saint left no memoirs that would
throw light on his first Irish experience. Such expeditions were not
uncommon in the age in which he lived, nor were they for ages that
followed. It seems certain that his captors offered him no bodily harm,
and he was sent to herd swine amid the hills of Down. This inspired boy,
destined to be one of the greatest among men and the saints of God,
remained a prisoner in the hands of the pagan Irish—whom he found to be
a generous, and naturally devotional, people—for many years, and thus
acquired a thorough knowledge of their laws, language, and character.
Whether he was finally released by them, or managed to escape, is a
question of some dispute, but it is certain that he made his way back to
Gaul—now known as France—which, according to many accounts, was his
native land, although Scotland claims him also, and thence proceeded to
Rome, where, having been ordained a priest, he obtained audience of Pope
Celestine, and was by him encouraged and commissioned to convert the
distant Irish nation to Christianity. Filled with a holy zeal, Patrick
repaired as rapidly as possible to his field of labor, and, after
suffering many checks and rude repulses, at last, about the year 432,
found himself back in Ulster, where he fearlessly preached the Gospel to
those among whom he had formerly lived as a serf, with miraculous
success. Afterward, he proceeded to the royal province of Meath, and on
the storied hill of Slane, “over against” that of Tara, where the Irish
monarch, Leary, was holding court, lighted the sacred fire in defiance
of the edict of the Druid high-priest, who worshiped the fires of Baal
and forbade all others to be kindled, and, by its quenchless flame,
flung the sacred symbol of the Cross against the midnight skies of pagan
Ireland. The pagan king summoned the daring apostle to his presence, and
asked him concerning his sacred mission. Patrick explained it, and,
having obtained the royal consent, proceeded to preach with an eloquence
that dazzled king, princes, chiefs, and warriors. He even captivated
some of the Druid priests, but the high-priest, who dreaded the
apostle’s power of words, would have stopped him at the outset, had not
King Leary extended to him his favor and protection, although he himself
remained a pagan to the end of his life. The saint, having made a deep
impression and converted many of high and low degree, took to baptizing
the multitude, and tradition says that the beautiful river Boyne was the
Jordan of Ireland’s great apostle. It was while preaching at Tara that
St. Patrick’s presentation of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity was
challenged by the Druid priests. He immediately stooped to the emerald
sod, plucked therefrom a small trefoil plant called the shamrock—some
say it was the wood sorrel—and, holding it up before the inquisitive and
interested pagans, proved how possible it was to an infinite Power to
combine three in one and one in three. Since that far-distant day, the
shamrock has been recognized as the premier national symbol of Ireland,
although the “sunburst” flag, emblematic of the Druidic worship, it is
presumed, precedes it in point of antiquity. The harp, which is another
of Ireland’s symbols, was adopted at a later period, in recognition of
her Bardic genius.
St. Patrick, or rather Patricius, his Roman name, which signifies a
nobleman, lived and labored for many, many years after he preached at
Tara, and made many circuits of the island, adding tribe after tribe to
the great army of his converts. So deep was the impression he made in
the country that now, after the lapse of fourteen hundred years, which
were perioded by devastating wars and fearful religious and social
persecutions, his memory is as green and as hallowed as if he had died
but yesterday. Mountains, rivers, lakes, islands, and plains are
associated with his name, and thousands of churches, in Ireland and
throughout the world, are called after him, while millions of Ireland’s
sons are proud to answer to the glorious name of Patrick. He died at a
patriarchal age, in the abbey of Saul, County Down, founded by himself,
A.D. 493, and the anniversary of his departure from this life is
celebrated by Irishmen of all creeds, and in every land, on each 17th
day of March, which is called, in his honor, St. Patrick’s Day.
It is no wonder that the Irish apostle is so well remembered and highly
honored. Since the disciples preached by the shores of the Galilee,
there has been no such conversion of almost an entire people from one
form of belief to another. The Druid priests, with some exceptions,
struggled long and bitterly against the rising tide of Christianity in
Ireland, but, within the century following the death of the great
missionary, the Druidic rites disappeared forever from the land, and
“Green Erin” became known thenceforth, for centuries, as the Island of
Saints. Romantic tradition attributes to St. Patrick the miracle of
driving all venomous reptiles out of Ireland. It is certain, however,
that neither snakes nor toads exist upon her soil, although both are
found in the neighboring island of Great Britain.
According to Nennius, a British writer quoted by Dr. Geoffrey Keating,
St. Patrick founded in Ireland “three hundred and fifty-five churches,
and consecrated an equal number of bishops; and of priests, he ordained
three thousand.” “Let whomsoever may be surprised,” says Dr. Keating,
“at this great number of bishops in Ireland, contemporary with St.
Patrick, read what St. Bernard says in his Life of St. Malachias, as to
the practice in Ireland with regard to its bishops. He there says that
‘the bishops are changed and multiplied at the will of the metropolitan,
or archbishop, so that no single diocese is trusting to one, but almost
every church has its own proper bishop.’” After this statement of St.
Bernard no one can be astonished at the number of prelates mentioned
above, for the Church was then in its young bloom. The number of bishops
there mentioned will appear less wonderful on reading her domestic
records. In them we find that every deaconry in Ireland was, formerly,
presided over by a bishop. Irish annals show, also, that St. Patrick
consecrated in Ireland two archbishops, namely, an archbishop of Armagh,
as Primate of Ireland, and an archbishop of Cashel. After the great
apostle’s death, a long and illustrious line of native Irish
missionaries took up his sacred work and completed his moral conquest of
the Irish nation. Nor did their labors terminate with the needs of their
own country. They penetrated to the remotest corners of Britain, which
it is said they first converted to the Christian faith, and made holy
pilgrimages to the continent of Europe, founding in every district they
visited abbeys, monasteries, and universities. Ireland herself became
for a long period the centre of knowledge and piety in insular Europe,
and the ecclesiastical seminaries at Lismore, Bangor, Armagh,
Clonmacnois, and other places attracted thousands of students, both
native and alien, to her shores. Gaelic, the most ancient, it is claimed
by many savants, of the Aryan tongues, was the national language, and
continued so to be for more than a thousand years after the era of
Patrick; but Latin, Greek, and Hebrew formed important parts of the
collegiate curriculum, and the first-named tongue was the ordinary means
of communication with the learned men of other countries.
The art of illuminated writing on vellum was carried to unrivaled
perfection in the Irish colleges and monasteries, and the manuscripts of
this class preserved in Dublin and London, facsimilies of which are now
placed in many American public libraries, as well as in those of
European universities, bear witness to the high state of civilization
attained by the Irish people during the peaceful and prosperous
centuries that followed the coming of St. Patrick and continued until
the demoralizing Danish invasion of the eighth century.
The roll of the Irish saints of the early Christian period is a large
one, and contains, among others, the names of St. Columba, or
Columbkill, St. Finn Barr, St. Brendan, the Navigator; St. Kieran, of
Ossory; St. Kevin, of Glendalough; St. Colman, of Dromore; St. Canice,
of Kilkenny; St. Jarlath, of Tuam; St. Moling, of Ferns; St. Comgall, of
Bangor; St. Carthage, of Lismore; St. Finian, of Moville; St. Kieran, of
Clonmacnois; St. Laserian, of Leighlin; St. Fintan; St. Gall, the
Apostle of the Swiss; St. Columbanus, the Apostle of Burgundy; St.
Aidan, Apostle of Northumbria; St. Adamnan, Abbot of Iona; St. Rumold,
Apostle of Brabant; St. Feargal, Bishop of Salzburg. These are only a
few stars out of the almost countless galaxy of the holy men of ancient
Ireland. Of her holy women, also numerous, the chief were St. Bridget,
Brighid, or Bride, of Kildare; St. Monina, St. Ita, St. Syra, St.
Dympna, and St. Samthan. The premier female saint was, undoubtedly, St.
Bridget, which signifies, in old Gaelic, “a fiery dart.” Modern slang
often degrades the noble old name into “Biddy.” Although thought to be a
purely Irish appellation, it has been borne by, at least, two English
women of note. The Lady Bridget Plantagenet, youngest daughter of King
Edward IV, and “Mistress,” or Miss, Bridget Cromwell, daughter of the
Lord Protector of the English Commonwealth. Lady Plantagenet, who, in
addition to being the daughter of a monarch, was the sister of Edward V
and Elizabeth, Queen of Henry VII; the niece of Richard III and the aunt
of Henry VIII, died a nun in the convent of Dartford, England, long
after the House of York had ceased to reign. “Mistress” Cromwell became
the wife of one of her father’s ablest partisans, and lived to see the
end of the Protectorate, from which her brother, Richard, was deposed,
and the restoration of the House of Stuart to the English throne.
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CHAPTER VI
Ancient Laws and Government of the Irish
IRELAND, ages before she was Christianized, possessed a legal code of
great merit, generally called the Brehon Laws. These remained more or
less in force, from the earliest historic period down to the days of
James I, who, because of the wars and conquests of the armies of his
predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, was the first of the English monarchs that
succeeded in thoroughly breaking up the old system of Irish law and
government. The Brehon Laws were of Irish origin and contained many
provisions more in harmony with humanity and wisdom than some of the
boasted English enactments. In common with many other ancient countries
of Europe, Ireland did not impose the death penalty on a homicide, but,
instead, collected an eric, or blood fine, from him and his relatives,
for the benefit of the family of the man slain by his hand. The best and
briefest work on these interesting laws, which need more attention than
they can be given in a general history, was recently issued by an
English publishing house for the industrious author, Lawrence Ginnell,
lawyer, of the Middle Temple, London. In writing of the ancient form of
Irish monarchy, which, as we have already noted, was elective, Mr.
Ginnell says: “The Irish always had a man, not an assembly, at the head
of the state, and the system of electing a Tanist (heir-apparent) while
the holder of the office was living, in addition to its making for peace
on the demise of the Crown, made an interregnum of more rare occurrence
than in countries which had not provided a Tanist in advance.” The same
author divides the classes of Irish kings thus: The lowest was the
Righ-Inagh (Ree-eena), or king of one district, the people of which
formed an organic state. Sometimes two or three of these, nearly related
and having mutual interests, did not hesitate to combine for the public
good under one king. The next in rank was the Righ-Mor-Tuah
(Ree-More-Tooa), who ruled over a number of districts, and often had
sub-kings under him. The next class of monarch was the Righ-Cuicidh
(Ree-Cooga), a title which signified that he had five of the preceding
class within his jurisdiction. This was the rank of a provincial king.
And, highest of all, as his title implied, was the Ard-Righ (Ard-Ree),
meaning High, or Over, King, who had his seat of government for many
ages at the national palace and capital, established on the “royal hill
of Tara” in Meath. The king of each district owed allegiance and tribute
to the Righ-Mor-Tuah. The latter owed allegiance and tribute to the
Righ-Cuicidh; and he, in turn, owed allegiance and tribute to the
Ard-Righ.
Although the ancient Irish monarchy was, except where forceful
usurpation occasionally prevailed, elective, the candidate for the
Tanistry, or heir-apparency, was required to be of the “blood royal.”
Minors were seldom or never recognized as being eligible. At rare
intervals one might win popular recognition by displaying a precocious
wisdom, or prowess. The ablest and bravest male member of the reigning
family was almost invariably chosen Ard-Righ, and the provincial and
district rulers were chosen on the same principle. Meath was the High
King’s own province, and the lesser monarchs swayed over Ulster,
Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, subsidiary to, yet in a measure
independent of, the Ard-Righ, who held his court at Tara until A.D. 554,
when St. Ruadan, because of sacrilege committed by the reigning monarch,
Dermid, in dragging a prisoner from the saint’s own sanctuary and
killing him, pronounced a malediction on the royal hill and palaces.
Thenceforth Tara ceased to be the residence of the Ard-Righs of Ireland,
and total ruin speedily fell upon it. All that now remains of its
legendary splendor is comprised in the fast vanishing mounds on which
once stood the palaces, assembly halls, and other public buildings of
Ireland’s ancient monarchs. No man or woman of Irish race can gaze
unmoved on the venerable eminence, rising proudly still above the rich
plains of Meath, which has beheld so many fast succeeding vicissitudes
of a nation’s rise, agony, and fall.
“No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells;
The chord alone which breaks at night
Its tale of ruin tells:
Thus, Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives
Is when some heart indignant breaks
To show that still she lives.”
The most famous and powerful of the royal families of Ireland were the
O’Neills of Ulster, who enjoyed the High Kingship longest of all; the
O’Briens of Munster, the O’Conors of Connaught, the MacMurroughs of
Leinster, and the McLaughlins of Meath. Their descendants are simply
legion, for all the Irish clansmen were kindred to their kings and
chiefs, and assumed, as was their blood right, their surnames when these
came into fashion. When the Irish septs, about the end of the tenth
century, by the direction of King Brian the Great, chose their family
designations, the prefix “Mac” was taken as indicating the son, or some
immediate descendant of the monarch, prince, or chief of that particular
tribe, while that of “Ui” or “O,” as it is now universally written in
English, signified a grandson or some more remote kinsman of the
original founder of the name. Thus, the families bearing the prefix
“Mac” generally hold that they descend from the elder lines of the royal
family, or the leading chiefs, while those who bear the “O” descend from
the younger lines. And so it has come to be a national proverb, founded
on more than mere fancy, that every Irishman is the descendant of a
king. The Irish prefixes, however, are a genuine certificate of
nobility, if by that term is meant long descent. An old rhyme puts the
matter in homely but logical manner thus:
“By ‘Mac’ and ‘O’ you’ll surely know
True Irishmen, they say;
But if they lack both ‘O’ and ‘Mac’
No Irishmen are they.”
Many families of Irish origin in this and other countries have foolishly
dropped the Celtic prefixes from their names, and thus destroyed their
best title to respectability. They should remember that “Mac” and “O”
indicate a longer and nobler pedigree than either Capet, Plantagenet,
Tudor, Stuart, Guelph, or Wettin—all distinguished enough in their way,
but quite modern when compared with the Gaelic patronymics. The Scotch
Highlanders, who are of the junior branch of the Irish race, according
to the most reliable historians, use the “Mac” very generally, while the
“O” is rarely found among them. On this account, as well as others, some
of the Scottish savants have attempted to argue that Ireland was
originally peopled by immigrants from Scotland, but this argument is
fallacious on its face, because Ireland was known to the ancients as
“Scotia Major”—greater or older Scotland; while the latter country was
designated “Scotia Minor”—smaller or younger Scotland. The Irish and
Scotch were alike called “Scots” until long after the time of St.
Patrick, and the kindred nations were close friends and helpful allies,
from the earliest historical period down to the reign of Edward III of
England, and even later. It was in Ireland that Robert Bruce, his
brother Edward—afterward elected and crowned king of that country—and
their few faithful retainers sought and found friends and a refuge just
before their final great victory at Bannockburn, A.D. 1314. Sir Walter
Scott mentions this fact in his graphic “Tales of a Grandfather,” and
also in his stirring poem, “The Lord of the Isles.” Keating quotes Bede,
who lived about 700 hundred years after Christ, as saying in his
“History of the Saxons,” “Hibernia is the proper fatherland of the
Scoti” (Scots). So also Calgravius, another ancient historian, who, in
writing of St. Columba, says: “Hibernia (Ireland) was anciently called
Scotia, and from it sprang, and emigrated, the nation of the Scoti,
which inhabits the part of Albania (Scotland) that lies nearest to Great
Britain (meaning England), and that has been since called Scotia from
the fact.”
“Marianus Scotus, an Alban (_i.e._ Scotch) writer,” says Keating, “bears
similar testimony in writing on the subject of St. Kilian. Here are his
words: ‘Although the part of Britannia which borders upon Anglia
(England) and stretches toward the north, is at present distinctively
called Scotia (Scotland), nevertheless, the Venerable Bede (already
quoted) shows that Hibernia was formerly known by that name; for he
informs us that the nation of the Picti (Picts) arrived in Hibernia from
Scythia, and that they found there the nation of the Scoti.’
“Serapus, in certain remarks which he makes in writing about St.
Bonifacius, is in perfect accord with the above cited writers. He says
that ‘Hibernia, likewise, claimed Scotia as one of her names, but,
however, because a certain part of the Scotic nation emigrated from this
same Hibernia and settled in those parts of Britannia in which the Picti
were then dwelling, and was there called the nation of the Dal-Riada,
from the name of its leader, as the Venerable Bede relates, and because
this tribe afterward drove the Picti from their homes, and seized upon
the entire northern region for themselves, and gave it the ancient name
of their own race, so that the nation might remain undivided; in this
manner has the name of Scotia become ambiguous—one, the elder, and
proper, Scotia being in Hibernia, while the other, the more recent, lies
in the northern part of Britannia.’ From the words of the author I draw
these conclusions: (1) that the Irish were, in strict truth, the real
Scoti; (2) that the Dal-Riada was the first race, dwelling in Scotland,
to which the name of Scoti was applied; (3) that Ireland was the true,
ancient Scotia, and that Alba (Scotland) was the New Scotia, and also
that it was the Kinéscuit, or Tribe of Scot, that first called it
Scotia.”
There were numerous after invasions of Alba by the Milesian Irish, who
established new colonies—the most formidable of which was that founded
by the brothers Fergus, Andgus, and Lorne in the beginning of the sixth
century. For nearly a hundred years this colony paid tribute to Ireland,
but, in 574, the Scotch King Aedan, who was brother to the King of
Leinster, declined to pay further tribute. A conference of the monarchs
was held—all being close kindred of the Hy-Nial race—and St. Columba,
their immortal cousin, came from his monastery in Iona to take counsel
with them. The result was a wise and generous abrogation of the tribute
by the Irish nation, and Scotland became independent, but remained, for
long centuries, as before stated, the cordial friend and ally of her
sister country. The Scots then became paramount in Scotia Minor, and
brought under subjection all the tribes who were hostile to the royal
line, founded by Fergus, from whom descended the Stuarts and other
monarchical houses of Great Britain. This convention also lessened the
number and power of the Bards, who had become arrogant and exacting in
their demands upon the kings, princes, and chiefs, who feared their
sarcastic talent, and paid exorbitant levies, rather than endure their
abuse and ridicule.
After the abandonment of Tara as a royal residence, in the sixth
century, the High Kings held court at Tailltenn, now Telltown, and
Tlachtga, now the Hill of Ward, in Meath, and at Ushnagh (Usna) in
Westmeath. The Ulster monarchs had seats at Emain, near Armagh (Ar’-ma’)
Greenan-Ely, on the hill of Ailech, in Donegal; and at Dun-Kiltair—still
a striking ruin—near Downpatrick. The kings of Leinster had their
palaces at Naas in Kildare, Dunlavin in Wicklow, Kells in Meath, and
Dinnree, near Leighlin Bridge, in Catherlough (Carlow). The Munster
rulers held high carnival, for ages, at Cashel of the Kings and Caher,
in Tipperary; at Bruree and Treda-na-Rhee—still a most picturesque
mound, showing the ancient Celtic method of fortification, in Limerick;
and at Kinkora, situated on the right bank of the Shannon, in Clare. The
O’Conors, kings of Connaught, had royal residences at Rathcroaghan
(Crohan) and Ballintober—the latter founded by “Cathal Mor of the Wine
Red Hand,” in the thirteenth century—in the present county of Roscommon;
and at Athunree, or Athenry—Anglice, “the Ford of the Kings,” in Galway.
Ballintober, according to tradition, was the finest royal residence in
all Ireland, and the remains of Cathal Mor’s castle are still pointed
out in the vicinity of the town. It was to it Clarence Mangan alluded in
his “Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth Century,” thus:
“Then saw I thrones and circling fires,
And a dome rose near me as by a spell,
Whence flowed the tone of silver lyres
And many voices in wreathèd swell.
And their thrilling chime
Fell on mine ears
Like the heavenly hymn of an angel band—
‘It is now the time
We are in the years
Of Cathal Mor of the Wine Red Hand.’”
One of the great institutions of ancient Ireland, vouched for by Dr.
Geoffrey Keating and many other learned historians, was the Fiann, or
National Guard, of the country, first commanded by Finn MacCumhail
(MacCool), “the Irish Cid” of pagan times. This force was popular and
lived by hunting, when not actively engaged in warfare, to preserve
internal government, or repel foreign aggression. When so engaged, they
were quartered upon and supported by the people of the localities in
which they rendered service. Their organization was simple, and bore
much resemblance to the regimental and company formations of the present
day. Their drill and discipline were excessively severe. Four
injunctions were laid upon every person who entered this military order.
The first was “to receive no portion with a wife, but to choose her for
good manners and virtue.” The second was “never to offer violence to any
woman.” The third enjoined on the member “never to give a refusal to any
mortal for anything of which one was possessed.” The fourth was “that no
single warrior of their body should ever flee before nine champions.”
Other stipulations were of a more drastic character. No member of the
Fiann could allow his blood, if shed, to be avenged by any other person
than himself, if he should survive to avenge; and his father, mother,
relatives, and tribe had to renounce all claim for compensation for his
death.
No member could be admitted until he became a Bard and had mastered the
Twelve Books of Poesy.
No man could be allowed into the Fiann until a pit or trench deep enough
to reach to his knees had been dug in the earth, and he had been placed
therein, armed with his shield, and holding in his hand a hazel staff of
the length of a warrior’s arm. Nine warriors, armed with nine javelins,
were then set opposite him, at the distance of nine ridges; these had to
cast their nine weapons at him all at once, and then, if he chanced to
receive a single wound, in spite of his shield and staff, he was not
admitted to the Order.
Another rule was that the candidate must run through a wood, at full
speed, with his hair plaited, and with only the grace of a single tree
between him and detailed pursuers. If they came up with him, or wounded
him, he was rejected.
He was also rejected “if his arms trembled in his hands”; or if, in
running through the wood, “a single braid of his hair had been loosened
out of its plait.”
He was not admitted if, in his flight, his foot had broken a single
withered branch. Neither could he pass muster “unless he could jump over
a branch of a tree as high as his forehead, and could stoop under one as
low as his knee, through the agility of his body.” He was rejected,
also, if he failed “to pluck a thorn out of his heel with his hand
without stopping in his course.” Each member, before being admitted to
the Order, was obliged to swear fidelity and homage to the Righ-Feinnedh
(Ree-Feena) or king of the Fenians, which is the English translation of
the title.
There were also other military bodies—not forgetting the more ancient
“Red Branch Knights,” whom Moore has immortalized in one of his finest
lyrics, but the Fenians and their redoubtable chief hold the foremost
place of fame in Irish national annals.
It would seem that a kind of loose federal compact existed, from time to
time, between the High King and the other monarchs, but, unfortunately,
there does not appear to have been a very strong or permanent bond of
union, and this fatal defect in the Irish Constitution of pre-Norman
times led to innumerable disputes about succession to the Ard-Righship
and endless civil wars, which eventually wrecked the national strength
and made the country the comparatively easy prey of adventurous and
ambitious foreigners. The monarchical system was, in itself, faulty.
Where a monarchy exists at all, the succession should be so regulated
that the lineal heir, according to primogeniture, whether a minor or
not, must succeed to the throne, except when the succession is, for some
good and sufficient reason, set aside by the legislative body of the
nation. This was done in England in the case of Henry IV, who, with the
consent of Parliament, usurped the crown of Richard II; and also in the
case of William and Mary, who were selected by the British Parliament of
their day to supplant James II, the father-in-law and uncle of the
former and father of the latter. The act of settlement and succession,
passed in 1701, ignored the male line of the Stuarts, chiefly because it
was Catholic, and placed the succession to the throne, failing issue of
William and Mary and Anne, another daughter of the deposed King James,
in a younger, Protestant branch of the female line of Stuart—the House
of Hanover-Brunswick—which now wears the British crown. But, in general,
as far as the question of monarchy is concerned, the direct system of
succession has proven most satisfactory, and has frequently prevented
confusion of title and consequent civil war. We can recall only one
highly important occasion when it provoked that evil—the sanguinary
thirty years’ feud between the kindred royal English, or, rather,
Norman-French, Houses of York and Lancaster. Even in that case the
quarrel arose from the original bad title of Henry IV, who was far from
being the lineal heir to the throne. Our own democratic system of
choosing a chief ruler is, no doubt, best of all. We elect from the body
of the people a President whose term of office is four years. In some
respects he has more executive power than most hereditary monarchs, but
if at the end of his official term he fails to suit a majority of the
delegates of his party to the National Convention, some other member of
it is nominated in his stead. The opposition party also nominates a
candidate, and very often succeeds in defeating the standard-bearer of
the party in power. Sometimes there are three or more Presidential
candidates in the field, as was the case in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln
was elected. Succession to the Presidency, therefore, is not confined to
any one family, or its branches, in a republic, and the office of
President of the United States may be competed for by any eligible male
citizen who can control his party nomination. The example of Washington,
who refused a third term, has become an unwritten law in America, and it
defeated General Grant’s aspiration to succeed Mr. Hayes in the
Republican National Convention of 1880. In France, under Napoleon, every
French soldier was supposed to carry a marshal’s baton in his knapsack.
In the United States, every native-born schoolboy carries the
Presidential portfolio in his satchel.
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CHAPTER VII
Period of Danish Invasion
THE Irish people, having settled down to the Christian form of worship,
were enjoying “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” building
churches and colleges, and sending out a stream of saints and scholars
to the rest of Europe, when, about the end of the eighth century, the
restless Norsemen, universally called “Danes” in Ireland, swept down in
their galleys by thousands on the Irish coasts, and, after many fierce
conflicts, succeeded in establishing colonies at the mouths of many of
the great rivers of the island. There they built fortified towns, from
which they were able to sally forth by sea or land to change their base
of operations and establish new conquests. Dublin at the mouth of the
Liffey, Drogheda at the mouth of the Boyne, Wexford at the mouth of the
Slaney, Waterford at the mouth of the Suir, and Limerick at the estuary
of the Shannon, are all cities founded by the Danes, who were natural
traders and fierce warriors. They did not confine their attentions
exclusively to Ireland, but, about the same period, conquered Saxon
England, ruling completely over it; and they established a strong colony
on the north coast of France, which is called Normandy to this day, and
from which sprang, by a combination of Scandian with Gallic blood, the
greatest race of warriors—the Romans, perhaps, excepted—the world has
known.
The native Irish met their fierce invaders with dauntless courage, but
they had been so long at peace that they were no longer expert in the
use of arms, and the Danes were all-powerful on the seas. Those Norsemen
were pagans, and had no respect for revealed religion, literature, works
of art, architecture, or, in, short, anything except land-grabbing and
plunder. It must be remembered that most of northern Europe, at the
period written of, was in a benighted state, and that Great Britain
itself was barely emerging from the intellectual and spiritual gloom of
the Dark Ages. The Norse invaders, whenever successful in their
enterprises against the Irish chiefs, invariably demolished the churches
and colleges, murdered the priests, monks, and nuns—often, however,
carrying the latter into captivity—and burned many of the priceless
manuscripts, the pride and the glory of the illustrious scholarship of
ancient Ireland. In the middle portion of the ninth century—about
840—when Nial III was Ard-Righ of Ireland, came the fierce Dane
Turgesius, at the head of an immense fleet and army. He at once
proceeded to ravage the exposed portions of the coast, and then forced
his way inland, laying the country under tribute of all kinds as he
advanced. He made prisoners of Irish virgins and married them, by main
force, to his barbarous chiefs. He even occupied the celebrated
monastery of Clonmacnois and its university as a headquarters, converted
the great altar into a throne, and issued his murderous edicts from that
holy spot. Clonmacnois, translated into English, means “the Retreat of
the Sons of the Noble,” and was the Alma Mater of the princes and
nobility of Ireland. This crowning outrage, coupled with insults offered
to Irish ladies, finally aroused the spirit of burning vengeance in the
breasts of the Irish people. Tradition says that thirty handsome young
men, disguised as maidens, attended a feast given at Clonmacnois by
Turgesius and his chiefs. When the barbarians were sated and had fallen
into a drunken stupor, the youths rose upon and slew them all. The body
of Turgesius, with a millstone tied around the neck, was thrown into a
neighboring lake. Then the nation, under the brave Nial III, rose and
drove the Norsemen back to the seacoast, where they rallied. Another
raid on the interior of the island was attempted, but repelled. Sad to
relate, the gallant King Nial, while attempting to save the life of a
retainer who fell into the Callan River, was himself drowned, to the
great grief of all Ireland. The name of the river in which he perished
was changed to the Ownarigh (Ownaree) or King’s River—a designation
which, after the lapse of ages, it still retains.
A period of comparative repose followed. Many of the Danes became
converts to Christian doctrine, and there was, probably, more or less of
intermarriage among the higher classes of the rival races. But the
Norsemen retained much of their old-time ferocity, and, occasionally,
the ancient struggle for supremacy was renewed, with varying success. It
is humiliating for an Irish writer to be obliged to admit that some of
the Irish Christian princes, jealous of the incumbent Ard-Righ, did not
remain faithful to their country, and actually allied themselves with
the Danes, participating in their barbarous acts. This explains why, for
a period of about three hundred years, in spite of repeated Irish
victories, the Norsemen were able to hold for themselves a large portion
of Ireland, especially the districts lying close to the sea, where they
had no difficulty in receiving supplies and reinforcements from Denmark
and Norway. Many of those old Irish princes were, indeed, conscienceless
traitors, but the people, as a whole, never abandoned the national
cause.
The feuds of the Munster chiefs, toward the end of the tenth century,
had the unlooked-for effect of bringing to the front the greatest ruler
and warrior produced by ancient Ireland. Because of a series of
tragedies in which the hero himself bore no blameful part, Brian of
Kinkora, son of Kennedy and brother of Mahon, both of whom had reigned
as kings of Thomond, or North Munster, ascended the throne of that
province. Mahon, progenitor of the southern MacMahons—from whom
descended the late President of the French Republic, Maurice Patrice
MacMahon, Marshal of France and Duke of Magenta—was murdered by Prince
Donovan, a faithless ally. His younger brother, Brian, afterward called
Borumah or “Boru”—literally, “Brian of the Cow Tribute”—fiercely avenged
his assassination on the treacherous Donovan, and on the Danish settlers
of Limerick, who were the confederates of that criminal in his evil
acts. Brian, young, powerful, and destitute of fear, after disposing of
Donovan, killed with his own brave hand Ivor, the Danish prince,
together with his two sons, although these fierce pagans had taken
refuge in the Christian sanctuary on Scattery Island, in the Shannon,
and then swept the remaining conspirators, both Irish and Danes, off the
face of the earth. Prince Murrough, Brian’s heir, then a mere boy, slew
in single combat the villanous chief, Molloy, who, as the base
instrument of Donovan and Ivor, actually killed his uncle, King Mahon.
Afterward, Brian reigned for a brief period, quietly, as King of
Thomond. He had a profound insight and well knew that only a strong,
centralized government could unite all Ireland against the foreigners,
and he designed to be the head of such a government. He had only one
rival in fame and ability on Irish soil—the reigning Ard-Righ, Malachy
II. This monarch had scourged the warrior Northmen in many bloody
campaigns. In one battle he slew two Danish princes, and took from one a
golden collar, and from the other a priceless sword. The poet Moore
commemorates the former exploit in the well-known melody, “Let Erin
Remember the Days of Old.”
Brian of Kinkora, fiery of mood, enterprising, ambitious, and, we fear,
somewhat unscrupulous in pursuit of sovereignty, a born general and
diplomat, as either capacity might suit his purpose, burned to possess
himself of the supreme sceptre. His ambition led, as usual under such
conditions, to acts of aggression on his part, and, finally, to civil
war between Malachy and himself. A terrible struggle raged in Ireland
for twenty years, until, at last, Ard-Righ Malachy was forced to
capitulate, and his rival became High King of Ireland in his place. The
Danes, naturally, took advantage of the civil strife to re-establish
their sway in the island, and gained many advantages over the Irish
troops. Moved by the danger of his country, the noble Malachy allied
himself with Brian, and, together, they marched against the Norsemen and
drove them back to their seacoast forts. But those bold and restless
spirits did not, therefore, cease to war upon Ireland. Again and yet
again they placed new armies in the field, only to be again baffled and
routed by either the skilful Brian or the devoted Malachy.
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CHAPTER VIII
Battle of Clontarf, A.D., 1014—Total Overthrow of the Danish Army and
Power in Ireland
MANY of the princes of Leinster, more especially the MacMurroughs
(MacMurro) were generally, in some measure, allied to the Danes, and
fought with them against their own countrymen. After several years of
warfare, a peace was, at length, patched up with the MacMurrough, and he
became a guest of King Brian at Kinkora. In those days chess was the
national game of the Irish princes and chiefs, and while engaged in it
with the Leinster guest, Prince Murrough (Murro), Brian’s eldest son, in
a fit of anger, hurled a taunt at the former in regard to his recent
alliance with the invaders of his country. This action was, of course,
rude, and even brutal, on the part of Prince Murrough, although
MacMurrough had been guilty of treasonable offences. The Leinster
potentate rose immediately from the table at which they were playing,
pale from rage, and, in a loud voice, called for his horse and
retainers. He was obeyed at once and left the palace. The wise King
Brian, on learning of the quarrel and departure, sent messengers after
the King of Leinster to bring him back, but his anger was so great that
he would not listen to their representations, so that they went back
without him to Kinkora. MacMurrough immediately re-allied himself with
the Danes, and so the flames of war were rekindled with a vengeance.
Many other princes and chiefs of Leinster made common cause with their
king and his foreign allies. Reinforcements for the latter poured into
Ireland from Scandinavia, from Britain, from the neighboring islands,
from every spot of earth on which an invader could be mustered—all
inflamed against Ireland, and all expecting to wipe King Brian and his
army from the Irish soil. But Brian had his allies, too; the armies of
Munster, Connaught, part of Ulster, and most of the heroic clans of
Leinster flocked to his standard, the latter led by the ever-faithful
Malachy and his tributary chiefs. All of the MacMurrough interest, as
already stated, sided with the Danes. A majority of the Ulster princes,
jealous of Brian’s fame and supreme power, held back from his support,
but did not join the common enemy.
Brian was now an old man, and even his bold son, Murrough, the primary
cause of the new trouble, was beyond middle age. The hostile armies
hurried toward Dublin, the principal Danish stronghold, and on Good
Friday morning, April 23, 1014, were face to face on the sands of
Clontarf, which slope down to Dublin Bay. We have no correct account of
the numbers engaged, but there were, probably, not less than thirty
thousand men—large armies for those remote days—on each side. It was a
long and a terrible battle, for each army appeared determined to conquer
or die. Under King Brian commanded Prince Murrough and his five
brothers: Malachy, Kian, Prince of Desmond, or South Munster; Davoren,
of the same province; O’Kelly, Prince of Hy-Many, East Connaught;
O’Heyne, the Prince of Dalaradia, and the Stewards of Mar and Lennox in
Scotland.
The Danes and their allies were commanded by Brodar, the chief admiral
of the Danish fleet; King Sitric, of Dublin;[1] the Danish captains,
Sigurd and Duvgall, and the warrior Norwegian chiefs, Carlos and Anrud.
The Lord of the Orkney Islands also led a contingent, in which Welsh and
Cornish auxiliaries figured.
Footnote 1:
Sitric, according to some writers, was not in the battle.
Thus, it will seem, the cause was one of moment, as the fate of a
country was to be decided, and the ablest captains of Ireland and
Scandinavia led the van of the respective hosts. The struggle was long
and murderous, for the armies fought hand to hand. Brian, too feeble to
sit his war-horse and bear the weight of even his light armor, worn out,
moreover, by the long march and the marshaling of his forces, was
prevailed upon to retire to his pavilion and rest. He placed the active
command of the Irish army in the hands of King Malachy and his son,
Prince Murrough O’Brien. The conflict lasted from daylight until near
the setting of the sun. Every leader of note on the Danish side, except
Brodar, was killed—many by the strong hand of Prince Murrough and his
brave young son, Turlough O’Brien, after his father the person most
likely to be elected to the chief kingship of Ireland. On the Irish side
there fell Prince Murrough, his gallant son, the Scottish chiefs of Mar
and Lennox, who came, with their power, to fight for Ireland, and many
other leaders of renown. King Brian himself, while at prayer in his
tent, which stood apart and unguarded, was killed by Brodar, the flying
Danish admiral, who was pursued and put to death by a party of Irish
soldiers.
The slaughter of the minor officers and private men, on both sides, was
immense, and the little river Tolka, on the banks of which the main
battle was fought, was choked with dead bodies and ran red with blood.
But the Danes and their allies were completely broken and routed, and
the raven of Denmark never again soared to victory in the Irish sky.
Many Danes remained in the Irish seaport towns, but they became Irish in
dress, language, and feeling, and thousands of their descendants are
among the best of Irishmen to-day.
Ireland, although so signally victorious at Clontarf, sustained what
proved to be a deadly blow in the loss of her aged king and his two
immediate heirs. Brian, himself, unwittingly opened the door of discord
when he took the crown forcibly from the Hy-Niall family, which had worn
it so long. His aim was to establish a supreme and perpetual Dalcassian
dynasty in himself and his descendants—a wise idea for those times, but
one balked by destiny. Now all the provincial Irish monarchs aspired to
the supreme power, and this caused no end of jealousy and intrigue.
Brian, in his day of pride, had been hard on the Ossorians, and their
chief, Fitzpatrick, Prince of Ossory, basely visited his wrath, as an
ally of the Danes, on the Dalcassian contingent of the Irish army
returning from Clontarf encumbered by their wounded. But these dauntless
warriors did not for a moment flinch. The hale stood gallantly to their
arms, and the wounded, unable to stand upright, demanded to be tied to
stakes placed in the ground, and thus supported they fought with
magnificent desperation. The treacherous Ossorian prince was routed, as
he deserved to be, and has left behind a name of infamy. Many noble
patriots of the house of Fitzpatrick have since arisen and passed away,
but that particular traitor ranks with Iscariot, MacMurrough, Monteith,
and Arnold in the annals of treachery. Who that has read them has not
been thrilled by the noble lines of Moore which describe the sacrifice
of the wounded Dalcassians?
“Forget not our wounded companions who stood
In the day of distress by our side;
When the moss of the valley grew red with their blood
They stirred not, but conquered and died!
That sun which now blesses our arms with his light,—
Saw them fall upon Ossory’s plain,
O! let him not blush when he leaves us to-night
To find that they fell there in vain.”
The glorious King Malachy, although ever in the thickest of the battle,
survived the carnage of Clontarf. Unable to agree upon a candidate from
any of the provincial royal families because of their bitter rivalries,
the various factions, having confidence in Malachy’s wisdom and
patriotism, again elected him High King of Ireland, the last man who
held that title without dispute. He reigned but eight years after his
second elevation to the supreme throne of his country and died at a good
old age about the middle of September, 1022, in the odor of sanctity,
and sincerely lamented by the Irish nation, excepting a few ambitious
princes who coveted the crown his acts had glorified. In the whole range
of Irish history he was the noblest royal character, and his name
deserves to be forever honored by the nation he sought to preserve.
After the good king’s death, a younger son of Brian Boru, Prince Donough
(Dunna), made an attempt to be elected Ard-Righ, and, failing in that,
sought to hold the crown by force. But the provincial monarchs refused
to recognize his claims, as he did not appear to inherit either the
military prowess or force of character of his great father. After some
futile attempts to maintain his assumed authority, he was finally
deposed by his abler nephew, Turlough O’Brien, who occupied the throne,
not without violent opposition, for a period. Poor Donough proceeded to
Rome and presented his father’s crown and harp to the Pope, probably
because he had no other valuable offerings to bestow. This circumstance
was afterward made use of by the Anglo-Normans to make it appear that
the presentation made by the deposed and discredited Donough to the
Pontiff carried with it the surrender of the sovereignty of Ireland to
his Holiness. No argument could be more absurd, because, as has been
shown, the crown of Ireland was elective, not hereditary, except with
well understood limitations, which made the blood royal a necessity in
any candidate. Donough, in any case, was never acknowledged as High King
of Ireland, and could not transfer a title he did not possess. In fact
all the Irish monarchs may be best described not as Kings of Ireland,
but Kings of the Irish. They had no power to alienate, or transfer, the
tribe lands from the people, and held them only in trust for their
voluntary subjects. Modern Irish landlordism is founded on the feudal,
not the tribal, system. Hence its unfitness to satisfy a people in whom
lingers the heredity of the ancient Celtic custom. King Brian, the most
absolute of all the Irish rulers, is described by some annalists as
“Emperor of the Irish.”
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CHAPTER IX
Desolating Civil Wars Among the Irish
FROM the deposition of Donough O’Brien down to the period of the Norman
invasion of the island—about a century and a half—Ireland was cursed by
the civil wars which raged interminably, because of disputes of royal
succession, between the McLoughlins of Ulster—a branch of the Hy-Niall
dynasty—and the descendants of King Brian of Kinkora, in which the
latter were finally worsted. Then the successful family fell out with
royal O’Conors of Connaught. One of the latter, a brave and ambitious
man, called Turlough Mor, aimed at the chief sovereignty and proved
himself an able general and a wise statesman. He reigned in splendor
over Connaught, and terrorized his enemies of Ulster and Munster by his
splendid feats of arms. He held his court at Rathcroghan, in Roscommon,
and often entertained as many as 3,000 guests on occasions of festival.
His palace, fortified after the circular Celtic fashion, dominated more
than four hundred forts, or duns, which were the strongholds of his
chiefs, in the territory of Roscommon alone; he founded churches and was
generous to the clergy and to the poor. In spite of all this, however,
he was unable to attain to the High Kingship, and only succeeded in
paving the way to the national throne for his son and successor, Rory,
commonly called Roderick, O’Conor, whose reign was destined to behold
the Anglo-Normans in Ireland. Dr. Joyce, in dealing with this troubled
period of Irish history, says that during the one hundred and fifty
years comprised in it, there were eight Ard-Righs “with opposition”—that
is, some one of the provinces, perhaps more, would refuse to recognize
their jurisdiction. There was also chaos among the minor royal families.
As regarded the High King, it was not unusual to have two of them using
that title at once, as was the case with Donal O’Loughlin, King of
Ulster, and Murtough O’Brien, King of Munster. Both these claimants
terminated their careers in monasteries. A similar condition existed,
also, between Turlough Mor O’Conor, before mentioned, and Murtough
O’Loughlin, King of Ulster, and the strife was only ended by the death
of Turlough Mor, in 1156. His son, Roderick, then attempted to wrest the
Ard-Righship from the Ulster monarch, but was defeated. On the death of
the latter, in 1166, Roderick, who was not opposed by any candidate of
influence, was elected High King—the last of the title who reigned over
all Ireland.
It may be asked, why did not the clansmen—the rank and file of the Irish
people—put a stop to the insane feuds of their kings, princes, and
chiefs? Because, we answer, they were accustomed to the tribal system
and idea. Doubtless, they loved Ireland, in a general way, but were much
more attached to their family tribe-land, and, above all, they adored
the head of their sept and followed where he led, asking no questions as
to the ethics of his cause. Had they been more enlightened regarding the
art of government, they might have combined against their selfish
leaders and crushed them. But the tribal curse was upon them, and is not
yet entirely lifted.
The Danes held the crown of England for about a quarter of a century
after they were driven from power in Ireland. At last, after great
difficulty, they were driven from the throne and the saintly Edward the
Confessor, of the old Saxon line, was raised to the kingship of England.
His successor, King Harold—a brave but, we fear, not a very wise man—is
said by English historians to have “done homage”—an evil custom of those
days—to William, Duke of Normandy, while on a visit to that country. At
all events, William claimed the crown, which Harold, very properly,
declined to surrender. William was an able and resolute, but fierce and
cruel, warrior. He speedily organized a force of 60,000 mercenaries,
mainly French-Normans, but with thousands of real Frenchmen among them,
and, having provided himself with an immense flotilla—a wondrous
achievement in that age of the world—succeeded in throwing his entire
force on the English coast. Harold, nothing daunted, met him on a heath
near Hastings, in Sussex, where the Saxon army had strongly intrenched
itself, and would, perhaps, have been victorious had not it abandoned
its position to pursue the fleeing Normans, who, with their accustomed
martial skill, turned upon their disordered pursuers and repulsed them
in return. The centre of the great conflict is marked by the ruins of
Battle Abbey. The two armies were about equal in strength and fought the
whole length of an October day before the combat was decided. Prodigies
of valor were performed, but, at last, the brave Harold fell, and the
remains of the Saxon army fled from that fatal field. William, soon
afterward, occupied London. The Saxons made but small show of
resistance, after Hastings, and, within a few years, “fair England” was
parceled out among William’s Norman-French captains, who thus laid the
foundation of the baronial fabric that, with one brief interval, has
dominated England ever since. A few of the Saxon nobles managed,
somehow, to save their domains—probably by swearing allegiance to
William and marrying their lovely daughters to his chiefs—but, as a
whole, the Saxon people became the serfs of the Norman barons, and were
scarcely recognized even as subjects, until the long and bloody wars
with France, in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries,
made them necessary, in a military sense, to the Plantagenet kings, who
employed them chiefly as archers. Under Norman training, their skill
with the deadly long bow made them perhaps the most formidable infantry
of the Middle Ages.
The Normans in England, very wisely, accommodated themselves to the new
conditions and made up their minds to live upon and enjoy the lands they
had won by the sword. They rapidly became more English than Norman, and
after the accession of the House of Anjou to the throne, in the person
of Henry II, began to call themselves “Englishmen.” Sir Walter Scott, in
his noble historical romance of “Ivanhoe,” draws a splendidly vivid
picture of that period.
In Ireland, as we have seen, the series of distracting civil wars, all
growing out of questions of succession to the national and provincial
thrones, still progressed, and, owing to the unceasing discord,
prosperity waned, and some historians claim that Church discipline was
relaxed, although not to any such extent as is asserted by the Norman
chroniclers. But the reigning Pontiff, hearing of the trouble, summoned
some of the leading hierarchs of the Irish Church to Rome, where they
explained matters satisfactorily.
About the time that Henry II, in virtue of his descent from the
Conqueror, through his mother, daughter of Henry I, assumed the English
crown, the Papal chair was occupied by Adrian the Fourth, whose worldly
name was Nicholas Breakspeare, an Englishman by birth, and the only man
of that nationality who ever wore the tiara. He, too, had been informed
by Norman agents of the disorders in Ireland, where, among other things,
it was claimed that the people in general had neglected to pay to the
Papacy the slight tribute known as “Peter’s Pence.” This circumstance,
no doubt, irritated the Pontiff, and when Henry, who had his ambitious
heart set on acquiring the sovereignty of Ireland, laid open his design,
Pope Adrian, according to credible authority, gave him a document called
a “bull,” in which, it would appear, he undertook to “bestow” Ireland on
the English king, with the understanding that he should do his utmost to
reform the evils in Church and State said to exist in that country, and
also compel the regular payment of the Papal tribute. All of which Henry
agreed to do.
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CHAPTER X
The Norman-Welsh Invasion of Ireland—Their Landing in Wexford
POPE ADRIAN’S “gift” of Ireland to Henry II, absurd as it may appear in
this age, was not without precedent in the Middle Ages, when the Roman
Pontiff was regarded as supreme arbiter by nearly all of Christendom.
Such “gifts” had been made before the time of Adrian, and some
afterward, but they were not considered bona fide by the countries
involved. So also with the Irish people as a majority. They respected,
as they still respect, the Pope in his spiritual capacity, but rightly
conceived that he had no power whatever to make a present of their
country to any potentate, whether native or alien, without their
consent. An influential minority held otherwise, with most unfortunate
results, as we shall see. Some superzealous Catholic writers have sought
to discredit the existence of the “bull” of Adrian, but weight of
evidence is against them, and, in any case, it was “confirmed,” at
Henry’s urgent request, by Pope Alexander III. The king was engaged in
civil war with his own sons—in every way worthy of their rapacious
father—during most of his reign, for he held under his sway Normandy,
Aquitaine, and other parts of France, which they wanted for themselves.
Thus no chance to push his long meditated Irish scheme presented itself
until about A. D. 1168. Fifteen years prior to that date, Dermid, or
Dermot, MacMurrough (Mac Murro), King of Leinster, a very base and
dissolute ruler, had carried off the wife of O’Ruarc, Prince of Breffni,
while the latter was absent on a pious pilgrimage. The lady was a
willing victim, and added the dowry she brought her husband to the
treasure of her paramour. When Breffni returned to his castle and found
that his wife had betrayed him, he was overpowered by grief and anger,
and, not having sufficient military force himself to punish his enemy,
he called on Turlough Mor O’Conor, then titular Ard-Righ, to assist him
in chastising MacMurrough. O’Conor did so to such purpose that,
according to Irish annals, Dervorgilla, which was the name of O’Ruarc’s
wife, together with her dowry, was restored to her husband, who,
however, discarded her, and she died penitent, it is said, forty years
afterward in the cloisters of Mellifont Abbey. But Dermid’s evil conduct
did not end with his outrage against O’Ruarc. He entertained the most
deadly animosity to the O’Conor family on account of the punishment
inflicted on him by Turlough Mor, and when on the death in battle of
Ard-Righ Murtagh McLaughlin, Roderick, son of Turlough Mor, claimed the
national crown, MacMurrough refused him recognition, although nearly all
the other sub-kings had acknowledged him as supreme ruler of Ireland.
Incensed at his stubbornness, King Roderick, who had with him O’Ruarc
and other princes of Connaught, marched against Dermid, who, seeing that
he was overmatched, burned his palace of Ferns, and, taking to his
galley, crossed the Irish Sea to England and sought out King Henry II at
his Court of London. On arriving there he was informed that the king was
in Aquitaine, and thither he at once proceeded. The politic founder of
the Plantagenet dynasty received him quite graciously and listened
complacently to his story. Henry was secretly well pleased with the
treasonable errand of his infamous guest, which was to demand
Anglo-Norman aid against his own monarch, regardless of the after
consequences to the fortunes of his country. He enumerated his
grievances at the hands of the O’Conors, father and son, and related how
he had been the faithful ally of the former in his long war with one of
the Thomond O’Briens. Turlough Mor, he considered, had treated him badly
for the sake of O’Ruarc, and his son, Roderick, had been quite as
hostile, forcing him to seek Henry’s protection against further invasion
of his hereditary patrimony. The Anglo-Norman king said, in reply, that
he could not aid MacMurrough in person as he was then engaged in a war
with one or more of his own sons, but he consented to give him
commendatory letters to certain Norman chiefs, brave but needy, who were
settled in Wales and the West of England, and had there made powerful
matrimonial alliances. The traitor gladly accepted the letters, “did
homage” to Henry, and took his leave elated at the partial success of
his unnatural mission. Landing in Wales, he found himself within a short
time in the presence of Richard De Clare, surnamed “Strongbow,” a brave,
adventurous, and unscrupulous Norman noble, who bore the title of Earl
of Pembroke. He also made the acquaintance of other Norman knights—among
them Robert Fitzstephen, Maurice De Prendergast, Maurice Fitzgerald,
ancestor of the famous Geraldine houses of Kildare and Desmond; Meyler
FitzHenry and Raymond Le Gros—all tried warriors, all in reduced
circumstances, and all ready and willing to barter their fighting blood
for the fair hills and rich valleys of Ireland. They listened eagerly
while MacMurrough unfolded his precious plot of treason and black
revenge. The daring adventurers seized upon the chance of fortune at
once, and the traitor was sent back to Ireland to prepare his hereditary
following for the friendly reception of “the proud invaders,” his newly
made allies. Before leaving Wales he had made bargains with the alien
adventurers which were disgraceful to him as a native-born Irishman. In
a word, he had, by usurped authority, mortgaged certain tracts of the
land of Leinster for the mercenary aid of the Anglo-Normans, or, to be
more historically exact, the Norman-Welsh.
Soon after the departure of Dermid for Ireland, Robert Fitzstephen, the
readiest of the warlike plotters, and the first of the invaders, sailed
for that country at the head of thirty knights, sixty men in armor, and
three hundred light-armed archers. In the fragrant ides of May, 1169,
they landed on the Wexford coast, near Bannow, and thus,
inconsequentially, began the Norman invasion of Ireland. De Prendergast
arrived the following day with about the same number of fighting men.
Only a few years ago, in removing some débris—the accumulation of
ages—near Bannow, the laborers found the traces of the Norman camp-fires
of 1169 almost perfectly preserved. The two adventurers sent tidings of
their arrival to MacMurrough without delay, and he marched at once, with
a powerful force of his own retainers to join them. All three, having
united their contingents, marched upon the city of Wexford, many of
whose inhabitants were lineal descendants of the Danes. They made a
gallant defence, but were finally outmanœuvred, overpowered, and
compelled to capitulate. Other towns of less importance submitted under
protest to superior force. Indeed there seemed to be a total lack of
military foresight and preparedness in all that section of Ireland in
1169. Fitzpatrick, Prince of Ossory, descended from that ally of the
Danes who attacked the Dalcassians returning from Clontarf, alone
opposed to the invaders a brave and even formidable front. He committed
the mistake of accepting a pitched battle with MacMurrough and his
allies, and was totally defeated. King Roderick O’Conor, hearing of the
invasion, summoned the Irish military bodies to meet him at Tara. Most
of them responded, but the Prince of Ulidia, MacDunlevy, took offence at
some remark made by a Connaught prince, and, in consequence, most of the
Ulster forces withdrew from the Ard-Righ. King Roderick, with the troops
that remained, marched to attack MacMurrough at his favorite stronghold
of Ferns, where he lay with the Normans, or a part of them, expecting a
vigorous siege. Instead of assaulting the enemy’s lines at once, when
his superior numbers would, most likely, have made an end of the traitor
and his Norman allies, O’Conor weakly consented to a parley with Dermid,
who was a most thorough diplomat. The Ard-Righ consented, further, to a
treaty with MacMurrough, who, of course, designed to break it as soon as
the main body of the Normans, under Strongbow in person, should arrive
from Wales. He did not, nevertheless, hesitate to bind himself by a
secret clause of the treaty with the king to receive no more foreigners
into his army, and even gave one of his sons as a hostage to guarantee
the same. The Ard-Righ retired from Ferns satisfied that the trouble was
ended. The royal army was scarcely out of sight of the place when
MacMurrough learned that Maurice Fitzgerald, at the head of a strong
party of Normans, had also arrived on the Wexford coast. He now thought
himself strong enough to lay claim to the High Kingship and negotiated
with the Danes of Dublin for recognition in that capacity. Meanwhile,
still another Norman contingent under Raymond Le Gros landed at the
estuary of Waterford, on the Wexford side thereof, and occupied
Dundonolf Rock, where they intrenched themselves and eagerly awaited the
coming of Strongbow with the main body of the Norman army.
By this time Henry II began to grow jealous of the success of his
vassals in Ireland. He wanted to conquer the country for himself, and,
therefore, sent orders to Strongbow not to sail. But that hardy soldier
paid no attention to Henry’s belated command, and sailed with a powerful
fleet and army from Milford Haven, in Wales, arriving in Waterford
Harbor on August 23, 1171. The Normans, under Raymond Le Gros, joined
him without loss of time, and the combined forces attacked the old
Danish city. The Danes and native Irish made common cause against the
new enemy and a desperate and bloody conflict occurred. The Normans were
several times repulsed, with great loss, but, better armed and led than
their brave opponents, they returned to the breach again and yet again.
At last they gained entrance into the city, which they set on fire. An
awful massacre ensued. Three hundred of the leading defenders were made
prisoners, their limbs broken and their maimed bodies flung into the
harbor. King MacMurrough, who had already pledged his daughter’s hand to
Strongbow—a man old enough to have been her father—arrived just after
the city fell. In order to celebrate the event with due pomp and
circumstance, he caused the Princess Eva to be married to the Norman
baron in the great cathedral, while the rest of the city was burning,
and the blood of the victims of the assault still smoked amid the ruins!
An ominous and fatal marriage it proved to Ireland.
And now, at last, the blood of the native Irish was stirred to its
depths and they began, when somewhat late, to realize the danger to
their liberty and independence. In those far-off days, when there were
no railroads, no electric wires, no good roads or rapid means of
communication of any kind, and when newspapers were unknown,
information, as a matter of course, traveled slowly even in a small
country, like Ireland. The woods were dense, the morasses fathomless,
and, in short, the invaders had made their foothold firm in the east and
south portions of the island before the great majority of the
Celtic-Irish comprehended that they were in process of being subjugated
by bold and formidable aliens. There had existed in Ireland from very
ancient times five main roads, all proceeding from the hill of Tara to
the different sections of the country. That called “Dala” ran through
Ossory into the province of Munster. The road called “Assail” passed on
toward the Shannon through Mullingar. The highway from Tara to Galway
followed the esker, or small hill range, as it does in our own day, and
was called “Slighe Mor,” or great road; the road leading from Tara to
Dublin, Bray, and along the Wicklow and Wexford coasts was called
“Cullin”; the highway leading into Ulster ran, probably, through
Tredagh, or Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, and Armagh, but this is not
positive. As it was the route followed by the English in most of their
Ulster wars, it is quite probable that they picked out a well-beaten
path, so as to avoid the expense and labor of making a new causeway.
McGee tells us that there were also many cross-roads, known by local
names, and of these the Four Masters, at different dates, mentioned no
less than forty. These roads were kept in repair, under legal enactment,
and the main highways were required to be of sufficient width to allow
of the passage of two chariots all along their course. We are further
informed that the principal roads were required by law to be repaired at
seasons of games and fairs, and in time of war. At their best, to judge
by the ancient chroniclers, most of them would be considered little
better than “trails” through the mountains, moors, and forests in these
times.
MacMurrough and Strongbow did not allow the grass to sprout under their
feet before marching in great force on Dublin. King Roderick, leading a
large but ill-trained army, attempted to head them off, but was
outgeneraled, and the enemy soon appeared before the walls of Leinster’s
stronghold. Its Dano-Celtic inhabitants, cowed by the doleful news from
Waterford, tried to parley; but Strongbow’s lieutenants, De Cogan and Le
Gros, eager for carnage and rich plunder, surprised the city, and the
horrors of Waterford were, in a measure, repeated. The Danish prince,
Osculph, and most of his chief men escaped in their ships, but the
Normans captured Dublin, and the English, except for a brief period in
the reign of James II, have held it from that sad day, in October, 1171,
to this.
Roderick O’Conor, that weak but well-meaning prince and bad general,
retired into Connaught and sent word to MacMurrough to return to his
allegiance, if he wished to save the life of his son, held as a hostage.
The brutal and inhuman traitor refused, and King Roderick, although
humane almost to a fault, had the unfortunate young man decapitated.
This was poor compensation for the loss of Waterford and Dublin. Those
pages of Irish history are all besmeared with slaughter.
Many of the Irish chroniclers, who are otherwise severe on Norman
duplicity, relate a story of chivalry, worthy of any age and people, in
connection with Maurice de Prendergast and the Prince of Ossory.
Strongbow had deputed the former to invite the latter to a conference.
The Irish prince accepted. While the conference was in progress, De
Prendergast learned that treachery was intended toward his guest. He
immediately rushed into Strongbow’s presence and swore on the hilt of
his sword, which was a cross, that no man there that day should lay
hands on the Prince of Ossory. The latter was allowed to retire
unmolested, and Prendergast and his followers escorted him in safety to
his own country. De Prendergast has been known ever since in Irish
annals as “the Faithful Norman,” and his fidelity has made him the theme
of many a bardic song and romantic tale.
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CHAPTER XI
Superior Armament of the Normans—Arrival of Henry II
ALTHOUGH two of the chief Irish cities had fallen to the invaders, the
struggle was not entirely abandoned by the Irish nation. Ulster and most
of Connaught remained intact, and even in Munster and Leinster there
was, from time to time, considerable, although desultory, resistance to
the Anglo-Normans. The latter, clad in steel armor from head to foot,
and possessing formidable weapons, had a great advantage over the
cloth-clad Irish, although, of course, the latter greatly outnumbered
them. The weapons of the Irish were the skian, or short-sword—resembling
the Cuban machete—the javelin, and the battle-axe—the latter a terrible
arm at close quarters; but even the axe could not cope with the
ponderous Norman sword and the death-dealing long bow, with its
cloth-yard shaft. In discipline and tactics, also, the Irish were
overmatched. In short, they were inferior to their enemies in everything
but numbers and courage. But all would have been redeemed had they but
united against the common foe.
Why they did not may be justly, as we think, attributed to the tribal
system which taught the clans and tribes to be loyal to their particular
chiefs rather than to their country as a whole; the absence of a fully
recognized federal head, and the vacillations of an honest and patriotic
Ard-Righ, who, noble and amiable of character, as he undoubtedly was,
proved himself to be a bungling diplomat and an indifferent general. Had
his able and determined father, Turlough Mor, been on the Irish throne,
and in the vigor of his life, when Strongbow landed, he would have made
short work of the Norman filibusters. The king seemed ever behind time
in his efforts to stem the tide of invasion. He had rallied still
another army, and gained some advantages, when he was confronted by a
new enemy in the person of Henry II. This king, determined not to be
outdone by his vassals, had ordered Strongbow, who, because of his
marriage with Eva MacMurrough, had assumed the lordship of Leinster, to
return with all his chief captains to England, the penalty of refusal
being fixed at outlawry. Strongbow attempted to placate the wrathful
king and sent to him agents to explain his position, but the fierce and
crafty Plantagenet was not a man to be hoodwinked. He collected a
powerful fleet and army, set sail from England, in October, 1171, and,
toward the end of that month, landed in state at Waterford, where
Strongbow received him with all honor and did homage as a vassal. This
was the beginning of Ireland’s actual subjugation, for had the original
Norman invaders refused to acknowledge Henry’s sovereignty, and, uniting
with the natives, kept Ireland for themselves, they would eventually, as
in England, have become a component and formidable part of the nation,
and proved a boon, instead of a curse, to the distracted country. The
landing of Henry put an end to such a hope, and with his advent began
that dependency on the English crown which has been so fatal to the
liberty, the happiness, and the prosperity of “the most unfortunate of
nations.”
Henry having “graciously” received the submission of Strongbow and his
confederates, proceeded, at once—for he was a monarch of great energy—to
make a “royal progress” through the partially subdued portions of
Munster and Leinster. He took care, in doing this, to show Pope Adrian’s
mischievous “bull” to the Irish prelates and princes, some of whom, to
their discredit be it confessed, bowed slavishly to the ill-considered
mandate of the Pontiff. Many of the princes were even base enough to
give Henry “the kiss of peace,” when, instead, they should have rushed
to arms to defend the honor and independence of their country. The
prelates, trained to ecclesiastical docility, disgusted with the
everlasting civil contentions of the country, and fearful of further
unavailing bloodshed, had some feeble excuse for their ill-timed
acquiescence, but what are we to say of those wretched Irish princes who
so weakly and wickedly betrayed their nation to the foreign usurper?
They were by no means ignorant men, as times went, but they were
ambitious, vain, and jealous of the half-acknowledged authority of High
King Roderick, who, poor man, seems to have been the Henry VI of
Ireland. Those treasonable princes deserve enduring infamy, and foremost
among them were Dermid McCarthy, King of Desmond, and Donald O’Brien,
King of Thomond. Both lived to regret most bitterly their cowardice and
treason.
Henry II was a politic monarch. He flattered the pliable Irish bishops
and spoke to them gently about Church reforms, while he palavered the
despicable Irish princes, and, at the same time, pretended to favor the
common people and affected to check the rapacity of his Norman subjects.
Hostilities ceased for a time, except on the borders of Leinster and
Connaught, where King Roderick, deserted by many of his allies, and
deeply depressed at the absence of national union against the invaders,
kept up an unavailing resistance. In this he was encouraged and aided by
the patriotic Archbishop of Dublin, St. Lorcan O’Tuhill, who appears to
have been the only man among the entire Irish hierarchy who comprehended
the iron grip the Normans had on the throat of Ireland. Had all the
prelates been like St. Lorcan, and preached a war of extermination
against the invaders at the outset, Ireland could, undoubtedly, have
thrown off the yoke, because the princes would have been forced by their
people, over whom the bishops had great moral sway, to heal their feuds
and make common cause for their country. King Roderick, despite his
errors, deserves honor for his patriotic spirit. The Ulster princes,
too, with few exceptions, stood out manfully against the foreigner, and
a long period elapsed before the Anglo-Norman power found a secure
footing amid the rugged glens and dense forests of the western and
northern portions of the invaded island.
Geraldus Cambrensis, or Gerald Barry, a Norman priest of Welsh birth,
accompanied, A.D. 1185, King Henry’s son, John, as chronicler, to
Ireland. Like nearly every man of his race, he hated the native Irish,
but, occasionally, as if by accident, spoke well of some of them. In
general, however, his book is a gross libel on the Irish Church and the
Irish people. He purports to give Roderick O’Conor’s address to his army
on the eve of battle with the Anglo-Normans, and the concluding words of
the speech are alleged to have been as follows: “Let us then,” said the
Irish king, “following the example of the Franks, and fighting bravely
for our country, rush against our enemies, and as these foreigners have
come over few in numbers, let us crush them by a general attack. Fire,
while it only sparkles, may be speedily quenched, but when it has burst
into a flame, being fed with fresh materials, its power increases with
the bulk, and it can not be easily extinguished. It is always best to
meet difficulties half way, and check the first approaches of disease,
for (the Latin quotation of the king is here translated)
“Too late is medicine, after long delay,
To stop the lingering course of slow decay.
Wherefore, defending our country and liberty, and acquiring for
ourselves eternal renown, let us, by a resolute attack, and the
extermination of our enemies, though they are but few in number, strike
terror into the many, and, by their defeat, evermore deter foreign
nations from such nefarious attempts.”
Henry’s astute policy disarmed, for a time, even Roderick himself. The
Anglo-Norman monarch, who would have made an admirable modern
politician, does not seem to have desired the absolute ruin of the Irish
nation, but his greedy Norman captains were of a different mind, and
when Henry, after having wined and dined the Irish princes to their
hearts’ content, in Dublin and other cities, at last returned to
England, in the fall of 1173, the Norman leaders showed their teeth to
the Irish people, and forced most of those who had submitted into fierce
revolt. As a result, the Norman forces were crushed in the field.
Strongbow, himself, was shut up in Waterford, and his comrades were
similarly placed in Dublin, Drogheda, and Wexford. Henry, incensed at
this unlooked-for sequel to his Irish pilgrimage, sent over a commission
to inquire into the facts. The result was that an Irish delegation went
to London to explain, and, at Windsor, where Henry held his court, a
treaty was entered into, finally, between King Roderick and himself, by
which the former acknowledged Henry as “suzerain,” and Roderick was
recognized as High King of Ireland, except the portions thereof held by
the Normans under Henry. This was a sad ending of Roderick’s heroic
beginning. As usual with English monarchs, when dealing with the Irish
people, Henry, urged by his greedy dependants in Ireland, soon found
means to grossly violate the Treaty of Windsor, as the compact between
the representatives of Roderick and himself was called, thus vitiating
it forever and absolving the Irish nation from observing any of its
provisions. Another fierce rebellion followed, in which the southern and
western Irish—the Anglo-Normans having now grown more numerous and
powerful—were remorselessly crushed. Roderick’s rascally son, Prince
Murrough O’Conor, who thought his father should be satisfied with the
titular High Kingship, and that he himself should be King of Connaught,
rose in revolt and attempted to seize the provincial crown. The
Connacians, indignant at his baseness, stood by the old king. Murrough
was defeated and received condign punishment. This bad prince must have
been familiar with the unseemly course pursued by the sons of Henry II
in Normandy, for he allied himself with his country’s, and his father’s,
enemies, the Anglo-Normans, under the treacherous De Cogan, and this
act, more even than his filial impiety, inflamed the minds of his
countrymen against the unnatural miscreant. King Roderick, unhappy man,
whose pride was mortally wounded, and whose paternal heart, tender and
manly, was wrung with sorrow at the crime of his son and its
punishment—decreed by the Clans and not by himself—disgusted, besides,
with the hopeless condition of Irish affairs, made up his mind to retire
from the world, its pomps and vexations. He repaired to the ancient
monastery of Cong, in Galway, and there, after twelve years of pious
devotion, on the 29th day of November, 1198, in the 82d year of his age,
this good and noble but irresolute monarch surrendered his soul to God.
He was not buried at Cong, as some annalists have asserted, but in the
chancel of the Temple Mor, or Great Church, of Clonmacnois, in the
present King’s County, where he was educated. Tradition has failed to
preserve the location of the exact place of sepulture within the ruined
shrine. And so ended the last Ard-Righ, or High King, that had swayed
the sceptre of an independent Ireland.
King Henry’s claim that the Irish Church needed great reformation is
disproved by the enactments of his own reign in that connection, viz.:
1. That the prohibition of marriage within the canonical degrees of
consanguinity be enforced. 2. That children should be regularly
catechized before the church door in each parish. 3. That children
should be baptized in the public fonts of the parish churches. 4. That
regular tithes should be paid to the clergy, rather than irregular
donations from time to time. 5. That church lands should be exempt from
the exaction of livery and other burdens. 6. That the clergy should not
be liable to any share of the eric, or blood fine, levied off the
kindred of a man guilty of homicide. 7. A decree regulating the making
of wills.
Surely, this was small ground on which to justify the invasion of an
independent country and the destruction of its liberty!
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CHAPTER XII
Prince John “Lackland” Created “Lord” of Ireland—Splendid Heroism of Sir
Armoricus Tristram
HENRY II, whatever may have been his original intentions toward Ireland
and the Irish, soon after his return to England assumed the tone of a
conqueror and dictator. He forgot, or appeared to forget, the treaty he
had concluded with King Roderick’s representatives at Windsor, which
distinctly recognized the tributary sovereignty of the Irish monarch,
and left the bulk of the Irish people under the sway of their own native
laws and rulers. Now, however, he, in defiance of the commonest law of
honor, proclaimed his weakest and worst son, the infamous John, “Lord”
of Ireland—a title retained by the English kings down to the reign of
Henry VIII, who, being a wily politician, contrived to get himself
“elected” as “King of Ireland.” This title remained with the English
monarchs until January 1, 1801, when the ill-starred legislative union
went into effect, and George III of England became king of the so-called
“United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”
Henry II died in 1189, preceding the Irish king he had so deeply wronged
to the grave by about nine years. His last hours were doubly imbittered
by the discovery that his youngest son, John, who was also his favorite,
and in whom he had concentrated all his paternal love and confidence,
was leagued with his enemies. An able, but thoroughly bad, man, Henry
Plantagenet died a miserable death—his heart filled with rage against
his own rebellious offspring, who, no doubt, only practiced the
perfidious policy inculcated by their miserable father. The death scene
occurred at Chinon, in Aquitaine, and his last words, uttered in the
French tongue, and despite the vehement protests of the surrounding
ecclesiastics, were, “Accursed be the day on which I was born, and
accursed of God be the sons I leave after me!” His curse did not fall on
sticks and stones. All of his guilty sons, except John, died violent and
untimely deaths. Lackland, the exception, died of an overdose of pears
and fresh cider, added to grief over the loss of his treasure, which
sunk in a quicksand while he was marching with his guard along the
English coast. Henry’s curse remained with the Plantagenets to the end,
and most of the princes of that family met a horrible doom, from Edward
II, foully murdered in Berkeley Castle, to the last male Plantagenet, of
legitimate origin, the Earl of Warwick, beheaded by order of Henry VII
in 1499. Strongbow, Henry’s chief tool in the acquirement of Ireland,
died of a dreadful blood malady, which, the doctors said, resembled
leprosy, some years before the king. He is buried in Christ Church
Cathedral, Dublin, and beside him are said to rest the relics of his
only son, killed by the ferocious father’s hand, because he fled from
the Irish in some border battle.
Before closing this chapter we may be allowed to remark that Richard
III, when he had his nephews murdered in the Tower of London, in 1483,
came legitimately by his cruel nature. John Lackland was the progenitor
of all the Plantagenets who succeeded him on the English throne, and,
like his direct descendant, Richard Crookback, was a usurper, because
Prince Arthur, son of his elder brother, Geoffrey Plantagenet, was
lineal heir to the throne. History and tradition agree in saying that
John caused Prince Arthur to be murdered, and some historians say that
he was the actual murderer. He was the only coward of his race, and was,
also, frivolous and deliberately ill-mannered. When on a visit to
Ireland, in the supposed interest of his father, he caused a revolt
among the Irish chiefs who called upon him, by pulling their long beards
and otherwise insulting them. Those cringing chiefs deserved the
treatment they received, but John Lackland, as he was dubbed, is not,
therefore, excusable for having acted toward them as a boor and a
ruffian. Later on, when he became King of England, he again visited
Ireland, and built many strong castles. That of Limerick, called King
John’s Castle, is still almost perfectly preserved, and is a superb
relic of Norman military architecture. As the Irish were not provided
with armament, or appliances, for making a successful siege, the
fortresses built by King John were, so far as they were concerned,
virtually impregnable. Whenever the Normans were vanquished in the
field, they retired to their castles, which were amply provisioned, and
defied the vengeance of their foes.
In the last year of the reign of Henry II, there occurred in Ireland one
of those memorable combats which deserve a lasting place in history, not
so much because of any important reform or social or political blessing
of any kind resulting from them, but as tending to show that warrior
men, in all ages, have often been chivalrous and self-sacrificing. The
Norman race—glorious as has been its record all over Europe and
Palestine—never evinced greater bravery than on the Woody field of
Knocktuagh (Nockthoo), “the Hill of Axes,” in Galway, A.D. 1189. Sir
John De Courcy, hard pressed in Ulster by the fiercely resisting septs
of the north, asked aid from his sworn friend and comrade, Sir Armoricus
Tristram—ancestor of the family of St. Lawrence, Earls of Howth—then
serving in Connaught. Tristram had with him, according to some accounts,
thirty knights, one hundred men-at-arms, mounted, and one hundred
light-armed infantry; according to other statements, he had under his
command thirty cavalry and two hundred foot. This force Cathal O’Conor,
afterward known as “the Red-Handed,” Prince of the royal house of
Connaught—a most valiant and skilful general, who was younger brother,
born out of wedlock, of King Roderick, then virtually in the retirement
of the cloisters of Cong Abbey—led into an ambush, and attacked with a
superior force. Sir Armoricus saw at a glance that escape was hopeless,
and that only one refuge was left for him and his following—to die with
honor. Some of his horsemen, tradition says, proposed to cut their way
out and leave the infantry to their fate. Against this mean proposition
Sir Armor’s brother and other knights vehemently protested. “We have
been together in many dangers,” they said; “now let all of us fight and
die together.” Sir Armor, by way of answer, alighted from his steed,
drew his sword and, with it, pierced the noble charger to the heart. All
the other horsemen, except two youths, who were detailed to watch the
fight from a distant hill, and report the result to De Courcy in Ulster,
immediately followed their glorious leader’s example. Tradition asserts
that the two young men who made their escape, by order, were Sir
Armoricus’s son and the squire of De Courcy, who brought the latter’s
message to Tristram. Having completed the slaughter of their horses, the
little band of Normans formed themselves in a phalanx, and marched
boldly to attack the outnumbering Irish. The latter met the shock with
their usual courage, but the enemy, clad in armor, cut their way deeply
and fatally into the crowded ranks of their cloth-clad foes. The Irish
poet, Arthur Gerald Geoghegan (Geh’ogan), thus graphically and
truthfully describes the dreadful encounter:
“Then rose the roar of battle loud, the shout, the cheer, the cry!
The clank of ringing steel, the gasping groans of those who die;
Yet onward still the Norman band right fearless cut their way,
As move the mowers o’er the sward upon a summer’s day.
