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diff --git a/6634-0.txt b/6634-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fcc42e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/6634-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,29110 @@ + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Popular History of Ireland, by Thomas D'Arcy McGee + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: A Popular History of Ireland + +Author: Thomas D'Arcy McGee + +Release Date: January 6, 2003 [EBook #6634] +Last updated: July 12, 2019 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND *** + + + + +This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan with help from +Charles Aldarondo and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + +A Popular + +History of Ireland: + + +from the + + +Earliest Period + +to the + + +Emancipation of the Catholics + + +by Thomas D'Arcy McGee + + + +PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. + + + +Ireland, lifting herself from the dust, drying her tears, and proudly +demanding her legitimate place among the nations of the earth, is a +spectacle to cause immense progress in political philosophy. + +Behold a nation whose fame had spread over all the earth ere the flag +of England had come into existence. For 500 years her life has been +apparently extinguished. The fiercest whirlwind of oppression that ever +in the wrath of God was poured upon the children of disobedience had +swept over her. She was an object of scorn and contempt to her +subjugator. Only at times were there any signs of life—an occasional +meteor flash that told of her olden spirit—of her deathless race. +Degraded and apathetic as this nation of Helots was, it is not strange +that political philosophy, at all times too Sadducean in its +principles, should ask, with a sneer, "Could these dry bones live?" The +fulness of time has come, and with one gallant sunward bound the "old +land" comes forth into the political day to teach these lessons, that +Right must always conquer Might in the end—that by a compensating +principle in the nature of things, Repression creates slowly, but +certainly, a force for its overthrow. + +Had it been possible to kill the Irish Nation, it had long since ceased +to exist. But the transmitted qualities of her glorious children, who +were giants in intellect, virtue, and arms for 1500 years before Alfred +the Saxon sent the youth of his country to Ireland in search of +knowledge with which to civilize his people,—the legends, songs, and +dim traditions of this glorious era, and the irrepressible piety, +sparkling wit, and dauntless courage of her people, have at last +brought her forth like. Lazarus from the tomb. True, the garb of the +prison or the cerements of the grave may be hanging upon her, but +"loose her and let her go" is the wise policy of those in whose hands +are her present destinies. + +A nation with such a strange history must have some great work yet to +do in the world. Except the Jews, no people has so suffered without +dying. + +The History of Ireland is the most interesting of records, and the +least known. The Publishers of this edition of D'Arcy McGee's excellent +and impartial work take advantage of the awakening interest in Irish +literature to present to the public a book of _high-class history_, as +cheap as _largely circulating romance_. A sale as large as that of a +popular romance is, therefore, necessary to pay the speculation. That +sale the Publishers expect. Indeed, as truth is often stranger than +fiction, so Irish history is more romantic than romance. How Queen +Scota unfurled the Sacred Banner. How Brian and Malachy contended for +empire. How the "Pirate of the North" scourged the Irish coast. The +glories of Tara and the piety of Columba. The cowardice of James and +the courage of Sarsfield. How Dathi, the fearless, sounded the Irish +war-cry in far Alpine passes, and how the Geraldine forayed Leinster. +The deeds of O'Neil and O'Donnell. The march of Cromwell, the +destroying angel. Ireland's sun sinking in dim eclipse. The dark night +of woe in Erin for a hundred years. '83—'98—'48—'68. Ireland's sun +rising in glory. Surely the Youth of Ireland will find in their +country's records romance enough! + +The English and Scotch are well read in the histories of their country. +The Irish are, unfortunately, not so; and yet, what is English or +Scottish history to compare with Irish? Ireland was a land of saints +and scholars when Britons were painted savages. Wise and noble laws, +based upon the spirit of Christianity, were administered in Erin, and +valuable books were written ere the Britons were as far advanced in +civilization as the Blackfeet Indians. In morals and intellect, in +Christianity and civilization, in arms, art, and science, Ireland shone +like a star among the nations when darkness enshrouded the world. And +she nobly sustained civilization and religion by her missionaries and +scholars. The libraries and archives of Europe contain the records of +their piety and learning. Indeed the echoes have scarcely yet ceased to +sound upon our ears, of the mighty march of her armed children over the +war-fields of Europe, during that terrible time when England's cruel +law, intended to destroy the spirit of a martial race, precipitated an +armed torrent of nearly 500,000 of the flower of the Irish youth into +foreign service. Irish steel glittered in the front rank of the most +desperate conflicts, and more than once the ranks of England went down +before "the Exiles," in just punishment for her terrible penal code +which excluded the Irish soldier from his country's service. + +It was the Author's wish to educate his countrymen in their national +records. If by issuing a cheap edition the present Publishers carry out +to any extent that wish, it will be to them a source of satisfaction. + +It is impossible to conclude this Preface without an expression of +regret at the dark and terrible fate which overtook the high-minded, +patriotic, and distinguished Irishman, Thomas D'Arcy McGee. He was a +man who loved his country well; and when the contemptible squabbles and +paltry dissensions of the present have passed away, his name will be a +hallowed memory, like that of Emmet or Fitzgerald, to inspire men with +high, ideals of patriotism and devotion. + +CAMERON & FERGUSON. + +[Note: From 1857 until his death, McGee was active in Canadian +politics. A gifted speaker and strong supporter of Confederation, he is +regarded as one of Canada's fathers of Confederation. On April 7, 1868, +after attending a late-night session in the House of Commons, he was +shot and killed as he returned to his rooming house on Sparks Street in +Ottawa. It is generally believed that McGee was the victim of a Fenian +plot. Patrick James Whelan was convicted and hanged for the crime, +however the evidence implicating him was later seen to be suspect.] + + +CONTENTS + + + BOOK I. + CHAPTER I.—The First Inhabitants + CHAPTER II.—The First Ages + CHAPTER III.—Christianity Preached at Tara—The Result + CHAPTER IV.—The Constitution, and how the Kings kept it + CHAPTER V.—Reign of Hugh II.—The Irish Colony in Scotland obtains +its Independence + CHAPTER VI.—Kings of the Seventh Century + CHAPTER VII.—Kings of the Eighth Century + CHAPTER VIII.—What the Irish Schools and Saints did in the Three First +Christian Centuries + + BOOK II. + CHAPTER I.—The Danish Invasion + CHAPTER II.—Kings of the Ninth Century (Continued)—Nial +III.—Malachy I.—Hugh VII + CHAPTER III.—Reign of Flan "of the Shannon" (A.D. 879 to 916) + CHAPTER IV.—Kings of the Tenth Century—Nial IV.—Donogh +II.—Congal III.—Donald IV + CHAPTER V.—Reign of Malachy II. and Rivalry of Brian + CHAPTER VI.—Brian, Ard-Righ—Battle of Clontarf + CHAPTER VII.—Effects of the Rivalry of Brian and Malachy on the Ancient +Constitution + CHAPTER VIII.—Latter Days of the Northmen in Ireland + + BOOK III. + CHAPTER I.—The Fortunes of the Family of Brian + CHAPTER II.—The Contest between the North and South—Rise of the +Family of O'Conor + CHAPTER III.—Thorlogh More O'Conor—Murkertach of +Aileach—Accession of Roderick O'Conor + CHAPTER IV.—State of Religion and Learning among the Irish previous to +the Anglo-Norman Invasion + CHAPTER V.—Social Condition of the Irish previous to the Norman Invasion + CHAPTER VI.—Foreign Relations of the Irish previous to the Anglo-Norman +Invasion + + BOOK IV. + CHAPTER I.—Dermid McMurrogh's Negotiations and Success—The First +Expedition of the Normans into Ireland + CHAPTER II.—The Arms, Armour and Tactics of the Normans and Irish + CHAPTER III.—The First Campaign of Earl Richard—Siege of +Dublin—Death of King Dermid McMurrogh + CHAPTER IV.—Second Campaign of Earl Richard—Henry II. in Ireland + CHAPTER V.—From the Return of Henry II. to England till the Death of Earl +Richard and his principal Companions + CHAPTER VI.—The Last Years of the Ard-Righ, Roderick O'Conor + CHAPTER VII.—Assassination of Hugh de Lacy—John "Lackland" in +Ireland—Various Expeditions of John de Courcy—Death of Conor +Moinmoy, and Rise of Cathal, "the Red-Handed" O'Conor—Close of the Career +of De Courcy and De Burgh + CHAPTER VIII.—Events of the Thirteenth Century—The Normans in +Connaught + CHAPTER IX.—Events of the Thirteenth Century—The Normans in Munster +and Leinster + CHAPTER X.—Events of the Thirteenth Century—The Normans in Meath +and Ulster + CHAPTER XI.—Retrospect of the Norman Period in Ireland—A Glance at +the Military Tactics of the Times—No Conquest of the Country in the +Thirteenth Century + CHAPTER XII.—State of Society and Learning in Ireland during the Norman +Period + + BOOK V. + CHAPTER I.—The Rise of "the Red Earl"—Relations of Ireland and +Scotland + CHAPTER II.—The Northern Irish enter into Alliance with King Robert +Bruce—Arrival and First Campaign of Edward Bruce + CHAPTER III.—Bruce's Second Campaign and Coronation at Dundalk—The +Rising in Connaught—Battle of Athenry—Robert Bruce in Ireland + CHAPTER IV.—Battle of Faughard and Death of King Edward +Bruce—Consequences of his Invasion—Extinction of the Earldom of +Ulster—Irish Opinion of Edward Bruce + + BOOK VI. + CHAPTER I.—Civil War in England—Its Effects on the +Anglo-Irish—The Knights of St. John—General Desire of the +Anglo-Irish to Naturalize themselves among the Native Population—A Policy +of Non-Intercourse between the Races Resolved on in England + CHAPTER II.—Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Lord Lieutenant—The Penal +Code of Race—"The Statute of Kilkenny," and some of its Consequences + CHAPTER III.—Art McMurrogh, Lord of Leinster—First Expedition of +Richard II. of England to Ireland + CHAPTER IV.—Subsequent Proceedings of Richard II.—Lieutenancy and +Death of the Earl of March—Second Expedition of Richard against Art +McMurrogh—Change of Dynasty in England + CHAPTER V.—Parties within "the Pale"—Battles of Kilmainham and +Killucan—Sir John Talbot's Lord Lieutenancy + CHAPTER VI.—Acts of the Native Princes—Subdivision of Tribes and +Territories—Anglo-Irish Towns under Native Protection—Attempt of +Thaddeus O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, to Restore the Monarchy—Relations of +the Races in the Fifteenth Century + CHAPTER VII.—Continued Division and Decline of "the English +Interest"—Richard, Duke of York, Lord Lieutenant—Civil War again in +England—Execution of the Earl of Desmond—Ascendancy of the +Kildare Geraldines + CHAPTER VIII.—The Age and Rule of Gerald, Eighth Earl of +Kildare—The Tide begins to turn for the English Interest—The +Yorkist Pretenders, Simnel and Warbeck—Poyning's Parliament—Battles +of Knockdoe and Monabraher + CHAPTER IX.—State of Irish and Anglo—Irish Society during the +Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries + CHAPTER X.—State of Religion and Learning during the Fourteenth and +Fifteenth Centuries + + BOOK VII. + CHAPTER I.—Irish Policy of Henry the Eighth during the Lifetime of +Cardinal Wolsey + CHAPTER II.—The Insurrection of Silken Thomas—The Geraldine +League—Administration of Lord Leonard Gray + CHAPTER III.—Sir Anthony St. Leger, Lord Deputy—Negotiations of +the Irish Chiefs with James the Fifth of Scotland—First Attempts to +Introduce the Protestant Reformation—Opposition of the +Clergy—Parliament of 1541—The Protectors of the Clergy +Excluded—State of the Country—The Crowns United-Henry the Eighth +Proclaimed at London and Dublin + CHAPTER IV.—Adhesion of O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Brien—A new +Anglo-Irish Peerage—New Relations of Lord and Tenant—Bishops +appointed by the Crown—Retrospect + + BOOK VIII. + CHAPTER I.—Events of the Reign of Edward Sixth + CHAPTER II.—Events of the Reign of Philip and Mary + CHAPTER III.—Accession of Queen Elizabeth—Parliament of +1560—The Act of Uniformity—Career and Death of John O'Neil "the +Proud" + CHAPTER IV.—Sir Henry Sidney's Deputyship—Parliament of +1569—The Second "Geraldine League"—Sir James Fitzmaurice + CHAPTER V.—The "Undertakers" in Ulster and Leinster—Defeat and +Death of Sir James Fitzmaurice + CHAPTER VI.—Sequel of the Second Geraldine League—Plantation of +Munster—Early Career of Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone—Parliament of +1585 + CHAPTER VII.—Battle of Glenmalure—Sir John Perrott's +Administration—The Spanish Armada—Lord Deputy +Fitzwilliam—Escape of Hugh Roe O'Donnell from Dublin Castle—The +Ulster Confederacy formed + CHAPTER VIII.—The Ulster Confederacy—Feagh Mac Hugh +O'Byrne—Campaign of 1595—Negotiations, English and +Spanish—Battle of the Yellow Ford—Its Consequences + CHAPTER IX.—Essex's Campaign of 1599—Battle of the Curlieu +Mountains—O'Neil's Negotiations with Spain—Mountjoy Lord Deputy + CHAPTER X.—Mountjoy's Administration—Operations in Ulster and +Munster—Carew's "Wit and Cunning"—Landing of Spaniards in the +South—Battle of Kinsale—Death of O'Donnell in Spain + CHAPTER XI.—The Conquest of Munster—Death of Elizabeth, and +Submission of O'Neil—"The Articles of Mellifont" + CHAPTER XII.—State of Religion and Learning during the Reign of Elizabeth + + BOOK IX. + CHAPTER I.—James I.—Flight of the Earls—Confiscation of +Ulster—Penal Laws—Parliamentary Opposition + CHAPTER II.—Last years of James—Confiscation of the Midland +Counties—Accession of Charles I.—Grievances and +"Graces"—Administration of Lord Strafford + CHAPTER III.—Lord Stafford's Impeachment and Execution—Parliament +of 1639-'41—The Insurrection of 1641—The Irish Abroad + CHAPTER IV.—The Insurrection of 1641 + CHAPTER V.—The Catholic Confederation—Its Civil Government and +Military Establishment + CHAPTER VI.—The Confederate War—Campaign of 1643—The +Cessation + CHAPTER VII.—The Cessation and its Consequences + CHAPTER VIII.—Glamorgan's Treaty—The New Nuncio +Rinuccini—O'Neil's Position—The Battle of Benburb + CHAPTER IX.—From the Battle of Benburb till the Landing of Cromwell at +Dublin + CHAPTER X.—Cromwell's Campaign—1649-1650 + CHAPTER XI.—Close of the Confederate War + CHAPTER XII.—Ireland under the Protectorate—Administration of +Henry Cromwell—Death of Oliver + + BOOK X. + CHAPTER I.—Reign of Charles II. + CHAPTER II.—Reign of Charles II. (Concluded) + CHAPTER III.—The State of Religion and Learning in Ireland during the +Seventeenth Century + CHAPTER IV.—Accession of James II.—Tyrconnell's Administration + CHAPTER V.—King James to Ireland—Irish Parliament of 1689 + CHAPTER VI.—The Revolutionary War—Campaign of 1639—Sieges of +Derry and Enniskillen + CHAPTER VII.—The Revolutionary War—Campaign of 1690—Battle +of the Boyne—Its Consequences—the Sieges of Athlone and Limerick + CHAPTER VIII.—The Winter of 1690-91 + CHAPTER IX.—The Revolutionary War—Campaign of 1691—Battle of +Aughrim—Capitulation of Limerick + CHAPTER X.—Reign of King William + CHAPTER XI.—Reign of Queen Anne + CHAPTER XII.—The Irish Soldiers Abroad, during the Reigns of William and +Anne + + BOOK XI. + CHAPTER I.—Accession of George I.—Swift's Leadership + CHAPTER II.—Reign of George II.—Growth of Public Spirit—The +"Patriot" Party—Lord Chesterfield's Administration + CHAPTER III.—The Last Jacobite Movement—The Irish Soldiers +Abroad—French Expedition under Thurot, or O'Farrell + CHAPTER IV.—Reign of George II. (Concluded)—Malone's Leadership + CHAPTER V.—Accession of George III.—Flood's +Leadership—Octennial Parliaments Established + CHAPTER VI.—Flood's Leadership—State of the Country between 1760 +and 1776 + CHAPTER VII.—Grattan's Leadership—"Free Trade" and the Volunteers + CHAPTER VIII.—Grattan's Leadership—Legislative and Judicial +Independence Established + CHAPTER IX.—The Era of Independence—First Period + CHAPTER X.—The Era of Independence—Second Period + CHAPTER XI.—The Era of Independence—Third Period—Catholic +Relief Bill of 1793 + CHAPTER XII.—The Era of Independence—Effects of the French +Revolution in Ireland—Secession of Grattan, Curran, and their Friends, +from Parliament, in 1797 + CHAPTER XIII.—The United Irishmen + CHAPTER XIV.—Negotiations with France and Holland—The Three +Expeditions Negotiated by Tone and Lewines + CHAPTER XV.—The Insurrection of 1798 + CHAPTER XVI.—The Insurrection of 1798—The Wexford Insurrection + CHAPTER XVII.—The Insurrection elsewhere—Fate of the Leading United +Irishmen + CHAPTER XVIII.—Administration of Lord Cornwallis—Before the Union + CHAPTER XIX.—Last Session of the Irish Parliament—The Legislative +Union of Great Britain and Ireland + + BOOK XII. + CHAPTER I.—After the Union—Death of Lord Clare—Robert +Emmet's Emeute + CHAPTER II.—Administration of Lord Hardwick (1801 to 1806), and of the +Duke of Bedford (1806 to 1808) + CHAPTER III.—Administration of the Duke of Richmond (1807 to 1813) + CHAPTER IV.—O'Connell's Leadership—1813 to 1821 + CHAPTER V.—Retrospect of the State of Religion and Learning during the +Reign of George III + CHAPTER VI.—The Irish Abroad, during the Reign of George III + CHAPTER VII.—O'Connell's Leadership—The Catholic +Association—1821 to 1825 + CHAPTER VIII.—O'Connell's Leadership—The Clare +Election—Emancipation of the Catholics + + + +HISTORY OF IRELAND + + + +BOOK I. + + + +CHAPTER I. +THE FIRST INHABITANTS. + +Ireland is situated in the North Atlantic, between the degrees +fifty-one and a half and fifty-five and a half North, and five and a +quarter and ten and a third West longitude from Greenwich. It is the +last land usually seen by ships leaving the Old World, and the first by +those who arrive there from the Northern ports of America. In size it +is less than half as large as Britain, and in shape it may be compared +to one of those shields which we see in coats-of-arms, the four +Provinces—Ulster, Connaught, Leinster, and Munster—representing the +four quarters of the shield. + +Around the borders of the country, generally near the coast, several +ranges of hills and mountains rear their crests, every Province having +one or more such groups. The West and South have, however, the largest +and highest of these hills, from the sides of all which descend +numerous rivers, flowing in various directions to the sea. Other rivers +issue out of large lakes formed in the valleys, such as the Galway +river which drains Lough Corrib, and the Bann which carries off the +surplus waters of Lough Neagh (_Nay_). In a few districts where the +fall for water is insufficient, marshes and swamps were long ago +formed, of which the principal one occupies nearly 240,000 acres in the +very heart of the country. It is called "the Bog of Allen," and, though +quite useless for farming purposes, still serves to supply the +surrounding district with fuel, nearly as well as coal mines do in +other countries. + +In former times, Ireland was as well wooded as watered, though hardly a +tree of the primitive forest now remains. One of the earliest names +applied to it was "the wooded Island," and the export of timber and +staves, as well as of the furs of wild animals, continued, until the +beginning of the seventeenth century, to be a thriving branch of trade. +But in a succession of civil and religious wars, the axe and the torch +have done their work of destruction, so that the age of most of the +wood now standing does not date above two or three generations back. + +Who were the first inhabitants of this Island, it is impossible to say, +but we know it was inhabited at a very early period of the world's +lifetime—probably as early as the time when Solomon the Wise, sat in +Jerusalem on the throne of his father David. As we should not +altogether reject, though neither are we bound to believe, the wild and +uncertain traditions of which we have neither documentary nor +monumental evidence, we will glance over rapidly what the old Bards and +Story-tellers have handed down to us concerning Ireland before it +became Christian. + +The _first_ story they tell is, that about three hundred years after +the Universal Deluge, Partholan, of the stock of Japhet, sailed down +the Mediterranean, "leaving Spain on the right hand," and holding +bravely on his course, reached the shores of the wooded western Island. +This Partholan, they tell us, was a double parricide, having killed his +father and mother before leaving his native country, for which horrible +crimes, as the Bards very morally conclude, his posterity were fated +never to possess the land. After a long interval, and when they were +greatly increased in numbers, they were cut off to the last man, by a +dreadful pestilence. + +The story of the _second_ immigration is almost as vague as that of the +first. The leader this time is called Nemedh, and his route is +described as leading from the shores of the Black Sea, across what is +now Russia in Europe, to the Baltic Sea, and from the Baltic to +Ireland. He is said to have built two royal forts, and to have "cleared +twelve plains of wood" while in Ireland. He and his posterity were +constantly at war, with a terrible race of Formorians, or Sea Kings, +descendants of Ham, who had fled from northern Africa to the western +islands for refuge from their enemies, the sons of Shem. At length the +Formorians prevailed, and the children of the second immigration were +either slain or driven into exile, from which some of their posterity +returned long afterwards, and again disputed the country, under two +different denominations. + +The _Firbolgs_ or Belgae are the _third_ immigration. They were +victorious under their chiefs, the five sons of Dela, and divided the +island into five portions. But they lived in days when the earth—the +known parts of it at least—was being eagerly scrambled for by the +overflowing hosts of Asia, and they were not long left in undisputed +possession of so tempting a prize. Another expedition, claiming descent +from the common ancestor, Nemedh, arrived to contest their supremacy. +These last—the _fourth_ immigration—are depicted to us as accomplished +soothsayers and necromancers who came out of Greece. They could quell +storms; cure diseases; work in metals; foretell future events; forge +magical weapons; and raise the dead to life; they are called the +_Tuatha de Danans_, and by their supernatural power, as well as by +virtue of "the Lia Fail," or fabled "stone of destiny," they subdued +their Belgic kinsmen, and exercised sovereignty over them, till they in +turn were displaced by the Gaelic, or _fifth_ immigration. + +This fifth and final colony called themselves alternately, or at +different periods of their history, _Gael_, from one of their remote +ancestors; _Milesians_, from the immediate projector of their +emigration; or _Scoti_, from Scota, the mother of Milesius. They came +from Spain under the leadership of the sons of Milesius, whom they had +lost during their temporary sojourn in that country. In vain the +skilful _Tuatha_ surrounded themselves and their coveted island with +magic-made tempest and terrors; in vain they reduced it in size so as +to be almost invisible from sea; Amergin, one of the sons of Milesius, +was a Druid skilled in all the arts of the east, and led by his wise +counsels, his brothers countermined the magicians, and beat them at +their own weapons. This Amergin was, according to universal usage in +ancient times, at once Poet, Priest, and Prophet; yet when his warlike +brethren divided the island between them, they left the Poet out of +reckoning. He was finally drowned in the waters of the river Avoca, +which is probably the reason why that river has been so suggestive of +melody and song ever since. + +Such are the stories told of the _five_ successive hordes of +adventurers who first attempted to colonize our wooded Island. Whatever +moiety of truth may be mixed up with so many fictions, two things are +certain, that long before the time when our Lord and Saviour came upon +earth, the coasts and harbours of Erin were known to the merchants of +the Mediterranean, and that from the first to the fifth Christian +century, the warriors of the wooded Isle made inroads on the Roman +power in Britain and even in Gaul. Agricola, the Roman governor of +Britain in the reign of Domitian—the first century—retained an Irish +chieftain about his person, and we are told by his biographer that an +invasion of Ireland was talked of at Rome. But it never took place; the +Roman eagles, although supreme for four centuries in Britain, never +crossed the Irish Sea; and we are thus deprived of those Latin helps to +our early history, which are so valuable in the first period of the +histories of every western country, with which the Romans had anything +to do. + + + +CHAPTER II. +THE FIRST AGES. + +Since we have no Roman accounts of the form of government or state of +society in ancient Erin, we must only depend on the Bards and +Story-tellers, so far as their statements are credible and agree with +each other. On certain main points they do agree, and these are the +points which it seems reasonable for us to take on their authority. + +As even brothers born of the same mother, coming suddenly into +possession of a prize, will struggle to see who can get the largest +share, so we find in those first ages a constant succession of armed +struggles for power. The petty Princes who divided the Island between +them were called _Righ_, a word which answers to the Latin _Rex_ and +French _Roi_; and the chief king or monarch was called _Ard-Righ_, or +High-King. The eldest nephew, or son of the king, was the usual heir of +power, and was called the _Tanist_, or successor; although any of the +family of the Prince, his brothers, cousins, or other kinsmen, might be +chosen _Tanist_, by election of the people over whom he was to rule. +One certain cause of exclusion was personal deformity; for if a Prince +was born lame or a hunchback, or if he lost a limb by accident, he was +declared unfit to govern. Even after succession, any serious accident +entailed deposition, though we find the names of several Princes who +managed to evade or escape this singular penalty. It will be observed +besides of the _Tanist_, that the habit of appointing him seems to have +been less a law than a custom; that it was not universal in all the +Provinces; that in some tribes the succession alternated between a +double line of Princes; and that sometimes when the reigning Prince +obtained the nomination of a _Tanist_, to please himself, the choice +was set aside by the public voice of the clansmen. The successor to the +Ard-Righ, or Monarch, instead of being simply called _Tanist_, had the +more sounding title of _Roydamna_, or King-successor. + +The chief offices 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 or received annual +gifts from the Sovereigns, or Princes; the royal stewards; and the +military leaders or Champions, who, like the knights of the middle +ages, held their lands and their rank at court, by the tenure of the +sword. Like the feudal _Dukes_ of France, and _Barons_ of England, +these military nobles often proved too powerful for their nominal +patrons, and made them experience all the uncertainty of reciprocal +dependence. The Champions play an important part in all the early +legends. Wherever there is trouble you are sure to find them. Their +most celebrated divisions were the warriors of the _Red Branch_—that is +to say, the Militia of Ulster; the _Fiann_, or Militia of Leinster, +sometimes the royal guard of Tara, at others in exile and disgrace; the +_Clan-Degaid_ of Munster, and the _Fiann_ of Connaught. The last force +was largely recruited from the Belgic race who had been squeezed into +that western province, by their Milesian conquerors, pretty much as +Cromwell endeavoured to force the Milesian Irish into it, many hundred +years afterwards. Each of these bands had its special heroes; its +Godfreys and Orlandos celebrated in song; the most famous name in +Ulster was Cuchullin: so called from _cu_, a hound, or watch-dog, and +_Ullin_, the ancient name of his province. He lived at the dawn of the +Christian era. Of equal fame was Finn, the father of Ossian, and the +Fingal of modern fiction, who flourished in the latter half of the +second century. Gall, son of Morna, the hero of Connaught (one of the +few distinguished men of Belgic origin whom we hear of through the +Milesian bards), flourished a generation earlier than Finn, and might +fairly compete with him in celebrity, if he had only had an Ossian to +sing his praises. + +The political boundaries of different tribes expanded or contracted +with their good or ill fortune in battle. Immigration often followed +defeat, so that a clan, or its offshoot is found at one period on one +part of the map and again on another. As _surnames_ were not generally +used either in Ireland or anywhere else, till after the tenth century, +the great families are distinguishable at first, only by their tribe or +clan names. Thus at the north we have the Hy-Nial race; in the south +the Eugenian race, so called from Nial and Eoghan, their mutual +ancestors. + +We have already compared the shape of Erin to a shield, in which the +four Provinces represented the four quarters. Some shields have also +_bosses_ or centre-pieces, and the federal province of MEATH was the +_boss_ of the old Irish shield. The ancient Meath included both the +present counties of that name, stretching south to the Liffey, and +north to Armagh. It was the mensal demesne, or "board of the king's +table:" it was exempt from all taxes, except those of the Ard-Righ, and +its relations to the other Provinces may be vaguely compared to those +of the District of Columbia to the several States of the North American +Union. ULSTER might then be defined by a line drawn from Sligo Harbour +to the mouth of the Boyne, the line being notched here and there by the +royal demesne of Meath; LEINSTER stretched south from Dublin +triangle-wise to Waterford Harbour, but its inland line, towards the +west, was never very well defined, and this led to constant border wars +with Munster; the remainder of the south to the mouth of the Shannon +composed MUNSTER; the present county of Clare and all west of the +Shannon north to Sligo, and part of Cavan, going with CONNAUGHT. The +chief seats of power, in those several divisions, were TARA, for +federal purposes; EMANIA, near Armagh, for Ulster; LEIGHLIN, for +Leinster; CASHEL, for Munster; and CRUCHAIN, (now Rathcrogan, in +Roscommon,) for Connaught. + +How the common people lived within these external divisions of power it +is not so easy to describe. All histories tell us a great deal of +kings, and battles, and conspiracies, but very little of the daily +domestic life of the people. In this respect the history of Erin is +much the same as the rest; but some leading facts we do know. 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 honour 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 waters were theirs. +Old age revered them, women worshipped them, warriors paid court to +them, youth trembled before them, princes and chieftains 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 Erin, which, even in +those Pagan days, was known to all the Druidic countries as the "Sacred +Island." Besides the princes, the warriors, and the Druids, (who were +also the Physicians, Bards and Brehons of the first ages,) there were +innumerable petty chiefs, all laying claim to noble birth and blood. +They may be said with the warriors and priests to be the only freemen. +The _Bruais_, or farmers, though possessing certain legal rights, were +an inferior caste; while of the Artisans, the smiths and armorers only +seem to have been of much consideration. The builders of those +mysterious round towers, of which a hundred ruins yet remain, may also +have been a privileged order. But the mill and the loom were servile +occupations, left altogether to slaves taken in battle, or purchased in +the market-places of Britain. The task of the herdsman, like that of +the farm-labourer, seems to have devolved on the bondsmen, while the +_quern_ and the shuttle were left exclusively in the hands of the +bondswomen. + +We need barely mention the names of the first Milesian kings, who were +remarkable for something else than cutting each other's throats, in +order to hasten on to the solid ground of Christian tunes. The +principal names are: Heber and Heremhon, the crowned sons of Milesians; +they at first divided the Island fairly, but Heremhon soon became +jealous of his brother, slew him in battle, and established his own +supremacy. Irial the Prophet was King, and built seven royal +fortresses; Tiern'mass; in his reign the arts of dyeing in colours were +introduced; and the distinguishing of classes by the number of colours +they were permitted to wear, was decreed. Ollamh ("the Wise") +established the Convention of Tara, which assembled habitually every +ninth year, but might be called oftener; it met about the October +festival in honour of Beleus or _Crom_; Eocaid invented or introduced a +new species of wicker boats, called _cassa_, and spent much of his time +upon the sea; a solitary queen, named Macha, appears in the succession, +from whom Armagh takes its name; except Mab, the mythological Queen of +Connaught, she is the sole female ruler of Erin in the first ages; Owen +or Eugene Mor ("the Great") is remembered as the founder of the notable +families who rejoice in the common name of Eugenians; Leary, of whom +the fable of Midas is told with variations; Angus, whom the after +Princes of Alba (Scotland) claimed as their ancestor; Eocaid, the tenth +of that name, in whose reign are laid the scenes of the chief +mythological stories of Erin—such as the story of Queen Mab—the story +of the Sons of Usna; the death of Cuchullin (a counterpart of the +Persian tale of Roostam and Sohrab); the story of Fergus, son of the +king; of Connor of Ulster; of the sons of Dari; and many more. We next +meet with the first king who led an expedition abroad against the +Romans in Crimthan, surnamed _Neea-Naari_, or Nair's Hero, from the +good genius who accompanied him on his foray. A well-planned +insurrection of the conquered Belgae, cut off one of Crimthan's +immediate successors, with all his chiefs and nobles, at a banquet +given on the Belgian-plain (Moybolgue, in Cavan); and arrested for a +century thereafter Irish expeditions abroad. A revolution and a +restoration followed, in which Moran the Just Judge played the part of +Monk to _his_ Charles II., Tuathal surnamed "the Legitimate." It was +Tuathal who imposed the special tax on Leinster, of which, we shall +often hear—under the title of _Borooa_, or Tribute. "The Legitimate" +was succeeded by his son, who introduced the Roman _Lex Talionis_ ("an +eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth") into the Brehon code; soon +after, the Eugenian families of the south, strong in numbers, and led +by a second Owen More, again halved the Island with the ruling race, +the boundary this time being the _esker_, or ridge of land which can be +easily traced from Dublin west to Galway. Olild, a brave and able +Prince, succeeded in time to the southern half-kingdom, and planted his +own kindred deep and firm in its soil, though the unity of the monarchy +was again restored under Cormac Ulla, or _Longbeard_. This Cormac, +according to the legend, was in secret a Christian, and was done to +death by the enraged and alarmed Druids, after his abdication and +retirement from the world (A.D. 266). He had reigned full forty years, +rivalling in wisdom, and excelling in justice the best of his +ancestors. Some of his maxims remain to us, and challenge comparison +for truthfulness and foresight with most uninspired writings. + +Cormac's successors during the same century are of little mark, but in +the next the expeditions against the Roman outposts were renewed with +greater energy and on an increasing scale. Another Crimthan eclipsed +the fame of his ancestor and namesake; Nial, called "of the Hostages," +was slain on a second or third expedition into Gaul (A.D. 405), while +Dathy, nephew and successor to Nial, was struck dead by lightning in +the passage of the Alps (A.D. 428). It was in one of Nial's Gallic +expeditions that the illustrious captive was brought into Erin, for +whom Providence had reserved the glory of its conversion to the +Christian faith—an event which gives a unity and a purpose to the +history of that Nation, which must always constitute its chief +attraction to the Christian reader. + + + +CHAPTER III. +CHRISTIANITY PREACHED AT TARA—THE RESULT. + +The conversion of a Pagan people to Christianity must always be a +primary fact in their history. It is not merely for the error it +abolishes or the positive truth it establishes that a national change +of faith is historically important, but for the complete revolution it +works in every public and private relation. The change socially could +not be greater if we were to see some irresistible apostle of Paganism +ariving from abroad in Christian Ireland, who would abolish the +churches, convents, and Christian schools; decry and bring into utter +disuse the decalogue, the Scriptures and the Sacraments; efface all +trace of the existing belief in One God and Three Persons, whether in +private or public worship, in contracts, or in courts of law; and +instead of these, re-establish all over the country, in high places and +in every place, the gloomy groves of the Druids, making gods of the sun +and moon, the natural elements, and man's own passions, restoring human +sacrifices as a sacred duty, and practically excluding from the +community of their fellows, all who presumed to question the divine +origin of such a religion. The preaching of Patrick effected a +revolution to the full as complete as such a counter-revolution in +favour of Paganism could possibly be, and to this thorough revolution +we must devote at least one chapter before going farther. + +The best accounts agree that Patrick was a native of Gaul, then subject +to Rome; that he was carried captive into Erin on one of King Nial's +returning expeditions; that he became a slave, as all captives of the +sword did, in those iron times; that he fell to the lot of one Milcho, +a chief of Dalriada, whose flocks he tended for seven years, as a +shepherd, on the mountain called Slemish, in the present county of +Antrim. The date of Nial's death, and the consequent return of his last +expedition, is set down in all our annals at the year 405; as Patrick +was sixteen years of age when he reached Ireland, he must have been +born about the year 390; and as he died in the year 493, he would thus +have reached the extraordinary, but not impossible age of 103 years. +Whatever the exact number of his years, it is certain that his mission +in Ireland commenced in the year 432, and was prolonged till his death, +sixty-one years afterwards. Such an unprecedented length of life, not +less than the unprecedented power, both popular and political, which he +early attained, enabled him to establish the Irish Church, during his +own time, on a basis so broad and deep, that neither lapse of ages, nor +heathen rage, nor earthly temptations, nor all the arts of Hell, have +been able to upheave its firm foundations. But we must not imagine that +the powers of darkness abandoned the field without a struggle, or that +the victory of the cross was achieved without a singular combination of +courage, prudence, and determination—God aiding above all. + +If the year of his captivity was 405 or 406, and that of his escape or +manumission seven years later (412 or 413), twenty years would +intervene between his departure out of the land of his bondage, and his +return to it clothed with the character and authority of a Christian +Bishop. This interval, longer or shorter, he spent in qualifying +himself for Holy Orders or discharging priestly duties at Tours, at +Lerins, and finally at Rome. But always by night and day he was haunted +by the thought of the Pagan nation in which he had spent his long years +of servitude, whose language he had acquired, and the character of +whose people he so thoroughly understood. These natural retrospections +were heightened and deepened by supernatural revelations of the will of +Providence towards the Irish, and himself as their apostle. At one +time, an angel presented him, in his sleep, a scroll bearing the +superscription, "the voice of the Irish;" at another, he seemed to hear +in a dream all the unborn children of the nation crying to him for help +and holy baptism. When, therefore, Pope Celestine commissioned him for +this enterprise, "to the ends of the earth," he found him not only +ready but anxious to undertake it. + +When the new Preacher arrived in the Irish Sea, in 432, he and his +companions were driven off the coast of Wicklow by a mob, who assailed +them with showers of stones. Running down the coast to Antrim, with +which he was personally familiar, he made some stay at Saul, in Down, +where he made few converts, and celebrated Mass in a barn; proceeding +northward he found himself rejected with scorn by his old master, +Milcho, of Slemish. No doubt it appeared an unpardonable audacity in +the eyes of the proud Pagan, that his former slave should attempt to +teach him how to reform his life and order his affairs. Returning again +southward, led on, as we must believe, by the Spirit of God, he +determined to strike a blow against Paganism at its most vital point. +Having learned that the monarch, Leary (_Laeghaire_), was to celebrate +his birthday with suitable rejoicings at Tara, on a day which happened +to fall on the eve of Easter, he resolved to proceed to Tara on that +occasion, and to confront the Druids in the midst of all the princes +and magnates of the Island. With this view he returned on his former +course, and landed from his frail barque at the mouth of the Boyne. +Taking leave of the boatmen, he desired them to wait for him a certain +number of days, when, if they did not hear from him, they might +conclude him dead, and provide for their own safety. So saying he set +out, accompanied by the few disciples he had made, or brought from +abroad, to traverse on foot the great plain which stretches from the +mouth of the Boyne to Tara. If those sailors were Christians, as is +most likely, we can conceive with what anxiety they must have awaited +tidings of an attempt so hazardous and so eventful. + +The Christian proceeded on his way, and the first night of his journey +lodged with a hospitable chief, whose family he converted and baptized, +especially marking out a fine child named Beanen, called by him +Benignus, from his sweet disposition; who was destined to be one of his +most efficient coadjutors, and finally his successor in the Primatial +see of Armagh. It was about the second or third day when, travelling +probably by the northern road, poetically called "the Slope of the +Chariots," the Christian adventurers came in sight of the roofs of +Tara. Halting on a neighbouring eminence they surveyed the citadel of +Ancient Error, like soldiers about to assault an enemy's stronghold. +The aspect of the royal hill must have been highly imposing. The +building towards the north was the Banquet Hall, then thronged with the +celebrants of the King's birth-day, measuring from north to south 360 +feet in length by 40 feet wide. South of this hall was the King's Rath, +or residence, enclosing an area of 280 yards in diameter, and including +several detached buildings, such as the house of Cormac, and the house +of the hostages. Southward still stood the new rath of the reigning +king, and yet farther south, the rath of Queen Mab, probably +uninhabited even then. The intervals between the buildings were at some +points planted, for we know that magnificent trees shaded the well of +Finn, and the well of Newnaw, from which all the raths were supplied +with water. Imposing at any time, Tara must have looked its best at the +moment Patrick first beheld it, being in the pleasant season of spring, +and decorated in honour of the anniversary of the reigning sovereign. + +One of the religious ceremonies employed by the Druids to heighten the +solemnity of the occasion, was to order all the fires of Tara and Meath +to be quenched, in order to rekindle them instantaneously from a sacred +fire dedicated to the honour of their god. But Patrick, either +designedly or innocently, anticipated this striking ceremony, and lit +his own fire, where he had encamped, in view of the royal residence. A +flight of fiery arrows, shot into the Banqueting Hall, would not have +excited more horror and tumult among the company there assembled, than +did the sight of that unlicensed blaze in the distance. Orders were +issued to drag the offender against the laws and the gods of the Island +before them, and the punishment in store for him was already decreed in +every heart. The Preacher, followed by his trembling disciples, +ascended "the Slope of the Chariots," surrounded by menacing minions of +the Pagan law, and regarded with indignation by astonished spectators. +As he came he recited Latin Prayers to the Blessed Trinity, beseeching +their protection and direction in this trying hour. Contrary to +courteous custom no one at first rose to offer him a seat. At last a +chieftain, touched with mysterious admiration for the stranger, did him +that kindness. Then it was demanded of him, why he had dared to violate +the laws of the country, and to defy its ancient gods. On this text the +Christian Missionary spoke. The place of audience was in the open air, +on that eminence, the home of so many kings, which commands one of the +most agreeable prospects in any landscape. The eye of the inspired +orator, pleading the cause of all the souls that hereafter, till the +end of time, might inhabit the land, could discern within the +spring-day horizon, the course of the Blackwater and the Boyne before +they blend into one; the hills of Cavan to the far north; with the +royal hill of Tailtean in the foreground; the wooded heights of Slane +and Skreen, and the four ancient roads, which led away towards the four +subject Provinces, like the reins of empire laid loosely on their +necks. Since the first Apostle of the Gentiles had confronted the +subtle Paganism of Athens, on the hill of Mars, none of those who +walked in his steps ever stood out in more glorious relief than +Patrick, surrounded by Pagan Princes, and a Pagan Priesthood, on the +hill of Tara. + +The defence of the fire he had kindled, unlicensed, soon extended into +wider issues. Who were the gods against whom he had offended? Were they +true gods or false? They had their priests: could they maintain the +divinity of such gods, by argument, or by miracle? For his God, he, +though unworthy, was ready to answer, yea, right ready to die. His God +had become man, and had died for man. His name alone was sufficient to +heal all diseases; to raise the very dead to life. Such, we learn from +the old biographers, was the line of Patrick's argument. This sermon +ushered in a controversy. The king's guests, who had come to feast and +rejoice, remained to listen and to meditate. With the impetuosity of +the national character—with all its passion for debate—they rushed into +this new conflict, some on one side, some on the other. The daughters +of the king and many others—the Arch-Druid himself—became convinced and +were baptized. The missionaries obtained powerful protectors, and the +king assigned to Patrick the pleasant fort of Trim, as a present +residence. From that convenient distance, he could readily return at +any moment, to converse with the king's guests and the members of his +household. + +The Druidical superstition never recovered the blow it received that +day at Tara. The conversion of the Arch-Druid and the Princesses, was, +of itself, their knell of doom. Yet they held their ground during the +remainder of this reign—twenty-five years longer (A.D. 458). The king +himself never became a Christian, though he tolerated the missionaries, +and deferred more and more every year to the Christian party. He +sanctioned an expurgated code of the laws, prepared under the direction +of Patrick, from which every positive element of Paganism was rigidly +excluded. He saw, unopposed, the chief idol of his race, overthrown on +"the Plain of Prostration," at Sletty. Yet withal he never consented to +be baptized; and only two years before his decease, we find him +swearing to a treaty, in the old Pagan form—"by the Sun, and the Wind, +and all the Elements." The party of the Druids at first sought to stay +the progress of Christianity by violence, and even attempted, more than +once, to assassinate Patrick. Finding these means ineffectual they +tried ridicule and satire. In this they were for some time seconded by +the Bards, men warmly attached to their goddess of song and their lives +of self-indulgence. All in vain. The day of the idols was fast verging +into everlasting night in Erin. Patrick and his disciples were +advancing from conquest to conquest. Armagh and Cashel came in the wake +of Tara, and Cruachan was soon to follow. Driven from the high places, +the obdurate Priests of Bel took refuge in the depths of the forest and +in the islands of the sea, wherein the Christian anchorites of the next +age were to replace them. The social revolution proceeded, but all that +was tolerable in the old state of things, Patrick carefully engrafted +with the new. He allowed much for the habits and traditions of the +people, and so made the transition as easy, from darkness into the +light, as Nature makes the transition from night to morning. He seven +times visited in person every mission in the kingdom, performing the +six first "circuits" on foot, but the seventh, on account of his +extreme age, he was borne in a chariot. The pious munificence of the +successors of Leary, had surrounded him with a household of princely +proportions. Twenty-four persons, mostly ecclesiastics, were chosen for +this purpose: a bell-ringer, a psalmist, a cook, a brewer, a +chamberlain, three smiths, three artificers, and three embroiderers are +reckoned of the number. These last must be considered as employed in +furnishing the interior of the new churches. A scribe, a shepherd to +guard his flocks, and a charioteer are also mentioned, and their proper +names given. How different this following from the little boat's crew, +he had left waiting tidings from Tara, in such painful apprehension, at +the mouth of the Boyne, in 432. Apostolic zeal, and unrelaxed +discipline had wrought these wonders, during a lifetime prolonged far +beyond the ordinary age of man. + +The fifth century was drawing to a close, and the days of Patrick were +numbered. Pharamond and the Franks had sway on the Netherlands; Hengist +and the Saxons on South Britain; Clovis had led his countrymen across +the Rhine into Gaul; the Vandals had established themselves in Spain +and North Africa; the Ostrogoths were supreme in Italy. The empire of +barbarism had succeeded to the empire of Polytheism; dense darkness +covered the semi-Christian countries of the old Roman empire, but +happily daylight still lingered in the West. Patrick, in good season, +had done his work. And as sometimes, God seems to bring round His ends, +contrary to the natural order of things, so the spiritual sun of Europe +was now destined to rise in the West, and return on its light-bearing +errand towards the East, dispelling in its path, Saxon, Frankish, and +German darkness, until at length it reflected back on Rome herself, the +light derived from Rome. + +On the 17th of March, in the year of our Lord 493, Patrick breathed his +last in the monastery of Saul, erected on the site of that barn where +he had first said Mass. He was buried with national honours in the +Church of Armagh, to which he had given the Primacy over all the +churches of Ireland; and such was the concourse of mourners, and the +number of Masses offered for his eternal repose, that from the day of +his death till the close of the year, the sun is poetically said never +to have set—so brilliant and so continual was the glare of tapers and +torches. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +THE CONSTITUTION, AND HOW THE KINGS KEPT IT. + +We have fortunately still existing the main provisions of that +constitution which was prepared under the auspices of Saint Patrick, +and which, though not immediately, nor simultaneously, was in the end +accepted by all Erin as its supreme law. It is contained in a volume +called "the Book of Rights," and in its printed form (the Dublin +bilingual edition of 1847), fills some 250 octavo pages. This book may +be said to contain the original institutes of Erin under her Celtic +Kings: "the Brehon laws," (which have likewise been published), bear +the same relation to "the Book of Rights," as the Statutes at large of +England, or the United States, bear to the English Constitution in the +one case, or to the collective Federal and State Constitutions in the +other. Let us endeavour to comprehend what this ancient Irish +Constitution was like, and how the Kings received it, at first. + +There were, as we saw in the first chapter, beside the existing four +Provinces, whose names are familiar to every one, a fifth principality +of Meath. Each of the Provinces was subdivided into chieftainries, of +which there were at least double or treble as many as there are now +counties. The connection between the chief and his Prince, or the +Prince and his monarch, was not of the nature of feudal obedience; for +the fee-simple of the soil was never supposed to be vested in the +sovereign, nor was the King considered to be the fountain of all +honour. The Irish system blended the aristocratic and democratic +elements more largely than the monarchical. Everything proceeded by +election, but all the candidates should be of noble blood. The Chiefs, +Princes, and Monarchs, so selected, were bound together by certain +customs and tributes, originally invented by the genius of the Druids, +and afterwards adopted and enforced by the authority of the Bishops. +The tributes were paid in kind, and consisted of cattle, horses, +foreign-born slaves, hounds, oxen, scarlet mantles, coats of mail, +chess-boards and chess-men, drinking cups, and other portable articles +of value. The quantity in every case due from a King to his +subordinate, or from a subordinate to his King—for the gifts and grants +were often reciprocal—is precisely stated in every instance. Besides +these rights, this constitution defines the "prerogatives" of the five +Kings on their journeys through each other's territory, their accession +to power, or when present in the General Assemblies of the Kingdom. It +contains, besides, a very numerous array of "prohibitions"—acts which +neither the Ard-Righ nor any other Potentate may lawfully do. Most of +these have reference to old local Pagan ceremonies in which the Kings +once bore a leading part, but which were now strictly prohibited; +others are of inter-Provincial significance, and others, again, are +rules of personal conduct. Among the prohibitions of the monarch the +first is, that the sun must never rise on him in his bed at Tara; among +his prerogatives he was entitled to banquet on the first of August, on +the fish of the Boyne, fruit from the Isle of Man, cresses from the +Brosna river, venison from Naas, and to drink the water of the well of +Talla: in other words, he was entitled to eat on that day, of the +produce, whether of earth or water, of the remotest bounds, as well as +of the very heart of his mensal domain. The King of Leinster was +"prohibited" from upholding the Pagan ceremonies within his province, +or to encamp for more than a week in certain districts; but he was +"privileged" to feast on the fruits of Almain, to drink the ale of +Cullen, and to preside over the games of Carman, (Wexford.) His +colleague of Munster was "prohibited" from encamping a whole week at +Killarney or on the Suir, and from mustering a martial host on the +Leinster border at Gowran; he was "privileged" to pass the six weeks of +Lent at Cashel (in free quarters), to use fire and force in compelling +tribute from north Leinster; and to obtain a supply of cattle from +Connaught, at the time "of the singing of the cuckoo." The Connaught +King had five other singular "prohibitions" imposed on him—evidently +with reference to some old Pagan rites—and his "prerogatives" were +hostages from Galway, the monopoly of the chase in Mayo, free quarters +in Murrisk, in the same neighbourhood, and to marshal his border-host +at Athlone to confer with the tribes of Meath. The ruler of Ulster was +also forbidden to indulge in such superstitious practices as observing +omens of birds, or drinking of a certain fountain "between two +darknesses;" his prerogatives were presiding at the games of Cooley, +"with the assembly of the fleet;" the right of mustering his border +army in the plains of Louth; free quarters in Armagh for three nights +for his troops before setting out on an expedition; and to confine his +hostages in Dunseverick, a strong fortress near the Giant's Causeway. +Such were the principal checks imposed upon the individual caprice of +Monarchs and Princes; the plain inference from all which is, that under +the Constitution of Patrick, a Prince who clung to any remnant of +ancient Paganism, might lawfully be refused those rents and dues which +alone supported his dignity. In other words, disguised as it may be to +us under ancient forms, "the Book of Rights" establishes Christianity +as the law of the land. All national usages and customs, not +conflicting with this supreme law, were recognized and sanctioned by +it. The internal revenues in each particular Province were modelled +upon the same general principle, with one memorable exception—the +special tribute which Leinster paid to Munster—and which was the cause +of more bloodshed than all other sources of domestic quarrel combined. +The origin of this tax is surrounded with fable, but it appears to have +arisen out of the reaction which took place, when Tuathal, "the +Legitimate," was restored to the throne of his ancestors, after the +successful revolt of the Belgic bondsmen. Leinster seems to have clung +longest to the Belgic revolution, and to have submitted only after +repeated defeats. Tuathal, therefore, imposed on that Province this +heavy and degrading tax, compelling its Princes not only to render him +and his successors immense herds of cattle, but also 150 male and +female slaves, to do the menial offices about the palace of Tara. With +a refinement of policy, as far-seeing as it was cruel, the proceeds of +the tax were to be divided one-third to Ulster, one-third to Connaught, +and the remainder between the Queen of the Monarch and the ruler of +Munster. In this way all the other Provinces became interested in +enforcing this invidious and oppressive enactment upon Leinster which, +of course, was withheld whenever it could be refused with the smallest +probability of success. Its resistance, and enforcement, especially by +the kings of Munster, will be found a constant cause of civil war, even +in Christian times. + +The sceptre of Ireland, from her conversion to the time of Brian, was +almost solely in the hands of the northern Hy-Nial, the same family as +the O'Neills. All the kings of the sixth and seventh centuries were of +that line. In the eighth century (from 709 to 742), the southern +annalists style Cathal, King of Munster, Ard-Righ; in the ninth century +(840 to 847), they give the same high title to Felim, King of Munster; +and in the eleventh century Brian possessed that dignity for the twelve +last years of his life, (1002 to 1014). With these exceptions, the +northern Hy-Nial, and their co-relatives of Meath, called the southern +Hy-Nial, seem to have retained the sceptre exclusively in their own +hands, during the five first Christian centuries. Yet on every +occasion, the ancient forms of election, (or procuring the adhesion of +the Princes), had to be gone through. Perfect unanimity, however, was +not required; a majority equal to two-thirds seems to have sufficed. If +the candidate had the North in his favour, and one Province of the +South, he was considered entitled to take possession of Tara; if he +were a Southern, he should be seconded either by Connaught or Ulster, +before he could lawfully possess himself of the supreme power. The +benediction of the Archbishop of Armagh, seems to have been necessary +to confirm the choice of the Provincials. The monarchs, like the petty +kings, were crowned or "made" on the summit of some lofty mound +prepared for that purpose; an hereditary officer, appointed to that +duty, presented him with a white wand perfectly straight, as an emblem +of the purity and uprightness which should guide all his decisions, +and, clothed with his royal robes, the new ruler descended among his +people, and solemnly swore to protect their rights and to administer +equal justice to all. This was the civil ceremony; the solemn blessing +took place in a church, and is supposed to be the oldest form of +coronation service observed anywhere in Christendom. + +A ceremonial, not without dignity, regulated the gradations of honour, +in the General Assemblies of Erin. The time of meeting was the great +Pagan Feast of Samhain, the 1st of November. A feast of three days +opened and closed the Assembly, and during its sittings, crimes of +violence committed on those in attendance were punished with instant +death. The monarch himself had no power to pardon any violator of this +established law. The _Chiefs_ of territories sat, each in an appointed +seat, under his own shield; the seats being arranged by order of the +Ollamh, or Recorder, whose duty it was to preserve the muster-roll, +containing the names of all the living nobles. The _Champions_, or +leaders of military bands, occupied a secondary position, each sitting +under his own shield. Females and spectators of an inferior rank were +excluded; the Christian clergy naturally stepped into the empty places +of the Druids, and were placed immediately next the monarch. + +We shall now briefly notice the principal acts of the first Christian +kings, during the century immediately succeeding St. Patrick's death. +Of OLLIOL, who succeeded Leary, we cannot say with certainty that he +was a Christian. His successor, LEWY, son of Leary, we are expressly +told was killed by lightning (A.D. 496), for "having violated the law +of Patrick"—that is, probably, for having practised some of those Pagan +rites forbidden to the monarchs by the revised constitution. His +successor, MURKERTACH, son of Ere, was a professed Christian, though a +bad one, since he died by the vengeance of a concubine named Sheen, +(that is, _storm_,) whom he had once put away at the instance of his +spiritual adviser, but whom he had not the courage—though brave as a +lion in battle—to keep away (A.D. 527). TUATHAL, "the Rough," succeeded +and reigned for seven years, when he was assassinated by the tutor of +DERMID, son of Kerbel, a rival whom he had driven into exile. DERMID +immediately seized on the throne (A.D. 534), and for twenty eventful +years bore sway over all Erin. He appears to have had quite as much of +the old leaven of Paganism in his composition—at least in his youth and +prime—as either Lewy or Leary. He kept Druids about his person, +despised "the right of sanctuary" claimed by the Christian clergy, and +observed, with all the ancient superstitious ceremonial, the national +games at Tailteen. In his reign, the most remarkable event was the +public curse pronounced on Tara, by a Saint whose sanctuary the +reckless monarch had violated, in dragging a prisoner from the very +horns of the altar, and putting him to death. For this offence—the +crowning act of a series of aggressions on the immunities claimed by +the clergy—the Saint, whose name was Ruadan, and the site of whose +sanctuary is still known as Temple-Ruadan in Tipperary, proceeded to +Tara, accompanied by his clergy, and, walking round the royal rath, +solemnly excommunicated the monarch, and anathematized the place. The +far-reaching consequences of this awful exercise of spiritual power are +traceable for a thousand years through Irish history. No king after +Dermid resided permanently upon the hill of Tara. Other royal houses +there were in Meath—at Tailteen, at the hill of Usna, and on the margin +of the beautiful Lough Ennell, near the present Castlepollard, and at +one or other of these, after monarchs held occasional court; but those +of the northern race made their habitual home in their own patrimony +near Armagh, or on the celebrated hill of Aileach. The date of the +malediction which left Tara desolate is the year of our Lord, 554. The +end of this self-willed semi-Pagan (Dermid) was in unison with his +life; he was slain in battle by Black Hugh, Prince of Ulster, two years +after the desolation of Tara. + +Four kings, all fierce competitors for the succession, reigned and +fell, within ten years of the death of Dermid, and then we come to the +really interesting and important reign of Hugh the Second, which lasted +twenty-seven years (A.D. 566 to 593), and was marked by the +establishment of the Independence of the Scoto-Irish Colony in North +Britain, and by other noteworthy events. But these twenty-seven years +deserve a chapter to themselves. + + + +CHAPTER V. +REIGN OF HUGH II.—THE IRISH COLONY IN SCOTLAND OBTAINS ITS +INDEPENDENCE. + +Twenty-seven years is a long reign, and the years of King-Hugh II. were +marked with striking events. One religious and one political +occurrence, however, threw all others into the shade—the conversion of +the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (then called Alba or Albyn by the +Gael, and Caledonia by the Latins), and the formal recognition, after +an exciting controversy, of the independence of the Milesian colony in +Scotland. These events follow each other in the order of time, and +stand partly in the relation of cause and effect. + +The first authentic Irish immigration into Scotland seems to have taken +place about the year of our Lord 258. The pioneers crossed over from +Antrim to Argyle, where the strait is less than twenty-five miles wide. +Other adventurers followed at intervals, but it is a fact to be +deplored, that no passages in our own, and in all other histories, have +been so carelessly kept as the records of emigration. The movements of +rude masses of men, the first founders of states and cities, are +generally lost in obscurity, or misrepresented by patriotic zeal. +Several successive settlements of the Irish in Caledonia can be faintly +traced from the middle of the third till the beginning of the sixth +century. About the year 503, they had succeeded in establishing a +flourishing principality among the cliffs and glens of Argyle. The +limits of their first territory cannot be exactly laid down; but it +soon spread north into Rosshire, and east into the present county of +Perth. It was a land of stormy friths and fissured headlands, of deep +defiles and snowy summits. "'Tis a far cry to Lough Awe," is still a +lowland proverb, and Lough Awe was in the very heart of that old Irish +settlement. + +The earliest emigrants to Argyle were Pagans, while the latter were +Christians, and were accompanied by priests, and a bishop, Kieran, the +son of the carpenter, whom, from his youthful piety and holy life, as +well as from the occupation followed by his father, is sometimes +fancifully compared to our Lord and Saviour himself. Parishes in +Cantyre, in Islay, and in Carrick, still bear the name of St. Kieran as +patron. But no systematic attempt—none at least of historic memory—was +made to convert the remoter Gael and the other races then inhabiting +Alba—the Picts, Britons, and Scandinavians, until the year of our era, +565, Columba or COLUMBKILL, a Bishop of the royal race of Nial, +undertook that task, on a scale commensurate with its magnitude. This +celebrated man has always ranked with Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget +as the most glorious triad of the Irish Calendar. He was, at the time +he left Ireland, in the prime of life—his 44th year. Twelve companions, +the apostolic number, accompanied him on his voyage. For thirty-four +years he was the legislator and captain of Christianity in those +northern regions. The King of the Picts received baptism at his hands; +the Kings of the Scottish colony, his kinsmen, received the crown from +him on their accession. The islet of I., or Iona, as presented to him +by one of these princes. Here he and his companions built with their +own hands their parent-house, and from this Hebridean rock in after +times was shaped the destinies, spiritual and temporal, of many tribes +and kingdoms. + +The growth of Iona was as the growth of the grain of mustard seed +mentioned in the Gospel, even during the life of its founder. Formed by +his teaching and example, there went out from it apostles to Iceland, +to the Orkneys, to Northumbria, to Man, and to South Britain. A hundred +monasteries in Ireland looked to that exiled saint as their patriarch. +His rule of monastic life, adopted either from the far East, from the +recluses of the Thebaid, or from his great contemporary, Saint +Benedict, was sought for by Chiefs, Bards, and converted Druids. +Clients, seeking direction from his wisdom, or protection through his +power, were constantly arriving and departing from his sacred isle. His +days were divided between manual labour and the study and transcribing +of the Sacred Scriptures. He and his disciples, says the Venerable +Bede, in whose age Iona still flourished, "neither thought of nor loved +anything in _this_ world." Some writers have represented Columbkill's +_Culdees_, (which in English means simply "Servants of God,") as a +married clergy; so far is this from the truth, that we now know, no +woman was allowed to land on the island, nor even a cow to be kept +there, for, said the holy Bishop, "wherever there is a cow there will +be a woman, and wherever there is a woman there will be mischief." + +In the reign of King Hugh, three domestic questions arose of great +importance; one was the refusal of the Prince of Ossory to pay tribute +to the Monarch; the other, the proposed extinction of the Bardic Order, +and the third, the attempt to tax the Argyle Colony. The question +between Ossory and Tara, we may pass over as of obsolete interest, but +the other two deserve fuller mention: + +The Bards—who were the Editors, Professors, Registrars and +Record-keepers—the makers and masters of public opinion in those days, +had reached in this reign a number exceeding 1,200 in Meath and Ulster +alone. They claimed all the old privileges of free quarters on their +travels and freeholdings at home, which were freely granted to their +order when it was in its infancy. Those chieftains who refused them +anything, however extravagant, they lampooned and libelled, exciting +their own people and other princes against them. Such was their +audacity, that some of them are said to have demanded from King Hugh +the royal brooch, one of the most highly prized heirlooms of the +reigning family. Twice in the early part of this reign they had been +driven from the royal residence, and obliged to take refuge in the +little principality of Ulidia (or Down); the third time the monarch had +sworn to expel them utterly from the kingdom. In Columbkill, however, +they were destined to find a most powerful mediator, both from his +general sympathy with the Order, being himself no mean poet, and from +the fact that the then Arch-Poet, or chief of the order, Dallan +Forgaill, was one of his own pupils. + +To settle this vexed question of the Bards, as well as to obtain the +sanction of the estates to the taxation of Argyle, King Hugh called a +General Assembly in the year 590. The place of meeting was no longer +the interdicted Tara, but for the monarch's convenience a site farther +north was chosen—the hill of Drom-Keth, in the present county of Derry. +Here came in rival state and splendour the Princes of the four +Provinces, and other principal chieftains. The dignitaries of the +Church also attended, and an occasional Druid was perhaps to be seen in +the train of some unconverted Prince. The pretensions of the +mother-country to impose a tax upon her Colony, were sustained by the +profound learning and venerable name of St. Colman, Bishop of Dromore, +one of the first men of his Order. + +When Columbkill "heard of the calling together of that General +Assembly," and of the questions to be there decided, he resolved to +attend, notwithstanding the stern vow of his earlier life, never to +look on Irish soil again. Under a scruple of this kind, he is said to +have remained blindfold, from his arrival in his fatherland, till his +return to Iona. He was accompanied by an imposing train of attendants; +by Aidan, Prince of Argyle, so deeply interested in the issue, and a +suite of over one hundred persons, twenty of them Abbots or Bishops. +Columbkill spoke for his companions; for already, as in Bede's time, +the Abbots of Iona exercised over all the clergy north of the Humber, +but still more directly north of the Tweed, a species of supremacy +similar to that which the successors of St. Benedict and St. Bernard +exercised, in turn, over Prelates and Princes on the European +Continent. + +When the Assembly was opened the holy Bishop of Dromore stated the +arguments in favour of Colonial taxation with learning and effect. Hugh +himself impeached the Bards for their licentious and lawless lives. +Columbkill defended both interests, and, by combining both, probably +strengthened the friends of each. It is certain that he carried the +Assembly with him, both against the monarch and those of the resident +clergy, who had selected Colman as their spokesman. The Bardic Order +was spared. The doctors, or master-singers among them, were prohibited +from wandering from place to place; they were assigned residence with +the chiefs and princes; their losel attendants were turned over to +honest pursuits, and thus a great danger was averted, and one of the +most essential of the Celtic institutions being reformed and regulated, +was preserved. Scotland and Ireland have good reason to be grateful to +the founder of Iona, for the interposition that preserved to us the +music, which is now admitted to be one of the most precious +inheritances of both countries. + +The proposed taxation Columbkill strenuously and successfully resisted. +Up to this time, the colonists had been bound only to furnish a +contingent force, by land and sea, when the King of Ireland went to +war, and to make them an annual present called "chief-rent." + +From the Book of Rights we learn that (at least at the time the +existing transcript was made) the Scottish Princes paid out of Alba, +seven shields, seven steeds, seven bondswomen, seven bondsmen, and +seven hounds all of the same breed. But the "chief-rent," or "eric for +kindly blood," did not suffice in the year 590 to satisfy King Hugh. +The colony had grown great, and, like some modern monarchs, he proposed +to make it pay for its success. Columbkill, though a native of Ireland, +and a prince of its reigning house, was by choice a resident of +Caledonia, and he stood true to his adopted country. The Irish King +refused to continue the connection on the old conditions, and declared +his intention to visit Alba himself to enforce the tribute due; +Columbkill, rising in the Assembly, declared the Albanians "for ever +free from the yoke," and this, adds an old historian, "turned out to be +the fact." From the whole controversy we may conclude that Scotland +never paid political tribute to Ireland; that their relation was that +rather of allies, than of sovereign and vassal; that it resembled more +the homage Carthage paid to Tyre, and Syracuse to Corinth, than any +modern form of colonial dependence; that a federal connection existed +by which, in time of war, the Scots of Argyle, and those of Hibernia, +were mutually bound to aid, assist, and defend each other. And this +natural and only connection, founded in the blood of both nations, +sanctioned by their early saints, confirmed by frequent intermarriage, +by a common language and literature, and by hostility to common +enemies, the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, grew into a political bond of +unusual strength, and was cherished with affection by both nations, +long ages after the magnates assembled at Drom-Keth had disappeared in +the tombs of their fathers. + +The only unsettled question which remained after the Assembly at +Drom-Keth related to the Prince of Ossory. Five years afterwards (A.D. +595), King Hugh fell in an attempt to collect the special tribute from +all Leinster, of which we have already heard something, and shall, by +and by, hear more. He was an able and energetic ruler, and we may be +sure "did not let the sun rise on him in his bed at Tara," or anywhere +else. In his time great internal changes were taking place in the state +of society. The ecclesiastical order had become more powerful than any +other in the state. The Bardic Order, thrice proscribed, were finally +subjected to the laws, over which they had at one time insolently +domineered. Ireland's only colony—unless we except the immature +settlement in the Isle of Man, under Cormac Longbeard—was declared +independent of the parent country, through the moral influence of its +illustrious Apostle, whose name many of its kings and nobles were of +old proud to bear—_Mal-Colm_, meaning "servant of Columb," or +Columbkill. But the memory of the sainted statesman who decreed the +separation of the two populations, so far as claims to taxation could +be preferred, preserved, for ages, the better and far more profitable +alliance, of an ancient friendship, unbroken by a single national +quarrel during a thousand years. + +A few words more on the death and character of this celebrated man, +whom we are now to part with at the close of the sixth, as we parted +from Patrick at the close of the fifth century. His day of departure +came in 596. Death found him at the ripe age of almost fourscore, +_stylus_ in hand, toiling cheerfully over the vellum page. It was the +last night of the week when the presentiment of his end came strongly +upon him. "This day," he said to his disciple and successor, Dermid, +"is called the day of rest, and such it will be for me, for it will +finish my labours." Laying down the manuscript, he added, "let Baithen +finish the rest." Just after Matins, on the Sunday morning, he +peacefully passed away from the midst of his brethren. + +Of his tenderness, as well as energy of character, tradition, and his +biographers have recorded many instances. Among others, his habit of +ascending an eminence every evening at sunset, to look over towards the +coast of his native land. The spot is called by the islanders to this +day, "the place of the back turned upon Ireland." The fishermen of the +Hebrides long believed they could see their saint flitting over the +waves after every new storm, counting the islands to see if any of them +had foundered. It must have been a loveable character of which such +tales could be told and cherished from generation to generation. + +Both Education and Nature had well fitted Columbkill to the great task +of adding another realm to the empire of Christendom. His princely +birth gave him power over his own proud kindred; his golden eloquence +and glowing verse—the fragments of which still move and delight the +Gaelic scholar—gave him fame and weight in the Christian schools which +had suddenly sprung up in every glen and island. As prince, he stood on +equal terms with princes; as poet, he was affiliated to that +all-powerful Bardic Order, before whose awful anger kings trembled, and +warriors succumbed in superstitious dread. A spotless soul, a +disciplined body, an indomitable energy, an industry that never +wearied, a courage that never blanched, a sweetness and courtesy that +won all hearts, a tenderness for others that contrasted strongly with +his rigour towards himself—these were the secrets of the success of +this eminent missionary—these were the miracles by which he +accomplished the conversion of so many barbarous tribes and Pagan +Princes. + + + +CHAPTER VI. +KINGS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY. + +THE five years of the sixth century, which remained after the death of +Hugh II., were filled by Hugh III., son of Dermid, the semi-Pagan. Hugh +IV. succeeded (A.D. 599) and reigned for several years; two other +kings, of small account, reigned seven years; Donald II. (A.D. 624) +reigned sixteen years; Connall and Kellach, brothers, (A.D. 640) +reigned jointly sixteen years; they were succeeded (A.D. 656) by Dermid +and Blathmac, brothers, who reigned jointly seven years; Shanasagh, son +of the former, reigned six years; Kenfala, four; Finnacta, "the +hospitable," twenty years, and Loingsech (A.D. 693) eight years. + +Throughout this century the power of the Church was constantly on the +increase, and is visible in many important changes. The last armed +struggle of Druidism, and the only invasion of Ireland by the +Anglo-Saxons, are also events of the civil history of the seventh +century. + +The reign, of Donald II. is notable for the passing away of most of +those saintly men, the second generation of Irish abbots and bishops; +for the foundation of the celebrated school of Lismore on the Munster +Blackwater; and the battle of Moira, in the present county of Down. Of +the school and the saints we shall speak hereafter; the battle deserves +more immediate mention. + +The cause of the battle was the pretension of the petty Prince of +Ulidia, which comprised little more than the present county of Down, to +be recognised as Prince of all Ulster. Now the Hy-Nial family, not only +had long given monarchs to all Ireland, but had also the lion's share +of their own Province, and King Donald as their head could not permit +their ascendency to be disputed. The ancestors of the present +pretender, Congal, surnamed "the squint-eyed," had twice received and +cherished the licentious Bards when under the ban of Tara, and his +popularity with that still powerful order was one prop of his ambition. +It is pretty clear also that the last rally of Druidism against +Christianity took place behind his banner, on the plain of Moira. It +was the year 637, and preparations had long gone on on both sides for a +final trial of strength. Congal had recruited numerous bands of Saxons, +Britons, Picts and Argyle Scots, who poured into the harbours of Down +for months, and were marshalled on the banks of the Lagan, to sustain +his cause. The Poets of succeeding ages have dwelt much in detail on +the occurrences of this memorable day. It was what might strictly be +called a pitched battle, time and place being fixed by mutual +agreement. King Donald was accompanied by his Bard, who described to +him, as they came in sight, the several standards of Congal's host, and +who served under them. Conspicuous above all, the ancient banner of the +Red Branch Knights-"a yellow lion wrought on green satin"—floated over +Congal's host. On the other side the monarch commanded in person, +accompanied by his kinsmen, the sons of Hugh III. The red hand of +Tirowen, the cross of Tirconnell, the eagle and lion of Innishowen, the +axes of Fanad, were in his ranks, ranged closely round his own +standard. The cause of the Constitution and the Church prevailed, and +Druidism mourned its last hope extinguished on the plains of Moira, in +the death of Congal, and the defeat of his vast army. King Donald +returned in triumph to celebrate his victory at Emania and to receive +the benediction of the Church at Armagh. + +The sons of Hugh III., Dermid and Blathmac, zealous and pious Christian +princes, survived the field of Moira and other days of danger, and +finally attained the supreme power—A.D. 656. Like the two kings of +Sparta they reigned jointly, dividing between them the labours and +cares of State. In their reign, that terrible scourge, called in Irish, +"the yellow plague," after ravaging great part of Britain, broke out +with undiminished virulence in Erin (A.D. 664). To heighten the awful +sense of inevitable doom, an eclipse of the sun occurred concurrently +with the appearance of the pestilence on the first Sunday in May. It +was the season when the ancient sun-god had been accustomed to receive +his annual oblations, and we can well believe that those whose hearts +still trembled at the name of Bel, must have connected the eclipse and +the plague with the revolution in the national worship, and the +overthrow of the ancient gods on that "plain of prostration," where +they had so long received the homage of an entire people. Among the +victims of this fearful visitation—which, like the modern cholera, +swept through all ranks and classes of society, and returned in the +same track for several successive seasons—were very many of those +venerated men, the third and fourth generation of the Abbots and +Bishops. The Munster King, and many of the chieftain class shared the +common lot. Lastly, the royal brothers fell themselves victims to the +epidemic, which so sadly signalizes their reign. + +The only conflicts that occurred on Irish soil with a Pictish or an +Anglo-Saxon force—if we except those who formed a contingent of +Congal's army at Moira—occurred in the time of the hospitable Finnacta. +The Pictish force, with their leaders, were totally defeated at +Rathmore, in Antrim (A.D. 680), but the Anglo-Saxon expedition (A.D. +684) seems not to have been either expected or guarded against. As +leading to the mention of other interesting events, we must set this +inroad clearly before the reader. + +The Saxons had now been for four centuries in Britain, the older +inhabitants of which—Celts like the Gauls and Irish—they had cruelly +harassed, just as the Milesian Irish oppressed their Belgic +predecessors, and as the Normans, in turn, will be found oppressing +both Celt and Saxon in England and Ireland. Britain had been divided by +the Saxon leaders into eight separate kingdoms, the people and princes +of several of which were converted to Christianity in the fifth, sixth, +and seventh century, though some of them did not receive the Gospel +before the beginning of the eighth. The Saxons of Kent and the Southern +Kingdoms generally were converted by missionaries from France or Rome, +or native preachers of the first or second Christian generation; those +of Northumbria recognise as their Apostles St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert, +two Fathers from Iona. The Kingdom of Northumbria, as the name implies, +embraced nearly all the country from the Humber to the Pictish border. +York was its capital, and the seat of its ecclesiastical primacy, +where, at the time we speak of, the illustrious Wilfrid was +maintaining, with a wilful and unscrupulous king, a struggle not unlike +that which Becket maintained with Henry II. This Prince, Egfrid by +name, was constantly engaged in wars with his Saxon cotemporaries, or +the Picts and Scots. In the summer of 683 he sent an expedition under +the command of Beort, one of his earls, to ravage the coast of +Leinster. Beort landed probably in the Boyne, and swept over the rich +plain of Meath with fire and sword, burning churches, driving off herds +and flocks, and slaughtering the clergy and the husbandmen. The piety +of an after age saw in the retribution which overtook Egfrid the +following year, when he was slain by the Picts and Scots, the judgment +of Heaven, avenging the unprovoked wrongs of the Irish. His Scottish +conquerors, returning good for evil, carried his body to Iona, where it +was interred with all due honour. + +Iona was now in the zenith of its glory. The barren rock, about three +miles in length, was covered with monastic buildings, and its cemetery +was already adorned with the tombs of saints and kings. Five successors +of Columbkill slept in peace around their holy Founder, and a sixth, +equal in learning and sanctity to any who preceded him, received the +remains of King Egfrid from the hands of his conquerors. This was Abbot +Adamnan, to whom Ireland and Scotland are equally indebted for his +admirable writings, and who might almost dispute with Bede himself, the +title of Father of British History. Adamnan regarded the fate of +Egfrid, we may be sure, in the light of a judgment on him for his +misdeeds, as Bede and British Christians very generally did. He +learned, too, that there were in Northumbria several Christian +captives, carried off in Beort's expedition and probably sold into +slavery. Now every missionary that ever went out from Iona, had taught +that to reduce Christians to slavery was wholly inconsistent with a +belief in the doctrines of the Gospel. St. Aidan, the Apostle of +Northumbria, had refused the late Egfrid's father absolution, on one +occasion, until he solemnly promised to restore their freedom to +certain captives of this description. In the same spirit Adamnan +voluntarily undertook a journey to York, where Aldfrid (a Prince +educated in Ireland, and whose "Itinerary" of Ireland we still have) +now reigned. The Abbot of Iona succeeded in his humane mission, and +crossing over to his native land, he restored sixty of the captives to +their homes and kindred. While the liberated exiles rejoiced on the +plain of Meath, the tent of the Abbot of Iona was pitched on the rath +of Tara—a fact which would seem to indicate that already, in little +more than a century since the interdict had fallen on it, the edifices +which made so fine a show in the days of Patrick were ruined and +uninhabitable. Either at Tara, or some other of the royal residences, +Adamnan on this visit procured the passing of a law, (A.D. 684,) +forbidding women to accompany an army to battle, or to engage +personally in the conflict. The mild maternal genius of Christianity is +faithfully exhibited in such a law, which consummates the glory of the +worthy successor of Columbkill. It is curious here to observe that it +was not until another hundred years had past—not till the beginning of +the ninth century—that the clergy were "exempt" from military service. +So slow and patient is the process by which Christianity infuses itself +into the social life of a converted people! + +The long reign of FINNACTA, the hospitable, who may, for his many other +virtues, be called also the pious, was rendered farther remarkable in +the annals of the country by the formal abandonment of the special tax, +so long levied upon, and so long and desperately resisted by, the men +of Leinster. The all-powerful intercessor in this case was Saint +Moling, of the royal house of Leinster, and Bishop of Fernamore (now +Ferns). In the early part of his reign Finnacta seems not to have been +disposed to collect this invidious tax by force; but, yielding to other +motives, he afterwards took a different view of his duty, and marched +into Leinster to compel its payment. Here the holy Prelate of Ferns met +him, and related a Vision in which he had been instructed to demand the +abolition of the impost. The abolition, he contended, should not be +simply a suspension, but final and for ever. The tribute was, at this +period, enormous; 15,000 head of cattle annually. The decision must +have been made about the time that Abbot Adamnan was in Ireland, (A.D. +684,) and that illustrious personage is said to have been opposed to +the abolition. Abolished it was, and though its re-enactment was often +attempted, the authority of Saint Moling's solemn settlement, prevented +it from being re-enforced for any length of time, except as a political +or military infliction. + +Finnacta fell in battle in the 20th year of his long and glorious +reign; and is commemorated as a saint in the Irish calendar. St. Moling +survived him three years, and St. Adamnan, so intimately connected with +his reign, ten years. The latter revisited Ireland in 697, under the +short reign of Loingsech, and concerned himself chiefly in endeavouring +to induce his countrymen to adopt the Roman rule, as to the tonsure, +and the celebration of Easter. On this occasion there was an important +Synod of the Clergy, under the presidency of Flan, Archbishop of +Armagh, held at Tara. Nothing could be more natural than such an +assembly in such a place, at such a period. In every recorded instance +the power of the clergy had been omnipotent in politics for above a +century. St. Patrick had expurgated the old constitution; St. Ruadan's +curse drove the kings from Tara; St. Columbkill had established the +independence of Alba, and preserved the Bardic Order; St. Moling had +abolished the Leinster tribute. If their power was irresistible in the +sixth and especially in the seventh centuries, we must do these +celebrated Abbots and Bishops the justice to remember that it was +always exercised against the oppression of the weak by the strong, to +mitigate the horrors of war, to uphold the right of sanctuary (the +_Habeus Corpus_ of that rude age), and for the maintenance and spread +of sound Christian principles. + + + +CHAPTER VII. +KINGS OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY. + +The kings of the eighth century are Congal II. (surnamed Kenmare), who +reigned seven years; Feargal, who reigned ten years; Forgartah, +Kenneth, Flaherty, respectively one, four, and seven years; Hugh V. +(surnamed Allan), nine years; Donald III., who reigned (A.D. 739-759) +twenty years; Nial II. (surnamed Nial of the Showers), seven years; and +Donogh I., who reigned thirty-one years, A.D. 766-797. The obituaries +of these kings show that we have fallen on a comparatively peaceful +age, since of the entire nine, but three perished in battle. One +retired to Armagh and one to Iona, where both departed in the monastic +habit; the others died either of sickness or old age. + +Yet the peaceful character of this century is but comparative, for in +the first quarter (A.D. 722), we have the terrible battle of Almain, +between Leinster and the Monarch, in which 30,000 men were stated to +have engaged, and 7,000 to have fallen. The Monarch who had double the +number of the Leinster Prince, was routed and slain, _apropos_ of which +we have a Bardic tale told, which almost transports one to the far +East, the simple lives and awful privileges of the Hindoo Brahmins. It +seems that some of King FEARGAL's army, in foraging for their fellows, +drove off the only cow of a hermit, who lived in seclusion near a +solitary little chapel called Killin. The enraged recluse, at the very +moment the armies were about to engage, appeared between them, +regardless of personal danger, denouncing ruin and death to the +monarch's forces. And in this case, as in others, to be found in every +history, the prophecy, no doubt, helped to produce its own fulfilment. +The malediction of men dedicated to the service of God, has often +routed hosts as gallant as were marshalled on the field of Almain. + +FEARGAL'S two immediate successors met a similar fate—death in the +field of battle—after very brief reigns, of which we have no great +events to record. + +FLAHERTY, the next who succeeded, after a vigorous reign of seven +years, withdrew from the splendid cares of a crown, and passed the long +remainder of his life—thirty years—in the habit of a monk at Armagh. +The heavy burthen which he had cheerfully laid down, was taken up by a +Prince, who combined the twofold character of poet and hero. HUGH V. +(surnamed Allan), the son of FEARGAL, of whom we have just spoken, was +the very opposite of his father, in his veneration for the privileges +of holy persons and places. His first military achievement was +undertaken in vindication of the rights of those who were unable by +arms to vindicate their own. Hugh Roin, Prince of the troublesome +little principality of Ulidia (Down), though well stricken in years and +old enough to know better, in one of his excursions had forcibly +compelled the clergy of the country through which he passed to give him +free quarters, contrary to the law everywhere existing. Congus, the +Primate, jealous of the exemptions of his order, complained of this +sacrilege in a poetic message addressed to Hugh Allan, who, as a +Christian and a Prince, was bound to espouse his quarrels. He marched +into the territory of the offender, defeated him in battle, cut off his +head on the threshold of the Church of Faughard, and marched back +again, his host chanting a war song composed by their leader. + +In this reign died Saint Gerald of Mayo, an Anglo-Saxon Bishop, and +apparently the head of a colony of his countrymen, from whom that +district is ever since called "Mayo of the Saxons." The name, however, +being a general one for strangers from Britain about that period, just +as Dane became for foreigners from the Baltic in the next century, is +supposed to be incorrectly applied: the colony being, it is said, +really from Wales, of old British stock, who had migrated rather than +live under the yoke of their victorious Anglo-Saxon Kings. The +descendants of these Welshmen are still to be traced, though intimately +intermingled with the original Belgic and later Milesian settlers in +Mayo, Sligo, and Galway—thus giving a peculiar character to that +section of the country, easily distinguishable from all the rest. + +Although Hugh Allan did not imitate his father's conduct towards +ecclesiastics, he felt bound by all-ruling custom to avenge his +father's death. In all ancient countries the kinsmen of a murdered man +were both by law and custom the avengers of his blood. The members of +the Greek _phratry_, of the Roman _fatria_, or _gens_, of the Germanic +and Anglo-Saxon _guild_, and of the mediaeval sworn _commune_, were all +solemnly bound to avenge the blood of any of their brethren, unlawfully +slain. So that the repulsive repetition of reprisals, which so disgusts +the modern reader in our old annals, is by no means a phenomenon +peculiar to the Irish state of society. It was in the middle age and in +early times common to all Europe, to Britain and Germany, as well as to +Greece and Rome. It was, doubtless, under a sense of duty of this sort +that Hugh V. led into Leinster a large army (A.D. 733), and the day of +Ath-Senaid fully atoned for the day of Almain. Nine thousand of the men +of Leinster were left on the field, including most of their chiefs; the +victorious monarch losing a son, and other near kinsmen. Four years +later, he himself fell in an obscure contest near Kells, in the plain +of Meath. Some of his quartrains have come down to us, and they breathe +a spirit at once religious and heroic—such as must have greatly +endeared the Prince who possessed it to his companions in arms. We are +not surprised, therefore, to find his reign a favourite epoch with +subsequent Bards and Storytellers. + +The long and prosperous reign of Donald III. succeeded (A.D. 739 to +759). He is almost the only one of this series of Kings of whom it can +be said that he commanded in no notable battle. The annals of his reign +are chiefly filled with ordinary accidents, and the obits of the +learned. But its literary and religious record abounds with bright +names and great achievements, as we shall find when we come to consider +the educational and missionary fruits of Christianity in the eighth +century. While on a pilgrimage to Durrow, a famous Columbian foundation +in Meath, and present King's County, Donald III. departed this life, +and in Durrow, by his own desire, his body was interred. + +Nial II. (surnamed of the Showers), son to FEARGAL and brother of the +warrior-Bard, Hugh V., was next invested with the white wand of +sovereignty. He was a prince less warlike and more pious than his elder +brother. The _soubriquet_ attached to his name is accounted for by a +Bardic tale, which represents him as another Moses, at whose prayer +food fell from heaven in time of famine. Whatever "showers" fell or +wonders were wrought in his reign, it is certain that after enjoying +the kingly office for seven years, Nial resigned, and retired to Iona, +there to pass the remainder of his days in penance and meditation. +Eight years he led the life of a monk in that sacred Isle, where his +grave is one of those of "the three Irish Kings," still pointed out in +the cemetery of the Kings. He is but one among several Princes, his +cotemporaries, who had made the same election. We learn in this same +century, that Cellach, son of the King of Connaught, died in Holy +Orders, and that Bec, Prince of Ulidia, and Ardgall, son of a later +King of Connaught, had taken the "crostaff" of the pilgrim, either for +Iona or Armagh, or some more distant shrine. Pilgrimages to Rome and to +Jerusalem seem to have been begun even before this time, as we may +infer from St. Adamnan's work on the situation of the Holy Places, of +which Bede gives an abstract. + +The reign of Donogh I. is the longest and the last among the Kings of +the eighth century (A.D. 776 to 797). The Kings of Ireland had now not +only abandoned Tara, but one by one, the other royal residences in +Meath as their usual place of abode. As a consequence a local +sovereignty sprung up in the family of O'Melaghlin, a minor branch of +the ruling race. This house developing its power so unexpectedly, and +almost always certain to have the national forces under the command of +a Patron Prince at their back, were soon involved in quarrels about +boundaries, both with Leinster and Munster. King Donogh, at the outset +of his reign, led his forces into both principalities, and without +battle received their hostages. Giving hostages—generally the sons of +the chiefs—was the usual form of ratifying any treaty. Generally also, +the Bishop of the district, or its most distinguished ecclesiastic, was +called in as witness of the terms, and both parties were solemnly sworn +on the relics of Saints—the Gospels of the Monasteries or Cathedrals—or +the croziers of their venerated founders. The breach of such a treaty +was considered "a violation of the relics of the saint," whose name had +been invoked, and awful penalties were expected to follow so heinous a +crime. The hostages were then carried to the residence of the King, to +whom they were entrusted, and while the peace lasted, enjoyed a parole +freedom, and every consideration due to their rank. If of tender age +they were educated with the same care as the children of the household. +But when war broke out their situation was always precarious, and +sometimes dangerous. In a few instances they had even been put to +death, but this was considered a violation of all the laws both of +hospitality and chivalry; usually they were removed to some strong +secluded fort, and carefully guarded as pledges to be employed, +according to the chances and changes of the war. That Donogh preferred +negotiation to war, we may infer by his course towards Leinster and +Munster, in the beginning of his reign, and his "kingly parlee" at a +later period (A.D. 783) with FIACHNA, of Ulidia, son of that +over-exacting Hugh Roin, whose head was taken from his shoulders at the +Church door of Faughard. This "kingly parlee" was held on an island off +the Methian shore, called afterwards "King's Island." But little good +came of it. Both parties still held their own views, so that the +satirical poets asked what was the use of the island, when one party +"would not come upon the land, nor the other upon the sea?" However, we +needs must agree with King Donogh, that war is the last resort, and is +only to be tried when all other means have failed. + +Twice during this reign the whole island was stricken with panic, by +extraordinary signs in the heavens, of huge serpents coiling themselves +through the stars, of fiery bolts flying like shuttles from one side of +the horizon to the other, or shooting downward directly to the earth. +These atmospheric wonders were accompanied by thunder and lightning so +loud and so prolonged that men hid themselves for fear in the caverns +of the earth. The fairs and markets were deserted by buyers and +sellers; the fields were abandoned by the farmers; steeples were rent +by lightning, and fell to the ground; the shingled roofs of churches +caught fire and burned whole buildings. Shocks of earthquake were also +felt, and round towers and cyclopean masonry were strewn in fragments +upon the ground. These visitations first occurred in the second year of +Donogh, and returned again in 783. When, in the next decade, the first +Danish descent was made on the coast of Ulster (A.D. 794), these signs +and wonders were superstitiously supposed to have been the precursors +of that far more terrible and more protracted visitation. + +The Danes at first attracted little notice, but in the last year of +Donogh (A.D. 797) they returned in greater force, and swept rapidly +along the coast of Meath; it was reserved for his successors of the +following centuries to face the full brunt of this new national danger. + +But before encountering the fierce nations of the north, and the stormy +period they occupy, let us cast back a loving glance over the +world-famous schools and scholars of the last two centuries. Hitherto +we have only spoken of certain saints, in connection with high affairs +of state. We must now follow them to the college and the cloister, we +must consider them as founders at home, and as missionaries abroad; +otherwise how could we estimate all that is at stake for Erin and for +Christendom, in the approaching combat with the devotees of Odin,—the +deadly enemies of all Christian institutions? + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +WHAT THE IRISH SCHOOLS AND SAINTS DID IN THE THREE FIRST CHRISTIAN +CENTURIES. + +We have now arrived at the close of the third century, from the death +of Saint Patrick, and find ourselves on the eve of a protracted +struggle with the heathen warriors of Scandinavia; it is time, +therefore, to look back on the interval we have passed, and see what +changes have been wrought in the land, since its kings, instead of +waiting to be attacked at home, had made the surrounding sea "foam with +the oars" of their outgoing expeditions. + +The most obvious change in the condition of the country is traceable in +its constitution and laws, into every part of which, as was its wont +from the beginning, the spirit of Christianity sought patiently to +infuse itself. We have already spoken of the expurgation of the +constitution, which prohibited the observance of Pagan rites to the +kings, and imposed on them instead, certain social obligations. This +was a first change suggested by Saint Patrick, and executed mainly by +his disciple, Saint Benignus. We have seen the legislative success +which attended the measures of Columbkill, Moling, and Adamnan; in +other reforms of minor importance the paramount influence of the +clerical order may be easily traced. + +But it is in their relation as teachers of human and divine science +that the Irish Saints exercised their greatest power, not only over +their own countrymen, but over a considerable part of Europe. The +intellectual leadership of western Europe—the glorious ambition of the +greatest nations—has been in turn obtained by Italy, France, Britain +and Germany. From the middle of the sixth to the middle of the eighth +century, it will hardly be disputed that that leadership devolved on +Ireland. All the circumstances of the sixth century helped to confer it +upon the newly converted western isle; the number of her schools, and +the wisdom, energy, and zeal of her masters, retained for her the proud +distinction for two hundred years. And when it passed away from her +grasp, she might still console herself with the grateful reflection +that the power she had founded and exercised, was divided among British +and continental schools, which her own _alumni_ had largely contributed +to form and establish. In the northern Province, the schools most +frequented were those of Armagh, and of Bangor, on Belfast lough; in +Meath, the school of Clonard, and that of Clomnacnoise, (near Athlone); +in Leinster, the school of Taghmon (_Ta-mun_), and Beg-Erin, the former +near the banks of the Slaney, the latter in Wexford harbour; in +Munster, the school of Lismore on the Blackwater, and of Mungret (now +Limerick), on the Shannon; in Connaught, the school of "Mayo of the +Saxons," and the schools of the Isles of Arran. These seats of learning +were almost all erected on the banks of rivers, in situations easy of +access, to the native or foreign student; a circumstance which proved +most disastrous to them when the sea kings of the north began to find +their way to the shores of the island. They derived their +maintenance—not from taxing their pupils—but in the first instance from +public endowments. They were essentially free schools; not only free as +to the lessons given, but the venerable Bede tells us they supplied +free bed and board and books to those who resorted to them from abroad. +The Prince and the Clansmen of every principality in which a school was +situated, endowed it with a certain share—often an ample one—of the +common land of the clan. Exclusive rights of fishery, and exclusive +mill-privileges seem also to have been granted. As to timber for +building purposes and for fuel, it was to be had for carrying and +cutting. The right of quarry went with the soil, wherever building +stone was found. In addition to these means of sustenance, a portion of +the collegiate clergy appeared to have discharged missionary duty, and +received offerings of the produce of the land. We hear of periodical +_quests_ or collections made for the sustenance of these institutions, +wherein the learned Lectors and Doctors, no doubt, pleaded their claims +to popular favour, with irresistible eloquence. Individuals, anxious to +promote the spread of religion and of science, endowed particular +institutions out of their personal means; Princes, Bishops, and pious +ladies, contributed to enlarge the bounds and increase the income of +their favourite foundations, until a generous emulation seems to have +seized on all the great families as well as on the different Provinces, +as to which could boast the most largely attended schools, and the +greatest number of distinguished scholars. The love of the _alma +mater_—that college patriotism which is so sure a sign of the +noble-minded scholar—never received more striking illustration than +among the graduates of those schools. Columbkill, in his new home among +the Hebrides, invokes blessings on blessings, on "the angels" with whom +it was once his happiness to walk in Arran, and Columbanus, beyond the +Alps, remembers with pride the school of Bangor—the very name of which +inspires him with poetic rapture. + +The buildings, in which so many scholars were housed and taught, must +have been extensive. Some of the schools we have mentioned were, when +most flourishing, frequented by one, two, three, and even, at some +periods, as many as seven thousand scholars. Such a population was +alone sufficient to form a large village; and if we add the requisite +number of teachers and attendants, we will have an addition of at least +one-third to the total. The buildings seem to have been separately of +no great size, but were formed into streets, and even into something +like wards. Armagh was divided into three parts—_trian-more_ (or the +town proper), _trian-Patrick_, the Cathedral close, and +_trian-Sassenagh_, the Latin quarter, the home of the foreign students. +A tall sculptured Cross, dedicated to some favourite saint, stood at +the bounds of these several wards, reminding the anxious student to +invoke their spiritual intercession as he passed by. Early hours and +vigilant night watches had to be exercised to prevent conflagrations in +such village-seminaries, built almost wholly of wood, and roofed with +reeds or shingles. A Cathedral, or an Abbey Church, a round tower, or a +cell of some of the ascetic masters, would probably be the only stone +structure within the limits. To the students, the evening star gave the +signal for retirement, and the morning sun for awaking. When, at the +sound of the early bell, two or three thousand of them poured into the +silent streets and made their way towards the lighted Church, to join +in the service of matins, mingling, as they went or returned, the +tongues of the Gael, the Cimbri, the Pict, the Saxon, and the Frank, or +hailing and answering each other in the universal language of the Roman +Church, the angels in Heaven must have loved to contemplate the union +of so much perseverance with so much piety. + +The lives of the masters, not less than their lessons, were studied and +observed by their pupils. At that time, as we gather from every +authority, they were models of simplicity. One Bishop is found, +erecting with his own hands, the _cashel_ or stone enclosure which +surrounded his cell; another is labouring in the field, and gives his +blessing to his visitors, standing between the stilts of the plough. +Most ecclesiastics work occasionally either in wood, in bronze, in +leather, or as scribes. The decorations of the Church, if not the +entire structure, was the work of those who served at the altar. The +tabernacle, the rood-screen, the ornamental font; the vellum on which +the Psalms and Gospels were written; the ornamented case which +contained the precious volume, were often of their making. The music +which made the vale of Bangor resound as if inhabited by angels, was +their composition; the hymns that accompanied it were their own. "It is +a poor Church that has no music," is one of the oldest Irish proverbs; +and the _Antiphonarium_ of Bangor, as well as that of Armagh, remains +to show that such a want was not left unsupplied in the early Church. + +All the contemporary schools were not of the same grade nor of equal +reputation. We constantly find a scholar, after passing years in one +place, transferring himself to another, and sometimes to a third and a +fourth. Some masters were, perhaps, more distinguished in human +Science; others in Divinity. Columbkill studied in two or three +different schools, and _visited_ others, perhaps as disputant or +lecturer—a common custom in later years. Nor should we associate the +idea of under-age with the students of whom we speak. Many of them, +whether as teachers or learners, or combining both characters together, +reached middle life before they ventured as instructors upon the world. +Forty years is no uncommon age for the graduate of those days, when as +yet the discovery was unmade, that all-sufficient wisdom comes with the +first trace of down upon the chin of youth. + +The range of studies seems to have included the greater part of the +collegiate course of our own times. The language of the country, and +the language of the Roman Church; the languages of Scripture—Greek and +Hebrew; the logic of Aristotle, the writings of the Fathers, especially +of Pope Gregory the Great—who appears to have been a favourite author +with the Irish Church; the defective Physics of the period; +Mathematics, Music, and Poetical composition went to complete the +largest course. When we remember that all the books were manuscripts; +that even paper had not yet been invented; that the best parchment was +equal to so much beaten gold, and a perfect MS. was worth a king's +ransom, we may better estimate the difficulties in the way of the +scholar of the seventh century. Knowing these facts, we can very well +credit that part of the story of St. Columbkill's banishment into +Argyle, which turns on what might be called a copyright dispute, in +which the monarch took the side of St. Finian of Clonard, (whose +original MSS. his pupil seems to have copied without permission,) and +the Clan-Conal stood up, of course, for their kinsman. This dispute is +even said to have led to the affair of Culdrum, in Sligo, which is +sometimes mentioned as "the battle of the book." The same tendency of +the national character which overstocked the Bardic Order, becomes +again visible in its Christian schools; and if we could form anything +like an approximate census of the population, anterior to the northern +invasions, we would find that the proportion of ecclesiastics was +greater than has existed either before or since in any Christian +country. The vast designs of missionary zeal drew off large bodies of +those who had entered Holy Orders; still the numbers engaged as +teachers in the great schools, as well as of those who passed their +lives in solitude and contemplation, must have been out of all modern +proportion to the lay inhabitants of the Island. + +The most eminent Irish Saints of the fifth century were St. Ibar, St. +Benignus and St. Kieran, of Ossory; in the sixth, St. Bendan, of +Clonfert; St. Brendan, of Birr; St. Maccartin, of Clogher; St. Finian, +of Moville; St. Finbar, St. Cannice, St. Finian, of Clonard; and St. +Jarlath, of Tuam; in the seventh century, St. Fursey, St. Laserian, +Bishop of Leighlin; St. Kieran, Abbot of Clonmacnoise; St. Comgall, +Abbot of Bangor; St. Carthage, Abbot of Lismore; St. Colman, Bishop of +Dromore; St. Moling, Bishop of Ferns; St. Colman Ela, Abbot; St. +Cummian, "the White;" St. Finian, Abbot; St. Gall, Apostle of +Switzerland; St. Fridolin, "the Traveller;" St. Columbanus, Apostle of +Burgundy and Lombardy; St. Killian, Apostle of Franconia; St. +Columbkill, Apostle of the Picts; St. Cormac, called "the Navigator;" +St. Cuthbert; and St. Aidan, Apostle of Northumbria. In the eighth +century the most illustrious names are St. Cataldus, Bishop of +Tarentum; St. Adamnan, Abbot of Iona; St. Rumold, Apostle of Brabant; +Clement and Albinus, "the Wisdom-seekers;" and St. Feargal or +Virgilius, Bishop of Saltzburgh. Of holy women in the same ages, we +have some account of St. Samthan, in the eighth century; of St. Bees, +St. Dympna and St. Syra, in the seventh century, and of St. Monina, St. +Ita of Desies, and St. Bride, or Bridget, of Kildare, in the sixth. The +number of conventual institutions for women established in those ages, +is less easily ascertained than the number of monastic houses for men; +but we may suppose them to have borne some proportion to each other, +and to have even counted by hundreds. The veneration in which St. +Bridget was held during her life, led many of her countrywomen to +embrace the religious state, and no less than fourteen _Saints_, her +namesakes, are recorded. It was the custom of those days to call all +holy persons who died in the odour of sanctity, _Saints_, hence +national or provincial tradition venerates very many names, which the +reader may look for in vain, in the Roman calendar. + +The intellectual labours of the Irish schools, besides the task of +teaching such immense numbers of men of all nations on their own soil, +and the missionary conquests to which I have barely alluded, were +diversified by controversies, partly scientific and partly +theological—such as the "Easter Controversy," the "Tonsure +Controversy," and that maintained by "Feargal the Geometer," as to the +existence of the Antipodes. + +The discussion, as to the proper time of observing Easter, which had +occupied the doctors of the Council of Nice in the fourth century, was +raised in Ireland and in Britain early in the sixth, and complete +uniformity was not established till far on in the eighth. It occupied +the thoughts of several generations of the chief men of the Irish +Church, and some of their arguments still fortunately survive, to +attest their learning and tolerance, as well as their zeal. St. Patrick +had introduced in the fifth century the computation of time then +observed in Gaul, and to this custom many of the Irish doctors rigidly +adhered, long after the rest of Christendom had agreed to adopt the +Alexandrian computation. Great names were found on both sides of the +controversy: Columbanus, Finian, and Aidan, for adhering exactly to the +rule of St. Patrick; Cummian, the White, Laserian and Adamnan, in +favour of strict agreement with Rome and the East. Monks of the same +Monastery and Bishops of the same Province maintained opposite opinions +with equal ardour and mutual charity. It was a question of discipline, +not a matter of faith; but it involved a still greater question, +whether national churches were to plead the inviolability of their +local usages, even on points of discipline, against the sense and +decision of the Universal Church. + +In the year of our Lord 630, the Synod of Leighlin was held, under the +shelter of the ridge of Leinster, and the presidency of St. Laserian. +Both parties at length agreed to send deputies to Rome, as "children to +their mother," to learn her decision. Three years later, that decision +was made known, and the midland and southern dioceses at once adopted +it. The northern churches, however, still held out, under the lead of +Armagh and the influence of Iona, nor was it till a century later that +this scandal of celebrating Easter on two different days in the same +church was entirely removed. In justification of the Roman rule, St. +Cummian, about the middle of the seventh century, wrote his famous +epistle to Segenius, Abbot of Iona, of the ability and learning of +which all modern writers from Archbishop Usher to Thomas Moore, speak +in terms of the highest praise. It is one of the few remaining +documents of that controversy. A less vital question of discipline +arose about the tonsure. The Irish shaved the head in a semicircle from +temple to temple, while the Latin usage was to shave the crown, leaving +an external circle of hair to typify the crown of thorns. At the +conference of Whitby (A.D. 664) this was one of the subjects of +discussion between the clergy of Iona, and those who followed the Roman +method—but it never assumed the importance of the Easter controversy. + +In the following century an Irish Missionary, Virgilius, of Saltzburgh, +(called by his countrymen "Feargal, the Geometer,") was maintaining in +Germany against no less an adversary than St. Boniface, the sphericity +of the earth and the existence of antipodes. His opponents endeavoured +to represent him, or really believed him to hold, that there were other +men, on our earth, for whom the Redeemer had not died; on this ground +they appealed to Pope Zachary against him; but so little effect had +this gross distortion of his true doctrine at Rome, when explanations +were given, that Feargal was soon afterwards raised to the See of +Saltzburgh, and subsequently canonized by Pope Gregory IX. In the ninth +century we find an Irish geographer and astronomer of something like +European reputation in Dicuil and Dungal, whose treatises and epistles +have been given to the press. Like their compatriot, Columbanus, these +accomplished men had passed their youth and early manhood in their own +country, and to its schools are to be transferred the compliments paid +to their acquirements by such competent judges as Muratori, Latronne, +and Alexander von Humboldt. The origin of the scholastic +philosophy—which pervaded Europe for nearly ten centuries—has been +traced by the learned Mosheim to the same insular source. Whatever may +now be thought of the defects or shortcomings of that system, it +certainly was not unfavourable either to wisdom or eloquence, since +among its professors may be reckoned the names of St. Thomas and St. +Bernard. + +We must turn away our eyes from the contemplation of those days in +which were achieved for Ireland the title of the land of saints and +doctors. Another era opens before us, and we can already discern the +long ships of the north, their monstrous beaks turned towards the holy +Isle, their sides hung with glittering shields and their benches +thronged with fair-haired warriors, chanting as they advance the fierce +war songs of their race. Instead of the monk's familiar voice on the +river banks we are to hear the shouts of strange warriors from a +far-off country; and for matin hymn and vesper song, we are to be beset +through a long and stormy period, with sounds of strife and terror, and +deadly conflict. + + + +BOOK II. + + + +CHAPTER I. +THE DANISH INVASION. + +Hugh VI., surnamed Ornie, succeeded to the throne vacant by the death +of Donogh I. (A.D. 797), and reigned twenty-two years; Conor II. +succeeded (A.D. 819), and reigned fourteen years; Nial III. (called +from the place of his death Nial of Callan), reigned thirteen years; +Malachy I. succeeded (A.D. 845), and reigned fifteen years; Hugh VII. +succeeded and reigned sixteen years (dying A.D. 877); Flan (surnamed +Flan of the Shannon) succeeded at the latter date, and reigned for +thirty-eight years, far into the tenth century. Of these six kings, +whose reigns average twenty years each, we may remark that not one died +by violence, if we except perhaps Nial of Callan, drowned in the river +of that name in a generous effort to save the life of one of his own +servants. Though no former princes had ever encountered dangers equal +to these—yet in no previous century was the person of the ruler so +religiously respected. If this was evident in one or two instances +only, it would be idle to lay much stress upon it; but when we find the +same truth holding good of several successive reigns, it is not too +much to attribute it to that wide diffusion of Christian morals, which +we have pointed out as the characteristic of the two preceding +centuries. The kings of this age owed their best protection to the +purer ethics which overflowed from Armagh and Bangor and Lismore; and +if we find hereafter the regicide habits of former times partially +revived, it will only be after the new Paganism—the Paganism of +interminable anti-Christian invasions—had recovered the land, and +extinguished the beacon lights of the three first Christian centuries. + +The enemy, who were now to assault the religious and civil institutions +of the Irish, must be admitted to possess many great military +qualities. They certainly exhibit, in the very highest degree, the +first of all military virtues—unconquerable courage. Let us say +cheerfully, that history does not present in all its volumes a braver +race of men than the Scandinavians of the ninth century. In most +respects they closely resembled the Gothic tribes, who, whether +starting into historic life on the Euxine or the Danube, or faintly +heard of by the Latins from the far off Baltic, filled with constant +alarm the Roman statesmen of the fourth century; nor can the invasions +of what we may call the maritime Goths be better introduced to the +reader than by a rapid sketch of the previous triumphs of their kindred +tribes over the Roman Empire. + +It was in the year of our Lord 378 that these long-dreaded barbarians +defeated the Emperor Valens in the plain of Adrianople, and as early as +404—twenty-six years after their first victory in Eastern Europe—they +had taken and burned great Rome herself. Again and again—in 410, in +455, and in 472—they captured and plundered the Imperial City. In the +same century they had established themselves in Burgundy, in Spain, and +in Northern Africa; in the next, another branch of the Gothic stock +twice took Rome; and yet another founded the Lombard Kingdom in +Northern Italy. With these Goths thus for a time masters of the Roman +Empire, whose genius and temper has entered so deeply into all +subsequent civilization, war was considered the only pursuit worthy of +men. According to their ideas of human freedom, that sacred principle +was supposed to exist only in force and by force; they had not the +faintest conception, and at first received with unbounded scorn the +Christian doctrine of the unity of the human race, the privileges and +duties annexed to Christian baptism, and the sublime ideal of the +Christian republic. But they were very far from being so cruel or so +faithless as their enemies represented them; they were even better than +they cared to represent themselves. And they had amongst them men of +the highest capacity and energy, well worthy to be the founders of new +nations. Alaric, Attila, and Genseric, were fierce and unmerciful it is +true; but their acts are not all written in blood; they had their +better moments and higher purposes in the intervals of battle; and the +genius for civil government of the Gothic race was in the very +beginning demonstrated by such rulers as Theodoric in Italy and Clovis +in Gaul. The rear guard of this irresistible barbaric invasion was now +about to break in upon Europe by a new route; instead of the long land +marches by which they had formerly concentrated from the distant Baltic +and from the tributaries of the Danube, on the capital of the Roman +empire; instead of the tedious expeditions striking across the +Continent, hewing their paths through dense forests, arrested by rapid +rivers and difficult mountains, the last northern invaders of Europe +had sufficiently advanced in the arts of shipbuilding and navigation to +strike boldly into the open sea and commence their new conquests among +the Christian islands of the West. The defenders of Roman power and +Christian civilization in the fifth and sixth centuries, were arrayed +against a warlike but pastoral people encumbered with their women and +children; the defenders of the same civilization, in the British +Islands in the ninth and tenth centuries, were contending with kindred +tribes, who had substituted maritime arts and habits for the pastoral +arts and habits of the companions of Attila and Theodoric. The Gothic +invasion of Roman territory in the earlier period was, with the single +exception of the naval expeditions of Genseric from his new African +Kingdom, a continental war; and notwithstanding the partiality of +Genseric for his fleet, as an arm of offence and defence, his +companions and successors abandoned the ocean as an uncongenial +element. The only parallel for the new invasion, of which we are now to +speak, is to be found in the history and fortunes of the Saxons of the +fifth century, first the allies and afterwards the conquerors of part +of Britain. But even their descendants in England had not kept pace, +either in the arts of navigation or in thirst for adventure, with their +distant relatives, who remained two centuries later among the friths +and rocks of Scandinavia. + +The first appearance of these invaders on the Irish and British coasts +occurred in 794. Their first descent on Ireland was at Rathlin island, +which may be called the outpost of Erin, towards the north; their +second attempt (A.D. 797) was at a point much more likely to arouse +attention—at Skerries, off the coast of Meath (now Dublin); in 803, and +again in 806, they attacked and plundered the holy Iona; but it was not +until a dozen years later they became really formidable. In 818 they +landed at Howth; and the same year, and probably the same party, sacked +the sacred edifices in the estuary of the Slaney, by them afterwards +called Wexford; in 820 they plundered Cork, and in 824—most startling +blow of all—they sacked and burned the schools of Bangor. The same year +they revisited Iona; and put to death many of its inmates; destroyed +Moville; received a severe check in Lecale, near Strangford lough (one +of their favourite stations). Another party fared better in a land +foray into Ossory, where they defeated those who endeavoured to arrest +their progress, and carried off a rich booty. In 830 and 831, their +ravages were equally felt in Leinster, in Meath, and in Ulster, and +besides many prisoners of princely rank, they plundered the primatial +city of Armagh for the first time, in the year 832. The names of their +chief captains, at this period, are carefully preserved by those who +had so many reasons to remember them; and we now begin to hear of the +Ivars, Olafs, and Sitricks, strangely intermingled with the Hughs, +Nials, Connors, and Felims, who contended with them in battle or in +diplomacy. It was not till the middle of this century (A.D. 837) that +they undertook to fortify Dublin, Limerick, and some other harbours +which they had seized, to winter in Ireland, and declare their purpose +to be the complete conquest of the country. + +The earliest of these expeditions seem to have been annual visitations; +and as the northern winter sets in about October, and the Baltic is +seldom navigable before May, the summer was the season of their +depredations. Awaiting the breaking up of the ice, the intrepid +adventurers assembled annually upon the islands in the Cattegat or on +the coast of Norway, awaiting the favourable moment of departure. Here +they beguiled their time between the heathen rites they rendered to +their gods, their wild bacchanal festivals, and the equipment of their +galleys. The largest ship built in Norway, and probably in the north, +before the eleventh century, had 34 banks of oars. The largest class of +vessel carried from 100 to 120 men. The great fleet which invaded +Ireland in 837 counted 120 vessels, which, if of average size for such +long voyages, would give a total force of some 6,000 men. As the whole +population of Denmark, in the reign of Canute who died in 1035, is +estimated at 800,000 souls, we may judge from their fleets how large a +portion of the men were engaged in these piratical pursuits. The ships +on which they prided themselves so highly were flat-bottomed craft, +with little or no keel, the sides of wicker work, covered with strong +hides. They were impelled either by sails or oars as the changes of the +weather allowed; with favourable winds they often made the voyage in +three days. As if to favour their designs, the north and north-west +blast blows for a hundred days of the year over the sea they had to +traverse. When land was made, in some safe estuary, their galleys were +drawn up on shore, a convenient distance beyond highwater mark, where +they formed a rude camp, watch-fires were lighted, sentinels set, and +the fearless adventurers slept as soundly as if under their own roofs, +in their own country. Their revels after victory, or on returning to +their homes, were as boisterous as their lives. In food they looked +more to quantity than quality, and one of their most determined +prejudices against Christianity was that it did not sanction the eating +of horse flesh. An exhilarating beer, made from heath, or from the +spruce tree, was their principal beverage, and the recital of their own +adventures, or the national songs of the Scalds, were their most +cherished amusement. Many of the Vikings were themselves Scalds, and +excelled, as might be expected, in the composition of war songs. + +The Pagan belief of this formidable race was in harmony with all their +thoughts and habits, and the exact opposite of Christianity. In the +beginning of time, according to their tradition, there was neither +heaven nor earth, but only universal chaos and a bottomless abyss, +where dwelt Surtur in an element of unquenchable fire. The generation +of their gods proceeded amid the darkness and void, from the union of +heat and moisture, until Odin and the other children of Asa-Thor, or +the Earth, slew Ymer, or the Evil One, and created the material +universe out of his lifeless remains. These heroic conquerors also +collected the sparks of eternal fire flying about in the abyss, and +fixed them as stars in the firmament. In addition, they erected in the +far East, Asgard, the City of the Gods; on the extreme shore of the +ocean stood Utgard, the City of Nor and his giants, and the wars of +these two cities, of their gods and giants, fill the first and most +obscure ages of the Scandinavian legend. The human race had as yet no +existence until Odin created a man and woman, Ask and Embla, out of two +pieces of wood (ash and elm), thrown upon the beach by the waves of the +sea. + +Of all the gods of Asgard, Odin was the first in place and power; from +his throne he saw everything that happened on the earth; and lest +anything should escape his knowledge, two ravens, Spirit and Memory, +sat on his shoulders, and whispered in his ears whatever they had seen +in their daily excursions round the world. Night was a divinity and the +father of Day, who travelled alternately throughout space, with two +celebrated steeds called Shining-mane and Frost-mane. Friga was the +daughter and wife of Odin; the mother of Thor, the Mars, and of the +beautiful Balder, the Apollo, of Asgard. The other gods were of +inferior rank to these, and answered to the lesser divinities of Greece +and Rome. Niord was the Neptune, and Frega, daughter of Niord, was the +Venus of the North. Heimdall, the watchman of Asgard, whose duty it was +to prevent the rebellious giants scaling by surprise the walls of the +celestial city, dwelt under the end of the rainbow; his vision was so +perfect he could discern objects 100 leagues distant, either by night +or day, and his ear was so fine he could hear the wool growing on the +sheep, and the grass springing in the meadows. + +The hall of Odin, which had 540 gates, was the abode of heroes who had +fought bravest in battle. Here they were fed with the lard of a wild +boar, which became whole every night, though devoured every day, and +drank endless cups of hydromel, drawn from the udder of an +inexhaustible she-goat, and served out to them by the Nymphs, who had +counted the slain, in cups which were made of the skulls of their +enemies. When they were wearied of such enjoyments, the sprites of the +Brave exercised themselves in single combat, hacked each other to +pieces on the floor of Valhalla, resumed their former shape, and +returned to their lard and their hydromel. + +Believing firmly in this system—looking forward with undoubting faith +to such an eternity—the Scandinavians were zealous to serve their gods +according to their creed. Their rude hill altars gave way as they +increased in numbers and wealth, to spacious temples at Upsala, Ledra, +Tronheim, and other towns and ports. They had three great festivals, +one at the beginning of February, in honour of Thor, one in Spring, in +honour of Odin, and one in Summer, in honour of the fruitful daughter +of Niord. The ordinary sacrifices were animals and birds; but every +ninth year there was a great festival at Upsala, at which the kings and +nobles were obliged to appear in person, and to make valuable +offerings. Wizards and sorcerers, male and female, haunted the temples, +and good and ill winds, length of life, and success in war, were +spiritual commodities bought and sold. Ninety-nine human victims were +offered at the great Upsala festival, and in all emergencies such +sacrifices were considered most acceptable to the gods. Captives and +slaves were at first selected; but, in many cases, princes did not +spare their subjects, nor fathers their own children. The power of a +Priesthood, who could always enforce such a system, must have been +unbounded and irresistible. + +The active pursuits of such a population were necessarily maritime. In +their short summer, such crops as they planted ripened rapidly, but +their chief sustenance was animal food and the fish that abounded in +their waters. The artizans in highest repute among them were the +shipwrights and smiths. The hammer and anvil were held in the highest +honour; and of this class, the armorers held the first place. The kings +of the North had no standing armies, but their lieges were summoned to +war by an arrow in Pagan times, and a cross after their conversion. +Their chief dependence was in infantry, which they formed into +wedge-like columns, and so, clashing their shields and singing hymns to +Odin, they advanced against their enemies. Different divisions were +differently armed; some with a short two-edged sword and a heavy +battle-axe; others with the sling, the javelin, and the bow. The shield +was long and light, commonly of wood and leather, but for the chiefs, +ornamented with brass, with silver, and even with gold. Locking the +shields together formed a rampart which it was not easy to break; in +bad weather the concave shield seems to have served the purpose of our +umbrella; in sea-fights the vanquished often escaped by swimming ashore +on their shields. Armour many of them wore; the Berserkers, or +champions, were so called from always engaging, _bare_ of defensive +armour. + +Such were the men, the arms, and the creed, against which the Irish of +the ninth age, after three centuries of exemption from foreign war, +were called upon to combat. A people, one-third of whose youth and +manhood had embraced the ecclesiastical state, and all whose tribes now +professed the religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness, were called to +wrestle with a race whose religion was one of blood, and whose +beatitude was to be in proportion to the slaughter they made while on +earth. The Northman hated Christianity as a rival religion, and +despised it as an effeminate one. He was the soldier of Odin, the elect +of Valhalla; and he felt that the offering most acceptable to his +sanguinary gods was the blood of those religionists who denied their +existence and execrated their revelation. The points of attack, +therefore, were almost invariably the great seats of learning and +religion. There, too, was to be found the largest bulk of the portable +wealth of the country, in richly adorned altars, jewelled chalices, and +shrines of saints. The ecclesiastical map is the map of their campaigns +in Ireland. And it is to avenge or save these innumerable sacred +places—as countless as the Saints of the last three centuries—that the +Christian population have to rouse themselves year after year, hurrying +to a hundred points at the same time. To the better and nobler spirits +the war becomes a veritable crusade, and many of those slain in +single-hearted defence of their altars may well be accounted +martyrs—but a war so protracted and so devastating will be found, in +the sequel, to foster and strengthen many of the worst vices as well as +some of the best virtues of our humanity. + +The early events are few and ill-known. During the reign of Hugh VI., +who died in 819, their hostile visits were few and far between; his +successors, Conor II. and Nial III., were destined to be less fortunate +in this respect. During the reign of Conor, Cork, Lismore, Dundalk, +Bangor and Armagh, were all surprised, plundered, and abandoned by "the +Gentiles," as they are usually called in Irish annals; and with the +exception of two skirmishes in which they were worsted on the coasts of +Down and Wexford, they seem to have escaped with impunity. At Bangor +they shook the bones of the revered founder out of the costly shrine +before carrying it off; on their first visit to Kildare they contented +themselves with taking the gold and silver ornaments of the tomb of St. +Bridget, without desecrating the relics; their main attraction at +Armagh was the same, but there the relics seemed to have escaped. When, +in 830, the brotherhood of Iona apprehended their return, they carried +into Ireland, for greater safety, the relics of St. Columbkill. Hence +it came that most of the memorials of SS. Patrick, Bridget, and +Columbkill, were afterwards united at Downpatrick. + +While these deplorable sacrileges, too rapidly executed perhaps to be +often either prevented or punished, were taking place, Conor the King +had on his hand a war of succession, waged by the ablest of his +contemporaries, Felim, King of Munster, who continued during this and +the subsequent reign to maintain a species of rival monarchy in +Munster. It seems clear enough that the abandonment of Tara, as the +seat of authority, greatly aggravated the internal weakness of the +Milesian constitution. While over-centralization is to be dreaded as +the worst tendency of imperial power, it is certain that the want of a +sufficient centralization has proved as fatal, on the other hand, to +the independence of many nations. And anarchical usages once admitted, +we see from the experience of the German Empire, and the Italian +republics, how almost impossible it is to apply a remedy. In the case +before us, when the Irish Kings abandoned the old mensal domain and +betook themselves to their own patrimony, it was inevitable that their +influence and authority over the southern tribes should diminish and +disappear. Aileach, in the far North, could never be to them what Tara +had been. The charm of conservatism, the halo of ancient glory, could +not be transferred. Whenever, therefore, ambitious and able Princes +arose in the South, they found the border tribes rife for backing their +pretensions against the Northern dynasty. The Bards, too, plied their +craft, reviving the memory of former times, when Heber the Fair divided +Erin equally with Heremon, and when Eugene More divided it a second +time with Con of the Hundred Battles. Felim, the son of Crimthan, the +contemporary of Conor II. and Nial III., during the whole term of their +rule, was the resolute assertor of these pretensions, and the Bards of +his own Province do not hesitate to confer on him the high title of +_Ard-Righ_. As a punishment for adhering to the Hy-Nial dynasty, or for +some other offence, this Christian king, in rivalry with "the +Gentiles," plundered Kildare, Burrow, and Clonmacnoise—the latter +perhaps for siding with Connaught in the dispute as to whether the +present county of Clare belonged to Connaught or Munster. Twice he met +in conference with the monarch at Birr and at Cloncurry—at another time +he swept the plain of Meath, and held temporary court in the royal rath +of Tara. With all his vices lie united an extraordinary energy, and +during his time, no Danish settlement was established on the Southern +rivers. Shortly before his decease (A.D. 846) he resigned his crown and +retired from the world, devoting the short remainder of his days to +penance and mortification. What we know of his ambition and ability +makes us regret that he ever appeared upon the scene, or that he had +not been born of that dominant family, who alone were accustomed to +give kings to the whole country. + +King Conor died (A.D. 833), and was succeeded by Nial III., surnamed +Nial of Callan. The military events of this last reign are so +intimately bound up with the more brilliant career of the next +ruler—Melaghlin, or Malachy I.—that we must reserve them for the +introduction to the next chapter. + + + +CHAPTER II. +KINGS OF THE NINTH CENTURY (CONTINUED)—NIAL III.—MALACHY I.—HUGH VII. + +When, in the year 833, Nial III. received the usual homage and +hostages, which ratified his title of _Ard-Righ_, the northern invasion +had clearly become the greatest danger that ever yet had threatened the +institutions of Erin. Attacks at first predatory and provincial had so +encouraged the Gentile leaders of the second generation that they began +to concert measures and combine plans for conquest and colonization. To +the Vikings of Norway the fertile Island with which they were now so +familiar, whose woods were bent with the autumnal load of acorns, mast, +and nuts, and filled with numerous herds of swine—their favourite +food—whose pleasant meadows were well stored with beeves and oxen, +whose winter was often as mild as their northern summer, and whose +waters were as fruitful in fish as their own Lofoden friths; to these +men, this was a prize worth fighting for; and for it they fought long +and desperately. + +King Nial inherited a disputed sovereignty from his predecessor, and +the Southern annalists say he did homage to Felim of Munster, while +those of the North—and with them the majority of historians—reject this +statement as exaggerated and untrue. He certainly experienced continual +difficulty in maintaining his supremacy, not only from the Prince of +Cashel, but from lords of lesser grade—like those of Ossory and Ulidia; +so that we may say, while he had the title of King of Ireland, he was, +in fact, King of no more than Leath-Con, or the Northern half. The +central Province, Meath, long deserted by the monarchs, had run wild +into independence, and was parcelled out between two or three chiefs, +descendants of the same common ancestor as the kings, but distinguished +from them by the tribe-name of "the _Southern_ Hy-Nial." Of these heads +of new houses, by far the ablest and most famous was Melaghlin, who +dwelt near Mullingar, and lorded it over western Meath; a name with +which we shall become better acquainted presently. It does not clearly +appear that Melaghlin was one of those who actively resisted the +prerogatives of this monarch, though others of the Southern Hy-Nial did +at first reject his authority, and were severely punished for their +insubordination, the year after his assumption of power. + +In the fourth year of Nial III. (A.D. 837), arrived the great Norwegian +fleet of 120 sail, whose commanders first attempted, on a combined +plan, the conquest of Erin. Sixty of the ships entered the Boyne; the +other sixty the Liffey. This formidable force, according to all Irish +accounts, was soon after united under one leader, who is known in our +Annals as _Turgeis_ or _Turgesius_, but of whom no trace can be found, +under that name, in the chronicles of the Northmen. Every effort to +identify him in the records of his native land has hitherto failed—so +that we are forced to conclude that he must have been one of those +wandering sea-kings, whose fame was won abroad, and whose story, ending +in defeat, yet entailing no dynastic consequences on his native land, +possessed no national interest for the authors of the old Norse Sagas. +To do all the Scandinavian chroniclers justice, in cases which come +directly under their notice, they acknowledge defeat as frankly as they +claim victory proudly. Equal praise may be given to the Irish annalists +in recording the same events, whether at first or second-hand. In +relation to the campaigns and sway of Turgesius, the difficulty we +experience in separating what is true from what is exaggerated or +false, is not created for us by the annalists, but by the bards and +story-tellers, some of whose inventions, adopted by _Cambrensis_, have +been too readily received by subsequent writers. For all the acts of +national importance with which his name can be intelligibly associated, +we prefer to follow in this as in other cases, the same sober +historians who condense the events of years and generations into the +shortest space and the most matter of fact expression. + +If we were to receive the chronology while rejecting the embellishments +of the Bards, Turgesius must have first come to Ireland with one of the +expeditions of the year 820, since they speak of him as having been +"the scourge of the country for seventeen years," before he assumed the +command of the forces landed from the fleet of 837. Nor is it +unreasonable to suppose that an accurate knowledge of the country, +acquired by years of previous warfare with its inhabitants, may have +been one of the grounds upon which the chief command was conferred on +Turgesius. This knowledge was soon put to account; Dublin was taken +possession of, and a strong fort, according to the Scandinavian method, +was erected on the hill where now stands the Castle. This fort and the +harbour beneath it were to be the _rendezvous_ and arsenal for all +future operations against Leinster, and the foundation of foreign power +then laid, continued in foreign hands, with two or three brief +intervals, until transferred to the Anglo-Norman chivalry, three +centuries and a half later. Similar lodgment was made at Waterford, and +a third was attempted at Limerick, but at this period without success; +the Danish fort at the latter point is not thought older than the year +855. But Turgesius—if, indeed, the independent acts of cotemporary and +even rival chiefs be not too often attributed to him—was not content +with fortifying the estuaries of some principal rivers; he established +inland centres of operation, of which the cardinal one was on Lough +Ree, the expansion of the Shannon, north of Athlone; another was at a +point called Lyndwachill, on Lough Neagh. On both these waters were +stationed fleets of boats, constructed for that service, and +communicating with the forts on shore. On the eastern border of Lough +Ree, in the midst of its meadows, stood Clonmacnoise, rich with the +offerings and endowments of successive generations. Here, three +centuries before, in the heart of the desert, St. Kieran had erected +with his own hands a rude sylvan cell, where, according to the allegory +of tradition, "the first monks who joined him," were the fox, the wolf, +and the bear; but time had wrought wonders on that hallowed ground, and +a group of churches—at one time, as many as ten in number—were gathered +within two or three acres, round its famous schools, and presiding +Cathedral. Here it was Turgesius made his usual home, and from the high +altar of the Cathedral his unbelieving Queen was accustomed to issue +her imperious mandates in his absence. Here, for nearly seven years, +this conqueror and his consort exercised their far-spread and terrible +power. According to the custom of their own country—a custom attributed +to Odin as its author—they exacted from every inhabitant subject to +their sway—a piece of money annually, the forfeit for the non-payment +of which was the loss of the nose, hence called "nose-money." Their +other exactions were a union of their own northern imposts, with those +levied by the chiefs whose authority they had superseded, but whose +prerogatives they asserted for themselves. Free quarters for their +soldiery, and a system of inspection extending to every private +relation of life, were the natural expedients of a tyranny so odious. +On the ecclesiastical order especially their yoke bore with peculiar +weight, since, although avowed Pagans, they permitted no religious +house to stand, unless under an Abbot, or at least an _Erenach_ (or +Treasurer) of their approval. Such is the complete scheme of oppression +presented to us, that it can only be likened to a monstrous spider-web +spread from the centre of the Island over its fairest and most populous +districts. Glendalough, Ferns, Castle-Dermid, and Kildare in the east; +Lismore, Cork, Clonfert, in the southern country; Dundalk, Bangor, +Derry, and Armagh in the north; all groaned under this triumphant +despot, or his colleagues. In the meanwhile King Nial seems to have +struggled resolutely with the difficulties of his lot, and in every +interval of insubordination to have struck boldly at the common enemy. +But the tide of success for the first few years after 837 ran strongly +against him. The joint hosts from the Liffey and the Boyne swept the +rich plains of Meath, and in an engagement at Invernabark (the present +Bray) gave such a complete defeat to the southern Hy-Nial clans as +prevented them making head again in the field, until some summers were +past and gone. In this campaign Saxolve, who is called "the chief of +the foreigners," was slain; and to him, therefore, if to any +commander-in-chief, Turgesius must have succeeded. The shores of all +the inland lakes were favourite sites for Raths and Churches, and the +beautiful country around Lough Erne shared the fiery ordeal which +blazed on Lough Ree and Lough Neagh. In 839 the men of Connaught also +suffered a defeat equal to that experienced by those of Meath in the +previous campaign; but more unfortunate than the Methians, they lost +their leader and other chiefs on the field. In 840, Ferns and Cork were +given to the flames, and the fort at Lyndwachill, or Magheralin, poured +out its ravages in every direction over the adjacent country, sweeping +off flocks, herds, and prisoners, laymen and ecclesiastics, to their +ships. The northern depredators counted among their captives "several +Bishops and learned men," of whom the Abbot of Clogher and the Lord of +Galtrim are mentioned by name. Their equally active colleagues of +Dublin and Waterford took captive, Hugh, Abbot of Clonenagh, and +Foranan, Archbishop of Armagh, who had fled southwards with many of the +relics of the Metropolitan Church, escaping from one danger only to +fall into another a little farther off. These prisoners were carried +into Munster, where Abbot Hugh suffered martyrdom at their hands, but +the Archbishop, after being carried to their fleet at Limerick, seems +to have been rescued or ransomed, as we find him dying in peace at +Armagh in the next reign. The martyrs of these melancholy times were +very numerous, but the exact particulars being so often unrecorded it +is impossible to present the reader with an intelligible account of +their persons and sufferings. When the Anglo-Normans taunted the Irish +that their Church had no martyrs to boast of, they must have forgotten +the exploits of their Norse kinsmen about the middle of this century. + +But the hour of retribution was fast coming round, and the native +tribes, unbound, divided, confused, and long unused to foreign war, +were fast recovering their old martial experience, and something like a +politic sense of the folly of their border feuds. Nothing perhaps so +much tended to arouse and combine them together as the capture of the +successor of Saint Patrick, with all his relics, and his imprisonment +among a Pagan host, in Irish waters. National humiliation could not +much farther go, and as we read we pause, prepared for either +alternative—mute submission or a brave uprising. King Nial seems to +have been in this memorable year, 843, defending as well as he might +his ancestral province—Ulster—against the ravagers of Lough Neagh, and +still another party whose ships flocked into Lough Swilly. In the +ancient plain of Moynith, watered by the little river Finn, (the +present barony of Raphoe,) he encountered the enemy, and according to +the Annals, "a countless number fell"—victory being with Nial. In the +same year, or the next, Turgesius was captured by Melaghlin, Lord of +Westmeath, apparently by stratagem, and put to death by the rather +novel process of drowning. The Bardic tale told to _Cambrensis_, or +parodied by him from an old Greek legend, of the death by which +Turgesius died, is of no historical authority. According to this tale, +the tyrant of Lough Ree conceived a passion for the fair daughter of +Melaghlin, and demanded her of her father, who, fearing to refuse, +affected to grant the infamous request, but despatched in her stead, to +the place of assignation, twelve beardless youths, habited as maidens, +to represent his daughter and her attendants; by these maskers the +Norwegian and his boon companions were assassinated, after they had +drank to excess and laid aside their arms and armour. For all this +superstructure of romance there is neither ground-work nor license in +the facts themselves, beyond this, that Turgesius was evidently +captured by some clever stratagem. We hear of no battle in Meath or +elsewhere against him immediately preceding the event; nor, is it +likely that a secondary Prince, as Melaghlin then was, could have +hazarded an engagement with the powerful master of Lough Ree. If the +local traditions of Westmeath may be trusted, where _Cambrensis_ is +rejected, the Norwegian and Irish principals in the tragedy of Lough +Owel were on visiting terms just before the denouement, and many +curious particulars of their peaceful but suspicious intercourse used +to be related by the modern story-tellers around Castle-pollard. The +anecdote of the rookery, of which Melaghlin complained, and the remedy +for which his visitor suggested to be "to cut down the trees and the +rooks would fly," has a suspicious look of the "tall poppies" of the +Roman and Grecian legend; two things only do we know for certain about +the matter: _firstly_, that Turgesius was taken and drowned in Lough +Owel in the year 843 or 844; and _secondly_, that this catastrophe was +brought about by the agency and order of his neighbour, Melaghlin. + +The victory of Moynith and the death of Turgesius were followed by some +local successes against other fleets and garrisons of the enemy. Those +of Lough Ree seem to have abandoned their fort, and fought their way +(gaining in their retreat the only military advantage of that year) +towards Sligo, where some of their vessels had collected to bear them +away. Their colleagues of Dublin, undeterred by recent reverses, made +their annual foray southward into Ossory, in 844, and immediately we +find King Nial moving up from the north to the same scene of action. In +that district he met his death in an effort to save the life of a +_gilla_, or common servant. The river of Callan being greatly swollen, +the _gilla_, in attempting to find a ford, was swept away in its turbid +torrent. The King entreated some one to go to his rescue, but as no one +obeyed he generously plunged in himself and sacrificed his own life in +endeavouring to preserve one of his humblest followers. He was in the +55th year of his age and the 13th of his reign, and in some traits of +character reminded men of his grandfather, the devout Nial "of the +Showers." The Bards have celebrated the justice of his judgments, the +goodness of his heart, and the comeliness of his "brunette-bright +face." He left a son of age to succeed him, (and who ultimately did +become _Ard-Righ_,) yet the present popularity of Melaghlin of Meath +triumphed over every other interest, and he was raised to the +monarchy—the first of his family who had yet attained that honour. +Hugh, the son of Nial, sank for a time into the rank of a Provincial +Prince, before the ascendant star of the captor of Turgesius, and is +usually spoken of during this reign as "Hugh of Aileach." He is found +towards its close, as if impatient of the succession, employing the +arms of the common enemy to ravage the ancient mensal land of the kings +of Erin, and otherwise harassing the last days of his successful rival. + +Melaghlin, or Malachy I. (sometimes called "of the Shannon," from his +patrimony along that river), brought back again the sovereignty to the +centre, and in happier days might have become the second founder of +Tara. But it was plain enough then, and it is tolerably so still, that +this was not to be an age of restoration. The kings of Ireland after +this time, says the quaint old translator of the Annals of +Clonmacnoise, "had little good of it," down to the days of King Brian. +It was, in fact, a perpetual struggle for self-preservation—the first +duty of all governments, as well as the first law of all nature. The +powerful action of the Gentile forces, upon an originally +ill-centralized and recently much abused Constitution, seemed to render +it possible that every new Ard-Righ would prove the last. Under the +pressure of such a deluge all ancient institutions were shaken to their +foundations; and the venerable authority of Religion itself, like a +Hermit in a mountain torrent, was contending for the hope of escape or +existence. We must not, therefore, amid the din of the conflicts +through which we are to pass, condemn without stint or qualification +those Princes who were occasionally driven—as some of them _were_ +driven—to that last resort, the employment of foreign mercenaries (and +those mercenaries often anti-Christians,) to preserve some show of +native government and kingly authority. Grant that in some of them the +use of such allies and agents cannot be justified on any plea or +pretext of state necessity; where base ends or unpatriotic motives are +clear or credible, such treason to country cannot be too heartily +condemned; but it is indeed far from certain that such were the motives +in _all_ cases, or that such ought to be our conclusion in any, in the +absence of sufficient evidence to that effect. + +Though the Gentile power had experienced towards the close of the last +reign such severe reverses, yet it was not in the nature of the men of +Norway to abandon a prize which was once so nearly being their own. The +fugitives who escaped, as well as those who remained within the strong +ramparts of Waterford and Dublin, urged the fitting out of new +expeditions, to avenge their slaughtered countrymen and prosecute the +conquest. But defeat still followed on defeat; in the first year of +Malachy, they lost 1,200 men in a disastrous action near Castle Dermot, +with Olcobar the Prince-bishop of Cashel; and in the same or the next +season they were defeated with the loss of 700 men, by Malachy, at +Fore, in Meath. In the third year of Malachy, however, a new northern +expedition arrived in 140 vessels, which, according to the average +capacity of the long-ships of that age, must have carried with them +from 7,000 to 10,000 men. Fortunately for the assailed, this fleet was +composed of what they called _Black_-Gentiles, or Danes, as +distinguished from their predecessors, the _Fair_-Gentiles, or +Norwegians. A quarrel arose between the adventurers of the two nations +as to the possession of the few remaining fortresses, especially of +Dublin; and an engagement was fought along the Liffey, which "lasted +for three days;" the Danes finally prevailed, driving the Norwegians +from their stronghold, and cutting them off from their ships. The new +Northern leaders are named Anlaf, or Olaf, Sitrick (Sigurd?) and Ivar; +the first of the Danish Earls, who established themselves at Dublin, +Waterford and Limerick respectively. Though the immediate result of the +arrival of the great fleet of 847 relieved for the moment the worst +apprehensions of the invaded, and enabled them to rally their means of +defence, yet as Denmark had more than double the population of Norway, +it brought them into direct collision with a more formidable power than +that from which they had been so lately delivered. The tactics of both +nations were the same. No sooner had they established themselves on the +ruins of their predecessors in Dublin, than the Danish forces entered +East-Meath, under the guidance of Kenneth, a local lord, and overran +the ancient mensal, from the sea to the Shannon. One of their first +exploits was burning alive 260 prisoners in the tower of Treoit, in the +island of Lough Gower, near Dunshaughlin. The next year, his allies +having withdrawn from the neighbourhood, Kenneth was taken by King +Malachy's men, and the traitor himself drowned in a sack, in the little +river Nanny, which divides the two baronies of Duleek. This +death-penalty by drowning seems to have been one of the useful hints +which the Irish picked up from their invaders. + +During the remainder of this reign the Gentile war resumed much of its +old local and guerrilla character, the Provincial chiefs, and the +Ard-Righ, occasionally employing bands of one nation of the invaders to +combat the other, and even to suppress their native rivals. The only +pitched battle of which we hear is that of "the Two Plains" (near +Coolestown, King's County), in the second last year of Malachy (A.D. +859), in which his usual good fortune attended the king. The greater +part of his reign was occupied, as always must be the case with the +founder of a new line, in coercing into obedience his former peers. On +this business he made two expeditions into Munster, and took hostages +from all the tribes of the Eugenian race. With the same object he held +a conference with all the chiefs of Ulster, Hugh of Aileach only being +absent, at Armagh, in the fourth year of his reign, and a General +_Feis_, or Assembly of all the Orders of Ireland, at Rathugh, in +West-Meath, in his thirteenth year (A.D. 857). He found, +notwithstanding his victories and his early popularity, that there are +always those ready to turn from the setting to the rising sun, and +towards the end of his reign he was obliged to defend his camp, near +Armagh, by force, from a night assault of the discontented Prince of +Aileach; who also ravaged his patrimony, almost at the moment he lay on +his death-bed. Malachy I. departed this life on the 13th day of +November, (A.D. 860), having reigned sixteen years. "Mournful is the +news to the Gael!" exclaims the elegiac Bard! "Red wine is spilled into +the valley! Erin's monarch has died!" And the lament contrasts his +stately form as "he rode the white stallion," with the striking reverse +when, "his only horse this day"—that is the bier on which his body was +borne to the churchyard—"is drawn behind two oxen." + +The restless Prince of Aileach now succeeded as Hugh VII., and +possessed the perilous honour he so much coveted for sixteen years, the +same span that had been allotted to his predecessor. The beginning of +this reign was remarkable for the novel design of the Danes, who +marched out in great force, and set themselves busily to breaking open +the ancient mounds in the cemetery of the Pagan kings, beside the +Boyne, in hope of finding buried treasure. The three Earls, Olaf, +Sitrick, and Ivar, are said to have been present, while their +gold-hunters broke into in succession the mound-covered cave of the +wife of Goban, at Drogheda, the cave of "the Shepherd of Elcmar," at +Dowth, the cave of the field of Aldai, at New Grange, and the similar +cave at Knowth. What they found in these huge cairns of the old +_Tuatha_ is not related; but Roman coins of Valentinian and Theodosius, +and torques and armlets of gold, have been discovered by accident +within their precincts, and an enlightened modern curiosity has not +explored them in vain, in the higher interests of history and science. + +In the first two years of his reign, Hugh VII. was occupied in securing +the hostages of his suffragans; in the third he swept the remaining +Danish and Norwegian garrisons out of Ulster, and defeated a newly +arrived force on the borders of Lough Foyle; the next the Danish Earls +went on a foray into Scotland, and no exploit is to be recorded; in his +sixth year, Hugh, with 1,000 chosen men of his own tribe and the aid of +the Sil-Murray (O'Conor's) of Connaught, attacked and defeated a force +of 5,000 Danes with their Leinster allies, near Dublin at a place +supposed to be identical with Killaderry. Earl Olaf lost his son, and +Erin her _Roydamna_, or heir-apparent, on this field, which was much +celebrated by the Bards of Ulster and of Connaught. Amongst those who +fell was Flan, son of Conaing, chief of the district which included the +plundered cemeteries, fighting on the side of the plunderers. The +mother of Flan was one of those who composed quatrains on the event of +the battle, and her lines are a natural and affecting alternation from +joy to grief—joy for the triumph of her brother and her country, and +grief for the loss of her self-willed, warlike son. Olaf, the Danish +leader, avenged in the next campaign the loss of his son, by a +successful descent on Armagh, once again rising from its ruins. He put +to the sword 1,000 persons, and left the primatial city lifeless, +charred, and desolate. In the next ensuing year the monarch chastised +the Leinster allies of the Danes, traversing their territory with fire +and sword from Dublin to the border town of Gowran. This seems to have +been the last of his notable exploits in arms. He died on the 20th of +November, 876, and is lamented by the Bards as "a generous, wise, staid +man." These praises belong—if at all deserved—to his old age. + +Flan, son of Malachy I. (and surnamed like his father "of the +Shannon"), succeeded in the year 877, of the Annals of the Four +Masters, or more accurately the year 879 of our common era. He enjoyed +the very unusual reign of thirty-eight years. Some of the domestic +events of his time are of so unprecedented a character, and the period +embraced is so considerable, that we must devote to it a separate +chapter. + + + +CHAPTER III. +REIGN OF FLAN "OF THE SHANNON" (A.D. 879 TO 916). + +Midway in the reign we are called upon to contemplate, falls the +centenary of the first invasion of Ireland by the Northmen. Let us +admit that the scenes of that century are stirring and stimulating; two +gallant races of men, in all points strongly contrasted, contend for +the most part in the open field, for the possession of a beautiful and +fertile island. Let us admit that the Milesian-Irish, themselves +invaders and conquerors of an older date, may have had no right to +declare the era of colonization closed for their country, while its +best harbours were without ships, and leagues of its best land were +without inhabitants; yet what gives to the contest its lofty and +fearful interest, is, that the foreigners who come so far and fight so +bravely for the prize, are a Pagan people, drunk with the evil spirit +of one of the most anti-Christian forms of human error. And what is +still worse, and still more to be lamented, it is becoming, after the +experience of a century, plainer and plainer, that the Christian +natives, while defending with unfaltering courage their beloved +country, are yet descending more and more to the moral level of their +assailants, without the apology of their Paganism. Degenerate +civilisation may be a worse element for truth to work in than original +barbarism; and, therefore, as we enter on the second century of this +struggle, we begin to fear for the Christian Irish, _not_ from the arms +or the valour, but from the contact and example of the unbelievers. +This, it is necessary to premise, before presenting to the reader a +succession of Bishops who lead armies to battle, of Abbots whose voice +is still for war, of treacherous tactics and savage punishments; of the +almost total disruption of the last links of that federal bond, which, +"though light as air were strong as iron," before the charm of +inviolability had been taken away from the ancient constitution. + +We begin to discern in this reign that royal marriages have much to do +with war and politics. Hugh, the late king, left a widow, named +Maelmara ("follower of Mary"), daughter to Kenneth M'Alpine, King of +the Caledonian Scots: this lady Flan married. The mother of Flan was +the daughter of Dungal, Prince of Ossory, so that to the cotemporary +lords of that borderland the monarch stood in the relation of cousin. A +compact seems to have been entered into in the past reign, that the +_Roydamna_, or successor, should be chosen alternately from the +Northern and Southern Hy-Nial; and, subsequently, when Nial, son of his +predecessor, assumed that onerous rank, Flan gave him his daughter +Gormley, celebrated for her beauty, her talents, and her heartlessness, +in marriage. From these several family ties, uniting him so closely +with Ossory, with the Scots, and with his successor, much of the wars +and politics of Flan Siona's reign take their cast and complexion. A +still more fruitful source of new complications was the co-equal power, +acquired through a long series of aggressions, by the kings of Cashel. +Their rivalry with the monarchy, from the beginning of the eighth till +the end of the tenth century, was a constant cause of intrigues, +coalitions, and wars, reminding us of the constant rivalry of Athens +with Sparta, of Genoa with Venice. This kingship of Cashel, according +to the Munster law of succession, "the will of Olild," ought to have +alternated regularly between the descendants of his sons, Eugene More +and Cormac Cas—the Eugenians and Dalcassians. But the families of the +former kindred were for many centuries the more powerful of the two, +and frequently set at nought the testamentary law of their common +ancestor, leaving the tribe of Cas but the border-land of Thomond, from +which they had sometimes to pay tribute to Cruachan, and at others to +Cashel. In the ninth century the competition among the Eugenian +houses—of which too many were of too nearly equal strength—seems to +have suggested a new expedient, with the view of permanently setting +aside the will of Olild. This was, to confer the kingship when vacant, +on whoever happened to be Bishop of Emly or of Cashel, or on some other +leading ecclesiastical dignitary, always provided that he was of +Eugenian descent; a qualification easily to be met with, since the +great sees and abbacies were now filled, for the most part, by the sons +of the neighbouring chiefs. In this way we find Cenfalad, Felim, and +Olcobar, in this century, styled Prince-Bishops or Prince-Abbots. The +principal domestic difficulty of Flan Siona's reign followed from the +elevation of Cormac, son of Cuillenan, from the see of Emly to the +throne of Cashel. + +Cormac, a scholar, and, as became his calling, a man of peace, was +thus, by virtue of his accession, the representative of the old quarrel +between his predecessors and the dominant race of kings. All Munster +asserted that it was never the intention of their common ancestors to +subject the southern half of Erin to the sway of the north; that Eber +and Owen More had resisted such pretensions when advanced by Eremhon +and Conn of the Hundred Battles; that the _esker_ from Dublin to Galway +was the true division, and that, even admitting the title of the +Hy-Nial king as Ard-Righ, all the tribes south of the _esker_, whether +in Leinster or Connaught, still owed tribute by ancient right to +Cashel. Their antiquaries had their own version in of "the Book of +Rights," which countenanced these claims to co-equal dominion, and +their Bards drew inspiration from the same high pretensions. Party +spirit ran so high that tales and prophecies were invented to show how +St. Patrick had laid his curse on Tara, and promised dominion to Cashel +and to Dublin in its stead. All Leinster, except the lordship of +Ossory—identical with the present diocese of the same name-was held by +the _Brehons_ of Cashel to be tributary to their king; and this +_Borooa_ or tribute, abandoned by the monarchs at the intercession of +Saint Moling, was claimed for the Munster rulers as an inseparable +adjunct of their southern kingdom. + +The first act of Flan Siona, on his accession, was to dash into +Munster, demanding hostages at the point of the sword, and sweeping +over both Thomond and Desmond with irresistible force, from Clare to +Cork. With equal promptitude he marched through every territory of +Ulster, securing, by the pledges of their heirs and _Tanists_, the +chiefs of the elder tribes of the Hy-Nial. So effectually did he +consider his power established over the provinces, that he is said to +have boasted to one of his hostages, that he would, with no other +attendants than his own servants, play a game of chess on Thurles +Green, without fear of interruption. Carrying out this foolish wager, +he accordingly went to his game at Thurles, and was very properly taken +prisoner for his temerity, and made to pay a smart ransom to his +captors. So runs the tale, which, whether true or fictitious, is not +without its moral. Flan experienced greater difficulty with the tribes +of Connaught, nor was it till the thirteenth year of his reign (892) +that Cathal, their Prince, "came into his house," in Meath, "under the +protection of the clergy" of Clonmacnoise, and made peace with him. A +brief interval of repose seems to have been vouchsafed to this Prince, +in the last years of the century; but a storm was gathering over +Cashel, and the high pretensions of the Eugenian line were again to be +put to the hazard of battle. + +Cormac, the Prince-Bishop, began his rule over Munster in the year 900 +of our common era, and passed some years in peace, after his accession. +If we believe his panegyrists, the land over which he bore sway, "was +filled with divine grace and worldly prosperity," and with order so +unbroken, "that the cattle needed no cowherd, and the flocks no +shepherd, so long as he was king." Himself an antiquary and a lover of +learning, it seems but natural that "many books were written, and many +schools opened," by his liberality. During this enviable interval, +councillors of less pacific mood than their studious master were not +wanting to stimulate his sense of kingly duty, by urging him to assert +the claim of Munster to the tribute of the southern half of Erin. As an +antiquary himself, Cormac must have been bred up in undoubting belief +in the justice of that claim, and must have given judgment in favour of +its antiquity and validity, before his accession. These _dicta_ of his +own were now quoted with emphasis, and he was besought to enforce, by +all the means within his reach, the learned judgments he himself had +delivered. The most active advocate of a recourse to arms was Flaherty, +Abbot of Scattery, in the Shannon, himself an Eugenian, and the kinsman +of Cormac. After many objections, the peaceful Prince-Bishop allowed +himself to be persuaded, and in the year 907 he took up his line of +march, "in the fortnight of the harvest," from Cashel toward Gowran, at +the head of all the armament of Munster. Lorcan, son of Lactna, and +grandfather of Brian, commanded the Dalcassians, under Cormac; and +Oliol, lord of Desies, and the warlike Abbot of Scattery, led on the +other divisions. The monarch marched southward to meet his assailants, +with his own proper troops, and the contingents of Connaught under +Cathel, Prince of that Province, and those of Leinster under the lead +of Kerball, their king. Both armies met at Ballaghmoon, in the southern +corner of Kildare, not far from the present town of Carlow, and both +fought with most heroic bravery. The Munster forces were utterly +defeated; the Lords of Desies, of Fermoy, of Kinalmeaky, and of Kerry, +the Abbots of Cork and Kennity, and Cormac himself, with 6,000 men, +fell on the ensanguined field. The losses of the victors are not +specified, but the 6,000, we may hope, included the total of the slain +on both sides. Flan at once improved the opportunity of victory by +advancing into Ossory, and establishing his cousin Dermid, son of +Kerball, over that territory. This Dermid, who appears to have been +banished by Munster intrigues, had long resided with his royal cousin, +previous to the battle, from which he was probably the only one that +derived any solid advantage. As to the Abbot Flaherty, the instigator +of this ill-fated expedition, he escaped from the conquerors, and, safe +in his island sanctuary, gave himself up for a while to penitential +rigours. The worldly spirit, however, was not dead in his breast, and +after the decease of Cormac's next successor, he emerged from his cell, +and was elevated to the kingship of Cashel. + +In the earlier and middle years of this long reign, the invasions from +the Baltic had diminished both in force and in frequency. This is to be +accounted for from the fact, that during its entire length it was +contemporaneous with the reign of Harold, "the Fair-haired" King of +Norway, the scourge of the sea-kings. This more fortunate Charles XII., +born in 853, died at the age of 81, after sixty years of almost +unbroken successes, over all his Danish, Swedish, and insular enemies. +It is easy to comprehend, by reference to his exploits upon the Baltic, +the absence of the usual northern force from the Irish waters, during +his lifetime, and that of his cotemporary, Flan of the Shannon. Yet the +race of the sea-kings was not extinguished by the fair-haired Harold's +victories over them, at home. Several of them permanently abandoned +their native coasts never to return, and recruited their colonies, +already so numerous, in the Orkneys, Scotland, England, Ireland, and +the Isle of Man. In 885, Flan was repulsed in an attack on Dublin, in +which repulse the Abbots of Kildare and Kildalkey were slain; in the +year 890, Aileach was surprised and plundered by Danes, for the first +time, and Armagh shared its fate; in 887, 888, and 891, three minor +victories were gained over separate hordes, in Mayo, at Waterford, and +in Ulidia (Down). In 897, Dublin was taken for the first time in sixty +years, its chiefs put to death, while its garrison fled in their ships +beyond sea. But in the first quarter of the tenth century, better +fortune begins to attend the Danish cause. A new generation enters on +the scene, who dread no more the long arm of the age-stricken Harold, +nor respect the treaties which bound their predecessors in Britain to +the great Alfred. In 912, Waterford received from sea a strong +reinforcement, and about the same date, or still earlier, Dublin, from +which they had been expelled in 897, was again in their possession. In +913, and for several subsequent years, the southern garrisons continued +their ravages in Munster, where the warlike Abbot of Scattery found a +more suitable object for the employment of his valour than that which +brought him, with the studious Cormac, to the fatal field of +Ballaghmoon. + +The closing days of Flan of the Shannon were embittered and darkened by +the unnatural rebellion of his sons, Connor and Donogh, and his +successor, Nial, surnamed _Black-Knee_ (_Glundubh_), the husband of his +daughter, Gormley. These children were by his second marriage with +Gormley, daughter of that son of Conaing, whose name has already +appeared in connection with the plundered sepulchres upon the Boyne. At +the age of three score and upwards Flan is frequently obliged to +protect by recourse to arms his mensal lands in Meath—their favourite +point of attack—or to defend some faithful adherent whom these +unnatural Princes sought to oppress. The daughter of Flan, thus wedded +to a husband in arms against her father, seems to have been as little +dutiful as his sons. We have elegiac stanzas by her on the death of two +of her husbands and of one of her sons, but none on the death of her +father: although this form of tribute to the departed, by those skilled +in such compositions, seems to have been as usual as the ordinary +prayers for the dead. + +At length, in the 37th year of his reign, and the 68th of his age, King +Flan was at the end of his sorrows. As became the prevailing character +of his life, he died peacefully, in a religious house at Kyneigh, in +Kildare, on the 8th of June, in the year 916, of the common era. The +Bards praise his "fine shape" and "august mien," as well as his +"pleasant and hospitable" private habits. Like all the kings of his +race he seems to have been brave enough: but he was no lover of war for +war's-sake, and the only great engagement in his long reign was brought +on by enemies who left him no option but to fight. His munificence +rebuilt the Cathedral of Clonmacnoise, with the co-operation of Colman, +the Abbot, the year after the battle of Ballaghmoon (908); for which +age, it was the largest and finest stone Church in Ireland. His charity +and chivalry both revolted at the cruel excesses of war, and when the +head of Cormac of Cashel was presented to him after his victory, he +rebuked those who rejoiced over his rival's fall, kissed reverently the +lips of the dead, and ordered the relics to be delivered, as Cormac had +himself willed it, to the Church of Castledermot, for Christian burial. +These traits of character, not less than his family afflictions, and +the generally peaceful tenor of his long life, have endeared to many +the memory of Flan of the Shannon. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +KINGS OF THE TENTH CENTURY; NIAL IV.; DONOGH II.; CONGAL III.; DONALD +IV. + +Nial IV. (surnamed _Black-Knee_) succeeded his father-in-law, Flan of +the Shannon (A.D. 916), and in the third year of his reign fell in an +assault on Dublin; Donogh II., son of Flan Siona, reigned for +twenty-five years; Congal III. succeeded, and was slain in an ambush by +the Dublin Danes, in the twelfth year of his reign (A.D. 956); Donald +IV., in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, died at Armagh, (A.D. +979); which four reigns bring us to the period of the accession of +Malachy II. as _Ard-Righ_, and the entrance of Brian Boru, on the +national stage, as King of Cashel, and competitor for the monarchy. + +The reign of Nial _Black-Knee_ was too brief to be memorable for any +other event than his heroic death in battle. The Danes having recovered +Dublin, and strengthened its defences, Nial, it is stated, was incited +by his confessor, the Abbot of Bangor, to attempt their re-expulsion. +Accordingly, in October, 919, he marched towards Dublin, with a +numerous host; Conor, son of the late king and _Roydamna_; the lords of +Ulidia (Down), Oriel (Louth), Breagh (East-Meath), and other chiefs, +with their clans accompanying him. Sitrick and Ivar, sons of the first +Danish leaders in Ireland, marched out to meet them, and near +Rathfarnham, on the Dodder, a battle was fought, in which the Irish +were utterly defeated and their monarch slain. This Nial left a son +named Murkertach, who, according to the compact entered into between +the Northern and Southern Hy-Nial, became the _Roydamna_ of the next +reign, and the most successful leader against the Danes, since the time +of Malachy I. He was the step-son of the poetic Lady Gormley, whose lot +it was to have been married in succession to the King of Munster, the +King of Leinster, and the Monarch. Her first husband was Cormac, son of +Cuilenan, before he entered holy orders; her second, Kerball of +Leinster, and her third, Nial _Black-Knee_. She was an accomplished +poetess, besides being the daughter, wife, and mother of king's, yet +after the death of Nial she "begged from door to door," and no one had +pity on her fallen state. By what vices she had thus estranged from her +every kinsman, and every dependent, we are left to imagine; but that +such was her misfortune, at the time her brother was monarch, and her +step-son successor, we learn from the annals, which record her penance +and death, under the date of 948. + +The defeat sustained near Rathfarnham, by the late king, was amply +avenged in the first year of the new _Ard-Righ_ (A.D. 920), when the +Dublin Danes, having marched out, taken and burned Kells, in Meath, +were on their return through the plain of Breagh, attacked and routed +with unprecedented slaughter. "There fell of the nobles of the Norsemen +here," say the old Annalists, "as many as fell of the nobles and +plebeians of the Irish, at Ath-Cliath" (Dublin). The Northern Hydra, +however, was not left headless. Godfrey, grandson of Ivar, and Tomar, +son of Algi, took command at Dublin, and Limerick, infusing new life +into the remnant of their race. The youthful son of the late king, soon +after at the head of a strong force (A.D. 921), compelled Godfrey to +retreat from Ulster, to his ships, and to return by sea to Dublin. This +was Murkertach, fondly called by the elegiac Bards, "the Hector of the +West," and for his heroic achievements, not undeserving to be named +after the gallant defender of Troy. Murkertach first appears in our +annals at the year 921, and disappears in the thick of the battle in +938. His whole career covers seventeen years; his position throughout +was subordinate and expectant—for King Donogh outlived his heir: but +there are few names in any age of the history of his country more +worthy of historical honour than his. While Donogh was king in name, +Murkertach was king in fact; on him devolved the burden of every +negotiation, and the brunt of every battle. Unlike his ancestor, Hugh +of Aileach, in his opposition to Donogh's ancestor, Malachy I., he +never attempts to counteract the king, or to harass him in his +patrimony. He rather does what is right and needful himself, leaving +Donogh to claim the credit, if he be so minded. True, a coolness and a +quarrel arises between them, and even "a challenge of battle" is +exchanged, but better councils prevail, peace is restored, and the king +and the _Roydamna_ march as one man against the common enemy. It has +been said of another but not wholly dissimilar form of government, that +Crown-Princes are always in opposition; if this saying holds good of +father and son, as occupant and expectant of a throne, how much more +likely is it to be true of a successor and a principal, chosen from +different dynasties, with a view to combine, or at worst to balance, +conflicting hereditary interests? In the conduct of Murkertach, we +admire, in turn, his many shining personal qualities, which even +tasteless panegyric cannot hide, and the prudence, self-denial, +patience, and preservance with which he awaits his day of power. +Unhappily, for one every way so worthy of it, that day never arrived! + +At no former period,—not even at the height of the tyranny of +Turgesius,—was a capable Prince more needed in Erin. The new generation +of Northmen were again upon all the estuaries and inland waters of the +Island. In the years 923-4 and 5, their light armed vessels swarmed on +Lough Erne, Lough Ree, and other lakes, spreading flame and terror on +every side. Clonmacnoise and Kildare, slowly recovering from former +pillage, were again left empty and in ruins. Murkertach, the base of +whose early operations was his own patrimony in Ulster, attacked near +Newry a Northern division under the command of the son of Godfrey (A.D. +926), and left 800 dead on the field. The escape of the remnant was +only secured by Godfrey marching rapidly to their relief and covering +the retreat. His son lay with the dead. In the years 933, at Slieve +Behma, in his own Province, Murkertach won a third victory; and in 936, +taking political advantage of the result of the great English battle of +Brunanburgh, which had so seriously diminished the Danish strength, the +Roydamna, in company with the King, assaulted Dublin, expelled its +garrison, levelled its fortress, and left the dwellings of the Northmen +in ashes. From Dublin they proceeded southward, through Leinster and +Munster, and after taking hostages of every tribe, Donogh returned to +his Methian home and Murkertach to Aileach. While resting in his own +fort (A.D. 939), he was surprised by a party of Danes, and carried off +to their ships, but, says the old translator of the Annals of +Clonmacnoise, "he made a good escape from them, as it was God's will." +The following season he redoubled his efforts against the enemy. +Attacking them on their own element, he ravaged their settlements on +the Scottish coasts and among the isles of Insi-Gall (the Hebrides), +returned laden with spoils, and hailed with acclamations as the +liberator of his people. + +Of the same age with Murkertach, the reigning Prince at Cashel was +Kellachan, one of the heroes of the latter Bards and Story-tellers of +the South. The romantic tales of his capture by the Danes, and +captivity in their fleet at Dundalk, of the love which Sitrick's wife +bore him, and of his gallant rescue by the Dalcassians and Eugenians, +have no historical sanction. He was often both at war and at peace with +the foreigners of Cork and Limerick, and did not hesitate more than +once to employ their arms for the maintenance of his own supremacy; but +his only authentic captivity was, as a hostage, in the hands of +Murkertach. While the latter was absent, on his expedition to +Insi-Gall, Kellachan fell upon the Deisi and Ossorians, and inflicted +severe chastisement upon them-alleging, as his provocation, that they +had given hostages to Murkertach, and acknowledged him as _Roydamna_ of +all Erin, in contempt of the co-equal rights of Cashel. When Murkertach +returned from his Scotch expedition, and heard what had occurred, and +on what pretext Kellachan had acted, he assembled at Aileach all the +branches of the Northern Hy-Nial, for whom this was cause, indeed. Out +of these he selected 1000 chosen men, whom he provided, among other +equipments, with those "leathern coats," which lent a _soubriquet_ to +his name; and with these "ten hundred heroes," he set out—strong in his +popularity and his alliances—to make a circuit of the entire island +(A.D. 940). He departed from Aileach, says his Bard, whose Itinerary we +have, "keeping his left hand to the sea;" Dublin, once more rebuilt, +acknowledged his title, and Sitrick, one of its lords, went with him as +hostage for Earl Blacair and his countrymen; Leinster surrendered him +Lorcan, its King; Kellachan, of Cashel, overawed by his superior +fortune, advised his own people not to resist by force, and consented +to become himself the hostage for all Munster. In Connaught, Conor, +(from whom the O'Conors take their family name), son of the Prince, +came voluntarily to his camp, and was received with open arms. +Kellachan alone was submitted to the indignity of wearing a fetter. +With these distinguished hostages, Murkertach and his leather-cloaked +"ten hundred" returned to Aileach, where, for five months, they spent a +season of unbounded rejoicing. In the following year, the _Roydamna_ +transferred the hostages to King Donogh, as his _suzerain_, thus +setting the highest example of obedience from the highest place. He +might now look abroad over all the tribes of Erin, and feel himself +without a rival among his countrymen. He stood at the very summit of +his good fortune, when the Danes of Dublin, reinforced from abroad, +after his "Circuit," renewed their old plundering practices. They +marched north, at the close of winter, under Earl Blacair, their +destination evidently being Armagh. Murkertach, with some troops +hastily collected, disputed their passage at the ford of Ardee. An +engagement ensued on Saturday, the 4th of March, 943, in which the +noble _Roydamna_ fell. King Donogh, to whose reign his vigorous spirit +has given its main historical importance, survived him but a +twelvemonth; the Monarch died in the bed of repose; his destined +successor in the thick of battle. + +The death of the brave and beloved Murkertach filled all Erin with +grief and rage, and as King Donogh was too old to avenge his destined +successor, that duty devolved on Congal, the new _Roydamna_. In the +year after the fatal action at Ardee, Congal, with Brann, King of +Leinster, and Kellach, heir of Leinster, assaulted and took Dublin, and +wreaked a terrible revenge for the nation's loss. The "women, children, +and plebeians," were carried off captive; the greater part of the +garrison were put to the sword; but a portion escaped in their vessels +to their fortress on Dalkey, an island in the bay of Dublin. This was +the third time within a century that Dublin had been rid of its foreign +yoke, and yet as the Gaelic-Irish would not themselves dwell in +fortified towns, the site remained open and unoccupied, to be rebuilt +as often as it might be retaken. The gallant Congal, the same year, +succeeded on the death of Donogh to the sovereignty, and, so soon as he +had secured his seat, and surrounded it with sufficient hostages, he +showed that he could not only avenge the death, but imitate the +glorious life of him whose place he held. Two considerable victories in +his third and fourth years increased his fame, and rejoiced the hearts +of his countrymen: the first was won at Slane, aided by the Lord of +Breffni (O'Ruarc), and by Olaf the Crooked, a northern chief. The +second was fought at Dublin (947), in which Blacair, the victor at +Ardee, and 1,600 of his men were slain. Thus was the death of +Murkertach finally avenged. + +It is very remarkable that the first conversions to Christianity among +the Danes of Dublin should have taken place immediately after these +successive defeats—in 948. Nor, although quite willing to impute the +best and most disinterested motives to these first neophytes, can we +shut our eyes to the fact that no change of life, such as we might +reasonably look for, accompanied their change of religion. Godfrid, son +of Sitrick, and successor of Blacair, who professed himself a Christian +in 948, plundered and destroyed the churches of East-Meath in 949, +burnt 150 persons in the oratory of Drumree, and carried off as +captives 3,000 persons. If the tree is to be judged by its fruits, this +first year's growth of the new faith is rather alarming. It compels us +to disbelieve the sincerity of Godfrid, at least, and the fighting men +who wrought these outrages and sacrileges. It forces us to rank them +with the incorrigible heathens who boasted that they had twenty times +received the Sacrament of Baptism, and valued it for the twenty white +robes which had been presented to them on those occasions. Still, we +must endeavour hereafter, when we can, to distinguish Christian from +Pagan Danes, and those of Irish birth, sons of the first comers, from +the foreign-born kinsmen of their ancestors. Between these two classes +there grew a gulf of feeling and experience, which a common language +and common dangers only partially bridged over. Not seldom the +interests and inclinations of the Irish-born Dane, especially if a true +Christian, were at open variance with the interests and designs of the +new arrivals from Denmark, and it is generally, if not invariably, with +the former, that the Leinster and other Irish Princes enter into +coalitions for common political purposes. The remainder of the reign of +Congal is one vigorous battle. The Lord of Breffni, who had fought +beside him on the hill of Slane, advanced his claim to be recognised +_Roydamna_, and this being denied, broke out into rebellion and +harassed his patrimony. Donald, son of Murkertach, and grandson of +Nial, (the first who took the name of _Uai-Nial_, or O'Neill), disputed +these pretensions of the Lord of Breffni; carried his boats overland +from Aileach to Lough Erne in Fermanagh, and Lough Oughter in Cavan; +attacked the lake-islands, where the treasure and hostages of Breffni +were kept, and carried them off to his own fortress. The warlike and +indefatigable king was in the field summer and winter enforcing his +authority on Munster and Connaught, and battling with the foreign +garrisons between times. No former Ard-Righ had a severer struggle with +the insubordinate elements which beset him from first to last. His end +was sudden, but not inglorious. In returning from the chariot-races at +the Curragh of Kildare, he was surprised and slain in an ambuscade laid +for him by Godfrid at a place on the banks of the Liffey called Tyraris +or Teeraris house. By his side, fighting bravely, fell the lords of +Teffia and Ferrard, two of his nephews, and others of his personal +attendants and companions. The Dublin Danes had in their turn a day of +rejoicing and of revenge for the defeats they had suffered at Congal's +hands. + +This reign is not only notable for the imputed first conversion of the +Danes to Christianity, but also for the general adoption of family +names. Hitherto, we have been enabled to distinguish clansmen only by +tribe-names formed by prefixing _Hy_, _Kinnel_, _Sil_, _Muintir_, +_Dal_, or some synonymous term, meaning race, kindred, sept, district, +or part, to the proper name of a remote common ancestor, as Hy-Nial, +Kinnel-Connel, Sil-Murray, Muintir-Eolais, Dal-g Cais, and Dal-Riada. +But the great tribes now begin to break into families, and we are +hereafter to know particular houses, by distinct hereditary surnames, +as O'Neill, O'Conor, MacMurrough, and McCarthy. Yet, the whole body of +relatives are often spoken of by the old tribal title, which, unless +exceptions are named, is supposed to embrace all the descendants of the +old connection to whom it was once common. At first this alternate use +of tribe and family names may confuse the reader—for it _is_ rather +puzzling to find a MacLoughlin with the same paternal ancestor as an +O'Neill, and a McMahon of Thomond as an O'Brien, but the difficulty +disappears with use and familiarity, and though the number and variety +of newly-coined names cannot be at once committed to memory, the story +itself gains in distinctness by the change. + +In the year 955, Donald O'Neill, son of the brave and beloved +Murkertach, was recognised as Ard-Righ, by the required number of +Provinces, without recourse to coercion. But it was _not_ to be +expected that any Ard-Righ should, at this period of his country's +fortunes, reign long in peace. War was then the business of the King; +the first art he had to learn, and the first to practise. Warfare in +Ireland had not been a stationary science since the arrival of the +Norwegians and their successors, the Danes. Something they may have +acquired from the natives, and in turn the natives were not slow to +copy whatever seemed most effective in their tactics. Donald IV. was +the first to imitate their habit of employing armed boats on the inland +lakes. He even improved on their example, by carrying these boats with +him overland, and launching them wherever he needed their co-operation; +as we have already seen him do in his expedition against Breffni, while +_Roydamna_, and as we find him doing again, in the seventh year of his +reign, when he carried his boats overland from Armagh to West-Meath in +order to employ them on Loch Ennell, near Mullingar. He was at this +time engaged in making his first royal visitation of the Provinces, +upon which he spent two months in Leinster, with all his forces, +coerced the Munster chiefs by fire and sword into obedience, and +severely punished the insubordination of Fergal O'Ruarc, King of +Connaught. His fleet upon Loch Ennell, and his severities generally +while in their patrimony, so exasperated the powerful families of the +Southern Hy-Nial (the elder of which was now known as O'Melaghlin), +that on the first opportunity they leagued with the Dublin Danes, under +their leader, Olaf "the Crooked" (A.D. 966), and drove King Donald out +of Leinster and Meath, pursuing him across Slieve-Fuaid, almost to the +walls of Aileach. But the brave tribes of Tyrconnell and Tyrowen +rallied to his support, and he pressed south upon the insurgents of +Meath and Dublin; West-Meath he rapidly overran, and "planted a +garrison in every cantred from the Shannon to Kells," In the campaigns +which now succeeded each other, without truce or pause, for nearly a +dozen years, the Leinster people generally sympathised with and +assisted those of West-Meath, and Olaf, of Dublin, who recruited his +ranks by the junction of the Lagmans, a warlike tribe, from Insi-Gall +(the Hebrides). Ossory, on the other hand, acted with the monarch, and +the son of its Tanist (A.D. 974) was slain before Dublin, by Olaf and +his Leinster allies, with 2,600 men, of Ossory and Ulster. The campaign +of 978 was still more eventful: the Leinster men quarrelled with their +Danish allies, who had taken their king captive, and in an engagement +at Belan, near Athy, defeated their forces, with the loss of the heir +of Leinster, the lords of Kinsellagh, Lea and Morett, and other chiefs. +King Donald had no better fortune at Killmoon, in Meath, the same +season, where he was utterly routed by the same force, with the loss of +Ardgal, heir of Ulidia, and Kenneth, lord of Tyrconnell. But for the +victories gained about the same period in Munster, by Mahon and Brian, +the sons of Kennedy, over the Danes of Limerick, of which we shall +speak more fully hereafter, the balance of victory would have strongly +inclined towards the Northmen at this stage of the contest. + +A leader, second in fame and in services only to Brian, was now putting +forth his energies against the common enemy, in Meath. This was +Melaghlin, better known afterwards as Malachy II., son of Donald, son +of King Donogh, and, therefore, great-grandson to his namesake, Malachy +I. He had lately attained to the command of his tribe—and he resolved +to earn the honours which were in store for him, as successor to the +sovereignty. In the year 979, the Danes of Dublin and the Isles marched +in unusual strength into Meath, under the command of Rannall, son of +Olaf the Crooked, and Connail, "the Orator of Ath-Cliath," (Dublin). +Malachy, with his allies, gave them battle near Tara, and achieved a +complete victory. Earl Rannall and the Orator were left dead on the +field, with, it is reported, 5,000 of the foreigners. On the Irish side +fell the heir of Leinster, the lord of Morgallion and his son; the +lords of Fertullagh and Cremorne, and a host of their followers. The +engagement, in true Homeric spirit, had been suspended on three +successive nights, and renewed three successive days. It was a genuine +pitched battle—a trial of main strength, each party being equally +confident of victory. The results were most important, and most +gratifying to the national pride. Malachy, accompanied by his friend, +the lord of Ulidia (Down), moved rapidly on Dublin, which, in its +panic, yielded to all his demands. The King of Leinster and 2,000 other +prisoners were given up to him without ransom. The Danish Earls +solemnly renounced all claims to tribute or fine from any of the +dwellers without their own walls. Malachy remained in the city three +days, dismantled its fortresses, and carried off its hostages and +treasure. The unfortunate Olaf the Crooked fled beyond seas, and died +at Iona, in exile, and a Christian. In the same year, and in the midst +of universal rejoicing, Donald IV. died peacefully and piously at +Armagh, in the 24th year of his reign. He was succeeded by Malachy, who +was his sister's son, and in whom all the promise of the lamented +Murkertach seemed to revive. + +The story of Malachy II. is so interwoven with the still-more +illustrious career of Brian _Borooa_, that it will not lose in interest +by being presented in detail. But before entering on the rivalry of +these great men, we must again remark on the altered position which the +Northmen of this age hold to the Irish from that which existed +formerly. A century and a half had now elapsed since their first +settlement in the seaports, especially of the eastern and southern +Provinces. More than one generation of their descendants had been born +on the banks of the Liffey, the Shannon, and the Suir. Many of them had +married into Irish families, had learned the language of the country, +and embraced its religion. When Limerick was taken by Brian, Ivar, its +Danish lord, fled for sanctuary to Scattery Island, and when Dublin was +taken by Malachy II., Olaf the Crooked fled to Iona. Inter-marriages +with the highest Gaelic families became frequent, after their +conversion to Christianity. The mother of Malachy, after his father's +death, had married Olaf of Dublin, by whom she had a son, named +_Gluniarran (Iron-Knee_, from his armour), who was thus half-brother to +the King. It is natural enough to find him the ally of Malachy, a few +years later, against Ivar of Waterford; and curious enough to find +Ivar's son called Gilla-Patrick—servant of Patrick. Kellachan of Cashel +had married a Danish, and Sitrick "of the Silken beard," an Irish lady. +That all the Northmen were not, even in Ireland, converted in one +generation, is evident. Those of Insi-Gall were still, perhaps, Pagans; +those of the Orkneys and of Denmark, who came to the battle of Clontarf +in the beginning of the next century, chose to fight on Good Friday +under the advice of their heathen Oracles. The first half of the +eleventh century, the age of Saint Olaf and of Canute, is the era of +the establishment of Christianity among the Scandinavians, and hence +the necessity for distinguishing between those who came to Ireland, +direct from the Baltic, from those who, born in Ireland and bred up in +the Christian faith, had as much to apprehend from such an invasion, as +the Celts themselves. + + + +CHAPTER V. +REIGN OF MALACHY II. AND RIVALRY OF BRIAN. + +Melaghlin, or Malachy II., fifth in direct descent from Malachy I. (the +founder of the Southern Hy-Nial dynasty), was in his thirtieth year +when (A.D. 980) he succeeded to the monarchy. He had just achieved the +mighty victory of Tara when the death of his predecessor opened his way +to the throne; and seldom did more brilliant dawn usher in a more +eventful day than that which Fate held in store for this victor-king. +None of his predecessors, not even his ancestor and namesake, had ever +been able to use the high language of his "noble Proclamation," when he +announced on his accession—"Let all the Irish who are suffering +servitude in the land of the stranger return home to their respective +houses and enjoy themselves in gladness and in peace." In obedience to +this edict, and the power to enforce it established by the victory at +Tara, 2,000 captives, including the King of Leinster and the Prince of +Aileach, were returned to their homes. + +The hardest task of every Ard-Righ of this and the previous century had +been to circumscribe the ambition of the kings of Cashel within +Provincial bounds. Whoever ascended the southern throne—whether the +warlike Felim or the learned Cormac—we have seen the same policy +adopted by them all. The descendants of Heber had tired of the long +ascendancy of the race of Heremon, and the desertion of Tara, by making +that ascendancy still more strikingly Provincial, had increased their +antipathy. It was a struggle for supremacy between north and south; a +contest of two geographical parties; an effort to efface the real or +fancied dependency of one-half the island on the will of the other. The +Southern Hy-Nial dynasty, springing up as a third power upon the +Methian bank of the Shannon, and balancing itself between the +contending parties, might perhaps have given a new centre to the whole +system; Malachy II. was in the most favourable position possible to +have done so, had he not had to contend with a rival, his equal in +battle and superior in council, in the person of Brian, the son of +Kennedy, of Kincorra. + +The rise to sovereign rank of the house of Kincorra (the O'Briens), is +one of the most striking episodes of the tenth century. Descending, +like most of the leading families of the South, from Olild, the Clan +Dalgais had long been excluded from the throne of Cashel, by successive +coalitions of their elder brethren, the Eugenians. Lactna and Lorcan, +the grandfather and father of Kennedy, intrepid and able men, had +strengthened their tribe by wise and vigorous measures, so that the +former was able to claim the succession, apparently with success. +Kennedy had himself been a claimant for the same honour, the alternate +provision in the will of Olild, against Kellachan Cashel (A.D. 940-2), +but at the Convention held at Glanworth, on the river Funcheon, for the +selection of king, the aged mother of Kellachan addressed his rival in +a quatrain, beginning— + +"Kennedi Cas revere the law!" + + +which induced him to abandon his pretensions. This Prince, usually +spoken of by the Bards as "the chaste Kennedy," died in the year 950, +leaving behind him four or five out of twelve sons, with whom he had +been blessed. Most of the others had fallen in Danish battles—three in +the same campaign (943), and probably in the same field. There appear +in after scenes, Mahon, who became King of Cashel; Echtierna, who was +chief of Thomond, under Mahon; Marcan, an ecclesiastic, and Brian, born +in 941, the Benjamin of the household. Mahon proved himself, as Prince +and Captain, every way worthy of his inheritance. He advanced from +victory to victory over his enemies, foreign and domestic. In 960 he +claimed the throne of Munster, which claim he enforced by royal +visitation five years later. In the latter year, he rescued +Clonmacnoise from the Danes, and in 968 defeated the same enemy, with a +loss of several thousand men at Sulchoid. This great blow he followed +up by the sack of Limerick, from which "he bore off a large quantity of +gold, and silver, and jewels." In these, and all his expeditions, from +a very early age, he was attended by Brian, to whom he acted not only +as a brother and prince, but as a tutor in arms. Fortune had +accompanied him in all his undertakings. He had expelled his most +intractable rival—Molloy, son of Bran, lord of Desmond; his rule was +acknowledged by the Northmen of Dublin and Cork, who opened their +fortresses to him, and served under his banner; he carried "all the +hostages of Munster to his house," which had never before worn so +triumphant an aspect. But family greatness begets family pride, and +pride begets envy and hatred. The Eugenian families who now found +themselves overshadowed by the brilliant career of the sons of Kennedy, +conspired against the life of Mahon, who, from his too confiding +nature, fell easily into their trap. Molloy, son of Bran, by the advice +of Ivar, the Danish lord of Limerick, proposed to meet Mahon in +friendly conference at the house of Donovan, an Eugenian chief, whose +rath was at Bruree, on the river Maigue. The safety of each person was +guaranteed by the Bishop of Cork, the mediator on the occasion. Mahon +proceeded unsuspiciously to the conference, where he was suddenly +seized by order of his treacherous host, and carried into the +neighbouring mountains of Knocinreorin. Here a small force, placed for +the purpose by the conspirators, had orders promptly to despatch their +victim. But the foul deed was not done unwitnessed. Two priests of the +Bishop of Cork followed the Prince, who, when arrested, snatched up +"the Gospel of St. Barry," on which Molloy was to have sworn his +fealty. As the swords of the assassins were aimed at his heart, he held +up the Gospel for a protection, and his blood spouting out, stained the +Sacred Scriptures. The priests, taking up the blood-stained volume, +fled to their Bishop, spreading the horrid story as they went. The +venerable successor of St. Barry "wept bitterly, and uttered a prophecy +concerning the future fate of the murderers;" a prophecy which was very +speedily fulfilled. + +This was in the year 976, three or four years before the battle of Tara +and the accession of Malachy. When the news of his noble-hearted +brother's murder was brought to Brian, at Kinkora, he was seized with +the most violent grief. His favourite harp was taken down, and he sang +the death-song of Mahon, recounting all the glorious actions of his +life. His anger flashed out through his tears, as he wildly chanted + + "My heart shall burst within my breast, + Unless I avenge this great king; + They shall forfeit life for this foul deed + Or I must perish by a violent death." + + +But the climax of his lament was, that Mahon "had not fallen in battle +behind the shelter of his shield, rather than trust in the treacherous +words of Donovan." Brian was now in his thirty-fifth year, was married, +and had several children. Morrogh, his eldest, was able to bear arms, +and shared in his ardour and ambition. "His first effort," says an old +Chronicle, "was directed against Donovan's allies, the Danes of +Limerick, and he slew Ivar their king, and two of his sons." These +conspirators, foreseeing their fate, had retired into the holy isle of +Scattery, but Brian slew them between "the horns of the altar." For +this violation of the sanctuary, considering his provocation, he was +little blamed. He next turned his rage against Donovan, who had called +to his aid the Danish townsmen of Desmond. "Brian," says the Annalist +of Innisfallen, "gave them battle where Auliffe and his Danes, and +Donovan and his Irish forces, were all cut off." After that battle, +Brian sent a challenge to Molloy, of Desmond, according to the custom +of that age, to meet him in arms near Macroom, where the usual +coalition, Danes and Irish, were against him. He completely routed the +enemy, and his son Morrogh, then but a lad, "killed the murderer of his +uncle Mahon with his own hand." Molloy was buried on the north side of +the mountain where Mahon was murdered and interred; on Mahon the +southward sun shone full and fair; but on the grave of his assassin, +the black shadow of the northern sky rested always. Such was the +tradition which all Munster piously believed. After this victory over +Molloy, son of Bran (A.D. 978), Brian was universally acknowledged King +of Munster, and until Malachy had won the battle of Tara, was justly +considered the first Irish captain of his age. + +Malachy, in the first year of his reign, having received the hostages +of the Danes of Dublin, having liberated the Irish prisoners and +secured the unity of his own territory, had his attention drawn, +naturally enough, towards Brian's movements. Whether Brian had refused +him homage, or that his revival of the old claim to the half-kingdom +was his offence, or from whatever immediate cause, Malachy marched +southwards, enforcing homage as he went. Entering Thomond he plundered +the Dalcassians, and marching to the mound at Adair, where, under an +old oak, the kings of Thomond had long been inaugurated, he caused it +to be "dug from the earth with its roots," and cut into pieces. This +act of Malachy's certainly bespeaks an embittered and aggressive +spirit, and the provocation must, indeed, have been grievous to +palliate so barbarous an action. But we are not informed what the +provocation was. At the time Brian was in Ossory enforcing his tribute; +the next year we find him seizing the person of Gilla-Patrick, Lord of +Ossory, and soon after he burst into Meath, avenging with fire and +sword the wanton destruction of his ancestral oak. + +Thus were these two powerful Princes openly embroiled with each other. +We have no desire to dwell on all the details of their struggle, which +continued for fully twenty years. About the year 987, Brian was +practically king of half Ireland, and having the power, (though not the +title,) he did not suffer any part of it to lie waste. His activity was +incapable of exhaustion; in Ossory, in Leinster, in Connaught, his +voice and his arm were felt everywhere. But a divided authority was of +necessity so favourable to invasion, that the Danish power began to +loom up to its old proportions. Sitrick, "with the silken beard," one +of the ablest of Danish leaders, was then at Dublin, and his occasional +incursions were so formidable, that they produced (what probably +nothing else could have done) an alliance between Brian and Malachy, +which lasted for three years, and was productive of the best +consequences. Thus, in 997, they imposed their yoke on Dublin, taking +"hostages and jewels" from the foreigners. Reinforcements arriving from +the North, the indomitable Danes proceeded to plunder Leinster, but +were routed by Brian and Malachy at Glen-Mama, in Wicklow, with the +loss of 6,000 men and all their chief captains. Immediately after this +victory the two kings, according to the Annals, "entered into Dublin, +and the fort thereof, and there remained seven nights, and at their +departure took all the gold, silver, hangings, and other precious +things that were there with them, burnt the town, broke down the fort, +and banished Sitrick from thence" (A.D. 999). + +The next three years of Brian's life are the most complex in his +career. After resting a night in Meath, with Malachy, he proceeded with +his forces towards Armagh, nominally on a pilgrimage, but really, as it +would seem, to extend his party. He remained in the sacred city a week, +and presented ten ounces of gold, at the Cathedral altar. The +Archbishop Marian received him with the distinction due to so eminent a +guest, and a record of his visit, in which he is styled "Imperator of +the Irish," was entered in the book of St. Patrick. He, however, got no +hostages in the North, but on his march southward, he learned that the +Danes had returned to Dublin, were rebuilding the City and Fort, and +were ready to offer submission and hostages to him, while refusing both +to Malachy. Here Brian's eagerness for supremacy misled him. He +accepted the hostages, joined the foreign forces to his own, and even +gave his daughter in marriage to Sitrick of "the silken beard." +Immediately he broke with Malachy, and with his new allies and +son-in-law, marched into Meath in hostile array. Malachy, however, +stood to his defence; attacked and defeated Brian's advance guard of +Danish horse, and the latter, unwilling apparently to push matters to +extremities, retired as he came, without "battle, or hostage, or spoil +of any kind." + +But his design of securing the monarchy was not for an instant +abandoned, and, by combined diplomacy and force, he effected his end. +His whole career would have been incomplete without that last and +highest conquest over every rival. Patiently but surely he had gathered +influence and authority, by arms, by gifts, by connections on all +sides. He had propitiated the chief families of Connaught by his first +marriage with More, daughter of O'Heyne, and his second marriage with +Duvchalvay, daughter of O'Conor. He had obtained one of the daughters +of Godwin, the powerful Earl of Kent, for his second son; had given a +daughter to the Prince of Scots, and another to the Danish King of +Dublin. + +Malachy, in diplomatic skill, in foresight, and in tenacity of purpose, +was greatly inferior to Brian, though in personal gallantry and other +princely qualities, every way his equal. He was of a hospitable, +out-spoken, enjoying disposition, as we gather from many characteristic +anecdotes. He is spoken of as "being generally computed the best +horseman in those parts of Europe;" and as one who "delighted to ride a +horse that was never broken, handled, or ridden, until the age of seven +years." From an ancient story, which represents him as giving his +revenues for a year to one of the Court Poets and then fighting him +with a "headless staff" to compel the Poet to return them, it would +appear that his good humour and profusion were equal to his +horsemanship. Finding Brian's influence still on the increase west of +the Shannon, Malachy, in the year of our Lord 1000, threw two bridges +across the Shannon, one at Athlone, the other at the present +Lanesborough. This he did with the consent and assistance of O'Conor, +but the issue was as usual—he made the bridges, and Brian profited by +them. While Malachy was at Athlone superintending the work, Brian +arrived with a great force recruited from all quarters (except Ulster), +including Danish men-in-armour. At Athlone was held the conference so +memorable in our annals, in which Brian gave his rival the alternative +of a pitched battle, within a stated time, or abdication. According to +the Southern Annalists, first a month, and afterwards a year, were +allowed the Monarch to make his choice. At the expiration of the time +Brian marched into Meath, and encamped at Tara, where Malachy, having +vainly endeavoured to secure the alliance of the Northern Hy-Nial in +the interval, came and submitted to Brian without safeguard or surety. +The unmade monarch was accompanied by a guard "of twelve score +horsemen," and on his arrival, proceeded straight to the tent of his +successor. Here the rivals contended in courtesy, as they had often +done in arms, and when they separated, Brian, as Lord Paramount, +presented Malachy as many horses as he had horsemen in his train when +he came to visit him. This event happened in the year 1001, when Brian +was in his 60th and Malachy in his 53rd year. There were present at the +Assembly all the princes and chiefs of the Irish, except the Prince of +Aileach, and the Lords of Oriel, Ulidia, Tyrowen and Tyrconnell, who +were equally unwilling to assist Malachy or to acknowledge Brian. What +is still more remarkable is, the presence in this national assembly of +the Danish Lords of Dublin, Carmen (Wexford), Waterford and Cork, whom +Brian, at this time, was trying hard to conciliate by gifts and +alliances. + + + +CHAPTER VI. +BRIAN, ARD-RIGH—BATTLE OF CLONTARF. + +By the deposition of Malachy II., and the transfer of supreme power to +the long-excluded line of Heber, Brian completed the revolution which +Time had wrought in the ancient Celtic constitution. He threw open the +sovereignty to every great family as a prize to be won by policy or +force, and no longer an inheritance to be determined by usage and law. +The consequences were what might have been expected. After his death +the O'Conors of the west competed with both O'Neills and O'Briens for +supremacy, and a chronic civil war prepared the path for Strongbow and +the Normans. The term "Kings with Opposition" is applied to nearly all +who reigned between Brian's time and Roderick O'Conor's, meaning, +thereby, kings who were unable to secure general obedience to their +administration of affairs. + +During the remainder of his life, Brian wielded with accustomed vigour +the supreme power. The Hy-Nials were, of course, his chief difficulty. +In the year 1002, we find him at Ballysadare, in Sligo, challenging +their obedience; in 1004, we find him at Armagh "offering twenty ounces +of gold on Patrick's altar," staying a week there and receiving +hostages; in 1005, he marched through Connaught, crossed the river Erne +at Ballyshannon, proceeded through Tyrconnell and Tyrowen, crossed the +Bann into Antrim, and returned through Down and Dundalk, "about +Lammas," to Tara. In this and the two succeeding years, by taking +similar "circuits," he subdued Ulster, without any pitched battle, and +caused his authority to be feared and obeyed nearly as much at the +Giant's Causeway as at the bridge of Athlone. In his own house of +Kinkora, Brian entertained at Christmas 3,000 guests, including the +Danish Lords of Dublin and Man, the fugitive Earl of Kent, the young +King of Scots, certain Welsh Princes, and those of Munster, Ulster, +Leinster and Connaught, beside his hostages. At the same time Malachy, +with the shadow, of independence, kept his unfrequented court in +West-Meath, amusing himself with wine and chess and the taming of +unmanageable horses, in which last pursuit, after his abdication, we +hear of his breaking a limb. To support the hospitalities of Kinkora, +the tributes of every province were rendered in kind at his gate, on +the first day of November. Connaught sent 800 cows and 800 hogs; Ulster +alone 500 cows, and as many hogs, and "sixty loads of iron;" Leinster +300 bullocks, 300 hogs, and 300 loads of iron; Ossory, Desmond, and the +smaller territories, in proportion; the Danes of Dublin 150 pipes of +wine, and the Danes of Limerick 365 of red wine. The Dalcassians, his +own people, were exempt from all tribute and taxation—while the rest of +Ireland was thus catering for Kinkora. + +The lyric Poets, in their nature courtiers and given to enjoyment, +flocked, of course, to this bountiful palace. The harp was seldom +silent night or day, the strains of panegyric were as prodigal and +incessant as the falling of the Shannon over Killaloe. Among these +eulogiums none is better known than that beautiful allegory of the poet +McLaig, who sung that "a young lady of great beauty, adorned with +jewels and costly dress, might perform unmolested a journey on foot +through the Island, carrying a straight wand, on the top of which might +be a ring of great value." The name of Brian was thus celebrated as in +itself a sufficient protection of life, chastity, and property, in +every corner of the Island. Not only the Poets, but the more exact and +simple Annalists applaud Brian's administration of the laws, and his +personal virtues. He laboured hard to restore the Christian +civilization, so much defaced by two centuries of Pagan warfare. To +facilitate the execution of the laws he enacted the general use of +surnames, obliging the clans to take the name of a common ancestor, +with the addition of "Mac," or "O"—words which signify "of," or "son +of," a forefather. Thus, the Northern Hy-Nials divided into O'Neils, +O'Donnells, McLaughlins, &c.; the Sil-Murray took the name of O'Conor, +and Brian's own posterity became known as O'Briens. To justice he added +munificence, and of this the Churches and Schools of the entire Island +were the recipients. Many a desolate shrine he adorned, many a bleak +chancel he hung with lamps, many a long silent tower had its bells +restored. Monasteries were rebuilt, and the praise of God was kept up +perpetually by a devoted brotherhood. Roads and bridges were repaired +and several strong stone fortresses were erected, to command the passes +of lakes and rivers. The vulnerable points along the Shannon, and the +Suir, and the lakes, as far north as the Foyle, were secured by forts +of clay and stone. Thirteen "royal houses" in Munster alone are said to +have been by him restored to their original uses. What increases our +respect for the wisdom and energy thus displayed, is the fact, that the +author of so many improvements, enjoyed but five short years of peace, +after his accession to the Monarchy. His administrative genius must +have been great when, after a long life of warfare, he could apply +himself to so many works of internal improvement and external defence. + +In the five years of peace just spoken of (from 1005 to 1010), Brian +lost by death his second wife, a son called Donald, and his brother +Marcan, called in the annals "head of the clergy of Munster;" Hugh, the +son of Mahon, also died about the same period. His favourite son and +heir, Morrogh, was left, and Morrogh had, at this time, several +children. Other sons and daughters were also left him, by each of his +wives, so that there was every prospect that the posterity for whom he +had so long sought the sovereignty of Ireland, would continue to +possess it for countless generations. But God disposes of what man only +proposes! + +The Northmen had never yet abandoned any soil on which they had once +set foot, and the policy of conciliation which the veteran King adopted +in his old age, was not likely to disarm men of their stamp. Every +intelligence of the achievements of their race in other realms +stimulated them to new exertions and shamed them out of peaceful +submission. Rollo and his successors had, within Brian's lifetime, +founded in France the great dukedom of Normandy; while Sweyn had swept +irresistibly over England and Wales, and prepared the way for a Danish +dynasty. Pride and shame alike appealed to their warlike compatriots +not to allow the fertile Hibernia to slip from their grasp, and the +great age of its long-dreaded king seemed to promise them an easier +victory than heretofore was possible. In 1012 we find Brian at Lough +Foyle repelling a new Danish invasion, and giving "freedom to Patrick's +Churches;" the same year, an army under Morrogh and another under +Malachy was similarly engaged in Leinster and Meath; the former +carrying his arms to Kilmainham, on the south side of Dublin, the other +to Howth, on the north; in this year also "the Gentiles," or Pagan +Northmen, made a descent on Cork, and burned the city, but were driven +off by the neighbouring chiefs. + +The great event, however, of the long war which had now been waged for +full two hundred years between the men of Erin and the men of +Scandinavia was approaching. What may fairly be called the last field +day of Christianity and Paganism on Irish soil, was near at hand. A +taunt thrown out over a game of chess, at Kinkora, is said to have +hastened this memorable day. Maelmurra, Prince of Leinster, playing or +advising on the game, made, or recommended, a false move, upon which +Morrogh, son of Brian, observed, it was no wonder his friends, the +Danes, (to whom he owed his elevation,) were beaten at Glen-Mama, if he +gave them advice like that. Maelmurra, highly incensed by this +allusion—all the more severe for its bitter truth—arose, ordered his +horse, and rode away in haste. Brian, when he heard it, despatched a +messenger after the indignant guest, begging him to return, but +Maelmurra was not to be pacified, and refused. We next hear of him as +concerting with certain Danish agents, always open to such +negotiations, those measures which led to the great invasion of the +year 1014, in which the whole Scanian race, from Anglesea and Man, +north to Norway, bore an active share. + +These agents passing over to England and Man, among the Scottish isles, +and even to the Baltic, followed up the design of an invasion on a +gigantic scale. Suibne, Earl of Man, entered warmly into the +conspiracy, and sent the "war arrow" through all those "out-islands" +which obeyed him as Lord. A yet more formidable potentate, Sigurd, of +the Orkneys, next joined the league. He was the fourteenth Earl of +Orkney of Norse origin, and his power was, at this period, a balance to +that of his nearest neighbour, the King of Scots. He had ruled since +the year 996, not only over the Orkneys, Shetland, and Northern +Hebrides, but the coasts of Caithness and Sutherland, and even Ross and +Moray rendered him homage and tribute. Eight years before the battle of +Clontarf, Malcolm II., of Scotland, had been feign to purchase his +alliance, by giving him his daughter in marriage, and the Kings of +Denmark and Norway treated with him on equal terms. The hundred +inhabited isles which lie between Yell and Man,—isles which after their +conversion contained "three hundred churches and chapels"—sent in their +contingents, to swell the following of the renowned Earl Sigurd. As his +fleet bore southward from Kirkwall it swept the subject coast of +Scotland, and gathered from every lough its galleys and its fighting +men. The rendezvous was the Isle of Man, where Suibne had placed his +own forces under the command of Brodar or Broderick, a famous leader +against the Britons of Wales and Cornwall. In conjunction with Sigurd, +the Manxmen sailed over to Ireland, where they were joined, in the +Liffey, by Carl Canuteson, Prince of Denmark, at the head of 1400 +champions clad in armour. Sitrick of Dublin stood, or affected to +stand, neutral in these preparations, but Maelmurra of Leinster had +mustered all the forces he could command for such an expedition. He was +himself the head of the powerful family of O'Byrne, and was followed in +his alliances by others of the descendants of Cahir More. O'Nolan and +O'More, with a truer sense of duty, fought on the patriotic side. + +Brian had not been ignorant of the exertions which were made during the +summer and winter of the year 1013, to combine an overwhelming force +against him. In his exertions to meet force with force, it is +gratifying to every believer in human excellence to find him actively +supported by the Prince whom he had so recently deposed. Malachy, +during the summer of 1013, had, indeed, lost two sons in skirmishes +with Sitrick and Maelmurra, and had, therefore, his own personal wrongs +to avenge; but he cordially co-operated with Brian before those +occurrences, and now loyally seconded all his movements. The Lords of +the southern half-kingdom—the Lords of Desies, Fermoy, Inchiquin, +Corca-Baskin, Kinalmeaky, Kerry, and the Lords of Hy-Many and +Hy-Fiachra, in Connaught, hastened to his standard. O'More and O'Nolan +of Leinster, and Donald, Steward of Marr, in Scotland, were the other +chieftains who joined him before Clontarf, besides those of his own +kindred. None of the Northern Hy-Nial took part in the battle—they had +submitted to Brian, but they never cordially supported him. + +Clontarf, the lawn or meadow of bulls, stretches along the +crescent-shaped north strand of Dublin harbour, from the ancient +salmon-weir at Ballyboght bridge, towards the promontory of Howth. Both +horns of the crescent were held by the enemy, and communicated with his +ships: the inland point terminating in the roofs of Dublin, and the +seaward marked by the lion-like head of Howth. The meadow land between +sloped gently upward and inward from the beach, and for the myriad +duels which formed the ancient battle, no field could present less +positive vantage-ground to combatants on either side. The invading +force had possession of both wings, so that Brian's army, which had +first encamped at Kilmainham, must have crossed the Liffey higher up, +and marched round by the present Drumcondra in order to reach the +appointed field. The day seems to have been decided on by formal +challenge, for we are told Brian did not wish to fight in the last week +of Lent, but a Pagan oracle having assured victory to Brodar, one of +the northern leaders, if he engaged on a Friday, the invaders insisted +on being led to battle on that day. And it so happened that, of all +Fridays in the year, it fell on the Friday before Easter: that awful +anniversary when the altars of the Church are veiled throughout +Christendom, and the dark stone is rolled to the door of the mystic +sepulchre. + +The forces on both sides could not have fallen short of twenty thousand +men. Under Carl Canuteson fought "the ten hundred in armour," as they +are called in the Irish annals, or "the fourteen hundred," as they are +called in northern chronicles; under Brodar, the Manxmen and the Danes +of Anglesea and Wales; under Sigurd, the men of Orkney and its +dependencies; under Maelmurra, of Leinster, his own tribe, and their +kinsmen of Offally and Cullen—the modern Kildare and Wicklow; under +Brian's son, Morrogh, were the tribes of Munster; under the command of +Malachy, those of Meath; under the Lord of Hy-Many, the men of +Connaught; and the Stewart of Marr had also his command. The engagement +was to commence with the morning, so that, as soon as it was day, +Brian, Crucifix in hand, harangued his army. "On this day Christ died +for _you_!" was the spirit-stirring appeal of the venerable Christian +King. At the entreaty of his friends, after this review, he retired to +his tent, which stood at some distance, and was guarded by three of his +aids. Here, he alternately prostrated himself before the Crucifix, or +looked out from the tent door upon the dreadful scene that lay beyond. +The sun rose to the zenith and took his way towards the west, but still +the roar of the battle did not abate. Sometimes as their right hands +swelled with the sword-hilts, well-known warriors might be seen falling +back to bathe them, in a neighbouring spring, and then rushing again +into the melee. The line of the engagement extended from the +salmon-weir towards Howth, not less than a couple of miles, so that it +was impossible to take in at a glance the probabilities of victory. +Once during the heat of the day one of his servants said to Brian, "A +vast multitude are moving towards us." "What sort of people are they?" +inquired Brian. "They are green-naked people." said the attendant. +"Oh!" replied the king, "they are the Danes in armour!" The utmost fury +was displayed on all sides. Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, fell by Thurlogh, +grandson of Brian; and Anrud, one of the captains of the men in armour, +by the hand of his father, Morrogh; but both father and son perished in +the dreadful conflict; Maelmurra of Leinster, with his lords, fell on +one side, and Conaing, nephew of Brian, O'Kelly, O'Heyne, and the +Stewart of Marr, on the other. Hardly a nobly-born man escaped, or +sought to escape. The ten hundred in armour, and three thousand others +of the enemy, with about an equal number of the men of Ireland, lay +dead upon the field. One division of the enemy were, towards sunset, +retreating to their ships, when Brodar, the Viking, perceiving the tent +of Brian, standing apart, without a guard, and the aged king on his +knees before the Crucifix, rushed in, cut him down with a single blow, +and then continued his flight. But he was overtaken by the guard, and +despatched by the most cruel death they could devise. Thus, on the +field of battle, in the act of prayer, on the day of our Lord's +Crucifixion, fell the Christian King in the cause of native land and +Holy Cross. Many elegies have been dedicated to his memory, and not the +least noble of these strains belong to his enemies. In death as in life +he was still Brian "of the tributes." + +The deceased hero took his place at once in history, national and +foreign. On hearing of his death, Maelmurra, Archbishop of Armagh, came +with his clergy to Swords, in Meath, and conducted the body to Armagh, +where, with his son and nephew and the Lord of Desies, he was solemnly +interred "in a new tomb." The fame of the event went out through all +nations. The chronicles of Wales, of Scotland, and of Man; the annals +of Ademar and Marianus; the Sagas of Denmark and the Isles all record +the event. In "the Orcades" of Thormodus Torfaeus, a wail over the +defeat of the Islesmen is heard, which they call + +"Orkney's woe and Randver's bane." + + +The Norse settlers in Caithness saw terrific visions of Valhalla "the +day after the battle." In the NIALA SAGA a Norwegian prince is +introduced as asking after his men, and the answer is, "they were all +killed." Malcolm of Scotland rejoiced in the defeat and death of his +dangerous and implacable neighbour. "Brian's battle," as it is called +in the Sagas, was, in short, such a defeat as prevented any general +northern combination for the subsequent invasion of Ireland. Not that +the country was entirely free from their attacks till the end of the +eleventh century, but from the day of Clontarf forward, the long +cherished Northern idea of a conquest of Ireland, seems to have been +gloomily abandoned by that indomitable people. + + + +CHAPTER VII. +EFFECTS OF THE RIVALRY OF BRIAN AND MALACHY ON THE ANCIENT +CONSTITUTION. + +If a great battle is to be accounted lost or won, as it affects +principles rather than reputations, then Brian lost at Clontarf. The +leading ideas of his long and political life were, evidently, +centralization and an hereditary monarchy. To beat back foreign +invasion, to conciliate and to enlist the Irish-born Danes under his +standard, were preliminary steps. For Morrogh, his first-born, and for +Morrogh's descendants, he hoped to found an hereditary kinship after +the type universally copied throughout Christendom. He was not ignorant +of what Alfred had done for England, Harold for Norway, Charlemagne for +France, and Otho for Germany; and it was inseparable from his imperial +genius to desire to reign in his posterity, long after his own brief +term of sway should be for ever ended. A new centre of royal authority +should be established on the banks of the great middle river of the +island—itself the best bond of union, as it was the best highway of +intercourse; the Dalgais dynasty should there flourish for ages, and +the descendants of Brian of the Tributes, through after centuries, +eclipse the glory of the descendants of Nial of the Hostages. It is +idle enough to call the projector of such a change an usurper and a +revolutionist. Usurper he clearly was not, since he was elevated to +power by the action of the old legitimate electoral principle; +revolutionist he was not, because his design was defeated at Clontarf, +in the death of his eldest son and grandson. Not often have three +generations of Princes of the same family been cut off on the same +field; yet at Clontarf it so happened. Hence, when Brian fell, and his +heir with him, and his heir's heir, the projected Dalgais dynasty, like +the Royal Oak at Adair, was cut down and its very roots destroyed. For +a new dynasty to be left suddenly without indisputable heirs is ruinous +to its pretensions and partizans. And in this the event of the battle +proved destructive to the Celtic Constitution. Not from the +Anglo-Norman invasion, but from the day of Clontarf we may date the +ruin of the old electoral monarchy. The spell of ancient authority was +effectually broken and a new one was to be established. Time, which was +indispensable, was not given. No Prince of the blood of Brian succeeded +immediately to himself. On Clontarf Morrogh, and Morrogh's heir fell, +in the same day and hour. The other sons of Brian had no direct title +to the succession, and, naturally enough, the deposed Malachy resumed +the rank of monarch, without the consent of Munster, but _with_ the +approval of all the Princes, who had witnessed with ill-concealed envy +the sudden ascendancy of the sons of Kennedy. While McLaig was +lamenting for Brian, by the cascade of Killaloe, the Laureat of Tara, +in an elegy over a lord of Breffni, was singing— + +"Joyful are the race of Conn after Brian's +Fall, in the battle of Clontarf." + + +A new dynasty is rarely the work of one able man. Designed by genius, +it must be built up by a succession of politic Princes, before it +becomes an essential part of the framework of the State. So all history +teaches—and Irish history, after the death of Brian, very clearly +illustrates that truth. Equally true is it that when a nation breaks up +of itself, or from external forces, and is not soon consolidated by a +conqueror, the most natural result is the aggrandizement of a few great +families. Thus it was in Rome when Julius was assassinated, and in +Italy, when the empire of the west fell to pieces of its own weight. +The kindred of the late sovereign will be sure to have a party, the +chief innovators will have a party, and there is likely to grow up a +third or moderate party. So it fell out in Ireland. The Hy-Nials of the +north, deprived of the succession, rallied about the Princes of Aileach +as their head. Meath, left crownless, gave room to the ambition of the +sons of Malachy, who, under the name of O'Melaghlin, took provincial +rank. Ossory, like Issachar, long groaning beneath the burdens of Tara +and of Cashel, cruelly revenged on the Dalgais, returning from +Clontarf, the subjection to which Mahon and Brian had forcibly reduced +that borderland. The Eugenians of Desmond withdrew in disgust from the +banner of Donogh O'Brien, because he had openly proclaimed his +hostility to the alternate succession, and left his surviving clansmen +an easy prey to the enraged Ossorians. Leinster soon afterwards passed +from the house of O'Byrne to that of McMurrogh. The O'Briens maintained +their dominant interest in the south; as, after many local struggles, +the O'Conors did in the west. For a hundred and fifty years, after the +death of Malachy II., the history of Ireland is mainly the history of +these five families, O'Neils, O'Melaghlins, McMurroghs, O'Briens and +O'Conors. And for ages after the Normans enter on the scene, the same +provincialized spirit, the same family ambitions, feuds, hates, and +coalitions, with some exceptional passages, characterize the whole +history. Not that there will be found any want of heroism, or piety, or +self-sacrifice, or of any virtue or faculty, necessary to constitute a +state, save and except the _power of combination_, alone. Thus, judged +by what came after him, and what was happening in the world abroad, +Brian's design to re-centralize the island, seems the highest dictate +of political wisdom, in the condition to which the Norwegian and Danish +wars had reduced it, previous to his elevation to the monarchy. Malachy +II.—of the events of whose second reign some mention will be made +hereafter—held the sovereignty after Brian's death, until the year +1023, when he died an edifying death in one of the islands of Lough +Ennel, near the present Mullingar. He is called, in the annals of +Clonmacnoise, "the last king of Ireland, of Irish blood, that had the +crown." An ancient quatrain, quoted by Geoffrey Keating, is thus +literally translated: + +"After the happy Melaghlin +Son of Donald, son of Donogh, +Each noble king ruled his own tribe +But Erin owned no sovereign Lord." + + +The annals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries curiously illustrate +the workings of this "anarchical constitution"—to employ a phrase first +applied to the Germanic Confederation. "After Malachy's death," says +the quaint old Annalist of Clonmacnoise, "this kingdom was without a +king 20 years, during which time the realm was governed by two learned +men; the one called Con O'Lochan, a well learned temporal man, and +chief poet of Ireland; the other Corcran Claireach, a devout and holy +man that was anchorite of all Ireland, whose most abiding was at +Lismore. The land was governed like a free state, and not like a +monarchy by them." Nothing can show the headlessness of the Irish +Constitution in the eleventh century clearer than this interregnum. No +one Prince could rally strength enough to be elected, so that two +Arbitrators, an illustrious Poet and a holy Priest, were appointed to +take cognizance of national causes. The associating together of a +Priest and a layman, a southerner and a northerner, is conclusive proof +that the bond of Celtic unity, frittered away during the Danish period, +was never afterwards entirely restored. Con O'Lochan having been killed +in Teffia, after a short jurisdiction, the holy Corcran exercised his +singular jurisdiction, until his decease, which happened at Lismore, +(A.D. 1040.) His death produced a new paroxysm of anarchy, out of which +a new organizer arose among the tribes of Leinster. This was Dermid, +son of Donogh, who died (A.D. 1005), when Dermid must have been a mere +infant, as he does not figure in the annals till the year 1032, and the +acts of young Princes are seldom overlooked in Gaelic Chronicles. He +was the first McMurrogh who became King of Leinster, that royalty +having been in the O'Byrne family, until the son of Maelmurra, of +Clontarf, was deposed by O'Neil in 1035, and retired to a monastery in +Cologne, where he died in 1052. In 1036 or 1037 Dermid captured Dublin +and Waterford, married the grand-daughter of Brian, and by '41 was +strong enough to assume the rank of ruler of the southern half-kingdom. +This dignity he held with a strong and warlike hand thirty years, when +he fell in battle, at Ova, in Meath. He must have been at that time +full threescore years and ten. He is described by the elegiac Bards as +of "ruddy complexion," "with teeth laughing in danger," and possessing +all the virtues of a warrior-king; "whose death," adds the lamentation, +"brought scarcity of peace" with it, so that "there will not be peace," +"there will not be armistice," between Meath and Leinster. It may well +be imagined that every new resort to the two-third test, in the +election of Ard-Righ, should bring "scarcity of peace" to Ireland. We +can easily understand the ferment of hope, fear, intrigue, and passion, +which such an occasion caused among the great rival families. What +canvassing there was in Kinkora and Cashel, at Cruachan and Aileach, +and at Fernamore! What piecing and patching of interests, what libels +on opposing candidates, what exultation in the successful, what +discontent in the defeated camp! + +The successful candidate for the southern half-kingdom after Dermid's +death was Thorlogh, grandson of Brian, and foster-son of the late +ruler. In his reign, which lasted thirty-three years, the political +fortunes of his house revived. He died in peace at Kinkora (A.D. 1087), +and the war of succession again broke out. The rival candidates at this +period were Murrogh O'Brien, son of the late king, whose ambition was +to complete the design of Brian, and Donald, Prince of Aileach, the +leader of the Northern Hy-Nials. Two abler men seldom divided a country +by their equal ambition. Both are entered in the annals as "Kings of +Ireland," but it is hard to discover that, during all the years of +their contest, either of them submitted to the other. To chronicle all +the incidents of the struggle would take too much space here; and, as +was to be expected, a third party profited most by it; the West came +in, in the person of O'Conor, to lord it over both North and South, and +to add another element to the dynastic confusion. + +This brief abstract of our civil affairs after the death of Brian, +presents us with the extraordinary spectacle of a country without a +constitution working out the problem of its stormy destiny in despite +of all internal and external dangers. Everything now depended on +individual genius and energy; nothing on system, usage, or +prescription. Each leading family and each province became, in turn, +the head of the State. The supreme title seems to have been fatal for a +generation to the family that obtained it, for in no case is there a +lineal descent of the crown. The prince of Aileach or Kinkora naturally +preferred his permanent patrimony to an uncertain tenure of Tara; an +office not attached to a locality became, of course, little more than +an arbitrary title. Hence, the titular King of Ireland might for one +lifetime reign by the Shannon, in the next by the Bann, in a third, by +Lough Corrib. The supremacy, thus came to be considered a merely +personal appurtenance, was carried about in the old King's tent, or on +the young King's crupper, deteriorating and decaying by every +transposition it underwent. Herein, we have the origin of Irish +disunion with all its consequences, good, bad, and indifferent. + +Are we to blame Brian for this train of events against which he would +have provided a sharp remedy in the hereditary principle? Or, on the +other hand, are we to condemn Malachy, the possessor of legitimate +power, if he saw in that remedy only the ambition of an aspiring family +already grown too great? Theirs was in fact the universal struggle of +reform and conservatism; the reformer and the heirs of his work were +cut off on Clontarf; the abuses of the elective principle continued +unrestrained by ancient salutary usage and prejudice, and the land +remained a tempting prey to such Adventurers, foreign or native, as +dare undertake to mould power out of its chaotic materials. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +LATTER DAYS OF THE NORTHMEN IN IRELAND. + +Though Ireland dates the decay of Scandinavian power from Good Friday, +1014, yet the North did not wholly cease to send forth its warriors, +nor were the shores of the Western Island less tempting to them than +before. The second year after the battle of Clontarf, Canute founded +his Danish dynasty in England, which existed in no little splendour +during thirty-seven years. The Saxon line was restored by Edward "the +Confessor;" in the forty-third year of the century, only to be +extinguished for ever by the Norman conquest twenty-three years later. +Scotland, during the same years was more than once subject to invasion +from the same ancient enemy. Malcolm II., and the brave usurper +Macbeth, fought several engagements with the northern leaders, and +generally with brilliant success. By a remarkable coincidence, the +Scottish chronicles also date the decadence of Danish power on their +coasts from 1014, though several engagements were fought in Scotland +after that year. + +Malachy II. had promptly followed up the victory of Clontarf by the +capture of Dublin, the destruction of its fort, and the exemplary +chastisement of the tribes of Leinster, who had joined Maelmurra as +allies of the Danes. Sitrick himself seems to have eluded the +suspicions and vengeance of the conquerors by a temporary exile, as we +find in the succession of the Dublin Vikings, "one Hyman, an usurper," +entered as ruling "part of a year while Sitrick was in banishment." His +family interest, however, was strong among the native Princes, and +whatever his secret sympathies may have been, he had taken no active +part against them in the battle of Clontarf. By his mother, the Lady +Gormley of Offally, he was a half O'Conor; by marriage he was +son-in-law of Brian, and uterine brother of Malachy. After his return +to Dublin, when, in 1018, Brian, son of Maelmurra, fell prisoner into +his hands, as if to clear himself of any lingering suspicion of an +understanding with that family, he caused his eyes to be put out—a +cruel but customary punishment in that age. This act procured for him +the deadly enmity of the warlike mountaineers of Wicklow, who, in the +year 1022, gave him a severe defeat at Delgany. Even this he outlived, +and died seven years later, the acknowledged lord of his town and +fortress, forty years after his first accession to that title. He was +succeeded by his son, grandson, and great-grandson during the remaining +half century. + +The kingdom of Leinster, in consequence of the defeat of Maelmurra, the +incapacity of Brian, and the destruction of other claimants of the same +family, passed to the family of McMurrogh, another branch of the same +ancestry. Dermid, the first and most distinguished King of Leinster of +this house, took Waterford (A.D. 1037), and so reduced its strength, +that we find its hosts no longer formidable in the field. Those of +Limerick continued their homage to the house of Kinkora, while the +descendants of Sitrick recognised Dermid of Leinster as their +sovereign. In short, all the Dano-Irish from thenceforward began to +knit themselves kindly to the soil, to obey the neighbouring Princes, +to march with them to battle, and to pursue the peaceful calling of +merchants, upon sea. The only peculiarly _Danish_ undertaking we hear +of again, in our Annals, was the attempt of a united fleet, equipped by +Dublin, Wexford, and Waterford, in the year 1088, to retake Cork from +the men of Desmond, when they were driven with severe loss to their +ships. Their few subsequent expeditions were led abroad, into the +Hebrides, the Isle of Man, or Wales, where they generally figure as +auxiliaries or mercenaries in the service of local Princes. They appear +in Irish battles only as contingents to the native armies—led by their +own leaders and recognized as a separate, but subordinate force. In the +year 1073, the Dublin Danes did homage to the monarch Thorlogh, and +from 1095, until his death (A.D. 1119), they recognized no other lord +but Murkertach More O'Brien; this king, at their own request, had also +nominated one of his family as Lord of the Danes and Welsh of the Isle +of Man. + +The wealth of these Irish-Danes, before and after the time of Brian, +may be estimated by the annual tribute which Limerick paid to that +Prince—a pipe of red wine for every day in the year. In the year 1029, +Olaf, son of Sitrick, of Dublin, being taken prisoner by O'Regan, the +Lord of East-Meath, paid for his ransom—"twelve hundred cows, seven +score British horses, three score ounces of gold!" sixty ounces of +white silver as his "fetter-ounce;" the sword of Carlus, besides the +usual legal fees, for recording these profitable formalities. + +Being now Christians, they also began to found and endow churches, with +the same liberality with which their Pagan fathers had once enriched +the temples of Upsala and Trondheim. The oldest religious foundations +in the seaports they possessed owe their origin to them; but even as +Christians, they did not lose sight of their nationality. They +contended for, and obtained Dano-Irish Bishops, men of their own race, +speaking their own speech, to preside over the sees of Dublin, +Waterford, and Limerick. When the Irish Synods or Primates asserted +over them any supervision which they were unwilling to admit—except in +the case of St. Malachy—they usually invoked the protection of the See +of Canterbury, which, after the Norman conquest of England, became by +far the most powerful Archbishopric in either island. + +In the third quarter of this century there arose in the Isle of Man a +fortunate leader, who may almost be called the last of the sea kings. +This was Godard _Crovan_ (the white-handed), son of an Icelandic +Prince, and one of the followers of Harald Harfagar and Earl Tosti, in +their invasion of Northumbria (A.D. 1066). Returning from the defeat of +his chiefs, Godard saw and seized upon Man as the centre of future +expeditions of his own, in the course of which he subdued the Hebrides, +divided them with the gallant Somerled (ancestor of the MacDonalds of +the Isles), and established his son Lagman (afterwards put to death by +King Magnus _Barefoot_) as his viceroy in the Orkneys and Shetlands. +The weakened condition of the Danish settlement at Dublin attracted his +ambition, and where he entered as a mediator he remained as a master. +In the succession of the Dublin Vikings he is assigned a reign of ten +years, and his whole course of conquest seems to have occupied some +twenty years (A.D. 1077 to 1098). At length the star of this Viking of +the Irish sea paled before the mightier name of a King of Norway, whose +more brilliant ambition had a still shorter span. The story of this +_Magnus_ (called, it is said, from his adoption of the Scottish kilt, +Magnus _Barefoot_) forms the eleventh Saga in "the Chronicles of the +Kings of Norway." He began to reign in the year 1093, and soon after +undertook an expedition to the south, "with many fine men, and good +shipping." Taking the Orkneys on his way, he sent their Earls prisoners +to Norway, and placed his own son, Sigurd, in their stead. He overran +the Hebrides, putting Lagman, son of Godard Crovan, to death. He spared +only "the holy Island," as Iona was now called, even by the Northmen, +and there, in after years, his own bones were buried. The Isles of Man +and Anglesea, and the coast of Wales, shared the same fate, and thence +he retraced his course to Scotland, where, borne in his galley across +the Isthmus of Cantyre, to fulfil an old prophecy, he claimed +possession of the land on both sides of Loch Awe. It was while he +wintered in the Southern Hebrides, according to the Saga, that he +contracted his son Sigurd with the daughter of Murkertach O'Brien, +called by the Northmen "Biadmynia." In summer he sailed homeward, and +did not return southward till the ninth year of his reign (A.D. 1102), +when his son, Sigurd, had come of age, and bore the title of "King of +the Orkneys and Hebrides." "He sailed into the west sea," says the +Saga, "with the finest men who could be got in Norway. All the powerful +men of the country followed him, such as Sigurd Hranesson, and his +brother Ulf, Vidkunner Johnsson, Dag Eliffsson, Sorker of Sogn, Eyvind +Olboge, the king's marshal, and many other great men." On the +intelligence of this fleet having arrived in Irish waters, according to +the annals, Murkertach and his allies marched in force to Dublin, +where, however, Magnus "made peace with them for one year," and +Murkertach "gave his daughter to Sigurd, with many jewels and gifts." +That winter Magnus spent with Murkertach at Kinkora, and "towards +spring both kings went westward with their army all the way to Ulster." +This was one of those annual visitations which kings, whose authority +was not yet established, were accustomed to make. The circuit, as +usual, was performed in about six weeks, after which the Irish monarch +returned home, and Magnus went on board his fleet at Dublin, to return +to Norway. According to the Norse account he landed again on the coast +of Ulidia (Down), where he expected "cattle for ship-provision," which +Murkertach had promised to send him, but the Irish version would seem +to imply that he went on shore to seize the cattle perforce. It +certainly seems incredible that Murkertach should send cattle to the +shore of Strangford Lough, from the pastures of Thomond, when they +might be more easily driven to Dublin, or the mouth of the Boyne. "The +cattle had not made their appearance on the eve of Bartholomew's Mass" +(August 23rd, A.D. 1103), says the Saga, so "when the sun rose in the +sky, King Magnus himself went on shore with the greater part of his +men. King Magnus," continues the scald, "had a helmet on his head; a +red shield, in which was inlaid a gilded lion; and was girt with the +sword Legbiter, of which the hilt was of ivory, and the hand grip wound +about with gold thread; and the sword was extremely sharp. In his hand +he had a short spear, and a red silk short cloak over his coat, on +which both before and behind was embroidered a lion, in yellow silk; +and all men acknowledged that they had never seen a brisker, statelier +man." A dust cloud was seen far inland, and the Northmen fell into +order of battle. It proved, however, by their own account to be the +messengers with the promised supply of cattle; but, after they came up, +and while returning to the shore, they were violently assailed on all +sides by the men of Down. The battle is described, with true Homeric +vigour, by Sturleson. "The Irish," he says, "shot boldly; and although +they fell in crowds, there came always two in place of one." Magnus, +with most of his nobles, were slain on the spot, but Vidkunner Johnsson +escaped to the shipping, "with the King's banner and the sword +Legbiter." And the Saga of Magnus Barefoot concludes thus: "Now when +King Sigurd heard that his father had fallen, he set off immediately, +leaving the Irish King's daughter behind, and proceeded in autumn, with +the whole fleet directly to Norway." The annalists of Ulster barely +record the fact, that "Magnus, King of Lochlan and the Isles, was slain +by the Ulidians, with a slaughter of his people about him, while on a +predatory excursion." They place the event in the year 1104. + +Our account with the Northmen may here be closed. Borne along by the +living current of events, we leave them behind, high up on the remoter +channels of the stream. Their terrible ravens shall flit across our +prospect no more. They have taken wing to their native north, where +they may croak yet a little while over the cold and crumbling altars of +Odin and Asa Thor. The bright light of the Gospel has penetrated even +to those last haunts of Paganism, and the fierce but not ungenerous +race, with which we have been so long familiar, begin to change their +natures under its benign influence. + +Although both the scalds and chroniclers of the North frequently refer +to Ireland as a favourite theatre of their heroes, we derive little +light from those of their works which have yet been made public. All +connection between the two races had long ceased, before the first +scholars of the North began to investigate the earlier annals of their +own country, and then they were content with a very vague and general +knowledge of the western Island, for which their ancestors had so +fiercely contended throughout so many generations. The oldest maps, +known in Scandinavia, exhibit a mere outline of the Irish coast, with a +few points in the interior; fiords, with Norse names, are shown, +answering to Loughs Foyle, Swilly, Larne, Strang_ford_, and +Carling_ford_; the Provincial lines of Ulster and of Connaught are +rudely traced; and the situation of Enniskillen, Tara, Dublin, +Glendaloch, Water_ford_, Limer_ick_, and Swer_wick_, accurately laid +down. It is thought that all those places ending in _wick_ or _ford_, +on the Irish map, are of Scandinavian origin; as well as the names of +the islets, Skerries, Lambey, and Saltees. Many noble families, as the +Plunkets, McIvers, Archbolds, Harolds, Stacks, Skiddies, Cruises, and +McAuliffes, are derived from the same origin. + +During the contest we have endeavoured to describe, three hundred and +ten years had passed since the warriors of Lochlin first landed on the +shores of Erin. Ten generations, according to the measured span of +adult life, were born, and trained to arms and marshalled in battle, +since the enemy, "powerful on sea," first burst upon the shield-shaped +Isle of Saints. At the close of the eighth century we cast back a +grateful retrospect on the Christian ages of Ireland. Can we do so now, +at the close of the eleventh? Alas! far from it. Bravely and in the +main successfully as the Irish have borne themselves, they come out of +that cruel, treacherous, interminable war with many rents and stains in +that vesture of innocence in which we saw them arrayed at the close of +their third Christian century. Odin has not conquered, but all the +worst vices of warfare—its violence, its impiety, discontent, +self-indulgence, and contempt for the sweet paths of peace and mild +counsels of religion—these must and did remain, long after Dane and +Norwegian have for ever disappeared! + + + +BOOK III. +WAR OF SUCCESSION. + + + +CHAPTER I. +THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY OF BRIAN. + +The last scene of the Irish monarchy, before it entered on the +anarchical period, was not destitute of an appropriate grandeur. It was +the death-bed scene of the second Malachy, the rival, ally, and +successor of the great Brian. After the eventful day of Clontarf he +resumed the monarchy, without opposition, and for eight years he +continued in its undisturbed enjoyment. The fruitful land of Meath +again gave forth its abundance, unscourged by the spoiler, and beside +its lakes and streams the hospitable Ard-Righ had erected, or restored, +three hundred fortified houses, where, as his poets sung, shelter was +freely given to guests from the king of the elements. His own favourite +residence was at Dunnasciath ("the fort of shields"), in the north-west +angle of Lough Ennel, in the present parish of Dysart. In the eighth +year after Clontarf—the summer of 1022—the Dublin Danes once again +ventured on a foray into East-Meath, and the aged monarch marched to +meet them. At Athboy he encountered the enemy, and drove them, routed +and broken, out of the ancient mensal land of the Irish kings. + +Thirty days after that victory he was called on to confront the +conqueror of all men, even Death. He had reached the age of +seventy-three, and he prepared to meet his last hour with the zeal and +humility of a true Christian. To Dunnasciath repaired Amalgaid, +Archbishop of Armagh, the Abbots of Clonmacnoise and of Durrow, with a +numerous train of the clergy. For greater solitude, the dying king was +conveyed into an island of the lake opposite his fort—then called +Inis-Cro, now Cormorant Island—and there, "after intense penance," on +the fourth of the Nones of September precisely, died Malachy, son of +Donald, son of Donogh, in the fond language of the bards, "the pillar +of the dignity and nobility of the western world:" and "the seniors of +all Ireland sung masses, hymns, psalms, and canticles for the welfare +of his soul." + +"This," says the old Translator of the Clonmacnoise Annals, "was the +last king of Ireland of Irish blood, that had the crown; yet there were +seven kings after without crown, before the coming in of the English." +Of these seven subsequent kings we are to write under the general title +of "the War of Succession." They are called Ard-Righ _go Fresabra_, +that is, kings opposed, or unrecognised, by certain tribes, or +Provinces. For it was essential to the completion of the title, as we +have before seen, that when the claimant was of Ulster, he should have +Connaught and Munster, or Leinster and Munster, in his obedience: in +other words, he should be able to command the allegiance of two-thirds +of his suffragans. If of Munster, he should be equally potent in the +other Provinces, in order to rank among the recognised kings of Erin. +Whether some of the seven kings subsequent to Malachy II., who assumed +the title, were not fairly entitled to it, we do not presume to say; it +is our simpler task to narrate the incidents of that brilliant war of +succession, which occupies almost all the interval between the Danish +and Anglo-Norman invasions. The chaunt of the funeral Mass of Malachy +was hardly heard upon Lough Ennel, when Donogh O'Brien despatched his +agents, claiming the crown from the Provincial Princes. He was the +eldest son of Brian by his second marriage, and his mother was an +O'Conor, an additional source of strength to him, in the western +Province. It had fallen to the lot of Donogh, and his elder brother, +Teigue or Thaddeus, to conduct the remnant of the Dalcassians from +Clontarf to their home. Marching through Ossory, by the great southern +road, they were attacked in their enfeebled state by the lord of that +brave little border territory, on whom Brian's hand had fallen with +heavy displeasure. Wounded as many of them were, they fought their way +desperately towards Cashel, leaving 150 men dead in one of their +skirmishes. Of all who had left the Shannon side to combat with the +enemy, but 850 men lived to return to their homes. + +No sooner had they reached Kinkora, than a fierce dispute arose, +between the friends of Teigue and Donogh, as to which should reign over +Munster. A battle ensued, with doubtful result, but by the intercession +of the Clergy this unnatural feud was healed, and the brothers reigned +conjointly for nine years afterwards, until Teigue fell in an +engagement in Ely (Queen's County), as was charged and believed, by the +machinations of his colleague and brother. Thorlogh, son of Teigue, was +the foster-son, and at this time the guest or hostage of Dermid of +Leinster, the founder of the McMurrogh family, which had now risen into +the rank justly forfeited by the traitor Maelmurra. When he reached +man's age he married the daughter of Dermid, and we shall soon hear of +him again asserting in Munster the pretensions of the eldest surviving +branch of the O'Brien family. + +The death of his brother and of Malachy within the same year, proved +favourable to the ambition of Donogh O'Brien. All Munster submitted to +his sway; Connaught was among the first to recognise his title as +Ard-Righ. Ossory and Leinster, though unwillingly, gave in their +adhesion. But Meath refused to recognise him, and placed its government +in commission, in the hands of Con O'Lochan, the arch-poet, and +Corcran, the priest, already more than once mentioned. The country, +north of Meath, obeyed Flaherty O'Neil, of Aileach, whose ambition, as +well as that of all his house, was to restore the northern supremacy, +which had continued unbroken, from the fourth to the ninth century. +This Flaherty was a vigorous, able, and pious Prince, who held stoutly +on to the northern half-kingdom. In the year 1030 he made the frequent +but adventurous pilgrimage to Rome, from which he is called, in the +pedigree of his house, _an Trostain_, or the cross-bearer. + +The greatest obstacle, however, to the complete ascendency of Donogh, +arose in the person of his nephew, now advanced to manhood. Thorlogh +O'Brien possessed much of the courage and ability of his grandfather, +and he had at his side, a faithful and powerful ally in his +foster-father, Dermid, of Leinster. Rightly or wrongly, on proof or on +suspicion, he regarded his uncle as his father's murderer, and he +pursued his vengeance with a skill and constancy worthy of _Hamlet_. At +the time of his father's death, he was a mere lad—in his fourteenth +year. But, as he grew older, he accompanied his foster-father in all +his expeditions, and rapidly acquired a soldier's fame. By marriage +with Dervorgoil, daughter of the Lord of Ossory, he strengthened his +influence at the most necessary point; and what, with so good a cause +and such fast friends as he made in exile, his success against his +uncle is little to be wondered at. Leinster and Ossory, which had +temporarily submitted to Donogh's claim, soon found good pretexts for +refusing him tribute, and a border war, marked by all the usual +atrocities, raged for several successive seasons. The contest, is +relieved, however, of its purely civil character, by the capture of +Waterford, still Danish, in 1037, and of Dublin, in 1051. On this +occasion, Dermid, of Leinster, bestowed the city on his son Morrogh +(grandfather of Strongbow's ally), to whom the remnant of its +inhabitants, as well as their kinsmen in Man, submitted for the time +with what grace they could. + +The position of Donogh O'Brien became yearly weaker. His rival had +youth, energy, and fortune on his side. The Prince of Connaught finally +joined him, and thus, a league was formed, which overcame all +opposition. In the year 1058, Donogh received a severe defeat at the +base of the Galtees; and although he went into the house of O'Conor the +same year, and humbly submitted to him, it only postponed his day of +reckoning. Three years after O'Conor took Kinkora, and Dermid, of +Leinster, burned Limerick, and took hostages as far southward as Saint +Brendan's hill (Tralee). The next year Donogh O'Brien, then fully +fourscore years of age, weary of life and of the world, took the +cross-staff, and departed on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he died soon +after, in the monastery of St. Stephen. It is said by some writers that +Donogh brought with him to Rome and presented to the Pope, Alexander +II., the crown of his father—and from this tradition many theories and +controversies have sprung. It is not unlikely that a deposed monarch +should have carried into exile whatever portable wealth he still +retained, nor that he should have presented his crown to the Sovereign +Pontiff before finally quitting the world. But as to conferring with +the crown, the sovereignty of which it was once an emblem, neither +reason nor religion obliges us to believe any such hypothesis. + +Dermid of Leinster, upon the banishment of Donogh, son of Brian (A.D. +1063), became actual ruler of the southern half-kingdom and nominal +Ard-Righ, "with opposition." The two-fold antagonism to this Prince, +came, as might be expected from Conor, son of Malachy, the head of the +southern Hy-Nial dynasty, and from the chiefs of the elder dynasty of +the North. Thorlogh O'Brien, now King of Cashel, loyally repaid, by his +devoted adherence, the deep debt he owed in his struggles and his early +youth to Dermid. There are few instances in our Annals of a more +devoted friendship than existed between these brave and able Princes +through all the changes of half a century. No one act seems to have +broken the life-long intimacy of Dermid and Thorlogh; no cloud ever +came between them; no mistrust, no distrust. Rare and precious felicity +of human experience! How many myriads of men have sighed out their +souls in vain desire for that best blessing which Heaven can bestow, a +true, unchanging, unsuspecting friend! + +To return: Conor O'Melaghlin could not see, without deep-seated +discontent, a Prince of Leinster assume the rank which his father and +several of his ancestors had held. A border strife between Meath and +Leinster arose not unlike that which had been waged a few years before +for the deposition of Donogh, between Leinster and Ossory on the one +part, and Munster on the other. Various were the encounters, whose +obscure details are seldom preserved to us. But the good fortune of +Dermid prevailed in all, until, in the year 1070, he lost Morrogh, his +heir, by a natural death at Dublin, and Gluniarn, another son, fell in +battle with the men of Meath. Two years later, in the battle of Ova, in +the same territory, and against the same enemy, Dermid himself fell, +with the lord of Forth, and a great host of Dublin Danes and Leinster +men. The triumph of the son of Malachy, and the sorrow and anger of +Leinster, were equally great. The bards have sung the praise of Dermid +in strains which history accepts: they praise his ruddy aspect and +laughing teeth; they remember how he upheld the standard of war, and +none dared contend with him in battle; they denounce vengeance on Meath +as soon as his death-feast is over—a vengeance too truly pursued. + +As a picture of the manners and habits of thought in those tunes, the +fate of Conor, son of Melaghlin, and its connection with the last +illness and death of Thorlogh O'Brien, are worthy of mention. Conor was +treacherously slain, the year after the battle of Ova, in a parley with +his own nephew, though the parley was held under the protection of the +_Bachall-Isa_, or Staff, of Christ, the most revered relic of the Irish +Church. After his death, his body was buried in the great Church of +Clonmacnoise, in his own patrimony. But Thorlogh O'Brien perhaps, from +his friendship for Dermid, carried off his head, as the head of an +enemy, to Kinkora. When it was placed in his presence in his palace, a +mouse ran out from the dead man's head, and under the king's mantle, +which occasioned him such a fright that he grew suddenly sick, his hair +fell off, and his life was despaired of. It was on Good Friday that the +buried head was carried away, and on Easter Sunday, it was tremblingly +restored again, with two rings of gold as a peace offering to the +Church. Thus were God and Saint Kieran vindicated. Thorlogh O'Brien +slowly regained his strength, though Keating, and the authors he +followed, think he was never the same man again, after the fright he +received from the head of Conor O'Melaghlin. He died peaceably and full +of penitence, at Kinkora, on the eve of the Ides of July, A.D. 1086, +after severe physical suffering. He was in the 77th year of his age, +the 32nd of his rule over Munster, and the 13th—since the death of +Dermid of Leinster—in his actual sovereignty of the southern half, and +nominal rule of the whole kingdom. He was succeeded by his son +Murkertach, or Murtogh, afterwards called _More_, or the great. + +We have thus traced to the third generation the political fortunes of +the family of Brian, which includes so much of the history of those +times. That family had become, and was long destined to remain, the +first in rank and influence in the southern half-kingdom. But internal +discord in a great house, as in a great state, is fatal to the +peaceable transmission of power. That "acknowledged right of birth" to +which a famous historian attributes "the peaceful successions" of +modern Europe, was too little respected in those ages, in many +countries of Christendom—and had no settled prescription in its favour +among the Irish. Primogeniture and the whole scheme of feudal +dependence seems to have been an essential preparative for modern +civilization: but as Ireland had escaped the legions of Rome, so she +existed without the circle of feudal organization. When that system did +at length appear upon her soil it was embodied in an invading host, and +patriot zeal could discern nothing good, nothing imitable in the laws +and customs of an enemy, whose armed presence in the land was an insult +to its inhabitants. Thus did our Island twice lose the discipline which +elsewhere laid the foundation of great states: once in the Roman, and +again in the Feudal era. + + + +CHAPTER II. +THE CONTEST BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH—RISE OF THE FAMILY OF O'CONOR. + +Four years before the death of Thorlogh O'Brien, a Prince destined to +be the life-long rival of his great son, had succeeded to the kingship +of the northern tribes. This was Donald, son of Ardgall, Prince of +Aileach, sometimes called "O" and sometimes "Mac" Laughlin. Donald had +reached the mature age of forty when he succeeded in the course of +nature to his father, Ardgall, and was admitted the first man of the +North, not only in station but for personal graces and accomplishments; +for wisdom, wealth, liberality, and love of military adventure. + +Murkertach, or Murtogh O'Brien, was of nearly the same age as his +rival, and his equal, if not superior in talents, both for peace and +war. During the last years of his father's reign and illness, he had +been the real ruler of the south, and had enforced the claims of Cashel +on all the tribes of Leath Mogha, from Dublin to Galway. In the year +1094, by mutual compact, brought about through the intercession of the +Archbishop of Armagh and the great body of the clergy, north and +south—and still more perhaps by the pestilence and famine which raged +at intervals during the last years of the eleventh century—this ancient +division of the midland _asker_, running east and west, was solemnly +restored by consent of both parties, and Leath Mogha and Leath Conn +became for the moment independent territories. So thoroughly did the +Church enter into the arrangement, that, at the Synod of Rath-Brazil, +held a few years later, the seats of the twelve Bishops of the southern +half were grouped round the Archbishop of Cashel, while the twelve of +the northern half were ranged round the Archbishop of Armagh. The +Bishops of Meath, the ancient mensal of the monarchy, seem to have +occupied a middle station between the benches of the north and south. + +Notwithstanding the solemn compact of 1094, Murtogh did not long cease +to claim the title, nor to seek the hostages of all Ireland. As soon as +the fearful visitations with which the century had closed were passed +over, he resumed his warlike forays, and found Donald of Aileach +nothing loath to try again the issue of arms. Each prince, however, +seems to have been more anxious to coerce or interest the secondary +chiefs in his own behalf than to meet his rival in the old-style +pitched battle. Murtogh's annual march was usually along the Shannon, +into Leitrim, thence north by Sligo, and across the Erne and Finn into +Donegal and Derry. Donald's annual excursion led commonly along the +Bann, into Dalriada and Ulidia, Whence by way of Newry, across the +Boyne, into Meath, and from West-Meath into Munster. In one of these +forays, at the very opening of the twelfth century, Donald surprised +Kinkora in the absence of its lord, razed the fort and levelled the +buildings to the earth. But the next season the southern king paid him +back in kind, when he attacked and demolished Aileach, and caused each +of his soldiers to carry off a stone of the ruin in his knapsack. "I +never heard of the billeting of grit stones," exclaims a bard of those +days, "though I have heard of the billeting of soldiers: but now we see +the stones of Aileach billeted on the horses of the King of the West!" + +Such circuits of the Irish kings, especially in days of opposition, +were repeated with much regularity. They seem to have set out commonly +in May—or soon after the festival of Easter—and when the tour of the +island was made, they occupied about six weeks in duration. The precise +number of men who took part in these visitations is nowhere stated, but +in critical times no prince, claiming the perilous honour of +_Ard-Righ_, would be likely to march with less than from five to ten +thousand men. The movements of such a multitude must have been attended +with many oppressions and inconveniences; their encampment for even a +week in any territory must have been a serious burthen to the resident +inhabitants, whether hostile or hospitable. Yet this was one inevitable +consequence of the breaking up of the federal centre at Tara. In +earlier days, the _Ard-Righ_, on his election, or in an emergency, made +an armed procession through the island. Ordinarily, however, his +suffragans visited him, and not he them; all Ireland went up to Tara to +the _Feis_, or to the festivals of Baaltine and Samhain. Now that there +was no Tara to go to, the monarch, or would-be monarch, found it +indispensable to show himself often, and to exercise his authority in +person, among every considerable tribe in the island. To do justice to +Murtogh O'Brien, he does not appear to have sought occasions of +employing force when on these expeditions, but rather to have acted the +part of an armed negotiator. On his return from the demolition of +Aileach (A.D. 1101), among other acts of munificence, he, in an +assembly of the clergy of Leath Mogha, made a solemn gift of the city +of Cashel, free of all rents and dues, to the Archbishop and the +Clergy, for ever. His munificence to churches, and his patronage of +holy men, were eminent traits in this Prince's character. And the +clergy of that age were eminently worthy of the favours of such +Princes. Their interposition frequently brought about a truce between +the northern and southern kings. In the year 1103, the hostages of both +were placed in custody with Donald, Archbishop of Armagh, to guarantee +a twelvemonth's peace. But the next season the contest was renewed. +Murtogh besieged Armagh for a week, which Donald of Aileach +successfully defended, until the siege was abandoned. In a subsequent +battle the northern force defeated one division of Murtogh's allies in +Iveagh, under the Prince of Leinster, who fell on the field, with the +lords of Idrone, Ossory, Desies, Kerry, and the Dublin Danes. Murtogh +himself, with another division of his troops, was on an incursion into +Antrim when he heard of this defeat. The northern visitors carried off +among other spoils the royal tent and standard, a trophy which gave new +bitterness on the one side, and new confidence on the other. Donald, +the good Archbishop, the following year (A.D. 1105) proceeded to +Dublin, where Murtogh was, or was soon expected, to renew the previous +peace between North and South, but he fell suddenly ill soon after his +arrival, and caused himself to be carried homewards in haste. At a +church by the wayside, not far from Dublin, he was anointed and +received the viaticum. He survived, however, to reach Armagh, where he +expired on the 12th day of August. Kellach, latinized Celsus, his +saintly successor, was promoted to the Primacy, and solemnly +consecrated on Saint Adamnan's day following—the 23rd of September, +1105. + +Archbishop Celsus, whose accession was equally well received in Munster +as in Ulster, followed in the footsteps of his pious predecessor, in +taking a decided part with neither Leath Mogha nor Leath Conn. When, in +the year 1110, both parties marched to Slieve-Fuaid, with a view to a +challenge of battle, Celsus interposed between them the +_Bachall-Isa_—and a solemn truce followed; again, three years later, +when they confronted each other in Iveagh, in Down, similar success +attended a similar interposition. Three years later Murtogh O'Brien was +seized with so severe an illness, that he became like to a living +skeleton, and though he recovered sufficiently to resume the exercise +of authority he never regained his full health. He died in a spiritual +retreat, at Lismore, on the 4th of the Ides of March, A.D. 1119, and +was buried at Killaloe. His great rival, Donald of Leath Conn, did not +long survive him: he died at Derry, also in a religious house, on the +5th of the Ides of February, A.D. 1121. + +While these two able men were thus for more than a quarter of a century +struggling for the supremacy, a third power was gradually strengthening +itself west of the Shannon, destined to profit by the contest, more +than either of the principals. This was the family of O'Conor, of +Roscommon, who derived their pedigree from the same stock as the +O'Neils, and their name from Conor, an ancestor, who ruled over +Connaught, towards the end of the ninth century. Two or three of their +line before Conor had possessed the same rank and title, but it was by +no means regarded as an adjunct of the house of Rathcrogan, before the +time at which we have arrived. Their co-relatives, sometimes their +rivals, but oftener their allies, were the O'Ruarcs of Breffny, +McDermots of Moylurg, the O'Flahertys of _Iar_ or West Connaught, the +O'Shaughnessys, O'Heynes, and O'Dowdas. The great neighbouring family +of O'Kelly had sprung from a different branch of the far-spreading +Gaelic tree. At the opening of the twelfth century, Thorlogh More +O'Conor, son of Ruari of the Yellow Hound, son of Hugh of the Broken +Spear, was the recognised head of his race, both for valour and +discretion. By some historians he is called the half-brother of Murtogh +O'Brien, and it is certain that he was the faithful ally of that +powerful prince. In the early stages of the recent contest between +North and South, Donald of Aileach had presented himself at Rathcrogan, +the residence of O'Conor, who entertained him for a fortnight, and gave +him hostages; but Connaught finally sided with Munster, and thus, by a +decided policy, escaped being ground to powder, as corn is ground +between the mill-stones. But the nephew and successor of Murtogh was +not prepared to reciprocate to Connaught the support it had rendered to +Munster, but rather looked for its continuance to himself. Conor +O'Brien, who became King of Munster in 1120, resisted all his life the +pretensions of any house but his own to the southern half-kingdom, and +against a less powerful or less politic antagonist, his energy and +capacity would have been certain to prevail. The posterity of Malachy +in Meath, as well as the Princes of Aileach, were equally hostile to +the designs of the new aspirant. One line had given three, another +seven, another twenty kings to Erin—but who had ever heard of an +_Ard-Righ_ coming out of Connaught? 'Twas so they reasoned in those +days of fierce family pride, and so they acted. Yet Thorlogh, son of +Ruari, son of Hugh, proved himself in the fifteen years' war, previous +to his accession (1021 to 1136), more than a match for all his enemies. +He had been chief of his tribe since the year 1106, and from the first +had begun to lay his far forecasting plans for the sovereignty. He had +espoused the cause of the house of O'Brien, and had profited by that +alliance. Nor were all his thoughts given to war. He had bridged the +river Suca at Ballinasloe, and the Shannon at Athlone and Shannon +harbour, and the same year these works were finished (1120 or '21) he +celebrated the ancient games at Tailtean, in assertion of his claim to +the monarchy. His main difficulty was the stubborn pride of Munster, +and the valour and enterprise of Conor O'Brien, surnamed Conor "of the +fortresses." Of the years following his assertion of his title, few +passed without war between those Provinces. In 1121 and 1127, Thorlogh +triumphed in the south, took hostages from Lismore to Tralee, and +returned home exultingly; a few years later the tide turned, and Conor +O'Brien was equally victorious against him, in the heart of his own +country. Thorlogh played off in the south the ancient jealousy of the +Eugenian houses against the Dalcassians, and thus weakened both, to his +own advantage. In the year 1126 he took Dublin and raised his son to +the lordship, as Dermid of Leinster, and Thorlogh O'Brien had done +formerly: marching southward he encamped in Ormond, from Lammas to St. +Bridget's day, and overran Munster with his troops in all directions, +taking Cork, Cashel, Ardfinnan, and Tralee. Celsus, the holy Primate of +Armagh, deploring the evils of this protracted year, left his peaceful +city, and spent thirteen months in the south and west, endeavouring to +reconcile, and bind over to the peace, the contending kings. In these +days the Irish hierarchy performed, perhaps, their highest part—that of +peacemakers and preachers of good will to men. When in 1132 and '33 the +tide had temporarily turned against Thorlogh, and Conor O'Brien had +united Munster, Leinster, and Meath, against him, the Archbishop of +Tuam performed effectually the office of mediator, preserving not only +his own Province, but the whole country from the most sanguinary +consequences. In the year 1130, the holy Celsus had rested from his +labours, and Malachy, the illustrious friend of St. Bernard, was +nominated as his successor. At the time he was absent in Munster, as +the Vicar of the aged Primate, engaged in a mission of peace, when the +crozier and the dying message of his predecessor were delivered to him. +He returned to Armagh, where he found that Maurice, son of Donald, had +been intruded as Archbishop in the _interim_, to this city peace, +order, and unity, were not even partially restored, until two years +later—A.D., 1132. + +The reign of Thorlogh O'Conor over Leath Mogha, or as Ard-Righ "with +opposition," is dated by the best authorities from the year 1136. He +was then in his forty-eighth year, and had been chief of his tribe from +the early age of eighteen. He afterwards reigned for twenty years, and +as those years, and the early career of his son Roderick are full of +instruction, in reference to the events which follow, we must relate +them somewhat in detail. We again beg the reader to observe the +consequences of the destruction of the federal bond among the Irish; +how every province has found an ambitious dynasty of its own, which +each contends shall be supreme; how the ambition of the great families +grows insatiable as the ancient rights and customs decay; how the law +of Patrick enacted in the fifth century is no longer quoted or +regarded; how the law of the strong hand alone decides the quarrel of +these proud, unyielding Princes. + + + +CHAPTER III. +THORLOGH MORE O'CONOR—MURKERTACH OF AILEACH—ACCESSION OF RODERICK +O'CONOR. + +The successful ambition of Thorlogh O'Conor had thus added, as we have +seen in the last chapter, a fifth dynasty to the number of competitors +for the sovereignty. And if great energy and various talents could +alone entitle a chief to rule over his country, this Prince well +merited the obedience of his cotemporaries. He is the first of the +latter kings who maintained a regular fleet at sea; at one time we find +these Connaught galleys doing service on the coast of Cork, at another +co-operating with his land forces, in the harbour of Derry. The year of +his greatest power was the fifteenth of his reign (A.D. 1151), when his +most signal success was obtained over his most formidable antagonists. +Thorlogh O'Brien, King of Munster, successor to Conor of the +fortresses, had on foot, in that year, an army of three battalions (or +_caths_), each battalion consisting of 3,000 men, with which force he +overawed some, and compelled others of the southern chiefs to withdraw +their homage from his western namesake. The latter, uniting to his own +the forces of Meath, and those of Leinster, recently reconciled to his +supremacy, marched southward, and, encamping at Glanmire, received the +adhesion of such Eugenian families as still struggled with desperation +against the ascendency of the O'Briens. With these forces he +encountered, at Moanmore, the army of the south, and defeated them, +with the enormous loss of 7,000 men—a slaughter unparalleled throughout +the war of succession. Every leading house in North Munster mourned the +loss of either its chief or its tanist; some great families lost three, +five, or seven brothers on that sanguinary day. The household of +Kinkora was left without an heir, and many a near kinsman's seat was +vacant in its hospitable hall. The O'Brien himself was banished into +Ulster, where, from Murkertach, Prince of Aileach, he received the +hospitality due to his rank and his misfortunes, not without an +ulterior politic view on the part of the Ulster Prince. In this battle +of Moanmore, Dermid McMurrogh, King of Leinster, of whom we shall hear +hereafter, fought gallantly on the side of the victor. In the same +year—but whether before or after the Munster campaign is uncertain—an +Ulster force having marched into Sligo, Thorlogh met them near the +Curlew mountains, and made peace with their king. A still more +important interview took place the next year in the plain, or _Moy_, +between the rivers Erne and Drowse, near the present Ballyshannon. On +the _Bachall-Isa_ and the relics of Columbkill, Thorlogh and Murkertach +made a solemn peace, which is thought to have included the recognition +of O'Conor's supremacy. A third meeting was had during the summer in +Meath, where were present, beside the Ard-Righ, the Prince of Aileach, +Dermid of Leinster, and other chiefs and nobles. At this conference +they divided Meath into east and west, between two branches of the +family of Melaghlin. Part of Longford and South Leitrim were taken from +Tiernan O'Ruarc, lord of Breffni, and an angle of Meath, including +Athboy and the hill of Ward, was given him instead. Earlier in the same +year, King Thorlogh had divided Munster into three parts, giving +Desmond to MacCarthy, Ormond to Thaddeus O'Brien, who had fought under +him at Moanmore, and leaving the remainder to the O'Brien, who had only +two short years before competed with him for the sovereignty. By these +subdivisions the politic monarch expected to weaken to a great degree +the power of the rival families of Meath and Munster. It was an +arbitrary policy which could originate only on the field of battle, and +could be enforced only by the sanction of victory. Thorlogh O'Brien, +once King of all Munster, refused to accept a mere third, and carrying +away his jewels and valuables, including the drinking horn of the great +Brian, he threw himself again on the protection of Murkertach of +Aileach. The elder branch of the family of O'Melaghlin were equally +indisposed to accept half of Meath, where they had claimed the whole +from the Shannon to the sea. To complicate still more this tangled web, +Dermid, King of Leinster, about the same time (A.D. 1153), eloped with +Dervorgoil, wife of O'Ruarc of Breffni, and daughter of O'Melaghlin, +who both appealed to the monarch for vengeance on the ravager. Up to +this date Dermid had acted as a steadfast ally of O'Conor, but when +compelled by the presence of a powerful force on his borders to restore +the captive, or partner of his guilt, he conceived an enmity for the +aged king, which he extended, with increased virulence, to his son and +successor. + +What degree of personal criminality to attach to this elopement it is +hard to say. The cavalier in the case was on the wintry side of fifty, +while the lady had reached the mature age of forty-four. Such examples +have been, where the passions of youth, surviving the period most +subject to their influence, have broken out with renewed frenzy on the +confines of old age. Whether the flight of Dermid and Dervorgoil arose +from a mere criminal passion, is not laid down with certainty in the +old Annals, though national and local tradition strongly point to that +conclusion. The Four Masters indeed state that after the restoration of +the lady she "returned to O'Ruarc," another point wanting confirmation. +We know that she soon afterwards retired to the shelter of Mellifont +Abbey, where she ended her days towards the close of the century, in +penitence and alms-deeds. + +Murtogh of Aileach now became master of the situation. Thorlogh was old +and could not last long; Dermid of Leinster was for ever estranged from +him; the new arbitrary divisions, though made with the general consent, +satisfied no one. With a powerful force he marched southward, restored +to the elder branch of the O'Melaghlins the whole of Meath, defeated +Thaddeus O'Brien, obliterated Ormond from the map, restored the old +bounds of Thomond and Desmond, and placed his guest, the banished +O'Brien, on the throne of Cashel. A hostile force, under Roderick +O'Conor, was routed, and retreated to their own territory. The next +year (A.D. 1154) was signalized by a fierce naval engagement between +the galleys of King Thorlogh and those of Murtogh, on the coast of +Innishowen. The latter, recruited by vessels hired from the Gael and +Galls of Cantire, the Arran Isles, and Man, were under the command of +MacScellig; the Connaught fleet was led by O'Malley and O'Dowda. The +engagement, which lasted from the morning till the evening, ended in +the repulse of the Connaught fleet, and the death of O'Dowda. The +occurrence is remarkable as the first general sea-fight between vessels +in the service of native Princes, and as reminding us forcibly of the +lessons acquired by the Irish during the Danish period. + +During the two years of life—which remained to King Thorlogh O'Conor, +he had the affliction of seeing the fabric of power, which had taken +him nearly half a century to construct, abridged at many points, by his +more vigorous northern rival. Murtogh gave law to territories far south +of the ancient _esker_. He took hostages from the Danes of Dublin, and +interposed in the affairs of Munster. In the year 1156, the closing +incidents which signalized the life of Thorlogh More, was a new peace +which he made between the people of Breffni, Meath, and Connaught, and +the reception of hostages from his old opponent, the restored O'Brien. +While this new light of prosperity was shining on his house, he passed +away from this life, on the 13th of the Kalends of June, in the 68th +year of his age, and the 50th of his government. By his last will he +bequeathed to the clergy numerous legacies, which are thus enumerated +by Geoffrey Keating: "namely, four hundred and forty ounces of gold, +and forty marks of silver; and all the other valuable treasures he +possessed, both cups and precious stones, both steeds and cattle and +robes, chess-boards, bows, quivers, arrows, equipments, weapons, +armour, and utensils." He was interred beside the high altar of the +Cathedral of Clonmacnoise, to which he had been in life and in death a +munificent benefactor. + +The Prince of Aileach now assumed the title of Monarch, and after some +short-lived opposition from Roderick O'Conor, his sovereignty was +universally acknowledged. From the year 1161 until his death, he might +fairly be called Ard-Righ, without opposition, since the hostages of +all Ireland were in those last five years in his hands. These hostages +were retained at the chief seat of power of the northern dynasty, the +fortress of Aileach, which crowns a hill nearly a thousand feet high, +at the head of Lough Swilly. To this stronghold the ancestor of Murtogh +had removed early in the Danish period, from the more exposed and more +ancient Emania, beside Armagh. On that hill-summit the ruins of Aileach +may still be traced, with its inner wall twelve feet thick, and its +three concentric ramparts, the first enclosing one acre, the second +four, and the last five acres. By what remains we can still judge of +the strength of the stronghold which watched over the waters of Lough +Swilly like a sentinel on an outpost. No Prince of the Northern Hy-Nial +had for two centuries entered Aileach in such triumph or with so many +nobles in his train, as did Murtogh in the year 1161, But whether the +supreme power wrought a change for the worse in his early character, or +that the lords of Ulster had begun to consider the line of Conn as +equals rather than sovereigns, he was soon involved in quarrels with +his own Provincial suffragans which ended in his defeat and death. Most +other kings of whom we have read found their difficulties in rival +dynasties and provincial prejudices; but this ruler, when most freely +acknowledged abroad, was disobeyed and defeated at home. Having taken +prisoner the lord of Ulidia (Down), with whom he had previously made a +solemn peace, he ordered his eyes to be put out, and three of his +principal relatives to be executed. This and other arbitrary acts so +roused the lords of Leath Conn, that they formed a league against him, +at the head of which stood Donogh O'Carroll, lord of Oriel, the next +neighbour to the cruelly ill-treated chief of Ulidia. In the year 1166, +this chief, with certain tribes of Tyrone and North Leitrim, to the +number of three battalions (9,000 men), attacked the patrimony of the +monarch—that last menace and disgrace to an Irish king. Murtogh with +his usual valour, but not his usual fortune, encountered them in the +district of the Fews, with an Inferior force, chiefly his own +tribesmen. Even these deserted him on the eve of the battle, so that he +was easily surprised and slain, only thirteen men falling in the +affray. This action, of course, is unworthy the name of a battle, but +resulting in the death of the monarch, it became of high political +importance. + +Roderick O'Conor, son of Thorlogh More, was at this period in the tenth +year of his reign over Connaught, and the fiftieth year of his age. +Rathcrogan, the chief seat of his jurisdiction, had just attained to +the summit of its glory. The site of this now almost forgotten palace +is traceable in the parish of Elphin, within three miles of the modern +village of Tulsk. Many objects contributed to its interest and +importance in Milesian times. There were the _Naasteaghna_, or place of +assembly of the clans of Connaught, "the Sacred Cave," which in the +Druidic era was supposed to be the residence of a god, and the _Relig +na Righ_—the venerable cemetery of the Pagan kings of the West, where +still the red pillar stone stood over the grave of Dathy, and many +another ancient tomb could be as clearly distinguished. The relative +importance of Rathcrogan we may estimate by the more detailed +descriptions of the extent and income of its rivals—Kinkora and +Aileach. In an age when Roscommon alone contained 470 fortified _duns_, +over all which the royal rath presided; when half the tributes of the +island were counted at its gate, it must have been the frequent +_rendezvous_ of armies, the home of many guests, the busy focus of +intrigue, and the very elysium of bards, story-tellers, and mendicants. +In an after generation, Cathal, the red-handed O'Conor, from some +motive of policy or pleasure, transferred the seat of government to the +newly-founded Ballintober: in the lifetime of Thorlogh More, and the +first years of Roderick, when the fortunes of the O'Conors were at +their full, Rathcrogan was the co-equal in strength and in splendour of +Aileach and Kinkora. + +Advancing directly from this family seat, on the first tidings of +Murtogh's death, Roderick presented himself before the walls of Dublin, +which opened its gates, accepted his stipend of four thousand head of +cattle, and placed hostages for its fidelity in his hands. He next +marched rapidly to Drogheda, with an auxiliary force of Dublin Danes, +and there O'Carroll, lord of Oriel (Louth), came into his camp, and +rendered him homage. Retracing his steps he entered Leinster, with an +augmented force, and demanded hostages from Dermid McMurrogh. Thirteen +years had passed since his father had taken up arms to avenge the rape +of Dervorgoil, and had earned the deadly hatred of the abductor. That +hatred, in the interim, had suffered no decrease, and sooner than +submit to Roderick, the ravager burned his own city of Ferns to the +ground, and retreated into his fastnesses. Roderick proceeded +southward, obtained the adhesion of Ossory and Munster; confirming +Desmond to McCarthy, and Thomond to O'Brien. Returning to Leinster, he +found that Tiernan O'Ruarc had entered the province, at the head of an +auxiliary army, and Dermid, thus surrounded, deserted by most of his +own followers, outwitted and overmatched, was feign to seek safety in +flight beyond seas (A.D. 1168). A solemn sentence of banishment was +publicly pronounced against him by the assembled Princes, and Morrogh, +his cousin, commonly called Morrogh _na Gael_, or "of the Irish," to +distinguish him from Dermid _na Gall_, or "of the Stranger," was +inaugurated in his stead. From Morrogh _na Gael_ they took seventeen +hostages, and so Roderick returned rejoicing to Rathcrogan, and O'Ruarc +to Breffni, each vainly imagining that he had heard the last of the +dissolute and detested King of Leinster. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING AMONG THE IRISH, PREVIOUS TO THE +ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION. + +At the end of the eighth century, before entering on the Norwegian and +Danish wars, we cast a backward glance on the Christian ages over which +we had passed; and now again we have arrived at the close of an era, +when a rapid retrospect of the religious and social condition of the +country requires to be taken. + +The disorganization of the ancient Celtic constitution has already been +sufficiently described. The rise of the great families, and their +struggles for supremacy, have also been briefly sketched. The +substitution of the clan for the race, of pedigree for patriotism, has +been exhibited to the reader. We have now to turn to the inner life of +the people, and to ascertain what substitutes they found in their +religious and social condition, for the absence of a fixed +constitutional system, and the strength and stability which such a +system confers. + +The followers of Odin, though they made no proselytes to their horrid +creed among the children of St. Patrick, succeeded in inflicting many +fatal wounds on the Irish Church. The schools, monasteries, and +nunneries, situated on harbours or rivers, or within a convenient march +of the coast, were their first objects of attack; teachers and pupils +were dispersed, or, if taken, put to death, or, escaping, were driven +to resort to arms in self-defence. Bishops could no longer reside in +their sees, nor anchorites in their cells, unless they invited +martyrdom; a fact which may, perhaps, in some degree account for the +large number of Irish ecclesiastics, many of them in episcopal orders, +who are found, in the ninth century, in Gaul and Germany, at Rheims, +Mentz, Ratisbon, Fulda, Cologne, and other places, already Christian. +But it was not in the banishment of masters, the destruction of +libraries and school buildings, the worst consequences of the Gentile +war were felt. Their ferocity provoked retaliation in kind, and +effaced, first among the military class, and gradually from among all +others, that growing gentleness of manners and clemency of temper, +which we can trace in such princes as Nial of the Showers and Nial of +Callan. "A change in the national spirit is the greatest of all +revolutions;" and this change the Danish and Norwegian wars had +wrought, in two centuries, among the Irish. + +The number of Bishops in the early Irish Church was greatly in excess +of the number of modern dioceses. From the eighth to the twelfth +century we hear frequently of _Episcopi Vagantes_, or itinerant, and +_Episcopi Vacantes_, or unbeneficed Bishops; the Provincial Synods of +England and Gaul frequently had to complain of the influx of such +Bishops into their country. At the Synod held near the Hill of Usny, in +the year 1111, fifty Bishops attended, and at the Synod of Rath-Brazil, +seven years later, according to Keating, but twenty-five were present. +To this period, then, when Celsus was Primate and Legate of the Holy +See, we may attribute the first attempted reduction of the Episcopal +body to something like its modern number; but so far was this salutary +restriction from being universally observed that, at the Synod of Kells +(A.D. 1152), the hierarchy had again risen to thirty-four, exclusive of +the four Archbishops. Three hundred priests, and three thousand +ecclesiastics are given as the number present at the first-mentioned +Synod. + +The religious orders, probably represented by the above proportion of +three thousand ecclesiastics to three hundred [secular] priests had +also undergone a remarkable revolution. The rule of all the early Irish +monasteries and convents was framed upon an original constitution, +which St. Patrick had obtained in France from St. Martin of Tours, who +in turn had copied after the monachism of Egypt and the East. It is +called by ecclesiastical writers the Columban rule, and was more rigid +in some particulars than the rule of St. Benedict, by which it was +afterwards supplanted. Amongst other restrictions it prohibited the +admission of all unprofessed persons within the precincts of the +monastery—a law as regards females incorporated in the Benedictine +constitution; and it strictly enjoined silence on the professed—a +discipline revived by the brethren of La Trappe. The primary difference +between the two orders lay perhaps in this, that the Benedictine made +study and the cultivation of the intellect subordinate to manual labour +and implicit obedience, while the Columban Order attached more +importance to the acquisition of knowledge and missionary enterprise. +Not that this was their invariable, but only their peculiar +characteristic: a deep-seated love of seclusion and meditation often, +intermingled with this fearless and experimental zeal. It was not to be +expected in a century like the ninth, especially when the Benedictine +Order was overspreading the West, that its milder spirit should not act +upon the spirit of the Columban rule. It was, in effect, more social, +and less scientific, more a wisdom to be acted than to be taught. Armed +with the syllogism, the Columbites issued out of their remote island, +carrying their strongly marked personality into every controversy and +every correspondence. In Germany and Gaul, their system blazed up in +Virgilius, in Erigena, and Macarius, and then disappeared in the +calmer, slower, but safer march of the Benedictine discipline. By a +reform of the same ancient order, its last hold on native soil was +loosened when, under the auspices of St. Malachy, the Cistercian rule +was introduced into Ireland the very year of his first visit to +Clairvaux (A.D. 1139). St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, was the first to adopt +that rule, and the great monastery of Mellifont, placed under the +charge of the brother of the Primate, sprung up in Meath, three years +later. The Abbeys of Bective, Boyle, Baltinglass, and Monasternenagh, +date from the year of Malachy's second journey to Rome, and death at +Clairvaux—A.D. 1148. Before the end of the century, the rule was +established at Fermoy, Holycross, and Odorney; at Athlone and Knockmoy; +at Newry and Assaroe, and in almost every tribe-land of Meath and +Leinster. It is usually but erroneously supposed that the Cistercian +rule came in with the Normans; for although many houses owed their +foundation to that race, the order itself had been naturalized in +Ireland a generation before the first landing of the formidable allies +of Dermid on the coast of Wexford. The ancient native order had +apparently fulfilled its mission, and long rudely lopped and shaken by +civil commotions and Pagan war, it was prepared to give place to a new +and more vigorous organization of kindred holiness and energy. + +As the horrors of war disturbed continually the clergy from their +sacred calling, and led many of them, even Abbots and Bishops, to take +up arms, so the yoke of religion gradually loosened and dropped from +the necks of the people. The awe of the eighth century for a Priest or +Bishop had already disappeared in the tenth, when Christian hands were +found to decapitate Cormac of Cashel, and offer his head as a trophy to +the Ard-Righ. In the twelfth century the Archbishop and Bishops of +Connaught, bound to the Synod of Trim, were fallen upon by the Kern of +Carbre the Swift, before they could cross the Shannon, their people +beaten and dispersed and two of them killed. In the time of Thorlogh +More O'Conor, a similar outrage was offered by Tiernan O'Ruarc to the +Archbishop of Armagh, and one of his ecclesiastics was killed in the +assault. Not only for the persons of ministers of religion had the +ancient awe and reverence disappeared, but even for the sacred +precincts of the Sanctuary. In the second century of the war with the +Northmen we begin to hear of churches and cloisters plundered by native +chiefs, who yet called themselves Christians, though in every such +instance our annalists are careful to record the vengeance of Heaven +following swift on sacrilege. Clonmacnoise, Kildare, and Lismore, were +more than once rifled of their wealth by impious hands, and given over +to desolation and burning by so-called Christian nobles and soldiers! +It is some mitigation of the dreadful record thus presented to be +informed—as we often are—especially in the annals of the twelfth +century, that the treasures so pillaged were not the shrines of saints +nor the sacred ornaments of the altar, but the temporal wealth of +temporal proprietors, laid up in churches as places of greatest +security. + +The estates of the Church were, in most instances, farmed by laymen, +called _Erenachs_, who, in the relaxation of all discipline, seem to +have gradually appropriated the lands to themselves, leaving to the +Clergy and Bishops only periodical dues and the actual enclosure of the +Church. This office of Erenach was hereditary, and must have presented +many strong temptations to its occupants. It is indeed certain that the +Irish Church was originally founded on the broadest voluntaryism, and +that such was the spirit of all its most illustrious fathers. "Content +with food and raiment," says an ancient Canon attributed to St. +Patrick, "reject the gifts of the wicked beside, seeing that the lamb +takes only that with which it is fed." Such, to the letter, was the +maxim which guided the conduct of Colman and his brethren, of whom Bede +makes such honourable mention, in the third century after the preaching +of St. Patrick. But the munificence of tribes and Princes was not to be +restrained, and to obviate any violation of the revered canons of the +apostle, laymen, as treasurers and stewards over the endowments of the +Church, were early appointed. As those possessions increased, the +desire of family aggrandizement proved too much for the Erenachs not +only of Armagh, but of most other sees, and left the clergy as +practically dependent on free-will offerings, as if their Cathedrals or +Convents had never been endowed with an acre, a mill, a ferry, or a +fishery. The free offerings were, however, always generous, and +sometimes munificent. When Celsus, on his elevation to the Primacy, +made a tour of the southern half-kingdom, he received "seven cows and +seven sheep, and half an ounce of silver from every cantred [hundred] +in Munster." The bequests were also a fruitful source of revenue to the +principal foundations; of the munificence of the monarchs we may form +some opinion by what has been already recorded of the gifts left to +churches by Thorlogh More O'Conor. + +The power of the clerical order, in these ages of Pagan warfare, had +very far declined from what it was, when Adamnan caused the law to be +enacted to prevent women going to battle, when Moling obtained the +abolition of the Leinster tribute, and Columbkill the recognition of +Scottish independence. Truces made in the presence of the highest +dignitaries, and sworn to on the most sacred relics, were frequently +violated, and often with impunity. Neither excommunication nor public +penance were latterly inflicted as an atonement for such perjury: a +fine or offering to the Church was the easy and only mulct on the +offender. When we see the safeguard of the Bishop of Cork so flagrantly +disregarded by the assassins of Mahon, son of Kennedy, and the solemn +peace of the year 1094 so readily broken by two such men as the Princes +of the North and the South, we need no other proofs of the decadence of +the spiritual authority in that age of Irish history. + +And the morals of private life tell the same sad tale. The facility +with which the marriage tie was contracted and dissolved is the +strongest evidence of this degeneracy. The worst examples were set in +the highest stations, for it is no uncommon incident, from the ninth +century downwards, to find our Princes with more than one wife living, +and the repudiated wife married again to a person of equal or superior +rank. We have the authority of Saint Anselm and Saint Bernard, for the +existence of grave scandal and irregularities of life among the clergy, +and we can well believe that it needed a generation of Bishops, with +all the authority and all the courage of Saint Celsus, Saint Malachy, +and Saint Lawrence, to rescue from ruin a Priesthood and a people, so +far fallen from the bright example of their ancestors. That the +reaction towards a better life had strongly set in, under their +guidance, we may infer from the horror with which, in the third quarter +of the twelfth century, the elopement of Dermid and Dervorgoil was +regarded by both Princes and People. A hundred years earlier, that +event would have been hardly noticed in the general disregard of the +marriage tie, but the frequent Synods, and the holy lives of the +reforming Bishops, had already revived the zeal that precedes and +ensures reformation. + +Primate Malachy died at Clairvaulx, in the arms of Saint Bernard, in +the year 1148, after having been fourteen years Archbishop of Armagh +and ten years Bishop of Down and Conor. His episcopal life, therefore, +embraced the history of that remarkable second quarter of the century, +in which the religious reaction fought its first battles against the +worst abuses. The attention of Saint Bernard, whose eyes nothing +escaped, from Jerusalem to the farthest west, was drawn ten years +before to the Isle of Saints, now, in truth, become an Isle of Sinners. +The death of his friend, the Irish Primate, under his own roof, gave +him a fitting occasion for raising his accusing voice—a voice that +thrilled the Alps and filled the Vatican—against the fearful degeneracy +of that once fruitful mother of holy men and women. The attention of +Rome was thoroughly aroused, and immediately after the appearance of +the Life of Saint Malachy, Pope Eugenius III.