“For round them there, like shorn grass, the foe in hundreds bleed;
Yet, fast as e’er they fall, each side, do hundreds more succeed;
With naked breasts undaunted meet the spears of steel-clad men,
And sturdily, with axe and skian, repay their blows again.
“Now crushed with odds, their phalanx broke, each Norman fights alone,
And few are left throughout the field, and they are feeble grown,
But high o’er all, Sir Tristram’s voice is like a trumpet heard,
And still, where’er he strikes, the foemen sink beneath his sword.
“But once he raised his visor up—alas, it was to try
If Hamo and his boy yet tarried on the mountain nigh,
When sharp an arrow from the foe pierced right through his brain,
And sank the gallant knight a corse upon the bloody plain.
“Then failed the fight, for gathering round his lifeless body there,
The remnant of his gallant band fought fiercely in despair;
And, one by one, they wounded fell—yet with their latest breath,
Their Norman war-cry shouted bold—then sank in silent death.”
When Cathal Mor finally became King of Connaught, he caused a monastery,
which he called “the Abbey of Victory,” but which has been known to the
Irish of Connaught for ages as “Abbey Knockmoy,” to be erected on or
near the site of the battle. Tradition, not a very reliable guide, fails
to exactly define the scene of Cathal’s victory over the Normans.
Knocktuagh, an inconsiderable eminence, is within a few miles of the
city of Galway, whereas Knockmoy, where stands the historic abbey, is
fully twelve miles east of that ancient borough, on the highroad to
Athlone. Cathal of the Red Hand fought many battles and won many
splendid victories, although he occasionally sustained defeats at the
hands of the Normans and their traitorous native allies; his greatest
victory was won over his bitter rival, albeit his nephew, Caher Carragh
O’Conor, whom he encountered somewhere in the county of Galway. There
was an awful slaughter on both sides, but Cathal prevailed, and, no
doubt, built the abbey on the spot where Caher and his leading
chieftains, Irish and Norman, fell. De Courcy was the only foreigner
allied with Cathal Mor in this great battle. Abbey Knockmoy is one of
the most interesting of Irish ruins, and contains friezes and frescoing
most creditable to Irish art in the thirteenth century. The victory gave
Cathal Mor the undisputed sway of Connaught. Adopting the policy of the
invaders, for the benefit of his country, he used Norman against Norman;
allied himself with Meyler FitzHenry, the last of Strongbow’s
lieutenants, to punish Connaught’s inveterate foe, William de Burgo,
ancestor of the Clanricardes in Limerick, and to humble the pride of the
ambitious De Lacys in Leinster. In 1210, this gallant Irish monarch
compelled King John of England to treat with him as an independent
sovereign, and, while he lived, no Norman usurper dared to lord it over
his kingdom of Connaught. Like his royal father and brother, he was a
champion of the Irish Church, and was a liberal founder and endower of
religious houses. Had the Connacian kings who followed been of his moral
and military calibre, the Normans could never have ruled in Connaught.
Nor did this great Irishman confine himself to his native kingdom alone;
he also assisted the other provinces in resisting foreign encroachment.
Even in his old age, when the De Lacys tried to embarrass his reign by
fortifying Athleague, so as to threaten him in flank, the dauntless
hero, at the head of his hereditary power, marched from his palace of
Ballintober, made two crossings of the river Suck, and, by a bold
manœuvre, came on the rear of the enemy, compelling them to retreat in
all haste across the Shannon into Leinster. He did not fail to raze
their forts at Athleague to the ground. This was the last of his
countless exploits. His time was drawing nigh, and, according to the
Four Masters, “signs appeared in the heavens” which foretold his death.
In 1223, Cathal’s load of age and care became too heavy, and he resigned
the crown of Connaught to his son, Hugh. The old king, assuming the
habit of the Franciscans, retired to the Abbey of Knockmoy, and there
expired, mourned by his country and respected by its enemies, A.D. 1224.
Tradition still points to his tomb amid the majestic ruins of that
venerable pile. His death was the signal for the rise of Norman power in
Connaught, and for the final deposition by the alien De Burgos of the
royal race of O’Conor.
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CHAPTER XIII
Ireland Under the Earlier Edwards—The Younger Bruce Elected King by the
Irish—Battle of Athenry—Death of Bruce at Faughart Hill
AFTER the death of King John, affairs in Ireland proceeded tamely enough
until the repeated encroachments of the Anglo-Norman settlers and their
progeny, who occupied chiefly a comparatively small district called “the
Pale,” which consisted of most of the present counties of Dublin, Louth,
Meath, Westmeath, Kildare, and Kilkenny, forced the native Irish to rise
“in rude but fierce array” against them. The Norman family of De Lacy
disputed supremacy in Leinster with the Fitzgeralds, or Geraldines, but
the latter, finally, outshone their rivals both in court and camp. The
De Courcys, headed by the bold and chivalrous Sir John, “of that ilk,”
made some impression on the coast of Ulster. The De Burgos, ancestors of
all the Irish Burkes, became powerful in Connaught, and the old Irish,
headed by the O’Conors, fought against them fiercely from time to time.
But the gallant, if covetous, Norman captains beheld the Irish maidens,
and saw that they were fair. Love-making, despite frequent feuds,
progressed between Norman lord and Celtic virgin; and not uncommonly
between Irish prince and Norman lady. Many “mixed marriages” resulted,
and, naturally, racial animosities became greatly softened, “for love
will still be lord of all.” Very soon the warrior Normans, who
acknowledged but a doubtful allegiance to the English monarch, began to
assume Irish manners, wear the Irish costume, and speak in the Gaelic
tongue. All this did not suit the English policy, and the Norman Irish
were often described by their kindred across the sea as “Degenerate
English.” It was written of the Fitzgeralds, in particular, that they
had grown “more Irish than the Irish.” This alarmed England, for it
began to look as if Norman and Celt in Ireland would soon make common
cause against her power. But many Norman chiefs were land hungry, and
many of the Irish princes were fierce and filled with a just wrath
against their invaders. Gradually, therefore, the Geraldines swept all
before them in Kildare and Desmond, for they were very warlike, and many
native Irish joined their fortunes to theirs, because of “fosterage” and
other interests. The Butlers possessed themselves of large tracts of
country in the present counties of Kilkenny and Tipperary, and became
Earls of Ormond; and the De Burgos, as Earls of Clanricarde, became, in
great part, masters of Galway, Mayo, and other parts of the province of
Connaught. Factions among the Celtic chiefs made their conquests easy.
The Normans, wily as they were brave, fostered these feuds, and were
particularly delighted when the formidable O’Neills and O’Donnells of
Ulster wasted their strength in internecine strife. The politic
foreigners occasionally allied themselves to either one of the
contending septs, and generally succeeded in outwitting both
contestants. Yet, as time wore on, the Norman warriors, forgetting their
fathers’ speech, shouted their battle cries in the Gaelic tongue, and,
except for their armor, could hardly be distinguished from the Celts.
Henry III paid but small attention to Irish affairs. He ascended the
English throne a minor, and his mature years were spent mainly in
repeated civil wars with his barons, who finally compelled him to extend
and confirm the Magna Charta of his father. His son, Edward I, nicknamed
“Long Shanks,” the ablest king of the Plantagenet race, was almost
constantly occupied, during his stirring reign, in wars of conquest
against Wales and Scotland, and he succeeded in annexing the first-named
country to the English crown. His son and successor, Edward II, was the
first English Prince of Wales. This Edward inherited the Scotch war
which his father had left unfinished, after great effusion of blood. In
1314, his great English army, said to have numbered 100,000 knights,
archers, and men-at-arms, was disastrously routed at Bannockburn
(“Oaten-cake rivulet”), near Sterling, by King Robert Bruce, of
Scotland, who had under his command not more than 30,000 men, horse and
foot. This great victory did not entirely end the Anglo-Scotch wars,
which were always bitter and bloody down to the close of the sixteenth
century, but it preserved the independence of Scotland for nearly four
hundred years. That country ceased to be a separate nation in 1707. Many
Irish clans of Ulster aided Bruce at Bannockburn, and some Connaught
septs, under one of the O’Conors, fought on the English side, and were
nearly exterminated, which “served them right.” As the Irish princes
could not settle on one of their own number for High King, they, at the
suggestion of the wise and generous Donald O’Neill, King of Ulster,
agreed to elect Edward Bruce, brother of the Scotch monarch, king of all
Ireland. Their proffer of the Irish throne was accepted by the Bruces,
and Edward was duly crowned in 1315. This provoked a destructive three
years’ war. Brave King Robert came to Ireland to aid his brother, and,
in the field, they swept all before them, particularly in Munster. But
the Norman-Irish fought them bitterly, notably the Geraldines, the
Berminghams, and De Burgos. Felim O’Conor, the young and gallant king of
Connaught, was forced into a repugnant alliance with De Burgo, who was
powerful in the west. His heart, however, was with the Bruce, and he
soon found an opportunity to break away from his repugnant Norman ally.
Summoning all his fighting force, he marched upon the fortified town of
Athunree, or Athenry, “the Ford of the Kings,” in Galway, and came up
with the Anglo-Norman army, arrayed outside the walls, on the morning of
August 10, 1316. De Burgo and De Bermingham, two able veteran soldiers,
headed the Anglo-Normans. The conflict was fierce and the slaughter
appalling, particularly on the Irish side, because the heroic clansmen
did not have, like their foes, the advantage of chain armor and long bow
archery. Night closed upon a terrible scene. The Irish refused to fly
and died in heaps around the lifeless body of their chivalric young
king, who, with twenty-eight princes of his house, proudly fell on that
bloody field. Most of the Irish army perished—the loss being usually
estimated at 10,000 men. The Anglo-Normans also suffered severely, but
their armor proved the salvation of most of them. Connaught did not
recover from this great disaster for many generations. Athenry proved
fatal to the cause of Bruce, although, gallantly seconded by Donald
O’Neill, he fought on for two years longer, but was at last killed in
battle on Faughart Hill, in Louth, A.D. 1318. With him disappeared, for
that century at least, the hope of an independent Ireland.
After the battle of Athenry, the power of the De Burgo family, and of
all the allies of their house, became predominant in Connaught, but all
these Anglo-Norman chiefs became, also, much more Irish in manners and
sympathy than they had ever been before. The desperate bravery displayed
by O’Conor’s clansmen had aroused the admiration of those born warriors,
and they felt that to ally themselves in marriage with so martial a race
was an honor, not a degradation, such as the English sought to make it
appear. Ulster maintained its independence, and so also did much of
Connaught and portions of Munster and Leinster, and there were
periodical raids upon the Pale and carrying off of “Saxon” flocks and
herds, followed by feasts and general jubilation. The Palesmen, whenever
too weak to meet the Celts in the field, would resort to their
time-honored strategy of shutting themselves up in their strongholds,
and making, whenever opportunity offered, fierce retaliatory raids on
the Irish territory. This kind of warfare was unfortunate for Ireland,
because it kept the English feeling strong in the hearts of the
Palesmen, who were constantly recruited by fresh swarms of adventurers
from England. Outside of the Pale, however, the Old Irish and the
Normans continued to affiliate and intermarry, as we have already said.
Fosterage—a peculiarly Irish custom, which meant that the children of
the king, prince, or chief should be nursed by the wives of the
clansmen, instead of their own mothers—grew apace, and nearly every
Norman lord had his heirs suckled by the women of the Celtic race, thus
creating a bond of “kinship”—if so it may be termed—in many instances
stronger than even the brotherhood of blood.
Irish tradition abounds in examples of the devotion of foster-brethren
to each other; and in all written history there is given but one
instance of treachery in this connection, and that instance does not
involve a man of Celtic, but of Latin, lineage. We refer to the betrayal
of Lord Thomas Fitzgerald by Parez in the reign of Henry VIII, which
will be dealt with in the proper place.
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CHAPTER XIV
Prince Lionel Viceroy for Edward III—The Statute of Kilkenny
EDWARD III, that valiant, vigorous, and ambitious “English” king—he was
almost a pure-blooded Frenchman and about the last Norman monarch who
occupied the throne of England that did not speak with fluency the
language of the people he governed—was so occupied with his unjust wars
against France that he gave but small heed to Irish affairs and never
visited the island at all. But he sent over his third son, Prince
Lionel, ancestor of the royal house of York and Clarence, as viceroy.
Lionel had with him a well-equipped army of native-born English, but he
treated his Anglo-Irish allies so contemptuously that many fell away
from him and joined the ranks of the Old Irish. His English army,
unaccustomed to the Irish climate and mode of warfare, made but a poor
figure in the field, and was everywhere beaten by the dauntless Irish
clansmen. At last he was compelled to lower his imperious tone to the
Anglo-Irish and these foolishly helped him out of his scrape. It is said
that a more than doubtful campaign in the present county of Clare
procured for him, from his flatterers, the title of Duke of Clarence—a
title, by the way, which brought more or less misfortune to every
English prince who has borne it, except William IV, from his day to our
own.
Lionel was particularly jealous of the friendship which seemed to exist
between old Anglo-Irish and the old Celtic-Irish, and his small mind
conceived a method of putting an end to it. He summoned a parliament to
meet at Kilkenny, and there it was enacted, among other things, “that
all intermarriages, fosterings, gossipred, and buying or selling with
the (Irish) enemy shall be accounted treason; that English names,
fashions, and manners (most of these having disappeared) shall be
resumed under penalty of confiscation of the delinquent’s lands; that
March laws (Norman) and Brehon laws (Irish) are illegal, and that there
shall be no laws but English laws; that the Irish shall not pasture
their cattle on English lands; that the English shall not entertain
Irish rhymers, minstrels, or newsmen, and, moreover, that no ‘mere
Irishman’ shall be admitted to any ecclesiastical benefice or religious
house (England was then all Catholic) situated within the English
district.”
Other provisions of the Statute of Kilkenny, as this precious “law” is
called in Irish history, forbade the wearing of long hair, mustaches,
and cloaks, after the manner of the Irish, and the use of the Gaelic
speech was also forbidden, under heavy penalties. With their usual
subserviency to English demands, the Anglo-Irish barons of the Pale—the
portion of Ireland held by the English settlers, as already
explained—passed this barbarous enactment without opposition, although
they themselves were the chief “offenders” against it, in the eyes of
the tyrannical viceroy.
To the honor of the Anglo-Normans and Celtic-Irish be it remembered, the
base statute became almost immediately inoperative, and the Norman lords
and Irish ladies, and the Irish princes and the Norman ladies,
intermarried more numerously than before—an example generally followed
by their dependants. The gallant house of Fitzgerald, or Geraldine, as
usual, set the example of disregard.
“These Geraldines! These Geraldines! Not long her air they breathed—
Not long they fed on venison in Irish water seethed—
Not often had their children been by Irish mothers nursed,
When from their full and genial hearts an Irish feeling burst!
The English monarch strove in vain, by law and force and bribe,
To win from Irish thoughts and ways this ‘more than Irish’ tribe;
For still they clung to fosterage—to Brehon, cloak, and bard—
No king dare say to Geraldine: ‘Your Irish wife discard!’”
The immediate effect of the Statute of Kilkenny was to temporarily unite
most of the Irish clans against the common enemy. They fell fiercely
upon the Pale and again shut up the Normans in their fortresses. Prince
Lionel returned to England grieved and humiliated. His viceroyalty had
been a signal failure.
Throughout the viceroyalty of Clarence and his successor, William de
Windsor, the desultory war between the Old Irish and the Anglo-Normans
made many districts, in all the provinces, red with slaughter. The power
of the De Burgos declined in Connaught after the death of the warlike
Red Earl, who was the scourge of the O’Conors, and the latter family
brought his descendants, who had assumed the name of MacWilliam, under
their sway. The fierce tribes of Wicklow, Wexford, and Carlow harried
the Pale, and were frequently joined by the O’Mores of Leix, and the
Fitzpatricks of Ossory. In Ulster, Niel O’Neill, Prince of Tyrone,
attacked and defeated the English armies and garrisons with so much
success that he cleared Ulster of all foreigners, and won the title of
Niel the Great. The Earl of Desmond met with a severe defeat at the
hands of O’Brien, Prince of Thomond, who assailed him near the abbey of
Adare in Limerick, and routed his army with terrible carnage. Desmond
himself was mortally wounded and died upon the field. The Earl of
Kildare, Desmond’s kinsman, attempted to avenge his rout, but met with
scant success, because the Irish had, by this time, grown used to the
Norman method of warfare, and, in many cases, improved upon the tactics
of their oppressors.
Edward III, just before his death in 1376, attempted to get the
settlements of the Pale to send representatives to London to consult
about the affairs of Ireland, but they demurred, saying that it was not
their custom to deliberate outside of their own country. However, they
sent delegates to explain matters to the king, who did not further
insist on convening a Pale Parliament in the English capital. It is
strange that so able a monarch as Edward was, even in his declining
years, never thought of visiting Ireland. Of course, most of his reign
was taken up with the wars in France, in which he proved so signally
victorious, and he had but little time for other occupations. In truth,
Edward III, although nominally English, was, in reality, a Frenchman in
thought and speech, and his dearest dream was to rule over the country
of his Plantagenet ancestors, with England as a kind of tributary
province. Of course, the English people would never have acquiesced in
this arrangement, for, however willing to impose their yoke on other
peoples, they are unalterably opposed to having any foreign yoke imposed
upon themselves.
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CHAPTER XV
Richard II’s Invasions—Heroic Art MacMurrough
THE first half of the fourteenth century passed away quietly enough in
Ireland, except for occasional conflicts between the Anglo-Normans and
the Celtic tribes, or an odd encounter of the latter with one another.
Edward III had so many quarrels with Scotland and France that he could
do nothing in Ireland, even were he so inclined, and the sad experience
of the Duke of Clarence in that country warned succeeding viceroys to
let well enough alone. The Irish nation, Celtic, Norman, and Saxon, was
gradually fusing and would soon have developed a composite strength
nearly equal to that of England herself. In the wars with France, many
Anglo-Irish septs fought under the orders of Edward, and, probably, some
of the Celtic septs also joined his standard, rather as allies, through
the bad policy of their chiefs, than as mercenaries.
By the time that Edward completed, or nearly so, the conquest of France,
the English power in Ireland had so shrunken as to be almost nominal.
Dublin, Drogheda, Kilkenny, and Waterford were the chief garrisons of
the English. The Lacys, Burkes, Fitzgeralds, and other Norman-Irish
houses and clans were scarcely to be distinguished from the Milesian
families and septs. Such fighting as they indulged in between themselves
was comparatively trivial. The island, blessed with partial peace, began
to grow more populous and prosperous. Edward, the Black Prince, having
crowned himself with glory in France, died before he could inherit the
crown of England. Edward III, not so old as worn out by ceaseless
warfare, died in 1377, and after him came to the English throne Richard,
son of the Black Prince, a handsome boy of sixteen, who, at first, gave
promise of great deeds, but who subsequently proved himself a weakling
and voluptuary. In Ireland, Ulster, Connaught, and Munster remained
tranquil for the most part, but, in Leinster, the royal house of
MacMurrough—lineal descendants of the traitor of Strongbow’s time—showed
a determination to drive the remnant of the English garrison into the
sea. They were as loyal to Ireland as their accursed ancestor had been
faithless. King Art I, after a long series of successes and failures,
died, and was succeeded on the Leinster throne by King Art II—one of the
bravest, wisest, and truest characters in Irish history. He continued
the war his father had begun. Richard II, like all of his race, was vain
and greedy of military glory. As the war with France had closed for a
period, he thought Ireland a good field in which to distinguish himself
as a general. He had heard of “MacMore,” as he called MacMurrough, and
longed to measure swords with him. Accordingly, in the summer of 1394,
he landed at Waterford with a large army. The historian McGee estimates
it at 35,000 horse and foot, but we are inclined to think it was much
less. That it was formidable, for those times, all historians who have
dealt with the subject are agreed upon. He was accompanied, also, by a
large retinue of nobility, among them Roger Mortimer, the young Earl of
March, who, because of the childlessness of Richard, was heir to the
British throne, through descent from the Duke of Clarence, in the female
line. Richard did not wait long in Waterford, but proceeded on his march
to Dublin, unfurling the banner of Edward the Confessor, for whom the
Irish were supposed to have a deep veneration. MacMurrough, however,
showed scant courtesy to the Confessor’s ensign, not because it was the
banner of a saint, but because, for the time, it represented the
rapacity of England. Richard was met boldly at every point. His bowmen
got tangled up in the woods. His horsemen floundered in the bogs.
MacMurrough’s army hovered in his front, on his flanks, and in rear. Not
a single success did the English monarch gain. He summoned MacMurrough
to a conference when he reached Dublin—having lost a third of his army
while en route—and the Leinster king, having accepted the invitation,
was ruthlessly thrown into prison. After a time, a treaty of some kind
was patched up between King Richard and himself, and the Irish prince
was allowed to go free. Richard then returned to England, leaving Roger
Mortimer in command. Soon afterward, MacMurrough, objecting to the
English encroachments in his territory, again rose in arms. He
encountered Mortimer and the English army on the banks of the King’s
River at Kenlis or Kells in Westmeath, and utterly routed them.
England’s heir-apparent was among the slain. This circumstance had much
to do with bringing about the bloody Wars of the Roses in the succeeding
century.
About this time Art MacMurrough and his chief bard, who, as was then the
Irish custom, accompanied his patron everywhere, were invited to a
banquet by one of the Norman lords, who treacherously pretended
friendship. The invitation was accepted. While seated at a window of the
banquet-hall, the bard perceived a mustering of troops around the
castle, and at once seized his harp and struck the chords to an ancient
Irish air. The Gaelic words which accompanied the measure fell upon the
ears of Art MacMurrough and warned him of his danger. His sword and
buckler hung near by. On some trivial pretext, he arose and seized them,
the bard having, meanwhile, armed himself. The two made a sudden
onslaught and, surprising their foes, cut their way to the courtyard,
where, fortunately, their horses still stood. They sprang upon them,
and, before the astonished men-at-arms could rally, made good their
escape. Art MacMurrough never again trusted the English, and remained
their consistent foe to his latest hour.
But King Richard, maddened by the death of Mortimer, which he felt was
dangerous to himself, raised another great army, and, in 1398, again
invaded Ireland. He was accompanied by a younger son of his uncle, John
of Gaunt, “time-honored Lancaster,” and also by Prince Henry, eldest son
of Henry of Hereford and afterward Henry V, the hero of Agincourt. The
boy was only in his twelfth year, but well grown and brave as a lion. In
the first encounter with the formidable MacMurrough, in the glens of
Carlow, he so distinguished himself that Richard II knighted him on the
field. This march from Waterford to Dublin proved, in the end, even more
disastrous than the former one. MacMurrough kept up his harassing
tactics, as usual. The rain poured down in torrents. The Irish drove all
the cattle away from the English line of march, and destroyed the
growing crops. Nearly all the baggage-animals of the invading force died
for want of forage, and the army was in a state of famine and revolt,
when it finally reached the seacoast near the present town of Arklow,
where some English ships, laden with provisions, saved it from actual
starvation. The remnant made its way to Dublin, where other disastrous
news awaited King Richard. Henry of Hereford, eldest son of John of
Gaunt, whom he had unjustly exiled, and whose lands he had seized, now,
on the death of his father, having become Duke of Lancaster, came back
from the continent, having heard of Richard’s misfortunes in Ireland,
and laid claim to the crown. Richard, after ordering young Prince Henry
and his uncle to be imprisoned in the castle of Trim—still one of the
finest Norman keeps in Ireland—set sail for England. Henry, who had by
this time raised a large army, made him prisoner and sent him to
Pontefract Castle, in Yorkshire, where, soon afterward, he was starved
to death, or otherwise foully made away with. Prince Henry and his uncle
were immediately released when the Duke of Lancaster ascended a usurped
throne as Henry IV of England. And thus was laid the bloody foundation
of the dreadful after wars between the rival royal houses of York and
Lancaster, which ended in the extermination of the legitimate
Plantagenets. An illegitimate branch, directly descended from John of
Gaunt, still survives in the ducal house of Beaufort.
Art MacMurrough remained a conqueror to the end, and kept up the war
with the Normans. In 1404, he defeated at Athcroe (Ford of Slaughter),
near Dublin, Lord Thomas of Lancaster, brother of the king, putting most
of the English to the sword, and desperately wounding the prince
himself. Only a few years ago, Irish laborers, excavating for a railroad
at Athcroe, came upon nearly a thousand bent swords, some of them badly
decomposed by rust, buried in the river bed. They were the swords taken
from the dead English, in 1404, and bent across the knees of the
victorious Irish, according to their custom in those days.
MacMurrough’s career of glory continued until 1417, when, having
captured all the important towns of Leinster, except Dublin and
Drogheda, he died at his capital of New Ross—then the second city in
Ireland—as some say by poison, in the sixtieth year of his age and
forty-fourth of his reign. Taken for all in all, he was not alone the
bravest, but the ablest, of Irish princes and warriors since the days of
King Brian, and it was a sad day for Ireland when the word went through
Leinster and rang around the island that King Art was dead. Many a dark
generation passed away before such another chief, or any one worthy to
be mentioned as a rival of his fame, arose in that unfortunate land.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XVI
Ireland During the Wars of the Roses
AFTER the premature death of Henry IV, an able but unscrupulous
sovereign, in 1413, the attention of England was again directed to the
conquest of France by the chivalrous and skilful Henry V. His capture of
Harfleur and marvelous victory of Agincourt, against overwhelming odds,
in 1415, stamp him as one of the world’s great military leaders. During
the nine years of his reign, he succeeded in subduing France, and,
finally, married Catherine, heiress of Charles VI, an almost imbecile
king, and had himself declared regent and next in succession to the
throne after his father-in-law. France was stupefied, but God,
infinitely stronger than French arms, decreed Henry’s early death. He
died in the conquered country in 1422, leaving an only son, Henry VI, an
infant of nine months, to succeed him, under the regency of his uncle,
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who, for a wonder, considering the history
of the Plantagenets, remained faithful to his trust. John, Duke of
Bedford, a younger brother of Henry, and a very brilliant soldier,
became regent of France. This was the period of the inspired
peasant-girl, Joan of Arc, whose story of victory and death belongs to
the history of France, although, after having performed prodigies, she
died at the stake to which the English, into whose hands she had fallen,
condemned her. The Dauphin, as Charles VII, succeeded to his legitimate
throne, and, about 1453, the English were expelled from France, except
the old town of Calais, which remained in their possession until 1558.
In Ireland, meanwhile, the chief feuds were those between the Geraldines
and the Butlers and the De Burgos and the Connaught chiefs. There were
also minor feuds in different parts of the island, but, as a rule, the
Irish people had things pretty much their own way, and might have thrown
off the English yoke utterly, if they had had an Edward Bruce or Art
MacMurrough to arouse and lead them to victory. Unfortunately they had
not, and, as the English fetter was very light on Ireland during the
Wars of the Roses, which began in 1455, they imagined, perhaps, that the
old enemy, having plenty of fighting to do on their own account, might
leave them alone for evermore—a vain hope if it were seriously
entertained.
After an interval of six years, the Wars of the Roses—so-called because
the red rose was the badge of the House of Lancaster and the white that
of the House of York—broke out more violently than before, because Henry
VI, who had been declared imbecile and unfit to reign, suddenly
recovered his intellect, and Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, who
claimed a prior right to the throne, and had been appointed Regent, with
the right of succession, refused to give up his authority. Henry had a
son by his brave wife, Margaret of Anjou. He might be called a weakling,
but she summoned the people to defend the rights of her son. York was
defeated, captured, and beheaded at Wakefield, in 1461, but his son
Edward, Earl of March, routed the queen’s army immediately afterward and
ascended the throne as Edward IV. Struggle succeeded struggle, but the
House of York achieved a crowning triumph at Tewkesbury and again at
Barnet Heath, where Warwick, the King Maker, fell. The direct male line
of the House of Lancaster perished at Tewkesbury, where, it is alleged,
the gallant Prince Edward, son of Henry VI, was murdered, after having
been made prisoner, by Edward IV and George, Duke of Clarence—the same
afterward drowned in a butt of wine by order of his cruel brother. King
Edward IV, after a reign of twenty-two years, marked by slaughter of his
foes and some of his friends, notorious immorality, and swinish
debauchery, died of a fever brought on by his excesses, in 1483, and his
vile younger brother, the Duke of Gloucester, succeeded the boy-king,
Edward V, by process of murder, in the same year. The last battle of the
Wars of the Roses was fought at Bosworth, near Leicester, August 22,
1485. Richard, last king of the Plantagenet family, fell and was
succeeded by his rival, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, descended, in the
female line, from John of Gaunt, who ascended the throne as Henry VII.
Thus, you will see, Ireland was left pretty much to herself, during
those thirty years of English civil war, in which twelve murderous
pitched battles were fought. Most of the old nobility were killed in
battle or executed, or otherwise destroyed, and more than one hundred
thousand Englishmen of the middle and lower classes were immolated on
the smoking altars of family pride and savage ambition. Every prince of
the race of Plantagenet was exterminated when, in 1599, Henry VII
ordered the beheading of the young Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of
Clarence. Many of the Anglo-Irish lords and their followings took part
in the English wars, mainly on the side of the House of York, and the
Geraldines, in particular, got sadly mixed up in them, for which they
suffered amply in after days. No reigning king of England had set foot
in Ireland since Richard II sailed to his death from Dublin, and Henry
VII proved to be no exception to the rule. He, however, interfered in
the quarrel between the Fitzgeralds and the Butlers—as bitter and
prolonged as that between the Camerons and Campbells in Scotland—and
made the Earl of Kildare viceroy. The Desmonds, the powerful southern
branch of the Geraldines, were also eternally at variance with the
Butlers. It is related that, on one occasion, the Earl of Desmond was
wounded and made prisoner. While being borne on a litter to Butler’s
stronghold, one of the bearers insolently and brutally demanded, “Where
is the great Earl of Desmond now?” To which the heroic captive
immediately replied—“Where he ought to be” (alluding to the litter in
which he was carried by his foes): “still on the necks of the Butlers!”
The most memorable event of Henry VII’s reign, as far as Ireland was
concerned, was the coming over from England of Sir Edward Poynings, as
Lord Deputy during the temporary retirement of Kildare. The English
colonists of the Pale, almost from their first settlement of that
district, possessed an independent parliament, modeled on that of
England. It was, in general, oppressive toward the Celtic-Irish, but
made good laws enough for the Palesmen. Poynings, soon after his
arrival, called this parliament to assemble at Drogheda and there (1495)
the Statute of Kilkenny was reaffirmed, except as regarded the
prohibition of Gaelic, which had come into general use, even in the Pale
itself. The main enactment—the first uttered in the English tongue in
Ireland—was that known as 10 Henry VII, otherwise Poynings’ Law, which
provided that no legislation should be, thereafter, proceeded with in
Ireland unless the bills were first submitted for approval or rejection
to the monarch and privy council of England. In case of approval they
were to be attested by the great seal of the English realm. It was, to
be sure, a most unjust and insolent measure, and it seems almost
incredible that even the Pales people—mere hybrids, neither English nor
Irish—should have tamely submitted to its infamous provisions. It
remained in force 287 years, or until 1782, when it was repealed under
circumstances that will appear hereafter.
The close of this reign witnessed a bloody struggle between the Kildares
and Clanricardes, in which many Celtic tribes also bore a part, and in
which thousands of men lost their lives to no good purpose. In the two
principal battles, those of Knockdoe and Monabraher (1507-10), artillery
and musketry were first made use of on Irish soil.
As most of the Irish Palesmen, including the House of Kildare, were
partisans of the House of York during the Wars of the Roses, the two
pretenders—prepared by Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward
IV, to impersonate, respectively, Edward, Earl of Warwick, only son and
heir of the late Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of York, the second
son of Edward IV, who was murdered in the Tower, by order, it is said,
of his base uncle, Richard III, together with his brother, the boy-king,
Edward V—found adherents when they landed on Irish soil. Indeed, Lambert
Simnel, the first of these pretenders, a handsome young Englishman, who
resembled the princes of the House of York, was crowned king, as “Edward
VI,” in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. Many Pales Irish followed him
to England, where Henry VII defeated and made him prisoner. The real
Warwick was taken from the Tower and paraded through the streets-a sad
spectacle of physical comeliness marred, and intellect clouded, by long
and harsh confinement. Having been sufficiently exhibited to satisfy the
public of Simnel’s imposture, the poor boy was returned to his cell.
Simnel, himself, was made a “turnspit” in the royal kitchen, afterward
raised to the post of falconer, and ended his days in that humble
position. The second pretender, Perkin Warbeck, a Belgian by birth, had
less support from Ireland than his predecessor, but involved some of the
nobles of the Pale with King Henry. But his adherents, remembering the
imposition of the bogus Edward VI, soon fell away, and Perkin went to
Scotland, where James IV received him, as if he were a genuine prince,
and gave him his cousin, the lovely Lady Catherine Gordon, in marriage.
Peace being concluded between James and Henry, Warbeck and his beautiful
bride went to Cornwall. There the pretender, who was really a man of
noble presence and great ability, rallied 3,000 men to his standard.
Successful at first, he proved himself a false Plantagenet by basely
deserting his confiding followers on the eve of decisive battle. He shut
himself up in the sanctuary of Beaulieu, in the New Forest, but soon
surrendered himself, and was shown by the king to the populace of
London. He was well treated for a time, but his position was mortifying.
He ran off to another sanctuary, was again forced to give himself up,
was placed in the public stocks, confessed he was an impostor, and was
finally sent to the Tower, to keep company with the unhappy Warwick.
This circumstance enabled the crafty Henry to get up a so-called plot,
of which it was easy to convict two helpless prisoners. Warwick—last
male of the Plantagenets—lost his head on Tower Hill, and Warbeck died
by the rope at Tyburn. His charming widow became lady-in-waiting to the
Queen.
Many abbeys and monasteries were built in Ireland during this
comparatively tranquil period, and the passion for learning revived to a
great extent among the native Irish nobility. Pilgrimages, as of old,
were made to distant lands for the purpose of worshiping at famous
shrines. Irish teachers and scholars began again to be numerous in
Spain, Germany, and Italy. Henry VII, engaged in saving the wreck of
England’s almost extinguished nobility, and in hoarding money, for which
he had a passion, took little account of Ireland and the Irish. But,
already, low on the horizon, a blood-red cloud was forming, and it
gradually thickened and extended until, at last, it broke in a crimson
torrent on the fated Irish nation.
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BOOK II
TREATING OF IRISH AFFAIRS FROM THE PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION TO THE
EXILE AND DEATH OF THE ULSTER PRINCES IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I
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CHAPTER I
The “Reformation”—New Cause of Discord in Ireland
THE bitterness of race hatred had almost died out when the Reformation,
as the opponents of the Church of Rome called the great schism of the
sixteenth century, began to shake Europe like an earthquake. Luther, and
other dissenters from Catholic faith, carried most of the north of
Europe with them. The Latin countries, South Germany, all of Ireland,
and most of England, clung to the old faith, and Henry VIII, who
succeeded his father at an early age, and was quite learned in theology,
wrote a pamphlet defending the Catholic dogmas against Luther and the
others. This work procured for him from the Pope the title of the
“Defender of the Faith,” which still, rather inappropriately, belongs to
the sovereign of England. But Henry was a good Catholic only so long as
religion did not interfere with his passions and ambitions. He had been
married in early life to Catherine of Aragon, who had been the nominal
wife of his elder brother, another Prince of Wales, who died uncrowned.
After many years, Henry, who was a slave to his passions, tired of
Catherine, and pretended to believe that it was sinful to live with his
brother’s widow, even though the latter relationship was but nominal. In
truth, he had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, one of Queen Catherine’s
maids-of-honor. The Pope was appealed to for a divorce and refused to
grant it, after having carefully examined into the case. Then Henry
severed England’s spiritual connection with Rome, and declared himself
head of the English “Reformed” Church. In this he was sustained by
Wolsey, Cromwell, and other high churchmen, all of whom were either
ambitious or afraid of their heads, for Henry never hesitated, like his
grand-uncle, Richard III, at the use of the axe, when any subject,
clerical or lay, opposed his will. But the tyrant, while refusing
allegiance to the Pope, still maintained the truth of Catholic dogma,
and he murdered with studied impartiality those who gave their adhesion
to the Holy See and those who denied its doctrines; no Englishman of
note felt his head safe in those red days. As for the common people,
nobody of “rank” ever gave them a thought. Henry now seized upon the
Church property, and, therewith, bribed the great lords to take his side
of the controversy. The boors followed the lords, and so most of England
followed Henry’s schism and prepared to go farther.
Henry married Anne Boleyn when he had “divorced” Queen Catherine. After
the Princess Elizabeth was born, he tired of his new wife, had her tried
for faithlessness and high treason and beheaded. Scarcely was she dead
when the inhuman brute married Lady Jane Seymour, of the great Somerset
family. She gave birth to Prince Edward and died. Then he married Anne
of Cleves, but, not liking her person, “divorced” her and sent her back
to Germany. For “imposing” her on him, he disgraced, and finally
beheaded, the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, who had been his great
friend. The monster next espoused Lady Catherine Howard, of the House of
Surrey, but he had her beheaded, on charges almost similar to those
urged against Anne Boleyn, within the year. At last he married a widow
of two experiences, Lady Catharine Parr, who, being a woman of tact and
cleverness, managed to save her head, although frequently in danger,
until the ferocious king, who must have been somewhat insane, finally
fell a victim to his own unbridled vices. “The plain truth,” says
Charles Dickens, in his “Child’s History,” “is that Henry VIII was a
most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of
blood and grease upon the history of England.”
This was the crowned “fiend in human shape” who sought to effect his
“Reformation in Ireland,” where both the Old Irish and the Old English
had united against his tyranny. The weight of his wrath fell first upon
the Leinster Geraldines, whom he dreaded. He contrived to pick a quarrel
with Gerald, ninth Earl of Kildare, who had been for many years his
favorite viceroy in Ireland, and summoned him to London in hot haste, on
flimsy, notoriously “trumped-up” charges of treason. He flung him into a
dungeon in the Tower of London. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, son of the Earl,
called “Silken Thomas,” because of the beauty of his person and the
splendor of his apparel, was appointed deputy by his father, who thought
his absence in England might be brief. Lord Thomas was young, brave, and
rash, and, in short, the very man to fall an easy victim to the wiles of
his House’s enemies. Tradition says that the false news of Earl Gerald’s
execution, by order of King Henry, was spread in Dublin by one of the
Butlers. The privy council, over which he usually presided, was already
in session at St. Mary’s Abbey, when “Silken Thomas” heard the story.
He, at once, with a large escort, proceeded to the abbey, renounced his
allegiance to the English monarch, and, seizing the sword of state from
the sword-bearer, threw it, with violent gesture, on the council table,
“the English Thanes among.” Protests availed nothing. He rushed to arms,
and for nearly two years held at bay Henry’s power. Had he but laid his
plans with care and judgment, he would, no doubt, have ended the rule of
England over Ireland, which, although not his primary, became his
ultimate, object. In the end, his stronghold of Maynooth Castle was
betrayed into the hands of the English general, Sir William Skeffington,
by Lord Thomas’s foster-brother, Parez, for a sum in gold. General
Skeffington paid the money on the surrender of the castle, and
immediately hanged the traitor. For this act of chivalric justice, the
name of that stern Englishman is still held in respect by all readers of
Irish history. The loss of Maynooth depleted the strength of “Silken
Thomas.” He struggled on for some time longer, but, at last, accepted
the terms of Lord Deputy Gray, who offered him his life and guaranteed
the safety of his five uncles—two, at least, of whom had had no hand in
the outbreak. They were invited to a banquet by the Lord Deputy, and
there, while drinking with their false hosts, were treacherously seized,
placed in irons, and sent to England in a ship called the _Cow_. One of
the uncles, hearing the name of the vessel, said: “We are lost! I have
dreamed that six of us, Geraldines, would be carried to England in the
belly of a cow and there lose our heads!” The augury was fulfilled.
Henry VIII, with his usual disregard of terms, had them beheaded
immediately after their arrival in London, at Tyburn. The old Earl of
Kildare had not been executed after all, but died of a broken heart in
the Tower on learning of the revolt and misfortunes of his son. Only one
heir-male of the noble House of Kildare now survived, and for him,
although only twelve years old, Henry sought, through his agents, with
the relentless ferocity of a Herod. The boy was related to the great
Celtic houses, for the Geraldines of that period preferred Irish wives,
and his mother was a princess of the House of O’Neill of Ulster. By her,
and by other noble Irish ladies, he was concealed and protected until he
was enabled to escape to France. Thence he proceeded to Rome, where he
was educated as befitted his rank and lineage. This young Gerald was
restored to his titles and estates by Queen Mary I, but he accepted
Protestantism when Elizabeth came to the throne, because, otherwise, he
could not have saved land and title—a most unworthy motive, but one very
common in that violent and sanguinary era. In his descendants the elder
Geraldine branch still lives in Ireland—the present head of the family
being Maurice Fitzgerald, “the boy-Duke” of Leinster.
“Bluff King Hal,” as the English called their royal Bluebeard, never did
anything by halves, if he could help it. He did not think the title of
“Lord of Ireland” sufficient for his dignity, and set about intriguing
to be elected king. Accordingly, he caused to be summoned a parliament,
or rather what we of to-day would call a convention, composed of
Anglo-Irish barons and Celto-Irish chiefs, to meet in Dublin, A.D. 1541.
This parliament or convention, at which the great Ulster princes,
O’Neill and O’Donnell, did not attend, voted Henry the crown of
Ireland—something the Irish chiefs, at least, had no power to do, as
they held their titles by election of their clans and not by right of
heredity. The outcome was, however, that Henry became King of
Ireland—the first English monarch to achieve that distinction. In order
to emphasize his power, he at once decreed that the old titles of the
Irish princes should give way to English ones. Thus “The O’Brien” became
“Earl of Thomond”; “The MacWilliam,” “Earl of Clanricarde”; “The
MacMurrough” became “Baron of Ballynun,” and changed his family name to
Kavanagh. Shameful to relate, O’Neill and O’Donnell, both old men,
broken in health, “came in” and joined the titled serfs. The former
became “Earl of Tyrone” and the latter “Earl of Tyrconnel.”
When the news reached the Irish clansmen, there was a general revolt and
new chiefs of the same families, with the old Irish designations
unchanged, were elected. The English interest supported “the King’s
O’Donnell” and the others of his type, while the bulk of the Irish
people stood for the newly chosen leaders. Thus was still another
firebrand cast by English policy among the Irish people, and there was
civil war, thenceforth, for generations in the clans themselves.
Nor was Henry satisfied with mere civil supremacy in Ireland. He also
set himself up as head of the Irish Church. Many Anglo-Irish Catholic
bishops basely acquiesced in his policy, but the Celtic bishops, almost
to a man, spurned his propositions. The masses of the Irish nation,
whether of Celtic, Norman, or Saxon origin, remained steadfastly
Catholic, although, in the past, they had had little cause to be pleased
with the political action of the Vatican, which had generally sided with
the Catholic monarchs of England against Ireland’s aspirations after
independence. Now, however, the favored country had become Rome’s most
deadly enemy in Europe, while Ireland, inhabited by a highly spirited
and stubborn people, who venerated the creed taught their fathers by St.
Patrick, became the foremost European champion of the old faith.
We can not dwell at greater length on this lurid dawn of the Reformation
in Ireland, because, fierce as was the persecution under Henry, it was
trivial compared with what followed his reign, and made the distracted
island a veritable den of outrage and slaughter.
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CHAPTER II
The Reformation Period Continued—Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth, and “John
the Proud”
WHEN Edward VI, another boy-king, came to the throne, in 1547, Ireland
was pretty well distracted, owing to the seeds of discord sown by his
ferocious father. The young monarch was under the absolute control of
his maternal kinsmen, the Seymours, and all that was done to forward the
Reformation in Ireland during his brief reign may be justly attributed
to them. On his death, in 1553, Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and
Catherine of Aragon, and wife of Philip II of Spain, succeeded. She was
a bigoted Catholic and soon made things decidedly warm for the
Protestants in England. Many of these fled for safety to Ireland, where
the Catholic people—incapable of cruelty until demoralized by the
ruthless tyranny of religious persecution—received and sheltered them—a
noble page of Anglo-Irish history.
The Reformation, of course, came to a standstill in Ireland, during
this queen’s reign, but the plunder and persecution of the Irish
people did not, therefore, abate. There were raids and massacres and
confiscations, as usual. Of course there were bloody reprisals on the
part of the Irish, also—as was but natural. Some of the old Irish
districts—particularly Leix and Offaly—were, under the sway of Mary,
called the King’s and Queen’s Counties—the chief town of the one being
named Philipstown, after the queen’s Spanish husband, and the capital
of the other Maryborough, after herself. The Irish Reformers “laid
low,” as was prudent in them, during Mary’s period of power, because
she had the unpleasant Tudor habit of putting to death, by divers
violent modes of punishment, those who presumed to differ from her
rather strong opinions. The English, who sincerely rejoiced when,
after reigning about five years, she passed to her account, nicknamed
her “Bloody Mary,” although she was not a whit “bloodier” than her
awful father, and had a very formidable rival for sanguinary “honors”
in her younger half-sister, Elizabeth. Mary Tudor was the last
_avowed_ Catholic monarch who reigned in England, except the ill-fated
James II. In this reign, the English law of primogeniture was first
generally introduced into the Celtic districts annexed to the Pale,
which had been divided into “shire-ground,” and this was the cause of
much internal disorder among the Irish tribes that clung to the old
elective system of chieftaincy.
Elizabeth, called by her admiring English subjects “Good Queen Bess,” on
very insufficient grounds, ascended the throne in 1558. She had,
apparently, “conformed” to Catholicity during the lively reign of her
half-sister, fearing, no doubt, for her head in case of refusal. Henry
VIII’s daughter, by Anne Boleyn, she inherited great energy of
character, a masculine intellect, superabundant vanity, a passion for
empire, and a genius for intrigue. Her morals were none of the best,
according to many historians. She was, for that age, highly educated,
could speak divers tongues, and possessed many of the polite
accomplishments. Indeed, she was somewhat of a female pedant. In person,
while yet young, she was not ill-favored, being well-formed and of good
stature. Her complexion was fair, her hair auburn, and her eyes small,
but dark and sparkling. Her temper was irritable; she swore when angry,
and, at times, her disposition was as ferocious as that of “Old Hal”
himself. Like his, her loves were passing passions, and her friendship
dangerous to those on whom she lavished it most freely. Flattery was the
surest way by which to reach her consideration, but, in affairs of
state, not even that could cloud her powerful understanding or balk her
resolute will. She resolved to finish what her father and brother had
begun, and finish it to the purpose—namely, the Reformation—in both
England and Ireland. In the former country, her will soon became law,
and Rome ceased to be considered, for generations, as a factor in
English affairs. In Ireland, it was different. The people there refused,
as a great majority, to conform to the new order of things. They obeyed
the Pope, as their spiritual chief, and went to mass and received the
sacraments as usual. In Ulster, particularly, the people, headed by John
O’Neill, Prince of Tyrone, surnamed “The Proud,” resisted all English
encroachments, civil and religious. A bloody war resulted. The English
generals and some of the Anglo-Irish lords were commissioned by
Elizabeth to force the new religion down the throats of the Irish people
at the point of the sword. The Liturgy, she proclaimed, must be read in
English, the mass abandoned, and she herself be recognized as Pope in
Ireland, as well as in England. Accordingly, the English armies burned
the Catholic churches and chapels, assassinated the clergy, and
butchered the people wherever resistance was offered. But John O’Neill
was a great soldier and managed, for many years, to defend his country
with great success, defeating the best of the English captains in
several fierce conflicts. Elizabeth, struck with his bravery and
ability, invited him to visit her at her palace of Greenwich. The
invitation was sent through Gerald of Kildare, O’Neill’s cousin. The
Irish prince accepted and proceeded to court with a following of three
hundred galloglasses, or heavy infantry, clad in saffron-colored
jackets, close-fitting pantaloons, heavy shoes, short cloaks, and with
their hair hanging down their backs, defiant of Poynings’ Law, and all
other English enactments. They were gigantic warriors—all more than six
feet tall—and with huge mustaches, the drooping ends of which touched
their collarbones. They also carried truculent-looking daggers and
immense battle-axes, such as might have won the admiration of Richard
Cœur de Lion himself. The English courtiers—pigmies compared with the
galloglasses—might have been inclined to make fun of their costumes, but
those deadly appearing axes inspired awe, and no unpleasant incident
occurred during the visit. “Shane the Proud” made a deep impression on
Elizabeth, for he was physically magnificent and as fierce as her
dreaded father. “By what right do you oppose me in Ulster?” she asked.
“By very good right, madam,” he answered. “You may be queen here, but I
am king in Ulster, and so have been the O’Neills for thousands of
years!” Then she offered to make him Earl of Tyrone by letters patent.
“Earl me no earls, madam,” he replied. “The O’Neill is my title! By it I
stand or fall!” There was nothing more to be said, so the queen made him
rich presents, after asking him to be her “good friend,” which, being a
gallant, he promised, and then he went back to Ulster.
But Shane, although a good general and a great fighter, was a bad
statesman, and by no means a conscientious character. He oppressed the
neighboring Irish chiefs, being, indeed, half mad with pride, and made a
most unjust and unnecessary attack on the Clan O’Donnell, next to the
O’Neills the most powerful of Ulster tribes. He not alone ruined the
O’Donnell, but also dishonored him, by carrying his wife away and making
her his mistress, in mad disregard of Irish public opinion. He also
quarreled with the old MacDonald colony of Antrim—said by some writers
to be Irish, not Scotch, in their origin—and used them with extreme
harshness. In the end, his misconduct produced a revolt even among his
own followers. His enemies, including the injured O’Donnells, speedily
multiplied, and he who had been fifty times victorious over the English,
was, at last, signally defeated by his own justly indignant
fellow-countrymen. In this extremity, he fled with his mistress and a
few followers for refuge to the MacDonalds, who, at first, received the
fugitives hospitably, but soon, instigated, it is said, by one Captain
Piers, an Englishman, fell upon O’Neill at a banquet and stabbed him to
death. Had he loved his own people as much as he hated the English, he
might have lived and died a conqueror. The MacDonalds did not respect
the body of this dead lion. They severed the head from the trunk,
pickled it, and sent the ghastly present to the English Lord Deputy in
Dublin, who caused it to be spiked on the tower of Dublin Castle.
O’Neill’s death, in the very prime of his military genius, relieved
Elizabeth of her most dangerous Irish enemy. But another scion of that
warrior race was under the queen’s “protection” in London, and was
destined to raise the Bloody Hand, the cognizance of his house, to a
prouder eminence than it had attained in Irish annals since the far-off
days of Nial of the Hostages.
Treacherous massacres of Irish chieftains dangerous to England’s
supremacy in their country would appear to have been a special feature
of Elizabeth’s reign. Under the Lord Deputy Sydney’s régime, A.D. 1577,
Sir Francis Cosby, the English general commanding in the ancient
territories of Leix and Offaly, unable to obtain the submission of the
native chiefs by force of arms, invited several hundred of them to a
banquet at the rath of Mullaghmast, in the present county of Kildare.
The principal families represented were the O’Mores, O’Nolan’s,
O’Kelly’s, and Lalors. The rath, or fort, was fitted up for the
occasion, and, through the entrance, the unsuspecting Irish chieftains
and their friends rode with happy hearts and smiling faces. But one of
the Lalors who was rather belated, had his suspicions aroused by the
dead silence which seemed to prevail in the rath, and by the peculiar
circumstance that none of those who had entered came out to welcome the
later arrivals. He bade the few friends who had accompanied him to
remain outside, while he entered the fort to investigate. He took the
precaution to draw his sword before he went in. Proceeding with caution,
he was horrified at stumbling over the dead bodies of some of his
neighbors just beyond the entrance. He retreated at once, but was set
upon by assassins placed there to murder him. A powerful man, he wielded
his blade with such good effect that he cut his way out, mounted his
horse, and set off with his horrified associates at full gallop to his
home at Dysart. More than four hundred confiding Irish gentlemen had
entered the rath that day, and of all of them, only the sagacious Lalor
escaped. The tribe of O’More alone lost nearly two hundred of its
foremost members, but was not entirely exterminated. Rory Oge O’More,
son of the slaughtered head of the tribe, made relentless war on the
English Pale, and never desisted until he had more than avenged his
kindred slain in the foul massacre of Mullaghmast.
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CHAPTER III
The Geraldine War—Hugh O’Neill and “Red Hugh” O’Donnell
ULSTER was subdued, for a time, but, in Munster, the younger branch of
the Geraldines, known as Earls of Desmond, rose against the edicts of
Elizabeth and precipitated that long, sanguinary, and dreary conflict
known as the Geraldine War. Most of the Irish and Anglo-Irish chiefs of
the southern province bore a part in it, and it only terminated after a
murderous struggle, stretching over nearly seven years. The Desmonds and
their allies gained many successes, but lack of cohesion, as always,
produced the inevitable result—final defeat. South Munster became a
desert. Elizabeth’s armies systematically destroyed the growing crops,
and, at last, famine accomplished for England what the sword could not
have done. The Munster Geraldines were mainly led by Sir James
Fitzmaurice, a kinsman of the earl, who was a brave man and an
accomplished soldier. The earl himself, and his brother, Sir John
Fitzgerald, had been summoned to London by the queen, and were made
prisoners and placed in the Tower, after the usual treacherous fashion.
After a period of detention, they were transferred, as state prisoners,
to Dublin Castle, but managed to effect their escape (doubtless by the
connivance of friendly officials) on horseback and reached their own
country in due time. The earl, foolishly, held aloof from Fitzmaurice
until a dangerous crisis was reached, when he threw himself into the
struggle and, in defence of his country and religion, lost all he
possessed. The Pope and King of Spain, in the Catholic interest, sent
men and money, but the Papal contingent, led by an English military
adventurer, named Stukley, was diverted from its purpose, and never
reached Ireland. The Spanish force—less than a thousand men—was brought
to Ireland by Fitzmaurice himself. He had made a pilgrimage to Spain for
that purpose. Smerwick Castle, on the Kerry coast, was their point of
debarkation. With unaccountable timidity, Earl Desmond made no sign of
an alliance, and Fitzmaurice was in search of other succor, when he
fell, in a petty encounter with the De Burgos of Castle Connell. The
Spaniards, who occupied Smerwick, were besieged by a large Anglo-Irish
force, under the Earl of Ormond and other veteran chiefs. They made a
gallant and desperate defence, but they were invested by land and sea,
and were perfectly helpless against the shower of shot and shell rained
upon them night and day by the English batteries. Seeing that further
resistance was useless, the Spanish commander finally surrendered at
discretion, but, disgraceful to relate, Lord Deputy De Grey refused
quarter and the hapless Spaniards were butchered to the last man. It is
not pleasant to have to state that among the fierce besiegers were the
celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh, the great English poet Edmund Spenser,
and Hugh O’Neill, then serving Elizabeth, “for policy’s sake,” in a
subordinate capacity, but afterward destined to be the most formidable
of all her Irish foes. The Munster Geraldines were exterminated, except
for a few collateral families—the Knight of Kerry, the Knight of Glin,
and some other chiefs whose titles still survive. But the great House of
Desmond vanished forever from history, when Garret Fitzgerald, the last
earl, after all his kinsmen had fallen in the struggle, was betrayed and
murdered by a mercenary wretch, named Moriarty, in a peasant’s hut in
Kerry, not far from Castle Island. The assassin and his brutal
confederates decapitated the remains and sent the poor old head to
Elizabeth, in London, who caused it to be spiked over the “traitor’s
gate” of the Tower. So ended the Geraldine revolt, which raged in
Munster from 1578 to 1584, until all that fair land was a desert and a
sepulchre. The bravest battle fought during its continuance was that of
Glendalough, in the summer of 1580. This was on the soil of Leinster,
and the victory was won by the heroic Clan O’Byrne, of Wicklow, led by
the redoubtable chief, Fiach MacHugh. The English, who were led by Lord
De Grey in person, suffered a total rout, and the Lord Deputy, at the
head of the few terrified survivors, fled in disgrace to Dublin, leaving
behind him the dead bodies of four of his bravest and ablest
captains—Audley, Cosby, Carew, and Moore.
“Carew and Audley deep had sworn the Irish foe to tame,
But thundering on their dying ear his shout of victory came;
And burns with shame De Grey’s knit brow and throbs with rage his eye,
To see his best, in wildest rout, from Erin’s clansmen fly.”
The defeat and death of “Shane the Proud” had left Ulster, temporarily,
without a military chief competent to make head against the English,
and, therefore, the Desmonds were left, practically, without help from
the northern province. Notwithstanding, the new Lord Deputy, Perrott,
kept his eyes fixed steadily on Ulster, the fighting qualities of whose
sons he knew only too well. In Tyrconnel young Hugh Roe, or Red Hugh,
O’Donnell, was growing fast to manhood, and his fame as an athlete, a
hunter, and hater of the English, spread throughout Ireland. Hugh
O’Neill, the son of Matthew, Baron of Dungannon, was enjoying himself at
Elizabeth’s court, where he made the acquaintance of Cecil, Essex,
Bacon, Marshal Bagnal, Mountjoy, and numerous other celebrities, and
basked in the sunshine of the royal favor, which he took particular
pains to cultivate. He was a handsome young man, of middle size, rigidly
trained to arms, and “shaped in proportion fair.” The queen’s object was
to make him an instrument in her hands for the final subjugation of
Ireland. He seemed to enter readily into her plans, which his quick
intellect at once comprehended, and he met her wiles with a
dissimulation as profound as her own. If any man ever outwitted
Elizabeth, politically, that man was Hugh O’Neill, whom she finally
created Earl of Tyrone—a title which, in his inmost heart, he despised,
much preferring his hereditary designation of “The O’Neill.” But it was
not Hugh’s immediate purpose to quarrel with Elizabeth about titles, or,
in fact, anything else. He was graciously permitted to raise a bodyguard
of his own clansmen, and to arm and drill them at his pleasure. Nay,
more, the queen allowed him to send from England shiploads of lead
wherewith to put a new roof on his castle of Dungannon. And he went to
Ireland to look after his interests in person. Soon, rumors reached
Elizabeth that O’Neill, when he had sufficiently drilled one batch of
clansmen, substituted another; and that enough lead had been shipped by
him from England to Tyrone to roof twenty castles. It was further
rumored that the clanswomen of Tyrone were employed casting bullets at
night, instead of spinning and weaving. O’Neill, learning of these
rumors from English friends, repaired to London, and, at once, reassured
the queen as to his “burning loyalty and devotion to her person.” So he
was permitted to return to Dungannon unmolested. Unlike his fierce
kinsman, John the Proud, Hugh cultivated the friendship of all the
Ulster chiefs, within reach, and more particularly that of the brave and
handsome young Red Hugh O’Donnell. Nor did he confine his friendly
relations to the chiefs of Ulster. He also perfected good understandings
with many in the other three provinces, and managed to keep on good
terms with the English also. Indeed, he did not hesitate to take the
field occasionally “in the interest of the queen,” and, on one occasion,
during a skirmish in Munster, received a wound in the thigh. How could
Elizabeth doubt that one who shed his blood for her could be otherwise
than devoted to her service? O’Neill, no doubt, liked the queen, but he
loved Ireland and liberty much better. In his patriotic deceit he only
followed the example set him at the English court. He kept “open house”
at Dungannon Castle for all who might choose or chance to call. Among
others, he received the wrecked survivors of the Spanish Armada cast
away on the wild Ulster coast, and shipped them back to Spain, at his
own expense, laden with presents for their king. A kinsman, Hugh of the
Fetters—an illegitimate son of John the Proud by the wife of O’Donnell,
already mentioned—betrayed his secret to the English Government. He
explained his action to the satisfaction of the Lord Deputy, for he had
a most persuasive tongue. Having done so, he exercised his hereditary
privilege of the chief O’Neill, arrested Hugh of the Fetters, had him
tried for treason, and, it is said, executed him with his own hand,
because he could find no man in Tyrone willing to kill an O’Neill, even
though proven a craven traitor.
Lord Deputy Perrott, in 1587, or thereabout, concocted a plan by which
he got the young O’Donnell, whose rising fame he dreaded, into his
power. A sailing-vessel, laden with wine and other merchandise, was sent
around the coast of Ireland from Dublin and cast anchor in Lough Swilly,
at a point opposite to Rathmullen. Red Hugh and his friends, young like
himself, were engaged in hunting and fishing when the vessel appeared in
the bay. The captain, in the friendliest manner, invited O’Donnell and
his companions on board. They consented, and were plied with wine. By
the time they were ready to return to shore, they found the hatches
battened down and the ship under way for Dublin. And thus, meanly and
most treacherously, was the kidnapping of this noble youth and his
friends accomplished by, supposedly, an English gentleman.
O’Donnell, after a confinement of three years in Dublin Castle, managed
to effect his escape, in company with some fellow captives. But they
missed their way, and were overtaken and captured in the territory of
O’Tuhill, at a place now called Powerscourt, in the county Wicklow. A
second attempt, made two years later on, proved more successful, and the
escaping party managed to reach the tribe-land of the O’Byrnes, whose
brave chief, Fiach MacHugh, received and sheltered them. Art O’Neill,
one of Red Hugh’s companions, perished of cold and hunger—the season
being winter—on the trip; and O’Donnell’s feet were so badly frozen that
he was partially disabled for life. This fact did not, however,
interfere with his warlike activity. O’Byrne at once informed Hugh
O’Neill of Red Hugh’s escape and whereabouts, and the Ulster chief sent
a guide, who brought him safely to Dungannon, where he was royally
entertained and admitted to the knowledge of O’Neill’s secret policy,
which, as may have been surmised, aimed at the overthrow of English rule
in Ireland.
After resting sufficiently, O’Donnell proceeded to Tyrconnel, where he
was joyfully received by his people. His father, old and unenterprising,
determined to abdicate the chieftaincy in his favor, and, accordingly,
Red Hugh was proclaimed “The O’Donnell,” with all the ancient forms. He
proceeded with characteristic rigor to baptize his new honors in the
blood of his foes. Old Turlough O’Neill had weakly permitted an English
garrison to occupy his castle of Strabane. O’Donnell attacked it
furiously and put all of the garrison to the sword. He followed up this
warlike blow with many others, and soon struck terror into the hearts of
all the “Englishry” and their much more despicable Irish allies, on the
borders of Ulster and Connaught. His most active and efficient ally in
these stirring operations was Hugh McGuire, Prince of Fermanagh—the best
cavalry commander produced by either party during the long and
devastating Elizabethan wars.
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CHAPTER IV
Confiscation of Desmond’s Domains—English Plantation of Munster
THERE had been, of course, a general “confiscation to the Crown”—that
is, to the English “carpet-baggers”—of the broad domains of the defeated
Desmonds, and their allies, and among the aliens who profited greatly
thereby, for a time, at least, were the poetic Edmund Spenser, who
obtained the castle and lands of Kilcolman, in Cork, and Sir Walter
Raleigh, who fell in for extensive holdings in Youghal, at the mouth of
the southern Blackwater, and its neighborhood. In the garden of Myrtle
Grove House, Sir Walter’s Youghal residence, potatoes, obtained from
Virginia, were first planted in Ireland, and the first pipeful of
tobacco was smoked. In connection with the latter event, a story is told
that a servant-girl, about to scrub the floors, seeing smoke issuing
from Sir Walter’s nose and mouth, conceived him to be on fire, and
emptied the contents of her pail over him, in order, as she explained,
“to put him out.” Sir Walter, we may be sure, did not relish her method
of fighting “the fire fiend.”
The Desmond confiscation was by no means the first case of the kind on
record in Ireland. The original Geraldines took the lands by force from
the Celtic tribes, but they speedily amalgamated with the natives, and,
within a few generations, became full-fledged Irish in every
characteristic, except their family name. Neither was this great
confiscation the last, or greatest, as will be seen in the progress of
this narrative. The queen’s ministers caused letters to be written to
the officers of every “shire” in England, “generously” offering
Desmond’s plundered lands in fee simple—that is, practically, free of
cost—to all younger brothers, of good families, who would undertake the
plantation of Munster. Each of these favored colonists was allowed to
“plant” a certain number of British, or Anglo-Irish, families, but it
was specifically provided that none of the native—that is, the Celtic
and Catholic and the Norman-Catholic—Irish were to be admitted to the
privilege. The country had been made “a smoking desert” before this
plantation of foreigners was begun. Most of the rightful owners had
perished by famine and the sword, and those who still survived,
“starvation being, in some instances, too slow, crowds of men, women,
and children were sometimes driven into buildings, which were then set
on fire” (Mitchel’s “Life of Hugh O’Neill,” page 68). “The soldiers were
particularly careful to destroy all Irish infants, ‘for, if they were
suffered to grow up, they would become Popish rebels.’” (_Ibid._ pp. 68,
69.) It is related by the historian Lombard that “women were found
hanging upon trees, with their children strangled in the mother’s hair.”
And all this was done in the name of the “reformed religion.” In good
truth, although Elizabeth herself may have wished to make the Irish
people Protestant in order that they might become more obedient to her
spiritual and temporal sway, her agents in Ireland wished for nothing of
the kind. They wished the Irish masses to remain Catholic. Otherwise,
they would have had no good pretext for destroying them and usurping
their lands. And this, too, satisfactorily explains why, for a very long
period, the Irish national resistance to England was considered and
described as a purely Catholic, sectarian movement. Protestantism, in
the period of which we write, meant, to the average Irish mind,
England’s policy of conquest and spoliation in Ireland. It is hardly
wonderful, therefore, that there grew up between the followers of the
old and new creeds an animosity doubly bitter—the animosity of race
supplemented by that of religion. In our own days, we have seen the same
result in the Polish provinces of Russia and the Turkish principalities
in the Danubian region of Europe. Well might the poet ask—
“And wherefore can not kings be great,
And rule with man approving?
And why should creeds enkindle hate
And all their precepts loving?”
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CHAPTER V
Conditions in Ulster Before the Revolt of O’Neill
THE first jury “trial” in Ulster was that of Hugh Roe MacMahon,
chieftain of Monaghan, who became entangled with Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam
in some one-sided “alliance,” and, failing in some slight particular to
keep his side of the contract, was “tried” by twelve soldiers in
Elizabeth’s pay, condemned to death and shot at his own door. This and
other brutal murders, attested by the English historian, Moryson, filled
the north with rage, and the very name of English “law” became a menace
and a terror throughout the length and breadth of Ulster. From that
bloody period dates the hatred and distrust of English “justice” which
still survives among the Irish people. Indeed, instances of judicial
murder, almost rivaling that of MacMahon Roe, might be cited by living
Irishmen as having occurred within their own experience. Elizabeth’s
deputy, Fitzwilliam, who was a consummate scoundrel and jobber in
bribes, and would have made a champion modern “boodle alderman,”
succeeded in making the very name of “shire,” or county, land detested
in Ireland. When he informed McGuire, the bold chief of Fermanagh, that
he was about to send a sheriff into his “county” to “empanel juries,”
the chief answered grimly, “Let him come; but, first, let me know his
eric (price of his blood), so that, if my people should cut off his
head, I may levy it on the country.” This was the Irish method under the
Brehon law. No sheriff appeared in Fermanagh for many a year after
McGuire’s significant statement.
Red Hugh O’Donnell continued to make things exceedingly lively for the
English garrisons in Ulster and Connaught, and made them take to the
cover of their strong places after nearly every encounter. Near
Inniskillen, the gallant Hugh McGuire, aided by a small body of the
clansmen of Tyrone, who came “on the quiet,” under the command of
O’Neill’s brother, Cormac, met a large English escort, who were
conveying supplies to the town, to which Red Hugh O’Donnell had laid
siege, at a ford of the river Erne. The English suffered a total rout,
and their bread-wagons having been lost in the current, or overturned in
the shallows, the spot is known to this day as Bael-atha-an-Biscoid—in
English “the Ford of Biscuits.” Red Hugh, who had gone to Derry to meet
a body of the Antrim Scots, who were coming to his aid, was necessarily
absent when the battle was fought, and, on hearing of the victory,
remarked he was “sorry he had not been in the fight, as he would have
prevented the escape of so many of the English.” The latter began to
perceive, by this time, that they had to “strip for the combat” in
earnest if they meant to retain their foothold on the borders of Ulster.
Rumors of O’Neill’s disaffection had again reached the queen, and again
he journeyed to London and reassured her of his “loyalty.” He even made
great show of accepting the English title of Earl of Tyrone, and
returned to Dungannon encumbered with the gold chain symbolical of his
new “rank.” This did not please his clansmen, who could not see into his
dissembling schemes, so he was obliged to placate them by consenting to
be installed as The O’Neill—a title he very much preferred to his
English one of Earl—at the rath of Tulloghoge (Hill of the Youths), in
his native Tyrone. Thomas Davis, the poet of Young Ireland—a party of
Irish literary men and high-souled patriots who flourished from 1842
until 1848—in his fine ballad of the “True Irish King,” gives a vivid
picture of the scene in the following lines:
“Unsandaled he stands on the foot-dinted rock;
Like a pillar-stone fixed against every shock.
Round, round as the rath, on a far-seeing hill,
Like his blemishless honor and vigilant will.
The graybeards are telling how chiefs by the score
Had been crowned on the rath of the kings heretofore:
While crowded, yet ordered, within its green ring,
Are the dynasts and priests round the True Irish King.
“The chronicler read him the laws of the clan,
And pledged him to bide by their blessing and ban.
His skian and his sword are unbuckled to show
That they only were meant for a foreigner foe;
A white willow wand has been put in his hand—
A type of pure, upright, and gentle command,
While hierarchs are blessing, the slipper they fling
And O’Cahan proclaims him a True Irish King.
“Thrice looked he to heaven with thanks and with prayer,
Thrice looked to his borders with sentinel stare—
To the waves of Lough Neagh, to the heights of Strabane;
And thrice to his allies, and thrice to his clan—
One clash on their bucklers—one more—they are still—
What means the deep pause on the crest of the hill?
Why gaze they above him? A war eagle’s wing!
‘’Tis an omen—hurrah for the True Irish King!’”
Those who may condemn the apparently tortuous policy of O’Neill must
bear in mind that he was only practicing against the enemies of his
country the double-dealing and subtle acts they had themselves taught
him, in order to make him a more facile instrument in their hands for
that country’s subjugation. The dark and crooked policy inculcated by
Machiavelli was then in vogue at all the European courts, and at none
was it practiced more thoroughly than at that of Elizabeth of England.
It must be admitted that the English found in Hugh O’Neill a very apt
pupil—a true case of “diamond cut diamond.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI
O’Neill Draws the Sword—Victories of Clontibret and Armagh
MARSHAL SIR HENRY BAGNAL—one of Elizabeth’s most potent military
commanders—had never liked Hugh O’Neill, whom he had often met in London
and Dublin, but this hatred of the Irish prince was not shared by the
marshal’s fair sister, the Lady Mabel Bagnal, who presided over his
mansion at Newry, where were established the headquarters of the English
army in Ulster. Lady Mabel was one of the most beautiful of women, and
O’Neill, who had become a widower, grew desperately enamored of her. He
managed to elude the vigilance of the hostile brother, and, assisted by
a friendly “Saxon,” succeeded in eloping with and making her his wife.
The elopement filled Sir Henry with fury. He entered into a conspiracy
against O’Neill with other Englishmen and Palesmen. A new Lord Deputy
had come over from England in the person of Sir William Russell. Charges
against O’Neill were laid before him. He communicated with the Court of
London and commands soon came to arrest the Chief of Tyrone without
delay. O’Neill, as usual, had means of secret information and soon knew
all about the plot laid for his destruction. Instead of being dismayed,
he hastened, at once, to Dublin and surprised his treacherous accusers
in the midst of their deliberations. His old-time friend, the Earl of
Ormond, stood by him and refused to be a party to the treachery planned
by the new Lord Deputy. When a similar order had reached Ormond himself
from Lord Burleigh—ancestor of the late Prime Minister of England—the
earl replied scornfully in these words: “My lord, I will never use
treachery to any man, for it would both touch her Highness’s honor and
my own credit too much; and whosoever gave the queen advice thus to
write is fitter for such base service than I am. Saving my duty to her
Majesty, I would I might have revenge by my sword of any man that thus
persuadeth the queen to write to me.” Noble words, gallant Ormond!
The earl, feeling convinced that Lord Russell, who was not much affected
by honorable scruples, would obey the order from the queen and arrest
O’Neill, advised the latter to fly from Dublin the very night of his
arrival. The Ulster prince thought this very good advice and accepted
Ormond’s friendly offices. He managed to make his way in safety to
Dungannon and at once set about perfecting his preparations for open
warfare with the generals of Elizabeth. The latter were not idle either,
for Russell surmised O’Neill’s intention and sent Sir John Norreys
(Norris), an experienced general, just returned from the wars in
Flanders, to command against him. The remainder of the year 1594, as
well as some of the succeeding year, was spent in useless negotiations,
for both parties well knew that war was now inevitable. O’Donnell,
McGuire, and some other chiefs kept up a fierce, but rather desultory,
warfare, greatly annoying the English garrisons in the border
strongholds. At last, in the early summer of 1595, O’Neill threw off the
mask, unfurled the Red Hand of Ulster, and marched against the Castle of
Monaghan, held by the enemy. In the midst of a siege but feebly carried
on for lack of a battering train, he heard that Norreys, with a powerful
force, was advancing northward to raise the siege. O’Neill at once
decided to anticipate his movement and moved to Clontibret, about five
miles off, and there took post. Norreys soon appeared, and, being a hot
soldier, attacked at once. He was met with a veteran firmness that
astonished him, and both he and his brother, Sir Thomas Norreys, were
wounded in the main attack on the Irish battle-line. At the moment when
all seemed lost for England, Colonel Segrave, an Anglo-Norman of Meath,
charged the Irish home, with a body of horse, and, for a time, restored
the battle. Segrave, himself, rushed madly on O’Neill and the two
leaders fought hand to hand for some time, while both armies stood still
to witness the result. Mr. Mitchel thus eloquently describes what
followed: “Segrave again dashed his horse against the chief, flung his
giant frame upon his enemy, and endeavored to unhorse him by the weight
of his gauntleted hand. O’Neill grasped him in his arms, and the
combatants rolled, in that fatal embrace, to the ground.
‘Now, gallant Saxon! hold thine own—
No maiden’s hand is round thee thrown!
That desperate grasp thy frame might feel
Through bars of brass and triple steel.’
“There was a moment’s deadly wrestle and a death groan. The shortened
sword of O’Neill was buried in the Englishman’s groin beneath his mail.
Then from the Irish ranks rose such a wild shout of triumph as those
hills had never echoed before. The still thundercloud burst into a
tempest; those equestrian statues became as winged demons, and with
their battle-cry of Lamh-dearg-ahoo! (‘The Red Hand to Victory’), and
their long lances poised in eastern fashion above their heads, down
swept the chivalry of Tyrone upon the astonished ranks of the Saxon. The
banner of St. George wavered and went down before that furious charge.
The English turned their bridle-reins and fled headlong over the stream
(which they had crossed to attack the Irish), leaving the field covered
with their dead, and, worse than all, leaving with the Irish that proud
red-cross banner, the first of their disgraces in those Ulster wars.
Norreys hastily retreated southward, and the castle of Monaghan was
yielded to O’Neill.”
About the same time, Red Hugh O’Donnell “prevailed mightily” in the
west, “so that,” says Mitchel, “at the close of the year 1595, the Irish
power predominated both in Ulster and Connaught.” O’Neill followed up
his success by laying siege to Armagh, which he captured by an ingenious
stratagem. Colonel Stafford had been appointed to the command of the
English in the old city, and he proved himself equal to the occasion, so
far as fighting bravely to hold it went. But provisions were running
low, and it was known to Stafford that Norreys was sending to him, from
Dundalk, a large convoy of provisions. O’Neill’s scouts had the same
information, so a body of Irish was detached to attack the convoy and
capture the rations. The movement proved successful. About three hundred
English soldiers were made prisoners. O’Neill ordered them to be
stripped of their red surtouts, and bade the same number of his clansmen
to put the garments on their own backs. Then he commanded the convoy to
march toward Armagh as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, he had caused
his relative, Con O’Neill, to occupy an old ruined abbey near the main
gate of the city. All this was accomplished under cover of the night. At
sunrise, Stafford and his hungry soldiers, from the ramparts, gazed
wistfully southward, and, to their great joy, beheld, as they imagined,
the convoy marching rapidly to their relief. Almost on the instant, it
was, seemingly, attacked by the Irish army. Volleys—blank cartridges
being used—were exchanged, and many men appeared to fall on both sides.
At last, the supposititious English seemed about to give way. Stafford
and his famished men could stand the sight no longer. They rushed
through the now open gate to the aid of their countrymen, as they
thought. To their amazement, both red coats and saffron shirts fell upon
them, and they perceived they had been tricked. A brave attempt was made
by them to re-enter the town, but Con O’Neill and his party, rushing
from the old ruin, seized the gate. All the English outside the walls
were captured. Soon afterward, the city itself surrendered to the Irish
leader. O’Neill made humane use of his victory. He disarmed and paroled
the English prisoners and sent them, under safe escort, back to General
Norreys. He was a man of strict honor, and, no doubt, the terms of the
capitulation were properly observed. The Irish dismantled Armagh, as
O’Neill had no need of fortresses, but, during his absence elsewhere,
some English made their way to the place and refortified it; only,
however, to have it retaken by the Irish army.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII
Ireland Still Victorious—Battles of Tyrrell’s Pass and Drumfluich
THE year 1597 witnessed the recall of Lord Deputy Russell from the
government of Ireland, and the substitution of Lord De Burgh. A
temporary truce was entered into by the belligerents, and neither side
lost any time in augmenting its strength. All Ulster was practically
freed from English rule, but they had garrisons shut up in the castles
of Carrickfergus, Newry, Dundrum, Carlingford, Greencastle, and
Olderfleet—all on the coast. When the truce came to an end, the Palesmen
organized a large force and prepared to send it northward, to aid those
garrisons, under young Barnewall, son of Lord Trimleston. O’Neill
detached a force of 400 men under the brave Captain Richard Tyrrell and
his lieutenant, O’Conor, to ambush and destroy it. Tyrrell moved
promptly to accomplish his mission, and rapidly penetrated to the
present county of Westmeath. There, at a defile now known as Tyrrell’s
Pass, not far from Mullingar, he awaited the coming of the Palesmen. In
the narrow pass, the latter could not deploy, so that the battle was
fought by the heads of columns, which gave the advantage to the Irish.
Some of the latter managed to get on the flanks of the Palesmen, and a
terrible slaughter ensued. Of the thousand Palesmen, only Barnewall
himself and one soldier escaped the swords of the vengeful natives. The
former was brought a prisoner to O’Neill, who held him as a hostage, and
the soldier carried the dread news of the annihilation of the Meathian
force to Mullingar.
But the Lord Deputy and the Earl of Kildare, with all the force they
could muster, were in full march for Ulster. Sir Conyers Clifford,
another veteran Englishman, attempted to join them from the side of
Connaught, but was met by Red Hugh O’Donnell and compelled to go back
the way he came, leaving many of his men behind him. At a place called
Drumfluich, the Lord Deputy and Kildare, who were en route to recapture
Portmore, which had fallen into the hands of O’Neill, encountered the
Irish army. The latter was strongly posted on the banks of the northern
Blackwater, but the English attacked with great resolution, drove its
vanguard across the river and took possession of Portmore. O’Neill,
however, held his main body well in hand, and while De Burgh was
congratulating himself on his success, fiercely attacked the English who
had crossed to the left bank of the river, and inflicted on them a most
disastrous defeat. The Lord Deputy and the Earl of Kildare were both
mortally wounded, and died within a few hours. The English army was
practically destroyed. Red Hugh O’Donnell had arrived in the nick of
time to complete the victory, and, with him, the Antrim MacDonalds,
whose prowess received due honor. The historian of Hugh O’Neill says,
succinctly: “That battlefield is called Drumfluich. It lies about two
miles westward from Blackwater-town (built on the site of Portmore), and
Battleford-bridge marks the spot where the English reddened the river in
their flight.”
But Captain Williams, a valiant “Saxon,” held Portmore, in spite of
O’Neill’s great victory, and this fortress, in the heart of his country,
proved a thorn in the side of Tyrone, who, as we have already mentioned,
was destitute of battering appliances for many a day. The result at
Drumfluich struck dismay into the hearts of the stoutest soldiers of the
English interest, and the dreaded names of O’Neill and the Blackwater
were on every trembling lip throughout the Pale. The queen, in London,
grew very angry, and rated her ministers with unusual vehemence. It was
fortunate for De Burgh and Lord Kildare that they died on the field of
honor. Otherwise, they would have been disgraced, as was General Norreys
for his defeat at Clontibret. He died of a broken heart soon after being
deprived of his command in Ulster.
The English were also unfortunate in Connaught and Munster, and when the
Earl of Ormond assumed the government of Ireland, by appointment, after
the defeat and death of De Burgh, the English interest had fallen lower
in the scale than it had been since the days of Richard II. The earl
entered into a two months’ armistice with O’Neill, and negotiations for
a permanent peace were begun. O’Neill’s conditions were: perfect freedom
of religion not only in Ulster but throughout Ireland; reparation for
the spoil and ravage done upon the Irish country by the garrisons of
Newry and other places, and, finally, entire and undisturbed control by
the Irish chiefs over their own territories and people. (Moryson,
McGeoghegan, and Mitchel.)
Queen Elizabeth was enraged at these terms, when transmitted to her by
Ormond, and sent a list of counter-terms which O’Neill could not
possibly entertain. He saw there was nothing for it but the edge of the
sword, and grew impatient at the tardiness of King Philip of Spain in
not sending him aid while he was prosecuting the war for civil and
religious liberty so powerfully. The English Government, in order to
discourage the Catholic powers and keep them from coming to the aid of
Ireland, concealed or minimized O’Neill’s splendid victories. Lombard,
cited by McGeoghegan—a most conscientious historian—avers that an
English agent was employed, at Brussels, “to publish pretended
submissions, treaties, and pardons, so that the Spanish governor of
Flanders might report to his master that the power of the Irish
Catholics was broken and their cause completely lost.” (Mitchel.) The
same charge has been made against England in our own day—only in a
different connection. Germany, France, and Russia have semi-officially
declared that English agents at Berlin, Paris, and St. Petersburg have
persistently misrepresented the attitude of those countries toward
America during the recent Spanish War. Whatever may have been the truth
regarding the Brussels agent, it is undeniable that King Philip
abandoned Ireland to her fate until it was too late to hinder her ruin;
and that, when Spanish troops landed at Kinsale, in 1601, they proved
more of a hindrance than a help. O’Neill gave up all hope of assistance
from Philip in the fall of 1597 and resolved to stake all on his genius
as a commander, and on the tried valor of the glorious clansmen of
Tyrone and Tyrconnel.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII
Irish Victory of the Yellow Ford, Called the Bannockburn of Ireland
WE dwell at greater length on the Elizabethan era in Ireland than,
perhaps, on any other, because then began the really fatal turn in the
fortunes of the Irish nation. Notwithstanding splendid triumphs in the
field, cunning and treachery were fated to overcome patriotism and
heroic courage. But, before this great cloud gloomed upon her, Ireland
was still destined to witness many days of glory, and to win her most
renowned victory.
The spring and early summer of 1598 saw Captain Williams still holding
Portmore, on the Blackwater, stubbornly for England, but his rations
were nearly exhausted and he managed to get word of his desperate
condition to Marshal Bagnal, who, at the head of a splendidly appointed
army of veteran troops, horse and foot, marched northward from Newry to
his succor. His first operations were successful and he came very near
to capturing O’Neill himself, at a place called Mullaghbane, not far
from Armagh. Then Bagnal pushed on to raise the siege of Portmore, where
Williams was living on his starved horses and suffering all the pangs of
hunger.
O’Neill, having been fully informed of Marshal Bagnal’s progress,
summoned O’Donnell and his other allies to join him immediately, which
they did. He left Portmore to the famine-stricken garrison, and turned
his face southward fully resolved to give battle to his redoubted
brother-in-law before he could reach the Blackwater. Thoroughly
acquainted with the character of the country through which the English
were to pass, he had no difficulty in choosing his ground. He took post,
therefore, in the hilly, wooded, and marshy angle formed by the Callan
and Blackwater Rivers, at a point where a sluggish rivulet runs from a
large bog toward the main river, and which is called, in the Gaelic
tongue, Beal-an-atha-buidhe, in English, “the Mouth of the Yellow Ford,”
destined to give title to the Irish Bannockburn. This field is about two
and one-half miles N.W. from Armagh.
The superb English array, all glittering in steel armor and with their
arms flashing back pencils of sunlight, Bagnal himself in the van,
appeared at the opening of the wooded pass, which, all unknown to the
marshal, was garrisoned by five hundred Irish kerns early on the sultry
morning of August 10th—T. D. McGee says the 15th—1598. The head of the
column was attacked immediately by the Celtic infantry, who, however,
obedient to orders, soon fell back on the main body, which was drawn up
behind a breastwork, in front of which was a long trench, dug pretty
deep, and concealed by wattles (dry sticks) and fresh-cut sods—a
stratagem borrowed by O’Neill from the tactics of Bruce, so successfully
put in practice at Bannockburn, nearly three centuries before. Having
finally cleared the pass, not without copious bloodshed, Bagnal
debouched from it, and deployed his forces on the plain in face of the
Irish army. His cavalry, under Generals Brooke, Montacute, and Fleming,
shouting, “St. George for England!” charged fiercely up to the Irish
trench, where the horses floundered in the covered trap set for them,
and then the Irish foot, leaping over their breastwork, piked to death
the unfortunate riders. Bagnal, in no wise daunted, pressed on with his
chosen troops, animating them by shout and gesture. A part of the Irish
works, battered by his cannon, was carried, and the English thought the
battle won. They were preparing to follow up their success when,
suddenly, O’Neill himself appeared, at the head of his main body, who
had abandoned their slight defences, and came on to meet the English
with flashing musketry and “push of pike.” Bagnal’s artillery, with
which he was well provided, did much damage to O’Neill’s men, but
nothing could withstand the Irish charge that day. O’Donnell’s dashing
clan nobly seconded their kinsmen of Tyrone, and a most desperate
conflict ensued. Bagnal and his soldiers deported themselves bravely, as
became tried warriors, but, in the crisis of the fight, the marshal
fell, a wagon-load of powder exploded in the English lines, their ranks
became confused, and few of their regiments preserved their formation.
The Irish cavalry destroyed utterly what remained of the English horse.
“By this time,” says Mitchel, “the cannon were all taken; the cries of
‘St. George’ had failed or were turned to death-shrieks, and once more,
England’s royal standard sank before the Red Hand of Tyrone.” The
English rout was appalling, and the chronicler of O’Donnell says: “They
were pursued in couples, in threes, in scores, in thirties, and in
hundreds.” At a point where the carnage was greatest, the country people
still show the traveler the Bloody Loaming (lane) which was choked with
corpses on that day of slaughter. Two thousand five hundred English
soldiers perished in the battle and flight; and among the fallen were
the marshal, as already related, twenty-two other superior officers, and
a large number of captains, lieutenants, and ensigns. The immediate
spoils of the victory were 12,000 gold pieces, thirty-four standards,
all the musical instruments and cannon, and an immense booty in wagons,
loaded with clothing and provisions. The Irish army lost 200 in killed
and three times that number wounded. By O’Neill’s orders, the dead of
both sides were piously buried. (Irish annals cited by Curry and
Mitchel.)
Sir Walter Scott, in his graphic poem of “Rokeby,” which should be read
by all students, as it deals with a stirring period of English history,
thus refers to the battle of the Yellow Ford:
“Who has not heard, while Erin yet
Strove ’gainst the Saxon’s iron bit,
Who has not heard how brave O’Neill
In English blood imbrued his steel;
Against St. George’s cross blazed high
The banners of his tanistry—
To fiery Essex gave the foil
And reigned a prince on Ulster soil?
But chief arose his victor pride
When that brave marshal fought and died,
And Avonduff[2] to ocean bore
His billows red with Saxon gore.”
Footnote 2:
Blackwater.
The survivors of Bagnal’s heroic, if defeated, army, fled to Armagh,
which had again fallen into the possession of the English, and there
took shelter. O’Neill invested the place and, being now provided with
artillery, captured from the enemy, speedily compelled its surrender.
The gallant Williams, starved out at Portmore, also capitulated.
O’Neill, with his customary magnanimity, after depriving the prisoners
of both places of their arms, took their parole and sent them in safety
to the Pale, and, for a time, all English power whatever vanished from
the soil of Ulster.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX
How O’Neill Baffled Essex—O’Donnell’s Victory of the Curlew Mountains
THE limits of this simple narrative of Irish history will not permit us
to go into the details of the numerous “risings” of the Irish and
encounters with the disheartened English in the other three provinces.
O’Donnell swept through Connaught, like a very besom of destruction,
drove the English generals into their castles, and other strong places,
and carried Athenry by storm, “sword in hand.” He also made a raid into
Munster, and punished a degenerate O’Brien of Inchiquin for accepting an
English title, and hugging his English chain as “Earl of Thomond.” Then
he returned to Connaught and finished up what English garrisons still
remained there, with few exceptions. O’Neill himself also made a visit
to Munster, said his prayers at the noble shrine of Holy Cross Abbey, on
the winding Suir, and, the legitimate—according to English notions—Earl
of Desmond being dead, set up an earl of his own. He “put heart into”
the rather slow and cautious Catholic Anglo-Normans of this province,
and caused them to join hands with their Celtic brothers in defence of
country and creed. Under the new earl, they attacked the English with
great spirit, and, although occasionally beaten, managed to hold the
upper hand in most cases.
In Leinster, the O’Mores, the O’Byrnes, the O’Tuhills, and the Kavanaghs
had also risen in arms, and never had Ireland presented so united a
military front, since the first landing of the English on her shore.
There was fighting everywhere, but, outside of O’Neill and O’Donnell,
and, perhaps, the new Desmond, there would not seem to have been a
concerted military plan—probably owing to the rather long distances
between the respective bodies and the difficulty of communication.
Queen Elizabeth, when she heard of the Irish triumph at the Yellow Ford,
was violently exasperated, and stormed against Ormond, her Lord
Lieutenant, for remaining in Leinster, skirmishing with the O’Mores and
other secondary forces, and leaving everything in the hands of O’Neill
in Ulster. She was now an aged woman, but still vain and thirsty for
admiration. Her reigning favorite was the brilliant Robert Devereux,
Earl of Essex, who had made a reputation in the Spanish wars. In the
middle of 1599, this favored warrior, accompanied by a picked force of
at least 20,000 men, landed in Dublin and assumed chief command. Instead
of at once moving with his fine army, reinforced by the Palesmen and the
relics of Norreys’ and Bagnal’s troops, against O’Neill, he imitated the
dilatory tactics of Ormond and wasted away his strength in petty
encounters with the hostile tribes of Leinster and the Anglo-Irish of
Munster, most of whom sided, because of common religious belief, with
their Celtic neighbors. He also committed the grave fault of bestowing
high command on favorites who possessed no capacity for such duties.
While marching to besiege Cahir Castle, in the present county of
Tipperary, he was obliged to pass through a wooded defile in Leix
(Queen’s County), where his rearguard of cavalry was attacked by the
fierce O’Mores and cut to pieces. The Irish tore the white plumes from
the helmets of the fallen English troopers, as trophies, and so great
was their number that the gorge has been called, ever since that
tragical day, Bearna-na-cleite—in English, the “Pass of Plumes.” Essex,
notwithstanding this disaster, which he made no immediate effort to
avenge, marched to Cahir and took the castle; but, in subsequent
encounters with the Munster Irish, he suffered severe reverses. Near
Croom, in Limerick, he was met by the Geraldines and their allies and
badly defeated. Sir Thomas Norreys, Lord President of Munster—brother of
the defeated English commander at Clontibret—was among the slain. Thus
baffled, the haughty Essex made his way sadly back to Dublin, pursued
for a whole week by the victorious Geraldines. Smarting under his
disgrace, he caused the decimation of an English regiment that had fled
from the O’Mores—something he himself had also been in the habit of
doing. He had no heart to try conclusions with the terrible O’Neill in
his Ulster fastnesses, and sent many letters of excuse to the queen, in
which he dwelt on the strength and courage of the Irish clansmen in war,
and asked for further reinforcements, before venturing against O’Neill.
These were sent him, to the number of several thousand, and, at length,
he seemed ready to move. Sir Conyers Clifford, a very brave and skilful
officer, commanded for Elizabeth in Connaught. Essex ordered him to
march into Ulster and seize certain strategic points that would open the
way for the main army when it should finally appear in the North.
Clifford obeyed his orders with veteran promptitude. He was soon at
Boyle, in the present county of Roscommon, where he went into camp near
the beautiful abbey, whose ruins are still the admiration of
antiquarians. Thence, he marched northward through the passes of the
Corslibh, or Curlew, Mountains, bent upon penetrating into Ulster. But,
in a heavily timbered ravine, he was fallen upon by the fierce clansmen
of Red Hugh O’Donnell, commanded by their fiery chief in person. When
the English heard the terrible war-cry of “O’Donnell Aboo!” “O’Donnell
to Victory”) echoing along the pass, they knew their hour had come.
However, they met their fate like brave men, worthy of their gallant
commander, and fought desperately, although in vain. They were soon
totally broken and fell in heaps under the stalwart blows of the Clan
O’Donnell. General Clifford and his second in command, Sir Henry
Ratcliffe, were killed, and their infantry, unable to stem the tide of
battle, fled in disorder, carrying with them the cavalry, under General
Jephson, a cool commander who displayed all the qualities of a good
soldier although completely overmatched. Had he not gallantly covered
the retreat, hardly a man of the English infantry would have reached
Boyle in safety. But the valor of Jephson did not extend to all of his
men, some of whom abandoned the field rather precipitately. The English
historian, Moryson, excuses them on the ground that “their ammunition
was all spent.” Sligo, the key of North Connaught, fell to O’Donnell, as
one result of this sharp engagement.
The defeat and death of Clifford would seem to have utterly demoralized
Essex. He again hesitated to advance against O’Neill, and, instead of
doing so, weakly sought a parley with his able enemy. O’Neill agreed to
the proposal, and they met near Dundalk, on the banks of a river and in
presence of their chief officers. The Irish general, with chivalrous
courtesy, spurred his charger half-way across the stream, but Essex
remained on the opposite bank. This, however, did not prevent the two
leaders from holding a protracted conversation, in the course of which
the wily O’Neill completely outwitted the English peer. They called five
officers on both sides into the conference, and O’Neill repeated the
terms he offered after the victory of Clontibret, in 1595. The
Englishman said he did not think them extravagant, but his sincerity was
never tested. Soon afterward, angered by an epistolary outburst from the
old queen, he threw up his command, and returned to the London court,
where Elizabeth swore at him, ordered him under arrest, had him tried
for treason, and, finally, beheaded—the only cruel act of her stormy
life she ever repented of. The axe that severed the head of Essex from
his body left a scar in Elizabeth’s withered heart that never healed.
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CHAPTER X
King Philip Sends Envoys to O’Neill—The Earl of Mountjoy Lord Deputy
PHILIP II of Spain died in September, 1598, and was succeeded by his son
Philip III, who, it would seem, took more interest in the Irish struggle
against Elizabeth’s temporal and spiritual power than did his father.
Philip, in all likelihood, cared very little about Ireland’s national
aspirations, but, like all of his race, he was a zealous Catholic, and
recognized the self-evident fact that the Irish were, then, fighting not
alone their own battle but also that of the Church, with heroic vigor.
O’Neill began negotiations with the young monarch immediately after his
accession, and Philip responded by sending two envoys to the Irish
general—Don Martin de la Cerda and the Most Rev. Matthias de Oriedo, who
had been appointed by the Pope Archbishop of Dublin—a purely titular
office, seeing that the English were in full possession of that capital.
The bishop presented O’Neill with “a Phœnix plume,” blessed by his
Holiness, and also with 22,000 pieces of gold—a generous contribution in
that age, when money was much more valuable in proportion than it is
now. (O’Sullivan, Moryson, and Mitchel.)
O’Neill, having sufficiently awed the English generals for a period,
made a sort of “royal progress” through Munster and Leinster, visiting
holy places, settling feuds, and inspecting military forces. He met
with, practically, no opposition, but, near Cork, had the misfortune to
lose his gallant cavalry commander, Hugh McGuire, chief of Fermanagh.
The latter was leading a body of horse on a reconnoitring mission, when
suddenly there appeared a force of English cavalry, bent on a similar
errand, under Sir Warham St. Leger and Sir Henry Power, Queen’s
Commissioners, acting in place of Sir Thomas Norreys. St. Leger rode up
to McGuire and discharged a horse pistol at close range. The heroic
Irish chief reeled in his saddle from a mortal wound, but, before
falling, struck St. Leger a crushing blow on the head with his
truncheon, and killed him on the spot. McGuire, having avenged himself
on his enemy, died on the instant. These were the only two who fell. The
English retreated to Cork and kept within its walls until O’Neill had
left the neighborhood. The Ulster prince turned back through Ormond and
Westmeath and arrived in his own country, “without meeting an enemy,
although there was then in Ireland a royal army amounting, after all the
havoc made in it during the past year, to 14,400 foot and 1,230
horse”—this, too, exclusive of irregular forces. (Moryson.) This force
was well provided with artillery and all military stores. (Mitchel.)
But O’Neill’s days of almost unclouded triumph were drawing to a close.
He was, at last, about to meet an English commander who, if not as able
as himself, was infinitely more cunning and unscrupulous. This was
Charles Blount, Earl of Mountjoy, a trained soldier, a veteran diplomat,
a fierce Protestant theologian, and a ripe scholar. His motto, on
assuming the duties of Lord Deputy in Ireland, would seem to have been
“Divide and Conquer.” Mountjoy saw, at once, that steel alone could not
now subdue Ireland, and he was determined to resort to other methods,
more potent but less manly. About the same time, there also came to
Ireland two other famous English generals, Sir George Carew and Sir
Henry Dowcra. The new deputy brought with him large reinforcements, so
that the English army in Ireland was more powerful than it had ever been
before; and Mountjoy’s orders were, in effect, that Ulster, in
particular, should be honeycombed with royal garrisons, especially along
its coast-line. Although Mountjoy himself was checked, at the outset, by
O’Neill’s army, Sir Henry Dowcra, with a powerful force, transported by
sea from Carrickfergus, occupied and fortified the hill of Derry, on the
Foyle—the ground on which now stands the storied city of Londonderry.
Other border garrisons were strengthened by the Lord Deputy, and
everything was made ready for a vigorous prosecution of the war. The
penal laws against the Irish Catholics were softened, so as, if
possible, to detach the Anglo-Irish Catholics from the Celtic Catholic
Irish, and also to impress the weak-kneed among the latter with “the
friendly intentions of her Majesty’s government”—very much like the
court language in use to-day. The bait took, as might have been
expected—for every good cause has its Iscariots—and we soon hear of
jealous kinsmen of the patriot chiefs “coming over to” the queen’s
“interest” and doing their utmost—the heartless scoundrels—to divide and
distract the strength of their country, engaged in a deadly struggle for
her rights and liberty. These despicable wretches are foul blotches on
the pages of Ireland’s history. But for them, she could have finally
shaken off the English yoke, which would have saved Ireland centuries of
martyrdom and England centuries of shame. And so we find Sir Arthur
O’Neill becoming “the queen’s O’Neill”—his branch of the family had long
been in the English interest; Connor Roe McGuire becoming “the queen’s
McGuire,” and so on _ad nauseam_. These creatures had no love for
England or Elizabeth, but simply hoped to further their own selfish ends
by disloyalty to their chiefs and treason to their country. We confess
that this is a chapter of Irish history from which we would gladly turn
in pure disgust did not our duty, as a writer of history, compel us to
dwell upon it yet a while longer. Dermot O’Connor, who held a command
under O’Neill’s Desmond in Munster, yielded to the seductions of Carew
and turned upon his leader, in the interest of his brother-in-law, son
of the “great earl,” who was held as a hostage in London Tower by
Elizabeth, and was now used as a firebrand to stir up feud and faction
among the Munster Irish. Mountjoy had not been many months in Ireland,
when, to use the words of the historian Mitchel, “a network of English
intrigue and perfidy covered the land, until the leaders of the (Irish)
confederacy in Munster knew not whom to trust, or where they were safe
from treason and assassination.” Dermot O’Connor was willing to
surrender Desmond, whom he had kidnapped, to Mountjoy, for a thousand
pounds, but, before he could receive his blood-money, the “Suggawn
(hay-rope) Earl,” as he was called in derision by the English faction,
was rescued by his kinsman, Pierce Lacy. But the White Knight—frightful
misnomer—another relative of the earl—was more fortunate than O’Connor.
He managed to receive the thousand pounds, delivered Desmond to Carew,
and earned enduring infamy. The “Suggawn Earl” was sent to London and
died a miserable prisoner in the Tower.
Thus, the policy of the Lord Deputy was doing its deadly work in Munster
and also in Leinster, where the Irish were of mixed race, and where
racial animosity could be more easily worked upon than in Ulster and
Connaught, where most of the ancient clans still remained unbroken and
uncontaminated by foreign influences. Yet Ulster and Connaught had their
Benedict Arnolds, too, as we have shown in the cases of O’Neill and
McGuire, and will show in other cases which yet remain to be mentioned.
But in these provinces the war was national as well as religious, while
in Munster it was almost entirely religious. Most of the Catholic
Anglo-Irish would have fought with the English rather than the
Celtic-Irish, if their religion had been tolerated from the first. Among
the Celtic Irish chiefs who went over to the English in Munster, were
O’Sullivan More and McCarthy More (the Great). The latter had the
cowardly excuse that his strong-minded wife had coerced him into
treason, and refused to live with him until he came to terms with the
enemy. Was there ever anything more disgraceful in the history of
manhood and womanhood? They were, indeed, a couple entirely worthy of
each other. The Lord Deputy, in the meantime, had ravaged the
“rebellious” portions of Leinster, burning houses and crops, and doing
other evil things common to the savage warfare of that period. His
greatest piece of luck, however, was the killing of the brave O’More of
Leix in a skirmish. (Mitchel.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XI
Ireland’s Fortunes Take a Bad Turn—Defeat of O’Neill and O’Donnell at
Kinsale
THE English force in Ireland was now (1600-1601) overwhelming, and as
the Irish had no fleet whatever, the English were enabled to plant
garrisons, almost wherever they wished to, around the Ulster coast, and
sometimes posts were also established in the interior of the country.
Thus Derry, Dun-na-long, Lifford, and numerous other places held strong
garrisons, and these sallied forth at will—the small Irish army being
actively engaged elsewhere—and inflicted heavy damage on the harmless
people of the surrounding districts. The process of crop-burning was in
full blast again, and such Irish people as escaped the sword and the
halter had the horrible vision of perishing by famine ever before their
eyes. O’Neill and O’Donnell were aware of all this, and did the best
they could, under such discouraging circumstances. They were almost at
the end of their resources, and awaited anxiously for the aid, in men
and money, solemnly promised them by the envoy of Philip of Spain. To
add to their ever-growing embarrassment, Niall Garbh (“the Rough”)
O’Donnell, cousin of Red Hugh, and the fiercest warrior of Clan-Conal,
revolted, because of some fancied slight, and also, no doubt, inflamed
by unworthy ambition, against the chief, and went over to the enemy.
Unfortunately, some of the clansmen, who did not look beyond personal
attachment, followed his dishonored fortunes, but this was about the
only serious case of clan defection. The great body of the Irish
galloglasses and kerns—heavy and light infantry—remained true to their
country and their God, and died fighting for both to the last.
Niall Garbh, after allying himself with the English, occupied the
beautiful Franciscan monastery of Donegal, in which the Annals of the
Four Masters, Ireland’s chronological history, were compiled. Red Hugh,
fiercely indignant, marched against the sacrilegious traitor and laid
siege to him in the holy place. After three months’ investment, it was
taken by storm, and utterly destroyed by fire, except for a few walls
which still remain. The traitor’s brother, Conn O’Donnell, and several
of the misguided clansmen were killed in the conflict, but,
unfortunately, Niall Garbh himself escaped, to still further disgrace
the heroic name of O’Donnell and injure the hapless country that gave
birth to such a monster.
Mountjoy, after frequent indecisive skirmishes with O’Neill, amused
himself by offering a reward of £2,000 for that chieftain’s head, and
smaller amounts for those of his most important lieutenants. But no man
was found among the faithful clansmen of Tyrone to murder his chief for
the base bribe of the Lord Deputy. Yet Mountjoy continued to gain ground
in Ulster, little by little, and he built more forts, commanding
important passes, and garrisoned them in great force. He also caused
most of the woods to be cut away, and thus laid the O’Neill territory
wide open for a successful invasion. O’Neill was an admirable officer,
and still, assisted by Hugh O’Donnell, presented a gallant front to
Mountjoy, but he could do little that was effective against an enemy who
had five times the number of soldiers that he had, and could thus man
important posts, filled with all the munitions of war, without sensibly
weakening his force in the field. Destitute of foundries and powder
factories, he could make no progress in the matter of artillery, and
such cannon as he had were destitute of proper ammunition. All this the
Spaniards could have supplied, but their characteristic dilatoriness, in
the end, ruined everything. Another circumstance also militated against
the success of the brave O’Neill—the English and their allies were
solidly unified for the destruction of the Irish, while the latter, as
we have seen, were fatally divided by corruption, ambition,
jealousy—fostered by their enemies—and endless English intrigue. No
wonder that his broad brow grew gloomy and that his sword no longer
struck the blows it dealt so fiercely at Clontibret and the Yellow Ford.
At last, however, out of the dark clouds that surrounded his fortunes,
there flashed one sun-ray of hope and joy. News suddenly reached the
north, as well as the Lord Deputy, that a Spanish fleet had landed in
Kinsale Harbor, on the coast of Cork. It carried a small force—less than
6,000 men, mostly of poor quality—under the command of the arrogant and
incompetent Don Juan de Aguila. He occupied Kinsale and the surrounding
forts at once, but was disappointed when the Munster Irish—already all
but crushed by Mountjoy—did not flock at once, and in great numbers, to
his standard. Of all the Munster chiefs there responded only O’Sullivan
Beare, O’Connor Kerry, and the brave O’Driscoll. They alone redeemed, in
as far as they could, the apathy of South Munster, and were justified in
resenting the Spanish taunt, bitterly uttered by Don Juan himself, that
“Christ had never died for such people.” The Spaniard did not, of
course, take into consideration, because he did not know, the exhaustion
of South Munster after the Geraldine war and the wars which succeeded
it. Constant defeat is a poor tonic on which to build up a boldly
aggressive patriotism.
The news of the landing at Kinsale reached Red Hugh O’Donnell while he
was in the act of besieging his own castle of Donegal, surreptitiously
seized by Niall Garbh, “the Queen’s O’Donnell,” while he was absent “at
the front,” with O’Neill. He instantly raised the siege, and, summoning
all of his forces, marched southward without an hour’s delay, as became
his ardent and gallant nature. Neither did O’Neill hesitate to abandon
“the line of the Blackwater,” which guarded his own castle of Dungannon,
to its fate, and at once marched his forces toward Kinsale. The
Clan-Conal marched at “the route step,” through Breffni and Hy-Many,
crossing the Shannon near where it narrows at the east end of Lough
Dearg. On through the Ormonds, where “the heath-brown Slieve Bloom”
mountains rise in their beauty, they pressed, burning, at every
footstep, to reach Kinsale, join the Spaniards, and “have it out” with
Mountjoy and the English. O’Donnell, marching in lighter order and by a
different route, outstripped his older confederate, but narrowly escaped
being intercepted in Tipperary by a superior English force, under
General Carew, detached by the Lord Deputy for that purpose. As Red Hugh
had no intention of giving battle until reinforced by O’Neill, or he had
joined the Spaniards, he made a clever flank movement, by forced march,
over the Slieve Felim Hills, which interposed between him and Limerick.
But the rains had been heavy of late, the mountain passes were boggy,
and neither horses nor carriages (wagons) could pass. Fortunately, it
was the beginning of winter, and, one night, there came a sharp frost,
which sufficiently hardened the ground, and the Irish army, taking
advantage of the kindness of Providence, marched ahead throughout the
dark hours, and, by morning, had left Carew and his army hopelessly in
rear. O’Donnell made thirty-two miles (Irish), about forty-two English
miles, in that movement and halted at Croom, having accomplished the
greatest march, with baggage, recorded in those hard campaigns. (Pacata
Hibernia, cited by Mitchel.)
His coming among them, as well as the news of the arrival of the
Spaniards, put fresh life into the Irish of West Munster, and, indeed,
Red Hugh stood on scant ceremony with such degenerate Irish as refused
to fight for their country, so that wherever he marched, fresh patriots,
eager to “save their bacon,” in many cases, sprang up like crops of
mushrooms. At Castlehaven he formed a junction with 700 newly arrived
Spanish troops, and, together, they marched toward Kinsale, which
Mountjoy and Carew were preparing to invest. O’Neill and his brave
lieutenant, Richard Tyrrell, did not pursue the route taken by
O’Donnell, but had to fight their way through Leinster and North Munster
with considerable loss. At Bandon, in South Munster, they fell in with
O’Donnell and the Spaniards, and all marched to form an immediate
junction with De Aguila. Mitchel, quoting from O’Sullivan’s narrative,
gives the total strength of the force under O’Neill and O’Donnell at
6,000 foot and 500 horse. The Irish leader was opposed to risking a
general engagement with so small a command, although O’Donnell, when he
beheld Mountjoy’s troops beleaguering the town, wanted to attack, which,
judging by after events, might have been the better plan. O’Neill
argued, however, that the inclement season would soon destroy a good
part of the English soldiers and counseled delay. O’Donnell yielded
reluctantly, and then the Irish, very badly provided, intrenched
themselves and began “besieging the besiegers.” Prudence, on this
occasion, ruined the cause of Ireland—so often ruined by rashness,
before and since; for, three days after O’Neill’s policy had been
acceded to, that is on Christmas eve, 1601, accident brought on an
engagement, in the dark, which neither party seems to have anticipated.
The tragedy is best related by Mitchel in his life of O’Neill, thus:
“Before dawn, on the morning of the 24th (December), Sir Richard Graham,
who commanded the night guard of horse, sent word to the deputy that the
scouts had discovered the matches (matchlock muskets were used at this
period) flashing in great numbers in the darkness, and that O’Neill must
be approaching the camp in force. Instantly the troops were called to
arms; messengers were despatched to the Earl of Thomond’s quarter, with
orders to draw out his men. The deputy (Mountjoy) now advanced to meet
the Irish, whom he supposed to be stealing on his camp, and seems to
have effectually surprised them, while endeavoring to prevent a surprise
upon himself. The infantry of O’Neill’s army retired slowly about a mile
further from the town, and made a stand on the bank of a ford, where
their position was strengthened by a bog in flank. Wingfield, the
marshal, thought he saw some confusion in their ranks, and entreated the
deputy that he might be allowed to charge. The Earl of Clanricarde
joined the marshal and the battle became general. O’Neill’s cavalry
repeatedly drove back both Wingfield and Clanricarde, until Sir Henry
Danvers, with Captains Taaffe and Fleming, came up to their assistance,
when, at length, the Irish infantry fell into confusion and fled.
Another body of them, under Tyrrell, was still unbroken, and long
maintained their ground on a hill, but at length, seeing their comrades
routed, they also gave way and retreated in good order after their main
body. The northern cavalry covered the retreat, and O’Neill and
O’Donnell, by amazing personal exertions, succeeded in preserving order
and preventing it from becoming a total rout.”
Such was the unfortunate battle of Kinsale—the most disastrous, perhaps,
in Irish annals. It was not even well fought, because the Irish troops,
surprised in their sleep, owing to lack of vigilance on the part of the
sentinels, had lost most of their effective arms, their baggage, and
colors at the outset. Their camp, also, came into immediate possession
of the enemy. Thus, they were discouraged—the Irish character being
mercurial, like the French—if not badly demoralized, and they did not,
in this ill-fated action, fight with a resolution worthy of the fame
they had rightfully earned as soldiers of the first class, nor did they
faithfully respond, as heretofore, to the military genius of their
justly renowned leaders. They were mostly the troops of Ulster, far from
home, and lacking the inspiration that comes to all men when conscious
that they are fighting to defend their own hearths against the spoiler.
Ulster, in that day, was almost alien to the southern province, although
the soldiers of both were fighting in a common cause. Kinsale was,
certainly, not a battle to which Ireland can look back with feelings of
pride, but she may be thankful that there are few such gloomy failures
recorded in her military annals. Yet the bitter fact remains that
Kinsale clouded forever the glory achieved by the troops of O’Neill and
O’Donnell on so many fields of victory. The Spaniards, who had joined
O’Donnell on the march, refused to fly and were almost all destroyed.
Their commander, Del Campo, two officers, and forty soldiers were all
that survived out of seven hundred men, and they were made prisoners of
war. (Mitchel.) In a note, this author, quoting Pacata Hibernia, says:
“The most merciless of all Mountjoy’s army that day was the Anglo-Irish
and Catholic Earl of Clanricarde. He slew twenty of the Irish with his
own hand, and cried aloud to ‘spare no rebels.’ Carew (the English
general and writer) says that ‘no man did bloody his sword more than his
lordship that day.’” This episode shows how well Mountjoy’s policy of
“Divide and Conquer” and temporary toleration of the Catholics worked
for the English cause. Had the penal laws not been mitigated this
Anglo-Irish and Catholic Earl of Clanricarde would have fought on the
side of Ireland.
De Aguila, seeing that the Irish army was defeated, and that another
effort on the part of O’Neill was rendered impossible by the loss of his
munitions and the lateness of the season, proposed to capitulate. The
Earl of Mountjoy offered him honorable terms, and De Aguila agreed to
surrender to the English all the Irish castles on the coast to which
Spanish garrisons had been admitted, “and shortly after,” says Mitchel,
“set sail for Spain, carrying with him all his artillery, treasure, and
military stores.” Some of the Irish chiefs, notably the O’Sullivan
Beare, refused to ratify that part of De Aguila’s capitulation which
agreed to surrender their castles, occupied by Spanish troops, to the
English. The fortresses had been thrown open to the Spaniards in good
faith, and General de Aguila had no moral right to give them up. The
most he could agree to do was to withdraw his men from the Irish castles
and take them back with him to Spain. And this was the view taken by the
Irish chiefs, with bloody, but glorious, result, as we shall see.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XII
Sad Death of O’Donnell in Spain—Heroic Defence of Dunboy
O’NEILL, when he perceived the hopelessness of the Irish situation in
Munster, conducted what remained of his defeated army back to the north
and cantoned it along the Blackwater for the winter months, where he
felt quite sure the English, worn out by their exertions at the siege
and battle of Kinsale, would not attack him. Red Hugh O’Donnell,
exasperated beyond endurance at the disregard of his bold advice to
attack the beleaguering English, in conjunction with the Spaniards, on
the first arrival of the Irish army before Kinsale, gave up the command
of his clan to his brother, Roderick, and, with a few followers, sailed
for Spain, in search of further aid. He resolved to ask King Philip for
an army, not a detachment. The chief landed at Coruna, and was received
with high honors by the Spanish authorities. He finally reached the
Spanish Court and placed the whole Irish situation clearly before
Philip, who promised a powerful force and actually gave orders to
prepare at once for a new expedition to Ireland. The sad sequel is well
told in the eloquent words of Mitchel:
“But that armament never sailed, and poor O’Donnell never saw Ireland
more; for news reached Spain, a few months after, that Dunboy Castle,
the last stronghold in Munster that held out for King Philip, was taken,
and Beare-haven, the last harbor in the South that was open to his
ships, effectually guarded by the English; and the Spanish preparations
were countermanded; and Red Hugh was once more on his journey to court
to renew his almost hopeless suit, and had arrived at Samancas, two
leagues from Valladolid, when he suddenly fell sick. His gallant heart
was broken and he died there on the 10th of September, 1602. He was
buried by order of the king with royal honors, as befitted a prince of
the Kinel-Conal; and the stately city of Valladolid holds the bones of
as noble a chief and as stout a warrior as ever bore the wand of
chieftaincy or led a clan to battle.”
While we do not believe in “painting the devil blacker than he is,” we
think it proper to state here that more recent researches would seem to
have fixed the crime of assassination on the Earl of Mountjoy. In an
account, quoted in several lectures by Frank Hugh O’Donnell, ex-member
of the British Parliament, it is definitely stated that Red Hugh
O’Donnell was poisoned at the inn in Samancas, where he died, by a hired
murderer, named Blake, who acted for the English Lord Deputy. Such, if
the statement is true, were the political ethics of the Elizabethan era.
Donal O’Sullivan Beare, the bravest of all the Munster leaders, wrested
his castle of Dun-buidhe (Dunboy), in English, “Yellow Fort,” from the
Spaniards after De Aguila had agreed to surrender it to the English. He
justified his conduct to the King of Spain in a pathetic letter in which
he said: “Among other places that were neither yielded nor taken to the
end that they might be delivered to the English, Don Juan tied himself
up to deliver my castle and haven, the only key to mine inheritance,
whereupon the living of many thousand persons doth rest, that live some
twenty leagues upon the seacoast, into the hands of my cruel, cursed,
misbelieving enemies.”
The defence of this castle by the Irish garrison of one hundred and
forty-three men, commanded by O’Sullivan’s intrepid lieutenant,
McGeoghegan, was one of the finest feats of arms recorded in history.
Although only a square tower, with outworks, it held out against General
Carew, the Lord President, for fifteen days. It was bombarded by the
fleet from the haven, and battered by artillery from the land side.
Indeed, Carew had an army of 4,000 veteran soldiers opposed to
McGeoghegan’s 143 heroes. A breach was finally effected in the castle,
but the storming parties were repeatedly repulsed. The great hall was
finally carried, and the little garrison, under the undaunted
McGeoghegan, retreated to the vaults beneath it, where they sustained
the unequal conflict for four-and-twenty hours, and, by the exertion of
unexampled prowess, at last cleared the hall of the English. The latter
replied with an overwhelming cannonade, and the walls of the castle
crumbled about the ears of its heroic defenders. The latter made a
desperate sortie with only forty men and all perished. The survivors in
the castle continued the defence, but, in the end, their noble
commander, McGeoghegan, was mortally wounded and they laid down their
arms. While their wounded chief lay gasping in the agonies of
approaching death, on the floor of the vault, he saw the English enter
the place. The sight seemed to renew his life and energy. He sprang to
his feet, seized a torch, and made a rush for an open barrel of powder,
intending to blow assailants and assailed into the sky. But an English
soldier was too quick for the dying hero. He seized him in his arms, and
a comrade wrested the torch from the failing hand and extinguished it.
Then they ran their swords through McGeoghegan’s body, and his glorious
deeds and great sufferings were at an end. It should have been stated
that ten of the garrison, who were of the party that made the sortie, on
the failure of their bold effort, attempted to reach the mainland by
swimming across the haven. This movement was anticipated by the English
commander. Soldiers were stationed in boats to intercept the swimmers,
and all were stabbed or shot, as if they had been beasts of prey. The
survivors of the band of Irish Spartans, who made Dunboy forever
memorable in the annals of martial glory, were instantly hanged by order
of Carew, so that not one of the heroic 143 was left. Ruthless as he
was, the Lord President himself, in an official letter, bore this
testimony to their valor: “Not one man escaped; all were slain,
executed, or buried in the ruins, and so obstinate a defence hath not
been seen within this kingdom.” The defence of Dunboy Castle deserves to
rank in history with Thermopylæ and the Alamo of Texas, and the butchery
of its surviving defenders, in cold blood, was a disgrace to English
manhood. How differently the gallant O’Neill treated the English
prisoners taken at Armagh, Portmore, and other places in Ulster during
the period of his amazing victories. It is cruelties of this character
that made the English name abhorred in Ireland, not the prowess, or even
the bloodthirstiness, of the English soldiery in the heat of battle. The
massacre at Dunboy is an indelible stain on the memory of Lord President
Carew.
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CHAPTER XIII
Wane of Irish Resistance—O’Neill Surrenders to Mountjoy at Mellifont
WITH the fall of Dunboy, Ireland’s heroic day was almost at an end for
that generation. O’Sullivan and some other Munster chiefs still held
out, but their efforts were only desultory. O’Neill, accompanied by
Richard Tyrrell, the faithful Anglo-Irish leader, rallied the remnants
of his clan and attempted to hold again the line of the Blackwater. But
the English were now too many to be resisted by a handful of brave men.
They closed upon him from every side, and advanced their posts through
the country, so as to effectually cut him off from communication with
Tyrconnel, whose chief on hearing of the death of his noble brother, Red
Hugh, in Spain, made terms with the Lord Deputy. So, also, did many
other Ulster chiefs, who conceived their cause to be hopeless. O’Neill,
still hoping against hope, and thinking that a Spanish army might yet
come to his aid, burned his castle of Dungannon to the ground, and
retired to the wooded and mountainous portions of his ancient
principality, where he held out doggedly. But the Lord Deputy resorted
to his old policy of destroying the growing crops, and, very soon,
Tyrone, throughout its fairest and most fertile regions, was a blackened
waste. Still the Red Hand continued to float defiantly throughout the
black winter of 1602-3; but, at length, despair began to shadow the once
bright hopes of the brave O’Neill. His daring ally, Donal O’Sullivan
Beare, having lost all he possessed in Munster, set out at this
inclement season on a forced march from Glengariff, in Cork, to Breffni,
in Leitrim, fighting his enemies all the way, crossing the Shannon in
boats extemporized from willows and horsehides; routing an English
force, under Colonel Malby, at the “pass of Aughrim,” in Galway,
destined to be more terribly memorable in another war for liberty; and,
finally, reached O’Ruarc’s castle, where he was hospitably welcomed,
with only a small moiety of those who followed him from their homes,
“—Marching
Over Murkerry’s moors and Ormond’s plain,
His currochs the waves of the Shannon o’erarching
And pathway mile-marked with the slain.”
Even the iron heart of Hugh O’Neill could not maintain its strength
against conditions such as those thus described by Moryson, the
Englishman, who can not be suspected of intensifying the horrid picture
at the expense of his own country’s reputation: “No spectacle,” he says,
“was more frequent in the ditches of towns, and especially of wasted
countries, than to see multitudes of poor people dead, with their mouths
all colored green, by eating nettles, docks, and all things they could
rend up above ground.” There were other spectacles still more terrible,
as related by the English generals and chroniclers themselves, but we
will spare the details. They are too horrible for the average civilized
being of this day to contemplate, although the age is by no means
lacking in examples of human savagery which go to prove that the wild
beast in the nature of man has not yet been entirely bred out.
Baffled by gold, not by steel, by the torch rather than the sword,
deprived of all his resources, deserted by his allies, and growing old
and worn in ceaseless warfare, it can hardly be wondered at that O’Neill
sent to the Lord Deputy, at the end of February, 1603, propositions of
surrender. Mountjoy was glad to receive them—for the vision of a
possible Spanish expedition, in great force, still disquieted him—and
arranged to meet the discomfited Irish hero at Mellifont Abbey, in
Louth, where died, centuries before, old, repentant, and despised, that
faithless wife of O’Ruarc, Prince of Breffni, whose sin first caused the
Normans to set foot in Ireland. So anxious was Mountjoy to conclude a
peace, that nearly all of O’Neill’s stipulations were concurred in, even
to the free exercise of the Catholic religion in the subjugated country.
He and his allies were allowed to retain, under English “letters
patent,” their original tribe-lands, with a few exceptions in favor of
the traitors who had fought with the English against their own kindred.
It was insisted, however, by the Deputy, that all Irish titles,
including that of “The O’Neill,” should be dropped, thenceforth and
forever, and the English titles of “nobility” substituted. All the Irish
territory was converted into “shire-ground.” The ancient Brehon Law was
abolished, and, for evermore, the Irish clans were to be governed by
English methods. Queen Elizabeth had died during the progress of the
negotiations, and a secret knowledge of this fact no doubt influenced
Mountjoy in hurrying the treaty to its conclusion, and granting such,
comparatively, favorable conditions to Hugh O’Neill and the other
“rebellious” Irish chiefs. Therefore, it was to the representative of
King James I that Tyrone, at last, yielded his sword—not to the general
of Elizabeth. It is said that in the bitter last moments of that
sovereign, her almost constant inquiry was: “What news from Ireland and
that rascally O’Neill?” The latter’s most elaborate historian estimates
that the long war “cost England many millions in treasure, and the blood
of tens of thousands of her veteran soldiers, and, from the face of
Ireland, it swept nearly one-half of the entire population.” (Mitchel.)
And, he continues: “From that day (March 30, 1603, when O’Neill
surrendered at Mellifont), the distinction of ‘Pale’ and ‘Irish country’
was at an end; and the authority of the kings of England and their
(Anglo) Irish parliaments became, for the first time, paramount over the
whole island. The pride of ancient Erin—the haughty struggle of Irish
nationhood against foreign institutions and the detested spirit of
English imperialism, for that time, sunk in blood and horror, but the
Irish nation is an undying essence, and that noble struggle paused for a
season, only to recommence in other forms and on wider ground—to be
renewed, and again renewed, until—Ah! quousque, Domine, quousque?”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIV
Treachery of James I to the Irish Chiefs—“The Flight of the Earls”
AT the outset of his reign, James I, of England, and VI of Scotland,
collateral descendant of that Edward Bruce who had been crowned King of
the Irish in the beginning of the fourteenth century, promised to rule
Ireland in a loving and paternal spirit. He had received at his London
court, with great urbanity, Hugh O’Neill and Roderick O’Donnell, and had
confirmed them in their English titles of Earl of Tyrone and Earl of
Tyrconnel, respectively. They had accompanied Mountjoy to England, to
make their “submissions” in due form before the king, and, while en
route through that country, were grossly insulted at many points by the
common people, who could not forget their relatives lying dead in heaps
in Irish soil, because of the prowess of the chieftains who were now the
guests of England. It is most remarkable that the English people have
always honored and hospitably entertained the distinguished “rebels” of
all countries but Ireland. Refugees from Poland, from Austria, from
Hungary, from France, from Italy—many of them charged with using
assassin methods—have been warmly welcomed in London, and even protected
by the courts of law, as in the case of the Orsini-infernal-machine
conspirators against Napoleon III, in 1859; but no Irish “rebel” has
ever been honored, or sheltered, or defended by the English people, or
the English courts of law; although individual Englishmen, like Lord
Byron, Percy Shelley, and a few others of their calibre, have written
and spoken in assertion of Ireland’s right to a separate existence. Of
course, the reason is that all the other “rebels” fought in “good
causes,” and, according to English political ethics, no cause can
possibly be just in which the right of England to govern any people
whatever against their will is contested. America learned that bitter
lesson nearly two centuries after O’Neill and O’Donnell were hooted and
stoned by the English populace for having dared to defend the rights and
the patrimony of their people.
The Catholic religion continued to be tolerated by James until 1605,
when, suddenly, a penal statute of the time of Elizabeth was unearthed
and put into operation with full force. Treaty obligations of England
with the Irish chiefs were also systematically violated. The lands of
Ulster were broad and fair, and the great body of military adventurers
who had come into Ireland from England during the long wars of the
preceding reign, were greedy for spoil. These and the Irish traitors—Art
O’Neill, Niall Garbh O’Donnell, the false McGuire, and the rest—pestered
the government and made never-ending charges of plots and “treasons”
against “the earls,” as the Irish leaders of the late war now came to be
called. The plotters were ably assisted by Robert Cecil, Earl of
Salisbury, ancestor of the late Marquis of Salisbury, who was also his
namesake. Another able English conspirator against the Irish chiefs was
Sir Arthur Chichester, who became one of the chief beneficiaries of the
subsequent “confiscations,” and whose descendants still hold, as “titled
nobility,” a very comfortable slice of ancient Ulster. Some “Reformed”
bishops also took great interest in getting the earls into hot water
with the government. Finally an alleged plot on the part of O’Neill and
O’Donnell to overthrow the King of England’s government in Ulster—an
absurdity on its face, considering their fallen and helpless
condition—was made the pretext for summoning them to appear before the
English courts established in Ireland, in whose justice they had no
confidence, remembering the ghastly fate of MacMahon Roe. A hired
perjurer, named O’Cahan—the unworthy scion of a noble house—was to be
chief “witness” against O’Neill, and no secret was made of the fact that
others would be forthcoming, hired by Chichester, to finish the work
begun by the principal informer. Meanwhile the free exercise of the
Catholic religion—so solemnly guaranteed by Mountjoy—was strictly
prohibited, under the penal enactment of Elizabeth, known as the “Act of
Uniformity,” already referred to; and again began those horrid religious
persecutions, for politics’ and plunder’s sake, which had no termination
in Ireland, except for one brief period, during nearly two centuries.
Such Catholics as desired to practice their faith had to betake
themselves to the mountain recesses, or the caves of the seacoast,
where, before rude altars, Mass was celebrated by priests on whose heads
a penal price was set. Sheriffs and judges, attended by large bands of
soldiers, made circuit of the new Ulster “counties” and succeeded in
completely terrifying the unfortunate Catholic inhabitants. Education,
as far as Catholics were concerned, was prohibited, and then began that
exodus of Irish ecclesiastical students to the Continent of Europe,
which continued down to the reign of William IV, notwithstanding the
partial mitigation of the penal laws, in the reign of his father, and
the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Bill during his brother’s
reign, A.D. 1829.
The persecuted earls clearly saw there was no hope of peace for them in
Ireland, and that their presence only wrought further ill to their
faithful clansmen, now reduced, for the first time, to the condition of
“subjects” of the King of England. Lord Howth, a powerful Catholic noble
of the Pale, was suspected of having given information to the Lord
Deputy of a meeting held at Maynooth the previous Christmas at which the
earls and several Anglo-Catholic noblemen were present. It was claimed
that the enforcement of the Act of Uniformity was there discussed, and
that another effort to overthrow the English power would be made by the
parties to the meeting. This “plot,” if there were any at all, was
communicated to the Clerk of the Privy Council by an anonymous letter
dropped at the Castle of Dublin in March, 1607. “O’Neill,” says McGee,
“was with Chichester, at Slane, in September when he received a letter
from the McGuire—not the traitor of that title—who had been abroad,
conveying some startling information upon which Tyrone seems to have
acted at once. He took leave of the Lord Deputy, as if to prepare for a
journey to London, whither he had been summoned on some false pretext;
and, after spending a few days with his old friend, Sir Garrett Moore,
at Mellifont, repaired to his seat of Dungannon, where he, at once,
assembled all of his immediate family and all proceeded to the shores of
Lough Swilly, at Rathmullen, where they were joined by Roderick
O’Donnell and all of his household. They embarked immediately on the
French ship which had conveyed McGuire to Ireland, and set sail for
France, where, on landing, they were warmly welcomed and royally
entertained by the chivalric King Henry IV, who, as became a stout
soldier and able captain, greatly admired the prowess displayed in the
Ulster wars by Hugh O’Neill. There sailed to France with the latter his
last countess, daughter of McGenniss of Iveagh; his three sons, Hugh,
John, and Brian; his nephew, Art O’Neill, son of Cormac, and many of
lesser note. With O’Donnell sailed his brother Cathbar; his fair sister,
Nuala, wife of Niall Garbh, who had, in righteous indignation, forsaken
the traitor when he drew the sword against Ireland and her noble
brother, Red Hugh; the lady Rose O’Doherty, wife of Cathbar, and, after
his death, of Owen O’Neill; McGuire, Owen MacWard, the chief bard of
Tyrconnel, and several others. It proved to be a fatal voyage, for it
exiled forever the best and bravest of the Irish chiefs. Well might the
Four Masters in their Annals of the succeeding generation say: “Woe to
the heart that meditated, woe to the mind that conceived, woe to the
council that decided on the project of voyage, without knowing whether
they should to the end of their lives be able to return to their ancient
principalities and patrimonies.” And, adds the graphic Mitchel, “with
gloomy looks and sad forebodings, the clansmen of Tyrconnel gazed upon
that fatal ship, ‘built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark,’ as
she dropped down Lough Swilly, and was hidden behind the cliffs of Fanad
Head. They never saw their chieftains more.”
Everything was now settled in Ulster, for the English interest, except
for the brief “rebellion” of Sir Cahir O’Doherty, the young chief of
Inishowen, who fell out with Sir George Powlett of Derry, and flew at
once to arms. He made a brave struggle of some months’ duration, but, as
no aid reached him from any outside quarter, he was speedily penned up
in his own small territory, and, fighting to the last, died the death of
a soldier—the noblest death he could have died, surrounded by the armies
of Marshal Wingfield and Sir Oliver Lambert, on the rock of Doon, near
Kilmacrenan, in August, 1608. Thus went out the last spark of Ulster
valor for a generation.
King James, having used Niall Garbh O’Donnell for all he was worth to
the English cause, grew tired of his importunities and had him conveyed
to England, under guard, together with his two sons. All three were
imprisoned in the Tower of London from which the traitor, at least,
never emerged again. He met a fate he richly merited. Cormac O’Neill,
the brave captor of Armagh, and the legitimate O’Cahan, both of whom had
incurred the hatred of Chichester, also perished in the same gloomy
prison.
And now all that remained to be done was to parcel out the lands of the
conquered Ultonians and others of “the Meer Irish” between the captains
of the new conquest. Chichester was given the whole of O’Doherty’s
country, the peninsula of Inishowen, and to this was added O’Neill’s
former borough of Dungannon, with 1,300 acres of valuable land in the
neighborhood of the town. Wingfield was created Lord Powerscourt and
obtained the beautiful district of Fercullen, near Dublin—one of the
most charming domains in all Europe. Lambert became Earl of Cavan and
had several rich estates, including that of Carrig, bestowed upon him in
addition. All the counties of Ulster were declared forfeited to the
Crown of England. The primate and other Protestant prelates of Ulster
claimed, and received, 43,000 acres. Trinity College, Dublin, received
30,000 acres, in Tyrone, Derry, and Armagh, together with six advowsons,
or Church beneficies, in each county. The various guilds, or trades, of
the city of London, England, obtained the gross amount of 209,800 acres,
including the city of Derry, to which the name of “London” was then
prefixed. Grants to individuals were divided into three classes of
2,000, 1,500, and 1,000 acres each. Catholic laborers were required to
take the oath of supremacy—acknowledging King James as spiritual head of
the Church—which they, notwithstanding all their misfortunes, nobly
refused to do. In the end, seeing that the fields would remain
uncultivated for the most part, the English and Scotch “undertakers,” or
settlers, for prudence’ sake, rather than from liberal motives,
practically made this tyrannical requirement a dead letter. But the
Catholic tillers of the soil were driven from the fertile plains and
forced to cultivate miserable patches of land in the bogs or on the
mountains. When these became in any degree valuable, an exorbitant
“rent” was charged, and the poor Catholics, utterly unable to pay it,
were again compelled to move to some even more unpromising location,
where the same procedure again and again produced the same wretched
result.
It was thus that the ancient Irish clans, and families, were actually
robbed, in spite of solemn treaties and royal pledges, of their rightful
inheritance, and that strangers and “soulless corporations” became lords
of their soil. It was the beginning, in Ulster at least, of that system
of “felonious landlordism” which is the curse of all Ireland, in spite
of recent remedial measures, even in this day. So, too, began that
English garrison in Ireland—pitting race against race and creed against
creed—which has divided, distracted, and demoralized the Irish nation
ever since. The “Plantation of Ulster” was the most fatal measure ever
carried into effect by English policy in Ireland. Some of the Irish
princes did not long survive their exile. From France they had proceeded
to Rome and were very kindly received by the Pontiff, who placed
residences commensurate with their rank and fame at their disposal.
Roderick O’Donnell died in the Eternal City in July, 1608. McGuire died
at Genoa, while en route to Spain in August, and, in September, Cathbar
O’Donnell also passed away, and was laid in the same grave with his
gallant brother, on St. Peter’s Hill. (McGee.) O’Neill’s fate was sadder
still. The historian just quoted says of him: “He survived his comrades
as he did his fortunes, and, like another Belisarius, blind and old, and
a pensioner on the bounty of strangers, he lived on eight weary years in
Rome.” Death came to his relief, according to a historian of his own
period, in 1616, when he must have been over seventy years of age. He
sleeps his last sleep amid the consecrated dust of ages, beneath the
flagstones of the convent of St. Isidore; and there, in the words of the
Irish orator and American general, Meagher, “the fiery hand that rent
the ensign of St. George on the plains of Ulster has mouldered into
dust.”
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BOOK III
RECORDING THE DOINGS OF THE ENGLISH AND IRISH, IN IRELAND, FROM THE TIME
OF JAMES I TO THE JACOBITE WARS IN THE DAYS OF JAMES II AND WILLIAM III
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
Confiscations and Penal Laws—The Iron Rule of Lord Strafford
THE first Anglo-Irish Parliament held within a period of twenty-seven
years was summoned to meet in Dublin on May 18, 1613, and,
notwithstanding the Act of Uniformity, it would appear that quite a
large number of Catholics, styled in the language of the times
“recusants,” because of their opposition to the spiritual supremacy of
the king, were elected to serve in that body. They would have had a
majority but for the creation of some forty “boroughs,” each entitled to
a member, under the patronage of some Protestant peer. This was the
beginning of that “rotten borough” system which finally led to the
abolition of the sectarian Irish Parliament of after times. Scenes of
great disorder occurred in this Parliament of 1613, chiefly occasioned
by the intolerant, and even violent, proceedings of the anti-Catholic
party, unreasonable bigots, having an eye to the main chance in the
matter of confiscated property, to whom the presence of any “Papist” in
that body was as gall and wormwood. This bitter prejudice led finally to
the utter exclusion of all Catholics from the Anglo-Irish Parliament,
and even the few Catholic commoners previously entitled to a vote were
deprived of that privilege, or rather right, until the last decade of
the eighteenth century. Still, the Catholic minority in the Parliament
of 1613 succeeded in preventing ultra-tyrannical legislation, and,
really, made the first stand for the constitutional rights of Ireland,
from the colonial standpoint. It was finally adjourned in October, 1615,
and no other Parliament was called to meet in Ireland until 1635, when
Charles I had already been ten years on the throne. “Government,”
meanwhile, had been carried on arbitrarily, without constitutional
restraint of any kind, as under the Tudor sovereigns—only with far less
ability. The Tudors, at least—particularly Henry and Elizabeth—were
intellectual tyrants, which their immediate successors were not. Never
was so shameful a system of public spoliation carried out as in the
reigns of James I, and his equally despotic, and still more
unscrupulous, son Charles I. The viceroy was not responsible to any
power whatever, except that of the English monarch. Chichester was
succeeded by Lord Grandison, and under his régime the infamous
“Commission for the Discovery of Defective Titles” was organized, of
which the surveyor-general, Sir William Parsons, ancestor of the Earls
of Rosse, was the head. This Commission, “aided by a horde of clerkly
spies, employed under the name of Discoverers (McGee), ransacked Old
Irish tenures in the archives of Dublin and London with such good
effect, that in a very short time 66,000 acres in Wicklow and 385,000
acres in Leitrim, Longford, the Meaths, and Kings and Queens Counties
were ‘found by inquisition to be vested in the crown.’ The means
employed by the Commissioners in some cases to elicit such evidence as
they required were of the most revolting description. In the Wicklow
case, courts-martial were held, before which unwilling witnesses were
tried on charge of treason, and some actually put to death. Archer, one
of the number, had his flesh burned with red-hot iron, and was placed on
a gridiron over a charcoal fire till he offered to testify anything that
was necessary. Yet on evidence so obtained, whole counties and towns
were declared forfeited to the crown.” (_Ibid._) Is it any wonder,
therefore, that a people so scourged, plundered, and degraded should
cherish in their hearts fierce thoughts of reprisal when opportunity
offered? These wholesale land robberies were not confined to the Celtic
Irish alone, but were practiced on all Irishmen, of whatever descent,
who professed the Catholic faith. Add to these the bitter memories of
the murder and persecution of many bishops and innumerable priests and
communicants of that faith, and the only wonder is that the Irish
Catholic people of the seventeenth, and most of the succeeding, century,
retained any of the milder and nobler characteristics of the human
family. They were stripped of their property, education, civil rights,
and, in short, of all that makes life worth living, including freedom of
conscience—that dearest privilege of a people naturally idealistic and
devotional. The idea of religious toleration never seems to have entered
into the minds of what may be called the “professional Protestant”
ascendency, except, as we have seen, for purposes of diplomacy which
tended to weaken and divide Irish national opposition to foreign rule.
In addition to the grievances we have enumerated, the office of Master
of Wards was bestowed upon Sir William Parsons, and thus “the minor
heirs of all the Catholic proprietors were placed, both as to, person
and property, at the absolute disposal of one of the most intense
anti-Catholic bigots that ever appeared on the scene of Irish affairs.”
(McGee.) This was one of the pernicious influences that, not for
conscience’ sake, but for sordid gain, changed the religion of so many
of the ancient families of Ireland from the old to the new form of
belief; and no English policy was more bitterly resented and vengefully
remembered by the Irish Catholic masses. And because of this dishonest
system of proselytizing, carried on by one process or another from the
period of the Reformation to the reign of Victoria, the Irish Catholic
peasant has associated “conversion” of any of his neighbors to the
Protestant belief with personal degradation. The Irish Catholic peasant
has no feeling but that of utter contempt and aversion for a “turn-coat”
Catholic; but he is most liberal in his feelings toward all Protestants
“to the manor born,” as has been frequently and emphatically manifested
by his choice of Protestant leaders, from Grattan to Parnell. Whatever
of religious bigotry may linger in the warm heart of the Catholic
peasant may be justly charged to outrageous misgovernment, not to his
natural disposition, which, in the main, is both loving and charitable.
The faults we can trace in the Irish character to-day are partially
those of human nature, which averages much the same in all civilized
peoples, but many of them, and the gravest, can be attributed, without
undue prejudice, to the odious penal laws which were sufficient to
distort the characteristics of angels, not to speak of mortal men.
Charles I, of England, was a thorough Stuart in despotic character,
wavering policy, base ingratitude, and fatuous obstinacy. His reign was
to furnish to Ireland one of the most consummate tyrants and highway
robbers that ever cursed a country with his cruelty and greed. This
moral monster was the infamous Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford,
whose “tiger jaws” closed on the unfortunate country with the grip of a
dragon. This dishonorable “noble” counseled King Charles to commit an
act of moral delinquency which, in our day, would be rightly, if
coarsely, called “a confidence game.” The Irish Catholics, in convention
assembled, had drawn up a sort of Bill of Rights, which they urged the
king to confirm, and agreed to pay into the royal treasury the sum of
£100,000, which they could ill spare, to show their “loyalty,” and also,
no doubt, to influence Charles, who, like all of his family, dearly
loved money, to grant “the graces” prayed for. Strafford advised the
base king to take the money, but to manage matters so that the
concessions he had solemnly promised should never go into effect! And
the ignominious Stuart actually acted on the advice of this ignoble
mentor. And so the poor Irish Catholic “gentry” lost both their money
and their “concessions.” When we read this chapter of Irish history, we
are tempted to feel less sympathy for the fate of Charles I, who was
afterward sold to Cromwell and the English Parliament by the Scottish
mercenary army of General Leslie, with which the king had taken shelter,
for back pay, amounting to £200,000 (see Sir Walter Scott’s “Tales of a
Grandfather”). This miserable monarch so far degraded himself, further,
as to cause writs for the election of a Parliament to grant the Catholic
claims issued in Ireland, but privately instructed Lord Falkland to have
the documents informally prepared, so that the election might prove
invalid; and, meanwhile, his Lords Justices went on confiscating
Catholic property in Ireland and persecuting prelates, priests, and
people almost as savagely as in the worst days of Mountjoy and
Chichester. Strafford came to Ireland as Lord Deputy in July, 1633, and
entered at once on his “thorough” policy, as he called it; and, to
prepare himself for the task he had set himself to perform, he through
the “Lords Justices” extracted a “voluntary contribution” of £20,000
additional out of the terrorized Catholic “nobility and gentry” of the
“sister” island, who, no doubt, wrung it, in turn, out of the sweat of
the faces of their peasant retainers. But this was a mere bagatelle to
what followed. He compelled Ireland to pay subsidies to the amount of
£200,000 in 1634, and imposed £100,000 more in the succeeding year. He
carried the war of wholesale confiscation into Connaught, and compelled
grand juries, specially “packed” for the work, to give the King of
England title to the three great counties of Mayo, Sligo, and Roscommon.
The grand jury of Galway County refused to return such a verdict. They
were summoned to the court of the Castle Chamber in Dublin, and
sentenced to pay a fine of £4,000 each to the crown. The sheriff who
empaneled them was fined £1,000. (McGee.) The very lawyers who pleaded
for the actual proprietors were stripped of their gowns; “the sheriff
died in prison and the work of spoliation proceeded.” (_Ibid._) Similar,
if not quite so general, robberies went on in Kildare, Kilkenny, Cork,
and other counties. It must be said, however, that Strafford was, in a
manner, impartial, and robbed, his master granting full approval,
without distinction of creed. We can not help feeling thankful that the
London companies which swallowed, in the reign of King James, the lands
of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, were compelled by “Black Tom,” as the earl was
nicknamed, to pay £70,000 “for the use of the king.” Out of all this
plunder, and much more beside, Strafford was enabled to maintain in
Ireland 10,000 infantry and 1,000 excellently equipped horse, “for the
service of his royal master.” When this great robber visited London in
1639, fresh from his crimes in Ireland, the king, on whom so much
ill-deserved sympathy has been wasted, assured him, in person, that his
actions in Ireland had his (Charles’) “most cordial approval” (McGee),
and even urged the earl to “proceed fearlessly in the same course.” To
still further mark his approbation of Strafford’s policy, the king
promoted him to the rank of Viceroy of Ireland. Strafford took the king
at his word and did proceed so fearlessly in Ireland that his name of
terror has been overshadowed in that country by only one other—that of
Oliver Cromwell. Every Parliament called to meet by the tyrant in the
conquered country—for so the earl regarded Ireland—was used simply as an
instrument wherewith to extort still more tribute from the impoverished
Irish people. This terrible despot, having accomplished his deadly
mission in Ireland, returned to England and there, as before, became
chief adviser to the weak and wicked monarch. He counseled the latter to
ignore, as far as he dared, the action of Parliament, and was imprudent
enough to remark that he (Strafford) had an army in Ireland to support
the royal will. He was, soon afterward, impeached by the House of
Commons, led by stern John Pym, for treasonable acts in seeking to
change the constitutional form of the English Government. This method of
procedure was abandoned, however, and Parliament passed a bill of
attainder, to which the “false, fleeting, perjured” Charles, frightened
by popular clamor, which accused himself of being implicated in a plot
to admit soldiers to the Tower for the rescue of Strafford, gave the
“royal assent.” The earl, on learning this, placed a hand upon his heart
and exclaimed, “Put not your trust in Princes!” And thus the master he
had but too faithfully served consigned Strafford to the block. He was
beheaded on Tower Hill, May 12, 1641. When the hour of his similar doom
approached, nearly eight years thereafter, Charles said that the only
act of his reign he repented of was giving his assent to the bill which
deprived his favorite minister of life.
Some Irish historians, McGee of the number, claim that, outside of his
land robberies and tributary exactions, the Earl of Strafford made an
able ruler of Ireland, and that trade and commerce flourished under his
sway. While this may be, to a certain extent, true, nothing can palliate
the crimes against justice and liberty of which he was guilty. He was
only a degree less contemptible than the treacherous master who finally
betrayed and abandoned him.
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CHAPTER II
Irish Military Exiles—Rory O’More Organizes a Great Insurrection
SINCE Sir Cahir O’Doherty fell on the rock of Doon, in 1608, no Irish
chief or clan had risen against the English interest throughout the
length and breadth of the island. The masses of the Irish people had,
apparently, sunk into a condition of political torpor, but the fires of
former generations still smouldered amid the ashes of vanquished hopes,
and needed but a breath of inspiration to fan them into fierce,
rebellious flame. Most of the ancient Celtic and many of the
Anglo-Norman families of Catholic persuasion had military
representatives in nearly all the camps of Europe. One Irish legion
served in the army of Philip III of Spain, and was commanded
successively by two of the sons of Hugh O’Neill, victor of the Yellow
Ford—Henry and John. In it also served the hero’s gallant nephew, Owen
Roe O’Neill, who rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and made a
brilliant defence of Arras in France, besieged by Marshal de Meilleraye,
in 1640. Of this able soldier we shall hear more in the future. The
English Government never lost sight of those Irish exiles, and, about
this time, one of its emissaries on the Continent reported that there
were in the Spanish Netherlands alone “twenty Irish officers fit to be
colonels and a hundred fit to be captains.” The same agent reported,
further, that the Irish military throughout Europe had long been
procuring arms for an attempt upon Ireland, and had 6,000 stand laid up
in Antwerp for that design, and that these had been bought out of the
deduction of their “monthly pay.” At the defence of Louvain against the
French, the Irish legion, 1,000 strong, commanded by Colonel Preston, of
a distinguished Anglo-Irish family, received honorable mention, and
again at the capture of Breda. These are only a few of the stirring
events abroad which raised the martial reputation of the Irish people in
the eyes of all Europe, and the fame of those exploits, reaching Ireland
by means of adventurous recruiting officers or courageous priests, who
defied the penal laws and all their terrors, found a responsive echo in
many a humble home, where the hope of one day throwing off the foreign
yoke was fondly cherished. The exiled priesthood, many of whose members
became prelates of high rank abroad, aided the sentiment of the military
at the Catholic courts, and thus was prepared the way for the breaking
out of the great insurrection of 1641, which, but for the foolish
over-confidence of an Irish chief and the dastardly treason of an
obscure drunkard, might have been gloriously successful.
The moving spirit in the new project was Roger, or Rory O’More, of the
ancient family of Leix, who had been educated in Spain and was,
virtually, brought up at the Spanish court, in company with the sons of
Hugh O’Neill, of Tyrone. O’More would seem to have been a born
organizer, and a man of consummate tact and discretion. It is a pity
that but little is known of his early career, and, indeed, the precise
time of his return to Ireland remains an unsettled question, but it is
certain that he returned quietly there, and took up his residence,
without parade, on his estate of Ballynagh in Leinster. He never
appeared in Dublin, or any other populous centre, unless on some public
occasion, that would be sure to attract the attendance of the principal
men of the country. Thus, during the Parliamentary session of 1640, we
are told by McGee and other Irish annalists, he took lodgings in Dublin,
and succeeded in drawing into his plan for a general insurrection,
Connor McGuire, MacMahon, Philip O’Reilly, Turlough O’Neill, and other
prominent gentlemen of Ulster. He made a habit, also, of visiting the
different towns in which courts of assize were being held, and there
becoming acquainted with influential men, to whom, after due sounding,
he outlined his plans for the final overthrow of the English government
in Ireland, and the restoration to the Irish people of the lands and
rights of which they had been robbed. On one of these tours, we are
told, he made the acquaintance of Sir Phelim O’Neill, of Kinnaird, in
Tyrone—head of the branch of that great family still tolerated by the
ascendency Sir Connor MCGennis of Down, Colonel Hugh MacMahon of
Monaghan, and the Right Rev. Heber MacMahon, Administrator of Clogher,
by connivance or toleration, for, during the penal laws, there was no
“legal” recognition of a Catholic prelacy, although, under Charles I,
especially about this period, there was no very rigid enforcement of the
Act of Uniformity, probably because the king and government had enough
trouble on their hands in vainly trying to force Protestant episcopacy
on the Scotch covenanters.