—himself a monk of +Clairvaulx—despatched Cardinal Papiron, with legantine powers, to +correct abuses, and establish a stricter discipline. After a tour of +great part of the Island, the Legate, with whom was associated +Gilla-Criost, or Christianus, Bishop of Lismore, called the great Synod +of Kells, early in the year after his arrival (March, 1152), at which +simony, usury, concubinage, and other abuses, were formally condemned, +and tithes were first decreed to be paid to the secular clergy. Two new +Archbishoprics, Dublin and Tuam, were added to Armagh and Cashel, +though not without decided opposition from the Primates both of Leath +Mogha and Leath Conn, backed by those stern conservatives of every +national usage, the Abbots of the Columban Order. The _pallium_, or +Roman cape, was, by this Legate, presented to each of the Archbishops, +and a closer conformity with the Roman ritual was enacted. The four +ecclesiastical Provinces thus created were in outline nearly identical +with the four modern Provinces. Armagh was declared the metropolitan +over all; Dublin, which had been a mere Danish borough-see, gained most +in rank and influence by the new arrangement, as Glendalough, Ferns, +Ossory, Kildare and Leighlin, were declared subject to its presidency. + +We must always bear in mind the picture drawn of the Irish Church by +the inspired orator of Clairvaulx, when judging of the conduct of Pope +Adrian IV., who, in the year 1155—the second of his Pontificate—granted +to King Henry II. of England, then newly crowned, his Bull authorising +the invasion of Ireland. The authenticity of that Bull is now +universally admitted; and both its preamble and conditions show how +strictly it was framed in accordance with St. Bernard's accusation. It +sets forth that for the eradication of vice, the implanting of virtue, +and the spread of the true faith, the Holy Father solemnly sanctions +the projected invasion; and it attaches as a condition, the payment of +Peter's pence, for every house in Ireland. The bearer of the Bull, John +of Salisbury, carried back from Rome a gold ring, set with an emerald +stone, as a token of Adrian's friendship, or it may be, his +subinfeudation of Henry. As a title, however powerless in modern times +such a Bull might prove, it was a formidable weapon of invasion with a +Catholic people, in the twelfth century. We have mainly referred to it +here, however, as an illustration of how entirely St. Bernard's +impeachment of the Irish Church and nation was believed at Rome, even +after the salutary decrees of the Synod of Kells had been promulgated. + +The restoration of religion, which was making such rapid progress +previous to the Norman invasion, was accompanied by a relative revival +of learning. The dark ages of Ireland are not those of the rest of +Europe—they extend from the middle of the ninth century to the age of +Brian and Malachy II. This darkness came from the North, and cleared +away rapidly after the eventful day of Clontarf. The first and most +natural direction which the revival took was historical investigation, +and the composition of Annals. Of these invaluable records, the two of +highest reputation are those of Tigernach (Tiernan) O'Broin, brought +down to the year of his own death, A.D. 1088, and the chronicle of +Marianus Scotus, who died at Mentz, A.D. 1086. Tiernan was abbot of +Clonmacnoise, and Marian is thought to have been a monk of that +monastery, as he speaks of a superior called Tigernach, under whom he +had lived in Ireland. Both these learned men quote accurately the works +of foreign writers; both give the dates of eclipses, in connection with +historical events for several centuries before their own time; both +show a familiarity with Greek and Latin authors. _Marianus_ is the +first writer by whom the name _Scotia Minor_ was given to the Gaelic +settlement in Caledonia, and his chronicle was an authority mainly +relied on in the disputed Scottish succession in the time of Edward I. +of England. With _Tigernach_, he may be considered the founder of the +school of Irish Annalists, which flourished in the shelter of the great +monasteries, such as Innisfallen, Boyle and Multifernan; and culminated +in the great compilation made by "the Four Masters" in the Abbey of +Donegal. + +Of the Gaelic metrical chroniclers, Flann of the Monastery, and +Gilla-Coeman; of the Bards McLiag and McCoisse; of the learned +professors and lectors of Lismore and Armagh—now restored for a season +to studious days and peaceful nights, we must be content with the +mention of their names. Of Lismore, after its restoration, an old +British writer has left us this pleasant and happy picture. "It is," he +says, "a famous and holy city, half of which is an asylum, into which +no woman dares enter; but it is full of cells and monasteries; and +religious men in great abundance abide there." + +Such was the promise of better days, which cheered the hopes of the +Pastors of the Irish, when the twelfth century had entered on its third +quarter. The pious old Gaelic proverb, which says, "on the Cross the +face of Christ was looking westwards—," was again on the lips and in +the hearts of men, and though much remained to be done, much had been +already done, and done under difficulties greater than any that +remained to conquer. + + + +CHAPTER V. +SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE IRISH PREVIOUS TO THE NORMAN INVASION. + +The total population of Ireland, when the Normans first entered it, can +only be approximated by conjecture. Supposing the whole force with +which Roderick and his allies invested the Normans in Dublin, to be, as +stated by a cotemporary writer, some 50,000 men, and that that force +included one-fourth of all the men of the military age in the country; +and further, supposing the men of military age to bear the proportion +of one-fifth to the whole number of inhabitants, this would give a +total population of about one million. Even this conjecture is to be +taken with great diffidence and distrust, but, for the sake of +clearness, it is set down as a possible Irish census, towards the close +of the twelfth century. + +This population was divided into two great classes, the _Saer-Clanna_, +or free tribes, chiefly, if not exclusively, of Milesian race; and the +_Daer-Clanna_, or unfree tribes, consisting of the descendants of the +subjugated older races, or of clans once free, reduced to servitude by +the sword, or of the posterity of foreign mercenary soldiers. Of the +free clans, the most illustrious were those of whose Princes we have +traced the record—the descendants of Nial in Ulster and Meath, of +Cathaeir More in Leinster, of Oliold in Munster, and of Eochaid in +Connaught. An arbitrary division once limited the free clans to six in +the southern half-kingdom, and six in the north; and the unfree also to +six. But Geoffrey Keating, whose love of truth was quite as strong as +his credulity in ancient legends—and that is saying much—disclaimed +that classification, and collected his genealogies from principal +heads—branching out into three families of tribes, descended from Eber +Finn, one from Ir, and four from Eremhon, sons of Milesians of Spain; +and ninth tribe sprung from Ith, granduncle to the sons of Milesius. +The principal Eberian families' names were McCarthy, O'Sullivan, +O'Mahony, O'Donovan, O'Brien, O'Dea, O'Quin, McMahon (of Clare), +McNamara, O'Carroll (of Ely), and O'Gara; the Irian families were +Magennis, O'Farrall, and O'Conor (of Kerry); the posterity of Eremhon +branched out into the O'Neils, O'Donnells, O'Dohertys, O'Gallahers, +O'Boyles, McGeoghegans, O'Conors (of Connaught), O'Flahertys, O'Heynes, +O'Shaughnessys, O'Clerys, O'Dowdas, McDonalds (of Antrim), O'Kellys, +Maguires, Kavanaghs, Fitzpatricks, O'Dwyers, and O'Conors (of Offally). +The chief families of Ithian origin were the O'Driscolls, O'Learys, +Coffeys, and Clancys. Out of the greater tribes many subdivisions arose +from time to time, when new names were coined for some intermediate +ancestor; but the farther enumeration of these may be conveniently +dispensed with. + +The _Daer-Clanna_, or unfree tribes, have left no history. Under the +despotism of the Milesian kings, it was high treason to record the +actions of the conquered race; so that the Irish Belgae fared as badly +in this respect, at the hands of the Milesian historians, as the latter +fared in after times from the chroniclers of the Normans. We only know +that such tribes were, and that their numbers and physical force more +than once excited the apprehension of the children of the conquerors. +What proportion they bore to the _Saer-Clanna_ we have no positive data +to determine. A fourth, a fifth, or a sixth, they may have been; but +one thing is certain, the jealous policy of the superior race never +permitted them to reascend the plane of equality, from which they had +been hurled, at the very commencement of the Milesian ascendency. + +In addition to the enslaved by conquest and the enslaved by crime, +there were also the enslaved by purchase. From the earliest period, +slave dealers from Ireland had frequented Bristol, the great British +slave market, to purchase human beings. Christian morality, though it +may have mitigated the horrors of this odious traffic, did not at once +lead to its abolition. In vain Saint Wulfstan preached against it in +the South, as Saint Aidan had done long before him in the North of +England. Files of fair-haired Saxon slaves, of both sexes, yoked +together with ropes, continued to be shipped at Bristol, and bondmen +and bondwomen continued to be articles of value—exchanged between the +Prince and his subordinates, as stipend or tribute. The King of Cashel +alone gave to the chief of the Eugenians, as part of his annual +stipend, ten bondmen and ten women; to the lord of Bruree, seven pages +and seven bondwomen; to the lord of Deisi, eight slaves of each sex, +and seven female slaves to the lord of Kerry; among the items which +make up the tribute from Ossory to Cashel are ten bondmen and ten grown +women; and from the Deisi, eight bondmen and eight "brown-haired" +women. The annual exchanges of this description, set down as due in the +Book of Rights, would require the transfer of several hundreds of +slaves yearly, from one set of masters to another. Cruelties and +outrages must have been inseparable from the system, and we can hardly +wonder at the sweeping decree by which the Synod of Armagh (A.D. 1171) +declared all the English slaves in Ireland free to return to their +homes, and anathematized the whole inhuman traffic. The fathers of that +council looked upon the Norman invasion as a punishment from Heaven on +the slave trade; for they believed in their purity of heart, that power +_is_ transferred from one nation to another, because of injustices, +oppressions, and divers deceits. + +The purchased slaves and unfree tribes tilled the soil, and practised +the mechanic arts. Agriculture seems first to have been lifted into +respectability by the Cistercian Monks, while spinning, weaving, and +almost every mechanic calling, if we except the scribe, the armorer, +and the bell-founder, continued down to very recent tunes to be held in +contempt among the Gael. A brave man is mentioned as having been a +"weaving woman's son," with much the same emphasis as Jeptha is spoken +of as the son of an Harlot. Mechanic wares were disposed of at those +stated gatherings, which combined popular games, chariot races for the +nobles, and markets for the merchants. A Bard of the tenth or eleventh +century, in a desperate effort to vary the usual high-flown +descriptions of the country, calls it "Erin of the hundred fair +greens,"—a very graphic, if not a very poetic illustration. + +The administration of justice was an hereditary trust, committed to +certain judicial families, who held their lands, as the Monks did, by +virtue of their profession. When the posterity of the Brehon, or Judge +failed, it was permitted to adopt from the class of students, a male +representative, in whom the judicial authority was perpetuated: the +families of O'Gnive and O'Clery in the North, of O'Daly in Meath, +O'Doran in Leinster, McEgan in Munster, Mulconry or Conroy in +Connaught, were the most distinguished Brehon houses. Some +peculiarities of the Brehon law, relating to civil succession and +sovereignty, such as the institution of Tanistry, and the system of +stipends and tributes, have been already explained; parricide and +murder were in latter ages punished with death; homicide and rape by +_eric_ or fine. There were, besides, the laws of gavelkind or division +of property among the members of the clan; laws relating to boundaries; +sumptuary laws regulating the dress of the various castes into which +society was divided; laws relating to the planting of trees, the +trespass of cattle, and billeting of troops. These laws were either +written in detail, or consisted of certain acknowledged ancient maxims +of which the Brehon made the application in each particular case, +answering to what we call "Judge-made law." Of such ancient tracts as +composed the Celtic code, an immense number have, fortunately survived, +even to this late day, and we may shortly expect a complete digest of +all that are now known to exist, in a printed and imperishable form, +from the hands of native scholars, every way competent to the task. + +The commerce of the country, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, was +largely in the hands of the Christian Hiberno-Danes, of the eastern and +southern coast. By them the slave trade with Bristol was mostly +maintained, and the Irish oak, with which William Rufus roofed +Westminster Abbey, was probably rafted by them in the Thames. The +English and Welsh coasts, at least, were familiar to their pilots, and +they combined, as was usual in that age, the military with the +mercantile character. In 1142, and again in 1165, a troop of Dublin +Danes fought under Norman banners against the brave Britons of Cambria, +and in the camps of their allies, sung the praises of the fertile +island of the west. The hundred fairs of Erin—after their conversion +and submission to native authority—afforded them convenient markets for +disposing of the commodities they imported from abroad. + +The Gaelic mind, long distracted by the din of war from the purifying +and satisfying influences of a Christian life, naturally fell back upon +the abandoned, half-forgotten superstitions of the Pagan period. +Preceding every fresh calamity, we hear of signs and wonders, of +migratory lakes disappearing in a night, of birds and wolves speaking +with human voices, of showers of blood falling in the fields, of a +whale with golden teeth stranded at Carlingford, of cloud ships, with +their crews, seen plainly sailing in the sky. One of the marvels of +this class is thus gravely entered in our Annals, under the year +1054—"A steeple of fire was seen in the air over Rossdala, on the +Sunday of the festival of St. George, for the space of five hours; +innumerable black birds passed into and out of it, and one large bird +in the middle of them; and the little birds went under his wings when +they went into the steeple. They came out and raised up a greyhound +that was in the middle of the town aloft in the air, and let it drop +down again, so that it died immediately; and they took up three cloaks +and two shirts, and let them drop down in the same manner. The wood on +which these birds perched fell under them; and the oak tree on which +they perched shook with its roots in the earth." In many other +superstitions of the same age we see the latent moral sentiment, as +well as the over-excited imagination of the people. Such is the story +of the stolen jewels of Clonmacnoise, providentially recovered in the +year 1130. The thief in vain endeavoured to escape out of the country, +from Cork, Lismore, and Waterford, "but no ship into which he entered +found a wind to sail, while all the other ships did." And the +conscience stricken thief declared, in his dying confession, that he +used to see Saint Kieran "stopping with his crozier, every ship into +which he entered." It was also an amiable popular illusion that +abundant harvests followed the making of peace, the enacting of +salutary laws, and the accession of a King who loved justice; and +careful entry is made in our chronicles of every evidence of this +character. + +The literature of the masses of the people was pretty equally composed +of the legends of the Saints and the older Ossianic legend, so much +misunderstood and distorted by modern criticism. The legends of the +former class were chiefly wonders wrought by the favourite Saints of +the district or the island, embellished with many quaint fancies and +tagged out with remnants of old Pagan superstition. St. Columbkill and +St. Kieran were, most commonly, the heroes of those tales, which, +perhaps, were never intended by their authors to be seriously believed. +Such was the story of the great founder of Iona having transformed the +lady and her maid, who insulted him on his way to Drom-Keth, into two +herons, who are doomed to hover about the neighbouring ford till the +day of doom; and such that other story of "the three first monks" who +joined St. Kieran in the desert, being a fox, a badger, and a bear, all +endowed with speech, and all acting a part in the legend true to their +own instincts. Of higher poetic merit is the legend of the voyage of +St. Brendan over the great sea, and how the birds which sung vespers +for him in the groves of the Promised Land were inhabited by human +souls, as yet in a state of probation waiting for their release! + +In the Ossianic legend we have the common stock of Oriental ideas—the +metamorphosis of guilty wives and haughty concubines into dogs and +birds; the speaking beasts and fishes; the enchanted swans, originally +daughters of Lir; the boar of Ben Bulben, by which the champion, +Diarmid, was slain; the Phoenix in the stork of Inniskea, of which +there never was but one, yet that one perpetually reproduced itself; +the spirits of the wood, and the spirits inhabiting springs and +streams; the fairy horse; the sacred trees; the starry influences. +Monstrous and gigantic human shapes, like the Jinns of the Arabian +tales, occasionally enter into the plot, and play a midnight part, +malignant to the hopes of good men. At their approach the earth is +troubled, the moon is overcast, gusts of storm are shaken out from the +folds of their garments, the watch dogs and the war dogs cower down, in +camp and rath, and whine piteously, as if in pain. + +The variety of grace, and peculiarities of organization, with which, if +not the original, certainly the Christianized Irish imagination, +endowed and equipped the personages of the fairy world, were of almost +Grecian delicacy. There is no personage who rises to the sublime height +of Zeus, or the incomparable union of beauty and wisdom in Pallas +Athene: what forms Bel, or Crom, or Bride, the queen of Celtic song, +may have worn to the pre-Christian ages we know not, nor can know; but +the minor creations of Grecian fancy, with which they peopled their +groves and fountains, are true kindred of the brain, to the innocent, +intelligent, and generally gentle inhabitants of the Gaelic Fairyland. +The _Sidhe_, a tender, tutelary spirit, attached herself to heroes, +accompanied them in battle, shrouded them with invisibility, dressed +their wounds with more than mortal skill, and watched over them with +more than mortal love; the _Banshee_, a sad, Cassandra-like spirit, +shrieked her weird warning in advance of death, but with a prejudice +eminently Milesian, watched only over those of pure blood, whether +their fortunes abode in hovel or hall. The more modern and grotesque +personages of the Fairy world are sufficiently known to render +description unnecessary. + +Two habitual sources of social enjoyment and occupation with the Irish +of those days were music and chess. The harp was the favourite +instrument, but the horn or trumpet, and the pibroch or bagpipe, were +also in common use. Not only professional performers, but men and women +of all ranks, from the humblest to the highest, prided themselves on +some knowledge of instrumental music. It seems to have formed part of +the education of every order, and to have been cherished alike in the +palace, the shieling, and the cloister. "It is a poor church that has +no music," is a Gaelic proverb, as old, perhaps, as the establishment +of Christianity in the land; and no house was considered furnished +without at least one harp. Students from other countries, as we learn +from _Giraldus_, came to Ireland for their musical education in the +twelfth century, just as our artists now visit Germany and Italy with +the same object in view. + +The frequent mention of the game of chess, in ages long before those at +which we have arrived, shows how usual was that most intellectual +amusement. The chess board was called in Irish _fithcheall_, and is +described in the Glossary of Cormac, of Cashel, composed towards the +close of the ninth century, as quadrangular, having straight spots of +black and white. Some of them were inlaid with gold and silver, and +adorned with gems. Mention is made in a tale of the twelfth century of +a "man-bag of woven brass wire." No entire set of the ancient men is +now known to exist, though frequent mention is made of "the brigade or +family of chessmen," in many old manuscripts. Kings of bone, seated in +sculptured chairs, about two inches in height, have been found, and +specimens of them engraved in recent antiquarian publications. + +It only remains to notice, very briefly, the means of locomotion which +bound and brought together this singular state of society. Five great +roads, radiating from Tara, as a centre, are mentioned in our earliest +record; the road _Dala_ leading to Ossory, and so on into Munster; the +road _Assail_, extending western through Mullingar towards the Shannon; +the road _Cullin_, extending towards Dublin and Bray; the exact route +of the northern road, _Midhluachra_, is undetermined; _Slighe Mor_, the +great western road, followed the course of the _esker_, or hill-range, +from Tara to Galway. Many cross-roads are also known as in common use +from the sixth century downwards. Of these, the Four Masters mention, +at various dates, not less than forty, under their different local +names, previous to the Norman invasion. These roads were kept in +repair, according to laws enacted for that purpose, and were traversed +by the chiefs and ecclesiastics in _carbads_, or chariots; a main road +was called a _slighe_ (_sleigh_), because it was made for the free +passage of two chariots—"i.e. the chariot of a King and the chariot of +a Bishop." Persons of that rank were driven by an _ara_, or charioteer, +and, no doubt, made a very imposing figure. The roads were legally to +be repaired at three seasons, namely, for the accommodation of those +going to the national games, at fair-time, and in time of war. Weeds +and brushwood were to be removed, and water to be drained off; items of +road-work which do not give us a very high idea of the comfort or +finish of those ancient highways. + +Such, faintly seen from afar, and roughly sketched, was domestic life +and society among our ancestors, previous to the Anglo-Norman invasion, +in the reign of King Roderick O'Conor. + + + +CHAPTER VI. +FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE IRISH PREVIOUS TO THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION. + +The relations of the Irish with other nations, notwithstanding the +injurious effects of their War of Succession on national unity and +reputation, present several points of interest. After the defeat of +Magnus Barefoot, we may drop the Baltic countries out of the map of the +relations of Ireland. Commencing, therefore, at the north of the +neighbouring island—which, in its entirety, they sometimes called +_Inismore_—the most intimate and friendly intercourse was always upheld +with the kingdom of Scotland. Bound together by early ecclesiastical +and bardic ties, confronting together for so many generations a common +enemy, those two countries were destined never to know an international +quarrel. About the middle of the ninth century (A.D. 843), when the +Scoto-Irish in Caledonia had completely subdued the Picts and other +ancient tribes, the first national dynasty was founded by Kenneth +McAlpine. The constitution given by this Prince to the whole country +seems to have been a close copy of the Irish—it embraced the laws of +Tanistry and succession, and the whole Brehon code, as administered in +the parent state. The line of Kenneth may be said to close with Donald +Bane, brother of Malcolm III., who died in 1094, and not only his +dynasty but his system ended with that century. Edgar, Alexander I., +and David I., all sons of Malcolm III., were educated in England among +the victorious Normans, and in the first third of the twelfth century, +devoted themselves with the inauspicious aid of Norman allies, to the +introduction of Saxon settlers and the feudal system, first into the +lowlands, and subsequently into Moray-shire. This innovation on their +ancient system, and confiscation of their lands, was stoutly resisted +by the Scottish Gael. In Somerled, lord of the Isles, and ancestor of +the Macdonalds, they found a powerful leader, and Somerled found Irish +allies always ready to assist him, in a cause which appealed to all +their national prejudices. In the year 1134, he led a strong force of +Irish and Islesmen to the assistance of the Gaelic insurgents, but was +defeated and slain, near Renfrew, by the royal troops, under the +command of the Steward of Scotland. During the reigns of William the +Lion, Alexander II., and Alexander III., the war of systems raged with +all its fierceness, and in nearly all the great encounters Irish +auxiliaries, as was to be expected, were found on the side of the +Gaelic race and Gaelic rights. Nor did this contest ever wholly cease +in Scotland, until the last hopes of the Stuart line were extinguished +on the fatal field of Culloden, where Irish captains formed the battle, +and Irish blood flowed freely, intermingled with the kindred blood of +Highlanders and Islesmen. + +The adoption of Norman usages, laws, and tactics, by the Scottish +dynasties of the twelfth and succeeding centuries, did not permanently +affect the national relations of Ireland and Scotland. It was otherwise +with regard to England. We have every reason to believe—we have the +indirect testimony of every writer from Bede to Malmsbury—that the +intercourse between the Irish and Saxons, after the first hostility +engendered by the cruel treatment of the Britons had worn away, became +of the most friendly character. The "Irish" who fought at Brunanburgh +against Saxon freedom were evidently the natural allies of the +Northmen, the Dano-Irish of Dublin, and the southern seaports. The +commerce of intelligence between the islands was long maintained; the +royalty of Saxon England had more than once, in times of domestic +revolution, found a safe and desired retreat in the western island. The +fair Elgiva and the gallant Harold had crossed the western waves in +their hour of need. The fame of Edward the Confessor took such deep +hold on the Irish mind that, three centuries after his death, his +banner was unfurled and the royal leopards laid aside to facilitate the +march of an English King, through the fastnesses of Leinster. The +Irish, therefore, were not likely to look upon the establishment of a +Norman dynasty, in lieu of the old Saxon line, as a matter of +indifference. They felt that the Norman was but a Dane disguised in +armour. It was true he carried the cross upon his banner, and claimed +the benediction of the successor of St. Peter; true also he spoke the +speech of France, and claimed a French paternity; but the lust for +dominion, the iron self-will, the wily devices of strategy, bespoke the +Norman of the twelfth, the lineal descendant of the Dane of the tenth +century. When, therefore, tidings reached Ireland of the battle of +Hastings and the death of Harold, both the apprehensions and the +sympathies of the country were deeply excited. Intelligence of the +coronation of William the Conqueror quickly followed, and emphatically +announced to the Irish the presence of new neighbours, new dangers, and +new duties. + +The spirit with which our ancestors acted towards the defeated Saxons, +whatever we may think of its wisdom, was, at least, respectable for +decision and boldness. Godwin, Edmund, and Magnus, sons of Harold, had +little difficulty in raising in Ireland a numerous force to co-operate +with the Earls Edwin and Morcar, who still upheld the Saxon banner. +With this force, wafted over in sixty-six vessels, they entered the +Avon, and besieged Bristol, then the second commercial city of the +kingdom. But Bristol held out, and the Saxon Earls had fallen back into +Northumberland, so the sons of Harold ran down the coast, and tried +their luck in Somersetshire with a better prospect. Devonshire and +Dorsetshire favoured their cause; the old Britons of Cornwall swelled +their ranks, and the rising spread like flame over the west. Eadnoth, a +renegade Saxon, formerly Harold's Master of Horse, despatched by +William against Harold's sons, was defeated and slain. Doubling the +Land's End, the victorious force entered the Tamar, and overran South +Devon. The united garrisons of London, Winchester, and Salisbury, were +sent against them, under the command of the martial Bishop of +Coutances; while a second force advanced along the Tamar, under Brian, +heir of the Earl of Brittany, who routed them with a loss of 2,000 men, +English, Welsh, and Irish. The sons of Harold retreated to their +vessels with all their booty, and returned again into Ireland, where +they vanish from history. Such, in the vale of Tamar, was the first +collision of the Irish and Normans, and as the race of Rollo never +forgot an enemy, nor forewent a revenge, we may well believe that, even +thus early, the invasion of Ireland was decided upon. Meredith Hanmer +relates in his Chronicle that William Rufus, standing on a high rock, +and looking towards Ireland said: "I will bring hither my ships, and +pass over and conquer that land;" and on these words of the son of the +Conqueror being repeated to Murkertach O'Brien, he replied: "Hath the +King in his great threatening said _if it please God?_" and when +answered "No;" "Then," said the Irish monarch, "I fear him not, since +he putteth his trust in man and not in God." + +Ireland, however, was destined to be reached through Wales, and along +that mountain coast we early find Norman castles and Norman ships. It +was the special ambition of William Rufus to add the principality to +the conquests of his father, and the active sympathy of the Welsh with +the Saxons on their inland border gave him pretexts enough. A bitter +feud between North and South Wales hastened an invasion, in which +Robert Fitz-Aymon and his companions played, by anticipation, the parts +of Strongbow and Fitz-Stephen, in the invasion of Ireland. + +The struggle, commenced under them, was protracted through the reign of +Rufus, who led an army in person (A.D. 1095) against the Welsh, but +with little gain and less glory. As an after thought he adopted the +device of his father, (followed, too, in Ireland by Henry II.,) of +partitioning the country among the most enterprising nobles, gravely +accepting their homage in advance of possession, and authorizing them +to maintain troops at their own charges, for making good his grant of +what never belonged to him. Robert Fitz-Aymon did homage for Glamorgan, +Bernard Newmarch for Brecknock, Roger de Montgomery for Cardigan, and +Gilbert de Clare for Pembroke: the best portions of North Wales were +partitioned between the Mortimers, Latimers, De Lacys, Fitz-Alans, and +Montgomerys. Rhys, Prince of Cambria, with many of his nobles, fell in +battle defending bravely his native hills; but Griffith, son of Rhys, +escaped into Ireland, from which he returned some twenty years later, +and recovered by arms and policy a large share of his ancestral +dominions. In the reign of Henry I. (A.D. 1110), a host of Flemings, +driven from their own country by an inundation of the sea, were planted +upon the Welsh marches, from which they soon swarmed into all the +Cambrian glens and glades. The industry and economy of this new people, +in peaceful times, seemed almost inconsistent with their stubborn +bravery in battle; but they demonstrated to the Welsh, and afterwards +to the Irish, that they could handle the halbert as well as throw the +shuttle; that men of trade may on occasion prove themselves capable men +of war. + +The Norman Kings of England were not insensible to the fact that the +Cymric element in Wales, the Saxon element in England, and the Gaelic +element in Scotland, were all more agreeable to the Irish than the race +of Rollo and William. They were not ignorant that Ireland was a refuge +for their victims and a recruiting ground for their enemies. They knew, +furthermore, that most of the strong points on the Irish coast, from +the Shannon to the Liffey, were possessed by Christian Northmen kindred +to themselves. They knew that the land was divided within itself, +weakened by a long war of succession; groaning under the ambition of +five competitors for the sovereignty; and suffering in reputation +abroad under the invectives of Saint Bernard, and the displeasure of +Rome. More tempting materials for intrigue, or fairer opportunities of +aggrandizement, nowhere presented themselves, and it was less want of +will than of leisure from other and nearer contests, which deferred +this new invasion for a century after the battle of Hastings. + +While that century was passing over their heads, an occasional +intercourse, not without its pleasing incidents, was maintained between +the races. In the first year of the twelfth, Arnulph de Montgomery, +Earl of Chester, obtained a daughter of Murkertach O'Brien in marriage; +the proxy on the occasion being Gerald, son of the Constable of +Windsor, and ancestor of the Geraldines. Murkertach, according to +Malmsbury, maintained a close correspondence with Henry I., for whose +advice he professed great deference. He was accused of aiding the +rebellion of the Montgomerys against that Prince; and if at one time he +did so, seems to have abandoned their alliance, when threatened with +reprisals on the Irish engaged in peaceful commerce with England. The +argument used on this occasion seems to be embodied in the question of +Malmsbury—and has since become familiar—"What would Ireland do," says +the old historian, "if the merchandize of England were not carried to +her shores?" + +The estimation in which the Irish Princes were held in the century +preceding the invasion, at the Norman Court, may be seen in the style +of Lanfranc and Anselm, when addressing the former King Thorlogh, and +the latter King Murkertach O'Brien. The first generation of the +conquerors had passed away before the second of these epistles was +written. In the first, the address runs—"Lanfrancus, a sinner, and the +unworthy Bishop of the Holy Church of Dover, to the illustrious +Terdelvacus, King of Ireland, blessing," &c., &c.; and the epistle of +Anselm is addressed—"To Muriardachus, by the grace of God, glorious +King of Ireland, Anselm, servant of the Church of Canterbury, greeting +health and salvation," &c., &c. This was the tone of the highest +ecclesiastics in England towards the ruler of Ireland, in the reigns of +William I. and Henry I., and equally obsequious were the replies of the +Irish Princes. + +After the death of Henry I., nineteen years of civil war and anarchy +diverted the Anglo-Normans from all other objects. In the year 1154, +however, Henry of Anjou succeeded to the throne, on which he was +destined to act so important a part. He was born in Anjou in the year +1133, and married at eighteen the divorced wife of the King of France. +Uniting her vast dominions to his own patrimony, he became the lord of +a larger part of France than was possessed by the titular king. In his +twenty-first year he began to reign in England, and in his thirty-fifth +he received the fugitive Dermid of Leinster, in some camp or castle of +Aquitaine, and took that outlaw, by his own act, under his protection. +The centenary of the victory of Hastings had just gone by, and it +needed only this additional agent to induce him to put into execution a +plan which he must have formed in the first months of his reign, since +the Bull he had procured from Pope Adrian, bears the date of that +year—1154. The return from exile, and martyrdom of Beckett, disarranged +and delayed the projects of the English King; nor was he able to lead +an expedition into Ireland until four years after his reception of the +Leinster fugitive in France. + +Throughout the rest of Christendom—if we except Rome—the name of +Ireland was comparatively little known. The commerce of Dublin, +Limerick, and Galway, especially in the article of wine, which was +already largely imported, may have made those ports and their merchants +somewhat known on the coasts of France and Spain. But we have no +statistics of Irish commerce at that early period. Along the Rhine and +even upon the Danube, the Irish missionary and the Irish schoolmaster +were still sometimes found. The chronicle of Ratisbon records with +gratitude the munificence of Conor O'Brien, King of Munster, whom it +considers the founder of the Abbey of St. Peter in that city. The +records of the same Abbey credit its liberal founder with having sent +large presents to the Emperor Lothaire, in aid of the second crusade +for the recovery of the Holy Land. Some Irish adventurers joined in the +general European hosting to the plains of Palestine, but though neither +numerous nor distinguished enough to occupy the page of history, their +_glibs_ and _cooluns_ did not escape the studious eye of him who sang +Jerusalem Delivered and Regained. + + + +BOOK IV. +THE NORMANS IN IRELAND. + + + +CHAPTER I. +DERMID McMURROGH'S NEGOTIATIONS AND SUCCESS—THE FIRST EXPEDITION OF THE +NORMANS INTO IRELAND. + +The result of Dermid McMurrogh's interview with Henry II., in +Aquitaine, was a royal letter, addressed to all his subjects, +authorizing such of them as would, to enlist in the service of the +Irish Prince. Armed alone with this, the expelled adulterer, chafing +for restoration and revenge, retraced his course to England. He was at +this time some years beyond three score, but the snows of age had no +effect in cooling his impetuous blood; his stature is described as +almost gigantic; his voice loud and harsh; his features stern and +terrible. His cruel and criminal character we already know. Yet it is +but just here to recall that much of the horror and odium which has +accumulated on his memory is posthumous and retrospective. Some of his +cotemporaries were no better in their private lives than he was; but +then they had no part in bringing in the Normans. Talents both for +peace and war he certainly had, and there was still a feeling of +attachment, or at least of regret, cherished towards him among the +people of his patrimony. + +Dermid proceeded at once to seek the help he so sorely needed, upon the +marches of Chester, in the city of Bristol, and at the court of the +Prince of North Wales. At Bristol he caused King Henry's letter to be +publicly read, and each reading was accompanied by ample promises of +land and recompense to those disposed to join in the expedition—but all +in vain. From Bristol he proceeded to make the usual pilgrimage to the +shrine of St. David, the Apostle of Wales, and then he visited the +Court of Griffith ap Rhys, Prince of North Wales, whose family ties +formed a true Welsh triad among the Normans, the Irish, and the Welsh. +He was the nephew of the celebrated Nest or Nesta, the Helen of the +Welsh, whose blood flowed in the veins of almost all the first Norman +adventurers in Ireland, and whose story is too intimately interwoven +with the origin of many of the highest names of the Norman-Irish to be +left untold. + +She was, in her day, the loveliest woman of Cambria, and perhaps of +Britain, but the fabled mantle of Tregau, which, according to her own +mythology, will fit none but the chaste, had not rested on the white +shoulders of Nesta, the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor. Her girlish beauty +had attracted the notice of Henry I., to whom she bore Robert Fitz-Roy +and Henry Fitz-Henry, the former the famous Earl of Gloucester, and the +latter the father of two of Strongbow's most noted companions. +Afterwards, by consent of her royal paramour, she married Gerald, +constable of Pembroke, by whom she had Maurice Fitzgerald, the common +ancestor of the Kildare and Desmond Geraldines. While living with +Gerald at Pembroke, Owen, son of Cadogan, Prince of Powis, hearing of +her marvellous beauty at a banquet given by his father at the Castle of +Aberteivi, came by night to Pembroke, surprised the Castle, and carried +off Nesta and her children into Powis. Gerald, however, had escaped, +and by the aid of his father-in-law, Rhys, recovered his wife and +rebuilt his castle (A.D. 1105). The lady survived this husband, and +married a second time, Stephen, constable of Cardigan, by whom she had +Robert Fitzstephen, and probably other children. One of her daughters, +Angharad, married David de Barri, the father of Giraldus and Robert de +Barri; another, named after herself, married Bernard of Newmarch, and +became the father of the Fitz-Bernard, who accompanied Henry II. In the +second and third generations this fruitful Cambrian vine, grafted on +the Norman stock, had branched out into the great families of the +Carews, Gerards, Fitzwilliams, and Fitzroys, of England and Wales, and +the Geraldines, Graces, Fitz-Henries, and Fitz-Maurices, of Ireland. +These names will show how entirely the expeditions of 1169 and 1170 +were joint-stock undertakings with most of the adventurers; Cambria, +not England, sent them forth; it was a family compact; they were +brothers in blood as well as in arms, those comely and unscrupulous +sons, nephews, and grand-sons of Nesta! + +When the Leinster King reached the residence of Griffith ap Rhys, near +St. David's, he found that for some personal or political cause he held +in prison his near kinsman, Robert, son of Stephen, who had the +reputation of being a brave and capable knight. Dermid obtained the +release of Robert, on condition of his embarking in the Irish +enterprise, and he found in him an active recruiting agent, alike among +Welsh, Flemings, and Normans. Through him Maurice Fitzgerald, the de +Barris, and Fitz-Henrys, and their dependents, were soon enlisted in +the adventure. The son of Griffith ap Rhys, who may be mentioned along +with these knights, his kinsmen, and whom the Irish annalists consider +the most important person of the first expedition—their pillar of +battle—also resolved to accompany them, with such forces as he could +enlist. + +But a still more important ally waited to treat with Dermid, on his +return to Bristol. This was Richard de Clare, called variously from his +castles or his county, Earl of Strigul and Chepstow, or Earl of +Pembroke. From the strength of his arms he was nicknamed Strongbow, and +in our Annals he is usually called Earl Richard, by which title we +prefer hereafter to distinguish him. His father, Gilbert de Clare, was +descended from Richard of Normandy, and stood no farther removed in +degree from that Duke than the reigning Prince. For nearly forty years +under Henry I. and during the stormy reign of King Stephen, he had been +Governor of Pembroke, and like all the great Barons played his game +chiefly to his own advantage. His castle at Chepstow was one of the +strongest in the west, and the power he bequeathed to his able and +ambitious son excited the apprehensions of the astute and suspicious +Henry II. Fourteen years of this King's reign had passed away, and Earl +Richard had received no great employments, no new grants of land, no +personal favours from his Sovereign. He was now a widower, past middle +age, condemned to a life of inaction such as no true Norman could long +endure. Arrived at Bristol, he read the letter of Henry, and heard from +Dermid the story of his expulsion and the grounds on which he vested +his hopes of restoration. A consultation ensued, at which it is +probable the sons of Nesta assisted, as it was there agreed that the +town of Wexford, with two cantreds of land adjoining it, should be +given to them. The pay of the archers and men-at-arms, and the duration +of their service, were also determined. Large grants of land were +guaranteed to all adventurers of knightly rank, and Earl Richard was to +marry the King's daughter and succeed him in the sovereignty of +Leinster. + +Having by such lavish promises enlisted this powerful Earl and those +adventurous knights, Dermid resolved to pass over in person with such +followers as were already equipped, in order to rally the remnant of +his adherents. The Irish Annals enter this return under the year 1167, +within twelvemonths or thereabouts from the time of his banishment; by +their account he came back, accompanied by a fleet of strangers whom +they called Flemings, and who were probably hired soldiers of that +race, then easily to be met with in Wales. The Welsh Prince already +mentioned seems to have accompanied him personally, as he fell by his +side in a skirmish the following year. Whatever this force may have +amounted to, they landed at Glascarrig point, and wintered—probably +spent the Christmas—at Ferns. The more generally received account of +Dermid's landing alone, and disguised, and secretly preparing his +plans, under shelter of the Austin Friary at Ferns, must be rejected, +if we are still to follow those trite but trustworthy guides, whom we +have so many reasons to confide in. The details differ in many very +important particulars from those usually received, as we shall +endeavour to make clear in a few words. + +Not only do they bring Dermid over with a fleet of Flemings, of whom +the natives made "small account," but dating that event before the +expiration of the year 1167, at least sixteen months must have elapsed +between the return of the outlaw and the arrival of the Normans. By +allowing two years instead of one for the duration of his banishment, +the apparent difficulty as to time would be obviated, for his return +and Fitzstephen's arrival would follow upon each other in the spring +and winter of the same year. The difficulty, however, is more apparent +than real. A year sufficed for the journey to Aquitaine and the Welsh +negotiations. Another year seems to have been devoted with equal art +and success to resuscitating a native Leinster party favourable to his +restoration. For it is evident from our Annals that when Dermid showed +himself to the people after his return, it was simply to claim his +patrimony—Hy-Kinsellagh—and not to dispute the Kingdom of Leinster with +the actual ruler, _Murrogh na Gael_. By this pretended moderation and +humility, he disarmed hostility and lulled suspicion asleep. Roderick +and O'Ruarc did indeed muster a host against him, and some of their +cavalry and Kernes skirmished with the troops in his service at +Kellistown, in Carlow, when six were killed on one side and twenty-five +on the other, including the Welsh Prince already mentioned; afterwards +Dermid emerged from his fastnesses, and entering the camp of O'Conor, +gave him seven hostages for the ten cantreds of his patrimony; and to +O'Ruarc he gave "one hundred ounces of gold for his _eineach_"—that is, +as damages for his criminal conversation with Devorgoil. During the +remainder of the year 1168, Dermid was left to enjoy unmolested the +moderate territory which he claimed, while King Roderick was engaged in +enforcing his claims on the North and South, founding lectorships at +Armagh, and partitioning Meath between his inseparable colleague, +O'Ruarc, and himself. He celebrated, in the midst of an immense +multitude, the ancient national games at Tailtin, he held an assembly +at Tara, and distributed magnificent gifts to his suffragans. Roderick +might have spent the festival of Christmas, 1168, or of Easter, 1169, +in the full assurance that his power was firmly established, and that a +long succession of peaceful days were about to dawn upon Erin. But he +was destined to be soon and sadly undeceived. + +In the month of May, a little fleet of Welsh vessels, filled with armed +men, approached the Irish shore, and Robert Fitzstephen ran into a +creek of the bay of Bannow, called by the adventurers, from the names +of two of their ships, Bag-and-Bun. Fitzstephen had with him thirty +knights, sixty esquires, and three hundred footmen. The next day he was +joined by Maurice de Prendergast, a Welsh gentleman, with ten knights +and sixty archers. After landing they reconnoitred cautiously, but saw +neither ally nor enemy—the immediate coast seemed entirely deserted. +Their messenger despatched to Dermid, then probably at Ferns, in the +northern extremity of the county, must have been absent several anxious +days, when, much to their relief, he returned with Donald, the son of +Dermid, at the head of 500 horsemen. Uniting their troops, Donald and +Fitzstephen set out for Wexford, about a day's march distant, and the +principal town in that angle of the island which points towards Wales. +The tradition of the neighbourhood says they were assailed upon the way +by a party of the native population, who were defeated and dispersed. +Within ten days or a fortnight of their landing, they were drawn up +within sight of the walls of Wexford, where they were joined by Dermid, +who obviously did not come unattended to such a meeting. What +additional force he may have brought up is nowhere indicated; that he +was not without followers or mercenaries, we know from the mention of +the Flemings in his service, and the action of Kellistown in the +previous year. The force that had marched from Bannow consisted, as we +have seen, of 500 Irish horse under his son Donald, surnamed +_Kavanagh_; 30 knights, 60 esquires, and 300 men-at-arms under +Fitzstephen; 10 knights and 60 archers under Prendergast; in all, +nobles or servitors, not exceeding 1,000 men. The town, a place of +considerable strength, could muster 2,000 men capable of bearing arms, +nor is it discreditable to its Dano-Irish artizans and seamen that they +could boast no captain equal to Fitzstephen or Donald Kavanagh. What a +town multitude could do they did. They burned down an exposed suburb, +closed their gates, and manned their walls. The first assault was +repulsed with some loss on the part of the assailants, and the night +past in expectation of a similar conflict on the morrow. In the early +morning the townsmen could discern that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass +was being offered in the camp of their besiegers as a preparative for +the dangers of the day. Within the walls, however, the clergy exercised +all their influence to spare the effusion of blood, and to bring about +an accommodation. Two Bishops who were in the town especially advised a +surrender on honourable terms, and their advice was taken. Four of the +principal citizens were deputed to Dermid, and Wexford was yielded on +condition of its rights and privileges, hitherto existing, being +respected. The cantreds immediately adjoining the town on the north and +east were conferred on Fitzstephen according to the treaty made at +Bristol, and he at once commenced the erection of a fortress on the +rock of Carrig, at the narrowest pass on the river Slaney. Strongbow's +uncle, Herve, was endowed with two other cantreds, to the south of the +town, now known as the baronies of Forth and Bargey, where the +descendants of the Welsh and Flemish settlers then planted are still to +be found in the industrious and sturdy population, known as Flemings, +Furlongs, Waddings, Prendergasts, Barrys, and Walshes. Side by side +with them now dwell in peace the Kavanaghs, Murphys, Conors, and +Breens, whose ancestors so long and so fiercely disputed the intrusion +of these strangers amongst them. + +With some increase of force derived from the defenders of Wexford, +Dermid, at the head of 3000 men, including all the Normans, marched +into the adjoining territory of Ossory, to chastise its chief, Donogh +Fitzpatrick, one of his old enemies. This campaign appears to have +consumed the greater part of the summer of the year, and ended with the +submission of Ossory, after a brave but unskilful resistance. The +tidings of what was done at Wexford and in Ossory had, however, roused +the apprehension of the monarch Roderick, who appointed a day for a +national muster "of the Irish" at the Hill of Tara. Thither repaired +accordingly the monarch himself, the lords of Meath, Oriel, Ulidia, +Breffni, and the chiefs of the farther north. With this host they +proceeded to Dublin, which they found as yet in no immediate danger of +attack; and whether on this pretext or some other, the Ulster chiefs +returned to their homes, leaving Roderick to pursue, with the aid of +Meath and Breffni only, the footsteps of McMurrogh. The latter had +fallen back upon Ferns, and had, under the skilful directions of +Fitzstephen, strengthened the naturally difficult approaches to that +ancient capital, by digging artificial pits, by felling trees, and +other devices of Norman strategy. The season, too, must have been +drawing nearly to a close, and the same amiable desire to prevent the +shedding of Christian blood, which characterized all the clergy of this +age, again subserved the unworthy purposes of the traitor and invader. +Roderick, after a vain endeavour to detach Fitzstephen from Dermid and +to induce him to quit the country, agreed to a treaty with the Leinster +King, by which the latter acknowledged his supremacy as monarch, under +the ancient conditions, for the fulfilment of which he surrendered to +him his son Conor as hostage. By a secret and separate agreement Dermid +bound himself to admit no more of the Normans into his service—an +engagement which he kept as he did all others, whether of a public or a +private nature. After the usual exchange of stipends and tributes, +Roderick returned to his home in the west; and thus, with the treaty of +Ferns, ended the comparatively unimportant but significant campaign of +the year 1169. + + + +CHAPTER II. +THE ARMS, ARMOUR AND TACTICS OF THE NORMANS AND IRISH. + +This would seem to be the proper place to point out the peculiarities +in arms, equipment, and tactics, which gave the first Normans those +military advantages over the Irish and Dano-Irish, which they had +hitherto maintained over the Saxons, Welsh and Scots. In instituting +such a comparison, we do not intend to confine it strictly to the age +of Strongbow and Dermid; the description will extend to the entire +period from the arrival of Fitzstephen to the death of Richard, Earl of +Ulster—from 1169 to 1333—a period of five or six generations, which we +propose to treat of in the present book. After this Earl's decease, the +Normans and Irish approximated more closely in all their customs, and +no longer presented those marked contrasts which existed in their +earlier intercourse and conflicts with each other. The armour of the +first adventurers, both for man and horse, excited the wonder, the +sarcasms, and the fears of the Irish. No such equipments had yet been +seen in that country, nor indeed in any other, where the Normans were +still strangers. As the Knights advanced on horseback, in their metal +coating, they looked more like iron cylinders filled with flesh and +blood, than like lithe and limber human combatants. The man-at-arms, +whether Knight or Squire, was almost invariably mounted; his war-horse +was usually led, while he rode a hackney, to spare the _destrier_. The +body armour was a hauberk of netted iron or steel, to which were joined +a hood, sleeves, breeches, hose and sabatons, or shoes, of the same +material. Under the hauberk was worn a quilted gambeson of silk or +cotton, reaching to the knees; over armour, except when actually +engaged, all men of family wore costly coats of satin, velvet, cloth of +gold or cloth of silver, emblazoned with their arms. The shields of the +thirteenth century were of triangular form, pointed at the bottom; the +helmet conical, with or without bars; the beaver, vizor and plate +armour, were inventions of a later day. Earls, Dukes, and Princes, wore +small crowns upon their helmets; lovers wore the favours of their +mistresses; and victors the crests of champions they had overthrown. +The ordinary weapons of these cavaliers were sword, lance, and knife; +the demi-launce, or light horsemen, were similarly armed; and a force +of this class, common in the Irish wars, was composed of mounted +cross-bow men, and called from the swift, light _hobbies_ they rode, +Hobiler-Archers. Besides many improvements in arms and manual exercise, +the Normans perfected the old Roman machines and engines used in +sieges. The scorpion was a huge cross-bow, the catapults showered +stones to a great distance; the ballista discharged flights of darts +and arrows. There were many other varieties of stone-throwing +machinery; "the war-wolf" was long the chief of projectile machines, as +the ram was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of the +largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been proven to be equal to +a point-blank shot from a thirty-six pounder. There were moveable +towers of all sizes and of many names: "the sow" was a variety which +continued in use in England and Ireland till the middle of the +seventeenth century. The divisions of the cavalry were: first, the +_Constable's_ command, some twenty-five men; next, the _Banneret_ was +entitled to unfurl his own colours with consent of the Marshal, and +might unite under his pennon one or more constabularies; the _Knight_ +led into the field all his retainers who held of him by feudal tenure, +and sometimes the retainers of his squires, wards, or valets, and +kinsmen. The laws of chivalry were fast shaping themselves into a code +complete and coherent in all its parts, when these iron-clad, inventive +and invincible masters of the art of war first entered on the invasion +of Ireland. + +The body of their followers in this enterprise, consisting of Flemish, +Welsh, and Cornish archers, may be best described by the arms they +carried. The irresistible cross-bow was their main reliance. Its shot +was so deadly that the Lateran Council, in 1139, strictly forbade its +employment among Christian enemies. It combined with its stock, or bed, +wheel, and trigger, almost all the force of the modern musket, and +discharged square pieces of iron, leaden balls, or, in scarcity of +ammunition, flint stones. The common cross-bow would kill, point blank, +at forty or fifty yards distance, and the best improved at fully one +hundred yards. The manufacture of these weapons must have been +profitable, since their cost was equal, in the relative value of money, +to that of the rifle, in our times. In the reign of Edward II. each +cross-bow, purchased for the garrison of Sherborne Castle, cost 3 +shillings and 8 pence; and every hundred of _quarrels_—the ammunition +just mentioned—1 shilling and 6 pence. Iron, steel, and wood, were the +materials used in the manufacture of this weapon. + +The long-bow had been introduced into England by the Normans, who are +said to have been more indebted to that arm than any other, for their +victory at Hastings. To encourage the use of the long-bow many statutes +were passed, and so late as the time of the Stuarts, royal commissions +were issued for the promotion of this national exercise. Under the +early statutes no archer was permitted to practise at any standing mark +at less than "eleven score yards distant;" no archer under twenty-four +years of age was allowed to shoot twice from the same stand-point; +parents and masters were subject to a fine of 6 shillings and 8 pence +if they allowed their youth, under the age of seventeen, "to be without +a bow and two arrows for one month together;" the walled towns were +required to set up their butts, to keep them in repair, and to turn out +for target-practice on holidays, and at other convenient times. Aliens +residing in England were forbidden the use of this weapon—a jealous +precaution showing the great importance attached to its possession. The +usual length of the bow—which was made of yew, witch-hazel, ash, or +elm—was about six feet; and the arrow, about half that length. Arrows +were made of ash, feathered with part of a goose's wing, and barbed +with iron or steel. In the reign of Edward III., a painted bow cost 1 +shilling and 6 pence, a white bow, 1 shilling; a sheaf of steel-tipped +arrows (24 to the sheaf), 1 shilling and 2 pence, and a sheaf of _non +accerata_ (the blunt sort), 1 shilling. The range of the long-bow, at +its highest perfection, was, as we have seen, "eleven score yards," +more than double that of the ordinary cross-bow. The common sort of +both these weapons carried about the same distance—nearly 100 yards. + +The natural genius of the Normans for war had been sharpened and +perfected by their campaigns in France and England, but more especially +in the first and second Crusades. All that was to be learned of +military science in other countries—all that Italian skill, Greek +subtlety, or Saracen invention could teach, they knew and combined into +one system. Their feudal discipline, moreover, in which the youth who +entered the service of a veteran as page, rose in time to the rank of +esquire and bachelor-at-arms, and finally won his spurs on some +well-contested field, was eminently favourable to the training and +proficiency of military talents. Not less remarkable was the skill they +displayed in seizing on the strong and commanding points of +communication within the country, as we see at this day, from the sites +of their old Castles, many of which must have been, before the +invention of gunpowder, all but impregnable. + +The art of war, if art it could in their case be called, was in a much +less forward stage among the Irish in the twelfth and thirteenth +centuries than amongst the Normans. Of the science of fortification +they perhaps knew no more than they had learned in their long struggle +with the Danes and Norwegians. To render roads impassable, to +strengthen their islands by stockades, to hold the naturally difficult +passes which connect one province or one district with another—these +seem to have been their chief ideas of the aid that valour may derive +from artificial appliances. The fortresses of which we hear so +frequently, during and after the Danish period, and which are +erroneously called _Danes'-forts_, were more numerous than formidable +to such enemies as the Normans. Some of these earth-and-stone-works are +older than the Milesian invasion, and of Cyclopean style and strength. +Those of the Milesians are generally of larger size, contain much more +earth, and the internal chambers are of less massive masonry. They are +almost invariably of circular form, and the largest remaining specimens +are the Giant's Ring, near Belfast; the fort at Netterville, which +measures 300 paces in circumference round the top of the embankment; +the Black Rath, on the Boyne, which measures 321 paces round the outer +wall of circumvallation; and the King's Rath, at Tara, upwards of 280 +in length. The height of the outer embankment in forts of this size +varied from fifteen to twenty feet; this embankment was usually +surrounded by a fosse; within the embankment there was a platform, +depressed so as to leave a circular parapet above its level. Many of +these military raths have been found to contain subterranean chambers +and circular winding passages, supposed to be used as granaries and +armories. They are accounted capable of containing garrisons of from +200 to 500 men; but many of the fortresses mentioned from age to age in +our annals were mere private residences, enclosing within their outer +and inner walls space enough for the immediate retainers and domestics +of the chief. Although coats of mail are mentioned in manuscripts long +anterior to the Norman invasion, the Irish soldiers seem seldom or +never to have been completely clothed in armour. Like the northern +_Berserkers_, they prided themselves in fighting, if not naked, in +their orange coloured shirts, dyed with saffron. The helmet and the +shield were the only defensive articles of dress; nor do they seem to +have had trappings for their horses. Their favourite missile weapon was +the dart or javelin, and in earlier ages the sling. The spear or lance, +the sword, and the sharp, short-handled battle-axe, were their +favourite manual weapons. Their power with the battle-axe was +prodigious; _Giraldus_ says they sometimes lopped off a horseman's leg +at a single blow, his body falling over on the other side. Their +bridle-bits and spurs were of bronze, as were generally their spear +heads and short swords. Of siege implements, beyond the torch and the +scaling-ladder, they seem to have had no knowledge, and to have desired +none. The Dano-Irish alone were accustomed to fortify and defend their +towns, on the general principles, which then composed the sum of what +was known in Christendom of military engineering. Quick to acquire in +almost every department of the art, the native Irish continued till the +last obstinately insensible to the absolute necessity of learning how +modern fortifications are constructed, defended, and captured; a +national infatuation, of which we find melancholy evidence in every +recurring native insurrection. + +The two divisions of the Irish infantry were the _galloglass_, or +heavily armed foot soldier, called _gall_, either as a mercenary, or +from having been equipped after the Norman method, and the _kerne_, or +light infantry. The horsemen were men of the free tribes, who followed +their chief on terms almost of equality, and who, except his immediate +retainers, equipped and foraged for themselves. The highest unit of +this force was a _Cath_, or battalion of 3,000 men; but the subdivision +of command and the laws which established and maintained discipline +have yet to be recovered and explained. The old Spanish "right of +insurrection" seems to have been recognized in every chief of a free +tribe, and no Hidalgo of old Spain, for real or fancied slight, was +ever more ready to turn his horse's head homeward than were those +refractory lords, with whom Roderick O'Conor and his successors, in the +front of the national battle, had to contend or to co-operate. + + + +CHAPTER III. +THE FIRST CAMPAIGN OF EARL RICHARD—SIEGE OF DUBLIN—DEATH OF KING DERMID +McMURROGH. + +The campaigns of 1168 and 1169 had ended prosperously for Dermid in the +treaty of Ferns. By that treaty he had bound himself to bring no more +Normans into the country, and to send those already in his service back +to their homes. But in the course of the same autumn or winter, in +which this agreement was solemnly entered into, he welcomed the arrival +at Wexford—of Maurice Fitzgerald—son of the fair Nesta by her first +husband—and immediately employed this fresh force, consisting of 10 +knights, 30 esquires, and 100 footmen, upon a hosting which harried the +open country about Dublin, and induced the alarmed inhabitants to send +hostages into his camp, bearing proffers of allegiance and amity. As +yet he did not feel in force sufficient to attack the city, for, if he +had been, his long cherished vengeance against its inhabitants would +not have been postponed till another season. + +In the meantime he had written most urgent letters to Earl Richard to +hasten his arrival, according to the terms agreed upon at Bristol. That +astute and ambitious nobleman had been as impatiently biding his time +as Dermid had been his coming. Knowing the jealous sovereign under whom +he served, he had gone over to France to obtain Henry's sanction to the +Irish enterprise, but had been answered by the monarch, in oracular +phrases, which might mean anything or nothing. Determined, however, to +interpret these doubtful words in his own sense, he despatched his +vanguard early in the spring of the year 1170, under the command of his +uncle Herve and a company of 10 knights and 70 archers, under Raymond, +son of William, lord of Carew, elder brother of Maurice Fitzgerald, and +grandson of Nesta. In the beginning of May, Raymond, nicknamed _le +gros_, or the Fat, entered Waterford harbour, and landed eight miles +below the city, under the rock of Dundonolf, on the east, or Wexford +side. Here they rapidly threw up a camp to protect themselves against +attack, and to hold the landing place for the convenience of the future +expedition. A tumultuous body of natives, amounting, according to the +Norman account, to 3,000 men, were soon seen swarming across the Suir +to attack the foreigners. They were men of Idrone and Desies, under +their chiefs, O'Ryan and O'Phelan, and citizens of Waterford, who now +rushed towards the little fortress, entirely unprepared for the long +and deadly range of the Welsh and Flemish crossbows. Thrown into +confusion by the unexpected discharge, in which every shot from behind +the ramparts of turf brought down its man, they wavered and broke; +Raymond and Herve then sallied out upon the fugitives, who were fain to +escape, as many as could, to the other side of the river, leaving 500 +prisoners, including 70 chief citizens of Waterford behind them. These +were all inhumanly massacred, according to _Giraldus_, the eulogist of +all the Geraldines, by the order of Herve, contrary to the entreaties +of Raymond. Their legs were first violently broken, and they were then +hurled down the rocks into the tide. Five hundred men could not well be +so captured and put to death by less than an equal number of hands, and +we may, therefore, safely set down that number as holding the camp of +Dundonolf during the summer months of the year. + +Earl Richard had not completed his arrangements until the month of +August—so that his uncle and lieutenant had to hold the post they had +seized for fully three months, awaiting his arrival in the deepest +anxiety. At last, leaving his castle in Pembroke, he marched with his +force through North Wales, by way of St. David's to Milford Haven—"and +still as he went he took up all the best chosen and picked men he could +get." At Milford, just as he was about to embark, he received an order +from King Henry forbidding the expedition. Wholly disregarding this +missive he hastened on board with 200 knights and 1,200 infantry in his +company, and on the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day (August 23rd), landed +safely under the earthwork of Dundonolf, where he was joyfully received +by Raymond at the head of 40 knights, and a corresponding number of +men-at-arms. The next day the whole force, under the Earl, "who had all +things in readiness" for such an enterprise, proceeded to lay siege to +Waterford. Malachy O'Phelan, the brave lord of Desies, forgetting all +ancient enmity against his Danish neighbours, had joined the townsmen +to assist in the defence. Twice the besieged beat back the assailants, +until Raymond perceiving at an angle of the wall the wooden props upon +which a house rested, ordered them to be cut away, on which the house +fell to the ground, and a breach was effected. The men-at-arms then +burst in, slaughtering the inhabitants without mercy. In the tower, +long known as Reginald's, or the ring tower, O'Phelan and Reginald, the +Dano-Irish chief, held out until the arrival of King Dermid, whose +intercession procured them such terms as led to their surrender. Then, +amid the ruins of the burning city, and the muttered malediction of its +surviving inhabitants, the ill-omened marriage of Eva McMurrogh with +Richard de Clare was gaily celebrated, and the compact entered into at +Bristol three years before was perfected. + +The marriage revelry was hardly over when tidings came from Dublin that +Asculph MacTorcall, its Danish lord, had, either by the refusal of the +annual tribute, or in some other manner, declared his independence of +Dermid, and invoked the aid of the monarch Roderick, in defence of that +city. Other messengers brought news that Roderick had assumed the +protection of Dublin, and was already encamped at the head of a large +army at Clondalkin, with a view of intercepting the march of the +invaders from the south. The whole Leinster and Norman force, with the +exception of a troop of archers left to garrison Waterford, were now +put in motion for the siege of the chief city of the Hibernicized +descendants of the Northmen. Informed of Roderick's position, which +covered Dublin on the south and west, Dermid and Richard followed +boldly the mountain paths and difficult roads which led by the secluded +city of Glendalough, and thence along the coast road from Bray towards +the mouth of the Liffey, until they arrived unexpectedly within the +lines of Roderick, to the amazement and terror of the townsmen. + +The force which now, under the command-in-chief of Dermid, sat down to +the siege of Dublin, was far from being contemptible. For a year past +he had been recognized in Leinster as fully as any of his predecessors, +and had so strengthened his military position as to propose nothing +short of the conquest of the whole country. His choice of a line of +march sufficiently shows how thoroughly he had overcome the former +hostility of the stubborn mountaineers of Wicklow. The exact numbers +which he encamped before the gates of Dublin are nowhere given, but on +the march from Waterford, the vanguard, led by Milo de Cogan, consisted +of 700 Normans and "an Irish battalion," which, taken literally, would +mean 3,000 men, under Donald _Kavanagh_; Raymond the Fat followed "with +800 British;" Dermid led on "the chief part of the Irish" (number not +given), in person; Richard commanded the rear-guard, "300 British and +1,000 Irish soldiers." Altogether, it is not exorbitant to conjecture +that the Leinster Prince led to the siege of Dublin an army of about +10,000 native troops, 1,500 Welsh and Flemish archers, and 250 knights. +Except the handful who remained with Fitzstephen to defend his fort at +Carrick, on the Slaney, and the archers left in Waterford, the entire +Norman force in Ireland, at this time, were united in the siege. Of the +foreign knights many were eminent for courage and capacity, both in +peace and war. The most distinguished among them were Maurice +Fitzgerald, the common ancestor of the Geraldines of Desmond and +Kildare; Raymond the Fat, ancestor of the Graces of Ossory; the two +Fitz-Henries, grandsons of Henry I., and the fair Nesta; Walter de +Riddlesford, first Baron of Bray; Robert de Quincy, son-in-law and +standard-bearer to Earl Richard; Herve, uncle to the Earl, and Gilbert +de Clare, his son; Milo de Cogan, the first who entered Dublin by +assault, and its first Norman governor; the de Barries, and de +Prendergast. Other founders of Norman-Irish houses, as the de Lacies, +de Courcies, le Poers, de Burgos, Butlers, Berminghams, came not over +until the landing of Henry II., or still later, with his son John. + +The townsmen of Dublin had every reason, from their knowledge of +Dermid's cruel character, to expect the worst at his hands and those of +his allies. The warning of Waterford was before them, but besides this +they had a special cause of apprehension, Dermid's father having been +murdered in their midst, and his body ignominiously interred with the +carcase of a dog. Roderick having failed to intercept him, the +citizens, either to gain time or really desiring to arrive at an +accommodation, entered into negotiations. Their ambassador for this +purpose was Lorcan, or Lawrence O'Toole, the first Archbishop of the +city, and its first prelate of Milesian origin. This illustrious man, +canonized both by sanctity and patriotism, was then in the thirty-ninth +year of his age, and the ninth of his episcopate. His father was lord +of Imayle and chief of his clan; his sister had been wife of Dermid and +mother of Eva, the prize-bride of Earl Richard. He himself had been a +hostage with Dermid in his youth, and afterwards Abbot of Glendalough, +the most celebrated monastic city of Leinster. He stood, therefore, to +the besieged, being their chief pastor, in the relation of a father; to +Dermid, and strangely enough to Strongbow also, as brother-in-law and +uncle by marriage. A fitter ambassador could not be found. + +Maurice Regan, the "_Latiner_," or Secretary of Dermid, had advanced to +the walls, and summoned the city to surrender, and deliver up "30 +pledges" to his master, their lawful Prince. Asculph, son of Torcall, +was in favour of the surrender, but the citizens could not agree among +themselves as to hostages. No one was willing to trust himself to the +notoriously untrustworthy Dermid. The Archbishop was then sent out on +the part of the citizens to arrange the terms in detail. He was +received with all reverence in the camp, but while he was deliberating +with the commanders without, and the townsmen were anxiously awaiting +his return, Milo de Cogan and Raymond the Fat, seizing the opportunity, +broke into the city at the head of their companies, and began to put +the inhabitants ruthlessly to the sword. They were soon followed by the +whole force eager for massacre and pillage. The Archbishop hastened +back to endeavour to stay the havoc which was being made of his people. +He threw himself before the infuriated Irish and Normans, he +threatened, he denounced, he bared his own breast to the swords of the +assassins. All to little purpose; the blood fury exhausted itself +before peace settled over the city. Its Danish chief, Asculph, with +many of his followers, escaped to their ships, and fled to the Isle of +Man and the Hebrides in search of succour and revenge. Roderick, +unprepared to besiege the enemy who had thus outmarched and outwitted +him at that season of the year—it could not be earlier than +October—broke up his encampment at Clondalkin, and retired to +Connaught. Earl Richard having appointed de Cogan his governor of +Dublin, followed on the rear of the retreating _Ard-Righ_, at the +instigation of McMurrogh, burning and plundering the churches of Kells, +Clonard and Slane, and carrying off the hostages of East-Meath. + +Though Dermid seemed to have forgotten altogether the conditions of the +treaty of Ferns, yet not so Roderick. When he reached Athlone he caused +Conor, son of Dermid, and the son of Donald _Kavanagh_, and the son of +Dermid's fosterer, who had been given him as hostages for the +fulfilment of that treaty, so grossly violated in every particular, to +be beheaded. Dermid indulged in impotent vows of vengeance against +Roderick, when he heard of these executions which his own perjuries had +provoked; he swore that nothing short of the conquest of Connaught in +the following spring would satisfy his revenge, and he sent the +Ard-Righ his defiance to that purport. Two other events of military +consequence marked the close of the year 1170. The foreign garrison of +Waterford was surprised and captured by Cormac McCarthy, Prince of +Desmond, and Henry II. having prohibited all intercourse between his +lieges and his disobedient subject, Earl Richard, the latter had +despatched Raymond the Fat, with the most humble submission of himself +and his new possessions to his Majesty's decision. And so with Asculph, +son of Torcall, recruiting in the isles of Insi-Gall, Lawrence, the +Archbishop, endeavouring to unite the proud and envious Irish lords +into one united phalanx, and Roderick, preparing for the new year's +campaign, the winter of 1170-'71, came, and waned, and went. + +One occurrence of the succeeding spring may most appropriately be +dismissed here—the death of the wretched and odious McMurrogh. This +event happened, according to _Giraldus_, in the kalends of May. The +Irish Annals surround his death-bed with all the horrors appropriate to +such a scene. He became, they say, "putrid while living," through the +miracles of St. Columbcille and St. Finian, whose churches he had +plundered; "and he died at Fernamore, without making a will, without +penance, without the body of Christ, without unction, as his evil deeds +deserved." We have no desire to meditate over the memory of such a man. +He, far more than his predecessor, whatever that predecessor's crimes +might have been, deserved to have been buried with a dog. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +SECOND CAMPAIGN OF EARL RICHARD—HENRY II. IN IRELAND. + +The campaign of the year 1171 languished from a variety of causes. At +the very outset, the invaders lost their chief patron, who had been so +useful to them. During the siege of Dublin, in the previous autumn, the +townsmen of Wexford, who were in revolt, had, by stratagem, induced +Robert Fitzstephen to surrender his fort at Carrick, and had imprisoned +him in one of the islands of their harbour. Waterford had been +surprised and taken by Cormac McCarthy, Prince of Desmond, and +Strongbow, alarmed by the proclamation of Henry, knew hardly whether to +consider himself outlaw, subject, or independent sovereign. + +Raymond the Fat had returned from his embassy to King Henry, with no +comfortable tidings. He had been kept day after day waiting the +pleasure of the King, and returned with sentences as dubious in his +mouth, as those on which Earl Richard had originally acted. It was +evidently not the policy of Henry to abandon the enterprise already so +well begun, but neither was it his interest or desire that any subject +should reap the benefit, or erect an independent power, upon his mere +permission to embark in the service of McMurrogh. Herve, the Earl's +uncle, had been despatched as ambassador in Raymond's place, but with +no better success. At length, Richard himself, by the advice of all his +counsellors, repaired to England, and waited on Henry at Newenham, in +Gloucestershire. At first he was ignominiously refused an audience, but +after repeated solicitations he was permitted to renew his homage. He +then yielded in due form the city of Dublin, and whatever other +conquests he claimed, and consented to hold his lands in Leinster, as +chief tenant from the crown: in return for which he was graciously +forgiven the success that had attended his adventure, and permitted to +accompany the King's expedition, in the ensuing autumn. + +Before Strongbow's departure for England three unsuccessful attempts +had been made for the expulsion of the Norman garrison from Dublin. +They were unfortunately not undertaken in concert, but rather in +succession. The first was an attempt at surprising the city by Asculph +MacTorcall, probably relying on the active aid of the inhabitants of +his own race. He had but "a small force," chiefly from the isles of +Insi-Gall and the Orkneys. The Orcadians were under the command of a +warrior called John the Furious or Mad, the last of those wild +Berserkers of the North, whose valour was regarded in Pagan days as a +species of divine frenzy. This redoubted champion, after a momentary +success, was repulsed by Milo and Richard de Cogan, and finally fell by +the hand of Walter de Riddlesford. Asculph was taken prisoner, and, +avowing boldly his intention never to desist from attempting to recover +the place, was put to death. The second attack has been often described +as a regular investment by Roderick O'Conor, at the head of all the +forces of the Island, which was only broken up in the ninth week of its +duration, by a desperate sally on the part of the famished garrison. +Many details and episodes, proper to so long a beleaguerment, are given +by _Giraldus_, and reproduced by his copyists. We find, however, little +warrant for these passages in our native annals, any more than for the +antithetical speeches which the same partial historian places in the +mouths of his heroes. The Four Masters limit the time to "the course of +a fortnight." Roderick, according to their account, was accompanied by +the lords of Breffni and Oriel only; frequent skirmishes and conflicts +took place; an excursion was made against the Leinster Allies of the +Normans, "to cut down and burn the corn of the Saxons." The surprise by +night of the monarch's camp is also duly recorded; and that the enemy +carried off "the provisions, armour, and horses of Roderick." By which +sally, according to _Giraldus_, Dublin having obtained provisions +enough for a year, Earl Richard marched to Wexford, "taking the higher +way by Idrone," with the hope to deliver Fitzstephen. But the Wexford +men having burned their suburbs, and sent their goods and families into +the stockaded island, sent him word that at the first attack they would +put Fitzstephen and his companions to death. The Earl, therefore, held +sorrowfully on his way to Waterford, where, leaving a stronger force +than the first garrison, to which he had entrusted it, he sailed for +England to make his peace with King Henry. The third attempt on Dublin +was made by the lord of Breffni during the Earl's absence, and when the +garrison were much reduced; it was equally unsuccessful with those +already recorded. De Cogan displayed his usual courage, and the lord of +Breffni lost a son and some of his best men in the assault. + +It was upon the marches of Wales that the Earl found King Henry busily +engaged in making preparations for his own voyage into Ireland. He had +levied on the landholders throughout his dominions an escutage or +commutation for personal service, and the Pipe roll, which contains his +disbursements for the year, has led an habitually cautious writer to +infer "that the force raised for the expedition was much more numerous +than has been represented by historians." During the muster of his +forces he visited Pembroke, and made a progress through North Wales, +severely censuring those who had enlisted under Strongbow, and placing +garrisons of his own men in their castles. At Saint David's he made the +usual offering on the shrine of the Saint and received the +hospitalities of the Bishop. All things being in readiness, he sailed +from Milford Haven, with a fleet of 400 transports, having on board +many of the Norman nobility, 500 knights, and an army usually estimated +at 4,000 men at arms. On the 18th of October, 1171, he landed safely at +Crook, in the county of Waterford, being unable, according to an old +local tradition, to sail up the river from adverse winds. As one +headland of that harbour is called _Hook_, and the other _Crook_, the +old adage, "by hook or by crook," is thought to have arisen on this +occasion. + +In Henry's train, beside Earl Richard, there came over Hugh de Lacy, +some time Constable of Chester; William, son of Aldelm, ancestor of the +Clanrickardes; Theobald Walter, ancestor of the Butlers; Robert le +Poer, ancestor of the Powers; Humphrey de Bohun, Robert Fitz-Barnard, +Hugh de Gundeville, Philip de Hastings, Philip de Braos, and many other +cavaliers whose names were renowned throughout France and England. As +the imposing host formed on the sea side, a white hare, according to an +English chronicler, leapt from a neighbouring hedge, and was +immediately caught and presented to the King as an omen of victory. +Prophecies, pagan and Christian—quatrains fathered on Saint Moling and +triads attributed to Merlin—were freely showered in his path. But the +true omen of his success he might read for himself, in a constitution +which had lost its force, in laws which had ceased to be sacred, and in +a chieftain race, brave indeed as mortal men could be, but envious, +arrogant, revengeful, and insubordinate. For their criminal indulgence +of these demoniacal passions a terrible chastisement was about to fall +on them, and not only on them, but also, alas! on their poor people. + +The whole time passed by Henry II. in Ireland was from the 18th +October, 1171, till the 17th of April following, just seven months. For +the first politician of his age, with the command of such troops, and +so much treasure, these seven months could not possibly be barren of +consequences. Winter, the season of diplomacy, was seldom more +industriously or expertly employed. The townsmen of Wexford, aware of +his arrival as soon as it had taken place, hastened to make their +submission and to deliver up to him their prisoner, Robert Fitzstephen, +the first of the invaders. Henry, affecting the same displeasure +towards Fitzstephen he did for all those who had anticipated his own +expedition, ordered him to be fettered and imprisoned in Reginald's +tower. At Waterford he also received the friendly overtures of the +lords of Desies and Ossory, and probably some form of feudal submission +was undergone by those chiefs. Cormac, Prince of Desmond, followed +their example, and soon afterwards Donald O'Brien of Thomond met him on +the banks of the Suir, not far from Cashel, made his peace, and agreed +to receive a Norman garrison in his Hiberno-Danish city of Limerick. +Having appointed commanders over these and other southern garrisons, +Henry proceeded to Dublin, where a spacious cage-work palace, on a lawn +without the city, was prepared for winter quarters. Here he continued +those negotiations with the Irish chiefs, which we are told were so +generally successful. Amongst others whose adhesion he received, +mention is made of the lord of Breffni, the most faithful follower the +Monarch Roderick could count. The chiefs of the Northern Hy-Nial +remained deaf to all his overtures, and though Fitz-Aldelm and de Lacy, +the commissioners despatched to treat with Roderick, are said to have +procured from the deserted _Ard-Righ_ an act of submission, it is +incredible that a document of such consequence should have been allowed +to perish. Indeed, most of the confident assertions about submissions +to Henry are to be taken with great caution; it is quite certain he +himself, though he lived nearly twenty years after his Irish +expedition, never assumed any Irish title whatever. It is equally true +that his successor, Richard I., never assumed any such title, as an +incident of the English crown. And although Henry in the year 1185 +created his youngest son, John _Lackland_, "lord of Ireland," it was +precisely in the same spirit and with as much ground of title as he had +for creating Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath, or John de Courcy, Earl of +Ulster. Of this question of title we shall speak more fully hereafter, +for we do not recognize any English sovereign as _King_ of Ireland, +previous to the year 1541; but it ought surely to be conclusive +evidence, that neither had Henry claimed the crown, nor had the Irish +chiefs acknowledged him as their _Ard-Righ_, that in the two authentic +documents from his hand which we possess, he neither signs himself +_Rex_ nor _Dominus Hibernioe_. These documents are the Charter of +Dublin, and the Concession of Glendalough, and their authenticity has +never been disputed. + +After spending a right merry Christmas with Norman and Milesian guests +in abundance at Dublin, Henry proceeded to that work of religious +reformation, under plea of which he had obtained the Bill of Pope +Adrian, seventeen years before, declaring such an expedition undertaken +with such motives, lawful and praiseworthy. Early in the new year, by +his desire, a synod was held at Cashel, where many salutary decrees +were enacted. These related to the proper solemnization of marriage; +the catechising of children before the doors of churches; the +administration of baptism in baptismal or parish churches; the +abolition of _Erenachs_ or lay Trustees of church property, and the +imposition of tithes, both of corn and cattle. By most English writers +this synod is treated as a National Council, and inferences are thence +drawn of Henry's admitted power over the clergy of the nation. There +is, however, no evidence that the Bishops of Ulster or Connaught were +present at Cashel, but strong negative testimony to the contrary. We +read under the date of the same year in the Four Masters, that a synod +of the clergy and laity of Ireland was convened at Tuam by Roderick +O'Conor and the Archbishop Catholicus O'Duffy. It is hardly possible +that this meeting could be in continuation or in concord with the +assembly convoked at the instance of Henry. + +Following quickly upon the Cashel Synod, Henry held a "Curia Regis" or +Great Court at Lismore, in which he created the offices of Marshal, +Constable, and Seneschal for Ireland. Earl Richard was created the +first Lord Marshal; de Lacy, the first Lord Constable. Theobald, +ancestor of the Ormond family, was already chief Butler, and de Vernon +was created the first high Steward or Seneschal. Such other order as +could be taken for the preservation of the places already captured, was +not neglected. The surplus population of Bristol obtained a charter of +Dublin to be held of Henry and his heirs, "with all the same liberties +and free customs which they enjoyed at Bristol." Wexford was committed +to the charge of Fitz-Aldelm, Waterford to de Bohun, and Dublin to de +Lacy. Castles were ordered to be erected in the towns and at other +points, and the politic king, having caused all those who remained +behind to renew their homage in the most solemn form, sailed on Easter +Monday from Wexford Haven, and on the same day, landed at Port-Finan in +Wales. Here he assumed the Pilgrim's staff, and proceeded humbly on +foot to St. David's, preparatory to meeting the Papal Commissioners +appointed to inquire into Beckett's murder. + +It is quite apparent that had Henry landed in Ireland at any other +period of his life except in the year of the martyrdom of the renowned +Archbishop of Canterbury, while the wrath of Rome was yet hanging +poised in the air, ready to be hurled against him, he would not have +left the work he undertook but half begun. The nett result of his +expedition, of his great fleet, mighty army, and sagacious counsels, +was the infusion of a vast number of new adventurers (most of them of +higher rank and better fortunes than their precursors), into the same +old field. Except the garrisons admitted into Limerick and Cork, and +the displacing of Strongbow's commandants by his own at Waterford, +Wexford, and Dublin, there seems to have been little gained in a +military sense. The decrees of the Synod of Cashel would, no doubt, +stand him in good stead with the Papal legates as evidences of his +desire to enforce strict discipline, even on lands beyond those over +which he actually ruled. But, after all, harassed as he was with +apprehensions of the future, perhaps no other Prince could have done +more in a single winter in a strange country than Henry II. did for his +seven months' sojourn in Ireland. + + + +CHAPTER V. +FROM THE RETURN OF HENRY II. TO ENGLAND TILL THE DEATH OF EARL +RICHARD AND HIS PRINCIPAL COMPANIONS. + +The Ard-Righ Roderick, during the period of Henry the Second's stay in +Ireland, had continued west of the Shannon. Unsupported by his +suffragans, many of whom made peace with the invader, he attempted no +military operation, nor had Henry time sufficient to follow him into +his strongholds. It was reserved for this ill-fated, and, we cannot but +think, harshly judged monarch, to outlive the first generation of the +invaders of his country, and to close a reign which promised so +brightly at the beginning, in the midst of a distracted, war-spent +people, having preserved through all vicissitudes the title of +sovereign, but little else that was of value to himself or others. + +Among the guests who partook of the Christmas cheer of King Henry at +Dublin, we find mention of Tiernan O'Ruarc, the lord of Breffni and +East-Meath. For the Methian addition to his possessions, Tiernan was +indebted to his early alliance with Roderick, and the success of their +joint arms. Anciently the east of Meath had been divided between the +four families called "the four tribes of Tara," whose names are now +anglicized O'Hart, O'Kelly, O'Connelly, and O'Regan. Whether to balance +the power of the great West-Meath family of O'Melaghlin, or because +these minor tribes were unable to defend themselves successfully, +Roderick, like his father, had partitioned Meath, and given the seaward +side a new master in the person of O'Ruarc. The investiture of Hugh de +Lacy by King Henry with the seignory of the same district, led to a +tragedy, the first of its kind in our annals, but destined to be the +prototype of an almost indefinite series, in which the gainers were +sometimes natives, but much oftener Normans. + +O'Ruarc gave de Lacy an appointment at the hill of Ward, near Athboy, +in the year 1173, in order to adjust their conflicting claims upon +East-Meath. Both parties naturally guarded against surprise, by having +in readiness a troop of armed retainers. The principals met apart on +the summit of the hill, amid the circumvallations of its ancient fort; +a single unarmed interpreter only was present. An altercation having +arisen, between them, O'Ruarc lost his temper, and raised the +battle-axe, which all our warriors carried in those days, as the +gentlemen of the last century did their swords; this was the signal for +both troops of guards to march towards the spot. De Lacy, in attempting +to fly, had been twice felled to the earth, when his followers, under +Maurice Fitzgerald and Griffith, his nephew, came to his rescue, and +assailed the chief of Breffni. It was now Tiernan's turn to attempt +escaping, but as he mounted his horse the spear of Griffith brought him +to the earth mortally wounded, and his followers fled. His head was +carried in triumph to Dublin, where it was spiked over the northern +gate, and his body was gibbeted on the northern wall, with the feet +uppermost. Thus, a spectacle of intense pity to the Irish, did these +severed members of one of their most famous nobles remain exposed on +that side of the stronghold of the stranger which looks towards the +pleasant plains of Meath and the verdant uplands of Cavan. + +The administration of de Lacy was now interrupted by a summons to join +his royal master, sore beset by his own sons in Normandy. The Kings of +France and Scotland were in alliance with those unnatural Princes, and +their mother, Queen Eleanor, might he called the author of their +rebellion. As all the force that could be spared from Ireland was +needed for the preservation of Normandy, de Lacy hastened to obey the +royal summons, and Earl Richard, by virtue of his rank of Marshal, took +for the moment the command in chief. Henry, however, who never +cordially forgave that adventurer, first required his presence in +France, and when alarmed by ill news from Ireland, he sent him back to +defend the conquests already made, he associated with him in the +supreme command—though not apparently in the civil administration—the +gallant Raymond _le gros_. And it was full time for the best head and +the bravest sword among the first invaders to return to their work—a +task not to be so easily achieved as many confident persons then +believed, and as many ill-informed writers have since described it. + +During the early rule of de Lacy, Earl Richard had established himself +at Ferns, assuming, to such of the Irish as adhered to him, the +demeanour of a king. After Dermid's death, he styled himself, in utter +disregard of Irish law, "Prince of Leinster," in virtue of his wife. He +proceeded to create feudal dignitaries, placing at their head, as +Constable of Leinster, Robert de Quincy, to whom he gave his daughter, +by his first wife, in marriage. At this point the male representatives +of King Dermid came to open rupture with the Earl. Donald _Kavanagh_, +surnamed "the Handsome," and by the Normans usually spoken of as +"Prince" Donald, could scarcely be expected to submit to an +arrangement, so opposed to all ancient custom, and to his own +interests. He had borne a leading part in the restoration of his +father, but surely not to this end—the exclusion of the male +succession. He had been one of King Henry's guests during the Christmas +holidays of the year 1172, and had rendered him some sort of homage, as +Prince of Leinster. Henry, ever ready to raise up rivals to Strongbow, +seems to have received him into favour, until Eva, the Earl's wife, +proved, both in Ireland and England, that Donald and his brother Enna, +were born out of wedlock, and that there was no direct male heir of +Dermid left, after the execution of Conor, the hostage put to death by +King Roderick. To English notions this might have been conclusive +against Donald's title, but to the Irish, among whom the electoral +principle was the source of all chieftainry, it was not so. A large +proportion of the patriotic Leinstermen—what might be called the native +party—adhered to Donald _Kavanagh_, utterly rejecting the title derived +through the lady Eva. + +Such conflicting interests could only be settled by a resort to force, +and the bloody feud began by the Earl executing at Ferns one of +Donald's sons, held by him as a hostage. In an expedition against +O'Dempsey, who also refused to acknowledge his title, the Earl lost, in +the campaign of 1173, his son-in-law, de Quincy, several other knights, +and the "banner of Leinster." The following year we read in the +Anglo-Irish Annals of Leinster, that King Donald's men, being moved +against the Earl's men, made a great slaughter of English. Nor was this +the worst defeat he suffered in the same year—1174. Marching into +Munster he was encountered in a pitched battle at Thurles by the troops +of the monarch Roderick, under command of his son, Conor, surnamed +_Moinmoy_, and by the troops of Thomond, under Donald More O'Brien. +With Strongbow were all who could be spared of the garrison of Dublin, +including a strong detachment of Danish origin. Four knights and seven +hundred (or, according to other accounts, seventeen hundred) men of the +Normans were left dead on the field. Strongbow retreated with the +remnant of his force to Waterford, but the news of the defeat having +reached that city before him, the townspeople ran to arms and put his +garrison of two hundred men to the sword. After encamping for a month +on an island without the city, and hearing that Kilkenny Castle was +taken and razed by O'Brien, he was feign to return to Dublin as best he +could. + +His fortunes at the close of this campaign, were at their lowest ebb. +The loss of de Quincy and the defeat of Thurles had sorely shaken his +military reputation. His jealousy of that powerful family connexion, +the Geraldines, had driven Maurice Fitzgerald and Raymond the Fat to +retire in disgust into Wales. Donald Kavanagh, O'Dempsey, and the +native party in Leinster, set him at defiance, and his own troops +refused to obey the orders of his uncle Herve, demanding to be led by +the more popular and youthful Raymond. To add to his embarrassments, +Henry summoned him to France in the very crisis of his troubles, and he +dared not disobey that jealous and exacting master. He was, however, +not long detained by the English King. Clothed with supreme authority, +and with Raymond for his lieutenant, he returned to resume the work of +conquest. To conciliate the Geraldines, he at last consented to give +his sister Basilia in marriage to the brilliant captain, on whose sword +so much depended. At the same time Alina, the widow of de Quincy, was +married to the second son of Fitzgerald, and Nesta Fitzgerald was +united to Raymond's former rival, Herve. Thus, bound together, fortune +returned in full tide to the adventurers. Limerick, which had been +taken and burned to the water's edge by Donald O'Brien after the battle +of Thurles, was recaptured and fortified anew; Waterford was more +strongly garrisoned than ever; Donald _Kavanagh_ was taken off, +apparently by treachery (A.D. 1175), and all seemed to promise the +enjoyment of uninterrupted power to the Earl. But his end was already +come. An ulcer in his foot brought on a long and loathsome illness, +which terminated in his death, in the month of May, 1176, or 1177. He +was buried in Christ Church, Dublin, which he had contributed to +enlarge, and was temporarily succeeded in the government of the Normans +by his lieutenant and brother-in-law, Raymond. By the Lady Eva he left +one daughter, Isabel, married at the age of fourteen to William +Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, who afterwards claimed the proprietary of +Leinster, by virtue of this marriage. Lady Isabel left again five +daughters, who were the ancestresses of the Mortimers, Braces, and +other historic families of England and Scotland. And so the blood of +Earl Richard and his Irish Princess descended for many generations to +enrich other houses and ennoble other names than his own. + +Strongbow is described by _Giraldus_, whose personal sketches, of the +leading invaders form the most valuable part of his book, as less a +statesman than a soldier, and more a soldier than a general. His +complexion was freckled, his neck slender, his voice feminine and +shrill, and his temper equable and uniform. His career in Ireland was +limited to seven years in point of time, and his resources were never +equal to the task he undertook. Had they been so, or had he not been so +jealously counteracted by his suzerain, he might have founded a new +Norman dynasty on as solid a basis as William, or as Rollo himself had +done. + +Raymond and the Geraldines had now, for a brief moment, the supreme +power, civil and military, in their own hands. In his haste to take +advantage of the Earl's death, of which he had privately been informed +by a message from his wife, Raymond left Limerick in the hands of +Donald More O'Brien, exacting, we are told, a solemn oath from the +Prince of Thomond to protect the city, which the latter broke before +the Norman garrisons were out of sight of its walls. This story, like +many others of the same age, rests on the uncertain authority of the +vain, impetuous and passionate _Giraldus_. Whether the loss of Limerick +discredited him with the king, or the ancient jealousy of the first +adventurers prevailed in the royal councils, Henry, on hearing of +Strongbow's death, at once despatched as Lord Justice, William +Fitz-Aldelm de Burgo, first cousin to Hubert de Burgo, Chief Justiciary +of England, and, like Fitz-Aldelm, descended from Arlotta, mother of +William the Conqueror, by Harlowen de Burgo, her first husband. From +him have descended the noble family of de Burgo, or Burke, so +conspicuous in the after annals of our island. In the train of the new +Justiciary came John de Courcy, another name destined to become +historical, but before relating his achievements, we must conclude the +narrative so far as regards the first set of adventurers. + +Maurice Fitzgerald, the common ancestor of the Earls of Desmond and +Kildare, the Knights of Glyn, of Kerry, and of all the Irish +Geraldines, died at Wexford in the year 1177. Raymond the Fat, +superseded by Fitz-Aldelm, and looked on coldly by the King, retired to +his lands in the same county, and appears only once more in arms—in the +year 1182—in aid of his uncle, Robert Fitzstephen. This premier invader +had been entrusted by the new ruler with the command of the garrison of +Cork, as Milo de Cogan had been with that of Waterford, and both had +been invested with equal halves of the principality of Desmond. De +Cogan, Ralph, son of Fitzstephen, and other knights had been cut off by +surprise, at the house of one McTire, near Lismore, in 1182, and all +Desmond was up in arms for the expulsion of the foreign garrisons. +Raymond sailed from Wexford to the aid of his uncle, and succeeded in +relieving the city from the sea. But Fitzstephen, afflicted with grief +for the death of his son, and worn down with many anxieties, suffered +the still greater loss of his reason. From thenceforth, we hear no more +of either uncle or nephew, and we may therefore account this the last +year of Robert Fitzstephen, Milo de Cogan, and Raymond _le gros_. Herve +de Montmorency, the ancient rival of Raymond, had three years earlier +retired from the world, to become a brother in the Monastery of the +Holy Trinity, at Canterbury. His Irish estates passed to his brother +Geoffrey, who subsequently became Justiciary of the Normans in Ireland, +the successful rival of the Marshals, and founder of the Irish title of +Mountmorres. The posterity of Raymond survived in the noble family of +Grace, Barons of Courtstown, in Ossory. It is not, therefore, strictly +true, what Geoffrey Keating and the authors he followed have +asserted—that the first Normans were punished by the loss of posterity +for the crimes and outrages they had committed, in their various +expeditions. + +Let us be just even to these spoilers of our race. They were fair +specimens of the prevailing type of Norman character. Indomitable +bravery was not their only virtue. In patience, in policy, and in +rising superior to all obstacles and reverses, no group of conquerors +ever surpassed Strongbow and his companions. Ties of blood and +brotherhood in arms were strong between them, and whatever unfair +advantages they allowed themselves to take of their enemy, they were in +general constant and devoted in their friendships towards each other. +Rivalries and intrigues were not unknown among them, but generous +self-denial, and chivalrous self-reliance were equally as common. If it +had been the lot of our ancestors to be effectually conquered, they +could hardly have yielded to nobler foes. But as they proved themselves +able to resist successfully the prowess of this hitherto invincible +race, their honour is augmented in proportion to the energy and genius, +both for government and war, brought to bear against them. + +Neither should we overstate the charge of impiety. If the invaders +broke down and burned churches in the heat of battle, they built better +and costlier temples out of the fruits of victory. Christ Church, +Dublin, Dunbrody Abbey, on the estuary of Waterford, the Grey Friars' +Abbey at Wexford, and other religious houses long stood, or still +stand, to show that although the first Norman, like the first Dane, +thirsted after spoil, and lusted after land, unlike the Dane, he +created, he enriched, he improved, wherever he conquered. + + + +CHAPTER VI. +THE LAST YEARS OF THE ARD-RIGH, RODERICK O'CONOR. + +The victory of Thurles, in the year 1174, was the next important +military event, as we have seen, after the raising of the second siege +of Dublin, in the first campaign of Earl Richard. It seems +irreconcilable, with the consequences of that victory, that Ambassadors +from Roderick should be found at the Court of Henry II. before the +close of the following year: but events personal to both sovereigns +will sufficiently explain the apparent anomaly. + +The campaign of 1174, so unfavourable to Henry's subjects in Ireland, +had been most fortunate for his arms in Normandy. His rebellious sons, +after severe defeats, submitted, and did him homage; the King of France +had gladly accepted his terms of peace; the King of Scotland, while in +duress, had rendered him fealty as his liege man; and Queen Eleanor, +having fallen into his power, was a prisoner for life. Tried by a +similar unnatural conspiracy in his own family, Roderick O'Conor had +been less fortunate in coercing them into obedience. His eldest son, +Murray, claimed, according to ancient custom, that his father should +resign in his favour the patrimonial Province, contenting himself with +the higher rank of King of Ireland. But Roderick well understood that +in his days, with a new and most formidable enemy established in the +old Danish strongholds, with the Constitution torn to shreds by the war +of succession, his only real power was over his patrimony; he refused, +therefore, the unreasonable request, and thus converted some of his own +children into enemies. Nor were there wanting Princes, themselves +fathers, who abetted this household treason, as the Kings of France and +Scotland had done among the sons of Henry II. Soon after the battle of +Thurles, the recovery of Limerick, and the taking of Kilkenny, Donald +More O'Brien, lending himself to this odious intrigue, was overpowered +and deposed by Roderick, but the year next succeeding having made +submission he was restored by the same hand which had cast him down. It +was, therefore, while harassed by the open rebellion of his eldest son, +and while Henry was rejoicing in his late success, that Roderick +despatched to the Court of Windsor Catholicus, Archbishop of Tuam, +Concors, Abbot of St. Brendan's, and Laurence, Archbishop of Dublin, +whose is styled in these proceedings, "Chancellor of the Irish King," +to negotiate an alliance with Henry, which would leave him free to +combat against his domestic enemies. An extraordinary treaty, agreed +upon at Windsor, about the feast of Michaelmas, 1175, recognized +Roderick's sovereignty over Ireland, the cantreds and cities actually +possessed by the subjects of Henry excepted; it subinfeudated his +authority to that of Henry, after the manner lately adopted towards +William, King of Scotland; the payment of a merchantable hide of every +tenth hide of cattle was agreed upon as an annual tribute, while the +minor chiefs were to acknowledge their dependence by annual presents of +hawks and hounds. This treaty, which proceeded on the wild assumption +that the feudal system was of force among the free clans of Erin, was +probably the basis of Henry's grant of the Lordship of Ireland to his +son, John _Lackland_, a few years later; it was solemnly approved by a +special Council, or Parliament, and signed by the representatives of +both parties. + +Among the signers we find the name of the Archbishop of Dublin, who, +while in England, narrowly escaped martyrdom from the hands of a +maniac, while celebrating Mass at the tomb of St. Thomas. Four years +afterwards, this celebrated ecclesiastic attended at Rome, with +Catholicus of Tuam, and the Prelates of Lismore, Limerick, Waterford, +and Killaloe, the third general council of Lateran, where they were +received with all honour by Pope Alexander III. From Rome he returned +with legantine powers which he used with great energy during the year +1180. In the autumn of that year, he was entrusted with the delivery to +Henry II. of the son of Roderick O'Conor, as a pledge for the +fulfilment of the treaty of Windsor, and with other diplomatic +functions. On reaching England, he found the king had gone to France, +and following him thither, he was seized with illness as he approached +the Monastery of Eu, and with a prophetic foretaste of death, he +exclaimed as he came in sight of the towers of the Convent, "Here shall +I make my resting-place." The Abbot Osbert and the monks of the Order +of St. Victor received him tenderly, and watched his couch for the few +days he yet lingered. Anxious to fulfil his mission, he despatched +David, tutor of the son of Roderick, with messages to Henry, and +awaited his return with anxiety. David brought him a satisfactory +response from the English King, and the last anxiety only remained. In +death, as in life, his thoughts were with his country. "Ah, foolish and +insensible people!" he exclaimed in his latest hours, "what will become +of you? Who will relieve your miseries? Who will heal you?" When +recommended to make his last will, he answered, with apostolic +simplicity—"God knows, out of all my revenues, I have not a single coin +to bequeath." And thus on the 11th day of November, 1180, in the 48th +year of his age, under the shelter of a Norman roof, surrounded by +Norman mourners, the Gaelic statesman-saint departed out of this life, +bequeathing—one more canonized memory to Ireland and to Rome. + +The prospects of his native land were, at that moment, of a cast which +might well disturb the death-bed of the sainted Laurence. Fitz-Aldelm, +advanced to the command at Dublin in 1177, had shown no great capacity +for following up the conquest. But there was one among his followers +who, unaffected by his sluggish example, and undeterred by his jealous +interference, resolved to push the outposts of his race into the heart +of Ulster. This was John de Courcy, Baron of Stoke Courcy, in +Somersetshire, a cavalier of fabulous physical strength, romantic +courage, and royal descent. When he declared his settled purpose to be +the invasion of Ulster, he found many spirits as discontented with +Fitz-Aldelm's inaction as himself ready to follow his banner. His +inseparable brother-in-arms, Sir Almaric of St. Laurence, his relative, +Jourdain de Courcy, Sir Robert de la Poer, Sir Geoffrey and Walter de +Marisco, and other Knights to the number of twenty, and five hundred +men at arms, marched with him out of Dublin. Hardly had they got beyond +sight of the city, when they were attacked by a native force, near +Howth, where Saint Laurence laid in victory the foundation of that +title still possessed by his posterity. On the fifth day, they came by +surprise upon the famous ecclesiastical city of Downpatrick, one of the +first objects of their adventure. An ancient prophecy had foretold that +the place would be taken by a chief with birds upon his shield, the +bearings of de Courcy, mounted on a white horse, which de Courcy +happened to ride. Thus the terrors of superstition were added to the +terrors of surprise, and the town being entirely open, the Normans had +only to dash into the midst of its inhabitants. But the free clansmen +of Ulidia, though surprised, were not intimidated. Under their lord +Rory, son of Dunlevy, they rallied to expel the invader. Cardinal +Vivian, the Papal Legate, who had just arrived from Man and Scotland, +on the neighbouring coast, proffered his mediation, and besought de +Courcy to withdraw from Down. His advice was peremptorily rejected, and +then he exhorted the Ulidians to fight bravely for their rights. Five +several battles are enumerated as being fought, in this and the +following year, between de Courcy and the men of Down, Louth, and +Antrim, sometimes with success, at others without it, always with heavy +loss and obstinate resistance. + +The barony of Lecale, in which Downpatrick stands, is almost a +peninsula, and the barony of the Ardes on the opposite shore of +Strangford Lough is nearly insulated by Belfast Lough, the Channel, and +the tides of Strangford. With the active co-operation from the sea of +Godred, King of Man, (whose daughter Africa he had married), de +Courcy's hold on that coast became an exceedingly strong one. A ditch +and a few towers would as effectually enclose Lecale and the Ardes from +any landward attack, as if they were a couple of well-walled cities. +Hence, long after "the Pale" ceased to extend beyond the Boyne, and +while the mountain passes from Meath into Ulster were all in native +hands, these two baronies continued to be succoured and strengthened by +sea, and retained as English possessions. Reinforced from Dublin and +from Man after their first success, de Courcy's companions stuck to +their castle-building about the shores of Strangford Lough, while he +himself made incursions into the interior, by land or by sea, fighting +a brisk succession of engagements at Newry, in Antrim, at Coleraine, +and on the eastern shore of Lough Foyle. + +At the time these operations were going forward in Ulster, Milo de +Cogan quitted Dublin on a somewhat similar expedition. We have already +said that Murray, eldest son of Roderick, had claimed, according to +ancient usage, the O'Conor patrimony, his father being Ard-Righ; and +had his claim refused. He now entered into a secret engagement with de +Cogan, whose force is stated by _Giraldus_ at 500 men-at-arms, and by +the Irish annalists as "a great army." With the smaller force he left +Dublin, but marching through Meath, was joined at Trim by men from the +garrisons de Lacy had planted in East-Meath. So accompanied, de Cogan +advanced on Roscommon, where he was received by the son of Roderick +during the absence of the Ard-Righ on a visitation among the glens of +Connemara. After three days spent in Roscommon, these allies marched +across the plain of Connaught, directed their course on Tuam, burning +as they went Elphin, Roskeen, and many other churches. The western +clansmen everywhere fell back before them, driving off their herds and +destroying whatever they could not remove. At Tuam they found +themselves in the midst of a solitude without food or forage, with an +eager enemy swarming from the west and the south to surround them. They +at once decided to retreat, and no time was to be lost, as the Kern +were already at their heels. From Tuam to Athleague, and from Athleague +to their castles in East-Meath, fled the remnant of de Cogan's +inglorious expedition. Murray O'Conor being taken prisoner by his own +kinsmen, his eyes were plucked out as the punishment of his treason, +and Conor Moinmoy, the joint-victor with Donald O'Brien over Strongbow +at Thurles, became the _Roydamna_ or successor of his father. + +But fresh dissensions soon broke out between the sons and grandsons of +Roderick, and the sons of his brother Thurlogh, in one of whose deadly +conflicts sixteen Princes of the Sil-Murray fell. Both sides looked +beyond Connaught for help; one drew friends from the northern O'Neills, +another relied on the aid of O'Brien. Conor Moinmoy, in the year 1186, +according to most Irish accounts, banished his father into Munster, but +at the intercession of the Sil-Murray, his own clan allowed him again +to return, and assigned him a single cantred of land for his +subsistence. From this date we may count the unhappy Roderick's +retirement from the world. + +Near the junction of Lough Corrib with Lough Mask, on the boundary line +between Mayo and Galway, stands the ruins of the once populous +monastery and village of Cong. The first Christian kings of Connaught +had founded the monastery, or enabled St. Fechin to do so by their +generous donations. The father of Roderick had enriched its shrine by +the gift of a particle of the true Cross, reverently enshrined in a +reliquary, the workmanship of which still excites the admiration of the +antiquaries. Here Roderick retired in the 70th year of his age, and for +twelve years thereafter—until the 29th day of November, 1198, here he +wept and prayed, and withered away. Dead to the world, as the world to +him, the opening of a new grave in the royal corner at Clonmacnoise was +the last incident connected with his name, which reminded Connaught +that it had lost its once prosperous Prince, and Ireland, that she had +seen her last Ard-Righ, according to the ancient Milesian Constitution. +Powerful Princes of his own and other houses the land was destined to +know for many generations, before its sovereignty was merged in that of +England, but none fully entitled to claim the high-sounding, but often +fallacious title, of Monarch of all Ireland. + +The public character of Roderick O'Conor has been hardly dealt with by +most modern writers. He was not, like his father, like Murkertach +O'Brien, Malachy II., Brian, Murkertach of the leathern cloaks, or +Malachy I., eminent as a lawgiver, a soldier, or a popular leader. He +does not appear to have inspired love, or awe, or reverence, into those +of his own household and patrimony, not to speak of his distant +cotemporaries. He was probably a man of secondary qualities, engulfed +in a crisis of the first importance. But that he is fairly chargeable +with the success of the invaders—or that there was any very +overwhelming success to be charged up to the time of his enforced +retirement from the world—we have failed to discover. From Dermid's +return until his retreat to Cong, seventeen years had passed away. +Seventeen campaigns, more or less energetic and systematic, the Normans +had fought. Munster was still in 1185—when John Lackland made his +memorable exit and entrance on the scene—almost wholly in the hands of +the ancient clans. Connaught was as yet without a single Norman +garrison. Hugh de Lacy returning to the government of Dublin, in 1179, +on Fitz-Aldelm's recall, was more than half _Hibernicized_ by marriage +with one of Roderick's daughters, and the Norman tide stood still in +Meath. Several strong fortresses were indeed erected in Desmond and +Leinster, by John Lackland and by de Courcy, in his newly won northern +territory. Ardfinan, Lismore, Leighlin, Carlow, Castledermot, Leix, +Delvin, Kilkay, Maynooth and Trim, were fortified; but considering who +the Anglo-Normans were, and what they had done elsewhere, even these +very considerable successes may be correctly accounted for without +overcharging the memory of Roderick with folly and incapacity. That he +was personally brave has not been questioned. That he was politic—or at +least capable of conceiving the politic views of such a statesman as +St. Laurence O'Toole, we may infer from the rank of Chancellor which he +conferred, and the other negotiations which he entrusted to that great +man. That he maintained his self-respect as a sovereign, both in +abstaining from visiting Henry II. under pretence of hospitality at +Dublin, and throughout all his difficult diplomacy with the Normans, we +are free to conclude. With the Normans for foes—with a decayed and +obsolete national constitution to patch up—with nominal subordinates +more powerful than himself—with rebellion staring him in the face out +of the eyes of his own children—Roderick O'Conor had no ordinary part +to play in history. The fierce family pride of our fathers and the +vices of their political system are to be deplored and avoided; let us +not make the last of their national kings the scape-goat for all his +cotemporaries and all his predecessors. + + + +CHAPTER VII. +ASSASSINATION OF HUGH DE LACY—JOHN "LACKLAND" IN IRELAND—VARIOUS +EXPEDITIONS OF JOHN DE COURCY—DEATH OF CONOR MOINMOY, AND RISE OF +CATHAL, "THE RED-HANDED" O'CONOR—CLOSE OF THE CAREER OF DE COURCY AND +DE BURGH. + +Hugh de Lacy, restored to the supreme authority on the recall of +Fitz-Aldelm in 1179, began to conceive hopes, as Strongbow had done, of +carving out for himself a new kingdom. After the assassination of +O'Ruarc already related, he assumed without further parley the titles +of Lord of Meath and Breffni. To these titles, he added that of Oriel +or Louth, but his real strength lay in Meath, where his power was +enhanced by a politic second marriage with Rose, daughter of O'Conor. +Among the Irish he now began to be known as King of the foreigners, and +some such assumption of royal authority caused his recall for a few +months in the year 1180, and his substitution by de Courcy and Philip +de Broasa, in 1184. But his great qualities caused his restoration a +third time to the rank of Justiciary for Henry, or Deputy for John, +whose title of "Lord of Ireland" was bestowed by his father, at a +Parliament held at Oxford, in 1177. + +This founder of the Irish de Lacys is described by _Giraldus_, who knew +him personally, as a man of Gallic sobriety, ambitious, avaricious, and +lustful, of small stature, and deformed shape, with repulsive features, +and dark, deep-set eyes. By the Irish of the midland districts he was +bitterly detested as a sacrilegious spoiler of their churches and +monasteries, and the most powerful among their invaders. The murder of +O'Ruarc, whose title of Breffni he had usurped, was attributed to a +deep-laid design; he certainly shared the odium with the advantage that +ensued from it. Nor was his own end unlike that of his rival. Among +other sites for castles, he had chosen the foundations of the ancient +and much venerated monastery of Durrow, planted by Columbcille, seven +centuries before, in the midst of the fertile region watered by the +Brosna. This act of profanity was fated to be his last, for, while +personally superintending the work, O'Meyey, a young man of good birth, +and foster-brother to a neighbouring chief of Teffia, known as +_Sionnach_, or "the Fox," struck off his head with a single blow of his +axe and escaped into the neighbouring forest of Kilclare during the +confusion which ensued. De Lacy left issue—two sons, Hugh and Walter, +by his first wife, and a third, William _Gorm_, by his second—of whom, +and of their posterity, we shall have many occasions to make mention. + +In one of the intervals of de Lacy's disfavour, Prince John, surnamed +_Sans-terre_, or "lack-land," was sent over by his father to strengthen +the English interest in Ireland. He arrived in Waterford, accompanied +by a fleet of sixty ships, on the last of March, 1185, and remained in +the country till the following November. If anything could excuse the +levity, folly and misconduct of the Prince on this expedition, it would +be his youth;—he was then only eighteen. But Henry had taken every +precaution to ensure success to his favourite son. He was preceded into +Ireland by Archbishop Cuming, the English successor of St. Laurence; +the learned Glanville was his legal adviser; John de Courcy was his +lieutenant, and the eloquent, but passionate and partial _Giraldus +Cambrensis_, his chaplain and tutor. He had, however, other companions +more congenial to his age and temper, young noblemen as froward and as +extravagant as himself; yet, as he surpassed them all in birth and +rank, so he did in wickedness and cruelty of disposition. For age he +had no reverence, for virtue no esteem, neither truth towards man, nor +decency towards woman. On his arrival at Waterford, the new Archbishop +of Dublin, John de Courcy, and the principal Norman nobles, hastened to +receive him. With them came also certain Leinster chiefs, desiring to +live at peace with the new Galls. When, according to the custom of the +country, the chiefs advanced to give John the kiss of peace, their +venerable age was made a mockery by the young Prince, who met their +proffered salutations by plucking at their beards. This appears to have +been as deadly an insult to the Irish as it is to the Asiatics, and the +deeply offended guests instantly quitted Waterford. Other follies and +excesses rapidly transpired, and the native nobles began to discover +that a royal army encumbered, rather than led by such a Prince, was not +likely to prove itself invincible. In an idle parade from the Suir to +the Liffey, from the Liffey to the Boyne, and in issuing orders for the +erection of castles, (some of which are still correctly and others +erroneously called King John's Castles,) the campaign months of the +year were wasted by the King of England's son. One of these castles, to +which most importance was attached, Ardfinan on the Suir, was no sooner +built than taken by Donald More O'Brien, on midsummer day, when four +knights and its other defenders were slain. Another was rising at +Lismore, on the Blackwater, under the guardianship of Robert Barry, one +of the brood of Nesta, when it was attacked and Barry slain. Other +knights and castellans were equally unfortunate; Raymond Fitz-Hugh fell +at Leighlin, another Raymond in Idrone, and Roger le Poer in Ossory. In +Desmond, Cormac McCarthy besieged Theobald, ancestor of the Butlers in +Cork, but this brave Prince—the worthy compeer of O'Brien—was cut off +"in a parlee by them of Cork." The Clan-Colman, or O'Melaghlins, had +risen in West-Meath to reclaim their own, when Henry, not an hour too +soon, recalled his reckless son, and entrusted, for the last time, the +command to Hugh de Lacy, whose fate has been already related. + +In the fluctuations of the power of the invaders after the death of de +Lacy, and during the next reign in England, one steadfast name appears +foremost among the adventurers—that of the gallant giant, de Courcy, +the conqueror of the Ards of Down. Not only in prowess, but also in +piety, he was the model of all the knighthood of his time. We are told +that he always carried about his person a copy of the prophecies +attributed to Columbcille, and when, in the year 1186, the relics of +the three great saints, whose dust sanctifies Downpatrick, were +supposed to be discovered by the Bishop of Down in a dream, he caused +them to be translated to the altar-side with all suitable reverence. +Yet all his devotions and pilgrimages did not prevent him from pushing +on the work of conquest whenever occasion offered. His plantation in +Down had time to take root from the unexpected death of Donald, Prince +of Aileach, in an encounter with the garrison of one of the new +castles, near Newry. (A.D. 1188.) The same year he took up the +enterprise against Connaught, in which Milo de Cogan had so signally +failed, and from which even de Lacy had, for reasons of his own, +refrained. The feuds of the O'Conor family were again the pretext and +the ground of hope with the invaders, but Donald More O'Brien, +victorious on the Suir and the Shannon, carried his strong succours to +Conor _Moinmoy_ on the banks of the Suca, near the present Ballinasloe, +and both powers combined marched against de Courcy. Unprepared for this +junction, the Norman retreated towards Sligo, and had reached +Ballysadare, when Flaherty, Lord of Tyrconnell (Donegal), came against +them from the opposite point, and thus placed between two fires, they +were forced to fly through the rugged passes of the Curlieu mountains, +skirmishing as they went. The only incidents which signalized this +campaign on their side was the burning of Ballysadare and the plunder +of Armagh; to the Irish it was creditable for the combinations it +occasioned. It is cheering in the annals of those desultory wars to +find a national advantage gained by the joint action of a Munster, a +Connaught, and an Ulster force. + +The promise of national unity held out by the alliance of O'Brien and +O'Conor, in the years 1188-'89, had been followed up by the adhesion of +the lords of Breffni, Ulidia, or Down, the chiefs of the Clan-Colman, +and McCarthy, Prince of Desmond. But the assassination of Conor +Moinmoy, by the partizans of his cousins, extinguished the hopes of the +country, and the peace of his own province. The old family feuds broke +out with new fury. In vain the aged Roderick emerged from his convent, +and sought with feeble hand to curb the fiery passions of his tribe; in +vain the Archbishops of Armagh and of Tuam interposed their spiritual +authority, A series of fratricidal contests, for which history has no +memory and no heart, were fought out between the warring branches of +the family during the last ten years of the century, until by virtue of +the strong-arm, Cathal _Crovdearg_, son of Turlogh More, and younger +brother of Roderick, assumed the sovereignty of Connaught about the +year 1200. + +In the twelve years which intervened between the death of _Moinmoy_ and +the establishment of the power of Cathal _Crovdearg_ O'Conor, the +Normans had repeated opportunities for intervention in the affairs of +Connaught. William de Burgh, a powerful Baron of the family of +Fitz-Aldelm, the former Lord Justice, sided with the opponents of +Cathal, while de Courcy, and subsequently the younger de Lacy, fought +on his side. Once at least these restless Barons changed allies, and +fought as desperately against their former candidate for the succession +as they had before fought for him. In one of these engagements, the +date assigned to which is the year 1190, Sir Armoric St. Laurence, +founder of the Howth family, at the head of a numerous division, is +said to have been cut off with all his troop. But the fortune of war +frequently shifted during the contest. In the year 1199, Cathal +_Crovdearg_, with his allies de Lacy and de Courcy, was utterly +defeated at Kilmacduagh, in the present county of Galway, and were it +not that the rival O'Conor was sorely defeated, and trodden to death in +the route which ensued, three years later, Connaught might never have +known the vigorous administration of her "red-handed" hero. + +The early career of this able and now triumphant Prince, as preserved +to us by history and tradition, is full of romantic incidents. He is +said to have been born out of wedlock, and that his mother, while +pregnant of him, was subject to all the cruel persecutions and magical +torments the jealous wife of his father could invent. No sooner was he +born than he became an object of hatred to the Queen, so that mother +and child, after being concealed for three years in the sanctuaries of +Connaught, had to fly for their lives into Leinster. In this exile, +though early informed of his origin, he was brought up among the +labourers in the field, and was actually engaged, sickle in hand, +cutting the harvest, when a travelling _Bollscaire_, or newsman from +the west, related the events which enabled him to return to his native +province. "Farewell sickle," he exclaimed, casting it from him—"now for +the sword." Hence "Cathal's farewell to the rye" was long a proverbial +expression for any sudden change of purpose or of condition. Fortune +seems to have favoured him in most of his undertakings. In a storm upon +Lough Ree, when a whole fleet foundered and its warrior crew perished, +he was one of seven who were saved. Though in some of his early battles +unsuccessful, he always recovered his ground, kept up his alliances, +and returned to the contest. After the death of the celebrated Donald +More O'Brien (A.D. 1194), he may certainly be considered the first +soldier and first diplomatist among the Irish. Nor was his lot cast on +more favoured days, nor was he pitted against less able men than those +with whom the brave King of Munster—the stoutest defender of his +fatherland—had so honourably striven. Fortunate it was for the renown +of the Gael, that as one star of the race set over Thomond, another of +equal brilliancy rose to guide them in the west. + +With the end of the century, the career of Cathal's allies, de Courcy +and de Burgh, may be almost said to have ended. The obituary of the +latter bears the date of 1204. He had obtained large grants from King +John of lands in Connaught—if he could conquer them—which his vigorous +descendants, the Burkes of Clanrickarde, did their best to accomplish. +De Courcy, warring with the sons of de Lacy, and seeking refuge among +the clansmen of Tyrone, disappears from the stage of Irish affairs. He +is said to have passed on to England, and ended his days in prison, a +victim to the caprice or jealousy of King John. Many tales are told of +his matchless intrepidity. His indirect descendants, the Barons of +Kinsale, claim the right to wear their hats before the King in +consequence of one of these legends, which represents him as the +champion Knight of England, taken from, a dungeon to uphold her honour +against a French challenger. Other tales as ill authenticated are +founded on his career, which, however, in its literal truth, is +unexcelled for hardihood and adventure, except, perhaps, by the +cotemporaneous story of the lion-hearted Richard, whom he closely +resembled. The title of Earl of Ulster, created for de Courcy in 1181, +was transferred in 1205, by royal patent, to Walter de Lacy, whose only +daughter Maud brought it in the year 1264 to Walter de Burgh, lord of +Connaught, from whose fourth female descendant it passed in 1354, by +her marriage with Lionel, Duke of Clarence, into the royal family of +England. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +EVENTS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY—THE NORMANS IN CONNAUGHT. + +Ireland, during the first three quarters of the thirteenth century, +produced fewer important events, and fewer great men, than in the +thirty last years of the century preceding. From the side of England, +she was subjected to no imminent danger in all that interval. The reign +of John ending in 1216, and that of Henry III. extending till 1271, +were fully occupied with the insurrections of the Barons, with French, +Scotch, and Welsh wars, family feuds, the rise and fall of royal +favourites, and all those other incidents which naturally, befall in a +state of society where the King is weak, the aristocracy strong and +insolent, and the commons disunited and despised. During this period +the fusion of Norman, Saxon, and Briton went slowly on, and the next +age saw for the first time a population which could be properly called +English. "Do you take me for an Englishman?" was the last expression of +Norman arrogance in the reign of King John; but the close of the reign +of Henry III., through the action of commercial and political causes, +saw a very different state of feeling growing up between the +descendants of the races which contended for mastery under Harold and +William. The strongly marked Norman characteristics lingered in Ireland +half a century later, for it is usually the case that traits of caste +survive longest in colonies and remote provinces. In Richard de Burgo, +commonly called the Red Earl of Ulster, all the genius and the vices of +the race of Rollo blazed out over Ireland for the last time, and with +terrible effect. + +During the first three quarters of the century, our history, like that +of England, is the history of a few great houses; nation there is, +strictly speaking, none. It will be necessary, therefore, to group +together the acts of two or three generations of men of the same name, +as the only method of finding our way through the shifting scenes of +this stormy period. + +The power of the great Connaught family of O'Conor, so terribly shaken +by the fratricidal wars and unnatural alliances of the sons and +grandsons of Roderick, was in great part restored by the ability and +energy of Cathal _Crovdearg_. In his early struggles for power he was +greatly assisted by the anarchy which reigned among the English nobles. +Mayler Fitz-Henry, the last of Strongbow's companions, who rose to such +eminence, being Justiciary in the first six years of the century, was +aided by O'Conor to besiege William de Burgo in Limerick, and to +cripple the power of the de Lacys in Meath. In the year 1207, John +Gray, Bishop of Norwich, was sent over, as more likely to be impartial +than any ruler personally interested in the old quarrels, but during +his first term of office, the interdict with which Innocent III. had +smitten England, hung like an Egyptian darkness over the Anglo-Norman +power in Ireland. The native Irish, however, were exempt from its +enervating effects, and Cathal O'Conor, by the time King John came over +in person—in the year 1210—to endeavour to retrieve the English +interest, had warred down all his enemies, and was of power sufficient +to treat with the English sovereign as independently as Roderick had +done with Henry II. thirty-five years before. He personally conferred +with John at Dublin, as the O'Neil and other native Princes did; he +procured from the English King the condemnation of John de Burgo, who +had maintained his father's claims on a portion of Connaught, and he +was formally recognised, according to the approved forms of Norman +diplomacy, as seized of the whole of Connaught, in his own right. + +The visit of King John, which lasted from the 20th of June till the +25th of August, was mainly directed to the reduction of those +intractable Anglo-Irish Barons whom Fitz-Henry and Gray had proved +themselves unable to cope with. Of these the de Lacys of Meath were the +most obnoxious. They not only assumed an independent state, but had +sheltered de Braos, Lord of Brecknock, one of the recusant Barons of +Wales, and refused to surrender him on the royal summons. To assert his +authority, and to strike terror into the nobles of other possessions, +John crossed the channel with a prodigious fleet—in the Irish annals +said to consist of 700 sail. He landed at Crook, reached Dublin, and +prepared at once to subdue the Lacys. With his own army, and the +co-operation of Cathal O'Conor, he drove out Walter de Lacy, Lord of +Meath, who fled to his brother, Hugh de Lacy, since de Courcy's +disgrace, Earl of Ulster. From Meath into Louth John pursued the +brothers, crossing the lough at Carlingford with his ships, which must +have coasted in his company. From Carlingford they retreated, and he +pursued to Carrickfergus, and from that fortress, unable to resist a +royal fleet and navy, they fled into Man or Scotland, and thence +escaped in disguise into France. With their guest de Braos, they +wrought as gardeners in the grounds of the Abbey of Saint Taurin +Evreux, until the Abbot, having discovered by their manners the key to +their real rank, negotiated successfully with John for their +restoration to their estates. Walter agreed to pay a fine of 2,500 +marks for his lordship in Meath, and Hugh 4,000 marks for his +possessions in Ulster. Of de Braos we have no particulars; his +high-spirited wife and children were thought to have been starved to +death by order of the unforgiving tyrant in one of his castles. The de +Lacys, on their restoration, were accompanied to Ireland by a nephew of +the Abbot of St. Taurin, on whom they conferred an estate and the +honour of knighthood. + +The only other acts of John's sojourn in Ireland was his treaty with +O'Conor, already mentioned, and the mapping out, on paper, of the +intended counties of Oriel (or Louth), Meath, Dublin, Kildare, +Kilkenny, Katherlough (or Carlow), Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Kerry, +Limerick, and Tipperary, as the only districts in which those he +claimed as his subjects had any possessions. He again installed the +Bishop of Norwich as his justiciary or lieutenant, who, three years, +later, was succeeded by Henry de Londres, the next Archbishop of +Dublin, and he again (A.D. 1215), by Geoffrey de Marisco, the last of +John's deputies. In the year 1216, Henry III., an infant ten years of +age, succeeded to the English throne, and the next dozen years the +history of the two islands is slightly connected, except by the +fortunes of the family of de Burgh, whose head, Hubert de Burgh, the +Chief Justiciary, from the accession of the new King, until the first +third of the century had closed, was in reality the Sovereign of +England. Among his other titles he held that of Lord of Connaught, +which he conveyed to his relative, Richard de Burgo, the son or +grandson of William Fitz-Aldelm de Burgo, about the year 1225. And this +brings us to relate how the house of Clanrickarde rose upon the flank +of the house of O'Conor, and after holding an almost equal front for +two generations, finally overshadowed its more ancient rival. + +While Cathal _Crovdearg_ lived, the O'Conor's held their own, and +rather more than their own, by policy or arms. Not only did his own +power suffer no diminution, but he more than once assisted the Dalgais +and the Eugenians to expel their invaders from North and South Munster, +and to uphold their ancient rights and laws. During the last years of +John's reign that King and his Barons were mutually too busy to set +aside the arrangement entered into in 1210. In the first years of Henry +it was also left undisturbed by the English court. In 1221 we read that +the de Lacys, remembering, no doubt, the part he had played in their +expulsion, endeavoured to fortify Athleague against him, but the +veteran King, crossing the Shannon farther northward, took them in the +rear, compelled them to make peace, and broke down their Castle. This +was almost the last of his victories. In the year 1213 we read in the +Annals of "an awful and heavy shower which fell over Connaught," and +was held to presage the death of its heroic King. Feeling his hour had +come, this Prince, to whom are justly attributed the rare union of +virtues, ardour of mind, chastity of body, meekness in prosperity, +fortitude under defeat, prudence in civil business, undaunted bravery +in battle, and a piety of life beyond all his cotemporaries—feeling the +near approach of death, retired to the Abbey of Knockmoy, which he had +founded and endowed, and there expired in the Franciscan habit, at an +age which must have bordered on fourscore. He was succeeded by his son, +Hugh O'Conor, "the hostages of Connaught being in his house" at the +time of his illustrious father's death. + +No sooner was Cathal _Crovdearg_ deceased than Hubert de Burgo procured +the grants of the whole Province, reserving only five cantreds about +Athlone for a royal garrison to be made to Richard de Burgo, his +nephew. Richard had married Hodierna, granddaughter to Cathal, and +thus, like all the Normans, though totally against the Irish custom, +claimed a part of Connaught in right of his wife. But in the sons of +Cathal he found his equal both in policy and arms, and with the fall of +his uncle at the English court (about the year 1233), Feidlim O'Conor, +the successor of Hugh, taking advantage of the event, made interest at +the Court of Henry III. sufficient to have his overgrown neighbour +stripped of some of his strongholds by royal order. The King was so +impressed with O'Conor's representations that he wrote peremptorily to +Maurice Fitzgerald, second Lord Offally, then his deputy, "to root out +that barren tree planted in Offally by Hubert de Burgh, in the madness +of his power, and not to suffer it to shoot forth." Five years later, +Feidlim, in return, carried some of his force, in conjunction with the +deputy, to Henry's aid in Wales, though, as their arrival was somewhat +tardy, Fitzgerald was soon after dismissed on that account. + +Richard de Burgo died in attendance on King Henry in France (A.D. +1243), and was succeeded by his son, Walter de Burgo, who continued, +with varying fortunes, the contest for Connaught with Feidlim, until +the death of the latter, in the Black Abbey of Roscommon, in the year +1265. Hugh O'Conor, the son and successor of Feidlim, continued the +intrepid guardian of his house and province during the nine years he +survived his father. In the year 1254, by marriage with the daughter of +de Lacy, Earl of Ulster, that title had passed into the family of de +Burgh, bringing with it, for the time, much substantial, though +distant, strength. It was considered only a secondary title, and as the +eldest son of the first de Lacy remained Lord of Meath, while the +younger took de Courcy's forfeited title of Ulster, so, in the next +generation, did the sons of this Walter de Burgh, until death and time +reunited both titles in the same person. Walter de Burgh died in the +year 1271, in the Castle of Galway; his great rival, Feidlim O'Conor, +in 1274, was buried in the Abbey of Boyle. The former is styled King of +the English of Connaught by the Irish Annalists, who also speak of +Feidlim as "the most triumphant and the most feared (by the invaders) +of any King that had been in Connaught before his time." The relative +position of the Irish and English in that Province, towards the end of +this century, may be judged by the fact, that of the Anglo-Normans +summoned by Edward I. to join him in Scotland in 1299, but two, Richard +de Burgo and Piers de Bermingham, Baron of Athenry, had then +possessions in Connaught. There were Norman Castles at Athlone, at +Athenry, at Galway, and perhaps at other points; but the natives still +swayed supreme over the plains of Rathcrogan, the plains of Boyle, the +forests and lakes of Roscommon, and the whole of _Iar_, or West +Connaught, from Lough Corrib to the ocean, with the very important +exception of the castle and port of Galway. A mightier de Burgo than +any that had yet appeared was to see in his house, in the year 1286, +"the hostages of all Connaught;" but his life and death form a distinct +epoch in our story and must be treated separately. + + + +CHAPTER IX. +EVENTS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY—THE NORMANS IN MUNSTER AND LEINSTER. + +We have already told the tragic fate of the two adventurers—Fitzstephen +and de Cogan—between whom the whole of Desmond was first partitioned by +Henry II. But there were not wanting other claimants, either by +original grant from the crown, by intermarriage with Irish, or +Norman-Irish heiresses, or new-comers, favourites of John or of Henry +III., or of their Ministers, enriched at the expense of the native +population. Thomas, third son of Maurice Fitzgerald, claimed partly +through his uncle Fitzstephen, and partly through his marriage with the +daughter of another early adventurer, Sir William Morrie, whose vast +estates on which his descendants were afterwards known as Earls of +Desmond, the White Knight, the Knight of Glyn, and the Knight of Kerry. +Robert de Carew and Patrick de Courcy claimed as heirs general to de +Cogan. The de Mariscoes, de Barris, and le Poers, were not extinct; and +finally Edward I., soon after his accession, granted the whole land of +Thomond to Thomas de Clare, son of the Earl of Gloucester, and +son-in-law of Maurice, third Baron of Offally. A contest very similar +to that which was waged in Connaught between the O'Conors and de Burghs +was consequently going on in Munster at the same time, between the old +inhabitants and the new claimants, of all the three classes just +indicated. + +The principality of Desmond, containing angles of Waterford and +Tipperary, with all Cork and Kerry, seemed at the beginning of the +thirteenth century in greatest danger of conquest. The O'Callaghans, +Lords of Cinel-Aedha, in the south of Cork, were driven into the +mountains of Duhallow, where they rallied and held their ground for +four centuries; the O'Sullivans, originally settled along the Suir, +about Clonmel, were forced towards the mountain seacoast of Cork and +Kerry, where they acquired new vigour in the less fertile soil of Beare +and Bantry. The native families of the Desies, from their proximity to +the port of Waterford, were harassed and overrun, and the ports of +Dungarvan, Youghal, and Cork, being also taken and garrisoned by the +founder of the earldom of Desmond, easy entrance and egress by sea +could always be obtained for his allies, auxiliaries, and supplies. It +was when these dangers were darkening and menacing on every side that +the family of McCarthy, under a succession of able and vigorous chiefs, +proved themselves worthy of the headship of the Eugenian race. Cormac +McCarthy, who had expelled the first garrison from Waterford, ere he +fell in a parley before Cork, had defeated the first enterprises of +Fitzstephen and de Cogan; he left a worthy son in Donald na Curra, who, +uniting his own co-relations, and acting in conjunction with O'Brien +and O'Conor, retarded by his many exploits the progress of the invasion +in Munster. He recovered Cork and razed King John's castle at +Knockgraffon on the Suir. He left two surviving sons, of whom the +eldest, Donald _Gott_, or the Stammerer, took the title of _More_, or +Great, and his posterity remained princes of Desmond, until that title +merged in the earldom of Glencare (A.D. 1565); the other, Cormac, after +taking his brother prisoner compelled him to acknowledge him as lord of +the four baronies of Carbury. From this Cormac the family of McCarthy +Reagh descended, and to them the O'Driscolls, O'Donovans, O'Mahonys, +and other Eugenian houses became tributary. The chief residence of +McCarthy Reagh was long fixed at Dunmanway; his castles were also at +Baltimore, Castlehaven, Lough-Fyne, and in Inis-Sherkin and Clear +Island. The power of McCarthy More extended at its greatest reach from +Tralee in Kerry to Lismore in Waterford. In the year 1229, Dermid +McCarthy had peaceable possession of Cork, and founded the Franciscan +Monastery there. Such was his power, that, according to Hamner and his +authorities, the Geraldines "dare not for twelve years put plough into +the ground in Desmond." At last, another generation rose, and fierce +family feuds broke out between the branches of the family. The Lord of +Carbury now was Fineen, or Florence, the most celebrated man of his +name, and one whose power naturally encroached upon the possession of +the elder house. John, son of Thomas Fitzgerald of Desmond, seized the +occasion to make good the enormous pretension of his family. In the +expedition which he undertook for this purpose, in the year 1260, he +was joined by the Justiciary, William Dene, by Walter de Burgo, Earl of +Ulster, by Walter de Riddlesford, Baron of Bray, by Donnel Roe, a chief +of the hostile house of McCarthy. The Lord of Carbury united under his +standard the chief Eugenian families, not only of the Coast, but even +of McCarthy More's principality, and the battle was fought with great +ferocity at Callan-Glen, near Kenmare, in Kerry. There the +Anglo-Normans received the most complete defeat they had yet +experienced on Irish ground. John Fitz-Thomas, his son Maurice, eight +barons, fifteen knights, and "countless numbers of common soldiers were +slain." The Monastery of Tralee received the dead body of its founder +and his son, while Florence McCarthy, following up his blow, captured +and broke down in swift succession all the English castles in his +neighbourhood, including those of Macroom, Dunnamark, Dunloe, and +Killorglin. In besieging one of these castles, called Ringrone, the +victorious chief, in the full tide of conquest, was cut off, and his +brother, called the _Atheleireach_ (or suspended priest), succeeded to +his possessions. The death of the victor arrested the panic of the +defeat, but Munster saw another generation before her invaders had +shaken off the depression of the battle of Callan-glen. + +Before the English interest had received this severe blow in the south, +a series of events had transpired in Leinster, going to show that its +aspiring barons had been seized with the madness which precedes +destruction. William, Earl Marshal and Protector of England during the +minority of Henry III., had married Isabella, the daughter of Strongbow +and granddaughter of Dermid, through whom he assumed the title of Lord +of Leinster. He procured the office of Earl Marshal of +Ireland—originally conferred on the first de Lacy—for his own nephew, +and thus converted the de Lacys into mortal enemies. His son and +successor Richard, having made himself obnoxious, soon after his +accession to that title, to the young King, or to Hubert de Burgh, was +outlawed, and letters were despatched to the Justiciary, Fitzgerald, to +de Burgo, de Lacy, and other Anglo-Irish lords, if he landed in +Ireland, to seize his person, alive or dead, and send it to England. +Strong in his estates and alliances, the young Earl came; while his +enemies employed the wily Geoffrey de Mountmorres to entrap him into a +conference, in order to his destruction. The meeting was appointed for +the first day of April, 1234, and while the outlawed Earl was +conversing with those who had invited him, an affray began among their +servants by design, he himself was mortally wounded and carried to one +of Fitzgerald's castles, where he died. He was succeeded in his Irish +honours by three of his brothers, who all died without heirs male. +Anselme, the last Earl Marshal of his family, dying in 1245, left five +co-heiresses, Maud, Joan, Isabel, Sybil, and Eva, between whom the +Irish estates—or such portions of them in actual possession—were +divided. They married respectively the Earls of Norfolk, Suffolk, +Gloucester, Ferrers, and Braos, or Brace, Lord of Brecknock, in whose +families, for another century or more, the secondary titles were +Catherlogh, Kildare, Wexford, Kilkenny, and Leix,—those five districts +being supposed, most absurdly, to have come into the Marshal family, +from the daughter of Strongbow. The false knights and dishonoured +nobles concerned in the murder of Richard Marshal were disappointed of +the prey which had been promised them—the partition of his estates. And +such was the horror which the deed excited in England, that it hastened +the fall of Hubert de Burgh, though Maurice Fitzgerald, of +Offally—ancestor of the Kildare family—having cleared himself of all +complicity in it by oath—was continued as Justiciary for ten years +longer. In the year 1245, for his tardiness in joining the King's army +in Wales, he was succeeded by the false-hearted Geoffrey de +Mountmorres, who held the office till 1247. During the next twenty-five +years, about half as many Justices were placed and displaced, according +to the whim of the successive favourites at the English Court. In 1252, +Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., was appointed with the title of +Lord Lieutenant, but never came over. Nor is there in the series of +rulers we have numbered, with, perhaps, two exceptions, any who have +rendered their names memorable by great exploits, or lasting +legislation. So little inherent power had the incumbents of the highest +office—unless when, they employed their own proper forces in their +sovereign's name—that we read without surprise, how the bold +mountaineers of Wicklow, at the opening of the century (A.D. 1209) +slaughtered the Bristolians of Dublin, engaged at their archery in +Cullenswood, and at the close of it, how "one of the Kavanaghs, of the +blood of McMurrogh, living at Leinster," "displayed his standards +within sight of the city." Yet this is commonly spoken of as a country +overrun by a few score Norman Knights, in a couple of campaigns! + +The maintenance of the conquest was in these years less the work of the +King's Justices than of the great houses. Of these, two principally +profited, by the untimely felling of that great tree which overshadowed +all others in Leinster, the Marshals. The descendants of the eldest son +of Maurice Fitzgerald clung to their Leinster possessions, while their +equally vigorous cousins pushed their fortunes in Desmond. Maurice, +grandson of Maurice, and second Baron of Offally, from the year 1229 to +the year 1246, was three times Lord Justice. "He was a valiant Knight, +a very pleasant man, and inferior to none in the kingdom," by Matthew +Paris's account. He introduced the Franciscan and Dominican orders into +Ireland, built many castles, churches, and abbeys at Youghal, at Sligo, +at Armagh, at Maynooth, and in other places. In the year 1257, he was +wounded in single combat by O'Donnell, Lord of Tyrconnell, near Sligo, +and died soon after in the Franciscan habit in Youghal. He left his +successor so powerful, that in the year 1264, there being a feud +between the Geraldines and de Burghs, he seized the Lord Justice and +the whole de Burgh party at a conference at Castledermot, and carried +them to his own castles of Lea and Dunamase as prisoners. In 1272, on +the accidental death of the Lord Justice Audley, by a fall from his +horse, "the council" elected this the third Baron of Offally in his +stead. + +The family of Butler were of slower growth, but of equal tenacity with +the Geraldines. They first seem to have attached themselves to the +Marshals, for whom they were indebted for their first holding in +Kilkenny. At the Conference of Castledermot, Theobald Butler, the +fourth in descent from the founder of the house, was numbered among the +adherents of de Burgh, but a few years later we find him the ally of +the Geraldines in the invasion of Thomond. In the year 1247, the title +of Lord of Carrick had been conferred on him, which in 1315 was +converted into Earl of Carrick, and this again into that of Ormond. The +Butlers of this house, when they had attained their growth of power, +became the hereditary rivals of the Kildare Geraldines, whose earldom +dates from 1316, as that of Ormond does from 1328, and Desmond from +1329. + +The name of Maurice, the third Baron of Offally, and uncle of John, the +first Earl of Kildare, draws our attention naturally to the last +enterprise of his life—the attempt to establish his son-in-law, Thomas +de Clare, in possession of Thomond. The de Clares, Earls of Gloucester, +pretended a grant from Henry II. of the whole of Thomond, as their +title to invade that principality; but their real grant was bestowed by +Edward I., in the year 1275. The state of the renowned patrimony of +Brian had long seemed to invite such an aggression. Murtogh, son of +Donnell More, who succeeded his father in 1194, had early signalized +himself by capturing the castles of Birr, Kinnetty, Ballyroane and +Lothra, in Leix, and razing them to the ground. But these castles were +reconstructed in 1213, when the feuds between the rival +O'Briens—Murtogh and Donogh Cairbre—had paralyzed the defence force of +Thomond. It was, doubtless, in the true divide-and-conquer spirit, that +Henry the Third's advisers confirmed to Donogh the lordship of Thomond +in 1220, leaving to his elder brother the comparatively barren title of +King of Munster. Both brothers, by alternately working on their hopes +and fears, were thus for many years kept in a state of dependence on +the foreigner. One gleam of patriotic virtue illumines the annals of +the house of O'Brien, during the first forty years of the century—when, +in the year 1225, Donogh Cairbre assisted Felim O'Conor to resist the +Anglo-Norman army, then pouring over Connaught, in the quarrel of de +Burgh. Conor, the son of Donogh, who succeeded his father in the year +1242, animated by the example of his cotemporaries, made successful war +against the invaders of his Province, more especially in the year 1257, +and the next year; attended with O'Conor the meeting at Beleek, on the +Erne, where Brian O'Neil was acknowledged, by both the Munster and the +Connaught Prince, as _Ard-Righ_. The untimely end of this attempt at +national union will be hereafter related; meantime, we proceed to +mention that, in 1260, the Lord of Thomond defeated the Geraldines and +their Welsh auxiliaries, at Kilbarran, in Clare. He was succeeded the +following season by his son, Brian Roe, in whose time Thomas de Clare +again put to the test of battle his pretensions to the lordship of +Thomond. + +It was in the year 1277, that, supported by his father-in-law, the +Kildare Fitzgerald, de Clare marched into Munster, and sought an +interview with the O'Brien. The relation of gossip, accounted sacred +among the Irish, existed between them, but Brien Roe, having placed +himself credulously in the hands of his invaders, was cruelly drawn to +pieces between two horses. All Thomond rose in arms, under Donogh, son +of Brian, to revenge this infamous murder. Near Ennis the Normans met a +terrible defeat, from which de Clare and Fitzgerald fled for safety +into the neighbouring Church of Quin. But Donogh O'Brien burned the +Church over their heads, and forced them to surrender at discretion. +Strange to say they were held to ransom, on conditions, we may suppose, +sufficiently hard. Other days of blood were yet to decide the claims of +the family of de Clare. In 1287, Turlogh, then the O'Brien, defeated an +invasion similar to the last, in which Thomas de Clare was slain, +together with Patrick Fitzmaurice of Kerry, Richard Taafe, Richard +Deriter, Nicholas Teeling, and other knights, and Gerald, the fourth +Baron of Offally, brother-in-law to de Clare, was mortally wounded. +After another interval, Gilbert de Clare, son of Thomas, renewed the +contest, which he bequeathed to his brother Richard. This Richard, +whose name figures more than his brother's in the events of his time, +made a last effort, in the year 1318, to make good the claims of his +family. On the 5th of May, in that year, he fell in battle against +McCarthy and O'Brien, and there fell with him Sir Thomas de Naas, Sir +Henry Capell, Sir James and Sir John Caunton, with four other knights, +and a proportion of men-at-arms. From thenceforth that proud offshoot +of the house of Gloucester, which, at its first settling in Munster, +flourished as bravely as the Geraldines themselves, became extinct in +the land. + +Such were the varying fortunes of the two races in Leinster and +Munster, and such the men who rose and fell. We must now turn to the +contest as maintained at the same period in Meath and Ulster. + + + +CHAPTER X. +EVENTS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY—THE NORMANS IN MEATH AND ULSTER. + +We may estimate the power of the de Lacy family in the second +generation, from the fact that their expulsion required a royal army +and navy, commanded by the King in person, to come from England. +Although pardoned by John, the brothers took care never to place +themselves in that cowardly tyrant's power, and they observed the same +precaution on the accession of his son, until well assured that he did +not share the antipathy of his father. After their restoration the +Lacys had no rivals among the Norman-Irish except the Marshal family, +and though both houses in half a century became extinct, not so those +they had planted or patronized, or who claimed from them collaterally. +In Meath the Tuites, Cusacks, Flemings, Daltons, Petits, Husseys, +Nangles, Tyrrells, Nugents, Verdons, and Gennevilles, struck deep into +the soil. The co-heiresses, Margaret and Matilda de Lacy, married Lord +Theobald de Verdon and Sir Geoffrey de Genneville, between whom the +estate of their father was divided; both these ladies dying without +male issue, the lordship was, in 1286, claimed by Richard de Burgo, +Earl of Ulster, whose mother was their cousin-germain. But we are +anticipating time. + +No portion of the island, if we except, perhaps, Wexford and the shores +of Strangford Lough, was so thoroughly castellated as the ancient Meath +from the sea to the Shannon. Trim, Kells and Durrow were the strongest +holds; there were keeps or castles at Ardbraccan, Slane, Rathwyre, +Navan, Skreen, Santry, Clontarf, and Castleknock—for even these places, +almost within sight of Dublin, were included in de Lacy's original +grant. None of these fortresses could have been more than a few miles +distant from the next, and once within their thick-ribbed walls, the +Norman, Saxon, Cambrian, or Danish serf or tenant might laugh at the +Milesian arrows and battle-axes without. With these fortresses, and +their own half-Irish origin and policy, the de Lacys, father and son, +held Meath for two generations in general subjection. But the +banishment of the brothers in 1210, and the death of Walter of Meath, +presented the family of O'Melaghlin and the whole of the Methian tribes +with opportunities of insurrection not to be neglected. We read, +therefore, under the years 1211, '12 and '13, that Art O'Melaghlin and +Cormac, his son, took the castles of Killclane, Ardinurcher, Athboy, +and Smerhie, killing knights and wardens, and enriching themselves with +booty; that the whole English of Ireland turned out _en masse_ to the +rescue of their brethren in Meath; that the castles of Birr, Durrow, +and Kinnetty were strengthened against Art, and a new one erected at +Clonmacnoise. After ten years of exile, the banished de Lacys returned, +and by alliance with O'Neil, no less than their own prowess, recovered +all their former influence. Cormac, son of Art, left a son and +successor also named Art, who, we read at the year 1264, gave the +English of Meath a great defeat upon the Brosna, where he that was not +slain was drowned. Following the blow, he burned their villages and +broke the castles of the stranger throughout Devlin, Calry, and Brawny, +and replaced in power over them the McCoghlans, Magawleys, and +O'Breens, from whom he took hostages according to ancient custom. Two +years afterwards he repulsed Walter de Burgh at Shannon harbour, +driving his men into the river, where many of them perished. At his +death (A.D. 1283) he is eulogized for having destroyed seven-and-twenty +English castles in his lifetime. From these exploits he was called Art +_na Caislean_, a remarkable distinction, when we remember that the +Irish were, up to this time, wholly unskilled in besieging such +strongholds as the Norman engineers knew so well how to construct. His +only rival in Meath in such meritorious works of destruction was Conor, +son of Donnell, and O'Melaghlin of East-Meath, or _Bregia_, whose death +is recorded at the year 1277, "as one of the three men in Ireland" whom +the midland English most feared. + +From the ancient mensal the transition is easy to the north. The +border-land of Breffni, whose chief was the first of the native nobles +that perished by Norman perfidy, was at the beginning of the century +swayed by Ulgarg O'Rourke. Of Ulgarg we know little, save that in the +year 1231 he "died on his way to the river Jordan"—a not uncommon +pilgrimage with the Irish of those days. Nial, son of Congal, +succeeded, and about the middle of the century we find Breffni divided +into two lordships, from the mountain of Slieve-an-eiran eastward, or +Cavan, being given to Art, son of Cathal, and from the mountain +westward, or Leitrim, to Donnell, son of Conor, son of Tiernan, de +Lacy's victim. This subdivision conduced neither to the strengthening +of its defenders nor to the satisfaction of O'Conor, under whose +auspices it was made. Family feuds and household treasons were its +natural results for two or three generations; in the midst of these +broils two neighbouring families rose into greater importance, the +O'Reillys in Cavan and the Maguires in Fermanagh. Still, strong in +their lake and mountain region, the tribes of Breffni were +comparatively unmolested by foreign enemies, while the stress of the +northern battle fell upon the men of Tyrconnell and Tyrone, of Oriel +and of the coast country, from Carlingford to the Causeway. + +The borders of Tyrconnell and Tyrone, like every other tribe-land, were +frequently enlarged or contracted, according to the vigour or weakness +of their chiefs or neighbours. In the age of which we now speak, +Tyrconnell extended from the Erne to the Foyle, and Tyrone from the +Foyle to Lough Neagh, with the exception of the extreme north of Berry +and Antrim, which belonged to the O'Kanes. It was not till the +fourteenth century that the O'Neils spread their power east of Lough +Neagh, over those baronies of Antrim long known as north and south +_Clan-Hugh-Buidhe_, (Clandeboy.) North Antrim was still known as +Dalriada, and South Antrim and Down, as Ulidia. Oriel, which has been +usually spoken of in this history as Louth, included angles of Monaghan +and Armagh, and was anciently the most extensive lordship in Ulster. +The chieftain families of Tyrconnell were the O'Donnells; of Tyrone, +the O'Neils and McLaughlins; of Dalriada, O'Kanes, O'Haras, and +O'Shields; of Ulidia, the Magennis of Iveagh and the Donlevys of Down; +of Oriel, the McMahons and O'Hanlons. Among these populous tribes the +invaders dealt some of their fiercest blows, both by land and sea, in +the thirteenth century. But the north was fortunate in its chiefs; they +may fairly contest the laurel with the O'Conors, O'Briens and McCarthys +of the west and south. + +In the first third of the century, Hugh O'Neil, who succeeded to the +lordship of Tyrone in 1198, and died in 1230, was cotemporary with +Donnell More O'Donnell, who, succeeding to the lordship of Tyrconnell +in 1208, died in 1241, after an equally long and almost equally +distinguished career. Melaghlin O'Donnell succeeded Donnell More from +'41 to '47, Godfrey from '48 to '57, and Donnell Oge from 1257 to 1281, +when he was slain in battle. Hugh O'Neil was succeeded in Tyrone by +Donnell McLaughlin, of the rival branch of the same stock, who in 1241 +was subdued by O'Donnell, and the ascendancy of the family of O'Neil +established in the person of Brian, afterwards chosen King of Ireland, +and slain at Down. Hugh Boy, or the Swarthy, was elected O'Neil on +Brian's death, and ruled till the year 1283, when he was slain in +battle, as was his next successor, Brian, in the year 1295. These names +and dates are worthy to be borne in mind, because on these two great +houses mainly devolved the brunt of battle in their own province. + +These northern chiefs had two frontiers to guard or to assail: the +north-eastern, extending from the glens of Antrim to the hills of +Mourne, and the southern stretching from sea to sea, from Newry to +Sligo. This country was very assailable by sea; to those whose castles +commanded its harbours and rivers, the fleets of Bristol, Chester, Man, +and Dublin could always carry supplies and reinforcements. By the +interior line one road threaded the Mourne mountains, and deflected +towards Armagh, while another, winding through west Breffni, led from +Sligo into Donegal by the cataract of Assaroe,—the present +Ballyshannon. Along these ancient lines of communication, by fords, in +mountain passes, and near the landing places for ships, the struggle +for the possession of that end of the Island went on, at intervals, +whenever large bodies of men could be spared from garrisons and from +districts already occupied. + +In the year 1210, we find that there was an English Castle at +Cael-uisge, now Castle-Caldwell, on Lough Erne, and that it was broke +down and its defenders slain by Hugh O'Neil and Donald More O'Donnell +acting together. After this event we have no trace of a foreign force +in the interior of Ulster for several years. Hugh O'Neil, who died in +1230, is praised by the Bards for "never having given hostages, +pledges, or tributes to English or Irish," which seems a compliment +well founded. During several years following that date the war was +chiefly centred in Connaught, and the fighting men of the north who +took part in it were acting as allies to the O'Conors. Donald More +O'Donnell had married a daughter of Cathal Crovdearg, so that ties of +blood, as well as neighbouring interests, united these two great +families. In the year 1247, an army under Maurice Fitzgerald, then Lord +Justice, crossed the Erne in two divisions, one above and the other at +Ballyshannon. Melaghlin O'Donnell was defending the passage of the +river when he was taken unexpectedly in the rear by those who had +crossed higher up, and thus was defeated and slain. Fitzgerald then +ravaged Tyrconnell, set up a rival chief O'Canavan, and rebuilt the +Castle at Cael-uisge, near Beleek. Ten years afterwards Godfrey +O'Donnell, the successor of Melaghlin, avenged the defeat at +Ballyshannon, in the sanguinary battle of Credran, near Sligo, where +engaging Fitzgerald in single combat, he gave him his death-stroke. +From wounds received at Credran, Godfrey himself, after lingering +twelve months in great suffering, died. But his bodily afflictions did +not prevent him discharging all the duties of a great Captain; he razed +a second time the English Castle on Lough Erne, and stoutly protected +his own borders against the pretensions of O'Neil, being carried on his +bier in the front of the battle of Lough Swilly in 1258. + +It was while Tyrconnell was under the rule of this heroic soldier that +the unfortunate feud arose between the O'Neils and O'Donnells. Both +families, sprung from a common ancestor, of equal antiquity and equal +pride, neither would yield a first place to the other. "Pay me my +tribute," was O'Neil's demand; "I owe you no tribute, and if I did—-" +was O'Donnell's reply. The O'Neil at this time—Brian—aspiring to +restore the Irish sovereignty in his own person, was compelled to begin +the work of exercising authority over his next neighbour. More than one +border battle was the consequence, not only with Godfrey, but with +Donnell Oge, his successor. In the year 1258, Brian was formally +recognized by O'Conor and O'Brien as chief of the kingdom, in the +conference of Cael-uisge, and two years later, at the battle of Down, +gallantly laid down his life, in defence of the kingdom he claimed to +govern. In this most important battle no O'Donnell is found fighting +with King Brian, though immediately afterwards we find Donnell Oge of +Tyrconnell endeavouring to subjugate Tyrone, and active afterwards in +the aid of his cousins, the grandsons of Cathal Crovdearg, in +Connaught. + +The Norman commander in this battle was Stephen de Longespay, then Lord +Justice, Earl of Salisbury in England, and Count de Rosman in France. +His marriage with the widow of Hugh de Lacy and daughter of de +Riddlesford connected him closely with Irish affairs, and in the battle +of Down he seems to have had all the Anglo-Irish chivalry, "in gold and +iron," at his back. With King Brian O'Neil fell, on that crimson day, +the chiefs of the O'Hanlons, O'Kanes, McLaughlins, O'Gormlys, McCanns, +and other families who followed his banner. The men of Connaught +suffered hardly less than those of Ulster. McDermott, Lord of Moylurgh, +Cathal O'Conor, O'Gara, McDonogh, O'Mulrony, O'Quinn, and other chiefs +were among the slain. In Hugh _Bwee_ O'Neil the only hope of the house +of Tyrone seemed now to rest; and his energy and courage were all taxed +to the uttermost to retain the place of his family in the Province, +beating back rapacious neighbours on the one hand, and guarding against +foreign enemies on the other. For twelve years, Hugh _Bwee_ defended +his lordship against all aggressors. In 1283, he fell at the hands of +the insurgent chiefs of Oriel and Breffni, and a fierce contest for the +succession arose between his son Brian and Donald, son of King Brian +who fell at Down. A contest of twelve years saw Donald successful over +his rival (A.D. 1295), and his rule extended from that period until +1325, when he died at Leary's lake, in the present diocese of Clogher. + +It was this latter Donnell or Donald O'Neil, who, towards the end of +his reign, addressed to Pope John XXII. (elected to the pontificate in +1316) that powerful indictment against the Anglo-Normans, which has +ever since remained one of the cardinal texts of our history. It was +evidently written after the unsuccessful attempt, in which Donald was +himself a main actor, to establish Edward Bruce on the throne of +Ireland. That period we have not yet reached, but the merciless +character of the warfare waged against the natives of the country could +hardly have been aggravated by Bruce's defeat. "They oblige us by open +force," says the Ulster Prince, "to give up to them our houses and our +lands, and to seek shelter like wild beasts upon the mountains, in +woods, marshes, and caves. Even there we are not secure against their +fury; they even envy us those dreary and terrible abodes; they are +incessant and unremitting in their pursuit after us, endeavouring to +chase us from among them; they lay claim to every place in which they +can discover us with unwarranted audacity and injustice; they allege +that the whole kingdom belongs to them of right, and that an Irishman +has no longer a right to remain in his own country." + +After specifying in detail the proofs of these and other general +charges, the eloquent Prince concludes by uttering the memorable vow +that the Irish "will not cease to fight against and among their +invaders until the day when they themselves, for want of power, shall +have ceased to do us harm, and that a Supreme Judge shall have taken +just vengeance on their crimes, which we firmly hope will sooner or +later come to pass." + + + +CHAPTER XI. +RETROSPECT OF THE NORMAN PERIOD IN IRELAND—A GLANCE AT THE MILITARY +TACTICS OF THE TIMES—NO CONQUEST OF THE COUNTRY IN THE THIRTEENTH +CENTURY. + +Though the victorious and protracted career of Richard de Burgh, the +"Red Earl" of Ulster, might, without overstraining, be included in the +Norman period, yet, as introductory to the memorable advent and +election of King Edward Bruce, we must leave it for the succeeding +book. Having brought down the narrative, as regards all the provinces, +to the end of the first century, from the invasion, we must now cast a +backward glance on the events of that hundred years before passing into +the presence of other times and new combinations. + +"There were," says _Giraldus Cambriensis_, "three sundry sorts of +servitors which served in the realm of Ireland, Normans, Englishmen, +and the Cambrians, which were the first conquerors of the land: the +first were in most credit and estimation, the second next, but the last +were not accounted or regarded of." "The Normans," adds the author, +"were very fine in their apparel, and delicate in their diets; they +could not feed but upon dainties, neither could their meat digest +without wine at each meal; yet would they not serve in the marches or +any remote place against the enemy, neither would they lie in garrison +to keep any remote castle or fort, but, would be still about their +lord's side to serve and guard his person; they would be where they +might be full and have plenty; they could talk and brag, swear, and +stare, and, standing in their own reputation, disdain all others." This +is rather the language of a partizan than of an historian; of one who +felt and spoke for those, his own kinsmen many of them, who, he +complains, although the first to enter on the conquest, were yet held +in contempt and disdain, "and only new-comers called to council." + +The Normans were certainly the captains in every campaign from Robert +Fitzstephen to Stephen de Longespay. They made the war, and they +maintained it. In the rank and file, and even among the knighthood, men +of pure Welsh, English, and Flemish and Danish blood, may be singled +out, but each host was marshalled by Norman skill, and every defeat was +borne with Norman fortitude. It may seem strange, then, that these +greatest masters of the art of war, as waged in the middle ages, +invincible in England, France, Italy, and the East, should, after a +hundred years, be no nearer to the conquest of Ireland than they were +at the end of the tenth year. + +The main causes of the fluctuations of the war were, no doubt, the +divided military command, and the frequent change of their civil +authorities. They had never marched or colonized before without their +Duke or King at their head, and in their midst. One supreme chief was +necessary to keep to any common purpose the minds of so many proud, +intractable nobles. The feuds of the de Lacys with the Marshals, of the +Geraldines with the de Burghs, broke out periodically during the +thirteenth century, and were naturally seized upon, by the Irish as +opportunities for attacking either or both. The secondary nobles and +all the adventurers understood their danger and its cause, when they +petitioned Henry II. and Henry III. so often and so urgently as they +did, that a member of the royal family might reside permanently in +Ireland, to exercise the supreme authority, military and civil. + +The civil administration of the colonists passing into different hands +every three or four years, suffered from the absence of permanent +authority. The law of the marches was, of necessity, the law of the +strong hand, and no other. But _Cambrensis_, whose personal prejudices +are not involved in this fact, describes the walled towns as filled +with litigation in his time. "There was," he says, "such _lawing_ and +vexation, that the veteran was more troubled in _lawing_ within the +town than he was in peril at large with the enemy." This being the +case, we must take with great caution the bold assertions so often made +of the zeal with which the natives petitioned the Henrys and Edwards +that the law of England might be extended to them. Certain Celts whose +lands lay within or upon the marches, others who compounded with their +Norman invaders, a chief or prince, hard pressed by domestic enemies, +may have wished to be in a position to quote Norman law against Norman +spoilers, but the popular petitions which went to England, beseeching +the extension of its laws to Ireland, went only from the townsmen of +Dublin, and the new settlers in Leinster or Meath, harassed and +impoverished by the arbitrary jurisdiction of manorial courts, from +which they had no appeal. The great mass of the Irish remained as +warmly attached to their Brehon code down to the seventeenth century as +they were before the invasion of Norman or Dane. It may sound barbarous +to our ears that, according to that code, murder should be compounded +by an _eric_, or fine; that putting out the eyes should be the usual +punishment of treason; that maiming should be judiciously inflicted for +sundry offences; and that the land of a whole clan should be equally +shared between the free members of that clan. We are not yet in a +position to form an intelligent opinion upon the primitive +jurisprudence of our ancestors, but the system itself could not have +been very vicious which nourished in the governed such a thirst for +justice, that, according to one of their earliest English law +reformers, they were anxious for its execution, even against +themselves. + +The distinction made in the courts of the adventurers against natives +of the soil, even when long domiciled within their borders, was of +itself a sufficient cause of war between the races. In the eloquent +letter of the O'Neil to Pope John XXII.