O’More did not confine his operations exclusively to Ulster. He also
made a tour of Connaught, with his usual success; for he was a man of
fine person, handsome countenance, and courtly manners. Tradition still
preserves his memory green among the Irish people of all classes. He was
equally courteous to the lord and to the peasant. In the castles and
mansions of the aristocracy he was ever the favored guest, and he
charmed all his entertainers with the brilliancy of his conversational
powers and the versatility of his knowledge. Among the poor, he was
looked upon as “some glorious guardian angel,” who had come as a
messenger from the God of Freedom to rid them of their galling chains.
It is a singular fact that, although he must have taken thousands, high
and low, into his confidence, not a man seems to have betrayed him to
the Castle Government, which remained in profound ignorance of his plot
until the very eve of insurrection. Robert Emmet, in after times,
practiced the methods of O’More, but with far less wisdom, although
influenced by the same lofty principles of patriotism.
The records of the times in which he lived do not show that O’More went
extensively into Munster, but he did excellent missionary work among the
Anglo-Catholic nobles of his own native province of Leinster. He found
them, as a majority, very lukewarm toward his project, influenced, no
doubt, by fears of the consequences to themselves should the
contemplated revolution prove abortive. Although not a trained soldier,
O’More had keen military foresight. The army raised by Strafford in
Ireland was mainly made up of Catholics—for he does not seem to have
discriminated very much in the matter of creed—and these troops were, in
consequence, regarded with distrust, and even intense hatred, by the
people of England, to whom the very name of Catholic was, in those days,
odious. The vacillating king, influenced by the prejudices of his
English subjects, resolved to get rid of his Irish army, and gave such
of the regiments as might so elect permission to enter the service of
Spain. Some did volunteer, but O’More prevailed on many of the officers
to keep their battalions together, and thus secured the nucleus of a
well-trained military force at the very outset of hostilities. Among the
influential Irish officers who acted on O’More’s suggestion were Colonel
Plunket, Colonel Sir James Dillon, Colonel Byrne, and Captain Fox.
These, with O’More, constituted the first Directory of the Irish
Confederates of Leinster. Meanwhile active communication was kept up
with their friends on the Continent, and emissaries were coming and
going all the time between the two organizations. The head of the
movement abroad appears to have been John O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who,
however, died suddenly—some writers aver by the hand of a poisoner—early
in 1641; and the military exiles immediately transferred their
allegiance to his cousin, Colonel Owen Roe O’Neill, with whom we have
already made acquaintance. It was agreed among the allies that the
uprising for Irish liberty should occur about the 1st of November, and
October 23, 1641, was finally decided upon as the fateful day. The date
was made known to only the most trusted chiefs of the projected
insurrection.
Everything appeared to prosper with the plans of the patriots until the
actual eve of the rising. On that night (October 22), as fate would have
it, there dined with Colonel Hugh MacMahon—to whom was intrusted the
command of 200 picked men who were to surprise the Castle—several Irish
officers concerned in the conspiracy. Among the guests was one Owen
O’Connolly, an unworthy creature for whom MacMahon would appear to have
entertained an unaccountable friendship. According to tradition,
O’Connolly remained with Colonel MacMahon after the other guests had
gone to their several abodes, and, in a moment of inexcusable weakness,
the unhappy host, who must have been rendered reckless by wine, confided
to his traitor-guest the secret so momentous to Ireland. O’Connolly was
more than half intoxicated, but, unknown to MacMahon, he was in the
service of a strong government supporter, named Sir John Clotworthy, and
the danger which menaced his patron made the fellow sober enough to
outwit his foolish informant. In order to divert suspicion, he
pretended, after a time, that he wished to retire, and left his sword in
MacMahon’s room. He managed to reach the rear door of the lodgings, and
made his way over all kinds of obstacles, in the dark, to the castle,
where, after much trouble, he succeeded in getting audience of Sir
William Parsons, to whom he related what Colonel MacMahon had revealed
to him. Parsons, observing that O’Connolly was still under the influence
of strong drink, at first refused to believe him; and was on the point
of turning him out of doors, when something in the rascal’s earnestness
made him pause and consider. As a result of his musing, he sent for his
colleague, Sir John Borlaise, Master of the Ordnance; the latter
immediately advised the summoning of the council. Several members of
that body soon appeared, and the deposition of the informer was formally
taken. A squad of soldiers surrounded MacMahon’s lodgings and captured
him. Lord McGuire was also taken, but Colonels Plunket and O’Byrne, Rory
O’Moore, and Captain Fox, who were also in the city, succeeded in making
good their escape. MacMahon, on being arraigned before the Privy Council
in the Castle, at daylight on the memorable 23d, defiantly acknowledged
his share in the plot, and declared that it was then too late for the
power of man to prevent the revolution. He showed great courage, as did
also his colleague, Lord McGuire, but MacMahon’s bravery could have been
much better spared than his discretion, the want of which sent himself
and his companion in misfortune to the scaffold, and, undoubtedly, lost
to Ireland the best chance she had ever had of severing the connection
with Great Britain. This unhappy result teaches a harsh, but useful,
political lesson: Never to confide a secret that concerns a great cause
to a dubious “hanger-on,” and to avoid the cup that inebriates when one
is the possessor of such a secret, or whether one is or not.
O’Connolly’s treachery was rewarded by a grant of lands from “the
crown,” and he was afterward a colonel in Cromwell’s army. His ultimate
fate is involved in obscurity. But his name is embalmed in the annals of
enduring infamy.
The Lords Justices of England, in Dublin, once made aware of the
situation, lost no time in putting the Castle and city at large in a
posture of defence. The guards were doubled and reinforcements were
summoned, by special messengers, from neighboring garrisons. Two tried
soldiers were invested with the military power—Sir John Willoughby, who
had been Governor of Galway, assumed command of the Castle; and Sir
Charles Coote—one of the blackest names in Irish annals—was made
military governor of the city. The Earl of Ormond—afterward Duke—was
summoned from Carrick-on-Suir to assume chief command of the royal army.
Thus, the Irish capital was again preserved, through folly and treason,
to the English interest.
MacMahon made no vain boast before the Privy Council, when he declared
that the rising was beyond the power of man to prevent. Ulster did its
full duty, and, on the morning of October 23, the forts of Mountjoy and
Charlemont and the town and castle of Dungannon were in the hands of Sir
Phelim O’Neill or his chief officers. Sir Connor MacGennis captured
Newry; the MacMahons took Carrickmacross and Castleblaney, the
O’Hanlon’s, Tandragee, while O’Reilly and McGuire—a relative of the lord
of that name—“raised” Cavan and Femanagh. (McGee.) Rory O’More
supplemented a brief address of the northern chiefs, wherein they
declared they bore no hostility to the king, or to his English or Scotch
subjects, “but only for the defence and liberty of themselves and the
native Irish of the kingdom,” with one more elaborate, in which he ably
showed that a common danger threatened the Protestants of the Episcopal
Church with Roman Catholics. In all the manifestos of the time, there
was entirely too much profession of “loyalty” to a king who was
constitutionally incapacitated for keeping faith with any body of men
whatsoever. Never was the adage that “Politics makes strange bedfellows”
more forcibly illustrated than during this period of Irish history. The
manliest of all the declarations issued was that of Sir Connor
MacGennis, from “Newry’s captured towers.” “We are in arms,” wrote he,
“for our lives and liberties. We desire no blood to be shed, but if you
(the English and their allies) mean to shed our blood, be sure we shall
be as ready as you for that purpose.”
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CHAPTER III
Horrors of Civil War in Ulster—Battle of Kilrush—Rory O’More Disappears
from History
AT first the civil war in Ulster—for in the main it was the Old Irish
against the Anglo-Irish settlers of the Elizabethan régime, or their
immediate descendants—was carried on without ferocity, but the Scottish
garrison of Carrickfergus, in the winter of 1641, raided Island Magee,
in the neighborhood, and put to the sword or drove over the cliffs, to
perish in the breakers beneath them, or be dashed to pieces on the
rocks, 3,000 of the Celtic-Catholic inhabitants, without regard to age
or sex. Protestant historians claim that acts of cruelty had been
committed on the Anglo-Irish settlers by the Celtic Irish before this
terrible massacre was accomplished. There may have been some isolated
cases of murder and rapine—for bad and cruel men are to be found in all
armies—but nothing that called for the wholesale slaughter at Island
Magee by fanatical Scottish Covenanters, who made up a majority of the
Carrickfergus garrison. Christians, not to mention Mohammedans and
savage heathens, have shed oceans of blood in fierce persecution of each
other, as if they were serving a furious devil, rather than a merciful
God. They forget, in their unreasoning hatred, that the gentle Messiah,
whose teachings they profess to follow, never made the sword the ally of
the Cross. The man made mad by religious bigotry is a wild beast, no
matter what creed he may profess. Let us, as Americans, be thankful that
we live under a government which recognizes the equal rights of all the
creeds, and permits every citizen to worship God in peace, after his own
fashion. May the day never come when it shall be different in this
Republic!
The frightful event we have chronicled naturally aroused the worst
passions of the angered Catholic population of Ulster, and some cruel
reprisals resulted. We are sorry to be obliged to state that credible
history ascribes most of the violence committed on the Irish side to Sir
Phelim O’Neill; but no charge of the kind is made against O’More,
MacGennis, McGuire, Plunket, O’Byrne, or any of the other noted chiefs
of the period. It is impossible to arrive at any accurate statement of
the number of those who perished on both sides, outside of the numerous
battlefields of the long struggle; but it is certain they have been
grossly exaggerated, particularly by English writers, who took for
granted every wild statement made at the period. But, even granting that
all the charges made were true, which, of course, we do not admit, the
fact would not stamp the charge of cruelty on the Irish nation. It was
an age of cruelty—the age of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, which
gave to the world the horrors of the sack of Magdeburgh; the age of the
wars of the Fronde in France, and almost that of the Spanish atrocities
in the Netherlands. And Cromwell was soon to appear upon the scene in
Ireland, to leave behind him a name more terrible than that of Tilly in
Germany or of Alva in the Low Countries. In fact, in the seventeenth
century, Europe, from east to west, was just emerging from Middle-Age
barbarism, and Ireland, most likely, was neither better nor worse than
most of her sister states. We love and respect the Irish race, but we do
not believe in painting it whiter than it is. The nation, plundered and
outraged, was goaded to madness, and whatever crimes were committed
under such circumstances may well be attributed to the workings of
temporary insanity. It is, however, regrettable that around the history
of the Irish insurrection of 1641 there should linger blood-red clouds,
which even the lapse of two and a half centuries has not been able to
dissipate.
On the Anglo-Irish side of the conflict, the name of Sir Charles Coote
stands out in bloody pre-eminence. Like Sir Phelim, he had the grand
virtue of physical courage—he feared nothing in mortal shape—but in all
else he was a demon-brute, and his memory is still execrated throughout
the length and breadth of the land he scourged with scorpions. His
soldiers are accused of having impaled Irish infants on their
pikes—their mothers having been dishonored and butchered—without rebuke
from their inhuman commander. On the contrary, McGee, a very painstaking
and impartial historian, quotes Sir Charles Coote as saying that “he
liked such frolics.” (McGee’s “History of Ireland,” Volume I, p. 502.)
It is not unpleasant to note that, after a career of the most aggressive
cruelty, he was finally killed by a musket-shot during a petty skirmish
in the County Meath, and it is popular belief that the shot was fired by
one of his own band of uniformed assassins.
The war proceeded in a rather desultory manner, chiefly because of lack
of skill in the Irish generals—only a few of whom had seen service—and
the promised Irish military leaders had not yet sailed from the
Continent. Sir Phelim O’Neill made an unsuccessful attack on Drogheda,
and was also repulsed at other fortified places, owing to the lack of a
suitable battering train. English reinforcements kept pouring into
Dublin by the shipload, until a fine army of not less than 25,000 men,
with a numerous and well-served artillery, was in the field. The Irish
army amounted, nominally, to 30,000 men, but only a third of it was
armed and properly trained.
The excesses of the English army in the peaceful Anglo-Catholic
districts of Leinster aroused the resentment of the hitherto apathetic
nobility and “gentry” of that fine province. They appointed Sir John
Read to bear a protest to the king, but, while en route, he was
arrested, confined in Dublin Castle and put to the rack by the
Parliamentary Government. Even this outrage did not drive the
aristocrats of Leinster into immediate warfare. Other outrages followed
in quick succession. Finally, Lord Gormanstown called a meeting of the
Catholic peers and gentlemen to assemble at the hill of Crofty, in the
County Meath. They met there accordingly, headed by the caller of the
gathering. Other distinguished Palesmen present were the Earl of Fingal,
Lords Dunsany, Louth, Slane, Trimleston, and Netterville; Sir
Christopher Bellew, Sir Patrick Barnewall, Nicholas Darcy, Gerald
Aylmer, and many others. While these personages were still deliberating,
they observed a group of horsemen, bearing arms, approaching at a rapid
pace. They were attended by a guard of musketeers, and proved to be the
insurgent chiefs of Roger O’More, Philip O’Reilly, Costello MacMahon,
Captains Byrne and Fox, and other leaders of the people. The party on
the hill immediately galloped on horseback to meet them, and Lord
Gormanstown, in loud and stern tones, asked: “Who are you, and why come
you armed into the Pale?” To this question O’More replied: “We represent
the persecuted people of the Catholic faith, and we come here for the
assertion of the liberty of conscience, the maintenance of the royal
prerogative, which we understand to be abridged, and the making of the
subjects in this Kingdom of Ireland as free as those of England.”
“Then,” replied Gormanstown, “seeing that these be your true end and
object, we will likewise join with you!” The leaders on both sides then
joined hands, amid the applause of their followers. A more formal
meeting was arranged for at the hill of Tara, and at that gathering,
held the next month, the alliance was formally concluded.
The faulty training of the Irish army was painfully illustrated soon
afterward, when the forces of the newly made allies encountered those of
Lord Ormond at a place called Kilrush, near the town of Athy, in
Kildare, April 13, 1642. The numbers were about equal—perhaps 7,000 men
each. The Irish were commanded by a brave but inexperienced officer,
Lord Mountgarret, and with him were Lords Dunboyne and Ikerrin, Rory
O’More, Colonel Hugh O’Byrne, and Sir Morgan Kavanagh. Mountgarret
failed to occupy in time a difficult pass through which Ormond must
march on his way to Dublin, and this failure compelled him to rearrange
his plan of battle. Confusion—as is always the case when this experiment
is tried with raw soldiers—resulted. The Irish fought bravely for a
time, but were soon outmanœuvred and outflanked. The Anglo-Irish cavalry
took them in reverse. Colonel Kavanagh, fighting desperately at the head
of his regiment, met a hero’s death. His fall discouraged his troops,
who broke and fled to a neighboring bog, whither the hostile cavalry
could not safely pursue them. The other Irish troops, surrounded on all
sides, made a rush for the morass also, broke through the enemy’s ranks
and joined their vanquished comrades. On the Irish side, 700 officers
and men fell in this untoward affair. The loss of the Anglo-Irish was
much smaller, and Ormond was enabled to proceed in a species of triumph
to Dublin, where the news of his victory preceded his arrival.
It is passing strange that, after the battle of Kilrush, the great
organizer of the insurrection, Roger O’More, is heard of never more in
his country’s troubled annals. All accounts agree that, during the
combat, he acted his part like a true soldier, but he failed to reappear
in the Irish ranks during subsequent conflicts. His was certainly a
mysterious and unaccountable disappearance.
The late Rev. C. P. Meehan, author of “The Confederation of Kilkenny,”
who gave more attention to that period of his country’s story than any
other writer, says, on page 26 of his interesting work: “After the
battle of Kilrush, one bright name disappears [he mentions O’More in a
foot-note]; the last time the inspiriting war-shout of his followers
fell on his ear was on that hillside. What reasons there may have been
for the retirement of the gallant chief, whose name was linked with that
of God and Our Lady, are not apparent; but it is said, upon authority,
that he proceeded to Ferns, and devoted the rest of his days to peaceful
pursuits in the bosom of his family.” The historian Coote says that he
died at Kilkenny. This was, surely, a “lame and impotent conclusion” to
such a career. The defeat of his countrymen may have destroyed his
hopes, or he may have had reason to doubt the loyalty of his allies of
the Pale. We are inclined to believe an old Leinster tradition, which
says that he died of a broken heart immediately after the lost battle,
on which he had built such high hopes. Such a spirit as his could not
have remained inactive during the nine long years of the struggle,
inaugurated by himself, which followed the disaster at Kilrush.
We can not dismiss this extraordinary man from our pages without quoting
the following introduction to a ballad dealing with his career in Edward
Hayes’s remarkable collection of poetry, called “The Ballads of
Ireland,” vol. I, page 173:
“Roger, or Rory, O’More, is one of the most honored and stainless names
in Irish annals. Writers who concur in nothing else agree in
representing him as a man of the loftiest motives and the most
passionate patriotism. In 1640, when Ireland was weakened by defeat and
confiscation, and guarded with a jealous care, constantly increasing in
strictness and severity, O’More, then a private gentleman with no
resources beyond his intellect and courage, conceived the vast design of
rescuing her from England, and accomplished it. In three years England
did not retain a city in the island but Dublin and Drogheda. For eight
years her power was merely nominal, the land was possessed and the
supreme authority exercised by the Confederation created by O’More.
History contains no stricter instance of the influence of an individual
mind. Before the insurrection broke out the people had learned to know
and expect their Deliverer, and it became a popular proverb, and the
burden of national songs, that the hope of Ireland was in ‘God, the
Virgin, and Rory O’More.’ It is remarkable that O’More, in whose courage
and resources the great insurrection had its birth, was a descendant of
the chieftains of Leix, massacred by English troops at Mullaghmast a
century before. But if he took a great revenge, it was a magnanimous
one. None of the excesses which stained the first rising in Ulster is
charged upon him. On the contrary, when he joined the northern army, the
excesses ceased, and strict discipline was established, as far as it was
possible, among men unaccustomed to control, and wild with wrongs and
sufferings.” Says De Vere, in his sadly beautiful dirge, which assumes
that the great leader died in 1642, as the people of Leinster have been
taught to believe—
“’Twas no dream, Mother Land! ’Twas no dream, Innisfail!
Hope dreams but grief dreams not—the grief of the Gael!
From Leix and Ikerrin to Donegal’s shore,
Rolls the dirge of thy last and thy bravest O’More!”
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CHAPTER IV
Proceedings of the Confederation of Kilkenny—Arrival of Owen Roe O’Neill
and Rinuccini
OUT of the chaos of a popular uprising, and a number of minor councils,
which could decide only for localities, there sprang into existence the
National Synod, composed of clerics and laymen of the Catholic
persuasion, because, at this period, few, if any of the Irish
Protestants were in sympathy with the insurrection, or revolution, which
is a more fitting term. The “oath of association” was formulated by the
venerable Bishop Rothe, and, somewhat unnecessarily, seeing that the
King of England was using all the forces at his disposal to crush “the
rebellion,” pledged true faith and allegiance to Charles I and his
lawful successors. The fundamental laws of Ireland and the “free
exercise of the Roman Catholic faith and religion” were to be
maintained. Then came the second, and most important, part of the solemn
and, as some thought, stringent obligation, which bound all Confederate
Catholics never to accept or submit to any peace without the consent and
approbation of their own general assembly.
A constitution was framed which declared the war just and
constitutional, condemned racial distinctions such as “New” and “Old”
Irish, ordained an elective council for each of the four provinces, and
a national council for the whole kingdom, condemned, as excommunicate,
all who might violate the oath of association, or who should be guilty
of murder, assault, cruelty, or plunder under cover of the war.
The bishops and priests, very wisely, decided that a layman should be
elected president of the National Council, and Lord Mountgarret was so
chosen, with Richard Belling, lawyer and litterateur, as secretary. Both
were men of moderate opinion and free from any taint of prejudice.
It was decided that the Supreme, or National, Council should hold its
first session in the city of Kilkenny on October 23, 1642, the
anniversary of the rising; and “the choice of such a date,” says McGee,
“by men of Mountgarret’s and Belling’s moderation and judgment, six
months after the date of the alleged ‘massacre,’ would form another
proof, if any were now needed, that none of the alleged atrocities (of
1641) were yet associated with that particular day.”
Between the adjournment of the National Synod, in May, and the meeting
of the Council in October, many stirring events occurred. The
confederate general in Munster, the aged Barry, made an unsuccessful
attempt to capture Cork, but had better success at Limerick, which
surrendered to the Irish army on June 21. Soon afterward the Anglo-Irish
leader, General St. Ledger, died at Cork, and the command devolved upon
Murrough O’Brien, Baron of Inchiquin, who had been brought up from an
early age as one of Parsons’ chancery wards, and had, therefore, become
a Protestant. Furthermore, he had grown to be an anti-Irish Irishman of
the blackest and bloodiest type. In Irish history, he is known as “Black
Murrough the Burner,” because the torch, under his brutal sway, kept
steady company with the sword, and both were rarely idle. He served the
king as long as the royal policy suited his views, but, when it did not,
his services were at the disposal of the opposition. Murrough had served
his military apprenticeship under Sir Charles Coote and was a past
master in all the cruelties practiced by his infamous instructor. The
curse of the renegade was strong upon him, for he hated his own kin more
bitterly than if he were an alien and a Briton. Of the ancient royal
houses of Ireland, those of MacMurrough and O’Brien present the
strongest contrasts of good and evil.
The Irish forces succeeded in taking the castles of Loughgar and
Askeaton, but Inchiquin inflicted a severe defeat upon them at
Liscarroll, where the loss was nearly a thousand men on the side of
Ireland, whereas the victor boasted that there fell only a score on his
side. There were also some skirmishes in Connaught, where the peculiar
inactivity of Lord Clanricarde produced discontent, and led to a popular
outbreak in the town of Galway which General Willoughby speedily
suppressed, with every circumstance of savage brutality. Affairs in
Leinster continued rather tranquil. Ormond was raised by the king to the
dignity of marquis, but does not seem to have been trusted by the
Puritan Lords Justices, Parsons and Borlaise. The fall of the year was
signalized, however, by the landing in Ireland of three able generals,
all of whom fought on the national side—Right Hon. James Touchet, Earl
of Castlehaven, who had been imprisoned as a suspect in Dublin Castle,
but managed to effect his escape; Colonel Thomas Preston, the heroic
defender of Louvain, who debarked at Wexford, bringing with him 500
officers of experience, several siege guns, a few light field-pieces,
and a limited quantity of small arms; and last, but most welcome to
Ireland, arrived from Spain Colonel Owen Roe O’Neill, who made a landing
on the Donegal coast with 100 officers, a company of Irish veterans, and
a quantity of muskets and ammunition. He immediately proceeded to the
fort of Charlemont, held by his fierce kinsman, Sir Phelim O’Neill, who,
with commendable patriotic self-sacrifice, resigned to him, unsolicited,
the command of the Irish army of the North, and became, instead of
generalissimo, “President of Ulster.”
Simultaneously with the arrival of Owen Roe, General Lord Leven came
into Ireland from Scotland with 10,000 Puritan soldiers. He had met
O’Neill in the foreign wars and expressed publicly his surprise that he
should be “engaged in so bad a cause”—to which Owen replied that he had
a much better right to come to the rescue of Ireland, his native
country, than Lord Leven had to march into England against his
acknowledged monarch. Leven did not remain long in Ireland, and the
command of his troops fell to General Monroe—a brave but slow man, on
whom the advice of his predecessor to act with vigor was thrown away.
Monroe’s dilatory tactics enabled O’Neill, who had wonderful talent for
military organization, to recruit, drill, and equip a formidable force,
mainly made up of the men of Tyrone and Donegal—as fine a body of troops
as Ireland had ever summoned to her defence. The valorous clansmen were
speedily molded into a military machine by their redoubted chief, who
set the example of activity to all of his command.
When the Supreme Council of the Irish Confederation met in Kilkenny,
according to agreement, one of its most important acts was the
appointing of generals to command in the several provinces. It named
Owen O’Neill commander-in-chief in Ulster, General Sir Thomas Preston in
Leinster, General Barry in Munster, and General Sir John Burke in
Connaught. Fighting was resumed with vigor. Preston met with alternate
successes and reverses in his province, but, on the whole, came out
victorious. Barry and his lieutenants did brilliant work in Munster, and
routed both Vavassour and Inchiquin. O’Neill played a Fabian game in
Ulster, training his army in partial engagements with the enemy and
husbanding his resources for some great occasion, which, he saw, would
surely come. But the brightest laurels of the campaign were gathered by
General Sir John Burke, who, after other brilliant exploits, compelled
General Willoughby to surrender the city of Galway to the Irish forces
on June 20, 1643; and the national flag waved from the tower of its
citadel until the last shot of the war was fired nine years thereafter.
Clanricarde, who could have had the command in chief, paltered with
time, and thus lost the opportunity of linking his name with a glorious
exploit.
All the Irish armies, and particularly that under O’Neill, occupied
excellent strategic positions, and the hopes of the military chiefs and
the nation rose high when, suddenly, there came a blight upon those
hopes in the shape of a cessation of hostilities—in other words, a
prolonged armistice—agreed to between the Anglo-Catholic majority in the
National Council on the one side, and the Marquis of Ormond,
representing the King of England, on the other. The Anglo-Catholics were
again duped by pretences of liberality toward their religion, as their
fathers had been in the days of Elizabeth; and this ill-considered truce
wrested from Ireland all the advantages won in the war—which had already
lasted two years—by the ability of her generals and the courage of her
troops. Vain was the protest of O’Neill, of Preston, of Burke, of Barry,
of the Papal Nuncio, of the majority of the Irish nation. Charles was in
straits in England, fighting the Parliamentary forces arrayed against
his acts of despotism, and Ormond promised everything in order to end
the war in Ireland, temporarily at least, and so be enabled to send
needed succor to a sovereign whom he loved and served much better than
he did God and country. With incredible fatuity, the Anglo-Catholic
majority in the National Council listened to the voice of Ormond, and
voted men and money to support the cause of the bad king who had let
Strafford loose upon Ireland! We are glad to be able to say that the
“Old Irish” element, represented by the brave and able O’Neill, was in
nowise responsible for this act of weakness and folly. O’Neill saw into
futurity, and frightful must have been that vision to the patriot-hero,
for it included the horrors of Drogheda and Wexford, where the thirsty
sword of Cromwell bitterly avenged on Ireland the foolish and fatal
“truce of Castlemartin”; another lesson to nations, if indeed another
were needed, to avoid mixing up in the quarrels of their neighbors.
Ireland invited ruin on that dark day when she voted to draw the sword
for the ungrateful Charles Stuart against the Parliament of England. The
temporary concession of Catholic privileges—designed to be withdrawn
when victory perched on the royal banner—was poor compensation for the
loss of advantages gained at the price of the blood of brave men, and
the sowing of a wind of vengeance which produced the Cromwellian
whirlwind. If King Charles had ever done a fair or manly act by
Ireland—even by the Anglo-Catholics of Ireland—the folly of that country
might be, in a measure, excusable, but his whole policy had been, on the
contrary, cold-blooded, double-faced, and thoroughly ungrateful. In this
instance, the Anglo-Irish Catholics brought all their subsequent
misfortunes on themselves. As if to emphasize its imbecility, the
National Council placed Lord Castlehaven, an English Catholic, in
supreme command over O’Neill in Ulster. Owen Roe was, of course,
disgusted, but was also too good a soldier and too zealous a patriot to
resign his command and go back to Spain, as a man of less noble nature
might have done. Meanwhile, Monroe and his army of 10,000 Lowland Scotch
and Ulster “Undertakers” kept gathering like a thundercloud in the
north. In Scotland a body of 3,000 Antrim Irish, under Alister
MacDonald, called Cal-Kitto, or “the Left-handed,” were covering
themselves with glory, fighting under the great Marquis of Montrose in
the unworthy royal cause. And we read that the Irish Confederate
treasury, about this time, is somewhat replenished by funds sent from
Spain and Rome. Even the great Cardinal Richelieu, of France, to show
his sympathy with Ireland, invited Con, the last surviving son of the
great O’Neill, to the French court, and permitted the shipment of much
needed cannon to Ireland. But all of those good foreign friends of the
Irish cause were sickened and discouraged by the miserable policy of
armistice, so blindly consented to by the lukewarm “Marchmen of the
Pale” who had assembled in Kilkenny.
Many Irish Protestants, particularly the High Church element, were
ardent royalists and refused to take the oath of the Covenanters
prescribed in Ulster by General Monroe. They were driven with violence
from their homes, and many fled for succor to their Catholic brethren,
who treated them with hospitable consideration. In Munster, the
ferocious Inchiquin, and still more savage Lord Broghill, son of Boyle,
first Earl of Cork, foiled in their ambitious schemes by some royal
refusal, broke out most violently, pretending the armistice was
violated, and seized upon three leading Southern towns—Cork, Kinsale,
and Youghal, where their excesses were too horrible for narration—murder
and arson being among the lightest of their crimes. Ormond, in his
peculiarly adroit way, succeeded in still further prolonging the truce,
and stated that he had power from the king to come to a permanent
agreement with the Confederates. The cause of Ireland about this time
lost a true and ardent friend and champion in the death of the good Pope
Urban VIII, who was succeeded by Innocent X—a Pontiff whose noble
generosity is still gratefully remembered by the Irish nation. It was to
one of their worthy predecessors, in the time of the Elizabethan wars,
O’Donnell’s bard referred, when addressing Ireland, in allegorical
fashion, he sang:
“O! my dark Rosaleen!
Do not sigh, do not weep—
The priests are on the ocean green—
They march along the deep!
There’s wine from the Royal Pope,
Upon the ocean green,
And Spanish ale to give you hope,
My dark Rosaleen!”
Nathless the truce, those two bad Irishmen, Inchiquin and Broghill,
continued to do base work in the South, where their cold-blooded
atrocities struck terror into the wretched people of Munster. They even
corrupted old Lord Esmond, commandant of Duncannon fort, which partly
commanded the important harbor of Waterford from the Wexford side.
Esmond was blind and almost senile, and, perhaps, too, was terrorized by
the brutal threats of Inchiquin. But Lord Castlehaven and the
Confederate Irish immediately laid siege to the place, and, after ten
weeks of beleaguerment, succeeded in retaking it. The traitorous
commandant perished in the assault, and thus escaped an ignominious
death, which his crime had richly merited. Several other Munster towns,
held by Inchiquin and his officers, were successively attacked and taken
by the Confederates. In Connaught, however, the latter met with serious
reverses. The town of Sligo was captured by Sir Charles Coote, Jr.—a
worse scourge than even his infamous father—and, in an attempt to
recover it, several gallant Irishmen perished. Archbishop O’Healy, of
Tuam, fell into the hands of Coote and was barbarously tortured to
death, Sunday, October 26, 1645. It must be remembered that these
hostilities were the work of the Parliamentary forces, which were
opposed by the “Old Irish” party. The royal troops had been sent to
England to assist Charles, or else lay supine in their garrisons, as did
also the Anglo-Irish, waiting for further developments.
The king sent the Earl of Glamorgan, an English Catholic, who had
intermarried with the O’Brien family, to Ireland to negotiate a new
treaty with the Confederates. He succeeded in having a preliminary
document drawn up, signed by himself for Charles, and by Lord
Mountgarret and Muskerry on behalf of the Confederates. Ormond, with his
customary dilatoriness, haggled over the provisions regarding toleration
of the Catholic Church in the kingdom, and thus frittered away much
valuable time, which the Parliamentary forces made good use of. Ormond
caused the treaty to be greatly modified, and while the negotiators were
working on it at Kilkenny, there arrived in Ireland a new Papal Nuncio,
in the person of the famous John Baptist Rinuccini, Archbishop of Ferns,
and, afterward, Cardinal. He came to represent Pope Innocent X, who sent
also substantial aid. The Irish in exile and their friends sent, through
Father Luke Wadding, a further contribution of $36,000. The Nuncio
complained that he had been unreasonably detained in France—it was
greatly suspected by the intrigues of Cardinal Mazarin, who had
succeeded Richelieu, Ireland’s true friend. In spite of this trickery,
however, he managed to purchase, with Pope Innocent’s funds, a 26-gun
frigate, which he called the _San Pietro_, 2,000 muskets, 2,000
cartridge boxes, 4,000 swords, 2,000 pike-heads, 800 horse pistols,
20,000 pounds of powder, and other much needed supplies. (McGee.) A
ludicrous cause of one of his delays in France was the obstinacy of the
wife of Charles I, Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry of Navarre, who
insisted that she would not receive the Papal Nuncio unless he uncovered
in her presence. Rinuccini was proud and fiery, and, as representing the
Pope, declined to remove his biretta, which so angered the queen that,
after six weeks’ parleying on this point of etiquette, the pair
separated without coming to an interview. Such is the farcical folly of
“royal minds.”
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CHAPTER V
Treason of Ormond to the Catholic Cause—Owen Roe O’Neill, Aided by the
Nuncio, Prepares to Fight
The Papal Nuncio, although only in the prime of life, was in feeble
health, and had to be borne on a litter by relays of able-bodied men,
from his landing-place, at Kenmare in Kerry, to the city of Limerick,
where he was received with all the ceremony due to his high rank, noble
character, and chivalrous mission. From Limerick he proceeded by the
same mode of conveyance to Kilkenny, the Confederate capital, where
honors almost regal in their splendor awaited him. Lord Mountgarret,
President of the National Council—a veteran soldier who had participated
in the wars of Hugh O’Neill against Elizabeth—met the Papal dignitary,
surrounded by a guard of honor, composed of the youthful chivalry of the
Confederation, in the picture gallery of the Castle of Kilkenny—the
palatial residence of the Duke of Ormond, the most politic nobleman of
the age. The so-called Glamorgan treaty proceeded smoothly enough until
certain demands of the exiled English Catholics, made through the
Nuncio, were included in its provisions. Armed with the amended
parchment, Glamorgan and the representatives of the Confederates
returned to Dublin and laid the matter before Ormond. The latter acted
in so strange a manner as to take the Confederate delegates completely
by surprise. He had Glamorgan arrested while at dinner, on charge of
having exceeded his instructions, and threw him into prison. The
Confederate envoys were sent back to Kilkenny, charged to inform the
President and Council that the clauses concerning the English Catholics
were inadmissible and never could be entertained by the English people
who supported the cause of Charles. Lord Mountgarret and his associates
broke off all negotiations with Ormond pending the release of Glamorgan,
which they firmly demanded. Ormond required bail to the amount of
£40,000, and the bond was furnished by the Earls of Kildare and
Clanricarde. When Glamorgan was enlarged, he proceeded to Kilkenny,
where, to the amazement of the Confederates and the Nuncio he defended,
rather than censured, Ormond’s course toward himself. On which McGee
grimly remarks: “To most observers it appeared that these noblemen
understood each other only too well.”
Frequent bickerings occurred at Kilkenny between Mountgarret’s
followers, or the Anglo-Irish, and the Nuncio’s followers, the “Old
Irish,” who were in the minority. Rinuccini’s heart was with the latter,
for, by instinct as well as observation, he recognized that they were
the only real national party among the Irish factions. The rest he put
down, with good reason, as time-servers and provincialists—ever ready to
go back to their gilded cages the moment the English power filled their
cups with Catholic concessions. With a little more knowledge of Ireland
and her people, the Nuncio would have been a marvelous leader. As it
was, he did the very best he could for Ireland—according to his
lights—and he was one of the very few foreigners who, on coming in close
contact with the situation—remained true to the Irish cause through good
and evil report. He was, of course, a devoted Catholic, but in no sense
a bigot. Irishmen should always hold his name in high honor. Any
mistakes the Nuncio committed were due to lack of familiarity with
surrounding conditions, very excusable in an alien.
But the Glamorgan treaty would appear to have been taken up at Rome,
where Sir Kenelm Digby and the pontifical ministers concluded a truce
favorable to the interests of both Irish and English Catholics. The king
needed the 10,000 Irish troops which he knew the Confederates could
place at his disposal. In March, 1646, a modified Glamorgan treaty was
finally signed by Ormond for King Charles, and by Lord Muskerry and
other Confederate leaders for their party. “These thirty articles,”
comments McGee, “conceded, in fact, all the most essential claims of the
Irish; they secured them equal rights as to property, the army, the
universities, and the bar. They gave them seats in both Houses and on
the bench. They authorized a special commission of Oyer and Terminer,
composed wholly of Confederates. They declared that ‘the independency of
the Parliament of Ireland on that of England’ should be decided by
declaration of both Houses, agreeably to the laws of the Kingdom of
Ireland. In short, the final form of Glamorgan’s treaty gave the Irish
Catholics, in 1646, all that was subsequently obtained, either for the
Church or the country, in 1782, 1793, and 1829. Though some conditions
were omitted, to which the Nuncio and a majority of the prelates
attached importance, Glamorgan’s treaty was, upon the whole, a charter
upon which a free church and a free people might well have stood, as the
fundamental law of their religious and civil liberties.”
These concessions proved to be a new “delusion, mockery, and snare.”
Ormond tricked the Confederates, and the poltroon king, just before his
fatal flight to the camp of the mercenary Scots’ army of General Lord
Leven, which promptly sold him to the English Parliament, for the amount
of its back pay, disclaimed the Glamorgan treaty in toto—a policy
entirely in keeping with his unmanly, vacillating nature.
Owen Roe O’Neill, notwithstanding many and grievous vexations, chiefly
arising from the absurd jealousy of General Preston, had his army well
in hand on the borders of Leinster and Ulster, prepared to strike a blow
at the enemy wherever it might be most needed. He was in free
communication with the Nuncio, who, according to all the historians of
the period, supplied him with the necessary means for making an
aggressive movement. The Anglo-Scotch army of General Monroe presented
the fairest mark for O’Neill’s prowess, and against that force his
movements were, accordingly, directed.
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CHAPTER VI
The Famous Irish Victory of Benburb—Cruel Murder of the Catholic Bishop
of Ross
THE forces of the belligerents were not large, according to our more
modern standards. In his comprehensive “History of Ireland,” the Rev.
Abbe McGeoghegan credits Owen Roe with only 5,000 infantry and 500
horse, while he calls Monroe’s force 6,000 foot and 800 cavalry. The
objective of both generals was the ancient city of Armagh, and the
grand-nephew of the great Hugh O’Neill was destined to win one of
Ireland’s proudest victories in the immediate neighborhood of his
grand-uncle’s most famous battlefield—the Yellow Ford. Marching
northward from the borders of Leinster, Owen Roe crossed the historic
Blackwater and took position at a place called Benburb, in the present
county of Tyrone. Monroe advanced to attack him, and ordered his younger
brother, George Monroe, who commanded a strong detachment, to join
forces with the main body without delay. O’Neill, apprised by his scouts
of this movement, sent two regiments, under Colonels MacMahon and
MacNenay, to intercept young Monroe at a pass through which he would be
compelled to defile his troops in order to form a junction with his
brother. The two colonels obeyed their orders so strictly that George
Monroe’s force was so utterly broken and routed that it was unable to
render any service to the Puritan general during the remainder of the
campaign. The victors immediately rejoined O’Neill, who, in the interim,
had detached Colonel Ricard O’Ferrall to obstruct the elder Monroe’s
march from Kinnaird to Caledon, where he had crossed the Blackwater. The
Scotchman’s cannon proved too much for O’Ferrall, who could only reply
with musketry, but he retired in admirable order, although closely
pressed by Monroe’s stronger vanguard. The battle of Benburb began on
the morning of June 16th, new style, 1646. O’Neill’s post was near the
river, his flanks protected by two small hills, and his rear by a
wood—all held by chosen troops. Throughout most of the day, the Scots,
who had both sun and wind at their backs, seemed to have the advantage,
in so far as partial demonstrations could determine the question.
O’Neill, in expectation of a reinforcement from the direction of
Coleraine, “amused” the Scotch general until the sun had shifted
position and no longer shone full and dazzlingly in the faces of the
Irish soldiers. Almost at this propitious moment, the expected auxiliary
force reached the field, and took up position in O’Neill’s line of
battle. Rev. C. P. Meehan, historian of the “Confederation of Kilkenny,”
who quotes Monroe’s despatch, Rinuccini’s letters, and other
contemporaneous authorities, says: “It was the decisive moment. The
Irish general, throwing himself into the midst of his men, and, pointing
out to them that retreat must be fatal to the enemy, ordered them to
charge and pursue vigorously. A far resounding cheer rose from the Irish
ranks. ‘Myself,’ said he, ‘with the aid of Heaven, will lead the way.
Let those who fail to follow me remember that they abandon their
general.’ This address was received with one unanimous shout by the
army. The Irish colonels threw themselves from their horses, to cut
themselves off from every chance of retreat, and charged with incredible
impetuosity.” Some musketry was used, but the victory was decided in
Ireland’s favor by her ancient and favorite weapon, the deadly pike,
which may be called the parent of the bayonet. Monroe’s cavalry charged
boldly that bristling front of spears, but was overthrown in an instant
and all but annihilated. Vain, then, became the fire of the vaunted
cannon of the Scotch commander and the crashing volleys of his small
arms. Vainly he himself and his chosen officers, sword in hand, set an
example of courage to their men. With the shout of “Lamh Dearg Aboo!”
which, fifty years before, had sounded the death-knell of Bagnal,
Kildare, and De Burgh, on the banks of the same historic river, the
Irish clansmen rushed upon their foes. The struggle was brief and
bitter. Lord Blaney’s English regiment perished almost to the last man,
fighting heroically to the end. The Scottish cavalry was utterly broken
and fled pell-mell, leaving the infantry to their fate. Lord
Montgomery’s regiment alone retired in good order, although with
considerable loss, but Montgomery himself, fifty other officers, and
some two hundred soldiers, were made prisoners. Monroe fled, without hat
or wig, and tradition says he lost his sword in swimming his horse
across the Blackwater. Of the Anglo-Scotch army, there died upon the
field 3,243 officers and men, and many more perished during the vengeful
pursuit of the victors, who do not appear to have been in a forgiving
mood. O’Neill acknowledged a loss of seventy men killed and several
hundred wounded. The Scottish army lost all of its baggage, tents,
cannon, small arms, military chest, and, besides, thirty-two stand of
battle-flags. Fifteen hundred draught horses and enough food supplies to
last the Irish army for many months also fell into the hands of the
vanquishers. Monroe’s army was, virtually, destroyed, and he sullied a
previously honorable record by plundering and burning many villages and
isolated houses to gratify his spite against the people whose soldiers
had so grievously humiliated him.
O’Neill’s fine military instinct impelled him to follow up his success
by giving Monroe no rest until he had driven him from Ulster, but,
unfortunately, there came at this crisis a request, which really meant
an order, from the Nuncio, to march the Ulster army into Leinster in
order that it might support those who were opposed in the Council at
Kilkenny to entering into further peace negotiations with the bigoted
Ormond and the now impotent king. O’Neill could hardly decline this
misdirected mission, but it proved to be, in the end, a fatal act of
obedience. From that hour the Irish cause began to decline. General
Preston, O’Neill’s fierce Anglo-Irish rival, and fanatically devoted to
the cause of Charles, engaged in battle with the Parliamentary general,
Michael Jones, at Dungan Hill in Meath, and was totally routed, with
immense loss. It is only proper to remark here, that the “Old” Irish did
the best fighting during this war, because their hearts were in the
struggle, while the Anglo-Irish, who mainly composed the armies under
Preston and Lord Taaffe—the latter of whom was ignominiously defeated at
Knockinoss, near Mallow in Cork—were only half-hearted in their efforts.
Taaffe’s defeat was aggravated by the cruel murder of the brave
“Left-handed” MacDonnell of Antrim, who, after having been made
prisoner, was barbarously put to death by order of the murderous
renegade, “Murrough the Burner,” who commanded the victors. This
bloody-minded wretch further signalized his cruelty by storming the city
of Cashel and sacking the grand cathedral, founded by one of his own
princely ancestors, in the twelfth century. Hundreds of non-combatants
of all ages and both sexes, who had taken refuge in the holy place, were
ruthlessly massacred, and twenty priests were dragged from under the
high altar and wantonly butchered. Lord Broghill emphasized his
brutality in Cork County by hanging before the walls of Macroom Castle
the saintly Bishop MacEagan of Ross, who refused to counsel the Irish
garrison to surrender. Dr. Madden, a gifted poet, summed up the noble
refusal and its tragical consequences in the following lines:
“The orders are given, the prisoner is led
To the castle, and round him are menacing hordes:
Undaunted, approaching the walls, at the head
Of the troopers of Cromwell, he utters these words:
“‘Beware of the cockatrice—trust not the wiles
Of the serpent, for perfidy skulks in its folds!
Beware of Lord Broghill the day that he smiles!
His mercy is murder!—his word never holds!
“Remember, ’tis writ in our annals of blood,
Our countrymen never relied on the faith
Of truce, or of treaty, but treason ensued—
And the issue of every delusion was death!’
“He died on the scaffold in front of those walls,
Where the blackness of ruin is seen from afar,
And the gloom of their desolate aspect recalls
The blackest of Broghill’s achievements in war.”
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CHAPTER VII
Ormond’s Treacherous Surrender of Dublin—Ireland’s Choice of Two Evils
ORMOND would seem to have been the evil genius of the Irish nation at
this period of its history. He was suspected by the Confederates and
distrusted by the Parliamentarians. The former, convinced that he meant
to betray Dublin, which was poorly fortified, to the latter, ordered
O’Neill and Preston to unite their forces and take it from Ormond.
Preston, who was, to all appearance, more of a royalist Palesman than an
Irishman, threw obstacles in the way of the intended assault, and
proposed to parley with Ormond before assuming the aggressive. Owing to
this dilatoriness, and because of a false alarm, the combined Irish
forces retired from before the city without accomplishing anything.
There was mutual distrust between the unwilling allies, and, as usual,
Ireland was the sufferer. Preston’s jealousy of O’Neill amounted to a
frenzy, and, before an accommodation could be arrived at, Ormond
surrendered the city to the Parliamentary forces, under General Jones,
and fled to France, where, unaccountably, considering his suspicious
conduct, he was favorably received. After a year’s absence, he returned
to Ireland, and, finding the royal cause desperate, concluded a peace
between the king’s supporters, the Confederates, and the National party,
headed by Owen O’Neill. This treaty was, virtually, a revival of that
submitted by Glamorgan, and fully recognized, when all too late, the
justice of the Catholic claims to liberty of conscience. Had the
original instrument been adopted, Charles could have held Ireland
against the Parliament. But his days were now numbered, and he died on
the scaffold, in front of his own palace of Whitehall, on January 30,
1649.
The Royalist party at once recognized his heir as Charles II. They were
reinforced by many Parliamentarian Protestants who were shocked and
horrified by the decapitation of the king; and so Old Irish and New
Irish, Confederates and Ormondists, made common cause against the
Parliament, which was defended in Dublin by the redoubtable General
Jones, and in Derry by the ferocious younger Coote. Even the sanguinary
Inchiquin again became a Royalist and captured several towns of strength
and importance from his recent allies. Ormond massed his army and, aided
by Major-General Purcell, made an attempt to storm Dublin. But Michael
Jones made a night sortie from the city and scattered Ormond and Purcell
and their followers to the winds of heaven. The Irish generals mutually
blamed each other and there was much bitter crimination and
recrimination, but all this could not remedy the disaster that
incapacity and over-confidence had brought about. Owen O’Neill kept his
army, which fronted Coote, near Derry, intact, but lost his best friend
when the impetuous Nuncio, who had spared neither denunciation nor
excommunication in dealing with the trimming Anglo-Catholic leaders,
disgusted with the whole wretched business, suddenly departed for the
port of Galway and sailed in his own ship for Rome. Had this good man
had to deal with leaders like Owen O’Neill, faithful, sensible, and
unselfish, Ireland would have been an independent nation ere he returned
to the Eternal City. His retirement placed O’Neill and the “Old Irish”
in great perplexity as regarded a military policy. Ormond, the
treacherous, was, nominally at least, commander-in-chief of the royal
army, and his trusted lieutenants, Preston and Inchiquin, were O’Neill’s
bitter foes.
Under such disadvantages, we are not surprised to learn that O’Neill
adopted a policy of his own, at once bold and original. He temporized
with the Parliamentarians, and actually entered into a three months’
truce with General George Monck, who had succeeded to the unlucky
Monroe’s command in the North. The distrust and hatred of Ormond, whose
military power waned immediately after his crushing defeat by General
Jones, already mentioned, were so great that both Galway and Limerick
refused to admit his garrisons. He and his wretched ally, Inchiquin,
became utterly discredited with the Old Irish party, and soon fled the
kingdom their infamies had cursed. Ormond returned to England after the
Restoration and was one of Charles II’s intimates. It can hardly be
wondered at, therefore, that, to use McGee’s language, “the singular
spectacle was exhibited of Monck forwarding supplies to O’Neill to be
used against Ormond and Inchiquin, and O’Neill coming to the rescue of
Coote and raising for him the siege of Derry.” It was unfortunate that
all of the Parliamentary generals were not possessed of the chivalric
qualities of Monck and that hard fortune again compelled Owen Roe to
draw the sword for the cause of the ingrate Stuarts. As for the
Anglo-Irish, whether of the Church of Rome or the Church of England,
they clung to the fortunes, or rather the misfortunes, of Charles II as
faithfully and vehemently as to those of his infatuated father. This was
all the more noteworthy, as the younger Charles had even less to
recommend him to public estimation than his sire. He lived to be a
disgrace to even the throne of England, which has been filled too often
by monarchs of degraded and dissolute character. The second Charles of
England was destitute of every virtue, except physical courage. He had,
in a high degree, that superficial good nature which distinguished his
race, but he was a libertine, an ingrate, and a despicable time-server.
But Ireland did not learn these truths about his character until long
after the period of his checkered career here dealt with. It must be
borne in mind, however, that in the middle of the seventeenth century
the divinity which is alleged to hedge a king was much more apparent to
the masses of the people than it is in our own generation, when the
microscopic eye of an educated public opinion is turned upon the throne
and detects the slightest flaw, in the “fierce light” which beats upon
it. The Old Irish party cared little for Charles, but when it came to a
choice between him and Cromwell, there was nothing left them but to
throw their swords into the scale for the youthful monarch, who was not
nearly as “merry” then as he became in after days, when he quite forgot
the friends of his adversity.
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CHAPTER VIII
“The Curse of Cromwell”—Massacres of Drogheda and Wexford—Death of Sir
Phelim O’Neill
THEIR adherence to the cause of the young Stuart brought upon the Irish
nation the blighting “curse of Cromwell,” so terribly remembered down to
the present hour in every nook of Ireland visited by his formidable and
remorseless legions. The English Parliament well knew that a general of
the first class was needed to crush the Irish army in field and fort,
and so Oliver Cromwell, commander of the famous “Ironsides,” or
Parliamentary cuirassiers, the greatest and most relentless soldier of
that age, was sent to Ireland, commissioned to work his will upon her.
He landed in Dublin with an army of 4,000 cavalry and 9,000 infantry,
augmented by the forces already in the island, on August 14, 1649.
Plentifully supplied with money and military stores, he at once made
ready for a vigorous campaign. His second in command was General Ireton,
a son-in-law and pupil, who is remembered in Ireland only a degree less
bitterly than the great regicide himself. The latter marched his
formidable army, after a very brief rest, from Dublin to Drogheda, which
was held for Charles II by a garrison of about 3,000 men, burdened with
many helpless non-combatants, under the orders of Sir Arthur Aston, a
brave and experienced officer, who had suffered the loss of a leg in the
Continental wars. He spurned Cromwell’s insolent summons to surrender,
and successfully repulsed two furious assaults, led by the English
general in person. A third attack, made September 10, 1649, was
successful. General Aston fell, and the Puritan soldiers quarreled over
his artificial leg, which was said to be made of gold. Examination
proved it to be of wood—a much less costly and tempting material. The
garrison, seeing their leader fall, laid down their arms, believing that
quarter would be extended. But Cromwell, by his own admission (see his
letters compiled by Thomas Carlyle), refused this accommodation, on the
flimsy pretext that Drogheda did not, at once, surrender on summons; and
the Puritan army was let loose upon the doomed city. For five dreadful
days and nights there ensued a carnival of rapine and slaughter. The
affrighted people fled to cellars, many sought refuge in churches, and
some climbed even to the belfries in the vain hope of escaping the
general massacre. But they were relentlessly pursued, sabred,
suffocated, or burned to death in the places in which they hoped to
obtain shelter. The few miserable survivors—less than one hundred—were
spared, only to be shipped as slaves to the Barbadoes. (See Cromwell’s
Letters, per Carlyle.)
Cromwell, in his despatch to the speaker of the English Parliament,
called this brutal achievement “an exceeding great mercy,” and,
blasphemously, gave all the praise of the universal slaughter to the
most High God! There is absolutely no excuse for the regicide’s
outrageous conduct at Drogheda, although Froude, Carlyle, and other
British historians have vainly sought to make apology for his inhuman
actions. Many of the garrison were English and Protestant, so that race
and creed did not entirely influence him, as the same considerations
undoubtedly did at other places in Ireland. His cold-blooded idea was to
“strike terror” into Ireland at the outset of the campaign; and in this
he certainly succeeded only too well. It made his subsequent task of
subjugation much easier than it would, otherwise, have been. Having
accomplished his work in the fated city, and left it a smoking ruin, he
counter-marched to Dublin, rested there for some days, and then marched
toward Wexford, capturing several small towns, which offered but feeble
resistance, on his way. His lieutenants had, meanwhile, added Dundalk,
Carlingford, and Newry to his conquests in the North. Wexford prepared
for a brave defence, but was basely betrayed by Captain James Stafford,
an officer of English ancestry, who surrendered the outer defences,
without the knowledge of his chief, Colonel David Sennott. Quarter was
refused, as at Drogheda, and three hundred maids and matrons, many of
the latter with infants in their arms, who fled to the market square,
and took refuge, as they thought, under the sacred shadow of the
gigantic cross which stood there, were butchered, notwithstanding their
pleadings for mercy. Nearly all of these people were Catholic in creed,
if not all of Celtic race, so that Cromwell manifested what may be
called an impartial spirit of cruelty on both bloody occasions. His
hatred for the English Protestant royalists was as hot, to all
appearance, as that which he entertained toward the Irish Catholics, who
had embraced the Stuart cause. But his remorseless policy of general
confiscation of the lands of the vanquished, and the sending into
banishment, as veritable slaves, of the unhappy survivors, have left a
deeper scar on the heart of Ireland than all the blood he so cruelly,
and needlessly, shed on her soil.
The tidings from Drogheda and Wexford soon spread throughout the
country, and the faint-hearted governors of many strong towns
surrendered without attempting to make an honorable defence. Kilkenny
proved an exception. There a brave stand was made, and garrison and
inhabitants received favorable terms of surrender. But Cromwell’s most
difficult task was in front of “rare Clonmel,” in Tipperary, which was
garrisoned by a few regiments of the aboriginal Ulster Irish—among the
bravest men that ever trod a battlefield or manned a breach—under the
command of Major-General Hugh Duff (Black) O’Neill, nephew and pupil of
the glorious Owen Roe. This brave and skilful officer repulsed, with
much carnage, several of Cromwell’s fiercest assaults, and the siege
would, undoubtedly, have been raised only for failure of ammunition in
the Irish army. O’Neill, having satisfied himself that this was the
unfortunate fact, evacuated the city on a dark midnight of May, 1649,
and retreated to Limerick. Cromwell, ignorant of this movement, demanded
the surrender of Clonmel next morning. Favorable terms were requested
and granted. There was no massacre, and Cromwell’s sardonic nature made
him rather enjoy the masterly trick played upon him by young O’Neill.
Some years afterward, when the latter, after a most noble defence of
Limerick, fell into the hands of Ireton and was condemned to death, we
are informed that Cromwell, then virtually Lord Protector, caused his
sentence to be commuted and allowed him to return to the Continent. Such
is the effect true courage produces on even the most brutal natures.
Owen Roe O’Neill, who, of all the Irish generals, was alone fitted, both
by nature and experience, to combat the able Cromwell, died soon after
that tyrant’s arrival in Ireland, as some say by poison. He was on the
march to attack the English army, when he surrendered to death at Clough
Oughter Castle, in Cavan, bitterly mourned by all who had dreamed of an
independent Ireland. How beautifully Thomas Davis laments him:
“We thought you would not die—we were sure you would not go,
And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell’s cruel blow!
Sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky,
Oh, why did you leave us, Owen, why did you die?
“Soft as woman’s was your voice, O’Neill! bright was your eye,
O! why did you leave us, Owen? why did you die?
Your troubles are all over, you’re at rest with God on high;
But we’re slaves and we’re orphans, Owen! why did you die?”
Immediately after the capitulation of Clonmel, Cromwell, summoned by
Parliament to operate against the royalists of Scotland, set sail for
England, leaving behind him Ireton and Ludlow to continue his bloody
work. By Oliver’s direction, confiscation followed confiscation, and,
when he became Protector of the English Commonwealth, many thousands of
innocent boys and girls were shipped from Ireland to the West Indies and
other colonies of England, where most of them perished miserably. Ireton
died in Limerick, which yielded to his arms, after a desperate
resistance, in 1651. Tradition says that he rotted from the plague, and
that his last hours were horrible to himself and to all who surrounded
his repulsive deathbed. He had caused to be killed in the city a bishop,
many priests, and a multitude of other non-combatants; and these
atrocities appalled his craven soul at the moment of dissolution.
Ludlow, an equally ferocious soldier, concluded the work of conquest in
Ireland, and, in 1652, the whole island was again rendered “tranquil.”
“Order reigned in Warsaw,” but it was not the order that succeeds
dissolution. Ireland, as subsequent events proved, was not dead, but
sleeping. The close of “the great rebellion,” which had lasted eleven
years, was signalized by the ruthless executions of Bishop Heber
MacMahon—the warrior prelate who led Owen Roe’s army after that hero’s
death—and Sir Phelim O’Neill, who was offered his life on the steps of
the scaffold, if he consented to implicate the late King Charles I in
the promotion of the Irish revolt. This, the English historians inform
us, he “stoutly refused to do,” and died, in consequence, like a soldier
and a gentleman. He had his faults—this fierce Sir Phelim. He was by no
means a saint, or even an exemplary Christian—but he acted, “according
to his lights,” for the best interests of his native country, and lost
everything, including life, in striving to make her free. A gifted Irish
poet (T. D. McGee) sings of him as “In Felix Felix,” thus:
“He rose the first—he looms the morning star
Of that long, glorious unsuccessful war;
England abhors him! has she not abhorr’d
All who for Ireland ventured life or word?
What memory would she not have cast away
That Ireland keeps in her heart’s heart to-day?
“If even his hand and hilt were so distained,
If he was guilty as he has been blamed,
His death redeemed his life—he chose to die
Rather than get his freedom with a lie.
Plant o’er his gallant heart a laurel tree,
So may his head within the shadow be!
“I mourn for thee, O hero of the North—
God judge thee gentler than we do on earth!
I mourn for thee and for our land, because
She dare not own the martyrs in her cause;
But they, our poets, they who justify—
They will not let thy memory rot or die!”
CHAPTER IX
Sad Fate of the Vanquished—Cruel Executions and Wholesale Confiscations
THE subsequent fate of other chief actors in this great political and
military drama is summed up by a learned historian thus: “Mountgarret
and Bishop Rothe died before Galway (the last Irish stronghold of this
war) fell. Bishop MacMahon, of Clogher, surrendered to Sir Charles
Coote, and was executed like a felon by one he had saved from
destruction a year before at Derry. Coote, after the Restoration, became
Earl of Mountrath, and Broghill, Earl of Orrery. Clanricarde died
unnoticed on his English estate, under the Protectorate. Inchiquin,
after many adventures in foreign lands, turned Catholic in his old age;
and this burner of churches bequeathed an annual alms for masses for his
soul. A Roman patrician did the honors of sepulture for Father Luke
Wadding. Hugh Duff O’Neill, the heroic defender of Clonmel and Limerick,
and the gallant though vacillating Preston, were cordially received in
France, while the consistent (English) Republican, General Ludlow, took
refuge as a fugitive (after the Restoration) in Switzerland.”
The same accomplished authority (T. D. McGee) informs us that under
Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, “A new survey of the whole island was
ordered, under the direction of Sir William Petty, the fortunate
economist who founded the House of Lansdowne. By him the surface of the
kingdom was estimated at ten and a half million plantation acres, three
millions of which were deducted for waste and water. Of the remainder,
above 5,000,000 acres were in Catholic hands in 1641; 300,000 acres were
college lands, and 2,000,000 acres were in possession of the Protestant
settlers of the reigns of James I and Elizabeth. Under the Cromwellian
Protectorate, 5,000,000 acres were confiscated. This enormous spoil,
two-thirds of the whole island (as then computed), went to the soldiers
and adventurers who had served against the Irish or had contributed to
the military chest since 1641—except 700,000 acres given in ‘exchange’
to the banished in Clare and Connaught, and 1,200,000 confirmed to
‘innocent Papists’ who had taken no part in the warfare for their
country’s liberty. And,” continues our authority already quoted,
“Cromwell anticipated the union of the kingdoms by a hundred and fifty
years, when he summoned, in 1653, that assembly over which ‘Praise-God
Bare-bones’ presided. Members for Ireland and Scotland sat on the same
benches with the Commons of England. Oliver’s first deputy in the
government of Ireland was his son-in-law, Fleetwood, who had married the
widow of Ireton, but his real representative was his fourth son, Henry
Cromwell, commander-in-chief of the army. In 1657, the title of Lord
Deputy was transferred from Fleetwood to Henry, who united the supreme
civil and military authority in his own person, until the eve of the
Restoration, of which he became an active partisan. We may thus embrace
the five years of the Protectorate as the period of Henry Cromwell’s
administration.” High Courts of Justice were appointed for dealing with
those who had been actively in arms, and many cruel executions resulted.
Commissions were also appointed for the expatriation of the people,
particularly the young. “Children under age, of both sexes, were
captured by the thousands, and sold as slaves to the tobacco planters of
Virginia and the West Indies. Secretary Thurloe informs Henry Cromwell
that ‘the Council have authorized 1,000 girls, and as many youths, to be
taken up for that purpose.’ Sir William Petty mentions 6,000 Irish boys
and girls shipped to the West Indies. Some contemporary accounts make
the total number of children and adults, so transported, 100,000 souls.
To this decimation we may add 34,000 men of fighting age, who had
permission to enter the armies of foreign powers at peace with the
Commonwealth.”
As there was no Irish Parliament called under Cromwell’s régime, the
“government” of Ireland consisted, during that period, of the deputy,
the commander-in-chief, and four commissioners—the Puritan leaders,
Ludlow, Corbett, Jones, and Weaver—all of whom looked upon the
Celtic-Catholic Irish, and, in fact, all classes of the Irish people,
with bigoted hatred and insolent disdain. And these men had, until the
Restoration, absolute dominion over the lives and liberty, the rights
and properties of the nation they hated!
The Act of Uniformity, which played such a terrible part in the reigns
of Elizabeth and James, was put into relentless force. The Catholics
were crushed, as it were, into the earth, and Ireland again became a
veritable counterpart of the infernal regions. Priests, of all ranks,
were hunted like wild beasts, and many fell victims to their heroic
devotion to their flocks. Catholic lawyers were rigidly disbarred and
Catholic school-teachers were subjected to deadly penalties. “Three
bishops and three hundred ecclesiastics” perished violently during the
Protectorate. “Under the superintendence of the commissioners,” says
McGee, “the distribution made of the soil among the Puritans ‘was nearly
as complete as that of Canaan by the Israelites.’ Such Irish gentlemen
as had obtained pardons were obliged to wear a distinctive mark on their
dress under pain of death. Those of inferior rank were obliged to wear a
round black spot on the right cheek, under pain of the branding iron and
the gallows. If a Puritan lost his life in any district inhabited by
Catholics, the whole population were held subject to military execution.
For the rest, whenever ‘Tory’ (nickname for an Irish royalist) or
recusant fell into the hands of these military colonists, or the
garrisons which knitted them together, they were assailed with the
war-cry of the Jews—‘That thy feet may be dipped in the blood of thy
enemies, and that the tongues of thy dogs may be red with the same.’
Thus, penned in (according to the Cromwellian penal regulation) between
‘the mile line’ of the Shannon and the ‘four-mile line’ of the sea, the
remnant of the Irish nation passed seven years of a bondage unequaled in
severity by anything which can be found in the annals of Christendom.”
When the news of Oliver Cromwell’s death, which occurred on September 3,
1658, reached Ireland, a sigh of intense relief was heaved by the
persecuted nation. Many a prayer of thankfulness went up to the throne
of God from outraged Irish fathers and mothers, whose children were
sweltering as slaves under tropical suns. Cromwell himself had passed
away, but the “curse of Cromwell” remained with Ireland for many a black
and bitter day thereafter.
What followed after his death until the Restoration belongs to English
history. Under his son Richard, and his associates, or advisers, the
Protectorate proved a failure. Then followed the negotiations with
General Monck, and the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, who
landed on English soil, at Dover, May 22, 1660, proceeded to London,
where he was cordially welcomed, and renewed his interrupted reign over
a country which, at heart, despised and distrusted him and all of his
fated house.
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CHAPTER X
Ireland Further Scourged Under Charles II—Murder of Archbishop
Plunket—Accession of James II
THE Irish Catholics had built high hopes on the restoration of Charles,
but were not very jubilant when they learned that he had appointed as
Lords Justices, in Dublin, their ancient foes and persecutors, Coote and
Broghill, the latter now called the Earl of Orrery. In the Irish
(provincial) Parliament, the “Undertaking” element was in the ascendant,
and the Protestants, barely one-fifth of the nation, had, in the House
of Lords, 72 peers of their faith to 21 Catholics. In the Commons the
same disparity existed, there being 198 Protestant to 64 Catholic
members. In England, the defenders of the crown, who had fought against
Cromwell, were, in most cases, treated with justice, and many had their
possessions restored to them. In Ireland, the Royalists, of all creeds
and classes, were treated by the king and his advisers with shameful
ingratitude. Most of the confiscations of the Cromwell period were
confirmed, but the Catholic religion was tolerated, to a certain extent,
and the lives of priests and schoolmasters were not placed in jeopardy
as much as formerly. The Catholics made a good fight for the restoration
of their property, and were faithfully aided by the Earl of Kildare in
Ireland and by Colonel Richard Talbot—afterward Earl of Tyrconnel—in
England. But the Cromwellian settlers maintained the advantage in
property they had gained. In 1775, they still held 4,500,000 acres
against 2,250,000 acres held by the original proprietors. The figures,
according to the most reliable authorities, were almost exactly the
reverse before the Cromwellian settlement. An attempt on the part of the
Catholics, to be allowed greater privileges than they possessed, was met
in a most unfriendly spirit in England. One of their delegates, Sir
Nicholas Plunkett, was mobbed by the Londoners and forbidden the royal
presence by the order of the Council, while Colonel Talbot, because of
his bold championship of the Catholic cause, was sent for a period to
the Tower. The Irish Catholics were, finally, forbidden to make any
further address in opposition to the Bill of Settlement—as the act
confirming the confiscations was called—and the perfidious Charles
signed it without compunction, although he well knew he was beggaring
his own and his father’s friends. An English tribunal, appointed to sit
in Dublin and hear the Irish claims, declared in favor of the plundered
native proprietors, but as it was met immediately by the intrigues of
the ruthless Ormond, who again became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the
duration of this honest English tribunal was limited to a certain day,
when only about 800 out of 3,000 cases had been heard. A measure called
“An Act of Explanation” was then passed (1665), by which it was decreed
that “no Papist who had not been adjudged innocent under the former act
could be so adjudged thereafter, or entitled to claim any lands or
settlements.” “Thus,” remarks a historian, “even the inheritance of
hope, and the reversion of expectation, were extinguished forever for
the sons and daughters of the ancient gentry of the kingdom.”
An attempt made by the titled Catholic laity and the prelates and
priests of that faith to establish their true position in regard to
their spiritual and secular allegiance was also met in a hostile manner
by Ormond, who so managed as to excite a bitter controversy in regard to
a document called “The Remonstrance,” which was supposed to embody the
Catholic idea of the period. The viceroy succeeded to the top of his
bent. Dissension prevailed at a meeting of the surviving prelates of the
Church, and the superiors of regular orders, held in Dublin, and Ormond
made the failure of the gathering an excuse for persecuting the prelates
and priests, whom he bitterly hated as a body he could not use, with
penal severities, which the selfish and sensual king, who was himself a
Catholic in secret, allowed to pass without interference.
In this same year (1666) the importation of Irish cattle into England
was declared, by Parliamentary enactment, “a nuisance,” for the reason
that when the Londoners were starving, at the time of the Great Fire,
Ireland contributed for their relief 15,000 fat steers. Instead of being
grateful for the generous gift, the English lawmakers pretended to
believe it a scheme to preserve the trade in cattle between the two
kingdoms. The Navigation Act—invented by Cromwell—which put fetters on
Irish commerce, was also enforced, and these two grievances united, for
a time, the Puritans and the Old Irish, as both suffered equally from
the restrictions placed upon industry. Ormond showed favor to the
discontented Puritans, and was recalled in consequence. His retirement
lasted nine years, and during that period he became a patron of Irish
manufactures, especially in the county of Kilkenny. A bogus “Popish
plot”—an offshoot of that manufactured in England, during this reign, by
that arch-impostor and perjurer, Titus Oates—was trumped up in Ireland
for purposes of religious and political terrorism. The attempt to fasten
it upon the masses of the people happily failed, but, without even the
shadow of proof, the aged and venerated archbishop of Armagh, Oliver
Plunkett, was accused of complicity in it, arrested and confined,
without form of trial, for ten months in an Irish prison. Finally he was
removed to London and placed on trial. One of his “judges” was the
notorious Jeffreys—the English Norbury—a man destitute of a heart. Even
one of the paid perjurers, called a crown agent, stung by remorse,
offered to testify in behalf of the unfortunate archbishop. All was in
vain, however. The judges charged the jury against the accused,
violating every legal form, and the hapless prelate was found guilty. He
was sentenced to be “hanged, drawn, and quartered” on July 1, 1681. This
sentence was carried out in all its brutal details. When the Earl of
Essex appealed to the king to save the illustrious martyr, Charles
replied: “I can not pardon him, because I dare not. His blood be upon
your conscience. You could have saved him if you pleased!” And this
craven king, a few years afterward, on his deathbed, called for the
ministrations of a priest of the Church outraged by the murder of an
innocent prelate! The slaughter of Oliver Plunkett was the most
atrocious political assassination in English history, which reeks with
such crimes. The shooting of Duc d’Enghien by Napoleon did not approach
it in cold-blooded infamy. The king, the minister, the court, the
jury—everybody—believed the archbishop innocent, and yet he was
sacrificed that his blood might satisfy the rampant bigotry of the
times.
The Catholics were ferociously pursued in Ireland after this shameful
tragedy. Proclamations were issued against them by Ormond, who had yet
again become Lord Lieutenant. They were forbidden to enter fortresses or
to hold fairs, markets, or gatherings within the walls of corporate
towns. They were also forbidden the use of arms—an old English expedient
in Ireland—and they were commanded to kill or capture any “Tory” or
“outlaw” relative within fourteen days from the date of proclamation,
under penalty of being arrested and banished from Ireland. This was the
setting of brother against brother with a vengeance. Few of the Irish
people were found base enough to comply with the unnatural order, but
Count Redmond O’Hanlon, one of the few Irish chiefs of ancient family
who still held out against English penal law in Ireland, was
assassinated in a cowardly manner by one of Ormond’s ruthless tools. The
blood stains from the heart of the brave O’Hanlon will sully forever the
escutcheon of the Irish Butlers.
Just as the spirit of persecution of Catholics began to subside both in
England and Ireland, Charles II, who had been much worried by the
political contentions in his English kingdom, which resulted in the
banishment of Monmouth and the execution of Lord William Russell and
Algernon Sidney, had a stroke of apoplexy, which resulted in his death
on February 6, 1685. In his last moments he was attended by the Rev.
Father Huddlestone, who received him into the Catholic Church, which he
had betrayed so foully. He was immediately succeeded by his Catholic
brother, the Duke of York, who ascended the throne under the title of
James II. James was a man of resolute purpose, good intentions, no
doubt, but had a narrow intellect and sadly lacked discretion—at least
in the moral sense. His physical courage has been questioned, although
the famous Marshal Turenne certified to it, when he, in his fiery youth,
served in the French armies. He was destined, as we shall see, to ruin
his friends, exalt his enemies, and wreck the ancient Stuart dynasty.
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CHAPTER XI
Well-Meant but Imprudent Policy of King James—England Invites William of
Orange to Assume the Throne
ALTHOUGH the final outcome of his policy was disastrous to Ireland, we
feel justified in saying that James II meant well by all his subjects.
He was a friend of religious equality—an idea hateful to the English and
a large portion of the Scottish nation at that period. In Ireland, too,
the Protestant minority resented it, because, to their minds, it meant
Catholic ascendency and the restoration of stolen estates. But James
went about his reforms so awkwardly, and imprudently, that he brought on
himself almost immediately the all but unanimous ill-will of his English
subjects. He dared to profess his Catholic faith openly—an unforgivable
offence in England at that time. He sought to equalize the holding of
office by the abolition of the Test Act, aimed against Catholics, so
that English, Scotch, and Irish Catholics should have the same rights
and privileges in that respect as their Protestant brethren. This, also,
was an idea hateful to the English mind of the period. The king
undertook to regulate the judiciary, the privy council, the army, the
civil list—every public appointment—according to his own notions. This
meant recognition of the Catholics and produced an uproar in England. He
recalled Ormond from the viceroyalty of Ireland and sent Lord Clarendon
to take his place. Finally, Clarendon resigned and Richard Talbot, who
had been created Duke of Tyrconnel, was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
This appointment alarmed the Irish Protestants, who, as usual, feared
that the Catholics would get back their lands under a friendly
executive, such as Tyrconnel—whose former exertions in regard to the
Catholic claims were not forgotten—was well known to be. He was
injudicious enough, at the outset, to dismiss many Protestant officers
from the Irish military establishment and place Catholics in their
positions. Although this was done by proportion, Protestant jealousy was
aroused and the seeds of revolt were deeply planted.