—written about the year 1318—we +read, that no man of Irish origin could sue in an English court; that +no Irishman, within the marches, could make a legal will; that his +property was appropriated by his English neighbours; and that the +murder of an Irishman was not even a felony punishable by fine. This +latter charge would appear incredible, if we had not the record of more +than one case where the homicide justified his act by the plea that his +victim was a mere native, and where the plea was held good and +sufficient. + +A very vivid picture of Hiberno-Norman town-life in those days is +presented to us in an old poem, on the "Entrenchment of the Town of +Ross," in the year 1265. We have there the various trades and +crafts-mariners, coat-makers, fullers, cloth-dyers and sellers, +butchers, cordwainers, tanners, hucksters, smiths, masons, carpenters, +arranged by guilds, and marching to the sound of flute and tabor, under +banners bearing a fish and platter, a painted ship, and other "rare +devices." On the walls, when finished, cross-bows hung, with store of +arrows ready to shoot; when the city horn sounded twice, burgess and +bachelor vied with each other in warlike haste. In time of peace the +stranger was always welcome in the streets; he was free to buy and sell +without toll or tax, and to admire the fair dames who walked the quiet +ramparts, clad in mantles of green, or russet, or scarlet. Such is the +poetic picture of the town of Ross in the thirteenth century; the poem +itself is written in Norman-French, though evidently intended for +popular use, and the author is called "Friar Michael of Kildare." It is +pretty evident from this instance, which is not singular, that a +century after the first invasion, the French language was still the +speech of part, if not the majority, of these Hiberno-Norman townsmen. + +So walls, and laws, and language arose, a triple barrier between the +races. That common religion which might be expected to form a strong +bond between them had itself to adopt a twofold organization. +Distinctions of nationality were carried into the Sanctuary and into +the Cloister. The historian _Giraldus_, in preaching at Dublin against +the alleged vices of the native Clergy, sounded the first note of a +long and bitter controversy. He was promptly answered from the same +pulpit on the next occasion by Albin O'Mulloy, the patriot Abbot of +Baltinglass. In one of the early Courts or Parliaments of the +Adventurers, they decreed that no Monastery in those districts of which +they had possession, should admit any but natives of England, as +novices,—a rule which, according to O'Neil's letter, was faithfully +acted upon by English Dominicans, Franciscans, Benedictines, and +regular canons. Some of the great Cistercian houses on the marches, in +which the native religious predominated, adopted a retaliatory rule, +for which they were severely censured by the general Chapter of their +Order. But the length to which this feud was carried may be imagined by +the sweeping charge O'Neil brings against "Brother Symon, a relative of +the Bishop of Coventry," and other religious of his nation, who openly +maintained, he says, that the killing of a mere Irishman was no murder. + +When this was the feeling on one side, or was believed to be the +feeling, we cannot wonder that the war should have been renewed as +regularly as the seasons. No sooner was the husbandman in the field +than the knight was upon the road. Some peculiarities of the wars of +those days gleam out at intervals through the methodic indifference to +detail of the old annals, and reveal to us curious conditions of +society. In the Irish country, where castle-building was but slowly +introduced, we see, for example, that the usual storage for provisions, +in time of war, was in churches and churchyards. Thus de Burgh, in his +expedition to Mayo, in 1236, "left neither rick nor basket of corn in +the large churchyard of Mayo, or in the yard of the Church of Saint +Michael the Archangel, and carried away eighty baskets out of the +churches themselves." When we read, therefore, as we frequently do, of +both Irish and Normans plundering churches in the land of their +enemies, we are not to suppose the plunder of the sanctuary. Popularly +this seizing the supplies of an enemy on consecrated ground was +considered next to sacrilege; and well it was for the fugitives in the +sanctuary in those iron times that it should be so considered. Yet not +the less is it necessary for us to distinguish a high-handed military +measure from actual sacrilege, for which there can be no apology, and +hardly any earthly atonement. + +In their first campaigns the Irish had one great advantage over the +Normans in their familiarity with the country. This helped them to +their first victories. But when the invaders were able to set up rival +houses against each other, and to secure the co-operation of natives, +the advantage was soon equalized. Great importance was attached to the +intelligence and good faith of the guides, who accompanied every army, +and were personally consulted by the leaders in determining their +march. A country so thickly studded with the ancient forest, and so +netted with rivers (then of much greater volume than since they have +been stripped of their guardian woods), afforded constant occasion for +the display of minute local knowledge. To miss a pass or to find a ford +might determine a campaign, almost as much as the skill of the chief, +or the courage of the battalion. + +The Irish depended for their knowledge of the English towns and castles +on their daring _spies_, who continually risked their necks in +acquiring for their clansmen such needful information. This perilous +duty, when undertaken by a native for the benefit of his country, was +justly accounted highly honourable. Proud poets, educated in all the +mysteries of their art, and even men of chieftain rank, did not +hesitate to assume disguises and act the patriot spy. One of the most +celebrated spies of this century was Donogh Fitzpatrick, son of the +Lord of Ossory, who was slain by the English in 1250. He was said to be +"one of the three men" most feared by the English in his day. "He was +in the habit of going about to reconnoitre their market towns," say the +Annalists, "in various disguises." An old quatrain gives us a list of +some of the parts he played when in the towns of his enemies— + +"He is a carpenter, he is a turner. +My nursling is a bookman. +He is selling wine and hides +Where he sees a gathering." + + +An able captain, as well as an intrepid spy, he met his fate in acting +out his favourite part, "which," adds our justice-loving Four Masters, +"was a retaliation due to the English, for, up to that time, he had +killed, burned, and destroyed many of them." + +Of the equipments and tactics of the belligerents we get from our +Annals but scanty details. The Norman battalion, according to the usage +of that people, led by the marshal of the field, charged, after the +archers had delivered their fire. But these wars had bred a new mounted +force, called hobiler-archers, who were found so effective that they +were adopted into all the armies of Europe. Although the bow was never +a favourite weapon with the Irish, particular tribes seem to have been +noted for its use. We hear in the campaigns of this century of the +archers of Breffni, and we may probably interpret as referring to the +same weapon, Felim O'Conor's order to his men, in his combat with the +sons of Roderick at Drumraitte (1237), "not to shoot but to come to a +close fight." It is possible, however, that this order may have +reference to the old Irish weapon, the javelin or dart. The pike, the +battle-axe, the sword, and skein, or dagger, both parties had in +common, though their construction was different. The favourite +tactique, on both sides, seems to have been the old military expedient +of outflanking an enemy, and attacking him simultaneously in front and +rear. Thus, in the year 1225, in one of the combats of the O'Conors, +when the son of Cathal _Crovdearg_ endeavoured to surround Turlogh +O'Conor, the latter ordered his recruits to the van, and Donn Oge +Magheraty, with some Tyronian and other soldiers to cover the rear, "by +which means they escaped without the loss of a man." The flank movement +by which the Lord Justice Fitzgerald carried the passage of the Erne +(A.D. 1247) against O'Donnell, according to the Annalists, was +suggested to Fitzgerald by Cormac, the grandson of Roderick O'Conor. By +that period in their intercourse the Normans and Irish had fought so +often together that their stock of tactical knowledge must have been, +from experience, very much common property. In the eyes of the Irish +chiefs and chroniclers, the foreign soldiers who served with them were +but hired mercenaries. They were sometimes repaid by the plunder of the +country attacked, but usually they received fixed wages for the length +of time they entered. "Hostages for the payment of wages" are +frequently referred to, as given by native nobles to these foreign +auxiliaries. The chief expedient for subsisting an army was driving +before them herds and flocks; free quarters for men and horses were +supplied by the tenants of allied chiefs within their territory, and +for the rest, the simple outfit was probably not very unlike that of +the Scottish borderers described by Froissart, who cooked the cattle +they captured in their skins, carrying a broad plate of metal and a +little bag of oatmeal trussed up behind the saddle. + +One inveterate habit clung to the ancient race, even until long after +the times of which we now speak—their unconquerable prejudice against +defensive armour. Gilbride McNamee, the laureate to King Brian O'Neil, +gives due prominence to this fact in his poem on the death of his +patron in the battle of Down (A.D. 1260). Thus sings the northern bard— + + "The foreigners from London, + The hosts from Port-Largy * + Came in a bright green body, + In gold and iron armour. + + + "Unequal they engage in the battle, + The foreigners and the Gael of Tara, + _Fine linen shirts on the race of Conn_, + And the strangers _one mass of iron_." + + +[Footnote: Port-Largy, Waterford.] + +With what courage they fought, these scorners of armour, their +victories of Ennis, of Callanglen, and of Credran, as well as their +defeats at the Erne and at Down, amply testify. The first hundred years +of war for native land, with their new foes, had passed over, and +three-fourths of the _Saer Clanna_ were still as free as they had ever +been. It was not reserved even for the Norman race—the conquest of +Innisfail! + + + +CHAPTER XII. +STATE OF SOCIETY AND LEARNING IN IRELAND DURING THE NORMAN PERIOD. + +We have already spoken of the character of the war waged by and against +the Normans on Irish soil, and as war was then almost every man's +business, we may be supposed to have described all that is known of the +time in describing its wars. What we have to add of the other pursuits +of the various orders of men into which society was divided, is neither +very full nor very satisfactory. + +The rise, fall, and migrations of some of the clans have been already +alluded to. In no age did more depend on the personal character of the +chief than then. When the death of the heroic Godfrey left the free +clansmen of Tyrconnell without a lord to lead them to battle, or rule +them in peace, the Annalists represent them to us as meeting in great +perplexity, and engaged "in making speeches" as to what was to be done, +when suddenly, to their great relief, Donnell Oge, son of Donnell More, +who had been fostered in Alba (Scotland), was seen approaching them. +Not more welcome was Tuathal, the well-beloved, the restorer of the +Milesian monarchy, after the revolt of the _Tuatha_. He was immediately +elected chief, and the emissaries of O'Neil, who had been waiting for +an answer to his demand of tribute, were brought before him. He +answered their proposition by a proverb expressed in the Gaelic of +Alba, which says that "every man should possess his own country," and +Tyrconnell armed to make good this maxim. + +The Bardic order still retained much of their ancient power, and all +their ancient pride. Of their most famous names in this period we may +mention Murray O'Daly of Lissadil, in Sligo, Donogh O'Daly of Finvarra, +sometimes called Abbot of Boyle, and Gilbride McNamee, laureate to King +Brian O'Neil. McNamee, in lamenting the death of Brian, describes +himself as defenceless, and a prey to every spoiler, now that his royal +protector is no more. He gave him, he tells us, for a poem on one +occasion, besides gold and raiment, a gift of twenty cows. On another, +when he presented him a poem, he gave in return twenty horned cows, and +a gift still more lasting, "the blessing of the King of Erin." Other +chiefs, who fell in the same battle, and to one of whom, named Auliffe +O'Gormley, he had often gone "on a visit of pleasure," are lamented +with equal warmth by the bard. The poetic Abbot of Boyle is himself +lamented in the Annals as the Ovid of Ireland, as "a poet who never had +and never will have an equal." But the episode which best illustrates +at once the address and the audacity of the bardic order is the story +of Murray O'Daly of Lissadil, and Donnell More O'Donnell, Lord of +Tyrconnell. + +In the year 1213, O'Donnell despatched Finn O'Brollaghan, his _Aes +graidh_ or Steward, to collect his tribute in Connaught, and Finn, +putting up at the house of O'Daly, near Drumcliff, and being a plebeian +who knew no better, began to wrangle with the poet. The irritable +master of song, seizing a sharp axe, slew the steward on the spot, and +then to avoid O'Donnell's vengeance fled into Clanrickarde. Here he +announced himself by a poem addressed to de Burgh, imploring his +protection, setting forth the claims of the Bardic order on all +high-descended heroes, and contending that his fault was but venial, in +killing a clown, who insulted him. O'Donnell pursued the fugitive to +Athenry, and de Burgh sent him away secretly into Thomond. Into +Thomond, the Lord of Tyrconnell marched, but O'Brien sent off the Bard +to Limerick. The enraged Ulsterman appeared at the gates of Limerick, +when O'Daly was smuggled out of the town, and "passed from hand to +hand," until he reached Dublin. The following spring O'Donnell appeared +in force before Dublin, and demanded the fugitive, who, as a last +resort, had been sent for safety into Scotland. From the place of his +exile he addressed three deprecatory poems to the offended Lord of +Tyrconnell, who finally allowed him to return to Lissadil in peace, and +even restored him to his friendship. + +The introduction of the new religious orders—Dominicans, Franciscans, +and the order for the redemption of Captives into Ireland, in the first +quarter of this century gradually extinguished the old Columban and +Brigintine houses. In Leinster they made way most rapidly; but Ulster +clung with its ancient tenacity to the Columban rule. The Hierarchy of +the northern half-kingdom still exercised a protectorate over Iona +itself, for we read, in the year 1203, how Kellagh, having erected a +monastery in the middle of Iona, in despite of the religious, that the +Bishops of Derry and Raphoe, with the Abbots of Armagh and Derry and +numbers of the Clergy of the North of Ireland, passed over to Iona, +pulled down the unauthorized monastery, and assisted at the election of +a new Abbot. This is almost the last important act of the Columban +order in Ireland. By the close of the century, the Dominicans had some +thirty houses, and the Franciscans as many more, whether in the walled +towns or the open country. These monasteries became the refuge of +scholars, during the stormy period we have passed, and in other days +full as troubled, which were to come. Moreover, as the Irish student, +like all others in that age, desired to travel from school to school, +these orders admitted him to the ranks of widespread European +brotherhoods, from whom he might always claim hospitality. Nor need we +reject as anything incredible the high renown for scholarship and +ability obtained in those times by such men as Thomas Palmeran of Naas, +in the University of Paris; by Peter and Thomas Hibernicus in the +University of Naples, in the age of Aquinas; by Malachy of Ireland, a +Franciscan, Chaplain to King Edward II. of England, and Professor at +Oxford; by the Danish Dominican, Gotofrid of Waterford; and above all, +by John Scotus of Down, the subtle doctor, the luminary of the +Franciscan schools, of Paris and Cologne. The native schools of Ireland +had lost their early ascendancy, and are no longer traceable in our +annals; but Irish scholarship, when arrested in its full development at +home, transferred its efforts to foreign Universities, and there +maintained the ancient honour of the country among the studious +"nations" of Christendom. Among the "nations" involved in the college +riots at Oxford, in the year 1274, we find mention of the Irish, from +which fact it is evident there must have been a considerable number of +natives of that country, then frequenting the University. + +The most distinguished native ecclesiastics of this century were +Matthew O'Heney, Archbishop of Cashel, originally a Cistercian monk, +who died in retirement at Holy Cross in 1207; Albin O'Mulloy, the +opponent of _Giraldus_, who died Bishop of Ferns in 1222; and Clarus +McMailin, Erenach of Trinity Island, Lough Key—if an _Erenach_ may be +called an ecclesiastic. It was O'Heney made the Norman who said the +Irish Church had no martyrs, the celebrated answer, that now men had +come into the country who knew so well how to make martyrs, that +reproach would soon be taken away. He is said to have written a life of +Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, and we know that he had legantine powers +at the opening of the century. The _Erenach_ of Lough Key, who +flourished in its second half, plays an important part in all the +western feuds and campaigns; his guarantee often preserved peace and +protected the vanquished. Among the church-builders of his age, he +stands conspicuous. The ordinary churches were indeed easily built, +seldom exceeding 60 or 70 feet in length, and one half that width, and +the material still most in use was, for the church proper, timber. The +towers, cashels, or surrounding walls, and the cells of the religious, +as well as the great monasteries and collegiate and cathedral churches, +were of stone, and many of them remain monuments of the skill and +munificence of their founders. + +Of the consequences of the abolition of slavery by the Council of +Armagh, at the close of the twelfth century, we have no tangible +evidence. It is probable that the slave trade, rather than domestic +servitude, was abolished by that decree. The cultivators of the soil +were still divided into two orders—Biataghs and Brooees. "The former," +says O'Donovan, "who were comparatively few in number, would appear to +have held their lands free of rent, but were obliged to entertain +travellers, and the chief's soldiers when on their march in his +direction; and the latter (the Brooees) would appear to have been +subject to a stipulated rent and service." From "the Book of Lecan," a +compilation of the fourteenth century, we learn that the Brooee was +required to keep an hundred labourers, and an hundred of each kind of +domestic animals. Of the rights or wages of the labourers, we believe, +there is no mention made. + + + +BOOK V. +THE ERA OF KING EDWARD BRUCE. + + + +CHAPTER I. +THE RISE OF "THE RED EARL"—RELATIONS OF IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. + +During the half century which comprised the reigns of Edward I. and II. +in England (A.D. 1272 to 1327), Scotland saw the last of her first race +of Kings, and the elevation of the family of Bruce, under whose +brilliant star Ireland was, for a season, drawn into the mid-current of +Scottish politics. Before relating the incidents of that revolution of +short duration but long enduring consequences, we must note the rise to +greatness of the one great Norman name, which in that era mainly +represented the English interest and influence in Ireland. + +Richard de Burgh, called from his ruddy complexion "the Red Earl" of +Ulster, nobly bred in the court of Henry III. of England, had attained +man's age about the period when the de Lacys, the Geraldines, de +Clares, and other great Anglo-Irish, families, either through the +fortune of war or failure of issue, were deprived of most of their +natural leaders. Uniting in his own person the blood of the O'Conors, +de Lacys, and de Burghs, his authority was great from the beginning in +Meath and Connaught. In his inroads on West-Meath he seems to have been +abetted by the junior branches of the de Lacys, who were with his host +in the year 1286, when he besieged Theobald de Verdon in Athlone, and +advanced his banner as far eastward as the strong town of Trim, upon +the Boyne. Laying claim to the possessions of the Lord of Meath, which +touched the Kildare Geraldines at so many points, he inevitably came +into contact with that powerful family. In 1288, in alliance with Manus +O'Conor, they compelled him to retreat from Roscommon into +Clanrickarde, in Mayo. De Verdon, his competitor for West-Meath, +naturally entered into alliance with the Kildare Geraldine, and in the +year 1294, after many lesser conflicts, they took the Red Earl and his +brother William prisoners, and carried them in fetters to the Castle of +Lea, in Offally. This happened on the 6th day of December; a Parliament +assembled at Kilkenny on the 12th of March following, ordered their +release; and a peace was made between these powerful houses. De Burgh +gave his two sons as hostages to Fitzgerald, and the latter surrendered +the Castle of Sligo to de Burgh. From the period of this peace the +power of the last named nobleman outgrew anything that had been known +since the Invasion. In the year 1291, he banished the O'Donnell out of +his territory, and set up another of his own choosing; he deposed one +O'Neil and raised up another; he so straitened O'Conor in his patrimony +of Roscommon, that that Prince also entered his camp at Meelick, and +gave him hostages. He was thus the first and only man of his race who +had ever had in his hand the hostages both of Ulster and Connaught. +When the King of England sent writs into Ireland, he usually addressed +the Red Earl, before the Lord Justice or Lord Deputy—a compliment +which, in that ceremonious age, could not be otherwise than flattering +to the pride of de Burgh. Such was the order of summons, in which, in +the year 1296, he was required by Edward I. to attend him into +Scotland, which was then experiencing some of the worst consequences of +a disputed succession. As Ireland's interest in this struggle becomes +in the sequel second only to that of Scotland, we must make brief +mention of its origin and progress. + +By the accidental death of Alexander III., in 1286, the McAlpine, or +Scoto-Irish dynasty, was suddenly terminated. Alexander's only +surviving child, Margaret, called from her mother's country, "the Maid +of Norway," soon followed her father; and no less than eight +competitors, all claiming collateral descent from the former Kings, +appeared at the head of as many factions to contest the succession. +This number was, however, soon reduced to two men—John Baliol and +Robert Bruce—the former the grandson of the eldest, the latter the son +of the second daughter of King David I. After many bickerings these +powerful rivals were induced to refer their claims to the decision of +Edward I. of England, who, in a Great Court held at Berwick in the year +1292, decided in favour of Baliol, not in the character of an +indifferent arbitrator, but as lord paramount of Scotland. As such, +Baliol there and then rendered him feudal homage, and became, in the +language of the age, "his man." This sub-sovereignty could not but be +galling to the proud and warlike nobles of Scotland, and accordingly, +finding Edward embroiled about his French possessions, three years +after the decision, they caused Baliol to enter into an alliance, +offensive and defensive, with Philip IV. of France, against his English +suzerain. The nearer danger compelled Edward to march with 40,000 men, +which he had raised for the war in France, towards the Scottish border, +whither he summoned the Earl of Ulster, the Geraldines, Butlers, de +Verdons, de Genvilles, Berminghams, Poers, Purcells, de Cogans, de +Barrys, de Lacys, d'Exeters, and other minor nobles, to come to him in +his camp early in March, 1296. The Norman-Irish obeyed the call, but +the pride of de Burgh would not permit him to embark in the train of +the Lord Justice Wogan, who had been also summoned; he sailed with his +own forces in a separate fleet, having conferred the honour of +knighthood on thirty of his younger followers before embarking at +Dublin. Whether these forces arrived in time to take part in the bloody +siege of Berwick, and the panic-route at Dunbar, does not appear; they +were in time, however, to see the strongest places in Scotland yielded +up, and John Baliol a prisoner on his way to the Tower of London. They +were sumptuously entertained by the conqueror in the Castle of +Roxburgh, and returned to their western homes deeply impressed with the +power of England, and the puissance of her warrior-king. + +But the independence of Scotland was not to be trodden out in a single +campaign. During Edward's absence in France, William Wallace and other +guerilla chiefs arose, to whom were soon united certain patriot nobles +and bishops. The English deputy de Warrane fought two unsuccessful +campaigns against these leaders, until his royal master, having +concluded peace with France, summoned his Parliament to meet him at +York, and his Norman-Irish lieges to join him in his northern camp, +with all their forces, on the 1st of March, 1299. In June the English +King found himself at Roxburgh, at the head of 8,000 horse, and 80,000 +foot, "chiefly Irish and Welsh." With this immense force he routed +Wallace at Falkirk on the 22nd of July, and reduced him to his original +rank of a guerilla chief, wandering with his bands of partizans from +one fastness to another. The Scottish cause gained in Pope Boniface +VII. a powerful advocate soon after, and the unsubdued districts +continued to obey a Regency composed of the Bishop of St. Andrews, +Robert Bruce, and John Comyn. These regents exercised their authority +in the name of Baliol, carried on negotiations with France and Rome, +convoked a Parliament, and, among other military operations, captured +Stirling Castle. In the documentary remains of this great controversy, +it is curious to find Edward claiming the entire island of Britain in +virtue of the legend of Brute the Trojan, and the Scots rejecting it +with scorn, and displaying their true descent and origin from Scota, +the fabled first mother of the Milesian Irish. There is ample evidence +that the claims of kindred were at this period keenly felt by the Gael +of Ireland, for the people of Scotland, and men of our race are +mentioned among the companions of Wallace and the allies of Bruce. But +the Norman-Irish were naturally drawn to the English banner, and when, +in 1303, it was again displayed north of the Tweed, the usual noble +names are found among its followers. In 1307 Scotland lost her most +formidable foe, by the death of Edward, and at the same time began to +recognize her appointed deliverer in the person of Robert Bruce. But we +must return to "the Red Earl," the central figure in our own annals +during this half century. + +The new King, Edward II., compelled by his English barons to banish his +minion, Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, had created him his lieutenant of +Ireland, endowed him with a grant of the royalties of the whole island, +to the prejudice of the Earl and other noblemen. The sojourn of this +brilliant parasite in Ireland lasted but a year—from June, 1308, till +the June following. He displayed both vigour and munificence, and +acquired friends. But the Red Earl, sharing to the full the antipathy +of the great barons of England, kept apart from his court, maintained a +rival state at Trim, as Commander-in-Chief, conferring knighthood, +levying men, and imposing taxes at his own discretion. A challenge of +battle is said to have passed between him and the Lieutenant, when the +latter was recalled into England by the King, where he was three years +later put to death by the barons, into whose hands he had fallen. Sir +John Wogan and Sir Edmund Butler succeeded him in the Irish +administration; but the real power long remained with Richard de Burgh. +He was appointed plenipotentiary to treat with Robert Bruce, on behalf +of the King of England, "upon which occasion the Scottish deputies +waited on him in Ireland." In the year 1302 Bruce had married his +daughter, the Lady Ellen, while of his other daughters one was Countess +of Desmond, and another became Countess of Kildare in 1312. A thousand +marks—the same sum at which the town and castle of Sligo were then +valued—was allowed by the Earl for the marriage portion of his +last-mentioned daughter. His power and reputation, about the period of +her marriage, were at the full. He had long held the title of Commander +of the Irish forces, "in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Gascony;" he had +successfully resisted Gaveston in the meridian of his court favour; the +father-in-law of a King, and of Earls of almost royal power, lord +paramount of half the island—such a subject England had not seen on +Irish ground since the Invasion. This prodigious power he retained, not +less by his energy than his munificence. He erected castles at +Carlingford, at Sligo, on the upper Shannon, and on Lough Foyle. He was +a generous patron of the Carmelite Order, for whom he built the Convent +of Loughrea. He was famed as a princely entertainer, and before +retiring from public affairs, characteristically closed his career with +a magnificent banquet at Kilkenny, where the whole Parliament were his +guests. Having reached an age bordering upon fourscore he retired to +the Monastery of Athassil, and there expired within sight of his family +vault, after half a century of such sway as was rarely enjoyed in that +age, even by Kings. But before that peaceful close he was destined to +confront a storm the like of which had not blown over Ireland during +the long period since he first began to perform his part in the affairs +of that kingdom. + + + +CHAPTER II. +THE NORTHERN IRISH ENTER INTO ALLIANCE WITH KING ROBERT BRUCE—ARRIVAL +AND FIRST CAMPAIGN OF EDWARD BRUCE. + +No facts of the ages over which we have already passed are better +authenticated than the identity of origin and feeling which existed +between the Celts of Erin and of Albyn. Nor was this sympathy of race +diminished by their common dangers from a common enemy. On the eve of +the Norman invasion we saw how heartily the Irish were with Somerled +and the men of Moray in resisting the feudal polity of the successors +of Malcolm _Caen-More_. As the Plantagenet Princes in person led their +forces against Scotland, the interest of the Irish, especially those of +the North, increased, year by year, in the struggles of the Scots. +Irish adherents followed the fortunes of Wallace to the close; and when +Robert Bruce, after being crowned and seated in the chair of the +McAlpin line, on the summit of the hill of Scone, had to flee into +exile, he naturally sought refuge where he knew he would find friends. +Accompanied by three of his brothers, several adherents, and even by +some of the females of his family, he steered, in the autumn of 1306, +for the little island of Rathlin—seven miles long by a mile wide—one +point of which is within three miles of the Antrim beach. In its most +populous modern day Rathlin contained not above 1,000 souls, and little +wonder if its still smaller population, five centuries ago, fled in +terror at the approach of Bruce. They were, however, soon disarmed of +their fears, and agreed to supply the fugitive King daily with +provisions for 300 persons, the whole number who accompanied or +followed him into exile. His faithful adherents soon erected for him a +castle, commanding one of the few landing places on the island, the +ruins of which are still shown to strangers as "Bruce's Castle." Here +he passed in perfect safety the winter of 1306, while his emissaries +were recruiting in Ulster, or passing to and fro, in the intervals of +storm, among the western islands. Without waiting for the spring to +come round again, they issued from their retreat in different +directions; one body of 700 Irish sailed under Thomas and Alexander, +the King's brothers, for the Clyde, while Robert and Edward took the +more direct passage towards the coast of Argyle, and, after many +adventures, found themselves strong enough to attack the foreign forces +in Perth and Ayrshire. The opportune death of Edward of England the +same summer, and the civil strife bred by his successor's inordinate +favour towards Gaveston, enabled the Bruces gradually to root out the +internal garrisons of their enemies; but the party that had sailed, +under the younger brothers, from Rathlin, were attacked and captured in +Loch Ryan by McDowell, and the survivors of the engagement, with Thomas +and Alexander Bruce, were carried prisoners to Carlisle and there put +to death. + +The seven years' war of Scottish independence was drawn to a close by +the decisive campaign of 1314. The second Edward prepared an +overwhelming force for this expedition, summoning, as usual, the +Norman-Irish Earls, and inviting in different language his "beloved" +cousins, the native Irish Chiefs, not only such as had entered into +English alliances at any time, but also notorious allies of Bruce, like +O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Kane. These writs were generally unheeded; we +have no record of either Norman-Irish or native-Irish Chief having +responded to Edward's summons, nor could nobles so summoned have been +present without some record remaining of the fact. On the contrary all +the wishes of the old Irish went with the Scots, and the Normans were +more than suspected of leaning the same way. Twenty-one clans, +Highlanders and Islemen, and many Ulstermen, fought on the side of +Bruce, on the field of Bannockburn; the grant of "Kincardine-O'Neil," +made by the victor-King to his Irish followers, remains a striking +evidence of their fidelity to his person, and their sacrifices in his +cause. The result of that glorious day was, by the testimony of all +historians, English as well as Scottish, received with enthusiasm on +the Irish side of the channel. + +Whether any understanding had been come to between the northern Irish +and Bruce, during his sojourn in Rathlin, or whether the victory of +Bannockburn suggested the design, Edward Bruce, the gallant companion +of all his brother's fortunes and misfortunes, was now invited to place +himself at the head of the men of Ulster, in a war for Irish +independence. He was a soldier of not inferior fame to his brother for +courage and fortitude, though he had never exhibited the higher +qualities of general and statesman which crowned the glory of King +Robert. Yet as he had never held a separate command of consequence, his +rashness and obstinacy, though well known to his intimates, were lost +sight of, at a distance, by those who gazed with admiration on the +brilliant achievements, in which he had certainly borne the second +part. The chief mover in the negotiation by which this gallant soldier +was brought to embark his fortunes in an Irish war, was Donald, Prince +of Ulster. This Prince, whose name is so familiar from his celebrated +remonstrance addressed to Pope John XXII., was son of King Brian of the +battle of Down, who, half a century before, at the Conference of +Caeluisge, was formally chosen Ard-Righ, by the nobles of three +Provinces. He had succeeded to the principality—not without a +protracted struggle with the Red Earl—some twenty years before the date +of the battle of Bannockburn. Endued with an intensely national spirit, +he seems to have fully adopted the views of Nicholas McMaelisa, the +Primate of Armagh, his early cotemporary. This Prelate—one of the most +resolute opponents of the Norman conquest—had constantly refused to +instal any foreigner in a northern diocese. When the Chapter of Ardagh +delayed their election, he nominated a suitable person to the Holy See; +when the See of Meath was distracted between two national parties he +installed his nominee; when the Countess of Ulster caused Edward I. to +issue his writ for the installation of John, Bishop of Conor, he +refused his acquiescence. He left nearly every See in his Province, at +the time of his decease (the year 1303), under the administration of a +native ecclesiastic; a dozen years before he had established a formal +"association" among the Prelates at large, by which they bound +themselves to resist the interference of the Kings of England in the +nomination of Bishops, and to be subject only to the sanction of the +See of Rome. In the Provinces of Cashel and Tuam, in the fourteenth +century, we do not often find a foreign born Bishop; even in Leinster +double elections and double delegations to Rome, show how deeply the +views of the patriotic Nicholas McMaelisa had seized upon the clergy of +the next age. It was Donald O'Neil's darling project to establish a +unity of action against the common enemy among the chiefs, similar to +that which the Primate had brought about among the Bishops. His own +pretensions to the sovereignty were greater than that of any Prince of +his age; his house had given more monarchs to the island than any +other; his father had been acknowledged by the requisite majority; his +courage, patriotism, and talents, were admittedly equal to the task. +But he felt the utter impossibility of conciliating that fatal family +pride, fed into extravagance by Bards and Senachies, which we have so +often pointed out as the worst consequence of the Celtic system. He saw +chiefs, proud of their lineage and their name, submit to serve a +foreign Earl of Ulster, who refused homage to the native Prince of +Ulster; he saw the seedlings of a vice of which we have seen the +fruit—that his countrymen would submit to a stranger rather than to one +of themselves, and he reasoned, not unnaturally, that, by the hand of +some friendly stranger, they might be united and liberated. The attempt +of Edward Bruce was a failure, and was followed by many disasters; but +a more patriotic design, or one with fairer omens of success, could not +have entered the mind or heart of a native Prince, after the event of +the battle at Bannockburn. Edward of England, having intelligence of +the negotiations on foot between the Irish and Scots, after his great +defeat, summoned over to Windsor during the winter, de Burgh, +Fitzgerald, de Verdon, and Edmund Butler, the Lord Deputy. After +conferring with them, and confirming Butler in his office, they were +despatched back in all haste to defend their country. Nor was there +time to lose. Edward Bruce, with his usual impetuosity, without waiting +for his full armament, had sailed from Ayr with 6,000 men in 300 +galleys, accompanied by Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Sir John +Stuart, Sir Philip Moubray, Sir Fergus of Ardrossan, and other +distinguished knights. He landed on the 25th day of May, 1315, in the +Glendun river, near Glenarm, and was promptly joined by Donald O'Neil, +and twelve other chiefs. Their first advance was from the coast towards +that angle of Lough Neagh, near which stands the town of Antrim. Here, +at Rathmore, in the plain of Moylinny, they were attacked by the +Mandevilles and Savages of the Ards of Down, whom they defeated. From +Antrim they continued their route evidently towards Dublin, taking +Dundalk and Ardee, after a sharp resistance. At Ardee they were but 35 +miles north of Dublin, easy of conquest, if they had been provided with +siege trains—which it seemed they were not. + +While Bruce and O'Neil were coming up from the north, Hugh O'Donnell, +lord of Tyrconnell, as if to provide occupation for the Earl of Ulster, +attacked and sacked the castle and town of Sligo, and wasted the +adjacent country. The Earl, on hearing of the landing of the Scots, had +mustered his forces at Athlone, and compelled the unwilling attendance +of Felim O'Conor, with his clansmen. From Athlone he directed his march +towards Drogheda, where he arrived with "20 cohorts," about the same +time that the Lord Deputy Butler came up with "30 cohorts." Bruce, +unprepared to meet so vast a force—taken together some 25,000 or 30,000 +men—retreated slowly towards his point of debarkation. De Burgh, who, +as Commander-in-Chief, took precedence in the field of the Lord Deputy, +ordered the latter to protect Meath and Leinster, while he pursued the +enemy. Bruce, having despatched the Earl of Moray to his brother, was +now anxious to hold some northern position where they could most easily +join him. He led de Burgh, therefore, into the North of Antrim, thence +across the Bann at Coleraine, breaking down the bridge at that point. +Here the armies encamped for some days, separated by the river, the +outposts occasionally indulging in a "shooting of arrows." By +negotiation, Bruce and O'Neil succeeded in detaching O'Conor from de +Burgh. Under the plea—which really had sufficient foundation—of +suppressing an insurrection headed by one of his rivals, O'Conor +returned to his own country. No sooner had he left than Bruce assumed +the offensive, and it was now the Red Earl's turn to fall back. They +retreated towards the castle of Conyre (probably Conor, near Ballymena, +in Antrim), where an engagement was fought, in which de Burgh was +defeated, his brother William, Sir John Mandeville, and several other +knights being taken prisoners. The Earl continued his retreat through +Meath towards his own possession; Bruce followed, capturing in +succession Granard, Fenagh, and Kells, celebrating his Christmas at +Loughsweedy, in West-Meath, in the midst of the most considerable +chiefs of Ulster, Meath, and Connaught. It was probably at this stage +of his progress that he received the adhesion of the junior branches of +the Lacys—the chief Norman family that openly joined his standard. + +This termination of his first campaign on Irish soil might be +considered highly favourable to Bruce. More than half the clans had +risen, and others were certain to follow their example; the clergy were +almost wholly with him; and his heroic brother had promised to lead an +army to his aid in the ensuing spring. + + + +CHAPTER III. +BRUCE'S SECOND CAMPAIGN, AND CORONATION AT DUNDALK—THE RISING IN +CONNAUGHT—BATTLE OF ATHENRY—ROBERT BRUCE IN IRELAND. + +From Loughsweedy, Bruce broke up his quarters, and marched into +Kildare, encamping successively at Naas, Kildare, and Rathangan. +Advancing in a southerly direction, he found an immense, but disorderly +Anglo-Irish host drawn out, at the moat of Ardscull, near Athy, to +dispute his march. They were commanded by the Lord Justice Butler, the +Baron of Offally, the Lord Arnold Poer, and other magnates; but so +divided were these proud Peers, in authority and in feeling, that, +after a severe skirmish with Bruce's vanguard, in which some knights +were killed on both sides, they retreated before the Hiberno-Scottish +army, which continued its march unmolested, and took possession of +Castledermot. + +Animated by these successes, won in their midst, the clans of Leinster +began in succession to raise their heads. The tribes of Wicklow, once +possessors of the fertile plains to the east and west, rallied in the +mountain glens to which they had been driven, and commenced that long +guerilla war, which centuries only were to extinguish. The McMurroghs +along the ridge of Leinster, and all their kindred upon the Barrow and +the Slaney, mustered under a chief, against whom the Lord Justice was +compelled to march in person, later in the campaign of 1316. The Lord +of Dunamase was equally sanguine, but 800 men of the name of O'Moore, +slain in one disastrous encounter, crippled for the time the military +strength of that great house. Having thus kindled the war, in the very +heart of Leinster, Bruce retraced his march through Meath and Louth, +and held at Dundalk that great assembly in which he was solemnly +elected King of Ireland. Donald O'Neil, by letters patent, as son of +Brian "of the battle of Down," the last acknowledged native king, +formally resigned his right, in favour of Bruce, a proceeding which he +defends in his celebrated letter to Pope John XXII., where he speaks of +the new sovereign as the illustrious Earl of Carrick, Edward de Bruce, +a nobleman descended from the same ancestors with themselves, whom they +had called to their aid, and freely chosen as their king and lord. The +ceremony of inauguration seems to have been performed in the Gaelic +fashion, on the hill of Knocknemelan, within a mile of Dundalk, while +the solemn consecration took place in one of the churches of the town. +Surrounded by all the external marks of royalty, Bruce established his +court in the castle of Northburgh (one of de Courcy's or de Verdon's +fortresses), adjoining Dundalk, where he took cognizance of all pleas +that were brought before him. At that moment his prospects compared +favourably with those of his illustrious brother a few years earlier. +The Anglo-Irish were bitterly divided against each other; while, +according to their joint declaration of loyalty, signed before de +Hothun, King Edward's special agent, "all the Irish of Ireland, several +great lords, and many English people," had given in their adhesion to +Bruce. In Ulster, except Carrickfergus, no place of strength remained +in the hands of any subject of Edward of England. The arrival of +supplies from Scotland enabled Bruce to resume that siege in the autumn +of 1316, and the castle, after a heroic defence by Sir Thomas de +Mandeville, was surrendered in mid-winter. Here, in the month of +February, 1317, the new King of Ireland had the gratification of +welcoming his brother of Scotland, at the head of a powerful auxiliary +force, and here, according to Barbour's _Chronicle_, they feasted for +three days, in mirth and jollity, before entering on the third campaign +of this war. + +We have before mentioned that one of the first successes obtained by +Bruce was through the withdrawal of Felim O'Conor from the Red Earl's +alliance. The Prince thus won over to what may be fairly called the +national cause, had just then attained his majority, and his martial +accomplishments reflected honour on his fosterer, McDermott of Moylurg, +while they filled with confidence the hearts of his own clansmen. After +his secession from de Burgh at Coleraine, he had spent a whole year in +suppressing the formidable rival who had risen to dispute his title. +Several combats ensued between their respective adherents, but at +length Roderick, the pretender, was defeated and slain, and Felim +turned all his energies to co-operate with Bruce, by driving the +foreigner out of his own province. Having secured the assistance of all +the chief tribes of the west, and established the ancient supremacy of +his house over Breffni, he first attacked the town of Ballylahen, in +Mayo, the seat of the family of de Exeter, slew Slevin de Exeter, the +lord de Cogan, and other knights and barons, and plundered the town. At +the beginning of August in the same year, in pursuance of his plan, +Felim mustered the most numerous force which Connaught had sent forth, +since the days of Cathal More. Under his leadership marched the Prince +of Meath, the lords of Breffni, Leyny, Annally, Teffia, Hy-Many, and +Hy-Fiachra, with their men. The point of attack was the town of +Athenry, the chief fortified stronghold of the de Burghs and +Berminghams in that region. Its importance dated from the reign of King +John; it had been enriched with convents and strengthened by towers; it +was besides the burial place of the two great Norman families just +mentioned, and their descendants felt that before the walls of Athenry +their possessions were to be confirmed to them by their own valour, or +lost for ever. A decisive battle was fought on St. Laurence's day—the +10th of August—in which the steel-clad Norman battalion once more +triumphed over the linen-shirted clansmen of the west. The field was +contested with heroic obstinacy; no man gave way; none thought of +asking or giving quarter. The standard bearer, the personal guard, and +the Brehon of O'Conor fell around him. The lords of Hy-Many, Teffia, +and Leyny, the heir of the house of Moylurg, with many other chiefs, +and, according to the usual computation, 8,000 men were slain. Felim +O'Conor himself, in the twenty-third year of his age, and the very +morning of his fame, fell with the rest, and his kindred, the +Sil-Murray, were left for a season an easy prey to William de Burgh and +John de Bermingham, the joint commanders in the battle. The spirit of +exaggeration common in most accounts of killed and wounded, has +described this day as fatal to the name and race of O'Conor, who are +represented as cut off to a man in the conflict; the direct line which +Felim represented was indeed left without an immediate adult +representative; but the offshoots of that great house had spread too +far and flourished too vigorously to be shorn away, even by so terrible +a blow as that dealt at Athenry. The very next year we find chiefs of +the name making some figure in the wars of their own province, but it +is observable that what may be called the national party in Connaught +for some time after Athenry, looked to McDermott of Moylurg as their +most powerful leader. + +The moral effect of the victory of Athenry was hardly to be compensated +for by the capture of Carrickfergus the next winter. It inspired the +Anglo-Irish with new courage. De Bermingham was created +commander-in-chief. The citizens of Dublin burned their suburbs to +strengthen their means of defence. Suspecting the zeal of the Red Earl, +so nearly connected with the Bruces by marriage, their Mayor proceeded +to Saint Mary's abbey, where he lodged, arrested and confined him to +the castle. To that building the Bermingham tower was added about this +time, and the strength of the whole must have been great when the +skilful leaders, who had carried Stirling and Berwick, abandoned the +siege of Dublin as hopeless. In Easter week, 1317, Roger Mortimer, +afterwards Earl of March, nearly allied to the English King on the one +hand, and maternally descended from the Marshals and McMurroghs on the +other, arrived at Youghal, as Lord Justice, released the Earl of Ulster +on reaching Dublin, and prepared to dispute the progress of the Bruces +towards the South. + +The royal brothers had determined, according to their national Bard, to +take their way with all their host, from one end of Ireland to the +other. Their destination was Munster, which populous province had not +yet ratified the recent election. Ulster and Meath were with them; +Connaught, by the battle of Athenry, was rendered incapable of any +immediate effort, and therefore Edward Bruce, in true Gaelic fashion, +decided to proceed on his royal visitation, and so secure the hostages +of the southern half-kingdom. At the head of 20,000 men, in two +divisions, the brothers marched from Carrickfergus; meeting, with the +exception of a severe skirmish in a wood near Slane, with no other +molestation till they approached the very walls of Dublin. Finding the +place stronger than they expected, or unwilling to waste time at that +season of the year, the Hiberno-Scottish army, after occupying +Castleknock, turned up the valley of the Liffey, and encamped for four +days by the pleasant waterfall of Leixlip. From Leixlip to Naas they +traversed the estates of one of their active foes, the new made Earl of +Kildare, and from Naas they directed their march to Callan in Ossory, +taking special pleasure, according to Anglo-Irish Annals, in harrying +the lands of another enemy, the Lord Butler, afterwards Earl of Ormond. +From Callan their route lay to Cashel and Limerick, at each of which +they encamped two or three days without seeing the face of an enemy. +But if they encountered no enemies in Munster, neither did they make +many friends by their expedition. It seems that on further acquaintance +rivalries and enmities sprung up between the two nations who composed +the army; that Edward Bruce, while styling himself King of Ireland, +acted more like a vigorous conqueror exhausting his enemies, than a +prudent Prince careful for his friends and adherents. His army is +accused, in terms of greater vehemence than are usually employed in our +cautious chronicles, of plundering churches and monasteries, and even +violating the tombs of the dead in search of buried treasure. The +failure of the harvest, added to the effect of a threefold war, had so +diminished the stock of food that numbers perished of famine, and this +dark, indelible remembrance was, by an arbitrary notion of cause and +effect, inseparably associated in the popular mind, both English and +Irish, with the Scottish invasion. One fact is clear, that the election +of Dundalk was not popular in Munster, and that the chiefs of Thomond +and Desmond were uncommitted, if not hostile towards Bruce's +sovereignty. McCarthy and O'Brien seized the occasion, indeed, while he +was campaigning in the North, to root out the last representative of +the family of de Clare, as we have already related, when tracing the +fortunes of the Normans in Munster. But of the twelve reguli, or +Princes in Bruce's train, none are mentioned as having come from the +Southern provinces. + +This visitation of Munster occupied the months of February and March. +In April, the Lord Justice Mortimer summoned a Parliament at Kilkenny, +and there, also, the whole Anglo-Irish forces, to the number of 30,000 +men, were assembled. The Bruces on their return northward might easily +have been intercepted, or the genius which triumphed at Bannockburn +might have been as conspicuously signalized on Irish ground. But the +military authorities were waiting orders from the Parliament, and the +Parliament were at issue with the new Justice, and so the opportunity +was lost. Early in May, the Hiberno-Scottish army re-entered Ulster, by +nearly the same route as they had taken going southwards, and King +Robert soon after returned into Scotland, promising faithfully to +rejoin his brother, as soon as he disposed of his own pressing affairs. +The King of England in the meantime, in consternation at the news from +Ireland, applied to the Pope, then at Avignon, to exercise his +influence with the Clergy and Chiefs of Ireland, for the preservation +of the English interest in that country. It was in answer to the Papal +rescripts so procured that Donald O'Neil despatched his celebrated +Remonstrance, which the Pontiff enclosed to Edward II., with an urgent +recommendation that the wrongs therein recited might be atoned for, and +avoided in the future. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +BATTLE OF FAUGHARD AND DEATH OF KING EDWARD BRUCE—CONSEQUENCES OF HIS +INVASION—EXTINCTION OF THE EARLDOM OF ULSTER—IRISH OPINION OF EDWARD +BRUCE. + +It is too commonly the fashion, as well with historians as with others, +to glorify the successful and censure severely the unfortunate. No such +feeling actuates us in speaking of the character of Edward Bruce, King +of Ireland. That he was as gallant a knight as any in that age of +gallantry, we know; that he could confront the gloomiest aspect of +adversity with cheerfulness, we also know. But the united testimony, +both of history and tradition, in his own country, so tenacious of its +anecdotical treasures, describes him as rash, headstrong, and +intractable, beyond all the captains of his time. And in strict +conformity with this character is the closing scene of his Irish +career. + +The harvest had again failed in 1317, and enforced a melancholy sort of +truce between all the belligerents. The scarcity was not confined to +Ireland, but had severely afflicted England and Scotland, compelling +their rulers to bestow a momentary attention on the then abject class, +the tillers of the soil. But the summer of 1318 brightened above more +prosperous fields, from which no sooner had each party snatched or +purchased his share of the produce, than the war-note again resounded +through all the four Provinces. On the part of the Anglo-Irish, John de +Bermingham was confirmed as Commander-in-Chief, and departed from +Dublin with, according to the chronicles of the Pale, but 2,000 chosen +troops, while the Scottish biographer of the Bruces gives him "20,000 +trapped horse." The latter may certainly be considered an exaggerated +account, and the former must be equally incorrect. Judged by the other +armaments of that period, from the fact that the Normans of Meath, +under Sir Miles de Verdon and Sir Richard Tuit, were in his ranks, and +that he then held the rank of Commander-in-Chief of all the English +forces in Ireland, it is incredible that de Bermingham should have +crossed the Boyne with less than eight or ten thousand men. Whatever +the number may have been, Bruce resolved to risk the issue of battle +contrary to the advice of all his officers, and without awaiting the +reinforcements hourly expected from Scotland, and which shortly after +the engagement did arrive. The native chiefs of Ulster, whose counsel +was also to avoid a pitched battle, seeing their opinions so lightly +valued, are said to have withdrawn from Dundalk. There remained with +the iron-headed King the Lords Moubray, de Soulis, and Stewart, with +the three brothers of the latter; MacRory, lord of the Isles, and +McDonald, chief of his clan. The neighbourhood of Dundalk, the scene of +his triumphs and coronation, was to be the scene of this last act of +Bruce's chivalrous and stormy career. + +On the 14th of October, 1318, at the hill of Faughard, within a couple +of miles of Dundalk, the advance guard of the hostile armies came into +the presence of each other, and made ready for battle. Roland de Jorse, +the foreign Archbishop of Armagh—who had not been able to take +possession of his see, though appointed to it seven years +before—accompanied the Anglo-Irish, and moving through their ranks, +gave his benediction to their banners. But the impetuosity of Bruce +gave little time for preparation. At the head of the vanguard, without +waiting for the whole of his company to come up, he charged the enemy +with impetuosity. The action became general, and the skill of de +Bermingham as a leader was again demonstrated. An incident common to +the warfare of that age was, however, the immediate cause of the +victory. Master John de Maupas, a burgher of Dundalk, believing that +the death of the Scottish leader would be the signal for the retreat of +his followers, disguised as a jester or fool, sought him throughout the +field. One of the royal esquires, named Gilbert Harper, wearing the +surcoat of his master, was mistaken for him, and slain; but the true +leader was at length found by de Maupas, and struck down with the blow +of a leaden plummet or slung-shot. After the battle, when the field was +searched for his body, it was found under that of de Maupas, who had +bravely yielded up life for life. The Hiberno-Scottish forces dispersed +in dismay, and when King Robert of Scotland landed a day or two +afterwards, he was met by the fugitive men of Carrick, under their +leader Thompson, who informed him of his brother's fate. He returned at +once into his own country, carrying off the few Scottish survivors. The +head of the impetuous Edward was sent to London; but the body was +interred in the churchyard of Faughard, where, within living memory, a +tall pillar stone was pointed out by every peasant of the neighbourhood +as marking the grave of "King Bruce." + +The fortunes of the principal actors, native and Norman, in the +invasion of Edward Bruce, may be briefly recounted before closing this +book of our history, John de Bermingham, created for his former victory +Baron of Athenry, had now the Earldom of Louth conferred on him with a +royal pension. He promptly followed up his blow at Faughard by +expelling Donald O'Neil, the mainspring of the invasion, from Tyrone; +but Donald, after a short sojourn among the mountains of Fermanagh, +returned during the winter and resumed his lordship, though he never +wholly recovered from the losses he had sustained. The new Earl of +Louth continued to hold the rank of Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, to +which he added in 1322 that of Lord Justice. He was slain in 1329, with +some 200 of his personal adherents, in an affair with the natives of +his new earldom, at a place called Ballybeagan. He left by a daughter +of the Earl of Ulster three daughters; the title was perpetuated in the +family of his brothers. + +In 1319, the Earls of Kildare and Louth, and the Lord Arnold le Poer, +were appointed a commission to inquire into all treasons committed in +Ireland during Bruce's invasion. Among other outlawries they decreed +those of the three de Lacys, the chiefs of their name, in Meath and +Ulster. That illustrious family, however, survived even this last +confiscation, and their descendants, several centuries later, were +large proprietors in the midland counties. + +Three years after the battle of Faughard, died Roland de Jorse, +Archbishop of Armagh, it was said, of vexations arising out of Bruce's +war, and other difficulties which beset him in taking possession of his +see. Adam, Bishop of Ferns, was deprived of his revenues for taking +part with Bruce, and the Friars Minor of the Franciscan order, were +severely censured in a Papal rescript for their zeal on the same side. + +The great families of Fitzgerald and Butler obtained their earldoms of +Kildare, Desmond, and Ormond, out of this dangerous crisis, but the +premier earldom of Ulster disappeared from our history soon afterwards. +Richard, the Red Earl, having died in the Monastery of Athassil, in +1326, was succeeded by his son, William, who, seven years later, in +consequence of a family feud, instigated by one of his own female +relatives, Gilla de Burgh, wife of Walter de Mandeville, was murdered +at the Fords, near Carrickfergus, in the 21st year of his age. His +wife, Maud, daughter of Henry Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, fled into +England with her infant, afterwards married to Lionel, Duke of +Clarence, son of King Edward III., who thus became personally +interested in the system which he initiated by the odious Statute of +Kilkenny. But the misfortunes of the Red Earl's posterity did not end +with the murder of his immediate successor. Edmond, his surviving son, +five years subsequently, was seized by his cousin, Edmond, the son of +William, and drowned in Lough Mask, with a stone about his neck. The +posterity of William de Burgh then assumed the name of McWilliam, and +renounced the laws, language, and allegiance of England. Profiting by +their dissensions, Turlogh O'Conor, towards the middle of the century, +asserted supremacy over them, thus practising against the descendants +the same policy which the first de Burghs had successfully employed +among the sons of Roderick. + +We must mention here a final consequence of Edward Bruce's invasion +seldom referred to,—namely, the character of the treaty between +Scotland and England, concluded and signed at Edinburgh, on St. +Patrick's Day, 1328. By this treaty, after arranging an intermarriage +between the royal families, it was stipulated in the event of a +rebellion against Scotland, in Skye, Man, or the Islands, or against +England, in Ireland, that the several Kings would not abet or assist +each other's rebel subjects. Remembering this article, we know not what +to make of the entry in our own Annals, which states that Robert Bruce +landed at Carrickfergus in the same year, 1328, "and sent word to the +Justiciary and Council, that he came to make peace between Ireland and +Scotland, and that he would meet them at Green Castle; but that the +latter failing to meet him, he returned to Scotland." This, however, we +know: high hopes were entertained, and immense sacrifices were made, +for Edward Bruce, but were made in vain. His proverbial rashness in +battle, with his total disregard of the opinion of the country into +which he came, alienated from him those who were at first disposed to +receive him with enthusiasm. It may be an instructive lesson to such as +look to foreign leaders and foreign forces for the means of national +deliverance to read the terms in which the native Annalists record the +defeat and death of Edward Bruce: "No achievement had been performed in +Ireland, for a long time," say the Four Masters, "from which greater +benefit had accrued to the country than from this." "There was not a +better deed done in Ireland since the banishment of the Formorians," +says the Annalist of Clonmacnoise! So detested may a foreign liberating +chief become, who outrages the feelings and usages of the people he +pretends, or really means to emancipate! + + + +BOOK VI. +THE NATIVE, THE NATURALIZED, AND "THE ENGLISH INTEREST." + + + +CHAPTER I. +CIVIL WAR IN ENGLAND—ITS EFFECTS ON THE ANGLO-IRISH—THE KNIGHTS OF +SAINT JOHN—GENERAL DESIRE OF THE ANGLO-IRISH TO NATURALIZE THEMSELVES +AMONG THE NATIVE POPULATION—A POLICY OF NON-INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE +RACES RESOLVED ON IN ENGLAND. + +The closing years of the reign of Edward II. of England were endangered +by the same partiality for favourites which, had disturbed its +beginning. The de Spensers, father and son, played at this period the +part which Gaveston had performed twenty years earlier. The Barons, who +undertook to rid their country of this pampered family, had, however, +at their head Queen Isabella, sister of the King of France, who had +separated from her husband under a pretended fear of violence at his +hands, but in reality to enjoy more freely her criminal intercourse +with her favourite, Mortimer. With the aid of French and Flemish +mercenaries, they compelled the unhappy Edward to fly from London to +Bristol, whence he was pursued, captured, and after being confined for +several months in different fortresses, was secretly murdered in the +autumn of 1327, by thrusting a red hot iron into his bowels. His son, +Edward, a lad of fifteen years of age, afterwards the celebrated Edward +III., was proclaimed King, though the substantial power remained for +some years longer with Queen Isabella, and her paramour, now elevated +to the rank of Earl of March. In the year 1330, however, their guilty +prosperity was brought to a sudden close; Mortimer was seized by +surprise, tried by his peers, and executed at Tyburn; Isabella was +imprisoned for life, and the young King, at the age of eighteen, began +in reality that reign, which, through half a century's continuance, +proved so glorious and advantageous for England. + +It will be apparent that during the last few years of the second, and +under the minority of the third Edward, the Anglo-Irish Barons would be +left to pursue undisturbed their own particular interests and enmities. +The renewal of war with Scotland, on the death of King Robert Bruce, +and the subsequent protracted wars with France, which occupied, with +some intervals of truce, nearly thirty years of the third Edward's +reign, left ample time for the growth of abuses of every description +among the descendants of those who had invaded Ireland, under the +pretext of its reformation, both in morals and government. The +contribution of an auxiliary force to aid him in his foreign wars was +all the warlike King expected from his lords of Ireland, and at so +cheap a price they were well pleased to hold their possessions under +his guarantee. At Halidon hill the Anglo-Irish, led by Sir John Darcy, +distinguished themselves against the Scots in 1333; and at the siege of +Calais, under the Earls of Kildare and Desmond, they acquired +additional reputation in 1347. From this time forward it became a +settled maxim of English policy to draft native troops out of Ireland +for foreign service, and to send English soldiers into it in times of +emergency. + +In the very year when the tragedy of Edward the Second's deposition and +death was enacted in England, a drama of a lighter kind was performed +among his new made earls in Ireland. The Lord Arnold le Poer gave +mortal offence to Maurice, first Earl of Desmond, by calling him "a +Rhymer," a term synonymous with poetaster. To make good his reputation +as a Bard, the Earl summoned his allies, the Butlers and Berminghams, +while le Poer obtained the aid of his maternal relatives, the de +Burghs, and several desperate conflicts took place between them. The +Earl of Kildare, then deputy, summoned both parties to meet him at +Kilkenny, but le Poer and William de Burgh fled into England, while the +victors, instead of obeying the deputy's summons, enjoyed themselves in +ravaging his estate. The following year (A.D. 1328), le Poer and de +Burgh returned from England, and were reconciled with Desmond and +Ormond by the mediation of the new deputy, Roger Outlaw, Prior of the +Knights of the Hospital at Kilmainham. In honour of this reconciliation +de Burgh gave a banquet at the castle, and Maurice of Desmond +reciprocated by another the next day, in St. Patrick's Church, though +it was then, as the Anglo-Irish Annalist remarks, the penitential +season of Lent. A work of peace and reconciliation, calculated to spare +the effusion of Christian blood, may have been thought some +justification for this irreverent use of a consecrated edifice. + +The mention of the Lord Deputy, Sir Roger Outlaw, the second Prior of +his order though not the last, who wielded the highest political power +over the English settlements, naturally leads to the mention of the +establishment in Ireland, of the illustrious orders of the Temple and +the Hospital. The first foundation of the elder order is attributed to +Strongbow, who erected for them a castle at Kilmainham, on the high +ground to the south of the Liffey, about a mile distant from the Danish +wall of old Dublin. Here, the Templars flourished, for nearly a century +and a half, until the process for their suppression was instituted +under Edward II., in 1308. Thirty members of the order were imprisoned +and examined in Dublin, before three Dominican inquisitors—Father +Richard Balbyn, Minister of the Order of St. Dominick in Ireland, +Fathers Philip de Slane and Hugh de St. Leger. The decision arrived at +was the same as in France and England; the order was condemned and +suppressed; and their Priory of Kilmainham, with sixteen benefices in +the diocese of Dublin, and several others, in Ferns, Meath, and +Dromore, passed to the succeeding order, in 1311. The state maintained +by the Priors of Kilmainham, in their capacious residence, often +rivalled that of the Lords Justices. But though their rents were ample, +they did not collect them without service. Their house might justly be +regarded as an advanced fortress on the south side of the city, +constantly open to attacks from the mountain tribes of Wicklow. +Although their vows were for the Holy Land, they were ever ready to +march at the call of the English Deputies, and their banner, blazoned +with the _Agnus Dei_, waved over the bloodiest border frays of the +fourteenth century. The Priors of Kilmainham sat as Barons in the +Parliaments of "the Pale," and the office was considered the first in +ecclesiastical rank among the regular orders. + +During the second quarter of this century, an extraordinary change +became apparent in the manners and customs of the descendants of the +Normans, Flemings, and Cambrians, whose ancestors an hundred years +earlier were strangers in the land. Instead of intermarrying +exclusively among themselves, the prevailing fashion became to seek for +Irish wives, and to bestow their daughters on Irish husbands. Instead +of clinging to the language of Normandy or England, they began to +cultivate the native speech of the country. Instead of despising Irish +law, every nobleman was now anxious to have his Brehon, his Bard, and +his Senachie. The children of the Barons were given to be fostered by +Milesian mothers, and trained in the early exercises so minutely +prescribed by Milesian education. Kildare, Ormond, and Desmond, adopted +the old military usages of exacting "coyne and livery"—horse meat and +man's meat—from their feudal tenants. The tie of Gossipred, one of the +most fondly cherished by the native population, was multiplied between +the two races, and under the wise encouragement of a domestic dynasty +might have become a powerful bond of social union. In Connaught and +Munster where the proportion of native to naturalized was largest, the +change was completed almost in a generation, and could never afterwards +be wholly undone. In Ulster the English element in the population +towards the end of this century was almost extinct, but in Meath and +Leinster, and that portion of Munster immediately bordering on Meath +and Leinster, the process of amalgamation required more time than the +policy of the Kings of England allowed it to obtain. + +The first step taken to counteract their tendency to _Hibernicize_ +themselves, was to bestow additional honours on the great families. The +baronry of Offally was enlarged into the earldom of Kildare; the +lordship of Carrick into the earldom of Ormond; the title of Desmond +was conferred on Maurice Fitz-Thomas Fitzgerald, and that of Louth on +the Baron de Bermingham. Nor were they empty honours; they were +accompanied with something better. The "royal liberties" were formally +conceded, in no less than nine great districts, to their several lords. +Those of Carlow, Wexford, Kilkenny, Kildare, and Leix, had been +inherited by the heirs of the Earl Marshal's five daughters; four other +counties Palatine were now added—Ulster, Meath, Ormond, and Desmond. +"The absolute lords of those palatinates," says Sir John Davis, "made +barons and knights, exercised high justice within all their +territories; erected courts for civil and criminal causes, and for +their own revenues, in the same form in which the king's courts were +established at Dublin; they constituted their own judges, seneschals, +sheriffs, coroners, and escheators." So that the king's writs did not +run in their counties, which took up more than two parts of the English +colony; but ran only in the church-lands lying within the same, which +was therefore called THE CROSSE, wherein the Sheriff was nominated by +the King. By "high justice" is meant the power of life and death, which +was hardly consistent with even a semblance of subjection. No wonder +such absolute lords should be found little disposed to obey the summons +of deputies, like Sir Ralph Ufford and Sir John Morris, men of merely +knightly rank, whose equals they had the power to create, by the touch +of their swords. + +For a season their new honours quickened the dormant loyalty of the +recipients. Desmond, at the head of 10,000 men, joined the lord deputy, +Sir John Darcy, to suppress the insurgent tribes of South Leinster; the +Earls of Ulster and Ormond united their forces for an expedition into +West-Meath against the brave McGeoghegans and their allies; but even +these services—so complicated were public and private motives in the +breasts of the actors—did not allay the growing suspicion of what were +commonly called "the old English," in the minds of the English King and +his council. Their resolution seems to have been fixed to entrust no +native of Ireland with the highest office in his own country; in +accordance with which decision Sir Anthony Lucy was appointed, (1331;) +Sir John Darcy, (1332-34; again in 1341;) and Sir Ralph Ufford, +(1343-1346.) During the incumbency of these English knights, whether +acting as justiciaries or as deputies, the first systematic attempts +were made to prevent, both by the exercise of patronage or by penal +legislation, the fusion of races, which was so universal a tendency of +that age. And although these attempts were discontinued on the +recommencement of war with France in 1345, the conviction of their +utility had seized too strongly on the tenacious will of Edward III. to +be wholly abandoned. The peace of Bretigni in 1360 gave him leisure to +turn again his thoughts in that direction. The following year he sent +over his third son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence and Earl of Ulster, (in +right of his wife,) who boldly announced his object to be the total +separation, into hostile camps, of the two populations. + +This first attempt to enforce non-intercourse between the natives and +the naturalized deserves more particular mention. It appears to have +begun in the time of Sir Anthony Lucy, when the King's Council sent +over certain "Articles of Reform," in which it was threatened that if +the native nobility were not more attentive in discharging their duties +to the King, his Majesty would resume into his own hands all the grants +made to them by his royal ancestors or himself, as well as enforce +payment of debts due to the Crown which had been formerly remitted. +From some motive, these articles were allowed, after being made public, +to remain a dead letter, until the administration of Darcy, Edward's +confidential agent in many important transactions, English and Irish. +They were proclaimed with additional emphasis by this deputy, who +convoked a Parliament or Council, at Dublin, to enforce them as law. +The same year, 1342, a new ordinance came from England, prohibiting the +public employment of men born or married, or possessing estates in +Ireland, and declaring that all offices of state should be filled in +that country by "fit Englishmen, having lands, tenements, and benefices +in England." To this sweeping proscription the Anglo-Irish, as well +townsmen as nobles, resolved to offer every resistance, and by the +convocation of the Earls of Desmond, Ormond, and Kildare, they agreed +to meet for that purpose at Kilkenny. Accordingly, what is called +Darcy's Parliament, met at Dublin in October, while Desmond's rival +assembly gathered at Kilkenny in November. The proceedings of the +former, if it agreed to any, are unrecorded, but the latter despatched +to the King, by the hands of the Prior of Kilmainham, a Remonstrance +couched in Norman-French, the court language, in which they reviewed +the state of the country; deplored the recovery of so large a portion +of the former conquest by the old Irish; accused, in round terms, the +successive English officials sent into the land, with a desire suddenly +to enrich themselves at the expense both of sovereign and subject; +pleaded boldly their own loyal services, not only in Ireland, but in +the French and Scottish wars; and finally, claimed the protection of +the Great Charter, that they might not be ousted of their estates, +without being called in judgment. Edward, sorely in need of men and +subsidies for another expedition to France, returned them a +conciliatory answer, summoning them to join him in arms, with their +followers, at an early day; and although a vigorous effort was made by +Sir Ralph Ufford to enforce the articles of 1331, and the ordinance of +1341, by the capture of the Earls of Desmond and Kildare, and by +military execution on some of their followers, the policy of +non-intercourse was tacitly abandoned for some years after the +Remonstrance of Kilkenny. In 1353, under the lord deputy, Rokeby, an +attempt was made to revive it, but it was quickly abandoned; and two +years later, Maurice, Earl of Desmond, the leader of the opposition, +was appointed to the office of Lord Justice for life! Unfortunately +that high-spirited nobleman died the year of his appointment, before +its effects could begin to be felt. The only legal concession which +marked his period was a royal writ constituting the "Parliament" of the +Pale the court of last resort for appeals from the decisions of the +King's courts in that province. A recurrence to the former favourite +policy signalized the year 1357, when a new set of ordinances were +received from London, denouncing the penalties of treason against all +who intermarried, or had relations of fosterage with the Irish; and +proclaiming war upon all kernes and idle men found within the English +districts. Still severer measures, in the same direction, were soon +afterwards decided upon, by the English King and his council. + +Before relating the farther history of this penal code as applied to +race, we must recall the reader's attention to the important date of +the Kilkenny Remonstrance, 1342. From that year may be distinctly +traced the growth of two parties among the subjects of the English +Kings in Ireland. At one time they are distinguished as "the old +English" and "the new English," at another, as "English by birth" and +"English by blood." The new English, fresh from the Imperial island, +seem to have usually conducted themselves with a haughty sense of +superiority; the old English, more than half _Hibernicized_, confronted +these strangers with all the self-complacency of natives of the soil on +which they stood. In their frequent visits to the Imperial capital, the +old English were made sensibly to feel that their country was not +there; and as often as they went, they returned with renewed ardour to +the land of their possessions and their birth. Time, also, had thrown +its reverent glory round the names of the first invaders, and to be +descended from the companions of Earl Richard, or the captains who +accompanied King John, was a source of family pride, second only to +that which the native princes cherished, in tracing up their lineage to +Milesius of Spain. There were many reasons, good, bad, and indifferent, +for the descendants of the Norman adventurers adopting Celtic names, +laws, and customs, but not the least potent, perhaps, was the fostering +of family pride and family dependence, which, judged from our present +stand-points, were two of the worst possible preparations for our +national success in modern times. + + + +CHAPTER II. +LIONEL, DUKE OF CLARENCE, LORD LIEUTENANT—THE PENAL CODE OF RACE—"THE +STATUTE OF KILKENNY," AND SOME OF ITS CONSEQUENCES. + +While the grand experiment for the separation of the population of +Ireland into two hostile camps was being matured in England, the Earls +of Kildare and Ormond were, for four or five years, alternately +entrusted with the supreme power. Fresh ordinances, in the spirit of +those despatched to Darcy, in 1342, continued annually to arrive. One +commanded all lieges of the English King, having grants upon the +marches of the Irish enemy, to reside upon and defend them, under pain +of revocation. By another entrusted to the Earl of Ormond for +promulgation, "no mere Irishman" was to be made a Mayor or bailiff, or +other officer of any town within the English districts; nor was any +mere Irishman "thereafter, under any pretence of kindred, or from any +other cause, to be received into holy orders, or advanced to any +ecclesiastical benefice." A modification of this last edict was made +the succeeding year, when a royal writ explained that exception was +intended to be made of such Irish clerks as had given individual proofs +of their loyalty. + +Soon after the peace of Bretigni had been solemnly ratified at Calais, +in 1360, by the Kings of France and England, and the latter had +returned to London, it was reported that one of the Princes would be +sent over to exercise the supreme power at Dublin. As no member of the +royal family had visited Ireland since the reign of John—though Edward +I., when Prince, had been appointed his father's lieutenant—this +announcement naturally excited unusual expectations. The Prince chosen +was the King's third son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence; and every +preparation was made to give _eclat_ and effect to his administration. +This Prince had married, a few years before, Elizabeth de Burgh, who +brought him the titles of Earl of Ulster and Lord of Connaught, with +the claims which they covered. By a proclamation, issued in England, +all who held possessions in Ireland were commanded to appear before the +King, either by proxy or in person, to take measures for resisting the +continued encroachments of the Irish enemy. Among the absentees +compelled to contribute to the expedition accompanying the Prince, are +mentioned Maria, Countess of Norfolk, Agnes, Countess of Pembroke, +Margery de Boos, Anna le Despenser, and other noble ladies, who, by a +strange recurrence, represented in this age the five co-heiresses of +the first Earl Marshal, granddaughters of Eva McMurrogh. What exact +force was equipped from all these contributions is not mentioned; but +the Prince arrived in Ireland with no more than 1,500 men, under the +command of Ralph, Earl of Strafford, James, Earl of Ormond, Sir William +Windsor, Sir John Carew, and other knights. He landed at Dublin on the +15th of September, 1361, and remained in office for three years. On +landing he issued a proclamation, prohibiting natives of the country, +of all origins, from approaching his camp or court, and having made +this hopeful beginning he marched with his troops into Munster, where +he was defeated by O'Brien, and compelled to retreat. Yet by the +flattery of courtiers he was saluted as the conqueror of Clare, and +took from the supposed fact, his title of _Clarence_. But no adulation +could blind him to the real weakness of his position: he keenly felt +the injurious consequences of his proclamation, revoked it, and +endeavoured to remove the impression he had made, by conferring +knighthood on the Prestons, Talbots, Cusacks, De la Hydes, and members +of other families, not immediately connected with the Palatine Earls. +He removed the Exchequer from Dublin to Carlow, and expended 500 +pounds—a large sum for that age—in fortifying the town. The barrier of +Leinster was established at Carlow, from which it was removed, by an +act of the English Parliament ten years afterwards; the town and castle +were retaken in 1397, by the celebrated Art McMurrogh, and long +remained in the hands of his posterity. + +In 1364, Duke Lionel went to England, leaving de Windsor as his deputy, +but in 1365, and again in 1367, he twice returned to his government. +This latter year is memorable as the date of the second great stride +towards the establishment of a Penal Code of race, by the enactment of +the "Statute of Kilkenny." This memorable Statute was drawn with +elaborate care, being intended to serve as the corner stone of all +future legislation, and its provisions are deserving of enumeration. +The Act sets out with this preamble: "Whereas, at the conquest of the +land of Ireland, and for a long time after, the English of the said +land used the English language, mode of riding, and apparel, and were +governed and ruled, both they and their subjects, called Betaghese +(villeins), according to English law, &c., &c.,—but now many English of +the said land, forsaking the English language, manners, mode of riding, +laws, and usages, live, and govern themselves according to the manners, +fashion, and language of the Irish enemies, and also have made divers +marriages and alliances between themselves and the Irish enemies +aforesaid—it is therefore enacted, among other provisions, that all +intermarriages, fosterings, gossipred, and buying or selling with the +'enemie,' shall be accounted treason—that English names, fashions, and +manners shall be resumed under penalty of the confiscation of the +delinquent's lands—that March-law and Brehon-law are illegal, and that +there shall be no law but English law—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 +Irishmen' shall be admitted to any ecclesiastical benefice, or +religious house, situated within the English districts." + +All the names of those who attended at this Parliament of Kilkenny are +not accessible to us; but that the Earls of Kildare, Ormond, and +Desmond, were of the number need hardly surprise us, alarmed as they +all were by the late successes of the native princes, and overawed by +the recent prodigious victories of Edward III. at Cressy and Poictiers. +What does at first seem incomprehensible is that the Archbishop not +only of Dublin, but of Cashel and Tuam—in the heart of the Irish +country—and the Bishops of Leighlin, Ossory, Lismore, Cloyne, and +Killala, should be parties to this statute. But on closer inspection +our surprise at their presence disappears. Most of these prelates were +at that day nominees of the English King, and many of them were English +by birth. Some of them never had possession of their sees, but dwelt +within the nearest strong town, as pensioners on the bounty of the +Crown, while the dioceses were administered by native rivals, or +tolerated vicars. Le Reve, Bishop of Lismore, was Chancellor to the +Duke in 1367; Young, Bishop of Leighlin, was Vice-Treasurer; the Bishop +of Ossory, John of Tatendale, was an English Augustinian, whose +appointment was disputed by Milo Sweetman, the native Bishop elect; the +Bishop of Cloyne, John de Swasham, was a Carmelite of Lyn, in the +county of Norfolk, afterwards Bishop of Bangor, in Wales, where he +distinguished himself in the controversy against Wycliffe; the Bishop +of Killala we only know by the name of Robert—at that time very unusual +among the Irish. The two native names are those of the Archbishops of +Cashel and Tuam, Thomas O'Carrol and John O'Grady. The former was +probably, and the latter certainly, a nominee of the Crown. We know +that Dr. O'Grady died an exile from his see—if he ever was permitted to +enter it—in the city of Limerick, four years after the sitting of the +Parliament of Kilkenny. Shortly after the enactment of this law, by +which he is best remembered, the Duke of Clarence returned to England, +leaving to Gerald, fourth Earl of Desmond, the task of carrying it into +effect. In the remaining years of this reign the office of Lord +Lieutenant was held by Sir William de Windsor, during the intervals of +whose absence in England the Prior of Kilmainham, or the Earl of +Kildare or of Ormond, discharged the duties with the title of Lord +Deputy or Lord Justice. + +It is now time that we should turn to the native annals of the country +to show how the Irish princes had carried on the contest during the +eventful half century which the reign of Edward III. occupies in the +history of England. + +In the generation which elapsed from the death of the Earl of Ulster, +or rather from the first avowal of the policy of proscription in 1342, +the native tribes had on all sides and continuously gained on the +descendants of their invaders. In Connaught, the McWilliams, McWattins, +and McFeoriss retained part of their estates only by becoming as Irish +as the Irish. The lordships of Leyny and Corran, in Sligo and Mayo, +were recovered by the heirs of their former chiefs, while the powerful +family of O'Conor Sligo converted that strong town into a formidable +centre of operations. Rindown, Athlone, Roscommon, and Bunratty, all +frontier posts fortified by the Normans, were in 1342, as we learn from +the Remonstrance of Kilkenny, in the hands of the elder race. + +The war, in all the Provinces, was in many respects a war of posts. +Towards the north Carrickfergus continued the outwork till captured by +Neil O'Neil, when Downpatrick and Dundalk became the northern barriers. +The latter town, which seems to have been strengthened after Bruce's +defeat, was repeatedly attacked by Neil O'Neil, and at last entered +into conditions, by which it procured his protection. At Downpatrick +also, in the year 1375, he gained a signal victory over the English of +the town and their allies, under Sir James Talbot of Malahide, and +Burke of Camline, in which both these commanders were slain. This +O'Neil, called from his many successes Neil _More_, or the Great, dying +in 1397, left the borders of Ulster more effectually cleared of foreign +garrisons than they had been for a century and a half before. He +enriched the churches of Armagh and Derry, and built a habitation for +students resorting to the primatial city, on the site of the ancient +palace of Emania, which had been deserted before the coming of St. +Patrick. + +The northern and western chiefs seem in this age to have made some +improvements in military equipments, and tactics. _Cooey-na-gall_, a +celebrated captain of the O'Kanes, is represented on his tomb at +Dungiven as clad in complete armour—though that may be the fancy of the +sculptor. Scottish gallowglasses—heavy-armed infantry, trained in +Bruce's campaigns, were permanently enlisted in their service. Of their +leaders the most distinguished were McNeil _Cam_, or the Crooked, and +McRory, in the service of O'Conor, and McDonnell, McSorley, and +McSweeney, in the service of O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Conor Sligo. The +leaders of these warlike bands are called the Constables of Tyr-Owen, +of North Connaught, or of Connaught, and are distinguished in all the +warlike encounters in the north and west. + +The midland country—the counties now of Longford, West-Meath, Meath, +Dublin, Kildare, King's and Queen's, were almost constantly in arms, +during the latter half of this century. The lords of Annally, +Moy-Cashel, Carbry, Offally, Ely, and Leix, rivalled each other in +enterprise and endurance. In 1329, McGeoghegan of West-Meath defeated +and slew Lord Thomas Butler, with the loss of 120 men at Mullingar; but +the next year suffered an equal loss from the combined forces of the +Earls of Ormond and Ulster; his neighbour, O'Farrell, contended with +even better fortune, especially towards the close of Edward's reign +(1372), when in one successful foray he not only swept their garrisons +out of Annally, but rendered important assistance to the insurgent +tribes of Meath. In Leinster, the house of O'Moore, under Lysaght their +Chief, by a well concerted conspiracy, seized in one night (in 1327) no +less than eight castles, and razed the fort of Dunamase, which they +despaired of defending. In 1346, under Conal O'Moore, they destroyed +the foreign strongholds of Ley and Kilmehedie; and though Conal was +slain by the English, and Rory, one of their creatures, placed in his +stead, the tribe put Rory to death as a traitor in 1354, and for two +centuries thereafter upheld their independence. Simultaneously, the +O'Conors of Offally, and the O'Carrolls of Ely, adjoining and kindred +tribes, so straightened the Earl of Kildare on the one hand, and the +Earl of Ormond on the other, that a cess of 40 pence on every carucate +(140 acres) of tilled land, and of 40 pence on chattels of the value of +six pounds, was imposed on all the English settlements, for the defence +of Kildare, Carlow, and the marches generally. Out of the amount +collected in Carlow, a portion was paid to the Earl of Kildare, "for +preventing the O'Moores from burning the town of Killahan." The same +nobleman was commanded, by an order in Council, to strengthen his +Castles of Rathmore, Kilkea, and Ballymore, under pain of forfeiture. +These events occurred in 1356, '7, and '8. + +In the south the same struggle for supremacy proceeded with much the +same results. The Earl of Desmond, fresh from his Justiceship in +Dublin, and the penal legislation of Kilkenny, was, in 1370, defeated +and slain near Adare, by Brian O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, with several +knights of his name, and "an indescribable number of others." Limerick +was next assailed, and capitulated to O'Brien, who created Sheedy +McNamara, Warden of the City. The English burghers, however, after the +retirement of O'Brien, rose, murdered the new Warden, and opened the +gates to Sir William de Windsor, the Lord Lieutenant, who had hastened +to their relief. Two years later the whole Anglo-Irish force, under the +fourth Earl of Kildare, was, summoned to Limerick, in order to defend +it against O'Brien. So desperate now became the contest, that William +de Windsor only consented to return a second time as Lord Lieutenant in +1374, on condition that he was to act strictly on the defensive, and to +receive annually the sum of 11,213 pounds 6 shillings 8 pence—a sum +exceeding the whole revenue which the English King derived from Ireland +at that period; which, according to Sir John Davies, fell short of +11,000 pounds. Although such was the critical state of the English +interest, this lieutenant obtained from the fears of successive +Parliaments annual subsidies of 2,000 pounds and 3,000 pounds. The +deputies from Louth having voted against his demand, were thrown into +prison; but a direct petition from the Anglo-Irish to the King brought +an order to de Windsor not to enforce the collection of these grants, +and to remit in favour of the petitioners the scutage "on all those +lands of which the Irish enemy had deprived them." + +In the last year of Edward III. (1376), he summoned the magnates and +the burghers of towns to send representatives to 'London to consult +with him on the state of the English settlements in Ireland. But those +so addressed having assembled together, drew up a protest, setting +forth that the great Council of Ireland had never been accustomed to +meet out of that kingdom, though, saving the rights of their heirs and +successors, they expressed their willingness to do so, for the King's +convenience on that occasion. Richard Dene and William Stapolyn were +first sent over to England to exhibit the evils of the Irish +administration; the proposed general assembly of representatives seems +to have dropped. The King ordered the two delegates just mentioned to +be paid ten pounds out of the Exchequer for their expenses. + +The series of events, however, which most clearly exhibits the decay of +the English interest, transpired within the limits of Leinster, almost +within sight of Dublin. Of the actors in these events, the most +distinguished for energy, ability, and good fortune, was Art McMurrogh, +whose exploits are entitled to a separate and detailed account. + + + +CHAPTER III. +ART McMURROGH, LORD OF LEINSTER—FIRST EXPEDITION OF RICHARD II., OF +ENGLAND, TO IRELAND. + +Whether Donald Kavanagh McMurrogh, son of Dermid, was born out of +wedlock, as the Lady Eva was made to depose, in order to create a claim +of inheritance for herself as sole heiress, this, at least, is certain, +that his descendants continued to be looked upon by the kindred clans +of Leinster as the natural lords of that principality. Towards the +close of the thirteenth century, in the third or fourth generation, +after the death of their immediate ancestor, the Kavanaghs of Leighlin +and Ballyloughlin begin to act prominently in the affairs of their +Province, and their chief is styled both by Irish and English "the +McMurrogh." In the era of King Edward Bruce, they were sufficiently +formidable to call for an expedition of the Lord Justice into their +patrimony, by which they are said to have been defeated. In the next +age, in 1335, Maurice, "the McMurrogh," was granted by the Anglo-Irish +Parliament or Council, the sum of 80 marks annually, for keeping open +certain roads and preserving the peace within its jurisdiction. In +1358, Art, the successor of Maurice, and Donald Revagh, were proclaimed +"rebels" in a Parliament held at Castledermot, by the Lord Deputy +Sancto Amando, the said Art being further branded with deep ingratitude +to Edward III., who had acknowledged him as "the Mac-Murch." To carry +on a war against him the whole English interest was assessed with a +special tax. Louth contributed 20 pounds; Meath and Waterford, 2 +shillings on every carucate (140 acres) of tilled land; Kilkenny the +same sum, with the addition of 6 pence in the pound on chattels. This +Art captured the strong castles of Kilbelle, Galbarstown, Rathville, +and although his career was not one of invariable success, he +bequeathed to his son, also called Art, in 1375, an inheritance, +extending over a large portion—perhaps one-half—of the territory ruled +by his ancestors before the invasion. + +Art McMurrogh, or Art Kavanagh, as he is more commonly called, was born +in the year 1357, and from the age of sixteen and upwards was +distinguished by his hospitality, knowledge, and feats of arms. Like +the great Brian, he was a younger son, but the fortune of war removed +one by one those who would otherwise have preceded him in the captaincy +of his clan and connections. About the year 1375—while he was still +under age—he was elected successor to his father, according to the +Annalists, who record his death in 1417, "after being forty-two years +in the government of Leinster." Fortunately he attained command at a +period favourable to his genius and enterprise. His own and the +adjoining tribes were aroused by tidings of success from other +Provinces, and the partial victories of their immediate predecessors, +to entertain bolder schemes, and they only waited for a chief of +distinguished ability to concentrate their efforts. This chief they +found, where they naturally looked for him, among the old ruling family +of the Province. Nor were the English settlers ignorant of his promise. +In the Parliament held at Castledermot in 1377, they granted to him the +customary annual tribute paid to his house, the nature of which calls +for a word of explanation. This tribute was granted, "as the late King +had done to his ancestors;" it was again voted in a Parliament held in +1380, and continued to be paid so late as the opening of the +seventeenth century (A.D. 1603). Not only was a fixed sum paid out of +the Exchequer for this purpose—inducing the native chiefs to grant a +right of way through their territories—but a direct tax was levied on +the inhabitants of English origin for the same privilege. This tax, +called "black mail," or "black rent," was sometimes differently +regarded by those who paid and those who received it. The former looked +on it as a stipend, the latter as a tribute; but that it implied a +formal acknowledgment of the local jurisdiction of the chief cannot be +doubted. Two centuries after the time of which we speak, Baron Finglas, +in his suggestions to King Henry VIII. for extending his power in +Ireland, recommends that "no black rent be paid to any Irishman _for +the four shires_"—of the Pale—"and any black rent they had afore this +time be paid to them for ever." At that late period "the McMurrogh" had +still his 80 marks annually from the Exchequer, and 40 pounds from the +English settled in Wexford; O'Carroll of Ely had 40 pounds from the +English in Kilkenny, and O'Conor of Offally 20 pounds from those of +Kildare, and 300 pounds from Meath. It was to meet these and other +annuities to more distant chiefs, that William of Windsor, in 1369, +covenanted for a larger revenue than the whole of the Anglo-Irish +districts then yielded, and which led him besides to stipulate that he +was to undertake no new expeditions, but to act entirely on the +defensive. We find a little later, that the necessity of sustaining the +Dublin authorities at an annual loss was one of the main motives which +induced Richard II. of England to transport two royal armies across the +channel, in 1394 and 1399. + +Art McMurrogh, the younger, not only extended the bounds of his own +inheritance and imposed tribute on the English settlers in adjoining +districts, during the first years of his rule, but having married a +noble lady of the "Pale," Elizabeth, heiress to the barony of Norragh, +in Kildare, which included Naas and its neighbourhood, he claimed her +inheritance in full, though forfeited under "the statute of Kilkenny," +according to English notions. So necessary did it seem to the Deputy +and Council of the day to conciliate their formidable neighbour, that +they addressed a special representation to King Richard, setting forth +the facts of the case, and adding that McMurrogh threatened, until this +lady's estates were restored and the arrears of tribute due to him +fully discharged, he should never cease from war, "but would join with +the Earl of Desmond against the Earl of Ormond, and afterwards return +with a great force out of Munster to ravage the country." This allusion +most probably refers to James, second Earl of Ormond, who, from being +the maternal grandson of Edward I., was called the noble Earl, and was +considered in his day the peculiar representative of the English +interest. In the last years of Edward III., and the first of his +successor, he was constable of the Castle of Dublin, with a fee of 18 +pounds 5 shillings per annum. In 1381—the probable date of the address +just quoted—he had a commission to treat with certain rebels, in order +to reform them and promote peace. Three years later he died, and was +buried in the Cathedral of St. Canice, Kilkenny, the place of sepulture +of his family. + +When, in the year 1389, Richard II., having attained his majority, +demanded to reign alone, the condition of the English interest was most +critical. During the twelve years of his minority the Anglo-Irish +policy of the Council of Regency had shifted and changed, according to +the predominance of particular influences. The Lord Lieutenancy was +conferred on the King's relatives, Edward Mortimer, Earl of March +(1379), and continued to his son, Roger Mortimer, a minor (1381); in +1383, it was transferred to Philip de Courtenay, the King's cousin. The +following year, de Courtenay having been arrested and fined for +mal-administration, Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the special +favourite of Richard, was created Marquis of Dublin and Duke of +Ireland, with a grant of all the powers and authority exercised at any +period in Ireland by that King or his predecessors. This extraordinary +grant was solemnly confirmed by the English Parliament, who, perhaps +willing to get rid of the favourite at any cost, allotted the sum of +30,000 marks due from the King of France, with a guard of 500 +men-at-arms and 1,000 archers for de Vere's expedition. But that +favoured nobleman never entered into possession of the principality +assigned him; he experienced the fate of the Gavestons and de Spencers +of a former reign; fleeing, for his life, from the Barons, he died in +exile in the Netherlands. The only real rulers of the Anglo-Irish in +the years of the King's minority, or previous to his first expedition +in 1394, (if we except Sir John Stanley's short terms of office in 1385 +and 1389,) were the Earls of Ormond, second and third, Colton, Dean of +Saint Patrick's, Petit, Bishop of Meath, and White, Prior of +Kilmainham. For thirty years after the death of Edward III., no +Geraldine was entrusted with the highest office, and no Anglo-Irish +layman of any other family but the Butlers. In 1393, Thomas of +Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, uncle to Richard, was appointed Lord +Lieutenant, and was on the point of embarking, when a royal order +reached him announcing the determination of the King to take command of +the forces in person. + +The immediate motives for Richard's expedition are variously stated by +different authors. That usually assigned by the English—a desire to +divert his mind from brooding over the loss of his wife, "the good +Queen Anne," seems wholly insufficient. He had announced his intention +a year before her death; he had called together, before the Queen fell +ill, the Parliament at Westminster, which readily voted him "a tenth" +of the revenues of all their estates for the expedition. Anne's +sickness was sudden, and her death took place in the last week of July. +Richard's preparations at that date were far advanced towards +completion, and Sir Thomas Scroope had been already some months in +Dublin to prepare for his reception. The reason assigned by Anglo-Irish +writers is more plausible: he had been a candidate for the Imperial +Crown of Germany, and was tauntingly told by his competitors to conquer +Ireland before he entered the lists for the highest political honour of +that age. This rebuke, and the ill-success of his arms against France +and Scotland, probably made him desirous to achieve in a new field some +share of that military glory which was always so highly prized by his +family: + +Some events which immediately preceded Richard's expedition may help us +to understand the relative positions of the natives and the naturalized +to the English interest in the districts through which he was to march. +By this time the banner of Art McMurrogh floated over all the castles +and raths, on the slope of the Ridge of Leinster, or the steps of the +Blackstair hills; while the forests along the Barrow and the Upper +Slaney, as well as in the plain of Carlow and in the South-western +angle of Wicklow (now the barony of Shillelagh), served still better +his purposes of defensive warfare; So entirely was the range of country +thus vaguely defined under native sway that John Griffin, the English +Bishop of Leighlin, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, obtained a grant +in 1389 of the town of Gulroestown, in the county of Dublin, "near the +marches of O'Toole, seeing he could not live within his own see for the +rebels." In 1390, Peter Creagh, Bishop of Limerick, on his way to +attend an Anglo-Irish Parliament, was taken prisoner in that region, +and in consequence the usual fine was remitted in his favour. In 1392, +James, the third Earl of Ormond, gave McMurrogh a severe check at +Tiscoffin, near Shankill, where 600 of his clansmen were left dead +among the hills. + +This defeat, however, was thrown into the shade by the capture of New +Ross, on the very eve of Richard's arrival at Waterford. In a previous +chapter we have described the fortifications erected round this +important seaport towards the end of the thirteenth century. Since that +period its progress had been steadily onward. In the reign of Edward +III. the controversy which had long subsisted between the merchants of +Ross and those of Waterford, concerning the trade monopolies claimed by +the latter, had been decided in favour of Ross. At this period it could +muster in its own defence 363 cross-bowmen, 1,200 long-bowmen, 1,200 +pikemen, and 104 horsemen—a force which would seem to place it second +to Dublin in point of military strength. The capture of so important a +place by McMurrogh was a cheering omen to his followers. He razed the +walls and towers, and carried off gold, silver, and hostages. + +On the 2nd of October, 1394, the royal fleet of Richard arrived from +Milford Haven, at Waterford. To those who saw Ireland for the first +time, the rock of Dundonolf, famed for Raymond's camp, the abbey of +Dunbrody, looking calmly down on the confluence of the three rivers, +and the half-Danish, half-Norman port before them, must have presented +scenes full of interest. To the townsmen the fleet was something +wonderful. The endless succession of ships of all sizes and models, +which had wafted over 30,000 archers and 4,000 men-at-arms; the royal +galley leading on the fluttering pennons of so many great nobles, was a +novel sight to that generation. Attendant on the King were his uncle, +the Duke of Gloucester, the young Earl of March, heir apparent, Thomas +Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, the Earl of Rutland, the Lord Thomas +Percy, afterwards Earl of Westmoreland, and father of Hotspur, and Sir +Thomas Moreley, heir to the last Lord Marshal of the "Pale." Several +dignitaries of the English Church, as well Bishops as Abbots, were also +with the fleet. Immediately after landing, a _Te Deum_ was sung in the +Cathedral, where Earl Richard had wedded the Princess Eva, where Henry +II. and John had offered up similar thanksgivings. + +Richard remained a week at Waterford; gave splendid _fetes_, and +received some lords of the neighbouring country, Le Poers, Graces, and +Butlers. He made gifts to churches, and ratified the charter given by +John to the abbey of Holy Cross in Munster. He issued a summons to +Gerald, Earl of Desmond, to appear before him by the feast of the +Purification "in whatever part of Ireland he should then be," to answer +to the charge of having usurped the manor, revenues, and honour of +Dungarvan. Although it was then near the middle of October, he took the +resolution of marching to Dublin, through the country of McMurrogh, and +knowing the memory of Edward the Confessor to be popular in Leinster, +he furled the royal banner, and hoisted that of the saintly Saxon king, +which bore "a cross patence, or, on a field gules, with four doves +argent on the shield." His own proper banner bore lioncels and +fleur-de-lis. His route was by Thomastown to Kilkenny, a city which had +risen into importance with the Butlers. Nearly half a century before, +this family had brought artizans from Flanders, who established the +manufacture of woollens, for which the town was ever after famous. Its +military importance was early felt and long maintained. At this city +Richard was joined by Sir William de Wellesley, who claimed to be +hereditary standard-bearer for Ireland, and by other Anglo-Irish +nobles. From thence he despatched his Earl Marshal into "Catherlough" +to treat with McMurrogh. On the plain of Ballygorry, near Carlow, Art, +with his uncle, Malachy, O'Moore, O'Nolan, O'Byrne, MacDavid, and other +chiefs, met the Earl Marshal. The terms proposed were almost equivalent +to extermination. They were, in effect, that the Leinster chieftains, +under fines of enormous amount, payable into the Apostolic chamber, +should, before the first Sunday of Lent, surrender to the English King +"the full possession of all their lands, tenements, castles, woods, and +forts, which by them and all other of the Kenseologhes, their +companions, men, or adherents, late were occupied within the province +of Leinster." And the condition of this surrender was to be, that they +should have unmolested possession of any and all lands they could +conquer from the King's other Irish enemies elsewhere in the kingdom. +To these hard conditions some of the minor chiefs, overawed by the +immense force brought against them, would, it seems, have submitted, +but Art sternly refused to treat, declaring that if he made terms at +all, it should be with the King and not with the Earl Marshal; and that +instead of yielding his own lands, his wife's patrimony in Kildare +should be restored. This broke up the conference, and Mowbray returned +discomfitted to Kilkenny. + +King Richard, full of indignation, put himself at the head of his army +and advanced against the Leinster clans. But his march was slow and +painful: the season and the forest fought against him; he was unable to +collect by the way sufficient fodder for the horses or provisions for +the men. McMurrogh swept off everything of the nature of food—took +advantage of his knowledge of the country to burst upon the enemy by +night, to entrap them into ambuscades, to separate the cavalry from the +foot, and by many other stratagems to thin their ranks and harass the +stragglers. At length Richard, despairing of dislodging him from his +fastnesses in Idrone, or fighting a way out of them, sent to him +another deputation of "the English and Irish of Leinster," inviting him +to Dublin to a personal interview. This proposal was accepted, and the +English king continued his way to Dublin, probably along the sea coast +by Bray and the white strand, over Killiney and Dunleary. Soon after +his arrival at Dublin, care was taken to repair the highway which ran +by the sea, towards Wicklow and Wexford. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +SUBSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS OF RICHARD II.—LIEUTENANCY AND DEATH OF THE EARL +OF MARCH—SECOND EXPEDITION OF RICHARD AGAINST ART McMURROGH—CHANGE OF +DYNASTY IN ENGLAND. + +At Dublin, Richard prepared to celebrate the festival of Christmas, +with all the splendour of which he was so fond. He had received letters +from his council in England warmly congratulating him on the results of +his "noble voyage" and his successes against "his rebel Make Murgh." +Several lords and chiefs were hospitably entertained by him during the +holidays—but the greater magnates did not yet present themselves—unless +we suppose them to have continued his guests at Dublin, from Christmas +till Easter, which is hardly credible. + +The supplies which he had provided were soon devoured by so vast a +following. His army, however, were paid their wages weekly, and were +well satisfied. But whatever the King or his flatterers might pretend, +the real object of all the mighty preparations made was still in the +distance, and fresh supplies were needed for the projected campaign of +1395. To raise the requisite funds, he determined to send to England +his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. Gloucester carried a letter to the +regent, the Duke of York, countersigned "Lincolne," and dated from +Dublin, "Feb. 1, 1395." The council, consisting of the Earls of Derby, +Arundel, de Ware, Salisbury, Northumberland, and others, was convened, +and they "readily voted a tenth off the clergy, and a fifteenth off the +laity, for the King's supply." This they sent with a document, signed +by them all, exhorting him to a vigorous prosecution of the war, and +the demolition of all forts belonging to "MacMourgh [or] le grand +O'Nel." They also addressed him another letter, complimentary of his +valour and discretion in all things. + +While awaiting supplies from England, Richard made a progress as far +northward as Drogheda, where he took up his abode in the Dominican +Convent of St. Mary Magdalen. On the eve of St. Patrick's Day, O'Neil, +O'Donnell, O'Reilly, O'Hanlon, and MacMahon, visited and exchanged +professions of friendship with him. It is said they made "submission" +to him as their sovereign lord, but until the Indentures, which have +been spoken of, but never published, are exhibited, it will be +impossible to determine what, in their minds and in his, were the exact +relations subsisting between the native Irish princes and the King of +England at that time. O'Neil, and other lords of Ulster, accompanied +him back to Dublin, where they found O'Brien, O'Conor, and McMurrogh, +lately arrived. They were all lodged in a fair mansion, according to +the notion of Master Castide, Froissart's informant, and were under the +care of the Earl of Ormond and Castide himself, both of whom spoke +familiarly the Irish language. + +The glimpse we get through Norman spectacles of the manners and customs +of these chieftains is eminently instructive, both as regards the +observers and the observed. They would have, it seems, very much to the +disedification of the English esquire, "their minstrels and principal +servants sit at the same table and eat from the same dish." The +interpreters employed all their eloquence in vain to dissuade them from +this lewd habit, which they perversely called "a praiseworthy custom," +till at last, to get rid of importunities, they consented to have it +ordered otherwise, during their stay as King Richard's guests. + +On the 24th of March the Cathedral of Christ's Church beheld the four +kings devoutly keeping the vigil preparatory to knighthood. They had +been induced to accept that honour from Richard's hand. They had +apologized at first, saying they were all knighted at the age of seven. +But the ceremony, as performed in the rest of Christendom, was +represented to them as a great and religious custom, which made the +simplest knight the equal of his sovereign, which added new lustre to +the crowned head, and fresh honour to the victorious sword. On the +Feast of the Annunciation they went through the imposing ceremony, +according to the custom obtaining among their entertainers. + +While the native Princes of the four Provinces were thus lodged +together in one house, it was inevitable that plans of co-operation for +the future should be discussed between them. Soon after the Earl of +Ormond, who knew their language, appeared before Richard as the accuser +of McMurrogh, who was, on his statement, committed to close confinement +in the Castle. He was, however, soon after set at liberty, though +O'Moore, O'Byrne, and John O'Mullain were retained in custody, probably +as hostages, for the fulfilment of the terms of his release. By this +time the expected supplies had arrived from England, and the festival +of Easter was happily passed. Before breaking up from his winter +quarters Richard celebrated with great pomp the festival of his +namesake, St. Richard, Bishop of Chichester, and then summoned a +parliament to meet him at Kilkenny on the 12th of the month. The acts +of this parliament have not seen the light; an obscurity which they +share in common with all the documents of this Prince's progress in +Ireland. The same remark was made three centuries ago by the English +chronicler, Grafton, who adds with much simplicity, that as Richard's +voyage into Ireland "was nothing profitable nor honourable to him, +therefore the writers think it scant worth the noting." + +Early in May a deputation, at the head of which was the celebrated +William of Wyckham, arrived from England, invoking the personal +presence of the King to quiet the disturbances caused by the progress +of Lollardism. With this invitation he decided at once to comply, but +first he appointed the youthful Earl of March his lieutenant in +Ireland, and confirmed the ordinance of Edward III., empowering the +chief governor in council to convene parliament by writ, which writ +should be of equal obligation with the King's writ in England. He +ordained that a fine of not less than fifty marks, and not more than +one hundred, should be exacted of every representative of a town or +shire, who, being elected as such, neglected or refused to attend. He +reformed the royal courts, and appointed Walter de Hankerford and +William Sturmey, two Englishmen, "well learned in the law" as judges, +whose annual salaries were to be forty pounds each. Having made these +arrangements, he took an affectionate leave of his heir and cousin, and +sailed for England, whither he was accompanied by most of the great +nobles who had passed over with him to the Irish wars. Little dreamt +they of the fate which impended over many of their heads. Three short +years and Gloucester would die by the assassin's hand, Arundel by the +executioner's axe, and Mowbray, Earl Marshal, the ambassador at +Ballygorry, would pine to death in Italian banishment. Even a greater +change than any of these—a change of dynasty—was soon to come over +England. + +The young Earl of March, now left in the supreme direction of affairs, +so far as we know, had no better title to govern than that he was heir +to the English throne, unless it may have been considered an additional +recommendation that he was sixth in descent from the Lady Eva +McMurrogh. To his English title, he added that of Earl of Ulster and +Lord of Connaught, derived from his mother, the daughter of Lionel, +Duke of Clarence, and those of Lord of Trim and Clare, from other +relations. The counsellors with whom he was surrounded included the +wisest statesmen and most experienced soldiers of "the Pale." Among +them were Almaric, Baron Grace, who, contrary to the statute of +Kilkenny, had married an O'Meagher of Ikerrin, and whose family had +intermarried with the McMurroghs; the third Earl of Ormond, an +indomitable soldier, who had acted as Lord Deputy, in former years of +this reign; Cranley, Archbishop of Dublin, and Roche, the Cistercian +Abbot of St. Mary's, lately created Lord Treasurer of Ireland; Stephen +Bray, Chief Justice; and Gerald, fifth Earl of Kildare. Among his +advisers of English birth were Roger Grey, his successor; the new +Judges Hankerford and Sturmey, and others of less pacific reputation. +With the dignitaries of the Church, and the innumerable priors and +abbots, in and about Dublin, the court of the Heir-Presumptive must +have been a crowded and imposing one for those times, and had its +external prospects been peaceful, much ease and pleasure might have +been enjoyed within its walls. + +In the three years of this administration, the struggle between the +natives, the naturalized, and the English interest knew no cessation in +Leinster. Some form of submission had been wrung from McMurrogh before +his release from Dublin Castle, in the spring of 1395, but this +engagement extorted under duress, from a guest towards whom every rite +of hospitality had been violated, he did not feel bound by after his +enlargement. In the same year an attempt was made to entrap him at a +banquet given in one of the castles of the frontier, but warned by his +bard, he made good his escape "by the strength of his arm, and by +bravery." After this double violation of what among his countrymen, +even of the fiercest tribes, was always held sacred, the privileged +character of a guest, he never again placed himself at the mercy of +prince or peer, but prosecuted the war with unfaltering determination. +In 1396, his neighbour, the chief of Imayle, carried off from an +engagement near Dublin, six score heads of the foreigners: and the next +year—an exploit hardly second in its kind to the taking of Ross—the +strong castle and town of Carlow were captured by McMurrogh himself. In +the campaign of 1398, on the 20th of July, was fought the eventful +battle of Kenlis, or Kells, on the banks of the stream called "the +King's river," in the barony of Kells, and county of Kilkenny. Here +fell the Heir-Presumptive to the English crown, whose premature removal +was one of the causes which contributed to the revolution in England, a +year or two later. The tidings of this event filled "the Pale" with +consternation, and thoroughly aroused the vindictive temper of Richard. +He at once despatched to Dublin his half-brother, Thomas Holland, Earl +of Kent, recently created Duke of Surrey. To this duke he made a gift +of Carlow castle and town, to be held (if taken) by knights' service. +He then, as much, perhaps, to give occupation to the minds of his +people, as to prosecute his old project of subduing Ireland, began to +make preparations for his second expedition thither. Death again +delayed him. John of Ghent, Duke of Lancaster, his uncle, and one of +the most famous soldiers of the time, suddenly sickened, and died. As +Henry, his son, was in banishment, the King, under pretence of +appropriating his vast wealth to the service of the nation, seized it +into his own hands, and despite the warnings of his wisest counsellors +as to the disturbed state of the kingdom, again took up his march for +Milford Haven. + +A French knight, named Creton, had obtained leave with a +brother-in-arms to accompany this expedition, and has left us a very +vivid account of its progress. Quitting Paris they reached London just +as King Richard was about "to cross the sea on account of the injuries +and grievances that his mortal enemies had committed against him in +Ireland, where they had put to death many of his faithful friends." +Wherefore they were further told, "he would take no rest until he had +avenged himself upon MacMore, who called himself most excellent King +and Lord of great Ireland; where he had but little territory of any +kind." + +They at once set out for Milford, where, "waiting for the north wind," +they remained "ten whole days." Here they found King Richard with a +great army, and a corresponding fleet. The clergy were taxed to supply +horses, waggons, and money—the nobles, shires, and towns, their +knights, men-at-arms, and archers—the seaports, from Whitehaven to +Penzance, were obliged, by an order in council, dated February 7th, to +send vessels rated at twenty-five tons and upwards to Milford, by the +octave of Easter. King's letters were issued whenever the usual +ordinances failed, and even the press-gang was resorted to, to raise +the required number of mariners. Minstrels of all kinds crowded to the +camp, enlivening it by their strains, and enriching themselves the +while. The wind coming fair, the vessels "took in their lading of +bread, wine, cows and calves, salt meat and plenty of water," and the +King taking leave of his ladies, they set sail. + +In two days they saw "the tower of Waterford." The condition to which +the people of this English stronghold had been reduced by the war was +pitiable in the extreme. Some were in rags, others girt with ropes, and +their dwellings seemed to the voyagers but huts and holes. They rushed +into the tide up to their waists, for the speedy unloading of the +ships, especially attending to those that bore the supplies of the +army. Little did the proud cavaliers and well-fed yeomen, who then +looked on, imagine, as they pitied the poor wretches of Waterford, that +before many weeks were over, they would themselves be reduced to the +like necessity—even to rushing into the sea to contend for a morsel of +food. + +Six days after his arrival, which was on the 1st of June, King Richard +marched from Waterford "in close order to Kilkenny." He had now the +advantage of long days and warm nights, which in his first expedition +he had not. His forces were rather less than in 1394; some say twenty, +some twenty-four thousand in all. The Earl of Rutland, with a +reinforcement in one hundred ships, was to have followed him, but this +unfaithful courtier did not greatly hasten his preparations to overtake +his master. With the King were the Lord Steward of England, Sir Thomas +Percy; the Duke of Exeter; De Spencer, Earl of Gloucester; the Lord +Henry of Lancaster, afterwards King Henry V.; the son of the late Duke +of Gloucester; the son of the Countess of Salisbury; the Bishop of +Exeter and London; the Abbot of Westminster, and a gallant Welsh +gentleman, afterwards known to fame as Owen Glendower. He dropped the +subterfuge of bearing Edward the Confessor's banner, and advanced his +own standard, which bore leopards and flower de luces. In this order, +"riding boldly," they reached Kilkenny, where Richard remained a +fortnight awaiting news of the Earl of Rutland from Waterford. No news, +however, came. But while he waited, he received intelligence from +Kildare which gratified his thirst for vengeance. Jenico d'Artois, a +Gascon knight of great discretion and valour, who had come over the +preceding year with the Duke of Surrey, marching towards Kilkenny, had +encountered some bands of the Irish in Kildare (bound on a like errand +to their prince), whom he fought and put to flight, leaving two hundred +of them dead upon the field. This Jenico, relishing Irish warfare more +than most foreign soldiers of his age, continued long after to serve in +Ireland—married one of his daughters to Preston, Baron of Naas, and +another to the first Lord Portlester. + +On the 23rd of June, "the very vigil of St. John," a saint to whom the +King was very much devoted, Richard, resolving to delay no longer, left +Kilkenny, and marched directly towards Catherlough. He sent a message +in advance to McMurrogh, "who would neither submit nor obey him in +anyway; but affirmed that he was the rightful King of Ireland, and that +he would never cease from war and the defence of his country until his +death; and said that the wish to deprive him of it by conquest was +unlawful." + +Art McMurrogh, now some years beyond middle age, had with him in arms +"three thousand hardy men," "who did not appear," says our French +knight, "to be much afraid of the English." The cattle and corn, the +women and the helpless, he had removed into the interior of the +fastnesses, while he himself awaited, in Idrone, the approach of the +enemy. + +This district, which lies north and south between the rivers Slaney and +Barrow, is of a diversified and broken soil, watered with several small +streams, and patched with tracts of morass and marsh. It was then half +covered with wood, except in the neighbourhood of Old Leighlin, and a +few other places where villages had grown up around the castles, raths, +and monasteries of earlier days. On reaching the border of the forest, +King Richard ordered all the habitations in sight to be set on fire; +and then "two thousand five hundred of the well affected people," or, +as others say, prisoners, "began to hew a highway into the woods." + +When the first space was cleared, Richard, ever fond of pageantry, +ordered his standard to be planted on the new ground, and pennons and +banners arrayed on every side. Then he sent for the sons of the Dukes +of Gloucester and Lancaster, his cousins, and the son of the Countess +of Salisbury and other bachelors-in-arms, and there knighted them with +all due solemnity. To young Lancaster, he said, "My fair cousin, +henceforth, be preux and valiant, for you have some valiant blood to +conquer." The youth to whom he made this address was little more than a +boy, but tall of his age, and very vigorous. He had been a hard student +at Oxford, and was now as unbridled as a colt new loosed into a meadow. +He was fond of music, and afterwards became illustrious as the Fifth +Henry of English history. Who could have foreseen, when first he put on +his spurs by the wood's side, in Catherlough, that he would one day +inherit the throne of England and make good the pretensions of all his +predecessors to the throne of France? + +Richard's advance was slow and wearisome in the forests of Idrone. His +route was towards the eastern coast. McMurrogh retreated before him, +harassing him dreadfully, carrying off everything fit for food for man +or beast, surprising and slaying his foragers, and filling his camp +nightly with alarm and blood. The English archers got occasional shots +at his men, "so that they did not all escape;" and they in turn often +attacked the rear-guard, "and threw their darts with such force that +they pierced haubergeon and plates through and through." The Leinster +King would risk no open battle so long as he could thus cut off the +enemy in detail. Many brave knights fell, many men-at-arms and archers; +and a deep disrelish for the service began to manifest itself in the +English camp. + +A party of Wexford settlers, however, brought one day to his camp +Malachy McMurrogh, uncle to Art, a timid, treaty-making man. According +to the custom of that century—observed by the defenders of Stirling and +the burgesses of Calais—he submitted with a _wythe_ about his neck, +rendering up a naked sword. His retinue, bareheaded and barefoot, +followed him into the presence of Richard, who received them +graciously. "Friends," said he to them, "as to the evils and wrongs +that you have committed against me, I pardon you on condition that each +of you will swear to be faithful to me for the time to come." Of this +circumstance he made the most, as our guide goes on to tell in these +words: "Then every one readily complied with his demand; and took the +oath. When this was done he sent word to MacMore, who called himself +Lord and King of Ireland, (_that country_,) where he has many a wood +but little cultivated land, that if he would come straightways to him +with a rope about _his_ neck, as his uncle had done, he would admit him +to mercy, and elsewhere give him castles and lands in abundance." The +answer of King Art is thus reported: "MacMore told the King's people he +would do no such thing for all the treasures of the sea or on this +side, (the sea,) but would continue to fight and harass him." + +For eleven days longer Richard continued his route in the direction of +Dublin, McMurrogh and his allies falling back towards the hills and +glens of Wicklow. The English could find nothing by the way but "a few +green oats" for the horses, which being exposed night and day, and so +badly fed, perished in great numbers. The general discontent now made +itself audible even to the ears of the King. For many days five or six +men had but a "single loaf." Even gentlemen, knights and squires, +fasted in succession; and our chivalrous guide, for his part, "would +have been heartily glad to have been penniless at Poitiers or Paris." +Daily deaths made the camp a scene of continued mourning, and all the +minstrels that had come across the sea to amuse their victor +countrymen, like the poet who went with Edward II. to Bannockburn to +celebrate the conquest of the Scots, found their gay imaginings turned +to a sorrowful reverse. + +At last, however, they came in sight of the sea-coast, where vessels +laden with provisions, sent from Dublin, were awaiting them. So eager +were the famished men for food, that "they rushed into the sea as +eagerly as they would into their straw." All their money was poured +into the hands of the merchants; some of them even fought in the water +about a morsel of food, while in their thirst they drank all the wine +they could lay hands on. Our guide saw full a thousand men drunk that +day on "the wine of Ossey and Spain." The scene of this extraordinary +incident is conjectured to have been at or near Arklow, where the beach +is sandy and flat, such as it is not at any point of Wicklow north of +that place. + +The morning after the arrival of these stores, King Richard again set +forward for Dublin, determining to penetrate Wicklow by the valleys +that lead from the Meeting of the Waters to Bray. He had not proceeded +far on his march, when a Franciscan friar reached his camp as +Ambassador from the Leinster King. This unnamed messenger, whose cowl +history cannot raise, expressed the willingness of his lord to treat +with the King, through some accredited agent—"some lord who might be +relied upon"—"so that _their_ anger (Richard's and his own), that had +long been cruel, might now be extinguished." The announcement spread +"great joy" in the English camp. A halt was ordered, and a council +called. After a consultation, it was resolved that de Spencer, Earl of +Gloucester, should be empowered to confer with Art. This nobleman, now +but 26 years of age, had served in the campaign of 1394. He was one of +the most powerful peers of England, and had married Constance, daughter +of the Duke of York, Richard's cousin. From his possessions in Wales, +he probably knew something of the Gaelic customs and speech. He was +captain of the rearguard on this expedition, and now, with 200 lances, +and 1,000 archers, all of whom were chosen men, he set out for the +conference. The French knight also went with him, as he himself relates +in these words: + +"Between two woods, at some distance from the sea, I beheld MacMore and +a body of the Irish, more than I can number, descend the mountain. He +had a horse, without housing or saddle, which was so fine and good, +that it had cost him, they said, four hundred cows; for there is little +money in the country, wherefore their usual traffic is only with +cattle. In coming down, it galloped so hard, that, in my opinion, I +never saw hare, deer, sheep, or any other animal, I declare to you for +a certainty, run with such speed as it did. In his right hand he bore a +great long dart, which he cast with much skill. * * * * His people drew +up in front of the wood. These two (Gloucester and the King), like an +out-post, met near a little brook. There MacMore stopped. He was a fine +large man—wondrously active. To look at him, he seemed very stern and +savage, and an able man. He and the Earl spake of their doings, +recounting the evil and injury that MacMore had done towards the King +at sundry times; and how they all foreswore their fidelity when +wrongfully, without judgment or law, they most mischievously put to +death the courteous Earl of March. Then they exchanged much discourse, +but did not come to agreement; they took short leave, and hastily +parted. Each took his way apart, and the Earl returned towards King +Richard." + +This interview seems to have taken place in the lower vale of Ovoca, +locally called Glen-Art, both from the description of the scenery, and +the stage of his march at which Richard halted. The two woods, the +hills on either hand, the summer-shrunken river, which, to one +accustomed to the Seine and the Thames naturally looked no bigger than +a brook, form a picture, the original of which can only be found in +that locality. The name itself, a name not to be found among the +immediate chiefs of Wicklow, would seem to confirm this hypothesis. + +The Earl on his return declared, "he could find nothing in him, (Art,) +save only that he would ask for _pardon_, truly, upon condition of +having _peace without reserve_, free from any molestation or +imprisonment; otherwise, he will never come to agreement as long as he +lives; and, (he said,) 'nothing venture, nothing have.' This speech," +says the French knight, "was not agreeable to the King; it appeared to +me that his face grew pale with anger; he swore in great wrath by St. +Edward, that, no, never would he depart from Ireland, till, alive or +dead, he had him in his power." + +The King, notwithstanding, was most anxious to reach Dublin. He at once +broke up his camp, and marched on through Wicklow, "for all the +shoutings of the enemie." What other losses he met in those deep +valleys our guide deigns not to tell, but only that they arrived at +last in Dublin "more than 30,000" strong, which includes, of course, +the forces of the Anglo-Irish lords that joined them on the way. There +"the whole of their ills were soon forgotten, and their sorrow +removed." The provost and sheriffs feasted them sumptuously, and they +were all well-housed and clad. After the dangers they had undergone, +these attentions were doubly grateful to them. But for long years the +memory of this doleful march lived in the recollection of the English +on both sides the Irish sea, and but once more for above a century did +a hostile army venture into the fastnesses of Idrone and Hy-Kinsellah. + +When Richard arrived in Dublin, still galled by the memory of his +disasters, he divided his force into three divisions, and sent them out +in quest of McMurrogh, promising to whosoever should bring him to +Dublin, alive or dead, "100 marks, in pure gold." "Every one took care +to remember these words," says Creton, "for it was a good hearing." And +Richard, moreover, declared that if they did not capture him when the +autumn came, and the trees were leafless and dry, he would burn "all +the woods great and small," or find out that troublous rebel. The same +day he sent out his three troops, the Earl of Rutland, his laggard +cousin, arrived at Dublin with 100 barges. His unaccountable delay he +submissively apologized for, and was readily pardoned. "Joy and +delight" now reigned in Dublin. The crown jewels shone at daily +banquets, tournaments, and mysteries. Every day some new pastime was +invented, and thus six weeks passed, and August drew to an end. +Richard's happiness would have been complete had any of his soldiers +brought in McMurrogh's head: but far other news was on the way to him. +Though there was such merriment in Dublin, a long-continued storm swept +the channel. When good weather returned, a barge arrived from Chester, +bearing Sir William Bagot, who brought intelligence that Henry of +Lancaster, the banished Duke, had landed at Ravenspur, and raised a +formidable insurrection amongst the people, winning over the Archbishop +of Canterbury, the Duke of York, and other great nobles. Richard was +struck with dismay. He at once sent the Earl of Salisbury into Wales to +announce his return, and then, taking the evil counsel of Rutland, +marched himself to Waterford, with most part of his force, and +collected the remainder on the way. Eighteen days after the news +arrived he embarked for England, leaving Sir John Stanley as Lord +Lieutenant in Ireland. Before quitting Dublin, he confined the sons of +the Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester, in the strong fortress of Trim, +from which they were liberated to share the triumph of the successful +usurper, Henry IV. + +It is beyond our province to follow the after-fate of the monarch, +whose Irish campaigns we have endeavoured to restore to their relative +importance. His deposition and cruel death, in the prison of +Pontefract, are familiar to readers of English history. The +unsuccessful insurrections suppressed during his rival's reign, and the +glory won by the son of that rival, as Henry V., seem to have +established the house of Lancaster firmly on the throne; but the long +minority of Henry VI.—who inherited the royal dignity at nine months +old—and the factions among the other members of that family, opened +opportunities, too tempting to be resisted, to the rival dynasty of +York. During the first sixty years of the century on which we are next +to enter, we shall find the English interest in Ireland controlled by +the house of Lancaster; in the succeeding twenty-five years the +partizans of the house of York are in the ascendant; until at length, +after the victory of Bosworth field (A.D. 1485), the wars of the roses +are terminated by the coronation of the Earl of Richmond as Henry VII., +and his politic marriage with the Princess Elizabeth—the representative +of the Yorkist dynasty. It will be seen how these rival houses had +their respective factions among the Anglo-Irish; how these factions +retarded two centuries the establishment of English power in Ireland; +how the native lords and chiefs took advantage of the disunion among +the foreigners to circumscribe more and more the narrow limits of the +Pale; and lastly, how the absence of national unity alone preserved the +power so reduced from utter extinction. In considering all these far +extending consequences of the deposition of Richard II., and the +substitution of Henry of Lancaster in his stead, we must give due +weight to his unsuccessful Irish wars as proximate causes of that +revolution. The death of the Heir-Presumptive in the battle of Kells; +the exactions and ill-success of Richard in his wars; the seizure of +John of Ghent's estates and treasures; the absence of the sovereign at +the critical moment: all these are causes which operated powerfully to +that end. And of these all that relate to Irish affairs were mainly +brought about by the heroic constancy, in the face of enormous odds, +the unwearied energy, and high military skill exhibited by one man—Art +McMurrogh. + + + +CHAPTER V. +PARTIES WITHIN "THE PALE"—BATTLES OF KILMAINHAM AND KILLUCAN—SIR JOHN +TALBOT'S LORD LIEUTENANCY. + +One leading fact, which we have to follow in all its consequences +through the whole of the fifteenth century, is the division of the +English and of the Anglo-Irish interest into two parties, Lancasterians +and Yorkists. This division of the foreign power will be found to have +produced a corresponding sense of security in the minds of the native +population, and thus deprived them of that next best thing to a united +national action, the combining effects of a common external danger. + +The new party lines were not drawn immediately upon the English +revolution of 1399, but a very few years sufficed to infuse among +settlers of English birth or descent the partizan passions which +distracted the minds of men in their original country. The third Earl +of Ormond, although he had received so many favours from the late King +and his grandfather, yet by a common descent of five generations from +Edward I., stood in relation of cousinship to the Usurper. On the +arrival of the young Duke of Lancaster as Lord Lieutenant, in 1402, +Ormond became one of his first courtiers, and dying soon after, he +chose the Duke guardian to his heir, afterwards the fourth Earl. This +heir, while yet a minor (1407), was elected or appointed deputy to his +guardian, the Lord Lieutenant; during almost the whole of the short +reign of Henry V. (1413-1421) he resided at the English Court, or +accompanied the King in his French campaigns, thus laying the +foundations of that influence which, six several times during the reign +of Henry VI., procured his appointment to office as Lord Deputy, Lord +Justice, or Lord Lieutenant. At length, in the mid-year of the century, +his successor was created Earl of Wiltshire, and entrusted with the +important duties of one of the Commissioners for the fleet, and Lord +Treasurer of England; favours and employments which sufficiently +account for how the Ormond family became the leaders of the Lancaster +party among the Anglo-Irish. + +The bestowal of the first place on another house tended to estrange the +Geraldines, who, with some reason, regarded themselves as better +entitled to such honours. During the first official term of the Duke of +Lancaster, no great feeling was exhibited, and on his departure in +1405, the fifth Earl of Kildare was, for a year, entrusted with the +office of Deputy. On the return of the Duke, in August, 1408, the Earl +rode out to meet him, but was suddenly arrested with three other +members of his family, and imprisoned in the Castle, His house in +Dublin was plundered by the servants of the Lord Lieutenant, and the +sum of 300 marks was exacted for his ransom. Such injustice and +indignity, as well as the subsequent arrest of the sixth Earl, in 1418, +"for having communicated with the Prior of Kilmainham"—still more than +their rivalry with the Ormonds, drove the Kildare family into the ranks +of the adherents of the Dukes of York. We shall see in the sequel the +important reacting influence of these Anglo-Irish combinations upon the +fortunes of the white rose and the red. + +To signalize his accession and remove the reproach of inaction which +had been so often urged against his predecessor, Henry IV, was no +sooner seated on the throne than he summoned the military tenants of +the Crown to meet him in arms upon the Tyne, for the invasion of +Scotland. It seems probable that he summoned those of Ireland with the +rest, as we find in that year (1400) that an Anglo-Irish fleet, +proceeding northwards from Dublin, encountered a Scottish, fleet in +Strangford Lough, where a fierce engagement was fought, both sides +claiming the victory. Three years later the Dubliners landed at Saint +Ninians, and behaved valiantly, as their train bands did the same +summer against the mountain tribes of Wicklow. Notwithstanding the +personal sojourn of the unfortunate Richard, and his lavish expenditure +among them, these warlike burghers cordially supported the new dynasty. +Some privileges of trade were judiciously extended to them, and, in +1407, Henry granted to the Mayors of the city the privilege of having a +gilded sword carried before them, in the same manner as the Mayors of +London. + +At the period when these politic favours were bestowed on the citizens +of Dublin, Henry was contending with a formidable insurrection in +Wales, under the leadership of Owen Glendower, who had learned in the +fastnesses of Idrone, serving under King Richard, how brave men, though +not formed to war in the best schools, can defend their country against +invasion. In the struggle which he maintained so gallantly during this +and the next reign, though the fleet of Dublin at first assisted his +enemies, he was materially aided afterwards by the constant occupation +furnished them by the clans of Leinster. The early years of the +Lancasterian dynasty were marked by a series of almost invariable +defeats in the Leinster counties. Art McMurrogh, whose activity defied +the chilling effects of age, poured his cohorts through Sculloge gap, +on the garrisons of Wexford, taking in rapid possession in one campaign +(1406) the castles of Camolin, Ferns, and Enniscorthy. Returning +northward he retook Castledermot, and inflicted chastisement on the +warlike Abbot of Conal, near Naas, who shortly before attacked some +Irish forces on the Curragh of Kildare, slaying two hundred men. +Castledermot was retaken by the Lord Deputy Scrope the next year, with +the aid of the Earls of Ormond and Desmond, and the Prior of +Kilmainham, at the head of his Knights. These allies were fresh from a +Parliament in Dublin, where the Statute of Kilkenny had been, according +to custom, solemnly re-enacted as the only hope of the English +interest, and they naturally drew the sword in maintenance of their +palladium. Within six miles of Callan, in "McMurrogh's country," they +encountered that chieftain and his clansmen. In the early part of the +day the Irish are stated to have had the advantage, but some Methian +captains coming up in the afternoon turned the tide in favour of the +English. According to the chronicles of the Pale, they won a second +victory before nightfall at the town of Callan, over O'Carroll of Ely, +who was marching to the aid of McMurrogh. But so confused and +unsatisfactory are the accounts of this twofold engagement on the same +day, in which the Deputy in person, and such important persons as the +Earls of Desmond, of Ormond, and the Prior of Kilmainham commanded, +that we cannot reconcile it with probability. The Irish Annals simply +record the fact that a battle was gained at Callan over the Irish of +Munster, in which O'Carroll was slain. Other native authorities add +that 800 of his followers fell with O'Carroll, but no mention whatever +is made of the battle with McMurrogh. The English accounts gravely add, +that the evening sun stood still, while the Lord Deputy rode six miles, +from the place of the first engagement to that of the second. This was +the last campaign of Sir Stephen Scrope; he died soon after by the +pestilence which swept over the island, sparing neither rich nor poor. + +The Duke of Lancaster resumed the Lieutenancy, arrested the Earl of +Kildare as before related, convoked a Parliament at Dublin, and with +all the forces he could muster, determined on an expedition southwards. +But McMurrogh and the mountaineers of Wicklow now felt themselves +strong enough to take the initiative. They crossed the plain which lies +to the north of Dublin, and encamped at Kilmainham, where Roderick when +he besieged the city, and Brien before the battle of Clontarf, had +pitched their tents of old. The English and Anglo-Irish forces, under +the eye of their Prince, marched out to dislodge them, in four +divisions. The first was led by the Duke in person; the second by the +veteran knight, Jenico d'Artois, the third by Sir Edward Perrers, an +English knight, and the fourth by Sir Thomas Butler, Prior of the Order +of Saint John, afterwards created by Henry V., for his distinguished +service, Earl of Kilmain. With McMurrogh were O'Byrne, O'Nolan, and +other chiefs, besides his sons, nephews, and relatives. The numbers on +each side could hardly fall short of ten thousand men, and the action +may be fairly considered one of the most decisive of those times. The +Duke was carried back wounded into Dublin; the slopes of Inchicore and +the valley of the Liffey were strewn with the dying and the dead; the +river at that point obtained from the Leinster Irish the name of +_Athcroe_, or the ford of slaughter; the widowed city was filled with +lamentation and dismay. In a petition addressed to King Henry by the +Council, apparently during his son's confinement from the effects of +his wound, they thus describe the Lord Lieutenant's condition: "His +soldiers have deserted him; the people of his household are on the +point of leaving him; and though they were willing to remain, our lord +is not able to keep them together; our said lord, your son, is so +destitute of money, that he hath not a penny in the world, nor a penny +can he get credit for." + +One consequence of this battle of Kilmainham was, that while Art +McMurrogh lived, no further attacks were made upon his kindred or +country. He died at Ross, on the first day of January, 1417, in the +60th year of his age. His Brehon, O'Doran, having also died suddenly on +the same day, it was supposed they were both poisoned by a drink +prepared for them by a woman of the town. "He was," say our impartial +_Four Masters_, who seldom speak so warmly of any Leinster Prince, "a +man distinguished for his hospitality, knowledge, and feats of arms; a +man full of prosperity and royalty; a founder of churches and +monasteries by his bounty and contributions," and one who had defended +his Province from the age of sixteen to sixty. + +On his recovery from the effects of his wound, the Duke of Lancaster +returned finally to England, appointing Prior Butler his Deputy, who +filled that office for five consecutive years. Butler was an +illegitimate son of the late Earl of Ormond, and naturally a +Lancasterian: among the Irish he was called Thomas _Baccagh_, on +account of his lameness. He at once abandoned South Leinster as a field +of operations, and directed all his efforts to maintain the Pale in +Kildare, Meath, and Louth. His chief antagonist in this line of action +was Murrogh or Maurice O'Conor, of Offally. This powerful chief had +lost two or three sons, but had gamed as many battles over former +deputies. He was invariably aided by his connexions and neighbours, the +MacGeoghegans of West-Heath. Conjointly they captured the castles and +plundered the towns of their enemies, holding their prisoners to ransom +or carrying off their flocks. In 1411 O'Conor held to ransom the +English Sheriff of Meath, and somewhat later defeated Prior Butler in a +pitched battle. His greatest victory was the battle of Killucan, fought +on the 10th day of May, 1414. In this engagement MacGeoghegan was, as +usual, his comrade. All the power of the English Pale was arrayed +against them. Sir Thomas Mereward, Baron of Screen, "and a great many +officers and common soldiers were slain," and among the prisoners were +Christopher Fleming, son of the Baron of Slane, for whom a ransom of +1,400 marks was paid, and the ubiquitous Sir Jenico d'Artois, who, with +some others, paid "twelve hundred marks, beside a reward and fine for +intercession." A Parliament which sat at Dublin for thirteen weeks, in +1413, and a foray into Wicklow, complete the notable acts of Thomas +_Baccagh's_ viceroyalty. Soon after the accession of Henry V. (1413), +he was summoned to accompany that warlike monarch into France, and for +a short interval the government was exercised by Sir John Stanley, who +died shortly after his arrival, and by the Archbishop of Dublin, as +Commissioner. On the eve of St. Martin's Day, 1414, Sir John Talbot, +afterwards so celebrated as first Earl of Shrewsbury, landed at Dalkey, +with the title of Lord Lieutenant. + +The appointment of this celebrated Captain, on the brink of a war with +France, was an admission of the desperate strait to which the English +interest had been reduced. And if the end could ever justify the means, +Henry V., from his point of view, might have defended on that ground +the appointment of this inexorable soldier. Adopting the system of Sir +Thomas Butler, Talbot paid little or no attention to South Leinster, +but aimed in the first place to preserve to his sovereign, Louth and +Meath. His most southern point of operation, in his first Lieutenancy, +was Leix, but his continuous efforts were directed against the O'Conors +of Offally and the O'Hanlons and McMahons of Oriel. For three +succeeding years he made circuits through these tribes, generally by +the same route, west and north, plundering chiefs and churches, sparing +"neither saint nor sanctuary." On his return to Dublin after these +forays, he exacted with a high hand whatever he wanted for his +household. When he returned to England, 1419, he carried along with +him, according to the chronicles of the Pale—"the curses of many, +because he, being run much in debt for victuals, and divers other +things, would pay little or nothing at all." Among the natives he left +a still worse reputation. The plunder of a bard was regarded by them as +worse, if possible, than the spoliation of a sanctuary. One of Talbot's +immediate predecessors was reputed to have died of the malediction of a +bard of West-Meath, whose property he had appropriated; but as if to +show his contempt of such superstition, Talbot suffered no son of song +to escape him. Their satires fell powerless on his path. Not only did +he enrich himself, by means lawful and unlawful, but he created +interest, which, a few years afterwards, was able to checkmate the +Desmonds and Ormonds. The see of Dublin falling vacant during his +administration, he procured the appointment of his brother Richard as +Archbishop, and left him, at his departure, in temporary possession of +the office of Lord Deputy. Branches of his family were planted at +Malahide, Belgarde, and Talbotstown, in Wicklow, the representatives of +which survive till this day. + +One of this Lieutenant's most acceptable offices to the State was the +result of stratagem rather than of arms. The celebrated Art McMurrogh +was succeeded, in 1417, by his son, Donogh, who seems to have inherited +his valour, without his prudence. In 1419, in common with the O'Conor +of Offally, his father's friend, he was entrapped into the custody of +Talbot. O'Conor, the night of his capture, escaped with his companions, +and kept up the war until his death: McMurrogh was carried to London +and confined in the Tower. Here he languished for nine weary years. At +length, in 1428, Talbot, having "got license to make the best of him," +held him to ransom. The people of his own province released him, "which +was joyful news to the Irish." + +But neither the aggrandizement of new nor the depression of old +families effected any cardinal change in the direction of events. We +have traced for half a century, and are still farther to follow out, +the natural consequences of the odious _Statute of Kilkenny_. Although +every successive Parliament of the Pale recited and re-enacted that +statute, every year saw it dispensed in particular cases, both as to +trading, intermarriage, and fostering with the natives. Yet the virus +of national proscription outlived all the experience of its futility. +In 1417, an English petition was presented to the English Parliament, +praying that the law, excluding Irish ecclesiastics from Irish +benefices, should be strictly enforced; and the same year they +prohibited the influx of fugitives from Ireland, while the Pale +Parliament passed a corresponding act against allowing any one to +emigrate without special license. At a Parliament held at Dublin in +1421, O'Hedian, Archbishop of Cashel, was impeached by Gese, Bishop of +Waterford, the main charges being that he loved none of the English +nation; that he presented no Englishman to a living; and that he +designed to make himself King of Munster. This zealous assembly also +adopted a petition of grievances to the King, praying that as the +Irish, who had done homage to King Richard, "had long since taken arms +against the government notwithstanding their recognizances payable in +the Apostolic chamber, his Highness the King would lay their conduct +before the Pope, and prevail on the Holy Father to publish _a crusade +against them_, to follow up the intention of his predecessor's grant to +Henry II.!" + +In the temporal order, as we have seen, the policy of hatred brought +its own punishment. "The Pale," which may be said to date from the +passing of the _Statute of Kilkenny_ (1367), was already abridged more +than one-half. The Parliament of Kilkenny had defined it as embracing +"Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Catherlough, Kilkenny, Wexford, +Waterford, and Tipperary," each governed by Seneschals or Sheriffs. In +1422 Dunlavan and Ballymore are mentioned as the chief keys of Dublin +and Kildare—and in the succeeding reign Callan in Oriel is set down as +the chief key of that part. Dikes to keep out the enemy were made from +Tallaght to Tassagard, at Rathconnell in Meath, and at other places in +Meath and Kildare. These narrower limits it long retained, and the +usual phrase in all future legislation by which the assemblies of the +Anglo-Irish define their jurisdiction is "the four shires." So +completely was this enclosure isolated from the rest of the country +that, in the reign at which we have now arrived, both the Earls of +Desmond and Ormond were exempted from attending certain sittings of +Parliament, and the Privy Council, on the ground that they could not do +so without marching through the enemy's country at great risk and +inconvenience. It is true occasional successes attended the military +enterprises of the Anglo-Irish, even in these days of their lowest +fortunes. But they had chosen to adopt a narrow, bigoted, unsocial +policy; a policy of exclusive dealing and perpetual estrangement from +their neighbours dwelling on the same soil, and they had their reward. +Their borders were narrowed upon them; they were penned up in one +corner of the kingdom, out of which they could not venture a league +without license and protection, from the free clansmen they insincerely +affected to despise. + + + +CHAPTER I. +ACTS OF THE NATIVE PRINCES—SUBDIVISION OF TRIBES AND +TERRITORIES—ANGLO-IRISH TOWNS UNDER NATIVE PROTECTION—ATTEMPT OF +THADDEUS O'BRIEN, PRINCE OF THOMOND, TO RESTORE THE MONARCHY—RELATIONS +OF THE RACES IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. + +The history of "the Pale" being recounted down to the period of its +complete isolation, we have now to pass beyond its entrenched and +castellated limits, in order to follow the course of events in other +parts of the kingdom. + +While the highest courage was everywhere exhibited by chiefs and +clansmen, no attempt was made to bring about another National +Confederacy, after the fall of Edward Bruce. One result of that +striking _denouement_ of a stormy career—in addition to those before +mentioned—was to give new life to the jealousy which had never wholly +subsided, between the two primitive divisions of the Island. Bruce, +welcomed, sustained, and lamented by the Northern Irish, was +distrusted, avoided, and execrated by those of the South. There may +have been exceptions, but this was the rule. The Bards and Newsmen of +subsequent times, according to their Provincial bias, charged the +failure of Bruce upon the Eugenian race, or justified his fate by +aspersing his memory and his adherents of the race of Conn. This +feeling of irritation, always most deep-seated when driven in by a +consciousness of mismanagement or of self-reproach, goes a great way to +account for the fact, that more than one generation was to pass away, +before any closer union could be brought about between the Northern and +Southern Milesian Irish. + +We cannot, therefore, in the period embraced in our present book, treat +the Provinces otherwise than as estranged communities, departing +farther and farther from the ancient traditions of one central +legislative council and one supreme elective chief. Special, +short-lived alliances between lords of different Provinces are indeed +frequent; but they were brought about mostly by ties of relationship or +gossipred, and dissolved with the disappearance of the immediate +danger. The very idea of national unity, once so cherished by all the +children of _Miledh Espaigne_, seems to have been as wholly lost as any +of those secrets of ancient handiwork, over which modern ingenuity +puzzles itself in vain. In the times to which we have descended, it was +every principality and every lordship for itself. As was said of old in +Rome, "Antony had his party, Octavius had his party, but the +Commonwealth had none." + +Not alone was the greater unity wholly forgotten, but no sooner were +the descendants of the Anglo-Normans driven into their eastern +enclosure, or thoroughly amalgamated in language, laws and costume with +themselves, than the ties of particular clans began to loose their +binding force, and the tendency to subdivide showed itself on every +opportunity. We have already, in the book of the "War of Succession," +described the subdivisions of Breffni and of Meath as measures of +policy, taken by the O'Conor Kings, to weaken their too powerful +suffragans. But that step, which might have strengthened the hands of a +native dynasty, almost inevitably weakened the tribes themselves in +combating the attacks of a highly organized foreign power. Of this the +O'Conors themselves became afterwards the most striking example. For +half a century following the Red Earl's death, they had gained steadily +on the foreigners settled in Connaught. The terrible defeat of Athenry +was more than atoned for by both other victories. At length the +descendants of the vanquished on that day ruled as proudly as ever did +their ancestors in their native Province. The posterity of the victors +were merely tolerated on its soil, or anxiously building up new houses +in Meath and Louth. But in an evil hour, on the death of their last +King (1384), the O'Conors agreed to settle the conflicting claims of +rival candidates for the succession by dividing the common inheritance. +From this date downwards we have an O'Conor Don and an O'Conor Roe in +the Annals of that Province, each rallying a separate band of +partizans; and according to the accidents of age, minority, alliance, +or personal reputation, infringing, harassing, or domineering over the +other. Powerful lords they long continued, but as Provincial Princes we +meet them no more. + +This fatal example—of which there had been a faint foreshadowing in the +division of the McCarthys in the preceding century—in the course of a +generation or two, was copied by almost every great connection, north +and south. The descendants of yellow Hugh O'Neil in Clandeboy claimed +exemption from the supremacy of the elder family in Tyrone; the +O'Farells, acknowledged two lords of Annally; the McDonoghs, two lords +of Tirerril; there was McDermott of the Wood claiming independence of +McDermott of the Rock; O'Brien of Ara asserted equality with O'Brien of +Thomond; the nephews of Art McMurrogh contested the superiority of his +sons; and thus slowly but surely the most powerful clans were hastening +the day of their own dissolution. + +A consequence of these subdivisions was the necessity which arose for +new and opposite alliances, among those who had formerly looked on +themselves as members of one family, with common dangers and common +enemies. The pivot of policy now rested on neighbourhood rather than on +pedigree; a change in its first stages apparently unnatural and +deplorable, but in the long run not without its compensating +advantages. As an instance of these new necessities, we may adduce the +protection and succour steadily extended by the O'Neils of Clandeboy, +to the McQuillans, Bissets, of the Antrim coast, and the McDonnells of +the Glens, against the frequent attacks of the O'Neils of Tyrone. The +latter laid claim to all Ulster, and long refused to acknowledge these +foreigners, though men of kindred race and speech. Had it not been that +the interest of Clandeboy pointed the other way, it is very doubtful if +either the Welsh or Scottish settlers by the bays of Antrim could have +made a successful stand against the overruling power of the house of +Dungannon. The same policy, adopted by native chiefs under similar +circumstances, protected the minor groups of settlers of foreign origin +in the most remote districts—like the Barretts and other Welsh people +of Tyrawley—long after the Deputies of the Kings of England had ceased +to consider them as fellow-subjects, or to be concerned for their +existence. + +In like manner the detached towns, built by foreigners, of Welsh, +Flemish, Saxon, or Scottish origin, were now taken "under the +protection" of the neighbouring chief, or Prince, and paid to him or to +his bailiff an annual tax for such protection. In this manner Wexford +purchased protection of McMurrogh, Limerick from O'Brien, and Dundalk +from O'Neil. But the yoke was not always borne with patience, nor did +the bare relation of tax-gatherer and tax-payer generate any very +cordial feeling between the parties. Emboldened by the arrival of a +powerful Deputy, or a considerable accession to the Colony, or taking +advantage of contested elections for the chieftaincy among their +protectors, these sturdy communities sometimes sought by force to get +rid of their native masters. Yet in no case at this period were such +town risings ultimately successful. The appearance of a menacing force, +and the threat of the torch, soon brought the refractory burgesses to +terms. On such an occasion (1444) Dundalk paid Owen O'Neil the sum of +60 marks and two tuns of wine to avert his indignation. On another, the +townsmen of Limerick agreed about the same period to pay annually for +ever to O'Brien the sum of 60 marks. Notwithstanding the precarious +tenure of their existence, they all continued jealously to guard their +exclusive privileges. In the oath of office taken by the Mayor of +Dublin (1388) he is sworn to guard the city's franchises, so that no +Irish rebel shall intrude upon the limits. Nicholas O'Grady, Abbot of a +Monastery in Clare, is mentioned in 1485 as "the twelfth Irishman that +ever possessed the freedom of the city of Limerick" up to that time. A +special bye-law, at a still later period, was necessary to admit +Colonel William O'Shaughnessy, of one of the first families in that +county, to the freedom of the Corporation of the town of Galway. +Exclusiveness on the one side, and arbitrary taxation on the other, +were ill means of ensuring the prosperity of these new trading +communities; Freedom and Peace have ever been as essential to commerce +as the winds and waves are to navigation. + +The dissolution and reorganization of the greater clans necessarily +included the removal of old, and the formation of new boundaries, and +these changes frequently led to border battles between the contestants. +The most striking illustration of the struggles of this description, +which occurs in our Annals in the fifteenth century, is that which was +waged for three generations between a branch of the O'Conors +established at Sligo, calling themselves "lords of Lower Connaught," +and the O'Donnells of Donegal. The country about Sligo had anciently +been subject to the Donegal chiefs, but the new masters of Sligo, after +the era of Edward Bruce, not only refused any longer to pay tribute, +but endeavoured by the strong hand to extend their sway to the banks of +the Drowse and the Erne. The pride not less than the power of the +O'Donnells was interested in resisting this innovation, for, in the +midst of the debateable land rose the famous mountain of Ben Gulban +(now Benbulben), which bore the name of the first father of their +tribe. The contest was, therefore, bequeathed from father to son, but +the family of Sligo, under the lead of their vigorous chiefs, and with +the advantage of actual possession, prevailed in establishing the +exemption of their territory from the ancient tribute. The Drowse, +which carries the surplus waters of the beautiful Lough Melvin into the +bay of Donegal, finally became the boundary between Lower Connaught and +Tyrconnell. + +We have already alluded to the loss of the arts of political +combination among the Irish in the Middle Ages. This loss was +occasionally felt by the superior minds both in church and state. It +was felt by Donald More O'Brien and those who went with him into the +house of Conor Moinmoy O'Conor, in 1188; it was felt by the nobles who, +at Cael-uisge, elected Brian O'Neil in 1258; it was felt by the twelve +reguli who, in 1315, invited Edward Bruce, "a man of kindred blood," to +rule over them; it was imputed as a crime to Art McMurrogh in 1397, +that he designed to claim the general sovereignty; and now in this +century, Thaddeus O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, with the aid of the Irish +of the southern half-kingdom, began (to use the phrase of the last +Antiquary of Lecan) "working his way to Tara." This Prince united all +the tribes of Munster in his favour, and needing, according to ancient +usage, the suffrages of two other Provinces to ensure his election, he +crossed the Shannon in the summer of 1466 at the head of the largest +army which had followed any of his ancestors since the days of King +Brian. He renewed his protection to the town of Limerick, entered into +an alliance with the Earl of Desmond—which alliance seems to have cost +Desmond his head—received in his camp the hostages of Ormond and +Ossory, and gave gifts to the lords of Leinster. Simultaneously, +O'Conor of Offally had achieved a great success over the Palesmen, +taking prisoner the Earl of Desmond, the Prior of Trim, the Lords +Barnwall, Plunkett, Nugent, and other Methian magnates—a circumstance +which also seems to have some connection with the fate of Desmond and +Plunkett, who were the next year tried for treason and executed at +Drogheda, by order of the Earl of Worcester, then Deputy. The usual +Anglo-Irish tales, as to the causes of Desmond's losing the favour of +Edward IV., seem very like after-inventions. It is much more natural to +attribute that sudden change to some connection with the attempt of +O'Brien the previous year—since this only makes intelligible the +accusation against him of "_alliance_, fosterage, and alterage with the +King's Irish enemies." + +From Leinster O'Brien recrossed the Shannon, and overran the country of +the Clan-William Burke. But the ancient jealousy of Leath-Conn would +not permit its proud chiefs to render hostage or homage to a Munster +Prince, of no higher rank than themselves. Disappointed in his hopes of +that union which could alone restore the monarchy in the person of a +native ruler, the descendant of Brian returned to Kinkora, where he +shortly afterwards fell ill of fever and died. "It was commonly +reported," says the Antiquary of Lecan, "that the multitudes' envious +eyes and hearts shortened his days." + +The naturalized Norman noble spoke the language of the Gael, and +retained his Brehons and Bards like his Milesian compeer. For +generations the daughters of the elder race had been the mothers of his +house; and the milk of Irish foster-mothers had nourished the infancy +of its heirs. The Geraldines, the McWilliams, even the Butlers, among +their tenants and soldiers, were now as Irish as the Irish. Whether +allies or enemies, rivals or as relatives, they stood as near to their +neighbours of Celtic origin as they did to the descendants of those who +first landed at Bannow and at Waterford. The "Statute of Kilkenny" had +proclaimed the eternal separation of the races, but up to this period +it had failed, and the men of both origins were left free to develop +whatever characteristics were most natural to them. What we mean by +being left free is, that there was no general or long-sustained +combination of one race for the suppression of the other from the +period of Richard the Second's last reverses (A.D. 1399) till the +period of the Reformation. Native Irish life, therefore, throughout the +whole of the fifteenth, and during the first half of the sixteenth +century, was as free to shape and direct itself, to ends of its own +choosing, as it had been at almost any former period in our history. +Private wars and hereditary blood-feuds, next after the loss of +national unity, were the worst vices of the nation. Deeds of violence +and acts of retaliation were as common as the succession of day and +night. Every free clansman carried his battle-axe to church and chase, +to festival and fairgreen. The strong arm was prompt to obey the fiery +impulse, and it must be admitted in solemn sadness, that almost every +page of our records at this period is stained with human blood. But +though crimes of violence are common, crimes of treachery are rare. The +memory of a McMahon, who betrayed and slew his guest, is execrated by +the same stoical scribes, who set down, without a single expression of +horror, the open murder of chief after chief. Taking off by poison, so +common among their cotemporaries, seems to have been altogether +unknown, and the cruelties of the State Prisons of the Middle Ages +undreamt of by our fierce, impetuous, but not implacable ancestors. The +facts which go to affix the imputation of cruelty on those ages are, +the frequent entries which we find of deposed chiefs, or conspicuous +criminals, having their eyes put out, or being maimed in their members. +By these barbarous punishments they lost caste, if not life; but that +indeed must have been a wretched remnant of existence which remained to +the blinded lover, or the maimed warrior, or the crippled tiller of the +soil. Of the social and religious relations existing between the races, +we shall have occasion to speak more fully before closing the present +book. + + + +CHAPTER VII. +CONTINUED DIVISION AND DECLINE OF "THE ENGLISH INTEREST"—RICHARD, DUKE +OF YORK, LORD LIEUTENANT—CIVIL WAR AGAIN IN ENGLAND—EXECUTION OF THE +EARL OF DESMOND—ASCENDANCY OF THE KILDARE GERALDINES. + +We have already described the limits to which "the Pale" was +circumscribed at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The fortunes +of that inconsiderable settlement during the following century hardly +rise to the level of historical importance, nor would the recital of +them be at all readable but for the ultimate consequences which ensued +from the preservation of those last remains of foreign power in the +island. On that account, however, we have to consult the barren annals +of "the Pale" through the intermediate period, that we may make clear +the accidents by which it was preserved from destruction, and enabled +to play a part in after-times, undreamt of and inconceivable, to those +who tolerated its existence in the ages of which we speak. + +On the northern coasts of Ireland the co-operation of the friendly +Scots with the native Irish had long been a source of anxiety to the +Palesmen. In the year 1404, Dongan, Bishop of Derry, and Sir Jenico +d'Artois, were appointed Commissioners by Henry IV., to conclude a +permanent peace with McDonald, Lord of the Isles, but, notwithstanding +that form was then gone through during the reigns of all the +Lancasterian Kings, evidence of the Hiberno-Scotch alliance being still +in existence, constantly recurs. In the year 1430 an address or +petition of the Dublin Council to the King sets forth "that the enemies +and rebels, _aided by the Scots_, had conquered or rendered tributary +almost every part of the country, _except the county of Dublin_." The +presence of Henry V. in Ireland had been urgently solicited by his +lieges in that kingdom, but without effect. The hero of Agincourt +having set his heart upon the conquest of France, left Ireland to his +lieutenants and their deputies. Nor could his attention be aroused to +the English interest in that country, even by the formal declaration of +the Speaker of the English Parliament, that "the greater part of the +lordship of Ireland" had been "conquered" by the natives. + +The comparatively new family of Talbot, sustained by the influence of +the great Earl of Shrewsbury, now Seneschal of France, had risen to the +highest pitch of influence. When on the accession of Henry VI., Edward +Mortimer, Earl of March, was appointed Lord Lieutenant, and Dantsey, +Bishop of Meath, his deputy, Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin, and Lord +Chancellor, refused to acknowledge Dantsey's pretensions because his +commission was given under the private seal of Lord Mortimer. Having +effected his object in this instance, the Archbishop directed his +subsequent attacks against the House of Ormond, the chief favourites of +the King, or rather of the Council, in that reign. In 1441, at a Dublin +Parliament, messengers were appointed to convey certain articles to the +King, the purport of which was to prevent the Earl of Ormond from being +made Lord Lieutenant, alleging against him many misdemeanours in his +former administration, and praying that some "mighty lord of England" +might be named to that office to execute the laws more effectually +"than any Irishman ever did or ever will do." + +This attempt to destroy the influence of Ormond led to an alliance +between that Earl and Sir James, afterwards seventh Earl of Desmond. +Sir James was son of Gerald, fourth Earl (distinguished as "the +Rhymer," or Magician), by the lady Eleanor Butler, daughter of the +second Earl of Ormond. He stood, therefore, in the relation of cousin +to the cotemporary head of the Butler family. When his nephew Thomas +openly violated the Statute of Kilkenny, by marrying the beautiful +Catherine McCormac, the ambitious and intriguing Sir James, anxious to +enforce that statute, found a ready seconder in Ormond. Earl Thomas, +forced to quit the country, died an exile at Rouen, in France, and Sir +James, after many intrigues and negotiations, obtained the title and +estates. For once the necessities of Desmond and Ormond united these +houses, but the money of the English Archbishop of Dublin, backed by +the influence of his illustrious brother, proved equal to them both. In +the first twenty-five years of the reign of Henry VI. (1422-1447,) +Ormond was five times Lieutenant or Deputy, and Talbot five times +Deputy, Lord Justice, or Lord Commissioner. Their factious controversy +culminated with "the articles" adopted in 1441, which altogether failed +of the intended effect; Ormond was reappointed two years afterwards to +his old office; nor was it till 1446, when the Earl of Shrewsbury was a +third time sent over, that the Talbots had any substantial advantage +over their rivals. The recall of the Earl for service in France, and +the death of the Archbishop two years later, though it deprived the +party they had formed of a resident leader, did not lead to its +dissolution. Bound together by common interests and dangers, their +action may be traced in opposition to the Geraldines, through the +remaining years of Henry VI., and perhaps so late as the earlier years +of Henry VII. (1485-1500). + +In the struggle of dynasties from which England suffered so severely +during the fifteenth century, the drama of ambition shifted its scenes +from London and York to Calais and Dublin. The appointment of Richard, +Duke of York, as Lord Lieutenant, in 1449, presented him an opportunity +of creating a Yorkist party among the nobles and people of "the Pale." +This able and ambitious Prince possessed in his hereditary estate +resources equal to great enterprises. He was in the first place the +representative of the third son of Edward III.; on the death of his +cousin the Earl of March, in 1424, he became heir to that property and +title. He was Duke of York, Earl of March, and Earl of Rutland, in +England; Earl of Ulster and Earl of Cork, Lord of Connaught, Clare, +Meath, and Trim, in Ireland. He had been twice Regent of France, during +the minority of Henry, where he upheld the cause of the Plantagenet +King with signal ability. By the peace concluded at Tours, between +England, France, and Burgundy, in 1444, he was enabled to return to +England, where the King had lately come of age, and begun to exhibit +the weak though amiable disposition which led to his ruin. The events +of the succeeding two or three years were calculated to expose Henry to +the odium of his subjects and the machinations of his enemies. Town +after town and province after province were lost in France; the Regent +Somerset returned to experience the full force of this unpopularity; +the royal favourite, Suffolk, was banished, pursued, and murdered at +sea; the King's uncles, Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Gloucester, +were removed by death—so that every sign and circumstance of the time +whispered encouragement to the ambitious Duke. When, therefore, the +Irish lieutenancy was offered, in order to separate him from his +partizans, he at first refused it; subsequently, however, he accepted, +on conditions dictated by himself, calculated to leave him wholly his +own master. These conditions, reduced to writing in the form of an +Indenture between the King and the Duke, extended his lieutenancy to a +period of ten years; allowed him, besides the entire revenue of +Ireland, an annual subsidy from England; full power to let the King's +land, to levy and maintain soldiers, to place or displace all officers, +to appoint a Deputy, and to return to England at his pleasure. On these +terms the ex-Regent of France undertook the government of the English +settlement in Ireland. + +Arrived at Dublin, _the_ Duke (as in his day he was always called,) +employed himself rather to strengthen his party than to extend the +limits of his government. Soon after his arrival a son was born to him, +and baptized with great pomp in the Castle. James, fifth Earl of +Ormond, and Thomas, eighth Earl of Desmond, were invited to stand as +sponsors. In the line of policy indicated by this choice, he steadily +persevered during his whole connection with Ireland—which lasted till +his death, in 1460. Alternately he named a Butler and a Geraldine as +his deputy, and although he failed ultimately to win the Earl of Ormond +from the traditional party of his family, he secured the attachment of +several of his kinsmen. Stirring events in England, the year after his +appointment, made it necessary for him to return immediately. The +unpopularity of the administration which had banished him had rapidly +augmented. The French King had recovered the whole of Normandy, for +four centuries annexed to the English Crown. Nothing but Calais +remained of all the Continental possessions which the Plantagenets had +inherited, and which Henry V. had done so much to strengthen and +extend. Domestic abuses aggravated the discontent arising from foreign +defeats. The Bishop of Chichester, one of the ministers, was set upon +and slain by a mob at Portsmouth. Twenty thousand men of Kent, under +the command of Jack Cade, an Anglo-Irishman, who had given himself out +as a son of the last Earl of March, who died in the Irish government +twenty-five years before, marched upon London. They defeated a royal +force at Sevenoaks, and the city opened its gate at the summons of +Cade. The Kentish men took possession of Southwark, while their Irish +leader for three days, entering the city every morning, compelled the +mayor and the judges to sit in the Guildhall, tried and sentenced Lord +Say to death, who, with his son-in-law, Cromer, Sheriff of Kent, was +accordingly executed. Every evening, as he had promised the citizens, +he retired with his guards across the river, preserving the strictest +order among them. But the royalists were not idle, and when, on the +fourth morning Cade attempted as usual to enter London proper, he found +the bridge of Southwark barricaded and defended by a strong force under +the Lord Scales. After six hours' hard fighting his raw levies were +repulsed, and many of them accepted a free pardon tendered to them in +the moment of defeat. Cade retired with the remainder on Deptford and +Rochester, but gradually abandoned by them, he was surprised, half +famished in a garden at Heyfield, and put to death. His captor claimed +and received the large reward of a thousand marks offered for his head. +This was in the second week of July; on the 1st of September, news was +brought to London that the Duke of York had suddenly landed from +Ireland. His partizans eagerly gathered round him at his castle of +Fotheringay, but for five years longer, by the repeated concessions of +the gentle-minded Henry, and the interposition of powerful mediators, +the actual war of the roses was postponed. + +It is beyond our province to follow the details of that ferocious +struggle, which was waged almost incessantly from 1455 till 1471—from +the first battle of St. Albans till the final battle at Tewksbury. We +are interested in it mainly as it connects the fortunes of the +Anglo-Irish Earls with one or other of the dynasties; and their +fortunes again, with the benefit or disadvantage of their allies and +relatives among our native Princes. Of the transactions in England, it +may be sufficient to say that the Duke of York, after his victory at +St. Albans in '55, was declared Lord Protector of the realm during +Henry's imbecility; that the next year the King recovered and the +Protector's office was abolished; that in '57 both parties stood at +bay; in '58 an insecure peace was patched up between them; in '59 they +appealed to arms, the Yorkists gained a victory at Bloreheath, but +being defeated at Ludiford, Duke Richard, with one of his sons, fled +for safety into Ireland. + +It was the month of November when the fugitive Duke arrived to resume +the Lord Lieutenancy which he had formerly exercised. Legally, his +commission, for those who recognized the authority of King Henry, had +expired four months before—as it bore date from July 5th, 1449; but it +is evident the majority of the Anglo-Irish received him as a Prince of +their own election rather than as an ordinary Viceroy. He held, soon +after his arrival, a Parliament at Dublin, which met by adjournment at +Drogheda the following spring. The English Parliament having declared +him, his duchess, sons, and principal adherents traitors, and writs to +that effect having been sent over, the Irish Parliament passed a +declaratory Act (1460) making the service of all such writs treason +against _their_ authority—"it having been ever customary in their land +to receive and entertain strangers with due respect and hospitality." +Under this law, an emissary of the Earl of Ormond, upon whom English +writs against the fugitives were found, was executed as a traitor. This +independent Parliament confirmed the Duke in his office; made it high +treason to imagine his death, and—taking advantage of the favourable +conjuncture of affairs—they further declared that the inhabitants of +Ireland could only be bound by laws made in Ireland; that no writs were +of force unless issued under the great seal of Ireland; that the realm +had of ancient right its own Lord Constable and Earl Marshal, by whom +alone trials for treason alleged to have been committed in Ireland +could be conducted. In the same busy spring, the Earl of Warwick (so +celebrated as "the Kingmaker" of English history) sailed from Calais, +of which he was Constable, with the Channel-fleet, of which he was also +in command, and doubling the Land's End of England, arrived at Dublin +to concert measures for another rising in England. He found the Duke at +Dublin "surrounded by his Earls and homagers," and measures were soon +concerted between them. + +An appeal to the English nation was prepared at this Conference, +charging upon Henry's advisers that they had written to the French King +to besiege Calais, and to the Irish Princes to expel the English +settlers. The loyalty of the fugitive lords, and their readiness to +prove their innocence before their sovereign, were stoutly asserted. +Emissaries were despatched in every direction; troops were raised; +Warwick soon after landed in Kent-always strongly pro-Yorkist-defeated +the royalists at Northampton in July, and the Duke reaching London in +October, a compromise was agreed to, after much discussion, in which +Henry was to have the crown for life, while the Duke was acknowledged +as his successor, and created president of his council. + +We have frequently remarked in our history the recurrence of conflicts +between the north and south of the island. The same thing is distinctly +traceable through the annals of England down to a quite recent period. +Whether difference of race, or of admixture of race may not lie at the +foundation of such long-living enmities, we will not here attempt to +discuss; such, however, is the fact. Queen Margaret had fled northward +after the defeat of Northampton towards the Scottish border, from which +she now returned at the head of 20,000 men. The Duke advanced rapidly +to meet her, and engaging with a far inferior force at Wakefield, was +slain in the field, or beheaded after the battle. All now seemed lost +to the Yorkist party, when young Edward, son of Duke Richard, advancing +from the marches of Wales at the head of an army equal in numbers to +the royalists, won, in the month of February, 1461, the battles of +Mortimers-cross and Barnet, and was crowned at Westminster in March, by +the title of Edward IV. The sanguinary battle of Towton, soon after his +coronation, where 38,000 dead were reckoned by the heralds, confirmed +his title and established his throne. Even the subsequent hostility of +Warwick—though it compelled him once to surrender himself a prisoner, +and once to fly the country—did not finally transfer the sceptre to his +rival. Warwick was slain in the battle of Tewkesbury (1471), the +Lancasterian Prince Edward was put to death on the field, and his +unhappy father was murdered in prison. Two years later, Henry, Earl of +Richmond, grandson of Catherine, Queen of Henry V. and Owen Ap Tudor, +the only remaining leader capable of rallying the beaten party, was +driven into exile in France, from which he returned fourteen years +afterwards to contest the crown with Richard III. + +In these English wars, the only Irish nobleman who sustained the +Lancasterian cause was James, fifth Earl of Ormond. He had been created +by Henry, Earl of Wiltshire, during his father's lifetime, in the same +year in which his father stood sponsor in Dublin for the son of the +Duke. He succeeded to the Irish title and estates in 1451: held a +foremost rank in almost all the engagements from the battle of Saint +Albans to that of Towton, in which he was taken prisoner and executed +by order of Edward IV. His blood was declared attainted, and his +estates forfeited; but a few years later both the title and property +were restored to Sir John Butler, the sixth Earl. On the eve of the +open rupture between the Roses, another name intimately associated with +Ireland disappeared from the roll of the English nobility. The veteran +Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, in the eightieth year of his age, accepted +the command of the English forces in France, retook the city of +Bordeaux, but fell in attack on the French camp at Chatillon, in the +subsequent campaign—1453. His son, Lord Lisle, was slain at the same +time, defending his father's body. Among other consequences which +ensued, the Talbot interest in Ireland suffered from the loss of so +powerful a patron at the English court. We have only to add that at +Wakefield, and in most of the other engagements, there was a strong +Anglo-Irish contingent in the Yorkist ranks, and a smaller one—chiefly +tenants of Ormond—on the opposite side. Many writers complain that the +House of York drained "the Pale" of its defenders, and thus still +further diminished the resources of the English interest in Ireland. + +In the last forty years of the fifteenth century, the history of "the +Pale" is the biography of the family of the Geraldines. We must make +some brief mention of the remarkable men to whom we refer. + +Thomas, eighth Earl of Desmond, for his services to the House of York, +was appointed Lord Deputy in the first years of Edward IV. He had +naturally made himself obnoxious to the Ormond interest, but still more +so to the Talbots, whose leader in civil contests was Sherwood, Bishop +of Meath—for some years, in despite of the Geraldines, Lord Chancellor. +Between him and Desmond there existed the bitterest animosity. In 1464, +nine of the Deputy's men were slain in a broil in Fingall, by tenants +or servants of the Bishop. The next year each party repaired to London +to vindicate himself and criminate his antagonist. The Bishop seems to +have triumphed, for in 1466, John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, called in +England, for his barbarity to Lancasterian prisoners, "the Butcher," +superseded Desmond. The movement of Thaddeus O'Brien, already related, +the same year, gave Tiptoft grounds for accusing Desmond, Kildare, Sir +Edward Plunkett, and others, of treason. On this charge he summoned +them before him at Drogheda in the following February. Kildare wisely +fled to England, where he pleaded his innocence successfully with the +King. But Desmond and Plunkett, over-confident of their own influence, +repaired to Drogheda, were tried, condemned, and beheaded. Their +execution took place on the 15th day of February, 1467. It is +instructive to add that Tiptoft, a few years later, underwent the fate +in England, without exciting a particle of the sympathy felt for +Desmond. + +Thomas, seventh Earl of Kildare, succeeded on his safe return from +England to more than the power of his late relative. The office of +Chancellor, after a sharp struggle, was taken from Bishop Sherwood, and +confirmed to him for life by an act of the twelfth, Edward III. He had +been named Lord Justice after Tiptoft's recall, in 1467, and four years +later exchanged the title for that of Lord Deputy to the young Duke of +Clarence—the nominal Lieutenant. In 1475, on some change of Court +favour, the supreme power was taken from him, and conferred on the old +enemy of his House, the Bishop of Meath. Kildare died two years later, +having signalized his latter days by founding an Anglo-Irish order of +chivalry, called "the Brothers of St. George." This order was to +consist of 13 persons of the highest rank within the Pale, 120 mounted +archers, and 40 horsemen, attended by 40 pages. The officers were to +assemble annually in Dublin, on St. George's Day, to elect their +Captain from their own number. After having existed twenty years the +Brotherhood was suppressed by the jealousy of Henry VII., in 1494. + +Gerald, eighth Earl of Kildare (called in the Irish Annals Geroit More, +or "the Great"), succeeded his father in 1477. He had the gratification +of ousting Sherwood from the government the following year, and having +it transferred to himself. For nearly forty years he continued the +central figure among the Anglo-Irish, and as his family were closely +connected by marriage with the McCarthys, O'Carrolls of Ely, the +O'Conors of Offally, O'Neils and O'Donnells, he exercised immense +influence over the affairs of all the Provinces. In his time, moreover, +the English interest, under the auspices of an undisturbed dynasty, and +a cautious, politic Prince (Henry VII.), began by slow and almost +imperceptible degrees to recover the unity and compactness it had lost +ever since the Red Earl's death. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +THE AGE AND RULE OF GERALD, EIGHTH EARL OF KILDARE—THE TIDE BEGINS TO +TURN FOR THE ENGLISH INTEREST—THE YORKIST PRETENDERS, SIMNEL AND +WARBECK—POYNING'S PARLIAMENT—BATTLES OF KNOCKDOE AND MONABRAHER. + +Perhaps no preface could better introduce to the reader the singular +events which marked the times of Gerald, eighth Earl of Kildare, than a +brief account of one of his principal partizans—Sir James Keating, +Prior of the Knights of St. John. The family of Keating, of +Norman-Irish origin, were most numerous in the fifteenth century in +Kildare, from which they afterwards spread into Tipperary and Limerick. +Sir James Keating, "a mere Irishman," became Prior of Kilmainham about +the year 1461, at which time Sir Robert Dowdal, deputy to the Lord +Treasurer, complained in Parliament, that being on a pilgrimage to one +of the shrines of the Pale, he was assaulted near Cloniff, by the +Prior, with a drawn sword, and thereby put in danger of his life. It +was accordingly decreed that Keating should pay to the King a hundred +pounds fine, and to Sir Robert a hundred marks; but, from certain +technical errors in the proceedings, he successfully evaded both these +penalties. When in the year 1478 the Lord Grey of Codner was sent over +to supersede Kildare, he took the decided step of refusing to surrender +to that nobleman the Castle of Dublin, of which he was Constable. Being +threatened with an assault, he broke down the bridge and prepared his +defence, while his friend, the Earl of Kildare, called a Parliament at +Naas, in opposition to Lord Grey's Assembly at Dublin. In 1480, after +two years of rival parties and viceroys, Lord Grey was feign to resign +his office, and Kildare was regularly appointed Deputy to Richard, Duke +of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III. Two years later, Keating was +deprived of his rank by Peter d'Aubusson, Grand Master of Rhodes, who +appointed Sir Marmaduke Lumley, an English knight, in his stead. Sir +Marmaduke landed soon after at Clontarf, where he was taken prisoner by +Keating, and kept in close confinement until he had surrendered all the +instruments of his election and confirmation. He was then enlarged, and +appointed to the commandery of Kilseran, near Castlebellingham, in +Louth. In the year 1488, Keating was one of those who took an active +part in favour of the pretender Lambert Simnel, and although his pardon +had been sternly refused by Henry VII., he retained possession of the +Hospital until 1491, when he was ejected by force, "and ended his +turbulent life," as we are told, "in the most abject poverty and +disgrace." All whom he had appointed to office were removed; an Act of +Parliament was passed, prohibiting the reception of any "mere Irishman" +into the Order for the future, and enacting that whoever was recognized +as Prior by the Grand Master should be of English birth, and one having +such a connection with the Order there as might strengthen the force +and interest of the Kings of England in Ireland. + +The fact most indicative of the spirit of the times is, that a man of +Prior Keating's disposition could, for thirty years, have played such a +daring part as we have described in the city of Dublin. During the +greater part of that period, he held the office of Constable of the +Castle and Prior of Kilmainham, in defiance of English Deputies and +English Kings; than which no farther evidence may be adduced to show +how completely the English, interest was extinguished, even within the +walls of Dublin, during the reign of the last of the Plantagenet +Princes, and the first years of Henry VII. + +In 1485, Henry, Earl of Richmond, grandson of Queen Catherine and Owen +ap Tudor, returned from his fourteen years' exile in France, and, by +the victory of Bosworth, took possession of the throne. The Earl of +Kildare, undisputed Deputy during the last years of Edward IV., had +been continued by Richard, and was not removed by Henry VII. Though a +staunch Yorkist, he showed no outward opposition to the change of +dynasty, for which he found a graceful apology soon afterwards. Being +at Mass, in Christ's Church Cathedral, on the 2nd of February, 1486, he +received intelligence of Henry's marriage with Elizabeth of York, which +he at once communicated to the Archbishop of Dublin, and ordered an +additional Mass for the King and Queen. Yet, from the hour of that +union of the houses of York and Lancaster, it needed no extraordinary +wisdom to foresee that the exemption of the Anglo-Irish nobles from the +supremacy of their nominal King must come to an end, and the freedom of +the old Irish from any formidable external danger must also close. The +union of the Roses, so full of the promise of peace for England, was to +form the date of a new era in her relations with Ireland. The tide of +English power was at that hour at its lowest ebb; it had left far in +the interior the landmarks of its first irresistible rush; it might be +said, without exaggeration, that Gaelic children now gathered shells +and pebbles where that tide once rolled, charged with all its thunders; +it was now about to turn; the first murmuring menace of new +encroachments began to be heard under Henry VII.; as we listen they +grow louder on the ear; the waves advance with a steady, deliberate +march, unlike the first impetuous onslaught of the Normans; they +advance and do not recede, till they recover all the ground they had +abandoned. The era which we dated from the Red Earl's death, in 1333, +has exhausted its resources of aggression and assimilation; a new era +opens with the reign of Henry VII.—or more distinctly still, with that +of his successor, Henry VIII. We must close our account with the old +era, before entering upon the new. + +The contest between the Earl of Kildare and Lord Grey for the +government (1478-1480) marks the lowest ebb of the English power. We +have already related how Prior Keating shut the Castle gates on the +English deputy, and threatened to fire on his guard if he attempted to +force them. Lord Portlester also, the Chancellor, and father-in-law to +Kildare, joined that Earl in his Parliament at Naas with the great +seal. Lord Grey, in his Dublin Assembly, declared the great seal +cancelled, and ordered a new one to be struck, but after a two years' +contest he was obliged to succumb to the greater influence of the +Geraldines. Kildare was regularly acknowledged Lord Deputy, under the +King's privy seal. It was ordained that thereafter there should be but +one Parliament convoked during the year; that but one subsidy should be +demanded, annually, the sum "not to exceed a thousand marks." Certain +Acts of both Parliaments—Grey's and Kildare's—were by compromise +confirmed. Of these were two which do not seem to collate very well +with each other; one prohibiting the inhabitants of the Pale from +holding any intercourse whatsoever with the mere Irish; the other +extending to Con O'Neil, Prince of Tyrone, and brother-in-law of +Kildare, the rights of a naturalized subject within the Pale. The +former was probably Lord Grey's; the latter was Lord Kildare's +legislation. + +Although Henry VII. had neither disturbed the Earl in his governments, +nor his brother, Lord Thomas, as Chancellor, it was not to be expected +that he could place entire confidence in the leading Yorkist family +among the Anglo-Irish. The restoration of the Ormond estates, in favour +of Thomas, seventh Earl, was both politic and just, and could hardly be +objectionable to Kildare, who had just married one of his daughters to +Pierce Butler, nephew and heir to Thomas. The want of confidence +between the new King and his Deputy was first exhibited in 1486, when +the Earl, being summoned to attend on his Majesty, called a Parliament +at Trim, which voted him an address, representing that in the affairs +about to be discussed, his presence was absolutely necessary. Henry +affected to accept the excuse as valid, but every arrival of Court news +contained some fresh indication of his deep-seated mistrust of the Lord +Deputy, who, however, he dared not yet dismiss. + +The only surviving Yorkists who could put forward pretensions to the +throne were the Earl of Lincoln, Richard's declared heir, and the young +Earl of Warwick, son of that Duke of Clarence who was born in Dublin +Castle in 1449. Lincoln, with Lord Lovell and others of his friends, +was in exile at the court of the dowager Duchess of Burgundy, sister to +Edward IV.; and the son of Clarence—a lad of fifteen years of age—was a +prisoner in the Tower. In the year 1486, a report spread of the escape +of this Prince, and soon afterwards Richard Symon, a Priest of Oxford, +landed in Dublin with a youth of the same age, of prepossessing +appearance and address, who could relate with the minutest detail the +incidents of his previous imprisonment. He was at once recognized as +the son of Clarence by the Earl of Kildare and his party, and +preparations were made for his coronation by the title of Edward VI. +Henry, alarmed, produced from the Tower the genuine Warwick, whom he +publicly paraded through London, in order to prove that the pretender +in Dublin was an impostor. The Duchess of Burgundy, however, fitted out +a fleet, containing 2,000 veteran troops, under the command of Martin +Swart, who, sailing up the channel, reached Dublin without +interruption. With this fleet came the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Lovell, +and the other English refugees, who all recognized the _protege_ of +Father Symon as the true Prince. Octavius, the Italian Archbishop of +Armagh, then residing at Dublin, the Bishop of Clogher, the Butlers, +and the Baron of Howth, were incredulous or hostile. The great majority +of the Anglo-Irish lords, spiritual and temporal, favoured his cause, +and he was accordingly crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, with a +diadem taken from an image of our Lady, on the 24th of May, 1487; the +Deputy, Chancellor, and Treasurer were present; the sermon was preached +by Pain, Bishop of Meath. A Parliament was next convoked in his name, +in which the Butlers and citizens of Waterford were proscribed as +traitors. A herald from the latter city, who had spoken over boldly, +was hanged by the Dubliners as a proof of their loyalty. The Council +ordered a force to be equipped for the service of his new Majesty in +England, and Lord Thomas Fitzgerald resigned the Chancellorship to take +the command. This expedition—the last which invaded England from the +side of Ireland—sailed from Dublin about the first of June, and landing +on the Lancashire shore, at the pile of Foudray, marched to Ulverstone, +where they were joined by Sir Thomas Broughton and other devoted +Yorkists. From Ulverstone the whole force, about 8,000 strong, marched +into Yorkshire, and from Yorkshire southwards into Nottingham. Henry, +who had been engaged in making a progress through the southern +counties, hastened to meet him, and both armies met at +Stoke-upon-Trent, near Newark, on the 16th day of June, 1487. The +battle was contested with the utmost obstinacy, but the English +prevailed. The Earl of Lincoln, the Lords Thomas and Maurice +Fitzgerald, Plunkett, son of Lord Killeen, Martin Swart, and Sir Thomas +Broughton were slain; Lord Lovell escaped, but was never heard of +afterwards; the pretended Edward VI. was captured, and spared by Henry +only to be made a scullion in his kitchen. Father Symon was cast into +prison, where he died, after having confessed that his _protege_ was +Lambert Simnel, the son of a joiner at Oxford. + +Nothing shows the strength of the Kildare party, and the weakness of +the English interest, more than that the deputy and his partizans were +still continued in office. They despatched a joint letter to the King, +deprecating his anger, which he was prudent enough to conceal. He sent +over, the following spring, Sir Richard Edgecombe, Comptroller of his +household, accompanied by a guard of 500 men. Sir Richard first touched +at Kinsale, where he received the homage of the Lords Barry and de +Courcy; he then sailed to Waterford, where he delivered to the Mayor +royal letters confirming the city in its privileges, and authorizing +its merchants to seize and distress those of Dublin, unless they made +their submission. After leaving Waterford, he landed at Malahide, +passing by Dublin, to which he proceeded by land, accompanied with his +guard. The Earl of Kildare was absent on a pilgrimage, from which he +did not return for several days. His first interviews with Edgecombe +were cold and formal, but finally on the 21st of July, after eight or +ten days' disputation, the Earl and the other lords of his party did +homage to King Henry, in the great chamber of his town-house in Thomas +Court, and thence proceeding to the chapel, took the oath of allegiance +on the consecrated host. With this submission Henry was fain to be +content; Kildare, Portlester, and Plunkett were continued in office. +The only one to whom the King's pardon was persistently refused was Sir +James Keating, Prior of Kilmainham. + +In the subsequent attempts of Perkin Warbeck (1492-1499), in the +character of Richard, Duke of York, one of the Princes murdered in the +tower by Richard III., the Anglo-Irish took a less active part. Warbeck +landed at Cork from Lisbon, and despatched letters to the Earls of +Kildare and Desmond, to which they returned civil but evasive replies. +At Cork he received an invitation from the King of France to visit that +country, where he remained till the conclusion of peace between France +and England. He then retired to Burgundy, where he was cordially +received by the Duchess; after an unsuccessful descent on the coast of +Kent, he took refuge in Scotland, where he married a lady closely +allied to the crown. In 1497 he again tried his fortune in the South of +Ireland, was joined by Maurice, tenth Earl of Desmond, the Lord Barry, +and the citizens of Cork. Having laid siege to Waterford, he was +compelled to retire with loss, and Desmond having made his peace with +Henry, Warbeck was forced again to fly into Scotland. In 1497 and '8, +he made new attempts to excite insurrection in his favour in the north +of England and in Cornwall. He was finally taken and put to death on +the 16th of November, 1499. With him suffered his first and most +faithful adherent, John Waters, who had been Mayor of Cork at his first +landing from Lisbon, in 1492, and who is ignorantly or designedly +called by Henry's partizan "O'Water." History has not yet positively +established the fraudulency of this pretender. A late eminently +cautious writer, with all the evidence which modern research has +accumulated, speaks of him as "one of the most mysterious persons in +English history;" and in mystery we must leave him. + +We have somewhat anticipated events, in other quarters, in order to +dispose of both the Yorkist pretenders at the same time. The situation +of the Earls of Kildare in this and the next reign, though full of +grandeur, was also full of peril. Within the Pale they had one part to +play, without the Pale another. Within the Pale they held one language, +without it another. At Dublin they were English Earls, beyond the Boyne +or the Barrow, they were Irish chiefs. They had to tread their +cautious, and not always consistent way, through the endless +complications which must arise between two nations occupying the same +soil, with conflicting allegiance, language, laws, customs, and +interests. While we frequently feel indignant at the tone they take +towards the "Irish enemy" in their despatches to London—the pretended +enemies being at that very time their confidants and allies—on farther +reflection we feel disposed to make some allowance on the score of +circumstance and necessity, for a duplicity which, in the end, brought +about, as duplicity in public affairs ever does, its own punishment. + +In Ulster as well as in Leinster, the ascendency of the Earl of Kildare +over the native population was widespread and long sustained. Con +O'Neil, Lord of Tyrone, from 1483 to 1491, and Turlogh, Con and Art, +his sons and successors (from 1498 to 1548), maintained the most +intimate relations with this Earl and his successors. To the former he +was brother-in-law, and to the latter, of course, uncle; to all he +seems to have been strongly attached. Hugh Roe O'Donnell, Lord of +Tyrconnell (1450-1505), and his son and successor, Hugh Dhu O'Donnell, +(1505-1530), were also closely connected with Kildare both by +friendship and intermarriage. In 1491, O'Neil and O'Donnell mutually +submitted their disputes to his decision, at his Castle of Maynooth, +and though he found it impossible to reconcile them at the moment, we +find both of these houses cordially united with him afterwards. In +1498, he took Dungannon and Omagh, "with great guns," from the +insurgents against the authority of his grandson, Turlogh O'Neil, and +restored them to Turlogh; the next year he visited O'Donnell, and +brought his son Henry to be fostered among the kindly Irish of +Tyrconnell. In the year 1500 he also placed the Castle of Kinnaird in +the custody of Turlogh O'Neil. In Leinster, the Geraldine interest was +still more entirely bound up with that of the native population. His +son, Sir Oliver of Killeigh, married an O'Conor of Offally; the +daughter of another son, Sir James of Leixlip, (sometimes called the +Knight of the Valley) became the wife of the chief of Imayle. The Earl +of Ormond, and Ulick Burke of Clanrickarde, were also sons-in-law of +the eighth Earl, but in both these cases the old family feuds survived +in despite of the new family alliances. + +In the fourth year after his accession, Henry VII., proceeding by slow +degrees to undermine Kildare's enormous power, summoned the chief +Anglo-Irish nobles to his Court at Greenwich, where he reproached them +with their support of Simnel, who, to their extreme confusion, he +caused to wait on them as butler, at dinner. A year or two afterwards, +he removed Lord Portlester, from the Treasurership, which he conferred +on Sir James Butler, the bastard of Ormond. Plunkett, the +Chief-Justice, was promoted to the Chancellorship, and Kildare himself +was removed to make way for Fitzsymons, Archbishop of Dublin. This, +however, was but a government _ad interim_, for in the year 1494, a +wholly English administration was appointed. Sir Edward Poynings, with +a picked force of 1,000 men, was appointed Lord Deputy; the Bishop of +Bangor was appointed Chancellor, Sir Hugh Conway, an Englishman, was to +be Treasurer; and these officials were accompanied by an entirely new +bench of judges, all English, whom they were instructed to instal +immediately on their arrival. Kildare had resisted the first changes +with vigour, and a bloody feud had taken place between his retainers +and those of Sir James of Ormond, on the green of Oxmantown—now +Smithfield, in Dublin. On the arrival of Poynings, however, he +submitted with the best possible grace, and accompanied that deputy to +Drogheda, where he had summoned a Parliament to meet him. From +Drogheda, they made an incursion into O'Hanlon's country (Orior in +Armagh). On returning from Drogheda, Poynings, on a real or pretended +discovery of a secret understanding between O'Hanlon and Kildare, +arrested the latter, in Dublin, and at once placed him on board a +barque "kept waiting for that purpose," and despatched him to England. +On reaching London, he was imprisoned in the Tower, for two years, +during which time his party in Ireland were left headless and +dispirited. + +The government of Sir Edward Poynings, which lasted from 1494 till +Kildare's restoration, in August, 1496, is most memorable for the +character of its legislation. He assembled a Parliament at Drogheda, in +November, 1495, at which were passed the statutes so celebrated in our +Parliamentary history as the "10th Henry VII." These statutes were the +first enacted in Ireland in which the English language was employed. +They confirmed the Provisions of the Statute of Kilkenny, except that +prohibiting the use of the Irish language, which had now become so +deeply rooted, even within the Pale, as to make its immediate abolition +impracticable. The hospitable law passed in the time of Richard, Duke +of York, against the arrest of refugees by virtue of writs issued in +England, was repealed. The English acts, against provisors to +Rome—ecclesiastics who applied for or accepted preferment directly from +Rome—were adopted. It was also enacted that all offices should be held +at the King's pleasure; that the Lords of Parliament should appear in +their robes as the Lords did in England; that no one should presume to +make peace or war except with license of the Governor; that no great +guns should be kept in the fortresses except by similar license; and +that men of English _birth_ only should be appointed Constables of the +Castles of Dublin, Trim, Leixlip, Athlone, Wicklow, Greencastle, +Carlingford, and Carrickfergus. But the most important measure of all +was one which provided that thereafter no legislation whatever should +be proceeded with in Ireland, unless the bills to be proposed were +first submitted to the King and Council in England, and were returned, +certified under the great seal of the realm. This is what is usually +and specially called in our Parliamentary history "Poyning's Act," and +next to the Statute of Kilkenny, it may be considered the most +important enactment ever passed at any Parliament of the English +settlers. + +The liberation of the Earl of Kildare from the Tower, and his +restoration as Deputy, seems to have been hastened by the movements of +Perkin Warbeck, and by the visit of Hugh Roe O'Donnell to James IV., +King of Scotland. O'Donnell had arrived at Ayr in the month of August, +1495, a few weeks after Warbeck had reached that court. He was received +with great splendour and cordiality by the accomplished Prince, then +lately come of age, and filled with projects natural to his youth and +temperament. With O'Donnell, according to the Four Masters, he formed a +league, by which they bound themselves "mutually to assist each other +in all their exigencies." The knowledge of this alliance, and of +Warbeck's favour at the Scottish Court, no doubt decided Henry to avail +himself, if possible, of the assistance of his most powerful Irish +subject. There was, moreover, another influence at work. The first +countess had died soon after her husband's arrest, and he now married, +in England, Elizabeth St. John, cousin to the King. Fortified in his +allegiance and court favour by this alliance, he returned in triumph to +Dublin, where he was welcomed with enthusiasm. + +In his subsequent conduct as Lord Deputy, an office which he continued +to hold till his death in 1513, this powerful nobleman seems to have +steadily upheld the English interest, which was now in harmony with his +own. Having driven off Warbeck in his last visit to Ireland (1497), he +received extensive estates in England, as a reward for his zeal, and +after the victory of Knock-doe (1505), he was installed by proxy at +Windsor as Knight of the Garter. This long-continued reign—for such in +truth it may be called—left him without a rival in his latter years. He +marched to whatever end of the island he would, pulling down and +setting up chiefs and castles; his garrisons were to be found from +Belfast to Cork, and along the valley of the Shannon, from Athleague to +Limerick. + +The last event of national importance connected with the name of Geroit +More arose out of the battle of KNOCK-DOE, ("battle-axe hill"), fought +within seven or eight miles of Galway town, on the 19th of August, +1504. Few of the cardinal facts in our history have been more entirely +misapprehended and misrepresented than this. It is usually described as +a pitched battle between English and Irish—the turning point in the war +of races—and the second foundation of English power. The simple +circumstances are these: Ulick III., Lord of Clanrickarde, had married +and misused the lady Eustacia Fitzgerald, who seems to have fled to her +father, leaving her children behind. This led to an embittered family +dispute, which was expanded into a public quarrel by the complaint of +William O'Kelly, whose Castles of Garbally, Monivea, and Gallagh, Burke +had seized and demolished. In reinstating O'Kelly, Kildare found the +opportunity which he sought to punish his son-in-law, and both parties +prepared for a trial of strength. It so happened that Clanrickarde's +alliances at that day were chiefly with O'Brien and the southern Irish, +while Kildare's were with those of Ulster. From these causes, what was +at first a family quarrel, and at most a local feud, swelled into the +dimensions of a national contest between North and South—Leath-Moghda +and Leath-Conn. Under these terms, the native Annalists accurately +describe the belligerents on either side. With Kildare were the Lords +of Tyrconnell, Sligo, Moylurg, Breffni, Oriel, and Orior; O'Farrell, +Bishop of Ardagh, the Tanist of Tyrowen, the heir of Iveagh, O'Kelly of +Hy-Many, McWilliam of Mayo, the Barons of Slane, Delvin, Howth, +Dunsany, Gormanstown, Trimblestown, and John Blake, Mayor of Dublin, +with the city militia. With Clanrickarde were Turlogh O'Brien, son of +the Lord of Thomond, McNamara of Clare, O'Carroll of Ely, O'Brien of +Ara, and O'Kennedy of Ormond. The battle was obstinate and bloody. +Artillery and musketry, first introduced from Germany some twenty years +before (1487), were freely used, and the ploughshare of the peasant has +often turned up bullets, large and small, upon the hillside where the +battle was fought. The most credible account sets down the number of +the slain at 2,000 men—the most exaggerated at 9,000. The victory was +with Kildare, who, after encamping on the field for twenty-four hours, +by the advice of O'Donnell, marched next day to Galway, where he found +the children of Clanrickarde, whom he restored to their injured mother. +Athenry opened its gates to receive the conquerors, and after +celebrating their victory in the stronghold of the vanquished, the +Ulster chiefs returned to the North, and Kildare to Dublin. + +Less known is the battle of Monabraher, which may be considered the +offset of Knock-doe. It was fought in 1510—the first year of Henry +VIII., who had just confirmed Lord Kildare in the government. The +younger O'Donnell joined him in Munster, and after taking the Castles +of Kanturk, Pallis, and Castelmaine, they marched to Limerick, where +the Earl of Desmond, the McCarthys of both branches, and "the Irish of +Meath and Leinster," in alliance with Kildare, joined them with their +forces. The old allies, Turlogh O'Brien, Clanrickarde, and the +McNamaras, attacked them at the bridge of Portrush, near Castleconnell, +and drove them through Monabraher ("the friar's bog"), with the loss of +the Barons Barnwall and Kent, and many of their forces; the survivors +were feign to take refuge within the walls of Limerick. + +Three years later, Earl Gerald set out to besiege Leap Castle, in +O'Moore's country; but it happened that as he was watering his horse in +the little river Greese, at Kilkea, he was shot by one of the O'Moores: +he was immediately carried to Athy, where shortly afterwards he +expired. If we except the first Hugh de Lacy and the Red Earl of +Ulster, the Normans in Ireland had not produced a more illustrious man +than Gerald, eighth Earl of Kildare. He was, says Stainhurst, "of tall +stature and goodly presence; very liberal and merciful; of strict +piety; mild in his government; passionate, but easily appeased." And +our justice-loving _Four Masters_ have described him as "a knight in +valour, and princely and religious in his words and judgments." + + + +CHAPTER IX. +STATE OF IRISH AND ANGLO-IRISH SOCIETY DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND +FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. + +The main peculiarities of social life among the Irish and Anglo-Irish +during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are still visible to us. +Of the drudges of the earth, as in all other histories, we see or hear +little or nothing, but of those orders of men of whom the historic muse +takes count, such as bards, rulers, builders, and religious, there is +much information to be found scattered up and down our annals, which, +if properly put together and clearly interpreted, may afford us a +tolerably clear view of the men and their times. + +The love of learning, always strong in this race of men and women, +revived in full force with their exemption from the immediate pressure +of foreign invasion. The person of Bard and Brehon was still held +inviolable; to the malediction of the Bard of Usnagh was attributed the +sudden death of the Deputy, Sir John Stanley; to the murder of the +Brehon McEgan is traced all the misfortunes which befell the sons of +Irial O'Farrell. To receive the poet graciously, to seat him in the +place of honour at the feast, to listen to him with reverence, and to +reward him munificently, were considered duties incumbent on the +princes of the land. And these duties, to do them justice, they never +neglected. One of the O'Neils is specially praised for having given +more gifts to poets, and having "a larger collection of poems" than any +other man of his age. In the struggle between O'Donnell and O'Conor for +the northern corner of Sligo, we find mention made of books +accidentally burned in "the house of the manuscripts," in Lough Gill. +Among the spoils carried off by O'Donnell, on another occasion, were +two famous books—one of which, the Leahar Gear (Short Book), he +afterwards paid back, as part of the ransom for the release of his +friend, O'Doherty. + +The Bards and Ollams, though more dependent on their Princes than we +have seen them in their early palmy days, had yet ample hereditary +estates in every principality and lordship. If natural posterity +failed, the incumbent was free to adopt some capable person as his +heir. It was in this way the family of O'Clery, originally of Tyrawley, +came to settle in Tyrconnell, towards the end of the fourteenth +century. At that time O'Sgingin, chief Ollam to O'Donnell, offered his +daughter in marriage to Cormac O'Clery, a young professor of both laws, +in the monastery near Ballyshannon, on condition that the first male +child born of the marriage should be brought up to his own profession. +This was readily agreed to, and from this auspicious marriage descended +the famous family, which produced three of the Four Masters of Donegal. + +The virtue of hospitality was, of all others, that which the old Irish +of every degree in rank and wealth most cheerfully practised. In many +cases it degenerated into extravagance and prodigality. But in general +it is presented to us in so winning a garb that our objections on the +score of prudence vanish before it. When we read of the freeness of +heart of Henry Avery O'Neil, who granted all manner of things "that +came into his hands," to all manner of men, we pause and doubt whether +such a virtue in such excess may not lean towards vice. But when we +hear of a powerful lord, like William O'Kelly of Galway, entertaining +throughout the Christmas holydays all the poets, musicians, and poor +persons who choose to flock to him, or of the pious and splendid +Margaret O'Carroll, receiving twice a year in Offally all the Bards of +Albyn and Erin, we cannot but envy the professors of the gentle art +their good fortune in having lived in such times, and shared in such +assemblies. As hospitality was the first of social virtues, so +inhospitality was the worst of vices; the unpopularity of a churl +descended to his posterity through successive generations. + +The high estimation in which women were held among the tribes is +evident from the particularity with which the historians record their +obits and marriages. The maiden name of the wife was never wholly lost +in that of her husband, and if her family were of equal standing with +his before marriage, she generally retained her full share of authority +afterwards. The Margaret O'Carroll already mentioned, a descendant and +progenitress of illustrious women, rode privately to Trim, as we are +told, with some English prisoners, taken by her husband, O'Conor of +Offally, and exchanged them for others of equal worth lying in that +fortress; and "this she did," it is added, "without the knowledge of" +her husband. This lady was famed not only for her exceeding hospitality +and her extreme piety, but for other more unexpected works. Her name is +remembered in connection with the erection of bridges and the making of +highways, as well as the building of churches, and the presentation of +missals and mass-books. And the grace she thus acquired long brought +blessings upon her posterity, among whom there never were wanting able +men and heroic women while they kept their place in the land. An +equally celebrated but less amiable woman was Margaret Fitzgerald, +daughter of the eighth Earl of Kildare, and wife of Pierce, eighth Earl +of Ormond. "She was," says the Dublin Annalist, "a lady of such port +that all the estates of the realm couched to her, so politique that +nothing was thought substantially debated without her advice." Her +decision of character is preserved in numerous traditions in and around +Kilkenny, where she lies buried. Of her is told the story that when +exhorted on her death-bed to make restitution of some ill-got lands, +and being told the penalty that awaited her if she died impenitent, she +answered, "it was better one old woman should burn for eternity than +that the Butlers should be curtailed of their estates." + +The fame of virtuous deeds, of generosity, of peace-making, of +fidelity, was in that state of society as easily attainable by women as +by men. The Unas, Finolas, Sabias, Lasarinas, were as certain of +immortality as the Hughs, Cathals, Donalds and Conors, their sons, +brothers, or lovers. Perhaps it would be impossible to find any history +of those or of later ages in which women are treated upon a more +perfect equality with men, where their virtues and talents entitled +them to such consideration. + +The piety of the age, though it had lost something of the simplicity +and fervour of older times, was still conspicuous and edifying. Within +the island, the pilgrimage of Saint Patrick's purgatory, the shrine of +our Lady of Trim, the virtues of the holy cross of Raphoe, the miracles +wrought by the _Baculum Christi_, and other relics of Christ Church, +Dublin, were implicitly believed and piously frequented. The long and +dangerous journeys to Rome and Jerusalem were frequently taken, but the +favourite foreign vow was to Compostella, in Spain. Chiefs, Ladies, and +Bards, are almost annually mentioned as having sailed or returned from +the city of St. James; generally these pilgrims left in companies, and +returned in the same way. The great Jubilee of 1450, so +enthusiastically attended from every corner of Christendom, drew vast +multitudes from our island to Rome. By those who returned tidings were +first brought to Ireland of the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. +On receipt of this intelligence, which sent a thrill through the heart +of Europe, Tregury, Archbishop of Dublin, proclaimed a fast of three +days, and on each day walked in sackcloth, with his clergy, through the +streets of the city, to the Cathedral. By many in that age the event +was connected with the mystic utterances of the Apocalypse, and the +often-apprehended consummation of all Time. + +Although the Irish were then, as they still are, firm believers in +supernatural influence working visibly among men, they do not appear to +have ever been slaves to the terrible delusion of witchcraft. Among the +Anglo-Irish we find the first instance of that mania which appears in +our history, and we believe the only one, if we except the Presbyterian +witches of Carrickfergus, in the early part of the eighteenth century. +The scene of the ancient delusion was Kilkenny, where Bishop Ledred +accused the Lady Alice Kettel, and William her son, of practising black +magic, in the year 1327. Sir Roger Outlaw, Prior of Kilmainham, and +stepson to Lady Alice, undertook to protect her; but the fearful charge +was extended to him also, and he was compelled to enter on his defence. +The tribunal appointed to try the charge—one of the main grounds on +which the Templars had been suppressed twenty-five years before—was +composed of the Dean of St. Patrick's, the Prior of Christ Church, the +Abbots of St. Mary's and St. Thomas's, Dublin, Mr. Elias Lawless, and +Mr. Peter Willeby, lawyers. Outlaw was acquitted, and Ledred forced to +fly for safety to England, of which he was a native. It is pleasant to +remember that, although Irish credulity sometimes took shapes absurd +and grotesque enough, it never was perverted into diabolical channels, +or directed to the barbarities of witch-finding. + +About the beginning of the fifteenth century we meet with the first +mention of the use of Usquebagh, or _Aqua Vitae_, in our Annals. Under +the date of 1405 we read that McRannal, or Reynolds, chief of +Muntireolais, died of a surfeit of it, about Christmas. A quaint +Elizabethan writer thus descants on the properties of that liquor, as +he found them, by personal experience: "For the rawness (of the air) +they (the Irish) have an excellent remedy by their _Aqua Vitae_, +vulgarly called _Usquebagh_, which binds up the belly and drieth up +moisture more than our _Aqua Vitae_, yet inflameth not so much." + +And as the opening of the century may be considered notable for the +first mention of _Usquebagh_, so its close is memorable for the first +employment of fire-arms. In the year 1489, according to Anglo-Irish +Annals, "six hand guns or musquets were sent to the Earl of Kildare out +of Germany," which his guard bore while on sentry at Thomas Court—his +Dublin residence. But two years earlier (1487) we have positive mention +of the employment of guns at the siege of Castlecar, in Leitrim, by +Hugh Roe O'Donnell. Great guns were freely used ten years later in the +taking of Dungannon and Omagh, and contributed, not a little to the +victory of Knock-doe—in 1505. About the same time we begin to hear of +their employment by sea in rather a curious connection. A certain +French Knight, returning from the pilgrimage of Lough Derg, visiting +O'Donnell at Donegal, heard of the anxiety of his entertainer to take a +certain Castle which stood by the sea, in Sligo. This Knight promised +to send him, on his return to France, "a vessel carrying great guns," +which he accordingly did, and the Castle was in consequence taken. +Nevertheless the old Irish, according to their habit, took but slowly +to this wonderful invention, though destined to revolutionize the art +to which they were naturally predisposed—the art of war. + +The dwellings of the chiefs, and of the wealthy among the proprietors, +near the marches, were chiefly situated amid pallisaded islands, or on +promontories naturally moated by lakes. The houses, in those +circumstances, were mostly of framework, though the Milesian nobles, in +less exposed districts, had castles of stone, after the Norman fashion. +The Castle "bawn" was usually enclosed by one or more strong walls, the +inner sides of which were lined with barns, stables, and the houses of +the retainers. Not unfrequently the thatched roofs of these +outbuildings taking fire, compelled the castle to surrender. The Castle +"green," whether within or without the walls, was the usual scene of +rural sports and athletic games, of which, at all periods, our +ancestors were so fond. Of the interior economy of the Milesian rath, +or dun, we know less than of the Norman tower, where, before the huge +kitchen chimney, the heavy-laden spit was turned by hand, while the +dining-hall was adorned with the glitter of the dresser, or by tapestry +hangings;—the floors of hall and chambers being strewn with rushes and +odorous herbs. We have spoken of the zeal of the Milesian Chiefs in +accumulating MSS. and in rewarding Bards and Scribes. We are enabled to +form some idea of the mental resources of an Anglo-Irish nobleman of +the fifteenth century, from the catalogue of the library remaining in +Maynooth Castle, in the reign of Henry VIII. Of Latin books, there were +the works of several of the schoolmen, the dialogues of St. Gregory, +Virgil, Juvenal, and Terence; the Holy Bible; Boethius' Consolations of +Philosophy, and Saint Thomas's Summa; of French works, Froissart, +Mandeville, two French Bibles, a French Livy and Caesar, with the most +popular romances; in English, there were the Polychronicon, Cambrensis, +Lyttleton's Tenures, Sir Thomas More's book on Pilgrimages, and several +romances. Moreover, there were copies of the Psalter of Cashel, a book +of Irish chronicles, lives of St. Beraghan, St. Fiech and St. Finian, +with various religious tracts, and romantic tales. This was, perhaps, +the most extensive private collection to be found within the Pale; we +have every reason to infer, that, at least in Irish and Latin works, +the Castles of the older race—lovers of learning and entertainers of +learned men—were not worse furnished than Maynooth. + + + +CHAPTER X. +STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH +CENTURIES. + +Although the English and Irish professed the same religion during these +ages, yet in the appointment of Bishops, the administration of +ecclesiastical property, and in all their views of the relation of the +Church to the State, the two nations differed almost as widely as in +their laws, language, and customs. The Plantagenet princes and their +Parliaments had always exhibited a jealousy of the See of Rome, and +statute upon, statute was passed, from the reign of Henry II. to that +of Richard II., in order to diminish the power of the Supreme Pontiffs +in nominating to English benefices. In the second Richard's reign, so +eventful for the English interest in Ireland, it had been enacted that +any of the clergy procuring appointments directly from Rome, or +exercising powers so conferred, should incur the penalty of a +praemunire—that is, the forfeiture of their lands and chattels, beside +being liable to imprisonment during the King's pleasure. This statute +was held to apply equally to Ireland, being confirmed by some of those +petty conventions of "the Pale," which the Dublin Governors of the +fourteenth century dignified with the name of Parliaments. + +The ancient Irish method of promotion to a vacant see, or abbacy, +though modelled on the electoral principle which penetrated all Celtic +usages, was undoubtedly open to the charge of favouring nepotism, down +to the time of Saint Malachy, the restorer of the Irish Church. After +that period, the Prelates elect were ever careful to obtain the +sanction of the Holy See, before consecration. Such habitual submission +to Rome was seldom found, except in cases of disputed election, to +interfere with the choice of the clergy, and the custom grew more and +more into favour, as the English method of nomination by the crown was +attempted to be enforced, not only throughout "the Pale," but, by means +of English agents at Rome and Avignon, in the appointment to sees, +within the provinces of Armagh, Cashel, and Tuam. The ancient usage of +farming the church lands, under the charge of a lay steward, or +_Erenach_, elected by the clan, and the division of all the revenues +into four parts—for the Bishop, the Vicar and his priests, for the +poor, and for repairs of the sacred edifice, was equally opposed to the +pretensions of Princes, who looked on their Bishops as Barons, and +Church temporalities, like all other fiefs, as held originally of the +crown. Even if there had not been those differences of origin, +interest, and government which necessarily brought the two populations +into collision, these distinct systems of ecclesiastical polity could +not well have existed on the same soil without frequently clashing, one +with the other. + +In our notice of the association promoted among the clergy, at the end +of the thirteenth century, by the patriotic McMaelisa, ("follower of +Jesus"), and in our own comments on the memorable letter of Prince +Donald O'Neil to Pope John XXII., written in the year 1317 or '18, we +have seen how wide and deep was the gulf then existing between the +English and Irish churchmen. In the year 1324, an attempt to heal this +unchristian breach was made by Philip of Slane, the Dominican who +presided at the trial of the Knights Templars, who afterwards became +Bishop of Cork, and rose into high favour with the Queen-Mother, +Isabella. As her Ambassador, or in the name of King Edward III., still +a minor, he is reported to have submitted to Pope John certain +propositions for the promotion of peace in the Irish Church, some of +which were certainly well calculated to promote that end. He suggested +that the smaller Bishoprics, yielding under sixty pounds per annum, +should be united to more eminent sees, and that Irish Abbots and Priors +should admit English lay brothers to their houses, and English +Superiors Irish brothers, in like manner. The third proposition, +however, savours more of the politician than of the peacemaker; it was +to bring under the bann of excommunication, with all its rigorous +consequences in that age, those "disturbers of the peace" who invaded +the authority of the English King in Ireland. As a consequence of this +mission, a Concordat for Ireland seems to have been concluded at +Avignon, embracing the two first points, but omitting the third, which +was, no doubt, with the English Court, the main object of Friar +Philip's embassy. + +During the fourteenth century, and down to the election of Martin V. +(A.D. 1417), the Popes sat mainly at Avignon, in France. In the last +forty years of that melancholy period, other Prelates sitting at Rome, +or elsewhere in Italy, claimed the Apostolic primacy. It was in the +midst of these troubles and trials of the Church that the powerful +Kings of England, who were also sovereigns of a great part of France, +contrived to extort from the embarrassed pontiffs concessions which, +however gratifying to royal pride, were abhorrent to the more Catholic +spirit of the Irish people. A constant struggle was maintained during +the entire period of the captivity of the Popes in France between Roman +and English influence in Ireland. There were often two sets of Bishops +elected in such border sees as Meath and Louth, which were districts +under a divided influence. The Bishops of Limerick, Cork, and +Waterford, liable to have their revenues cut off, and their personal +liberty endangered by sea, were almost invariably nominees of the +English Court; those of the Province of Dublin were necessarily so; but +the prelates of Ulster, of Connaught, and of Munster—the southern +seaports excepted—were almost invariably native ecclesiastics, elected +in the old mode, by the assembled clergy, and receiving letters of +confirmation direct from Avignon or Italy. + +A few incidents in the history of the Church of Cashel will better +illustrate the character of the contest between the native episcopacy +and the foreign power. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, +Archbishop McCarwill maintained with great courage the independence of +his jurisdiction against Henry III. and Edward I. Having inducted +certain Bishops into their sees without waiting for the royal letters, +he sustained a long litigation in the Anglo-Irish courts, and was much +harassed in his goods and person. Seizing from a usurer 400 pounds, he +successfully resisted the feudal claim of Edward I., as lord paramount, +to pay over the money to the royal exchequer. Edward having undertaken +to erect a prison—or fortress in disguise—in his episcopal city, the +bold Prelate publicly excommunicated the Lord Justice who undertook the +work, the escheator who supplied the funds, and all those engaged in +its construction, nor did he desist from his opposition until the +obnoxious building was demolished. Ralph O'Kelly, who filled the same +see from 1345 to 1361, exhibited an equally dauntless spirit. An +Anglo-Irish Parliament having levied a subsidy on all property, lay and +ecclesiastical, within their jurisdiction, to carry on the war of races +before described, he not only opposed its collection within the +Province of Cashel, but publicly excommunicated Epworth, Clerk of the +Council, who had undertaken that task. For this offence an information +was exhibited against him, laying the King's damages at a thousand +pounds; but he pleaded the liberties of the Church, and successfully +traversed the indictment. Richard O'Hedian, Archbishop from 1406 to +1440, was a Prelate of similar spirit to his predecessors. At a +Parliament held in Dublin in 1421, it was formally alleged, among other +enormities, that he made very much of the Irish and loved none of the +English; that he presented no Englishman to a benefice, and advised +other Prelates to do likewise; and that he made himself King of +Munster—alluding, probably, to some revival at this time of the old +title of Prince-Bishop, which had anciently belonged to the Prelates of +Cashel. O'Hedian retained his authority, however, till his death, after +which the see remained twelve years vacant, the temporalities being +farmed by the Earl of Ormond. + +From this conflict of interests, frequently resulting in disputed +possession and intrusive jurisdiction, religion must have suffered +much, at least in its discipline and decorum. The English Archbishops +of Dublin would not yield in public processions to the Irish +Archbishops of Armagh, nor permit the crozier of St. Patrick to be +borne publicly through their city; the English Bishop of Waterford was +the public accuser of the Irish Archbishop of Cashel, last mentioned, +before a lay tribunal—the knights and burgesses of "the Pale." The +annual expeditions sent out from Dublin, to harass the nearest native +clans, were seldom without a Bishop or Abbot, or Prior of the Temple or +Hospital, in their midst. Scandals must have ensued; hatreds must have +sprung up; prejudices, fatal to charity and unity, must have been +engendered, both on the one side and the other. The spirit of party +carried into the Church can be cherished in the presence of the Altar +and Cross only by doing violence to the teachings of the Cross and the +sanctity of the Altar. + +While such was the troubled state of the Church, as exemplified in its +twofold hierarchy, the religious orders continued to spread, with +amazing energy, among both races. The orders of Saint Francis and Saint +Dominick, those twin giants of the thirteenth century, already rivalled +the mighty brotherhood which Saint Bernard had consecrated, and Saint +Malachy had introduced into the Irish Church. It is observable that the +Dominicans, at least at first, were most favoured by the English and +the Anglo-Irish; while the Franciscans were more popular with the +native population. Exceptions may be found on both sides: but as a +general rule this distinction can be traced in the strongholds of +either order, and in the names of their most conspicuous members, down +to that dark and trying hour when the tempest of "the Reformation" +involved both in a common danger, and demonstrated their equal heroism. +As elsewhere in Christendom, the sudden aggrandizement of these +mendicant institutes excited jealousy and hostility among certain of +the secular clergy and Bishops. This feeling was even stronger in +England during the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., when, +according to the popular superstition, the Devil appeared at various +places "in the form of a grey friar." The great champion of the secular +clergy, in the controversy which ensued, was Richard, son of Ralph, a +native of Dundalk, the Erasmus of his age. Having graduated at Oxford, +where the Irish were then classed as one of "the four nations" of +students, Fitz-Ralph achieved distinction after distinction, till he +rose to the rank of Chancellor of the University, in 1333. Fourteen +years afterwards he was consecrated, by provision of Pope Clement VI., +Archbishop of Armagh, and is by some writers styled "Cardinal of +Armagh." Inducted into the chief see of his native Province and +country, he soon commenced those sermons and writings against the +mendicant orders which rendered him so conspicuous in the Church +history of the fourteenth century. Summoned to Avignon, in 1350, to be +examined on his doctrine, he maintained before the Consistory the +following propositions: 1st, that our Lord Jesus Christ, as a man, was +very poor, not that He loved poverty for itself; 2nd, that our Lord had +never begged; 3rd, that He never taught men to beg; 4th, that, on the +contrary, He taught men not to beg; 5th, that man cannot, with prudence +and holiness, confine himself by vow to a life of constant mendicity; +6th, that minor brothers are not obliged by their rule to beg; 7th, +that the bull of Alexander IV., which condemns the Book of Masters, +does not invalidate any of the aforesaid conclusions; 8th, that by +those who, wishing to confess, exclude certain churches, their parish +one should be preferred to the oratories of monks; and 9th, that, for +auricular confession, the diocesan, bishop should be chosen in +preference to friars. + +In a "defence of Parish Priests," and many other tracts, in several +sermons, preached at London, Litchfield, Drogheda, Dundalk, and Armagh, +he maintained the thesis until the year 1357, when the Superior of the +Franciscans at Armagh, seconded by the influence of his own and the +Dominican order, caused him to be summoned a second time before the +Pope. Fitz-Ralph promptly obeyed the summons, but before the cause +could be finally decided he died at Avignon in 1361. His body was +removed from thence to Dundalk in 1370 by Stephen de Valle, Bishop of +Meath. Miracles were said to have been wrought at his tomb; a process +of inquiry into their validity was instituted by order of Boniface IX., +but abandoned without any result being arrived at. The bitter +controversy between the mendicant and other orders was revived towards +the end of the century by Henry, a Cistercian monk of Baltinglass, who +maintained opinions still more extreme than those of Fitz-Ralph; but he +was compelled publicly and solemnly to retract them before +Commissioners appointed for that purpose in the year 1382. + +The range of mental culture in Europe during the fourteenth century +included only the scholastic philosophy and theology with the physics, +taught in the schools of the Spanish Arabs. The fifteenth century saw +the revival of Greek literature in Italy, and the general restoration +of classical learning. The former century is especially barren of +original _belles lettres_ writings; but the next succeeding ages +produced Italian poetry, French chronicles, Spanish ballads, and all +that wonderful efflorescence of popular literature, which, in our far +advanced cultivation, we still so much envy and admire. In the last +days of Scholasticism, Irish intelligence asserted its ancient equality +with the best minds of Europe; but in the new era of national +literature, unless there are buried treasures yet to be dug out of +their Gaelic tombs, the country fell altogether behind England, and +even Scotland, not to speak of Italy or France. Archbishop Fitz-Ralph, +John Scotus of Down, William of Drogheda, Professor of both laws at +Oxford, are respectable representatives among the last and greatest +group of the School-men. Another illustrious name remains to be added +to the roll of Irish Scholastics, that of Maurice O'Fihely, Archbishop +of Tuam. He was a thorough Scotist in philosophy, which he taught at +Padua, in discourses long afterwards printed at Venice. His +Commentaries on _Scotus_, his Dictionary of the Sacred Scriptures, and +other numerous writings, go far to justify the compliments of his +cotemporaries, though the fond appellation of the "flower of the earth" +given him by some of them sounds extravagant and absurd. Soon after +arriving from Rome to take possession of his see he died at Tuam in +1513, in the fiftieth year of his age—an early age to have won so +colossal a reputation. + +Beyond some meagre annals, compiled in monastic houses, and a few +rhymed panegyrics, the muses of history and of poetry seem to have +abandoned the island to the theologians, jurists, and men of science. +The Bardic order was still one of the recognized estates, and found +patrons worthy of their harps in the lady Margaret O'Carroll of +Offally, William O'Kelley of Galway, and Henry Avery O'Neil. Full +collections of the original Irish poetry of the Middle Ages are yet to +be made public, but it is scarcely possible that if any composition of +eminent merit existed, we should not have had editions and translations +of it before now. + + + +BOOK VII. +UNION OF THE CROWNS OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND. + + + +CHAPTER I. +IRISH POLICY OF HENRY THE EIGHTH DURING THE LIFETIME OF CARDINAL +WOLSEY. + +Henry the Eighth of England succeeded his father on the throne, early +in the year 1509. He was in the eighteenth year of his age, when he +thus found himself master of a well-filled treasury and an united +kingdom. Fortune, as if to complete his felicity, had furnished him +from the outset of his reign with a minister of unrivalled talent for +public business. This was Thomas Wolsey, successively royal Chaplain, +Almoner, Archbishop of York, Papal Legate, Lord Chancellor, and Lord +Cardinal. From the fifth to the twentieth year of King Henry, he was, +in effect, sovereign in the state, and it is wonderful to find how much +time he contrived to borrow from the momentous foreign affairs of that +eventful age for the obscurer intrigues of Irish politics. + +Wolsey kept before his mind, more prominently than any previous English +statesman, the design of making his royal master as absolute in Ireland +as any King in Christendom. He determined to abolish every pretence to +sovereignty but that of the King of England, and to this end he +resolved to circumscribe the power of the Anglo-Irish Barons, and to +win over by "dulce ways" and "politic drifts," as he expressed it, the +Milesian-Irish Chiefs. This policy, continued by all the Tudor +sovereigns till the latter years of Elizabeth, so far as it +distinguished between the Barons and Chiefs always favoured the latter. +The Kildares and Desmonds were hunted to the death, in the same age, +and by the same authority, which carefully fostered every symptom of +adhesion or attachment on the part of the O'Neils and O'Briens. Neither +were these last loved or trusted for their own sakes, but the natural +enemy fares better in all histories than the unnatural rebel. + +We must enumerate some of the more remarkable instances of Wolsey's +twofold policy of concession and intimidation. In the third and fourth +years of Henry, Hugh O'Donnell, lord of Tyrconnell, passing through +England, on a pilgrimage to Rome, was entertained with great honour at +Windsor and Greenwich for four months each time. He returned to Ulster +deeply impressed with the magnificence of the young monarch and the +resources of his kingdom. During the remainder of his life he cherished +a strong predilection for England; he dissuaded James IV. of Scotland +from leading a liberating expedition to Ireland in 1513—previous to the +ill-fated campaign which ended on Flodden field, and he steadily +resisted the influx of the Islesmen into Down and Antrim. In 1521 we +find him described by the Lord Lieutenant, Surrey, as being of all the +Irish chiefs the best disposed "to fall into English order." He +maintained a direct correspondence with Henry until his death, 1537, +when the policy he had so materially assisted had progressed beyond the +possibility of defeat. Simultaneously with O'Donnell's adhesion, the +same views found favour with the powerful chief of Tyrone. The O'Neils +were now divided into two great septs, those of Tyrone, whose seat was +at Dungannon, and those of Clandeboy, whose strongholds studded the +eastern shores of Lough Neagh. In the year 1480, Con O'Neil, lord of +Tyrone, married his cousin-germain, Lady Alice Fitzgerald, daughter of +the Earl of Kildare. This alliance tended to establish an intimacy +between Maynooth and Dungannon, which subserved many of the ends of +Wolsey's policy. Turlogh, Art, and Con, sons of Lady Alice, and +successively chiefs of Tyrone, adhered to the fortunes of the Kildare +family, who were, however unwillingly, controlled by the superior power +of Henry. The Clandeboy O'Neils, on the contrary, regarded this +alliance as nothing short of apostasy, and pursued the exactly opposite +course, repudiating English and cultivating Scottish alliances. Open +ruptures and frequent collisions took place between the estranged and +exasperated kinsmen; in the sequel we will find how the last surviving +son of Lady Alice became in his old age the first Earl of Tyrone, while +the House of Clandeboy took up the title of "the O'Neil." The example +of the elder branch of this ancient royal race, and of the hardly less +illustrious family of Tyrconnell, exercised a potent influence on the +other chieftains of Ulster. + +An elaborate report on "the State of Ireland," with "a plan for its +Reformation"—submitted to Henry in the year 1515—gives us a tolerably +clear view of the political and military condition of the several +provinces. The only portions of the country in any sense subject to +English law, were half the counties of Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, +and Wexford. The residents within these districts paid "black rent" to +the nearest native chiefs. Sheriffs were not permitted to execute +writs, beyond the bounds thus described, and even within thirty miles +of Dublin, March-law and Brehon-law were in full force. Ten native +magnates are enumerated in Leinster as "chief captains" of their +"nations"—not one of whom regarded the English King as his Sovereign. +Twenty chiefs in Munster, fifteen in Connaught, and three in +West-Meath, maintained their ancient state, administered their own +laws, and recognized no superiority, except in one another, as policy +or custom compelled them. Thirty chief English captains, of whom +eighteen resided in Munster, seven in Connaught, and the remainder in +Meath, Down, and Antrim, are set down as "rebels" and followers of "the +Irish order." Of these, the principal in the midland counties were the +Dillons and Tyrrells, in the West the Burkes and Berminghams, in the +South the Powers, Barrys, Roches—the Earl of Desmond and his relatives. +The enormous growth of these Munster Geraldines, and their not less +insatiable greed, produced many strange complications in the politics +of the South. Not content with the moiety of Kerry, Cork, and +Waterford, they had planted their landless cadets along the Suir and +the Shannon, in Ormond and Thomond. They narrowed the dominions of the +O'Briens on the one hand and the McCarthys on the other. Concluding +peace or war with their neighbours, as suited their own convenience, +they sometimes condescended to accept further feudal privileges from +the Kings of England. To Maurice, tenth Earl, Henry VII. had granted +"all the customs, cockets, poundage, prize wines of Limerick, Cork, +Kinsale, Baltimore and Youghal, with other privileges and advantages." +Yet Earl James, in the next reign, did not hesitate to treat with +Francis of France and the Emperor of Germany, as an independent Prince, +long before the pretence of resisting the Reformation could be alleged +in his justification. What we have here to observe is, that this +predominance of the Munster Geraldines drove first one and then another +branch of the McCarthys, and O'Briens, into the meshes of Wolsey's +policy. Cormac Oge, lord of Muskerry, and his cousin, the lord of +Carbery, defeated the eleventh Earl (James), at Moore Abbey, in 1521, +with a loss of 1,500 foot and 500 or 600 horsemen. To strengthen +himself against the powerful adversary so deeply wounded, Cormac sought +the protection of the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Surrey, and of +Pierce Roe, the eighth Earl of Ormond, who had common wrongs to avenge. +In this way McCarthy became identified with the English interest, which +he steadily adhered to till his death—in 1536. Driven by the same +necessity to adopt the same expedient, Murrogh O'Brien, lord of +Thomond, a few years later visited Henry at London, where he resigned +his principality, received back his lands, under a royal patent +conveying them to him as "Earl of Thomond, and Baron of Inchiquin." +Henry was but too happy to have raised up such a counterpoise to the +power of Desmond, at his own door, while O'Brien was equally anxious to +secure foreign aid against such intolerable encroachments. The policy +worked effectually; it brought the succeeding Earl of Desmond to +London, an humble suitor for the King's mercy and favour, which were +after some demur granted. + +The event, however, which most directly tended to the establishment of +an English royalty in Ireland, was the depression of the family of +Kildare in the beginning of this reign, and its all but extinction a +few years later. Gerald, the ninth Earl of that title, succeeded his +father in the office of Lord Deputy in the first years of Henry. He had +been a ward at the court of the preceding King, and by both his first +and second marriages was closely connected with the royal family. Yet +he stood in the way of the settled plans of Wolsey, before whom the +highest heads in the realm trembled. His father, as if to secure him +against the hereditary enmity of the Butlers, had married his daughter +Margaret to Pierce Roe, Earl of Ossory, afterwards eighth Earl of +Ormond—the restorer of that house. This lady, however, entered heartily +into the antipathies of her husband's family, and being of masculine +spirit, with an uncommon genius for public affairs, helped more than +any Butler had ever done to humble the overshadowing house of which she +was born. The weight of Wolsey's influence was constantly exercised in +favour of Ormond, who had the skill to recommend himself quite as +effectually to Secretary Cromwell, after the Cardinal's disgrace and +death. But the struggles of the house of Kildare were bold and +desperate. + + + +CHAPTER II. +THE INSURRECTION OF SILKEN THOMAS—THE GERALDINE LEAGUE—ADMINISTRATION +OF LORD LEONARD GRAY. + +The ninth and last _Catholic_ Earl of Kildare, in the ninth year of +Henry VIII., had been summoned to London to answer two charges +preferred against him by his political enemies: "1st, That he had +enriched himself and his followers out of the crown lands and revenues. +2nd, That he had formed alliances and corresponded with divers Irish +enemies of the State." Pending these charges the Earl of Surrey, the +joint-victor with his father at Flodden field, was despatched to Dublin +in his stead, with the title of Lord Lieutenant. + +Kildare, by the advice of Wolsey, was retained in a sort of honourable +attendance on the person of the King for nearly four years. During this +interval he accompanied Henry to "the field of the cloth of Gold," so +celebrated in French and English chronicles. On his return to Dublin, +in 1523, he found his enemy, the Earl of Ormond, in his old office, but +had the pleasure of supplanting him one year afterwards. In 1525, on +the discovery of Desmond's correspondence with Francis of France, he +was ordered to march into Munster and arrest that nobleman. But, though +he obeyed the royal order, Desmond successfully evaded him, not, as was +alleged, without his friendly connivance. The next year this evasion +was made the ground of a fresh impeachment by the implacable Earl of +Ormond; he was again summoned to London, and committed to the Tower. In +1530 he was liberated, and sent over with Sir William Skeffington, +whose authority to some extent he shared. The English Knight had the +title of Deputy, but Kildare was, in effect, Captain General, as the +Red Earl had formerly been. Skeffington was instructed to obey him in +the field, while it was expected that the Earl, in return, would +sustain his colleague in the Council. A year had not passed before they +were declared enemies, and Skeffington was recalled to England, where +he added another to the number of Kildare's enemies. After a short term +of undisputed power, the latter found himself, in 1533, for the third +time, an inmate of the Tower. It is clear that the impetuous Earl, +after his second escape, had not conducted himself as prudently as one +so well forewarned ought to have done. He played more openly than ever +the twofold part of Irish Chief among the Irish, and English Baron +within the Pale. His daughters were married to the native lords of +Offally and Ely, and he frequently took part as arbitrator in the +affairs of those clans. The anti-Geraldine faction were not slow to +torture these facts to suit themselves. They had been strengthened at +Dublin by three English officials, Archbishop Allan, his relative John +Allan, afterwards Master of the Rolls, and Robert Cowley, the Chief +Solicitor, Lord Ormond's confidential agent. The reiterated +representations of these personages induced the suspicious and +irascible King to order the Earl's attendance at London, authorizing +him at the same time to appoint a substitute, for whose conduct he +would be answerable. Kildare nominated his son, Lord Thomas, though not +yet of man's age; after giving him many sage advices, he sailed for +England, no more to return. + +The English interest at that moment had apparently reached the lowest +point. The O'Briens had bridged the Shannon, and enforced their ancient +claims over Limerick. So defenceless, at certain periods, was Dublin +itself that Edmond Oge O'Byrne surprised the Castle by night, liberated +the prisoners, and carried off the stores. This daring achievement, +unprecedented even in the records of the fearless mountaineers of +Wicklow, was thrown in to aggravate the alleged offences of Kildare. He +was accused, moreover, of having employed the King's great guns and +other munitions of war to strengthen his own Castles of Maynooth and +Ley—a charge more direct and explicit than had been alleged against him +at any former period. + +While the Earl lay in London Tower, an expedient very common afterwards +in our history—the forging of letters and despatches—was resorted to by +his enemies in Dublin, to drive the young Lord Thomas into some rash +act which might prove fatal to his father and himself. Accordingly the +packets brought from Chester, in the spring of 1534, repeated reports, +one confirming the other, of the execution of the Earl in the Tower. +Nor was there anything very improbable in such an occurrence. The cruel +character of Henry had, in these same spring months, been fully +developed in the execution of the reputed prophetess, Elizabeth Barton, +and all her abettors. The most eminent layman in England, Sir Thomas +More, and the most illustrious ecclesiastic, Bishop Fisher, had at the +same time been found guilty of misprision of treason for having known +of the pretended prophecies of Elizabeth without communicating their +knowledge to the King. That an Anglo-Irish Earl, even of the first +rank, could hope to fare better at the hands of the tyrant than his +aged tutor and his trusted Chancellor, was not to be expected. When, +therefore, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald flung down the sword of State on the +Council table, in the hall of St. Mary's Abbey, on the 11th day of +June, 1534, and formally renounced his allegiance to King Henry as the +murderer of his father, although he betrayed an impetuous and impolitic +temper, there was much in the events of the times to justify his belief +in the rumours of his father's execution. + +This renunciation of allegiance was a declaration of open war. The +chapter thus opened in the memoirs of the Leinster Geraldines closed at +Tyburn on the 3rd of February, 1537. Within these three years, the +policy of annexation was hastened by several events—but by none more +than this unconcerted, unprepared, reckless revolt. The advice of the +imprisoned Earl to his son had been "to play the gentlest part," but +youth and rash counsels overcame the suggestions of age and experience. +One great excess stained the cause of "Silken Thomas," while it was but +six weeks old. Towards the end of July, Archbishop Allan, his father's +deadly enemy, left his retreat in the Castle, and put to sea by night, +hoping to escape into England. The vessel, whether by design or +accident, ran ashore at Clontarf, and the neighbourhood being overrun +by the insurgents, the Archbishop concealed himself at Artane. Here he +was discovered, dragged from his bed, and murdered, if not in the +actual presence, under the same roof with Lord Thomas. King Henry's +Bishops hurled against the assassins the greater excommunication, with +all its penalties; a terrific malediction, which was, perhaps, more +than counterbalanced by the Papal Bull issued against Henry and Anne +Boleyn on the last day of August—the knowledge of which must have +reached Ireland before the end of the year. This Bull cited Henry to +appear within ninety days in person, or by attorney, at Rome, to answer +for his offences against the Apostolic See; failing which, he was +declared excommunicated, his subjects were absolved from their +allegiance, and commanded to take up arms against their former +sovereign. The ninety days expired with the month of November, 1534. + +Lord Thomas, as he acted without consultation with others, so he was +followed but by few persons of influence. His brothers-in-law, the +chiefs of Ely and Offally, O'Moore of Leix, two of his five uncles, his +relatives, the Delahides, mustered their adherents, and rallied to his +standard. He held the castles of Carlow, Maynooth, Athy, and other +strongholds in Kildare. He besieged Dublin, and came to a composition +with the citizens, by which they agreed to allow him free ingress to +assail the Castle, into which his enemies had withdrawn. He despatched +agents to the Emperor, Charles V., and the Pope, but before those +agents could well have returned—March, 1535—Maynooth had been assaulted +and taken by Sir William Skeffington—and the bands collected by the +young lord had melted away. Lord Leonard Gray, his maternal uncle, +assumed the command for the King of England, instead of Skeffington, +disabled by sickness, and the abortive insurrection was extinguished in +one campaign. Towards the end of August, 1535, the unfortunate Lord +Thomas surrendered on the guarantee of Lord Leonard and Lord Butler; in +the following year his five uncles—three of whom had never joined in +the rising—were treacherously seized at a banquet given to them by +Gray, and were all, with their nephew, executed at Tyburn, on the 3rd +of February, 1537. The imprisoned Earl having died in the Tower on the +12th of December, 1534, the sole survivor of this historic house was +now a child of twelve years of age, whose life was sought with an +avidity equal to Herod's, but who was protected with a fidelity which +defeated every attempt to capture him. Alternately the guest of his +aunts married to the chiefs of Offally and Donegal, the sympathy +everywhere felt for him led to a confederacy between the Northern and +Southern Chiefs, which had long been wanting. A loose league was +formed, including the O'Neils of both branches, O'Donnell, O'Brien, the +Earl of Desmond, and the chiefs of Moylurg and Breffni. The lad, the +object of so much natural and chivalrous affection, was harboured for a +time in Munster, thence transported through Connaught into Donegal, and +finally, after four years, in which he engaged more of the minds of +statesmen than any other individual under the rank of royalty, was +safely landed in France. We shall meet him again in another reign, +under more fortunate auspices. + +Lord Leonard Gray continued in office as Deputy for nearly five years +(1535-40). This interval was marked by several successes against +detached clans and the parties to the Geraldine league, whom he was +careful to attack only in succession. In his second campaign, O'Brien's +bridge was carried and demolished, one O'Brien was set up against +another, and one O'Conor against another; the next year the Castle of +Dungannon was taken from O'Neil, and Dundrum from Magennis. In 1539, he +defeated O'Neil and O'Donnell, at Bolahoe, on the borders of Farney, in +Monaghan, with a loss of 400 men, and the spoils they had taken from +the English of Navan and Ardee. The Mayors of Dublin and Drogheda were +knighted on the field for the valour they had shown at the head of +their train-bands. The same year, he made a successful incursion into +the territory of the Earl of Desmond, receiving the homage of many of +the inferior lords, and exonerating them from the exactions of those +haughty Palatines. Recalled to England in 1540, he, too, in turn, fell +a victim to the sanguinary spirit of King Henry, and perished on the +scaffold. + + + +CHAPTER III. +SIR ANTHONY ST. LEGER, LORD DEPUTY—NEGOTIATIONS OF THE IRISH CHIEFS +WITH JAMES THE FIFTH OF SCOTLAND—FIRST ATTEMPTS TO INTRODUCE THE +PROTESTANT REFORMATION—OPPOSITION OF THE CLERGY—PARLIAMENT OF 1541—THE +PROCTORS OF THE CLERGY EXCLUDED—STATE OF THE COUNTRY—THE CROWNS +UNITED—HENRY THE EIGHTH PROCLAIMED AT LONDON AND DUBLIN. + +Upon the disgrace of Lord Leonard Gray in 1540, Sir Anthony St. Leger +was appointed Deputy. He had previously been employed as chief of the +commission issued in 1537, to survey land subject to the King, to +inquire into, confirm, or cancel titles, and abolish abuses which might +have crept in among the Englishry, whether upon the marches or within +the Pale. In this employment he had at his disposal a guard of 340 men, +while the Deputy and Council were ordered to obey his mandates as if +given by the King in person. The commissioners were further empowered +to reform the Courts of Law; to enter as King's Counsel into both +Houses of Parliament, there to urge the adoption of measures upholding +English laws and customs, establishing the King's supremacy, in +spirituals as in temporals, to provide for the defence of the marches, +and the better collection of the revenues. In the three years which he +spent at the head of this commission, St. Leger, an eminently able and +politic person, made himself intimately acquainted with Irish affairs; +as a natural consequence of which knowledge he was entrusted, upon the +first vacancy, with their supreme directions. In this situation he had +to contend, not only with the complications long existing in the system +itself, but with the formidable disturbing influence exercised by the +Court of Scotland, chiefly upon and by means of the Ulster Princes. + +Up to this period, the old political intimacy of Scotland and Ireland +had known no diminution. The Scots in Antrim could reckon, soon after +Henry's accession to the throne, 2,000 fighting men. In 1513, in order +to co-operate with the warlike movement of O'Donnell, the Scottish +fleet, under the Earl of Arran, in his famous flagship, "the great +Michael," captured Carrickfergus, putting its Anglo-Irish garrison to +the sword. In the same Scottish reign (that of James IV.), one of the +O'Donnells had a munificent grant of lands in Kirkcudbright, as other +adventurers from Ulster had from the same monarch, in Galloway and +Kincardine. In 1523, while hostilities raged between Scotland and +England, the Irish Chiefs entered into treaty with Francis the First of +France, who bound himself to land in Ireland 15,000 men, to expel the +English from "the Pale," and to carry his arms across the channel in +the quarrel of Richard de la Pole, father of the famous Cardinal, and +at this time a formidable pretender to the English throne. The imbecile +conduct of the Scottish Regent, the Duke of Albany, destroyed this +enterprise, which, however, was but the forerunner, if it was not the +model, of several similar combinations. When the Earl of Bothwell took +refuge at the English Court, in 1531, he suggested to Henry VIII., +among other motives for renewing the war with James V., that the latter +was in league "with the Emperor, the Danish King, and O'Donnell." The +following year, a Scottish force of 4,000 men, under John, son of +Alexander McDonald, Lord of the Isles, served, by permission of their +King, under the banner of the Chieftain of Tyrconnell. An uninterrupted +correspondence between the Ulster Chiefs and the Scottish Court may be +traced through this reign, forming a curious chapter of Irish +diplomacy. In 1535, we have a letter from O'Neil to James V., from +which it appears that O'Neil's Secretary was then residing at the +Scottish Court; and as the crisis of the contest for the Crown drew +near, we find the messages and overtures from Ulster multiplying in +number and earnestness. In that critical period, James V. was between +twenty and thirty years old, and his powerful minister, Cardinal +Beaton, was acting by him the part that Wolsey had played by Henry at a +like age. The Cardinal, favouring the French and Irish alliances, had +drawn a line of Scottish policy, in relation to both those countries, +precisely parallel to Wolsey's. During the Geraldine insurrection, +Henry was obliged to remonstrate with James on favours shown to his +rebels of Ireland. This charge James' ministers, in their +correspondence of the year 1535, strenuously denied, while admitting +that some insignificant Islesmen, over whom he could exercise no +control, might have gone privily thither. In the spring of 1540, Bryan +Layton, one of the English agents at the Scottish Court, communicated +to Secretary Cromwell that James had fitted out a fleet of 15 ships, +manned by 2,000 men, and armed with all the ordinance that he could +muster; that his destination was Ireland, the Crown of which had been +offered to him, the previous Lent, by "eight gentlemen," who brought +him written tenders of submission "from all the great men of Ireland," +with their seals attached; and, furthermore, that the King had declared +to Lord Maxwell his determination to win such a prize as "never King of +Scotland had before," or to lose his life in the attempt. It is +remarkable that in this same spring of 1540—while such was understood +to be the destination of the Scottish fleet—a congress of the Chiefs of +all Ireland was appointed to be held at the Abbey of Fore, in +West-Meath. To prevent this meeting taking place, the whole force of +the Pale, with the judges, clergy, townsmen and husbandmen, marched out +under the direction of the Lords of the Council (St. Leger not having +yet arrived to replace Lord Gray), but finding no such assembly as they +had been led to expect, they made a predatory incursion into Roscommon, +and dispersed some armed bands belonging to O'Conor. The commander in +this expedition was the Marshal Sir William Brereton, for the moment +one of the Lords Justices. He was followed to the field by the last +Prior of Kilmainham, Sir John Rawson, the Master of the Rolls, the +Archbishop of Dublin, the Bishop of Meath, Mr. Justice Luttrell, and +the Barons of the Exchequer-a strange medley of civil and military +dignitaries. + +The prevention or postponement of the Congress at Fore must have +exercised a decided influence on the expedition of James V. His great +armada having put to sea, after coasting among the out-islands, and +putting into a northern English port from stress of weather, returned +home without achievement of any kind. Diplomatic intercourse was +shortly renewed between him and Henry, but, in the following year, to +the extreme displeasure of his royal kinsman, he assumed the +much-prized title of "Defender of the Faith." Another rupture took +place, when the Irish card was played over again with the customary +effect. In a letter of July, 1541, introducing to the Irish Chiefs the +Jesuit Fathers, Salmeron, Broet, and Capata, who passed through +Scotland on their way to Ireland, James styles himself "Lord of +Ireland"—another insult and defiance to Henry, whose newly-acquired +kingly style was then but a few weeks old. By way of retaliation, Henry +ordered the Archbishop of York to search the registers of that see for +evidence of _his_ claim to the Crown of Scotland, and industriously +cultivated the disaffected party amongst the Scottish nobility. At +length these bickerings broke out into open war, and the short, but +fatal campaign of 1542, removed another rival for the English King. The +double defeat of Fala and of Solway Moss, the treason of his nobles, +and the failure of his hopes, broke the heart of the high-spirited +James V. He died in December, 1542, in the 33rd year of his age, a few +hours after learning the birth of his daughter, so celebrated as Mary, +Queen of Scots. In his last moments he pronounced the doom of the +Stuart dynasty—"It came with a lass," he exclaimed, "and it will go +with a lass," And thus it happened that the image of Ireland, which +unfolds the first scene of the War of the Roses, which is inseparable +from the story of the two Bruces, and which occupies so much of the +first and last years of the Tudor dynasty, stands mournfully by the +deathbed of the last Stuart King who reigned in Scotland—the only +Prince of his race that had ever written under his name the title of +"_Dominus Hiberniae_." + +The premature death of James was hardly more regretted by his immediate +subjects than by his Irish allies. All external events now conspired to +show the hopelessness of resistance to the power of King Henry. From +Scotland, destined to half a century of anarchy, no help could be +expected. Wales, another ancient ally of the Irish, had been +incorporated with England, in 1536, and was fast becoming reconciled to +the rule of a Prince, sprung from a Welsh ancestry. Francis of France +and Charles V., rivals for the leadership of the Continent, were too +busy with their own projects to enter into any Irish alliance. The +Geraldines had suffered terrible defeats; the family of Kildare was +without an adult representative; the O'Neils and O'Donnells had lost +ground at Bellahoe, and were dismayed by the unlooked-for death of the +King of Scotland. The arguments, therefore, by which many of the chiefs +might have justified themselves to their clans in 1541, '2 and '3, for +submitting to the inevitable laws of necessity in rendering homage to +Henry VIII., were neither few nor weak. Abroad there was no hope of an +alliance sufficient to counterbalance the immense resources of England; +at home life-wasting private wars, the conflict of laws, of languages, +and of titles to property, had become unbearable. That fatal family +pride, which would not permit an O'Brien to obey an O'Neil, nor an +O'Conor to follow either, rendered the establishment of a native +monarchy—even if there had been no other obstacle—wholly impracticable. +Among the clergy alone did the growing supremacy of Henry meet with any +effective opposition. + +At its first presentation in Ireland, and during the whole of Henry's +lifetime, the "Reformation" wore the guise of schism, as distinguished +from heresy. To deny the supremacy of the Pope and admit the supremacy +of the King were almost its sole tests of doctrine. All the ancient +teaching in relation to the Seven Sacraments, the Holy Sacrifice of the +Mass, the Real Presence, Purgatory, and Prayers for the Dead, were +scrupulously retained. Subsequently, the necessity of auricular +confession, the invocation of Saints, and the celibacy of the clergy +came to be questioned, but they were not dogmatically assailed during +this reign. The common people, where English was understood, were slow +in taking alarm at these masked innovations; in the Irish-speaking +districts—three-fourths of the whole country—they were only heard of as +rumours from afar, but the clergy, secular and regular, were not long +left in doubt as to where such steps must necessarily lead. + +From 1534, the year of his divorce, until 1541, the year of his +election, Henry attempted, by fits and starts, to assert his supremacy +in Ireland. He appointed George Browne, a strenuous advocate of the +divorce, some time Provincial of the order of St. Augustine in England, +Archbishop of Dublin, vacant by the murder of Archbishop Allan. On the +12th of March, 1535, Browne was consecrated by Cranmer, whose opinions, +as well as those of Secretary Cromwell, he echoed through life. He may +be considered the first agent employed to introduce the Reformation +into Ireland, and his zeal in that work seems to have been unwearied. +He was destined, however, to find many opponents, and but few converts. +Not only the Primate of Armagh, George Cromer, and almost all the +episcopal order, resolutely resisted his measures, but the clergy and +laity of Dublin refused to accept his new forms of prayer, or to listen +to his strange teaching. He inveighs in his correspondence with +Cromwell against Bassenet, Dean of St. Patrick's, Castele, Prior of +Christ's Church, and generally against all the clergy. Of the +twenty-eight secular priests in Dublin, but three could be induced to +act with him; the regular orders he found equally intractable—more +especially the Observantins, whose name he endeavoured to change to +Conventuals. "The spirituality," as he calls them, refused to take the +oaths of abjuration and supremacy; refused to strike the name of the +Bishop of Rome from their primers and mass-books, and seduced the rest +into like contumacy. Finding persuasion of little avail, he sometimes +resorted to harsher measures. + +Dr. Sall, a grey friar of Waterford, was brought to Dublin and +imprisoned for preaching the new doctrines in the Spring of 1538; +Thaddeus Byrne, another friar, was put in the pillory, and was reported +to have committed suicide in the Castle, on the 14th of July of the +same year; Sir Humfrey, parson of Saint Owens, and the suffragan Bishop +of Meath, were "clapped in ward," for publicly praying for the Pope's +weal and the King's conversion; another Bishop and friar were arrested +and carried to Trim, for similar offences, but were liberated without +trial, by Lord Deputy Gray; a friar of Waterford, in 1539, by order of +the St. Leger Commission, was executed in the habit of his order, on a +charge of "felony," and so left hanging "as a mirror for all his +brethren." Yet, with all this severity, and all the temptations held +out by the wealth of confiscated monasteries, none would abide the +preaching of the new religion except the "Lord Butler, the Master of +the Rolls (Allan), Mr. Treasurer (Brabazon), and one or two more of +small reputation." + +The first test to which the firmness of the clergy had been put was in +the Parliament convoked at Dublin by Lord Deputy Gray, in May, 1537. +Anciently in such assemblies two proctors of each diocese, within the +Pale, had been accustomed to sit and vote in the Upper House as +representing their order, but the proposed tests of supremacy and +abjuration were so boldly resisted by the proctors and spiritual peers +on this occasion that the Lord Deputy was compelled to prorogue the +Parliament without attaining its assent to those measures. During the +recess a question was raised by the Crown lawyers as to the competency +of the proctors to vote, while admitting their right to be present as +councillors and assistants; this question, on an appeal to England, was +declared in the negative, whereupon that learned body were excluded +from all share in the future Irish legislation of this reign. Hence, +whoever else are answerable for the election of 1541 the proctors of +the clergy are not. + +Having thus reduced the clerical opposition in the Upper House, the +work of monastic spoliation, covertly commenced two years before, under +the pretence of reforming abuses, was more confidently resumed. In +1536, an act had been passed vesting the property of all religious +houses in the Crown; at which time the value of their moveables was +estimated at 100,000 pounds and their yearly value at 32,000 pounds. In +1537, eight abbeys were suppressed during the King's pleasure; in 1538, +a commission issued for the suppression of monasteries; and in 1539, +twenty-four great Houses, whose Abbots and Priors had been lords of +Parliament, were declared "surrendered" to the King, and their late +superiors were granted pensions for life. How these "surrenders" were +procured we may judge from the case of Manus, Abbot of St. Mary's, +Thurles, who was carried prisoner to Dublin, and suffered a long +confinement for refusing to yield up his trust according to the desired +formula. The work of confiscation was in these first years confined to +the walled towns in English hands, the district of the Pale, and such +points of the Irish country as could be conveniently reached. The great +order of the Cistercians, established for more than four centuries at +Mellifont, at Monastereven, at Bective, at Jerpoint, at Tintern, and at +Dunbrody, were the first expelled from their cloisters and gardens. The +Canons regular of St. Augustine at Trim, at Conal, at Athassel and at +Kells, were next assailed by the degenerate Augustinian, who presided +over the commission. The orders of St. Victor, of Aroacia, of St. John +of Jerusalem, were extinguished wherever the arm of the Reformation +could reach. The mendicant orders, spread into every district of the +island, were not so easily erased from the soil; very many of the +Dominican and Franciscan houses standing and flourishing far into the +succeeding century. + +If the influence of the clergy counterbalanced the policy of the +chiefs, the condition of the mass of the population—more especially of +the inhabitants of the Pale and the marches—was such as to make them +cherish the expectation that any governmental change whatever should be +for the better. It was, under these circumstances, a far-reaching +policy, which combined the causes and the remedy for social wrongs, +with invectives against the old, and arguments in favour of the new +religion. In order to understand what elements of discontent there were +to be wrought to such conclusions, it is enough to give the merest +glance at the social state of the lower classes under English +authority. The St. Leger Commission represents the mixed population of +the marches, and the Englishry of "the Pale" as burthened by +accumulated exactions. Their lords quartered upon them at pleasure +their horses, servants, and guests. They were charged with coin and +livery—that is, horse-meat and man's-meat —when their lords travelled +from place to place—with summer-oats, with providing for their +cosherings, or feasts, at Christmas and Easter, with "black men and +black money," for border defence, and with workmen and axemen from +every ploughland, to work in the ditches, or to hew passages for the +soldiery through the woods. Every aggravation of feudal wrong was +inflicted on this harassed population. When a le Poer or a Butler +married a daughter he exacted a sheep from every flock, and a cow from +every village. When one of his sons went to England, a special tribute +was levied on every village and ploughland to bear the young +gentleman's travelling expenses. When the heads of any of the great +houses hunted, their dogs were to be supplied by the tenants "with +bread and milk, or butter." In the towns tailors, masons, and +carpenters, were taxed for coin and livery; "mustrons" were employed in +building halls, castles, stables, and barns, at the expense of the +tenantry, for the sole use of the lord. The only effective law was an +undigested jumble of the Brehon, the Civil, and the Common law; with +the arbitrary ordinances of the marches, known as "the Statutes of +Kilcash"—so called from a border stronghold near the foot of +Slievenamon—a species of wild justice, resembling too often that +administered by Robin Hood, or Rob Roy. + +Many circumstances concurring to promote plans so long cherished by +Henry, St. Leger summoned a Parliament for the morrow after Trinity +Sunday, being the 13th of the month of June, 1541. The attendance on +the day named was not so full as was expected, so the opening was +deferred till the following Thursday—being the feast of Corpus Christi. +On that festival the Mass of the Holy Ghost was solemnly celebrated in +St. Patrick's Cathedral, in which "two thousand persons" had assembled. +The Lords of Parliament rode in cavalcade to the Church doors, headed +by the Deputy. There were seen side by side in this procession the +Earls of Desmond and Ormond, the Lords Barry, Roche and Bermingham; +thirteen Barons of "the Pale," and a long train of Knights; Donogh +O'Brien, Tanist of Thomond, the O'Reilly, O'Moore and McWilliam; +Charles, son of Art Kavanagh, lord of Leinster, and Fitzpatrick, lord +of Ossory. Never before had so many Milesian chiefs and Norman barons +been seen together, except on the field of battle; never before had +Dublin beheld marshalled in her streets what could by any stretch of +imagination be considered a national representation. For this +singularity, not less than for the business it transacted, the +Parliament of 1541 will be held in lasting remembrance. + +In the sanctuary of St. Patrick's, two Archbishops and twelve Bishops +assisted at the solemn mass, and the whole ceremony was highly +imposing. "The like thereof," wrote St. Leger to Henry, "has not been +seen here these many years." On the next day, Friday, the Commons +elected Sir Thomas Cusack speaker, who, in "a right solemn +proposition," opened at the bar of the Lords' House the main business +of the session—the establishment of King Henry's supremacy. To this +address Lord Chancellor Allen—"well and prudentlie answered;" and the +Commons withdrew to their own chamber. The substance of both speeches +was "briefly and prudentlie" declared in the Irish language to the +Gaelic Lords, by the Earl of Ormond, "greatly to their contentation." +Then St. Leger proposed that Henry and his heirs should have the title +of King, and caused the "bill devised for the same to be read." This +bill having been put to the Lords' House, both in Irish and English, +passed its three readings at the same sitting. In the Commons it was +adopted with equal unanimity the next day, when the Lord Deputy most +joyfully gave his consent. Thus on Saturday, June 19th, 1541, the +royalty of Ireland was first formally transferred to an English +dynasty. On that day the triumphant St. Leger was enabled to write his +royal master his congratulations on having added to his dignities +"another imperial crown." On Sunday bonfires were made in honour of the +event, guns fired, and wine on stoop was set in the streets. All +prisoners, except those for capital offences, were liberated; _Te Deum_ +was sung in St. Patrick's, and King Henry issued his proclamation, on +receipt of the intelligence, for a general pardon throughout _all_ his +dominions. The new title was confirmed with great formality by the +English Parliament in their session of 1542. Proclamation was formally +made of it in London, on the 1st of July of that year, when it was +moreover declared that after that date all persons being lawfully +convicted of opposing the new dignity should "be adjudged high +traitors"—"and suffer the pains of death." + +Thus was consummated the first political union of Ireland with England. +The strangely-constituted Assembly, which had given its sanction to the +arrangement, in the language of the Celt, the Norman, and the Saxon, +continued in session till the end of July, when they were prorogued +till November. They enacted several statutes, in completion of the +great change they had decreed; and while some prepared for a journey to +the court of their new sovereign, others returned to their homes, to +account as best they could for the part they had played at Dublin. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +ADHESION OF O'NEIL, O'DONNELL AND O'BRIEN—A NEW ANGLO-IRISH PEERAGE—NEW +RELATIONS OF LORD AND TENANT—BISHOPS APPOINTED BY THE CROWN—RETROSPECT. + +The Act of Election could hardly be considered as the Act of the Irish +nation, so long as several of the most distinguished chiefs withheld +their concurrence. With these, therefore, Saint Leger entered into +separate treaties, by separate instruments, agreed upon, at various +dates, during the years 1542 and 1543. Manus O'Donnell, lord of +Tyrconnell, gave in his adhesion in August, 1541, Con O'Neil, lord of +Tyrowen, Murrogh O'Brien, lord of Thomond, Art O'Moore, lord of Leix, +and Ulick Burke, lord of Clanrickarde, 1542 and 1543; but, during the +reign of Henry, no chief of the McCarthys, the O'Conors of Roscommon or +of Offally, entered into any such engagement. The election, therefore, +was far from unanimous, and Henry VIII. would perhaps be classed by our +ancient Senachies among the "Kings with opposition," who figure so +often in our Annals during the Middle Ages. + +Assuming, however, the title conferred upon him with no little +complacency, Henry proceeded to exercise the first privilege of a +sovereign, the creation of honours. Murrogh O'Brien, chief of his name, +became Earl of Thomond, and Donogh, his nephew, Baron of Ibrackan; +Ulick McWilliam Burke became Earl of Clanrickarde and Baron of +Dunkellin; Hugh O'Donnell was made Earl of Tyrconnell; Fitzpatrick, +became Baron of Ossory, and Kavanagh, Baron of Ballyan; Con O'Neil was +made Earl of Tyrone, having asked, and been refused, the higher title +of Earl of Ulster. The order of Knighthood was conferred on several of +the principal attendants, and to each of the new peers the King granted +a house in or near Dublin, for their accommodation, when attending the +sittings of Parliament. + +The imposing ceremonial of the transformation of these Celtic chiefs +into English Earls has been very minutely described by an eye-witness. +One batch were made at Greenwich Palace, after High Mass on Sunday, the +1st of July, 1543. The Queen's closet "was richly hanged with cloth of +arras and well strawed with rushes," for their robing room. The King +received them under a canopy of state, surrounded by his Privy Council, +the peers, spiritual and temporal, the Earl of Glencairn, Sir George +Douglas, and the other Scottish Commissioners. The Earls of Derby and +Ormond led in the new Earl of Thomond, Viscount Lisle carrying before +them the sword. The Chamberlain handed his letters patent to the +Secretary who read them down to the words _Cincturam gladii_, when the +King girt the kneeling Earl, baldric-wise, with the sword, all the +company standing. A similar ceremony was gone through with the others, +the King throwing a gold chain having a cross hanging to it round each +of their necks. Then, preceded by the trumpeters blowing, and the +officers at arms, they entered the dining hall, where, after the second +course, their titles were proclaimed aloud in Norman-French by Garter, +King at Arms. Nor did Henry, who prided himself on his munificence, +omit even more substantial tokens of his favour to the new Peers. +Besides the town houses near Dublin, before mentioned, he granted to +O'Brien all the abbeys and benefices of Thomond, bishoprics excepted; +to McWilliam Burke, all the parsonages and vicarages of Clanrickarde, +with one-third of the first-fruits, the Abbey of _Via Nova_ and 30 +pounds a year compensation for the loss of the customs of Galway; to +Donogh O'Brien, the Abbey of Ellenegrane, the moiety of the Abbey of +Clare, and an annuity of 20 pounds a year. To the new lord of Ossory he +granted the monasteries of Aghadoe and Aghmacarte, with the right of +holding court lete and market, every Thursday, at his town of Aghadoe. +For these and other favours the recipients had been instructed to +petition the King, and drafts of such petitions had been drawn up in +anticipation of their arrival in England, by some official hand. The +petitions are quoted by most of our late historians as their own proper +act, but it is quite clear, though willing enough to present them and +to accept such gifts, they had never dictated them. + +In the creation of this Peerage Henry proclaimed, in the most practical +manner possible, his determination to assimilate the laws and +institutions of Ireland to those of England. And the new made Earls, +forgetting their ancient relations to their clans—forgetting, as +O'Brien had answered St. Leger's first overtures three years before, +"that though he was captain of his nation he was still but one man," by +suing out royal patents for their lands, certainly consented to carry +out the King's plans. The Brehon law was doomed from the date of the +creation of the new Peers at Greenwich, for such a change entailed +among its first consequences a complete abrogation of the Gaelic +relations of clansman and chief. + +By the Brehon law every member of a free clan was as truly a proprietor +of the tribe-land as the chief himself. He could sell his share, or the +interest in it, to any other member of the tribe—the origin, perhaps, +of what is now called tenant-right; he could not, however, sell to a +stranger without the consent of the tribe and the chief. The stranger +coming in under such an arrangement, held by a special tenure, yet if +he remained during the time of three lords he became thereby +naturalized. If the unnaturalized tenant withdrew of his own will from +the land he was obliged to leave all his improvements behind; but if he +was ejected he was entitled to get their full value. Those who were +immediate tenants of the chief, or of the church, were debarred this +privilege of tenant-right, and if unable to keep their holdings were +obliged to surrender them unreservedly to the church or the chief. All +the tribesmen, according to the extent of their possessions, were bound +to maintain the chief's household, and to sustain him, with men and +means, in his offensive and defensive wars. Such were, in brief, the +land laws in force over three-fourths of the country in the sixteenth +century; laws which partook largely of the spirit of an ancient +patriarchal justice, but which, in ages of movement, exchange, and +enterprise, would have been found the reverse of favourable to +individual freedom and national strength. There were not wanting, we +may be assured, many minds to whom this truth was apparent so early as +the age of Henry VIII. And it may not be unreasonable to suppose that +one of the advantages which the chief found in exchanging this +patriarchal position for a feudal Earldom would be the greater degree +of independence on the will of the tribe, which the new system +conferred on him. With the mass of the clansmen, however, for the very +same reason, the change was certain to be unpopular, if not odious. But +a still more serious change—a change of religion—was evidently +contemplated by those Earls who accepted the property of the +confiscated religious houses. The receiver of such estates could hardly +pretend to belong to the ancient religion of the country. + +It is impossible to understand Irish history from the reign of Henry +VIII. till the fall of James II.