In England, popular feeling against the king was at fever heat. His
illegitimate Protestant nephew—putative son of Charles II—the Duke of
Monmouth, who had been exiled, returned to England and organized a
rebellion against him. This ill-starred movement culminated at
Sedgemoor, in Somersetshire, in the summer of 1685. A battle was fought
there between the unorganized English peasants, under “King Monmouth,”
as they called him, and the royal army, under the Earl of Feversham. The
rebels fought with commendable courage, but were badly commanded and
suffered an overwhelming defeat. Monmouth escaped from the field, but
was captured soon afterward, tried, found guilty, and beheaded on Tower
Hill, of bloody memory, July 15, 1685. He had appealed in vain to James
for mercy, and appealed in a manner so craven and undignified that he
aroused the disgust of his stern uncle. But the blood of the vanquished
did not cease to flow when Monmouth died. The “Bloody Assizes,”
conducted by Jeffreys, the “great crimson toad,” as Dickens describes
him, and four assistant judges, spread death and terror throughout the
English districts recently in revolt. This period of English history
bore a striking resemblance to the 1798 period in Ireland, when other
“great crimson toads” hanged the hapless peasantry, and some of higher
rank, by the hundred and thousand. All this butchery made James
unpopular with a vast majority of the English people, but, as he had no
male heir, the nation hesitated to rise against him, especially as
Monmouth himself had been the aggressor. But James, while Duke of York,
had married a young wife, the Princess Mary, sister of the Duke of
Modena, who bore him a son—afterward called by the Hanoverian faction
the Pretender—in June, 1688. This altered the whole aspect of affairs
and a revolution became imminent immediately. Mary of Modena, although
an intelligent and amiable woman, was of a haughty and somewhat
punctilious disposition at times. This made her almost as unpopular with
the English people as was her husband. Sir Walter Scott relates that,
while Duchess of York, she accompanied her husband to Scotland, whither
he went at the behest of his brother, King Charles. James got along very
well with the Scotch, particularly the Highlanders, who adored him, and
whose loyalty to his family remained unshaken until after Culloden. He
invited an old Continental veteran, Sir Thomas Dalzell, to dine with
him. The duchess had the bad taste to object to the company of a
commoner. “Make yourself easy on that head, madam,” remarked Sir Thomas;
“I have sat at a table where your father might have stood behind my
chair!” He alluded to a dinner given him and others by the Emperor of
Austria, who was the suzerain of the Duke of Modena. The latter, if
called upon by the emperor, would have had to act in the capacity of an
honorary waiter. All students of history are, doubtless, familiar with
the romantic chivalry displayed by Edward the Black Prince, when he
waited upon his captive, King John of France, whom he had vanquished at
Poitiers. Mary of Modena was, we may be sure, not formed by nature to
make friends for her husband, as the brave Margaret of Anjou did for the
physically and mentally degenerate Plantagenet, Henry VI. Had Mary been
a Margaret, William of Orange might never have occupied the throne of
“the Three Kingdoms.” The climax of King James’s political
imprudences—they can not, in the light of modern ideas of religious
equality, be called errors—was reached when he issued his famous
declaration against test oaths and penal laws, and decreed that it
should be read from the altars of the Protestant, as well as the
Catholic, churches throughout England. Six Protestant prelates, headed
by the Archbishop of Canterbury, made protest by petition and even
visited the king in his bedchamber to dissuade him from his purpose. But
he persisted, as was usual with him.
On the Sunday following the bishops’ call, out of 10,000 English
clergymen only 200 complied with the royal decree. Of course we,
Americans, who have equal laws for all creeds and classes, can not
consistently condemn King James for advocating what we ourselves
practice, but we can afford to lament the fatuity which led him to dare
Protestant resentment by seeking to make Protestant pulpits the mediums
of his radical policy. It was playing with fire. Had he stopped short at
this point, James might have still held his crown, but, with incurable
obstinacy, he insisted on prosecuting the recalcitrant bishops before
the Court of King’s Bench, and they were finally committed by the Privy
Council to the Tower of London. All England was now ablaze with fierce
resentment. At the Tower the right reverend prisoners were treated more
like royal personages than captives. The officers and soldiers of the
army—excepting the Irish regiments raised by Tyrconnel for James, and
sent to do garrison duty in England—openly drank to their speedy
release. When they came to trial in the King’s Bench, the jury, after
being out on the case all night, found the six prelates not guilty on
the charge of censuring the king’s government and defying the king’s
mandate, and they were immediately released amid popular acclamation.
The “loyal” Protestant majority had succeeded in placing the Catholic
minority, their own fellow-countrymen, in a position of political
nonentity, simply because they worshiped God according to their belief.
Who could, then, have imagined that the England which refused equality
in the holding of office to Catholic subjects would, about two hundred
years later, have a Catholic for Lord Chief Justice and an Irish
Catholic (Lord Russell of Killowen) at that? Five generations have done
much toward a change of sentiment in England. But King James, we are
told, on hearing the shouts of the people when the acquittal was
announced, asked of Lord Feversham, who happened to be with him: “What
do they shout for?” And Feversham replied, carelessly: “Oh, nothing—only
the acquittal of the bishops!” “And you call that nothing?” cried the
king. “So much the worse for them,” meaning the people. These latter
were excited by the Protestant lords and gentry, who much feared a
Catholic succession, now that the king had an heir-male to the throne.
Both of his daughters—Mary, married to William, Prince of Orange, the
king’s nephew, and Anne, who became the wife of the Prince of
Denmark—were Protestants, their mother having brought them up in that
belief. William, half a Stuart and half a Dutchman, brave, resolute, and
wise withal, seemed to the English malcontents to be the
“heaven-appointed” man to supplant his own uncle and father-in-law.
William was nothing loth, and Mary, who was to share the throne with
him, made no objection to this most unfilial proceeding. Neither did
Anne, who, like the unnatural creature she was, fled from her father’s
palace, guided and guarded by the Protestant Bishop of London, as soon
as she heard of William’s almost unobstructed march on the capital. That
personage had landed at Torbay, in Devonshire, on November 5—the
anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot of the days of James I—convoyed by an
immense fleet, which carried to the shores of England a picked veteran
army of 15,000 men. This army was commanded, under William, by the
Marshal Duke of Schomberg, Count Solmes, General De Ginkel, and other
officers of European renown. The principal plotters who invited William
to seize the crown of England were the Earls of Danby, Shrewsbury,
Devonshire, the Bishop of London, Lord Lumley, Admiral Russell, and
Colonel Sidney. Just a little while before the coming of William, James
took the alarm and attempted to make concessions to the Protestants. He
also decreed the strengthening of the army, and the enlistment of Irish
Catholics and Scotch Highlanders, most of whom had retained the old
faith, was encouraged.
At the news of William’s arrival in Exeter, whither he had marched from
Torbay, the English aristocracy became wildly excited and hastened to
join his standard. The faculty of the University of Oxford sent him word
that, if he needed money to carry out his enterprise, the plate of that
institution would be melted down to furnish him with a revenue. An
agreement of the nobility and gentry was drawn up and signed, and in it
they promised to stand by William of Orange and each other, “in defence
of the laws and liberties of the three kingdoms and the Protestant
religion.” Thus, it will be noticed, Protestant interests was the cry of
the majority in England, opposed to James, who, as we have said, aimed
at equality of all creeds before the law, while in Ireland, where the
old faith “prevailed mightily,” Catholic interests, or civil and
religious liberty, became, also, the war-cry of the majority. In England
the Catholic minority remained mostly supine during this period and
until long afterward. In Scotland the Catholics and many Episcopalians
rallied for James under the leadership of the implacable and brilliant
Claverhouse, afterward created Viscount Dundee. They took the field for
“James VII of Scotland,” as they called the exiled king, at the first
tap of the war drum. The Catholic majority in Ireland naturally
recognized in the unfortunate monarch a friend who offered them
religious and political liberty, and so they resolved to place their
“lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” at his disposal.
The Irish Catholics can not be justly blamed for their devotion to the
cause of James, who, whatever his motives, was the first King of England
who ever attempted to do them even ordinary justice. Tyrconnel, like
Strafford in a preceding reign, although with a very different
intention, began the organization of a formidable Irish army, which was
designed to be composed of twenty regiments of horse, fifty of foot, and
artillery in the usual proportion. There were men for the mere asking,
but arms, ammunition, and equipments were sadly lacking. The weakest arm
of the military branch of the public service was the artillery, and this
continued to be the fact throughout all of the subsequent war. As
William drew nearer to London, the bulk of the native English army,
following the example of the highest officers—including Colonel John
Churchill, afterward the great Duke of Marlborough—went over to him.
This determined James to abandon his capital, yet his friends induced
him to return for a period. But the still nearer approach of “the
Deliverer,” as the English called William of Orange, again induced him
to fly from London. He had previously provided for the safety of the
queen and the infant heir to the now forfeited crown, who had taken
refuge in France. The date of his final departure from Whitehall Palace
was December 11. After not a few perilous adventures, he reached the
court of his cousin, Louis XIV, at Versailles, on Christmas Day, 1688.
He was most honorably and hospitably received, and Louis placed at his
disposal the royal palace of St. Germain, in the neighborhood of Paris.
When James heard of the desertion of his youngest daughter, Anne, to his
enemies, the wretched parent, who has been called “the modern Lear,”
exclaimed in the anguish of his soul: “God help me! My very children
have deserted me!”
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CHAPTER XII
Irish Soldiers Ill-Treated in England—Policy of Tyrconnel—King James
Chosen by the Irish Nation
SUCH Irish soldiers as had remained in England after the flight of James
were mobbed, insulted, and even murdered by the unthinking multitude, so
easily excited to deeds of cruelty. These men had done the English
people no wrong—they had shed no English blood, and they even wore the
English uniform. Many fell in savage combats with the furious mobs, but
the majority fought their way to the seaports, where they, by some
means, obtained shipment to Ireland, carrying with them many a bitter
memory of England and her people. Many of these persecuted troops were
well-trained cavalry, who afterward manifested splendid prowess at the
Boyne and in other engagements. Their colonels were all members of the
ancient Irish nobility, Celtic or Norman, and they were quite incapable
of the crimes the credulous English mobs were taught to believe they
were ready to commit at the earliest opportunity. Although the English
people, in their normal condition, are a steady and courageous race,
they are, when unduly excited, capable of entertaining sentiments and
performing acts discreditable to them as a nation. A people so ready to
resent any imposition, real or fancied, on themselves, should be a
little less quick to punish others for following their example. It is
not too much to say that the English, as a majority, have been made the
victims of more religious and political hoaxes—imposed upon them by
evil-minded knaves—than any other civilized nation. It was of the
English, rather than ourselves, the great American showman, Barnum,
should have said: “These people love to be humbugged!”
From the French court, which entirely sympathized with him, James
entered into correspondence with his faithful subject and friend,
Tyrconnel, in Ireland. The viceroy sent him comforting intelligence, for
all the Catholics of fighting age were willing to bear arms in his
defence. James sent Tyrconnel about 10,000 good muskets, with the
requisite ammunition, to be used by the new levies. These were obtained
from the bounty of the King of France. As Tyrconnel was convinced that
Ireland, of herself, could hardly make headway against William of
Orange, backed as he was by most of Great Britain and half of Europe, he
conceived the idea of placing her, temporarily at least, under a French
protectorate, in the shape of an alliance defensive and offensive, if
necessary. He had the tact to keep King James in ignorance of this
agreement, because he did not wish him to jeopardize his chance of
regaining the British crown, which a consenting to the French
protectorate would have utterly forfeited. Tyrconnel’s policy, under the
circumstances in which Ireland was placed, may have been a wise one,
although, in general, any dependency of one country upon another is
fatal to the liberty of the dependent nation. Ireland, contrary to
general belief, is large enough to stand alone, if she had control of
her own resources. To illustrate briefly, she is within a few thousand
square miles of being as large as Portugal, and is much more fertile;
while she is almost a third greater in area than Holland and Belgium
combined. Her extensive coast line, numerous safe harbors, and exceeding
productiveness amply compensate for the comparative smallness of her
area.
In February, 1689, the national conventions of England and Scotland, by
vast majorities, declared that King James had abdicated and offered the
crown to William and Mary, who, as might have been expected, accepted it
with thanks. Ireland had nothing to say in the matter, except by the
voices of a few malcontents who had fled to Britain. Nevertheless, the
new sovereigns finally assumed the rather illogical title of “William
and Mary, ‘by the grace of God,’ King and Queen of England, Scotland,
France, and Ireland.” In France they held not a foot of ground; and in
Ireland four-fifths of the people acknowledged King James. James Graham,
of Claverhouse (Viscount Dundee), expressed his dissent from the
majority in the convention of Scotland. Sir Walter Scott has
immortalized the event in the stirring lyric which begins thus:
“To the Lords of Convention ‘twas Claverhouse spoke,
’Ere the king’s crown shall fall, there are crowns to be broke,
So let each cavalier, who loves honor and me,
Come follow the bonnet of Bonnie Dundee!”
James had some strong partisans in England also—mostly among the Roman
Catholic and Episcopalian High Church elements, but they were powerless
to stem the overwhelming tide of public opinion against him. Ireland was
with him vehemently, except the small Protestant minority, chiefly
resident in Ulster, which was enthusiastic for William and Mary.
Representatives of this active element had closed the gates of Derry in
the face of the Earl of Antrim, when he demanded the town’s surrender,
in the name of the deposed king, in December, 1688. This incident proved
that the Irish Protestants, with the usual rule-proving exceptions,
meant “war to the knife” against the Catholic Stuart dynasty. Thus civil
war, intensified by foreign intervention, became inevitable.
The towns of Inniskillen, Sligo, Coleraine, and the fort of Culmore, on
the Foyle, either followed the example of Derry, or were seized without
ceremony by the partisans of William and Mary in Ulster and Connaught.
These partisans, headed by Lord Blaney, Sir Arthur Rawdon, and other
Anglo-Irishmen, invited William to come into the country, “for the
maintenance of the Protestant religion and the dependency of Ireland
upon England.” Thus, again, was the Protestant religion made the pretext
of provincializing Ireland, and because of this identification of it
with British supremacy the new creed has remained undeniably unpopular
with the masses of the Irish people. The latter are very ardent
Catholics, as their long and bloody wars in defence of their faith have
amply proven, but while this statement is undeniable, it can not be
denied either that had the so-called Reformation not been identified
with English political supremacy, it might have made much greater
inroads among the Irish population than it has succeeded in doing.
Ireland was treated not a whit better under the Catholic rulers of
England, from 1169 to the period of Mary I—Henry VIII was a schismatic
rather than a Protestant—than under her Protestant rulers, until James
II appeared upon the scene, and his clemency toward the Irish was based
upon religious rather than national grounds. Even in our own day, the
English Catholics are among the strongest opponents of Irish legislative
independence, and in the category of such opponents may be classed the
late Cardinal Vaughan and the present Duke of Norfolk.
King James, at the call of the Irish majority, left his French retreat,
and sailed from Brest with a fleet provided by King Louis, which saw him
in safety to memorable Kinsale, where he landed on March 12, old style,
1689. He was accompanied by about 1,200 veteran troops, French and
Irish, with a sprinkling of royalists, Scotch and English, and several
officers of high rank, including Lieutenant-General De Rosen,
Lieutenant-General Maumont, Major-General De Lery, Major-General
Pusignan, Colonel Patrick Sarsfield, afterward the renowned Earl of
Lucan, and the king’s two natural sons, the Duke of Berwick and Grand
Prior Fitzjames. There came with him also fifteen Catholic chaplains,
most of whom could speak the Gaelic tongue, and these gentlemen were
very useful to him on a mission such as he had undertaken. The progress
of the ill-fated monarch through Ireland, from Kinsale to Dublin was, in
every sense, a royal one. The Irish masses, ever grateful to any one who
makes sacrifices, or who even appears to make them, in their behalf,
turned out in all their strength. A brilliant cavalcade, headed by the
dashing Duke of Tyrconnel, escorted the king from town to town. His
collateral descent from King Edward Bruce, freely chosen by Ireland
early in the fourteenth century, was remembered. James was, therefore,
really welcomed as King of Ireland. The Irish cared nothing for his
British title. If the choice of the majority of a nation makes regal
title binding, then James II was as truly elected King of Ireland, in
1689, as Edward Bruce was in 1315. And we make this statement thus
plainly, because it will enable non-Irish and non-Catholic readers to
understand why Catholic Ireland fought so fiercely and devotedly for an
English ruler who had lost his crown in the assertion of Catholic rights
and privileges. There was still another cause for this devotion of the
majority of the Irish people to King James. He had consented to the
summoning of a national Irish parliament, in which Protestants as well
as Catholics were to be represented in due proportion, and this decision
on his part made many of the Episcopalian Irish either neutral in the
civil conflict or active on his side. The number of such persons as were
comprised in the latter class was comparatively insignificant—just
enough to mitigate the curse of absolute sectarianism in the contest.
The Dissenting or non-conforming Irish were, almost to a unit, hostile
to the Jacobite cause.
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BOOK IV
CHRONICLING IMPORTANT EVENTS IN IRELAND FROM THE ARRIVAL OF JAMES II IN
THAT COUNTRY UNTIL THE DEPARTURE OF THE DUKE OF BERWICK TO FRANCE AFTER
THE FIRST SIEGE OF LIMERICK, IN 1690
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CHAPTER I
King James in Ireland—Enthusiastic Reception of Him by the Irish
People—Military Operations
NOTHING could exceed the enthusiasm with which the Irish people welcomed
King James. In the cities and towns, flowers were strewn in his path,
corporation officials turned out in their robes of state, and speeches
of welcome were delivered in English or read in Latin. The entry into
Dublin was a magnificent spectacle. The whole city was in gala dress,
and the different trades paraded before him. Harpers played at the
triumphal arches under which he passed. Beautiful young girls, costumed
in pure white, and coroneted with wreaths, danced the ancient Irish
national dance, known as the Rinka, in the progress of which flowers
were profusely scattered by the fair performers. The religious orders
were out in force, a great cross being borne at their head. The viceroy,
lord mayor, and members of the corporation, on horseback or in
carriages, made up an imposing part of the procession. When he reached
the Castle, the sword of state was presented to him by the Lord
Lieutenant, and the Recorder handed him, according to an old custom, the
keys of the city. “Te Deum” was sung in the Chapel Royal, one of the
architectural creations of the Duke of Tyrconnel. From the flagstaff on
the tower of the Castle itself, floated an Irish national flag, with a
golden harp upon its folds; and on this broad ensign were inscribed the
inspiring and sadly prophetic words, “Now or Never! Now and Forever!”
Wherever the king appeared in public, he was greeted with enthusiastic
shouts, in Gaelic, of “Righ Seamus!—Righ Seamus, Go Bragh”! (“King
James—King James, Forever!”)
The military situation of King James’s adherents in Ireland could not be
called encouraging when he took up his residence in Dublin. As usual,
arms and ammunition were scarce. Some 30,000 men had volunteered to
fight for Ireland, and there were not more than 20,000 stand of arms,
all told, to place in their hands. And of this small supply, fully
three-fourths were antiquated and worthless. While there were,
nominally, fifty regiments of infantry enrolled, the only serviceable
regiments of horse were those of Galmoy, Tyrconnel, and Russell. There
was one regiment of dragoons, and of cannon only eight field-pieces had
been collected. The two best-equipped bodies of Irish troops were the
command of General Richard Hamilton, in Ulster—about 3,000 men; and that
of General Justin McCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, in Munster—slightly more
numerous. Derry and Inniskillen held out for William of Orange, and
notwithstanding some successes of General Hamilton in the North, there
seemed no immediate prospect of reducing them. The stubborn attitude of
Inniskillen delayed the junction of Mountcashel’s and Hamilton’s forces,
which had been ordered by the Duke of Tyrconnel, commander-in-chief of
the Irish army, with General De Rosen as his second in command. The
smaller places occupied by the Williamite forces were abandoned as being
untenable, and the little garrisons fell back on Londonderry, which had
now become the main objective of the Jacobite army. The military
governor, Lundy, was suspected of being, at heart, a Stuart sympathizer,
but he was soon virtually superseded, first by Governor Baker and
afterward by the celebrated Rev. George Walker, rector of the living of
Donoughmore, to whom history awards the glory of the long, desperate,
brilliant, and successful defence of Derry against the armies of King
James. It is a pity that the ability and bravery displayed by Dr. Walker
have been made causes of political and religious irritation in the north
of Ireland for upward of two centuries. Lundy, when his authority was
defied, escaped from the city at night, in the disguise of a laborer,
and cut no further figure in Irish history. Before his flight, King
James’s flatterers in Dublin had persuaded him to advance against Derry
in person and demand its surrender. Tyrconnel opposed the idea in vain.
He well knew that Lundy was in correspondence with Hamilton and De Rosen
for the surrender of the city. It is quite probable that Derry would
have finally surrendered, on honorable terms, had James taken
Tyrconnel’s advice; but, with his usual fatuity, the obstinate king took
the advice of the shallow courtiers, and did actually present himself
before the walls of Derry and demand its unconditional surrender! The
reply was a cannon shot, which killed an officer at James’s side. The
king retired with precipitation, and the citizens sent after him the
“Prentice Boys’” shout of “No surrender!” Mortified by his rather
ignominious failure, James retired to Dublin, and summoned Parliament to
meet on the lines already indicated.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
Jacobites Foiled at Londonderry—Mountcashel Defeated at Newtown
Butler—King James’s Irish Parliament
THE siege of Derry was continued under the supervision of Maumont and
Hamilton, who had quite a large force at their disposal. It is
regrettable to have to state that the Protestant population of Ulster
was further inflamed against the Stuart cause by the needless excesses
of Galmoy and the barbaric severity of De Rosen, who placed a crowd of
helpless women and children between two fires under the ramparts of
Derry, in the hope of compelling the garrison to surrender. The
brilliant victories obtained over the Williamites at Coleraine and
Cladysford, by General Hamilton, in the earlier part of the campaign,
were more than offset by the overwhelming defeat inflicted by General
Wolseley, at Newtown Butler, on the Jacobite army under Mountcashel. It
was Irish against Irish, but the Inniskilleners, who made up the bulk of
Wolseley’s force, were seasoned soldiers, well armed and well directed.
Mountcashel’s men were chiefly green levies, and the battle was really
lost through their faulty manœuvring. One brigade mistook an order to
change front, so as to form a new line against a flank attack of the
enemy, for an order to retreat, and so spread a panic that proved fatal.
Mountcashel himself was dangerously wounded and made prisoner. He lost
2,000 men in killed and wounded, and 400 fugitives, completely
surrounded, surrendered at some distance from the field. This battle was
fought on July 31, 1689, and, on the same day, Derry was relieved by an
English fleet, which succeeded in breaking the boom that had been
constructed by the Jacobite engineers across the mouth of the harbor.
It will be remembered that the gates of the city were closed against
Lord Antrim on December 7, 1688. Hamilton’s bombardment of the place
began on the 17th of April, 1689, and lasted for three months. There was
a total blockade for three weeks, and provisions became so scarce that
the defenders actually devoured dogs, cats, rats, mice—anything, however
revolting, that might satisfy the cravings of absolute hunger. The
besiegers also suffered from bad weather and the shots from the hostile
batteries. A rough computation places the total loss of the defenders at
about 4,000 men, and that of the assailants at 6,000—the latter loss
chiefly by disease. The relief of Derry was a mortal blow to the cause
of King James, and soon afterward he lost every important post in
Ulster, except Carrickfergus and Charlemont. Yet, as an Irish writer has
well remarked, Ulster was bestowed by the king’s grandfather “upon the
ancestors of those who now unanimously rejected and resisted him.” His
cause also received a fatal stroke in Scotland by the death of the brave
Dundee, who fell, vainly victorious, over the Williamite general,
Mackay, at the battle of Killecrankie, fought July 26, 1689. Duke
Schomberg arrived in Belfast Lough with a large fleet and army on August
13th. Count Solmes was his second in command. He laid siege to
Carrickfergus, which capitulated on fair terms after eight days’
bombardment. Charlemont, defended by the brave and eccentric Colonel
Teague O’Regan, held out till the following May, when it surrendered
with the honors of war. It is said that King William, on his arrival in
Ireland, knighted O’Regan in recognition of the brilliancy of his
defence. The young Duke of Berwick made a gallant stand in the
neighborhood, but was finally compelled to yield ground to the superior
forces of Schomberg. Critics of the latter’s strategy hold that he
committed a grave military error in failing to march on the Irish
capital, which was not in a good posture of defence, immediately after
landing in Ulster. Had he done so, King James must have had to evacuate
Dublin and fall back on the defensive line of the Shannon, as Tyrconnel
and Sarsfield did at a later period. Then Schomberg, it is claimed,
would not have lost more than half of his army, by dysentery, at his
marshy camp near Dundalk, where King James, in the autumn, bearded and
defied him to risk battle with the stronger and healthier Jacobite
forces. There would have been no occasion for the Battle of the Boyne,
the memory of which has divided and distracted Irishmen for more than
two centuries, had the challenge been accepted.
The Parliament summoned by James met in the Inn’s Court, Dublin, in the
summer of 1689. It was composed of 46 peers and 228 commoners. Of the
former body, several were High Church Protestants, but, in the Lower
House, there were comparatively few members of the “reformed religion.”
This, however, was not the fault of the king or his advisers, as they
were sincere in their desire to have a full Protestant representation in
that Parliament. But, perhaps naturally, the Protestants were suspicious
of the king’s good intentions, and so the majority held aloof from the
Parliamentary proceedings. The most important acts passed by that
Parliament were one establishing liberty of conscience, which provided,
among other things, that Catholics should not be compelled to pay tithes
to Protestant clergymen, and _vice versa_; another act established the
judicial independence of Ireland, by abolishing writs of error and
appeal to England. The Act of Settlement was repealed, under protest by
the Protestant peers, who did not, for obvious reasons, wish the
question of land titles obtained by fraud and force opened up. An act of
attainder, directed against persons in arms against their sovereign in
Ireland, was added to the list of measures. Heedless of the advice of
his wisest friends, James vetoed the bill for the repeal of the infamous
Poynings’ Law, which made the Irish Parliament dependent upon that of
England; and also declined to approve a measure establishing Inns of
Court for the education of Irish law students. In the first-mentioned
case, James acted from a belief that his own prerogative of vetoing
Irish measures in council was attacked, but his hostility to the measure
for legal education has never been satisfactorily explained. Taken as a
whole, however, King James’s Irish Parliament was a legislative success;
and it enabled the Protestant patriot and orator, Henry Grattan, when
advocating Catholic claims in the Irish Parliament a hundred years
afterward, to say: “Although Papists, the Irish Catholics were not
slaves. They wrung a Constitution from King James before they
accompanied him to the field.”
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CHAPTER III
King James’s Imprudent Acts—Witty Retort of a Protestant
Peer—Architectural Features of Dublin
OUR last chapter showed that Ireland, although her population was
overwhelmingly Catholic, began her struggle for civil liberty by a
non-sectarian enactment, which left the exercise of religion free. Yet,
strange to say, this wise and liberal policy did not win her the
sympathy of Europe, Protestant or Catholic, outside of France, whose
king had personal reasons for his friendliness. Louis XIV was both hated
and feared by the sovereigns of continental, as well as insular, Europe.
A combination, called the League of Augsburg, was formed against him,
and of this League the Emperor of Germany was the head and William of
Orange an active member. Spain, Savoy, and other Catholic states were as
zealous against Louis as the Protestant states of Sweden and North
Germany. Even the Pope was on the side of the French king’s foes. In
fact, when Duke Schomberg landed, the war had resolved itself into a
conflict between the rest of Europe, except Muscovy and Turkey and their
dependencies, and France and Ireland. It was a most unequal struggle,
but most gallantly maintained, with varying fortune, on Irish soil
chiefly, for two long and bloody years.
King James made enemies among his warmest supporters by increasing the
subsidy voted him by Parliament to twice the original amount, payable
monthly. He also debased the currency, by issuing “brass money,” which
led to the demoralization of trade, and Tyrconnel, after James’s
departure from Ireland, was compelled to withdraw the whole fraudulent
issue in order to stop the popular clamor. Some Protestant writers,
notably Dr. Cooke Taylor, have warmly commended the king’s judicial
appointments in Ireland, with few exceptions. In short, to sum up this
portion of his career, James II acted in Ireland the part of despot
benevolently inclined, who thought he was doing a wise thing in giving
the people a paternal form of government. But the Irish people can not
long endure one-man rule, unless convinced that the one man is much
wiser than the whole mass of the nation, which is not often the case. It
certainly was not in the case of King James. His establishment of a bank
by proclamation and his decree of a bank restriction act annoyed and
angered the commercial classes, whose prices for goods he also sought to
regulate. But his crowning act of unwisdom was interference with the
government of that time-honored educational institution, Trinity
College, Dublin, on which, notwithstanding its statutes, he sought to
force officers of his own choosing. He also wished to make fellowships
and scholarships open to Catholics—a just principle, indeed, but a rash
policy, considering that every act of the kind only multiplied his
enemies among the Protestants of Ireland, who were already sufficiently
hostile. Had King James proceeded slowly in his chosen course, he might
have come down to posterity as a successful royal reformer.
Unfortunately for his fame, posterity in general regards him as a
conspicuous political as well as military failure.
Among King James’s chosen intimates and advisers during his residence in
Dublin, the most distinguished were the Duke of Tyrconnel, the Earl of
Melfort, Secretary of State; Count D’Avaux, the French Ambassador; Lord
Mountcashel, Colonel Sarsfield, afterward so famous; Most Rev. Dr.
McGuire, Primate of Ireland, and Chief Justice Lord Nugent. He generally
attended Mass every morning in the Chapel Royal, and, on Sundays,
assisted at solemn High Mass. One Sunday, he was attended to the
entrance of the chapel by a loyal Protestant lord, whose father had been
a Catholic, as James’s had been a Protestant. As he was taking his
leave, the king remarked, rather dryly: “My lord, your father would have
gone farther.” “Very true, sire,” responded the witty nobleman, “but
your Majesty’s father would not have gone so far!”
The Dublin of that time was not, in any sense, the attractive city it is
to-day. Beyond the great cathedrals and the ancient Castle, there was
little to attract the eye, except the beauty of the surroundings, which
are still the admiration of all visitors. A century after the reign of
King James, Dublin, from an architectural standpoint, became one of the
most classical of European capitals; and the Houses of Parliament, the
Four Courts, the Custom House, and other public buildings, became the
pride of the populace. These monuments of Irish genius still exist,
although shorn of their former glory; but they serve, at least, to
attest what Ireland could accomplish under native rule. There is not a
penny of English money in any of these magnificent structures. All the
credit of their construction belongs to the Irish Parliaments of the
eighteenth century.
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CHAPTER IV
Composition of the Hostile Armies—King William Arrives in
Ireland—Narrowly Escapes Death on Eve of Battle
DURING the spring and early summer of 1690, the war clouds began to mass
themselves heavily in the northeastern portion of the island, where Duke
Schomberg, his depleted army somewhat recruited, still held his ground
at Dundalk, with small garrisons posted throughout Ulster. But it was
soon known that William of Orange, in person, was to command in chief in
this fateful campaign. Several engagements, with varying fortune, had
occurred between the rival armies in different parts of the north
country, where the Duke of Berwick waged a vigorous campaign against the
Williamites. James, dissatisfied with the French Ambassador, D’Avaux,
and Lieutenant-General De Rosen, demanded, and obtained, their recall by
King Louis. By an arrangement between the two monarchs, Mountcashel’s
command of 6,000 men was exchanged for 6,000 French troops, under
Lieutenant-General De Lauzun, who eventually proved to be even a greater
marplot and blunderer than the odious De Rosen. Mountcashel’s force
formed the Old Irish Brigade, of immortal memory, in the French service,
and almost immediately after its arrival in France was sent to operate
under the famous Lieutenant-General St. Ruth in Savoy. It also served in
several campaigns under the great Marshal Catinat, “Father Thoughtful,”
as he was fondly called by the French army. The exchange proved a bad
bargain for Ireland, as will be seen in the course of this narration.
James hoped much from the skill and daring of the French contingent, but
was doomed to bitter disappointment. “His troops,” says McGee, “were
chiefly Celtic and Catholic. There were four regiments commanded by
O’Neills, two by O’Briens, one each by McCarthy More, Maguire, O’More,
O’Donnell, McMahon, and Magennis, chiefly recruited among their own
clansmen. There were also the regiments of Sarsfield, Nugent, De Courcy,
Fitzgerald, Grace, and Burke, chiefly Celts in the rank and file. On the
other hand, Schomberg led into the field the famous Blue and White Dutch
regiments; the Huguenot regiments of Schomberg (the Younger), La
Millinier, Du Cambon, and La Caillemotte; the English regiments of Lords
Devonshire, Delamere, Lovelace, Sir John Lanier, Colonels Langston,
Villiers, and others; the Anglo-Irish regiments of Lords Meath,
Roscommon, Kingston, and Drogheda, with the Ulstermen under Brigadier
Wolseley and Colonels Gustavus Hamilton, Mitchellburn, Lloyd, White, St.
John, and Tiffany.”
The absence of a fleet, the entire navy having gone over to William,
placed James at a great disadvantage, and explains why there were no sea
fights of importance in British and Irish waters during this war.
Isolated French squadrons could not be expected to make headway against
the united navies of Britain and Holland. William, on the contrary, had
the seas wide open to him, and, on June 14, 1690, he landed at
Carrickfergus with reinforcements and supplies for his army in Ireland,
and accompanied by the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, Prince George of
Denmark, the Duke of Ormond, the Earls of Portland, Manchester, Oxford,
and Scarborough; General Mackay, General Douglas, and many other
warriors well known to British and Continental fame. He established
headquarters at Belfast and caused a muster of all his forces, which
showed him to be at the head of about 40,000 men, mostly veterans, and
made up of contingents from Scandinavia, Holland, Switzerland,
Brandenburg, England, Scotland, Ulster, together with the exiled
Huguenot regiments of France and the Anglo-Irish battalions of the Pale.
Allowing for detachments, William had under him an army of, at least,
36,000 effective men, officered by the best military talent of the
period.
James, according to all Irish and some British authorities, commanded a
force of 17,000 Irish, of whom alone the cavalry, numbering, probably,
from five to six thousand men, were considered thoroughly trained. In
addition, he had 6,000 well-appointed French infantry, under De Lauzun,
which brought his total up to some 23,000 men, with only twelve pieces
of cannon. William, on the other hand, possessed a powerful and
well-appointed artillery. Once again, James was advised not to oppose
his comparatively weak and ill-disciplined army to an encounter with the
veteran host of William, and again the advantages of the defensive line
of the Shannon were pointed out to him. But he would not listen to the
voice of prudence, and marched northward to meet his rival, almost
immediately after learning of his debarkation at Carrickfergus. The
Stuart army reached Dundalk about June 22, when William was reported to
be at Newry. His scouts were soon seen on the neighboring heights, and
the Franco-Irish forces fell back on the river Boyne, and took post on
the southern bank, within a few miles of Drogheda. The Irish camp was
pitched immediately below the hill of Donore and near the small village
of Oldbridge, in the obtuse salient, pointing northwestward, formed by
the second bend in the river in its course from Slane—about six miles
from Oldbridge—to the sea. In the chart of the battle, published by the
Rev. George Story, King William’s chaplain, in 1693, three strong
batteries are shown in front of the right of the Irish army, on the
south bank of the Boyne, and one protecting its left opposite to the
point where the Mattock rivulet falls into the main river. But no Irish
account mentions these batteries. Some critics have thought it strange
that the Williamites, instead of making a long and tedious movement by
Slane, did not endeavor to attack both sides of the river salient at
once, and thus place the Irish army between two fires. The water,
apparently, was no deeper above than below the rivulet, but even were it
deeper, William had with him a well-appointed bridge train, and the
feeble battery, if any existed at all, would be insufficient to check
the ardor of his chosen veterans. On the summit of Donore Hill, which
slopes backward for more than a mile from the river, stood a little
church, with a graveyard and some huts beside it. Even in 1690, it was
an insignificant ruin, but it is noted in Anglo-Irish history as marking
the headquarters of King James during the operations on the Boyne.
The right wing of the Irish army extended itself toward that smaller
part of Drogheda which is situated on the south bank of the river, in
the County Meath. The centre faced the fords in front of Oldbridge,
where several small shoals, or islands, as marked in Story’s map,
rendered the passage of an attacking force comparatively easy of
accomplishment. The left wing stretched in the direction of Slane, where
there was a bridge, and, nearer to the Irish army, a ford practicable
for cavalry. James was urged to strengthen this wing of his army, sure
to be attacked, the day before the battle, but he could only be induced
to send out some cavalry patrols to observe the ground. When the tide,
which backs the water up from below Drogheda, is out, many points on the
river in front of the Irish position are easily fordable, and there has
been little or no change in the volume of the current during the last
two centuries. Therefore, the Boyne presented no such formidable
obstacle to a successful crossing as some imaginative historians have
sought to make out. Neither did nature, in other respects, particularly
favor the Irish in the choice of their ground. Their army occupied a
fairly good defensive position, if its advantages had been properly
utilized. King James interfered with the plans of his generals, as it
was his habit to interfere in every department of his government, not at
all to the advantage of the public service. An able general, such as
William or Schomberg was, might have made the Irish ground secure; that
is, with sufficient cannon to answer the formidable park brought into
action by the enemy. The Irish army was in position on June 29, and on
the following day, King William, accompanied by his staff and escort,
appeared on the opposite heights. His main army was concealed behind the
hills in the depression now known as King William’s Glen. With his
customary daring activity, the astute Hollander immediately proceeded to
reconnoitre the Jacobite position, of which he obtained a good view,
though some of the regiments were screened by the irregularities of the
ground. Although within easy range of the Irish lines, he was not
molested for some time. Having concluded his observations, William, with
his officers, dismounted. Lunch was spread on the grass by the
attendants, and the party proceeded to regale themselves. They were
allowed to finish in peace, but when they remounted and turned toward
their camp, the report of a field-piece came from the Irish side. A
round shot ricochetted and killed a member of the escort. A second ball
caught the king upon the shoulder, tore his coat and broke the skin
beneath it. He fell forward on his horse, but immediately recovered
himself, and the entire party rode rapidly out of range. The Irish
officers, who had observed the confusion caused by the second shot,
imagined that William had been killed. The news was circulated in the
camp, speedily traveled to Dublin, and soon found its way to Great
Britain and the Continent. But William was not dead. After the surgeons
had dressed his wound, he insisted on again mounting his horse, and,
like Napoleon when he was wounded in front of Ratisbon, in 1809, showed
himself to the army, whose shouts of joy speedily informed the Irish
troops that their able enemy was still in the saddle. A brisk cannonade,
which did but little damage, was then exchanged between the two armies.
It was the noisy prelude of a much more eventful drama. On the morrow
was to be decided the fate not alone of the ancient Stuart dynasty, but
also of Ireland, with all Europe for witnesses. Night put an end to the
artillery duel, and the hostile hosts, except the sentinels, disposed
themselves to sleep. History fails to record the watchword of King
James’s army, but Chaplain Story is authority for the statement that the
word in William’s camp was “Westminster.” The soldiers on both sides, to
use the military phrase, “slept upon their arms.”
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CHAPTER V
Battle of the Boyne—Death of Marshal Schomberg—Valor of Irish
Cavalry—Inexcusable Flight of King James
TUESDAY morning, July 1, old style, dawned beautifully on the river
Boyne. Both of the royal hosts were drawn out in all their bravery, and
the early sun glittered on their burnished arms. We have no good account
of their uniforms, but, judging by prints of the period, the British, in
general, wore scarlet and the Continental allies blue. Some of the
French regiments allied to the Irish army wore white and others blue
coats, which were the favorite colors of the Bourbon kings. The Irish
army must surely have worn scarlet—the livery of the House of
Stuart—because, we are informed by George Story and other historians,
they bore white badges in their hats, to distinguish themselves from the
Williamites, who wore green boughs in theirs. The white cockade, or
rosette, was the emblem of the Dukes of York—a title borne by James, as
will be remembered, before his accession. The irony of fate, surely, was
made manifest by the circumstance of William’s soldiers wearing
Ireland’s national color, as now generally recognized, on the occasion
of her most fateful, although not bloodiest, defeat.
At 6 o’clock A.M., William took the initiative by ordering above 10,000
horse and foot, under General Douglas, Schomberg, Jr., and Lords
Portland and Overkirk, to march along the river bank toward Slane, cross
at, or near, that point, and so turn the left flank of the Irish army.
This manœuvre was plainly seen and understood by James and his
lieutenants. Sir Neal O’Neill, at the head of his dragoons, was detached
to check the movement. The brave leader was in time to charge the
enemy’s cavalry, which had crossed nearer to Oldbridge than was
originally designed, as they had found a practicable ford. The main body
crossed higher up, at Slane. O’Neill, according to all accounts of the
engagement on this flank of the Jacobite army, must have made a most
gallant fight, because it was well on toward 9 o’clock before the enemy
was able to secure a footing on the Irish bank of the Boyne, and then
only after the brave O’Neill had been mortally wounded, and his
surviving soldiers discouraged by his fall. Notwithstanding, the Irish
dragoons drew off the field in excellent order, bearing their dying
general along with them. With his latest breath, O’Neill sent word to
King James of how matters stood on his left wing, to which Douglas’s
whole imposing force had now formed itself perpendicularly, that is, at
right angles, threatening not alone the left of the Irish line of
battle, but also the rear, or line of retreat, on the pass of Duleek,
which was the gateway to Dublin. James, observing this, became
demoralized. Instead of using the French veterans at Oldbridge ford,
where he must have seen the main attack was to be delivered, he placed
in the hedges, and other defences which covered it, untried Irish
levies, badly weaponed, brave enough, it is true, but at absolute
disadvantage when placed in opposition to the splendid armament and
perfect discipline of William’s veterans, many of whom had been in a
score of pitched battles. Lauzun and his French were sent toward the
Irish left, accompanied by Sarsfield, with a weak squadron of horse. But
Douglas had formed his troops in such strong array that Lauzun, in spite
of the direct orders of King James, declined to attack him, or receive
his attack. Instead, he manœuvred so as to place a morass between his
troops and the enemy, and then began falling back on the pass of Duleek,
fearing to be outflanked and cut off by young Schomberg’s powerful
cavalry. Sarsfield, according to his custom, charged the hostile horse
boldly, but his men were too few, and he was reluctantly compelled to
follow the retrograde movement of the French. In this operation he lost
one cannon, which got stuck in the mud of a bog that intervened between
the river and Donore. At the latter point he rejoined the king. James
seemed to think only of his line of retreat. Had he thought of his line
of advance, everything might still have been rectified. His army
remained unshaken, except by his own wretched fears. The dread of being
made a prisoner was his bane. He had sent most of the baggage and half
the cannon toward Dublin at the first news of the reverse at Slane—a
remarkable way by which to raise the spirits of an army already sadly
conscious of the incompetency of its royal commander, and its own
inferiority to the Williamite host in everything but ardent zeal and
knightly courage.
William, on learning of the success of his right wing, immediately
ordered Marshal Schomberg, at the head of the formidable Dutch guards,
two regiments of Huguenots, two of Inniskilleners, Sir John Hammer’s
regiment, and several others on that front, including the Danes, to ford
the Boyne in hot haste. They plunged in bravely, opposite to Oldbridge,
and so dense were their columns, according to Chaplain Story, that the
water rose perceptibly. Still it could not have risen much above the
knees of the shortest soldier, for the historian, Haverty—a scrupulous
writer—says, in his admirable work, that the water did not reach to the
drums of the bands that accompanied the attack. The unseasoned Irish
dragoons and infantry, armed with old fusils and half-pikes, received
the enemy with a hasty and ill-directed fire, which did little damage.
William’s troops replied with overpowering volleys, and his batteries
threw balls into the defences. It would seem that little was done at
this point to rally the defenders, for they soon broke and abandoned the
hedges, but formed again in the lanes of Oldbridge and the fields in its
vicinity. The shout of triumph from Schomberg’s men was answered by a
roar of anger that seemed to come from the battle-clouds above the
river. There was a sound as of many waters, a terrific crashing of
hoofs, a flashing of sabres, dying groans—Richard Hamilton, at the head
of the superb Irish cavalry, was among the Williamite regiments, dealing
death-strokes right and left. Even the Dutch Blues reeled before the
shock—the Danes and Huguenots were broken and driven back across the
stream. Old Duke Schomberg, in trying to restore order, was killed near
the Irish side of the river, and there, too, fell Caillemotte, the
Huguenot hero, and Bishop Walker, the defender of Derry. It was a
splendid charge, and, had it been sustained by the whole Irish army,
might have saved the day. But King James’s eyes were not turned toward
Oldbridge ford, but to the pass of Duleek. Fresh bodies of hostile
infantry continued to cross the stream, and were charged and driven back
several times by the Irish horse. This part of the battle began about
10.15 o’clock and continued until nearly noon.
King William now took a hand in the fight, and crossed with most of his
cavalry nearer to Drogheda. It is said that the tide had risen so high,
he was obliged to swim his horse, which, also, got “bogged” on the Irish
bank, and was extricated with difficulty. When the animal was freed,
William remounted, and, although his shoulder was still stiff and sore
from contact with the cannon-ball on the previous day, he drew his sword
and placed himself at the head of such of his horse as had crossed with
him. He also rallied some foot-soldiers who had been scattered by
Hamilton’s furious charges. Nor were these yet over. Hardly had William
placed his men in order, when Hamilton came down again, with a whirlwind
rush, and Chaplain Story says, with great simplicity: “Our horse were
forced to give ground, although the king was with them!” William, on
recovering his breath, observed the Inniskillen regiment of cavalry at a
short distance, rode up in front of them and said, in his blunt fashion:
“What will _you_ do for me?” They answered with a cheer, and rode to
meet the Irish cavalry, who were again coming on at a fierce gallop,
urged by Hamilton. The shock was terrible, but again the presence and
the leadership of the warlike William proved unavailing, and the
Inniskilleners, sadly cut up, followed the routed Williamite ruck down
the hill toward the river. Cool in the moment of danger, William of
Orange retired slowly and managed to rally some foot and horse to his
assistance. By this time more of his cavalry had crossed, under Ruvigny
and Ginkel. The former captured some colors, according to Story, but
Ginkel’s force was routed and he, himself, did not conceal his vexation
at their want of firmness. He kept in their rear, in order to prevent
them from bolting at sight of the Irish horse.
King James was urged by all of those about him who had regard for his
honor, including the brave General Sheldon and the ever gallant
Sarsfield, to place himself at the head of his reserve of cavalry and
charge full upon William as he ascended toward Donore. The unfortunate
man, more of a moral than a physical coward, seemed unable to collect
his faculties; and, instead of doing what became him, yielded to the
advice of the timid, and, even while the battle raged hotly below him,
turned his horse, and, accompanied by his disgusted officers and
astonished troopers, rode toward the pass of Duleek, held by the French
and some of the Irish, who repulsed every effort of General Douglas to
force it. Hamilton’s cavalry still continued to charge the Williamite
advance, and thus enabled the Irish infantry to retire slowly on Donore,
where the bold Duke of Berwick rallied them and presented an unbroken
front to King William. Then, in turn, they retired toward Duleek.
Hamilton made a final furious charge, in which his horse was killed and
fell upon him. He was also wounded in the head and made prisoner. He was
taken before William, who said: “Well, sir, is this business over with,
or will your horse show more fight?” Hamilton responded: “Upon my honor,
sir, I think they will.” The king, who was incensed against the general
for having sided with James and Tyrconnel against himself, looked
askance at the gallant prisoner and muttered: “Your honor! Your honor!”
And this was all that passed between them.
Chaplain Story, from whose book we have taken many of our facts, was a
most graphic and interesting writer, but a sad hater of the Irish,
against whom he seems to have borne a grudge, perhaps because they
killed his brother, an English officer, in action. He never said a good
word for them if he could avoid doing so. Yet, in spite of this failing,
the truth would escape him occasionally. Many English writers leave the
impression that the Irish army was defeated at the Boyne within an hour
or so after the engagement began. We have seen that the first movement
was made about daylight, and that the battle near Slane opened about 8
o’clock. In front of Oldbridge the attack was made at 10:15, and
continued hotly until nearly noon, when King William himself took
command, crossed the river with his left wing and was bravely checked by
Hamilton. Duleek is not more than three miles from the fords of
Oldbridge. Therefore, the Irish must have fought very obstinately when
Chaplain Story makes the following admission on page 23 of his
“Continuation of the Wars of Ireland”: “Our army then pressed hard upon
them, but meeting with a great many difficulties in the ground, and
being obliged to pursue in order, our horse had only the opportunity of
cutting down some of their foot, and most of the rest got over the pass
at Duleek; then night coming on[3] prevented us from making so entire a
victory of it as could have been wished for.” Thus, on the testimony of
this Williamite partisan and eye-witness, the battle of the Boyne,
counting from its inception to its close, lasted about fifteen hours.
Evidently the overpowered Irish army did not retreat very fast.
Footnote 3:
In Ireland, at that season, there is a strong twilight until nearly 9
o’clock.—_Author._
We have already mentioned the principal men who fell on the Williamite
side. On the Jacobite side there fell Lords Dungan and Carlingford, Sir
Neal O’Neill and some other officers of note, together with some 1,200
rank and file killed or wounded. Few prisoners were taken. Mr. Story, as
usual, underestimates William’s loss, when he places it at “nigh four
hundred.” More candid English estimates place it at nearer a thousand,
and this was, probably, the true figure. The Chaplain, in dwelling on
the casualties, says plaintively: “The loss of Duke Schomberg, who was
killed soon after the first of our forces passed the river near
Oldbridge, was much more considerable than all that fell that day on
both sides.”
Drogheda, occupied by an Irish garrison of 1,500 men, surrendered, on
summons, the day after the battle. Had their commander made a spirited
sortie on William’s left wing, as it was crossing the river, good might
have resulted for the cause of James. It would seem that, like himself,
many of his officers lacked the daring enterprise that can alone win the
smiles of Bellona.
King James, shamefully for himself, deserted the battlefield, or,
rather, the outer edge of it, before the fight at the fords was over. An
Irish Protestant poet, the late Dr. W. R. Wilde, of Dublin, says of the
incident:
“But where is James? What! urged to fly,
Ere quailed his brave defenders!
Their dead in Oldbridge crowded lie,
But not a sword surrenders!”
He reached Dublin at 9 o’clock that evening, while still the Irish army
exchanged shots with William’s troops across the Nannywater at the pass
of Duleek! Tradition says that, meeting Lady Tyrconnel at the Castle, he
exclaimed: “Your countrymen run well, madam!” The spirited Irishwoman at
once replied: “I congratulate your Majesty on having won the race!”
English historians, in general, taking their cue from Story, are
ungenerous to the Irish in connection with the Boyne. English troops had
comparatively little hand in obtaining the victory. The French writers,
also, in order to screen the misconduct, and possibly treason, of De
Lauzun, seek to throw all the blame for the loss of the battle on their
Irish allies. Not so, many of the Irish Protestant writers, whose
coreligionists bore a great deal of the brunt of the fighting on
William’s side, and were thus enabled to know the truth. Among those
writers may be mentioned Colonel William Blacker, poet-laureate of the
Orange Order in Ireland, who wrote at the beginning of the last century,
and, in his poem, “The Battle of the Boyne,” gives full credit to his
Catholic fellow-countrymen for their valor, thus:
“In vain the sword Green Erin draws and life away doth fling—
Oh! worthy of a better cause and of a braver king!
In vain thy bearing bold is shown upon that blood-stained ground;
Thy towering hopes are overthrown—thy choicest fall around.
“Hurrah! hurrah! the victor shout is heard on high Donore!
Down Plottin’s Vale, in hurried rout, thy shattered masses pour.
But many a gallant spirit there retreats across the plain,
Who ‘change but kings’ would gladly dare that battlefield again!”
The expression, in regard to exchanging monarchs, alluded to in the
ballad, is founded on a saying attributed to Sarsfield, who, on being
taunted by a British officer at the Duleek outposts the night of the
engagement, exclaimed: “Change kings with us, and we will fight the
battle over again with you!”
James, after his defeat, remained but one day in Dublin. He summoned the
State Council and the Lord Mayor, bade them farewell, and left the
government of the kingdom and the command of the army in the hands of
Tyrconnel. Then, accompanied by a small staff, he rode to Bray and
thence by easy stages to Waterford, where he embarked for France and
reached that kingdom in safety. He was generously received by King
Louis. In justice to a monarch who is alleged to have spoken harshly and
unjustly of his Irish troops and subjects after the battle of the Boyne,
we must state that his published Memoirs, as also those of his son, the
heroic Duke of Berwick, bear the very highest testimony to the bravery
and devotion of the Irish army, particularly in dealing with the closing
campaign in Ireland, when it crowned itself with glory. Remembering
this, we may join with the poet in saying—
“Well, honored be the graves that close
O’er every brave and true heart,
And sorrows sanctified repose
Thy dust, discrownèd Stuart!”
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CHAPTER VI
Irish Army Retires on “The Line of the Shannon”—Douglas Repulsed at
Athlone—King William Begins Siege of Limerick—Sarsfield’s Exploit
TYRCONNEL, Sarsfield, Berwick, De Lauzun, and their forces immediately
evacuated Dublin and its neighborhood, and, practically, gave up all of
Leinster to the enemy, while they retired on the Shannon and heavily
garrisoned Athlone, Limerick, and Galway—the latter a most important
seaport at that time. The flight of James demoralized Tyrconnel, who was
aging fast, and further discontented Lauzun, but Sarsfield and Berwick
remained steadfast, and were determined not to give up Ireland without a
bitter and bloody struggle. Most of the officers agreed with them. If
they had lost a king, their country still remained, and they would
defend it to the last.
William’s first attempt was made against Athlone, which is the most
central fortified place in Ireland, situated masterfully on the river
Shannon, the commerce of which it commands for many miles. The garrison
was commanded by an aged veteran of the Confederate war, Colonel Richard
Grace, to whom fear was unknown. General Douglas, with 12,000 men and a
fine battering train, including several mortars, was detached from the
Williamite army at Dublin to attack the town. He appeared before it on
July 17, and sent an offensive message for immediate surrender to the
governor. Colonel Grace discharged a pistol over the head of the
startled envoy, and said: “That is my answer!” The siege began when the
messenger returned. Athlone, divided by the Shannon, is partly in
Westmeath and partly in Roscommon. The latter portion alone was
defensible. Colonel Grace abandoned the Leinster side, called
“Englishtown,” after leveling the works. He also destroyed the bridge,
thus confining himself to “Irishtown,” where still stands the strong
castle. Douglas bombarded it furiously. Grace responded fiercely and
honors were about even, when news arrived in the English camp that
Sarsfield, at the head of a powerful Irish force, was en route from
Limerick to raise the siege. For seven days the English general rained
balls and bombshells on Athlone, but, on the seventh day, the
indomitable Grace hung out a red flag on the castle, to indicate that
the fight was to be to a finish, and that quarter would be neither taken
nor given. The English doubled their efforts to subdue the place, but
made no impression. Finally Douglas, in abject fear of Sarsfield, raised
the siege and left the town amid the cheers of the defenders of the
Connaught side. The garrison and people gave Governor Grace an ovation,
which, indeed, no warrior, young or old, better deserved.
King William reserved for himself, as he thought, the honor and pleasure
of capturing Limerick, which, in the days of Ireton, had won celebrity
by the obstinacy of its defence. Toward the end of July, 1690, he
marched from the capital, at the head of his main army, toward that
fortress. He was joined by the defeated Douglas, with his depleted
division, at Caherconlish, within a short distance of Limerick, on the
8th of August. This junction brought his force up to 38,000 men, not to
speak of a siege train and other warlike appliances. The Irish force
consisted of 10,000 infantry within the city, and 4,000 horse, encamped
on the Clare side of the Shannon. There was, as at Athlone, an Irishtown
and Englishtown—the former situated on the Limerick side of the stream,
and the latter on an island, called King’s Island, formed by the two
branches of the great river. In addition to an infantry force, some
regiments of Irish dragoons, intended to fight either on foot or
horseback, occupied Englishtown. The defences were in a wretched
condition. Lauzun, who seems to have been the wet blanket of the period,
declared that “King Louis could take them with roasted apples.”
Tyrconnel and he were for surrendering the city “on terms,” but
Sarsfield, ably seconded by the brave and youthful Duke of Berwick—the
best of the Stuarts—made fierce protest. De Boisseleau, a French officer
of engineers, who sympathized with the Irish people, became their ally,
and agreed to reconstruct the works, with the aid of the soldiery and
the citizens. De Lauzun, eager to return to the delights of Paris,
abandoned the city and marched with his French contingent to Galway. It
would appear, from contemporaneous accounts, that his troops were not
all native Frenchmen. Many were Swiss and German—a kind of Foreign
Legion in the French service. Louvois, the elder, at that time Louis’s
Minister of War, detested Lauzun—King James’s appointee—and would not
give him a corps of choice troops. The Swiss and Germans were courageous
soldiers, but their hearts were not in the cause they were engaged in,
and many of them deserted to the Williamites after the battle of the
Boyne. Lauzun remained in Galway until he heard of King William’s
unsuccessful attempt on Limerick, when he and his forces sailed for
France, the old Duke of Tyrconnel accompanying them. The Duke, on
reaching Paris, made charges of insubordination and general misconduct
against Lauzun, who, thereby, lost the favor of the French monarch. His
downfall followed, and, in after years, he was one of the unfortunates
doomed to captivity in the Bastile. He deserves no sympathy, as his
whole conduct in Ireland made him more than suspected of having been a
traitor.
John C. O’Callaghan, the noted historian of the Williamite wars, in his
“Green Book,” written in refutation of Voltaire, Lord Macaulay, and
other libelers of the Irish nation, says that the Louvois, father and
son, who held in succession the portfolio of war in France, during the
time when James was struggling to regain his crown, were inimical to his
cause, and did all they could to thwart the friendly efforts of King
Louis in his behalf. Louvois, Sr., it is explained, wished the command
of the French troops sent to Ireland conferred upon his son; but James
preferred Lauzun. Thus originated the feud which, no doubt, led to the
utter ruin of the Stuart dynasty. The hostility of the Louvois also
explains the miserable quality of the arms, equipments, and clothing
sent by the French Government to Ireland. How fatal a choice James made
in preferring Lauzun has already appeared. By universal consent, De
Boisseleau was made military governor of Limerick. Berwick, in the
absence of Tyrconnel, was recognized as commander-in-chief, mainly
because of his kinship with the king, while the able and trusty
Sarsfield was second in command, and, as will be seen, did the lion’s
share of the fighting. King William, with his formidable army, arrived
within sight of Limerick and “sat down before it” on August 9, confining
his attentions mostly to the southern defences of Irishtown, which
appeared to offer the most favorable point of assault. Although he had
with him a powerful artillery, he did not hope to reduce the city
without a further supply of heavy ordnance. Before leaving the Irish
capital, he had ordered a great siege train to be put in readiness, so
that it might reach him about the time he would be ready to begin the
investment of Limerick. He knew, therefore, that it was near at hand.
But another soldier, even bolder than himself, knew also of the close
approach of the siege train from Dublin, and that it was escorted by a
strong cavalry force. This was Sarsfield, who, at the head of five
hundred chosen horse, left the camp on the Clare side of the river on
Sunday night, August 10, rode along the right bank toward Killaloe, and,
near that town, crossed into the County Tipperary by a deep and
dangerous ford, seldom used and never guarded. He chose it in preference
to the bridge at Killaloe, because the utmost secrecy had to be
preserved, so that the Williamites might have no information of his
design to intercept the train. His guide was a captain of irregular
horse—called Rapparees—and he bore the sobriquet of “Galloping O’Hogan.”
Dawn found the adventurous force in the neighborhood of the picturesque
village of Silvermines, at the foot of the Keeper Mountain. In the deep
glen, which runs along its eastern base, Sarsfield concealed his party
all day of the 11th; but sent his scouts, under O’Hogan, southward
toward the County Limerick border, to locate the siege train. The
peasantry of the locality still point out the exact spot where the Irish
general awaited impatiently, and anxiously, news from the scouts. The
horses were kept saddled up, ready for immediate action, and, while they
grazed, the men held their bridle-reins. Pickets were posted behind the
crests of every vantage point, to prevent surprise, because the patrols
of King William’s army were ceaseless in their vigilance and might come
upon the bold raiders at any moment. The scouts returned at nightfall
and reported that the siege train and its escort had gone into camp near
the castle of Ballyneety, about two miles from the village of Cullen, in
the County Limerick, and twelve miles, by English measurement, in rear
of the Williamite army. Sarsfield immediately put his troops in motion,
and, after a laborious journey, reached the neighborhood of the rock and
ruined castle of Ballyneety some hours before daybreak. The convoy,
thinking itself secure, kept a careless look-out, and, besides,
Sarsfield, in some mysterious manner, secured the password, which
happened to be his own name. Tradition of the neighborhood says that, as
he approached the camp, the noise of the horses’ hoofs startled one of
the English sentinels, who, immediately, leveled his piece at the Irish
leader, and demanded the password. “Sarsfield is the word!” replied the
general, “and Sarsfield is the man!” Before the sentry could fire off
his musket, he was cloven down, and, at a fierce gallop, the Irish horse
fell upon the sleeping escort, nearly all of whom were sabred on the
spot. The captured cannon, charged with powder to their full extent,
were placed, muzzle downward, over a mine filled with the same
explosive, and the tin boats of a pontoon train, which was also bound
for William’s camp, were piled up near them. The Irish force, humanely
taking the English wounded with them, drew away to witness the result of
the coming explosion with greater security. Soon all was ready; the
train was ignited, and cannon and pontoons were blown into the sky. The
report was heard and the shock felt for twenty miles around, and
startled even the phlegmatic King William in his tent. He divined at
once, with military sagacity, what had taken place. There was no
mistaking it. Already, on the information of an Irish Williamite, named
Manus O’Brien, who had accidentally encountered Sarsfield’s cavalcade on
the Clare side, the king had sent Sir John Lanier, with five hundred
dragoons, to the rescue. Sarsfield eluded the latter and got back to his
camp, recrossing the Shannon much higher up than Killaloe, without the
loss of a man. When the news was confirmed to King William, by General
Lanier, he said, simply, “It was a bold movement. I did not think
Sarsfield capable of it.” Some authors affirm that Sarsfield himself
said to a wounded English officer, whom he had captured, “If this
enterprise had failed, I should have gone to France.” He was destined to
do other stout service for Ireland before he finally shed his life-blood
for the French lilies on a Belgian battlefield.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII
William’s Assault on Limerick Repulsed with Slaughter—Heroism of the
Irish Women—Irish Humanity to the English Wounded
WILLIAM was not discouraged by the loss of his siege material. He found
that two of the cannon captured by Sarsfield had failed to explode. Some
heavy pieces, with mortars, also reached him, within a few days, from
Waterford, and these, with the ordnance he had brought with him from
Dublin, made a formidable array of breach-producing engines. The siege,
accordingly, was vigorously pressed, as against the Irishtown and King’s
Island, but hardly any demonstration was made against the Clare section,
connected with Limerick by Thomond bridge, probably because of the loss
of the pontoon train.
The Irish soldiery and the citizens of Limerick, encouraged by De
Boisseleau, Berwick, and Sarsfield, had made considerable improvement in
the defences of Limerick before William came up, and, even after his
arrival, continued to repair the breaches made in the walls by his
cannon. Their batteries vigorously replied to those of the enemy,
although much inferior in number and weight of metal, and the
Williamites suffered quite heavy losses in officers and rank and file.
The Irish leaders had sent many non-combatants to the safer side of the
Shannon, but most of the women refused to leave and worked at the
earthworks like the men. Many of them were killed by the English fire
while so occupied.
At last, on the morning of August 27, the Williamite engineers declared
the breach in the neighborhood of St. John’s Gate and the Black Battery
on the south side of the town practicable. Some authorities say it was
twelve yards wide, and others, including Thomas Davis, one of Ireland’s
most accurate writers, six perches, which would make quite a difference.
Five hundred British grenadiers, drawn from the right flank companies of
the line regiments, as was then and for long afterward the custom,
constituted the forlorn hope. Their immediate reserves were a battalion
of the Blue Dutch Guards—the heroes of the Boyne—and the regiments of
Douglas, Stuart, Meath, Lisburn, and Brandenburg. The whole army stood
ready to support these picked troops. The signal, three cannon shots,
was given from Cromwell’s Fort, where William witnessed the operation,
at 3.30 P.M. Story tells us the day was torrid. The orders to the
stormers were to seize the Irish counterscarp—the exterior slope of the
ditch—and maintain it. The assault was delivered with great spirit, the
grenadiers leaping out of their trenches, advancing at a run, firing
their pieces and throwing their hand grenades among the Irish in the
works. The attack was fierce and sudden—almost in the nature of a
surprise—but the Irish met it boldly, for, says Chaplain Story, in his
thrilling narrative of the event, “they had their guns all ready and
discharged great and small shot on us as fast as ‘twas possible. Our men
were not behind them in either, so that, in less than two minutes, the
noise was so terrible that one would have thought the very skies ready
to rent in sunder. This was seconded with dust, smoke, and all the
terrors the art of man could invent to ruin and undo one another; and,
to make it more uneasie, the day itself was so excessive hot to the
bystanders, and much more, sure, in all respects to those upon action.
Captain Carlile, of my Lord Drogheda’s regiment, ran on with his
grenadiers to the counterscarp, and tho’ he received two wounds between
that and the trenches, yet he went forward and commanded his men to
throw in their grenades, but in the leaping into the dry ditch below the
counterscarp an Irishman below shot him dead. Lieutenant Barton,
however, encouraged the men and they got upon the counterscarp, and all
the rest of the grenadiers were as ready as they.”
It would seem that, at this point of the attack, some of the Irish
soldiers began to draw off and made for the breach, which the
Williamites entered with them. Half of the Drogheda regiment and some
others actually got into the town. The city seemed nearly won, as the
supports came up promptly to the assistance of their comrades. But the
Irish troops rallied immediately and fell vehemently on their pursuers.
These, in their turn, retreated from the breach, “but some were shot,
some were taken, and some came out again, but very few without being
wounded.” The Williamite chaplain thus describes the outcome, still
preserving his tone of contemptuous hatred of the brave Irish soldiery:
“The Irish then ventured (_sic_) upon the breach again, and from the
walls and every place so pestered us upon the counterscarp, that after
nigh three hours resisting bullets, stones (broken bottles from the very
women, who boldly stood in the breach and were nearer our men than their
own), and whatever ways could be thought on to destroy us, our
ammunition being spent, it was judged safest to return to our trenches!
When the work was at the hottest, the Brandenburg regiment (who behaved
themselves very well) were got upon the Black Battery, where the
enemies’ powder happened to take fire and blew up a great many of them,
the men, fagots, stones, and what not flying into the air with a most
terrible noise.... From half an hour after three, until after seven,
there was one continued fire of both great and small shot, without any
intermission; in so much that the smoke that went from the town reached
in one continued cloud to the top of a mountain [Keeper Hill, most
likely] at least six miles off. When our men drew off, some were brought
up dead, and some without a leg; others wanted arms, and some were blind
with powder; especially a great many of the poor Brandenburgers looked
like furies, with the misfortune of gunpowder.... The king [William]
stood nigh Cromwell’s Fort all the time, and the business being over, he
went to his camp very much concerned, as, indeed, was the whole army;
for you might have seen a mixture of anger and sorrow in every bodie’s
countenance. The Irish had two small field-pieces planted in the King’s
Island, which flankt their own counterscarp, and in our attack did us no
small damage, as did, also, two guns more that they had planted within
the town, opposite to the breach and charged with cartridge shot.
“We lost, at least, five hundred on the spot, and had a thousand more
wounded, as I understood by the surgeons of our hospitals, who are the
properest judges. The Irish lost a great many by our cannon and other
ways, but it can not be supposed that their loss should be equal to
ours, since it is a much easier thing to defend walls than ’tis by plain
strength to force people from them, and one man within has the advantage
of four without.”
Mr. Story acknowledges fifty-nine officers of the English regiments
engaged killed and wounded. Fifteen died upon the ground and several
afterward of their injuries. “The Grenadiers are not here included,”
continues the English annalist, “and they had the hottest service; nor
are there any of the foreigners, who lost full as many as the English.”
We have quoted this English authority, prejudiced though he was, because
the testimony of an eye-witness is much more valuable than the
allegations of writers who give their information at second hand. We may
add, however, that all Irish historians have declared that the Black
Battery was mined for such an emergency as destroyed the Brandenburg
regiment, and some of them assert that Sarsfield, in person, fired the
mine. As he was the Ajax of the campaign, on the Irish side, it seems
quite natural that every extraordinary feat of skill or valor should
have been credited to him. His own merits made him the idol of his
people, and he was farther endeared to them, as being the son of Anna
O’More, daughter of the famous organizer of the Irish insurrection of
1641. On the paternal side, he was of Norman stock. His father had been
a member of the Irish House of Commons, and was proscribed and exiled
because he had sided with the patriots in the Parliamentary wars.
General Sarsfield—the rank he held at the first siege of Limerick—had
seen hot service on the Continent, during the early part of his career,
and commanded a regiment of the royal cavalry at the battle of
Sedgemoor, where the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth met with his fatal
defeat at the hands of Lord Feversham. In stature, he was
tall—considerably over six feet—fair and strikingly handsome. His
flowing wig—in the queer fashion of the period—fell in massive ringlets
over the corselet of a cuirassier, and, in the rush of battle, he must
have been the counterpart of Murat, Napoleon’s “Emperor of Dragoons.”
Irish poets have called him “headlong Sarsfield.” “Long-headed
Sarsfield” would have been a better sobriquet, for, had his advice been
taken by his royal master and the generals sent by the latter to command
over him, Ireland would never have bowed her head to the yoke of
William. Even the most envenomed of English historians against the
adherents of King James—including Lord Macaulay—do ample justice to the
courage, talents, and virtues of Patrick Sarsfield.
The heroic women of Limerick, who fought and bled in the breach, are
complimented by Chaplain Story, as we have seen, at the expense of their
countrymen, but the glorious military record of the Irish race in the
wars of Europe and of this continent, since that period, would make any
defence of the conduct of the heroes of Limerick-breach superfluous. The
women, too, deserve immortal honor; because, in defence of their country
and hearthstones, they dared the storm of war, and “stalked with
Minerva’s step where Mars might quake to tread.”
The Irish loss in killed and wounded was about four hundred. Many lives,
on both sides, were lost by sickness—dysentery and enteric fever
chiefly—during this siege. A conservative estimate places William’s
loss, by wounds and sickness, at 5,000, and the Irish at 3,000.
The day after his bloody repulse, King William sent a flag of truce to
De Boisseleau asking the privilege of burying his dead. After
consultation with Berwick and Sarsfield, the French governor refused the
request, as he suspected a ruse of some kind behind it. All the dead
were buried by the Irish as quickly as possible, because the heat was
intense, and, aside from feelings of humanity, they dreaded a plague
from the decomposition of the corpses left above ground. We are informed
by the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan, M.P., in his admirable “Story of
Ireland,” that, during the pursuit by the Irish of King William’s men
from the breach to their trenches, the temporary hospital established by
the king for his wounded caught fire. The Irish troops immediately
paused in their fierce pursuit, and devoted themselves to saving their
helpless foes in the hospital, who, otherwise, must have perished
miserably in the flames.
King William, after carefully considering the situation, and taking
counsel with his chief officers, decided that there was no hope of
capturing Limerick that year. Therefore, he declared the siege
raised—that is, abandoned—and, on August 30th, the entire Williamite
army drew off from before Limerick, posting strong rear-guards at points
of vantage, so as to baffle pursuit. The king, leaving Baron De Ginkel
in command, retired to Waterford. There he embarked for England, bidding
Ireland what proved to be an eternal farewell. Although this gloomy
monarch was not quite as ferocious as some of his contemporaries, and
was a marked improvement on Cromwell, Ireton, and Ludlow in Ireland, he
is charged by careful Irish historians—like McGee, O’Callaghan, and
Sullivan—with having, like his lieutenant, General Douglas, permitted
many outrages on the people, both in person and property, on his march
from Dublin to Limerick. Making due allowance for the difficulty of
restraining a mercenary army, filled with hatred of the people they
moved among, from committing excesses, it is regrettable that the
martial renown of William of Orange is sullied by this charge of cruelty
in Ireland, as, afterward, in connection with the foul massacre of the
Macdonalds of Glencoe in Scotland. Brave men are rarely cruel, but we
fear, in these instances, William was an exception to the rule.
The story of the first defence of Limerick, in the Williamite war, reads
like a chapter from a military romance, and yet it was, indeed, a stern
and bloody reality. It was, in truth, a magnificent defence against a
powerful foe, not surpassed even by that of Saragossa against the
French. Limerick, like Saragossa, was defended by the citizens, men and
women, quite as much as by the soldiery. All took equal risks, as in the
case of Londonderry. The latter was also a brilliant defence—more,
however, in the matter of splendid endurance than in hand-to-hand
conflict. Londonderry wears the crown for fortitude and
tenacity—Limerick and Saragossa for heroic prowess and matchless
courage.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII
Fall of Cork and Kinsale—Lauzun, the French General, Accused by Irish
Writers—Sarsfield’s Popularity—Tyrconnel Returns to Ireland—Berwick
Departs
THE successful defence of Limerick by the Irish was somewhat offset in
the following month of September by the victorious expedition from
England, against Cork and Kinsale, led by John Churchill, afterward Duke
of Marlborough, the greatest general of that age. Cork, under the
military governor, McEligott, defended itself vigorously during a siege
of five days, but the defences and garrison were both weak, and,
eventually, the city capitulated on honorable conditions. These were
subsequently violated by some soldiers and camp-followers of the English
army, but Marlborough suppressed, in as far as he could, the disorders
as soon as he heard of them. The English lost the Duke of
Grafton—natural son of Charles II—and many other officers and private
men during the siege. Marlborough, with characteristic promptitude,
moved at once on Kinsale. The old town and fort, not being defensible,
were, after some show of resistance, abandoned by the Irish troops, who
took post in the new fort, commanding the harbor, which they held with
creditable tenacity, during fourteen days. They, at last, capitulated,
their ammunition having run low, and were allowed, in recognition of
their valor, to retire to Limerick, the garrison in that city being thus
augmented by 1,200 tried warriors. Marlborough accomplished his task
within five weeks, and returned to England a popular idol. The loss of
Cork and Kinsale, particularly the latter, was a severe blow to the
Irish army, as it was, thereby, deprived of the most favorable seaports
by which supplies from France could reach it. It should have been stated
that Marlborough, in the capture of those towns, was materially assisted
by the English fleet. His army was a very formidable one, consisting of
9,000 picked men from England, and a detachment, nearly equal in
numbers, which joined him, under the Duke of Wurtemburg and General
Scravenmore. The latter body consisted of troops who had fought at the
Boyne and Limerick. Wurtemburg, on account of his connection with
royalty, claimed the command in chief. Marlborough, who was as great a
diplomat as he was a general, agreed to command alternately, but he was,
all through the operations, the real commander. Students of history will
remember that, in after wars on the Continent, Marlborough and Prince
Eugene of Savoy commanded on alternate days. But there was a great
difference in this case, Eugene having been regarded as nearly as good a
general as Marlborough himself.
O’Callaghan attributes the failure of the main Irish army to succor the
Cork and Kinsale garrisons to the misconduct of Lauzun in deserting
Ireland, with his remaining 5,000 French troops, at this critical
period. He quotes King James’s and Berwick’s memoirs, the Rawdon papers,
and other authorities, to show that the Duke of Berwick had advanced
with 7,000 men as far as Kilmallock, in Limerick County, to raise the
siege of Cork, when he found himself destitute of cannon, which had been
carried off by the French general, and could not expose his inferior
force, destitute of artillery, to the formidable force under his uncle,
Marlborough. He was, therefore, most reluctantly compelled to abandon
the enterprise. Lauzun, it is further claimed, carried off most of the
powder stored in Limerick, and, had it not been for Sarsfield’s exploit
at Ballyneety, that city must have fallen if a second assault had been
delivered by William, as only fifty barrels of powder remained after the
fight of August 27th.