—nearly two hundred years—without +constantly keeping in mind the dilemma of the chiefs and lords between +the requirements of the English Court on the one hand and of the native +clans on the other. Expected to obey and to administer conflicting +laws, to personate two characters, to speak two languages, to uphold +the old, yet to patronize the new order of things; distrusted at Court +if they inclined to the people, detested by the people if they leaned +towards the Court—a more difficult situation can hardly be conceived. +Their perilous circumstances brought forth a new species of Irish +character in the Chieftain-Earls of the Tudor and Stuart times. Not +less given to war than their forefathers, they were now compelled to +study the politician's part, even more than the soldier's. Brought +personally in contact with powerful Sovereigns, or pitted at home +against the Sydneys, Mountjoys, Chichesters, and Straffords, the +lessons of Bacon and Machiavelli found apt scholars in the halls of +Dunmanway and Dungannon. The multitude, in the meanwhile, saw only the +broad fact that the Chief had bowed his neck to the hated Saxon yoke, +and had promised, or would be by and by compelled, to introduce foreign +garrisons, foreign judges, and foreign laws, amongst the sons of the +Gael. Very early they perceived this; on the adhesion of O'Donnell to +the Act of Election, a part of his clansmen, under the lead of his own +son, rose up against his authority. A rival McWilliam was at once +chosen to the new Earl of Clanrickarde, in the West. Con O'Neil, the +first of his race who had accepted an English title, was imprisoned by +his son, John the Proud, and died of grief during his confinement. +O'Brien found, on his return from Greenwich, half his territory in +revolt; and this was the general experience of all Henry's electors. +Yet such was the power of the new Sovereign that, we are told in our +Annals, at the year 1547—the year of Henry's death—"no one dared give +food or protection" to those few patriotic chiefs who still held +obstinately out against the election of 1541. + +The creation of a new peerage coincided in point of time with the first +unconditional nomination of new Bishops by the Crown. The Plantagenet +Kings, in common with all feudal Princes, had always claimed the right +of investing Bishops with their temporalities and legal dignities; +while, at the same time, they recognized in the See of Rome the seat +and centre of Apostolic authority. But Henry, excommunicated and +incorrigible, had procured from the Parliament of "the Pale," three +years before the Act of Election, the formal recognition of his +spiritual supremacy, under which he proceeded, as often as he had an +opportunity, to promote candidates for the episcopacy to vacant sees. +Between 1537 and 1547, thirteen or fourteen such vacancies having +occurred, he nominated to the succession whenever the diocese was +actually within his power. In this way the Sees of Dublin, Kildare, +Ferns, Ardagh, Emly, Tuam and Killaloe were filled up; while the +vacancies which occurred about the same period in Armagh, Clogher, +Clonmacnoise, Clonfert, Kilmore, and Down and Conor were supplied from +Rome. Many of the latter were allowed to take possession of their +temporalities—so far as they were within English power—by taking an +oath of allegiance, specially drawn for them. Others, when prevented +from so doing by the penalties of _praemunire_, delegated their +authority to Vicars General, who contrived to elude the provisions of +the statute. On the other hand, several of the King's Bishops, excluded +by popular hostility from the nominal sees, never resided upon them; +some of them spent their lives in Dublin, and others were entertained +as suffragans by Bishops in England. + +In March, 1543, Primate Cromer, who had so resolutely led the early +opposition to Archbishop Browne, died, whereupon Pope Paul III. +appointed Robert Waucop, a Scotsman (by some writers called +_Venantius_), to the See of Armagh. This remarkable man, though +afflicted with blindness from his youth upwards, was a doctor of the +Sorbonne, and one of the most distinguished Prelates of his age. He +introduced the first Jesuit Fathers into Ireland, and to him is +attributed the establishment of that intimate intercourse between the +Ulster Princes and the See of Rome, which characterized the latter half +of the century. He assisted at the Council of Trent from 1545 to 1547, +was subsequently employed as Legate in Germany, and died abroad during +the reign of Edward VI. Simultaneously with the appointment of Primate +Waucop, Henry VIII. had nominated to the same dignity George Dowdal, a +native of Louth, formerly Prior of the crutched friars at Ardee, in +that county. Though Dowdal accepted the nomination, he did so without +acknowledging the King's supremacy in spirituals. On the contrary he +remained attached to the Holy See, and held his claims in abeyance, +during the lifetime of Waucop. On the death of the latter, he assumed +his rank, but was obliged to fly into exile, during the reign of +Edward. On the accession of Mary he was recalled from his place of +banishment in Brabant, and his first official act on returning home was +to proclaim a Jubilee for the public restoration of the Catholic +worship. + +The King's Bishops during the last years of Henry, and the brief reign +of Edward, were, besides Browne of Dublin, Edward Staples, Bishop of +Meath, Matthew Saunders and Robert Travers, successively Bishops of +Leighlin, William Miagh and Thomas Lancaster, successively Bishops of +Kildare, and John Bale, Bishop of Ossory—all Englishmen. The only +native names, before the reign of Elizabeth, which we find associated +in any sense with the "reformation," are John Coyn, or Quin, Bishop of +Limerick, and Dominick Tirrey, Bishop of Cork and Cloyne. Dr. Quin was +promoted to the See in 1522, and resigned his charge in the year 1551. +He is called a "favourer" of the new doctrines, but it is not stated +how far he went in their support. His successor, Dr. William Casey, was +one of the six Bishops deprived by Queen Mary on her accession to the +throne. As Bishop Tirrey is not of the number—although he lived till +the third year of Mary's reign—we may conclude that he became +reconciled to the Holy See. + +The native population became, before Henry's death, fully aroused to +the nature of the new doctrines, to which at first they had paid so +little attention. The Commission issued in 1539 to Archbishop Browne +and others for the destruction of images and relics, and the prevention +of pilgrimages, as well as the ordering of English prayers as a +substitute for the Mass, brought home to all minds the sweeping +character of the change. Our native Annals record the breaking out of +the English schism from the year 1537, though its formal introduction +into Ireland may, perhaps, be more accurately dated from the issuing of +the Ecclesiastical Commission of 1539. In their eyes it was the +offspring of "pride, vain-glory, avarice, and lust," and its first +manifestations were well calculated to make it for ever odious on Irish +soil. "They destroyed the religious orders," exclaimed the Four +Masters! "They broke down the monasteries, and sold their roofs and +bells, from Aran of the Saints to the Iccian Sea!" "They burned the +images, shrines, and relics of the Saints; they destroyed the Statue of +our Lady of Trim, and the Staff of Jesus, which had been in the hand of +St. Patrick!" Such were the works of that Commission as seen by the +eyes of Catholics, natives of the soil. The Commissioners themselves, +however, gloried in their work, and pointed with complacency to their +success. The "innumerable images" which adorned the churches were +dashed to pieces; the ornaments of shrines and altars, when not +secreted in time, were torn from their places, and beaten into +shapeless masses of metal. This harvest yielded in the first year +nearly 3,000 pounds, on an inventory, wherein we find 1,000 lbs. weight +of wax, manufactured into candles and tapers, valued at 20 pounds. Such +was the return made to the revenue; what share of the spoil was +appropriated by the agents employed may never be known. It would be +absurd, however, to expect a scrupulous regard to honesty in men +engaged in the work of sacrilege! And this work, it must be added, was +carried on in the face of the stipulation entered into with the +Parliament of 1541, that "the Church of Ireland shall be free, and +enjoy all its accustomed privileges." + +The death of Henry, in January, 1547, found the Reformation in Ireland +at the stage just described. But though all attempts to diffuse a +general recognition of his spiritual power had failed, his reign will +ever be memorable as the epoch of the union of the English and Irish +Crowns. Before closing the present Book of our History, in which we +have endeavoured to account for that great fact, and to trace the +progress of the negotiations which led to its accomplishment, we must +briefly review the relations existing between the Kings of England and +the Irish nation, from Henry II. to Henry VIII. + +If we are to receive a statement of considerable antiquity, a memorable +compromise effected at the Council of Constance, between the +ambassadors of France and England, as to who should take precedence, +turned mainly on this very point. The French monarchy was then at its +lowest, the English at its highest pitch, for Charles VI. was but a +nominal sovereign of France, while the conqueror of Agincourt sat on +the throne of England. Yet in the first assembly of the Prelates and +Princes of Europe, we are told that the ambassadors of France raised a +question of the right of the English envoys to be received as +representing a nation, seeing that they had been conquered not only by +the Romans, but by the Saxons. Their argument further was, that, "as +the Saxons were tributaries to the German Empire, and never governed by +native sovereigns, they [the English] should take place as a branch +only of the German empire, and not as a free nation. For," argued the +French, "it is evident from Albertus Magnus and Bartholomew Glanville, +that the world is divided into three parts, Europe, Asia, and +Africa;—that Europe is divided into four empires, the Roman, +Constantinopolitan, the Irish, and the Spanish." "The English +advocates," we are told, "admitting the force of these allegations, +claimed their precedency and rank from Henry's being monarch of +Ireland, and it was accordingly granted." + +If this often-told anecdote is of any historical value, it only shows +the ignorance of the representatives of France in yielding their +pretensions on so poor a quibble. Neither Henry V., nor any other +English sovereign before him, had laid claim to the title of "Monarch +of Ireland." The indolence or ignorance of modern writers has led them, +it is true, to adopt the whole series of the Plantagenet Kings as +sovereigns of Ireland—to set up in history a dynasty which never +existed for us; to leave out of their accounts of a monarchical people +all question of their crown; and to pass over the election of 1541 +without adequate, or any inquiry. + +It is certain that neither Henry II., nor Richard I., ever used in any +written instrument, or graven sign, the style of king, or even lord of +Ireland; though in the Parliament held at Oxford in the year 1185, +Henry conferred on his youngest son, John _lack-land_, a title which he +did not himself possess, and John is thenceforth known in English +history as "Lord of Ireland." This honour was not, however, of the +exclusive nature of sovereignty, else John could hardly have borne it +during the lifetime of his father and brother. And although we read +that Cardinal Octavian was sent into England by Pope Urban III., +authorized to consecrate John, _King_ of Ireland, no such consecration +took place, nor was the lordship looked upon, at any period, as other +than a creation of the royal power of England existing in Ireland, +which could be recalled, transferred, or alienated, without detriment +to the prerogative of the King. + +Neither had this original view of the relations existing between +England and Ireland undergone any change at the time of the Council of +Constance. Of this we have a curious illustration in the style employed +by the Queen Dowager of Henry V., who, during the minority of her son, +granted charters, as "Queen of England and France, and lady of +Ireland." The use of different crowns in the coronations of all the +Tudors subsequent to Henry VIII. shows plainly how the recent origin of +their secondary title was understood and acknowledged during the +remainder of the sixteenth century. Nothing of the kind was practised +at the coronation of the Plantagenet Princes, nor were the arms of +Ireland quartered with those of England previous to the period we have +described—the memorable year, 1541. + + + +BOOK VIII. +THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION. + + + +CHAPTER I. +EVENTS OF THE REIGN OF EDWARD SIXTH. + +On the last day of January, 1547, Edward, son of Henry, by Lady Jane +Seymour, was crowned by the title of Edward VI. He was then only nine +years old, and was destined to wear the crown but for six years and a +few months. No Irish Parliament was convened during his reign, but the +Reformation was pushed on with great vigour, at first under the +patronage of the Protector, his uncle, and subsequently of that uncle's +rival, the Duke of Northumberland. Archbishop Cranmer suffered the zeal +of neither of these statesmen to flag for want of stimulus, and the +Lord Deputy Saint Leger, judging from the cause of his disgrace in the +next reign, approved himself a willing assistant in the work. + +The Irish Privy Council, which exercised all the powers of government +during this short reign, was composed exclusively of partizans of the +Reformation. Besides Archbishop Browne and Staples, Bishop of Meath, +its members were the Chancellor, Read, and the Treasurer, Brabazon, +both English, with the Judges Aylmer, Luttrel, Bath, Cusack, and +Howth—all proselytes, at least in form, to the new opinions. The Earl +of Ormond, with sixteen of his household, having been poisoned at a +banquet in Ely House, London, in October before Henry's death, the +influence of that great house was wielded during the minority of his +successor by Sir Francis Bryan, an English adventurer, who married the +widowed countess. This lady being, moreover, daughter and heir general +to James, Earl of Desmond, brought Bryan powerful connections in the +South, which he was not slow to turn to a politic account. His ambition +aimed at nothing less than the supreme authority, military and civil; +but when at length he attained the summit of his hopes, he only lived +to enjoy them a few months. + +To enable the Deputy and Council to carry out the work they had begun, +an additional military force was felt to be necessary, and Sir Edward +Bellingham was sent over, soon after Edward's accession, with a +detachment of six hundred horse, four hundred foot, and the title of +Captain General. This able officer, in conjunction with Sir Francis +Bryan, who appears to have been everywhere, overran Offally, Leix, Ely +and West-Meath, sending the chiefs of the two former districts as +prisoners to London, and making advantageous terms with those of the +latter. He was, however, supplanted in the third year of Edward by +Bryan, who held successively the rank of Marshal of Ireland and Lord +Deputy. To the latter office he was chosen on an emergency, by the +Council, in December, 1549, but died at Clonmel, on an expedition +against the O'Carrolls, in the following February. His successes and +those of Bellingham hastened the reduction of Leix and Offally into +shire ground in the following reign. + +The total military force at the disposal of Edward's commanders was +probably never less than 10,000 effective men. By the aid of their +abundant artillery, they were enabled to take many strong places +hitherto deemed impregnable to assault. The mounted men and infantry, +were, as yet, but partially armed with musquetons, or firelocks—for the +spear and the bow still found advocates among military men. The +spearmen or lancers were chiefly recruited on the marches of +Northumberland from the hardy race of border warriors; the mounted +bowmen or hobilers were generally natives of Chester or North Wales. +Between these new comers and the native Anglo-Irish troops many +contentions arose from time to time, but in the presence of the common +foe these bickerings were completely forgotten. The townsmen of +Waterford marched promptly at a call, under their standard of the three +galleys, and those of Dublin as cheerfully turned out under the +well-known banner, decorated with three flaming towers. + +The _personnel_ of the administration, in the six years of Edward, was +continually undergoing change. Bellingham, who succeeded St. Leger, was +supplanted by Bryan, on whose death, St. Leger was reappointed. After +another year Sir James Croft was sent over to replace St. Leger, and +continued to fill the office until the accession of Queen Mary. But +whoever rose or fell to the first rank in civil affairs, the Privy +Council remained exclusively Protestant, and the work of innovation was +not suffered to languish. A manuscript account, attributed to Adam +Loftus, Browne's successor, assigns the year 1549 as the date when "the +Mass was put down," in Dublin, "and divine service was celebrated in +English." Bishop Mant, the historian of the Established Church in +Ireland, does not find any account of such an alteration, nor does the +statement appear to him consistent with subsequent facts of this reign. +We observe, also, that in 1550, Arthur Magennis, the Pope's Bishop of +Dromore, was allowed by the government to enter on possession of his +temporalities after taking an oath of allegiance, while King's Bishops +were appointed in that and the next two years to the vacant Sees of +Kildare, Leighlin, Ossory, and Limerick. A vacancy having occurred in +the See of Cashel, in 1551, it was unaccountably left vacant, as far as +the Crown was concerned, during the remainder of this reign, while a +similar vacancy in Armagh was filled, at least in name, by the +appointment of Dr. Hugh Goodacre, chaplain to the Bishop of Winchester, +and a favourite preacher with the Princess Elizabeth. This Prelate was +consecrated, according to a new form, in Christ Church, Dublin, on 2nd +of February, 1523, together with his countryman, John Bale, Bishop of +Ossory. The officiating Prelates were Browne, Staples, and Lancaster of +Kildare—all English. The Irish Establishment, however, does not at all +times rest its argument for the validity of its episcopal Order upon +these consecrations. Most of their writers lay claim to the Apostolic +succession, through Adam Loftus, consecrated in England, according to +the ancient rite, by Hugh Curwen, an Archbishop in communion with the +See of Rome, at the time of his elevation to the episcopacy. + +In February, 1551, Sir Anthony St. Leger received the King's commands +to cause the Scriptures translated into the English tongue, and the +Liturgy and Prayers of the Church, also translated into English, to be +read in all the churches of Ireland. To render these instructions +effective, the Deputy summoned a convocation of the Archbishops, +Bishops, and Clergy, to meet in Dublin on the 1st of March, 1551. In +this meeting—the first of two in which the defenders of the old and of +the new religion met face to face—the Catholic party was led by the +intrepid Dowdal, Archbishop of Armagh, and the Reformers by Archbishop +Browne. The Deputy, who, like most laymen of that age, had a strong +theological turn, also took an active part in the discussion. Finally +delivering the royal order to Browne, the latter accepted it in a set +form of words, without reservation; the Anglican Bishops of Meath, +Kildare, and Leighlin, and Coyne, Bishop of Limerick, adhering to his +act; Primate Dowdal, with the other Bishops, having previously retired +from the Conference. On Easter day following, the English service was +celebrated for the first time in Christ Church, Dublin, the Deputy, the +Archbishop, and the Mayor of the city assisting. Browne preached from +the text: "Open mine eyes that I may see the wonders of the law"—a +sermon chiefly remarkable for its fierce invective against the new +Order of Jesuits. + +Primate Dowdal retired from the Castle Conference to Saint Mary's +Abbey, on the north side of the Liffey, where he continued while these +things were taking place in the city proper. The new Lord Deputy, Sir +James Crofts, on his arrival in May, addressed himself to the Primate, +to bring about, if possible, an accommodation between the Prelates. +Fearing, as he said, an "order ere long to alter church matters, as +well in offices as in ceremonies," the new Deputy urged another +Conference, which was accordingly held at the Primate's lodgings, on +the 16th of June. At this meeting Browne does not seem to have been +present, the argument on the side of the Reformers being maintained by +Staples. The points discussed were chiefly the essential character of +the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and the invocation of Saints. The tone +observed on both sides was full of high-bred courtesy. The letter of +the Sacred Scriptures and the authority of Erasmus in Church History +were chiefly relied upon by Staples; the common consent and usage of +all Christendom, the primacy of Saint Peter, and the binding nature of +the oath taken by Bishops at their consecration, were pointed out by +the Primate. The disputants parted, with expressions of deep regret +that they could come to no agreement; but the Primacy was soon +afterwards transferred to Dublin, by order of the Privy Council, and +Dowdal fled for refuge into Brabant. The Roman Catholic and the +Anglican Episcopacy have never since met in oral controversy on Irish +ground, though many of the second order of the clergy in both +communions have, from time to time, been permitted by their superiors +to engage in such discussions. + +Whatever obstacles they encountered within the Church itself, the +propagation of the new religion was not confined to moral means, nor +was the spirit of opposition at all tunes restricted to mere argument. +Bishop Bale having begun at Kilkenny to pull down the revered images of +the Saints, and to overturn the Market Cross, was set upon by the mob, +five of his servants, or guard, were slain, and himself narrowly +escaped with his life by barricading himself in his palace. The +garrisons in the neighbourhood of the ancient seats of ecclesiastical +power and munificence were authorized to plunder their sanctuaries and +storehouses. The garrison of Down sacked the celebrated shrines and +tomb of Patrick, Bridget, and Columbkill; the garrison of Carrickfergus +ravaged Rathlin Island and attacked Derry, from which, however, they +were repulsed with severe loss by John the Proud. But the most +lamentable scene of spoliation, and that which excited the profoundest +emotions of pity and anger in the public mind, was the violation of the +churches of St. Kieran—the renowned Clonmacnoise. This city of schools +had cast its cross-crowned shade upon the gentle current of the Upper +Shannon for a thousand years. Danish fury, civil storm, and Norman +hostility had passed over it, leaving traces of their power in the +midst of the evidences of its recuperation. The great Church to which +pilgrims flocked from every tribe of Erin, on the 9th of September—St. +Kieran's Day; the numerous chapels erected by the chiefs of all the +neighbouring clans; the halls, hospitals, book-houses, nunneries, +cemeteries, granaries—all still stood, awaiting from Christian hands +the last fatal blow. In the neighbouring town of Athlone—seven or eight +miles distant—the Treasurer, Brabazon, had lately erected a strong +"Court" or Castle, from which, in the year 1552, the garrison sallied +forth to attack "the place of the sons of the nobles,"—which is the +meaning of the name. In executing this task they exhibited a fury +surpassing that of Turgesius and his Danes. The pictured glass was torn +from the window frames, and the revered images from their niches; +altars were overthrown; sacred vessels polluted. "They left not," say +the Four Masters, "a book or a gem," nor anything to show what +Clonmacnoise had been, save the bare walls of the temples, the mighty +shaft of the round tower, and the monuments in the cemeteries, with +their inscriptions in Irish, in Hebrew, and in Latin. The Shannon +re-echoed with their profane songs and laughter, as laden with chalices +and crucifixes, brandishing croziers, and flaunting vestments in the +air, their barges returned to the walls of Athlone. + +In all the Gaelic speaking regions of Ireland, the new religion now +began to be known by those fruits which it had so abundantly produced. +Though the southern and midland districts had not yet recovered from +the exhaustion consequent upon the suppression of the Geraldine league +and the abortive insurrection of Silken Thomas, the northern tribes +were still unbroken and undismayed. They had deputed George Paris, a +kinsman of the Kildare Fitzgeralds, as their agent to the French King, +in the latter days of Henry VIII., and had received two ambassadors on +his behalf at Donegal and Dungannon. These ambassadors, the Baron de +Forquevaux, and the Sieur de Montluc, who subsequently became Bishop of +Valence, crossing over from the west of Scotland, entered into a +league, offensive and defensive, with "the princes" of Tyrconnell and +Tyrowen, by which the latter bound themselves to recognize, on certain +conditions, "whoever was King of France as King of Ireland likewise." +This alliance, though prolonged into the reign of Edward, led to +nothing definitive, and we shall see in the next reign how the hopes +then turned towards France were naturally transferred to Spain. + +The only native name which rises into historic importance at this +period is that of Shane, or John O'Neil, "the Proud." He was the +legitimate son of that Con O'Neil who had been girt with the Earl's +baldric by the hands of Henry VIII. His father had procured at the same +time for an illegitimate son, Ferodach, or Mathew, of Dundalk, the +title of Baron of Dungannon, with the reversion of the Earldom. When, +however, John the Proud came of age, he centred upon himself the hopes +of his clansmen, deposed his father, subdued the Baron, and assumed the +title of O'Neil. In 1552 he defeated the efforts of Sir William +Brabazon to fortify Belfast, and delivered Derry from its plunderers. +From that time till his tragical death, in the ninth year of Queen +Elizabeth, he stood unquestionably the first man of his race, both in +lineage and action. + + + +CHAPTER II. +EVENTS OF THE REIGN OF PHILIP AND MARY. + +The death of Edward VI. and the accession of the lady Mary were known +in Dublin by the middle of July, 1553, and soon spread all over the +kingdom. On the 20th of that month, the form of proclamation was +received from London, in which the new Queen was forbidden to be styled +"head of the church," and this was quickly followed by another +ordinance, authorizing all who would to publicly attend Mass, but not +compelling thereto any who were unwilling. A curious legal difficulty +existed in relation to Mary's title to the Crown of Ireland. By the +Irish Statute, 38. Hen. VIII., the Irish crown was entailed by name on +the Lady Elizabeth, and that act had not been repealed. It was, +however, held to have been superseded by the English Statute, 35. Hen. +VIII., which followed the election of 1541, and declared the Crown of +Ireland "united and knit to the Imperial Crown of the Realm of +England." Read in the light of the latter statute, the Irish +sovereignty might be regarded a mere appurtenance of that of England, +but Mary did not so consider it. At her coronation, a separate crown +was used for Ireland, nor did she feel assured of the validity of her +claim to wear it till she had obtained a formal dispensation to that +effect from the Pope. + +The intelligence of the new Queen's accession, and the public +restoration of the old religion, diffused a general joy throughout +Ireland. Festivals and pageants were held in the streets, and eloquent +sermons poured from all the pulpits. Archbishop Dowdal was called from +exile, and the Primacy was restored to Armagh. Sir Anthony St. Leger, +his ancient antagonist, had now conformed to the Court fashion, and was +sent over to direct the establishment of that religion which he had +been so many years engaged in pulling down. In 1554, Browne, Staples, +Lancaster, and Travers, were formally deprived of their sees; Bale and +Casey of Limerick fled beyond seas, without awaiting judgment. Married +clergymen were invariably silenced, and the children of Browne were +declared by statute illegitimate. + +What, however, gratified the public even more than these retributions +was the liberation of the aged Chief of Offally from the Tower of +London, at the earnest supplication of his heroic daughter, Margaret, +who found her way to the Queen's presence to beg that boon; and the +simultaneous restoration of the Earldom of Kildare, in the person of +that Gerald, who had been so young a fugitive among the glens of +Muskerry and Donegal, and had since undergone so many continental +adventures. With O'Conor and young Gerald, the heirs of the houses of +Ormond and of Upper Ossory were also allowed to return to their homes, +to the great delight of the southern half of the kingdom. The +subsequent marriage of Mary with Philip II. of Spain gave an additional +security to the Irish Catholics for the future freedom of their +religion. + +Great as was the change in this respect, it is not to be inferred that +the national relations of Ireland and England were materially affected +by such a change of sovereign. The maxims of conquest were not to be +abandoned at the dictates of religion. The supreme power continued to +be entrusted only to Englishmen; while the same Parliament (3rd and 4th +Philip and Mary) which abolished the title of head of the Church, and +restored the Roman jurisdiction in matters spiritual, divided Leix and +Offally, Glenmalier and Slewmargy, into shire ground, subject to +English law, under the name of King's and Queen's County. The new forts +of Maryborough and Philipstown, as well as the county names, served to +teach the people of Leinster that the work of conquest could be as +industriously prosecuted by Catholic as by Protestant rulers. Nor were +these forts established and maintained without many a struggle. St. +Leger, and his still abler successor, the Earl of Sussex, and the new +Lord Treasurer, Sir Henry Sidney, were forced to lead many an +expedition to the relief of those garrisons, and the dispersion of +their assailants. It was not in Irish human nature to submit to the +constant pressure of a foreign power without seizing every possible +opportunity for its expulsion. + +The new principle of primogeniture introduced at the commutation of +chieftainries into earldoms was productive in this reign of much +commotion and bloodshed. The seniors of the O'Briens resisted its +establishment in Thomond, on the death of the first Earl; Calvagh +O'Donnell took arms against his father, to defeat its introduction into +Tyrconnell; John the Proud, as we have seen in the reign of Edward, had +been one of its earliest opponents in Ulster. Being accused in the last +year of Queen Mary of procuring the death of his illegitimate brother, +the Baron of Dungannon, in order to remove him from his path, he was +summoned to account for those circumstances before Sir Henry Sidney, +then acting as Lord Justice. His plea has been preserved to us, and no +doubt represents the prevailing opinion of the Gaelic-speaking +population towards the new system. He answered, "that the surrender +which his father had made to Henry VIII., and the restoration which +Henry made to his father again were of no force; inasmuch as his father +had no right to the lands which he surrendered to the King, except +during his own life; that he (John) himself was the O'Neil by the law +of Tanistry, and by popular election; and that he assumed no +superiority over the chieftains of the North except what belonged to +his ancestors." To these views he adhered to the last, accepting no +English honours, though quite willing to live at peace with English +sovereigns. When the title of Earl of Tyrone was revived, it was in +favour of the son of the Baron, the celebrated Hugh O'Neil, the ally of +Spain, and the most formidable antagonist of Queen Elizabeth. + +In the Irish Parliament already referred to (3rd and 4th Philip and +Mary) an Act was passed declaring it a felony to introduce armed +Scotchmen into Ireland, or to intermarry with them without a license +under the great seal. This statute was directed against those +multitudes of Islesmen and Highlanders who annually crossed the narrow +strait which separates Antrim from Argyle to harass the English +garrisons alongshore, or to enlist as auxiliaries in Irish quarrels. In +1556, under one of their principal leaders, James, son of Conal, they +laid siege to Carrickfergus and occupied Lord Sussex some six weeks in +the glens of Antrim. Their leader finally entered into conditions, the +nature of which may be inferred from the fact that he received the +honour of knighthood on their acceptance. John O'Neil had usually in +his service a number of these mercenary troops, from among whom he +selected sixty body-guards, the same number supplied by his own clan. +In his first attempt to subject Tyrconnell to his supremacy in 1557, +his camp near Raphoe was surprised at night by Calvagh O'Donnell, and +his native and foreign guards were put to the sword, while he himself +barely escaped by swimming the Mourne and the Finn. O'Donnell had +frequently employed a similar force, in his own defence; and we read of +the Lord of Clanrickarde driving back a host of them engaged in the +service of his rivals, from the banks of the Moy, in 1558. + +Although the memory of Queen Mary has been held up to execration during +three centuries as a bloody-minded and malignant persecutor of all who +differed from her in religion, it is certain that in Ireland, where, if +anywhere, the Protestant. minority might have been extinguished by such +severities as are imputed to her, no persecution for conscience' sake +took place. Married Bishops were deprived, and married priests were +silenced, but beyond this no coercion was employed. It has been said +there was not time to bring the machinery to bear; but surely if there +was time to do so in England, within the space of five years, there was +time in Ireland also. The consoling truth—honourable to human nature +and to Christian charity, is—that many families out of England, +apprehending danger in their own country, sought and found a refuge +from their fears in the western island. The families of Agar, Ellis, +and Harvey, are descended from emigrants, who were accompanied from +Cheshire by a clergyman of their own choice, whose ministrations they +freely enjoyed during the remainder of this reign at Dublin. The story +about Dr. Cole having been despatched to Ireland with a commission to +punish heretics, and, losing it on the way, is unworthy of serious +notice. If there had been any such determination formed there was ample +time to put it into execution between 1553 and 1558. + + + +CHAPTER III. +ACCESSION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH—PARLIAMENT OF 1560—THE ACT OF +UNIFORMITY—CAREER AND DEATH OF JOHN O'NEIL "THE PROUD." + +The daughter of Anna Boleyn was promptly proclaimed Queen the same day +on which Mary died—the 17th of November, 1558. Elizabeth was then in +her 26th year, proud of her beauty, and confident in her abilities. Her +great capacity had been cultivated by the best masters of the age, and +the best of all ages, early adversity. Her vices were hereditary in her +blood, but her genius for government so far surpassed any of her +immediate predecessors as to throw her vices into the shade. During the +forty-four years in which she wielded the English sceptre, many of the +most stirring occurrences of our history took place; it could hardly +have fallen out otherwise, under a sovereign of so much vigour, having +the command of such immense resources. + +On the news of Mary's death reaching Ireland, the Lord Deputy Sussex +returned to England, and Sir Henry Sidney, the Treasurer, was appointed +his successor _ad interim_. As in England, so in Ireland, though for +somewhat different reasons, the first months of the new reign were +marked by a conciliating and temporizing policy. Elizabeth, who had not +assumed the title of "Head of the Church," continued to hear Mass for +several months after her accession. At her coronation she had a High +Mass sung, accompanied, it is true, by a Calvinistic sermon. Before +proceeding with the work of "reformation," inaugurated by her father, +and arrested by her sister, she proceeded cautiously to establish +herself, and her Irish deputy followed in the same careful line of +conduct. Having first made a menacing demonstration against John the +Proud, he entered into friendly correspondence with him, and finally +ended the campaign by standing godfather to one of his children. This +relation of gossip among the old Irish was no mere matter of ceremony, +but involved obligations lasting as life, and sacred as the ties of +kindred blood. By seeking such a sponsor, O'Neil placed himself in +Sidney's power, rather than Sidney in his, since the two men must have +felt very differently bound by the connection into which they had +entered. As an evidence of the Imperial policy of the moment, the +incident is instructive. + +Round the personal history of this splendid, but by no means stainless +Ulster Prince, the events of the first nine years of Elizabeth's reign +over Ireland naturally group themselves. Whether at her Majesty's +council-board, or among the Scottish islands, or in hall or hut at +home, the attention of all manner of men interested in Ireland was +fixed upon the movements of John the Proud. In tracing his career, we +therefore naturally gather all, or nearly all, the threads of the +national story, during the first ten years of Queen Mary's successor. + +In the second year of Elizabeth, Lord Deputy Sussex, who returned fully +possessed of her Majesty's views, summoned the Parliament to meet in +Dublin on the 12th day of January, 1560. It is to be observed, however, +that though the union of the crowns was now of twenty years' standing, +the writs were not issued to the nation at large, but only to the ten +counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth, West-Meath, Kildare, Carlow, +Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford, and Tipperary, with their boroughs. The +published instructions of Lord Sussex were "to make such statutes +(concerning religion) as were made in England, _mutatis mutandis_." As +a preparation for the legislature, St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ +Church were purified by paint; the niches of the Saints were for the +second time emptied of their images; texts of Scripture were blazoned +upon the walls, and the Litany was chanted in English. After these +preparatory demonstrations, the Deputy opened the new Parliament, which +sat for one short but busy month. The Acts of Mary's Parliament, +re-establishing ecclesiastical relations with Rome, were the first +thing repealed; then so much of the Act 33, Henry VIII., as related to +the succession, was revived; all ecclesiastical jurisdiction was next +declared vested in the Crown, and all "judges, justices, mayors, and +temporal officers were declared bound to take tie oath of supremacy;" +the penalty attached to the refusal of the oath, by this statute, being +"forfeiture of office and promotion during life." Proceeding rapidly in +the same direction, it was declared that commissioners in +ecclesiastical causes should adjudge nothing as heresy which was not +expressly so condemned by the Canonical Scriptures, the received +General Councils, or by Parliament. The penalty of _praemunire_ was +declared in force, and, to crown the work, the celebrated "Act of +Uniformity" was passed. This was followed by other statutes for the +restoration of first fruits and twentieths, and for the appointment of +Bishops by the royal prerogative, or _conge d'elire_—elections by the +chapter being declared mere "shadows of election, and derogatory to the +prerogative." Such was, in brief, the legislation of that famous +Parliament of ten counties—the often quoted statutes of the "2nd of +Elizabeth." In the Act of Uniformity, the best known of all its +statutes, there was this curious saving clause inserted: that whenever +the "priest or common minister" could not speak English, he might still +continue "to celebrate the service in the Latin tongue." Such other +observances were to be had as were prescribed by the 2nd Edward VI., +until her Majesty should "publish further ceremonies or rites." We have +no history of the debates of this Parliament of a month, but there is +ample reason to believe that some of these statutes were resisted +throughout by a majority of the Upper House, still chiefly composed of +Catholic Peers; that the clause saving the Latin ritual was inserted as +a compromise with this opposition; that some of the other Acts were +passed by stealth in the absence of many members, and that the Lord +Deputy gave his solemn pledge the statute of Uniformity should be +enforced, if passed. So severe was the struggle, and so little +satisfied was Sussex with his success, that he hastily dissolved the +Houses and went over personally to England to represent the state of +feeling he had encountered. Finally, it is remarkable that no other +Parliament was called in Ireland till nine years afterwards—a +convincing proof of how unmanageable that body, even constituted as it +was, had shown itself to be in matters affecting religion. + +The non-invitation of the Irish chiefs to this Parliament, contrary to +the precedent set in Mary's reign and in 1541, the laws enacted, and +the commotion they excited in the minds of the clergy, were +circumstances which could not fail to attract the attention of John +O'Neil. Even if insensible to what transpired at Dublin, the +indefatigable Sussex—one of the ablest of Elizabeth's able Court—did +not suffer him long to misunderstand his relations to the new Queen. He +might be Sidney's gossip, but he was not the less Elizabeth's enemy. He +had been proclaimed "O'Neil" on the rath of Tullahoge, and had reigned +at Dungannon, adjudging life and death. It was clear that two such +jurisdictions as the Celtic and the Norman kingship could not stand +long on the same soil, and the Ulster Prince soon perceived that he +must establish his authority, by arms, or perish with it. We must also +read all Irish events of the time of Elizabeth by the light of foreign +politics; during the long reign of that sovereign, England was never +wholly free from fears of invasion, and many movements which now seem +inexplicable will be readily understood when we recollect that they +took place under the menaces of foreign powers. + +The O'Neils had anciently exercised a high-handed superiority over all +Ulster, and John the Proud was not the man to let his claim lie idle in +any district of that wide-spread Province. But authority which has +fallen into decay must be asserted only at a propitious time, and with +the utmost tact; and here it was that Elizabeth's statesmen found their +most effective means of attacking O'Neil. O'Donnell, who was his +father-in-law, was studiously conciliated; his second wife, a lady of +the Argyle family, received costly presents from the Queen; O'Reilly +was created Earl of Breffni, and encouraged to resist the superiority +to which the house of Dungannon laid claim. The natural consequences +followed; John the Proud swept like a storm over the fertile hills of +Cavan, and compelled the new-made Earl to deliver him tribute and +hostages. O'Donnell, attended only by a few of his household, was +seized in a religious house upon Lough Swilly, and subjected to every +indignity which an insolent enemy could devise. His Countess, already +alluded to, supposed to have been privy to this surprise of her +husband, became the mistress of his captor and jailer, to whom she bore +several children. What deepens the horror of this odious domestic +tragedy is the fact that the wife of O'Neil, the daughter of O'Donnell, +thus supplanted by her shameless stepmother, under her own roof, died +soon afterwards of "horror, loathing, grief, and deep anguish," at the +spectacle afforded by the private life of O'Neil, and the severities +inflicted upon her wretched father. All the patriotic designs, and all +the shining abilities of John the Proud, cannot abate a jot of our +detestation of such a private life; though slandered in other respects +as he was, by hostile pens, no evidence has been adduced to clear his +memory of these indelible stains; nor after becoming acquainted with +their existence can we follow his after career with that heartfelt +sympathy with which the lives of purer patriots must always inspire us. + +The pledge given by Sussex, that the penal legislation of 1560 should +lie a dead letter, was not long observed. In May of the year following +its enactment, a commission was appointed to enforce the 2nd Elizabeth, +in West-Meath; and in 1562 a similar commission was appointed for Meath +and Armagh. By these commissioners Dr. William Walsh, Catholic Bishop +of Meath, was arraigned and imprisoned for preaching against the new +liturgy; a Prelate who afterwards died an exile in Spain. The primatial +see was for the moment vacant, Archbishop Dowdal having died at London +three months before Queen Mary—on the Feast of the Assumption, 1558. +Terence, Dean of Armagh, who acted as administrator, convened a Synod +of the English-speaking clergy of the Province in July, 1559, at +Drogheda, but as this dignitary followed in the steps of his faithful +predecessors, his deanery was conferred upon Dr. Adam Loftus, Chaplain +of the Lord Lieutenant; two years subsequently the dignity of +Archbishop of Armagh was conferred upon the same person. Dr. Loftus, a +native of Yorkshire, had found favour in the eyes of the Queen at a +public exhibition at Cambridge University; he was but 28 years old, +according to Sir James Ware, when consecrated Primate—but Dr. Mant +thinks he must have attained at least the canonical age of 30. During +the whole of this reign he continued to reside at Dublin, which see was +early placed under his jurisdiction in lieu of the inaccessible Armagh. +For forty years he continued one of the ruling spirits at Dublin, +whether acting as Lord Chancellor, Lord Justice, Privy Councillor, or +First Provost of Trinity College. He was a pluralist in Church and +State, insatiable of money and honours; if he did not greatly assist in +establishing his religion, he was eminently successful in enriching his +family. + +Having subdued every hostile neighbour and openly assumed the high +prerogative of Prince of Ulster, John the Proud looked around him for +allies in the greater struggle which he foresaw could not be long +postponed. Calvagh O'Donnell was yielded up on receiving a munificent +ransom, but his infamous wife remained with her paramour. A negotiation +was set on foot with the chiefs of the Highland and Island Scots, large +numbers of whom entered into O'Neil's service. Emissaries were +despatched to the French Court, where they found a favourable +reception, as Elizabeth was known to be in league with the King of +Navarre and the Huguenot leaders against Francis II. The unexpected +death of the King at the close of 1560; the return of his youthful +widow, Queen Mary, to Scotland; the vigorous regency of Catherine de +Medicis during the minority of her second son; the ill-success of +Elizabeth's arms during the campaigns of 1561-2-3, followed by the +humiliating peace of April, 1564—these events are all to be borne in +memory when considering the extraordinary relations which were +maintained during the same years by the proud Prince of Ulster, with +the still prouder Queen of England. The apparently contradictory +tactics pursued by the Lord Deputy Sussex, between his return to Dublin +in the spring of 1561, and his final recall in 1564, when read by the +light of events which transpired at Paris, London, and Edinburgh, +become easily intelligible. In the spring of the first mentioned year, +it was thought possible to intimidate O'Neil, so Lord Sussex, with the +Earl of Ormond as second in command, marched northwards, entered +Armagh, and began to fortify the city, with a view to placing in it a +powerful garrison. O'Neil, to remove the seat of hostilities, made an +irruption into the plain of Meath, and menaced Dublin. The utmost +consternation prevailed at his approach, and the Deputy, while +continuing the fortification of Armagh, despatched the main body of his +troops to press on the rear of the aggressor. By a rapid countermarch, +O'Neil came up with this force, laden with spoils, in Louth, and after +an obstinate engagement routed them with immense loss. On receipt of +this intelligence, Sussex promptly abandoned Armagh, and returned to +Dublin, while O'Neil erected his standard, as far South as Drogheda, +within twenty miles of the capital. So critical at this moment was the +aspect of affairs, that all the energies of the English interest were +taxed to the utmost. In the autumn of the year, Sussex marched again +from Dublin northward, having at his side the five powerful Earls of +Kildare, Ormond, Desmond, Thomond, and Clanrickarde—whose mutual feuds +had been healed or dissembled for the day. O'Neil prudently fell back +before this powerful expedition, which found its way to the shores of +Lough Foyle, without bringing him to an engagement, and without any +military advantage. As the shortest way of getting rid of such an +enemy, the Lord Deputy, though one of the wisest and most justly +celebrated of Elizabeth's Counsellors, did not hesitate to communicate +to his royal mistress the project of hiring an assassin, named Nele +Gray, to take off the Prince of Ulster, but the plot, though carefully +elaborated, miscarried. Foreign news, which probably reached him only +on reaching the Foyle, led to a sudden change of tactics on the part of +Sussex, and the young Lord Kildare—O'Neil's cousin-germain, was +employed to negotiate a peace with the enemy they had set out to +demolish. + +This Lord Kildare was Gerald, the eleventh Earl, the same whom we have +spoken of as a fugitive lad, in the last years of Henry VIII., and as +restored to his estates and rank by Queen Mary. Although largely +indebted to his Catholicity for the protection he had received while +abroad from Francis I., Charles V., the Duke of Tuscany and the Roman +See—especially the Cardinals Pole and Farnese—and still more indebted +to the late Catholic Queen for the restoration of his family honours, +this finished courtier, now in the very midsummer of life, one of the +handsomest and most accomplished persons of his time, did not hesitate +to conform himself, at least outwardly, to the religion of the State. +Shortly before the campaign of which we have spoken, he had been +suspected of treasonable designs, but had pleaded his cause +successfully with the Queen in person. From Lough Foyle, accompanied by +the Lord Slane, the Viscount Baltinglass, and a suitable guard, Lord +Kildare set out for John O'Neil's camp, where a truce was concluded +between the parties, Lord Sussex undertaking to withdraw his wardens +from Armagh, and O'Neil engaging himself to live in peace with her +Majesty, and to serve "when necessary against her enemies." The cousins +also agreed personally to visit the English Court the following year, +and accordingly in January ensuing they went to England, from which +they returned home in the latter end of May. + +The reception of John the Proud, at the Court of Elizabeth, was +flattering in the extreme. The courtiers stared and smiled at his +bareheaded body-guard, with their crocus-dyed vests, short jackets, and +shaggy cloaks. But the broad-bladed battle-axe, and the sinewy arm +which wielded it, inspired admiration for all the uncouth costume. The +haughty indifference with which the Prince of Ulster treated every one +about the Court, except the Queen, gave a keener edge to the satirical +comments which were so freely indulged in at the expense of his style +of dress. The wits proclaimed him "O'Neil the Great, cousin to Saint +Patrick, friend to the Queen of England, and enemy to all the world +besides!" O'Neil was well pleased with his reception by Elizabeth. When +taxed upon his return with having made peace with her Majesty, he +answered—"Yes, in her own bed-chamber." There were, indeed, many points +in common in both their characters. + +Her Majesty, by letters patent dated at Windsor, on the 15th of +January, 1563, recognized in John the Proud "the name and title of +O'Neil, with the like authority, jurisdiction, and pre-eminence, as any +of his ancestors." And O'Neil, by articles, dated at Benburb, the 18th +of November of the same year, reciting the letters patent aforesaid, +bound himself and his suffragans to behave as "the Queen's good and +faithful subjects against all persons whatever." Thus, so far as an +English alliance could guarantee it, was the supremacy of this daring +chief guaranteed in Ulster from the Boyne to the North Sea. + +In performing his part of the engagements thus entered into, O'Neil is +placed in a less invidious light by English writers than formerly. They +now describe him as scrupulously faithful to his word; as charitable to +the poor, always carving and sending meat from his own table to the +beggar at the gate before eating himself. Of the sincerity with which +he carried out the expulsion of the Islesmen and Highlanders from +Ulster, the result afforded the most conclusive evidence. It is true he +had himself invited those bands into the Province to aid him against +the very power with which he was now at peace, and, therefore, they +might in their view allege duplicity and desertion against him. Yet +enlisted as they usually were but for a single campaign, O'Neil +expected them to depart as readily as they had come. But in this +expectation he was disappointed. Their leaders, Angus, James, and +Sorley McDonald, refused to recognize the new relations which had +arisen, and O'Neil was, therefore, compelled to resort to force. He +defeated the Scottish troops at Glenfesk, near Ballycastle, in 1564, in +an action wherein Angus McDonald was slain, James died of his wounds, +and Sorley was carried prisoner to Benburb. An English auxiliary force, +under Colonel Randolph, sent round by sea, under pretence of +co-operating against the Scots, took possession of Derry and began to +fortify it. But their leader was slain in a skirmish with a party of +O'Neil's people who disliked the fortress, and whether by accident or +otherwise their magazine exploded, killing a great part of the garrison +and destroying their works. The remnant took to their shipping and +returned to Dublin. + +In the years 1565, '6 and '7, the internal dissensions of both Scotland +and France, and the perturbations in the Netherlands giving full +occupation to her foreign foes, Elizabeth had an interval of leisure to +attend to this dangerous ally in Ulster. A second unsuccessful attempt +on his life, by an assassin named Smith, was traced to the Lord Deputy, +and a formal commission issued by the Queen to investigate the case. +The result we know only by the event; Sussex was recalled, and Sir +Henry Sidney substituted in his place! Death had lately made way in +Tyrconnell and Fermanagh for new chiefs, and these leaders, more +vigorous than their predecessors, were resolved to shake off the +recently imposed and sternly exercised supremacy of Benburb. With these +chiefs, Sidney, at the head of a veteran armament, cordially +co-operated, and O'Neil's territory was now attacked simultaneously at +three different points—in the year 1566. No considerable success was, +however, obtained over him till the following year, when, at the very +opening of the campaign, the brave O'Donnell arrested his march along +the strand of the Lough Swilly, and the tide rising impetuously, as it +does on that coast, on the rear of the men of Tyrone, struck them with +terror, and completed their defeat. From 1,500 to 3,000 men perished by +the sword or by the tide; John the Proud fled alone, along the river +Swilly, and narrowly escaped by the fords of rivers and by solitary +ways to his Castle on Lough Neagh. The Annalists of Donegal, who were +old enough to have conversed with survivors of the battle, say that his +mind became deranged by this sudden fall from the summit of prosperity +to the depths of defeat. His next step would seem to establish the +fact, for he at once despatched Sorley McDonald, the survivor of the +battle of Glenfesk, to recruit a new auxiliary force for him amongst +the Islesmen, whom he had so mortally offended. Then, abandoning his +fortress upon the Blackwater, he set out with 50 guards, his secretary, +and his mistress, the wife of the late O'Donnell, to meet these +expected allies whom he had so fiercely driven off but two short years +before. At Cushendun, on the Antrim coast, they met with all apparent +cordiality, but an English agent, Captain Piers, or Pierce, seized an +opportunity during the carouse which ensued to recall the bitter +memories of Glenfesk. A dispute and a quarrel ensued; O'Neil fell +covered with wounds, amid the exulting shouts of the avenging Islesmen. +His gory head was presented to Captain Piers, who hastened with it to +Dublin, where he received a reward of a thousand marks for his success. +High spiked upon the towers of the Castle, that proud head remained and +rotted; the body, wrapped in a Kerns saffron shirt, was interred where +he fell, a spot familiar to all the inhabitants of the Antrim glens as +"the grave of Shane O'Neil." And so may be said to close the first +decade of Elizabeth's reign over Ireland! + + + +CHAPTER IV. +SIR HENRY SIDNEY'S DEPUTYSHIP—PARLIAMENT OF 1569—THE SECOND "GERALDINE +LEAGUE"—SIR JAMES FITZ-MAURICE. + +Sir Henry Sidney, in writing to his court, had always reported John +O'Neil as "the only strong man in Ireland." Before his rout at Lough +Swilly, he could commonly call into the field 4,000 foot and 1,000 +horse; and his two years' revolt cost Elizabeth, in money, about +150,000 pounds sterling "over and above the cess laid on the +country"—besides "3,500 of her Majesty's soldiers" slain in battle. The +removal of such a leader in the very prime of life was therefore a +cause of much congratulation to Sidney and his royal mistress, and as +no other "strong man" was likely soon to arise, the Deputy now turned +with renewed ardour to the task of establishing the Queen's supremacy, +in things spiritual as well as temporal. With this view he urged that +separate governments, with large though subordinate military as well as +civil powers, should be created for Munster and Connaught—with +competent Presidents, who should reside in the former Province at +Limerick, and in the latter, at Athlone. In accordance with this +scheme—which continued to be acted upon for nearly a century—Sir Edward +Fitton was appointed first President of Connaught, and Sir John +Perrott, the Queen's illegitimate brother, President of Munster. +Leinster and Ulster were reserved as the special charge of the Lord +Deputy. + +About the time of O'Neil's death Sidney made an official progress +through the South and West, which he describes as wofully wasted by +war, both town and country. The earldom of the loyal Ormond was far +from being well ordered; and the other great nobles were even less +favourably reported; the Earl of Desmond could neither rule nor be +ruled; the Earl of Clancarty "wanted force and credit;" the Earl of +Thomond had neither wit to govern "nor grace to learn of others;" the +Earl of Clanrickarde was well intentioned, but controlled wholly by his +wife. Many districts had but "one-twentieth" of their ancient +population; Galway was in a state of perpetual defence. Athenry had but +four respectable householders left, and these presented him with the +rusty keys of their once famous town, which they confessed themselves +unable to defend, impoverished as they were by the extortions of their +lords. All this to the eye of the able Englishman had been the result +of that "cowardly policy, or lack of policy," whose sole maxims had +been to play off the great lords against each other and to retard the +growth of population, least "through their quiet might follow" future +dangers to the English interest. His own policy was based on very +different principles. He proposed to make the highest heads bow to the +supremacy of the royal sword—to punish with exemplary rigour every sign +of insubordination, especially in the great—and, at the same time, to +encourage with ample rewards, adventurers, and enterprises of all +kinds. He proposed to himself precisely the part Lord Stafford acted +sixty years later, and he entered on it with a will which would have +won the admiration of that unbending despot. He prided himself on the +number of military executions which marked his progress. "Down they go +in every corner," he writes, "and down they shall go, God willing!" He +seized the Earl of Desmond in his own town of Kilmallock; he took the +sons of Clanrickarde, in Connaught, and carried them prisoners to +Dublin. Elizabeth became alarmed at these extreme measures, and Sidney +obtained leave to explain his new policy in person to her Majesty. +Accordingly in October he sailed for England, taking with him the Earl +and his brother John of Desmond, who had been invited to Dublin, and +were detained as prisoners of State; Hugh O'Neil, as yet known by no +other title than Baron of Dungannon; the O'Conor Sligo, and other +chiefs and noblemen. He seems to have carried his policy triumphantly +with the Queen, and from henceforth for many a long year "the dulce +ways" and "politic drifts" recommended by the great Cardinal Statesman +of Henry VIII. were to give way to that remorseless struggle in which +the only alternative offered to the Irish was—uniformity or +extermination. Of this policy, Sir Henry Sidney may, it seems to me, be +fairly considered the author; Stafford, and even Cromwell were but +finishers of his work. One cannot repress a sigh that so ferocious a +design as the extermination of a whole people should be associated in +any degree with the illustrious name of Sidney. + +The triumphant Deputy arrived at Carrickfergus in September, 1568, from +England. Here he received the "submission," as it is called, of +Tirlogh, the new O'Neil, and turned his steps southwards in full +assurance that this chief of Tyrone was not another "strong man" like +the last. A new Privy Council was sworn in on his arrival at Dublin, +with royal instructions "to concur with" the Deputy, and 20,000 pounds +a year in addition to the whole of the cess levied in the country were +guaranteed to enable him to carry out his great scheme of the +"reduction." A Parliament was next summoned for the 17th of January, +1569, the first assembly of that nature which had been convened since +Lord Sussex's rupture with _his_ Parliament nine years before. + +The acts of this Parliament, of the 11th of Elizabeth, are much more +voluminous than those of the 2nd of the same reign. The constitution of +the houses is also of interest, as the earlier records of every form of +government must always be. Three sessions were held in the first year, +one in 1570, and one in 1571. After its dissolution, no Parliament sat +in Ireland for fourteen years—so unstable was the system at that time, +and so dependent upon accidental causes for its exercise. The first +sittings of Sidney's Parliament were as stormy as those of Sussex. It +was found that many members presented themselves pretending to +represent towns not incorporated, and others, officers of election, had +returned themselves. Others, again, were non-resident Englishmen, +dependent on the Deputy who had never seen the places for which they +claimed to sit. The disputed elections of all classes being referred to +the judges, they decided that non-residence did not disqualify the +latter class; but that those who had returned themselves, and those +chosen for non-corporate towns, were inadmissible. This double decision +did not give the new House of Commons quite the desired complexion, +though Stanihurst, Recorder of Dublin, the Court candidate, was chosen +Speaker. The opposition was led by Sir Christopher Barnewall, an able +and intrepid man, to whose firmness it was mainly due that a more +sweeping proscription was not enacted, under form of law, at this +period. The native Englishmen in the House were extremely unpopular out +of doors, and Hooker, one of their number, who sat for the deserted +borough of Athenry, had to be escorted to his lodgings by a strong +guard, for fear of the Dublin mob. The chief acts of the first session +were a subsidy, for ten years, of 13 shillings 4 pence for every +ploughland granted to the Queen; an act suspending Poyning's act for +the continuance of _that_ Parliament; an act for the attainder of John +O'Neil; an act appropriating to her Majesty the lands of the Knight of +the Valley; an act authorizing the Lord Deputy to present to vacant +benefices in Munster and Connaught for ten years; an act abolishing the +title of "Captain," or _ruler_ of counties or districts, unless by +special warrant under the great seal; an act for reversing the +attainder of the Earl of Kildare. In the sittings of 1570 and '71, the +chief acts were for the erection of free schools, for the preservation +of the public records, for establishing an uniform measure in the sale +of corn, and for the attainder of the White Knight, deceased. Though +undoubtedly most of these statutes strengthened Sidney's hands and +favoured his policy, they did not go the lengths which in his official +correspondence he advocated. For the last seven years of his connection +with Irish affairs, he was accordingly disposed to dispense with the +unmanageable machinery of a Parliament. Orders in council were much +more easily procured than acts of legislation, even when every care had +been taken to pack the House of Commons with the dependents of the +executive. + +The meeting of Parliament in 1569 was nearly coincident with the formal +excommunication of Elizabeth by Pope Pius V. Though pretending to +despise the bull, the Queen was weak enough to seek its revocation, +through the interposition of the Emperor Maximilian. The high tone of +the enthusiastic Pontiff irritated her deeply, and perhaps the +additional severities which she now directed against her Catholic +subjects, may be, in part, traced to the effects of the +excommunication. In Ireland, the work of reformation, by means of civil +disabilities and executive patronage, was continued with earnestness. +In 1564, all Popish priests and friars were prohibited from meeting in +Dublin, or even coming within the city gates. Two years later, _The +Book of Articles_, copied from the English Articles, was published, by +order of "the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical." The articles +are twelve in number:—1. The Trinity in Unity; 2. The Sufficiency of +the Scriptures to Salvation; 3. The Orthodoxy of Particular Churches; +4. The Necessity of Holy Orders; 5. The Queen's Supremacy; 6. Denial of +the Pope's authority "to be more than other Bishops have;" 7. The +Conformity of the Book of Common Prayer to the Scriptures; 8. The +Ministration of Baptism does not depend on the Ceremonial; 9. Condemns +"Private Masses," and denies that the Mass can be a propitiatory +Sacrifice for the Dead; 10. Asserts the Propriety of Communion in Both +Kinds; 11. Utterly disallows Images, Relics and Pilgrimages; 12. +Requires a General Subscription to the foregoing Articles. With this +creed, the Irish Establishment started into existence, at the command +and, of course, with all the aid of the civil power. The Bishops of +Meath and Kildare, the nearest to Dublin, for resisting it were +banished their sees; the former to die an exile in Spain, the latter to +find refuge and protection with the Earl of Desmond. Several Prelates +were tolerated in their sees, on condition of observing a species of +neutrality; but all vacancies, if within the reach of the English +power, were filled as they occurred by nominees of the crown. Those who +actively and energetically resisted the new doctrines were marked out +for vengeance, and we shall see in the next decade how Ireland's martyr +age began. + +The honour and danger of organizing resistance to the progress of the +new religion now devolved upon the noble family of the Geraldines of +Munster, of whose principal members we must, therefore, give some +account. The fifteenth Earl, who had concurred in the act of Henry's +election, died in the year of Elizabeth's accession (1558), leaving +three sons, Gerald the sixteenth Earl, John, and James. He had also an +elder son by a first wife, from whom he had been divorced on the ground +of consanguinity. This son disputed the succession unsuccessfully, +retired to Spain, and there died. Earl Gerald, though one of the Peers +who sat in the Parliament of the second year of Elizabeth, was one of +those who strenuously opposed the policy of Sussex, and still more +strenuously, as may be supposed, the more extreme policy of Sidney. His +reputation, however, as a leader, suffered severely by the combat of +Affane, in which he was taken prisoner by Thomas, the tenth Earl of +Ormond, with whom he was at feud on a question of boundaries. By order +of the Queen, the Lord Deputy was appointed arbitrator in this case, +and though the decision was in favour of Ormond, Desmond submitted, +came to Dublin, and was reconciled with his enemy in the chapter house +of St. Patrick's. A year or two later, Gerald turned his arms against +the ancient rivals of his house—the McCarthys of Muskerry and +Duhallow—but was again taken prisoner, and after six months' detention, +held to ransom by the Lord of Muskerry. After his release, the old feud +with Ormond broke out anew—a most impolitic quarrel, as that Earl was +not only personally a favourite with the Queen, but was also nearly +connected with her in blood through the Boleyns. In 1567, as before +related, Desmond was seized by surprise in his town of Kilmallock by +Sidney's order, and the following autumn conveyed to London on a charge +of treason and lodged in the Tower. This was the third prison he had +lodged in within three years, and by far the most hopeless of the +three. His brother, Sir John of Desmond, through the representations of +Ormond, was the same year arrested and consigned to the same ominous +dungeon, from which suspected noblemen seldom emerged, except when the +hurdle waited for them at the gate. + +This double capture aroused the indignation of all the tribes of +Desmond, and led to the formidable combination which, in reference to +the previous confederacy in the reign of Henry, may be called "the +second Geraldine League." The Earl of Clancarty, and such of the +O'Briens, McCarthys, and Butlers, as had resolved to resist the +complete revolution in property, religion, and law, which Sidney +meditated, united together to avenge the wrongs of those noblemen, +their neighbours, so treacherously arrested and so cruelly confined. +Sir James, son of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald of Kerry, commonly called +James Fitz-Maurice, cousin-germain to the imprisoned noblemen, was +chosen leader of the insurrection. He was, according to the testimony +of an enemy, Hooker, member for Athenry, "a deep dissembler, passing +subtile, and able to compass any matter he took in hand; courteous, +valiant, expert in martial affairs." To this we may add that he had +already reached a mature age; was deeply and sincerely devoted to his +religion; and, according to the eulogist of the rival house of Ormond, +one whom nothing could deject or bow down, a scorner of luxury and +ease, insensible to danger, impervious to the elements, preferring, +after a hard day's fighting, the bare earth to a luxurious couch. + +One of the first steps of the League was to despatch an embassy for +assistance to the King of Spain and the Pope. The Archbishop of Cashel, +the Bishop of Emly, and James, the youngest brother of Desmond, were +appointed on this mission, of which Sidney was no sooner apprised than +he proclaimed the confederates traitors, and at once prepared for a +campaign in Munster. The first blow was struck by the taking of +Clogrennan Castle, which belonged to Sir Edmond Butler, one of the +adherents of the League. The attack was led by Sir Peter Carew, an +English adventurer, who had lately appeared at Dublin to claim the +original grant made to Robert Fitzstephen of the moiety of the kingdom +of Cork, and who at present commanded the garrison of Kilkenny. The +accomplished soldier of fortune anticipated the Deputy's movements by +this blow at the confederated Butlers, who retaliated by an abortive +attack on Kilkenny, and a successful foray into Wexford, in which they +took the Castle of Enniscorthy. Sidney, taking the field in person, +marched through Waterford and Dungarvan against Desmond's strongholds +in the vicinity of Youghal. After a week's siege he took Castlemartyr, +and continued his route through Barrymore to Cork, where he established +his head-quarters. From Cork, upon receiving the submission of some +timid members of the League, he continued his route to Limerick, where +Sir Edmond Butler and his brothers were induced to come in by their +chief the Earl of Ormond. From Limerick he penetrated Clare, took the +Castles of Clonoon and Ballyvaughan; he next halted some time at +Galway, and returned to Dublin by Athlone. Overawed by the activity of +the Deputy, many others of the confederates followed the example of the +Butlers. The Earl of Clancarty sued for pardon and delivered up his +eldest son as a hostage for his good faith; the Earl of Thomond—more +suspected than compromised—yielded all his castles, with the sole +exception of Ibrackan. But the next year, mortified at the +insignificance to which he had reduced himself, he sought refuge in +France, from which he only returned when the intercession of the +English ambassador, Norris, had obtained him full indemnity for the +past. Sir James Fitzmaurice, thus deserted by his confederates, had +need of all that unyielding firmness of character for which he had +obtained credit. Castle after castle belonging to his cousins and +himself was taken by the powerful siege trains of President Perrott; +Castlemaine, the last stronghold which commanded an outlet by sea, +surrendered after a three months' siege, gallantly maintained. The +unyielding leader had now, therefore, no alternative but to retire into +the impregnable passes of the Galtees, where he established his +head-quarters. This mountain range, towering from two to three thousand +feet over the plain of Ormond, stretches from north-west to south-east, +some twenty miles, descending with many a gentle undulation towards the +Funcheon and the Blackwater in the earldom of Desmond. Of all its +valleys Aharlow was the fairest and most secluded. Well wooded, and +well watered, with outlets and intricacies known only to the native +population, it seemed as if designed for a nursery of insurrection. It +now became to the patriots of the South what the valley of Glenmalure +had long been for those of Leinster—a fortress dedicated by Nature to +the defence of freedom. In this fastness Fitzmaurice continued to +maintain himself, until a prospect of new combinations opened to him in +the West. + +The sons of the Earl of Clanrickarde, though released from the custody +of Sidney, receiving intimation that they were to be arrested at a +court which Fitton, President of Connaught, had summoned at Galway, +flew to arms and opened negotiations with Fitzmaurice. The latter, +withdrawing from Aharlow, promptly joined them in Galway, and during +the campaign which followed, aided them with his iron energy and +sagacious counsel. They took and demolished the works of Athenry, and, +in part, those of the Court of Athlone. Their successes induced the +Deputy to liberate Clanrickarde himself, who had been detained a +prisoner in Dublin, from the outbreak of his sons. On his return—their +main object being attained—they submitted as promptly as they had +revolted, and this hope also being quenched, Fitzmaurice found his way +back again, with a handful of Scottish retainers, to the shelter of +Aharlow. Sir John Perrott, having by this time no further sieges to +prosecute, drew his toils closer and closer round the Geraldine's +retreat. For a whole year, the fidelity of his adherents and the +natural strength of the place enabled him to baffle all the President's +efforts. But his faithful Scottish guards being at length surprised and +cut off almost to a man, Fitzmaurice, with his son, his kinsman, the +Seneschal of Imokilly, and the son of Richard Burke, surrendered to the +President at Kilmallock, suing on his knees for the Queen's pardon, +which was, from motives of policy, granted. + +On this conclusion of the contest in Munster, the Earl of Desmond and +his brother, Sir John, were released from the Tower, and transferred to +Dublin, where they were treated as prisoners on parole. The Mayor of +the city, who was answerable for their custody, having taken them upon +a hunting party in the open country, the brothers put spurs to their +horses and escaped into Munster (1574). They were stigmatized as having +broken their parole, but they asserted that it was intended on that +party to waylay and murder them, and that their only safety was in +flight. Large rewards were offered for their capture, alive or dead, +but the necessities of both parties compelled a truce during the +remainder of Sidney's official career—which terminated in his +resignation—about four years after the escape of the Desmonds from +Dublin. Thus were new elements of combination, at the moment least +expected, thrown, into the hands of the Munster Catholics. + + + +CHAPTER V. +THE "UNDERTAKERS" IN ULSTER AND LEINSTER—DEFEAT AND DEATH OF SIR JAMES +FITZMAURICE. + +Queen Elizabeth, when writing to Lord Sussex of a rumoured rising by +O'Neil, desired him to assure her lieges at Dublin, that if O'Neil did +rise, "it would be for their advantage; for there will be estates for +them who want." The Sidney policy of treating Ireland as a discovered +country, whose inhabitants had no right to the soil, except such as the +discoverers graciously conceded to them—begat a new order of men, +unknown to the history of other civilized states, which order we must +now be at some pains to introduce to the reader. + +These "Undertakers," as they were called, differed widely from the +Norman invaders of a former age. The Norman generally espoused the +cause of some native chief, and took his pay in land; what he got by +the sword he held by the sword. But the Undertaker was usually a man of +peace—a courtier like Sir Christopher Hatton—a politician like Sir +Walter Raleigh—a poet like Edmund Spencer, or a spy and forger like +Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. He came, in the wake of war, with +his elastic "letters patent," or, if he served in the field, it was +mainly with a view to the subsequent confiscations. He was adroit at +finding flaws in ancient titles, skilled in all the feudal quibbles of +fine and recovery, and ready to employ the secret dagger where hard +swearing and fabricated documents might fail to make good his title. +Sometimes men of higher mark and more generous dispositions, allured by +the temptations of the social revolution, would enter on the same +pursuits, but they generally miscarried from want of what was then +cleverly called "subtlety," but which plain people could not easily +distinguish from lying and perjury. What greatly assisted them in their +designs was the fact that feudal tenures had never been general in +Ireland, so that by an easy process of reasoning they could prove +nineteen-twentieths of all existing titles "defective," according to +their notions of the laws of property. + +Sir Peter Carew, already mentioned, was one of the earliest of the +Undertakers. He had been bred up as page to the Prince of Orange, and +had visited the Courts of France, Germany, and Constantinople. He +claimed, by virtue of his descent from Robert Fitzstephen, the barony +of Idrone, in Carlow, and one half the kingdom of Desmond. Sir Henry +Sidney had admitted these pretensions, partly as a menace against the +Kavanaghs and Geraldines, and Sir Peter established himself at +Leighlin, where he kept great house, with one hundred servants, over +one hundred kerne, forty horse, a stall in his stable, a seat at his +board for all comers. He took an active part in all military +operations, and fell fighting gallantly on a memorable day to be +hereafter mentioned. + +After the attainder of John the Proud in 1569, Sir Thomas Smith, +Secretary to the Queen, obtained a grant of the district of the Ards of +Down, for his illegitimate son, who accordingly entered on the task of +its plantation. But the O'Neils of Clandeboy, the owners of the soil, +attacked the young Undertaker, who met a grave where he had come to +found a lordship. A higher name was equally unfortunate in the same +field of adventure. Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex (father of the Essex +still more unfortunate), obtained in 1573 a grant of one moiety of +Farney and Clandeboy, and having mortgaged his English estates to the +Queen for 10,000 pounds, associated with himself many other +adventurers. On the 16th of August, he set sail from Liverpool, +accompanied by the Lords Dacre and Rich, Sir Henry Knollys, the three +sons of Lord Norris, and a multitude of the common people. But as he +had left one powerful enemy at court in Leicester—so he found a second +at Dublin, in the acting deputy, Fitzwilliam. Though gratified with the +title of President of Ulster and afterwards that of Marshal of Ireland, +he found his schemes constantly counteracted by orders from Dublin or +from England. He was frequently ordered off from his head-quarters at +Newry, on expeditions into Munster, until those who had followed his +banner became disheartened and mutinous. The O'Neils and the Antrim +Scots harassed his colony and increased his troubles. He attempted by +treachery to retrieve his fortunes. Having invited the alliance of Con +O'Donnell, he seized that chief and sent him prisoner to Dublin. +Subsequently his chief opponent, Brian, lord of Clandeboy, paid him an +amicable visit, accompanied by his wife, brother, and household. As +they were seated at table on the fourth day of their stay, the soldiers +of Essex burst into the banquet hall, put them all, "women, youths and +maidens," to the sword. Brian and his wife were saved from the +slaughter only to undergo at Dublin the death and mutilation inflicted +upon traitors. Yet the ambitious schemes of Walter of Essex did not +prosper the more of all these crimes. He died at Dublin, two years +afterwards (1576), in the 36th year of his age, as was generally +believed from poison administered by the orders of the arch-poisoner, +Leicester, who immediately upon his death married his widow. + +It is apparent that the interest of the Undertakers could not be to +establish peace in Ireland so long as war might be profitably waged. +The new "English interest" thus created was often hostile to the +soundest rules of policy and always opposed to the dictates of right +and justice; but the double desire to conquer and to convert—to +anglicize and Protestantize—blinded many to the lawless means by which +they were worked out. The massacre of 400 persons of the chief families +of Leix and Offally, which took place at Mullaghmast in 1577, is an +evidence of how the royal troops were used to promote the ends of the +Undertakers. To Mullaghmast, one of the ancient raths of Leinster, +situated about five miles from Athy in Kildare, the O'Moores, O'Kellys, +Lalors, and other Irish tribes were invited by the local commander of +the Queen's troops, Francis Cosby. The Bowens, Hartpoles, Pigotts, +Hovendons, and other adventurers who had grants or designs upon the +neighbouring territory were invited to meet them. One of the Lalors, +perceiving that none of those who entered the rath before him emerged +again, caused his friends to fall back while he himself advanced alone. +At the very entrance he beheld the dead bodies of some of his +slaughtered kinsmen; drawing his sword, he fought his way back to his +friends, who barely escaped with their lives to Dysart. Four hundred +victims, including 180 of the name of O'Moore, are said to have fallen +in this deliberate butchery. Rory O'Moore, the chief of his name, +avenged this massacre by many a daring deed. In rapid succession he +surprised Naas, Athy, and Leighlin. From the rapidity with which his +blows were struck in Kildare, Carlow, and Kilkenny, he appeared to be +ubiquitous. He was the true type of a guerilla leader, yet merciful as +brave. While Naas was burning, he sat coolly at the market cross +enjoying the spectacle, but he suffered no lives to be taken. Having +captured Cosby, he did not, as might be expected, put him to death. His +confidence in his own prowess and resources amounted to rashness, and +finally caused his death. Coming forth from a wood to parley with a +party of the Queen's troops led by his neighbour, the Lord of Ossory, a +common soldier ran him through the body with a sword. This was on the +last day of June, 1578—a day mournful through all the midland districts +for the loss of their best and bravest captain. + +While these events occupied the minds and tongues of men in the North +and East, a brief respite from the horrors of war was permitted to the +province of Munster. The Earl of Desmond, only too happy to be +tolerated in the possession of his 570,000 acres, was eager enough to +testify his allegiance by any sort of service. His brothers, though +less compliant, followed his example for the moment, and no danger was +to be apprehended in that quarter, except from the indomitable James +Fitzmaurice, self-exiled on the continent. No higher tribute could be +paid to the character of that heroic man than the closeness with which +all his movements were watched by English spies, specially set upon his +track. They followed him to the French court, to St. Malo's (where he +resided for some time with his family), to Madrid, whence he sent his +two sons to the famous University of Alcala, and from Madrid to Rome. +The honourable reception he received at the hands of the French and +Spanish Sovereigns was duly reported; yet both being at peace with +England, his plans elicited no open encouragement from either. At Rome, +however, he obtained some material and much moral support. Here he +found many zealous advocates among the English and Irish refugees—among +them the celebrated Saunders, Allen, sometimes called Cardinal Alien, +and O'Mulrian, Bishop of Killaloe. A force of about 1,000 men was +enlisted at the expense of Pope Gregory XIII., in the Papal States, and +placed under an experienced captain, Hercules Pisano. They were shipped +at Civita Vecchia by a squadron under the command of Thomas Stukely, an +English adventurer, who had served both for and against the Irish +Catholics, but had joined Fitzmaurice in Spain and accompanied him to +Rome. On the strength of some remote or pretended relationship to the +McMurroghs, Stukely obtained from the Pope the titles of Marquis of +Leinster and Baron of Idrone and Ross; at Fitzmaurice's urgent +request—so it is stated—he was named Vice-Admiral of the fleet. The +whole expedition was fitted out at the expense of the Pope, but it was +secretly agreed that it should be supported, after landing in Ireland, +at the charge of Philip II. Fitzmaurice, travelling overland to Spain, +was to unite there with another party of adventurers, and to form a +junction with Stukely and Pisano on the coast of Kerry. So with the +Papal benediction gladdening his heart, and a most earnest exhortation +from the Holy Father to the Catholics of Ireland to follow his banner, +this noblest of all the Catholic Geraldines departed from Rome, to try +again the hazard of war in his own country. + +This was in the spring of the year 1579. Sir Henry Sidney, after many +years' direction of the government, had been recalled at his own +request; Sir William Drury was acting as Lord Justice; and Sir Nicholas +Malby as President of Munster. Expectation of the return of +Fitzmaurice, at the head of a liberating expedition, began to be rife +throughout the south and west, and the coasts were watched with the +utmost vigilance. In the month of June, three persons having landed in +disguise from a Spanish ship, at Dingle, were seized by government +spies, and carried before the Earl of Desmond. On examination, one of +them proved to be O'Haly, Bishop of Mayo, and another a friar named +O'Rourke; the third is not named. By the timid, temporizing Desmond, +they were forwarded to Kilmallock to Drury, who put them to every +conceivable torture, in order to extract intelligence of Fitzmaurice's +movements. After their thighs had been broken with hammers, they were +hanged on a tree, and their bodies used as targets by the brutal +soldiery. Fitzmaurice, with his friends, having survived shipwreck on +the coast of Galicia, entered the same harbour (Dingle) on the 17th of +July. But no tidings had yet reached Munster of Stukely and Pisano; and +his cousin, the Earl, sent him neither sign of friendship nor promise +of co-operation. He therefore brought his vessels round to the small +harbour of Smerwick, and commenced fortifying the almost isolated rock +of _Oilen-an-oir_—or golden island, so called from the shipwreck at +that point of one of Martin Forbisher's vessels, laden with golden +quartz, some years before. Here he was joined by John and James of +Desmond, and by a band of 200 of the O'Flaherties of Galway, the only +allies who presented themselves. These latter, on finding the expected +Munster rising already dead, and the much-talked-of Spanish auxiliary +force so mere a handful, soon withdrew in their own galleys, upon which +an English ship and pinnace, sweeping round from Kinsale, carried off +the Spanish vessels in sight of the powerless little fort. These +desperate circumstances inspired desperate councils, and it was decided +by the cousins to endeavour to gain the great wood of Kilmore, near +Charleville—in the neighbourhood of Sir James' old retreat among the +Galtee Mountains. In this march they were closely pursued by the Earl +of Desmond, either in earnest or in sham, and were obliged to separate +into three small bands, the brothers of the Earl retiring respectively +to the fastnesses of Lymnamore and Glenfesk, while Fitzmaurice, with "a +dozen horsemen and a few kerne," made a desperate push to reach the +western side of the Shannon, where he hoped, perhaps, for better +opportunity and a warmer reception. This proved for him a fatal +adventure. Jaded after a long day's ride he was compelled to seize some +horses from the plough, in the barony of Clanwilliam, in order to +remount his men. These horses were the property of his relative, Sir +William Burke, who, with his neighbour, Mac-I-Brien of Ara, pursued the +fugitives to within six miles of Limerick, where Fitzmaurice, having +turned to remonstrate with his pursuers, was fired at and mortally +wounded. He did not instantly fall. Dashing into the midst of his +assailants he cleft down the two sons of Burke, whose followers +immediately turned and fled. Then alighting from his saddle, the +wounded chief received the last solemn rites of religion from the hands +of Dr. Allen. His body was decapitated by one of his followers, that +the noble head might not be subjected to indignity; but the trunk being +but hastily buried was soon afterwards discovered, carried to +Kilmallock, and there hung up for a target and a show. This tragical +occurrence took place near the present site of "Barrington's bridge," +on the little river Mulkern, county of Limerick, on the 18th day of +August, 1579. In honour of his part in the transaction William Burke +was created Baron of Castleconnell, awarded a pension of 100 marks per +annum, and received from Elizabeth an autograph letter of condolence on +the loss of his sons: it is added by some writers that he died of joy +on the receipt of so many favours. Such was the fate of the glorious +hopes of Sir James Fitzmaurice. So ended in a squabble with churls +about cattle, on the banks of an insignificant stream, a career which +had drawn the attention of Europe, and had inspired with apprehension +the lion-hearted Queen. + +As to the expedition under Stukely, its end was even more romantic. His +squadron having put into the Tagus, he found the King of Portugal, Don +Sebastian, on the eve of sailing against the Moors, and from some +promise of after aid was induced to accompany that chivalrous Prince. +On the fatal field of Alcacar, Stukely, Pisano, and the Italians under +their command shared the fate of the Portuguese monarch and army. +Neither Italy nor Ireland heard of them more. + +Gregory XIII. did not abandon the cause. On the receipt of all these +ill-tidings he issued another Bull, highly laudatory of the virtues of +James Fitzmaurice "of happy memory," and granting the same indulgence +to those who would fight under John or James of Desmond, "as that which +was imparted to those who fought against the Turks for the recovery of +the Holy Land." This remarkable document is dated from Rome, the 13th +of May, 1580. + + + +CHAPTER VI. +SEQUEL OF THE SECOND GERALDINE LEAGUE—PLANTATION OF MUNSTER—EARLY +CAREER OF HUGH O'NEIL, EARL OF TYRONE—PARLIAMENT OF 1585. + +We must continue to read the history of Ireland by the light of foreign +affairs, and our chief light at this period is derived from Spain. The +death of Don Sebastian concentrated the thoughts of Philip II. on +Portugal, which he forcibly annexed to the Spanish crown. The progress +of the insurrection in the Netherlands also occupied so large a place +in his attention, that his projects against Elizabeth were postponed, +year after year, to the bitter disappointment of the Irish leaders. It +may seem far-fetched to assert, but it is not the less certainly true, +that the fate of Catholic Munster was intimately involved in the change +of masters in Portugal, and the fluctuations of war in the Netherlands, + +The "Undertakers," who had set their hearts on having the Desmond +estates, determined that the Earl and his brothers should not live long +in peace, however peaceably they might be disposed. The old trick of +forging letters, already alluded to, grew into a common and familiar +practice during this and the following reign. Such a letter, purporting +to be written by the Earl of Desmond—at that period only too anxious to +be allowed to live in peace—was made public at Dublin and London. It +was addressed to Sir William Pelham, the temporary Lord Justice, and +among other passages contained this patent invention—that he (the Earl +and his brethren) "had taken this matter in hand with great authority, +both from the Pope's holiness and King Philip, who do undertake to +further us in our affairs, as we shall need." It is utterly incredible +that any man in Desmond's position could have written such a +letter—could have placed in the hands of his enemies a document which +must for ever debar him from entering into terms with Elizabeth or her +representatives in Ireland. We have no hesitation, therefore, in +classing this pretended letter to Pelham with those admitted forgeries +which drove the unfortunate Lord Thomas Fitzgerald into premature +revolt, in the reign of Henry VIII. + +Sir John of Desmond had been nominated by the gallant Fitzmaurice in +his last moments as the fittest person to rally the remaining defenders +of religion and property in Munster. The Papal standard and benediction +were almost all he could bequeath his successor, but the energy of +John, aided by some favourable local occurrences, assembled a larger +force for the campaign of 1579 than had lately taken the field. Without +the open aid of the Earl, he contrived to get together at one time as +many as 2,000 men, amongst whom not the least active officer was his +younger brother, Sir James, hardly yet of man's age. Drs. Saunders and +Allen, with several Spanish officers, accompanied this devoted but +undisciplined multitude, sharing all the hardships of the men, and the +counsels of the chiefs. Their first camp, and, so to speak, the nursery +of their army, was among the inaccessible mountains of Slievelogher in +Kerry, where the rudiments of discipline were daily inculcated. When +they considered the time ripe for action, they removed their camp to +the great wood of Kilmore, near Charleville, from which they might +safely assail the line of communication between Cork and Limerick, the +main depots of Elizabeth's southern army. Nearly half-way between these +cities, and within a few miles of their new encampment, stood the +strong town of Kilmallock on the little river Lubach. This famous old +Geraldine borough, the focus of several roads, was the habitual +stopping place of the Deputies in their progress, as well as of English +soldiers on their march. The ancient fortifications, almost obliterated +by Fitzmaurice eleven years before, had been replaced by strong walls, +lined with earthworks, and crowned by towers. Here Sir William Drury +fixed his head-quarters in the spring of 1579, summoning to his aid all +the Queen's lieges in Munster. With a force of not less than 1,000 +English regulars under his own command, and perhaps twice that number +under the banner of the Munster "Undertakers" and others, who obeyed +the summons, he made an unsuccessful attempt to beat up the Geraldine +quarters at Kilmore. One division of his force, consisting of 300 men +by the Irish, and 200 by the English account, was cut to pieces, with +their captains, Herbert, Price, and Eustace. The remainder retreated in +disorder to their camp at Athneasy, a ford on the Morning Star River, +four miles east of Kilmallock. For nine weeks Drury continued in the +field, without gaining any advantage, yet so harassed day and night by +his assailants that his health gave way under his anxieties. Despairing +of recovery, he was removed by slow stages to Waterford—which would +seem to indicate that his communications both with Cork and Limerick +were impracticable—but died before reaching the first mentioned city. +The chief command in Munster now devolved upon Sir Nicholas Malby, an +officer who had seen much foreign service, while the temporary vacancy +in the government was filled by the Council at Dublin, whose choice +fell on Sir William Pelham, another distinguished military man, lately +arrived from England. + +Throughout the summer and autumn months the war was maintained, with +varying fortune on either side. In the combats of Gortnatibrid and +Enagbeg, in Limerick, the final success, according to Irish accounts, +was with the Geraldines, though they had the misfortune to lose +Cardinal Allen, Sir Thomas Fitzgerald and Sir Thomas Browne. Retiring +into winter quarters at Aharlow, they had a third engagement with the +garrison of Kilmallock, which attempted, without success, to intercept +their march. The campaign of 1580 was, however, destined to be +decisive. Sir John of Desmond, being invited to an amicable conference +by the Lord Barry, was entrapped by an English force under Captain +Zouch, in the woods surrounding Castle Lyons, and put to death on the +spot. The young Sir James had previously been captured on a foray into +Muskerry, and executed at Cork, so that of the brothers there now +remained but Earl Gerald, the next victim of the machinations which had +already proved so fatal to his family. Perceiving at length the true +designs cherished against him, the Earl took the field in the spring of +1580, and obtained two considerable advantages, one at Pea-field, +against the English under Roberts, and a second at Knockgraffon against +the Anglo-Irish, under the brothers of the Earl of Ormond, the recusant +members of the original league. Both these actions were fought in +Tipperary, and raised anew the hopes of the Munster Catholics. An +unsuccessful attempt on Adare was the only other military event in +which the Earl bore a part; he wintered in Aharlow, where his Christmas +was rather that of an outlaw than of the Lord Palatine of Desmond. In +Aharlow he had the misfortune to lose the gifted and heroic Nuncio, Dr. +Saunders, whose great services, at that period, taken together with +those of Cardinal Allen, long endeared the faithful English to the +faithful Irish Catholics. + +The sequel of the second Geraldine League may be rapidly narrated. In +September, 1580, the fort at Smerwick, where Fitzmaurice had landed +from Galicia, received a garrison of 800 men, chiefly Spaniards and +Italians, under Don Stephen San Joseph. The place was instantly +invested by sea and land, under the joint command of the new +Lieutenant, Lord Grey de Wilton, and the Earl of Ormond. Among the +officers of the besieging force were three especially notable men—Sir +Walter Raleigh, the poet Spenser, and Hugh O'Neil, afterwards Earl of +Tyrone, but at this time commanding a squadron of cavalry for her +Majesty Queen Elizabeth. San Joseph surrendered the place on +conditions; that savage outrage ensued, which is known in Irish history +as "the massacre of Smerwick." Raleigh and Wingfield appear to have +directed the operations by which 800 prisoners of war were cruelly +butchered and flung over the rocks. The sea upon that coast is deep and +the tides swift; but it has not proved deep enough to hide that horrid +crime, or to wash the stains of such wanton bloodshed from the memory +of its authors! + +For four years longer the Geraldine League flickered in the South. +Proclamations offering pardon to all concerned, except Earl Gerald and +a few of his most devoted adherents, had their effect. Deserted at +home, and cut off from foreign assistance, the condition of Desmond +grew more and more intolerable. On one occasion he narrowly escaped +capture by rushing with his Countess into a river, and remaining +concealed up to the chin in water. His dangers can hardly be paralleled +by those of Bruce after the battle of Falkirk, or by the more familiar +adventures of Charles Edward. At length, on the night of the 11th of +November, 1584, he was surprised with only two followers in a lonesome +valley about five miles distant from Tralee, among the mountains of +Kerry. The spot is still remembered, and the name of "the Earl's road" +transports the fancy of the traveller to that tragical scene. Cowering +over the embers of a half-extinct fire in a miserable hovel, the lord +of a country, which in time of peace had yielded an annual rental of +"40,000 golden pieces," was despatched by the hands of common soldiers, +without pity, or time, or hesitation. A few followers watching their +_creaghts_ or herds, farther up the valley, found his bleeding trunk +flung out upon the highway; the head was transported over seas, to rot +upon the spikes of London Tower. + +The extirpation of the Munster Geraldines, in the right line, according +to the theory of the "Undertakers" and the Court of England in general, +vested in the Queen the 570,000 acres belonging to the late Earl. +Proclamation was accordingly made throughout England, inviting "younger +brothers of good families" to undertake the plantation of Desmond—each +planter to obtain a certain scope of land, on condition of settling +thereupon so many families—"none of the native Irish to be admitted." +Under these conditions, Sir Christopher Hatton took up 10,000 acres in +Waterford; Sir Walter Raleigh 12,000 acres, partly in Waterford and +partly in Cork; Sir William Harbart, or Herbert, 13,000 acres in Kerry; +Sir Edward Denny 6,000 in the same county; Sir Warham, St. Leger, and +Sir Thomas Norris, 6,000 acres each in Cork; Sir William Courtney +10,000 acres in Limerick; Sir Edward Fitton 11,500 acres in Tipperary +and Waterford, and Edmund Spenser a modest 3,000 acres in Cork, on the +beautiful Blackwater. The other notable Undertakers were the Hides, +Butchers, Wirths, Berklys, Trenchards, Thorntons, Bourchers, +Billingsleys, &c., &c. Some of these grants, especially Raleigh's, fell +in the next reign into the ravening maw of Richard Boyle, the so-called +"_great_ Earl of Cork"—probably the most pious hypocrite to be found in +the long roll of the "Munster Undertakers." + +Before closing the present chapter, we must present to the reader, in a +formal manner, the personage whose career is to occupy the chief +remaining part of the present Book—Hugh O'Neil, best known by the title +of Earl of Tyrone. We have seen him in the camp of the enemies of his +country, learning the art of war on the shores of Dingle Bay—a witness +to the horrors perpetrated at Smerwick. We may find him later in the +same war—in 1584—serving under Perrott and Norris, along the Foyle and +the Bann, for the expulsion of the Antrim Scots. The following year, +for these and other good services, he received the patent of the +Earldom originally conferred on his grandfather, Con O'Neil, but +suffered to sink into abeyance by the less politic "John the Proud," in +the days when he made his peace with the Queen. The next year he +obtained from his clansmen the still higher title of O'Neil, and thus +he contrived to combine, in his own person, every principle of +authority likely to ensure him following and obedience, whether among +the clansmen of Tyrone, or the townsmen upon its borders. + +O'Neil's last official act of co-operation with the Dublin government +may be considered his participation in the Parliament convoked by Sir +John Perrott in 1585, and prorogued till the following year. It is +remarkable of this Parliament, the third and last of Elizabeth's long +reign, that it was utterly barren of ecclesiastical legislation, if we +except "an act against sorcery and witchcraft" from that category. The +attainder of the late Earl of Desmond, and the living Viscount of +Baltinglass, in arms with the O'Byrnes in Glenmalure, are the only +measures of consequence to be found among the Irish statutes of the +27th and 28th of Elizabeth. But though not remarkable for its +legislation, the Parliament of 1585 is conspicuously so for its +composition. Within its walls with the peers, knights, and burgesses of +the anglicized counties, sat almost all the native chiefs of Ulster, +Connaught, and Munster. The Leinster chiefs recently in arms, in +alliance with the Earl of Desmond, generally absented themselves, with +the exception of Feagh, son of Hugh, the senior of the O'Byrnes, and +one of the noblest spirits of his race and age. He appears not to have +had a seat in either House; but attended, on his own business, under +the protection of his powerful friends and sureties. + + + +CHAPTER VII. +BATTLE OF GLENMALURE—SIR JOHN PERROTT'S ADMINISTRATION—THE SPANISH +ARMADA—LORD DEPUTY FITZWILLIAM—ESCAPE OF HUGH ROE O'DONNELL FROM DUBLIN +CASTLE—THE ULSTER CONFEDERACY FORMED. + +In pursuing to its close the war in Munster, we were obliged to omit +the mention of an affair of considerable importance, which somewhat +consoled the Catholics for the massacre at Smerwick and the defeat of +the Desmonds. We have already observed that what Aharlow was to the +southern insurgents, the deep, secluded valley of Glenmalure was to the +oppressed of Leinster. It afforded, at this period, refuge to a +nobleman whose memory has been most improperly allowed to fall into +oblivion. This was James Eustace, Viscount Baltinglass, who had +suffered imprisonment in the Castle for refusing to pay an illegal tax +of a few pounds, who was afterwards made the object of a special, +vindictive enactment, known as "the Statute of Baltinglass," and was in +the summer of 1580, on his keeping, surrounded by armed friends and +retainers. His friend, Sir Walter Fitzgerald, son-in-law to the chief +of Glenmalure, and many of the clansmen of Leix, Offally and Idrone, +repaired to him at Slieveroe, near the modern village of Blessington, +from which they proceeded to form a junction with the followers of the +dauntless Feagh McHugh O'Byrne of Ballincor. Lord Grey, of Wilton, on +reaching Dublin in August of that year, obtained information of this +gathering, and determined to strike a decisive blow in Wicklow, before +proceeding to the South. All the chief captains in the Queen's +service—the Malbys, Dudleys, Cosbys, Carews, Moors—had repaired to meet +him at Dublin, and now marched, under his command, into the +neighbouring highlands. The Catholics, they knew, were concentrated in +the valley, on one of the slopes of which Lord Grey constructed a +strong camp, and then, having selected the fittest troops for the +service, gave orders to attack the Irish camp. Sir William Stanley, one +of the officers in command, well describes the upshot, in a letter to +Secretary Walshingham: "When we entered the glen," he writes, "we were +forced to slide, sometimes three or four fathoms, ere we could stay our +feet; it was in depth, where we entered, at least a mile, full of +stones, rocks, logs and wood; in the bottom thereof a river full of +loose stones, which we were driven to Cross divers times * * * * before +we were half through the glen, which is four miles in length, the enemy +charged us very hotly * * * * it was the hottest piece of service that +ever I saw, for the time, in any place." As might have been expected, +the assailants were repulsed with heavy loss; among the slain were Sir +Peter Carew, Colonel Francis Cosby of Mullaghmast memory, Colonel Moor, +and other distinguished officers. The full extent of the defeat was +concealed from Elizabeth, as well as it could be, in the official +despatches; but before the end of August private letters, such as we +have quoted, conveyed the painful intelligence to the court. The action +was fought on the 25th day of August. + +Lord Grey's deputyship, though it lasted only two years, included the +three decisive campaigns in the South, already described. At the period +of his recall—or leave of absence—the summer of 1582, that "most +populous and plentiful country," to use the forcible language of his +eloquent Secretary, Edmund Spenser, was reduced to "a heap of carcasses +and ashes." The war had been truly a war of extermination; nor did +Munster recover her due proportion of the population of the island for +nearly two centuries afterwards. + +The appointment of Sir John Perrott dates from 1583, though he did not +enter on the duties of Lord Deputy till the following year. Like most +of the public men of that age, he was both soldier and statesman. In +temper he resembled his reputed father, Henry VIII.; for he was +impatient of contradiction and control; fond of expense and +magnificence, with a high opinion of his own abilities for diplomacy +and legislation. The Parliament of 1585-6, as it was attended by almost +every notable man in the kingdom, was one of his boasts, though no one +seems to have benefited by it much, except Hugh O'Neil, whose title of +Earl of Tyrone was then formally recognized. Subordinate to Perrott, +the office of Governor of Connaught was held by Sir Richard +Bingham—founder of the fortunes of the present Earls of Lucan—and that +of President of Munster, by Sir Thomas Norris, one of four brothers, +all employed in the Queen's service, and all destined to lose their +lives in that employment. + +The most important events which marked the four years' administration +of Perrott were the pacification of Thomond and Connaught, the capture +of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, and the wreck of a large part of the Spanish +Armada, on the northern and western coasts. The royal commission issued +for the first-mentioned purpose exemplifies, in a striking manner, the +exigencies of Elizabeth's policy at that moment. The persons entrusted +with its execution were Sir Richard Bingham, the Earls of Thomond and +Clanrickarde; Sir Turlogh O'Brien, Sir Richard Bourke (the McWilliam), +O'Conor Sligo, Sir Brian O'Ruarc, and Sir Murrogh O'Flaherty. The chief +duties of this singular commission were, to fix a money rental for all +lands, free and unfree, in Clare and Connaught; to assess the taxation +fairly due to the crown also in money; and to substitute generally the +English law of succession for the ancient customs of Tanistry and +gavelkind. In Clare, from fortuitous causes, the settlement they +arrived at was never wholly reversed; in Connaught, the inhuman +severity of Bingham rendered it odious from the first, and the +successes of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, a few years later, were hailed by the +people of that province as a heaven-sent deliverance. + +The treacherous capture of this youthful chieftain was one of the +skilful devices on which Sir John Perrott most prided himself. Although +a mere lad, the mysterious language of ancient prophecy, which seemed +to point him out for greatness, give him consequence in the eyes of +both friends and foes. Through his heroic mother, a daughter of the +Lord of the Isles, he would naturally find allies in that warlike race. +His precocious prowess and talents began to be noised abroad, and +stimulated Perrott to the employment of an elaborate artifice, which, +however, proved quite successful. A ship, commanded by one Bermingham, +was sent round to Donegal, under pretence of being direct from Spain. +She carried some casks of Spanish wine, and had a crew of 50 armed men. +This ship dropped anchor off Rathmullen Castle on Lough Swilly, in +which neighbourhood the young O'Donnell—then barely fifteen—was staying +with his foster-father, McSweeny, and several companions of his own +age. The unsuspecting youths were courteously invited on board the +pretended Spanish ship, where, while they were being entertained in the +cabin, the hatches were fastened down, the cable slipped, the sails +spread to the wind, and the vessel put to sea. The threats and promises +of the astonished clansmen as they gathered to the shore were answered +by the mockery of the crew, who safely delivered their prize in Dublin, +to the great delight of the Lord Deputy and his Council. Five weary +years of fetters and privation the young captives were doomed to pass +in the dungeons of the Castle before they breathed again the air of +their native North. + +But now every ship that reached the English or Irish ports brought +tidings more and more positive of the immense armada which King Philip +was preparing to launch from the Tagus against England. The piratical +exploits of Hawkins and Drake against the Spanish settlements in +America, the barbarous execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the open +alliance of Elizabeth with the Dutch insurgents, all acted as +stimulants to the habitual slowness of the Spanish sovereign. Another +event, though of minor importance, added intensity to the national +quarrel. Sir William Stanley, whose account of the battle of Glenmalure +we lately quoted, went over to Philip with 1,300 English troops, whom +he commanded as Governor of Daventer, and was taken into the counsels +of the Spanish sovereign. The fleet for the invasion of England was on +a scale commensurate with the design. One hundred and thirty-five +vessels of war, manned by 8,000 sailors, and carrying 19,000 soldiers, +sailed from the Tagus, and after encountering a severe storm off Cape +Finesterre, re-assembled at Corunna. The flower of Spanish bravery +embarked in this fleet, named somewhat presumptuously "the invincible +armada." The sons of Sir James Fitzmaurice, educated at Alcala, Thomas, +son of Sir John of Desmond, with several other Irish exiles, laymen, +and ecclesiastics, were also on board. The fate of the expedition is +well known. A series of disasters befell it on the coasts of France and +Belgium, and finally, towards the middle of August, a terrific storm +swept the Spaniards northward through the British channel, scattering +ships and men helpless and lifeless on the coasts of Scotland, and even +as far north as Norway. On the Irish shore nineteen great vessels were +sunk or stranded. In Lough Foyle, one galleon, manned by 1,100 men, +came ashore, and some of the survivors, it is alleged, were given up by +O'Donnell to the Lord Deputy, in the vain hope of obtaining in return +the liberation of his son. Sir John O'Doherty in Innishowen, Sir Brian +O'Ruarc at Dromahaire, and Hugh O'Neil at Dungannon, hospitably +entertained and protected several hundreds who had escaped with their +lives. On the iron-bound coast of Connaught, over 2,000 men perished. +In Galway harbour, 70 prisoners were taken by the Queen's garrison, and +executed on St. Augustine's hill. In the Shannon, the crew of a +disabled vessel set her on fire, and escaped to another in the offing. +On the coasts of Cork and Kerry nearly one thousand men were lost or +cast away. In all, according to a state paper of the time, above 6,000 +of the Spaniards were either drowned, killed, or captured, on the +north, west, and southern coasts. A more calamitous reverse could not +have befallen Spain or Ireland in the era of the Reformation. + +It is worthy of remark that at the very moment the fear of the armada +was most intensely felt in England—the beginning of July—Sir John +Perrott was recalled from the government. His high and imperious +temper, not less than his reliance on the native chiefs, rather than on +the courtiers of Dublin Castle, had made him many enemies. He was +succeeded by a Lord Deputy of a different character—Sir William +Fitzwilliam—who had filled the same office, for a short period, +seventeen years before. The administration of this nobleman was +protracted till the year 1594, and is chiefly memorable in connection +with the formation of the Ulster Confederacy, under the leadership of +O'Neil and O'Donnell. + +Fitzwilliam, whose master passion was avarice, had no sooner been sworn +into the government than he issued a commission to search for treasure, +which the shipwrecked Spaniards were supposed to have saved. "In hopes +to finger some of it," he at once marched into the territory of O'Ruarc +and O'Doherty; O'Ruarc fled to Scotland, was given up by order of James +VI., and subsequently executed at London; O'Doherty and Sir John +O'Gallagher, "two of the most loyal subjects in Ulster," were seized +and confined in the Castle. An outrage of a still more monstrous kind +was perpetrated soon after on the newly elected chieftain of Oriel, +Hugh McMahon. Though he had engaged Fitzwilliam by a bribe of 600 cows +to recognize his succession, he was seized by order of the Deputy, +tried by a jury of common soldiers, on a trumped up charge of +"treason," and executed at his own door. Sir Harry Bagnal who, as +Marshal of Ireland, had his head-quarters at Newry, next to Fitzwilliam +himself, profited most by the consequent partition and settlement of +McMahon's vast estates. Emboldened by the impunity which attended such +high-handed proceedings, and instigated by the Marshal, Fitzwilliam +began to practise, against the ablest as well as the most powerful of +all the Northern chiefs, who had hitherto been known only as a courtier +and soldier of the Queen. This was Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, another +of Sir Henry Sidney's "strong men," with the additional advantage of +being familiar from his youth with the character of the men he was now +to encounter. + +O'Neil, in the full prime of life, really desired to live in peace with +Elizabeth, provided he might be allowed to govern Ulster with all the +authority attached to his name. Bred up in England, he well knew the +immense resources of that kingdom, and the indomitable character of its +queen. A patriot of Ulster rather than of Ireland, he had served +against the Desmonds, and had been a looker on at Smerwick. To suppress +rivals of his own clan, to check O'Donnell's encroachments, and to +preserve an interest at the English Court, were the objects of his +earlier ambition. In pursuing these objects he did not hesitate to +employ English troops in Ulster, nor to accompany the Queen and her +Deputy to the service of the Church of England. If, however, he really +believed that he could long continue to play the Celtic Prince north of +the Boyne, and the English Earl at Dublin or London, he was soon +undeceived when the fear of the Spanish Armada ceased to weigh on the +Councils of Elizabeth. + +A natural son of John the Proud, called from the circumstances of his +birth "Hugh of the fetters," communicated to Fitzwilliam the fact of +Tyrone having sheltered the shipwrecked Spaniards, and employed them in +opening up a correspondence with King Philip. This so exasperated the +Earl, that, having seized the unfortunate Hugh of the fetters, he +caused him to be hanged as a common felon—a high-handed proceeding +which his enemies were expert in turning to account. To protect himself +from the consequent danger, he went to England in May, 1590, without +obtaining the license of the Lord Deputy, as by law required. On +arriving in London he was imprisoned, but, in the course of a month, +obtained his liberty, after signing articles, in which he agreed to +drop the Celtic title of O'Neil; to allow the erection of gaols in his +country; that he should execute no man without a commission from the +Lord Deputy, except in cases of martial law; that he should keep his +troop of horsemen in the Queen's pay, ready for the Queen's service, +and that Tyrone should be regularly reduced to shire-ground. For the +performance of these articles, which he confirmed on reaching Dublin, +he was to place sureties in the hands of certain merchants of that +city, or gentlemen of the Pale, enjoying the confidence of the Crown. +On such hard conditions his earldom was confirmed to him, and he was +apparently taken into all his former favour. But we may date the +conception of his latter and more national policy from the period of +this journey, and the brief imprisonment he had undergone in London. + +The "profound dissembling mind" which English historians, his +cotemporaries, attribute to O'Neil, was now brought into daily +exercise. When he discovered money to be the master passion of the Lord +Deputy, he procured his connivance at the escape of Hugh Roe O'Donnell +from Dublin Castle. On a dark night in the depth of winter the youthful +chief, with several of his companions, succeeded in escaping to the +hills in the neighbourhood of Powerscourt; but, exhausted and +bewildered, they were again taken, and returned to their dungeons. Two +years later, the heir of Tyrconnell was more fortunate. In Christmas +week, 1592, he again escaped, through a sewer of the Castle, with Henry +and Art O'Neil, sons of John the Proud. In the street they found +O'Hagan, the confidential agent of Tyrone, waiting to guide them to the +fastness of Glenmalure. Through the deep snows of the Dublin and +Wicklow highlands the prisoners and their guide plodded their way. +After a weary tramp they at length sunk down overwhelmed with fatigue. +In this condition they were found insensible by a party despatched by +Feagh O'Byrne; Art O'Neil, on being raised up, fell backward and +expired; O'Donnell was so severely frost-bitten that he did not recover +for many months the free use of his limbs. With his remaining companion +he was nursed in the recesses of Glenmalure, until he became able to +sit a horse, when he set out for home. Although the utmost vigilance +was exercised by all the warders of the Pale, he crossed the Liffey and +the Boyne undiscovered, rode boldly through the streets of Dundalk, and +found an enthusiastic welcome, first from Tyrone in Dungannon, and soon +after from the aged chief, his father, in the Castle of Ballyshannon. +Early in the following year, the elder O'Donnell resigned the +chieftaincy in favour of his popular son, who was, on the 3rd of May, +duly proclaimed the O'Donnell, from the ancient mound of Kilmacrenan. + +The Ulster Confederacy, of which, for ten years, O'Neil and O'Donnell +were the joint and inseparable leaders, was now imminent. Tyrone, by +carrying off, the year previous to O'Donnell's escape, the beautiful +sister of Marshal Bagnal, whom he married, had still further inflamed +the hatred borne to him by that officer. Bagnal complained bitterly of +the abduction to the Queen, charging, among other things, that O'Neil +had a divorced wife still alive. A challenge was in consequence sent +him by his new brother-in-law, but the cartel was not accepted. Every +day's events were hastening a general alliance between the secondary +chieftains of the Province and the two leading spirits. The O'Ruarc and +Maguire were attacked by Bingham, and successfully defended themselves +until the Lord Deputy and the Marshal also marched against them, +summoning O'Neil to their aid. The latter, feeling that the time was +not yet ripe, temporized with Fitzwilliam during the campaign of 1593, +and though in the field at the head of his horsemen, nominally for the +Queen, he seems to have rather employed his opportunities to promote +that Northern Union which he had so much at heart. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +THE ULSTER CONFEDERACY—FEAGH MAC HUGH O'BYRNE—CAMPAIGN OF +1595—NEGOTIATIONS, ENGLISH AND SPANISH—BATTLE OF THE YELLOW FORD—ITS +CONSEQUENCES. + +In the summer of 1594 the cruel and mercenary Fitzwilliam was succeeded +by Sir William Russell, who had served the Queen, both in Ireland "and +in divers other places beyond sea, in martial affairs." In lieu of the +arbitrary exaction of county cess—so grossly abused by his +predecessor—the shires of the Pale were to pay for the future into the +Treasury of Dublin a composition of 2,100 pounds per annum, out of +which the fixed sum of 1,000 pounds was allowed as the Deputy's wages. +Russell's administration lasted till May, 1597. In that month he was +succeeded by Thomas, Lord Borough, who died in August following of the +wounds received in an expedition against Tyrone; after which the +administration remained in the hands of the Justices till the +appointment of the Earl of Essex. + +On the arrival of Russell, Tyrone for the last time ventured to appear +within the walls of Dublin. His influence in the city, and even at the +Council table, must have been considerable to enable him to enter the +gates of the Castle with so much confidence. He came to explain his +wrongs against the previous Deputy, to defend himself against Bagnal's +charges, and to discover, if possible, the instructions of Russell. If +in one respect he was gratified by a personal triumph over his +brother-in-law, in another he had cause for serious alarm, on learning +that Sir John Norris, brother of the President of Munster, a commander +of the highest reputation, was to be sent over under the title of Lord +General, with 2,000 veterans who served in Brittany, and 1,000 of a new +levy. He further learned that his own arrest had been discussed at the +Council, and, leaving Dublin precipitately, he hastened to his home at +Dungannon. All men's minds were now naturally filled with wars and +rumours of wars. + +The first blow was struck at "the firebrand of the mountains," as he +was called at Court, Feagh Mac Hugh O'Byrne. The truce made with him +expired in 1594, and his application for his renewal was not honoured +with an answer. On the contrary, his sureties at Dublin, Geoffrey, son +of Hugh, and his own son, James, were committed to close custody in the +Castle. His son-in-law, Sir Walter Fitzgerald, had been driven by +ill-usage, and his friendship for Lord Baltinglass, to the shelter of +Glenmalure, and this was, of course, made a ground of charge against +its chief. During the last months of 1594, Mynce, Sheriff of Carlow, +informed the Lord Deputy of warlike preparations in the Glen, and that +Brian Oge O'Rourke had actually passed to and fro through Dublin city +and county, as confidential agent between Feagh Mac Hugh and Tyrone. In +January following, under cover of a hunting party among the hills, the +Deputy, by a night march on Glenmalure, succeeded in surprising +O'Byrne's house at Ballincor, and had almost taken the aged chieftain +prisoner. In the flight, Rose O'Toole, his wife, was wounded in the +breast, and a priest detected hiding in a thicket was shot dead. Feagh +retired to Dromceat, or the Cat's-back Mountain—one of the best +positions in the Glen—while a strong force was quartered in his former +mansion to observe his movements. In April, his son-in-law, Fitzgerald, +was taken prisoner, near Baltinglass, in a retreat where he was laid up +severely wounded; in May, a party under the Deputy's command scoured +the mountains and seized the Lady Rose, who was attainted of treason, +and, like Fitzgerald, barbarously given up to the halter and the +quartering knife. Two foster-brothers of the chief were, at the same +time and in the same manner, put to death, and a large reward was +offered for his own apprehension, alive or dead. + +Hugh O'Neil announced his resort to arms by a vigorous protest against +the onslaught made on his friend O'Byrne. Without waiting for, or +expecting any answer, he surprised the fort erected on the Blackwater +which commanded the highway into his own territory. This fort, which +was situated between Armagh and Dungannon, about five miles distant +from either, served, before the fortification of Charlemont, as the +main English stronghold in that part of Ulster. The river Blackwater on +which it stood, from its source on the borders of Monaghan to its +outlet in Lough Neagh, watered a fertile valley, which now became the +principal theatre of war; for Hugh O'Neil, and afterwards for his +celebrated nephew, it proved to be a theatre of victory. General +Norris, on reaching Ireland, at once marched northward to recover the +fort lately taken. O'Neil, having demolished the works, retreated +before him; considering Dungannon also unfit to stand a regular siege, +he dismantled the town, burnt his own castle to the ground, having +first secured every portable article of value. Norris contented himself +with reconnoitring the Earl's entrenched camp at some distance from +Dungannon, and returned to Newry, where he established his +head-quarters. + +The campaign in another quarter was attended with even better success +for the Confederates. Hugh Roe O'Donnell, no longer withheld by the +more politic O'Neil, displayed in action all the fiery energy of his +nature. Under his banner he united almost all the tribes of Ulster not +enlisted with O'Neil; while six hundred Scots, led by MacLeod of Ara, +obeyed his commands. He first descended on the plains of +Annally-O'Farrell (the present county of Longford), driving the English +settlers before him: he next visited the undertaker's tenants in +Connaught, ejecting them from Boyle and Ballymoate, and pursuing them +to the gates of Tuam. On his return, the important town and castle of +Sligo, the property of O'Conor, then in England, submitted to him. Sir +Richard Bingham endeavoured to recover it, but was beaten off with +loss. O'Donnell, finding it cheaper to demolish than defend it, broke +down the castle and returned in triumph across the Erne. + +General Norris, having arranged his plan of campaign at Newry, +attempted to victual Armagh, besieged by O'Neil, but was repulsed by +that leader after a severe struggle. He, however, succeeded in throwing +supplies into Monaghan, where a strong garrison was quartered, and to +which O'Neil and O'Donnell proceeded to lay siege. While lying before +Monaghan they received overtures of peace from the Lord Deputy, who +continually disagreed with Sir John Norris as to the conduct of the +war, and lost no opportunity of thwarting his plans. He did not now +blush to address, as Earl of Tyrone, the man he had lately proclaimed a +traitor at Dublin, by the title of the son of a blacksmith. The Irish +leaders at the outset refused to meet the Commissioners—Chief Justice +Gardiner and Sir Henry Wallop, Treasurer-at-War—in Dundalk, so the +latter were compelled to wait on them in the camp before Monaghan. The +terms demanded by O'Neil and O'Donnell, including entire freedom of +religious worship, were reserved by the Commissioners for the +consideration of the Council, with whose sanction, a few weeks +afterwards, all the Ulster chiefs, except "the Queen's O'Reilly," were +formally tried before a jury at Dublin, and condemned as traitors. + +Monaghan was thrice taken and retaken in this campaign. It was on the +second return of General Norris from that town he found himself +unexpectedly in presence of O'Neil's army, advantageously posted on the +left bank of the little stream which waters the village of Clontibret. +Norris made two attempts to force the passage, but without success. Sir +Thomas Norris, and the general himself, were wounded; Seagrave, a +gigantic Meathian cavalry officer, was slain in a hand to hand +encounter with O'Neil; the English retreated hastily on Newry, and +Monaghan was again surrendered to the Irish. This brilliant combat at +Clontibret closed the campaign of 1595. General Norris, who, like Sir +John Moore, two centuries later, commanded the respect, and frankly +acknowledged the wrongs of the people against whom he fought, employed +the winter months in endeavouring to effect a reconciliation between +O'Neil and the Queen's Government. He had conceived a warm and +chivalrous regard for his opponent; for he could not deny that he had +been driven to take up arms in self-defence. At his instance a royal +commission to treat with the Earl was issued, and the latter cheerfully +gave them a meeting in an open field without the walls of Dundalk. The +same terms which he had proposed before Monaghan were repeated in his +_ultimatum_, and the Commissioners agreed to give him a positive answer +by the 2nd day of April. On that day they attended at Dundalk, but +O'Neil did not appear. The Commissioners delayed an entire fortnight, +addressing him in the interim an urgent remonstrance to come in and +conclude their negotiation. On the 17th of the month they received his +reasons for breaking off the treaty—the principal of which was, that +the truce had been repeatedly broken through by the English +garrisons—and so the campaign of 1596 was to be fought with renewed +animosity on both sides. + +Early in May the Lord Deputy made another descent on Ballincor, which +Feagh Mac Hugh had recovered in the autumn to lose again in the spring. +Though worn with years and infirm of body, the Wicklow chieftain held +his devoted bands well together, and kept the garrison of Dublin +constantly on the defensive. In the new chieftain of the O'Moores he +found at this moment a young and active coadjutor. In an affair at +Stradbally Bridge, O'Moore obtained a considerable victory, leaving +among the slain Alexander and Francis Cosby, grandsons of the commander +in the massacre at Mullaghmast. + +The arrival of three Spanish frigates with arms and ammunition in +Donegal Bay was welcome news to the Northern Catholics. They were +delivered to O'Donnell, who was incessantly in the field, while O'Neil +was again undergoing the forms of diplomacy with a new royal commission +at Dundalk. He himself disclaimed any correspondence with the King of +Spain, but did not deny that such negotiations might be maintained by +others. It is alleged that, while many of the chiefs had signed a +formal invitation to the Spanish King to assume their crown, O'Neil had +not gone beyond verbal assurances of co-operation with them. However +this may be, he resolved that the entire season should not be wasted in +words, so he attacked the strong garrison left in Armagh, and recovered +the primatial city. According to the Irish practice, he dismantled the +fortress, which, however, was again reconstructed by the English before +the end of the war. Some other skirmishes, of which we have no very +clear account, and which we may set down as of no decisive character, +terminated the campaign. + +In May, 1597, Lord Borough, who had distinguished himself in the +Netherlands, replaced Russell as Lord Deputy, and assumed the +command-in-chief, in place of Sir John Norris. Simultaneously with his +arrival Feagh Mac Hugh O'Byrne, was surprised in Glenmalure by a +detachment from Dublin, and slain; he died as he had lived, a hero and +a free man. O'Neil, who was warmly attached to the Wicklow chief, +immediately despatched such succour as he could spare to Feagh's sons, +and promised to continue to them the friendship he had always +entertained for their father. Against Tyrone the new Lord Deputy now +endeavoured to combine all the military resources at his disposal. +Towards the end of July, Sir Conyers Clifford was ordered to muster the +available force of Connaught at Boyle, and to march into Sligo and +Donegal. A thousand men of the Anglo-Irish were assembled at Mullingar, +under the command of young Barnewell of Trimbleston, who was instructed +to effect a junction with the main force upon the borders of Ulster. +The Lord Deputy, marching in force from Drogheda, penetrated, +unopposed, the valley of the Blackwater, and entered Armagh. From +Armagh he moved to the relief of the Blackwater fort, besieged by +O'Neil. At a place called Drumfliuch, where Battleford Bridge now +stands, Tyrone contrived to draw his enemies into an engagement on very +disadvantageous ground. The result was a severe defeat to the new +Deputy, who, a few days afterwards, died of his wounds at Newry, as his +second in command, the Earl of Kildare, did at Drogheda. Sir Francis +Vaughan, Sir Thomas Waller, and other distinguished officers, fell in +the same action, but the fort, the main prize of the combatants, +remained in English hands till the following year. O'Donnell, with +equal success, held Ballyshannon, compelled Sir Conyers Clifford to +raise the siege with the loss of the Earl of Thomond, and a large part +of his following. Simultaneously, Captain Richard Tyrrell of +West-Meath—one of O'Neil's favourite officers—having laid an ambuscade +for young Barnewell at the pass in West-Meath which now bears his name, +the Meathian regiment were sabred to a man. Mullingar and Maryborough +were taken and sacked, and in the North, Sir John Chichester, Governor +of Carrickfergus, was cut off with his troop by MacDonald of the Glens. + +These successes synchronize exactly with the expectation of a second +Spanish Armada, which filled Elizabeth with her old apprehensions. +Philip was persuaded again to tempt the fortune of the seas, and +towards the end of October his fleet, under the Adelantado of Castille, +appeared off the Scilly Islands, with a view to secure the Isle of +Wight, or some other station, from which to operate an invasion the +ensuing spring. Extraordinary means were taken for defence; the English +troops in France were recalled, new levies raised, and the Queen's +favourite, the young Earl of Essex, appointed to command the fleet, +with Raleigh and Lord Thomas Howard as Vice-Admirals. But the elements +again fought for the northern island; a storm, which swept the channel +for weeks, drove the English ships into their ports, but scattered +those of Spain over the Bay of Biscay. In this second expedition sailed +Florence Conroy, and other Irish exiles, who had maintained for years a +close correspondence with the Catholic leaders. Their presence in the +fleet, the existence of the correspondence, and the progress of the +revolt itself, will sufficiently account for the apparent vacillations +of English policy in Ulster in the last months of 1597. Shortly before +Christmas, Ormond, now Lord Lieutenant, accompanied by the Earl of +Thomond, attended only by their personal followers, visited Dungannon, +and remained three days in conference with O'Neil and O'Donnell. The +Irish chiefs reiterated their old demands: freedom of worship, and the +retention of the substantial power attached to their ancient rank. They +would admit Sheriffs, if they were chosen from among natives of their +counties, but they declined to give hostages out of their own families. +These terms were referred to the Queen's consideration, who, after much +protocoling to and fro, finally ratified them the following April, and +affixed the great seal to O'Neil's pardon. But Tyrone, guided by +intelligence received from Spain or England, or both, evaded the royal +messenger charged to deliver him that instrument, and as the late truce +expired the first week of June, devoted himself anew to military +preparations. + +In the month of June, 1598, the Council at Dublin were in a state of +fearful perplexity. O'Neil, two days after the expiration of the truce, +invested the fort on the Blackwater, and seemed resolved to reduce it, +if not by force, by famine. O'Donnell, as usual, was operating on the +side of Connaught, where he had brought back O'Ruarc, O'Conor Sligo, +and McDermot, to the Confederacy, from which they had been for a season +estranged. Tyrrell and O'Moore, leading spirits in the midland counties +were ravaging Ormond's palatinate of Tipperary almost without +opposition. An English reinforcement, debarked at Dungarvan, was +attacked on its march towards Dublin, and lost 400 men. In this +emergency, before which even the iron nerve of Ormond quailed, the +Council took the resolution of ordering one moiety of the Queen's +troops under Ormond to march south against Tyrrell and O'Moore; the +other under Marshal Bagnal, to proceed northward to the relief of the +Blackwater fort. Ormond's campaign was brief and inglorious. After +suffering a severe check in Leix, he shut himself up in Kilkenny, where +he heard of the disastrous fate of Bagnal's expedition. + +On Sunday, the 13th of August, the Marshal reached Newry with some +trifling loss from skirmishes on the route. He had with him, by the +best accounts, six regiments of infantry, numbering in all about 4,000 +men and 350 horse. After resting a day, his whole force marched out of +the city in three divisions; the first under the command of the Marshal +and Colonel Percy, the cavalry under Sir Calisthenes Brooke and +Captains Montague and Fleming; the rear guard under Sir Thomas +Wingfield and Colonel Cosby. The Irish, whose numbers, both mounted and +afoot, somewhat exceeded the Marshal's force, but who were not so well +armed, had taken up a strong position at Ballinaboy ("the Yellow +ford"), about two miles north of Armagh. With O'Neil were O'Donnell, +Maguire, and McDonnell of Antrim—all approved leaders beloved by their +men. O'Neil had neglected no auxiliary means of strengthening the +position. In front of his lines he dug deep trenches, covered over with +green sods, supported by twigs and branches. The pass leading into this +plain was lined by 500 kerne, whose Parthian warfare was proverbial. He +had reckoned on the headlong and boastful disposition of his opponent, +and the result showed his accurate knowledge of character. Bagnal's +first division, veterans from Brittany and Flanders, including 600 +curassiers in complete armour, armed with lances nine feet long, dashed +into the pass before the second and third divisions had time to come +up. The kerne poured in their rapid volleys; many of the English fell; +the pass was yielded, and the whole power of Bagnal debouched into the +plain. His artillery now thundered upon O'Neil's trenches, and the +cavalry, with the plain before them, were ordered to charge; but they +soon came upon the concealed pitfalls, horses fell, riders were thrown, +and confusion spread among the squadron. Then it was O'Neil in turn +gave the signal to charge; himself led on the centre, O'Donnell the +left, and Maguire, famous for horsemanship, the Irish horse. The +overthrow of the English was complete, and the victory most eventful. +The Marshal, 23 superior officers, with about 1,700 of the rank and +file fell on the field, while all the artillery baggage and 12 stand of +colours were taken: the Irish loss in killed and wounded did not exceed +800 men. "It was a glorious victory for the rebels," says the +cotemporary English historian, Camden, "and of special advantage: for +hereby they got arms and provisions, and Tyrone's name was cried up all +over Ireland as the author of their liberty." It may also be added that +it attracted renewed attention to the Irish war at Paris, Madrid, and +Rome, where the names of O'Neil and O'Donnell were spoken of by all +zealous Catholics with enthusiastic admiration. + +The battle was over by noon of the 15th of August; and the only effort +to arrest the flight of the survivors was made by "the Queen's +O'Reilly," who was slain in the attempt. By one o'clock the remnant of +the cavalry under Montague were in full career for Dundalk, closely +pressed by the mounted men of O'Hanlon. During the ensuing week the +Blackwater fort capitulated; the Protestant garrison of Armagh +surrendered; and were allowed to march south, leaving their arms and +ammunition behind. The panic spread far and wide; the citizens of +Dublin were enrolled to defend their walls; Lord Ormond continued shut +up in Kilkenny; O'Moore and Tyrrell, who entered Munster by O'Neil's +order, to kindle the elements of resistance, compelled the Lord +President to retire from Kilmallock to Cork. O'Donnell established his +head-quarters at Ballymoate, a dozen miles south of Sligo, which he had +purchased from the chieftain of Corran for 400 pounds and 300 cows. The +castle had served for thirteen years as an English stronghold, and was +found staunch enough fifty years later to withstand the siege trains of +Coote and Ludlow. From this point the Donegal chieftain was enabled to +stretch his arm in every direction over lower Connaught. The result +was, that before the end of the year 1598, nearly all the inhabitants +of Clanrickarde and the surrounding districts were induced, either from +policy or conviction, to give in their adhesion to the Northern +Confederacy. + + + +CHAPTER IX. +ESSEX'S CAMPAIGN OF 1599—BATTLE OF THE CURLIEU MOUNTAINS—O'NEIL'S +NEGOTIATIONS WITH SPAIN—MOUNTJOY, LORD DEPUTY. + +The last favourite of the many who enjoyed the foolish, if not guilty, +favours of Elizabeth was Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, son of that +unfortunate nobleman spoken of in a previous chapter as the +"undertaker" of Farney and Clandeboy. Born in 1567, the Earl had barely +reached the age of manhood when he won the heart of his royal mistress, +already verging on threescore. Gifted by nature with a handsome person, +undoubted courage, and many generous qualities, he exhibited, in the +most important transactions of life, the recklessness of a madman and +the levity of a spoiled child; it was apparent to the world that +nothing short of the personal fascination which he exercised over the +Queen could so long have preserved him from the consequences of his +continual caprices and quarrels. Such was the character of the young +nobleman, who, as was afterwards said, at the instigation of his +enemies, was sent over to restore the ascendancy of the English arms in +the revolted provinces. His appointment was to last during the Queen's +pleasure; he was provided with an army of 20,000 foot and 2,000 horse; +three-fourths of the ordinary annual revenue of England (340,000 pounds +out of 450,000 pounds) was placed at his disposal, and the largest +administrative powers, civil and military, were conferred on him. A new +plan of campaign in Ulster was decided upon at the royal council table, +and Sir Samuel Bagnal, brother of the late Marshal, and other +experienced officers, were to precede or accompany him to carry it into +execution. The main feature of this plan was to get possession by sea +and strongly fortify Ballyshannon, Donegal, Derry, and the entrance to +the Foyle, so as to operate at once in the rear of the northern chiefs, +as well as along the old familiar base of Newry, Monaghan, and Armagh. + +Essex, on being sworn into office at Dublin, on the 15th of April, +1599, immediately issued a proclamation offering pardon and restoration +of property to such of the Irish as would lay down their arms by a +given day, but very few persons responded to this invitation. He next +despatched reinforcements to the garrisons of Wicklow and Naas, menaced +by the O'Moores and O'Byrnes, and to those of Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, +and Carrickfergus, the only northern strongholds remaining in +possession of the Queen. The principal operations, it had been agreed +before he left England, were to be directed against Ulster, but with +the waywardness which always accompanied him, he disregarded that +arrangement, and set forth, at the head of 7,000 men, for the opposite +quarter. He was accompanied in this march by the Earls of Clanrickarde +and Thomond, Sir Conyers Clifford, Governor of Connaught, and O'Conor +of Sligo, the only native chief who remained in the English ranks. In +Ormond he received the submission of Lord Mountgarrett, son-in-law to +Tyrone, and took the strong castle of Cahir from another of the +insurgent Butlers. After a halt at Limerick, he set out against the +Geraldines, who the previous year had joined the Northern league, at +the instance of Tyrrell and O'Moore. Although the only heir of the Earl +of Desmond was a prisoner, or ward of Elizabeth in England, James +Fitzgerald, son of Thomas Roe, son of the fifteenth Earl by that +marriage which had been pronounced invalid, assumed the title at the +suggestion of O'Neil, and was recognized as the Desmond by the greater +portion of the relatives of that family. Fitzmaurice, Lord of Lixnaw, +the Knight of Glynn, the White Knight, the Lord Roche, Pierce Lacy of +Buree and Bruff, the last descendant of Hugh de Lacy and the daughter +of Roderick O'Conor, with the McCarthys, O'Donohoes, O'Sullivans, +Condons, and other powerful tribes, were all astir to the number, as +Carew supposes, of 8,000 men, all emulous of their compatriots in the +North. Issuing from Limerick, Essex marched southward to strengthen the +stronghold of Askeaton, into which he succeeded, after a severe +skirmish by the way, in throwing supplies. Proceeding to victual Adare, +he experienced a similar check, losing among others Sir Henry Norris, +the third of those brave brothers who had fallen a victim to these +Irish wars. In returning to Dublin, by way of Waterford and Kildare, he +was assailed by O'Moore at a difficult defile, which, to this day, is +known in Irish as "the pass of the plumes" or feathers. The Earl forced +a passage with the loss of 500 lives, and so returned with little glory +to Dublin. + +The next military incident of the year transpired in the West. We have +spoken of O'Conor Sligo as the only native chief who followed Essex to +the South. He had been lately at the English Court, where he was +treated with the highest distinction, in order that he might be used to +impede O'Donnell's growing power in lower Connaught. On returning home +he was promptly besieged by the Donegal chief in his remaining castle +at Colooney, within five miles of Sligo. Essex, on learning this fact, +ordered Sir Conyers Clifford to march to the relief of O'Conor with all +the power he could muster. Clifford despatched from Galway, by sea, +stores and materials for the refortification of Sligo town, and set out +himself at the head of 2,100 men, drafted from both sides of the +Shannon, under twenty-five ensigns. He had under him Sir Alexander +Radcliffe, Sir Griffin Markham, and other experienced officers. Their +rendezvous, as usual, was the old monastic town of Boyle, about a day's +march to the south of Sligo. From Boyle, the highway led into the +Curlieu mountains, which divide Sligo on the south-east from Roscommon. +Here, in the strong pass of Ballaghboy, O'Donnell with the main body of +his followers awaited their approach. He had left the remainder, under +his cousin and brother-in-law, Nial Garve (or the _rough_), to maintain +the siege of Colooney Castle. O'Ruarc and the men of Breffni joined him +during the battle, but their entire force is nowhere stated. It was the +eve of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and the first anniversary +of the great victory of the Yellow Ford. The night was spent by the +Irish in fasting and prayer, the early morning in hearing Mass, and +receiving the Holy Communion. The day was far advanced when the head of +Clifford's column appeared in the defile, driving in a barricade +erected at its entrance. The defenders, according to orders, discharged +their javelins and muskets, and fell back farther into the gorge. The +English advanced twelve abreast, through a piece of woodland, after +which the road crossed a patch of bog. Here the thick of the battle was +fought. Sir Alexander Radcliffe, who led the vanguard, fell early in +the action, and his division falling back on the centre threw them all +into confusion. O'Ruarc arriving with his men at the critical moment +completed the rout, and pursued the fugitives to the gates of Boyle. +The gallant Clifford, scorning to fly, was found among the slain, and +honourably interred by his generous enemies in the monastery of Lough +Key. On his head being shown to O'Conor at Colooney, he at once +surrendered to O'Donnell, and entered into the Northern Confederacy. +Theobald Burke, the commander of the vessels sent round from Galway to +fortify Sligo, also submitted to O'Donnell, and was permitted to return +to the port from which he had lately sailed, with very different +intentions. + +Essex, whose mind was a prey to apprehension from his enemies in +England had demanded reinforcements before he could undertake anything +against Ulster. It seems hardly credible that the 15,000 regular troops +in the country at his coming should be mostly taken up with garrison +duty, yet we cannot otherwise account for their disappearance from the +field. He asked for 2,000 fresh troops, and while awaiting their +arrival, sent a detachment of 600 men into Wicklow, who were repulsed +with loss by Phelim, son of Feagh, the new Chief of the O'Byrnes. Essex +was thrown into transports of rage at this new loss. The officers who +retreated were tried by court-martial, and, contrary to his usually +generous temper, the surviving men were inhumanly decimated. + +Early in September, the reinforcement he had asked for arrived with a +bitterly reproachful letter from the Queen. He now hastened to make a +demonstration against Tyrone, although, from some cause unexplained, he +does not seem to have drawn out the whole force at his disposal. From +Newry he proceeded northward towards Carrickfergus, with only 1,300 +foot and 300 horse. On the high ground to the north of the river Lagan, +overlooking Anaghclart Bridge, he found the host of O'Neil encamped, +and received a courteous message from their leader, soliciting a +personal interview. Essex at first declined, but afterwards accepted +the invitation, and at an appointed hour the two commanders rode down +to the opposite banks of the river, wholly unattended, the advanced +guard of each looking curiously on from the uplands. O'Neil spurred his +horse into the stream up to the saddle girth, and thus for an hour, +exposed to the generous but impulsive Englishman, the grievances of +himself and his compatriots. With all the art, for which he was +distinguished, he played upon his knowledge of the Earl's character: he +named those enemies of his own whom he also knew to be hostile to +Essex, he showed his provocations in the strongest light, and declared +his readiness to submit to her Majesty, on condition of obtaining +complete liberty of conscience, an act of indemnity to include his +allies in all the four Provinces; that the principal officers of state, +the judges, and one half the army should in future be Irish by birth. +This was, in effect, a demand for national independence, though the +Lord Lieutenant may not have seen it in that light. He promised, +however, to transmit the propositions to England, and within presence +of six principal officers of each side, agreed to a truce till the 1st +of May following. Another upbraiding letter from Elizabeth, which +awaited him on his return to Dublin, drove Essex to the desperate +resolution of presenting himself before her, without permission. The +short remainder of his troubled career, his execution in the Tower in +February, 1601, and Elizabeth's frantic lamentations, are familiar to +readers of English history. + +In presenting so comprehensive an ultimatum to Essex, O'Neil was +emboldened by the latest intelligence received from Spain. Philip II., +the life-long friend of the Catholics, had, indeed, died the previous +September, but one of the first acts of his successor, Philip III., was +to send envoys into Ireland, assuring its chiefs that he would continue +to them the friendship and alliance of his father. Shortly before the +conference at Anaghclart, a third Armada, under the Adelantado of +Castile, was awaiting orders in the port of Corunna, and England, for +the third time in ten years, was placed in a posture of defence. The +Spaniards sailed, but soon divided into two squadrons, one of which +passed down the British Channel unobserved, and anchored in the waters +of the Sluys, while the other sailed for the Canaries to intercept the +Hollanders. At the same time, however, most positive assurances were +renewed that an auxiliary force might shortly be expected to land in +Ireland in aid of the Catholics. The non-arrival of this force during +the fortunate campaign of 1599 was not much felt by the Catholics; and +was satisfactorily explained by Philip's envoys—but the mere fact of +the existence of the Spanish alliance gave additional confidence and +influence to the confederates. That fact was placed beyond all question +by the arrival of two Spanish ships laden with stores for O'Neil, +immediately after the interview with Essex. In the summer or autumn +ensuing, Mathew of Oviedo, a Spaniard, consecrated at Rome, Archbishop +of Dublin, brought over 22,000 crowns towards the pay of the Irish +troops, and a year afterwards, Don Martin de la Cerda was sent to +reside as envoy with Tyrone. + +The year 1600 was employed by Hugh O'Neil, after the manner of his +ancestors, who were candidates for the Kingship of Tara, in a +visitation of the Provinces. Having first planted strong garrisons on +the southern passes leading into Ulster, he marched at the head of +3,000 men into West-Meath, where he obliged Lord Delvin and Sir +Theobald Dillon to join the Confederation. From Meath he marched to +Ely, whose chief he punished for a late act of treachery to some Ulster +soldiers invited to his assistance. From Ely he turned aside to +venerate the relic of the Holy Cross, at Thurles, and being there he +granted his protection to the great Monastery built by Donald More +O'Brien. At Cashel he was joined by the Geraldine, whom he caused to be +recognized as Earl of Desmond. Desmond and his supporters accompanied +him through Limerick into Cork, quartering their retainers on the lands +of their enemies, but sparing their friends; the Earl of Ormond with a +corps of observation moving on a parallel line of march, but carefully +avoiding a collision. In the beginning of March the Catholic army +halted at Inniscarra, upon the river Lee, about five miles west of +Cork. Here O'Neil remained three weeks in camp consolidating the +Catholic party in South Munster. During that time he was visited by the +chiefs of the ancient Eugenian clans—O'Donohoe, O'Donovan, and +O'Mahoney: thither also came two of the most remarkable men of the +southern Province, Florence McCarthy, Lord of Carberry, and Donald +O'Sullivan, Lord of Bearehaven. McCarthy "like Saul, higher by the head +and shoulders than any of his house," had brain in proportion to his +brawn; O'Sullivan, as was afterwards shown, was possessed of military +virtues of a high order. Florence was inaugurated with O'Neil's +sanction as McCarthy More, and although the rival house of Muskerry +fiercely resisted his claim to superiority at first, a wiser choice +could not have been made had the times tended to confirm it. + +While at Inniscarra, O'Neil lost in single combat one of his most +accomplished officers, the chief of Fermanagh. Maguire, accompanied +only by a Priest and two horsemen, was making observations nearer to +the city than the camp, when Sir Warham St. Leger, Marshal of Munster, +issued out of Cork with a company of soldiers, probably on a similar +mission. Both were in advance of their attendants when they came +unexpectedly face to face. Both were famous as horsemen and for the use +of their weapons, and neither would retrace his steps. The Irish chief, +poising his spear, dashed forward against his opponent, but received a +pistol shot which proved mortal the same day. He, however, had strength +enough left to drive his spear through the neck of St. Leger, and to +effect his escape from the English cavalry. Saint Leger was carried +back to Cork where he expired; Maguire, on reaching the camp, had +barely time left to make his last confession, when he breathed his +last. This untoward event, the necessity of preventing possible +dissensions in Fermanagh, and still more, the menacing movements of the +new Deputy, lately sworn in at Dublin, obliged O'Neil to return home +earlier than he intended. Soon after reaching Dungannon he had the +gratification of receiving a most gracious letter from Pope Clement +VIII., together with a crown of phoenix feathers, symbolical of the +consideration with which he was regarded by the Sovereign Pontiff. + +A new Deputy had landed at Howth on the 24th of February, 1600, and was +sworn in at Dublin the day following. This was Charles Blount, Lord +Mountjoy, afterwards Earl of Devonshire, a nobleman now in his 37th +year. He had been the rival, the enemy, and the devoted friend of the +unfortunate Essex, whom he equalled in personal gifts, in courage, and +in gallantry, but far exceeded in judgment, firmness, and foresight. He +was one of a class of soldier-statesmen, peculiar to the second half of +Elizabeth's reign, who affected authorship and the patronage of letters +as a necessary complement to the manners of a courtier and commander. +On the 2nd of April, Mountjoy, still at Dublin, wrote to her Majesty +that the army had taken heart since his arrival, that he had no fear of +the loss of the country, but was more anxious for Connaught than any +other Province. He deplored the capture of Lord Ormond by the O'Moores, +but hoped, if God prospered her arms during the summer, either "to bow +or to break the crooked humours of these people." The three succeeding +years of peace granted to England—interrupted only by the mad _emeute_ +of Essex, and the silly intrigues of the King of Scotland—enabled +Elizabeth to direct all the energies of the State, which had so +immensely increased in wealth during her reign, for the subjugation of +the Irish revolt. + +The capture of Ormond by the O'Moores took place in the month of April, +at a place called Corroneduff, in an interview between the Earl, the +President of Munster, and Lord Thomond, on the one part, and the +Leinster Chief on the other. Ormond, who stood out from his party, had +asked to see the famous Jesuit, Father Archer, then with O'Moore. The +Priest advanced leaning on his staff, which, in the heat of a +discussion that arose, he raised once or twice in the air. The +clansmen, suspecting danger to the Jesuit, rushed forward and dragged +the Earl from his horse. Lord Thomond and the President, taking the +alarm, plied their spurs, and were but too glad to escape. Ormond +remained a prisoner from April to June, during which interval he was +received by Archer into the Church, to which he firmly adhered till the +day of his death. On his liberation he entered into bonds for 3,000 +pounds not to make reprisals, but Mountjoy took vengeance for him. The +fair, well-fenced, and well-cultivated land of Leix was cruelly ravaged +immediately after Ormond's release—the common soldiers cut down with +their swords "corn to the value of 10,000 pounds and upwards," and the +brave chief, Owny, son of Rory, having incautiously exposed himself in +an attack on Maryborough, was, on the 17th of August, killed by a +musket shot. + + + +CHAPTER X. +MOUNTJOY'S ADMINISTRATION—OPERATIONS IN ULSTER AND MUNSTER—CAREW'S "WIT +AND CUNNING"—LANDING OF SPANIARDS IN THE SOUTH—BATTLE OF KINSALE—DEATH +OF O'DONNELL IN SPAIN. + +The twofold operations against Ulster, neglected by Essex, were +vigorously pressed forward by the energetic Mountjoy. On the 16th of +May, a fleet arrived in Lough Foyle, having on board 4,000 foot and 200 +horse, under the command of Sir Henry Dowcra, with abundance of stores, +building materials, and ordnance. At the same moment, the Deputy forced +the Moira pass, and made a feigned demonstration against Armagh, to +draw attention from the fleet in the Foyle. This feint served its +purpose; Dowcra was enabled to land and throw up defensive works at +Derry, which he made his head-quarters, to fortify Culmore at the +entrance to the harbour, where he placed 600 men, under the command of +Captain Atford, and to seize the ancient fort of Aileach, at the head +of Lough Swilly, where Captain Ellis Flood was stationed with 150 men. +The attempt against Ballyshannon was, on a nearer view, found +impracticable, and deferred; the Deputy, satisfied that the lodgment +had been made upon Lough Foyle, retired to Dublin, after increasing the +garrisons at Newry, Carlingford, and Dundalk. The Catholic chieftains +immediately turned their attention to the new fort at Derry, appeared +suddenly before it with 5,000 men, but failing to draw out its +defenders, and being wholly unprovided with a siege train and +implements—as they appear to have been throughout—they withdrew the +second day, O'Donnell leaving a party in hopes to starve out the +foreigners. This party were under the command of O'Doherty, of +Innishowen, and Nial Garve O'Donnell, the most distinguished soldier of +his name, after his illustrious cousin and chief. On the 28th of June, +a party of the besieged, headed by Sir John Chamberlaine, made a sally +from the works, but were driven in with loss, and Chamberlaine killed. +On the 29th of July, O'Donnell, who had returned from his annual +incursion into Connaught and Thomond, seized the English cavalry +horses, and defeated the main force of the besieged, who had issued out +to their rescue. From this affair Dowcra was carried back wounded into +Derry. + +But treason was busy in the Irish camp and country among the +discontented members of the neighbouring clans. The election of chiefs +for life, always a fruitful source of bickering and envy, supplied the +very material upon which "the princely policie" of division, +recommended by Bacon to Essex, might be exercised. Dowcra succeeded in +the summer in winning over Art O'Neil, son of Turlogh, the early +adversary of the great Hugh; before the year was over, by bribes and +promises, he seduced Nial Garve, in the absence of his chief in +Connaught, and Nial, having once entered on the career of treason, +pursued it with all the dogged courage of his disposition. Though his +wife, sister to Red Hugh, forsook him, though his name was execrated +throughout the Province, except by his blindly devoted personal +followers, he served the English during the remainder of the war with a +zeal and ability to which they acknowledged themselves deeply indebted. +By a rapid march, at the head of 1,000 men, supplied by Dowcra, he +surprised the town of Lifford, which his new allies promptly fortified +with walls of stone, and entrusted to him to defend. Red Hugh, on +learning this alarming incident, hastened from the West to invest the +place. After sitting before it an entire month, with no other advantage +than a sally repulsed, he concluded to go into winter quarters. Arthur +O'Neil and Nial Garve had the dignity of knighthood conferred upon +them, and were, besides, recognized for the day by the English +officials as the future O'Neil and O'Donnell. In like manner, "a +Queen's Maguire" had been raised up in Fermanagh, "a Queen's O'Reilly" +in Cavan, and other chiefs of smaller districts were provided with +occupation enough at their own doors by the "princely policie" of Lord +Bacon. + +The English interest in Munster during the first year of Mountjoy's +administration had recovered much of its lost predominance. The new +President, Sir George Carew, afterwards Earl of Totness, was brother to +that knightly "undertaker" who claimed the moiety of Desmond, and met +his death at Glenmalure. He was a soldier of the new school, who prided +himself especially on his "wit and cunning," in the composition of +"sham and counterfeit letters." He had an early experience in the Irish +wars, first as Governor of Askeaton Castle, and afterwards as +Lieutenant General of the Ordnance. Subsequently he was employed in +putting England in a state of defence against the Spaniards, and had +just returned from an embassy to Poland, when he was ordered to join +Mountjoy with the rank of Lord President. He has left us a memoir of +his administration, civil and military, edited by his natural son and +Secretary, Thomas Stafford—exceedingly interesting to read both as to +matter and manner, but the documents embodied in which are about as +reliable as the speeches which are read in Livy. Some of them are +admitted forgeries; others are at least of doubtful authenticity. After +escaping with Lord Thomond from the scene of Ormond's capture, his +first act on reaching Cork was to conclude a month's truce with +Florence McCarthy. This he did, in order to gain time to perfect a plot +for the destruction of O'Neil's other friend, called in derision, by +the Anglo-Irish of Munster, the _sugane_ (or straw-rope) Earl of +Desmond. + +This plot, so characteristic of Carew and of the turn which English +history was about to take in the next reign, deserves to be +particularly mentioned. There was, in the service of the Earl, one +Dermid O'Conor, captain of 1,400 hired troops, who was married to lady +Margaret Fitzgerald, daughter to the late, and niece to the new-made +Earl of Desmond. This lady, naturally interested in the restoration of +her young brother, then the Queen's ward or prisoner at London, to the +title and estates, was easily drawn into the scheme of seducing her +husband from his patron. To justify and cloak the treachery a letter +was written by Carew to the _sugane_ Earl reminding him of _his_ +engagement to deliver up O'Conor; this _letter_, as pre-arranged, was +intercepted by the latter, who, watching his opportunity, rushed with +it open into the Earl's presence, and arrested him, in the name of +O'Neil, as a traitor to the Catholic cause! Anxious to finger his +reward—1,000 pounds and a royal commission for himself—before giving up +his capture, O'Conor imprisoned the Earl in the keep of Castle-Ishin, +but the White Knight, the Knight of Glynn, Fitzmaurice of Kerry, and +Pierce Lacy, levying rapidly 2,000 men, speedily delivered him from +confinement, while his baffled betrayer, crest-fallen and dishonoured, +was compelled to quit the Province. The year following he was attacked +while marching through Galway, and remorselessly put to death by +Theobald Burke, usually called Theobald of the ships. + +Another device employed to destroy the influence of O'Neil's Desmond +was the liberation of the young son of the late Earl from the Tower and +placing him at the disposal of Carew. The young nobleman, attended by a +Captain Price, who was to watch all his movements, landed at Youghal, +where he was received by the Lord President, the Clerk of the Council, +Mr. Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork, and Miler Magrath, an apostate +ecclesiastic, who had been the Queen's Archbishop of Cashel. By his +influence with the warders, Castlemaine, in Kerry, surrendered to the +President. On reaching Kilmallock, he was received with such enthusiasm +that it required the effort of a guard of soldiers to make way for him +through the crowd. According to their custom the people showered down +upon him from the windows handfuls of wheat and salt—emblems of plenty +and of safety—but the next day, being Sunday, turned all this joy into +mourning, not unmingled with anger and shame. The young lord, who had +been bred up a Protestant by his keepers, directed his steps to the +English Church, to the consternation of the devoted adherents of his +house. They clung round him in the street and endeavoured to dissuade +him from proceeding, but he continued his course, and on his return was +met with hootings and reproaches by those who had hailed him with +acclamations the day before. Deserted by the people, and no longer +useful to the President, he was recalled to London, where he resumed +his quarters in the Tower, and shortly afterwards died. The capture of +the strong castle of Glynn from the knight of that name, and the +surrender of Carrigafoyle by O'Conor of Kerry, were the other English +successes which marked the campaign of 1600 in Munster. On the other +hand, O'Donnell had twice exercised his severe supremacy over southern +Connaught, burning the Earl of Thomond's new town of Ennis, and +sweeping the vales and plains of Clare, and of Clanrickarde, of the +animal wealth of their recreant Earls, now actively enlisted against +the national confederacy. + +The eventful campaign of 1601 was fought out in almost every quarter of +the kingdom. To hold the coast line, and prevent the advantages being +obtained, which the possession of Derry, and other harbours on Lough +Foyle gave them, were the tasks of O'Donnell; while to defend the +southern frontier was the peculiar charge of O'Neil. They thus fought, +as it were, back to back against the opposite lines of attack. The +death of O'Doherty, early in this year, threw the succession to +Innishowen into confusion, and while O'Donnell was personally +endeavouring to settle conflicting claims, Nial Garve seized on the +famous Franciscan monastery which stood at the head of the bay, within +sight of the towers of Donegal Castle. Hugh Roe immediately invested +the place, which his relative as stoutly defended. Three months, from +the end of June till the end of September, the siege was strictly +maintained, the garrison being regularly supplied with stores and +ammunition from sea. On the night of the 29th of September an explosion +of gunpowder occurred, and soon the monastery was wrapped in flames. +This was the moment chosen for the final attack. The glare of the +burning Abbey reflected over the beautiful bay, the darkness of night +all round, the shouts of the assailants, and the shrieks of the +fugitives driven by the flames upon the spears of their enemies, must +have formed a scene of horrors such as even war rarely combines. +Hundreds of the besieged were slain, but Nial Garve himself, with the +remainder, covered by the fire of an English ship in the harbour, +escaped along the strand to the neighbouring monastery of Magherabeg, +which he quickly put into a state of defence. All that was left to +O'Donnell of that monastery, the burial place of his ancestors, and the +chief school of his kinsmen, was a skeleton of stone, standing amid +rubbish and ashes. It was never re-inhabited by the Franciscans. A +group of huts upon the shore served them for shelter, and the ruined +chapel for a place of worship, while they were still left in the land. + +While Hugh Roe was investing Donegal Abbey the war had not paused on +the southern frontier. We have said that Mountjoy had made a second and +a third demonstration against Armagh the previous year; in one of these +journeys he raised a strong fort at the northern outlet of the Moira +pass, which he called Mount Norris, in honour of his late master in the +art of war. This work, strongly built and manned, gave him the free +_entree_ of the field of battle whenever he chose to take it. In June +of this year he was in the valley of the Blackwater, menaced O'Neil's +castle of Benburb, and left Sir Charles Danvers with 750 foot and 100 +horse in possession of Armagh. He further proclaimed a reward of 2,000 +pounds for the capture of Tyrone alive, or 1,000 pounds for his head. +But no Irishman was found to entertain the thought of that bribe. An +English assassin was furnished with passports by Danvers, and actually +drew his sword on the Earl in his own tent, but he was seized, +disarmed, and on the ground of insanity was permitted to escape. Later +in the summer Mountjoy was again on the Blackwater, where he laid the +foundation of Charlemont, called after himself, and placed 350 men in +the works under the command of Captain Williams, the brave defender of +the old fort in the same neighbourhood. There were thus quartered in +Ulster at this period the 4,000 foot and 400 horse under Dowcra, +chiefly on the Foyle, with whatever companies of Kerne adhered to +Arthur O'Neil and Nial Garve; with Chichester in Carrickfergus there +were 850 foot and 150 horse; with Danvers in Armagh, 750 foot and 100 +horse; in Mount Norris, under Sir Samuel Bagnal, 600 foot and 50 horse; +in and about Downpatrick, lately taken by the Deputy, under Moryson, +300 foot; in Newry, under Stafford, 400 foot and 50 horse; in +Charlemont, with Williams, 300 foot and 50 horse; or, in all, of +English regulars in Ulster alone, 7,000 foot and 800 horse. The +position of the garrisons on the map will show how firm a grasp +Mountjoy had taken of the Northern Province. + +The last scene of this great struggle was now about to shift to the +opposite quarter of the kingdom. The long-looked for Spanish fleet was +known to have left the Tagus—had been seen off the Scilly Islands. On +the 23rd of September the Council, presided over by Mountjoy, was +assembled in Kilkenny Castle: there were present Carew, Ormond, Sir +Richard Wingfield, Marshal of the Queen's troops, uncle to Carew, and +founder of the family of Powerscourt; also Chief Justice Gardiner, and +other members less known. While they were still sitting a message +arrived from Cork that the Spanish fleet was off that harbour, and soon +another that they had anchored in Kinsale, and taken possession of the +town without opposition. The course of the Council was promptly taken. +Couriers were at once despatched to call in the garrisons far and near +which could possibly be dispensed with for service in Munster. Letters +were despatched to England for reinforcements, and a winter campaign in +the South was decided on. + +The Spanish auxiliary force, when it sailed from the Tagus, consisted +originally of 6,000 men in fifteen armed vessels and thirty transports. +When they reached Kinsale, after suffering severely at sea, and parting +company with several of their comrades, the soldiers were reduced to +3,400 men—a number inferior to Dowcra's force on the Foyle. The +General, Don Jaun del Aguila, was a brave, but testy, passionate and +suspicious officer. He has been severely censured by some Irish writers +for landing in the extreme South, within fourteen miles of the English +arsenal and head-quarters at Cork, and for his general conduct as a +commander. However vulnerable he may be on the general charge, he does +not seem fairly to blame for the choice of the point of debarkation. He +landed in the old Geraldine country, unaware, of course, of the events +of the last few weeks, in which the _sugane_ Earl, and Florence +McCarthy, had been entrapped by Carew's "wit and cunning," and shipped +for London, from which they never returned. Even the northern chiefs, +up to this period, evidently thought their cause much stronger in the +South, and Munster much farther restored to vigour and courage than it +really was. To the bitter disappointment and disgust of the Spaniards, +only O'Sullivan Beare, O'Driscoll, and O'Conor of Kerry, declared +openly for them; while they could hear daily of chiefs they had been +taught to count as friends, either as prisoners or allies of the +English. On the 17th of October—three weeks from their first +arrival—they were arrested in Kinsale by a mixed army of English and +Anglo-Irish, 15,000 strong, under the command of the Deputy and +President, of whom above 5,000 had freshly arrived at Cork from +England. With Mountjoy were the Earls of Thomond and Clanrickarde, more +zealous than the English themselves for the triumph of England. The +harbour was blockaded by ten ships of war, under Sir Richard Leviston, +and the forts at the entrance, Rincorran and Castlenepark, being taken +by cannonade, the investment on all sides was complete. Don Juan's +messengers found O'Neil and O'Donnell busily engaged on their own +frontiers, but both instantly resolved to muster all their strength for +a winter campaign in Munster. O'Donnell _rendezvoused_ at Ballymote, +from which he set out, at the head of 2,500 men, of Tyrconnell and +Connaught, on the 2nd day of November. O'Neil, with McDonnell of +Antrim, McGennis of Down, McMahon of Monaghan, and others, his +suffragans, marched at the head of between 3,000 and 4,000 men, through +West-Meath towards Ormond. Holy Cross was their appointed place of +meeting, where they expected to be joined by such of the neighbouring +Catholics as were eager to strike a blow for liberty of worship. +O'Donnell reached the neighbourhood first, and encamped in a strongly +defensible position, "plashed on every quarter" for greater security. +Mountjoy, anxious to engage him before O'Neil should come up, detached +a numerically superior force, under Carew, for that purpose: but +O'Donnell, evacuating his quarters by night, marched over the mountain +of Slieve Felim, casting away much of his heavy baggage, and before +calling halt was 32 _Irish_ miles distant from his late encampment. +After this extraordinary mountain march, equal to 40 of our present +miles, he made a detour to the westward, descended on Castlehaven, in +Cork, and formed a junction with 700 Spaniards, who had just arrived to +join Del Aguila. A portion of these veterans were detailed to the forts +of Castlehaven, Baltimore, and Dunboy, commanding three of the best +havens in Munster; the remainder joined O'Donnell's division. + +During the whole of November the siege of Kinsale was pressed with the +utmost vigour by Mountjoy. The place mounted but three or four +effective guns, while 20 great pieces of ordnance were continually +playing on the walls. On the 1st of December a breach was found +practicable, and an assault made by a party of 2,000 English was +bravely repulsed by the Spaniards. The English fleet, ordered round to +Castlehaven on the 3rd, were becalmed, and suffered some damage from a +battery, manned by Spanish gunners, on the shore. The lines were +advanced closer towards the town, and the bombardment became more +effective. But the English ranks were considerably thinned by disease +and desertion, so that on the last day of December, when the united +Irish force took up their position at Belgoley, a mile to the north of +their lines, the Lord Deputy's effective force did not, it is thought, +exceed 10,000 men. The Catholic army has generally been estimated at +6,000 native foot and 500 horse; to these are to be added 300 +Spaniards, under Don Alphonso Ocampo, who joined O'Donnell at +Castlehaven. + +The prospect for the besiegers was becoming exceedingly critical, but +the Spaniards in Kinsale were far from being satisfied with their +position. They had been fully three months within walls, in a region +wholly unknown to them before their allies appeared. They neither +understood nor made allowance for the immense difficulties of a winter +campaign in a country trenched with innumerable swollen streams, thick +with woods, which, at that season, gave no shelter, and where camping +out at nights was enough to chill the hottest blood. They only felt +their own inconveniences: they were cut off from escape by sea by a +powerful English fleet, and Carew was already practising indirectly on +their commander his "wit and cunning," in the fabrication of rumours, +and the forging of letters. Don Juan wrote urgent appeals to the +northern chiefs to attack the English lines without another day's +delay, and a council of war, the third day after their arrival at +Belgoley, decided that the attack should be made on the morrow. This +decision was come to on the motion of O'Donnell, contrary to the +judgment of the more circumspect and far-seeing O'Neil. Overruled, the +latter acquiesced in the decision, and cheerfully prepared to discharge +his duty. + +A story is told by Carew that information was obtained of the intended +attack from McMahon, in return for a bottle of _aquavitae_ presented to +him by the President. This tale is wholly unworthy of belief, told of a +chief of the first rank, encamped in the midst of a friendly country. +It is also said—and it seems credible enough—that an intercepted letter +of Don Juan's gave the English in good time this valuable piece of +information. On the night of the 2nd of January, new style (24th of +December, O.S.