The autumn and winter of 1690-91 were marked by constant bloody
skirmishes between the cavalry and infantry outposts of the two armies.
Hardly a day passed without bloodshed. Considerable ferocity was
exhibited by both parties, and neither seemed to have much the advantage
of the other. Story’s narrative of this period is one unbroken tale of
disorder and strife. His narration, if taken without a grain of salt,
would lead us to believe that nearly all the able-bodied Celtic-Irish
were put to the sword, at sight, by his formidable countrymen and their
allies, although he does admit, occasionally, that the Irish succeeded
in killing a few, at least, of their enemies. The most considerable of
these lesser engagements occurred between Sarsfield and the Duke of
Berwick on the Irish side and General Douglas and Sir John Lanier on the
side of the Williamites. The Irish leaders made an attack on Birr Castle
in September, and were engaged in battering it, when the English, under
Lanier, Douglas, and Kirk, marched to relieve it. They were too many for
Berwick and Sarsfield, who retired on Banagher, where there is a bridge
over the Shannon. The English pursued and made a resolute attempt to
take the bridge, but the Irish defended it so steadily, and with such
loss to the enemy, that the latter abandoned the attempt at capture and
retired to Birr. Sarsfield possessed one great advantage over all the
higher officers of King James’s army. He could speak the Irish (Gaelic)
language fluently, having learned it from the lips of his mother, Anna
O’More. This gave him vast control over the Celtic peasantry, who fully
trusted him, as he did them, and they kept him informed of all that was
passing in their several localities. The winter was exceptionally
severe—so much so that, at some points, the deep and rapid Shannon was
all but frozen across. Besides, there were several bridges that, if
carelessly guarded, could be easily surprised and taken by the invaders.
Sarsfield’s Celtic scouts, in December, observed several parties of
British cavalry moving along the banks of the river. Their suspicions
were excited, and they, at once, communicated with their general. The
latter had no sooner taken the alarm than one English force, under
Douglas, showed itself at Jamestown, and another, under Kirk and Lanier,
at Jonesboro. The English commanders were astonished at finding the
Irish army prepared to receive them warmly at both points. After severe
skirmishing, they withdrew. The cold had become so severe that foreign
troops were almost useless, while the Irish became, if possible, more
alert. Sarsfield, at the head of his formidable cavalry, harassed the
retreat of the Williamites to their winter quarters.
The Duke of Tyrconnel, who had, according to O’Callaghan, and other
annalists, sailed from Galway with Lauzun, and, according to other
authorities from Limerick, with De Boisseleau, after William’s repulse,
returned from France, in February, accompanied by three men-of-war well
laden with provisions. They carried but few arms and no reinforcements,
but the aged duke, who seemed to be in good spirits, said that the
latter would speedily follow. The amount of money he brought with him
was comparatively insignificant—only 14,000 louis d’or—which he devoted
to clothing for the army, as most of the men were nearly in rags, and
had received no pay in many months. He had deposited 10,000 louis,
additional, at Brest for the food supply of the troops.
He found unholy discord raging in the Irish ranks. Sarsfield had
discovered that some members of the Senate, or Council, appointed by
Tyrconnel before he left for France, had been in treasonable
correspondence with the enemy, and that this treachery had led to the
attempt at the passage of the Shannon made by the English in December.
The Council consisted of sixteen members, four from each province, and
was supposed to have supreme direction of affairs. Through the influence
of Sarsfield, Lord Riverston and his brother, both of whom were strongly
suspected of treason, were dismissed from that body, and Judge Daly,
another member, whose honesty was doubted, was placed under arrest in
the city of Galway. A difference had also arisen between Sarsfield and
Berwick, although they were generally on good terms, because the former
did not always treat the latter with the deference due an officer higher
in rank. Berwick was an admirable soldier, but he lacked Sarsfield’s
experience, and, naturally, did not understand the Irish people quite as
well as the native leader did. In fact, Sarsfield was the hero of the
time in the eyes of his countrymen, and, had he been unduly ambitious,
might have deposed Berwick, or even Tyrconnel, and made himself
dictator. But he was too good a patriot and true a soldier to even
harbor such a thought. After all his splendid services, he was
ungratefully treated. He deserved the chief command, but it was never
given him, and he received, instead, the barren title of Earl of Lucan,
the patent of which had been brought over from James by Tyrconnel. But
it was gall and wormwood for Sarsfield to learn from the duke that a
French commander-in-chief, Lieutenant-General the Marquis de St. Ruth,
had been chosen by Louis and James to take charge of military matters in
Ireland forthwith. Already he ranked below Tyrconnel and Berwick,
although having much more ability than the two combined, as he had
proven on many occasions.
General St. Ruth, if we are to believe Lord Macaulay and other
Williamite partisans, was more distinguished for fierce persecution of
the French Protestants, called Huguenots, than anything else in his
career. He had served in the French army, in all its campaigns, under
Turenne, Catinat, and other celebrated soldiers, since 1667, and, while
yet in vigorous middle life, had won the rank of lieutenant-general. He
had married the widow of old Marshal De Meilleraye, whose page he had
been in his boyhood, and, according to St. Simon’s gossipy memoirs, the
couple led a sort of cat-and-dog existence, the king having been often
compelled to interfere between them. Of St. Ruth’s person, St. Simon
says: “He was tall and well-formed, but, as everybody knew, extremely
ugly.” The same authority says the general was “of a brutal temper,” and
used to baton his wife whenever she annoyed him. It is well known that
St. Simon was a venomous detractor of those who had incurred his
resentment, or that of his friends, and this may account for his
uncomplimentary references to St. Ruth. Irish tradition says that the
latter was hard-featured, but of commanding person, with a piercing
glance and a voice like a trumpet. It is certain that he had an
imperious disposition and was quick to fly into a rage. When appointed
to the command in Ireland, he had just returned from a successful
campaign in Savoy, where Mountcashel’s Irish Brigade, as already stated,
had formed a portion of his victorious forces. He had learned to
appreciate Irish courage and constancy during that campaign, and was, on
that account as much as any other, deemed the fit man to lead the Irish
soldiers on their own soil to victory.
Tyrconnel had accepted St. Ruth from Louis and James, because he could
not help himself, and, also, because he was jealous of Sarsfield. The
viceroy was no longer popular in Ireland. He was aged, infirm, and
incompetent, and it would seem his temper had grown so bad that he could
not get along peaceably with anybody. One faction from the Irish camp
had sent representatives to James in the palace of St. Germain, begging
that Tyrconnel be recalled and the command placed in the hands of
Sarsfield. But Tyrconnel, because of old association, was all-powerful
with the exiled king, and his cause, therefore, prevailed. Soon
afterward the gallant Duke of Berwick, who subsequently won the battle
of Almanza and placed Philip V—King Louis’s grandson—on the throne of
Spain, unable to agree with either Tyrconnel or Sarsfield, was relieved
of command in Ireland and joined his father in France. This was an
additional misfortune for Ireland. Berwick, the nephew of the great Duke
of Marlborough, was, both by nature and training, a thorough soldier. He
was the very soul of bravery, and could put enthusiasm into an Irish
army by his dashing feats of arms. He was missed in the subsequent
battles and sieges of that war. His career in the French army was long
and brilliant. After rising to the rank of marshal, he was killed by a
cannon shot while superintending the siege of Philipsburg, in 1734. The
aristocratic French family of Fitzjames is lineally descended from the
Duke of Berwick, and that house, although of illegitimate origin,
represents the male Stuart line, just as the House of Beaufort, in
England, represents, with the bend sinister shadowing its escutcheon,
the male line of the Plantagenets. Strange to say, the Duke of Berwick’s
great qualities as a general were not even suspected by his associates,
either French, English, or Irish, in Ireland. When Tyrconnel left him in
command, leading officers of the Irish army declared that they would not
serve, unless he consented to be governed by a council more national in
composition than that nominated by Tyrconnel. After some strong
protests, Berwick yielded the point, but never afterward made any
attempt at bona-fide command. He felt that he was but a figurehead, and
was glad when Tyrconnel’s return led to his recall from a position at
once irksome and humiliating. Had he been King James’s legitimate son,
the House of Stuart would probably have found in him a restorer. He
inherited the Churchill genius from his mother, Arabella, who was King
James’s mistress when that monarch was Duke of York. She was not
handsome of feature, but her figure was perfect, and the deposed king,
to judge by his selections, must have had a penchant for plain women.
O’Callaghan, in his “History of the Irish Brigades,” says of the Duke of
Berwick: “He was one of those commanders of whom it is the highest
eulogium to say that to such, in periods of adversity, it is safest to
intrust the defence of a state. Of the great military leaders of whose
parentage England can boast, he may be ranked with his uncle,
Marlborough, among the first. But to his uncle, as to most public
characters, be was very superior as a man of principle. The Regent Duke
of Orleans, whose extensive acquaintance with human nature attaches a
suitable value to his opinion, observed: ‘If there ever was a perfectly
honest man in the world, that man was the Marshal Duke of Berwick.’” We
have also the testimony of his French and other contemporaries that he
was a man of majestic appearance—much more “royal” in that respect than
any other scion of his race.
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BOOK V
RECORDING IMPORTANT EVENTS FROM THE ARRIVAL OF GENERAL ST. RUTH IN
LIMERICK TO HIS GLORIOUS DEATH AT THE BATTLE OF AUGHRIM, IN JULY, 1691
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
General St. Ruth Arrives at Limerick to Command the Irish Army—His
Marvelous Activity—Brave and Able, but Vain and Obstinate
THE garrison of Limerick was beginning to despair of any farther succor
from France, and murmurs against the viceroy became loud and deep, when
runners arrived from the southwestern coast, announcing that a French
fleet had been sighted off the Kerry coast, and that it was, probably,
steering for the estuary of the Shannon. This was in the first week of
May, and, on the 8th of that month, the French men-of-war cast anchor in
the harbor of Limerick. On board was Lieutenant-General St. Ruth, with
Major-General D’Usson, Major-General De Tesse, and other officers. He
brought with him, in the ships, provisions, a supply of indifferent
clothing, and a quantity of ammunition, but no reinforcements of any
kind. The general, however, had a large personal staff and a retinue of
servants and orderlies. He was received, on landing, by Tyrconnel,
Sarsfield, Sheldon, and other army leaders. He and his officers attended
pontifical High Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral, where Te Deum was chanted.
Macaulay, a somewhat imaginative authority, informs us that St. Ruth was
disappointed, if not disgusted, by the conditions then existing in
Limerick. He had been accustomed to command troops perfectly uniformed
and equipped. The Irish army was poorly dressed and indifferently armed.
He had seen the splendid legions of Mountcashel in Savoy, dressed
scrupulously and bearing the best arms of that day, and he was quite
unprepared to behold the undeniable poverty of the brave defenders of
Athlone and Limerick. But he was a practical soldier, and at once set
about what an American general would call “licking his army into shape.”
Dissatisfied with the cavalry mounts, he resorted to a ruse to supply
the deficiency. The “gentry” of the surrounding districts were summoned
to King’s Island to deliberate on the question of national defence. They
came in large numbers—every man, as was the custom of the times, mounted
on a strong and spirited horse. When all had assembled, St. Ruth,
through an interpreter, addressed them in spirited words. One of the
chief needs of the hour was cavalry horses. The gentlemen were invited
to dismount and turn over their horses to the public service. This most
of them did cheerfully, while others were chagrined. However, St. Ruth
gained his point, and the Irish troopers were as well mounted as any in
the world.
The new French general, although much given to pleasure, was a man of
extraordinary energy. He gave balls to honor the country gentlemen and
their families, and the French uniform became very familiar in all the
aristocratic Catholic circles of Munster and Connaught. St. Ruth
participated in the dancing and feasting, but was always “up betimes,”
and away on horseback, attended by his staff and interpreters, to
inspect the posts held by the Irish along the Shannon and Suck. It was
during one of those rides, tradition says, he noticed the hill of
Kilcommodan, rising above the little hamlet of Aughrim, near
Ballinasloe, and, casting a glance at the position, exclaimed to his
officers, in French, “That is the choicest battleground in all Europe!”
We shall hear more about Aughrim, and what there befell Monsieur St.
Ruth and the Irish army.
That brave army, at Limerick, Athlone, and Galway, was put through a
course of drilling, such as it had never received before, under the
orders of the ardent and indefatigable Frenchman. He repressed disorder
with an iron hand, and made such examples, under martial law, as seemed
necessary. It is said he was severe to his officers and contemptuous to
the rank and file of his army, but these assertions come mainly from
Chaplain Story and chroniclers of his class. The haughty Irish
aristocrats would have run St. Ruth through the body with their swords
if he had dared to be insulting toward them. He was necessarily strict,
no doubt, and this strictness bore glorious fruit when the reorganized
army again took the field. One of the chief embarrassments of the time
was lack of money. Lauzun, while in Ireland, had played into the hands
of the English by crying down King James’s “brass money,” as it was
called, issued on the national security. The poor devoted Irish soldiers
took it readily enough, but the trading and commercial classes, always
sensitive and conservative where their interests are affected, were slow
to take the tokens in exchange for their goods. King Louis had promised
a large supply of “good money,” but, somehow, it was not forthcoming,
except in small parcels, which did little good. We may be sure, however,
that St. Ruth, accustomed to Continental forced loans, did not stand on
ceremony, and, under his vigorous régime, the Irish army was better
armed, better fed, and better clad than it had been since the outbreak
of the war. Old Tyrconnel ruled Ireland nominally. The real ruler, after
he had, by repeated representations and solicitations, obtained
unrestricted military command, was St. Ruth himself. Unhappily for
Ireland, he slighted Tyrconnel, who was a very proud man, and did not
get along smoothly with Sarsfield, whose sage advice, had he taken it,
would have saved him from a fatal disaster.
Baron De Ginkel, commander-in-chief for William, marched with an army
computed at 19,000 men from Dublin to open the campaign against the
Irish on the line of the Shannon, on May 30, 1691. On June 7, he reached
the fort of Ballymore, held by a small Irish force under
Lieutenant-Colonel Ulick Burke, and summoned it to surrender. Burke
answered defiantly, and Ginkel immediately opened upon his works. A
detached post, held by a sergeant and a few men, was defended
desperately and caused the Williamites serious loss. It was finally
captured, and De Ginkel, with inexcusable cruelty, hanged the brave
sergeant, for doing his duty, as O’Callaghan says, on the shallow
pretext that he had defended an untenable position. Colonel Burke,
nothing daunted, continued his defence of Ballymore, although Ginkel
threatened him with the unfortunate sergeant’s fate. The fire of
eighteen well-served pieces of heavy artillery speedily reduced the fort
to a ruin. The Irish engineer officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Burton, was
killed, and many men had also fallen. Burke hung out a flag of truce and
demanded the honors of war if he were to surrender the place. Ginkel
refused and called for immediate submission. The utmost time he would
grant was two hours, and he agreed to allow the women and children to
depart within that period. Once he proceeded to storm the position, he
said, the garrison need expect no quarter. Colonel Burke declined to be
intimidated and the work of destruction began anew—the women and
children still remaining in the beleaguered fort. The latter was
situated near the town of the same name, in the County Westmeath, on a
peninsula which jutted into a small loch, or lake, and was too far from
support to make a successful defence. It stood about midway between
Mullingar and Athlone on the road from Dublin. Finally, Ginkel managed
to assail it on the water front, breaches were made, and further
resistance was useless. Therefore, Governor Burke finally surrendered.
He and his command were made prisoners of war, and, in the sinister
words of Story, the four hundred women and children, destitute of food,
shelter, and protection, were “set at liberty.” What subsequently became
of them is not stated. Colonel Burke was exchanged and fell in battle,
at Aughrim, soon afterward. Seven days were occupied by De Ginkel in
again putting Ballymore into a state of defence. He then resumed his
march on Athlone, and, on June 18, was joined at Ballyburn Pass by the
Duke of Wurtemburg and Count Nassau, at the head of 7,000 foreign
mercenaries, and these, according to O’Callaghan, the most painstaking
of historical statisticians, brought his force up to “between 26,000 and
27,000 men of all arms.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
De Ginkel Besieges Athlone—Memorable Resistance of the Irish
Garrison—The Battle at the Bridge—St. Ruth’s Fatuous Obstinacy—Town
Taken by Surprise
ST. RUTH had been advised by the Irish officers of his staff not to
attempt the defence of the “Englishtown” of Athlone, on the Leinster
bank of the Shannon; but, rather, to confine himself to the defence of
the Connaught side, as Governor Grace had done so successfully in the
preceding year. He paid no attention to their counsel, considering,
after reflection, that the Williamite army should be met and beaten back
from the Englishtown, and believing that the bridge, which, in the event
of abandonment, must be destroyed, might prove useful in future military
operations. Accordingly, Colonel John Fitzgerald was appointed governor
of this portion of Athlone, and, with a very insufficient force,
prepared to do his duty. Ginkel, his well-fed ranks, according to
Macaulay, “one blaze of scarlet,” and provided with the finest artillery
train ever seen in Ireland, appeared before Athlone on the morning of
June 19th. His advance was most gallantly disputed and retarded by a
detachment of Irish grenadiers, selected by Governor Fitzgerald, for
that important duty. He took command of them in person, and they fought
so bravely and obstinately, that the enemy were delayed in their
progress for several hours, so that the Irish garrison was well prepared
to receive them, when they finally appeared within gunshot of the walls.
The attack on Englishtown began immediately, Ginkel planting such of his
cannon as had already come up with great judgment; and Fitzgerald
replied to his fire with the few and inefficient pieces he possessed.
But his Irish soldiers performed prodigies of heroism. Their deeds of
unsurpassed valor are thus summed up by Mr. O’Callaghan in an epitaph
which he suggested, in his “Green Book,” should be engraved on a
memorial stone in the locality of the action to be revered by the Irish
people of all creeds and parties:
“Be it remembered that, on the 19th and 20th of June, 1691, a little
band, of between three hundred and four hundred Irishmen, under Colonel
Fitzgerald, contested against an English army of about 26,000 men, under
Lieutenant-General Ginkel, the passes leading to, and the English town
of, Athlone. And though the place had but a slender wall, in which the
enemy’s well-appointed and superior artillery soon made a large breach,
and though its few defenders were worn down by forty-eight hours’
continual exertion, they held out till the evening of the second day,
when, the breach being assaulted by a fresh body of 4,000 Dutch, Danish,
and English troops, selected from above 26,000 men, who fought in
successive detachments, against but three hundred or four hundred, with
no fresh troops to relieve them, these gallant few did not abandon the
breach before above two hundred of their number were killed or disabled.
Then, in spite of the enemy, the brave survivors made their way to the
bridge over the Shannon, maintained themselves in front of it till they
demolished two arches behind them, and finally retired across the river
by a drawbridge into the Irish town, which was preserved by their
heroism till the coming up, soon after, of the Irish main army under
Lieutenant-General St. Ruth.”
Having at last attained possession of Englishtown, Baron De Ginkel
proceeded without delay to bombard the Connaught, and stronger, section
of Athlone. His cannonade knocked a portion of the grim old castle to
pieces, and did considerable other damage, but produced no depressing
effect on the resolute Irish garrison, commanded by two such heroes as
Colonel John Fitzgerald and the veteran Colonel Grace, who acted as a
volunteer. The experienced Dutch general, fearing the appearance on the
scene of St. Ruth, with a relieving army, became a prey to anxiety.
Impressed by the spirit displayed by the Irish troops, he knew there was
little chance of forcing the mutilated bridge by a direct assault, and
he looked for some means of flanking the place, either by a ford or a
bridge of boats. He did not have, at first, sufficient material for the
latter, so he “demonstrated” with detachments of horse, toward
Lanesborough, east of Athlone, and Banagher west of it. The vigilance of
the Irish patrols at both points baffled his design.
Meanwhile, St. Ruth, who had been on the march from Limerick for some
days, at the head of 15,000 men, if we are to believe King James’s
Memoirs, appeared beyond the Shannon and went into camp on a rising
ground about a mile and a half from the town. He was soon made aware of
the condition of affairs, and strengthened the castle garrison. He also
had an earthen rampart constructed to protect the bridge and ford. The
latter was practicable at low water only, and the summer of 1691 was
exceptionally dry. The river had never been known to be so shallow
within the memory of living man. This fact alone should have warned the
French general to be exceptionally vigilant. He retired the brave
Fitzgerald from the governorship, to which he appointed General
Wauchop—a good soldier, but not an Irishman—and the French officers,
Generals D’Usson and De Tesse, were made joint commandants in the town.
The apologists for St. Ruth’s mistakes in front of Athlone claim that
the ill-fated chief gave orders to the French commandants to level all
the useless old walls near the bridge, but that his orders were
neglected. As is usual in such cases, disobedience led to tragical
results. Foiled in his attempt at flank operations, Ginkel determined to
assault the partially destroyed bridge across the Shannon, which, under
cover of a tremendous cannon fire, he did. But it was defended with
Spartan tenacity. Attack after attack failed. Movable covered galleries
were tried, and these contained planks wherewith to restore the broken
arches. Not less than nine English batteries, armed with heavy guns,
rained death on the Irish army, but still it stood unmoved, although
losing heavily. Under cover of the fire of nearly fifty great guns, the
English pontoniers, protected also by their galleries, succeeded in
laying planks across the broken arches. They accounted their work done,
when suddenly out of the Irish trenches leaped eleven men clad in armor,
led by Sergeant Custume, or Costy, who, according to Sullivan, called on
them “to die with him for Ireland.” They rushed upon the bridge and
proceeded to tear away the planks. Instantly, all the English cannon and
muskets sent balls and bullets crashing upon them. The whole eleven fell
dead—shattered by that dreadful fire. Some planks still remained upon
the arches. Eleven more Irish soldiers leaped from their works, and,
following the example of their fallen comrades, gained the bridge and
sought to throw the planks into the river. Nine of these heroes were
killed before their work was accomplished. But the planks were floating
down the Shannon, and two heroic survivors of twenty-two Homeric heroes
regained the Irish lines! Pity it is that their names have not come down
to us. Aubrey de Vere, in his fine poem, commemorating the exploit,
tells us that St. Ruth, who, with Sarsfield, witnessed the glorious
deed, rose in his stirrups and swore he had never seen such valor
displayed in the Continental wars. Chaplain Story, with incredible
meanness, tries to steal the glory of this deed from the Irish army by
saying that the heroes were “bold Scots of Maxwell’s regiment.” The
slander has been sufficiently refuted by O’Callaghan, Boyle, and other
writers. Maxwell was a Scotchman, but he commanded Irish troops
exclusively, and there was not a single Scotch battalion in the service
of King James in Ireland from first to last. For further information on
this point, the reader can consult O’Callaghan’s “Green Book” and
“History of the Irish Brigades,” and also Dalton’s “King James’s Irish
Army List,” which gives the roster of the field, line, and staff
officers of each Irish regiment, including Maxwell’s. The defence of the
bridge occurred on the evening of June 28. On the morning of the 29th
another attempt was to have been made, but, owing to some
miscalculation, was deferred for some hours. St. Ruth was ready for it
when it came, and, after another murderous struggle at the bridge, where
the English and their allies were led by the Scottish General Mackay,
the assailants were again beaten off, their covered gallery destroyed,
and their bridge of boats, which they bravely attempted to construct in
face of the Irish fire, broken up. St. Ruth commanded the Irish army in
person and displayed all the qualities of a good general. Success,
however, would seem to have rendered him over-confident. The conflict
over, he led his main body back to camp, and is said to have given a
ball and banquet at his quarters—a country house now in a neglected
condition and popularly known as “St. Ruth’s Castle.” The Roscommon
peasants still speak of it as “the owld house in which the French
general danced the night before he lost Athlone.”
By some unaccountable fatality, St. Ruth, instead of leaving some
veteran troops to occupy the works near the bridge, committed them to
new and untrained regiments, which were placed under the command of
Acting Brigadier Maxwell. The latter, who has been—unjustly,
perhaps—accused of treason by Irish writers, would seem to have shared
the fatal over-confidence of St. Ruth. Therefore, no extraordinary
precautions were adopted to prevent a surprise—something always to be
anticipated when a baffled enemy grows desperate. Colonel Cormac
O’Neill, of the great Ulster family of that ilk, happened to be on duty
at the defences of the river front during the night and morning of June
29-30, and noticed suspicious movements among the English troops
occupying the other side of the Shannon. Becoming alarmed, he
immediately communicated his suspicions to Maxwell, observing, at the
same time, that he would like a supply of ammunition for his men.
Maxwell sneered and asked, “Do your men wish to shoot lavrocks (larks)?”
However, O’Neill’s earnest manner impressed him somewhat, and, in the
gray of the morning, he visited the outer lines, and, from what he saw,
at once concluded that De Ginkel had some serious movement in
contemplation. He sent immediately to St. Ruth for a regiment of veteran
infantry, at the same time giving his reasons for the request. St. Ruth,
it is said, sent back a taunting reply, which reflected on Maxwell’s
courage. We are told that Sarsfield remonstrated with St. Ruth, who
declared he did not believe Ginkel would make an attempt to surprise the
town, while he was so near with an army to relieve it. English
historians say that, upon this, Sarsfield apostrophized British valor
and remarked that there was no enterprise too perilous for it to
attempt. The discussion—if, indeed, it ever took place—was cut short by
the ringing of bells and firing of cannon in the town. “Athlone is
surprised and taken!” Sarsfield is credited with having said, as he
observed the untrained fugitives running from the Irish trenches.
“Impossible!” St. Ruth is represented to have replied, “Ginkel’s master
should hang him if he attempts the capture of the place, and mine should
hang me if I were to lose it!” But the uproar from the city soon showed
the Frenchman that something terrible had occurred. When too late, he
gave orders to rectify his mistake. The English were already in the
works and could not be dislodged. Maxwell’s men had fled in disorder,
most of them being surprised in their sleep, and the general and some of
his officers became prisoners of war. It was the most complete and
successful surprise recorded in military annals, except, perhaps, that
of Mannheim by General, afterward Marshal, Ney, in 1799. It would seem
that Ginkel, by the advice of Mackay, and other officers, looked for a
ford, and found it by the aid of three Danish soldiers who were under
sentence of death, and were offered their lives if they succeeded. They
found the ford, and the Irish, seeing them approach the bank of the
river fearlessly, concluded they were deserters and refrained from
firing. After them plunged in sixty armored English grenadiers, led by
Captain Sandys, a noted military dare-devil, and these were followed by
the main body under Mackay, another experienced commander. The hour was
six in the morning of June 30, and, after one of the bravest defences of
which we have record, Athlone, through the infatuation of St. Ruth, was
in English hands before noon on that eventful day. And so it came to
pass, that after a conflict of more than a year, the defensive line of
the Shannon was, at last, broken. It is estimated by most historians
that Ginkel’s total loss amounted to 1,200 men and that of St. Ruth was
somewhat greater, owing to the surprise. Among those killed in St.
Ruth’s army were two colonels, named McGinness, Colonel MacMahon,
Colonel O’Gara, Colonel Richard Grace, who fell in defence of the bridge
on the 29th, and the French adjutant-general. Few officers of note fell
on the English side. Ginkel, during the siege, “expended 50 tons of
gunpowder, 12,000 cannon balls, 600 bombshells, and innumerable tons of
stone, hurled from the mortars, when the shells were exhausted.” After
the capture, the English found only a mass of ruins, and it took De
Ginkel several days to put the place in some kind of repair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III
The Irish Army Falls Back and Takes Post at Aughrim—Description of the
Field—Disposition of the Irish Forces—Baal Dearg O’Donnell’s Apathy
BOTH history and tradition affirm that St. Ruth and Sarsfield almost
came to swords’ points over the loss of Athlone, and it is still
believed, in that section of Ireland, that the Irish general, indignant
at the criminal blunder that had been committed by his superior, took
all of his cavalry from under the Frenchman’s command and marched to
Limerick. But this tradition is more than doubtful. It is, however,
certain that the two leaders, who should have been so united in council,
had a bitter altercation over the disaster, and were hardly on speaking
terms during the few momentous days they were destined to serve
together. St. Ruth was filled with rage and mortification. He felt that
he had committed a grievous error, and dreaded the anger of King Louis,
who was a severe judge of those who served him ill. He declared his
determination to hazard all on a pitched battle. Against this resolve,
Tyrconnel, who had come to the camp from Limerick, and others,
protested, but in vain. St. Ruth was in no humor to be balked. Tyrconnel
left the camp in dudgeon and retired once more to Limerick, which he was
destined never to leave again. Having made up his mind to fight, St.
Ruth at once broke camp and moved by Milton Pass, where he halted for a
night, toward Ballinasloe, which stands on the river Suck and in the
county of Galway. The cavalry covered the retreat, but no attempt
whatever was made at pursuit.
The army took post along the fords of the Suck, as if it intended to
fight in front of Ballinasloe, which was considered quite defensible,
but St. Ruth’s previous knowledge of the country would appear to have
determined him to retire about three and a half miles south by west of
his first position, as soon as reinforcements, drawn from the abandoned,
or reduced, posts along the Shannon, had joined him. In his retreat from
Athlone, some of the Connaught troops, disgusted by the loss of that
town and doubtful of the general’s motives, deserted, and these had to
be replaced by the soldiers of the Irish garrisons broken up or
depleted. About July 9, old style, St. Ruth decamped from Ballinasloe,
and a few hours afterward his devoted army, which, according to our best
information, consisted of about 15,000 foot and 5,000 horse and
dragoons, with only nine field-pieces, defiled by the causeways of
Urachree and Aughrim to the slopes of Kilcommodan Hill, where the new
camp was established, on the eastern side of the eminence, facing toward
Garbally and Ballinasloe. Kilcommodan, at that period, was almost
surrounded by red bog, and, on the front by which De Ginkel must
approach, ran a small stream, with several branches, which made the
morass impracticable for horse and difficult for infantry. In our day,
this morass has become meadow-land, but it is about the only natural
feature that has undergone considerable change since the period of the
battle. From north to south, the hill is estimated to be a little more
than a mile in length, and its mean elevation is about 350 feet. The bog
lay closer up to Aughrim, where stand the ruins of an old castle which
commanded the narrow and difficult pass, than to Urachree, where there
is another pass not particularly formidable to a determined assailant.
The road through the pass of Aughrim ran then, and still runs, by
Kilconnell Abbey and village—after which the French have named the
battle—to Athenry, Loughrea, and Galway. The road through the pass of
Urachree connects Ballinasloe with Lawrencetown, Eyrecourt, and Banagher
Bridge, and also, by a branch route, with Portumna; and these were the
natural lines of retreat for the Irish army in the event of disaster.
Near the crest of Kilcommodan Hill are the remains of two so-called
Danish raths, circular in shape, and in the one nearest to Aughrim
Castle St. Ruth is said to have pitched his tent.
Most of the elevation was then a wild common, but at its base, on the
Irish front, were many fields under tillage, and these small inclosures
were divided from each other by thick, “quick-set” hedges, or, rather,
fences, such as are still common in Ireland—formidable against the
encroachments of cattle, but still more formidable when applied to
military purposes. The French general had found his intrenchments
ready-made, and proceeded to use them to the best possible advantage.
Weak points in them were strengthened, and passageways connecting one
with the other, from front to rear and from right to left, were
constructed. The design was to enable the formidable Irish cavalry to
aid the infantry when a crisis should arrive. In the direction of
Urachree, St. Ruth caused the construction of regular breastworks,
conceiving that his point of danger lay to the right, and having, as a
military writer has well observed, “a fatal confidence in the strength
of his left flank,” resting as it did on an old castle and “a narrow,
boggy trench through which two horsemen could hardly ride abreast.” All
his arrangements were completed by the 10th of July, and, according to
Boyle, the author of “The Battlefields of Ireland,” his line of battle,
which contemporaneous accounts say covered a front of about two miles,
had its right resting on Urachree and its left upon Aughrim. The London
“Gazette” of July, 1691, says that this wing of the Irish army “extended
toward the Abbey of Kilconnell,” which was considerably to the left and
almost in rear of Kilcommodan Hill. The Irish centre rested on the mid
slope of the elevation, “between its camp and the hedgerows.” Each
division consisted of two front and two rear lines; the former of
infantry and the latter of cavalry. Of St. Ruth’s nine brass pieces, two
were devoted to the defence of Aughrim Castle; a battery of three pieces
was constructed on the northeastern slope of Kilcommodan, so as to rake
the castle pass, a part of the morass, and the firmer ground beyond it,
and thus prevent any hostile troops from deploying there and so threaten
his left. His other battery, of four pieces, was planted on his right
and swept the pass leading to Urachree. It is said that a strong reserve
of horse, under Sarsfield, was posted on the west side of the hill, out
of view of the approaching enemy, but that Sarsfield had been
particularly enjoined by St. Ruth to make no movement whatever without a
direct order from himself. Story, who ought to know, says that Sarsfield
was second in command, but neither to him nor to any other of his
subordinate generals did St. Ruth communicate his plan of battle, so
that, if he were doomed to fall, the conflict could still be waged as he
had from the first ordained it. This was St. Ruth’s most fatal error, as
it placed the fate of Ireland on the life or death of a single man. He
had no cannon with which to arm a battery on his centre, nor does he
seem to have wanted any for that purpose—his apparent plan being to let
the English infantry cross at that point, where he felt confident the
Irish foot and dragoons would soon make an end of them. Although King
James’s memoirs aver that St. Ruth had “a mean [_i.e._ poor] opinion” of
the Irish infantry, until it developed its prowess in the battle, his
disposition of this arm at Aughrim would not convey that opinion to the
observing mind. Most of the Irish foot lacked discipline, in the strict
sense of the term, but no general who had seen them fight, as St. Ruth
did, at the bridge of Athlone, could doubt their courage. His
expectation that the English troops sent against his centre would be
roughly handled was not doomed to disappointment.
Owing to many untoward causes, a full and correct list of the Irish
regiments that fought at Aughrim is not to be obtained, but Boyle holds
that Colonel Walter Bourke and his brother, Colonel David Bourke, held
the position in and around the castle of Aughrim; that Lord Bophin,
Brigadier Henry Luttrell, and Colonels Simon Luttrell and Ulick Bourke
commanded on the left; that Major-General Dorrington, Major-General H.
M. J. O’Neill, Brigadier Gordon O’Neill, Colonel Felix O’Neill, and
Colonel Anthony Hamilton held the centre; and that Lords Kilmallock,
Galmoy, Galway, Clare, and Colonel James Talbot commanded on the right,
toward Urachree. Thus it may be inferred, says the historian, that the
Munster troops were on the right, the Leinster and Ulster contingents in
the centre, and the soldiers of Connaught were posted on the left. The
general in command of the entire infantry was William Mansfield Barker,
and Major-General John Hamilton was in chief command of the horse. The
discord among the chief officers in the Irish camp must have been
something unusual, when to none of the distinguished commanders
enumerated did the French commander-in-chief reveal his order of battle.
But the historian recently quoted says, in reviewing the character of
the unfortunate Frenchman: “Whatever were the foibles of St. Ruth, from
his advent in the country to his retreat from Athlone, we have now to
look on an entirely different character. He had learned, though at a
fearful cost, that his name had no fears for his potent adversary; that
deeds alone were to be the test of high emprise, and that his folly had
narrowed down the campaign, and in fact the whole war, to the last
resource of fallen heroes—death or victory. With this feeling, all that
was vainglorious in his character at once disappeared; the mist was
removed from his mind, and it shone out to the end of his short career
as that of a true hero in adversity. Unlike his French predecessors, he
scorned to hide his faults behind the shield of calumny; he candidly
acknowledged his error and bitterly lamented it. He became courteous to
his officers, affable to his soldiers, changed at once from the despot
to the patriarch, and, touched by his sorrows, as much as by their own
calamity, they again rallied round him and determined on a final throw
for religion and liberty.”
A proclamation issued by the English Lords Justices, in the name of
William and Mary, immediately after the fall of Athlone, offered
inducements, in the shape of promotion and money, to such officers and
soldiers of the Irish army as would desert their colors and accept
service with De Ginkel. Very few traitors availed themselves of the
offer, but many of those who were indignant with St. Ruth abandoned the
camp and joined the irregular forces of the military Hiberno-Spanish
adventurer, Baal Dearg O’Donnell, who claimed to be of the noble House
of Tyrconnel, and had lately come from Spain, apparently without a
settled purpose or principle. Instead of uniting his 7,000 irregulars
with the regular Irish army under St. Ruth, who had no French troops
whatever with him, O’Donnell assumed the airs of a hereditary Irish
prince, affected to despise James as well as William, and established
his camp and court in the country between Tuam and Athenry, within two
short marches, if made even in ordinary time, of the Irish encampment on
Kilcommodan Hill. St. Ruth summoned him to his aid, but the adventurer,
whose selfish conduct some Irish writers, notably Mr. Haverty, have
sought to explain and excuse, made no reply, and, to this day, he is
remembered in Ireland with detestation not unmingled with contempt. His
duty, when within sound of the cannon of Aughrim, was to hasten to the
field and spare the fate of his gallant countrymen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV
De Ginkel Marches After St. Ruth—The Latter Prepares to “Conquer or
Die”—His Speech to the Irish Army on the Eve of Fighting
REINFORCEMENTS continued to reach De Ginkel’s camp near Athlone, where
he lingered much longer than he originally intended, owing to the utter
ruin which the bombardment had wrought. Another cause of his delay was
his anxiety to obtain fresh supplies of ammunition, and he judged
correctly that St. Ruth, rendered desperate by his late misfortune,
would give him decisive battle at the very first opportunity. But, about
July 10, all was in readiness, and leaving in Athlone a powerful
garrison, the Dutch general and his fine army set out in pursuit of St.
Ruth, who had now so many days “the start” of his enemy. The English
halted that night at Kilcashel, on the road to Ballinasloe. On the 11th
they reached the fords of the Suck, and the scouts reported the Irish
pickets in full view on the heights of Garbally—now the domain of the
Earl of Clancarty, whose ancestor distinguished himself as an
artillerist on the English side at Aughrim. De Ginkel, taking with him a
formidable force of cavalry, crossed the river by the ford and rode
forward to reconnoitre St. Ruth’s position. The Irish pickets fell back
as he advanced, and, reaching the crest of the heights, he beheld,
through his field-glass, on an opposite elevation, about a mile and a
half distant, the Irish army drawn up in “battle’s magnificently stern
array,” matches lighted at the batteries, and their colors advanced,
challenging to combat. He rode forward farther still, to get a closer
view, and St. Ruth allowed him to gratify his curiosity unmolested,
although he came within less than half a mile of the Irish lines. What
he saw made De Ginkel thoughtful. His military glance showed him the
strength of the Irish position, and St. Ruth’s reputation as a competent
general stood high in all the camps of Europe. He rode back to his camp
and called a council of his officers, Mackay, Ruvigny, Talmash, and the
rest. Having explained the situation, he asked for their opinion. Some
were for trying a flank movement, which would draw St. Ruth from his
chosen ground, but the bolder spirits said they had gone too far to turn
aside without loss of honor, and a forward movement was decided on. The
camp, guarded by two regiments, was left undisturbed. All superfluous
clothing was laid aside, and, in light marching order, De Ginkel’s army
crossed the Suck, the movement being visible to St. Ruth from
Kilcommodan Hill, “the foot,” as Story has it, “over the bridge; the
English and French [Huguenot] horse over the ford above, and the Dutch
and Danes over two fords below.” It was six o’clock in the morning of
Sunday, July 12, 1691 (July 23, new style), while the early church bells
were ringing in Ballinasloe, when they prepared to march on Aughrim.
English annalists, intending, perhaps, to minimize the prowess of the
Irish army, place De Ginkel’s strength at 18,000 men of all arms, but
the roster of his regiments, as given by Story and other contemporaneous
writers, shows conclusively that his force could not have been less than
from 25,000 to 30,000 men, nearly all seasoned veterans. The Williamite
chaplain’s map of Ginkel’s order of battle shows over seventy (70)
regimental organizations, not including Lord Portland’s horse, which
joined after the line was formed. Some of the bodies shown as regiments
may have been battalions or squadrons, but, making due allowance for
these, and counting 400 men as the average of seventy distinct
formations, which is an almost absurdly low estimate, the Williamite
army could not, possibly, have been less than 28,000 men. Its artillery
was formidable, and the cavalry—British, Dutch, Danish, German, and
Huguenot—was accounted the best in Europe. As this fine force advanced
toward its objective, the scared rural folk fled before it, remembering,
no doubt, the excesses committed by the armies of William and Douglas in
Leinster and Munster during the preceding year. The writer lived for
some years almost within sight of Kilcommodan Hill, and heard from the
simple, but intelligent, peasantry, whose great-grandfathers had spoken
with soldiers of King James’s army, how De Ginkel’s troops defiled in
four great, glittering columns of scarlet and blue and steel, horse,
foot, and cannoneers, over the Suck and took up their positions on the
Galway side of the river. Their brass field-pieces shone like burnished
gold in the morning sun. They halted where the road from Ballinasloe,
running west by south, branches around the north side of Kilcommodan,
toward Kilconnell, Athenry, and Galway, and around the south end of that
elevation toward Kiltormer, Lawrencetown, and Clonfert. The Irish
pickets fell back before them, firing as they retired, from the heights
of Knockdunloe, Garbally, and Liscappel. De Ginkel marshaled his army
into two lines of battle, corresponding almost exactly to the Irish
formation, the infantry in the front line, and strongest, finally,
toward the centre, and the cavalry on the flanks, supported by the
cannon.
Up to about 7.30 o’clock, tradition says, the morning remained
beautifully clear, and the Irish camp, on the rising ground, was plainly
visible to the enemy. St. Ruth’s army, except the officers and men on
duty and the few non-Catholic Jacobites who followed its fortunes, was
observed to be assisting at mass—altars having been erected by the
chaplains at the head of every regiment. It was, according to the
imposing French custom, which St. Ruth closely followed, military High
Mass, during which, at the elevation of the Host, there was rolling of
the drums and blare of trumpets, instead of the pealing of cathedral
bells. The horses of the Irish cavalry were “on herd” along the grassy
hillside, under guard; but, when the English advance was sighted, the
bugles sounded “To Horse,” and there was “mounting in hot haste” of
Sarsfield’s and Galmoy’s and Kilmallock’s bronzed and bearded
troopers—the paladins of the Boyne and Ballyneety. Divine service over,
the Irish army at once occupied the positions assigned to the several
corps by their general on the preceding day. Story and some other
English writers claim that, on that day, also, St. Ruth addressed to his
army a pompous, vainglorious, and rather insulting speech, which he
caused to be translated into English and Irish, by his interpreters, for
the benefit of those to whom it was directed. But Irish chroniclers aver
that he spoke to the troops with paternal consideration, reminded them
of their country’s sufferings, and their own duty, and called upon them,
in words of nervous eloquence, in the name of honor, religion, and
liberty, and for Ireland’s military glory, to conquer or die.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V
Decisive Battle of Aughrim—It Opens Favorably for the Irish—Desperate
Fighting in the Centre and at Urachree—Fortune or Treason Favors De
Ginkel
BUT the fog, “arising from the moist valley of the Suck,” had,
meanwhile, gathered so densely that the rival armies, for a time, lost
sight of each other, and De Ginkel’s forward movement was suspended; but
his soldiers rested in the positions previously determined on, although
the formation had to be somewhat modified later in the day. It was about
noon when the fog finally rolled away, and Ginkel’s line of battle moved
slowly onward, until, at last, to use the graphic words of Lord
Macaulay, the rival armies “confronted each other, with nothing but the
bog and the breastwork between them.” The Irish historian, John Boyle,
states, in his fine account of the conflict at Aughrim, that, at sight
of the Williamite array, on the other side of the morass, the Irish army
broke into loud shouts of defiance, which were vigorously responded to
by their foes. There was a mutual mortal hatred expressed in those
cheers. It meant “war to the knife,” and, as at our own Buena Vista,
“Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o’er the field beneath,
Well knew the watchword of that day
Was ‘Victory or death!’”
Observing the strength of the Irish left at Aughrim Castle, De Ginkel
resolved to manœuvre toward Urachree, where his horse had a better
chance, and, about one o’clock, began the battle with a cavalry advance
in the direction of the latter point. The first charge was made by a
Danish troop on an Irish picket. The latter met the shock so fiercely
that the Danes, although superior in numbers, by the admission of Story,
fled in great haste. Another party was sent forward, and still
another—the Irish responding with fresh bodies of their own, until, at
last, Cunningham’s dragoons, Eppinger’s cavalry, and Lord Portland’s
horse—all under the veteran General Holztapfel—were drawn in on the
English side. They charged furiously, and, for a moment, the Irish
cavalry gave ground, drawing their opponents after them. The English,
carried away by apparent success, rode at a gallop past the house of
Urachree and were immediately charged in flank by the brave Lord Galmoy.
A murderous conflict followed, but, as at the Boyne, the Irish horsemen
showed their superiority, and their gallant enemies were forced to fall
back in terrible disorder, leaving hundreds of their comrades dead or
dying on the ensanguined field. Many of the Irish troopers fell also,
and, on both sides, every man was killed or wounded by the sabre. The
English left their heroic commander, General Holztapfel, among their
dead. When De Ginkel saw his chosen cavalry repelled with slaughter from
Urachree, he became profoundly anxious. There had been, up to this time,
only a few partial demonstrations by the Anglo-Dutch infantry which had
produced no impression whatever on St. Ruth’s sturdy foot, who lay
quietly in their works, waiting for their foes to advance to closer
quarters.
De Ginkel, in deep distress of mind, summoned a council of war, which
debated whether it were better to defer the battle until next day or
renew the attack immediately. At one time, during the discussion, it was
determined upon to send back to Ballinasloe for the tents, and encamp
for the night where the army stood. This decision was afterward set
aside, and, says Chaplain Story, “it was agreed to prosecute the battel
on the enemies’ right, by that means proposing to draw part of their
strength from Aghrim [so he spells it] Castle, nigh which their main
body was posted, that so our right might have the easier passage over to
attack their left, and then our whole army might have opportunity to
engage. This, I am told, was the advice of Major-General Mackay, a man
of great judgment and long experience, and it had its desired success.”
We will take the Williamite chaplain’s account of the movement against
the Irish right wing, which immediately followed the council of war:
“About half an hour past four in the afternoon, a part of our left wing
moved toward the enemy, and, at five o’clock, the battel began afresh. A
party of our foot marched up to their ditches, all strongly guarded with
musketiers, and their horse posted advantageously to sustain them: here
we fired one upon the other for a considerable time, and the Irish
behaved themselves like men of another nation [mark the ungracious
sneer], defending their ditches stoutly; for they would maintain one
side till our men put their pieces over at the other, and then, having
lines of communication from one ditch to another, they would presently
post themselves again, and flank us. This occasioned great firing on
both sides, which continued on the left nigh an hour and a half, ere the
right of our army or the centre engaged, except with their cannon, which
played on both sides. All this time, our men were coming up in as good
order as the inconveniency of the ground would allow, and now General
Mackay and the rest, seeing the enemy draw off several bodies of horse
and foot from the left, and move toward their right, when our men
pressed them very hard; they [the English generals] laid hold on that
advantage, and ordered the foot to march over the bogg, which fronted
the enemies’ main battel. Colonel Earl, Colonel Herbert, Colonel
Creighton, and Colonel Brewer’s regiments went over at the narrowest
place, where the hedges on the enemies’ side run farthest into the bogg.
These four regiments were ordered to march to the lowest ditches,
adjoining to the side of the bogg, and there to post themselves till our
horse could come about by Aghrim Castle and sustain them, and till the
other foot marched over the bogg below, where it was broader, and were
sustained by Colonel Foulk’s and Brigadier Stewart’s [forces]. Colonel
Earl advanced with his regiment, and the rest after him, over the bogg,
and a rivulet that ran through it, being most of them up to their
middles in mudd and water. The Irish at their near approach to the
ditches fired upon them, but our men contemning all disadvantages,
advanced immediately to the lowest hedges, and beat the Irish from
thence. The enemy, however, did not retreat far, but posted themselves
in the next ditches before us, which our men seeing and disdaining
[_sic_] to suffer their lodging so near us, they would needs beat them
from thence also, and so from one hedge to another, till they got very
nigh the enemies’ main battel. But the Irish had so ordered the matter
as to make an easy passage for their horse amongst all those hedges and
ditches, by which means they poured in great numbers both of horse and
foot upon us: which Colonel Earl seeing, encouraged his men by advancing
before them, and saying: ‘There is no way to come off but to be brave!’
As great an example of true courage and generosity as any man this day
living {1693}. But, being flanked and fronted, as also exposed to the
enemies’ shot from the adjacent ditches, our men were forced to quit
their ground, and betake themselves to the bogg again, whither they were
followed, or rather drove [_sic_] down by main strength of horse and
foot, and a great many killed. Colonel Earl and Colonel Herbert were
here taken prisoners; the former, after twice taking and retaking, got
free at last, tho’ not without being wounded.
“While this was doing here, Colonel St. John, Colonel Tiffin, Lord
George Hambleton, the French [Huguenots] and other regiments were
marching below on the same bogg. The Irish, in the meantime, laid so
close in their ditches that several were doubtful whether they had any
men at that place or not; but they were convinced of it at last; for no
sooner were the French and the rest got within twenty yards, or less, of
the ditches, but the Irish fired most furiously upon them, which our men
as bravely sustained, and pressed forwards, tho’ they could scarce see
one another for the smoak [_sic_]. And now the thing seemed so doubtful,
for some time, that the bystanders would rather have given it on the
Irish side, for they had driven our foot in the centre so far back that
they were got almost in a line with some of our great guns, planted near
the bogg, which we had not the benefit of at that juncture, because of
the mixture of our men and theirs.
“Major-General Ruvigny’s French horse and Sir John Lanier’s, being both
posted on the right, were afterward drawn to the left, where they did
very good service. And the right wing of our horse, in the meantime,
were making what haste they could to succor our foot; for, seeing the
danger, and, in fact, that all was in hazard by reason of the difficulty
of the pass, they did more than men, in pressing and tumbling over a
very dangerous place, and that amongst showers of bullets, from a
regiment of dragoons and two regiments of foot, posted conveniently
under cover by the enemy, to obstruct our passage. Our horse at this
place were sustained by Major-General Kirke and Colonel Gustavus
Hambleton’s foot, who, after we had received the enemies’ fire for a
considerable time, marched under the walls of the castle, and lodged
themselves in a dry ditch, in the throng of the enemies’ shot [globular
buttons cut from their jackets, when their ammunition failed], and some
other old walls and ditches adjoining.”
Commenting on the foregoing account of the Williamite chaplain, Mr.
O’Callaghan, in his “Green Book,” page 224, says: “He [Story] has the
same fraudulent coloring I have previously exposed respecting this [the
Huguenot] portion of the English left having ‘kept their ground.’ The
Huguenot narrative [of the battle] is only wrong in the supposition that
La Forest [Huguenot general] on the English left was successful with the
French [Huguenot] infantry, before Ruvigny [Huguenot general], with his
horse, had conquered in the centre; the first progress of the English
having been on their right opposite Aughrim ... where Sir Francis
Compton with the van and Mackay with the rest of the English horse
succeeded in forcing a passage; secondly, on the centre, where Talmash
next to Mackay, and Ruvigny next to Talmash advanced; and, thirdly, on
the left, where La Forest first, and then the Danish horse and foot were
enabled to cross.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI
Battle of Aughrim Continued—Its Crisis—The English Turn Irish Left—St.
Ruth Killed by Cannon Ball—Confusion and Final Defeat of Irish Army
THE lodgment made by the English, or, rather, Ulster regiment of
Gustavus Hamilton in the dry ditch, as described by Chaplain Story,
together with another lodgment made in front of the Irish left centre by
some of the infantry who escaped the slaughter when they were so
gallantly repulsed at that point shortly before, however effected, threw
the chances of victory, for the first time that day, heavily on the side
of De Ginkel. St. Ruth, whose sharp attention was, doubtless, mainly
drawn off toward his centre and right, where the battle had raged
fiercely and continuously for nearly two hours, soon became aware of the
movement inaugurated by the enemy’s cavalry at the castle pass. He
seemed astonished, conceiving that the point was strongly garrisoned,
and asked of his officers: “What do they mean?” The reply was: “They
mean to pass there and flank our left!” St. Ruth observed them for a
moment, laughed incredulously, having still “that fatal confidence in
the strength of his left flank,” and exclaimed in his impetuous fashion:
“Pardieu! but they are brave! What a pity they should be so exposed!” A
few minutes previously, exhilarated by the splendid prowess of the Irish
infantry, in the centre and at Urachree, he threw his plumed hat in the
air and shouted: “Well done, my children! The day is ours! Now we will
beat them back even to the gates of Dublin!”
The unlooked-for passage of the English horse on the Irish left has been
variously explained, or, rather, sought to be explained. Almost every
Irish writer, the careful O’Callaghan included, attributes the disaster
to a lack of proper ammunition on the part of Colonel Walter Bourke’s
regiment, to which was committed the defence of the castle. Having
exhausted their original supply, the soldiers opened the barrels in
reserve and found that the bullets were cast for the calibre of the
English guns which they had used earlier in the war, and were too large
for the bore of the French muskets, which they carried at Aughrim. Other
authors aver that when the Irish left was weakened, to strengthen the
right, the front instead of the rear line of the covering brigade (Henry
Luttrell’s) was withdrawn, thus enabling the infantry that accompanied
Sir Francis Compton’s horse—who were twice repulsed, but, being heavily
reinforced, again advanced—to post themselves in “the dry ditch”
referred to by Chaplain Story; while General Talmash made a
corresponding lodgment, with his rallied foot, on the right centre.
Gross carelessness, deliberate treason, or both combined, contributed to
the Irish disaster. St. Ruth himself, however, would not seem to have
been much concerned by the apparition of the English cavalry forming
toward his left flank, in the small area of firm ground, just across
from the old castle. On the contrary, like Napoleon before the final
charge at Waterloo, “the flash of victory passed into his eyes,” and, as
he observed the enemy forming with some difficulty in that narrow space,
while the single infantry regiment in the dry ditch cowering under the
rain of Irish bullets, cried out to his staff, “We have won the battle,
gentlemen! They are beaten. Now let us beat them to the purpose!” His
bodyguard was formed in rear of the staff and he had already ordered his
cavalry reserve to report to him. Therefore, these formidable squadrons
came up at a trot that shook the ground over the hill behind him. We are
not informed of the name of the officer who led them—fortunately for his
fame, for he must have been either a dastard or a traitor. Instead of
committing the command to a subordinate general, as he should have done,
St. Ruth prepared to lead the attack in person, and the mass of
horsemen, proud and confident, began to move slowly down the slope in
the direction of the disheartened but still determined enemy. The
general, dismounting, halted for a brief space at the battery which
defended that flank of the army, addressed some remarks to the officer
in command, and, it is said, directed the fire of one of the cannon,
with his own hand, toward a particular point of the causeway leading to
the castle. Then he remounted his superb gray charger—the third he had
ridden that fatal day—and, dressed as he was in full uniform, made a
conspicuous mark for the English gunners. He drew his sword, his hard
features, according to tradition, kindling with enthusiasm, and was
about to utter the command to charge Compton’s and Levinson’s cavalry—a
charge that must have given the victory to Ireland, because, according
to Macaulay, De Ginkel already meditated a retreat—when, right before
the eyes of his horrified followers, his head was dashed from his
shoulders by a cannon shot, fired from the English battery at the other
side of the bog! His sword remained firmly gripped in his right hand,
but his affrighted horse galloped down the hill, the body of the rider
remaining erect in the saddle, until it was knocked off by the
overhanging branches of a tree whose remnants are still pointed out to
the traveler. A general paralysis of the Irish left wing, chiefly among
the horse, would seem to have immediately followed the sudden and
ghastly death of St. Ruth. The French attendants at once threw a cloak
over the headless trunk, with the well-meant, but, as it turned out,
ill-considered object of concealing the general’s unlooked-for fall from
the all but victorious Irish army.
St. Ruth’s bodyguard halted the moment he fell, and, when the servants
bore the body over the hill toward the rear, they acted as escort. The
Irish horse, through the timidity or treachery of their chief, halted
also, and, unaccountably, followed the movement in retreat of the
bodyguard. The single word “Charge!” uttered by any general officer,
before the cavalry retired, would have saved the day; but it was never
uttered. The stubborn Mackay and his lieutenants, from their position
near the castle below, divined, from the confusion they observed on the
near hillside, that something fatal had occurred. They took fresh heart.
More of their cavalry, strongly supported by infantry, came up. All
these reheartened troops began to push forward beyond the pass, and even
on their beaten centre and left the long-baffled British and their
allies again assumed the offensive. No orders reached the Irish
troops—mainly foot—still in position on the right and centre and even on
a portion of the left—for the order of battle had perished with St.
Ruth. Was it possible that, impressed by repeated dissensions, he
doubted the fidelity of his chiefs and feared to take any of them into
his confidence? He must have misjudged most of them sorely if this was
the case. Mere selfishness or vanity can not explain his fateful
omission. The English cavalry, now practically unopposed, poured through
the pass, penetrated to the firm ground on the north slope of the hill,
and, finally, appeared in rear of the infantry of the Irish left wing.
Their foot, too, had succeeded in making firm lodgment in the lowest
ditches. The Irish still continued to fight bravely, “but without order
or direction.” At the sight of the repeatedly routed British infantry
crossing the bog in the centre, and the cavalry threatening their left
and rear, it is averred by Boyle that a cry of “Treason!” rang through
the ranks of the regiments so placed as to be able to observe the
hostile movements.
The enemy now vigorously attacked the Irish right and centre, but were
as vigorously met, and again and again repulsed. For a long time, on the
right particularly, they were unable to advance, and it would appear
that the Irish soldiers in their front were totally ignorant of what had
occurred in other parts of the field. The Irish infantry on the left,
destitute of ammunition and having expended even their buttons and
ramrods for projectiles, retired within the castle, where nearly all of
them were finally slaughtered; or else broke off to the left, toward
Kilconnell, and made for the large, red bog, which almost surrounded
that flank, where many of them found refuge from the sabres of the
pursuing cavalry. But even still the devoted centre and right, although
furiously assaulted, refused to give way. At last, the uproar toward
Aughrim, and the bullets of the outflanking enemy in the left rear,
taking them in reverse, warned these brave troops that their position
had become desperate. Twilight had already set in—it was more than an
hour after the fall of St. Ruth—when the English horse and foot appeared
almost behind them, toward the northwest; while the Dutch, Danish, and
Huguenot cavalry, so long repelled at Urachree, supported by the foot
that had, at long run, crossed the morass, began to hem them in on all
sides. Their bravest leaders had fallen, but this admirable infantry
retired slowly from inclosure to inclosure, fighting the fight of
despair, until they reached their camp, where the tents were still
standing in the order in which they were pitched. Here they made their
last heroic stand, but were, at length, broken and fled toward the red
bog already mentioned. The English leveled the tents, so as to render
pursuit more open, and then a dreadful slaughter of the broken Irish
foot followed. Few of these brave men, worthy of a better fate, escaped
the swords of the hostile horse. “Our foreigners, and especially the
Danes, make excellent pursuers,” writes Chaplain Story grimly. Irish
historians say that two of the Irish regiments, disdaining to fly, took
position in a ravine, and there waited “till morning’s sun should rise
and give them light to die.” They were discovered by the enemy next
morning and perished to a man! The spot where they died is still pointed
out and is called by the peasantry “the glen of slaughter.”
We have, unhappily, no better authority than tradition for stating that,
toward the end of the battle, a part of the Irish cavalry, led by
Sarsfield, covered the retreat of the survivors of the Irish foot on
Loughrea and Limerick. In fact there seems to be a complete mystery
about the action of the Irish cavalry after the death of the French
general. Certain it is that this force did not act with the vigor it
showed in the early part of the combat on the right or with the spirit
it displayed at the Boyne; and this fact deepens the doubt as to whether
Sarsfield was in the fight or not. Had it not been, as we are informed
by the learned Abbé McGeoghegan, in his able “History of Ireland,” for
one O’Reilly, the almoner of a regiment, who caused the charge to be
sounded as the fugitives passed through a boggy defile on the line of
retreat, the entire Irish infantry might have been destroyed. They were
also aided by darkness, caused by “a thick misty rain,” brought on, no
doubt, by the detonations of the firearms, acting on a humid atmosphere.
Numbers of small arms and other munitions were abandoned in the flight;
all the cannon, most of the colors, and the whole camp material fell
into the hands of the enemy. Aughrim was to Ireland what Culloden was to
Scotland and Waterloo to France—an irretrievable military disaster,
redeemed only by the desperate valor of the defeated army. Even the most
bitter and partisan of the English annalists admit, although with
manifest reluctance, that the Irish army fought heroically in this
murderous battle. Its losses are placed by Story, who witnessed the
conflict throughout, at 7,000 killed on the spot and 500, including
officers, made prisoners. This statement of his shows conclusively that
almost all of the Irish wounded were put to the sword. Other writers,
including King James himself, make the Irish loss somewhat less, but we
are inclined to think that Story, in this case, came pretty near to the
truth. He says in his interesting narrative, “looking amongst the dead
three days after, when all of ours and some of theirs were buried, I
reckoned in some small inclosures 150, in others 120, etc., lying most
of them in the ditches where they were shot, and the rest from the top
of the hill, where their camp had been, looked like a great flock of
sheep, scattered up and down the country for almost four miles round.”
The bodies had been stripped by the camp-followers, which accounts for
the white appearance to which Story makes allusion. Most of these
corpses were inhumanly left above ground, to be the prey of birds and
beasts, by the conquerors, and thus Aughrim is known to the Irish people
as the “Field of our Unburied Dead.” It was customary a generation ago,
and may be so in our day, for the Catholic peasantry passing along the
roads that wind around Kilcommodan, to uncover their heads reverently
and offer up prayers for the souls of the heroes of their race who died
there for faith, land, and liberty.
Story says he never could find out what became of St. Ruth’s corpse,
“some say that it was left stripped amongst the other dead when our men
pursued beyond the hill, and others that it was thrown into a bog.” In
the neighborhood of Aughrim it was long believed that while still the
left of the Irish army remained in position, the French staff officers
laid the remains to rest under the chancel floor of the adjacent Abbey
of Kilconnell. Other traditions are to the effect that they were buried
in Loughrea Abbey, or beside those of Lord Galway, who fell in the same
battle, in the ruined church of Athenry. Boyle, after mentioning the two
last-named probabilities, says: “There is, however, reason to doubt
both, and the writer is aware that the people of the locality where the
battle was fought, directed by tradition, point to a few stunted white
thorns, to the west of the hill toward Loughrea, beneath which, they
say, rest the ashes of that great but unfortunate general.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII
Mortality Among Officers of Rank on Both Sides—Acknowledged English Loss
at Aughrim—English and Irish Comments on Conduct of Battle
BESIDES St. Ruth, the chief officers killed on the Irish side were,
according to Story’s account, General Lord Kilmallock, General Lord
Galway, Brigadier-General Connel (O’Connell), Brigadier-General W.
Mansfield Barker, Brigadier-General Henry M. J. O’Neill, Colonel Charles
Moore, his lieutenant-colonel and major; Colonel David Bourke, Colonel
Ulick Bourke, Colonel Connor McGuire, Colonel James Talbot, Colonel
Arthur, Colonel Mahony, Colonel Morgan, Major Purcell, Major O’Donnell,
Major Sir John Everard, with several others of superior rank, “besides,
at least, five hundred captains and subordinate officers.” This latter
statement has been challenged by Irish historians, who claim that
non-commissioned officers were included in the list. Story omitted from
the number of superior officers slain the name of Colonel Felix O’Neill,
Judge-Advocate-General of the Irish army, whose body was found on the
field. Of the less than five hundred Irish prisoners taken, twenty-six
were general or field officers, including General Lord Duleek, General
Lord Slane, General Lord Bophin, General Lord Kilmaine, General
Dorrington, General John Hambleton (Hamilton), Brigadier-General Tuite,
Colonel Walter Bourke, Colonel Gordon O’Neill, Colonel Butler, Colonel
O’Connell (ancestor of Daniel O’Connell), Colonel Edmund Madden,
Lieutenant-Colonel John Chappel, Lieutenant-Colonel John Butler,
Lieutenant-Colonel Baggot, Lieutenant-Colonel John Border,
Lieutenant-Colonel McGinness, Lieutenant-Colonel Rossiter,
Lieutenant-Colonel McGuire, Major Patrick Lawless, Major Kelly, Major
Grace, Major William Bourke, Major Edmund Butler, Major Edmund Broghill,
Major John Hewson, “with 30 captains, 25 lieutenants, 23 ensigns, 5
cornets, 4 quartermasters, and an adjutant.”
Chaplain Story, to whom, with all his faults, we are much indebted for
the details of this momentous battle—one of the few “decisive battles”
of the world—says: “We [the English and their allies] lost 73 officers,
who were killed in this action, with 111 wounded, as appears by the
inserted lists [_vide_ his History of the “Wars in Ireland”] of both
horse and foot, given in two days after by the general’s command, and
sent to the king.” The lists referred to acknowledged, also, 600
soldiers killed and 906 wounded. The allied losses were, no doubt,
underestimated for political effect in England, which had been taught
that one Englishman could kill any number of Irishmen without much fear
of a fatal result to himself. And this superstition was useful, we
believe, to the morale of the British soldiers of the period, whose
stomachs failed them so notably when they were “up against” the defences
of Limerick, as will be seen hereafter. Captain Taylor, a Williamite
writer, who was present at the battle and published a graphic account of
it, says that the loss of the allies (British, Dutch, Danes, Germans,
and Huguenots) was little less than that of the Irish, most of the
latter having fallen in the retreat after the death of General St. Ruth.
Of the Anglo-Dutch troopers, there were killed by the Irish cavalry at
the pass of Urachree, in the early part of the fight, 202, and wounded
125, thus showing the superior strength, reach of arm, and dexterity of
the Irish horsemen. In hand-to-hand conflicts, whether mounted or on
foot, the Irish soldiery, in whatever service, ever excelled, with sword
or battle-axe, pike or bayonet. Clontibret and the Yellow Ford, Benburb
and Fontenoy, Almanza and Albuera, Inkerman and Antietam bear witness to
the truth of this assertion. As a charging warrior, the Irishman has
never been surpassed, and, no matter how bloodily repulsed, an Irish
regiment or an Irish army is ever willing to try again. There may be
soldiers as brave as they, but none are braver, even when they fight in
causes with which they have no natural sympathy. It may be set down as a
military axiom that the Irish soldier is, by force of untoward
circumstances, frequently a mercenary, but rarely, or never, a coward.
The principal officers who fell on the English side, at Aughrim, were
Major-General Holztapfel, who commanded Lord Portland’s horse at
Urachree; Colonel Herbert, killed in the main attack on the Irish
centre; Colonel Mongatts, who died among the Irish ditches while trying
to rally his routed command; Major Devonish, Major Cornwall, Major Cox,
and Major Colt. Many other officers of note died of their wounds at the
field hospital established on the neighboring heights of Garbally—now
converted into one of the most delightful demesnes in Europe; and some
who survived the field hospital died in the military hospitals of
Athlone and Dublin. Those who fell in the battle were buried on the
field, with the usual military honors.
Captain Parker, who fought in the English army in this battle, and who
has left a narrative, frequently quoted by O’Callaghan, Haverty, Boyle,
and other historians, says: “Our loss was about 3,000 men in killed and
wounded,” and, as he was in the thick of the fight and came out
unwounded, he had full opportunity, after the battle closed, to verify
his figures. He certainly could have no object in exaggerating the
English loss, for the tendency of all officers is to underrate the
casualties in their army. And Captain Parker says, further: “Had it not
been that St. Ruth fell, it were hard to say how matters would have
ended, for, to do him justice, notwithstanding his oversight at Athlone,
he was certainly a gallant, brave man, and a good officer, as appeared
by the disposition he made of his army this day.... His centre and right
wing [after his fall] still held their ground, and had he lived to order
Sarsfield down to sustain his left wing, it would have given a turn to
affairs on that side”—“or,” O’Callaghan says in comment, “in other
words, have given the victory to the Irish.”
Lord Macaulay—anti-Irish as all his writings prove him to have been—says
in his “History of England”: “Those [the Irish] works were defended with
a resolution such as extorted some words of ungracious eulogy even from
men who entertained the strongest prejudices against the Celtic race.”
He then quotes Baurnett, Story, and, finally, the London “Gazette,” of
July, 1691, which said: “The Irish were never known to fight with more
resolution.”
In his interesting, but partial, “Life of William III,” published in the
beginning of the seventeenth century, Mr. Harris, a fierce
anti-Jacobite, says: “It must, in justice, be confessed that the Irish
fought this sharp battle with great resolution, which demonstrates that
the many defeats before this sustained by them can not be imputed to a
national cowardice with which some, without reason, impeached them; but
to a defect in military discipline and the use of arms, or to a want of
skill and experience in their commanders. And now, had not St. Ruth been
taken off, it would have been hard to say what the consequence of this
day would have been.”
Now we will give a few comments of the Irish historians upon this
Hastings of their country: O’Halloran, who was born about the time the
battle was fought, and who, as a native of Limerick, must have been, at
least, as familiar with soldiers who fought in the Williamite wars as we
are with the Union and Confederate veterans, in Vol. I, page 106, of his
“History of Ireland,” replying to some slurs cast by the Frenchman,
Voltaire, on the Irish people, says: “He should have recollected that,
at the battle of Aughrim, 15,000 Irish, ill paid and worse clothed,
fought with 25,000 men highly appointed and the flower of all Europe,
composed of English, Dutch, Flemings, and Danes, vieing with each other.
That, after a most bloody fight of some hours, these began to shrink on
all sides, and would have received a most complete overthrow but for the
treachery of the commander of the Irish horse, and the death of their
general [St. Ruth] killed by a random shot.”
On pages 532-533 of the same work, the historian says: “Sir John
Dalrymple tells us that [at Aughrim] the priests ran up and down amongst
the ranks, swearing some on the sacrament, encouraging others, and
promising eternity to all who should gallantly acquit themselves to
their country that day. Does he mean this by way of apology for the
intrepidity of the Irish, or to lessen the applause they were so well
entitled to on that day? Have they required more persuasions to fight
the battles of foreign princes than the native troops, or are they the
only soldiers who require spiritual comfort on the day of trial? I never
thought piety was a reproach to soldiers, and it was, perhaps, the
enthusiasm of Oliver’s troops that made them so victorious. This battle
was, certainly, a bloody and decisive one. The stake was great, the
Irish knew the value of it, and, though very inferior to their enemies
in numbers and appointments, and chagrined by repeated losses, yet it
must be owned they fought it well. Accidents which human wisdom could
not foresee, more than the superior courage of their flushed enemies,
snatched from them that victory, which already began to declare in their
favor. Their bones yet (1744) lie scattered over the plains of Aughrim,
but let that justice be done to their memories which a brave and
generous enemy never refuses.”
Abbé McGeoghegan, who wrote about 1745, and was chaplain of the
Franco-Irish Brigade, says in his “History of Ireland,” page 603: “The
battle began at one o’clock, with equal fury on both sides, and lasted
till night. James’s infantry performed prodigies of valor, driving the
enemy three times back to their cannon.”
Rev. Thomas Leland, an Irish Protestant divine, who published a history
of Ireland about 1763, after describing the catastrophe which befell St.
Ruth, says: “His [St. R.’s] cavalry halted, and, as they had no orders,
returned to their former station. The Irish beheld this retreat with
dismay; they were confounded and disordered. Sarsfield, upon whom the
command devolved, had been neglected by the proud Frenchman ever since
their altercation at Athlone. As the order of battle had not been
imparted to him, he could not support the dispositions of the late
general. The English, in the meantime, pressed forward, drove the enemy
to their camp, pursued the advantage until the Irish, after an
engagement supported with the fairest prospect of success, while they
had a general to direct their valor, fled precipitately.”
The Right Rev. Dr. Fitzgerald, Episcopalian bishop, in his “History of
Limerick,” published some sixty years ago, says: “It [Aughrim] was the
bravest battle ever fought on Irish soil.” The bishop, evidently, had
not read the lives of Art MacMurrough, Hugh O’Neill, Hugh O’Donnell, and
Owen Roe O’Neill, when he penned the words.
“Such,” writes O’Callaghan, at the conclusion of his account of it, in
the “Green Book,” page 230, “was the battle of Aughrim, or Kilconnell,
as the French called it, from the old abbey to the left of the Irish
position; a battle unsuccessful, indeed, on the side of the Irish, but a
Chæronea, or a Waterloo, fought with heroism and lost without dishonor.”
A. M. Sullivan, in his fascinating “Story of Ireland” (American edition,
page 458), says, or rather, quotes from a Williamite authority: “The
Irish infantry were so hotly engaged that they were not aware either of
the death of St. Ruth or of the flight of the cavalry, until they
themselves were almost surrounded. A panic and confused flight were the
result. The cavalry of the right wing, who were the first in action that
day, were the last to quit the ground.... St. Ruth fell about sunset
[8.10], and about 9, after three hours’ [nearer four hours’] hard
fighting, the last of the Irish army [who were not killed, wounded, or
captured] had left the field.”
John Boyle, in his “Battlefields of Ireland,” quotes Taylor, an English
military author who fought at Aughrim, as saying: “Those [the Irish
dead] were nearly all killed after the death of St. Ruth, for, up to
that, the Irish had lost scarcely a man;” and, says he, further, “large
numbers were murdered, after surrender and promise of quarter, by order
of General Ginkel, and among those, so murdered, in cold blood, were
Colonel O’Moore and that most loyal gentleman and chivalrous soldier,
Lord Galway.” This same able writer, in concluding his graphic story of
the famous battle, remarks, with indignant eloquence: “It is painful to
speculate on the cause that left the Irish army without direction after
the death of St. Ruth. Many have endeavored to explain it, but all—as
well those who doubt Sarsfield’s presence on the field as those who
maintain the contrary—are lost in conjecture, and none who participated
in the battle, and survived it, has placed the matter beyond
speculation. So leaving that point as time has left it, what appears
most strange in the connection is the absence of all command at such a
conjuncture. The disposition of the Irish troops, though dexterous, was
simple. The day was all but won. The foiling of Talmash (Mackay) would
have been the completion of victory. A force sufficient was on his
front; a reserve more than ample to overwhelm him was on its way to the
ground—nay, drawn up and even ready for the word. The few British troops
that held a lodgment in the hedges, at the base of the hill, were
completely at the mercy of those above them. It required no omniscient
eye to see this, nor a voice from the clouds to impel them forward, and,
surely, no military etiquette weighed a feather in opposition to the
fate of a nation. Any officer of note could have directed the movement,
and many of experience and approved courage witnessed the crisis. Yet,
in this emergency, all the hard-won laurels of the day were tarnished,
and land and liberty were lost by default! Nor can the rashness of St.
Ruth, his reticence as to his plans, his misunderstanding with
Sarsfield, nor the absence of the latter, justify the want of intrepid
action among those present. This stands unexplained and inexplicable,
nor will the flippant appeal to Providence, whose ways are too
frequently offered as an excuse for human misconduct, answer here. The
want of ammunition at such a moment was, no doubt, of some import, but
the concurrence of events too plainly indicates that Aughrim was won by
the skill of St. Ruth and the gallantry of his troops, and that it was
lost through want of decision in his general officers, at a moment the
most critical in the nation’s history.”
De Ginkel’s army remained in the neighborhood of the field of battle
long enough to give it an opportunity of burying all of the Irish dead,
were it so disposed. The country-people remained away, in terror of
their lives and poor belongings—particularly cattle—until decomposition
had so far advanced as to make the task of sepulture particularly
revolting. And thus it came to pass that nearly all the Irish slain were
left above ground, “exposed to the birds of the air and the beasts of
the field; many dogs frequenting the place afterward, and growing so
fierce by feeding upon man’s flesh that it became dangerous for any
single man to pass that way. And,” continues Story in his narrative so
frequently quoted, “there is a true and remarkable story of a greyhound
[meaning the large, rapacious, and ferocious, Irish Wolf Dog that
existed in those days, although extinct since the last century]
belonging to an Irish officer: the gentleman was killed and stripped in
the battle, whose body the dog remained by night and day, and tho’ he
fed on other corps [es] with the rest of the dogs, yet he would not
allow them, or anything else, to touch that of his master. When all the
corps [es] were consumed, the other dogs departed, but he used to go in
the night to the adjacent villages for food, and presently to return
again to the place where his master’s bones were only then left; and
thus he continued till January following, when one of Colonel Foulk’s
soldiers, being quartered nigh hand, and going that way by chance, the
dog, fearing he came to disturb his master’s bones, flew upon the
soldier, who, being surprised at the suddenness of the thing, unslung
his piece, then upon his back, and killed the poor dog.”
Ireland’s national poet, Thomas Moore, in the beautiful words, set to
that weirdly mournful air: “The Lamentation of Aughrim,” thus pours out
in deathless melody the heart of his unfortunate country:
“Forget not the field where they perished,—
The truest; the last of the brave—
All gone and the bright hopes we cherished
Gone with them and sunk in the grave.
“Oh, could we from death but recover
Those hearts as they bounded before,
In the face of high heaven to fight over
That combat for freedom once more.
“Could the chain for a moment be riven
Which Tyranny flung round us then—
No, ’tis not in man, nor in heaven,
To let Tyranny bind it again!
“But ’tis past; and tho’ blazoned in story
The name of our victor may be;
Accurst is the march of that glory
Which treads on the hearts of the free!
“Far dearer the grave, or the prison,
Illumed by one patriot name,
Than the trophies of all who have risen
On liberty’s ruin to fame!”
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BOOK VI
TREATING OF THE PERIOD FROM THE SECOND SIEGE OF LIMERICK, IN 1691, TO
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EXILED FRANCO-IRISH BRIGADE A CENTURY LATER
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
Second Siege of Limerick—Terrific Bombardment—The English, Aided by
Treachery, Cross the Shannon—Massacre of Thomond Bridge
THE decisive battle having been lost by Ireland, what followed in this
campaign became almost inevitable. Louis XIV and his ministers were
criminally culpable in encouraging the Irish people to resistance when
they did not mean to give them effective aid. Ireland had proved, in
breach and field, that she needed no foreign troops to do her fighting,
but she badly needed arms, ammunition, quartermaster’s supplies, and a
money-chest. Perhaps the egotism of the French monarch and his advisers
led them to underrate the importance of Ireland as a factor in the
affairs of Europe, and the slanders of the perfidious Lauzun and his
lieutenants had poisoned the mind of the ruler of France in regard to
Irish valor. James, in his panic flight, had also carried with him to
the French court a most unfavorable impression, and some Irish
writers—among them Mr. Boyle—aver that Louis bitterly reproached the
fallen king for his ignominious abandonment of Ireland after the affair
of the Boyne. James, however, managed to conciliate his haughty cousin,
and the latter made him still more promises of effective assistance.
De Ginkel, whose immediate objective, as before the great battle, was
Galway, broke up his camp at Aughrim and marched to Loughrea, on July
16. He reached Athenry the following day, and Oranmore on the 18th. At
this point he learned that Lord Dillon was Governor of Galway town, and
that the French general, D’Usson, commanded the garrison. Baal Dearg
O’Donnell, with what remained of his irregular force, hovered about the
city, but failed to throw himself into it. It has been stated, on
seemingly good authority, that the Irish officials within the town
distrusted him, as, indeed, was not unreasonable, seeing that Chaplain
Story tells us that “his [O’Donnell’s] design was to keep amongst the
mountains till he could make terms for himself, upon which account he
writ [wrote] the general, De Ginkel, before our army removed from
Galway.” He followed up this treason in a practical manner, and, some
months later on, as the Chaplain circumstantially informs us, the
adventurer entered the service of William in the Continental wars, and
also received a pension of £500 per annum, for life, from the English
treasury. The same consideration was subsequently given to Brigadier
Henry Luttrell, on whom popular Irish tradition has fixed the odium of
having “sold the pass at Aughrim.” It is certain that twenty-six years
afterward, A.D. 1717, this treacherous “general of the Irish horse” was
shot to death in a sedan chair, while being carried through the streets
of Dublin. No doubt remains among the Irish people that the deed was
done in reprisal for Luttrell’s villanous conduct in the campaign of
1691, and some have gone so far as to charge him with having been the
officer who ordered the Irish cavalry off the field immediately after
the death of St. Ruth on Kilcommodan Hill.
Galway, before which De Ginkel appeared on the 19th, after a respectable
show of resistance, surrendered with the honors of war, and sundry
liberal civil provisions, on the 22d. On the 26th it was evacuated by
the Irish garrison, which marched to Limerick. This capitulation
virtually ended Irish resistance in Connaught, except for the town of
Sligo, which was stubbornly held by the gallant Sir Teague O’Regan, the
hero of Charlemont, against a strong detachment of the English army,
under Lord Granard, until the following September 16, when he, too,
having done all that a brave commander might, yielded his post with
honor, and was allowed to join the main Irish army in Limerick town. The
adventurer, O’Donnell, assisted the English against Sligo. De Ginkel,
after garrisoning Galway, moved toward Limerick by way of Athenry,
Loughrea, Eyrecourt, Banagher Bridge, Birr, Nenagh, and Caherconlish,
meeting but feeble resistance on his route. He halted at the
last-mentioned place to refresh and reinforce his army, and to provide
himself with a stronger siege train. This he finally brought up to the
number of sixty “great guns,” none of them less than a twelve-pounder,
and about a score of mortars for the throwing of large shells. About
this time, he issued several proclamations, and continued to do so
throughout the subsequent operations, with the design of seducing the
Irish officers and soldiers from their allegiance to a desperate cause.
In this effort he was by no means successful, but several clever Irish
spies passed themselves off as deserters, and gave him plenty of
misinformation regarding the condition of affairs at Limerick. While in
this camp at Caherconlish, the Dutch general’s attention was called to
the cupidity of the sutlers and other camp-followers, who appear to have
been as greedy and conscienceless as their successor of our own times.
The gossipy Chaplain informs us, in this connection, that General Ginkel
“sent out an order that all ale from Dublin and Wicklow should be sold
at 6 pence [12 cents] per quart; all other ale, coming above forty
miles, at 5 pence, and all under forty miles at 4 pence; white bread to
be sold at 3 pence per pound; brown bread at 2 pence; claret at 2
shillings and 6 pence, and Rhenish at 3 shillings [per quart]; brandy at
12 shillings [$2.88] per gallon, etc.; and that no person should presume
to exceed these rates on the penalty of forfeiting all his goods, and
suffering a month’s imprisonment. But they promptly found out a trick
for this,” continues Mr. Story in disgust, “and called _all_ drink that
came to the camp Dublin or Wicklow ale!” This “touch of nature” shows
how little mankind has changed in principle and practice after a lapse
of more than six generations.
De Ginkel appeared in front of Limerick on August 25, and the city was
immediately invested on the south, east, and north. The Clare side,
connected by Thomond Bridge with Englishtown, or King’s Island, still
remained unattacked, as no English force had passed the river. The Irish
horse and dragoons were all quartered on that side, while the infantry
garrisoned the threatened portions of the city.
Notwithstanding the imposing array of Ginkel’s superb army and powerful
siege equipment as they approached the walls of their city, neither the
people nor the garrison of Limerick seem to have been much concerned by
the spectacle. The walls were much stronger than they had been in the
previous siege, and the soldiers were seasoned to hardship and peril.
D’Usson, the French lieutenant-general, was in chief command, with his
fellow-countryman, general, the Chevalier De Tessé, second, and
Sarsfield, it appears from the order of signature in the subsequent
treaty, was third in rank, with the Scotch general, Wauchop, fourth. The
Duke of Tyrconnel had died of apoplexy—Story hints at poison
administered in wine—after dining heartily with the French generals and
other officers on August 14. The misfortunes of his country, in the
opinion of many writers, had more to do with hastening the end than any
other cause. His remains lie under a nameless flagstone in the aisle of
St. Mauchin’s church in Limerick, but we are informed not even Irish
tradition, usually so minute, can point out the exact place of
sepulture. The powerful English batteries, raking the town on three
sides, poured in torrents of bombs and red-hot cannon balls, day and
night, and the place caught fire at several points. Most of the women
and children had to be removed to the cavalry camp on the Clare bank,
and the casualties among the defenders were numerous. The Irish replied
spiritedly, but they were very deficient in weight of metal, and, also,
because of the comparative shortness of supply, had to be sparing of
their ammunition, whereas the English were always sure of a fresh supply
both from the interior and their men-of-war on the adjacent coasts. The
Chaplain, under date of September 8, 1691, relates how the “new
batteries were all ready—one to the left with ten field-pieces to shoot
red-hot ball; another to the right of 25 guns, all 24 and 18-pounders;
and in the centre were placed 8 mortars, from 18¾ to 10½ inches in
diameter; these stood all together on the northeast of the town, nigh
the island; then there were 8 guns of 12-pound ball each, planted at
Mackay’s fort, and some also toward the river on the southwest, where
the Danes were posted. These fell to work all the time and put the Irish
into such a fright [more partisan venom] that a great many of them
wished themselves at another place, having never heard such a noise
before, nor I hope never shall in that kingdom.”
Three days later the reverend chronicler tells us that “the breach was
widened at least forty paces, and, floats being prepared, there were
great debates amongst the chief officers whether it should be attempted
by storm.... Though indeed we could not do the enemy a greater pleasure,
nor ourselves a greater prejudice, in all probability, than in seeking
to carry the town by a breach, before those within [the Irish, to wit]
were more humbled, either by sword or sickness.” No finer tribute than
this, coming from such a source, could be paid to Irish constancy and
courage, after such treasons and disasters as marked the capture of
Athlone and the loss of Aughrim.
Thoroughly convinced that he could not hope to carry Limerick by direct
assault, De Ginkel now resolved to test the never-failing weapon of
treachery and surprise on this stubborn foe. He had information that
there was a strong peace-at-any-price party within the town, and that,
could he but land a strong force on the Clare bank of the Shannon, the
city would speedily capitulate. He, therefore, determined to construct,
in all secrecy, a pontoon bridge across the river above St. Thomas
Island, near a place called Annaghbeg, where Brigadier Robert Clifford
commanded a strong body of Irish dragoons and infantry, quite
sufficient, if only properly directed, to foil any hostile movement. On
the night of the 15th of September, the bridge was laid—the most
favorable point having been revealed by some fishermen, who, the
historian O’Callaghan relates, were bribed to betray their country. It
is much more probable, however, that they were forced to turn traitors
under threat of death. However, on the morning of the 16th the bridge
was completed and a formidable English force of horse and foot, under
Generals Talmash and Scravenmore, succeeded in crossing. Apparently
taken by surprise—although distinctly charged with treason by numerous
Irish historians—General Clifford, at this important juncture, displayed
neither zeal, courage, nor capacity. He brought his men up in a state of
unreadiness and in detachments, instead of in a solid formation, and, of
course, was easily put to rout. To show the criminal carelessness, to
say no worse, of this commander, his cavalry horses were “out at grass”
two miles from his camp, when the English attack was made! Such
“generalship” would have demoralized an army of Spartans, and the Irish
rank and file can hardly be blamed if, on this occasion, they did not
manifest their customary intrepidity. Europe never beheld in the field a
braver body of men than King James’s Irish army, and the world never
furnished a more incompetent staff of general officers, whether French
or Irish, than that which commanded and, finally, wrecked it. We wish to
except St. Ruth and Sarsfield and Boisseleau, who were able and gallant
soldiers, thoroughly devoted to the cause in which they had embarked. De
Ginkel’s bold movement resulted in the partial turning of Thomond
Bridge—the key to King’s Island—and the capture of St. Thomas Island,
another important Irish post above the city. He, therefore, felt
justified in issuing, that same day, a proclamation inviting the
garrison of Limerick to surrender on honorable conditions, but the
Irish, although now under a veritable rain of fire and iron from every
point of the compass, paid no heed to it, whereat the phlegmatic, but
skilful, Dutch strategist greatly marveled.
But, although the river had been successfully passed, Ginkel was so
discouraged by the firm countenance of the Irish garrison that he called
a Council of War on the 17th, when it was, at first, decided to cross
the whole English army into Clare, destroy the Irish resources of food
and forage in that county, and then convert the siege into a blockade
that might last indefinitely. Reflection, however, changed this
decision. Winter was approaching, and the wet Irish winter meant
wholesale death to the soft and pampered English and their foreign
allies. Ginkel, then, resolved to again try his favorite manœuvre—a
turning movement. Accordingly, on September 22, at the head of the
greater portion of the allied army, he crossed the pontoon bridge and,
commanding in person, made a sudden and tremendous attack on the small
fort which commanded Thomond Bridge, and was garrisoned by about 800
Irish soldiers. The English cannon soon covered this fort with red-hot
projectiles. Everything inflammable in the soldiers’ quarters caught
fire, and the desperate garrison made a sortie with the object of
crossing into King’s Island by Thomond Bridge. The connection was by
means of a draw. A little over a hundred of the Irish had crossed in
safety, when the French major in command at the drawbridge, fearing, it
is said, that the English might enter the town with the fugitives,
caused it suddenly to be raised. The men behind were not able to see
what had happened, and the foremost ranks that stood on the western
abutment were forced over the gulf and nearly all perished in the river.
The others put up white handkerchiefs in token of surrender, but the
savage victors showed no mercy. Story, who saw the whole sickening
butchery, paints the scene in ghastly fashion thus: “Before the killing
was over, they [the Irish] were laid in heaps upon the bridge, higher
than the ledges of it.” Out of 800 men, only the five score and odd that
gained the drawbridge in time, and the few strong ones who swam the
river, escaped. It, on a smaller scale, resembled the disaster at
Leipsic, in 1813, when the French Major of Engineers, Montfort, caused
the bridge over the Elster to be blown up, while yet the corps of
MacDonald and Poniatowski, which formed Napoleon’s rearguard, were on
the hostile bank of the river. Thus, through the stupidity, or panic, of
a subordinate officer, the emperor lost the Polish marshal, who was one
of his best generals, and 20,000 of his choicest troops. A fool or
coward commanding at a bridge over which an army is compelled to
retreat, is more deadly to his friends than all the bullets and sabres
of the enemy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
Capitulation of Limerick—Terms of the Famous “Violated Treaty”—Cork
Harbor Tragedy
THE Irish cavalry, which would seem to have been inefficiently commanded
by General Sheldon during the late operations, and now completely
outnumbered, fell back to Six-Mile-Bridge in Clare, dejected and almost
hopeless. The men had lost faith in their commanders, and that meant a
speedy end of effective resistance. When it became known in Limerick
that the enemy had been successful beyond the river, the peace party
began again to clamor loudly for a capitulation. A party eager for
surrender within a beleaguered city is the very best ally a besieging
force can have. In this case, their treason or pusillanimity proved the
destruction of their country. De Ginkel had positive information that a
great French fleet, under a renowned admiral, Count Chateau-Renaud, was
fitting out at Brest for the relief of Limerick. Therefore he was ready
to promise almost anything in order to gain the timely surrender of the
place, for he knew that if the French once landed in force, all the
fruits of his recent victories would be irretrievably spoiled. The
buoyant Irish would rally again more numerously than ever, better
drilled, equipped, and thoroughly inured to war. His good opinion of
their fighting qualities was unequivocally shown in his eagerness to
enlist them as soldiers under the banner of King William. He felt
morally certain that Sarsfield and the other chief Irish officers were
entirely ignorant of the preparations going on in France. They imagined
themselves absolutely deserted by that power. Irish tradition credits
General Sarsfield with a disposition to hold out to the last, while it
is believed, on the same rather unreliable authority, that the French
generals, D’Usson and De Tessé, favored an honorable and immediate
surrender. It is certain that most of the Anglo-Irish officers were
tired of the war and desired to have an end of it on any reasonable
terms. Ginkel was still over the river in Clare, when, on the evening of
September 23, the Irish drums, from several points in the town, beat a
parley. The siege had lasted almost a month, and the English officers
were delighted at the near prospect of peace. They received Sarsfield,
Wauchop, and their escort, under a flag of truce, with military
courtesy, and directed them where to find the general-in-chief. The
Irish officers crossed the Shannon in a rowboat, and found Ginkel in his
camp by Thomond Bridge. He received them favorably, and a temporary
cessation of hostilities was agreed upon. Next morning, it was decided
to extend it three days. Then it was determined that the Irish officers
and commands separated from the Limerick garrison should be communicated
with, and that all, if terms were agreed upon, would surrender
simultaneously. Meanwhile the English and Irish officers exchanged
courtesies and frequently dined together, although the French generals
held aloof, for some reason that has never been satisfactorily
explained.
But now the ultra peace party having, in a measure, the upper hand,
sought to commit the Irish army to a dishonorable and ungrateful
policy—the abandonment of France, which, with all its faults, was
Ireland’s sole ally. Hostages were exchanged by the two armies, those
for England being Lord Cutts, Sir David Collier, Colonel Tiffin, and
Colonel Piper; and for Ireland Lords Westmeath, Iveagh (whose entire
regiment afterward passed over to William), Trimelstown, and Louth.
Following the arrival of the latter in the English camp came the peace
party’s proposals, which stipulated for the freedom of Catholic worship
and the maintenance of civil rights, and then basely proposed that “the
Irish army be kept on foot, paid, et cetera, the same as the rest of
their majesties’ forces, in case they were willing to serve their
majesties against France or any other enemy.”
The Irish army, nobly chivalrous and patriotic, with the usual base
exceptions to be found in every considerable body of men, was not
willing “to serve their majesties” as intimated, as will be seen further
along. Ginkel, who was thoroughly coached by the “royal commissioners”
from Dublin, who were rarely absent from his camp, rejected the
Palesmen’s propositions, chiefly because of the Catholic claims put
forward in them. There is no evidence whatever that Sarsfield
countenanced the policy attempted to be carried out by this contemptible
faction.
On the 28th all the parties in Limerick town came to an agreement in
regard to what they would propose to and accept from De Ginkel. The
latter, who was quite a diplomatic as well as military “bluffer,” began
openly to prepare his batteries for a renewal of the bombardment—the
three days’ cessation having nearly come to an end. But, on the day
stated, there came to him, from out of Limerick, Generals Sarsfield
(Lord Lucan), Wauchop, the Catholic Primate, Baron Purcell, the
Archbishop of Cashel, Sir Garret Dillon, Sir Theobald (“Toby”) Butler,
and Colonel Brown, “the three last counselors-at-law, with several other
officers and commissioners.” Baron De Ginkel summoned all of his chief
generals to meet them, and “after a long debate, articles were agreed
on, not only for the town of Limerick, but for all the other forts and
castles in the kingdom, then in the enemies’ possession.” In compliance
with the wish of the Irish delegation, De Ginkel agreed to summon the
Lords Justices from Dublin to ratify the treaty. These functionaries,
authoritatively representing King William and Queen Mary, soon arrived
at the camp and signed the instrument in due form. The French generals,
although they did not accompany the Irish commissioners on their visit
to Ginkel, signed the terms of capitulation with the rest, the names
appearing in the following order: D’Usson, Le Chevalier de Tessé, Latour
Monfort, Mark Talbot, Lucan (Sarsfield), Jo Wauchop, Galmoy, M. Purcell.
For England there signed Lords Justices Charles Porter and Thomas
Conyngsby, Baron De Ginkel, and Generals Scravenmore, Mackay, and
Talmash.
The Treaty of Limerick was thus consummated on October 3, 1691, with all
the required forms and ceremonies, so that no loophole of informality
was left for either party to this international compact. In the treaty
there were 29 military and 13 civil articles. As they were quite
lengthy, we will confine ourselves to a general summary, thus:
All the adherents of King James in Ireland were given permission to go
beyond the seas to any country they might choose to live in, except
England and Scotland. Volunteers and rapparees were included in this
provision, as well as the officers and soldiers of the Irish regular
army. These voluntary exiles were allowed to depart from Ireland in
“whole bodies, companies, or parties;” and it was provided that, if
plundered by the way, the English Government would grant compensation
for such losses as they might sustain. It was agreed that fifty ships of
200 tons burden each should be provided for their transportation, and
twenty of the same tonnage in addition, if it should be found necessary,
and that “said ships should be furnished with forage for horses and all
necessary provisions to subsist the officers, troopers, dragoons, and
[foot] soldiers, and all other persons [meaning families and followers]
that are shipped to be transported into France.” In addition, two
men-of-war were placed at the disposal of the principal officers for the
voyage, and suitable provision was made for the safe return of all
vessels when their mission of transportation was accomplished. The
thrifty De Ginkel further stipulated that the provisions supplied to the
military exiles should be paid for by their government as soon as the
Irish troops were landed on French soil. Article XXV provided: “That it
shall be lawful for the said garrison [of Limerick] to march out at
once, or at different times, as they can be embarked, with arms,
baggage, drums beating, match lighted at both ends, bullet in mouth,
colors flying, six brass guns, such as the besieged shall choose, two
mortar pieces, and half the ammunition that is now in the magazines of
the said place.” This provision, which, as can be seen, included the
full “honors of war,” was also extended to the other capitulated Irish
garrisons. Another significant provision was that all Irish officers and
soldiers who so desired could join the army of King William, retaining
the rank and pay they enjoyed in the service of King James.
Of the civil articles, the first read as follows: “The Roman Catholics
of this kingdom shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their
religion as are consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did
enjoy in the reign of King Charles II; and their Majesties, as soon as
their affairs will permit them to summon a Parliament in this kingdom,
will endeavor to procure the said Roman Catholics such further security
in that particular as may preserve them from disturbance upon the
account of their said religion.”
The second article guaranteed protection in the possession of their
estates and the free pursuit of their several professions, trades, and
callings to all who had served King James, the same as under his own
régime, on the taking of the subjoined oath of allegiance prescribed by
statute: “I —— do solemnly promise and swear that I will be faithful and
bear true allegiance to their Majesties, King William and Queen Mary: so
help me God.” A subsequent article provided that “the oath to be
administered to such Roman Catholics as submit to their Majesties’
government shall be the oath aforesaid and no other”—thus doing away, as
the Irish honestly supposed, with the odious penal “Test oaths,” which
were an outrage on Catholic belief and a glaring insult to the Catholics
of the whole world.
The third article extended the benefit of the first and second articles
to Irish merchants “beyond the seas” who had not borne arms since the
proclamation issued by William and Mary in the preceding February, but
they were required to return to Ireland within eight months.
Article IV granted like immunity to Irish officers in foreign lands,
absent in pursuance of their military duties, and naming, specially,
Colonel Simon Luttrell (the loyal brother of the traitor, Henry),
Colonel Rowland White, Colonel Maurice Eustace, of Gormanstown, and
Major Cheviers (Chevers) of Maystown, “commonly called Mount Leinster.”
Article V provided that all persons comprised in the second and third
articles should have general pardon for all “attainders, outlawries,
treasons (?), misprisions of treasons, præmunires, felonies, trespasses,
and other crimes and misdemeanors whatsoever, committed by them, or any
of them since the beginning of the reign of James II; and if any of them
are attainted by Parliament, the Lords Justices and the General will use
their best endeavors to get the same repealed by Parliament, and the
outlawries to be reversed gratis, all but writing-clerk’s fees.”
Article VI provided general immunity to both parties for debts or
disturbances arising out of the late war. This provision applied also to
rates and rents.
Article VII provided that “every nobleman and gentleman comprised in the
second and third articles shall have liberty to ride with a sword and
case of pistols, if they [_sic_] think fit, and keep a gun in their
houses for the defence of the same, or for fowling.”
The eighth article granted leave to the inhabitants, or residents, of
Limerick, and other Irish garrisons, to remove their goods and chattels,
if so disposed, without interference, search, or the payment of duties,
and they were privileged to remain in their lodgings for six weeks.
The tenth article declared that “no person, or persons, who shall at any
time hereafter break these articles, or any of them, shall thereby make
or cause any other person or persons to forfeit or lose the benefit of
the same.”
Article XII read thus: “The Lords Justices and the General do undertake
that their Majesties will ratify these articles within the space of
three months, or sooner, and use their utmost endeavors that the same
shall be ratified and confirmed in the Parliament.”
The thirteenth, and final, article made provision for the protection
from financial loss of Colonel John Browne, commissary-general of the
Irish army, who, during the war, had seized the property of certain
Williamites for the public use, charging the debt, pro rata, on the
Catholic estates secured to their owners under the treaty; and requiring
General (Lord Lucan) to certify the account with Colonel Browne within
21 days.
It will be remembered, in examining the religious provisions of the
Treaty of Limerick, that Catholic worship in the reign of Charles II was
permitted by connivance rather than by law. Many of the worst of the
penal laws, although in abeyance, might be revived at any time by law
officers tyrannically disposed toward the Catholics. The latter were
once again to discover that it is one thing to obtain a favorable treaty
from a formidable enemy, while they have arms in their hands and a still
inviolate fortress at their backs, but quite a different matter to make
the foe live up to the provisions of the treaty when the favorable
conditions for the capitulators have passed away. But of this hereafter.
Not many days subsequent to the surrender of Limerick, Count
Chateau-Renaud, with a powerful French fleet, having on board arms,
cannon, and all kinds of military supplies, together with a veteran
contingent of 3,000 men and 200 officers, cast anchor in Dingle Bay, on
the southern coast, without once coming in contact with the naval might
of England. Were the Irish a dishonorable people, they could have then,
with great advantage, repudiated the treaty, but the national honor was
irrevocably plighted, and, consequently, there was an end of the
struggle. Many honest Irish writers have blamed the precipitancy of
Sarsfield and the other leaders in signing the articles of capitulation,
and not without good cause. Lord Lucan should have court-martialed and
shot the leaders of the peace-at-any-price traitors when they first
showed their hands. Hugh O’Neill, Red Hugh O’Donnell, or Owen Roe
O’Neill would have done so without hesitation, but, then, Sarsfield was
only half a Celt, and had an unfortunate tenderness for his fellows of
the Pale. It is regrettable that none of the French generals has left a
clear statement of the events that led to the premature surrender of the
town; but we know that King Louis, who subsequently honored Sarsfield,
held D’Usson responsible, for Story tells us, on page 280 of his
“Continuation of the History of the Wars in Ireland,” that “the French
king [Louis XIV] was so far from thanking him for it [the capitulation]
that, after some public indignities, he sent him to the Bastile.”
Viewed in the light of after events, the Treaty of Limerick, from the
Irish standpoint, looks like a huge game of confidence, and is an
ineradicable blot on English military and diplomatic honor. The civil
articles were ignored, or trampled under foot, almost immediately. The
military articles were better observed, except that provision which
related to transportation to France, which was grossly violated and led
to the drowning in Cork Harbor of a number of the wives of the Irish
soldiery, who, unable to find room on board, owing to De Ginkel’s
alleged faithlessness, or the perfidy of his lieutenants, clung to the
ropes, when the ships set sail, and were dragged beneath the waves to
their death.
Mitchel, in his able “History of Ireland,” page 3, writing of this
painful incident, defends Sarsfield against an imputation cast upon that
officer by Lord Macaulay, in his brilliant but unreliable “History of
England,” thus: “As to General Sarsfield’s proclamation to the men ‘that
they should be permitted to carry their wives and families to France,’
he made the statement on the faith of the First and several succeeding
articles of the treaty, not yet being aware of any design to violate it.
But this is not all: The historian who could not let the hero go into
his sorrowful exile without seeking to plunge his venomous sting into
his reputation, had before him the ‘Life of King William,’ by Harris,
and also Curry’s ‘Historical Review of the Civil Wars,’ wherein he must
have seen that the Lords Justices and General Ginkel are charged with
endeavoring to defeat the execution of the First Article. For, says
Harris, ‘as great numbers of the officers and soldiers had resolved to
enter into the service of France, and to carry their families with them,
Ginkel would not suffer their wives and children to be shipped off with
the men, not doubting that by detaining the former he would have
prevented many of the latter from going into that service. This, I say,
was confessedly an infringement of the articles.’
“To this we may add,” continues Mitchel, “that no Irish officer or
soldier in France attributed the cruel parting at Cork to any fault of
Sarsfield, but always and only to a breach of the Treaty of Limerick.
And if he had deluded them in the manner represented by the English
historian, they would not have followed him as enthusiastically [as they
afterward did] on the fields of Steinkirk and Landen.”
Mr. Mitchel did Lord Macaulay an unintentional injustice in attributing
the original charge against Sarsfield to him. It originated with
Chaplain Story, and can be found on pages 291-293 of his Continuation,
in these words: “Those [of the Irish] who were now embarking had not
much better usage on this side of the water [he had alluded to the
alleged ill-treatment of the first contingent on its arrival in France],
for a great many of them, having wives and children, they made what
shift they could to desert, rather than leave their families behind to
starve, which my Lord Lucan and Major-General Wauchop perceiving, they
publish a declaration that as many of the Irish as had a mind to’t
should have liberty to transport their families along with themselves.
And, accordingly, a vast rabble of all sorts were brought to the
water-side, when the major-general [Wauchop], pretending to ship the
soldiers in order, according to their lists, they first carried all the
men on board; and many of the women, at the second return of the boats
for the officers, catching hold to be carried on board, were dragged
off, and, through fearfulness, losing their hold, were drowned; but
others who held faster had their fingers cut off, and so perished in
sight of their husbands or relatives, tho’ those of them that did get
over [to France], would make but a sad figure, if they were admitted to
go to the late queen’s court at St. Germain.... Lord Lucan finding he
had ships enough for all the Irish that were likely to go with him, the
number that went before and these shipped at this time, being, according
to the best computation, 12,000 of all sorts [a palpable underestimate],
he signs the following releasement:
“‘Whereas, by the Articles of Limerick, Lieutenant-General
Ginkel, commander-in-chief of the English army, did engage
himself to furnish 10,000 tons of shipping for the transporting
of such of the Irish forces to France as were willing to go
thither; and to facilitate their passage to add 4,000 tons more
in case the French fleet did not come to this kingdom to take
off some of these forces; and whereas the French fleet has been
upon the coast and carried away some of the said forces, and the
lieutenant-general has provided ships for as many of the rest as
are willing to go as aforesaid, I do hereby declare that the
said lieutenant-general is released from any obligation he lay
under from the said articles, to provide vessels for that
purpose, and do quit and renounce all farther claim and
pretension on this account, etc. Witness my hand this 8th day of
December, 1691.
“‘LUCAN.
“‘_Witnesses_:
MARK TALBOT,
F. H. DE LA FOREST, SUSANNEL.’”
From the same authority we learn that “on December 22, my Lord Lucan,
and the rest of the Irish great officers, went on board the transport
ships [bound for France], leaving hostages at Cork for the return of the
said ships.”
It is impossible to reconcile the circumstantial statement of the
Williamite historian, Harris, in regard to Ginkel’s faithlessness, with
the official document, signed by Sarsfield, as Earl of Lucan, which
practically exonerates the Dutch general. Would Sarsfield have signed
such a release if Ginkel had been guilty of the treachery ascribed to
him by Harris? Story’s book was published a year before Lord Lucan fell
in Flanders, and must have been read by that general and the officers
who served with him at Limerick. One thing about the question is
certain—if Sarsfield ever issued the proclamation, in conjunction with
General Wauchop, ascribed to him by the English chaplain, he must have
been grossly deceived by somebody. All writers of his own times, and of
after times, describe Sarsfield as the soul of honor, but some have
asserted that he was rather easy-going in business affairs, and a little
too ready to sign any document placed before him.
We have been unable to find any contemporary confirmation of the
romantic Irish tradition that the Treaty of Limerick was signed on the
historic bowlder, now preserved by pedestal and railing near Thomond
Bridge, on the Clare bank of the Shannon. But tradition is often more
accurate than written history. Therefore, the Irish people having
accepted the story through more than six generations, we accept with
them the legend of “the Treaty Stone.”
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CHAPTER III
The Irish Troops, as a Majority, Enter the French Service—King James
Receives Them Cordially—His Testimony of Their Devotion and Courage
IMMEDIATELY after the signing of the treaty, it was fixed upon between
De Ginkel and Sarsfield that, on October 6, the Irish infantry would
march out of the King’s Island by Thomond Bridge, into the County Clare,
and there and then make a choice of service with England or France. It
was arranged that those who chose the former service were to turn to the
left at a certain point, where an English flag was planted, while those
who decided for France were to march straight onward to a more distant
point marked by the French standard. They were, in all, about 15,000
men, and, quite naturally, the respective leaders awaited the result
with burning anxiety. They were not left long in doubt. The first body
to march was the Royal Irish regiment of Foot Guards, fourteen hundred
strong, of which Mr. Story remarks wofully, it “seemed to go all entire
[for France] except seven men, which the general was much concerned at,
then my Lord Iveagh’s regiment of Ulster Irish came off entire to our
side.” In all a little over 1,000 officers and men ranged themselves
under the flag of King William, while nearly 13,000 mustered under the
Fleur-de-Lis. A few days afterward, the Irish horse, now much reduced,
made choice in the same fashion, and with about the same proportionate
result. The same privilege was granted the outlying bodies of King
James’s army, and all decided for France in the proportion of about ten
to one. Of the Irish general officers, more or less under the suspicion
of the army since the disasters of Aughrim and Annaghbeg, we find
Generals Luttrell and Clifford, Baron Purcell, “and a great many more of
the Irish nobility and gentry going toward Dublin,” which means that
they made terms with the enemy.
It was well along in the month of December before the Irish soldiers who
had volunteered to go beyond the seas were entirely transported to
France. The foot, for the most part, sailed from Limerick, many of them
in the returning fleet of Chateau-Renaud, and the cavalry from Cork,
where occurred the tragical event we have already related. In
all—including the capitulated troops from every Irish garrison—20,000
men from Ireland landed in the French ports, and these, together with
Mountcashel’s Brigade, which had been in the French service since before
the battle of the Boyne, made up a force of 25,000 veterans, who were
mostly in the pay of King Louis, but all of whom were sworn to support
King James in any effort he might put forth to recover his crown.
As much injustice has been done the memory of King James II by Irish
writers, who have taken too much for granted on traditional “hearsay,”
we deem it only fair to place before the readers of this history the
sentiments of the unfortunate monarch toward his Irish defenders. We
quote from his Memoirs, Vol. II, pp. 465-467: “Thus was Ireland [he
alluded to the fall of Limerick], after an obstinate resistance in three
years’ campaigns, by the power and riches of England, and the revolt of
almost all its [Ireland’s] own Protestant subjects torn from its natural
sovereign, who, tho’ he was divested of the country, was not wholly
deprived of the people, for the greatest part of those who were then in
arms for the defence of his right, not content with the service already
rendered, got leave [as was said] to come and lose their lives, after
having lost their estates, in defence of his title, and brought by that
means such a body of men into France as by their generous comportment in
accepting the pay of the country [much less than British or Irish pay]
instead of that which is usually allowed there [in France] to strangers
and their inimitable valor and service during the whole course of the
war, might justly make their prince pass for an ally, rather than a
pensioner, or burden, to his Most Christian Majesty, whose pay, indeed,
they received, but acted by the king’s, their master’s, commission,
according to the common method of other auxiliary troops. As soon as the
king [James] heard of their arrival [in France] he writ to the commander
[General Sheldon, who went with the first contingent] to assure him how
well he was satisfied with the behavior and conduct of the officers, and
the valor and fidelity of the soldiers, and how sensible he should ever
be of their service, which he would not fail to reward when it should
please God to put him in a capacity of doing it.”
Following is the full text of the letter addressed to the Irish troops
through their general by King James, as given in Story’s Continuation,
page 289:
“JAMES REX.
“Having been informed of the capitulation and surrender of
Limerick, and the other places which remained to us in our
Kingdom of Ireland, and of the necessities which forced the
Lords Justices and general officers of our forces thereunto: we
will not defer to let you know, and the rest of the officers
that came along with you, that we are extremely satisfied with
your and their conduct, and of the valor of the soldiers during
the siege, but most particularly of your and their declaration
and resolution to come and serve where we are. And we assure
you, and order you to assure both officers and soldiers that are
come along with you, that we shall never forget this act of
loyalty, nor fail, when in a capacity to give them, above
others, particular marks of our favor. In the meantime, you are
to inform them that they are to serve under our command, and by
our commissions; and if we find that a considerable number [of
them] is come with the fleet, it will induce us to go personally
to see them, and regiment them: Our brother, the King of France,
hath already given orders to clothe them and furnish them with
all necessaries, and to give them quarters of refreshment. So we
bid you heartily farewell.
“Given at our Court at St. Germain the 27th of November [Dec.
7], 1691.”
In pursuance of his promise, King James made two fatiguing trips from
St. Germain to Bretagne and return, regimented the gallant exiles at
Vannes, Brest, and other points, and in every possible way showed his
marked appreciation of their devotion. He was accompanied by his son,
the Duke of Berwick.
In accepting French pay, the Irish soldiery exposed themselves almost to
penury, and their officers submitted to be reduced in rank, almost
without a murmur. Major-generals became colonels; colonels, captains;
captains, lieutenants, and many of the latter sergeants. This was
absolutely necessary, as there was room for only a certain number in the
French establishment. Many reduced officers served also as volunteers,
without pay of any kind, waiting patiently for death or promotion. The
total amount of property sacrificed by these brave men in the Jacobite
cause was 1,060,792 acres, and this new confiscation placed fully
seven-eighths of the soil of Ireland in the hands of the supporters of
the English interest.
William and Mary formally ratified the Articles of the Treaty of
Limerick within the specified three months, but the English Parliament,
influenced by motives of greed and bigotry, shamefully refused to
acquiesce, and as William and Mary did not endanger their crown by
offering a vigorous opposition, the civil articles of Limerick were,
from that moment, a dead letter. Then redescended on Ireland “the long,
black night of the penal laws,” and we gladly turn from it, for a
period, to follow the brilliant but bloody fortunes of the Irish Brigade
in the service of France.
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CHAPTER IV
Early Exploits of the Irish Brigade in the Service of France—At Landen,
Cremona, and Blenheim—Tribute Paid it by an English Historian
IN the preceding chapter we indicated that we would deal with the
history of the Irish brigades in the French service, from 1692 to 1792,
before touching on the terrible penal period in Ireland. Their services
have won a fame so world-wide that no history of Europe is complete that
omits them from its pages. They were prominently engaged in the reign of
Louis XIV in the War of the League of Augsburg, which was hotly waged by
nearly all Europe against him, from 1688 to the Peace of Ryswick, in
1697; in the War of the Spanish Succession—waged by Louis to support his
grandson, Philip of Anjou, on the Spanish throne—commenced in 1700 and
concluded by the Peace of Utrecht and Treaty of Rastadt in 1713-14, and
under Louis XV in numerous minor wars with Germany, and especially in
the War of the Austrian Succession—France supporting the claim of
Charles VII, of Bavaria, against Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary,
daughter of the last Hapsburg Emperor of Germany, Charles VI. This war
was begun in 1740. France took sides in 1743, and it was concluded by
the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748. In each of these contests France
and England were on opposite sides—a circumstance favorable to the
bloody development of Irish hatred. After the last of the wars
specified, the Irish Brigade, having no warlike food on which to
flourish, covered with laurels and “worn out with glory,” faded from the
fields of Europe.
In another place we have alluded to the campaign of Savoy, 1690-91, in
which the ill-starred St. Ruth was chief in command. Mountcashel’s,
known as the “Old Brigade,” scaled every Alpine fortress, drove the
vengeful “Vaudois” from their rugged hills, and laid the country under
fire and sword, leaving a reputation for military prowess fresh, at this
day, amid the mountains of Savoy.
In Flanders, in 1692, under Sarsfield and Lord Clare, the “New” Brigade
won great honor at Steinkirk, where Luxemburg routed King William. At
Landen, or Neerwinden, in July, 1693, William held his ground
desperately against the bravest efforts of the French. Luxemburg was in
despair, when the fierce war-cry, “Remember Limerick!” rent the clouds,
and the Royal Irish Foot Guards, led by Colonel John Barrett, shattered
the English centre, broke into Neerwinden, opened a path to victory for
the French Household, and William was hurled into the river Gette, while
the Irish shout of victory shook the plain like a clap of thunder.
Sarsfield, like the brave Barrett, received his death wound, but his
dying gaze beheld the sight he most loved to see—the English flag in
sullen flight.
This same year, in Italy, under Catinat, the “Old” Brigade made its mark
at Marsaglia, where it defeated the Savoyard centre, drew the whole
French army after it, and chased Victor Amadeus almost to the gates of
Turin.
Thenceforth, Lord Mountcashel having died of his wounds, the two
brigades were united as one. The younger Schomberg, son of the hero of
the Boyne, fell before the Irish bayonets at Marsaglia. At the battle of
Montgry, in Spain, fought in 1694, by the French against the Spanish,
the “Brigade,” under Marshal de Noailles, renewed its laurels, and the
Irish charge proved potent in bringing the Spaniards to terms.
This war terminated gloriously for France by the Peace of Ryswick.
The War of the Spanish Succession broke out in 1700. England and Austria
supported the Archduke Charles against Philip of Anjou, the Bourbon
heir. This struggle brought upon the stage the Duke of Marlborough, for
England, and Prince Eugene, of Savoy, for Austria, two of the greatest
generals of modern times. Marshals, the Duke of Berwick, Catinat,
Villeroy, Vendome, Villairs, Boufflers, and Noailles, commanded the
armies of France. In this frightful struggle, the Irish flag always
blazed in the vanguard of victory, in the rearguard of defeat, and the
Irish name became the synonym of valor.
In the winter of 1702, the citadel of Cremona, in northern Italy, was
held for France by Marshal Villeroy, with a strong garrison. The French
gave themselves up to revelry, and the walls were poorly guarded.
Caissioli, an Italian, informed Prince Eugene, the Austrian commander,
of the state of affairs. The traitor agreed to let in a portion of the
enemy by means of a sewer running from outside the walls under his
house. At the same time the French sentinels at the gate of St.
Margaret, badly defended, were to be drawn off, so that Eugene himself,
with a strong body of cuirassiers, might enter and join the other party.
Count Merci was to attack the “Gate of the Po,” defended by an Irish
company, and Prince Vaudemont and Count Freiberg were to support the
attack with the cavalry of their respective commands. The attack was
made at midnight, and the plans were admirably executed. The Austrians
were in possession of the town before the garrison was alarmed. Count
Merci, however, met bad fortune at the “Gate of the Po.” The Irish
guard, chatting over old times by the Shannon, the Barrow, or the Suir,
kept faithful watch. The clatter of hoofs aroused them, as Merci,
attended by several regiments of dragoons, rode up to the gate and
called upon them to surrender. The Irish replied with a sharp volley,
which laid some of the Austrians out in the roadway. The fire aroused
the sleeping Irish regiments of Dillon and Burke, who, in their shirts
only, as they sprang from bivouac, grasped their muskets and hastened to
the rescue. They were met in the square by Eugene’s cuirassiers, who
charged them fiercely. Major O’Mahoney formed his Irish into a square
and let the Austrians have a fusillade. The cuirassiers, urged by Eugene
and Freiberg, dashed madly at the Irish battalions, but, despite the
bravest efforts of this iron cavalry, the Irish actually routed them and
slew their leader, Baron Freiberg. Marshal Villeroy was made prisoner by
Macdonald, an Irishman in the Austrian service, and the French general
second in command shared the same fate. But the Irish still held out,
fighting desperately and losing half their men. This prolonged
resistance alarmed the French, who now, thoroughly aroused, gallantly
seconded their Irish comrades, and, after a terrible carnage of eight
hours’ duration, Prince Eugene, with all that remained of the flower of
the Austrian cavalry, gave up in despair, and was hurled pell-mell
through the gates of St. Margaret, by the victorious garrison. This
exploit of the Irish saved northern Italy to the French monarch—the
Austrians retreated to the Alps. All Europe rang applause. Louis raised
the pay of his Irish troops, and made O’Mahoney a general. He also
decreed that Irishmen, who deserved the honor, should thenceforth be
recognized as French citizens, without undergoing the form of
naturalization.
At the first battle of Blenheim, Bavaria, in 1703, the Irish, under
Marshal Tallard, contributed to that victory. The regiment of Clare,
encountering the Austrian guards, was, for a moment, overpowered, but,
immediately rallying, it counter-charged with such fury that it not
alone recovered its own flag, but gained two colors from the enemy!
The second Blenheim, so disastrous to France, was fought in 1704.
Marlborough commanded the English right, facing Marshal Tallard, and
Eugene commanded the allied left, facing Marshal de Marcin, with whom
was the Irish Brigade. Tallard was dreadfully beaten, and Marcin fared
little better. The French suffered great slaughter, and were badly
worsted. The Brigade, however, would not lose heart. Closing up its
ranks, it made a superb charge on Prince Eugene’s lines, broke through
them—being one of the few corps in the French army that saved their
colors that day—and covered the retreat of France to the Rhine!
The English professor, E. S. Creasy of Cambridge University, writing of
the conduct of the Irish in this great battle, says, on page 318 of his
“Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World”: “The [French] centre was
composed of fourteen battalions of infantry, including the celebrated
Irish Brigade. These were posted in the little hamlet of Oberglau, which
lies somewhat nearer to Lutzingen than to Blenheim.” And, on page 320 of
the same work, the professor continues: “The Prince of Holstein Beck
had, with eleven Hanoverian battalions, passed the Nebel opposite to
Oberglau when he was charged and utterly routed by the Irish Brigade,
which held that village. The Irish drove the Hanoverians back with heavy
slaughter, broke completely through the line of the allies, and nearly
achieved a success as brilliant as that which the same Brigade afterward
gained at Fontenoy. But at Blenheim their ardor in pursuit led them too
far. Marlborough came up in person and dashed in on the exposed flank of
the Brigade with some squadrons of British cavalry. The Irish reeled
back, and, as they strove to regain the heights of Oberglau, their
column was raked through and through by the fire of three battalions of
the allies, which Marlborough had summoned up from the reserve.”
Competent military critics have observed that had the French cavalry
seconded the charge of the Irish infantry, Blenheim would have been a
French victory.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V
The Irish Brigade in the Campaigns of North Italy and Flanders—Its
Strength at Various Periods—Count Dillon’s Reply to King Louis XV
IN the summer of 1705, the Irish again, at the battle of Cassano, where
they fought under Marshal Vendome, paid their respects to Prince Eugene.
They fought with a bravery that electrified the French and paralyzed the
Austrians. Vendome’s flank was badly annoyed by a hostile battery on the
farther bank of the river Adda. The stream was broad and deep, but two
Irish regiments, under cover of the smoke, swam across it, and, under
the very nose of the great Eugene, captured the Austrian cannon and
turned their fire upon the enemy! This intrepid action decided the day,
and France was once more triumphant, by her Irish arm.
Conspicuous in this brilliant action, as also at Cremona, was the famous
“Regiment of Burke”—the last to yield at Aughrim. Of it the
Scotch-Canadian poet and novelist, William McLennan, has written:
“Would you read your name on honor’s roll?
Look not for royal grant—
It is written in Cassano,
Alcoy and Alicant!
Saragossa, Barcelona,
Wherever dangers lurk,
You will find in the van the blue and the buff
Of the Regiment of Burke!
All Spain and France and Italy
Have echoed to our name—
The burning suns of Africa
Have set our arms aflame!
But to-night we toast the morn that broke and wakened us to fame—
The day we beat Prince Eugene in Cremona!”
Marshal Villeroy, in May, 1706, allowed himself to be cooped up by the
Duke of Marlborough in the village of Ramillies, in Flanders. The French
were utterly overwhelmed, and many thousands of prisoners were taken.
Lord Clare formed the Brigade into a column of attack and broke through
the victorious enemy. The regiment of Clare, in this charge, met the
English regiment of Churchill—now the Third Buffs—full tilt, crushed it
hopelessly, captured its battle-flags, and served a Scotch regiment, in
the Dutch service, which endeavored to support the British, in the same
manner. The Brigade then effected its retreat on Ypres, where, in the
convent of the Benedictine nuns, it hung up the captured colors—“sole
trophies of Ramillies’ fray”—where they have waved, for many a
generation, a fitting memento of the faith and fame of the Irish exiles.
In April, 1707, the Brigade next distinguished itself, at the battle of
Almanza, in Spain, where it fought in the army of Marshal the Duke of
Berwick. The English and Austrians were commanded by Ruvigny—the
Williamite Earl of Galway—who signalized himself at Aughrim. The Brigade
paid him back that day. It charged with a fury never excelled in any
fight. The allies were overthrown, Ruvigny disgraced, and the crown of
Spain was placed on the brow of Philip V.
In defeat, as in victory, the bayonets of the Brigade still opened up
the road to honor. When the French retreated from Oudenarde, in July,
1708, Marlborough felt the Irish steel, as the gallant fellows hung
doggedly behind the retiring French, kept the fierce pursuers at bay,
and enabled Vendome to reorganize his beaten army. The battle of
Malplaquet, fought September, 1709, was the bloodiest of this most
sanguinary war. The French fought with unusual desperation, and the
English ranks, led by Marlborough and seconded by Eugene, were
decimated. It was an unmitigated slaughter. At length Marshal Villairs,
who commanded the French, was wounded and Marshal Boufflers ordered a
retreat. Again the Irish Brigade, which fought with its usual courage
all through that dreadful day, had the honor of forming the French
rearguard, and, although many flags, captured from France, were laid at
the feet of the victor, no Irish color graced the trophies of
Marlborough, who, with the ill-judged battle of Malplaquet, virtually
ended his grand career as a soldier. After that fight the war was feebly
waged—France being completely exhausted—until the Peace of Utrecht and
Treaty of Rastadt, 1713-14, closed the bloody record.
It would be almost impossible to enumerate the sieges and minor actions
in which the Irish Brigade of France participated within the limits of
this history. The facts we have given, and are to give, rest on the
authority of the French war records, and the testimony of English and
other writers, carefully compiled by Matthew O’Conor, in his “Military
History of the Irish People,” and by John C. O’Callaghan in his
invaluable “History of the Irish Brigades”—works which should ensure for
their able and careful authors a literary immortality, and which people
of the Irish race should treasure among their most precious heirlooms.
It would be equally difficult to follow the career of those Irish
soldiers who, at the peace, transferred their swords from France to
Spain, because Louis XV, who succeeded his grandfather while yet a
child, could not employ them all. In Spain, as in France, their swords
were sharpest where the English were their foes, always, it must be
admitted, worthy of their steel.
The subjoined statement of the strength of the Irish forces in the
French service during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is taken
from the authorities already quoted:
From 1690 to 1692, three regiments of foot; 1692 to 1698, thirteen
regiments of infantry, three independent companies, two companies of
cavalry, and two troops of horse guards; 1698 to 1714, eight regiments
of infantry and one regiment of horse; 1714 to 1744, five regiments of
infantry and one of cavalry; 1744 to 1762, six regiments of infantry and
one of horse; 1762 to 1775, five regiments of infantry; 1775 to 1791—the
period of the dissolution of the Brigade—three regiments of foot.
From the fall of Limerick, in 1691, to the French Revolution, according
to the most reliable estimate, there fell in the field for France, or
otherwise died in her service, 480,000 Irish soldiers. The Brigade was
kept recruited by military emigrants, borne from Ireland—chiefly from
the province of Munster—by French smugglers, under the romantic and
significant title of “Wild Geese”—in poetical allusion to their eastward
flight. By this name the Brigade is best remembered among the Irish
peasantry.
After the death of Louis XIV, the Irish Brigade had comparatively little
wholesale fighting to keep them occupied, until the War of the Austrian
Succession, thirty years later. They made many expeditions to the
smaller states on the Rhenish frontier, with which France was in a
chronic state of war, under the Duke of Berwick. In every combat they
served with honor, and always appeared to best advantage where the hail
of death fell thickest. At times, like most of their countrymen, they
were inclined to wildness, but the first drum-roll or bugle blast found
them ready for the fray. On the march to attack Fort Kehl, in 1733,
Marshal Berwick—who was killed two years afterward at the siege of
Philipsburg—found fault with Dillon’s regiment for some breach of
discipline while en route. He sent the colonel with despatches to Louis
XV, and, among other matters, in a paternal way—for Berwick loved his
Irishmen—called the king’s attention to the indiscreet battalion. The
monarch, on reading the document, turned to the Irish officer, and, in
the hearing of the whole court, petulantly exclaimed: “My Irish troops
cause me more uneasiness than all the rest of my armies!” “Sire,”
immediately rejoined the noble Count Dillon—subsequently killed at
Fontenoy—“all your Majesty’s enemies make precisely the same complaint.”
Louis, pleased with the repartee, smiled, and, like a true Frenchman,
wiped out his previous unkindness by complimenting the courage of the
Brigade.
The great War of the Austrian Succession inaugurated the fateful
campaigns of 1743 and 1745, respectively signalized by the battles of
Dettingen and Fontenoy. The former was a day of dark disaster to France,
and Fontenoy was a mortal blow to British arrogance.
At Dettingen the Earl of Stair commanded the English and Hanoverians,
although George II and his son, Cumberland, were present on the field.
Marshal de Noailles commanded the French, and was badly worsted, after a
desperate engagement. The Irish Brigade, summoned from a long distance,
arrived too late to restore the battle, and met the French army in full
retreat, hotly pursued by the allies. The Brigade, under the orders of
Lord Clare, opened their ranks and allowed the French to retire, and
then, closing steadily up, they uttered their charging cry, and, with
leveled bayonet, checked the fierce pursuers. Thus, once again, the
Irish Brigade formed the French rearguard, as the Fleur-de-Lis retired
from the plains of Germany.
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CHAPTER VI
The Austrian Succession—Campaign of 1745—Magnificent Achievement of the
Irish Brigade at Fontenoy—Prince Louis’s Adieu to the Heroes
THE famous battle of Fontenoy was fought on the soil of Belgium, in the
ancient province of Hainault, within some thirty miles of the memorable
plains of Waterloo, on May 11, new style, 1745. France, as we have
already noted, championed the cause of Charles of Bavaria, who laid
claim to the Austrian throne, while England, Holland, Hanover, and
Austria took the side of Maria Theresa, who eventually, owing to the
unexpected death of Charles, won the fiercely disputed crown.
The French were besieging Tournay with 18,000 men. A corps of 6,000
guarded the bridges over the Scheldt, on the northern bank of which
Marshal Saxe, accompanied by Louis XV and the Dauphin, having with him
45,000 men, including the Irish Brigade, took post, to cover the siege
of Tournay, and prevent the march of the allies, English, Dutch, and
Germans, under the Duke of Cumberland and Prince Waldeck, to its relief.
The duke was a brave soldier, but fierce and cruel as a tiger. History
knows him by the well-won title of “the butcher Cumberland.” His
business was to raise the siege of Tournay and open a road to Paris. He
had under his command 55,000 veteran troops, including the English
Household regiments.
The French lines extended from the village of Rhamecroix, behind De
Barri’s Wood, on the left, to the village of Fontenoy, in the centre,
and from the latter position to the intrenchments of Antoine, on the
right. This line of defence was admirably guarded by “fort and flanking
battery.” The Irish Brigade—composed that day of the infantry regiments
of Clare, Dillon, Bulkeley, Roth, Berwick, and Lally—Fitz-James’s horse
being with the French cavalry in advance—was stationed, in reserve, near
the wood, supported by the brigades of Normandie and De Vassieux.
Prince Waldeck commanded the allied left, in front of Antoine. Brigadier
Ingoldsby commanded the British right, facing the French redoubt at De
Barri’s Wood, while Cumberland, chief in command, was with the allied
centre, confronting Fontenoy.
The battle opened with a furious cannonade, at 5 o’clock in the morning.
After some hours spent in this manner, Ingoldsby attempted to carry the
redoubt, but was ignominiously repulsed, and could not be induced to
renew the attempt. This refusal subsequently led to his dismissal from
the army on a charge of cowardice. Prince Waldeck fared no better at
Antoine, being defeated in two attempts to force the lines. The Duke of
Cumberland, grown impatient because of repeated failures, loaded the
unfortunate commanding officers with imprecations. He took the resolve
of beating the French at any cost by a concentrated attack on their left
centre, through a gap of about 700 yards, which occurred between the
Fontenoy redoubts and the work vainly attacked by Ingoldsby in the edge
of the wood of Barri. For this purpose, he formed his reserves and least
battered active battalions, including the English guards, several
British line regiments, and a large body of picked Hanoverian troops,
into three columns, aggregating 16,000 men, preceded and flanked by
twenty pieces of cannon, all drawn by hand, to avoid the confusion
incident on the killing and wounding of the battery horses. But
subsequent developments compelled the Duke to change the original
formation to one massive, solid oblong wedge, the British on the right
and the Hanoverians on the left. Lord Charles Hay, the boldest soldier
in the allied army, drew his sword and led the attacking column.
Meanwhile, Cumberland renewed the attack all along the line, in order to
cover the advance of his human battering-ram. Thus, the French were
pressed hard at every point, but their batteries and battalions replied
with spirit, and Antoine held out heroically in spite of all the efforts
of Waldeck and his Dutch and Austrian troops against it. These latter
were badly cut up by the fire of a French battery planted beyond the
Scheldt. Up to this period, about the noon hour, everything had gone
favorably for the French.
But the decisive moment had now arrived, and the great Anglo-Hanoverian
column received the command—“Forward, march!” “In front of them, as it
chanced,” says Mitchel, “were four battalions of the French guards, with
two battalions of Swiss on their left and two other French regiments on
their right. The French officers seem to have been greatly surprised
when they saw the English battery taking up position on the summit of
the rising ground. ‘English cannon!’ they cried. ‘Let us go and take
them!’ They mounted the slope with their grenadiers, but were astonished
to find an army on their front. A heavy discharge, both of artillery and
musketry, made them quickly recoil with heavy loss.” On, then, swept the
English column, with free and gallant stride, between Fontenoy and De
Barri’s wood, whose batteries plowed them from flank to flank at every
step. But in the teeth of the artillery, the musketry and the bombshells
which rose, circled and fell among them, killing and wounding scores at
each explosion; charged by the cavalry of the royal household, and
exposed to the iron hail of the French sharpshooters, that
blue-and-scarlet wave of battle rolled proudly against the serried ranks
of France. Falling by the hundred, they finally got beyond the
cross-fire from the redoubts, crossed the slope and penetrated behind
the village of Fontenoy—marching straight on the headquarters of the
king! The column was quickly in the middle of the picked soldiers of
France, tossing them haughtily aside with the ready bayonet, while the
cheers of anticipated victory resounded from their ranks far over the
bloody field. Marshal Saxe, ill, and pale with rage and vexation,
sprang, unarmored, upon his horse, and seemed to think the battle lost,
for he ordered the evacuation of Antoine, in order that the bridges
across the Scheldt might be covered and the king’s escape assured. At
this moment, Count Lally, of the Irish Brigade, rode up to Duke
Richelieu, Saxe’s chief aide, and said to him: “We have still four
field-pieces in reserve—they should batter the head of that column. The
Irish Brigade has not yet been engaged. Order it to fall on the English
flank. Let the whole army second it—let us fall on the English like
foragers!” Richelieu, who, afterward, allowed the suggestion to appear
as if coming from himself, went at once to Saxe and gave him the
substance of Lally’s proposal. The king and Dauphin, who were present,
approved of it. The order to evacuate Antoine was countermanded, and
aides immediately galloped to the rear of the wood of Barri to order up
the Irish Brigade, commanded by Lord Clare, and its supporting
regiments. These brave men, rendered excited and impatient by the noise
of the battle, in which they had not yet been allowed to participate,
received the command with loud demonstrations of joy. Their officers
immediately led them toward the point of danger.
Meanwhile, the English column, marching and firing steadily—that
“infernal, rolling fire,” so characteristic of the British mode of
fighting—kept on its terrible course, and crushed every French
organization that stood in its path. Had the Dutch and Austrians
succeeded in carrying Antoine at this moment, Cumberland must have been
victorious and the French army could not have escaped. Already the
column, still bleeding at every stride, was within sight of the royal
tent. The English officers actually laid their canes along the barrels
of the muskets to make the men fire low. Suddenly, the fire from the
four reserve French cannon opened on the head of the column, and the
foremost files went down. The English guns replied stoutly and the march
was renewed. But now there came an ominous sound from the side of De
Barri’s wood that made Lord Hay, brave and bold as he was, start, pause,
and listen. It swelled above the crash of artillery and the continuous
rattle of musketry. “Nearer, clearer, deadlier than before,” that fierce
hurrah bursts upon the ear of battle! The English have heard that shout
before and remember it to their cost. The crisis of the conflict has
come, and the command, by voice and bugle, “Halt! halt!” rang from front
to rear of the bleeding column. The ranks were dressed hastily, and the
English prepared to meet the advancing enemy with a deadly volley from
their front and long right flank. They looked anxiously in the direction
of the wood and beheld long lines and bristling columns of men in blue
and red—the uniform of the Irish Brigade—coming on at the charging step,
with colors flying and “the generals and colonels on horseback among the
glittering bayonets.” They did not fire a single shot as they came on.
Behind them were masses of men in blue and white. These were the French
supports. Again the British officers laid their canes across the barrels
of the muskets, and, as the Brigade came within close range, a murderous
volley rolled out. Hundreds of the Irish fell, but the survivors,
leaping over the dead, dying, and wounded, never paused for a moment.
They closed the wide gaps in their ranks and advanced at a run until
they came within bayonet thrust or butt-stroke of the front and right of
the English column, which they immediately crushed out of military
shape; while their fierce war-shout, uttered in the Irish
tongue—“Revenge! Remember Limerick and English treachery!” sounded the
death-knell of Cumberland’s heroic soldiers. While the clubbed muskets
of the Brigade beat down the English ranks, that furious war-cry rang
even unto the walls of old Tournay. The French regiments of Normandie
and Vassieux bravely seconded the Irish charge, and they and other
Gallic troops disposed of the Hanoverians. Within ten minutes from the
time when the Brigade came in contact with the English column, no
British soldiers, except the dead, wounded, and captured, remained on
the slope of Fontenoy. Bulkeley’s Irish regiment nearly annihilated the
Coldstream Guards and captured their colors.
This victory saved France from invasion, but it cost the Irish dear.
Count Dillon was slain, Lord Clare disabled, while one-third of the
officers and one-fourth of the men were killed or wounded. King Louis,
next morning, publicly thanked the Irish, made Lally a general, and Lord
Clare was, soon afterward, created a marshal of France. England met
retribution for her cruelty and faithlessness to Ireland, and King
George vehemently cursed the laws which drove the Irish exiles to win
glory and vengeance on that bloody day.
The losses in the battle were nearly equal—the French, Swiss, and Irish
losing altogether 7,139 men killed, wounded, and missing; while the
English, Hanoverians, Dutch, and Austrians acknowledged a total loss of
7,767 men, said by O’Callaghan to be an underestimate. Fontenoy was one
of the greatest of French victories, and led, in the same campaign, to
numerous other successes. Among the latter may be enumerated the triumph
at Melle, the surprise of Ghent, the occupation of Bruges, and the
capture of Oudenarde, Dendermonde, Ostend, Nieuport, and Ath.
Several officers of the Irish Brigade went with Prince Charles Edward
Stuart to Scotland, when he made his gallant but ill-fated attempt to
restore the fallen fortunes of his luckless father, called by the
Jacobites James VIII of Scotland and James III of England and Ireland,
in 1745-46. The Hanoverian interest called James the “Old” and Charles
Edward the “Young” Pretender. The Irish officers formed “Prince
Charles’s” chosen bodyguard when he was a fugitive amid the Highlands
and Western Isles after Culloden. One of the last great field exploits
of the Irish Brigade was its victorious charge at Laffeldt, in Flanders,
in 1747, when, for the second time, it humiliated Cumberland, and, in a
measure, avenged his base massacre of the gallant Scottish Highland
clans, in 1746. The victory of Laffeldt led to the Peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, which was favorable to France, in 1748. The Brigade
took part in each succeeding war in which France was involved down to
the period of the Revolution. Some of its regiments served also in India
and America. Under Count Dillon, several Irish battalions distinguished
themselves in the dashing, but unsuccessful, attack on the British at
Savannah, Ga., in 1779, when the brave Count Pulaski, who led the
assault, was killed on the ramparts. By that time, however, the volume
of recruits from Ireland had greatly diminished, owing to the gradual
relaxation of the penal code, and a majority of the officers and
soldiers of the Brigade were, although of Irish blood, French by birth.
Some of the officers were French by both birth and blood, and, among
them, in 1791, was the great-grandson of St. Ruth. The Brigade, as
became it, remained faithful to the last to the Bourbon dynasty.
Unfortunately this fidelity led the feeble remnant, under Colonel
O’Connell, to take service in the West Indies, beneath the British flag,
after the Revolution. In extenuation of their fault, it must be
remembered that they were, to a man, monarchists; that the Stuart cause
was hopelessly lost, and that both tradition and education made them the
inevitable enemies of the new order of things in France. Still, an Irish
historian may be pardoned for remarking that it were much better for the
fame of the Brigade of Cremona and Fontenoy if its senile heir-at-law
had refrained from accepting the pay of the country whose tyranny had
driven the original organization into hopeless exile.
But the active career of the bold Brigade terminated in a blaze of
glory. The hand of a prince, destined to be a monarch, inscribed its
proud epitaph when, in 1792, the Comte de Provence, afterward Louis
XVIII, presented to the surviving officers a drapeau d’adieu, or flag of
farewell—a gold harp wreathed with shamrocks and fleur-de-lis, on a
white ground, with the following touching words:
“Gentlemen: We acknowledge the inappreciable services that
France has received from the Irish Brigade in the course of the
last hundred years—services that we shall never forget, though
under an impossibility of requiting them. Receive this standard
as a pledge of our remembrance, a monument of our admiration and
our respect, and, in future, generous Irishmen, this shall be
the motto of your stainless flag—
“‘1692-1792.’
“Semper et Ubique Fidelis!
(“Ever, and everywhere, faithful.”)
Never did military body receive a nobler discharge from service.
And yet, well might the haughty Bourbon prince so express himself. In
defence of his house, there died beneath the golden lilies, in camp and
breach and field, nearly 500,000 of Ireland’s daring manhood. It is no
wonder that with those heroes departed much of her warlike spirit and
springing courage. Her “wild geese,” as she fondly called them, will
never fly again to her bosom across the waves that aided their flight to
exile and to glory. The cannon of all Europe pealed above their gory
graves, on many a stricken field, the soldier’s requiem.
“They fought as they reveled, fast, fiery, and true,
And, tho’ victors, they left on the field not a few;
And they who survived fought and drank as of yore,
But the land of their hearts’ hope they saw nevermore:
For, in far foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade,
Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade!”
Its successor in the French army was the Irish Legion, composed in the
main of refugees who had participated in the “rebellion” of 1798 and the
“rising” of 1803. This fine body of soldiers was organized by Napoleon
himself, wore a distinctively Irish uniform of green and gold, and
carried French and Irish colors. To it, also, was intrusted an eagle—the
only foreign force that was so honored by the greatest of generals. The
Legion fought for the Emperor, with splendid fidelity, from 1805 to
1815, participating in most of the great battles of that warlike period.
It was naturally expected that Louis XVIII, on his final restoration to
the throne, would revive the old Irish Brigade, so highly praised by
him, when Comte de Provence, in 1792, but he was under too many
obligations to England, and, in fact, his treaty with that power, after
the second exile of Napoleon, made it obligatory on him not to accept an
Irish military contingent under any consideration. His acquiescence in
this ignoble compact makes more emphatic the venerable adage, “Put not
your trust in Princes.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK VII
NARRATING THE MANY PENAL STATUTES AGAINST THE CATHOLICS, AND CARRYING
THE STORY DOWN TO THE ACQUIREMENT OF A FREE COMMERCE BY THE IRISH
PARLIAMENT, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF GRATTAN, A.D. 1780
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I
Anti-Catholic Penal Laws—Their Drastic, Brutal and Absurd
Provisions—Professional Informers, Called “Priest-Hunters”
WE now approach a period of Irish history from which we would gladly
escape, if we could; a period degrading to Ireland, disgraceful to
England, and shocking to humanity. We are about to deal with the dark
and bloody period of the revived penal code, in Ireland, following fast
upon the capitulation of Limerick. Many writers have extolled the
fair-mindedness and liberality of William III, but his course toward
Ireland does not sustain the justice of their eulogies. That he was an
indifferentist in matters of religion is not doubted, yet he permitted
persecution for conscience’ sake in his Irish dominion. That he was an
able man has not been disputed, yet he permitted English jealousy to
destroy the trade and industries of His own supporters in Ireland,
thereby driving thousands on thousands of the Irish dissenters to the
American colonies, which their descendants, in 1775-83, did so much to
make “free and independent.” We can find nothing to admire in the Irish
policy of William III. Had he been an honest bigot, a fanatic on the
subject of religion, we could understand his toleration of the
legislative abominations which made the Irish Catholic a helot on his
native soil. Had he been an imbecile we could understand how English
plausibility might have imposed upon him in the matter of Irish
Protestant commerce. However, not much of moral stamina could be
expected from a man who estranged his wife and his sister-in-law, Anne,
from their own father; or from a nephew, and son-in-law, that did not
scruple to play the cuckoo and eject his own uncle and father-in-law
from the royal nest of England. Add to this his heartless policy toward
the Macdonalds of Glencoe, in Scotland, the order for whose massacre he
countersigned himself, and we find ourselves utterly unable to give
William of Orange credit for sincerity, liberality, or common humanity.
He was personally courageous, a fair general, and a cautious statesman.
These about summed up his good qualities. But he interposed no objection
when, notwithstanding the solemn civil articles of Limerick, he
permitted the estates of the adherents of King James, to whom his Lords
Justices, by royal sanction, guaranteed immunity, to be confiscated.
Mitchel, a Protestant in belief, says in his “History of Ireland,” page
3: “The first distinct breach of the Articles of Limerick was
perpetrated by King William and his Parliament in England, just two
months after those articles were signed. King William was in the
Netherlands when he heard of the surrender of Limerick, and, at once,
hastened to London. Three days later he summoned a Parliament. Very
early in the session, the English House of Commons, exercising its
customary power of binding Ireland by acts passed in London, sent up to
the House of Lords a bill providing that no person should sit in the
Irish Parliament, nor should hold any Irish office, civil, military, or
ecclesiastical, nor should practice law or medicine in Ireland, till he
had first taken the oaths of allegiance _and supremacy_, and subscribed
to the declaration against transubstantiation. The law was passed, only
reserving the right [of practice] to such lawyers and physicians as had
been within the walls of Galway and Limerick when those towns
capitulated.” Thenceforward there were repeated violations of the
treaty, during the reign of William and Mary, although the penal laws
did not reach the acme of their crushing severity until the reigns of
their immediate successors, Queen Anne, George I, and George II. Lord
Macaulay himself, who does not admit that William III was ever wrong,
acknowledges, in his “History of England,” that “the Irish Roman
Catholics complained, and with but too much reason, that, at a later
period, the Treaty of Limerick was violated.” The main opposition to the
confirmation of the treaty came, as might be expected, from the party of
Protestant ascendency in Ireland, which had in view “the glory of God,”
and wholesale confiscation of Catholic property. Their horror of what
they called “Popery” was strongly influenced by a pious greed for cheap
real estate. There were, of course, many noble exceptions to this
mercenary rule among the Protestants of Ireland, even in the blackest
period of “the penal days.” If there had not been, the Catholics must
have been exterminated. It is only fair to say that the majority of the
poorer Protestant Irish—particularly the Dissenters—had little or no
part in framing the penal code, and that many members of the Irish House
of Lords, including Protestant bishops, indignantly protested against
the formal violation of the Articles of Limerick, contained in the act
of the “Irish” Parliament, passed in 1695.
Lord Sydney, William’s Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, summoned the first
Irish Parliament of his master’s reign, in 1692, and this was the only
Parliament, except that called together by King James in 1689, which had
met in Ireland in six-and-twenty years. No act of Catholic
disqualification for Parliament existed in Ireland at that time, and,
therefore, a few Catholic lords and commoners presented themselves, on
summons, and took their seats. They had forgotten that the “paternal”
English Parliament had, in 1691, provided for such an emergency, and
were taken aback when the clerks of Parliament presented to them “the
oath of supremacy, declaring the King of England to be head of the
Church, and affirming the sacrifice of the Mass to be damnable.” Mitchel
says, further, of what followed: “The oath was put to each member of
both Houses, and the few Catholics present at once retired, so that the
Parliament, when it proceeded to business, was purely Protestant. Here,
then, ended the last vestige of constitutional right for the Catholics;
from this date, and for generations to come, they could no longer
consider themselves a part of the existing body politic of their native
land, and the division [of the Irish] into two nations became definite.
There was the dominant nation, consisting of the British colony, and the
subject nation, consisting of five-sixths of the population, who had,
therefore, no more influence upon public affairs than have the red
Indians of the United States.” In order to more fully reduce the
Catholics of Ireland to the condition described, an act was passed by
the Irish Parliament in 1697 which provided that “a Protestant marrying
a Catholic was disabled from sitting or voting in either House of
Parliament.” We may add that, following up this policy, the same
Parliament, thirty years later, fearing that the Catholics were not even
yet sufficiently effaced from political life, passed another bill by
which it was enacted that “no Catholic shall be entitled, or admitted,
to vote at the election of any member to serve in Parliament, as a
knight, citizen, or burgess; or at the election of any magistrate for
any city or other town corporate; any law, statute, or usage to the
contrary notwithstanding.”
Mitchel, commenting on the severity of the penal laws, presents a
curiously contradictory situation in the Ireland of King William’s time
when he says: “But though the inhabitants of Ireland were now, counting
from 1692, definitively divided into two castes, there arose
immediately, strange to say, a strong sentiment of Irish
nationality—not, indeed, among the depressed Catholics; they were done
with national sentiment and aspiration for a time—but the Protestants of
Ireland had lately grown numerous, wealthy, and strong. Their numbers
had been largely increased by English settlers coming to enjoy the
plunder of the forfeited estates, and very much by conversions, or
pretended conversions, of Catholics, who had recanted their faith to
save their property or their position in society, and who generally
altered or disguised their family names when these had too Celtic a
sound. The Irish Protestants also prided themselves on having saved the
kingdom for William and the ‘Ascendancy,’ and having now totally put
down the ancient nation under their feet, they aspired to take its
place, to rise from a colony to a nation, and to assert the dignity of
an independent kingdom.”