—in use among the English), the Irish army left their +camp in three divisions, the vanguard led by Tyrrell, the centre by +O'Neil, and the rear by O'Donnell. The night was stormy and dark, with +continuous peals and flashes of thunder and lightning. The guides lost +their way, and the march, which, even by the most circuitous route, +ought not to have exceeded four or five miles, was protracted through +the entire night. At dawn of day, O'Neil, with whom were O'Sullivan and +Ocampo, came in sight of the English lines, and, to his infinite +surprise, found the men under arms, the cavalry in troop posted in +advance of their quarters. O'Donnell's division was still to come up, +and the veteran Earl now found himself in the same dilemma into which +Bagnal had fallen at the Yellow Ford. His embarrassment was perceived +from the English camp; the cavalry were at once ordered to advance. For +an hour O'Neil maintained his ground alone; at the end of that time he +was forced to retire. Of Ocampo's 300 Spaniards, 40 survivors were, +with their gallant leader, taken prisoners; O'Donnell at length +arrived, and drove back a wing of the English cavalry; Tyrrell's +horsemen also held their ground tenaciously. But the rout of the centre +proved irremediable. Fully 1,200 of the Irish were left dead on the +field, and every prisoner taken was instantly executed. On the English +side fell Sir Richard Graeme; Captains Danvers and Godolphin, with +several others, were wounded; their total loss they stated at 200, and +the Anglo-Irish, of whom they seldom made count in their reports, must +have lost in proportion. The Earls of Thomond and Clanrickarde were +actively engaged with their followers, and their loss could hardly have +been less than that of the English regulars. On the night following +their defeat, the Irish leaders held council together at Innishanon, on +the river Bandon, where it was agreed that O'Donnell should instantly +take shipping for Spain to lay the true state of the contest before +Philip III.; that O'Sullivan should endeavour to hold the Castle of +Dunboy, as commanding a most important harbour; that Rory O'Donnell, +second brother of Hugh Roe, should act as Chieftain of Tyrconnell, and +that O'Neil should return into Ulster to make the best defence in his +power. The loss in men was not irreparable; the loss in arms, colours, +and reputation, was more painful to bear, and far more difficult to +retrieve. + +On the 12th of January, nine days after the battle, Don Juan +surrendered the town, and agreed to give up at the same time Dunboy, +Baltimore, and Castlehaven. He had lost 1,000 men out of his 3,000 +during a ten weeks' siege, and was heartily sick of Irish warfare. On +his return to Spain he was degraded from his rank, for his too great +intimacy with Carew, and confined a prisoner in his own house. He is +said to have died of a broken heart occasioned by these indignities. + +O'Donnell sailed from Castlehaven in a Spanish ship, on the 6th of +January, three clays after the battle, and arrived at Corunna on the +14th. He was received with all the honours due to a crown prince by the +Conde de Caracena, Governor of Galicia. Among other objects, he visited +the remains of the tower of Betanzos, from which, according to Bardic +legends, the sons of Milesius had sailed to seek for the Isle of +Destiny among the waves of the west. On the 27th he set out for the +Court, accompanied as far as Santa Lucia by the governor, who presented +him with 1,000 ducats towards his expenses. At Compostella the +Archbishop offered him his own palace, which O'Donnell respectfully +declined: he afterwards celebrated a Solemn High Mass for the Irish +chief's intention, entertained him magnificently at dinner, and +presented him, as the governor had done, with 1,000 ducats. At Zamora +he received from Philip III. a most cordial reception, and was assured +that in a very short time a more powerful armament than Don Juan's +should sail with him from Corunna. He returned to that port, from which +he could every day look out across the western waves that lay between +him and home, and where he could be kept constantly informed of what +was passing in Ireland. Spring was over and gone, and summer, too, had +passed away, but still the exigencies of Spanish policy delayed the +promised expedition. At length O'Donnell set out on a second visit to +the Spanish Court, then at Valladolid, but he reached no further than +Simancas, when, fevered in mind and body, he expired on the 10th of +September, 1602, in the 29th year of his age. He was attended in his +last moments by two Franciscan Fathers who accompanied him, Florence, +afterwards Archbishop of Tuam, and Maurice Donlevy, of his own Abbey of +Donegal. His body was interred with regal honours in the Cathedral of +Valladolid, where a monument was erected to his memory by the King of +Spain. + +Thus closed the career of one of the brightest and purest characters in +any history. His youth, his early captivity, his princely generosity, +his daring courage, his sincere piety won the hearts of all who came in +contact with him. He was the sword as O'Neil was the brain of the +Ulster Confederacy; the Ulysses and Achilles of the war, they fought +side by side, without jealousy or envy, for almost as long a period as +their prototypes had spent in besieging Troy. + + + +CHAPTER XI. +THE CONQUEST OF MUNSTER—DEATH OF ELIZABETH, AND SUBMISSION OF +O'NEIL—"THE ARTICLES OF MELLIFONT." + +The days of Queen Elizabeth were now literally numbered. The death of +Essex, the intrigues of the King of Scotland, and the successes of +Tyrone, preyed upon her spirits. The Irish chief was seldom out of her +mind, and, as she often predicted, she was not to live to receive his +submission. She was accustomed to send for her godson, Harrington, who +had served in Ireland, to ask him questions concerning Tyrone; the +French ambassador considered Tyrone's war one of the causes that +totally destroyed her peace of mind in her latter days. She received +the news of the victory of Kinsale with pleasure, but, even then, she +was not destined to receive the submission of Tyrone. + +The events of the year, so inauspiciously begun for the Irish arms, +continued of the same disastrous character. Castlehaven was surrendered +by its Spanish guard, according to Del Aguila's agreement. Baltimore, +after a momentary resistance, was also given up, but O'Sullivan, who +considered the Spanish capitulation nothing short of treason, threw a +body of native troops, probably drawn from Tyrrell's men, into Dunboy, +under Captain Richard Mageoghegan, and Taylor, an Englishman, connected +by marriage with Tyrrell. Another party of the same troops took +possession of Clear Island, but were obliged to abandon it as +untenable. The entire strength of the Dunboy garrison amounted to 143 +men; towards the end of April—the last of the Spaniards having sailed +in March—Carew left Cork at the head of 3,000 men to besiege Dunboy. +Sir Charles Wilmot moved on the same point from Kerry, with a force of +1,000 men, to join Carew. In the pass near Mangerton Wilmot was +encountered by Donald O'Sullivan and Tyrrell, at the head of then +remaining followers, but forced a passage and united with his superior +on the shores of Berehaven. On the 1st of June the English landed on +Bear Island, and on the 6th opened their cannonade. They were 4,000 +men, with every military equipment necessary, against 143. After eleven +days' bombardment the place was shattered to pieces; the garrison +offered to surrender, if allowed to retain their arms, but their +messenger was hanged, and an instant assault ordered. Over fifty of +this band of Christian Spartans had fallen in the defence, thirty +attempted to escape in boats, or by swimming, but were killed to a man +while in the water. The remainder retreated with Mageoghegan, who was +severely wounded, to a cellar approached by a narrow stair, where the +command was assumed by Taylor. All day the assault had been carried on +till night closed upon the scene of carnage. Placing a strong guard on +the approach to the crypt, Carew returned to the charge with the +returning light. Cannon were first discharged into the narrow chamber +which held the last defenders of Dunboy, and then a body of the +assailants rushing in, despatched the wounded Mageoghegan with their +swords, having found him, candle in hand, dragging himself towards the +gunpowder. Taylor and fifty-seven others were led out to execution; of +all the heroic band, not a soul escaped alive. + +The remaining fragments of Dunboy were blown into the air by Carew on +the 22nd of June. Dursey Castle, another island fortress of +O'Sullivan's, had fallen even earlier; so that no roof remained to the +lord of Berehaven. Still he held his men well together in the glens of +Kerry, during the months of Summer, but the ill-news from Spain in +September threw a gloom over those mountains deeper than was ever cast +by equinoctial storm. Tyrrell was obliged to separate from him in the +Autumn, probably from the difficulty of providing for so many mouths, +and O'Sullivan himself prepared to bid a sad farewell to the land of +his inheritance. On the last day of December he left Glengariffe, with +400 fighting men, and 600 women, children, and servants, to seek a +refuge in the distant north. After a retreat almost unparalleled, the +survivors of this exodus succeeded in reaching the friendly roof of +O'Ruarc, at Dromahaire, not far from Sligo. Their entire march, from +the extreme south to the almost extreme north-west of the island, a +distance, as they travelled it, of not less than 200 miles, was one +scene of warfare and suffering. They were compelled to kill their +horses, on reaching the Shannon, in order to make boats of the hides, +to ferry them to the western bank. At Aughrim they were attacked by a +superior force under Lord Clanrickarde's brother, and Captain Henry +Malby, but they fought with the courage of despair, routed the enemy, +slaying Malby, and other officers. Of the ten hundred who left the +shores of Glengariffe, but 35 souls reached the Leitrim chieftain's +mansion. Among these were the chief himself, with Dermid, father of the +historian, who at the date of this march had reached the age of +seventy. The conquest of Munster, at least, was now complete. In the +ensuing January, Owen McEgan, Bishop of Ross, was slain in the midst of +a guerilla party, in the mountains of Carberry, and his chaplain, being +taken, was hanged with the other prisoners. The policy of extermination +recommended by Carew was zealously carried out by strong detachments +under Wilmot, Harvey, and Flower; Mr. Boyle and the other "Undertakers" +zealously assisting as volunteers. + +Mountjoy, after transacting some civil business at Dublin, proceeded in +person to the north, while Dowcra, marching out of Derry, pressed +O'Neil from the north and north-east. In June, Mountjoy was at +Charlemont, which he placed under the custody of Captain Toby Caufield, +the founder of an illustrious title taken from that fort. He advanced +on Dungannon, but discovered it from the distance, as Norris had once +before done, in flames, kindled by the hand of its straitened +proprietor. On Lough Neagh he erected a new fort called Mountjoy, so +that his communications on the south now stretched from that great lake +round to Omagh, while those of Dowcra, at Augher, Donegal, and Lifford, +nearly completed the circle. Almost the only outlet from this chain of +posts was into the mountains of O'Cane's country, the north-east angle +of the present county of Derry. The extensive tract so enclosed and +guarded had still some natural advantages for carrying on a defensive +war. The primitive woods were standing in masses at no great distance +from each other; the nearly parallel vales of Faughan, Moyala, and the +river Roe, with the intermediate leagues of moor and mountain, were +favourable to the movements of native forces familiar with every ford +and footpath. There was also, while this central tract was held, a +possibility of communication with other unbroken tribes, such as those +of Clandeboy and the Antrim glens on the east, and Breffni O'Ruarc on +the west. Never did the genius of Hugh O'Neil shine out brighter than +in these last defensive operations. In July, Mountjoy writes +apologetically to the Council, that "notwithstanding her Majesty's +great forces, O'Neil doth still live." He bitterly complains of his +consummate caution, his "pestilent judgment to spread and to nourish +his own infection," and of the reverence entertained for his person by +the native population. Early in August, Mountjoy had arranged what he +hoped might prove the finishing stroke in the struggle. Dowcra from +Derry, Chichester from Carrickfergus, Danvers from Armagh, and all who +could be spared from Mountjoy, Charlemont, and Mount Norris, were +gathered under his command, to the number of 8,000 men, for a foray +into the interior of Tyrone. Inisloghlin, on the borders of Down and +Antrim, which contained a great quantity of valuables, belonging to +O'Neil, was captured. Magherlowney and Tulloghoge were next taken. At +the latter place stood the ancient stone chair on which the O'Neils +were inaugurated time out of mind; it was now broken into atoms by +Mountjoy's orders. But the most effective warfare was made on the +growing crops. The 8,000 men spread themselves over the fertile fields +along the valleys of the Bann and the Roe, destroying the standing +grain with fire, where it would burn, or with the _praca_, a peculiar +kind of harrow, tearing it up by the roots. The horsemen trampled crops +into the earth which had generously nourished them; the infantry shore +them down with their sabres, and the sword, though in a very different +sense from that of Holy Scripture, was, indeed, converted into a +sickle. The harvest month never shone upon such fields in any Christian +land. In September, Mountjoy reported to Cecil, "that between +Tulloghoge and Toome there lay unburied a thousand dead," and that +since his arrival on the Blackwater—a period of a couple of +months—"there were about 3,000 starved in Tyrone." In O'Cane's country, +the misery of his clansmen drove the chief to surrender to Dowcra, and +the news of Hugh Roe's death having reached Donegal, his brother +repaired to Athlone, and made his submission to Mountjoy, early in +December. O'Neil, unable to maintain himself on the river, Roe, retired +with 600 foot and 60 horse, to Glencancean, near Lough Neagh, the most +secure of his fastnesses. His brother Cormac McMahon, and Art O'Neil, +of Clandeboy, shared with him the wintry hardships of that last asylum, +while Tyrone, Clandeboy, and Monaghan, were given up to horrors, +surpassing any that had been known or dreamt of in former wars. +Moryson, secretary to Mountjoy, in his account of this campaign, +observes, "that no spectacle was more frequent in the ditches of towns, +and especially in wasted countries, than to see multitudes of these +poor people dead, with their mouths all coloured green, by eating +nettles, docks, and all things they could rend above ground." + +The new year, opening without hope, it began to be rumoured that O'Neil +was disposed to surrender on honourable terms. Mountjoy and the English +Council long urged the aged Queen to grant such terms, but without +effect. Her pride as a sovereign had been too deeply wounded by the +revolted Earl to allow her easily to forgive or forget his offences. +Her advisers urged that Spain had followed her own course towards the +Netherlands, in Ireland; that the war consumed three-fourths of her +annual revenue, and had obliged her to keep up an Irish army of 20,000 +men for several years past. At length she yielded her reluctant +consent, and Mountjoy was authorized to treat with the arch-rebel upon +honourable terms. The agents employed by the Lord Deputy in this +negotiation were Sir William Godolphin and Sir Garrett Moore, of +Mellifont, ancestor of the Marquis of Drogheda—the latter, a warm +personal friend, though no partizan of O'Neil's. They found him in his +retreat near Lough Neagh early in March, and obtained his promise to +give the Deputy an early meeting at Mellifont. Elizabeth's serious +illness, concealed from O'Neil, though well known to Mountjoy, hastened +the negotiations. On the 27th of March he had intelligence of her +decease at London on the 24th, but carefully concealed it till the 5th +of April following. On the 31st of March, he received Tyrone's +submission at Moore's residence, the ancient Cistercian Abbey, and not +until a week later did O'Neil learn that he had made his peace with a +dead sovereign. + +The honourable terms on which this memorable religious war was +concluded were these: O'Neil abjured all foreign allegiance, especially +that of the King of Spain; renounced the title of O'Neil; agreed to +give up his correspondence with the Spaniards, and to recall his son, +Henry, who was a page at the Spanish Court, and to live in peace with +the sons of John the Proud. Mountjoy granted him an amnesty for himself +and his allies; agreed that he should be restored to his estates as he +had held them before the war, and that the Catholics should have the +free exercise of their religion. That the restoration of his ordinary +chieftain rights, which did not conflict with the royal prerogative, +was also included, we have the best possible evidence: Sir Henry Dowcra +having complained to Lord Mountjoy that O'Neil quartered men on O'Cane, +who had surrendered to himself, Mountjoy made answer—"My Lord of Tyrone +is taken in with promise to be restored, as well to all his lands as to +his honour and dignity, and O'Cane's country is his, and must be +obedient to his commands." That the article concerning religion was +understood by the Catholics to concede full freedom of worship, is +evident from subsequent events. In Dublin, sixteen of the principal +citizens suffered fine and imprisonment for refusing to comply with the +act of uniformity; in Kilkenny the Catholics took possession of the +Black Abbey, which had been converted into a lay fee; in Waterford they +did the same by St. Patrick's Church, where a Dominican preacher was +reported to have said, among other imprudent things, that "Jesabel was +dead"—alluding to the late Queen. In Cork, Limerick, and Cashel, the +cross was carried publicly in procession, the old Churches restored to +their ancient rites, and enthusiastic proclamation made of the public +restoration of religion. These events having obliged the Lord Deputy to +make a progress through the towns and cities, he was met at Waterford +by a vast procession, headed by religious in the habits of their order, +who boldly declared to him "that the citizens of Waterford could not, +in conscience, obey any prince that persecuted the Catholic religion." +When such was the spirit of the town populations, we are not surprised +to learn that, in the rural districts, almost exclusively Catholic, the +people entered upon the use of many of their old Churches, and repaired +several Abbeys—among the number, Buttevant, Kilcrea, and Timoleague in +Cork; Quin Abbey in Clare; Kilconnell in Galway; Rosnariell in Mayo, +and Multifarnham in West-Meath. So confident were they that the days of +persecution were past, that King James prefaces his proclamation of +July, 1605, with the statement—"Whereas we have been informed that our +subjects in the kingdom of Ireland, since the death of our beloved +sister, have been deceived by a false rumour, to wit, that we would +allow them liberty of conscience," and so forth. How cruelly they were +then undeceived belongs to the history of the next reign; here we need +only remark that the Articles of Limerick were not more shamefully +violated by the statute 6th and 7th, William III., than the Articles of +Mellifont were violated by this Proclamation of the third year of James +I. + + + +CHAPTER XII. +STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING DURING THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. + +During the greater part of the reign of Elizabeth, the means relied +upon for the propagation of the reformed doctrines were more +exclusively those of force and coercion than even in the time of Edward +VI. Thus, when Sir William Drury was Deputy, in 1578, he bound several +citizens of Kilkenny, under a penalty of 40 pounds each, to attend the +English Church service, and authorized the Anglican Bishop "to make a +rate for the repair of the Church, and to distrain for the payment of +it"—the first mention of Church rates we remember to have met with. +Drury's method of proceeding may be further inferred from the fact, +that of the thirty-six executions ordered by him in the same city, "one +was a blackamoor and two were witches, who were condemned by the law of +nature, for there was no positive law against witchcraft [in Ireland] +in those days." That defect was soon supplied, however, by the statute +27th of Elizabeth, "against witchcraft and sorcery." Sir John Perrott, +successor to Drury, trod in the same path, as we judge from the charge +of severity against recusants, upon which, among other articles, he was +recalled from the government. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, +however, it began to be discovered by the wisest observers that violent +methods were worse than useless with the Irish. Edmund Spenser urged +that "religion should not be forcibly impressed into them with terror +and sharp penalties, as now is the manner, but rather delivered and +intimated with mildness and gentleness." Lord Bacon, in his +"Considerations touching the Queen's Service in Ireland," addressed to +Secretary Cecil, recommends "the recovery of the hearts of the people," +as the first step towards their conversion. With this view he suggested +"a toleration of religion (for a time not definite), except it be in +some principal towns and cities," as a measure "warrantable in +religion, and in policy of absolute necessity." The philosophic +Chancellor farther suggested, as a means to this desired end, the +preparation of "versions of Bibles and Catechisms, and other works of +instruction in the Irish language." In accordance with these views of +conversion, the University of Trinity College was established by a +royal charter, in the month of January, 1593. The Mayor and Corporation +of Dublin had granted the ancient monastery of All Hallows as a site +for the buildings; some contributions were received from the Protestant +gentry, large grants of confiscated Abbey and other lands, which +afterwards yielded a princely revenue, were bestowed upon it, and the +Lord Treasurer Burleigh graciously accepted the office of its +Chancellor. The first Provost was Archbishop Loftus, and of the first +three students entered, one was the afterwards illustrious James Usher. +The commanders and officers engaged at Kinsale presented it with the +sum of 1,800 pounds for the purchase of a library; and at the +subsequent confiscations in Munster and Ulster, the College came in for +a large portion of the forfeited lands. + +Although the Council in England generally recommended the adoption of +persuasive arts and a limited toleration, those who bore the sword +usually took care that they should not bear it in vain. A High +Commission Court, armed with ample powers to enforce the Act of +Uniformity, had been established at Dublin in 1593; but its members +were ordered to proceed cautiously after the Ulster Confederacy became +formidable, and their powers lay dormant in the last two or three years +of the century. Essex and Mountjoy were both fully convinced of the +wisdom of Bacon's views; the former showed a partial toleration, +connived at the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, even in the capital, +and liberated some priests from prison. Mountjoy, in answer to the +command of the English Council "to deal moderately in the great matter +of religion," replied by letter that he had already advised "such as +dealt in it for a time to hold a restrained hand therein." "The other +course," he adds, "might have overthrown the means of our own end of a +reformation of religion." This conditional toleration—such as it +was—excited the indignation of the more zealous Reformers, whose +favourite preacher, the youthful Usher, did not hesitate to denounce it +from the pulpit of Christ Church, as an unhallowed compromise with +antichrist. In 1601, Usher, then but 21 years of age, preached his +well-known sermon from the text of the forty days, in which Ezekiel +"was to bear the iniquity of the house of Judah—a day for a year." +"From this year," cried the youthful zealot, "will I reckon the sin of +Ireland, that those whom you now embrace shall be your ruin, and you +shall bear their iniquity." When the northern insurrection of 1641 took +place, this rhetorical menace was exalted, after the fact, into the +dignity of a prophecy fulfilled. After the victory of Kinsale, however, +the Ultra Protestant party had less cause to complain of the +temporizing of the civil power; the pecuniary mulct of twelve pence for +each absence from the English service was again enforced at least in +Dublin, and several priests, then in prison, were, on various +pretences, put to death. Among those who suffered in the capital was +the learned Jesuit, Henry Fitzsimons, son of a Mayor of the city, the +author of _Brittanomachia_, with whom, while in the Castle, Usher +commenced a controversy, which was never finished. But the terms agreed +upon at Mellifont, between Mountjoy and Tyrone, again suspended for a +short interval the sword of persecution. + +Notwithstanding its manifold losses by exile and the scaffold, the +ancient Church was enabled, through the abundance of vocations, and the +zeal of the ordained, to keep up a still powerful organization. Philip +O'Sullivan states, under the next reign that the government had +ascertained through its spies, the names of 1,160 priests, secular and +regular, still in the country. There must have been between 300 and 400 +others detained abroad, either as Professors in the Irish Colleges in +Spain, France, and Flanders, or as ecclesiastics, awaiting major +orders. Of the regulars at home, 120 were Franciscans, and about 50 +Jesuits. There are said to have been but four Fathers of the Order of +St. Dominick remaining at the time of Elizabeth's death. The reproach +of Cambrensis had long been taken away, since every Diocese might now +point to its martyrs. Of these we recall among the Hierarchy the names +of O'Hely, Bishop of Killala, executed at Kilmallock in 1578; O'Hurley, +Archbishop of Cashel, burned at the stake in Dublin in 1582; Creagh, +Archbishop of Armagh, who died a prisoner in the Tower in 1585; +Archbishop McGauran, his successor, slain in the act of ministering to +the wounded in the engagement at Tulsk, in Roscommon, in 1593; McEgan, +Bishop of Ross, who met his death under precisely similar circumstances +in Carberry in 1603. Yet through all these losses the episcopal +succession was maintained unbroken. In the early part of the next reign +O'Sullivan gives the names of the four Archbishops, Peter Lombard of +Armagh, Edward McGauran of Dublin, David O'Carny of Cashel, and +Florence Conroy of Tuam. On the other hand, the last trying half +century had furnished, so far as we can learn, no instance of apostacy +among the Bishops, and but half a dozen at most from all orders of the +clergy. We read that Owen O'Conor, an apostate, was advanced by letters +patent to Killala in 1591; that Maurice O'Brien of Ara was, in 1570, by +the same authority, elevated to the See of Killaloe, which he resigned +in 1612; that Miler Magrath, in early life a Franciscan friar, was +promoted by the Queen to the Sees of Clogher, Killala, Anchory and +Lismore successively. He finally settled in the See of Cashel, in which +he died, having secretly returned to the religion of his ancestors. For +the rest, "the Queen's Bishops" were chiefly chosen out of England, +though some few natives of the Pale, or of the walled towns, educated +at Oxford, may be found in the list. + +Of the state of learning in those troubled times the brief story is +easily told. The Bardic Order still flourished and was held in honour +by all ranks of the native population. The national adversity brought +out in them, as in others, many noble traits of character. The Harper, +O'Dugan, was the last companion that clung to the last of the Desmonds; +the Bard of Tyrconnell, Owen Ward, accompanied the Ulster chiefs in +their exile, and poured out his Gaelic dirge above their Roman graves. +Although the Bardic compositions continued to be chiefly personal, +relating to the inauguration, journeys, exploits, or death of some +favourite chief, a large number of devotional poems on the passion of +our Lord and the glories of the Blessed Virgin are known to be of this +age. The first forerunners of what was destined to be a numerous +progeny, the controversial ode or ballad, appeared in Elizabeth's +reign, in the form of comparisons between the old and new religions, +lamentations over the ruin of religious houses, and the apostacy of +such persons as Miler Magrath and the son of the Earl of Desmond. The +talents of many of the authors are admitted by Spenser, a competent +judge, but the tendency of their writings, he complains, was to foster +the love of lawlessness and rebellion rather than of virtue and +loyalty. He recommended them for correction to the mercies of the +Provost Marshal, whom he would have "to walk the country with half a +dozen or half a score of horsemen," in quest of the treasonable poets. + +As this was the age of the general diffusion of printing, we may +observe that the casting of Irish type for the use of Trinity College, +by order of Queen Elizabeth, is commonly dated from the year 1591; but +as the College was not opened for two years later, the true date must +be anticipated. John Kearney, Treasurer of St. Patrick's Church, who +died about the year 1600, published a Protestant Catechism from the +College Press, which, says O'Reilly, "was the first book ever printed +in Irish types." In the year 1593, Florence Conroy translated from the +Spanish into Irish a catechism entitled "Christian Instruction," which, +he states in the preface, he had no opportunity of sending into Ireland +"until the year of the age of our Lord 1598." Whether it was then +printed we are not informed, but there does not seem to have been any +Irish type in Catholic hands before the foundation of the Irish College +at Louvain in 1616. + +The merit of first giving to the press, in the native language of the +country, a version of the Sacred Scriptures, belongs clearly to Trinity +College. Nicholas Walsh, Bishop of Ossory, who died in 1585, had +commenced, with the assistance of John Kearney, to translate the Greek +Testament into Gaelic. He had also the assistance of Dr. Nehemiah +Donnellan, and Dr. William Daniel, or O'Daniel, both of whom +subsequently filled the See of Tuam. This translation, dedicated to +King James, and published by O'Daniel in 1603, is still reprinted by +the Bible Societies. The first Protestant translation of the Old +Testament, made under Bishop Bedel's eye, and with such revision of +particular passages as his imperfect knowledge of the language enabled +him to suggest, though completed in the reign of Charles I., was not +published before the year 1680. It was Bedel, also, who caused the +English liturgy to be recited in Irish, in his Cathedral, as early as +1630. + +Ireland and her affairs naturally attracted, during Elizabeth's reign, +the attention of English writers. Of these it is enough to mention the +Poet Spenser, Secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, Fynes Moryson, +Secretary to Lord Mountjoy, and the Jesuit Father, Campian. Campian, +early distinguished at Oxford, was employed as Cambrensis had been four +centuries earlier, and as Plowden was two centuries later, to write +down everything Irish. He crossed the Channel in 1570, and composed two +books rapidly, without accurate or full information as to the condition +or history of the country. The nearer view of Catholic suffering and +Catholic constancy exercised a powerful influence on this accomplished +scholar; he became a convert and a Jesuit. For members of that order +there was but one exit out of life, under the law of England: he +suffered death at Tyburn in 1581. Richard Stanihurst, son of the +Recorder of Dublin, and uncle of Archbishop Usher, went through +precisely the same experiences as his friend Campian, except that he +died, a quarter of a century later, Chaplain to the Archdukes at +Brussels, instead of expiring at the stake. His English hexameters are +among the curiosities of literature, but his contributions to the +history of his country, especially his allusions to events and +characters in and about his own time, are not without their use. +Stanihurst wrote his historical tracts, as did Lombard the Catholic and +Usher the Protestant Primate, O'Sullivan, White, O'Meara, and almost +all the Irish writers of that age, without exception, in the Latin +language. The first Latin book printed in Ireland is thought to be +O'Meara's poem in praise of Thomas, Earl of Ormond and Ossory, +published in 1615. The earliest English books printed in Ireland are +unknown to me; the collection of Anglo-Irish statutes, ordered to be +published while Sir Henry Sidney was Deputy, was the most important +undertaking of that class in the reign of Elizabeth. + +As to institutions of learning, if we except Trinity College, which +increased rapidly in numbers and reputation under the patronage of the +Crown, and the College of Saint Nicholas, at Galway—protected by its +remote situation on the brink of the Atlantic—there was no famous seat +of learning left in the island. In the next reign 1,300 scholars are +stated to have attended that western "school of humanity," when the +Ecclesiastical Commissioners despotically ordered it to be closed, +because the learned Principal, John Lynch, "would not confirm to the +religion established." But the greater number of the children of +Catholics, who still retained property enough to educate them, were +sent beyond seas, a fact with which King James, soon after his +accession, reproached the deputation of that body. A proclamation +issued by Lord Deputy Chichester, in 1610, alludes to the same custom, +and commands all noblemen, merchants, and others, whose children are +abroad for educational purposes, to recall them within one year from +the date thereof; and in case they refuse to return, all parents, +friends, &c., sending them money, directly or indirectly, will be +punished as severely as the law permits. It was mainly to guard against +this danger that "the School of Wards" was established by Elizabeth, +and enlarged by James I., in which the great Duke of Ormond, Sir Phelim +O'Neil, Murrogh, Lord Inchiquin, and other sons of noble families, were +educated for the next generation. Early in the reign of James there +were not less than 300 of these Irish children in the Tower, or at the +Lambeth School,—and it is humiliating to find the great name of Sir +Edward Coke among those who gloried in the success of this unnatural +substitution of the State for the Parent in the work of education. + + + +BOOK IX. +FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TILL THE DEATH OF CROMWELL. + + + +CHAPTER I. +JAMES I.—FLIGHT OF THE EARLS—CONFISCATION OF ULSTER—PENAL +LAWS—PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION. + +James the Sixth of Scotland was in his 37th year when he ascended the +throne under the title of "James the First, King of Great Britain and +Ireland." His accession naturally excited the most hopeful expectations +of good government in the breasts of the Irish Catholics. He was son of +Mary Queen of Scots, whom they looked upon as a martyr to her religion, +and grandson of that gallant King James who styled himself "Defender of +the Faith," and "_Dominus Hiberniae_" in introducing the first Jesuits +to the Ulster Princes. His ancestors had always been in alliance with +the Irish, and the antiquaries of that nation loved to trace their +descent from the Scoto-Irish chiefs who first colonized Argyle, and +were for ages crowned at Scone. He himself was known to have assisted +the late Catholic struggle as effectually, though less openly than the +King of Spain, and it is certain that he had employed Catholic agents, +like Lord Home and Sir James Lindsay, to excite an interest in his +succession among the Catholics, both in the British Islands and on the +Continent. + +The first acts of the new sovereign were calculated to confirm the +expectations of Catholic liberty thus entertained. He was anxious to +make an immediate and lasting peace with Spain; refused to receive a +special embassy from the Hollanders; his ambassador at Paris was known +to be on terms of intimacy with the Pope's Nuncio; and although +personally he assumed the tone of an Anglican Churchman, on crossing +the border he had invited leading Catholics to his Court, and conferred +the honour of Knighthood on some of their number. The imprudent +demonstrations in the Irish towns were easily quieted, and no immediate +notice was taken of their leaders. In May, 1603, Mountjoy, on whom +James had conferred the higher rank of Lord Lieutenant, leaving Carew +as Lord Deputy, proceeded to England, accompanied by O'Neil, Roderick +O'Donnell, Maguire, and other Irish gentlemen. The veteran Tyrone, now +past threescore, though hooted by the London rabble, was graciously +received in that court, with which he had been familiar forty years +before. He was at once confirmed in his title, the Earldom of +Tyrconnell was created for O'Donnell, and the Lordship of Enniskillen +for Maguire. Mountjoy, created Earl of Devonshire, retained the title +of Lord Lieutenant, with permission to reside in England, and was +rewarded by the appointment of Master of the Ordnance and Warden of the +New Forest, with an ample pension from the Crown to him and his heirs +for ever, the grant of the county of Lecale (Down), and the estate of +Kingston Hall, in Dorsetshire, He survived but three short years to +enjoy all these riches and honours; at the age of 44, wasted with +dissipation and domestic troubles, he passed to his final account. + +The necessity of conciliating the Catholic party in England, of +maintaining peace in Ireland, and prosecuting the Spanish negotiations, +not less, perhaps, than his own original bias, led James to deal +favourably with the Catholics at first. But having attempted to enforce +the new Anglican Canons, adopted in 1604, against the Puritans, that +party retaliated by raising against him the cry of favouring the +Papists. This cry alarmed the King, who had always before his eyes the +fear of Presbyterianism, and he accordingly made a speech in the Star +Chamber, declaring his utter detestation of Popery, and published a +proclamation banishing all Catholic missionaries from the country. All +magistrates were instructed to enforce the penal laws with rigour, and +an elaborate spy system for the discovery of concealed recusants was +set on foot. This reign of treachery and terror drove a few desperate +men into the gunpowder plot of the following year, and rendered it +difficult, if not impossible, for the King to return to the policy of +toleration, with which, to do him justice, he seems to have set out +from Scotland. + +Carew, President of Munster during the late war, became Deputy to +Mountjoy on his departure for England. He was succeeded in October, +1604, by Sir Arthur Chichester, who, with the exception of occasional +absences at Court, continued in office for a period of eleven years. +This nobleman, a native of England, furnishes, in many points, a +parallel to his cotemporary and friend, Robert Boyle, Earl of Cork. The +object of his life was to found and to endow the Donegal peerage out of +the spoils of Ulster, as richly as Boyle endowed his earldom out of the +confiscation of Munster. Both were Puritans rather than Churchmen, in +their religious opinions; Chichester, a pupil of the celebrated +Cartwright, and a favourer all his life of the congregational clergy in +Ulster. But they carried their repugnance to the interference of the +civil magistrate in matters of conscience so discreetly as to satisfy +the high church notions both of James and Elizabeth. For the violence +they were thus compelled to exercise against themselves, they seem to +have found relief in bitter and continuous persecution of others. +Boyle, as the leading spirit in the government of Munster, as Lord +Treasurer, and occasionally as Lord Justice, had ample opportunities, +during his long career of forty years, to indulge at once his avarice +and his bigotry; and no situation was ever more favourable than +Chichester's for a proconsul, eager to enrich himself at the expense of +a subjugated Province. + +In the projected work of the reduction of the whole country to the laws +and customs of England, it is instructive to observe that a Parliament +was not called in the first place. The reformers proceeded by +proclamations, letters patent, and orders in council, not by +legislation. The whole island was divided into 32 counties and 6 +judicial circuits, all of which were visited by Justices in the second +or third year of this reign, and afterwards semi-annually. On the +Northern Circuit Sir Edward Pelham and Sir John Davis were accompanied +by the Deputy in person, with a numerous retinue. In some places the +towns were so wasted by the late war, pestilence, and famine, that the +Viceregal party were obliged to camp out in the fields, and to carry +with them their own provisions. The Courts were held in ruined castles +and deserted monasteries; Irish interpreters were at every step found +necessary; sheriffs were installed in Tyrone and Tyrconnell for the +first time; all lawyers appearing in court and all justices of the +peace were tendered the oath of supremacy—the refusal of which +necessarily excluded Catholics both from the bench and the bar. An +enormous amount of litigation as to the law of real property was +created by a judgment of the Court of King's Bench at Dublin, in 1605, +by which the ancient Irish customs, of tanistry and gavelkind, were +declared null and void, and the entire Feudal system, with its rights +of primogeniture, hereditary succession, entail, and vassalage, was +held to exist in as full force in England. Very evidently this decision +was not less a violation of the articles of Mellifont than was the +King's proclamation against freedom of conscience issued about the same +time. + +Sir John Davis, who has left us two very interesting tracts on Irish +affairs, speaking of the new legal regulations of which he was one of +the principal superintendents, observes that the old-fashioned +allowances to be found so often in the Pipe-Rolls, _pro guidagio et +spiagio_, into the interior, may well be spared thereafter, since "the +under sheriffs and bailiffs errant are better guides and spies in time +of peace than they were found in time of war." He adds, what we may +very well believe, that the Earl of Tyrone complained he had so many +eyes upon him, that he could not drink a cup of sack without the +government being advertised of it within a few hours afterwards. This +system of social _espionage_, so repugnant to all the habits of the +Celtic family, was not the only mode of annoyance resorted to against +the veteran chief. Every former dependent who could be induced to +dispute his claims as a landlord, under the new relations established +by the late decision, was sure of a judgment in his favour. Disputes +about boundaries with O'Cane, about the commutation of chieftain-rents +into tenantry, about church lands claimed by Montgomery, Protestant +Bishop of Derry, were almost invariably decided against him. Harassed +by these proceedings, and all uncertain of the future, O'Neil listened +willingly to the treacherous suggestion of St. Lawrence and Lord Howth, +that the leading Catholics of the Pale, and those of Ulster, should +endeavour to form another confederation. The execution of Father +Garnet, Provincial of the Jesuits in England, the heavy fines inflicted +on Lords Stourton, Mordaunt, and Montague, and the new oath of +allegiance, framed by Archbishop Abbott, and sanctioned by the English +Parliament—all events of the year 1606—were calculated to inspire the +Irish Catholics with desperate councils. A dutiful remonstrance against +the Act of Uniformity the previous year had been signed by the +principal Anglo-Irish Catholics for transmission to the King, but their +delegates were seized and imprisoned in the Castle, while their +principal agent, Sir Patrick Barnwell, was sent to London and confined +in the Tower. A meeting, at Lord Howth's suggestion, was held about +Christmas, 1606, at the Castle of Maynooth, then in possession of the +dowager Countess of Kildare, one of whose daughters was married to +Christopher Nugent, Baron of Delvin, and her granddaughter to Rory, +Earl of Tyrconnell. There were present O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Cane, +on the one part, and Lords Delvin and Howth on the other. The precise +result of this conference, disguised under the pretext of a Christmas +party, was never made known, but the fact that it had been held, and +that the parties present had entertained the project of another +confederacy for the defence of the Catholic religion, was mysteriously +communicated in an anonymous letter, directed to Sir William Usher, +Clerk of the Council, which was dropped in the Council Chamber of +Dublin Castle, in March, 1607. This letter, it is now generally +believed, was written by Lord Howth, who was thought to have been +employed by Secretary Cecil, to entrap the northern Earls, in order to +betray them. In May, O'Neil and O'Donnell were cited to attend the Lord +Deputy in Dublin, but the charges were for the time kept in abeyance, +and they were ordered to appear in London before the feast of +Michaelmas. Early in September O'Neil was with Chichester at Slane, in +Meath, when he received a letter from Maguire, who had been out of the +country, conveying information on which he immediately acted. Taking +leave of the Lord Deputy as if to prepare for his journey to London, he +made some stay with his old friend, Sir Garrett Moore, at Mellifont, on +parting from whose family he tenderly bade farewell to the children and +even the servants, and was observed to shed tears. At Dungannon he +remained two days, and on the shore of Lough Swilly he joined O'Donnell +and others of his connexions. The French ship, in which Maguire had +returned, awaited them off Rathmullen, and there they took shipping for +France. With O'Neil, in that sorrowful company, were his last countess, +Catherine, daughter of Magenniss, his three sons, Hugh, John, and +Brian; his nephew, Art, son of Cormac, Rory O'Donnell, Caffar, his +brother, Nuala, his sister, who had forsaken her husband Nial _Garve_, +when he forsook his country; the lady Rose O'Doherty, wife of Caffar, +and afterwards of Owen Roe O'Neil; Maguire, Owen MacWard, chief bard of +Tyrconnell, and several others. "Woe to the heart that meditated, woe +to the mind that conceived, woe to the council that decided on the +project of that voyage!" exclaimed the Annalists of Donegal, in the +next age. Evidently it was the judgment of their immediate successors +that the flight of the Earls was a rash and irremediable step for them; +but the information on which they acted, if not long since destroyed, +has, as yet, never been made public. We can pronounce no judgment as to +the wisdom of their conduct, from the incomplete statements at present +in our possession. + +There remained now few barriers to the wholesale confiscation of +Ulster, so long sought by "the Undertakers," and these were rapidly +removed. Sir Cahir O'Doherty, chief of Innishowen, although he had +earned his Knighthood while a mere lad, fighting by the side of Dowcra, +in an altercation with Sir George Paulett, Governor of Derry, was +taunted with conniving at the escape of the Earls, and Paulett in his +passion struck him in the face. The youthful chief—he was scarcely one +and twenty—was driven almost to madness by this outrage. On the night +of the 3rd of May, by a successful stratagem, he got possession of +Culmore fort, at the month of Lough Foyle, and before morning dawned +had surprised Derry; Paulett, his insulter, he slew with his own hand, +most of the garrison were slaughtered, and the town reduced to ashes. +Nial _Garve_ O'Donnell, who had been cast off by his old protectors, +was charged with sending him supplies and men, and for three months he +kept the field, hoping that every gale might bring him assistance from +abroad. But those same summer months and foreign climes had already +proved fatal to many of the exiles, whose co-operation he invoked. In +July, Rory O'Donnell expired at Rome, in August, Maguire died at Genoa, +on his way to Spain, and in September, Caffar O'Donnell was laid in the +same grave with his brother, on St. Peter's hill. O'Neil survived his +comrades, as he had done 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. O'Doherty, enclosed in his native +peninsula, between the forces of the Marshal Wingfield and Sir Oliver +Lambert, Governor of Connaught, fell by a chance shot, at the rock of +Doon, in Kilmacrenan. The superfluous traitor, Nial Garve, was, with +his sons, sent to London, and imprisoned in the Tower for life. In +those dungeons, Cormac, brother of Hugh O'Neil, and O'Cane also +languished out their days, victims to the careless or vindictive temper +of King James. Sir Arthur Chichester received, soon after these events, +a grant of the entire barony of Innishowen, and subsequently a grant of +the borough of Dungannon, with 1,300 acres adjoining; Wingfield +obtained the district of Fercullan near Dublin, with the title of +Viscount Powerscourt; Lambert was soon after made Earl of Cavan, and +enriched with the lands of Carig, and other estates in that county. + +To justify at once the measures he proposed, as well as to divert from +the exiles the sympathies of Europe, King James issued a proclamation +bearing date the 5th of November, 1608, giving to the world the English +version of the flight of the Earls. The whole of Ulster was then +surveyed in a cursory manner by a staff over which presided Sir William +Parsons as Surveyor-General. The surveys being completed early in 1609, +a royal commission was issued to Chichester, Lambert, St. John, +Ridgeway, Moore, Davis, and Parsons, with the Archbishop of Armagh, and +the Bishop of Derry, to inquire into the portions forfeited. Before +these Commissioners Juries were sworn on each particular case, and +these Juries duly found that, in consequence of "the rebellion" of +O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Doherty, the entire six counties of Ulster, +enumerated by baronies and parishes, were forfeited to the Crown. By +direction from England the Irish Privy Council submitted a scheme for +planting these counties "with colonies of civil men well affected in +religion," which scheme, with several modifications suggested by the +English Privy Council, was finally promulgated by the royal legislator +under the title of "Orders and Conditions for the Planters." According +to the division thus ordered, upwards of 43,000 acres were claimed and +conceded to the Primate and the Protestant Bishops of Ulster; in +Tyrone, Derry, and Armagh, Trinity College got 30,000 acres, with six +advowsons in each county. The various trading guilds of the city of +London—such as the drapers, vintners, cordwainers, drysalters—obtained +in the gross 209,800 acres, including the city of Derry, which they +rebuilt and fortified, adding _London_ to its ancient name. The grants +to individuals were divided into three classes—2,000, 1,500, and 1,000 +acres each. Among the conditions on which these grants were given was +this—"that they should not suffer any labourer, that would not take the +oath of supremacy," to dwell upon their lands. But this despotic +condition—equivalent to sentence of death on tens of thousands of the +native peasantry—was fortunately found impracticable in the execution. +Land was little worth without hands to till it; labourers enough could +not be obtained from England and Scotland, and the Hamiltons, Stewarts, +Folliots, Chichesters, and Lamberts, having, from sheer necessity, to +choose between Irish cultivators and letting their new estates lie +waste and unprofitable, it is needless to say what choice they made. + +The spirit of religious persecution was exhibited not only in the means +taken to exterminate the peasantry, to destroy the northern chiefs, and +to intimidate the Catholics of "the Pale" by abuse of law, but by many +cruel executions. The Prior of the famous retreat of Lough Derg was one +of the victims of this persecution; a Priest named O'Loughrane, who had +accidentally sailed in the same ship with the Earls to France, was +taken prisoner on his return, hanged and quartered. Conor O'Devany, +Bishop of Down and Conor, an octogenarian, suffered martyrdom with +heroic constancy at Dublin, in 1611. Two years before, John, Lord Burke +of Brittas, was executed in like manner on a charge of having +participated in the Catholic demonstrations which took place at +Limerick on the accession of King James. The edict of 1610 in relation +to Catholic children educated abroad has been quoted in a previous +chapter, _apropos_ of education, but the scheme submitted by Knox, +Bishop of Raphoe, to Chichester in 1611 went even beyond that edict. In +this project it was proposed that whoever should be found to harbour a +Priest should forfeit all his possessions to the Crown—that quarterly +returns should be made out by counties of all who refused to take the +oath of supremacy, or to attend the English Church service—that no +Papist should be permitted to exercise the function of a schoolmaster; +and, moreover, that all churches injured during the late war should be +repaired at the expense of the Papist inhabitants for the use of the +Anglican congregation. + +Very unexpectedly to the nation at large, after a lapse of 27 years, +during which no Parliament had been held, writs were issued for the +attendance of both Houses, at Dublin, on the 18th of May, 1613. The +work of confiscation and plantation had gone on for several years +without the sanction of the legislature, and men were at a loss to +conceive for what purpose elections were now ordered, unless to invent +new penal laws, or to impose fresh burdens on the country. With all the +efforts which had been made to introduce civil men, well affected in +religion, it was certain that the Catholics would return a large +majority of the House of Commons, not only in the chief towns, but from +the fifteen old, and seventeen new counties, lately created. To +counterbalance this majority, over forty boroughs, returning two +members each, were created, by royal charter, in places thinly or not +at all inhabited, or where towns were merely projected on the estates +of leading "Undertakers." Against the issue of writs returnable by +these fictitious corporations, the Lords Gormanstown, Slane, Killeen, +Trimbleston, Dunsany, and Howth, signed an humble remonstrance to the +King, concluding with a prayer for the relaxation of the penal laws +affecting religion. The King, whose notions of prerogative were +extravagantly high, was highly incensed at this petition of the +Catholic peers of Leinster, and Chichester proceeded with his full +approbation to pack the Parliament. At the elections, however, many +"recusant lawyers" and other Catholic candidates were returned, so that +when the day of meeting arrived, 101 Catholic representatives assembled +at Dublin, some accompanied by bands of from 100 to 200 armed +followers. The supporters of the government claimed 125 votes, and six +were found to be absent, making the whole number of the House of +Commons 232. The Upper House consisted of 50 Peers, of whom there were +25 Protestant Bishops, so that the Deputy was certain of a majority in +that chamber, on all points of ecclesiastical legislation, at least. +Although, with the facts before us, we cannot agree with Sir John Davis +that King James I. gave Ireland her "first free Parliament," it is +impossible not to entertain a high sense of admiration for the +constitutional firmness of the recusant or Catholic party in that +assembly. At the very outset they successfully resisted the proposition +to meet in the Castle, surrounded by the Deputy's guards, as a silent +menace. They next contended that before proceeding to the election of +Speaker the Council should submit to the Judges the decision of the +alleged invalid elections. A tumultous and protracted debate was had on +this point. The Castle party argued that they should first elect a +Speaker and then proceed to try the elections; the Catholics contended +that there were persons present whose votes would determine the +Speakership, but who had no more title in law than the horseboys at the +door. This was the preliminary trial of strength. The candidate of the +Castle for the Speakership was Sir John Davis; of the Catholics, Sir +John Everard, who had resigned his seat on the bench rather than take +the oath of supremacy framed by Archbishop Abbott. The Castle party +having gone into the lobby to be counted, the Catholics placed Sir John +Everard in the Chair. On their return the government supporters placed +Sir John Davis in Everard's lap, and a scene of violent disorder +ensued. The House broke up in confusion; the recusants in a body +declared their intention not to be present at its deliberations, and +the Lord Deputy, finding them resolute, suddenly prorogued the session. +Both parties sent deputies to England to lay their complaints at the +foot of the throne. The Catholic spokesmen, Talbot and Lutrell, were +received with a storm of reproaches, and committed, the former to the +Tower, the other to the Fleet Prison. They were, however, released +after a brief confinement, and a Commission was issued to inquire into +the alleged electoral frauds. By the advice of Everard and others of +their leaders, a compromise was effected with the Castle party; members +returned for boroughs incorporated after the writs were issued were +declared excluded, the contestation of seats on other grounds of +irregularity were withdrawn, and the House accordingly proceeded to the +business for which they were called together. The chief acts of the +sessions of 1614, '15, and '16, beside the grant of four entire +subsidies to the Crown, were an act joyfully recognizing the King's +title; acts repealing statutes of Elizabeth and Henry VIII., as to +distinctions of race; an act repealing the 3 and 4 of Philip and Mary, +against "bringing Scots into Ireland," and the acts of attainder +against O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Doherty. The recusant minority have +been heavily censured by our recent historians for consenting to these +attainders. Though the censure may be in part deserved, it is, +nevertheless, clear that they had not the power to prevent their +passage, even if they had been unanimous in their opposition; but they +had influence enough, fortunately, to oblige the government to withdraw +a sweeping penal law which it was intended to propose. An Act of +oblivion and amnesty was also passed, which was of some advantage. On +the whole, both for the constitutional principles which they upheld, +and the religious proscription which they resisted, the recusant +minority in the Irish Parliament of James I. deserve to be held in +honour by all who value religious and civil liberty. + + + +CHAPTER II. +LAST YEARS OF JAMES—CONFISCATION OF THE MIDLAND COUNTIES—ACCESSION OF +CHARLES I.—GRIEVANCES AND "GRACES"—ADMINISTRATION OF LORD STRAFFORD. + +From the dissolution of James's only Irish Parliament in October, 1615, +until the tenth of Charles I.—an interval of twenty years—the +government of the country was again exclusively regulated by arbitrary +proclamations and orders in Council. Chichester, after the unusually +long term of eleven years, had leave to retire in 1616; he was +succeeded by the Lord Grandison, who held the office of Lord Deputy for +six years, and he, in turn, by Henry Carey, Viscount Falkland, who +governed from 1622 till 1629—seven years. Nothing could well be more +fluctuating than the policy pursued at different periods by these +Viceroys and their advisers; violent attempts at coercion alternated +with the meanest devices to extort money from the oppressed; general +declarations against recusants were repeated with increased vehemence, +while particular treaties for a local and conditional toleration were +notoriously progressing; in a word, the administration of affairs +exhibited all the worst vices and weaknesses of a despotism, without +any of the steadiness or magnanimity of a really paternal government. +Some of the edicts issued deserve particular notice, as characterizing +the administrations of Grandison and Falkland. + +The municipal authorities of Waterford, having invariably refused to +take the oath of supremacy, were, by an order in Council, deprived of +their ancient charter, which was withheld from them for nine years. The +ten shilling tax on recusants for non-attendance at the Anglican +service was rigorously enforced in other cities, and was almost +invariably levied with costs, which not seldom swelled the ten +shillings to ten pounds. A new instrument of oppression was also, in +Lord Grandison's time, invented—"the Commission for the Discovery of +Defective Titles." At the head of this Commission was placed Sir +William Parsons, the Surveyor-General, who had come into the kingdom in +a menial situation, and had, through a long half century of guile and +cruelty, contributed as much to the destruction of its inhabitants, by +the perversion of law, as any armed conqueror could have done by the +edge of the sword. Ulster being already applotted, and Munster +undergoing the manipulation of the new Earl of Cork, there remained as +a field for the Parsons Commission only the Midland Counties and +Connaught. Of these they made the most in the shortest space of time. A +horde of clerkly spies were employed under the name of "Discoverers," +to ransack old Irish tenures in the archives of Dublin and London, with +such good success, that in a very short time 66,000 acres in Wicklow, +and 385,000 acres in Leitrim, Longford, the Meaths, and King's and +Queen's 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 the 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 baronies and counties were declared forfeited to the +Crown. + +The recusants, though suffering under every sort of injustice, and kept +in a state of continual apprehension—a condition worse even than the +actual horrors they endured—counted many educated and wealthy persons +in their ranks, besides mustering fully ninety per cent, of the whole +population. They were, therefore, far from being politically powerless. +The recall of Lord Grandison from the government was attributed to +their direct or indirect influence upon the King. When James Usher, +then Bishop of Meath, preached before his successor from the text "He +beareth not the sword in vain," they were sufficiently formidable to +compel him publicly to apologise for his violent allusions to their +body. Perhaps, however, we should mainly see in the comparative +toleration, extended by Lord Falkland, an effect of the diplomacy then +going on, for the marriage of Prince Charles to the Infanta of Spain. +When, in 1623, Pope Gregory XV. granted a dispensation for this +marriage, James solemnly swore to, a private article of the marriage +treaty, by which he bound himself to suspend the execution of the Penal +laws, to procure their repeal in Parliament, and to grant a toleration +of Catholic worship in private houses. But the Spanish match was +unexpectedly broken off, immediately after his decease (June, 1625), +whereupon Charles married Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of +France. + +The new monarch inherited from his father three kingdoms heaving in the +throes of disaffection and rebellion. In England the most formidable of +the malcontents were the Puritans, who reckoned many of the first +nobility, and the ablest members of the House of Commons among their +chiefs; the restoration of episcopacy, and the declaration by the +subservient Parliament of Scotland, that no General Assembly should be +called without the King's sanction, had laid the sure foundations of a +religious insurrection in the North; while the events, which we have +already described, filled the minds of all orders of men in Ireland +with agitation and alarm. The marriage of Charles with Henrietta Maria +gave a ray of assurance to the co-religionists of the young Queen, for +they had not then discovered that it was ever the habit of the Stuarts +"to sacrifice their friends to the fear of their enemies." While he was +yet celebrating his nuptials at Whitehall, surrounded by Catholic +guests, the House of Commons presented Charles "a pious petition," +praying him to put into force the laws against recusants; a prayer +which he was compelled by motives of policy to answer in the +affirmative. The magistrates of England received orders accordingly, +and when the King of France remonstrated against this flagrant breach +of one of the articles of the marriage treaty (the same included in the +terms of the Spanish match), Charles answered that he had never looked +on the promised toleration as anything but an artifice to secure the +Papal dispensation. But the King's compliance failed to satisfy the +Puritan party in the House of Commons, and that same year began their +contest with the Crown, which ended only on the scaffold before +Whitehall in 1648. Of their twenty-three years' struggle, except in so +far as it enters directly into our narrative, we shall have little to +say, beyond reminding the reader, from time to time, that though it +occasionally lulled down it was never wholly allayed on either side. + +Irish affairs, in the long continued suspension of the functions of +Parliament, were administered in general by the Privy Council, and in +detail by three special courts, all established in defiance of ancient +constitutional usage. These were the Court of Castle Chamber, modelled +on the English Star Chamber, and the Ecclesiastical High Commissioners +Court, both dating from 1563; and the Court of Wards and Liveries, +originally founded by Henry VIII., but lately remodelled by James. The +Castle Chamber was composed of certain selected members of the Privy +Council acting in secret with absolute power; the High Commission Court +was constituted under James and Charles, of the principal Archbishops +and Bishops, with the Lord Deputy, Chancellor, Chief Justice, Master of +the Rolls, Master of the Wards, and some others, laymen and jurists. +They were armed with unlimited power "to visit, reform, redress, order, +correct and amend, all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, +offences, contempts and enormities," as came under the head of +spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. They were, in effect, the +Castle Chamber, acting as a spiritual tribunal of last resort; and were +provided with their own officers, Registers and Receivers of Fines, +Pursuivants, Criers and Gaolers. The Court of Wards exercised a +jurisdiction, if possible, more repugnant to our first notions of +liberty than that of the High Commission Court. It retained its +original power "to bargain and sell the custody, wardship and +marriage," of all the heirs of such persons of condition as died in the +King's homage; but their powers, by royal letters patent of the year +1617, were to be exercised by a Master of Wards, with an Attorney and +Surveyor, all nominated by the Crown. The Court was entitled to farm +all the property of its Wards during nonage, for the benefit of the +Crown, "taking one year's rent from heirs male, and two from heirs +female," for charges of stewardship. The first master, Sir William +Parsons, was appointed in 1622, and confirmed at the beginning of the +next reign, with a salary of 300 pounds per annum, and the right to +rank next to the Chief Justice of the King's Bench at the Privy +Council. By this appointment 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. + +In addition to these civil grievances an order had lately been issued +to increase the army in Ireland by 5,000 men, and means of subsistence +had to be found for that additional force, within the kingdom. In reply +to the murmurs of the inhabitants, they were assured by Lord Falkland +that the King was their friend, and that any just and temperate +representation of their grievances would secure his careful and instant +attention. So encouraged, the leading Catholics convoked a General +Assembly of their nobility and gentry, "with several Protestants of +rank," at Dublin, in the year 1628, in order to present a dutiful +statement of their complaints to the King. The minutes of this +important Assembly, it is to be feared, are for ever lost to us. We +only know that it included a large number of landed proprietors, of +whom the Catholics were still a very numerous section. "The entire +proceedings of this Assembly," says Dr. Taylor, "were marked by wisdom +and moderation. They drew up a number of articles, in the nature of a +Bill of Rights, to which they humbly solicited the royal assent, and +promised that, on their being granted, they would raise a voluntary +assessment of 100,000 pounds for the use of the Crown. The principal +articles in these 'graces,' as they were called, were provisions for +the security of property, the due administration of justice, the +prevention of military exactions, the freedom of trade, the better +regulation of the clergy, and the restraining of the tyranny of the +ecclesiastical courts. Finally, they provided that the Scots, who had +been planted in Ulster, should be seemed in their possessions, and a +general pardon granted for all offences." Agents were chosen to repair +to England with this petition, and the Assembly, hoping for the best +results, adjourned. But the ultra Protestant party had taken the alarm, +and convoked a Synod at Dublin to counteract the General Assembly. This +Synod vehemently protested against selling truth "as a slave," and +"establishing for a price idolatry in its stead." They laid it down as +a dogma of _their_ faith that "to grant Papists a toleration, or to +consent that they may freely exercise their religion and profess their +faith and doctrines, was a grievous sin;" wherefore they prayed God "to +make those in authority zealous, resolute, and courageous against all +Popery, superstition, and idolatry." This declaration of the extreme +Protestants, including not only Usher, and the principal Bishops, but +Chichester, Boyle, Parsons, and the most successful "Undertakers," all +deeply imbued with Puritan notions, naturally found among their English +brethren advocates and defenders. The King, who had lately, for the +third time, renewed with France the articles of his marriage treaty, +was placed in a most difficult position. He desired to save his own +honour, he sorely needed the money of the Catholics, but he trembled +before the compact, well organized fanaticism of the Puritans. In his +distress he had recourse to a councillor, who, since the assassination +of Buckingham, his first favourite, divided with Laud the royal +confidence. This was Thomas, Lord Wentworth, better known by his +subsequent title of Earl of Strafford, a statesman born to be the +wonder and the bane of three kingdoms. Strafford (for such for +clearness we must call him) boldly advised the King to grant "the +graces" as his own personal act, to pocket the proposed subsidy, but to +contrive that the promised concessions he was to make should never go +into effect. This infamous deception was effected in this wise: the +King signed, with his own hand, a schedule of fifty-one "graces," and +received from the Irish agents in London bonds for 120,000 pounds, +(equal to ten times the amount at present), to be paid in three annual +instalments of 40,000 pounds. He also agreed that Parliament should be +immediately called in Ireland, to confirm these concessions, while at +the same time he secretly instructed Lord Falkland to see that the +writs of election were informally prepared, so that no Parliament could +be held. This was accordingly done; the agents of the General Assembly +paid their first instalment; the subscribers held the King's autograph; +the writs were issued, but on being returned, were found to be +technically incorrect, and so the legal confirmation of the graces was +indefinitely postponed, under one pretext or another. As evidence of +the national demands at this period, we should add, that beside the +redress of minor grievances, the articles signed by the King provided +that the recusants should be allowed to practise in the courts of law; +to sue the livery of their lands out of the Court of Wards, on taking +an oath of civil allegiance in lieu of the oath of supremacy; that the +claims of the Crown to the forfeiture of estates, under the plea of +defects of title, should not be held to extend beyond sixty years +anterior to 1628; that the "Undertakers" should have time allowed them +to fulfil the conditions of their leases; that the proprietors of +Connaught should be allowed to make a new enrollment of their estates, +and that a Parliament should be held. A royal proclamation announced +these concessions, as existing in the royal intention, but, as we have +already related, such promises proved to be worth no more than the +paper on which they were written. + +In 1629 Lord Falkland, to disarm the Puritan outcry against him, had +leave to withdraw, and for four years—an unusually long interregnum—the +government was left in the hands of Robert Boyle, now Earl of Cork, and +Adam Loftus, Viscount Ely, one of the well dowered offspring of Queen +Elizabeth's Archbishop of Dublin. Ely held the office of Lord +Chancellor, and Cork that of Lord High Treasurer; as Justices, they now +combined in their own persons almost all the power and patronage of the +kingdom. Both affected a Puritan austerity and enthusiasm, which barely +cloaked a rapacity and bigotry unequalled in any former administration. +In Dublin, on Saint Stephen's Day, 1629, the Protestant Archbishop, +Bulkley, and the Mayor of the city, entered the Carmelite Chapel, at +the head of a file of soldiers, dispersed the congregation, desecrated +the altar, and arrested the officiating friars. The persecution was +then taken up and repeated wherever the executive power was strong +enough to defy the popular indignation. A Catholic seminary lately +established in the capital was confiscated, and turned over to Trinity +College as a training school. Fifteen religious houses, chiefly +belonging to the Franciscan Order, which had hitherto escaped from the +remoteness of their situation, were, by an order of the English +Council, confiscated to the Crown, and their novices compelled to +emigrate in order to complete their studies abroad. A reprimand from +the King somewhat stayed the fury of the Justices, whose supreme power +ended with Stafford's appointment in 1633. + +The advent of Stafford was characteristic of his whole course. The King +sent over another letter concerning recusants, declaring that the laws +against them, at the suggestion of the Lords Justices, should be put +strictly in force. The Justices proved unwilling to enter this letter +on the Council book, and it was accordingly withheld till Stafford's +arrival, but the threat had the desired effect of drawing "a voluntary +contribution" of 20,000 pounds out of the alarmed Catholics. Equipped +partly with this money Stafford arrived in Dublin in July, 1633, and +entered at once on the policy, which he himself designated by the one +emphatic word—"THOROUGH." He took up his abode in the Castle, +surrounded by a Body Guard, a force hitherto unknown at the Irish +Court; he summoned only a select number of the Privy Council, and, +having kept them waiting for hours, condescended to address them in a +speech full of arrogance and menace. He declared his intention of +maintaining and augmenting the army; advised them to amend their grants +forthwith; told them frankly he had called them to Council, more out of +courtesy than necessity, and ended by requiring from them a year's +subsidy in advance. As this last request was accompanied by a positive +promise to obtain the King's consent to the assembling of Parliament, +it was at once granted; and soon after writs were issued for the +meeting of both Houses in July following. + +When this long-prayed-for Parliament at last met, the Lord Deputy took +good care that it should be little else than a tribunal to register his +edicts. A great many officers of the army had been chosen as Burgesses, +while the Sheriffs of counties were employed to secure the election of +members favourable to the demands of the Crown. In the Parliament of +1613 the recusants were, admitting all the returns to be correct, +nearly one-half; but in that of 1634 they could not have exceeded +one-third. The Lord Deputy nominated their Speaker, whom they did not +dare to reject, and treated them invariably with the supreme contempt +which no one knows so well how to exhibit towards a popular assembly as +an apostate liberal. "Surely," he said in his speech from the throne, +"so great a meanness cannot enter your hearts, as once to suspect his +Majesty's gracious regard of you, and performance with you, once you +affix yourselves upon his grace." His object in this appeal was the +sordid and commonplace one—to obtain more money without rendering value +for it. He accordingly carried through four whole subsidies of 50,000 +pounds sterling each in the session of 1634; and two additional +subsidies of the same amount at the opening of the next session. The +Parliament, having thus answered his purpose, was summarily dissolved +in April, 1635, and for four years more no other was called. During +both sessions he had contrived, according to his agreement with the +King, to postpone indefinitely the act which was to have confirmed "the +graces," guaranteed in 1628. He even contrived to get a report of a +Committee of the House of Commons, and the opinions of some of the +Judges, against legislating on the subject at all, which report gave +King Charles "a great deal of contentment." + +With sufficient funds in hand for the ordinary expenses of the +government, Strafford applied himself earnestly to the self-elected +task of making his royal master "as absolute as any King in +Christendom" on the Irish side of the channel. The plantation of +Connaught, delayed by the late King's death, and abandoned among the +new King's graces, was resumed as a main engine of obtaining more +money. The proprietary of that Province had, in the thirteenth year of +the late reign, paid 3,000 pounds into the Record Office at Dublin, for +the registration of their deeds, but the entries not being made by the +clerk employed, the title to every estate in the five western counties +was now called in question. The "Commissioners to Inquire into +Defective Titles" were let loose upon the devoted Province, with Sir +William Parsons at their head, and the King's title to the whole of +Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon, was found by packed, bribed, or intimidated +juries; the grand jury of Galway having refused to find a similar +verdict, were summoned to the Court of Castle Chamber, sentenced to pay +a fine of 4,000 pounds each to the Crown, and the Sheriff that +empanelled them, a fine of 1,000 pounds. The lawyers who pleaded for +the actual proprietors were stripped of their gowns, the sheriff died +in prison, and the work of spoliation proceeded. The young Earl of +Ormond was glad to compound for a portion of his estates; the Earl of +Kildare was committed to prison for refusing a similar composition; the +Earl of Cork was compelled to pay a heavy fine for his intrusion into +lands originally granted to the Church; the O'Byrnes of Wicklow +commuted for 15,000 pounds, and the London Companies, for their Derry +estates, paid no less than 70,000 pounds: a forced contribution for +which those frugal citizens never forgave the thorough-going Deputy. By +these means, and others less violent, such as bounties to the linen +trade, he raised the annual revenue of the kingdom to 80,000 pounds a +year, and was enabled to embody for the King's service an army of +10,000 foot and 1,000 horse. + +These arbitrary measures were entirely in consonance with the wishes of +Charles. In a visit to England in 1636, the King assured Strafford +personally of his cordial approbation of all he had done, encouraged +him to proceed fearlessly in the same course, and conferred on him the +higher rank of Lord Lieutenant. Three years later, on the first rumour +of a Scottish invasion of England, Strafford was enabled to remit his +master 30,000 pounds from the Irish Treasury, and to tender the +services of the Anglo-Irish army, as he thought they could be safely +dispensed with by the country in which they had been thus far recruited +and maintained. + + + +CHAPTER III. +LORD STRAFFORD'S IMPEACHMENT AND EXECUTION—PARLIAMENT OF 1639-'41—THE +INSURRECTION OF 1641—THE IRISH ABROAD. + +The tragic end of the despot, whose administration we have sketched, +was now rapidly approaching. When he deserted the popular ranks in the +English House of Commons for a Peerage and the government of Ireland, +the fearless Pym prophetically remarked, "Though you have left us, I +will not leave you while your head is on your shoulders." Yet, although +conscious of having left able and vigilant enemies behind him in +England, Strafford proceeded in his Irish administration as if he +scorned to conciliate the feelings or interests of any order of men. By +the highest nobility, as well as the humblest of the mechanic class, +his will was to be received as law; so that neither in Church, nor in +State, might any man express even the most guarded doubt as to its +infallibility. Lord Mountnorris, for example, having dropped a casual, +and altogether innocent remark at the Chancellor's table on the private +habits of the Deputy, was brought to trial by court martial on a charge +of mutiny, and sentenced to military execution. Though he was not +actually put to death, he underwent a long and rigorous imprisonment, +and at length was liberated without apology or satisfaction. If they +were not so fully authenticated, the particulars of this outrageous +case would hardly be credible. + +The examples of resistance to arbitrary power, which for some years had +been shown by both England and Scotland, were not thrown away upon the +still worse used Irish. During the seven years of Strafford's iron +rule, Hampden had resisted the collection of ship money, Cromwell had +begun to figure in the House of Commons, the Solemn League and Covenant +was established in Scotland, and the Scots had twice entered England in +arms to seal with their blood, if need were, their opposition to an +episcopal establishment of religion. It was in 1640, upon the occasion +of their second invasion, that Strafford was recalled from Ireland to +assume command of the royal forces in the North of England. After a +single indecisive campaign, the King entertained the overtures of the +Covenanters, and the memorable Long Parliament having met in November, +one of its first acts was the impeachment of Strafford for high crimes +and misdemeanors. The chief articles against him related to his +administration of Irish affairs, and were sustained by delegates from +the Irish House of Commons, sent over for that purpose: the whole of +the trial deserves to be closely examined by every one interested in +the constitutional history of England and Ireland. + +A third Parliament, known as the 14th, 15th and 16th Charles I., met at +Dublin on the 20th March, 1639, was prorogued till June, and adjourned +till October. Yielding the point so successfully resisted in 1613, its +sittings were held in the Castle, surrounded by the viceregal guard. +With one exception, the acts passed in its first session were of little +importance, relating only to the allotment of glebe lands and the +payment of twentieths. The exception, which followed the voting of four +entire subsidies to the King, was an Act ordaining "that this +Parliament shall not determine by his Majesty's assent to this and +other Bills." A similar statute had been passed in 1635, but was wholly +disregarded by Strafford, who no doubt meant to take precisely the same +course in the present instance. The members of this Assembly have been +severely condemned by modern writers for passing a high eulogium upon +Strafford in their first session and reversing it after his fall. But +this censure is not well founded. The eulogium was introduced by the +Castle party in the Lords, as part of the preamble to the Supply Bill, +which, on being returned to the Commons, could only be rejected _in +toto_, not amended—a proceeding in the last degree revolutionary. But +those who dissented from that ingenious device, at the next session of +the House, took care to have their protest entered on the journals and +a copy of it despatched to the King. This second proceeding took place +in February, 1640, and as the Lord Lieutenant was not arraigned till +the month of November following, the usual denunciations of the Irish +members are altogether undeserved. At no period of his fortune was the +Earl more formidable as an enemy than at the very moment the Protest +against "his manner of government" was ordered "to be entered among the +Ordinances" of the Commons of Ireland. Nor did this Parliament confine +itself to mere protestations against the abuses of executive power. At +the very opening of the second session, on the 20th of January, they +appointed a committee to wait on the King in England, with instructions +to solicit a bill in explanation of Poyning's law, another enabling +them to originate bills in Committee of their own House, a right taken +away by that law, and to ask the King's consent to the regulation of +the courts of law, the collecting of the revenue, and the quartering of +soldiers by statute instead of by Orders in Council. On the 16th of +February the House submitted a set of queries to the Judges, the nature +of which may be inferred from the first question, viz.: "Whether the +subjects of this Kingdom be a free people, and to be governed only by +the common law of England, and statutes passed in this Kingdom ?" When +the answers received were deemed insufficient, the House itself, +turning the queries into the form of resolutions, proceeded to vote on +them, one by one, affirming in every point the rights, the liberties, +and the privileges of their constituents. + +The impeachment and attainder of Strafford occupied the great part of +March and April, 1641, and throughout those months the delegates from +Ireland assisted at the pleadings in Westminster Hall and the debates +in the English Parliament. The Houses at Dublin were themselves +occupied in a similar manner. Towards the end of February articles of +impeachment were drawn up against the Lord Chancellor, Bolton, Dr. +Bramhall, Bishop of Derry, Chief-Justice Lowther, and Sir George +Radcliffe, for conspiring with Strafford to subvert the constitution, +and laws, and to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government. In +March, the King's letter for the continuance of Parliament was laid +before the Commons, and on the 3rd of April, his further letter, +declaring that all his Majesty's subjects of Ireland "shall, from +henceforth, enjoy the benefit of the said graces [of 1628] according to +the true intent thereof." By the end of May the Judges, not under +impeachment, sent in their answers to the Queries of the Commons, which +answers were voted insufficient, and Mr. Patrick Darcy, Member for +Navan, was appointed to serve as Proculator at a Conference with the +Lords, held on the 9th of June, "in the dining-room of the Castle," in +order to set forth the insufficiency of such replies. The learned and +elaborate argument of Darcy was ordered to be printed by the House; and +on the 26th day of July, previous to their prorogation, they resolved +unanimously, that the subjects of Ireland "were a free people, to be +governed only by the common law of England, and statutes made and +established in the kingdom of Ireland, and according to the lawful +custom used in the same." This was the last act of this memorable +session; the great northern insurrection in October having, of course, +prevented subsequent sessions from being held. Constitutional agitators +in modern times have been apt to select their examples of a wise and +patriotic parliamentary conduct from the opposition to the Act of Union +and the famous struggles of the last century; but whoever has looked +into such records as remain to us of the 15th and 16th of Charles +First, and the debates on the impeachment of Lord Chancellor Bolton, +will, in my opinion, be prepared to admit, that at no period whatever +was constitutional law more ably expounded in Ireland than in the +sessions of 1640 and 1641; and that not only the principles of Swift +and of Molyneux had a triumph in 1782, but the older doctrines also of +Sir Ralph Kelly, Audley Mervin, and Patrick Darcy. + +Strafford's Deputy, Sir Christopher Wandesford, having died before the +close of 1640, the King appointed Robert, Lord Dillon, a liberal +Protestant, and Sir William Parsons, Lords Justices. But the pressure +of Puritan influence in England compelled him in a short time to remove +Dillon and substitute Sir John Borlace, Master of the Ordnance—a mere +soldier—in point of fanaticism a fitting colleague for Parsons. The +prorogation of Parliament soon gave these administrators opportunities +to exhibit the spirit in which they proposed to carry on the +government. When at a public entertainment in the capital, Parsons +openly declared that in twelve months more no Catholics should be seen +in Ireland, it was naturally inferred that the Lord Justice spoke not +merely for himself but for the growing party of the English Puritans +and Scottish Covenanters. The latter had repeatedly avowed that they +never would lay down their arms until they had wrought the extirpation +of Popery, and Mr. Pym, the Puritan leader in England, had openly +declared that his party intended not to leave a priest in Ireland. The +infatuation of the unfortunate Charles in entrusting at such a moment +the supreme power, civil and military, to two of the devoted partizans +of his deadliest enemies, could not fail to arouse the fears of all who +felt themselves obnoxious to the fanatical party, either by race or by +religion. + +The aspirations of the chief men among the old Irish for entire freedom +of worship, their hopes of recovering at least a portion of their +estates, the example of the Scots, who had successfully upheld both +their Church and nation against all attempts at English supremacy, the +dangers that pressed, and the fears that overhung them, drove many of +the very first abilities and noblest characters into the conspiracy +which exploded with such terrific energy on the 23rd of October, 1641. +The project, though matured on Irish soil, was first conceived among +the exiled Catholics, who were to be found at that day in all the +schools and camps of Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands. Philip +III. had an Irish legion, under the command of Henry O'Neil, son of +Tyrone, which, after his death was transferred to his brother John. In +this legion, Owen Roe O'Neil, nephew of Tyrone, learned the art of war, +and rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The number of Irish serving +abroad had steadily increased after 1628, when a license of enlistment +was granted by King James. An English emissary, evidently +well-informed, was enabled to report, about the year 1630, that there +were in the service of the Archduchess Isabella, in the Spanish +Netherlands alone, "100 Irish officers able to command companies, and +20 fit to be colonels." The names of many others are given as men of +noted courage, good engineers, and "well-beloved" captains, both +Milesians and Anglo-Irish, residing at Lisbon, Florence, Milan and +Naples. The emissary adds that they had long been providing arms for an +attempt upon Ireland, "and had in readiness 5,000 or 6,000 arms laid up +in Antwerp for that purpose, _bought out of the deduction of their +monthly pay_." After the death of the Archduchess, in 1633, an attempt +was made by the Franco-Dutch, under Prince Maurice and Marshal +Chatillon, to separate the Belgian Provinces from Spain. In the +sanguinary battle at Avien victory declared for the French, and on +their junction with Prince Maurice, town after town surrendered to +their arms. The first successful stand against them was made at +Louvain, defended by 4,000 Belgians, Walloons, Spaniards and Irish; the +Irish, 1,000 strong, under the command of Colonel Preston, of the +Gormanstown family, greatly distinguished themselves. The siege was +raised on the 4th of July, 1635, and Belgium was saved for that time to +Philip IV. At the capture of Breda, in 1637, the Irish were again +honourably conspicuous, and yet more so in the successful defence of +Arras, the capital of Artois, three years later. Not yet strengthened +by the citadel of Vauban, this ancient Burgundian city, famous for its +cathedral and its manufactures, dear to the Spaniards as one of the +conquests of Charles V., was a vital point in the campaign of 1640. +Besieged by the French, under Marshal Millerie, it held out for several +weeks under the command of Colonel Owen Roe O'Neil. The King of France +lying at Amiens, within convenient distance, took care that the +besiegers wanted for nothing; while the Prince-Cardinal, Ferdinand, the +successor of the Archduchess in the government, marched to its relief +at the head of his main force with the Imperialists, under Launboy, and +the troops of the Duke of Lorrain, commanded by that Prince in person. +In an attack on the French lines the Allies were beaten off with loss, +and the brave commander was left again unsuccoured in the face of his +powerful assailant. Subsequently Don Philip de Silva, General of the +Horse to the Prince Cardinal, was despatched to its relief, but failed +to effect anything; a failure for which he was court-martialed, but +acquitted. The defenders, after exhausting every resource, finally +surrendered the place on honourable terms, and marched out covered with +glory. These stirring events, chronicled in prose and verse at home, +rekindled the martial ardour which had slumbered since the disastrous +day of Kinsale. + +In the ecclesiastics who shared their banishment, the military exiles +had a voluntary diplomatic _corps_ who lost no opportunity of advancing +the common cause. At Rome, their chief agent was Father Luke Wadding, +founder of Saint Isidore's, one of the most eminent theologians and +scholars of his age. Through the friendship of Gregory XV. and Urban +VIII., many Catholic princes became deeply interested in the religious +wars which the Irish of the previous ages had so bravely waged, and +which their descendants were now so anxious to renew. Cardinal +Richelieu—who wielded a power greater than that of Kings—had favourably +entertained a project of invasion submitted to him by the son of Hugh +O'Neil, a chief who, while living, was naturally regarded by the exiles +as their future leader. + +To prepare the country for such an invasion (if the return of men to +their own country can be called by that name), it was necessary to find +an agent with talents for organization, and an undoubted title to +credibility and confidence. This agent was fortunately found in the +person of Rory or Roger O'Moore, the representative of the ancient +chiefs of Leix, who had grown up at the Spanish Court as the friend and +companion of the O'Neils. O'Moore was then in the prime of life, of +handsome person, and most seductive manners; his knowledge of character +was profound; his zeal for the Catholic cause, intense; his personal +probity, honour, and courage, undoubted. The precise date of O'Moore's +arrival in Ireland is not given in any of the cotemporary accounts, but +he seems to have been resident in the country some time previous to his +appearance in public life, as he is familiarly spoken of by his English +cotemporaries as "Mr. Roger Moore of Ballynagh." During the +Parliamentary session of 1640, he took lodgings in Dublin, where he +succeeded in enlisting in his plans Conor Maguire, Lord Enniskillen, +Philip O'Reilly, one of the members for the county of Cavan, Costelloe +McMahon, and Thorlogh O'Neil, all persons of great influence in Ulster. +During the ensuing assizes in the Northern Province he visited several +country towns, where in the crowd of suitors and defendants he could, +without attracting special notice, meet and converse with those he +desired to gain over. On this tour he received the important accession +of Sir Phelim O'Neil of Kinnaird, in Tyrone, Sir Con Magennis of Down, +Colonel Hugh McMahon of Monaghan, and Dr. Heber McMahon, Administrator +of Clogher. Sir Phelim O'Neil, the most considerable man of his name +tolerated in Ulster, was looked upon as the greatest acquisition, and +at his castle of Kinnaird his associates from the neighbouring +counties, under a variety of pretexts, contrived frequently to meet. +From Ulster, the indefatigable O'Moore carried the threads of the +conspiracy into Connaught with equal success, finding both among the +nobility and clergy many adherents. In Leinster, among the Anglo-Irish, +he experienced the greatest timidity and indifference, but an +unforeseen circumstance threw into his hands a powerful lever, to move +that province. This was the permission granted by the King to the +native regiments, embodied by Strafford, to enter into the Spanish +service, if they so desired. His English Parliament made no demur to +the arrangement, which would rid the island of some thousands of +disciplined Catholics, but several of their officers, under the +inspiration of O'Moore, kept their companies together, delaying their +departure from month to month. Among these were Sir James Dillon, +Colonel Plunkett, Colonel Byrne, and Captain Fox, who, with O'Moore, +formed the first directing body of the Confederates in Leinster. + +In May, 1641, Captain Neil O'Neil arrived from the Netherlands with an +urgent request from John, Earl of Tyrone, to all his clansmen to +prepare for a general insurrection. He also brought them the cheering +news that Cardinal Richelieu—then at the summit of his greatness—had +promised the exiles arms, money, and means of transport. He was sent +back, almost immediately, with the reply of Sir Phelim, O'Moore and +their friends, that they would be prepared to take the field a few days +before or after the festival of All Hallows—the 1st of November. The +death of Earl John, the last surviving son of the illustrious Tyrone, +shortly afterwards, though it grieved the Confederates, wrought no +change in their plans. In his cousin-germain, the distinguished +defender of Arras, they reposed equal confidence, and their confidence +could not have been more worthily bestowed. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +THE INSURRECTION OF 1641. + +The plan agreed upon by the Confederates included four main features. +I. A rising after the harvest was gathered in, and a campaign during +the winter months, when supplies from England were most difficult to be +obtained by their enemies. II. A simultaneous attack on one and the +same day or night on all the fortresses within reach of their friends. +III. To surprise the Castle of Dublin, which was said to contain arms +for 12,000 men. IV. Aid in officers, munitions, and money from abroad. +All the details of this project were carried successfully into effect, +except the seizure of Dublin Castle—the most difficult as it would have +been the most decisive blow to strike. + +Towards the end of August, a meeting of those who could most +conveniently attend was held in Dublin. There were present O'Moore and +Maguire, of the civilians, and Colonels Plunkett, Byrne, and McMahon of +the army. At this meeting the last week of October, or first of +November, was fixed upon as the time to rise; subsequently Saturday, +the 23rd of the first named month, a market day in the capital was +selected. The northern movements were to be arranged with Sir Phelim +O'Neil, while McMahon, Plunkett, and Byrne, with 200 picked men, were +to surprise the Castle guard—consisting of only a few pensioners and 40 +halbediers—turn the guns upon the city to intimidate the Puritan party, +and thus make sure of Dublin; O'Moore, Lord Maguire, and other +civilians, were to be in town, in order to direct the next steps to be +taken. As the day approached, the arrangements went on with perfect +secrecy but with perfect success. On the 22nd of October half the +chosen band were in waiting, and the remainder were expected in during +the night. Some hundreds of persons, in and about Dublin, and many +thousands throughout the country, must have been in possession of that +momentous secret, yet it was by the mere accident of trusting a drunken +dependent out of sight, that the first knowledge of the plot was +conveyed to the Lords Justices on the very eve of its execution. + +Owen O'Connolly, the informant on this occasion, was one of those +ruffling squires or henchmen, who accompanied gentlemen of fortune in +that age, to take part in their quarrels, and carry their confidential +messages. That he was not an ordinary domestic servant, we may learn +from the fact of his carrying a sword, after the custom of the class to +which we have assigned him. At this period he was in the service of Sir +John Clotworthy, one of the most violent of the Puritan Undertakers, +and had conformed to the established religion. Through what +recklessness, or ignorance of his true character, he came to be invited +by Colonel Hugh McMahon to his lodgings, and there, on the evening of +the 22nd, entrusted with a knowledge of next day's plans, we have now +no means of deciding. O'Connolly's information, as tendered to the +Justices, states that on hearing of the proposed attack on the Castle, +he pretended an occasion to withdraw, leaving his sword in McMahon's +room to avoid suspicion, and that after jumping over fences and +palings, he made his way from the north side of the city to Sir William +Parsons at the Castle. Parsons at first discredited the tale, which +O'Connolly (who was in liquor) told in a confused and rambling manner, +but he finally decided to consult his colleague, Borlase, by whom some +of the Council were summoned, the witness's deposition taken down, +orders issued to double the guard, and officers despatched, who +arrested McMahon at his lodgings. When McMahon came to be examined +before the Council, it was already the morning of the 23rd; he boldly +avowed his own part in the plot, and declared that what was that day to +be done was now beyond the power of man to prevent. He was committed +close prisoner to the Castle where he had hoped to command, and search +was made for the other leaders in town. Maguire was captured the next +morning, and shared McMahon's captivity; but O'Moore, Plunkett, and +Byrne succeeded in escaping out of the city. O'Connolly was amply +rewarded in lands and money; and we hear of him once afterwards, with +the title of Colonel, in the Parliamentary army. + +As McMahon had declared to the Justices, the rising was now beyond the +power of man to prevent. In Ulster, by stratagem, surprise, or force, +the forts of Charlemont and Mountjoy, and the town of Dungannon, were +seized on the night of the 22nd by Sir Phelim O'Neil or his +lieutenants; on the next day Sir Conor Magennis took the town of Newry, +the McMahons possessed themselves of Carrickmacross and Castleblaney, +the O'Hanlons Tandragee, while Philip O'Reilly and Roger Maguire razed +Cavan and Fermanagh. A proclamation of the northern leaders appeared +the same day, dated from Dungannon, setting forth their "true intent +and meaning" to be, not hostility to his Majesty the King, "nor to any +of his subjects, neither English nor Scotch; but only for the defence +and liberty of ourselves and the Irish natives of this kingdom." A more +elaborate manifesto appeared shortly afterwards from the pen of Rory +O'Moore, in which the oppressions of the Catholics for conscience' sake +were detailed, the King's intended "graces" acknowledged, and their +frustration by the malice of the Puritan party exhibited: it also +endeavoured to show that a common danger threatened the Protestants of +the Episcopal Church with Roman Catholics, and asserted in the +strongest terms the devotion of the Catholics to the Crown. In the same +politic and tolerant spirit, Sir Conor Magennis wrote from Newry on the +25th to the officers commanding at Down. "We are," he wrote, "for our +lives and liberties. We desire no blood to be shed, but if you mean to +shed our blood, be sure we shall be as ready as you for that purpose." +This threat of retaliation, so customary in all wars, was made on the +third day of the rising, and refers wholly to future contingencies; the +monstrous fictions which were afterwards circulated of a wholesale +massacre committed on the 23rd were not as yet invented, nor does any +public document or private letter, written in Ireland in the last week +of October, or during the first days of November, so much as allude to +those tales of blood and horror, afterwards so industriously +circulated, and so greedily swallowed. + +Fully aroused from their lethargy by McMahon's declaration, the Lords +Justices acted with considerable vigour. Dublin was declared to be in a +state of siege; courts martial were established; arms were distributed +to the Protestant citizens, and some Catholics; and all strangers were +ordered to quit the city under pain of death. Sir Francis Willoughby, +Governor of Galway, who arrived on the night of the 22nd, was entrusted +with the command of the Castle, Sir Charles Coote was appointed +Military Governor of the city, and the Earl, afterwards Duke of Ormond, +was summoned from Carrick-on-Suir to take command of the army. As Coote +played a very conspicuous part in the opening scenes of this war, and +Ormond till its close, it may be well to describe them both, more +particularly, to the reader. + +Sir Charles Coote, one of the first Baronets of Ireland, like Parsons, +Boyle, Chichester, and other Englishmen, had come over to Ireland +during the war against Tyrone, in quest of fortune. His first +employments were in Connaught, where he filled the offices of +Provost-Marshal and Vice-Governor in the reign of James I. His success +as an Undertaker entitles him to rank with the fortunate adventurers we +have mentioned; in Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim, Queen's, and other +counties, his possessions and privileges raised him to the rank of the +richest subjects of his time. In 1640 he was a colonel of foot, with +the estates of a Prince and the habits of a Provost-Marshal. His +reputation for ferocious cruelty has survived the remembrance even of +his successful plunder of other people's property; before the campaigns +of Cromwell there was no better synonym for wanton cruelty than the +name of Sir Charles Coote. + +James Butler, Earl, Marquis, and Duke of Ormond deservedly ranks +amongst the principal statesmen of his time. During a public career of +more than half a century his conduct in many eminent offices of trust +was distinguished by supreme ability, life-long firmness and +consistency. As a courtier of the House of Stuart, it was impossible +that he should have served and satisfied both Charleses without +participating in many indefensible acts of government, and originating +some of them. Yet judged, not from the Irish but the Imperial point of +view, not by an abstract standard but by the public morality of his +age, he will be found fairly deserving of the title of "the great Duke" +bestowed on him during his lifetime. When summoned by the Lords +Justices to their assistance in 1641, he was in the thirty-first year +of his age, and had so far only distinguished himself in political life +as the friend of the late Lord Strafford. He had, however, the good +fortune to restore in his own person the estates of his family, +notwithstanding that they were granted in great part to others by King +James; his attachment to the cause of King Charles was very naturally +augmented by the fact that the partiality of that Prince and his +ill-fated favourite had enabled him to retrieve both the hereditary +wealth and the high political influence which formerly belonged to the +Ormond Butlers. Such an ally was indispensable to the Lords Justices in +the first panic of the insurrection; but it was evident to near +observers that Ormond, a loyalist and a churchman, could not long act +in concert with such devoted Puritans as Parsons, Borlase, and Coote. + +The military position of the several parties—there were at least +three—when Ormond arrived at Dublin, in the first week of November, may +be thus stated: I. In Munster and Connaught there was but a single +troop of royal horse, each, left as a guard with the respective +Presidents, St. Leger and Willoughby; in Kilkenny, Dublin, and other of +the midland counties, the gentry, Protestant and Catholic, were relied +on to raise volunteers for their own defence; in Dublin there had been +got together 1,500 old troops; six new regiments of foot were embodied; +and thirteen volunteer companies of 100 each. In the Castle were arms +and ammunition for 12,000 men, with a fine train of field artillery, +provided by Stafford for his campaign in the north of England. Ormond, +as Lieutenant-General, had thus at his disposal, in one fortnight after +the insurrection broke out, from 8,000 to 10,000 well appointed men; +his advice was to take the field at once against the northern leaders +before the other Provinces became equally inflamed. But his judgment +was overruled by the Justices, who would only consent, while awaiting +their cue from the Long Parliament, to throw reinforcements into +Drogheda, which thus became their outpost towards the north. II. In +Ulster there still remained in the possession of "the Undertakers" +Enniskillen, Derry, the Castles of Killeagh and Crohan in Cavan, +Lisburn, Belfast, and the stronghold of Carrickfergus, garrisoned by +the regiments of Colonel Chichester and Lord Conway. King Charles, who +was at Edinburgh endeavouring to conciliate the Scottish Parliament +when news of the Irish rising reached him, procured the instant +despatch of 1,500 men to Ulster, and authorized Lords Chichester, Ardes +and Clandeboy, to raise new regiments from among their own tenants. The +force thus embodied—which may be called from its prevailing element the +_Scottish_ army—cannot have numbered less than 5,000 foot, and the +proportionate number of horse. III. The Irish in the field by the first +of November are stated in round numbers at 30,000 men in the northern +counties alone; but the whole number supplied with arms and ammunition +could not have reached one-third of that nominal total. Before the +surprise of Charlemont and Mountjoy forts, Sir Phelim O'Neil had but a +barrel or two of gunpowder; the stores of those forts, with 70 barrels +taken at Newry by Magennis, and all the arms captured in the +simultaneous attack, which at the outside could not well exceed 4,000 +or 5,000 stand—constituted their entire equipment. One of Ormond's +chief reasons for an immediate campaign in the North was to prevent +them having time to get "pikes made"—which shows their deficiency even +in that weapon. Besides this defect there was one, if possible, still +more serious. Sir Phelim was a civilian, bred to the profession of the +law; Rory O'Moore, also, had never seen service; and although Colonel +Owen O'Neil and others had promised to join them "at fourteen days' +notice," a variety of accidents prevented the arrival of any officer of +distinction during the brief remainder of that year. Sir Phelim, +however, boldly assumed the title of "Lord General of the Catholic Army +in Ulster," and the still more popular title with the Gaelic speaking +population of "The O'Neil." + +The projected winter campaign, after the first week's successes, did +not turn out favourably for the northern Insurgents. The beginning of +November was marked by the barbarous slaughter committed by the +Scottish garrison of Carrickfergus in the Island Magee. Three thousand +persons are said to have been driven into the fathomless north sea, +over the cliffs of that island, or to have perished by the sword. The +ordinary inhabitants could not have exceeded one-tenth as many, but the +presence of so large a number may be accounted for by the supposition +that they had fled from the mainland across the peninsula, which is +left dry at low water, and were pursued to their last refuge by the +infuriated Covenanters. From this date forward until the accession of +Owen Roe O'Neil to the command, the northern war assumed a ferocity of +character foreign to the nature of O'Moore, O'Reilly and Magennis. That +Sir Phelim permitted, if he did not sometimes in his gusts of stormy +passion instigate, those acts of cruelty, which have stained his +otherwise honourable conduct, is too true; but he stood alone among his +confederates in that crime, and that crime stands alone in his +character. Brave to rashness and disinterested to excess, few rebel +chiefs ever made a more heroic end out of a more deplorable beginning. + +The Irish Parliament, which was to have met on the 16th of November, +was indefinitely prorogued by the Lords Justices, who preferred to act +only with their chosen quorum of Privy Counsellors. The Catholic Lords +of the Pale, who at first had arms granted for their retainers out of +the public stores, were now summoned to surrender them by a given day; +an insult not to be forgiven. Lords Dillon and Taafe, then deputies to +the King, were seized at Ware by the English Puritans, their papers +taken from them, and themselves imprisoned. O'Moore, whose clansmen had +recovered Dunamase and other strongholds in his ancient patrimony, was +still indefatigable in his propaganda among the Anglo-Irish. By his +advice Sir Phelim marched to besiege Drogheda, at the head of his +tumultuous bands. On the way southward he made an unsuccessful attack +upon Lisburn, where he lost heavily; on the 24th of November he took +possession of Mellifont Abbey, from whose gate the aged Tyrone had +departed in tears, twenty-five years before. From Mellifont he +proceeded to invest Drogheda; Colonel Plunkett, with the title of +General, being the sole experienced officer as yet engaged in his +ranks. A strongly walled town as Drogheda was, well manned, and easily +accessible from the sea, cannot be carried without guns and engineers +by any amount of physical courage. Whenever the Catholics were fairly +matched in the open field, they were generally successful, as at +Julianstown, during this siege, where one of their detachments cut off +five out of six companies marching from Dublin to reinforce the town; +but though the investment was complete, the vigilant governor, Sir +Henry Tichburne, successfully repulsed the assailants. O'Moore, who lay +between Ardee and Dundalk with a reserve of 2,000 men, found time +during the siege to continue his natural career, that of a diplomatist. +The Puritan party, from the Lord Justice downwards, were, indeed, every +day hastening that union of Catholics of all origins which the founder +of the Confederacy so ardently desired to bring about. Their avowed +maxim was that the more men rebelled, the more estates there would be +to confiscate. In Munster, their chief instruments were the aged Earl +of Cork, still insatiable as ever for other men's possessions, and the +President St. Leger; in Leinster, Sir Charles Coote. Lord Cork prepared +1,100 indictments against men of property in his Province, which he +sent to the Speaker of the Long Parliament, with an urgent request that +they might be returned to him, with authority to proceed against the +parties named, as outlaws. In Leinster, 4,000 similar indictments were +found in the course of two days by the free use of the rack with +witnesses. Sir John Read, an officer of the King's Bedchamber, and Mr. +Barnwall, of Kilbrue, a gentleman of threescore and six, were among +those who underwent the torture. When these were the proceedings of the +tribunals in peaceable cities, we may imagine what must have been the +excesses of the soldiery in the open county. In the South, Sir William +St. Leger directed a series of murderous raids upon the peasantry of +Cork, which at length produced their natural effect. Lord Muskerry and +other leading recusants, who had offered their services to maintain the +peace of the Province, were driven by an insulting refusal to combine +for their own protection. The 1,100 indictments of Lord Cork soon +swelled their ranks, and the capture of the ancient city of Cashel by +Philip O'Dwyer announced the insurrection of the South. Waterford soon +after opened its gates to Colonel Edmund Butler; Wexford declared for +the Catholic cause, and Kilkenny surrendered to Lord Mountgarret. In +Wicklow, Coote's troopers committed murders such as had not been +equalled since the days of the Pagan Northmen. Little children were +carried aloft writhing on the pikes of these barbarians, whose worthy +commander confessed that "he liked such frolics." Neither age nor sex +was spared, and an ecclesiastic was especially certain of instant +death. Fathers Higgins and White of Naas, in Kildare, were given up by +Coote to these "lambs," though each had been granted a safe conduct by +his superior officer, Lord Ormond. And these murders were taking place +at the very time when the Franciscans and Jesuits of Cashel were +protecting Dr. Pullen, the Protestant Chancellor of that Cathedral and +other Protestant prisoners; while also the Castle of Cloughouter, in +Cavan, the residence of Bishop Bedell, was crowded with Protestant +fugitives, all of whom were carefully guarded by the chivalrous Philip +O'Reilly. + +At length the Catholic Lords of the Pale began to feel the general glow +of an outraged people, too long submissive under every species of +provocation. The Lords Justices having summoned them to attend in +Dublin on the 8th of December, they met at Swords, at the safe distance +of seven miles, and sent by letter their reasons for not trusting +themselves in the capital. To the allegations in this letter the +Justices replied by proclamation, denying most of them, and repeating +their summons to Lords Fingal, Gormanstown, Slane, Dunsany, +Netterville, Louth, and Trimleston, to attend in Dublin on the 17th. +But before the 17th came, as if to ensure the defeat of their own +summons, Coote was let loose upon the flourishing villages of Fingal, +and the flames kindled by his men might easily be discovered from the +round tower of Swords. On the 17th, the summoned Lords, with several of +the neighbouring gentry, met by appointment on the hill of Crofty, in +the neighbouring county of Meath; while they were engaged in discussing +the best course to be taken, a party of armed men on horseback, +accompanied by a guard of musketeers, was seen approaching. They proved +to be O'Moore, O'Reilly, Costelloe McMahon, brother of the prisoner, +Colonel Byrne, and Captain Fox. Lord Gormanstown, advancing in front of +his friends, demanded of the new-comers "why they came armed into the +Pale?" To which O'Moore made answer "that the ground of their coming +thither was for the freedom and liberty of their consciences, the +maintenance of his Majesty's prerogative, in which they understood he +was abridged, and the making the subjects of this kingdom as free as +those of England." Lord Gormanstown, after consulting a few moments +with his friends, replied: "Seeing these be your true ends, we will +likewise join with you." The leaders then embraced, amid the +acclamations of their followers, and the general conditions of their +union having been unanimously agreed upon, a warrant was drawn out +authorizing the Sheriff of Meath to summon the gentry of the county to +a final meeting at the Hill of Tara on the 24th of December. + + + +CHAPTER V. +THE CATHOLIC CONFEDERATION—ITS CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY +ESTABLISHMENT. + +How a tumultuous insurrection grew into a national organization, with a +senate, executive, treasury, army, ships, and diplomacy, we are now to +describe. It may, however, be assumed throughout the narrative, that +the success of the new Confederacy was quite as much to be attributed +to the perverse policy of its enemies as to the counsels of its best +leaders. The rising in the midland and Munster counties, and the formal +adhesion of the Lords of the Pale, were two of the principal steps +towards the end. A third was taken by the Bishops of the Province of +Armagh, assembled in Provincial Synod at Kells, on the 22nd of March, +1642, where, with the exception of Dease of Meath, they unanimously +pronounced "the war just and lawful." After solemnly condemning all +acts of private vengeance, and all those who usurped other men's +estates, this provincial meeting invited a national synod to meet at +Kilkenny on the 10th day of May following. On that day accordingly, all +the Prelates then in the country, with the exception of Bishop Dease, +met at Kilkenny. There were present O'Reilly, Archbishop of Armagh; +Butler, Archbishop of Cashel; O'Kealy, Archbishop of Tuam; David Rothe, +the venerable Bishop of Ossory; the Bishops of Clonfert, Elphin, +Waterford, Lismore, Kildare, and Down and Conor; the proctors of +Dublin, Limerick, and Killaloe, with sixteen other dignitaries and +heads of religious orders—in all, twenty-nine prelates and superiors, +or their representatives. The most remarkable attendants were, +considering the circumstances of their Province, the prelates of +Connaught. Strafford's reign of terror was still painfully remembered +west of the Shannon, and the immense family influence of Ulick Burke, +then Earl, and afterwards Marquis of Clanrickarde, was exerted to +prevent the adhesion of the western population to the Confederacy. But +the zeal of the Archbishop of Tuam, and the violence of the Governor of +Galway, Sir Francis Willoughby, proved more than a counterpoise for the +authority of Clanrickarde and the recollection of Strafford: Connaught, +though the last to come into the Confederation, was also the last to +abandon it. + +The Synod of Kilkenny proceeded with the utmost solemnity and anxiety +to consider the circumstances of their own and the neighbouring +kingdoms. No equal number of men could have been found in Ireland, at +that day, with an equal amount of knowledge of foreign and domestic +politics. Many of them had spent years upon the Continent, while the +French Huguenots held their one hundred "cautionary towns," and +"leagues" and "associations" were the ordinary instruments of popular +resistance in the Netherlands and Germany. Nor were the events +transpiring in the neighbouring island unknown or unweighed by that +grave assembly. The true meaning and intent of the Scottish and English +insurrections were by this time apparent to every one. The previous +months had been especially fertile in events, calculated to rouse their +most serious apprehensions. In March, the King fled from London to +York; in April, the gates of Hull were shut in his face by Hotham, its +governor; and in May, the Long Parliament voted a levy of 16,000 +without the royal authority. The Earl of Warwick had been appointed the +Parliamentary commander of the fleet, and the Earl of Essex, their Lord +General, with Cromwell as one of his captains. From that hour it was +evident the sword alone could decide between Charles and his subjects. +In Scotland, too, events were occurring in which Irish Catholics were +vitally interested. The contest for the leadership of the Scottish +royalists between the Marquises of Hamilton and Montrose had occupied +the early months of the year, and given their enemies of the Kirk and +the Assembly full time to carry on their correspondence with the +English Puritans. In April, all parties in Scotland agreed in +despatching a force of 2,500 men, under "the memorable Major Monroe," +for the protection of the Scottish settlers in Ulster. On the 15th of +that month this officer landed at Carrickfergus, which was "given up to +him by agreement," with the royalist Colonel Chichester; the fortress, +which was by much the strongest in that quarter, continued for six +years the head-quarters of the Scottish general, with whom we shall +have occasion to meet again. + +The state of Anglo-Irish affairs was for some months one of +disorganization and confusion. In January and February the King had +been frequently induced to denounce by proclamation his "Irish rebels." +He had offered the Parliament to lead their reinforcements in person, +had urged the sending of arms and men, and had repeatedly declared that +he would never consent to tolerate Popery in that country. He had +failed to satisfy his enemies, by these profuse professions had +dishonoured himself, and disgusted many who were far from being hostile +to his person or family. Parsons and Borlase were still continued in +the government, and Coote was entrusted by them, on all possible +occasions, with a command distinct from that of Ormond. Having +proclaimed the Lords of the Pale rebels for refusing to trust their +persons within the walls of Dublin, Coote was employed during January +to destroy Swords, their place of rendezvous, and to ravage the estates +of their adherents in that neighbourhood. In the same month 1,100 +veterans arrived at Dublin under Sir Simon Harcourt; early in February +arrived Sir Richard Grenville with 400 horse, and soon after +Lieutenant-Colonel George Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, with Lord +Leicester's regiment, 1,500 strong. Up to this period Ormond had been +restrained by the Justices, who were as timid as they were cruel, to +operations within an easy march of Dublin. He had driven the O'Moores +and their Allies out of Naas; had reinforced some garrisons in Kildare; +he had broken up, though not without much loss, an entrenched camp of +the O'Byrnes at Kilsalgen wood, on the borders of Dublin; at last the +Justices felt secure enough, at the beginning of March, to allow him to +march to the relief of Drogheda. Sir Phelim O'Neil had invested the +place for more than three months, had been twice repulsed from its +walls, made a last desperate attempt, towards the end of February, but +with no better success. After many lives were lost the impetuous +lawyer-soldier was obliged to retire, and on the 8th of March, hearing +of Ormond's approach at the head of 4,000 fresh troops, he hastily +retreated northward. On receiving this report, the Justices recalled +Ormond to the capital; Sir Henry Tichburne and Lord Moore were +despatched with a strong force, on the rear of the Ulster forces, and +drove them out of Ardee and Dundalk—the latter after a sharp action. +The march of Ormond into Meath had, however, been productive of offers +of submission from many of the gentry of the Pale, who attended the +meetings at Crofty and Tara. Lord Dunsany and Sir John Netterville +actually surrendered on the Earl's guarantee, and were sent to Dublin; +Lords Gormanstown, Netterville, and Slane, offered by letter to follow +their example; but the two former were, on reaching the city, thrust +into the dungeons of the Castle, by order of the Justices; and the +proposals of the latter were rejected with contumely. About the same +time the Long Parliament passed an act declaring 2,500,000 acres of the +property of Irish recusants forfeited to the State, and guaranteeing to +all English "adventurers" contributing to the expenses of the war, and +all soldiers serving in it, grants of land in proportion to their +service and contribution. This act, and a letter from Lord Essex, the +Parliamentarian Commander-in-Chief, recommending the transportation of +captured recusants to the West Indian Colonies, effectually put a stop +to these negotiations. In Ulster, by the end of April, there were +19,000 troops, regulars and volunteers, in the garrison or in the +field. Newry was taken by Monroe and Chichester, where 80 men and women +and 2 priests were put to death. Magennis was obliged to abandon Down, +and McMahon Monaghan; Sir Philem was driven to burn Armagh and +Dungannon, and to take his last stand at Charlemont. In a severe action +with Sir Robert and Sir William Stewart, he had displayed his usual +courage with better than his usual fortune, which, perhaps, we may +attribute to the presence with him of Sir Alexander McDonnell, brother +to Lord Antrim, the famous _Colkitto_ of the Irish and Scottish wars. +But the severest defeat which the Confederates had was in the heart of +Leinster, at the hamlet of Kilrush, within four miles of Athy. Lord +Ormond, returning from a second reinforcement of Naas and other Kildare +forts, at the head, by English account, of 4,000 men, found on the 13th +of April the Catholics of the midland counties, under Lords +Mountgarrett, Ikerrin, and Dunboyne, Sir Morgan Cavenagh, Rory O'Moore, +and Hugh O'Byrne, drawn up, by his report, 8,000 strong, to dispute his +passage. With Ormond were the Lord Dillon, Lord Brabazon, Sir Richard +Grenville, Sir Charles Coote, and Sir T. Lucas. The combat was short +but murderous. The Confederates left 700 men, including Sir Morgan +Cavenagh, and some other officers, dead on the field; the remainder +retreated in disorder, and Ormond, with an inconsiderable diminution of +numbers, returned in triumph to Dublin. For this victory the Long +Parliament, in a moment of enthusiasm, voted the Lieutenant-General a +jewel worth 500 pounds. If any satisfaction could be derived from such +an incident, the violent death of their most ruthless enemy, Sir +Charles Coote, might have afforded the Catholics some consolation. That +merciless saberer, after the combat at Kilrush, had been employed in +reinforcing Birr, and relieving the Castle of Geashill, which the Lady +Letitia of Offally held against the neighbouring tribe of O'Dempsey. On +his return from this service he made a foray against a Catholic force, +which had mustered in the neighbourhood of Trim; here, on the night of +the 7th of May, heading a sally of his troop, he fell by a musket +shot—not without suspicion of being fired from his own ranks. His son +and namesake, who imitated him in all things, was ennobled at the +restoration by the title of the Earl of Mountrath. In Munster the +President St. Leger, though lately reinforced by 1,000 men from +England, did not consider himself strong enough for other than +occasional forays into the neighbouring county, and little was effected +in that Province. + +Such was the condition of affairs at home and abroad when the National +Synod assembled at Kilkenny. As the most popular tribunal invested with +the highest moral power in the kingdom, it was their arduous task to +establish order and authority among the chaotic elements of the +revolution. By the admission of those most opposed to them they +conducted their deliberations for nearly three weeks with equal +prudence and energy. They first, on the motion of the venerable Bishop +Rothe, framed an oath of association to be publicly taken by all their +adherents, by the first part of which they were bound to bear "true +faith and allegiance" to King Charles and his lawful successors, "to +maintain the fundamental laws of Ireland, the free exercise of the +Roman Catholic faith and religion." By the second part of this oath all +Confederate Catholics—for so they were to be called—as solemnly bound +themselves never to accept or submit to any peace "without the consent +and approbation of the general assembly of the said Confederate +Catholics." They then proceeded to make certain constitutions, +declaring the war just and lawful; condemning emulations and +distinctions founded on distinctions of race, such as "new" and "old +Irish;" ordaining an elective council for each Province; and a Supreme +or National Council for the whole kingdom; condemning as excommunicate +all who should, having taken the oath, violate it, or who should be +guilty of murder, violence to persons, or plunder under pretence of the +war. Although the attendance of the lay leaders of the movement at +Kilkenny was far from general, the exigencies of the case compelled +them, to nominate, with the concurrence of the Bishops, the first +Supreme Council of which Lord Mountgarrett was chosen President, and +Mr. Richard Belling, an accomplished writer and lawyer, Secretary. By +this body a General Assembly of the entire Nation was summoned to meet +at the same city, on the 23rd of October following—the anniversary of +the Ulster rising, commonly called by the English party "Lord Maguire's +day." The choice of such an occasion by men of Mountgarrett's and +Selling'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 were yet associated with the memory +of that particular day. + +The events of the five months, which intervened between the adjournment +of the National Synod at the end of May, and the meeting of the General +Assembly on the 23rd of October, may best be summed up under the head +of the respective provinces. I. The oath of Confederation was taken +with enthusiasm in Munster, a Provincial Council elected, and General +Barry chosen Commander-in-Chief. Barry made an attempt upon Cork, which +was repulsed, but a few days later the not less important city of +Limerick opened its gates to the Confederates, and on the 21st of June +the citadel was breached and surrendered by Courtenay, the Governor. On +the 2nd of July St. Leger died at Cork (it was said of vexation for the +loss of Limerick), and the command devolved on his son-in-law, Lord +Inchiquin, a pupil of the school of Wards, and a soldier of the school +of Sir Charles Coote. With Inchiquin was associated the Earl of +Barrymore for the civil administration, but on Barrymore's death in +September both powers remained for twelve months in the hands of the +survivor. The gain of Limerick was followed by the taking of Loughgar +and Askeaton, but was counterbalanced by the defeat of Liscarroll, when +the Irish loss was 800 men, with several colours; Inchiquin reported +only 20 killed, including the young lord Kinalmeaky, one of the five +sons whom the Earl of Cork gave to this war. II. In Connaught, Lord +Clanrickarde was still enabled to avert a general outbreak. In vain the +western Prelates besought him in a pathetic remonstrance to place +himself at the head of its injured inhabitants, and take the command of +the Province. He continued to play a middle part between the President, +Lord Ranelagh, Sir Charles Coote the younger, and Willoughby, Governor +of Galway, until the popular impatience burst all control. The chief of +the O'Flahertys seized Clanrickarde's castle, of Aughrenure, and the +young men of Galway, with a skill and decision quite equal to that of +the Derry apprentices of an after day, seized an English ship +containing arms and supplies, lying in the bay, marched to the Church +of Saint Nicholas, took the Confederate oath, and shut Willoughby up in +the citadel. Clanrickarde hastened to extinguish this spark of +resistance, and induced the townsmen to capitulate on his personal +guarantee. But Willoughby, on the arrival of reinforcements, under the +fanatical Lord Forbes, at once set the truce made by Clanrickarde at +defiance, burned the suburbs, sacked the Churches, and during August +and September, exercised a reign of terror in the town. About the same +time local risings took place in Sligo, Mayo, and Roscommon, at first +with such success that the President of the Province, Lord Ranelagh, +shut himself up in the castle of Athlone, where he was closely +besieged. III. In Leinster, no military movement of much importance was +made, in consequence of the jealousy the Justices entertained of +Ormond, and the emptiness of the treasury. In June, the Long Parliament +remitted over the paltry sum of 11,500 pounds to the Justices, and +2,000 of the troops, which had all but mutinied for their pay, were +despatched under Ormond to the relief of Athlone. Commissioners arrived +during the summer, appointed by the Parliament to report on the affairs +of Ireland, to whom the Justices submitted a penal code worthy of the +brain of Draco or Domitian; Ormond was raised to the rank of Marquis, +by the King; while the army he commanded grew more and more divided, by +intrigues emanating from the castle and beyond the channel. Before the +month of October, James Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven, an adventurous +nobleman, possessed of large estates both in Ireland and England, +effected his escape from Dublin Castle, where he had been imprisoned on +suspicion by Parsons and Borlase, and joined the Confederation at +Kilkenny. In September, Colonel Thomas Preston, the brave defender of +Louvain, uncle to Lord Gormanstown, landed at Wexford, with three +frigates and several transports, containing a few siege guns, field +pieces, and other stores, 500 officers, and a number of engineers. IV. +In Ulster, where the first blow was struck, and the first hopes were +excited, the prospect had become suddenly overclouded. Monroe took +Dunluce from Lord Antrim by the same stratagem by which Sir Phelim took +Charlemont—inviting himself as a guest, and arresting his host at his +own table. A want of cordial co-operation between the Scotch commander +and "the Undertakers" alone prevented them extinguishing, in one +vigorous campaign, the northern insurrection. So weak and disorganized +were now the thousands who had risen at a bound one short year before, +that the garrisons of Enniskillen, Derry, Newry, and Drogheda, scoured +almost unopposed the neighbouring counties. The troops of Cole, +Hamilton, the Stewarts, Chichesters, and Conways, found little +opposition, and gave no quarter. Sir William Cole, among his claims of +service rendered to the State, enumerated "7,000 of the rebels famished +to death," within a circuit of a few miles from Enniskillen. The +disheartened and disorganized natives were seriously deliberating a +wholesale emigration to the Scottish highlands, when a word of magic +effect was whispered from the sea coast to the interior. On the 6th of +July, Colonel Owen Roe O'Neil arrived off Donegal with a single ship, a +single company of veterans, 100 officers, and a considerable quantity +of ammunition. He landed at Doe Castle, and was escorted by his +kinsman, Sir Phelim, to the fort of Charlemont. A general meeting of +the northern clans was quickly called at Clones, in Monaghan, and +there, on an early day after his arrival, Owen O'Neil was elected +"General-in-Chief of the Catholic Army" of the North, Sir Phelim +resigning in his favour, and taking instead the barren title of +"President of Ulster." At the same moment Lord Lieven arrived from +Scotland with the remainder of the 10,000 voted by the Parliament of +that kingdom. He had known O'Neil abroad, had a high opinion of his +abilities, and wrote to express his surprise "that a man of his +reputation should be engaged in so bad a cause;" to which O'Neil +replied that "he had a better right to come to the relief of his own +country than his lordship had to march into England against his lawful +King." Lieven, before returning home, urged Monroe to act with +promptitude, for that he might expect a severe lesson if the new +commander once succeeded in collecting an army. But Monroe proved deaf +to this advice, and while the Scottish and English forces in the +Province would have amounted, if united, to 20,000 foot and 1,000 +horse, they gave O'Neil time enough to embody, officer, drill, and arm +(at least provisionally), a force not to be despised by even twice +their numbers. + + + +CHAPTER VI. +THE CONFEDERATE WAR—CAMPAIGN OF 1643—THE CESSATION. + +The city of Kilkenny, which had become the capital of the Confederacy, +was favourably placed for the direction of the war in Leinster and +Munster. Nearly equidistant from Dublin, Cork, and Limerick, a meeting +place for most of the southern and south-western roads, important in +itself both as a place of trade, and as the residence of the Duke of +Ormond and the Bishop of Ossory, a better choice could not, perhaps, +have been made, so far as regarded the ancient southern "Half-Kingdom." +But it seems rather surprising that the difficulty of directing the war +in the North and North-West, from a point so far south, did not occur +to the statesmen of the Confederacy. In the defective communications of +those days, especially during a war, partaking even partially of the +character of civil strife, it was hard, if not impossible to expect, +that a supervision could be exercised over a general or an army on the +Erne or the Bann, which might be quite possible and proper on the Suir +or the Shannon. A similar necessity in England necessitated the +creation of the Presidency of the North, with its council and +head-quarters in the city of York; nor need we be surprised to find +that, from the first, the Confederate movements combined themselves +into two groups—the northern and the southern—those which revolved +round the centre of Kilkenny, and those which took their law from the +head-quarters of Owen O'Neil, at Belturbet, or wherever else his camp +happened to be situated. + +The General Assembly met, according to agreement, on the 23rd of +October, 1642, at Kilkenny. Eleven bishops and fourteen lay lords +represented the Irish peerage; two hundred and twenty-six commoners, +the large majority of the constituencies. Both bodies sat in the same +chamber, divided only by a raised dais. The celebrated lawyer, Patrick +Darcy, a member of the Commons' House, was chosen as chancellor, and +everything was conducted with the gravity and deliberation befitting so +venerable an Assembly, and so great an occasion. The business most +pressing, and most delicate, was felt to be the consideration of a form +of supreme executive government. The committee on this subject, who +reported after the interval of a week, was composed of Lords +Gormanstown and Castlehaven, Sir Phelim O'Neil, Sir Richard Belling, +and Mr. Darcy. A "Supreme Council" of six members for each province was +recommended, approved, and elected. The Archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, +and Tuam, the Bishops of Down and of Clonfert, the Lords Gormanstown, +Mountgarrett, Roche, and Mayo, with fifteen of the most eminent +commoners, composed this council. It was provided that the vote of +two-thirds should be necessary to any act affecting the basis of the +Confederacy, but a quorum of nine was sufficient for the transaction of +ordinary business. A guard of honour of 500 foot and 200 horse was +allowed for their greater security. The venerable Mountgarrett, the +head of the Catholic Butlers, (son-in-law of the illustrious Tyrone, +who, in the last years of Elizabeth, had devoted his youthful sword to +the same good cause,) was elected president of this council; and Sir +Richard Belling, a lawyer, and a man of letters, the continuator of Sir +Philip Sydney's _Arcadia_, was appointed secretary. + +The first act of this Supreme Council was to appoint General O'Neil as +Commander-in-Chief in Ulster; General Preston, in Leinster; General +Barry, in Munster; and Sir John Burke as Lieutenant-General in +Connaught; the supreme command in the West being held over for +Clanrickarde, who, it was still hoped, might be led or driven into the +Confederacy. We shall endeavour to indicate in turn the operations of +these commanders, thus chosen or confirmed; leaving the civil and +diplomatic business transacted by the General Assembly, or delegated to +the Supreme Council, for future mention. + +Contrary to the custom of that age, the Confederate troops were not +withdrawn into winter quarters. In November, General Preston, at the +head of 6,000 foot and 600 horse, encountered Monk at Tymahoe and +Ballinakil, with some loss; but before the close of December he had +reduced Birr, Banagher, Burris, and Fort Falkland, and found himself +master of King's county, from the Shannon to the Barrow. In February, +however, he sustained a serious check at Rathconnell, in endeavouring +to intercept the retreat of the English troops from Connaught, under +the command of Lord Ranelagh, and the younger Coote; and in March, +equal ill success attended his attempt to intercept Ormond, in his +retreat from the unsuccessful siege of the town of Ross. Lord +Castlehaven, who was Preston's second in command, attributes both these +reverses to the impetuosity of the general, whose imprudence seems to +have been almost as great as his activity was conspicuous. In April and +May, Preston and Castlehaven took several strongholds in Carlow, +Kildare, and West-Meath, and the General Assembly, which met for its +second session, on the 20th of May, 1643, at Kilkenny, had, on the +whole, good grounds to be satisfied with the success of the war in +Leinster. + +In the Southern Province, considerable military successes might also be +claimed by the Confederates. The Munster troops, under Purcell, the +second in command, a capable soldier, who had learned the art of war in +the armies of the German Empire, relieved Ross, when besieged by +Ormond; General Barry had successfully repulsed an attack on his +head-quarters, the famous old Desmond town of Killmallock. In June, +Barry, Purcell, and Castlehaven drove the enemy before them across the +Funcheon, and at Kilworth brought their main body, under Sir Charles +Vavasour, to action. Vavasour's force was badly beaten, himself +captured, with his cannon and colours, and many of his officers and +men. Inchiquin, who had endeavoured to form a junction with Vavasour, +escaped to one of the few remaining garrisons open to him—probably +Youghal. + +In Connaught, the surrender of Galway, on the 20th of June, eclipsed +all the previous successes, and they were not a few, of +Lieutenant-General Burke. From the day Lord Ranelagh and the younger +Coote deserted the Western province, the Confederate cause had rapidly +advanced. The surrender of "the second fort in the Kingdom"—a sea-port +in that age, not unworthy to be ranked with Cadiz and Bristol, for its +commercial wealth and reputation—was a military event of the first +importance. An English fleet appeared three days after the surrender of +Willoughby, in Galway harbour; but nine long years elapsed before the +Confederate colours were lowered from the towers of the Connaught +citadel. + +In the North, O'Neil, who, without injustice to any of his +contemporaries, may certainly be said to have made, during his seven +years' command, the highest European reputation among the Confederate +generals, gathered his recruits into a rugged district, which forms a +sort of natural camp in the north-west corner of the island. The +mountain plateau of Leitrim, which sends its spurs downwards to the +Atlantic, towards Lough Erne, and into Longford, accessible only by +four or five lines of road, leading over narrow bridges and through +deep defiles, was the nursery selected by this cautious leader, in +which to collect and organize his forces. In the beginning of May—seven +months after the date of his commission, and ten from his solitary +landing at Doe Castle—we find him a long march from his mountain +fortress in Leitrim, at Charlemont, which he had strengthened and +garrisoned, and now saved from a surprise attempted by Monroe, from +Carrickfergus. Having effected that immediate object, he again retired +towards the Leitrim highlands, fighting by the way a smart cavalry +action at Clonish, with a superior force, under Colonels Stewart, +Balfour, and Mervyn. In this affair O'Neil was only too happy to have +carried off his troop with credit; but a fortnight brought him +consolation for Clonish in the brilliant affair of Portlester. He had +descended in force from his hills and taken possession of the greater +part of the ancient Meath. General Monk and Lord Moore were despatched +against him, but reinforced by a considerable body of Meathian +Confederates, under Sir James Dillon, he resolved to risk his first +regular engagement in the field. Taking advantage of the situation of +the ground, about five miles from Trim, he threw up some field works, +placed sixty men in Portlester mill, and patiently awaited the advance +of the enemy. Their assault was overconfident, their rout complete. +Lord Moore, and a large portion of the assailants were slain, and Monk +fled back to Dublin. O'Neil, gathering fresh strength from these +movements, abandoned his mountain stronghold, and established his +head-quarters on the river Erne between Lough Oughter (memorable in his +life and death) and the upper waters of Lough Erne. At this point stood +the town of Belturbet, which, in "the Plantation" of James I., had been +turned over exclusively to British settlers, whose "cagework" houses, +and four acres of garden ground each, had elicited the approval of the +surveyor Pynnar, twenty years before. The surrounding country was +covered with the fortified castles and loop-holed lawns of the chief +_Undertakers_—but few were found of sufficient strength to resist the +arms of O'Neil. At Belturbet, he was within a few days' march of the +vital points of four other counties, and in case of the worst, within +the same distance of his protective fastness. Here, towards the end of +September, busied with present duties and future projects, he heard, +for the first time, with astonishment and grief, that the requisite +majority of "the Supreme Council" had concluded, on the 13th of that +month, a twelve-months' truce with Ormond, thus putting in peril all +the advantages already acquired by the bravery of the Confederate +troops, and the skill of their generals. + +The war had lasted nearly two years, and this was the first time the +Catholics had consented to negotiate. The moment chosen was a critical +one for all the three Kingdoms, and the interests involved were +complicated in the extreme. The Anglo-Irish, who formed the majority of +the Supreme Council, connected by blood and language with England, had +entered into the war, purely as one of religious liberty. Nationally, +they had, apart from the civil disabilities imposed on religious +grounds, no antipathy, no interest, hostile to the general body of +English loyalists, represented in Ireland by the King's lieutenant, +Ormond. On his side, that nobleman gave all his thoughts to, and +governed all his actions by the exigencies of the royal cause, +throughout the three Kingdoms. When Charles seemed strong in England, +Ormond rated the Catholics at a low figure; but when reverses increased +he estimated their alliance more highly. After the drawn battle of +Edgehill, fought on the very day of the first meeting of the General +Assembly at Kilkenny, the King had established his head-quarters at +Oxford, in the heart of four or five of the most loyal counties in +England. Here he at first negotiated with the Parliament, but finally +the sword was again invoked, and while the King proclaimed the +Parliament rebels, "the solemn league and covenant" was entered into, +at first separately, and afterwards jointly, by the Puritans of England +and Presbyterians of Scotland. The military events during that year, +and in the first half of the next, were upon the whole not unfavourable +to the royal cause. The great battle of Marston Moor, (July 2nd, 1644,) +which "extinguished the hopes of the Royalists in the Northern +counties," was the first Parliamentary victory of national importance. +It was won mainly by the energy and obstinacy of Lieutenant-General +Cromwell, from that day forth the foremost English figure in the Civil +War. From his court at Oxford, where he had seen the utter failure of +endeavouring to conciliate his English and Scottish enemies, the King +had instructed Ormond—lately created a Marquis—to treat with the Irish +Catholics, and to obtain from them men and money. The overtures thus +made were brought to maturity in September; the Cessation was to last +twelve months; each party was to remain in possession of its own +quarters, as they were held at the date of the treaty; the forces of +each were to unite to punish any infraction of the terms agreed on; the +agents of the Confederates, during the cessation, were to have free +access and safe conduct to the King; and for these advantages, the +Supreme Council were to present his Majesty immediately with 15,000 +pounds in money, and provisions to the value of 15,000 pounds more. + +Such was "the truce of Castlemartin," condemned by O'Neil, by the Papal +Nuncio, Scarampi, and by the great majority of the old Irish, lay and +clerical; still more violently denounced by the Puritan Parliament as +favouring Popery, and negotiated by Popish agents; beneficial to Ormond +and the Undertakers, as relieving Dublin, freeing the channel from +Irish privateers, and securing them in the garrisons throughout the +Kingdom which they still held; in one sense advantageous to Charles, +from the immediate supplies it afforded, and the favourable impression +it created of his liberality, at the courts of his Catholic allies; but +on the other hand disadvantageous to him in England and Scotland, from +the pretexts it furnished his enemies, of renewing the cry of his +connivance with Popery, a cry neither easily answered, nor, of itself, +liable quickly to wear out. + + + +CHAPTER VII. +THE CESSATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. + +While the Confederate delegates, reverently uncovered, and Ormond, in +hat and plume, as representing royalty, were signing "the cessation" at +Castlemartin, the memorable Monroe, with all his men, were taking the +covenant, on their knees, in the church of Carrickfergus, at the hands +of the informer O'Connolly, now a colonel in the Parliamentary army, +and high in the confidence of its chiefs. Soon after this ceremony, +Monroe, appointed by the English Parliament Commander-in-Chief of all +their forces in Ulster, united under his immediate leadership, of +Scots, English, and Undertakers, not less than 10,000 men. With this +force he marched southward as far as Newry, which he found an easy +prey, and where he put to the sword, after surrender, sixty men, +eighteen women, and two ecclesiastics. In vain the Confederates +entreated Ormond to lead them against the common enemy in the North; +pursuing always a line of policy of his own, in which their interest +had a very slender part, that astute politician neither took the field, +nor consented that they should do so of themselves. But the Supreme +Council, roused by the remonstrances of the clergy, ordered Lord +Castlehaven, with the title of Commander-in-Chief, to march against +Monroe. This was virtually superseding O'Neil in his own province, and +that it was so felt, even by its authors, is plain from their giving +him simultaneously the command in Connaught. O'Neil, never greater than +in acts of self-denial and self-sacrifice, stifled his profound +chagrin, and cheerfully offered to serve under the English Earl, placed +over his head. But the northern movements were, for many months, +languid and uneventful; both parties seemed uncertain of their true +policy; both, from day to day, awaited breathlessly for tidings from +Kilkenny, Dublin, London, Oxford, or Edinburgh, to learn what new forms +the general contest was to take, in order to guide their own conduct by +the shifting phases of that intricate diplomacy. + +Among the first consequences of the cessation were the debarkation at +Mostyn, in Scotland, of 3,000 well provided Irish troops, under +_Colkitto_ (the left-handed,) Alexander McDonnell, brother of Lord +Antrim. Following the banner of Montrose, these regiments performed +great things at Saint Johnstown, at Aberdeen, at Inverlochy, all which +have been eloquently recorded by the historians of that period. "Their +reputation," says a cautious writer, "more than their number, unnerved +the prowess of their enemies. No force ventured to oppose them in the +field; and as they advanced, every fort was abandoned or surrendered." +A less agreeable result of "the cessation," for the court at Oxford, +was the retirement from the royal army of the Earl of Newcastle, and +most of his officers, on learning that such favourable conditions had +been made with Irish Papists. To others of his supporters—as the Earl +of Shrewsbury—Charles was forced to assume a tone of apology for that +truce, pleading the hard necessities which compelled him: the truth +seems to be, that there were not a few then at Oxford, who, like Lord +Spencer, would gladly have been on the other side—or at all events in a +position of neutrality—provided they could have found "a salve for +their honour," as gentlemen and cavaliers. + +The year 1644 opened for the Irish with two events of great +significance—the appointment of Ormond as Viceroy, in January, and the +execution at Tyburn, by order of the English Parliament, of Lord +Maguire, a prisoner in the Tower since October, 1641. Maguire died with +a courage and composure worthy of his illustrious name, and his +profoundly religious character. His long absence had not effaced his +memory from the hearts of his devoted clansmen of Fermanagh, and many a +prayer was breathed, and many a vow of vengeance muttered among them, +for what they must naturally have regarded as the cold-blooded judicial +murder of their chief. + +Two Irish deputations—one Catholic, the other Protestant—proceeded this +year to the King, at Oxford, with the approval of Ormond, who took care +to be represented by confidential agents of his own. The Catholics +found a zealous auxiliary in the queen, Henrietta Maria, who, as a +co-religionist, felt with them, and, as a Frenchwoman, was free from +insular prejudices against them. The Irish Protestants found a scarcely +less influential advocate in the venerable Archbishop Usher, whose +presence and countenance, as the most puritanical of his prelates, was +most essential to the policy of Charles. The King heard both parties +graciously—censured some of the demands of both as extravagant, and +beyond his power to concede—admitted others to be reasonable and worthy +of consideration—refused to confirm the churches they had seized to the +Catholics—but was willing to allow them their "seminaries of +education"—would not consent to enforce the penal laws on the demand of +the Protestants—but declared that neither should the Undertakers be +disturbed in their possessions or offices. In short, he pathetically +exhorted both parties to consider his case as well as their own; +promised them to call together the Irish Parliament at the earliest +possible period; and so got rid of both deputations, leaving Ormond +master of the position for some time longer. + +The agents and friends of the Irish Catholics on the Continent were +greatly embarrassed, and not a little disheartened by the cessation. At +Paris, at Brussels, at Madrid, but above all at Rome, it was regretted, +blamed, or denounced, according to the temper or the insight of the +discontented. His Catholic Majesty had some time before remitted a +contribution of 20,000 dollars to the Confederate Treasury; one of +Richelieu's last acts was to invite Con, son of Hugh O'Neil, to the +French Court, and to permit the shipment of some pieces of ordnance to +Ireland; from Rome, the celebrated Franciscan, Father Luke Wadding, had +remitted 26,000 dollars, and the Nuncio Scarampi had brought further +donations. The facility, therefore, with which the cessation had been +agreed upon, against the views of the agents of the Catholic powers at +Kilkenny, without any apparently sufficient cause, had certainly a +tendency to check and chill the enthusiasm of those Catholic Princes +who had been taught to look on the insurrection of the Irish as a +species of Crusade. Remonstrances, warm, eloquent, and passionate, were +poured in upon the most influential members of the Supreme Council, +from those who had either by delegation, or from their own free will, +befriended them abroad. These remonstrances reached that powerful body +at Waterford, at Limerick, or at Galway, whither they had gone on an +official visitation, to hear complaints, settle controversies, and +provide for the better collection of the assessments imposed on each +Province. + +An incident which occurred in Ulster, soon startled the Supreme Council +from their pacific occupations. General Monroe, having proclaimed that +all Protestants within his command should take "the solemn league and +covenant," three thousand of that religion, still loyalists, met at +Belfast, to deliberate on their answer. Monroe, however, apprised of +their intentions, marched rapidly from Carrickfergus, entered the town +under cover of night, and drove out the loyal Protestants at the point +of the sword. The fugitives threw themselves into Lisburn, and Monroe +appointed Colonel Hume as Governor of Belfast, for the Parliaments of +Scotland and England. Castlehaven, with O'Neil still second in command, +was now despatched northward against the army of the Covenant. Monroe, +who had advanced to the borders of Meath as if to meet them, contented +himself with gathering in great herds of cattle; as they advanced, he +slowly fell back before them through Louth and Armagh, to his original +head-quarters; Castlehaven then returned with the main body of the +Confederate troops to Kilkenny, and O'Neil, depressed, but not +dismayed, carried his contingent to their former position at Belturbet. + +In Munster, a new Parliamentary party had time to form its combinations +under the shelter of the cessation. The Earl of Inchiquin, who had +lately failed to obtain the Presidency of Munster from the King at +Oxford, and the Lord Broghill, son of the great Southern Undertaker—the +first Earl of Cork,—were at the head of this movement. Under pretence +that the quarters allotted them by the cessation had been violated, +they contrived to seize upon Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale. At Cork, they +publicly executed Father Mathews, a Friar, and proceeding from violence +to violence, they drove from the three places all the Catholic +inhabitants. They then forwarded a petition to the King, beseeching him +to declare the Catholics "rebels," and declaring their own +determination to "die a thousand deaths sooner than condescend to any +peace with them." At the same time they entered into or avowed their +correspondence with the English Parliament, which naturally enough +encouraged and assisted them. The Supreme Council met these +demonstrations with more stringent instructions to General Purcell, now +their chief in command, (Barry having retired on account of advanced +age,) to observe the cessation, and to punish severely every infraction +of it. At the same time they permitted or directed Purcell to enter +into a trace with Inchiquin till the following April; and then they +rested on their arms, in religious fidelity to the engagements they had +signed at Castlemartin. + +The twelve-months' truce was fast drawing to a close, when the battle +of Marston Moor stimulated Ormond to effect a renewal of the treaty. +Accordingly, at his request, Lord Muskerry, and five other +commissioners, left Kilkenny on the last day of August for Dublin. +Between them and the Viceroy, the cessation was prolonged till the +first of December following; and when that day came, it was further +protracted, as would appear, for three months, by which time, (March, +1645,) Ormond informed them that he had powers from the King to treat +for a permanent settlement. + +During the six months that the original cessation was thus protracted +by the policy of Ormond, the Supreme Council sent abroad new agents, +"to know what they had to trust to, and what succours they might really +depend on from abroad." Father Hugh Bourke was sent to Spain, and Sir +Richard Belling to Rome, where Innocent X, had recently succeeded to +that generous friend of the Catholic Irish. Urban VIII. The voyage of +these agents was not free from hazard, for, whereas, before the +cessation, the privateers commissioned by the Council, sheltered and +supplied in the Irish harbours, had kept the southern coast clear of +hostile shipping, now that they had been withdrawn under the truce, the +parliamentary cruisers had the channel all to themselves. Waterford and +Wexford—the two chief Catholic ports in that quarter—instead of seeing +their waters crowded with prizes, now began to tremble for their own +safety. The strong fort of Duncannon, on the Wexford side of Waterford +harbour, was corruptly surrendered by Lord Esmond, to Inchiquin and the +Puritans. After a ten-weeks' siege, however, and the expenditure of +19,000 pounds of powder, the Confederates retook the fort, in spite of +all the efforts made for its relief. Esmond, old and blind, escaped by +a timely death the penalty due to his treason. Following up this +success, Castlehaven rapidly invested other southern strongholds in +possession of the same party, Cappoquin, Lismore, Mallow, Mitchelstown, +Doneraile and Liscarroll surrendered on articles; Rostellan, commanded +by Inchiquin's brother, was stormed and taken; Boghill was closely +besieged in Youghal, but, being relieved from sea, successfully +defended himself. In another quarter, the Parliament was equally +active. To compensate for the loss of Galway, they had instructed the +younger Coote, on whom they had conferred the Presidency of Connaught, +to withdraw the regiment of Sir Frederick Hamilton, and 400 other +troops, from the command of Monroe, and with these, Sir Robert +Stewart's forces, and such others as he could himself raise, to invest +Sligo. Against the force thus collected, Sligo could not hope to +contend, and soon, from that town, as from a rallying and resting +place, 2,000 horsemen were daily launched upon the adjoining country. +Lord Clanrickarde, the royal president of the province, as unpopular as +trimmers usually are in times of crisis, was unable to make head +against this new danger. But the Confederates, under Sir James Dillon, +and Dr. O'Kelly, the heroic Archbishop of Tuam, moved by the pitiful +appeals of the Sligo people, boldly endeavoured to recover the town. +They succeeded in entering the walls, but were subsequently repulsed +and routed. The Archbishop was captured and tortured to death; some of +the noblest families of the province and of Meath had also to mourn +their chiefs; and several valuable papers, found or pretended to be +found in the Archbishop's carriage, were eagerly given to the press of +London by the Parliament of England. This tragedy at Sligo occurred on +Sunday, October 26th, 1645. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +GLAMORGAN'S TREATY—THE NEW NUNCIO RINUCCINI—O'NEIL'S POSITION—THE +BATTLE OF BENBURB. + +Ormond had amused the Confederates with negotiations for a permanent +peace and settlement, from spring till midsummer, when Charles, +dissatisfied with these endless delays, despatched to Ireland a more +hopeful ambassador. This was Herbert, Earl of Glamorgan, one of the few +Catholics remaining among the English nobility; son and heir to the +Marquis of Worcester, and son-in-law to Henry O'Brien, Earl of Thomond. +Of a family devoutly attached to the royal cause, to which it is said +they had contributed not less than 200,000 pounds, Glamorgan's +religion, his rank, his Irish connections, the intimate confidence of +the King which he was known to possess, all marked out his embassy as +one of the utmost importance. + +The story of this mission has been perplexed and darkened by many +controversies. But the general verdict of historians seems now to be, +that Charles I., whose many good qualities as a man and a ruler are +cheerfully admitted on all hands, was yet utterly deficient in +downright good faith; that duplicity was his besetting sin; and that +Glamorgan's embassy is one, but only one, of the strongest evidences of +that ingrained duplicity. + +It may help to the clearer understanding of the negotiations conducted +by Glamorgan in Ireland, if we give in the first place the exact dates +of the first transactions. The Earl arrived at Dublin about the 1st of +August, and, after an interview with Ormond, proceeded to Kilkenny. On +the 28th of that month, preliminary articles were agreed to and signed +by the Earl on behalf of the King, and by Lords Mountgarrett and +Muskerry on behalf of the Confederates. It was necessary, it seems, to +get the concurrence of the Viceroy to these terms, and accordingly the +negotiators on both sides repaired to Dublin. Here, Ormond contrived to +detain them ten long weeks in discussions on the articles relating to +religion; it was the 12th of November when they returned to Kilkenny, +with a much modified treaty. On the next day, the 13th, the new Papal +Nuncio, a prelate who, by his rank, his eloquence, and his imprudence, +was destined to exercise a powerful influence on the Catholic councils, +made his public entry into that city. + +This personage was John Baptist Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo, in the +Marches of Ancona, which see he had preferred to the more exalted +dignity of Florence. By birth a Tuscan, the new Nuncio had +distinguished himself from boyhood by his passionate attachment to his +studies. At Bologna, at Perugia, and at Rome, his intense application +brought him early honours, and early physical debility. His health, +partially restored in the seclusion of his native valley of the Arno, +enabled him to return again to Rome. Enjoying the confidence of Gregory +XV. and Uban VIII., he was named successively, Clerk of the Chamber, +Secretary of the Congregation of Rites, and Archbishop of Fermo. This +was the prelate chosen by the new Pope, Innocent X., for the nunciature +in Ireland: a man of noble birth, in the fifty-third year of his age, +of uncertain bodily health, of great learning, especially as a +canonist, of a fiery Italian temperament,—"regular and even austere in +his life, and far from any taint of avarice or corruption,"—such was +the admission of his enemies. + +Leaving Italy in May, accompanied by the Dean of Fermo, who has left us +a valuable record of the embassy, his other household officers, several +Italian noblemen, and Sir Richard Belling, the special agent at Rome, +the Nuncio, by way of Genoa and Marseilles, reached Paris. In France he +was detained nearly five months, in a fruitless attempt to come to some +definite arrangement as to the conduct of the Catholic war, through +Queen Henrietta Maria, then resident with the young Prince of +Wales—afterwards Charles II.