Even the Irish Protestant Parliament of 1692 quarreled with Lord
Lieutenant Sydney over a revenue bill, which originated in London, and
which it rejected, although it passed another bill, having a like
origin, on the ground of emergency. During the debate on these measures,
several members denied the right of England to tax Ireland without her
consent, and insisted that all revenue bills, which called for Irish
taxation, should originate in Ireland, not in England. This bold spirit
angered Lord Sydney, who immediately prorogued that Parliament, not,
however, before he made an overbearing speech, in which he rebuked the
action of the members and haughtily asserted the supremacy of the
British Parliament over that of Ireland. His remarks left a sting in
Protestant Ireland and served to strengthen, rather than weaken, the
national sentiment alluded to by Mitchel.
In 1693, King James the Vacillating, then a pensioner of the King of
France, at St. Germain, issued a declaration to his former subjects of
England in which he made humiliating promises, at variance with his
previous record, and in which, among other things, he promised if
restored to the throne to keep inviolate the Act of Settlement, which
deprived his Catholic supporters in Ireland of their estates! This
perfidious document aroused great indignation among the Irish military
exiles, and James, through his English advisers in France, attempted to
smooth matters over by promising that, in the event of his success, he
would recompense all who might suffer by his act, by giving them
equivalents. Lord Middleton, a Scotch peer, is held chiefly responsible
for having led King James into this disgraceful transaction—the most
blameful of his unfortunate career. “There was no such promise [of
recompense] in the declaration” (to the English), says the historian
recently quoted, “but, in truth, the Irish troops in the army of King
Louis were, at that time, too busy in camp and field, and too keenly
desirous to meet the English in battle, to pay much attention to
anything coming from King James. They had had enough of ‘Righ Seamus’ at
the Boyne Water.”
Lord Sydney, although inimical to the claim of Irish Parliamentary
independence, was rather friendly to the persecuted Irish Catholics, and
was, therefore, at the request of the “Ascendancy” faction, speedily
recalled, not, however, before, after two proroguements, he had
dissolved the Parliament convened in 1692. Three Lords Justices—Lord
Capel, Sir Cyril Wyche, and Mr. Duncombe—were given the government of
Ireland in his stead, but, owing to serious dissensions among
themselves, Capel was finally appointed Lord Lieutenant, and, in 1695,
summoned a new Parliament to meet in Dublin. This assembly was destined
to be infamous. Its first act was to bring up the articles of the Treaty
of Limerick for “confirmation,” and it “confirmed” them by vetoing all
the important and agreeing to all the trivial provisions. The
enumeration of all the penal laws passed by this Parliament would be
tedious in the extreme, and a bare outline will suffice to show their
demoralizing tendency. It was enacted that Catholic schoolmasters were
forbidden to teach, either publicly or privately, under severe penalty;
and the parents of Catholic children were prohibited from sending them
to be educated abroad. All Catholics were required to surrender their
arms, and, in order to enforce the act more thoroughly, “right of
search” was given to magistrates, so that Catholic householders could be
disturbed at any hour of the day or night, their bedrooms invaded, and
the women of their family subjected to exposure and insult.
Notwithstanding the clause in the Treaty of Limerick which was supposed
to secure the Catholic landholders in certain counties in the possession
of their property, Parliament made a clean sweep by confiscating the
property of all, to the extent of over a million acres, so that now, at
long run, after three series of confiscations, there remained in
Catholic hands _less than one-seventh_ of the entire surface of the
island. The Protestant one-sixth owned all the rest.
It was agreed not to seriously disturb the parish priests, who were
incumbents at the time of the treaty, but no curates were allowed them,
and they were compelled to register their names, like ticket-of-leave
men, in a book furnished by government. They had, also, to give security
for their “good conduct,” and there were other insulting exactions—the
emanation of bitter hearts and narrow brains. All Catholic prelates, the
Jesuits, monks, and “regular clergy,” of whatever order, were
peremptorily ordered to quit Ireland by May 1, 1698. If any returned
after that date, they were to be arrested for high treason, “tried,”
and, of course, condemned and executed. The object was to leave the
Catholic people without spiritual guides, except Protestants, after the
“tolerated” parish priests had passed away; but, in spite of the penal
enactment, a large number of devoted proscribed bishops and priests
remained in Ireland, and the prelates administered holy orders to young
clerical students, who, like themselves, had defied penalties and risked
their lives for the service of God and the consolation of their
suffering people.
In order to still further humiliate the unfortunate Irish Catholics,
this Parliament of bigots decreed that no Catholic chapel should be
furnished with either bell or belfry. Such smallness would seem
incredible in our age, but the enactments stand out, in all their
hideousness, in the old statutes of the Irish Parliament, still
preserved in the government archives in Dublin and London. It was this
Parliament that decreed, further, that no Catholic could possess a horse
of or over the value of £5 sterling. On offering that sum, or anything
over it, any Protestant could become owner of the animal.
The Irish peers who protested against this tyranny were Lords
Londonderry, Tyrone, and Duncannon, the Barons Ossory, Limerick,
Killaloe, Kerry, Howth, Kingston, and Strabane, and the Protestant
bishops of Kildare, Elphin, Derry, Clonfert, and Killala—to whom be
eternal honor.
But the penal laws were not yet completed. They had just about begun. In
1704, when the Duke of Ormond, grandson of the Ormond of Cromwellian
days, became viceroy for Queen Anne, another Irish Ascendancy Parliament
enacted, among other things, that the eldest son of a Catholic, by
becoming Protestant, could become the owner of his father’s land, if he
possessed any, and the father become only a life tenant. If any child,
of any age above infancy, declared itself a Protestant, it was ordered
placed under Protestant guardianship, and the father was compelled to
pay for its education and support. If the wife of a Catholic turned
Protestant, she could claim a third of his property and separate
maintenance. Catholics were prohibited from being guardians of their own
children, to the end that, when they died, the helpless ones might be
brought up as Protestants.
Catholics were debarred from buying land, or taking a freehold lease for
life, or a for a longer period than thirty-one years. No Catholic heir
to a former owner was allowed to accept property that came to him by
right of lineal descent, or by process of bequest. If any Protestant
could prove that the profit on the farm of a Catholic exceeded one-third
of the rent paid by the latter, the informer could take immediate
possession of the land.
We have already alluded to the measures taken to exclude Catholics from
civil and military service, by operation of the odious test oaths, which
were also used to prevent them from entering Parliament, and from even
voting for members of Parliament, although the latter had to be
Protestants in order to be eligible. The Irish Dissenters—Presbyterians
and others—were also subjected to the test-oath indignity, which,
together with the tyrannical restrictions on trade, imposed by the
English and servile Irish Parliament, drove many thousands of them to
America. The Irish Presbyterians, in particular, resented the “test” and
“schism” acts, and refused to apply to Episcopal bishops for license to
teach in schools; or to receive the sacrament after the fashion of the
Church of England. Rewards were held out for all who would reveal to the
government the names of Catholics, or others, who might violate the
provisions of the barbaric laws summarized in this chapter. The scale of
the rewards, as given by McGee and other authors, is a curious study.
Thus, “for discovering an archbishop, bishop, vicar-general, or other
person exercising any foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction, £50; for
discovering each ‘regular’ clergyman and each ‘secular’ clergyman, not
registered, £20, and for discovering each ‘Popish’ schoolmaster, or
usher, £10.” If any person refused to give evidence of the residence of
any proscribed person, he was fined £20, or else had to go to prison for
a year. Many noble-hearted Protestants who, in spite of penal laws,
loved their Catholic fellow-countrymen, suffered pains and penalties,
under these enactments, and became objects of hatred to the more
malignant section of their co-religionists, who were after the Catholic
spoils. Thus, public distrust became epidemic, and the infamous “reward”
policy begot, as a natural result, a host of professional informers,
whose shocking avocation was mainly exercised in the spying out of the
places of concealment of proscribed prelates and priests, and who are
still remembered in Ireland as “priest-hunters.” These malignants also
directed their efforts vigorously against the teachers of
“hedge-schools”—that is to say, schools held in the open air, generally
under the shelter of a tall hedge, or on the edge of a wood, and
presided over by some wandering schoolmaster, who bravely risked
liberty, and often life, in teaching the Catholic youth of Ireland the
rudiments of education.
There existed a mean “toleration” of Catholic worship, in parishes whose
priests were “registered,” according to the provisions of the penal
code, but, in parishes where the priests were not registered, and they
were numerous, priests and people, who wished to celebrate and assist at
the consoling sacrifice of the Mass, had to retire to ocean cave, or
mountain summit, or rocky gorge, in order to guard against surprise and
massacre. The English government of the day did not scruple to lend its
soldiers to the priest-hunters, to enable the latter to more effectively
accomplish their odious mission; just as in our day it has lent the
military to the sheriffs to carry out those cruel evictions which the
late Mr. Gladstone called “sentences of death.” It was the custom to
place sentinels around the places where Mass was being celebrated, but,
despite of this precaution, the human sleuthhounds occasionally crept
unobserved upon their unarmed victims—for then, as now, the Irish were
systematically disarmed—and often slew priest and people at the rude
altar stones, called still by the peasantry “Mass rocks.”
So great was the enforced exodus of priests from Ireland, at this awful
period of its history, that, says McGee, “in Rome 72,000 francs annually
were allotted for the maintenance of the fugitive Irish clergy, and,
during the first three months of 1699, three remittances from the Holy
Father, amounting to 90,000 livres, were placed in the hands of the
Nuncio at Paris for the temporary relief of the fugitives in France and
Flanders. It may also be added here that, till the end of the eighteenth
century, an annual charge of 1,000 crowns was borne by the Papal
treasury for the encouragement of Catholic poor schools in Ireland.”
Of the penal code which produced this dreadful condition of affairs, in
and out of Ireland, Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great English scholar and
philosopher, said, “They are more grievous than all the Ten Pagan
persecutions of the Christians.”
Edmund Burke, the illustrious Irish statesman, who passed most of his
career in the British Parliament, and was, of course, a Protestant, or
he could not have sat there, denounced them, substantially, as the most
diabolical engine of oppression and demoralization ever used against a
people or ever devised by “the perverted ingenuity of man.”
And the Protestant and English historian, Godkin, who compiled Cassell’s
“History of Ireland,” for English readers, says of the penal laws: “The
eighteenth century was the era of persecution in which the law did the
work of the sword, more effectually and more safely. There was
established a code framed with almost diabolical ingenuity, to
extinguish natural affection, to foster perfidy and hypocrisy, to
petrify conscience, to perpetuate brutal ignorance, to facilitate the
work of tyranny, by rendering the vices of slavery inherent and natural
in the Irish character, and to make Protestantism almost irredeemably
odious as the monstrous incarnation of all moral perversions.” This
honest Englishman grows indignant when he says, in continuation, “Too
well did it accomplish its deadly work on the intellects, morals, and
physical condition of a people, sinking in degeneracy from age to age,
till all manly spirit, all virtuous sense of personal independence and
responsibility, was nearly extinct, and the very features, vacant,
timid, cunning, and unreflective, betrayed the crouching slave
within.... Having no rights or franchises, no legal protection of life
and property, disqualified to handle a gun, even as a common soldier or
a gamekeeper, forbidden to acquire the elements of knowledge at home or
abroad, forbidden even to render to God what conscience dictated as His
due, what could the Irish be but abject serfs? What nation in their
circumstances could have been otherwise? Is it not amazing that any
social virtue could have survived such an ordeal?—that any seeds of
good, any roots of national greatness, could have outlived such a long
and tempestuous winter?”
But the seeds of good, although chilled, did not decay, and the manly
spirit of the Old Irish race—the Celto-Norman stock, with the former
element in preponderance—survived all its persecutions, and
“—Exiled in those penal days,
Its banners over Europe blaze!”
The great American orator and philanthropist, Wendell Phillips,
lecturing on Ireland, and alluding to the enforced ignorance of a former
period, said: “When the old-time ignorance of the Catholic Irish people
is reproachfully alluded to by the thoughtless, or illiberal, it is not
Ireland but England that should bow her head in the dust and put on
sackcloth and ashes!”
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CHAPTER II
Restrictions on Irish Trade and Manufactures—All Creeds
Suffer—Presbyterian Exodus to America—Death of Royal
Personages—Accession of George I
SINCE the days of Charles II, and probably before his reign, a
contemptible jealousy of the growth of Irish commerce had taken
possession of the commercial element in England. We have already said
something about the crushing of the Irish cattle trade, while yet the
“Merry Monarch” was on the throne; but a far deadlier blow was struck at
Irish prosperity when, in 1698, the English manufacturers had the
assurance to petition Parliament against the Irish woolen industry—then
among the most prosperous in Europe. This petition was strongly indorsed
by the English House of Lords, in an address to King William, wherein
they, unconsciously, perhaps, paid a high tribute to Irish manufacturing
genius. They virtually admitted that the superiority of Irish woolen
fabrics made the English traders apprehensive that the farther growth of
the Irish woolen industry “might greatly prejudice the said manufacture
in his Majesty’s Kingdom of England.” Not content with this display of
mean selfishness, the English fisheries’ interest protested against
Irish fishermen catching herrings on the eastern coast of their own
island, “thereby coming into competition with them [the English].” The
Colonial Parliament of Ireland basely yielded to English coercion, and,
in 1699, actually stabbed the industries of their own country in the
back, by placing ruinous export duties on fine Irish woolens, friezes,
and flannels! And this hostile legislation was aimed, not against the
Catholic Irish, who had no industries, but against the Protestant Irish,
who possessed all of them!
The English Parliament, thus secured against effective opposition,
immediately passed an act whereby the Irish people were forbidden to
export either the raw material for making woolen goods, or the goods
themselves, to any foreign port, except a few English ports, and only
six of the numerous Irish seaports were allowed even this poor
privilege. The natural result followed. Irish prices went up in England,
and, in spite of the acknowledged excellence of Irish manufactures, the
English people would not purchase them at an advanced cost. The Irish
traders could not afford to sell them at a moderate price, and, within a
few years, most of the latter were absolutely ruined. Dr. P. W. Joyce,
in his “History of Ireland,” estimates that “40,000 Irish
Protestants—all prosperous working people—were immediately reduced to
idleness and poverty—the Catholics, of course, sharing in the misery, so
far as they were employed, and 20,000 Presbyterians and other
Nonconformists left Ireland for New England. Then began the emigration,
from want of employment, that continues to this day. But the English
Parliament professed to encourage the Irish linen trade, for this could
do no harm to English traders, as flax growing and linen manufacture had
not taken much hold in England.”
This, according to Dr. Joyce, was the beginning of that smuggling trade
with France which Ireland carried on for more than a century, and a
close acquaintance, therefore, sprang up between the French and Irish
traders and sailors. Ireland could sell her surplus wool to great
advantage in France, and received from that country many luxuries,
which, otherwise, she could not have enjoyed. French wines became common
at Irish tables, above those of the working-class, and French silks
decorated the fair persons of Irish maids and matrons. Moreover, this
adventurous trade developed a hardy race of Irish sailors, and, by means
of the Irish smugglers and their French copartners, the Irish priests
found a convenient avenue of transit to and from the Continent; and
brave young Irish spirits, registered as “Wild Geese,” found their way
to the ranks of “the bold Brigade,” whose fame was then a household word
in Europe. But the Irish masses, both Catholic and Nonconformist, were
reduced to abject poverty, and each succeeding year brought fresh
commercial restrictions, until, finally, almost every Irish industry,
except the linen, was totally extirpated in the island. The smuggling
trade, alone, kept some vitality in the commercial veins of the ruined
country, and, in defiance of English and Anglo-Irish enactments against
it, it continued to flourish down to the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
Well-meaning foreign writers, who did not make a study of Anglo-Irish
relations in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, have
expressed astonishment at the paucity of Irish industries, outside of
linen, and have ascribed it to Irish non-adaptability to manufacturing
pursuits! Not alone did England compel Ireland to fine her own traders,
by levying export duties on their output, but she also, as we have seen,
by her own Parliament, limited such exports to the meanest possible
proportions! Of course, at this slavish period of the old so-called
Irish Parliament, duties to limit the importation of English goods and
to foster home industries were not allowed. Ireland was stripped of
everything but linen and “homespun,” and then left a beggar. This is a
most disgraceful chapter in the history of the political connection of
Great Britain and Ireland—one that led to untold bitterness, and that
caused the great orator, Grattan, in after years to exclaim,
prophetically, in the Irish House of Commons: “What England tramples in
Ireland will rise to sting her in America!” He alluded to the
Presbyterian and Catholic exodus, which so materially aided the American
Revolution.
The last hope of King James again attaining the throne of the “Three
Kingdoms” disappeared with the terrible defeat inflicted on the French
fleet at the battle of La Hogue, 1692, and, thereafter, his life was
passed sadly—for he had ample time to ruminate on his misfortunes—at St.
Germain, until he died, in 1701. His rival, William III, whose wife,
Queen Mary II, had preceded him to the grave, died from the effects of a
horseback accident, in March, 1702. He was immediately succeeded by
Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart line who occupied the throne of
England. Her reign was one of glory for Great Britain and one of hate
and horror for Ireland. We have already mentioned some of the penal laws
passed while she held sway. Her ministers, of course, were responsible
for her acts, because she herself possessed only moderate ability.
Unlike most of the Stuart family, she swam with the current, and so got
along smoothly with her English subjects. The most important domestic
event of her reign was the legislative union of England with
Scotland—which virtually extinguished Scotland as a nation. This event
occurred in May, 1707, and was accompanied by acts of the most shameless
political profligacy on the part of the English minister and the Scotch
lords and commons. In fact, the independence of Scotland, like that of
Ireland ninety-three years later, was sold for titles, offices,
pensions, and cold cash. The masses of the people, to do them justice,
had little to do with this nefarious transaction, which was subsequently
satirized by the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns, in his lyric, one
verse of which runs thus:
“What English force could not subdue
Through many warlike ages,
Is sold now by a craven few
For hireling traitors’ wages!
The English steel we could disdain—
Secure in valor’s station—
But English gold has been our bane—
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!”
The deeds in arms of Anne’s great general, Marlborough, who was a
traitor to both King James and King William, have been partially related
in the chapters bearing on the career of the Franco-Irish Brigade and
need no farther mention in this history.
In the days of William III appeared a pamphlet called “The Case of
Ireland Stated,” which was written by William Molyneux, a member of
Parliament, for the Dublin University. It appeared in 1698, and made, at
once, a powerful impression on the public mind. It, in brief, took the
ground that Ireland—that is, Protestant, colonial Ireland—was, of right,
a separate and independent kingdom; that England’s original title of
conquest, if she had any, was abrogated by charters granted to Ireland
from time to time, and, finally, denied that the king and Parliament of
England had power to bind the kingdom and people of Ireland by
English-made laws. The English Parliament was, of course, greatly
shocked and scandalized at the idea of a “mere Irishman” putting forth
such theories, and solemnly ordered his book to be burned, publicly, by
“the common hangman”—a functionary always in high favor when Ireland
needs to be “disciplined.” The book was burned accordingly, but its
spirit did not die then, nor is it yet dead, or likely to die, while
Ireland contains a population. King William, in replying to the English
Parliament’s address on the subject of Molyneux’s utterance, assured its
members that “he would enforce the laws securing the dependence of
Ireland on the imperial crown of Great Britain.”
In the chapter on the penal laws, many of the enactments of the reign of
Anne have been summarized. Her sway was a moral nightmare over Ireland,
and it is a remarkable historical coincidence that the Green Isle
suffered more, materially and morally, under the English female than the
male sovereigns. Under Elizabeth and Anne, the Irish Catholics were
persecuted beyond belief. Under Victoria’s rule, which the British
statistician, Mulhall, has called “the deadliest since Elizabeth,” they
starved to death by the hundred thousand or emigrated by the million.
The régime of Queen Anne, like that of her predecessors and successors
on the throne, gave the government of Ireland into the hands of
Englishmen, who held all the important offices, from the viceroyalty
downward, and who chose their sub-officers from among the least national
element of the Irish people. This system, although somewhat modified,
continues to the present day. In the Irish Parliament, there was an
occasional faint display of sectarian nationality, but it proved of
little advantage when the English wanted matters in that body to go as
they wished. Ireland then, as a majority ruled by a minority, “stood on
her smaller end,” and so it is even in our own times, notwithstanding
occasional “concessions” and “ameliorations.”
But, from the day when the pamphlet, or book, of Molyneux saw the light,
a Patriot party began to grow up in the Irish Parliament. The old Irish
nation had, indeed, disappeared, for a period, but the new one soon
began to manifest a spirit that roused the bitter hatred of England.
Such infatuated Irish Protestants as still believed that they would be
more gently treated on account of common creed with the stronger people
were soon bitterly undeceived.
The death of Queen Anne, all of whose children by the Prince of Denmark
had died before her, occurred in July, 1714. It is said that she
secretly favored the succession of her half-brother, acknowledged by
Louis XIV, and the Jacobite party in Great Britain, as James III of that
realm, but the last Duke of Ormond, the Earl of Orrery, Bishop
Atterbury, and Lord Bolingbroke, the Jacobite leaders in England, lost
their nerve after the Queen’s death and allowed the golden opportunity
of proclaiming the exiled Stuart king to pass away. The Hanoverian
faction, which called James “the Pretender,” took advantage of their
vacillation to proclaim the Elector of Hanover, who derived his claim
from the Act of Succession or Settlement (which ignored the Stuart male
line, or any of its Catholic collateral branches, and excluded them from
the throne), under the title of George I. He derived his claim, such as
it was, from James I, whose daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, had
married the King of Bohemia. Her daughter, Sophia, married the Elector
of Hanover and became mother of King George, who was a thorough German
in speech, manner, and habit, although not in person or in manly
characteristics. But he was a Protestant, and that sufficed for England.
On August 1, 1714, he was proclaimed in London and Edinburgh, and on the
8th of that month in Dublin. The Scotch Jacobites ridiculed his
accession in a racy “skit,” which began with—
“Oh, wha the deil hae we got for a king
But a wee, wee German lairdie!”
Ireland, broken in spirit and disgusted by the memory of King James II,
remained quiescent, but, in 1715, Scotland and a portion of the north of
England rose in rebellion, the former under the Earl of Mar and the
latter under young Lord Derwentwater. They were not heartily supported.
Both met with defeat, and Derwentwater, together with several English
and Scotch adherents of note, was captured, beheaded, and had his
estates confiscated to the “crown.” The English Parliament offered a
reward of £50,000 ($250,000) for the “apprehension” of “the Pretender,”
who had been previously “attainted,” but there were no takers, “the
Pretender” aforesaid being safely housed in Paris. This bloody episode
ended Jacobite “risings” in Great Britain for a generation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III
Further Commercial Restrictions—Continued Exodus of Working
People—Jonathan Swift—“The Patriot Party”—Tyranny of Primate Boulter
SEEING that Ireland had taken no part in the attempted Stuart revolution
at the beginning of his reign, it might be imagined that George I showed
some favor to the Irish people, but he did nothing of the kind. On the
contrary, the penal laws were enforced with greater virulence than ever,
and several new enactments of a most oppressive character—chiefly
bearing on the franchise—were passed. In 1719, the Patriot party in the
Irish Parliament threw down a challenge to English supremacy. The Irish
House of Lords annulled, on appeal, from the Dublin Court of Exchequer,
a judgment in favor of one Annesley and gave it to the opposition
litigant, Hester Sherlock. The former appealed to the English lords, who
overrode the decision of the Irish House, by reversing judgment in favor
of Annesley. As the sheriff in whose jurisdiction (Kildare) the writ ran
refused to obey the English decree, he was heavily fined. The Irish
House retaliated by remitting the fine, applauding the sheriff and
arresting the judges of the Dublin court who had decided for Annesley.
The anger of England became boundless, as it usually does when Ireland
asserts itself, and the English Parliament, without color of right,
passed the drastic enactment, known as the 6th of George I, which
definitively bound Ireland by English enactments, and took the right of
appeal away from the Irish House of Peers. Thus was the chain begun by
the Poynings’ Law, in the reign of Henry VII, made complete, and, at one
fell swoop, Ireland was reduced to a provincial status. Thenceforth,
until 1780, the Irish Parliament was merely a machine for registering
the will of England, in the matter of Irish government.
At the same time, England continued her war on the few remaining Irish
industries—nothing seemed to satisfy the jealousy and covetousness of
her merchants. The glaring outrages committed against the business of
Ireland aroused the ire of the famous Jonathan Swift, Protestant Dean of
St. Patrick’s, who was the son of an Englishman. He wrote, anonymously,
several bitter pamphlets against the selfish policy of England, and
urged the Irish people to use nothing but native manufactures. In one of
these fulminations, he used the memorable phrase: “Burn everything that
comes from England, except the coal!” But his patriotic influence rose
to the zenith when he attacked “Wood’s half-pence”—base money coined to
meet a financial emergency—in 1723. His philippics became known as the
“Drapier’s letters” from the signature attached to them, and, in the
end, he compelled the government to cancel the contract with Wood.
England foamed with rage, and had the printer of the letters prosecuted.
However, no judge or jury in Dublin was found vile enough to convict
him.
Swift, although an Irish patriot, was a Protestant bigot, and detested
the Celtic Catholics quite as much as he did the English, whom, from a
political standpoint, he hated. Yet, he was the idol, during his long
lifetime, of the Catholics, because he had stood by Ireland against the
common enemy. This brilliant man, whose writings have made him immortal,
and whose private sorrows can not be estimated, finally “withered at the
top,” and died insane, after having willed his property to be used for
the building of a lunatic asylum. In a poem written some time before his
sad death, he alludes to his bequest in the following lines:
“He left what little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad—
To show, by one sarcastic touch,
No nation needed one so much!”
No writer better knew how to enrage the English. He took a savage
delight in tormenting them, wounding their vanity, and exposing their
weaknesses. Neither did he spare the Irish; and, as for the Scotch, he
rivaled Dr. Samuel Johnson in his dislike of that people. In our day,
the average summer-up of merits and demerits would describe Jonathan
Swift as “a gifted crank.”
Associated with him in the moral war against English interference in
Ireland’s domestic concerns were such other shining lights of the period
as Dr. Sheridan, ancestor of Richard Brinsley, and others of that
brilliant “ilk”: Dr. Stopford, the able Bishop of Cloyne, and Doctors
Jackson, Helsham, Delaney, and Walmsley, nearly all men of almost pure
English descent. McGee also credits “the three reverend brothers
Grattan”—a name subsequently destined to immortality—with good work in
the same connection.
Whatever the private faults of Swift, Ireland must ever hold his memory
in reverence, with those of many other Irish non-Catholic patriots, who,
although they had little or no Celtic blood in their veins, and were
brought up under English influences, nobly preferred the interests of
their unfortunate native country to the smiles and favors of her
oppressors. And so Ireland, considering these things, blesses
“—The men of patriot pen,
Swift, Molyneux, and Lucas,”
as fervently as if they belonged to the race of the Hy-Niall or
Kinel-Conal.
Nor must it be supposed that the Patriot element, led by Swift, escaped
persecution at the hands of the Protestant oligarchy, although they,
too, were of the Established Church. Swift himself was discriminated
against all his life, because of his advocacy of Irish manufactures, his
discrediting of Wood’s “brass money,” and his defeat of the mischievous
national bank project, which was germane to it. As diocese after diocese
became vacant in Ireland, he saw dullards promoted to the sees, while he
was deliberately overlooked, simply because he had advocated justice to
Ireland! This injustice afterward passed into a proverb. Said an Irish
orator, in after years, speaking of another great Irishman who had also
suffered from English resentment: “The curse of Swift was upon him—to
have been born an Irishman, to have been blessed with talents, and to
have used those talents for the benefit of his country!”
But Swift was not the only sufferer. There were other distinguished
offenders against English sentiment. It is true they had not provoked
the government by their writings to offer a reward of £300 for their
identity, as was Swift’s fortune, but they had done enough to be made
“horrible examples” of. Thus, Right Rev. Dr. Browne, Protestant Bishop
of Cork, had been threatened with deprivation for protesting against the
insulting language toward Catholics contained in the notorious Orange
toast to the memory of William III; and Dr. Sheridan was deprived of his
“living” in Munster, because, says McGee, “he accidentally chose for his
text on the anniversary of King George’s coronation: ‘Sufficient for the
day is the evil thereof!’ Such,” he continues, “was the intolerance of
the oligarchy toward their own clergy. What must it have been to
others!”
About this period, too, the differences between Episcopalians and
Nonconformists—the latter having again repudiated the test oaths—became
more bitter than ever. Swift took sides against the Dissenters, whom, as
a fierce Church of England champion, he despised. “They were glad,” he
said, they or their fathers, “to leave their barren hills of Lochaber
for the fruitful vales of Down and Antrim.” He denied to them, with
bitter scorn, the title they had assumed of “Brother Protestants,” and
as to the Papists they affected to contemn, they were, in his opinion,
“as much superior to the Dissenters as a lion, though chained and
clipped of its claws, is a stronger and nobler animal than an angry cat,
at liberty to fly at the throats of true churchmen.” Of course, the
Church of England faction triumphed and the exodus of the Nonconformists
from Ireland received a fresh impetus. “Outraged,” says McGee, “in their
dearest civil and religious rights, thousands of the Scoto-Irish of
Ulster, and the Milesian and Anglo-Irish of the other provinces,
preferred to encounter the perils of the wild Atlantic rather than abide
under the yoke and lash of such an oligarchy. In the year 1729, five
thousand six hundred Irish landed at the single port of Philadelphia; in
the next ten years they furnished to the Carolinas and Georgia the
majority of their immigrants; before the end of this reign [George I]
several thousands of heads of families, all bred and married in Ireland,
were rearing up a free posterity along the slopes of the Blue Ridge in
Virginia and Maryland, and even as far north as the valleys of the
Hudson and the Merrimac. In the ranks of the thirteen United Colonies,
the descendants of those Irish Nonconformists were to repeat, for the
benefit of George III, the lesson and example their ancestors had taught
to James II at Inniskillen and Derry.”
We do not purpose entering into a chronological account of the several
viceroys—most of them rather obscure—who represented English
misgovernment in Ireland during the reigns of the early Georges. They
simply followed out the old programme of oppression and repression with
tiresome monotony. No matter who “held court” in Dublin Castle, the
policy of England toward Ireland remained unchanged. If ever there came
a lull in the course of systematic persecution, it followed immediately
on some reverse of the English arms on the Continent of Europe. An
English victory meant added taxes and further coercion for the Irish
Catholics and Dissenters.
George I had died in 1727, leaving behind him an unsavory moral
reputation, and regretted by nobody in England, except his Hanoverian
mistresses, who were noted for their pinguid ugliness. He was succeeded
without opposition by his son, who mounted the throne as George II. He,
too, was small of stature, un-English in language and appearance, and
inherited the vices of his father. He was not deficient in personal
bravery, as he proved at Dettingen, and elsewhere, in after times, and
he had the distinction of being the last king of England who appeared
upon a field of battle.
The penal code was continued in full force during most of this reign,
although it had lost favor among the English governing class in the time
of the king’s father, when the Protestant Ascendency party in the Irish
Commons brazenly proposed to the English Privy Council the passage of an
act whereby a proscribed prelate or priest arrested in Ireland would be
made to suffer indecent mutilation. Bad as the English privy councilors
generally were, where Ireland was concerned, they would not stomach such
revolting savagery, and the hideous proposition was heard of no more.
And yet England, knowing the ferocious character of the fanatics who
proposed it, left Ireland virtually helpless in their hands! She could
have, at any time, put an end to the intolerable persecutions visited
upon the masses of the people by a heartless oligarchy, actuated about
equally by cupidity and fierce intolerance. Had she done so, she might
have won the Irish heart, as France won that of German Alsace and
Italian Corsica, but she preferred to use one section of the Irish
people against the other, in her lust of empire, and “Divide and
Conquer” became, as in the Elizabethan times, the pith of her Irish
policy.
The great English minister, Sir Robert Walpole, impressed by the
necessity of breaking down the spirit of independence evoked by Swift
and his able and patriotic colleagues, who had indeed “breathed a new
soul” into the Ireland of their day, appointed that inveterate
politician and corrupt diplomat, Lord Carteret, viceroy. He also
promoted the Right Rev. Hugh Boulter, Bishop of Bristol, also an
Englishman of the virulent type, to the Archbishopric of Armagh—the
primal see of Ireland. Boulter was Castlereagh’s precursor in policy.
Possessed of high office and vast wealth, he did not hesitate to use
both prestige and money in the interests of England, and his corruption
of many members of the Irish Parliament was so open and flagrant as to
scandalize even the brazen chiefs of the atrocious “Court party”—the
Prætorean guard of Lord Carteret. This unscrupulous churchman was the
virtual head of the English interest in Ireland for eighteen years, and,
within that period, overshadowing even viceregal authority, he made the
English name more hated among not alone the Celtic, but the Scoto and
Anglo-Irish than it had been for a century. He was the greatest
persecutor of the Catholics that had appeared since the period of
Cromwell, and he it was who manipulated the machinery of Parliament to
deprive them of the last vestige of their civil and religious liberty in
the closing days of the brutal reign, in Ireland, of George I. Nor did
the Presbyterians and other dissenters fare much better at his hands.
His black career terminated in 1742, and a weight of horror was lifted
from Ireland’s heart when the welcome news of his death spread rapidly,
far and wide, over the persecuted country.
What made “Primate Boulter” particularly odious to the Catholic people
of Ireland was his institution of the “Charter Schools”—used openly and
insultingly for the perversion of the majority of the population from
the Roman Catholic faith. Since that period, English politicians have
not hesitated to use the influence of the Roman See, with more or less
success, to curb political movements in Ireland. Even then, when England
was enforcing the penal laws against the Irish Catholics with fire and
sword, she was the ally of Catholic Austria against the French, and
glibly advocated toleration for the Protestants of the Hapsburg empire,
while her “priest-hunters” industriously earned their putrid “blood
money” in unfortunate, Catholic Ireland. We may say, in passing, that
Primate Boulter was succeeded in the primacy by another Englishman,
Right Rev. George Stone, who proved himself worthy of his predecessor.
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CHAPTER IV
Official Extravagance—Charles Lucas, Leader of Irish
Opposition—Chesterfield Viceroy—His Recall—Dorset’s Vile Administration
AN attempt made in 1729 to place an extortionate estimate on the public
expenses, and which emanated from “the Castle of Dublin,” had the effect
of consolidating the Irish opposition in Parliament. These legislators
protested in a dignified manner against extravagance in public
expenditure. Under the administration of the Duke of Devonshire, in
1737, they set their faces against his method of corrupting the public
conscience by a display of lavish generosity, which is always popular in
a capital where trade depends to a great extent on courtly favor. The
leaders in the House of Commons were Sir Edward O’Brien, of the House of
Inchiquin; his son, Sir Lucius; the Speaker, Henry Boyle, and Mr.
Anthony Malone, whose father had been an efficient ally of Sir Toby
Butler, in defending Catholic rights under the articles of Limerick.
These gentlemen were ably assisted by Dr. Charles Lucas, who, although
not a member of the House, possessed a vast outside influence, because
of his great talent and moral worth. The doctor was also a druggist by
profession, but could use a virile pen even better than he could a
pestle and mortar. In 1741, he began hammering the government in public
prints, on the lines of Molyneux and Swift, and with almost as great
success. But “the Castle” censor came down upon him, and he was
compelled to leave Ireland for a period. Like Swift, he was rather
antagonistic to Catholic claims, but, as in the case of the great Dean,
the Catholics forgave him because he was true to Ireland. After some
years of exile, he returned to Dublin, was elected to Parliament, and
became a leader of the Patriots in the House of Commons. In the House of
Lords, the Earl of Kildare, afterward first Duke of Leinster, was the
Patriot leader.
The famous Earl of Chesterfield became Viceroy of Ireland in 1745, and
showed, from the first, a thorough disgust for the penal laws and the
oligarchs who supported them. He connived at Catholic toleration to such
an extent that he became an object of suspicion, if not of hatred, to
the Ascendency faction. The government of England, with habitual
cunning, had selected this finished courtier to rule in Ireland, because
of disquieting rumors of an invasion of Great Britain contemplated by
Charles Edward Stuart, son of “the Pretender,” James III. Also, about
the same time, came the stirring news of the victory of the Irish
Brigade, in alliance with the French, over the Duke of Cumberland’s
column at glorious Fontenoy. “Accursed,” old George II is said to have
exclaimed, on being told of the Franco-Irish victory, “accursed be the
laws that deprive _me_ of such soldiers!” But Chesterfield was, in
reality, friendly to the Irish. He liked their wit and esprit and took
no pains to conceal the fact, greatly to the disgust of the Ascendency
clique. But Charles Edward’s attempt to recover the British crown
utterly failed. Highland Scotland fought for him heroically. The
Jacobites of England held, for the most part, aloof, and, beyond the
officers of the Irish Brigade, who went with him from France, Ireland
hardly furnished a man to aid his hardy and romantic enterprise—thus
showing how completely her spirit was subdued during that momentous
crisis. Charles Edward was a leader that, in the preceding century, the
Irish would have been proud to follow. He was a great improvement on
both his sire and grandsire, although he ended miserably, in his old
age, a career begun so gloriously in his youth.
Chesterfield remained only eight months in his Irish office. He was
recalled within ten days after the battle of Culloden. There was no
further need, for the time being, to conciliate the Irish. The heir of
the unhappy Stuarts was a houseless wanderer in the land over which his
forefathers had reigned for centuries and their cause was hopelessly
lost. The Earl and Countess of Chesterfield, on their departure from
Dublin, received “a popular ovation.” They walked on foot, arm in arm,
from the viceregal residence to the wharf, where lay the vessel that was
to bear them back to England, and the warm-hearted, “too easily deluded
people” prayed loud and fervently for their speedy return. They came
back no more, but Chesterfield was enabled to assure George II, when he
reached London, that the only “dangerous Papist” he had seen in Ireland
was the lovely Miss Ambrose, afterward Mrs. Palmer, Dublin’s reigning
beauty of the period. Chesterfield made much of her at “the Castle,” and
laughed politely at the bigots who looked upon her as a species of
Delilah. As Miss Ambrose enjoyed, also, the friendship of Lady
Chesterfield, her enemies could evoke no scandal from the platonic
intimacy. The earl’s mild, insinuating system of government had enabled
him to spare four regiments from Ireland for service in Scotland, during
the Jacobite insurrection. His “Principles of Politeness,” practically
applied, were much more effective in the cause of the House of Hanover
than all the repressive enactments of the vicious bigots of the party of
Ascendency.
The last Jacobite expedition was organized in France, in 1759, and was
under orders of an admiral named Conflans, who, when a short distance
out from Brest, was encountered by an English fleet under Admiral Hawke
and totally defeated. A wing of this expedition, under Commodore Thurot,
whose real name was O’Farrell, did not arrive in time to take part in
the battle, but succeeded in entering the British Channel without
interruption. A storm arose which drove Thurot’s five frigates to seek
shelter in Norway and the Orkney Islands, where they wintered. In the
spring, one frigate made its way back to France. Another sailed with a
similar object, but was never heard from afterward. The remaining three,
under Thurot, made for the Irish coast and entered Lough Foyle, but made
no attempt on Londonderry. They soon headed for Belfast Lough, and
appeared before Carrickfergus about the end of February, 1760. Thurot
demanded the surrender of the place, which was stoutly refused by the
military governor, Colonel Jennings. The Franco-Irish sailor immediately
landed his fighting men and took the town by a rapid and furious
assault. Then he levied on the place for supplies and again put to sea.
Off the Isle of Man he fell in with three newly commissioned ships of
war under the English Commodore, Elliott. A sanguinary encounter
followed. Thurot, alias O’Farrell, and three hundred of his marines and
sailors were killed. The French vessels were fearful wrecks, and the
victorious English towed them in a sinking condition into Ramsay. Thus
terminated one of the most gallant naval episodes of the eighteenth
century.
When the Earl of Harrington, afterward Duke of Devonshire, became Lord
Lieutenant some time after the recall of Lord Chesterfield, the odious
Primate Stone—accused both in England and Ireland of unspeakable
immorality—ruled Ireland as completely as had his less filthy
predecessor, Primate Boulter. Ireland, at the outset of the new régime,
was astonished to find a respectable surplus in her treasury, and Lord
Chesterfield, who always, while he lived, took a deep interest in Irish
affairs, sent a congratulatory letter on the seeming prosperity of the
country to his friend, the Bishop of Waterford. The Patriot party in the
Commons, led by the sagacious and eloquent Malone, advocated the
expenditure of the surplus on public works and needed public buildings
throughout Ireland and in the capital. But Stone and the Castle ring
fought the proposition bitterly, contending that the money belonged to
the crown and could be drawn by royal order on the vice-treasurer,
without regard to Parliament. When the Duke of Dorset succeeded
Harrington as viceroy, in 1751, the question had reached an acute stage.
Opposition to the royal claim on the Irish surplus had led to the
expulsion of Dr. Lucas from Ireland. But Malone and Speaker Boyle kept
up the fight in the Commons, and, after having sustained one defeat, on
a full vote, finally came out victorious by having the supply bill,
which covered all government service in the kingdom, thrown out by a
vote of 122 to 117. Government showed its resentment by canceling
Malone’s patent of precedence as Prime Sergeant, and striking Speaker
Boyle’s name from the list of privy-councilors. This was outrageous
enough, but what followed was still more so. The king (George II) by
advice of Dorset, Stone, and their clique, overrode the action of the
Irish Parliament and despotically, by operation of a king’s letter,
withdrew the long-disputed surplus from the Irish national treasury.
This crowning infamy was consummated in 1753, and so great became public
indignation that Stone and the obnoxious ministers were mobbed, and the
Duke of Dorset could not appear on the streets of Dublin without being
hooted at and otherwise insulted. Anglo-Ireland seemed on the brink of
revolution, but the popular leaders took a conservative attitude and
thus avoided a violent crisis. Dorset, alarmed by the tempest he had
himself created, virtually fled from Dublin, followed by the execration
of the multitude. He left the government in the hands of three Lords
Justices, one of whom was Primate Stone, whose very name was hateful to
the incensed people.
The viceroy was followed to England by the popular leader of the Irish
House of Lords, James Fitz-Gerald, 20th Earl of Kildare, who had married
the daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and, consequently, had a powerful
English backing. Kildare presented to King George, in person, a memorial
in which he strongly denounced the misgovernment of Ireland by Dorset,
Stone, and Lord George Sackville, Dorset’s intermeddling son. This
memorial has been described as “the boldest ever addressed by a subject
to a sovereign.”
Although Lord Holderness, an English courtier, in a letter to Chancellor
Jocelyn, says that the bold Geraldine “was but ill-received and very
coolly dismissed” by the king, Kildare’s policy soon prevailed in
Ireland. Dorset was recalled in the succeeding year, and Primate Stone,
with whom Kildare refused to act as Lord Justice, was removed from the
ministry of Ireland.
The Duke of Devonshire, formerly Lord Harrington, or Hartington,
succeeded Dorset, and immediately began the congenial work, to an
English statesman, of breaking up, and rendering harmless, the Irish
Patriot party. Boyle was made Chancellor of the Exchequer and was raised
to the peerage as the Earl of Shannon, receiving also a pension of
£2,000 per annum for thirty-one years. Malone would have accepted the
Lord Chancellorship gladly, but was restrained by both private and
public opinion from doing so openly. But Mitchel says that while Boyle
remained nominal chancellor, Malone quietly pocketed the profits of the
position, and his patriotic eloquence declined in proportion to the
growth of his profits. Other leaders of the Patriot party were also
“taken care of,” and England managed to get rid of one of her most
troublesome “Irish difficulties.”
The purchased Patriots, however, may be fairly credited with having
forced the beginning of the public works, such as canals and highways,
in Ireland, and the construction of some of those splendid official
edifices which still, even in their decay, “lend an Italian glory to the
Irish metropolis.”
Lord Kildare stands accused of having entered into the negotiations with
the new viceroy for the “placation” of the Patriot party in the Commons.
Such, however, were the political “morals” of the times, and the offices
were, nominally at least, Irish and, therefore, quasi, not fully,
national—seeing that Ireland was what might be called a semi-independent
colonial province, distrustful of England, but without strength or
resolution to snap her chains. The earl soon became Marquis of Kildare,
and, subsequently, Duke of Leinster, but he is best remembered as the
father of the gallant, unselfish, and devoted Lord Edward Fitzgerald, of
1798 fame.
An attempt made, in March, 1756, to pass a bill in the Irish Commons to
vacate the seats of such members as should accept “any pension or civil
office of profit from the crown,” was defeated by a vote of 85 to
59—thus giving plain notice to the English viceroy that the Parliament
was up for auction, and, within less than fifty years from that date, it
was, accordingly, like that of Scotland, “knocked down to the highest
bidder.” How could it be otherwise? When, as Mitchel truly says in his
Continuation of McGeoghegan’s “History of Ireland,” “The English
Protestant colony in Ireland, which aspired to be a nation, amounted to
something under half a million of souls, in 1754. It was out of the
question that it should be united on a footing of equality with its
potent mother country by ‘the golden link of the crown,’ because the
wearer of that crown was sure to be guided in his policy by English
ministers, in accordance with English interests; and, as the army was
the king’s army, he could always enforce that policy. The fatal weakness
of the colony was that it would not amalgamate with the mass of the
Irish people (_i.e._ the Catholics) so as to form a true nation, but set
up the vain pretension to hold down a whole disfranchised people with
one hand and defy all England with the other.” And this insensate policy
was pursued, with little modification, to the end, and in the end proved
fatal to both “the colony” and the nation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V
More Persecution of Catholics Under George II—Secret Committee
Formed—Snubbed by the Speaker—Received by the Viceroy—Anti-Union Riot in
Dublin
THE Duke of Bedford became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1757, and came
as a “conciliator,” with a smile on his face “and a bribe in his
pocket.” His mission was to “soften” the penal laws, which had again
become too scandalous for the “liberal” and “civilized” reputation of
England on the Continent. One Miss O’Toole, a Catholic, had been pressed
by some Protestant friends to “conform” to the Established Church, so as
to avoid persecution, and fled to the house of a relative named Saul,
who resided in Dublin, in order to escape disagreeable importunity. Mr.
Saul was prosecuted and convicted, under the penal code, and the judge
who “tried” the case said, in his charge, that “Papists had no rights,”
because the “law” under which poor Saul was punished “did not,” in the
language of the court, “presume a Papist to exist in the kingdom, nor
could Papists so much as breathe the air without the connivance of
government!” This judge, harsh as his language may now seem, did not
misstate the case, for such, indeed, was the barbarous “law of the land”
at that period, and for a considerable time afterward.
The bigots in the Irish Commons, soon after the arrival of the Duke of
Bedford in Dublin, had prepared a new and even more drastic bill of
penalties against Catholics than already existed, and so intolerable
were its proposals that several leading Catholics among “the nobility,
gentry, and professional [clandestinely] classes” got together, and,
after a time, formed, in out-of-the-way meeting places, the first
“Catholic Committee” of Ireland—the precursor, by the way, of the many
similar organizations conducted by John Keogh, Daniel O’Connell, and
other Catholic leaders of succeeding generations.
The chief men of this committee were Charles O’Conor, the Irish
scholar and antiquary; Dr. Curry, the historical reviewer; Mr. Wyse, a
leading merchant of the city of Waterford; Lords Fingal, Devlin,
Taaffe, and some others less known to fame. These amiable gentlemen
were, at first, frightened by the sound of their own voices, but they
gradually grew bolder, although they did not proceed far enough to
bring down upon their heads the full wrath of “government.” Indeed,
they were, on most occasions, obsequiously “loyal” to the “crown,”
which meant the English king and connection. But the iron had entered
their souls, and the stain of its corrosion lingered long in their
veins. When the Duke of Bedford, by the instructions of the elder Pitt
(Chatham), who acted for King George, informed the Irish Parliament
that France contemplated a new invasion and called upon the Irish
people to show their loyalty to the House of Hanover, Charles O’Conor
drew up an abjectly “loyal” address, which was signed by 300 leading
Catholics, and had it presented at the bar of the House of Commons
(Dublin) by Messrs. Antony MacDermott and John Crump. The speaker, Mr.
Ponsonby, received the document in dead silence, laid it on the table
in front of him, and coolly bowed the delegation out. The Duke of
Bedford, however, took “gracious” notice of the address, and caused
his answer thereto, which was appreciative—England being then in
mortal terror of the French—to be printed in the Dublin “Gazette,”
which was the “government’s” official organ. And the poor Catholic
gentlemen, who had signed the cringing document, went into convulsions
of joy because of this “official recognition” of their slavish
professions of “loyalty” to a foreign king, who cared less for them
than for the blacks of the West Indies!
But Mitchel, the Protestant historian, who understood his country’s sad
story better, perhaps, than any writer who ever dealt with it, makes for
the Catholic committee this ingenious apology: “We may feel indignant,”
says he, “at the extreme humility of the proceedings of the committee,
and lament that the low condition of our countrymen at that time left no
alternative but that of professing a hypocritical ‘loyalty’ to their
oppressors; for the only other alternative was secret organization to
prepare an insurrection for the total extirpation of the English colony
in Ireland, and, carefully disarmed as the Catholics were [and still
are], they, doubtless, felt this to be an impossible project. Yet, for
the honor of human nature, it is necessary to state the fact that this
profession of loyalty, to a king of England, was, in reality, insincere.
Hypocrisy, in such a case, is less disgraceful than would have been a
genuine canine attachment to the hand that smote and to the foot that
kicked.”
But Bedford, in his policy of conciliation, had even a deeper motive
than fear of France. The statesmen of England, jealous of even the poor
and almost impotent colonial Parliament of Ireland, so early as 1759,
contemplated that “legislative union,” which was to be effected in later
times. Bedford’s design was the truly English one of arraying the Irish
Catholics against the Protestant nationalists, who had, with England’s
willing aid, so cruelly persecuted them. When this project got mooted
abroad, the Protestant mob of Dublin—the Catholics were too cowed at the
time to act, and their leaders were committed to Bedford by their
address—rose in their might, on December 3, 1759, surrounded the Houses
of Parliament and uttered tumultuous shouts of “No Union! no Union!”
They stopped every member of Parliament, as he approached to enter the
House, and made him swear that he would oppose the union project. They
violently assaulted the Lord Chancellor, whom they believed to be a
Unionist, together with many other lords, spiritual and secular, and
“ducked” one member of the Privy Council in the river Liffey. The
Speaker and Secretary of the House of Commons had to appear in the
portico of the House and solemnly assure the people that no union was
contemplated. Even this assurance did not quell the tumult, and,
finally, a fierce charge of dragoons and the bayonets of a numerous
infantry, accompanied by a threat of using cannon, cleared the streets.
Following up the policy of “conciliation,” the Catholic leaders, with
slavish haste, repudiated the actions of the Protestant mob, and thus
produced a contemptuous bitterness in the Protestant mind, which
aggravated the factious feeling in the unfortunate country. England’s
work was well done. She had planted, as a small seed, the idea of
absorbing the Irish Parliament some day, and was willing to let it take
its own time to ripen into Dead Sea fruit for Ireland. The Catholic
helot had been cunningly played off against his Protestant oppressor,
and thus the subject nation had been made the forger of its own
fetters—at least in appearance, although England was the real artificer.
Many Catholics in humble life may have joined in the Dublin anti-union
riots, but the Catholic chiefs, who had their own axe to grind, were
resolved to appear “loyal”—all the more so because some of the
Protestant leaders in the late disorders sought to fasten the
responsibility on the members of the proscribed faith. The outbreak, as
was well known, was mainly the work of the followers of Dr. Lucas, then
in exile, but soon to be a Member of Parliament, and the fiercest
opponent of a legislative union with Great Britain.
“It deserves remark,” says a historian of the period, “that on this
first occasion, when a project of a legislative union was really
entertained by an English ministry, the Patriot party which opposed it
was wholly and exclusively of the Protestant colony, and that the
Catholics of Ireland were totally indifferent, and, indeed, they could
not rationally be otherwise, as it was quite impossible for them to feel
an attachment to a national legislature in which they were not
represented, and for whose members they could not even cast a vote.”
George II died of “rupture of the heart”—probably from the bursting of
an arterial aneurism in that region—in 1760. He was never popular in
England, because of his German ways and affections, and the Irish people
regarded him with indifference. They had never seen him, and he was
about as much of a stranger in his Irish realm as the Shah of Persia or
the Khan of Tartary. His reign had lasted twenty-eight years, and, in
all that period, the estimated population of Ireland—for there was no
regular census—increased only 60,000. Presbyterian and Catholic
emigration to the colonies—superinduced by the penal laws against
both—was mainly the cause of this remarkable stagnation. There had been
two famines also, and the victims of artificial scarcity—a condition
produced by restrictions on trade and manufacture—were numerous.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI
Accession of George III—His Character—Boasts of Being “a Briton”—Death
of Dr. Lucas—Lord Townsend’s Novel Idea of Governing Ireland—Septennial
Parliament Refused
THE long reign of George III, grandson of the late monarch, began in the
month of October, 1760, when he had attained the age of 22 years. His
father, Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, was a dissolute and almost
imbecile person, and was hated by his own father, George II, with a most
unnatural hatred. No doubt he, in great measure, deserved it, for a
member of his own family described Frederick Louis as being “the
greatest brute and ass in Christendom.” George III, when he mounted the
English throne, was a dull, commonplace young man, without pronounced
personal vices, but exceedingly obstinate and subject to spells of
temper, when strongly opposed, that gave assurance of future mental
weakness. He was not, by nature, cruel, but circumstances developed
gross cruelty under his régime, in India, in America, and in Ireland. He
had enough of the Stuart blood in him to be a stickler for “the right
divine” of kings, and he was enough of a Guelph to have his own way with
even his most persuasive ministers. His father’s politics, so far as he
had any, leaned toward Whiggery, but after that prince’s death his
mother had placed him under the tutelage of the Marquis of Bute, who was
an ardent Tory. Consequently, the young king had had the advantage of
being taught in the two great English schools of policy, but, in the
long run, the Tory in his nature prevailed over the Whig, and George III
finally developed into a fierce and intolerant despot. All that could be
said in his favor was that, after he married—and he married young—his
court became, at once, a model of propriety and dulness. The painted
harlots, fostered by his grandfather and great-grandfather, were not
succeeded by others of their kind, and the prudent mothers of England no
longer feared to allow their handsome daughters to enter the precincts
of the royal palace. The English masses were, at first, greatly
astonished at the personal purity of their sovereign, but, after a
while, became reconciled to the belief that a monarch need not,
necessarily, be a libertine.
King George evidently borrowed a leaf from the book of Queen Anne when
he assumed the crown. She had assured her subjects that hers was “an
entirely English heart.” George’s first address from the throne opened
with the words, “Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name
of Briton.” Coming from a king, this sentiment, addressed to a people in
general so fervidly “loyal” as the English, produced a most favorable
effect, and, to the end of his long reign, was never forgotten, even
when his mule-like obstinacy wellnigh goaded them to desperation. George
III, from first to last, in his love of domination, impatience of
opposition, carelessness of the rights of other peoples, egotism,
intolerance, and commercial greed, stood for John Bull. Behind John Bull
stood England, very much as she still stands to-day. The address
continued by declaring that the civil and religious rights of his
“loving subjects” were equally dear to him with the most valuable
prerogatives of the crown. It was his fixed purpose, he said, to
countenance and encourage the practice of true religion and virtue. The
eyes of all Europe, he declared, were on that Parliament and from it
“the _Protestant_ interest hoped for protection.” At the end of the
speech, King George intimated that the toleration of the Catholics—that
is, connivance at their existence, particularly in Ireland—would not be
interfered with. But the penal statutes remained unrepealed, and the
Irish Catholics continued to be persecuted, although rather less
brutally, particularly as regarded their religious observances, in their
own country. They were not allowed to vote, or hold office, or have any
say whatever in public affairs, although they were subject to taxes and
fines. They could not be educated, and were debarred from practicing any
profession under long-established penalties. In short, they were very
little better off during the earlier years of George III’s reign than
under the sway of his two immediate predecessors.
The Irish Protestant mind, however, did not lose its patriotic impulse,
because of the interested silence of Malone, Boyle, and the former
leaders of the Patriot party. Members of Parliament had hitherto been
elected to serve during the life of the sovereign, and, in the beginning
of the reign of George III, the new Irish Parliament began an earnest
agitation for octennial Parliaments. Among the able men—of them destined
to be famous—who were elected to the new body were Hussey Burgh, Dennis
Bowes Daly, Henry Flood, and Dr. Lucas. It should have been stated that
the original Irish demand was for a seven years’ Parliament, and bills
were passed, in 1761 and 1763, embodying the proposition, but the king
and English Privy Council, to whom they had to be submitted, under the
Poynings’ Act, coolly “pocketed” them, and they were heard of no more.
This arbitrary conduct of an alien monarch, and advisory body, aroused
great public indignation, and the clamor became so loud, in 1767, that,
finally, the bill was returned from England, changed to octennial, or
eight years, and, with this amendment, it passed the Irish Parliament
and received the royal sanction in February of the succeeding year.
Under the new act, a Parliament was elected in 1768, and all the
advocates of the new dispensation were re-elected. Where all did noble
work, it is not detracting from their merit to remark that Dr. Lucas was
the real leader of the movement, and was generally recognized as such.
He lived only two years after his great triumph, and was almost
universally mourned—the only exceptions being the members of the corrupt
Court party. He was formally eulogized in the Irish House of Commons,
and at his funeral the pall-bearers were Lord Kildare, Lord Charlemont,
Henry Flood, Sir Lucius O’Brien, Hussey Burgh, and Speaker Ponsonby.
The Patriot party continued, in the new Parliament, under the
administration of Lord Townsend, a vigorous opposition to unjust pension
lists, and other evils which afflicted the nation. The Lord Lieutenant,
who was jolly and persuasive, also corrupt, attempted to break up the
opposition after the good old English fashion, but made no impression on
the able phalanx led by Flood, who, after the death of Lucas, was looked
upon as the chief of the Patriot element in the Commons. Kildare,
notwithstanding his peculiar action in the days of Malone, _et al._,
continued to champion the popular cause in the House of Peers.
Resistance to the supply bill, which changed the Irish military
establishment from 12,000 to 15,000 men, brought about the prorogation
of Parliament session after session for nearly two years. Meanwhile, the
Castle was quietly “seeing” the members, and, in spite of Flood and
Speaker Ponsonby, an address of confidence, carried by a bare majority,
was passed by the Commons. The Speaker refused to present it and
resigned his post. A Mr. Perry was elected to succeed him, and, for a
time, it looked as if the Patriots might be broken up. But Mr. Perry, in
spite of his suspicious conduct in accepting the speakership, vacated by
his friend, Mr. Ponsonby, remained faithful to Irish interests and the
ranks of the opposition became even more formidable than before.
Lord Townsend, the jolly old corruptionist, became so unpopular that
nearly every public print in Dublin was filled with lampoons upon him,
and, finally, he requested retirement and was succeeded by Lord
Harcourt, in 1772. He began well, but ended badly, as is usual with
English viceroys in Ireland, who have seldom failed to fall eventually
under Dublin Castle influences. He attempted to throw unjust burdens on
Ireland, but was resisted at every point, particularly when he sought to
make the supply bill extend over two years instead of one. Henry Flood
delivered one of his best speeches in opposition to this dishonest
innovation. Hussey Burgh promised that if any member in future brought
in such a bill he would move his expulsion. But the climax was reached
when the Hon. George Ogle, of Wexford, author of the well-known lyric,
“Molly Astore,” which has retained its popularity for more than a
century, proposed that the bill, as introduced, be burned by the
hangman. The Speaker reminded Mr. Ogle that the document was decorated
with the great seal. “Then,” replied the witty poet, “it will burn all
the better!” Mr. Ogle’s suggestion was not carried out, but the bill was
subsequently modified to suit the ideas of the House of Commons.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII
The Peace of Paris—Agrarian Warfare in Ireland—Judicial Murder of Father
Sheehy—All who Swore Against Him Die Violent Deaths—Societies
THE Peace of Paris, 1763, brought the Seven Years’ War to a conclusion
on the Continent of Europe. Frederick the Great retained Silesia,
formerly an Austrian province, to which he had no just title; and there
were other territorial changes of less importance. England had triumphed
over the French interest in America; for Wolfe’s victory of the Plains
of Abraham, at Quebec, in September, 1759, decided the game of war in
favor of the British, although other battles were fought by the opposing
forces after that event.
Agrarian oppression in Ireland, particularly in the South, had caused
the peasantry to organize themselves into secret societies for mutual
protection. It was thus that the famous “White Boys” of the last
century—so-called from wearing linen shirts, or white woolen jackets,
over their other clothes, so as to give them a uniform appearance—came
into existence. Their methods were crude, wild, often fierce and
sometimes cruel. They defied the law because they had found no element
of protection in it. Rather had they found it, as administered by the
landlord oligarchy, in whose hands it was placed by the evil genius of
England, an instrument of intolerable oppression. No justice was to be
obtained by any appeal they might make to their tyrants, and so they
resorted to what an Irish orator has called “the wild justice of
revenge.” As usual, some naturally bad men found their way into these
organizations, and often vented their malice on individuals in the name
of the trampled people. The landlords took advantage of the commission
of crime to get up another “Popish plot” scare, and succeeded in making
shallow and timid people accept the slander as truth. The real object of
the “White Boys” was to secure low rentals on tillage land, and to
preserve “commonage rights”—that is, grazing lands in common at a
nominal cost, or else free, something that had long been the usage—for
their stock. The landlords, not satisfied with levying exorbitant rents,
and grown, if possible, harder and more greedy than ever, finally
abolished and fenced in “the commons.” This action aroused the fury of
the peasantry, particularly in the Munster counties, and they collected
in large bodies and demolished the landlords’ fences. This gave the
tyrants an excuse to call for military aid—the argument being that the
people were in arms against “the crown,” which, of course, was false.
The poor peasantry struck at their nearest and most visible oppressors,
and never thought about “the crown.” The king was, to them, very like a
myth. It would seem that many of the poorer Protestants joined with the
Catholics in the demonstration against the inclosures, which, of course,
showed the absurdity of the “Popish plot” story. Still, the affair was
not to terminate until it begot a cruel tragedy. The parish priest of
Clogheen, County Tipperary, in 1765, was the Rev. Nicholas Sheehy, a
high-minded and saintly man, whose heart was deeply touched by the
sufferings of the poor tenants, whose ardent and eloquent champion he
became. The Cromwellian “aristocracy” of the county, headed by the
Bagnals, the Maudes, the Bagwells, the Tolers, and a parson named
Hewitson, resolved to get rid of Father Sheehy, and only waited for a
good chance to insnare him in their toils. Two years previous to the
date already given, they had had the young priest arrested on a charge
of swearing in “White Boys,” but, because of insufficient evidence, he
was acquitted. Soon after he was released, one Bridge, who had been a
principal witness against him, mysteriously disappeared. The oligarchs
had the priest arrested immediately on a charge of murder. The witnesses
employed to appear against him were a horse-stealer, named Toohey, a
vagrant youth named Lonergan, and an immoral woman, named Dunlea. He had
lain in Clonmel jail, heavily ironed, for several months before he was
brought to trial. The prosecution did not have their witnesses fully
instructed. At last, March 12, 1765, Father Sheehy was brought up for
trial. He succeeded in proving an alibi, but that was of no avail. His
destruction was determined upon, and, on March 15, he suffered execution
by hanging and subsequent decapitation. This atrocious murder aroused
the anger of the country. Protestants and Catholics alike joined in
execrating the crime. Yet, he was not the only victim. In May of the
same year, Edward Sheehy, a cousin, and two other young farmers, were
convicted and hanged on the same testimony that had sent Father Sheehy
to his untimely grave. McGee says: “The fate of their enemies is
notorious; with a single exception, they met deaths violent, loathsome,
and terrible. Maude died insane, Bagwell in idiocy; one of the jury
committed suicide, another was found dead in a privy, a third was killed
by his horse, a fourth was drowned, a fifth shot, and so through the
entire list. Toohey was hanged for felony, the prostitute, Dunlea, fell
into a cellar and was killed, and the lad, Lonergan, after enlisting as
a soldier, died of a loathsome disease in a Dublin infirmary.”
Another attempt at persecution of the priests was made in 1767, but
Edmund Burke, the illustrious statesman, and other liberal Protestants,
came to the rescue with funds for the defence of the accused, and the
oligarchy were unable to secure the conviction of their intended
victims. The fate of the perjured informers, who swore away the lives of
Father Sheehy and his fellow-sufferers, was well known throughout the
country, and, no doubt, had a wholesome effect on other wretches who
might have been bribed into following their example.
The “White Boys” were not the only secret organization formed in Ireland
at that period. Some were composed of Protestants, mostly of the
Presbyterian sect, who combated in Ulster the exactions of the
landlords. They bore such names as “Hearts of Steel,” because they were
supposed to show no mercy to “the petty tyrants of their fields”; “Oak
Boys,” because they carried oaken boughs, or wore oak leaves in their
hats. The “Peep o’ Day Boys” were political rather than agrarian, and
professed the peculiar principles afterward adopted by the Orange
Association. They confined themselves mainly to keeping up the
anniversary of the Boyne and making occasional brutal attacks on
defenceless Catholics. The respectable Protestant element kept
scrupulously away from association with these rude fanatics. The
successors of the “White Boys” in Munster were the equally dreaded
“Terry Alts,” who existed down to a very recent period, and belonged,
mainly, to the County Tipperary. Like the “White Boys,” they raided the
houses of “the gentry” and their retainers for arms, and severe, often
fatal, conflicts resulted from their midnight visitations. They also
killed, from time to time, obnoxious landlords and their agents, and
were hanged by the score in retaliation. The government was not
over-particular regarding their guilt or innocence. The object was to
avenge the slain land-grabbers, and also to “strike terror.” As usual,
many base informers were found to betray their fellows, but, in justice
to the “White Boys” and “Terry Alts,” it may be stated that the
betrayers of their secrets were mostly Castle spies, or detectives,
employed for the purpose of entrapping the unwary. Very few of the
regular members, who lived among their own relatives, accepted blood
money. In many cases, the peasantry committed unnecessary acts of
violence, but, in general, they only visited with severe punishment
landlords or their agents who were notorious evictors, or farmers who
“took the land” over the heads of the evicted tenants.
The Catholic Church was the consistent opponent of the agrarian
organizations, because of the mutual bloodshed between them and the
landlord element, but, much as the Catholic peasants held their bishops
and priests in reverence, the admonitions of the latter had small effect
on the young men of their flocks while wholesale evictions were in
progress. The “boys,” with rough logic, would say, among themselves:
“The clergy mean well, but we had better be hanged than starved to
death, and, besides, revenge on our tyrants is sweet.” There is hardly
anything in Old World history more ghastly than the long, desultory, and
deadly war of tenant against landlord in Ireland, from the days of
George II to the latter part of Victoria’s reign. It is a chapter we
gladly turn away from, with the remark that the cruel oligarchy, who
wantonly provoked a naturally humane people to crime, were infinitely
more criminal than the poor, oppressed peasants they made desperate.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII
Flood and Grattan—Sudden Rise of the Latter—Speaks for a Free
Commerce—The Volunteer Movement—England Yields to Irish Demand
IT was unfortunate for both America and Ireland that Henry Grattan, who
had entered Parliament in December, 1775, had not attained to the
leadership of the Patriot party when the colonies revolted against the
tyranny of George III. Flood held that position when hostilities
appeared imminent, and his influence, somewhat ignorantly exerted, had
much to do with voting 4,000 troops from the Irish establishment for
service against the Americans. At the time, the American case was not as
well understood in Ireland as it was later on, and, besides, an
accommodation was hoped for. In the course of his speech supporting the
policy of the government, Flood said that the troops from Ireland were
“armed negotiators”—a most unfortunate phrase, which Grattan, in after
days, turned against him to good effect, when he uttered that fierce
philippic against his quondam friend during an acrimonious debate which
arose soon after the Irish Parliamentary triumph over England in 1782.
It must be remembered by American readers that the Irish Parliament
which voted men to put down the American revolutionists was Protestant
in creed and mainly English in blood. Not a Catholic sat in it, and but
few men of Celtic origin. The sympathies of the Catholic and dissenting
masses were unmistakably with the Americans, and Grattan in the Irish
Legislature, and Burke and Brinsley Sheridan in the English House of
Commons, were their eloquent champions. Flood, although a man of fine
intellect and an accomplished orator, soon found himself rather
outclassed by Grattan, who was young, ardent, and animated by a
“pentecostal fire,” which prompted him to utter some of the most
inspiring speeches that ever flowed from the lips of man. Flood,
following the example of Malone at another period, had accepted office
under the Harcourt administration, and it was openly charged by his
enemies, and probably with some degree of truth, that he had been
influenced in his action against America by the circumstance. He had
also supported the embargo measure, imposed by order in council, which
debarred Irish food products from exportation to the American colonies
in revolt. Naturally, conduct of this kind produced dissatisfaction
among his friends and followers, and his popularity immediately
declined.
The decline of Flood as a Patriot leader left a free field for Grattan
and his best-known competitors for oratorical honors, Hussey Burgh,
Bowes Daly, and Yelverton. At first, Grattan was rather chary of speech
in the House, but, gradually, he gained confidence in himself, and,
although his gestures were awkward and his elocution generally faulty,
the matter of his addresses was so full of fire, energy, and logic that
he soon became the acknowledged chief of what Byron happily termed in
his “Irish Avatar” the eloquent war. The restrictions on Irish commerce
demanded his first attention, and his earlier utterances in Parliament
were mostly devoted to that question. It has been erroneously stated
that Henry Grattan was a “free trader” in the American and British sense
of that term. On the contrary, he believed in a moderate tariff for the
protection of Irish industries, and also for the accumulation of a
revenue, and this was fully exemplified by the action of the Irish
Parliament, when, from 1782 to 1800, it became virtually independent, in
enacting tariff laws for the objects stated. It is true the tariff in
regard to English imports was comparatively low, but still high enough
to give the Irish manufacturer a good chance to compete with the
manufactures of the richer country. What Grattan and his followers
wanted was free commerce—an exemption from the export duties, which
crippled Irish merchants; and freedom to export Irish goods, without
hindrance from English customs officers, to any country of the world.
When the news of the battle of Saratoga and surrender of Burgoyne to the
American army reached Ireland, in 1777, it produced a profound
impression. Grattan, who always favored the American cause, moved an
address to the throne in favor of retrenchment, which meant reduction of
the military establishment, while Bowes Daly moved, and had carried,
another address, which deplored the continuance of the American war, but
professed fidelity to the royal person. As usual, when England got the
worst of it abroad, small concessions were made to the Irish Catholics,
and the Irish Parliament was permitted to pass a bill “authorizing
Papists to loan money on mortgages, to lease lands for any period not
exceeding 999 years, and to inherit and bequeath real property.” This
bill had “a rider” which abolished the test oath as regarded the
Dissenters, and, no doubt, this provision had much to do with the
success of the bill as a whole, which did not, however, pass without
strenuous opposition.
An attempt made by Lord Nugent in the English Parliament to mitigate the
severity of the navigation and embargo acts, as regarded Ireland, was
howled down by the English manufacturers, merchants, and tradespeople
generally. The knowledge of this action spurred on Grattan and his
followers and, thenceforward, “Free Trade” became their rallying cry.
Protestant Ireland, since the year of Thurot’s bold exploit, had lived
in much terror of another French invasion, on a larger scale. When
France, in 1778, became the ally of the United States of America, which
had declared their independence on July 4, 1776, this feeling of alarm
increased. Their leaders demanded military protection from the
government, and were informed that the latter had none to give, unless
they would accept invalids and dismounted cavalrymen. Henry Flood,
seconded by Speaker Perry, had long advocated the formation of a
national militia, and these gentlemen were cordially supported in the
proposition by Grattan, Lord Charlemont, and other noted leaders of the
Patriot party. A bill authorizing a volunteer militia passed the Irish
Parliament in 1778. After a great deal of discussion, it was deemed more
prudent to form the force from independent organizations of volunteers,
armed by the state, but clothed and otherwise equipped by themselves.
They were left free to elect their own officers. Immediately, a
patriotic impulse permeated the nation, and the Protestant Irish, who
were alone permitted to bear arms, rallied to the armories and
parade-grounds by the thousand. Belfast and Strabane claimed the honor
of having formed the first companies. The richer among the Catholics
supplied money to the poor among their Protestant neighbors for the
purchase of uniforms and other necessaries. This patriotic action on
their part naturally resulted in an immediate mitigation of the penal
discrimination against them and the entrance of hundreds of them into
the ranks of the volunteers was, at first, connived at, and soon openly
permitted. The result was that, by the spring of 1780, there were, at
least, 65,000 men under arms for Ireland in her four provinces—Ulster
leading in numbers and enthusiasm. The rank and file were artisans,
farmers, and clerks, while the officers were, in general, selected from
among the wealthy and aristocratic classes. Many of these officers
equipped their companies, or regiments, at their own expense. The Earl
of Charlemont—a weak but well-meaning nobleman—was elected commander by
the Ulster volunteers, while the amiable Duke of Leinster—the second of
that proud title—was chosen by those of Leinster. Munster and Connaught,
not being quite as well organized as their sister provinces, deferred
their selections. All English goods were tabooed by the volunteers,
their families, and friends, and a favorite maxim of the period was that
of Dean Swift, already quoted, “Burn everything coming from England,
except the coal!”
The now feeble shadow of English government, holding court at Dublin
Castle, viewed this formidable uprising with genuine alarm, and did its
utmost to prevent the issuance of arms to the volunteers, but the Irish
leaders were not to be cajoled or baffled, and, in the summer of 1779,
the new Irish army was thoroughly armed, drilled and ready for any
service that might be demanded from it. The leaders had now the weapon
to enforce their rights in hand, and did not fail to make good use of
it. They met and formed plans for the coming session of Parliament, and
were delighted to receive assurances from Flood, and other
officeholders, that they would support Grattan and his allies in the
demand that Irish commerce have “free export and import.”
An address, covering the points stated, with the amendment “free trade”
substituted by Flood for the original phrase, passed the Houses, when
they met, and on the succeeding day the House of Commons, with the
Speaker at its head, proceeded to the Castle and presented the address
to the viceroy. The volunteers, commanded by the Duke of Leinster,
occupied both sides of the streets through which the members had to pass
and presented arms to the nation’s representatives, many of whom wore
the diversified uniforms of the Patriot army. Dublin, in all its varied
history, never witnessed a grander or more inspiring spectacle.
Alderman Horan, of Dublin, precipitated a crisis by demanding freedom of
export for some Irish woolens to Amsterdam, and he filed his demand, in
due form, at the custom house. This was in defiance of the prohibitory
enactment of the reign of William III and an English man-of-war was
stationed in Dublin Bay to enforce it. Mr. Horan, not being provided
with a battleship, was fain to content himself with leaving his demand
on file, but he had gained his point by directing public attention to an
insulting grievance with a stern object lesson. Ireland saw, at once,
that English monopoly would yield nothing, except to force, or the
threat of force. Henry Grattan, in the Commons, replied to the shotted
guns of the English frigate in the bay by introducing an amendment to
the supply bill, which declared that “at this time, it is inexpedient to
grant new taxes.” This was carried overwhelmingly, and England began to
think that, after all, Irish votes were a match for English guns.
Grattan gained a further triumph over the government by causing the
defeat of a bill providing duties for the support of the loan fund.
Lord North, when confronted with the ominous news from Ireland,
remembering his unfortunate experience with the American patriots,
determined to back down from his former despotic position. He brought in
resolutions which gave Ireland the right to trade with British colonies
in America and Africa, and granted free export to glass and woolens. The
Irish Parliament adopted similar resolutions, and the main portion of
Ireland’s commercial grievances was, thereby, removed.
END OF VOLUME ONE
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that:
was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
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