—at the French court. The Queen, like most +persons of her rank, overwhelmed with adversity, was often unreasonably +suspicious and exacting. Her sharp woman's tongue did not spare those +on whom her anger fell, and there were not wanting those, who, +apprehensive of the effect in England of her negotiating directly with +a papal minister, did their utmost to delay or to break off their +correspondence. A nice point of court etiquette further embarrassed the +business. The Nuncio could not uncover his head before the Queen, and +Henrietta would not receive him otherwise than uncovered. After three +months lost in Paris, he was obliged to proceed on his journey, +contenting himself with an exchange of complimentary messages with the +Queen, whom even the crushing blow of Naseby could not induce to waive +a point of etiquette with a Priest. + +On reaching Rochelle, where he intended to take shipping, a further +delay of six weeks took place, as was supposed by the machinations of +Cardinal Mazarin. Finally, the Nuncio succeeded in purchasing a frigate +of 26 guns, the _San Pietro_, on which he embarked with all his Italian +suite, Sir Richard Belling, and several Franco-Irish officers. He had +also on board a considerable sum in Spanish gold, (including another +contribution of 36,000 dollars from Father Wadding,) 2,000 muskets, +2,000 cartouch belts, 4,000 swords, 2,000 pike heads, 400 brace of +pistols, 20,000 pounds of powder, with match, shot, and other stores. +Weighing from St. Martin's in the Isle of Rhe, the _San Pietro_ doubled +the Land's End, and stood over towards the Irish coast. The third day +out they were chased for several hours by two Parliamentary cruisers, +but escaped under cover of the night; on the fourth morning, being the +21st of October, they found themselves safely embayed in the waters of +Kenmare, on the coast of Kerry. + +The first intelligence which reached the Nuncio on landing, was the +negotiation of Glamorgan, of which he had already heard, while waiting +a ship at Rochelle. The next was the surrender by the Earl of Thomond, +of his noble old castle of Bunratty, commanding the Shannon within six +miles of Limerick, to the Puritans. This surrender had, however, +determined the resolution of the city of Limerick, which hitherto had +taken no part in the war, to open its gates to the Confederates. The +loss of Bunratty was more than compensated by the gaining of one of the +finest and strongest towns in Munster, and to Limerick accordingly the +Nuncio paid the compliment of his first visit. Here he received the +mitre of the diocese in dutiful submission from the hands of the +Bishop, on entering the Cathedral; and here he celebrated a solemn +requiem mass for the repose of the soul of the Archbishop of Tuam, +lately slain before Sligo. From Limerick, borne along on his litter, +such was the feebleness of his health, he advanced by slow stages to +Kilkenny, escorted by a guard of honour, despatched on that duty, by +the Supreme Council. + +The pomp and splendour of his public entry into the Catholic capital +was a striking spectacle. The previous night he slept at a village +three miles from the city, for which he set out early on the morning of +the 13th of November, escorted by his guard, and a vast multitude of +the people. Five delegates from the Supreme Council accompanied him. A +band of fifty students mounted on horseback met him on the way, and +their leader, crowned with laurel, recited some congratulatory Latin +verses. At the city gate he left the litter and mounted a horse richly +housed; here the procession of the clergy and the city guilds awaited +him; at the Market Cross, a Latin oration was delivered in his honour, +to which he graciously replied in the same language. From the Cross he +was escorted to the Cathedral, at the door of which he was received by +the aged Bishop, Dr. David Rothe. At the high altar he intonated the +_Te Deum_, and gave the multitude the apostolic benediction. Then he +was conducted to his lodgings, where he was soon waited upon by Lord +Muskerry and General Preston, who brought him to Kilkenny Castle, +where, in the great gallery, which elicited even a Florentine's +admiration, he was received in stately formality by the President of +the Council—Lord Mountgarrett. Another Latin oration on the nature of +his embassy was delivered by the Nuncio, responded to by Heber, Bishop +of Clogher, and so the ceremony of reception ended. + +The Nuncio brought from Paris a new subject of difficulty, in the form +of a memorial from the English Catholics at Rome, praying that they +might be included in the terms of any peace which might be made by +their Irish co-religionists with the King. Nothing could be more +natural than that the members of the same persecuted church should make +common cause, but nothing could be more impolitic than some of the +demands made in the English memorial. They wished it to be stipulated +with Charles, that he would allow a distinct military organization to +the English and Irish Catholics in his service, under Catholic general +officers, subject only to the King's commands, meaning thereby, if they +meant what they said, independence of all parliamentary and ministerial +control. Yet several of the stipulations of this memorial were, after +many modifications and discussions, adopted by Glamorgan into his +original articles, and under the treaty thus ratified, the Confederates +bound themselves to despatch 10,000 men, fully armed and equipped, to +the relief of Chester and the general succour of the King in England. +Towards the close of December, the English Earl, with two Commissioners +from the Supreme Council, set forth for Dublin, to obtain the Viceroy's +sanction to the amended treaty. But in Dublin a singular counterplot in +this perplexed drama awaited them. On St. Stephen's day, while at +dinner, Glamorgan was arrested by Ormond, on a charge of having +exceeded his instructions, and confined a close prisoner in the castle. +The gates of the city were closed, and every means taken to give +_éclat_ to this extraordinary proceeding. The Confederate Commissioners +were carried to the castle, and told they might congratulate themselves +on not sharing the cell prepared for Glamorgan. "Go back," they were +told, "to Kilkenny and tell the President of the Council, that the +Protestants of England would fling the King's person out at his window, +_if they believed it possible_ that he lent himself to such an +undertaking." The Commissioners accordingly went back and delivered +their errand, with a full account of all the circumstances. +Fortunately, the General Assembly had been called for an early day in +January, 1646, at Kilkenny. When, therefore, they met, their first +resolution was to despatch Sir Robert Talbot to the Viceroy, with a +letter suspending all negotiations till the Earl of Glamorgan was set +at liberty. By the end of January, on the joint bail, for 40,000 +pounds, of the Earls of Clanrickarde and Kildare, the English envoy was +enlarged, and, to the still further amazement of the simple-minded +Catholics, on his arrival at Kilkenny, he justified rather than +censured the action of Ormond. To most observers it appeared that these +noblemen understood each other only too well. + +From January till June, Kilkenny was delivered over to cabals, +intrigues, and recriminations. There was an "old Irish party," to which +the Nuncio inclined, and an "Anglo-Irish party," headed by Mountgarrett +and the majority of the Council. The former stigmatized the latter as +Ormondists, and the latter retorted on them with the name of the +Nuncio's party. In February came news of a foreign treaty made at Rome +between Sir Kenelm Digby and the Pope's Ministers, most favourable to +the English and Irish Catholics. On the 28th of March, a final +modification of Glamorgan's articles, reduced to thirty in number, was +signed by Ormond for the King, and Lord Muskerry and the other +Commissioners for the Confederates. These thirty articles conceded, in +fact, all the most essential claims of the Irish; they secured them +equal rights as to property, in the Army, in the Universities, and at +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, this 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, or 1829. Though some conditions were +omitted, to which Rinuccini 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. + +The treaty, thus concluded at the end of March, was to lie as an +_escroll_ in the hands of the Marquis of Clanrickarde till the 1st of +May, awaiting Sir Kenelm Digby with the Roman protocol. And then, not +withstanding the dissuasions of Rinuccini to the contrary, it was to be +kept secret from the world, though some of its obligations were +expected to be at once fulfilled, on their side, by the Catholics. The +Supreme Council, ever eager to exhibit their loyalty, gathered together +6,000 troops for the relief of Chester and the service of the King in +England, so soon as both treaties—the Irish and the Roman—should be +signed by Charles. While so waiting, they besieged and took Bunratty +castle—already referred to—but Sir Kenelm Digby did not arrive with +May, and they now learned, to their renewed amazement, that Glamorgan's +whole negotiation was disclaimed by the King in England. In the same +interval Chester fell, and the King was obliged to throw himself into +the hands of the Scottish Parliament, who surrendered him for a price +to their English coadjutors. These tidings reached Ireland during May, +and, varied with the capture of an occasional fortress, lost or won, +occupied all men's minds. But the first days of June were destined to +bring with them a victory of national—of European importance—won by +Owen O'Neil, in the immediate vicinity of his grand-uncle's famous +battle-field of the Yellow Ford. + +During these three years of intrigue and negotiation, the position of +General O'Neil was hazardous and difficult in the extreme. One campaign +he had served under a stranger, as second on his own soil. In the other +two he was fettered by the terms of "cessation" to his own quarters; +and to add to his embarrassments, his impetuous kinsman Sir Phelim, +brave, rash, and ambitious, recently married to a daughter of his +ungenerous rival, General Preston, was incited to thwart and obstruct +him amongst their mutual clansmen and connections. The only recompense +which seems to have been awarded to him, was the confidence of the +Nuncio, who, either from that knowledge of character in which the +Italians excel, or from bias received from some other source, at once +singled him out as the man of his people. What portion of the Nuncio's +supplies reached the Northern General we know not, but in the beginning +of June, he felt himself in a position to bring on an engagement with +Monroe, who, lately reinforced by both Parliaments, had marched out of +Carrickfergus into Tyrone, with a view of penetrating as far south as +Kilkenny. On the 4th day of June, the two armies encountered at +Benburb, on the little river Blackwater, about six miles north of +Armagh, and the most signal victory of the war came to recompense the +long-enduring patience of O'Neil. + +The battle of Benburb has been often and well described. In a naturally +strong position—with this leader the choice of ground seems to have +been a first consideration—the Irish, for four hours, received and +repulsed the various charges of the Puritan horse. Then as the sun +began to descend, pouring its rays upon the opposing force, O'Neil led +his whole force—five thousand men against eight—to the attack. One +terrible onset swept away every trace of resistance. There were counted +on the field, 3,243 of the Covenanters, and of the Catholics, but 70 +killed and 100 wounded. Lord Ardes, and 21 Scottish officers, 32 +standards, 1,500 draught horses, and all the guns and tents, were +captured. Monroe fled in panic to Lisburn, and thence to Carrickfergus, +where he shut himself up, till he could obtain reinforcements. O'Neil +forwarded the captured colours to the Nuncio, at Limerick, by whom they +were solemnly placed in the choir of St. Mary's Cathedral, and +afterwards, at the request of Pope Innocent, sent to Rome. _Te Deum_ +was chanted in the Confederate Capital; penitential psalms were sung in +the Northern fortress. "The Lord of Hosts," wrote Monroe, "had rubbed +shame on our faces, till once we are humbled;" O'Neil emblazoned the +cross and keys on his banner with the Red Hand of Ulster, and openly +resumed the title originally chosen by his adherents at Clones, "the +Catholic Army." + + + +CHAPTER IX. +FROM THE BATTLE OF BENBURB TILL THE LANDING OF CROMWELL AT DUBLIN. + +The Nuncio, elated by the great victory of O'Neil, to which he felt he +had personally contributed by his seasonable supplies, provoked and +irritated by Ormond's intrigues and the King's insincerity, rushed with +all the ardour of his character into making the war an uncompromising +Catholic crusade. In this line of conduct, he was supported by the +Archbishops of Dublin and Cashel, by ten of the Bishops, including the +eminent Prelates of Limerick, Killalla, Ferns, and Clogher; the +Procurator of Armagh; nine Vicars-general, and the Superiors of the +Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians. The peace party, on +the other hand, were not without clerical adherents, but they were +inconsiderable, as to influence and numbers. They were now become as +anxious to publish the Thirty Articles agreed upon at the end of March, +as they then were to keep them secret. Accordingly, with Ormond's +consent, copies of the treaty were sent early in August to the sheriffs +of counties, mayors of cities, and other leading persons, with +instructions to proclaim it publicly in due form; upon hearing which, +the Nuncio and his supporters of the clergy, secular and regular, +assembled in council at Waterford, on the 12th of August, solemnly +declared that they gave no consent, and would not, "to any peace," that +did not grant "further, surer, and safer considerations for their +religion, king, and country," according to the original oath of the +Confederacy. + +The rupture between the clergy and the laymen of the Council was now +complete. The prelates who signed the decree of Waterford, of course, +thereby withdrew from the body whose action they condemned. In vain the +learned Darcy and the eloquent Plunkett went to and fro between the two +bodies: concord and confidence were at an end. The synod decided to +address Lord Mountgarrett in future as President of "the _late_ Supreme +Council." The heralds who attempted to publish the Thirty Articles in +Clonmel and Waterford were hooted or stoned; while in Limerick the +mayor, endeavouring to protect them, shared this rough usage. Ormond, +who was at Kilkenny at the critical moment of the breach, did his +utmost to sustain the resolution of those who were stigmatized by his +name; while the Nuncio, suspicious of Preston, wrote urgently to O'Neil +to lead his army into Leinster, and remove the remnant of the late +council from Kilkenny. All that those who held a middle course between +the extremes could do, was to advocate an early meeting of the General +Assembly; but various exigencies delayed this much-desired meeting, +till the 10th day of January, 1647. + +The five intervening months were months of triumph for Rinuccini. Lord +Digby appeared at Dublin as a special agent from the King, to declare +his consent to Glamorgan's original terms; but Ormond still insisted +that he had no authority to go beyond the Thirty Articles. Charles +himself wrote privately to Rinuccini, promising to confirm everything +which Glamorgan had proposed, as soon as he should come into "the +Nuncio's hands." Ormond, after a fruitless attempt to convert O'Neil to +his views, had marched southward with a guard of 1,500 foot, and 500 +horse, to endeavour to conciliate the towns, and to win over the Earl +of Inchiquin. In both these objects he failed. He found O'Neil before +him in his county palatinate of Tipperary, and the Mayor of Cashel +informed him that he dared not allow him into that city, for fear of +displeasing the northern general. Finding himself thus unexpectedly +within a few miles of "the Catholic Army," 10,000 strong, the Viceroy +retreated precipitately through Kilkenny, Carlow, and Kildare, to +Dublin. Lord Digby, who had accompanied him, after an unsuccessful +attempt to cajole the Synod of Waterford, made the best of his way back +to France; the Marquis of Clanrickarde, who had also been of the +expedition, shared the flight of Ormond. Towards the middle of +September, O'Neil's army, after capturing Roscrea Castle, marched to +Kilkenny, and encamped near that city. His forces had now augmented to +12,000 foot, and 1,500 horse; on the 18th of the month, he escorted the +Nuncio in triumph into Kilkenny, where the Ormondist members of the old +council were committed to close custody in the castle. A new council, +of four bishops and eight laymen, was established on the 26th, with the +Nuncio as president; Glamorgan succeeded Castlehaven, who had gone over +to Ormond, as commander in Munster; while O'Neil and Preston were +ordered to unite their forces for the siege of Dublin. The sanguine +Italian dreamt of nothing less, for the moment, than the creation of +Viceroys, the deliverance of the King, and the complete restoration of +the ancient religion. + +O'Neil and Preston, by different routes, on which they were delayed in +taking several garrisoned posts, united at Lucan in the valley of the +Liffey, seven miles west of Dublin, on the 9th of November. Their joint +forces are represented at 16,000 foot, and 1,600 horse—of which Preston +had about one-third, and O'Neil the remainder. Preston's head-quarters +were fixed at Leixlip, and O'Neil's at Newcastle—points equi-distant, +and each within two hours' march of the capital. Within the walls of +that city there reigned the utmost consternation. Many of the +inhabitants fled beyond seas, terrified by the fancied cruelty of the +Ulstermen. But Ormond retained all his presence of mind, and readiness +of resources. He entered, at first covertly, into arrangements with the +Parliamentarians, who sent him a supply of powder; he wrote urgently to +Monroe to make a diversion in his favour; he demolished the mills and +suburbs which might cover the approaches of the enemy; he employed +soldiers, civilians, and even women, upon the fortifications,—Lady +Ormond setting an example to her sex, in rendering her feeble +assistance. Clanrickarde, in Preston's tent, was doing the work of +stimulating the old antipathy of that general towards O'Neil, which led +to conflicting advices in Council, and some irritating personal +altercations. To add to the Confederate embarrassment, the winter was +the most severe known for many years; from twenty to thirty sentinels +being frozen at night at their posts. On the 13th of November, while +the plan of the Confederate attack was still undecided, commissioners +of the Parliament arrived, with ample stores, in Dublin Bay. On the +next day they landed at Ringsend, and entered into negotiations with +Ormond; on the 16th the siege was raised, and on the 23rd Ormond broke +off the treaty, having unconsciously saved Dublin from the +Confederates, by the incorrect reports of supplies being received, +which were finally carried northward to Monroe. + +The month of January brought the meeting of the General Assembly. The +attendance in the great gallery of Ormond Castle was as large, and the +circumstances upon the whole as auspicious as could be desired, in the +seventh year of such a struggle. The members of the old council, +liberated from arrest, were in their places. O'Neil and Preston, +publicly reconciled, had signed a solemn engagement to assist and +sustain each other. The Nuncio, the Primate of Ireland, and eleven +bishops took their seats; the peers of oldest title in the kingdom were +present; two hundred and twenty-four members represented the Commons of +Ireland, and among the spectators sat the ambassadors of France and +Spain, and of King Charles. The main subject of discussion was the +sufficiency of the Thirty Articles, and the propriety of the +ecclesiastical censure promulgated against those who had signed them. +The debate embraced all that may be said on the question of clerical +interference in political affairs, on conditional and unconditional +allegiance, on the power of the Pontiff speaking _ex cathedra_, and the +prerogatives of the temporal sovereign. It was protracted through an +entire month, and ended with a compromise, which declared that the +Commissioners had acted in good faith in signing the articles, while it +justified the Synod of Waterford for having, as judges of the nature +and intent of the oath of Confederation, declared them insufficient and +unacceptable. A new oath of Confederacy, solemnly binding the +associates not to lay down their arms till they had established the +free and public exercise of religion as it had existed in the reign of +Henry VII., was framed and taken by the entire General Assembly; the +Thirty Articles were declared insufficient and unacceptable by all but +a minority of twelve votes; a new Supreme Council of twenty-four was +chosen, in whom there were not known to be above four or five partisans +of Ormond's policy. The church plate throughout the kingdom was ordered +to be coined into money, and a formal proposal to co-operate with the +Viceroy on the basis of the new oath was made, but instantly rejected; +among other grounds, on this, that the Marquis had, at that moment, his +son and and other sureties with the Puritans who, in the last resort, +he infinitely preferred to the Roman Catholics. + +The military events of the year 1647 were much more decisive than its +politics. Glamorgan still commanded in Munster, Preston in Leinster, +and O'Neil in both Ulster and Connaught. The first was confronted by +Inchiquin, at the head of a corps of 5,000 foot and 1,500 horse, +equipped and supplied by the English Puritans; the second saw the +garrisons of Dundalk, Drogheda, and Dublin, reinforced by fresh +regiments of Covenanters, and fed by Parliamentary supplies from the +sea; the latter was in the heart of Connaught, organizing and +recruiting and attempting all things within his reach, but hampered for +money, clothing and ammunition. In Connaught, O'Neil was soon joined by +the Nuncio, who, as difficulties thickened, began to lean more and more +on the strong arm of the victor of Benburb; in Munster, the army +refused to follow the lead of Glamorgan, and clamoured for their old +chief, Lord Muskerry; finally, that division of the national troops was +committed by the Council to Lord Taafe, a politician of the school of +Ormond and Clanrickarde, wholly destitute of military experience. The +vigorous Inchiquin had little difficulty in dealing with such an +antagonist; Cashel was taken without a blow in its defence, and a +slaughter unparalleled till the days of Drogheda and Wexford, deluged +its streets and churches. At Knocknos, later in the autumn (Nov. 12th), +Taafe was utterly routed; the gallant _Colkitto_, serving under him, +lamentably sacrificed after surrendering his sword; and Inchiquin +enabled to dictate a cessation covering Munster—far less favourable to +Catholics than the truce of Castlemartin—to the Supreme Council. This +truce was signed at Dungarvan, on the 20th of May, 1648, and on the +27th the Nuncio published his solemn decree of excommunication against +all its aiders and abettors, and himself made the best of his way from +Kilkenny to Maryboro', where O'Neil then lay. + +The military and political situation of O'Neil, during the latter +months of 1647 and the whole of 1648, was one of the most extraordinary +in which any general had ever been placed. His late sworn colleague, +Preston, was now combined with Inchiquin against him; the royalist +Clanrickarde, in the western counties, pressed upon his rear, and +captured his garrison in Athlone; the Parliamentary general, Michael +Jones, to whom Ormond had finally surrendered Dublin, observed rather +than impeded his movements in Leinster; the lay majority of the Supreme +Council proclaimed him a traitor—a compliment which he fully returned; +the Nuncio threw himself wholly into his hands; finally, at the close +of '48, Ormond, returning from France to Ireland, concluded, on the +17th of January, a formal alliance with the lay members, under the +title of "Commissioners of Trust," for the King and Kingdom; and +Rinuccini, despairing, perhaps, of a cause so distracted, sailed in his +own frigate, from Galway, on the 23rd of February. Thus did the actors +change their parts, alternately triumphing and fleeing for safety. The +verdict of history may condemn the Nuncio, of whom we have now seen the +last, for his imperious self-will, and his too ready recourse to +ecclesiastical censures; but of his zeal, his probity, and his +disinterestedness, there can be, we think, no second opinion. + +Under the treaty of 1649—which conceded full civil and religious +equality to the Roman Catholics—Ormond was once more placed at the head +of the government and in command of the royal troops. A few days after +the signing of that treaty, news of the execution of Charles I. having +reached Ireland, the Viceroy proclaimed the Prince of Wales by the +title of Charles II., at Cork and Youghal. Prince Rupert, whose fleet +had entered Kinsale, caused the same ceremony to be gone through in +that ancient borough. With Ormond were now cordially united Preston, +Inchiquin, Clanrickarde, and Muskerry, on whom the lead of the Supreme +Council devolved, in consequence of the advanced age of Lord +Mountgarrett, and the remainder of the twelve Commissioners of Trust. +The cause of the young Prince, an exile, the son of that Catholic queen +from whom they had expected so much, was far from unpopular in the +southern half of the island. The Anglican interest was strong and +widely diffused through both Leinster and Munster; and, except a +resolute prelate, like Dr. French, Bishop of Ferns, or a brave band of +townsmen like those of Waterford, Limerick, and Galway, or some remnant +of mountain tribes, in Wicklow and Tipperary, the national, or "old +Irish policy," had decidedly lost ground from the hour of the Nuncio's +departure. + +Owen O'Neil and the Bishops still adhered to that national policy. The +former made a three-months' truce with General Monck, who had succeeded +Monroe in the command of all the Parliamentary troops in his province. +The singular spectacle was even exhibited of Monck forwarding supplies +to O'Neil, to be used against Inchiquin and Ormond, and O'Neil coining +to the rescue of Coote, and raising for him the siege of Londonderry. +Inchiquin, in rapid succession, took Drogheda, Trim, Dundalk, Newry, +and then rapidly countermarched to join Ormond in besieging Dublin. At +Rathmines, near the city, both generals were surprised and defeated by +the Parliamentarians under Michael Jones. Between desertions, and +killed and wounded, they lost, by their own account, nearly 3,000, and +by the Puritan accounts, above 5,000 men. This action was the virtual +close of Ormond's military career; he never after made head against the +Parliamentary forces in open field. The Catholic cities of Limerick and +Galway refused to admit his garrisons; a synod of the Bishops, +assembled at Jamestown (in Roscommon), strongly recommended his +withdrawal from the kingdom; and Cromwell had arrived, resolved to +finish the war in a single campaign. Ormond sailed again for France, +before the end of 1649, to return no more until the restoration of the +monarchy, on the death of the great Protector. + + + +CHAPTER X. +CROMWELL'S CAMPAIGN—-1649-1650. + +An actor was now to descend upon the scene, whose character has excited +more controversy than that of any other personage of those times. +Honoured as a saint, or reprobated as a hypocrite, worshipped for his +extraordinary successes, or anathematized for the unworthy artifices by +which he rose—who shall deal out, with equal hand, praise and blame to +Oliver Cromwell? Not for the popular writer of Irish history, is that +difficult judicial task. Not for us to re-echo cries of hatred which +convince not the indifferent, nor correct the errors of the educated or +cultivated: the simple, and, as far as possible, the unimpassioned +narrative of facts, will constitute the whole of our duty towards the +Protector's campaign in Ireland. + +Cromwell left London in great state, early in July, "in a coach drawn +by six gallant Flanders mares," and made a sort of royal procession +across the country to Bristol. From that famous port, where Strongbow +confederated with Dermid McMurrogh, and from which Dublin drew its +first Anglo-Norman colony, he went on to Milford Haven, at which he +embarked, arriving in Dublin on the 15th of August. He entered the city +in procession, and addressed the townsfolk from "a convenient place." +He had with him two hundred thousand pounds in money, eight regiments +of foot, six of horse, and some troops of dragoons; besides the +divisions of Jones and Monck, already in the country, and subject to +his command. Among the officers were names of memorable interest—Henry +Cromwell, second son of the Protector, and future Lord Deputy; Monck, +Blake, Jones, Ireton, Ludlow, Hardress Waller, Sankey, and others +equally prominent in accomplishing the King's death, or in raising up +the English commonwealth. + +Cromwell's command in Ireland extends from the middle of August, 1649, +to the end of May, 1650, about nine months in all, and is remarkable +for the number of sieges of walled towns crowded into that brief +period. There was, during the whole time, no great action in the field, +like Marston Moor, or Benburb, or Dunbar; it was a campaign of +seventeenth century cannon against mediaeval masonry; what else was +done, was the supplemental work of mutual bravery on both sides. +Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, and Carlingford fell in September; Arklow, +Enniscorthy, and Wexford in October; Ross, one of the first seaports in +point of commerce, surrendered the same month; Waterford was attempted +and abandoned in November; Dungarvan, Kinsale, Bandon, and Cork were +won over by Lord Broghill in December; Fethard, Callan, and Cashel in +January and February; Carrick and Kilkenny in March; and Clonmel, early +in May. Immediately after this last capitulation, Cromwell was recalled +to lead the armies of the Parliament into Scotland: during the nine +months he had commanded in Ireland, he had captured five or six county +capitals, and a great number of less considerable places. The terror of +his siege-trains and Ironsides was spread over the greater part of +three Provinces, and his well-reported successes had proved so many +steps to the assumption of that sovereign power at which he already +aimed. + +Of the spirit in which these several sieges were conducted, it is +impossible to speak without a shudder. It was, in truth, a spirit of +hatred and fanaticism, altogether beyond the control of the +revolutionary leader. At Drogheda, the work of slaughter occupied five +entire days. Of the brave garrison of 3,000 men, not thirty were +spared, and these, "were in hands for the Barbadoes;" old men, women, +children and priests, were unsparingly put to the sword. Wexford was +basely betrayed by Captain James Stafford, commander of the castle, +whose midnight interview with Cromwell, at a petty rivulet without the +walls, tradition still recounts with horror and detestation. This port +was particularly obnoxious to the Parliament, as from its advantageous +position on the Bristol channel, its cruisers greatly annoyed and +embarrassed their commerce. "There are," Cromwell writes to Speaker +Lenthall, "great quantities of iron, hides, tallow, salt, pipe and +barrel staves, which are under commissioners' hands to be secured. We +believe there are near a hundred cannon in the fort and elsewhere in +and about the town. Here is likewise some very good shipping; here are +three vessels, one of them of thirty-four guns, which a week's time +would fit for sea; there is another of about twenty guns, very nearly +ready likewise." He also reports two other frigates, one on the stocks, +which "for her handsomeness' sake" he intended to have finished for the +Parliament, and another "most excellent vessel for sailing," taken +within the fort, at the harbour's mouth. By the treachery of Captain +Stafford, this strong and wealthy town was at the mercy of those +"soldiers of the Lord and of Gideon," who had followed Oliver to his +Irish wars. The consequences were the same as at Drogheda—merciless +execution on the garrison and the inhabitants. + +In the third month of Cromwell's campaign, the report of Owen O'Neil's +death went abroad, palsying the Catholic arms. By common consent of +friend and foe, he was considered the ablest civil and military leader +that had appeared in Ireland during the reigns of the Stuart kings. +Whether in native ability he was capable of coping with Cromwell, was +for a long time a subject of discussion; but the consciousness of +irreparable national loss, perhaps, never struck deeper than amid the +crash of that irresistible cannonade of the walled towns and cities of +Leinster and Munster. O'Neil had lately, despairing of binding the +Scots or the English, distrustful alike of Coote and of Monck, been +reconciled to Ormond, and was marching southward to his aid at the head +of 6,000 chosen men. Lord Chancellor Clarendon assures us that Ormond +had the highest hopes from this junction, and the utmost confidence in +O'Neil's abilities. But at a ball at Derry, towards the end of August, +he received his death, it is said, in a pair of poisoned russet leather +slippers presented to him by one Plunkett; marching southward, borne in +a litter, he expired at Clough Oughter Castle, near his old Belturbet +camp, on the 6th of November, 1649. His last act was to order one of +his nephews—Hugh O'Neil—to form a junction with Ormond in Munster +without delay. In the chancel of the Franciscan Abbey of Cavan, now +grass-grown and trodden by the hoofs of cattle, his body was interred; +his nephew and successor did honour to his memory at Clonmel and +Limerick. It was now remembered, even by his enemies, with astonishment +and admiration, how for seven long years he had subsisted and kept +together an army, the creature of his genius; without a government at +his back, without regular supplies, enforcing obedience, establishing +discipline, winning great victories, maintaining, even at the worst, a +native power in the heart of the kingdom. When the archives of those +years are recovered (if they ever are), no name more illustrious for +the combination of great qualities will be found preserved there than +the name of this last national leader of the illustrious lineage of +O'Neil. + +The unexpected death of the Ulster general favoured still farther +Cromwell's southern movements. The gallant, but impetuous Bishop of +Clogher, Heber McMahon, was the only northern leader who could command +confidence enough to keep O'Neil's force together, and on him, +therefore, the command devolved. O'Ferrall, one of Owen's favourite +officers, was despatched to Waterford, and mainly contributed to +Cromwell's repulse before that city; Hugh O'Neil covered himself with +glory at Clonmel and Limerick; Daniel O'Neil, another nephew of Owen, +remained attached to Ormond, and accompanied him to France; but within +six months from the loss of their Fabian chief, who knew as well when +to strike as to delay, the brave Bishop of Clogher sacrificed the +remnant of "the Catholic Army" at the pass of Scariffhollis, in +Donegal, and, two days after, his own life by a martyr's death, at +Omagh. At the date of Cromwell's departure—when Ireton took command of +the southern army—there remained to the Confederates only some remote +glens and highlands of the North and West, the cities of Limerick and +Galway, with the county of Clare, and some detached districts of the +province of Connaught. + +The last act of Cromwell's proper campaign was the siege of Clonmel, +where he met the stoutest resistance he had anywhere encountered. The +Puritans, after effecting a breach, made an attempt to enter, chanting +one of their scriptural battle-songs. They were, by their own account, +"obliged to give back a while," and finally night settled down upon the +scene. The following day, finding the place no longer tenable, the +garrison silently withdrew to Waterford, and subsequently to Limerick. +The inhabitants demanded a parley, which was granted; and Cromwell +takes credit, and deserves it, when we consider the men he had to +humour, for having kept conditions with them. + +From before Clonmel he returned at once to England, where he was +received with royal honours. All London turned out to meet the +Conqueror who had wiped out the humiliation of Benburb, and humbled the +pride of the detested Papists. He was lodged in the palace of the king, +and chosen "Captain-general of all the forces raised, or to be raised, +by the authority of the Parliament of England." + + + +CHAPTER XI. +CLOSE OF THE CONFEDERATE WAR. + +The tenth year of the contest of which we have endeavoured to follow +the most important events, opened upon the remaining Catholic leaders, +greatly reduced in numbers and resources, but firm and undismayed. Two +chief seaports, and some of the western counties still remained to +them; and accordingly we find meetings of the Bishops and other +notables during this year (1650), at Limerick, at Loughrea, and finally +at Jamestown, in the neighbourhood of Owen O'Neil's nursery of the +first "Catholic Army." + +The Puritan commander was now Henry Ireton, son-in-law of Cromwell, by +a marriage contracted about two years before. The completion of the +Protector's policy could have devolved upon few persons more capable of +understanding, or more fearless in executing it; and in two eventful +campaigns he proved himself the able successor of the Protector. In +August following Cromwell's departure, Waterford and Duncannon were +taken by Ireton; and there only remained to the Confederates the +fortresses of Sligo, Athlone, Limerick, and Galway, with the country +included within the irregular quadrangle they describe. The younger +Coote making a feint against Sligo, which Clanrickarde hastened to +defend, turned suddenly on his steps, and surprised Athlone. Sligo, +naturally a place of no great strength after the invention of +artillery, soon after fell, so that Galway and Limerick alone were +left, at the beginning of 1651, to bear all the brunt of Puritan +hostility. + +Political events of great interest happened during the two short years +of Ireton's command. The Assembly, which met at Jamestown in August, +and again at Loughrea in November, 1650, made the retirement of Ormond +from the Government a condition of all future efforts in the royal +cause, and that nobleman, deeply wounded by this condition, had finally +sailed from Galway, in December, leaving to Clanrickarde the title of +Lord Deputy, and to Castlehaven the command of the forces which still +kept the field. The news from Scotland of the young king's subscription +to the covenant, and denunciation of all terms with Irish Papists, came +to aid the councils of those, who, like the eloquent French, Bishop of +Ferns, demanded a national policy, irrespective of the exigencies of +the Stuart family. An embassy was accordingly despatched to Brussels, +to offer the title of King-Protector to the Duke of Lorraine, or +failing with him, to treat with any "other Catholic prince, state, +republic, or person, as they might deem expedient for the preservation +of the Catholic religion and nation." A wide latitude, dictated by +desperate circumstances. The ambassadors were Bishop French and Hugh +Rochfort; the embassy one of the most curious and instructive in our +annals. + +The Duke expressed himself willing to undertake an expedition to +Ireland—to supply arms and money to the Confederates—on the condition +of receiving Athlone, Limerick, Athenry and Galway into his custody, +with the title of Protector. A considerable sum of money (20,000 +pounds) was forwarded at once; four Belgian frigates laden with stores +were made ready for sea; the Canon De Henin was sent as envoy to the +Confederates, and this last venture looked most promising of success, +had not Clanrickarde in Galway, and Charles and Ormond in Paris, taking +alarm at the new dignity conferred upon the Duke, countermined the +Bishop of Ferns and Mr. Rochfort, and defeated by intrigue and +correspondence their hopeful enterprise. + +The decisive battle of Worcester, fought on the 3rd of September, 1651, +drove Charles II. into that nine years' exile, from which he only +returned on the death of Cromwell. It may be considered the last +military event of importance in the English civil war. In Ireland the +contest was destined to drag out another campaign, before the walls of +the two gallant cities, Galway and Limerick. + +Limerick was the first object of attack. Ireton, leaving Sankey to +administer martial law in Tipperary, struck the Shannon opposite +Killaloe, driving Castlehaven before him. Joined by Coote and Reynolds, +fresh from the sieges of Athenry and Athlone, he moved upon Limerick by +the Connaught bank of the river, while Castlehaven fled to Clanrickarde +in Galway, with a guard of forty horse, all that remained intact of the +4,000 men bequeathed him by Ormond. From the side of Munster, Lord +Muskerry attempted a diversion in favour of Limerick, but was repulsed +at Castleishen, by "the flying camp" of Lord Broghill. The besiegers +were thus not only delivered of a danger, but reinforced by native +troops—if the "Undertakers" could be properly called so—which made them +the most formidable army that had ever surrounded an Irish city. From +early summer till the last week of October, the main force of the +English and Anglo-Irish, supplied with every species of arm then +invented, assailed the walls of Limerick. The plague, which during +these months swept with such fearful mortality over the whole kingdom, +struck down its defenders, and filled all its streets with desolation +and grief. The heroic bishops, O'Brien of Emly, and O'Dwyer of +Limerick, exerted themselves to uphold, by religious exhortations, the +confidence of the besieged; while Hugh O'Neil and General Purcell +maintained the courage of their men. Clanrickarde had offered to charge +himself with the command, but the citizens preferred to trust in the +skill and determination of the defender of Clonmel, whose very name was +a talisman among them. The municipal government, however, composed of +the men of property in the city, men whose trade was not war, whose +religion was not enthusiastic, formed a third party,—a party in favour +of peace at any price. With the Mayor at their head, they openly +encouraged the surrender of one of the outworks to the besiegers, and +this betrayal, on the 27th of October, compelled the surrender of the +entire works. Thus Limerick fell, divided within itself by military, +clerical, and municipal factions; thus glory and misfortune combined to +consecrate its name in the national veneration, and the general memory +of mankind. The Bishop of Emly and General Purcell were executed as +traitors; the Bishop of Limerick escaped in the disguise of a common +soldier, and died at Brussels; O'Neil's life was saved by a single +vote; Sir Geoffrey Gabney, Aldermen Stritch and Fanning, and other +leading Confederates, expiated their devotion upon the scaffold. + +On the 12th of May following—seven months after the capture of +Limerick, Galway fell. Ireton, who survived the former siege but a few +days, was succeeded by Ludlow, a sincere republican of the school of +Pym and Hampden—if that school can be called, in our modern sense, +republican. It was the sad privilege of General Preston, whose name is +associated with so many of the darkest, and with some of the brightest +incidents of this war, to order the surrender of Galway, as he had two +years previously given up Waterford. Thus the last open port, the last +considerable town held by the Confederates, yielded to the overwhelming +power of numbers and munitions, in the twelfth year of that illustrious +war which Ireland waged for her religious and civil liberties, against +the forces of the two adjoining kingdoms, sometimes estranged from one +another, but always hostile alike to the religious belief and the +political independence of the Irish people. + +With the fall of Galway, the Confederate war drew rapidly to a close. +Colonels Fitzpatrick, O'Dwyer, Grace, and Thorlogh O'Neil, surrendered +their posts; Lords Enniskillen and West-Meath followed their example; +Lord Muskerry yielded Ross Castle, on Killarney, in June; Clanrickarde +laid down his arms at Carrick, in October. The usual terms granted were +liberty to transport themselves and followers to the service of any +foreign state or prince at peace with the commonwealth; a favoured few +were permitted to live and die in peace on their own estates, under the +watchful eye of some neighbouring garrison. + +The chief actors in the Confederate war not already accounted for, +terminated their days under many different circumstances. Mountgarrett +and Bishop Rothe died before Galway fell, and were buried in the +capital of the Confederacy; Bishop McMahon 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; Clanrickarde +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; Jones, Corbet, Cook, and the fanatical preacher, +Hugh Peters, perished on the scaffold with the other regicides executed +by order of the English Parliament; Ormond having shared the evils of +exile with the King, shared also the splendour of his restoration, +became a Duke, and took his place, as if by common consent, at the head +of the peerage of the empire; his Irish rental, which before the war +was but 7,000 pounds a year, swelled suddenly on the Restoration to +80,000 pounds; Nicholas French, after some sojourn in Spain, where he +was coadjutor to the Archbishop of Saint James, returned to Louvain, +where he made his first studies, and there spent the evening of his +days in the composition of those powerful pamphlets which kept alive +the Irish cause at home and on the continent; a Roman patrician did the +honours of sepulture to Luke Wadding, and Cromwell interred James Usher +in Westminster Abbey; the heroic defender of Clonmel and Limerick, and +the gallant, though vacillating Preston, were cordially received in +France; while the consistent republican, Ludlow, took refuge as a +fugitive in Switzerland. + +Sir Phelim O'Neil, the first author of the war, was among the last to +suffer the penalties of defeat. For a moment, towards the end, he +renewed his sway over the remnant of Owen's soldiers, took +Ballyshannon, and two or three other places. Compelled at last to +surrender, he was carried to Dublin, and tried on a charge of treason, +a committee closeted behind the bench dictating the interrogatories to +his judges, and receiving his answers in reply. Condemned to death, as +was expected, he was offered his life by the Puritan colonel, Hewson, +on the very steps of the scaffold, if he would inculpate the late King +Charles in the rising of 1641. This he "stoutly refused to do," and the +execution proceeded with all its atrocious details. Whatever may have +been the excesses committed under his command by a plundered people, at +their first insurrection—and we know that they have been exaggerated +beyond all bounds—it must be admitted he died the death of a Christian, +a soldier, and a gentleman. + + + +CHAPTER XII. +IRELAND UNDER THE PROTECTORATE—ADMINISTRATION OF HENRY CROMWELL—DEATH +OF OLIVER. + +The English republic rose from the scaffold of the King, in 1649; its +first government was a "Council of State" of forty-one members; under +this council, Cromwell held at first the title of Lord General; but, on +the 16th December, 1653, he was solemnly installed, in Westminster +Hall, as "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and +Ireland." He was then in his fifty-fourth year; his reign—if such it +may be called—lasted less than five years. + +The policy of the Protector towards Ireland is even less defensible +than his military severities. For the barbarities of war there may be +some apology, the poor one at least that such outrages are inseparable +from war itself; but for the cold-blooded, deliberate atrocities of +peace, no such defence can be permitted before the tribunal of a free +posterity. + +The Long Parliament, still dragging out its date, under the shadow of +Cromwell's great name, declared in its session of 1652, the rebellion +in Ireland "subdued and ended," and proceeded to legislate for that +kingdom as a conquered country. On the 12th of August, they passed +their Act of Settlement, the authorship of which was attributed to Lord +Orrery, in this respect the worthy son of the first Earl of Cork. Under +this Act, there were four chief descriptions of persons whose status +was thus settled: 1st. All ecclesiastics and royalist proprietors were +exempted from pardon of life or estate. 2nd. All royalist commissioned +officers were condemned to banishment, and the forfeit of two-thirds of +their property, one-third being retained for the support of their wives +and children. 3rd. Those who had not been in arms, but could be shown, +by a Parliamentary commission, to have manifested "a constant, good +affection" to the war, were to forfeit one-third of their estates, and +receive "an equivalent" for the remaining two-thirds west of the +Shannon. 4th. All husbandmen and others of the inferior sort, "not +possessed of lands or goods exceeding the value of 10 pounds," were to +have a free pardon, on condition also of transporting themselves across +the Shannon. + +This last condition of the Cromwellian settlement distinguished it, in +our annals, from every other proscription of the native population +formerly attempted. The great river of Ireland, rising in the mountains +of Leitrim, nearly severs the five western counties from the rest of +the kingdom. The province thus set apart, though one of the largest in +superficial extent, had also the largest proportion of waste and water, +mountain and moorland. The new inhabitants were there to congregate +from all the other provinces before the 1st day of May, 1654, under +penalty of outlawry and all its consequences; and when there, they were +not to appear within two miles of the Shannon or four miles of the sea. +A rigorous passport system, to evade which was death without form of +trial, completed this settlement, the design of which was to shut up +the remaining Catholic inhabitants from all intercourse with mankind, +and all communion with the other inhabitants of their own country. + +A new survey of the whole kingdom was also ordered, under the direction +of Dr. William Petty, the fortunate economist, who founded the house of +Lansdowne. By him the surface of the kingdom was estimated at ten +millions and a half plantation acres, three of which were deducted for +waste and water. Of the remainder, above 5,000,000 were in Catholic +hands in 1641; 300,000 were church and college lands; and 2,000,000 +were in possession of the Protestant settlers of the reigns of James +and Elizabeth. Under the Protectorate, 5,000,000 acres were confiscate; +this enormous spoil, two-thirds of the whole island, 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." Such was the complete +uprooting of the ancient tenantry or clansmen, from their original +holdings, that during the survey, orders of Parliament were issued to +bring back individuals from Connaught to point out the boundaries of +parishes in Munster. It cannot be imputed among the sins so freely laid +to the historical account of the native legislature, that an Irish +parliament had any share in sanctioning this universal spoliation. +Cromwell anticipated the union of the kingdoms by a hundred and fifty +years, when he summoned, in 1653, that assembly over which "Praise-God +Barebones" 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 +properly embrace the five years of the Protectorate as the period of +Henry Cromwell's administration. + +In the absence of a Parliament, the government of Ireland was vested in +the Deputy, the Commander-in-Chief, and four commissioners, Ludlow, +Corbett, Jones, and Weaver. There was, moreover, a High Court of +Justice, which perambulated the kingdom, and exercised an absolute +authority over life and property, greater than even Strafford's Court +of Castle Chamber had pretended to. Over this court presided Lord +Lowther, assisted by Mr. Justice Donnellan, by Cooke, solicitor to the +Parliament on the trial of King Charles, and the regicide, Reynolds. By +this court, Sir Phelim O'Neil, Viscount Mayo, and Colonels O'Toole and +Bagnall, were condemned and executed; by them the mother of Colonel +Fitzpatrick was burnt at the stake; and Lords Muskerry and Clanmaliere +set at liberty, through some secret influence. The commissioners were +not behind the High Court of Justice in executive offices of severity. +Children under age, of both sexes, were captured by thousands, and sold +as slaves to the tobacco planters of Virginia and the West Indies. +Secretary Thurloe informs Henry Cromwell that "the Committee of 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 cotemporary 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. The chief commissioners, sitting at Dublin, had their +deputies in a commission of delinquencies, sitting at Athlone, and +another of transportation, sitting at Loughrea. Under their +superintendence, the distribution made of the soil among the Puritans +"was nearly as complete as that of Canaan by the Israelites." Whenever +native labourers were found absolutely necessary for the cultivation of +the estates of their new masters, they were barely tolerated "as the +Gibeonites had been by Joshua." 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" 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 thine enemies, and that the tongues +of thy dogs may be red with the same." Thus penned in 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 unequalled in +severity by anything which can be found in the annals of Christendom. + +The conquest was not only a military but a religious subjugation. The +27th of Elizabeth—the old act of uniformity—was rigorously enforced. +The Catholic lawyers were disbarred and silenced; the Catholic +schoolmasters were forbidden to teach, under pain of felony. Recusants, +surrounded in glens and caves, offering up the holy sacrifice through +the ministry of some daring priest, were shot down or smoked out like +vermin. The ecclesiastics never, in any instance, were allowed to +escape. Among those who suffered death during the short space of the +Protectorate, are counted "three bishops and three hundred +ecclesiastics." The surviving prelates were in exile, except the +bedridden Bishop of Kilmore, who for years had been unable to +officiate. So that, now, that ancient hierarchy which in the worst +Danish wars had still recruited its ranks as fast as they were broken, +seemed on the very eve of extinction. Throughout all the island no +episcopal hand remained to bless altars, to ordain priests, or to +confirm the faithful. The Irish church as well as the Irish state, +touched its lowest point of suffering and endurance in the decade which +intervened between the death of Charles I. and the death of Cromwell. + +The new population imposed upon the kingdom, soon split up into a +multitude of sects. Some of them became Quakers: many adhered to the +Anabaptists; others, after the Restoration, conformed to the +established church. That deeper tincture of Puritanism which may be +traced in the Irish, as compared with the English establishment, took +its origin even more from the Cromwellian settlement than from the +Calvinistic teachings of Archbishop Usher. + +Oliver died in 1658, on his "fortunate day," the 3rd of September, +leaving England to experience twenty months of republican intrigue and +anarchy. Richard Cromwell—Lambert—Ludlow—Monck—each played his part in +this stormy interval, till, the time being ripe for a restoration, +Charles II. landed at Dover on the 23rd of May, 1660 and was carried in +triumph to London. + + + +BOOK X. +FROM THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. TO THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. + + + +CHAPTER I. +REIGN OF CHARLES II. + +Hope is dear to the heart of man, and of all her votaries none have +been more constant than the Irish. Half a century of the Stuarts had +not extinguished their blind partiality for the descendants of the old +Scoto-Irish kings. The restoration of that royal house was, therefore, +an event which penetrated to the remotest wilds of Connaught, lighting +up with cheering expectation the most desolate hovels of the +proscribed. To the Puritans settled in Ireland, most of whom, from the +mean condition of menial servants, common soldiers and subaltern +officers, had become rich proprietors, the same tidings brought +apprehension and alarm. But their leaders, the Protestant gentry of an +earlier date, wealthy, astute and energetic, uniting all their +influence for the common protection, turned this event, which seemed at +one time to threaten their ruin, to their advantage and greater +security. The chief of these greater leaders was the accomplished Lord +Broghill, whom we are to know during this reign under his more famous +title of Earl of Orrery. + +The position of the Irish as compared with the English Puritans, was +essentially different in the eyes of Ormond, Clarendon, and the other +counsellors of the king. Though the former represented dissent as +against the church, they also represented the English as against the +Irish interest, in Ireland. As dissenters they were disliked and +ridiculed, but as colonists they could not be disturbed. When national +antipathy was placed in one scale and religious animosity in the other, +the intensely national feeling of England for the Cromwellians, as +Englishmen settled in a hostile country, prevailed over every other +consideration. In this, as in all other conjunctures, it has been the +singular infelicity of the one island to be subjected to a policy +directly opposite to that pursued in the other. While in England it was +considered wise and just to break down the Puritans as a party—through +the court, the pulpit, and the press; to drive the violent into exile, +and to win the lukewarm to conformity; in Ireland it was decided to +confirm them in their possessions, to leave the government of the +kingdom in their hands, and to strengthen their position by the Acts of +Settlement and Explanation. These acts were hailed as "the Magna Charta +of Irish Protestantism," but so far as the vast majority of the people +were concerned, they were as cruelly unjust as the revocation of the +Edict of Nantes, or the edicts which banished the Moors and Jews from +the Spanish peninsula. + +The struggle for possession of the soil inaugurated by the +confiscations of Elizabeth and James was continued against great odds +by the Catholic Irish throughout this reign. Though the royal +declaration of Breda, which preceded the restoration, had not mentioned +them expressly, they still claimed under it not only the "liberty to +tender consciences," but that "just satisfaction" to those unfairly +deprived of their estates, promised in that declaration. Accordingly, +several of the old gentry returned from Connaught, or places abroad, +took possession of their old homes, or made their way at once to Dublin +or London, to urge their claims to their former estates. To their +dismay, they found in Dublin, Coote and Broghill established as Lords +Justices, and the new Parliament—the first that sat for twenty +years—composed of an overwhelming majority of Undertakers, adventurers, +and Puritan representatives of boroughs, from which all the Catholic +electors had been long excluded. The Protestant interest, or +"ascendancy party," as it now began to be commonly called, counted in +the Commons 198 members to 64 Catholics; in the House of Lords, 72 +Protestant to 21 Catholic peers. The former elected Sir Audley Mervyn +their Speaker, and the able but curiously intricate and quaint +discourses of the ancient colleague of Kelly and Darcy in the assertion +of Irish legislative independence, shows how different was the spirit +of Irish Protestantism in 1661 as compared with 1641. The Lords chose +Bramhall, the long-exiled Bishop of Derry, now Archbishop of Armagh, as +their Speaker, and attempted to compel their members "to take the +sacrament" according to the Anglican ritual. The majority of both +Houses, to secure the good-will of Ormond, voted him the sum of 30,000 +pounds, and then proceeded to consider "the Bill of Settlement," in +relation to landed property. The Catholic bar, which had been +apparently restored to its freedom, presented a striking array of +talent, from which their co-religionists selected those by whom they +desired to be heard at the bar of the House. The venerable Darcy and +the accomplished Belling were no longer their oracles of the law; but +they had the services of Sir Nicholas Plunkett, an old confederate, of +Sir Richard Nagle, author of the famous "Coventry Letter," of Nugent, +afterwards Lord Riverston, and other able men. In the House of Lords +they had an intrepid ally in the Earl of Kildare, and in England an +agent equally intrepid, in Colonel Richard Talbot, afterwards Earl of +Tyrconnell. The diplomatic and parliamentary struggle between the two +interests, the disinherited and the new proprietory, was too +protracted, and the details are too involved for elucidation in every +part; but the result tells its own story. In 1675—in the fifteenth year +of the restoration—the new settlers possessed above 4,500,000 acres, to +about 2,250,000 still retained by the old owners. These relative +proportions were exactly the reverse of those existing before the +Cromwellian settlement; a single generation had seen this great +revolution accomplished in landed property. + +The Irish Parliament having sent over to England the heads of their +bill, according to the constitutional rule established by Poyning's +Act, the Irish Catholics sent over Sir Nicholas Plunkett to obtain +modifications of its provisions. But Plunkett was met in England with +such an outcry from the mob and the press as to the alleged atrocities +of the Confederate war, and his own former negotiations on the +continent, that he was unable to effect anything; while Colonel Talbot, +for his too warm expostulations with Ormond, was sent to the Tower. An +order of Council, forbidding Plunkett the presence, and declaring that +"no petition or further address be made from the Roman Catholics of +Ireland, as to the Bill of Settlement," closed the controversy, and the +Act soon after received the royal assent. + +Under this act, a court was established at Dublin, to try the claims of +"nocent" and "innocent." Notwithstanding every influence which could be +brought to bear on them, the judges, who were Englishmen, declared in +their first session, one hundred and sixty-eight innocent to nineteen +nocent. Proceeding in this spirit "to the great loss and +dissatisfaction of the Protestants," the latter, greatly alarmed, +procured the interference of Ormond, now Lord Lieutenant (1662), in +effecting a modification of the commission, appointing the court, by +which its duration was limited to an early day. The consequence was, +that while less than 800 claims were decided on when the fatal day +arrived, over 3,000 were left unheard, at least a third of whom were +admitted even by their enemies to be innocent. About 500 others had +been restored by name in the Act of Settlement itself; but, by the Act +of Explanation (1665), "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, even the inheritance of hope, +and the reversion of expectation, were extinguished for ever for the +sons and daughters of the ancient gentry of the kingdom. + +The religious liberties of this people, so crippled in property and +political power, were equally at the mercy of the mob and of the +monarch. To combat the war of calumny waged against them by the Puritan +press and pulpit, the leading Catholics resolved to join in an official +and authentic declaration of their true principles, as to the spiritual +power of the Pope, their allegiance to the prince, and their relations +to their fellow subjects of other denominations. With this intention a +meeting was held at the house of the Marquis of Clanrickarde, in +Dublin, at which Lords Clancarty, Carlingford, Fingal, Castlehaven, and +Inchiquin, and the leading commoners of their faith, were present. At +this meeting, Father Peter Walsh, a Franciscan, and an old courtier of +Ormond's, as "Procurator of all the Clergy of Ireland," secular and +regular, produced credentials signed by the surviving bishops or their +vicars—including the Primate O'Reilly, the Bishops of Meath, Ardagh, +Kilmore, and Ferns. Richard Belling, the secretary to the first +Confederate Council, and Envoy to Rome, submitted the celebrated +document known as "The Remonstrance," deeply imbued with the spirit of +the Gallican church of that day. It was signed by about seventy +Catholic peers and commoners, by the Bishop of Kilmore, by Procurator +Walsh, and by the townsmen of Wexford—almost the only urban community +of Catholics remaining in the country. But the propositions it +contained as to the total independency of the temporal on the spiritual +power, and the ecclesiastical patronage of princes, were condemned at +the Sorbonne, at Louvain, and at Rome. The regular orders, by their +several superiors, utterly rejected it; the exiled bishops withdrew +their proxies from Father Walsh, and disclaimed his conduct; the +Internuncio at Brussels, charged with the affairs of the British Isles, +denounced it as contrary to the canons; and the elated Procurator found +himself involved in a controversy from which he never afterwards +escaped, and with which his memory is still angrily associated. + +The conduct of Ormond in relation to this whole business of the +Remonstrance, was the least creditable part of his administration. +Writhing under the eloquent pamphlets of the exiled Bishop of Ferns, +keenly remembering his own personal wrongs against the former +generation of bishops, of whom but three or four were yet living, he +resolved "to work that division among the Romish clergy," which he had +long meditated. With this view, he connived at a meeting of the +surviving prelates and the superiors of regular orders, at Dublin, in +1666. To this synod safe conduct was permitted to the Primate O'Reilly, +banished to Belgium nine years before; to Peter Talbot, Archbishop of +Dublin, John Burke, Archbishop of Tuam, Patrick Plunkett, Bishop of +Ardagh, the vicars-general of other prelates, and the superiors of the +regulars. This venerable body deliberated anxiously for an entire week, +Father Walsh acting as ambassador between them and the Viceroy; at +length, in spite of all politic considerations, they unanimously +rejected the servile doctrine of the "Remonstrance," substituting +instead a declaration of their own dictation. Ormond now cast off all +affectation of liberality; Primate O'Reilly was sent back to his +banishment, the other prelates and clergy were driven back to their +hiding-places, or into exile abroad, and the wise, experienced, +high-spirited duke, did not hesitate to avail himself of "the Popish +plot" mania, which soon after broke out, to avenge himself upon an +order of men whom he could neither break nor bend to his purposes! Of +1,100 secular priests, and 750 regulars, still left, only sixty-nine +had signed the Clanrickarde House Remonstrance. + +An incident of this same year—1666—illustrates more forcibly than +description could do, the malignant feeling which had been excited in +England against everything Irish. The importation of Irish cattle had +long been considered an English grievance, it was now declared by law +"a nuisance." The occasion taken to pass this statute was as ungracious +as the act itself was despicable. In consequence of "the great fire," +which still glows for us in the immortal verse of Dryden, the Irish had +sent over to the distressed, a contribution of 15,000 bullocks. This +was considered by the generous recipients a mere pretence to preserve +the trade in cattle between the two kingdoms, and accordingly both +Houses, after some sharp resistance in the Lords', gravely enacted that +the importation of Irish beef into England was "a nuisance," to be +abated. From this period most probably dates the famous English sarcasm +against Irish bulls. + +The act prohibiting the export of cattle from Ireland, and the equally +exclusive and unjust Navigation Act—originally devised by Cromwell—so +paralyzed every Irish industry, that the Puritan party became almost as +dissatisfied as the Catholics. They maintained a close correspondence +with their brethren in England, and began to speculate on the +possibilities of another revolution. Ormond, to satisfy their demands, +distributed 20,000 stand of arms among them, and reviewed the Leinster +Militia, on the Curragh, in 1667. The next year he was recalled, and +Lords Robarts, Berkely, and Essex, successively appointed to the +government. The first, a Puritan, and almost a regicide, held office +but a few months; the second, a cavalier and a friend of toleration, +for two years; while Essex, one of those fair-minded but yielding +characters, known in the next reign as "Trimmers," petitioned for his +own recall and Ormond's restoration, in 1676. The only events which +marked these last nine years—from Ormond's removal till his +reappointment—were the surprise of Carrickfergus by a party of unpaid +soldiers, and their desperate defence of that ancient stronghold; the +embassies to and from the Irish Catholics and the court, of Colonel +Richard Talbot; and the establishment of extensive woollen +manufactories at Thomastown, Callan, and Kilkenny, under the patronage +of Ormond. + + + +CHAPTER II. +REIGN OF CHARLES II. (CONCLUDED.) + +For the third time, the aged Ormond, now arrived at the period usually +allotted to the life of man, returned to Ireland, with the rank of +Viceroy. During the ensuing seven years, he clung to power with all the +tenacity of his youth, and all the policy of his prime; they were seven +years of extraordinary sectarian panic and excitement—the years of the +Cabal, the Popish plot, and the Exclusion Bill, in England—and of +fanatical conspiracies and explosions almost as dangerous in Ireland. + +The Popish plot mania held possession of the English people much longer +than any other moral epidemic of equal virulence. In the month of +October, 1678, its alleged existence in Ireland was communicated to +Ormond; in July, 1681, its most illustrious victim, Archbishop +Plunkett, perished on the scaffold at Tyburn. Within these two points +of time what a chronicle of madness, folly, perjury, and cruelty, might +be written? + +Ormond, too old in statecraft to believe in the existence of these +incredible plots, was also too well aware of the dangerous element of +fanaticism represented by Titus Oates, and his imitators, to subject +himself to suspicion. On the first intelligence of the plot, he +instantly issued his proclamation for the arrest of Archbishop Talbot, +of Dublin, who had been permitted to return from exile under the rule +of Lord Berkely, and had since resided with his brother, Colonel +Talbot, at Cartown, near Maynooth. This prelate was of Ormond's own +age, and of a family as ancient; while his learning, courage, and +morality, made him an ornament to his order. He was seized in his sick +bed at Cartown, carried to Dublin in a chair, and confined a close +prisoner in the castle, where he died two years later. He was the last +distinguished captive destined to end his days in that celebrated state +prison, which has since been generally dedicated to the peaceful +purposes of reflected royalty. + +Colonel Talbot was at the same time arrested, but allowed to retire +beyond seas; Lord Mountgarrett, an octogenarian, and in his dotage, was +seized, but nothing could be made out against him; a Colonel Peppard +was also denounced from England, but no such person was found to exist. +So far the first year of the plot had passed over, and proved nothing +against the Catholic Irish. But the example of successful villainy in +England, of Oates idolized, pensioned, and all-powerful, extended to +the sister kingdom, and brought an illustrious victim to the scaffold. +This was Oliver Plunkett, a scion of the noble family of Fingal, who +had been Archbishop of Armagh, since the death of Dr. O'Reilly, in +exile, in 1669. Such had been the prudence and circumspection of Dr. +Plunkett, during his perilous administration, that the agents of Lord +Shaftesbury, sent over to concoct evidence for the occasion, were +afraid to bring him to trial in the vicinage of his arrest, or in his +own country. Accordingly, they caused him to be removed from Dublin to +London, contrary to the laws and customs of both Kingdoms, which had +first been violated towards state prisoners in the case of Lord +Maguire, forty years before. + +Dr. Plunkett, after ten months' confinement without trial in Ireland, +was removed, 1680, and arraigned at London, on the 8th of June, 1681, +without having had permission to communicate with his friends or to +send for witnesses. The prosecution was conducted by Maynard and +Jeffries, in violation of every form of law, and every consideration of +justice. A "crown agent," whose name is given as Gorman, was introduced +by "a stranger" in court, and volunteered testimony in his favour. The +Earl of Essex interceded with the King on his behalf, but Charles +answered, almost in the words of Pilate—"I cannot pardon him, because I +dare not. His blood be upon your conscience; you could have saved him +if you pleased." The Jury, after a quarter of an hour's deliberation, +brought in their verdict of guilty, and the brutal Chief-Justice +condemned him to be hung, emboweled, and quartered on the 1st day of +July, 1681. The venerable martyr, for such he may well be called, bowed +his head to the bench, and exclaimed: _Deo gratias!_ Eight years from +the very day of his execution, on the banks of that river beside which +he had been seized and dragged from his retreat, the last of the Stuart +kings was stricken from his throne, and his dynasty stricken from +history! Does not the blood of the innocent cry to Heaven for +vengeance? + +The charges against Dr. Plunkett were, that he maintained treasonable +correspondence with France and Rome, and the Irish on the continent; +that he had organised an insurrection in Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, and +Armagh; that he made preparations for the landing of a French force at +Carlingford; and that he had held several meetings to raise men for +these purposes. Utterly absurd and false as these charges were, they +still indicate the troubled apprehensions which filled the dreams of +the ascendency party. The fear of French invasion, of new +insurrections, of the resumption of estates, haunted them by night and +day. Every sign was to them significant of danger, and every rumour of +conspiracy was taken for fact. The report of a strange fleet off the +Southern coast, which turned out to be English, threw them all into +panic; and the Corpus Christi crosses which the peasantry affixed to +their doors, were nothing but signs for the Papist destroyer to pass +by, and to spare his fellows in the general massacre of Protestants. + +Under the pressure of these panics, real or pretended, proclamation +after proclamation issued from the Castle. By one of these instruments, +Ormond prohibited Catholics from entering the Castle of Dublin, or any +other fortress; from holding fairs or markets within the walls of +corporate towns, and from carrying arms to such resorts. By another, he +declared all relatives of known _Tories_—a Gaelic term for a driver of +prey—to be arrested, and banished the kingdom, within fourteen days, +unless such Tories were killed, or surrendered, within that time. Where +this device failed to reach the destined victims—as in the celebrated +case of Count Redmond O'Hanlon—it is to be feared that he did not +hesitate to whet the dagger of the assassin, which was still sometimes +employed, even in the British Islands, to remove a dangerous +antagonist. Count O'Hanlon, a gentleman of ancient lineage, as +accomplished as Orrery, or Ossory, was indeed an outlaw to the code +then in force; but the stain of his cowardly assassination must for +ever blot and rot the princely escutcheon of James, Duke of Ormond. + +The violence of religious and social persecution began to subside +during the last two or three years of Charles II. Monmouth's +banishment, Shaftesbury's imprisonment, the execution of Russell and +Sidney on the scaffold, marked the return of the English public mind to +political pursuits and objects. Early in 1685, the king was taken +mortally ill. In his last moments he received the rites of the Catholic +church, from the hands of Father Huddleston, who was said to have saved +his life at the battle of Worcester, and who was now even more anxious +to save his soul. + +This event took place on the 16th of February. King James was +immediately proclaimed successor to his brother. One of his first acts +was to recall Ormond from Ireland and to appoint in his place the Earl +of Clarendon, son of the historian and statesman of the Restoration. +Ormond obeyed, not without regret; he survived his fall about three +years. He was interred in Westminster in 1688, three months before the +landing of William, and the second banishment of the Stuarts. + + + +CHAPTER III. +THE STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING IN IRELAND DURING THE SEVENTEENTH +CENTURY. + +Before plunging into the troubled torrent of the revolution of 1688, +let us cast a glance back on the century, and consider the state of +learning and religion during those three generations. + +If we divide the Irish literature of this century by subjects, we shall +find extant a respectable body, both in quantity and quality, of +theology, history, law, politics, and poetry. If we divide it by the +languages in which that literature was written, we may consider it as +Latin, Gaelic, and English. + +I. Latin continued throughout Europe, even till this late day, the +language of the learned, but especially of theologians, jurists, and +historians. In Latin, the great tomes of O'Sullivan, Usher, Colgan, +Wadding, and White, were written—volumes which remain as so many +monuments of the learning and industry of that age. The chief objects +of these illustrious writers were, to restore the ancient +ecclesiastical history of Ireland, to rescue the memory of her saints +and doctors from oblivion, and to introduce the native annals of the +kingdom to the attention of Europe. Though Usher differed in religion, +and in his theory of the early connection of the Irish with the Roman +Church, from all the rest, yet he stands pre-eminent among them for +labour and research. The Waterford Franciscan, Wadding, can only be +named with him for inexhaustible patience, various learning, and +untiring zeal. Both were honoured of princes and parliaments. The +Confederates would have made Wadding a cardinal; King James made Usher +an archbishop; one instructed the Westminster Assembly; the other was +sent by the King of Spain to maintain the thesis of the Immaculate +Conception at Rome, and subsequently was entrusted by the Pope to +report upon the propositions of Jansenius. O'Sullivan, Conde de +Berehaven, in Spain, and Peter White, have left us each two or three +Latin volumes on the history of the country, highly prized by all +subsequent writers. But the most indispensable of the legacies left us +in this tongue, are Colgan's "Acta Sanctorum"—from January to March—and +Dr. John Lynch's "Cambrensis Eversus." Many other works and authors +might be mentioned, but these are the great Latinists to whom we are +indebted for the most important services rendered to our national +history. + +II. In the Gaelic literature of the country we count Geoffrey Keating, +Duald McFirbis, and "the Four Masters" of Donegal. Few writers have +been more rashly judged than Keating. A poet, as well as a historian, +he gave a prominence in the early chapters of his history to bardic +tales, which English critics have seized upon to damage his reputation +for truthfulness and good sense. But these tales he gives as tales—as +curious and illustrative—rather than as credible and unquestionable. +The purity of his style is greatly extolled by Gaelic critics; and the +interest of his narrative, even in a translation, is undoubted. +McFirbis, an annalist and genealogist by inheritance, is known to us +not only for his profound native lore, and tragic death, but also for +the assistance he rendered Sir James Ware, Dr. Lynch, and Roderick +O'Flaherty. The master-piece, however, of our Gaelic literature of this +age, is the work now called "The Annals of the Four Masters." In the +reign of James I., a few Franciscan friars, living partly in Donegal +Abbey and partly in St. Anthony's College, at Louvain, undertook to +collect and collate all the manuscript remains of Irish antiquity they +could gather or borrow, or be allowed to copy. Father Hugh Ward was the +head of this group, and by him the lay brother Michael O'Clery, one of +the greatest benefactors his country ever saw, was sent from Belgium to +Ireland. From 1620 to 1630, O'Clery travelled through the kingdom, +buying or transcribing everything he could find relating to the lives +of the Irish saints, which he sent to Louvain, where Ward and Colgan +undertook to edit and illustrate them. Father Ward died in the early +part of the undertaking, but Father Colgan spent twenty years in +prosecuting the original design, so far as concerned our ecclesiastical +biography. + +After collecting these materials, Father O'Clery waited, as he tells +us, on "the noble Fergall O'Gara," one of the two knights elected to +represent the county of Sligo in the Parliament of 1634, and perceiving +the anxiety of O'Gara, "from the cloud which at present hangs over our +ancient Milesian race," he proposed to collect the civil and military +annals of Erin into one large digest. O'Gara, struck with this +proposal, freely supplied the means, and O'Clery and his coadjutors set +to work in the Franciscan Convent of Donegal, which still stood, not +more than half in ruins. + +On the 22nd of January, 1632, they commenced this digest, and on the +10th of August, 1636, it was finished—having occupied them four years, +seven months and nineteen days. The MS., dedicated to O'Gara, is +authenticated by the superiors of the convent; from that original two +editions have recently been printed in both languages. + +These annals extend to the year 1616, the time of the compilers. +Originally they bore the title of "Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland," +but Colgan having quoted them as "The Annals of the Four Masters," that +name remains ever since. The "Four Masters" were Brother Michael +O'Clery, Conary and Peregrine O'Clery, his brothers, both laymen and +natives of Donegal, and Florence Conroy of Roscommon, another +hereditary antiquary. + +The first edition of the New Testament, in the Gaelic tongue, so far as +we are aware, appeared at Dublin, in 1603, in quarto. The translation +was the work of a native scholar, O'Cionga (Anglicized King). It was +made at the expense and under the supervision of Dr. William O'Donnell, +one of the first fellows of Trinity, and published at the cost of the +people of Connaught. Dr. O'Donnell, an amiable man, and an enemy of +persecution, became subsequently Archbishop of Tuam, in which dignity +he died, in 1628. A translation of the Book of Common Prayer, by +O'Donnell, appeared early in the century, and towards its close (1685), +a translation of the Old Testament, made for Bishop Bedell by the +Gaelic scholars of Meath and Cavan, was published at the expense of the +famous Robert Boyle. Bedell had also caused to be published Gaelic +translations of certain homilies of Saint Leo and Saint John +Chrysostom, on the importance of studying the holy Scriptures. The only +other Gaelic publications of this period were issued from the Irish +colleges at Louvain and Rome. Thence issued the devotional tracts of +Conroy, of Gernon, and O'Molloy, and the Irish grammars of O'Clery and +Stapleton. The devotional tracts, with their fanciful titles, of +"Lamps," and "Mirrors," were smuggled across from Ostend and Dunkirk +with other articles of contraband, and did much to keep alive the flame +of faith and hope in the hearts of the Gaelic-speaking population. + +The bardic order also, though shorn of much of their ancient splendour, +and under the Puritan _regime_ persecuted as vagrants, still flourished +as an estate of the realm. The national tendency to poetic writing was +not confined to the hereditary verse-makers, but was illustrated by +such men as the martyred Plunkett, and the Bishops of Meath and +Kerry—Dr. Thomas Dease, and Dr. John O'Connell. But the great body of +Gaelic verse of the first half of this century is known under the name +of "The Contentions of the Bards," the subject being the relative +dignity, power, and prowess of the North and South. The gauntlet in +this poetic warfare, was thrown down by McDaire, the Bard of Donogh +O'Brien, fourth Earl of Thomond, and taken up on the part of Ulster by +Lewy O'Clery. Reply led to rejoinder, and one epistle to another, until +all the chief bards of the four provinces had taken sides. Half a dozen +writers, _pro_ and _con_, were particularly distinguished; McDaire +himself, Turlogh O'Brien, and Art Oge O'Keefe on behalf of the +Southerners; O'Clery, O'Donnell, the two McEgans, and Robert McArthur +on the side of the North. + +An immense mass of devotional Gaelic poetry may be traced to this +period. The religious wars, the calamities of the church and of the +people, inspired many a priest and layman to seize the harp of David, +and pour forth his hopes and griefs in sacred song. The lament of Mac +Ward over the Ulster princes buried at Rome, the odes of Dermod Conroy +and Flan McNamee, in honour of our Blessed Lady, are of this class. +Thus it happened that the bardic order, which in ancient times was the +formidable enemy of Christianity, became, through adversity and +affliction, its greatest supporter. + +III. Our Hiberno-English literature is almost entirely the creation of +this century. Except some few remarkable state papers, we have no +English writings of any reputation of an earlier period. Now, however, +when the language of the empire, formed and enriched by the great minds +of Elizabeth's era, began to extend its influence at home and abroad, a +school of Hiberno-English writers appeared, both numerous and +distinguished. This school was as yet composed mainly of two +classes—the dramatic poets, and the pamphleteers. Of the latter were +Bishop French, Sir Richard Nagle, Sir Richard Belling, Lord Orrery, +Father Peter Walsh, and William Molyneux; of the former, Ludowick +Barry, Sir John Denham, the Earl of Roscommon, and Richard +Flecknoe,—the Mac Flecknoe of Dryden. It is true there appeared as yet +no supreme name like Swift's; but as indicating the gradual extension +of the English language into Ireland, the popular pamphlets and pieces +written for the stage, are illustrations of our mental life not to be +overlooked. + +Of the ancient schools of the island, after the final suppression of +the college at Galway in 1652, not one remained. A diocesan college at +Kilkenny, and the Dublin University, were alone open to the youth of +the country. But the University remained exclusively in possession of +the Protestant interest, nor did it give to the world during the +century, except Usher, Ware and Orrery, any graduate of national, not +to say, European reputation. In the bye-ways of the South and West, in +the Irish colleges on the continent of Europe—at Paris, Louvain, Lisle, +Salamanca, Lisbon, or Rome—the children of the proscribed majority +could alone acquire a degree in learning, human or divine. It was as +impossible two centuries ago, to speak of Trinity College with respect, +as it is in our time, remembering all it has since done, to speak of it +without veneration. + +Though the Established Church had now completed its century and a half +of existence, it was as far from the hearts of the Irish as ever. +Though the amiable Bedell and the learned O'Donnell had caused the +sacred Scriptures to be translated into the Gaelic tongue, few converts +had been made from the Catholic ranks, while the spirit of animosity +was inflamed by a sense of the cruel and undeserved disabilities +inflicted in the name of religion. The manifold sects introduced under +Cromwell gave a keener edge to Catholic contempt for the doctrines of +the reformation; and although the restoration of the monarchy threw the +extreme sectaries into the shade, it added nothing to the influence of +the church, except the fatal gift of political patronage. For the first +time, the high dignity of Archbishop of Armagh began to be regarded as +the inheritance of the leader of the House of Lords; then Brahmall and +Boyle laid the foundation of that primatial power which Boulter and +Stone upheld under another dynasty, but which vanished before the first +dawn of Parliamentary independence. + +In the quarter of a century which elapsed from the restoration to the +revolution, the condition of the Catholic clergy and laity was such as +we have already described. In 1662, an historian of the Jesuit +missionaries in Ireland described the sufferings of ecclesiastics as +deplorable; they were forced to fly to the herds of cattle in remote +places, to seek a refuge in barns and stables, or to sleep at night in +the porticoes of temples, lest they should endanger the safety of the +laity. In that same year, Orrery advised Ormond to purge the walled +towns of Papists, who were still "three to one Protestant;" in 1672, +Sir William Petty computed them at "eight to one" of the entire +population. + + "So captive Israel multiplied in chains." + +The martyrdom of the Archbishop of Dublin, in 1680, and of the +Archbishop of Armagh in 1681, were, however, the last of a series of +executions for conscience' sake, from the relation of which the +historian might well have been excused, if it was not necessary to +remind our emancipated posterity at what a price they have been +purchased. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +ACCESSION OF JAMES II.—TYRCONNELL'S ADMINISTRATION. + +From the accession of King James till his final flight from Ireland, in +July, 1690, there elapsed an interval of five years and five months; a +period fraught with consequences of the highest interest to this +history. The new King was, on his accession, in his fifty-second year; +he had served, as Duke of York, with credit both by land and sea, was +an avowed Catholic, and married to a Catholic princess, the beautiful +and unfortunate Mary of Modena. + +Within a month from the proclamation of the King, Ormond quitted the +government for the last time, leaving Primate Boyle, and Lord Granard, +as Justices. In January, 1686, Lord Clarendon, son of the historian, +assumed the government, in which he continued, till the 16th of March, +1687. The day following the national anniversary, Colonel Richard +Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, a Catholic, and the former agent for the +Catholics, was installed as Lord Deputy. Other events, connecting these +with each other, had filled with astonishment and apprehension the +ascendancy party. + +James proceeded openly with what he hoped to make a counter-reformation +of England, and to accomplish which he relied on France on the one +hand, and Ireland on the other. In both cases he alarmed the fears and +wounded the pride of England; but when he proceeded from one illegality +to another, when he began to exercise a dispensing power above the +laws—to instruct the judges, to menace the parliament, and imprison the +bishops—the nobility, the commons, and the army gradually combined +against him, and at last invited over the Prince of Orange, as the most +capable vindicator of their outraged constitution. + +The headlong King had a representative equally rash, in Tyrconnell. He +was a man old enough to remember well the uprising of 1641, had lived +in intimacy with James as Duke of York, was personally brave, well +skilled in intrigue, but vain, loud-spoken, confident, and incapable of +a high command in military affairs. The colonelcy of an Irish regiment, +the earldom of Tyrconnell, and a seat in the secret council or cabinet +of the King, were honours conferred on him during the year of James's +accession. When Clarendon was named Lord-Lieutenant at the beginning of +1686, Tyrconnell was sent over with him as Lieutenant-General of the +army. At his instigation, a proclamation was issued, that "all classes" +of his Majesty's subjects might be allowed to serve in the army; and +another, that all arms hitherto given out should be deposited, for +greater security, at one of the King's stores provided for the purpose +in each town or county. Thus that exclusively Protestant militia, which +for twenty years had executed the Act of Settlement and the Act of +Uniformity in every quarter of the kingdom, found themselves suddenly +disarmed, and a new Catholic army rising on their ruins. The numbers +disbanded are nowhere stated; they probably amounted to 10,000 or +15,000 men and very naturally they became warm partisans of the +Williamite revolution. The recriminations which arose between the new +and the old militia were not confined to the nicknames, Whig and Tory, +or to the bandying of sarcasms on each others' origin; swords were not +unfrequently drawn, and muskets discharged, even in the streets of +Dublin, under the very walls of the Castle. + +Through Tyrconnell's influence, a similar revolution had been wrought +in the exclusive character of the courts of justice, and the +corporations of towns, to that which remodelled the militia. Rice, +Daly, and Nugent, were elevated to the bench during Lord Clarendon's +time; the Corporation of Dublin having refused to surrender their +exclusive charter, were summarily rejected by a _quo warranto_, issued +in the exchequer; other towns were similarly treated, or induced to +make surrender, and a new series of charters at once granted by James, +entitling Catholics to the freedom of the boroughs, and the highest +municipal offices. And now, for the first time in that generation, +Catholic mayors and sheriffs, escorted by Catholic troops as guards of +honour, were seen marching in open day to their own places of worship, +to the dismay and astonishment of the ascendancy party. Not that all +Protestants were excluded either from town councils, the militia, or +the bench, but those only were elected or appointed who concurred in +the new arrangements, and were, therefore, pretty certain to forfeit +the confidence of their co-religionists in proportion as they deserved +that of the Deputy. Topham and Coghill, Masters in Chancery, were +deprived of their offices, and the Protestant Chancellor was +arbitrarily removed to make way for Baron Rice, a Catholic. The +exclusive character of Trinity College was next assailed, and though +James did not venture to revoke the charter of Elizabeth, establishing +communion with the Church of England as the test of fellowship, the +internal administration was in several particulars interfered with, its +plate was seized in the King's name under plea of being public +property, and the annual parliamentary grant of 388 pounds was +discontinued. These arbitrary acts filled the more judicious Catholics +with apprehension, but gained the loud applause of the unreasoning +multitude. Dr. Macguire, the successor of the martyred Plunkett, who +felt in Ulster the rising tide of resistance, was among the signers of +a memorial to the King, dutifully remonstrating against the violent +proceedings of his Deputy. From Rome also, disapprobation was more than +once expressed, but all without avail; neither James nor Talbot could +be brought to reason. The Protestants of the eastern and southern towns +and counties who could contrive to quit their homes, did so; hundreds +fled to Holland to return in the ranks of the Prince of Orange; +thousands fled to England, bringing with them their tale of oppression, +embellished with all the bitter exaggeration of exiles; ten thousand +removed from Leinster into Ulster, soon to recross the Boyne, under +very different auspices. Very soon a close correspondence was +established between the fugitives in Holland, England, and Ulster, and +a powerful lever was thus placed in the hands of the Prince of Orange, +to work the downfall of his uncle and father-in-law. But the best +allies of William were, after all, the folly and fatuity of James. The +importation of Irish troops, by entire battalions, gave the last and +sorest wound to the national pride of England, and still further +exasperated the hatred and contempt which his majesty's English +regiments had begun to feel for their royal master. + +Tyrconnell, during the eventful summer months when the revolution was +ripening both in Holland and England, had taken, unknown even to James, +a step of the gravest importance. To him the first intelligence of the +preparations of William were carried by a ship from Amsterdam, and by +him they were communicated to the infatuated King, who had laughed at +them as too absurd for serious consideration. But the Irish ruler, +fully believing his informants, and never deficient in audacity, had at +once entered into a secret treaty with Louis XIV. to put Ireland under +the protection of France, in the event of the Prince of Orange +succeeding to the British throne. No proposition could more entirely +suit the exigencies of Louis, of whom William was by far the ablest and +most relentless enemy. The correspondence which has come to light in +recent times, shows the importance which he attached to Tyrconnell's +proposition—an importance still further enhanced by the direct but +unsuccessful overture made to the earl by William himself, on landing +in England, and before embarking in the actual invasion of Ireland. + +William Henry, Prince of Orange, now about to enter on the scene, was +in 1688 in the thirty-seventh year of his age. Fearless of danger, +patient, silent, impervious to his enemies, rather a soldier than a +statesman, indifferent in religion, and personally adverse to +persecution for conscience' sake, his great and almost his only public +passion was the humiliation of France through the instrumentality of a +European coalition. As an anti-Gallican, as the representative of the +most illustrious Protestant family in Europe, as allied by blood and +marriage to their kings, he was a very fit and proper chief for the +English revolutionists; but for the two former of these reasons he was +just as naturally antipathetic to the Catholic and Celtic majority of +the Irish. His designs had been long gradually maturing, when James's +incredible imprudence hastened his movements. Twenty-four ships of war +were assembled at Helvoetsluys; 7,000 sailors were put on board; all +the veterans of the Netherlands were encamped at Nimeguen, where 6,000 +recruits were added to their numbers. On the 5th of November, the +anniversary of the gunpowder plot, "the Deliverer," as he was fondly +called in England, landed at Torbay; on the 25th of December, James, +deserted by his nobles, his army, and even his own unnatural children, +arrived, a fugitive and a suppliant, at the court of France. + +A few Irish incidents of this critical moment deserve mention. The +mania against everything Irish took in England forms the most ludicrous +and absurd. Wharton's doggerel refrain of Lillibullero, was heard in +every circle outside the court; all London, lighted with torches, and +marshalled under arms, awaited during the memorable "Irish night" the +advent of the terrible and detested regiments brought over by +Tyrconnell; some companies of these troops quartered in the country +were fallen upon by ten times their numbers, and cut to pieces. Others, +fighting and inquiring their way, forced a passage to Chester or +Bristol, and obtained a passage home. They passed at sea, or +encountered on the landing-places, multitudes of the Protestant Irish, +men, women and children, flying in exactly the opposite direction. +Tyrconnell was known to meditate the repeal of the Act of Settlement; +the general rumour of a Protestant massacre fixed for the 9th of +December, originated no one knew how, was spread about no one knew by +whom. In vain the Lord Deputy tried to stay the panic—his assurance of +protection, and the still better evidence of their own experience, +which proved the Irish Catholics incapable of such a project, could not +allay their terrors. They rushed into England by every port, and +inflamed still more the hostility which already prevailed against King +James. + +In Ulster, David Cairnes of Knockmany, the Rev. John Kelso of +Enniskillen, a Presbyterian, and Rev. George Walker of Donaghmore, an +Anglican minister, were active instruments of the Prince of Orange. On +the 7th of December the gates of Derry were shut by "the youthhood" +against the Earl of Antrim and his Highlanders. Enniskillen was seized +by a similar impulse of the popular will, and an association was +quickly formed throughout Ulster in imitation of the English +association which had invited over William, under the auspices of Lord +Blaney, Sir Arthur Rawdon, Sir Clotworthy Skeffington, and others, "for +the maintenance of the Protestant religion and the dependency of +Ireland upon England." By these associates, Sligo, Coleraine, and the +fort of Culmore, at the mouth of the Foyle, were seized for King +William; while the Town Council of Derry, in order to gain time, +despatched one ambassador with one set of instructions to Tyrconnell, +and another, with a very different set, to "the Committee for Irish +Affairs," which sat at Whitehall, under the presidency of the Earl of +Shrewsbury. + + + +CHAPTER V. +KING JAMES IN IRELAND—IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1689. + +A few days after his arrival in France, James despatched a messenger to +Tyrconnell, with instructions expressing great anxiety as to the state +of affairs in Ireland. "I am sure," wrote the fugitive monarch, "you +will hold out to the utmost of your power, and I hope this king will so +press the Hollanders, that the Prince of Orange will not have men to +spare to attack you." All the aid he could obtain from Louis at the +moment was 7,000 or 8,000 muskets, which were sent accordingly. + +Events succeeded each other during the first half of the year 1689 with +revolutionary rapidity. The conventions of England and Scotland, though +far from being unanimous, declared by immense majorities, that James +had abdicated, and that William and Mary should be offered the crowns +of both kingdoms. In February, they were proclaimed as king and queen +of "England, France, and Ireland," and in May, the Scottish +commissioners brought them the tender of the crown of Scotland. The +double heritage of the Stuart kings was thus, after nearly a century of +possession, transferred by election to a kindred prince, to the +exclusion of the direct descendants of the great champion of "the right +divine," who first united under his sceptre the three kingdoms. + +James, at the Court of France, was duly informed of all that passed at +London and Edinburgh. He knew that he had powerful partizans in both +conventions. The first fever of popular excitement once allayed, he +marked with exultation the symptoms of reaction. There was much in the +circumstances attending his flight to awaken popular sympathy, and to +cast a veil over his errors. The pathetic picture drawn of parental +suffering by the great dramatist in the character of King _Lear_, +seemed realized to the life in the person of King James. Message +followed message from the three kingdoms, urging him to return and +place himself at the head of his faithful subjects in a war against the +usurper. The French king approved of these recommendations, for in +fighting James's battle he was fighting his own, and a squadron was +prepared at Brest to carry the fugitive back to his dominions. +Accompanied by his natural sons, the Duke of Berwick and the Grand +Prior Fitzjames, by Lieutenant-Generals de Rosen and de Maumont, +Majors-General de Pusignan and de Lery (or Geraldine), about a hundred +officers of all ranks, and 1,200 veterans, James sailed from Brest, +with a fleet of 33 vessels, and landed at Kinsale on the 12th day of +March (_old style_). His reception by the Southern population was +enthusiastic in the extreme. From Kinsale to Cork, from Cork to Dublin, +his progress was accompanied by Gaelic songs and dances, by Latin +orations, loyal addresses, and all the decorations with which a popular +favourite can be welcomed. Nothing was remembered by that easily +pacified people but his great misfortunes and his steady fidelity to +his and their religion. Fifteen chaplains, nearly all Irish, +accompanied him, and added to the delight of the populace; while many a +long-absent soldier, now came back in the following of the king, to +bless the sight of some aged parent or faithful lover. The royal entry +into Dublin was the crowning pageant of this delusive restoration. With +the tact and taste for such demonstrations hereditary in the citizens, +the trades and arts were marshalled before him. Two venerable harpers +played on their national instruments near the gate by which he entered; +a number of religious in their robes, with a huge cross at their head, +chanted as they went; forty young girls, dressed in white, danced the +ancient _Rinka_, scattering flowers as they danced. The Earl of +Tyrconnell, lately raised to a dukedom, the judges, the mayor and +corporation, completed the procession, which marched over newly sanded +streets, beneath arches of evergreens and windows hung with "tapestry +and cloth of Arras." Arrived at the castle the sword of state was +presented to him by the deputy, and the keys of the city by the +recorder. At the inner entrance, the primate, Dr. Dominick Macguire, +waited in his robes to conduct him to the chapel, lately erected by +Tyrconnell, where _Te Deum_ was solemnly sung. But of all the incidents +of that striking ceremonial, nothing more powerfully impressed the +popular imagination than the green flag floating from the main tower of +the castle, bearing the significant inscription—"_Now or Never—Now and +Forever_." + +A fortnight was devoted by James in Dublin to daily and nightly +councils and receptions. The chief advisers who formed his court were +the Count d'Avaux, Ambassador of France, the Earl of Melfort, principal +Secretary of State, the Duke of Tyrconnell, Lieutenant-General Lord +Mountcashel, Chief Justice Nugent, and the superior officers of the +army, French and Irish. One of the first things resolved upon at Dublin +was the appointment of the gallant Viscount Dundee as +Lieutenant-General in Scotland—and the despatch to his assistance of an +Irish auxiliary force, which served under that renowned chief with as +much honour as their predecessors had served under Montrose. +Communications were also opened through the Bishop of Chester with the +west of England Jacobites, always numerous in Cheshire, Shropshire, and +other counties nearest to Ireland. Certain changes were then made in +the Privy Council; Chief Justice Keating's attendance was dispensed +with as one opposed to the new policy, but his judicial functions were +left untouched. Dr. Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, and the French +Ambassador were sworn in, and writs were issued convoking the Irish +Parliament for the 7th day of May following. + +Intermitting, for the present, the military events which marked the +early months of the year, we will follow the acts and deliberations of +King James's Parliament of 1689. The Houses met, according to summons, +at the appointed time, in the building known as "the Inns of Court," +within a stone's throw of the castle. There were present 228 Commoners, +and 46 members of the Upper House. In the Lords several Protestant +noblemen and prelates took their seats, and some Catholic peers of +ancient date, whose attainders had been reversed, were seen for the +first time in that generation in the front rank of their order. In the +Lower House the University and a few other constituencies were +represented by Protestants, but the overwhelming majority were +Catholics, either of Norman or Milesian origin. The King made a +judicious opening speech, declaring his intention to uphold the rights +of property, and to establish liberty of conscience alike for +Protestant and Catholic. He referred to the distressed state of trade +and manufactures, and recommended to the attention of the Houses, those +who had been unjustly deprived of their estates under the "Act of +Settlement." + +Three measures passed by this Parliament entitle its members to be +enrolled among the chief assertors of civil and religious liberty. One +was the "Act for establishing Liberty of Conscience," followed by the +supplemental act that all persons should pay tithes only to the clergy +of their own communion. An act abolishing writs of error and appeal +into England, established the judicial independence of Ireland; but a +still more necessary measure repealing Poyning's Law, was defeated +through the personal hostility of the King. An act repealing the Act of +Settlement was also passed, under protest from the Protestant Lords, +and received the royal sanction. A bill to establish Inns of Court, for +the education of Irish law students, was, however, rejected by the +King, and lost; an "Act of Attainder," against persons in arms against +the Sovereign, whose estates lay in Ireland, was adopted. Whatever may +be the bias of historians, it cannot be denied that this Parliament +showed a spirit worthy of the representatives of a free people. "Though +Papists," says Mr. Grattan, our highest parliamentary authority, "they +were not slaves; they wrung a constitution from King James before they +accompanied him to the field." + +The King, unfortunately, had not abandoned the arbitrary principles of +his family, even in his worst adversity. His interference with the +discussions on Poyning's Law, and the Inns of Court bill, had shocked +some of his most devoted adherents. But he proceeded from obstructive +to active despotism. He doubled, by his mere proclamation, the enormous +subsidy of 20,000 pounds monthly voted him by the Houses. He +established, by the same authority, a bank, and decreed in his own name +a bank restriction act. He debased the coinage, and established a fixed +scale of prices to be observed by all merchants and traders. In one +respect—but in one only—he grossly violated his own professed purpose +of establishing liberty of conscience, by endeavouring to force fellows +and scholars on the University of Dublin contrary to its statutes. He +even went so far as to appoint a provost and librarian without consent +of the senate. However we may condemn the exclusiveness of the College, +this was not the way to correct it; bigotry on the one hand, will not +justify despotism on the other. + +More justifiable was the interference of the King for the restoration +of rural schools and churches, and the decent maintenance of the clergy +and bishops. His appointments to the bench were also, with one or two +exceptions, men of the very highest character. "The administration of +justice during this brief period," says Dr. Cooke Taylor, "deserves the +highest praise. With the exception of Nugent and Fritton, the Irish +judges would have been an honour to any bench." + + + +CHAPTER VI. +THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR—CAMPAIGN OF 1689—SIEGES OF DERRY AND ENNISKILLEN. + +When Tyrconnell met the King at Cork, he gave his Majesty a plain +account of the posture of military affairs. In Ulster, +Lieutenant-General Richard Hamilton, at the head of 2,500 regular +troops, was holding the rebels in check, from Charlemont to Coleraine; +in Munster, Lieutenant-General Justin McCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, had +taken Bandon and Castlemartyr; throughout the four provinces, the +Catholics, to the number of fifty regiments (probably 30,000 men), had +volunteered their services; but for all these volunteers he had only +20,000 old arms of all kinds, not over 1,000 of which were found really +valuable. There were besides these, regiments of horse, Tyrconnell's, +Russell's, and Galmony's, and one of dragoons, eight small pieces of +artillery, but neither stores in the magazines, nor cash in the chest. +While at Cork, Tyrconnell, in return for his great exertions, was +created a Duke, and General-in-Chief, with De Rosen as second in +command. + +A week before James reached Dublin, Hamilton had beaten the rebels at +Dromore, and driven them in on Coleraine, from before which he wrote +urgently for reinforcements. On receipt of this communication, the +Council exhibited, for the first time, those radical differences of +opinion, amounting almost to factious opposition, which crippled all +King James's movements at this period. One party strenuously urged that +the King himself should march northward with such troops as could be +spared; that his personal appearance before Derry, would immediately +occasion the surrender of that city, and that he might in a few weeks, +finish in person the campaign of Ulster. Another, at whose head was +Tyrconnell, endeavoured to dissuade his Majesty from this course, but +he at length decided in favour of the plan of Melfort and his friends. +Accordingly, he marched out of Dublin, amid torrents of April rain, on +the eighth of that month, intending to form a junction with Hamilton, +at Strabane, and thence to advance to Derry. The march was a weary one +through a country stripped bare of every sign of life, and desolate +beyond description. A week was spent between Dublin and Omagh; at Omagh +news of an English fleet on the Foyle caused the King to retrace his +steps hastily to Charlemont. At Charlemont, however, intelligence of +fresh successes gained by Hamilton and De Rosen, at Cladyford and +Strabane, came to restore his confidence; he instantly set forward, +despite the tempestuous weather, and the almost impassable roads, and +on the eighteenth reached the Irish camp at Johnstown, within four or +five miles of Derry. + +It was now four months since "the youthhood" of Derry had shut the +Watergate against Lord Antrim's regiment, and established within their +walls a strange sort of government, including eighteen clergymen and +the town democracy. The military command remained with +Lieutenant-Colonel Lundy, of Mountjoy's regiment, but the actual +government of the town was vested, first, in "Governor" Baker, and +afterwards in the Reverend George Walker, rector of Donaghmore, best +known to us as _Governor_ Walker. The Town Council had despatched Mr. +Cairnes, and subsequently Captain Hamilton, founder of the Abercorn +peerage, to England for succour, and had openly proclaimed William and +Mary as King and Queen. Defensive works were added, where necessary, +and on the very day of the affair of Cladyford, 480 barrels of +gunpowder were landed from English ships and conveyed within the walls. + +As the Royalist forces concentrated towards Derry, the chiefs of the +Protestant Association fell back before them, each bringing to its +garrison the contribution of his own followers. From the valley of the +Bann, over the rugged summits of Carntogher, from the glens of Donegal, +and the western sea coast round to Mayo, troops of the fugitives +hurried to the strong town of the London traders, as to a city of +refuge. Enniskillen alone, resolute in its insular situation, and in a +courage akin to that which actuated the defenders of Derry, stood as an +outpost of the main object of attack, and delayed the junction of the +Royalists under Mountcashel with those under Hamilton and De Rosen. +Coleraine was abandoned. Captain Murray, the commander of Culmore, +forced his way at the head of 1,500 men into Derry, contrary to the +wishes of the vacillating and suspected Lundy, and, from the moment of +his arrival, infused his own determined spirit into all ranks of the +inhabitants. + +Those who had advised King James to present himself in person before +the Protestant stronghold, had not acted altogether, upon presumption. +It is certain that there were Jacobites, even in Derry. Lundy, the +governor, either despairing of its defence, or undecided in his +allegiance between James and William, had opened a correspondence with +Hamilton and De Rosen. But the true answer of the brave townsmen, when +the King advanced too near their walls, was a cannon shot which killed +one of his staff, and the cry of "No Surrender" thundered from the +walls. James, awakened from his self-complacent dream by this +unexpected reception, returned to Dublin, to open his Parliament, +leaving General Hamilton to continue the siege. Colonel Lundy, +distrusted, overruled, and menaced, escaped over the walls by night, +disguised as a common labourer, and the party of Murray, Baker, Walker, +and Cairnes, reigned supreme. + +The story of the siege of Derry—of the heroic constancy of its +defenders—of the atrocities of De Rosen and Galmoy—the clemency of +Maumont—the forbearance of Hamilton—the struggles for supremacy among +its magnates—the turbulence of the townsfolk—the joyful raising of the +siege—all these have worthily employed some of the most eloquent pens +in our language. The relief came by the breaking of the boom across the +harbour's mouth on the last day of July; the bombardment had commenced +on the 21st of April; the gates had been shut on the 7th of December. +The actual siege had lasted above three months, and the blockade about +three weeks. The destruction of life on both sides has never been +definitely stated. The besieged admit a loss of 4,000 men; the +besiegers of 6,000. The want of siege guns in the Jacobite camp is +admitted by both parties, but, nevertheless, the defence of the place +well deserves to be celebrated, as it has been by an imperial +historian, "as the most memorable in British annals." + +Scarcely inferior in interest and importance to the siege of Derry, was +the spirited defence of Enniskillen. That fine old town, once the seat +of the noble family of Maguire, is naturally dyked and moated round +about, by the waters of Lough Erne. In December, '88, it had closed its +gates, and barricaded its causeways to keep out a Jacobite garrison. In +March, on Lord Galmoy's approach, all the outlying garrisons, in +Fermanagh and Cavan, had destroyed their posts, and gathered into +Enniskillen. The cruel and faithless Galmoy, instead of inspiring +terror into the united garrison, only increased their determination to +die in the breach. So strong in position and numbers did they find +themselves, with the absolute command of the lower Lough Erne to bring +in their supplies, that in April they sent off a detachment to the +relief of Derry, and in the months of May and June, made several +successful forays to Ballincarrig, Omagh, and Belturbet. In July, +provided with a fresh supply of ammunition from the fleet intended for +the relief of Derry, they beat up the Duke of Berwick's quarters at +Trellick, but were repulsed with some loss. The Duke being soon after +recalled to join De Rosen, the siege of Enniskillen was committed to +Lord Mountcashel, under whom, as commander of the cavalry, served Count +Anthony Hamilton, author of the witty but licentious "Memoirs of +Grammont," and other distinguished officers. Mountcashel's whole force +consisted of three regiments of foot, two of dragoons, and some horse; +but he expected to be joined by Colonel Sarsfield from Sligo, and +Berwick from Derry. The besieged had drawn four regiments of foot from +Cavan alone, and were probably twice that number in all; and they had, +in Colonels Wolseley and Berry, able and energetic officers. The +Enniskilleners did not await the attack within their fortress. At +Lisnaskea, under Berry, they repulsed the advanced guard of the +Jacobites under Anthony Hamilton; and the same day—the day of the +relief of Derry—their whole force were brought into action with +Mountcashel's at Newtown-Butler. To the cry of "No Popery," Wolseley +led them into an action, the most considerable yet fought. The raw +southern levies on the Royalist side, were routed by the hardy +Enniskilleners long familiar with the use of arms, and well acquainted +with every inch of the ground; 2,000 of them were left on the field; +400 prisoners were taken, among them dangerously, but not mortally +wounded, was the Lieutenant-General himself. + +The month of August was a month of general rejoicing for the +Williamites of Ulster, De Rosen and Berwick had retreated from Derry; +Sarsfield, on his way to join Mountcashel, fell back to Sligo on +hearing of his defeat at Newtown-Butler; Culmore, Coleraine, and +Ballyshannon, were retaken and well supplied; fugitives returned +triumphantly to their homes, in Cavan, Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Armagh. A +panic created by false reports spread among his troops at Sligo, +compelled Sarsfield to fall still further back to Athlone. Six months +after his arrival, with the exception of the forts of Charlemont and +Carrickfergus, King James no longer possessed a garrison in that +province, which had been bestowed by his grandfather upon the ancestors +of those who now unanimously rejected and resisted him. + +The fall of the gallant Dundee in the battle of Killicrankie, five days +before the relief of Derry, freed King William from immediate anxiety +on the side of Scotland, and enabled him to concentrate his whole +disposable force on Ireland. On the 13th of August, an army of eighteen +regiments of foot, and four or five of horse, under the Marshal Duke de +Schomberg, with Count Solmes as second in command, sailed into Belfast +Lough, and took possession of the town. On the 20th, the Marshal opened +a fierce cannonade on Carrickfergus, defended by Colonels McCarthy More +and Cormac O'Neil, while the fleet bombarded it from sea. After eight +days' incessant cannonade, the garrison surrendered on honourable +terms, and Schomberg faced southward towards Dublin. Brave, and long +experienced, the aged Duke moved according to the cautious maxims of +the military school in which he had been educated. Had he advanced +rapidly on the capital, James must have fallen back, as De Rosen +advised, on the line of the Shannon; but O'Regan, at Charlemont, and +Berwick, at Newry, seemed to him obstacles so serious, that nearly a +month was wasted in advancing from Belfast to Dundalk, where he +entrenched himself in September, and went into winter quarters. Here a +terrible dysentery broke out among his troops, said to have been +introduced by some soldiers from Derry, and so destructive were its +ravages, that there were hardly left healthy men enough to bury the +dead. Several of the French Catholics under his command, also, deserted +to James, who, from his head-quarters at Drogheda, offered every +inducement to the deserters. Others discovered in the attempt were +tried and hanged, and others, still suspected of similar designs, were +marched down to Carlingford, and shipped for England. In November, +James returned from Drogheda to Dublin, much elated that Duke +Schomberg, whose fatal camp at Dundalk he had in vain attempted to +raise, had shrunk from meeting him in the field. + + + +CHAPTER VII. +THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR—CAMPAIGN OF 1690—BATTLE OF THE BOYNE—ITS +CONSEQUENCES—THE SIEGES OF ATHLONE AND LIMERICK. + +The armies now destined to combat for two kings on Irish soil were +strongly marked by those distinctions of race and religion which add +bitterness to struggles for power, while they present striking +contrasts to the eye of the painter of military life and manners. King +James's troops were chiefly Celtic and Catholic. There were four +regiments commanded by O'Neils, two by O'Briens, two by O'Kellys, one +each by McCarthy More, Maguire, O'More, O'Donnell, McMahon, and +Magennis, principally 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 Dutch and white Dutch +regiments; the Huguenot regiments of Schomberg, La Millinier, Du +Cambon, and La Callimotte; 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, Colonels +Gustavus Hamilton, Mitchelburne, Loyd, White, St. Johns, and Tiffany. +Some important changes had taken place on both sides during the winter +months. D'Avaux and De Rosen had been recalled at James's request; +Mountcashel, at the head of the first Franco-Irish brigade, had been +exchanged for 6,000 French, under De Lauzan, who arrived the following +March in the double character of general and ambassador. The report +that William was to command in person in the next campaign, was, of +itself, an indication pregnant with other changes to the minds of his +adherents. + +Their abundant supplies of military stores from England, wafted from +every port upon the channel, where James had not a keel afloat, enabled +the Williamite army to take the initiative in the campaign of 1690. At +Cavan, Brigadier Wolseley repulsed the Duke of Berwick, with the loss +of 200 men and some valuable officers. But the chief incident preceding +William's arrival was the siege of Charlemont. This siege, which +commenced apparently in the previous autumn, had continued during +several months, till the garrison were literally starved out, in May. +The famished survivors were kindly treated, by order of Schomberg, and +their gallant and eccentric chief, O'Regan, was knighted by the King, +for his persistent resistance. A month from the day on which Charlemont +fell, (June 14th), William landed at Carrickfergus, accompanied by +Prince George of Denmark, the Duke of Wurtemburg, the Prince of +Hesse-Darmstadt, the second and last Duke of Ormond, Major-General +Mackay, the Earls of Oxford, Portland, Scarborough, and Manchester, +General Douglas, and other distinguished British and foreign officers. +At Belfast, his first head-quarters, he ascertained the forces at his +disposal to be upwards of 40,000 men, composed of "a strange medley of +all nations"—Scandinavians, Swiss, Dutch, Prussians, Huguenot-French, +English, Scotch, "Scotch-Irish," and Anglo-Irish. Perhaps the most +extraordinary element in that strange medley was the Danish contingent +of horse and foot. Irish tradition and Irish prophecy still teemed with +tales of terror and predictions of evil at the hands of the Danes, +while these hardy mercenaries observed, with grim satisfaction, that +the memory of their fierce ancestors had not become extinct after the +lapse of twenty generations. At the Boyne, and at Limerick, they could +not conceal their exultation as they encamped on some of the very +earthworks raised by men of their race seven centuries before, and it +must be admitted they vindicated their descent, both by their courage +and their cruelty. + +On the 16th of June, James, informed of William's arrival, marched +northward at the head of 20,000 men, French and Irish, to meet him. On +the 22nd, James was at Dundalk and William at Newry; as the latter +advanced, the Jacobites retired, and finally chose their ground at the +Boyne, resolved to hazard a battle, for the preservation of Dublin, and +the safety of the province of Leinster. + +On the last day of June, the hostile forces confronted each other at +the Boyne. The gentle, legendary river, wreathed in all the glory of +its abundant foliage, was startled with the cannonade from the northern +bank, which continued through the long summer's evening, and woke the +early echoes of the morrow. William, strong in his veteran ranks, +welcomed the battle; James, strong in his defensive position, and the +goodness of his cause, awaited it with confidence. On the northern bank +near to the ford of Oldbridge, William, with his chief officers, +breakfasting on the turf, nearly lost his life from a sudden discharge +of cannon; but he was quickly in the saddle, at all points reviewing +his army. James, on the hill of Donore, looked down on his devoted +defenders, through whose ranks rode Tyrconnell, lame and ill, the +youthful Berwick, the adventurous Lauzan, and the beloved +Sarsfield—everywhere received with cordial acclamations. The battle +commenced at the ford of Oldbridge, between Sir Neil O'Neil, and the +younger Schomberg; O'Neil fell mortally wounded, and the ford was +forced. By this ford, William ordered his centre to advance under the +elder Schomberg, as the hour of noon approached, while he himself moved +with the left across the river, nearer to Drogheda. Lauzan, with +Sarsfield's horse, dreading to be outflanked, had galloped to guard the +bridge of Slane, five miles higher up the stream, where alone a flank +movement was possible. The battle was now transferred from the gunners +to the swordsmen and pikemen—from the banks to the fords and borders of +the river, William, on the extreme left, swam his horse across, in +imminent danger; Schomberg and Callimotte fell in the centre, mortally +wounded. News was brought to William, that Dr. Walker—recently +appointed to the See of Derry—had also fallen, "What brought him +there?" was the natural comment of the soldier-prince. After seven +hours' fighting the Irish fell back on Duleek, in good order. The +assailants admitted five hundred killed, and as many wounded; the +defenders were said to have lost from one thousand to fifteen hundred +men—less than at Newtown-Butler. The carnage, compared with some great +battles of that age, was inconsiderable, but the political consequences +were momentous. The next day, the garrison of Drogheda, one thousand +three hundred strong, surrendered; in another week, William was in +Dublin, and James, terrified by the reports which had reached him, was +_en route_ for France. It is hardly an exaggeration to say, that the +fate of Europe was decided by the result of the battle of the Boyne. At +Paris, at the Hague, at Vienna, at Rome, at Madrid, nothing was talked +of but the great victory of the Prince of Orange over Louis and James. +It is one of the strangest complications of history that the vanquished +Irish Catholics seem to have been never once thought of by Spain, +Austria, or the Pope. In the greater issues of the European coalition +against France, their interests, and their very existence, were for the +moment forgotten. + +The defeat at the Boyne, and the surrender of Dublin, uncovered the +entire province of Leinster, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford, Duncannon, +Clonmel, and other places of less importance, surrendered within six +weeks. The line of the Shannon was fallen back upon by the Irish, and +the points of attack and defence were now shifted to Athlone and +Limerick. What Enniskillen and Derry had been, in the previous year, to +the Williamite party in the north, cities of refuge, and strongholds of +hope, these two towns upon the Shannon had now become, by the fortune +of war, to King James's adherents. + +On the 17th of July, General Douglas appeared before Athlone, and +summoned it to surrender. The veteran commandant, Colonel Richard +Grace, a Confederate of 1641, having destroyed the bridge, and the +suburbs on the Leinster side of the Shannon, replied by discharging his +pistol over the head of the drummer who delivered the message. Douglas +attempted to cross the river at Lanesborough, but found the ford +strongly guarded by one of Grace's outposts; after a week's ineffectual +bombardment, he withdrew from before Athlone, and proceeded to +Limerick, ravaging and slaying as he went. + +Limerick had at first been abandoned by the French under Lauzan, as +utterly indefensible. That gay intriguer desired nothing so much as to +follow the King to France, while Tyrconnell, broken down with physical +suffering and mental anxiety, feebly concurred in his opinion. They +accordingly departed for Galway, leaving the city to its fate, and, +happily for the national reputation, to bolder counsels than their own. +De Boisseleau did not underrate the character of the Irish levies, who +had retreated before twice their numbers at the Boyne; he declared +himself willing to remain, and, sustained by Sarsfield, he was chosen +as commandant. More than ten thousand foot had gathered "as if by +instinct" to that city, and on the Clare side Sarsfield still kept +together his cavalry, at whose head he rode to Galway and brought back +Tyrconnell. On the 9th of August, William, confident of an easy +victory, appeared before the town, but more than twelve months were to +elapse before all his power could reduce those mouldering walls, which +the fugitive French ambassador had declared "might be taken with +roasted apples." + +An exploit, planned and executed by Sarsfield the day succeeding +William's arrival, saved the city for another year, and raised that +officer to the highest pitch of popularity. Along the Clare side of the +Shannon, under cover of the night, he galloped as fast as horse could +carry him, at the head of his dragoons, and crossed the river at +Killaloe. One Manus O'Brien, a Protestant of Clare, who had encountered +the flying horsemen, and learned enough to suspect their design, +hastened to William's camp with the news, but he was at first laughed +at for his pains. William, however, never despising any precaution in +war, despatched Sir John Lanier with 500 horse to protect his +siege-train, then seven miles in the rear, on the road between Limerick +and Cashel. Sarsfield, however, was too quick for Sir John. The day +after he had crossed at Killaloe he kept his men _perdu_ in the hilly +country, and the next night swooped down upon the convoy in charge of +the siege-train, who were quietly sleeping round the ruined church of +Ballanedy. The sentinels were sabred at their posts, the guards, +half-dressed, fled in terror or were speedily killed. The gun-carriages +were quickly yoked, and drawn together to a convenient place, where, +planted in pits with ammunition, they were, with two exceptions, +successfully blown to atoms. Lanier arrived within view of the terrific +scene in time to feel its stunning effects. The ground for miles round +shook as from an earthquake; the glare and roar of the explosion were +felt in William's camp, and through the beleaguered city. On the +morrow, all was known. Sarsfield was safely back in his old encampment, +without the loss of a single man; Limerick was in an uproar of delight, +while William's army, to the lowest rank, felt the depression of so +unexpected a blow. A week later, however, the provident prince had a +new siege-train of thirty-six guns and four mortars brought up from +Waterford, pouring red-hot shot on the devoted city. Another week—on +the 27th of August—a gap having been made in the walls near Saint +John's gate, a storming party of the English guards, the Anglo-Irish, +Prussians, and Danes, was launched into the breach. After an action of +uncommon fierceness and determination on both sides, the besiegers +retired with the loss of 30 officers, and 800 men killed, and 1,200 +wounded. The besieged admitted 400 killed—their wounded were not +counted. Four days later, William abandoned the siege, retreated to +Waterford, and embarked for England, with Prince George of Denmark, the +Dukes of Wurtemburg and Ormond, and others of his principal adherents. +Tyrconnell, labouring with the illness of which he soon after died, +took advantage of the honourable pause thus obtained, to proceed on his +interrupted voyage to France, accompanied by the ambassador. Before +leaving, however, the young Duke of Berwick was named in his stead as +Commander-in-Chief; Fitton, Nagle, and Plowden, as Lords Justices; +sixteen "senators" were to form a sort of Cabinet, and Sarsfield to be +second in military command. His enemies declared that Tyrconnell +retired from the contest because his early spirit and courage had +failed him; he himself asserted that his object was to procure +sufficient succours from King Louis, to give a decisive issue to the +war. His subsequent negotiations at Paris proved that though his bodily +health might be wretched, his ingenuity and readiness of resource had +not deserted him. He justified himself both with James and Louis, +outwitted Lauzan, propitiated Louvois, disarmed the prejudices of the +English Jacobites, and, in short, placed the military relations of +France and Ireland on a footing they had never hitherto sustained. The +expedition of the following spring, under command of Marshal Saint +Ruth, was mainly procured by his able diplomacy, and though he returned +to Ireland to survive but a few weeks the disastrous day of Aughrim, it +is impossible from the Irish point of view, not to recall with +admiration, mixed indeed with alloy, but still with largely prevailing +admiration, the extraordinary energy, buoyancy and talents of Richard, +Duke of Tyrconnell. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +THE WINTER OF 1690-91. + +The Jacobite party in England were not slow to exaggerate the extent of +William's losses before Athlone and Limerick. The national +susceptibility was consoled by the ready reflection, that if the beaten +troops were partly English, the commanders were mainly foreigners. A +native hero was needed, and was found in the person of Marlborough, a +captain, whose name was destined to eclipse every other English +reputation of that age. At his suggestion an expedition was fitted out +against Cork, Kinsale, and other ports of the south of Ireland, and the +command, though not without some secret unwillingness on William's +part, committed to him. On the 23rd of September, at the head of 8,000 +fresh troops, amply supplied with all necessary munitions, Marlborough +assaulted Cork. After five days' bombardment, in which the Duke of +Grafton, and other officers and men were slain, the Governor, McEligot, +capitulated on conditions, which, in spite of all Marlborough's +exertions, were flagrantly violated. The old town of Kinsale was at +once abandoned as untenable the same day, and the new fort, at the +entrance to the harbour, was surrendered after a fortnight's cannonade. +Covered with glory from a five weeks' campaign, Marlborough returned to +England to receive the acclamations of the people and the most gracious +compliments of the prince. + +Berwick and Sarsfield on the one side and Ginkle and Lanier on the +other, kept up the winter campaign till an advanced period, on both +banks of the Shannon. About the middle of September, the former made a +dash over the bridge of Banagher, against Birr, or Parsonstown, the +family borough of the famous _Undertaker_. The English, in great force, +under Lanier, Kirke, and Douglas, hastened to its relief, and the Irish +fell back to Banagher. To destroy "that convenient pass" became now the +object of one party, to protect it, of the other. After some +skirmishing and manoeuvring on both sides, the disputed bridge was left +in Irish possession, and the English fell back to the borough and +castle of Sir Lawrence Parsons. During the siege of the new fort at +Kinsale, Berwick and Sarsfield advanced as far as Kilmallock to its +relief, but finding themselves so inferior in numbers to Marlborough, +they were unwillingly compelled to leave its brave defenders to their +fate, + +Although the Duke of Berwick was the nominal Commander-in-Chief, his +youth, and the distractions incident to youth, left the more mature and +popular Sarsfield the possession of real power, both civil and +military. Every fortunate accident had combined to elevate that gallant +cavalry officer into the position of national leadership. + +He was the son of a member of the Irish Commons, proscribed for his +patriotism and religion in 1641, by Anna O'Moore, daughter of the +organizer of the Catholic Confederation. He was a Catholic in religion, +spoke Gaelic as easily as English, was brave, impulsive; handsome, and +generous to a fault, like the men he led. In Tyrconnell's absence every +sincere lover of the country came to him with intelligence, and looked +to him for direction. Early in November he learned through his +patriotic spies the intention of the Williamites to force the passage +of the Shannon in the depth of winter. On the last day of December, +accordingly, they marched in great force under Kirke and Lanier to +Jonesboro', and under Douglas to Jamestown. At both points they found +the indefatigable Sarsfield fully prepared for them, and after a +fortnight's intense suffering from exposure to the weather, were glad +to get back again to their snug quarters at Parsonstown. + +Early in February Tyrconnell landed at Limerick with a French fleet, +escorted by three vessels of war, and laden with provisions, but +bringing few arms and no reinforcements. He had brought over, however, +14,000 golden louis, which were found of the utmost service in +re-clothing the army, besides 10,000 more which he had deposited at +Brest to purchase oatmeal for subsequent shipment. He also brought +promises of military assistance on a scale far beyond anything France +had yet afforded. It is almost needless to say he was received at +Galway and Limerick with an enthusiasm which silenced, if it did not +confute, his political enemies, both in Ireland and France. + +During his absence intrigues and factions had been rifer than ever in +the Jacobite ranks. Sarsfield had discovered that the English movement +on the Shannon in December was partly hastened by foolish or +treacherous correspondence among his own associates. Lord Riverston and +his brother were removed from the Senate, or Council of Sixteen—four +from each province—and Judge Daly, ancestor of the Dunsandle family, +was placed under arrest at Galway. The youthful Berwick sometimes +complained that he was tutored and overruled by Sarsfield; but though +the impetuous soldier may occasionally have forgotten the lessons +learned in courts, his activity seems to have been the greatest, his +information the best, his advice the most disinterested, and his +fortitude the highest of any member of the council. By the time of +Tyrconnell's return he had grown to a height of popularity and power, +which could not well brook a superior either in the cabinet or the +camp. + +On the arrival of the Lord Lieutenant, who was also Commander-in-Chief, +the ambition of Sarsfield was gratified by the rank of Earl of Lucan, a +title drawn from that pleasant hamlet, in the valley of the Liffey, +where he had learned to lisp the catechism of a patriot at the knee of +Anna O'Moore. But his real power was much diminished. Tyrconnell, +Berwick, Sir Richard Nagle, who had succeeded the Earl of Melfort as +chief secretary for King James, all ranked before him at the board, and +when Saint Ruth arrived to take command-in-chief, he might fairly have +complained that he was deprived of the chief reward to which he had +looked forward. + +The weary winter and the drenching spring months wore away, and the +Williamite troops, sorely afflicted by disease, hugged their tents and +huts. Some relief was sent by sea to the Jacobite garrison of Sligo, +commanded by the stout old Sir Teague O'Regan, the former defender of +Charlemont. Athlone, too, received some succours, and the line of the +Shannon was still unbroken from Slieve-an-iron to the sea. But still +the promised French assistance was delayed. Men were beginning to doubt +both King Louis and King James, when, at length at the beginning of +May, the French ships were signalled from the cliffs of Kerry. On the +8th, the Sieur de Saint Ruth, with Generals D'Usson and De Tesse, +landed at Limerick, and assisted at a solemn _Te Deum_ in St. Mary's +Cathedral. They brought considerable supplies of clothes, provisions, +and ammunitions, but neither veterans to swell the ranks, nor money to +replenish the chest. Saint Ruth entered eagerly upon the discharge of +his duties as generalissimo, while Sarsfield continued the nominal +second in command. + + + +CHAPTER IX. +THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR—CAMPAIGN OF 1691—BATTLE OF AUGHRIM—CAPITULATION +OF LIMERICK. + +Saint Ruth, with absolute powers, found himself placed at the head of +from 20,000 to 25,000 men, in the field or in garrison, regular or +irregular, but all, with hardly an exception, Irish. His and +Tyrconnell's recent supplies had sufficed to renew the clothing and +equipment of the greater part of the number, but the whole contents of +the army chest, the golden hinge on which war moves, was estimated in +the beginning of May to afford to each soldier only "a penny a day for +three weeks." He had under him some of the best officers that France +could spare, or Ireland produce, and he had with him the hearts of +nine-tenths of the natives of the country. + +A singular illustration of the popular feeling occurred the previous +August. The Milesian Irish had cherished the belief ever since the +disastrous day of Kinsale, that an O'Donnell from Spain, having on his +shoulder a red mark (_ball derg_), would return to free them from the +English yoke, in a great battle near Limerick. Accordingly, when a +representative of the Spanish O'Donnells actually appeared at Limerick, +bearing as we know many of his family have done, even to our day, the +unmistakable red mark of the ancient Tyrconnell line, immense numbers +of the country people who had held aloof from the Jacobite cause, +obeyed the voice of prophecy, and flocked round the Celtic deliverer. +From 7,000 to 8,000 recruits were soon at his disposal, and it was not +without bitter indignation that the chief, so enthusiastically +received, saw regiment after regiment drafted from among his followers, +and transferred to other commanders. Bred up a Spanish subject—the +third in descent from an Irish prince—it is not to be wondered at that +he regarded the _Irish_ cause as all in all, and the interests of King +James as entirely secondary. He could hardly consider himself as bound +in allegiance to that king; he was in no way indebted to him or his +family, and if we learn that when the war grew desperate, but before it +was ended, he had entered into a separate treaty for himself and his +adherents, with William's generals, we must remember, before we condemn +him, that we are speaking of an Hiberno-Spaniard, to whom the house of +Stuart was no more sacred than the house of Orange. + +The Williamite army rendezvoused at Mullingar towards the end of May, +under Generals De Ginkle, Talmash and Mackay. On the 7th of June, they +moved in the direction of Athlone, 18,000 strong, "the ranks one blaze +of scarlet, and the artillery such as had never before been seen in +Ireland." The capture of Ballymore Castle, in West-Meath, detained them +ten days; on the 19th, joined by the Duke of Wurtemburg, the Prince of +Hesse and the Count of Nassau, with 7,000 foreign mercenaries, the +whole sat down before the English town of Athlone, which Saint Ruth, +contrary to his Irish advisers, resolved to defend. In twenty-four +hours those exposed outworks abandoned by the veteran Grace the +previous year, fell, and the bombardment of the Irish town on the +opposite or Connaught bank, commenced. For ten days—from the 20th to +the 30th of June—that fearful cannonade continued. Storey, the +Williamite chaplain, to whom we are indebted for many valuable +particulars of this war, states that the besiegers fired above 12,000 +cannon shot, 600 shells and many tons of stone, into the place. Fifty +tons of powder were burned in the bombardment. The castle, an imposing +but lofty and antique structure, windowed as much for a residence as a +fortress, tumbled into ruins; the bridge was broken down and +impassable; the town a heap of rubbish, where two men could no longer +walk abreast. But the Shannon had diminished in volume as the summer +advanced, and three Danes employed for that purpose found a ford above +the bridge, and at six o'clock on the evening of the last day of June, +2,000 picked men, headed by Gustavus Hamilton's grenadiers, dashed into +the ford at the stroke of a bell. At the same instant all the English +batteries on the Leinster side opened on the Irish town, wrapping the +river in smoke, and distracting the attention of the besiegers. Saint +Ruth was, at this critical moment, at his camp two miles off, and +D'Usson, the commandant, was also absent from his post. In half an hour +the Williamites were masters of the heap of rubbish which had once been +Athlone, with a loss of less than fifty men killed and wounded. For +this bold and successful movement De Ginkle was created Earl of +Athlone, and his chief officers were justly ennobled. Saint Ruth, +over-confident, in a strange country, withdrew to Ballinasloe, behind +the river Suck, and prepared to risk everything on the hazard of a +pitched battle. + +De Ginkle moved slowly from Athlone in pursuit of his enemy. On the +morning of the 11th of July, as the early haze lifted itself in wreaths +from the landscape, he found himself within range of the Irish, drawn +up, north and south, on the upland of Kilcommodan hill, with a morass +on either flank, through which ran two narrow causeways—on the right, +"the pass of Urrachree," on the left, the causeway leading to the +little village of Aughrim. Saint Ruth's force must have numbered from +15,000 to 20,000 men, with nine field-pieces; De Ginkle commanded from +25,000 to 30,000, with four batteries—two of which mounted six guns +each. During the entire day, attack after attack, in the direction of +Urrachree or of Aughrim was repulsed, and the assailants were about to +retire in despair. As the sun sank low, a last desperate attempt was +made with equal ill success. "Now, my children," cried the elated Saint +Ruth, "the day is ours! Now I shall drive them back to the walls of +Dublin!" At that moment he fell by a cannon shot to the earth, and +stayed the advancing tide of victory. The enemy marked the check, +halted, rallied and returned. Sarsfield, who had not been entrusted +with his leader's plan of action, was unable to remedy the mischief +which ensued. Victory arrested was converted into defeat. The sun went +down on Aughrim, and the last great Irish battle between the Reformed +and Roman religions. Four thousand of the Catholics were killed and +wounded, and three thousand of the Protestants littered the field. +Above five hundred prisoners, with thirty-two pairs of colours, eleven +standards, and a large quantity of small arms, fell into the hands of +the victors. One portion of the fugitive survivors fled to Galway, the +larger part, including all the cavalry, to Limerick. + +This double blow at Athlone and Aughrim shook to pieces the remaining +Catholic power in Connaught. Galway surrendered ten days after the +battle; Balldearg O'Donnell, after a vain attempt to throw himself into +it in time, made terms with De Ginkle, and carried his two regiments +into Flanders to fight on the side Spain and Rome had chosen to take in +the European coalition. Sligo, the last western garrison, succumbed, +and the brave Sir Teague O'Regan marched his 600 men, survivors, +southward to Limerick. + +Thus once more all eyes and all hearts in the British Islands were +turned towards the well-known city of the lower Shannon. There, on the +14th of August, Tyrconnell expired, stricken down by apoplexy. On the +25th, De Ginkle, reinforced by all the troops he could gather in with +safety, had invested the place on three sides. Sixty guns, none of less +than 12 pounds calibre, opened their deadly fire against it. An English +fleet ascended the river, hurling its missiles right and left. On the +9th of September the garrison made an unsuccessful sally, with heavy +loss; on the 10th, a breach, forty yards wide, was made in the wall +overhanging the river; on the night of the 15th, through the treachery +or negligence of Brigadier Clifford, on guard at the Clare side of the +river, a pontoon bridge was laid, and a strong English division crossed +over in utter silence. The Irish horse, which had hitherto kept open +communications with the country on that side, fell back to Six Mile +Bridge. On the 24th, a truce of three days was agreed upon, and on the +3rd of October the memorable "Treaty of Limerick" was signed by the +Williamite and Jacobite commissioners. + +The _civil_ articles of Limerick will be mentioned farther on; the +_military_ articles, twenty-nine in number, provided that all persons +willing to expatriate themselves, as well officers and soldiers as +rapparees and volunteers, should have free liberty to do so, to any +place beyond seas, except England and Scotland; that they might depart +in whole bodies, companies, or parties; that if plundered by the way, +William's government should make good their loss; that fifty ships of +200 tons each should be provided for their transportation, besides two +men-of-war for the principal officers; that the garrison of Limerick +might march out with all their arms, guns and baggage, "colours flying, +drums beating, and matches lighting!" It was also agreed, that those +who so wished might enter the service of William, retaining their rank +and pay; but though De Ginkle was most eager to secure for his master +some of those stalwart battalions, only 1,000 out of the 13,000 that +marched out of Limerick filed to the left at King's Island, Two +thousand others accepted passes and protections; 4,500 sailed with +Sarsfield from Cork, 4,700 with D'Usson and De Tesse, embarked in the +Shannon on board a French fleet which arrived a week too late to +prevent the capitulation; in English ships, 3,000 embarked with General +Wauchop; all which, added to Mountcashel's brigade, over 5,000 strong, +gave an Irish army of from 20,000 to 25,000 men to the service of King +Louis. + +As the ships from Ireland reached Brest and the ports of Brittany, +James himself came down from Saint Germain to receive them. They were +at once granted the rights of French citizenship without undergoing the +forms of naturalization. Many of them rose to eminent positions in war +and in diplomacy, became founders of distinguished families, or dying +childless, left their hard-won gold to endow free bourses at Douay and +Louvain, for poor Irish scholars destined for the service of the +church, for which they had fought the good fight, in another sense, on +the Shannon and the Boyne. The migration of ecclesiastics was almost as +extensive as that of the military. They were shipped by dozens and by +scores, from Dublin, Cork, and Galway. In seven years from the treaty, +there remained but 400 secular and 800 regular clergy in the country. +Nearly double that number, deported by threats or violence, were +scattered over Europe, pensioners on the princes and bishops of their +faith, or the institutions of their order. 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 Roman crowns was +borne by the Papal treasury for the encouragement of Catholic +Poor-schools in Ireland. + +The revolutionary war, thus closed, had cost King William, or rather +the people of England, at least 10,000,000 of pounds sterling, and with +the other wars of that reign, laid the foundation of the English +national debt. As to the loss of life, the Williamite chaplain, Storey, +places it "at 100,000, young and old, besides treble the number that +are ruined and undone." The chief consolation of the vanquished in that +struggle was, that they had wrung even from their adversaries the +reputation of being "one of the most warlike of nations"—that they +"buried the synagogue with honour." + + + +CHAPTER X. +REIGN OF KING WILLIAM. + +From the date of the treaty of Limerick, William was acknowledged by +all but the extreme Jacobites, at least _de facto_—King of Ireland. The +prevailing party in Ulster had long recognized him, and the only +expression of the national will then possible accepted his title, in +the treaty signed at Limerick on the 3rd of October, 1691. For three +years Ireland had resisted his power, for twelve years longer she was +to bear the yoke of his government. + +Though the history of William's twelve years' reign in Ireland is a +history of proscription, the King himself is answerable only as a +consenting party to such proscription. He was neither by temper nor +policy a persecutor; his allies were Spain, Austria and Rome; he had +thousands of Catholics in his own army, and he gave his confidence as +freely to brave and capable men of one creed as of another. But the +oligarchy, calling itself the "Protestant Ascendancy," which had grown +so powerful under Cromwell and Charles II., backed as they once again +were by all the religious intolerance of England, proved too strong for +William's good intentions. He was, moreover, pre-occupied with the +grand plans of the European coalition, in which Ireland, without an +army, was no longer an element of calculation. He abandoned, therefore, +not without an occasional grumbling protest, the vanquished Catholics +to the mercy of that oligarchy, whose history, during the eighteenth +century, forms so prominent a feature of the history of the kingdom. + +The civil articles of Limerick, which Sarsfield vainly hoped might +prove the _Magna Charta_ of his co-religionists, were thirteen in +number. Art. I. guaranteed to members of that denomination, remaining +in the kingdom, "such privileges in the exercise of their religion as +are consistent with the law of Ireland, or as they enjoyed in the reign +of King Charles II.;" this article further provided, that "their +majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit them to summon a +Parliament in this kingdom, will endeavour to procure the said Roman +Catholics such further security in that particular as may preserve them +from any disturbance on account of their said religion." Art. II. +guaranteed pardon and protection to all who had served King James, on +taking the oath of allegiance prescribed in Art. IX., as follows: + +"I, A. B., 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." + +Arts. III., IV., V. and VI. extended the provisions of Arts. I. and II. +to merchants and other classes of men. Art. VII. permits "every +nobleman and gentleman compromised in the said articles" to carry side +arms and keep "a gun in their houses." Art. VIII. gives the right of +removing goods and chattels without search. Art. IX. is as follows: + +"The oath to be administered to such Roman Catholics as submit to their +majesties' government _shall be the oath aforesaid, and no other_." + +Art. X. guarantees 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 +them_." Arts. XI. and XII. relate to the ratification of the articles +"within eight months or sooner." Art. XIII. refers to the debts of +"Colonel John Brown, commissary of the Irish army, to several +Protestants," and arranges for their satisfaction. + +These articles were signed before Limerick, at the well known "Treaty +Stone," on the Clare side of the Shannon, by Lord Scravenmore, Generals +Mackay, Talmash, and De Ginkle, and the Lords Justices Porter and +Coningsby, for King William, and by Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, Viscount +Galmoy, Sir Toby Butler, and Colonels Purcell, Cusack, Dillon, and +Brown, for the Irish. On the 24th of February following, royal letters +patent confirmatory of the treaty were issued from Westminster, in the +name of the King and Queen, whereby they declared, that "we do for us, +our heirs, and successors, as far as in us lies, ratify and confirm the +same and every clause, matter, and thing therein contained. And as to +such parts thereof, for which an act of Parliament shall be found to be +necessary, we shall recommend the same to be made good by Parliament, +and shall give our royal assent to any bill or bills that shall be +passed by our two Houses of Parliament to that purpose. And whereas it +appears unto us, that it was agreed between the parties to the said +articles, that after the words Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, Mayo, or +any of them, in the second of the said articles; which words having +been casually omitted by the writer of the articles, the words +following, viz.: 'And all such as are under their protection in the +said counties' should be inserted, and be part of the said omission, +was not discovered till after the said articles were signed, but was +taken notice of before the second town was surrendered, and that our +said justices and generals, or one of them, did promise that the said +clause should be made good, it being within the intention of the +capitulation, and inserted in the foul draft thereof: Our further will +and pleasure is, and we do hereby ratify and confirm the said omitted +words, viz., 'And all such as are under their protection in the said +counties,' hereby for us, our heirs and successors, ordaining and +declaring that all and every person and persons therein concerned shall +and may have, receive, and enjoy the benefit thereof, in such and the +same manner as if the said words had been inserted in their proper +place in the said second article, any omission, defect, or mistake in +the said second article in any wise notwithstanding. Provided always, +and our will and pleasure is, that these our letters patent shall be +enrolled in our Court of Chancery, in our said kingdom of Ireland, +within the space of one year next ensuing." + +But the Ascendancy party were not to be restrained by the faith of +treaties, or the obligations of the Sovereign. The Sunday following the +return of the Lords Justices from Limerick, Dopping, Bishop of Meath, +preached before them at Christ's church, on the crime of keeping faith +with Papists. The grand jury of Cork, urged on by Cox, the Recorder of +Kinsale, one of the historians of those times, returned in their +inquest that the restoration of the Earl of Clancarty's estates "would +be dangerous to the Protestant interest." Though both William and +George I., interested themselves warmly for that noble family, the +hatred of the new oligarchy proved too strong for the clemency of +kings, and the broad acres of the disinherited McCarthys, remained to +enrich an alien and bigoted aristocracy. + +In 1692, when the Irish Parliament met, a few Catholic peers, and a +very few Catholic commoners took their seats. One of the first acts of +the victorious majority was to frame an oath in direct contravention to +the oath prescribed by the ninth civil article of the treaty, to be +taken by members of both Houses. This oath solemnly and explicitly +denied "that in the sacrament of the Lord's supper there is any +transubstantiation of the elements;" and as solemnly affirmed, "that +the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and +the sacrifice of the mass, as they are now used in the church of Rome, +are damnable and idolatrous." As a matter of course, the Catholic peers +and commoners retired from both Houses, rather than take any such oath, +and thus the Irish Parliament assumed, in 1692, that exclusively +Protestant character which it continued to maintain, till its +extinction in 1800. The Lord Justice Sydney, acting in the spirit of +his original instructions, made some show of resistance to the +proscriptive spirit thus exhibited. But to teach him how they regarded +his interference, a very small supply was voted, and the assertion of +the absolute control of the Commons over all supplies—a sound doctrine +when rightly interpreted—was vehemently asserted. Sydney had the +satisfaction of proroguing and lecturing the House, but they had the +satisfaction soon after of seeing him recalled through their influence +in England, and a more congenial Viceroy in the person of Lord Capel +sent over. + +About the same time, that ancient engine of oppression, a Commission to +inquire into estates forfeited, was established, and, in a short time, +decreed that 1,060,792 acres were escheated to the crown. This was +almost the last fragment of the patrimony of the Catholic inhabitants. +When King William died, there did not remain in Catholic hands +"one-sixth part" of what their grandfathers held, even after the +passage of the Act of Settlement. + +In 1695, Lord Capel opened the second Irish Parliament, summoned by +King William, in a speech in which he assured his delighted auditors +that the King was intent upon a firm settlement of Ireland upon a +Protestant interest. Large supplies were at once voted to his majesty, +and the House of Commons then proceeded to the appointment of a +committee to consider what penal laws were already in force against the +Catholics, not for the purpose of repealing them, but in order to add +to their number. The principal penal laws then in existence were: + +1. An act, subjecting all who upheld the jurisdiction of the See of +Rome, to the penalties of a _premunire_; and ordering the oath of +supremacy to be a qualification for office of every kind, for holy +orders, and for a degree in the university. + +2. An act for the uniformity of Common Prayer, imposing a fine of a +shilling on all who should absent themselves from places of worship of +the Established Church on Sundays. + +3. An act, allowing the Chancellor to name a guardian to the child of a +Catholic. + +4. An act to prevent Catholics from becoming private tutors in +families, without license from the ordinaries of their several +parishes, and taking the oath of supremacy. + +To these, the new Parliament added, 1. An act to deprive Catholics of +the means of educating their children at home or abroad, and to render +them incapable of being guardians of their own or any other person's +children; 2. An act to disarm the Catholics; and, 3. Another to banish +all the Catholic priests and prelates. Having thus violated the treaty, +they gravely brought in a bill "to confirm the Articles of Limerick." +"The very title of the bill," says Dr. Cooke Taylor, "contains evidence +of its injustice." It is styled "A Bill for the Confirmation of +Articles (not _the_ articles) made at the Surrender of Limerick." And +the preamble shows that the little word _the_ was not accidentally +omitted. It runs thus:—"That the said articles, or _so much of them as +may consist with the safety and welfare of your majesty's subjects in +these kingdoms_, may be confirmed," &c. The parts that appeared to +these legislators inconsistent with "the safety and welfare of his +majesty's subjects," were the first article, which provided for the +security of the Catholics from all disturbances on account of their +religion; those parts of the second article which confirmed the +Catholic gentry of Limerick, Clare, Cork, Kerry, and Mayo, in the +possession of their estates, and allowed all Catholics to exercise +their trades and professions without obstruction; the fourth article, +which extended the benefit of the peace to certain Irish officers then +abroad; the seventh article, which allowed the Catholic gentry to ride +armed; the ninth article, which provides that the oath of allegiance +shall be the only oath required from Catholics; and one or two others +of minor importance. All of these are omitted in the bill for "The +confirmation of Articles made at the Surrender of Limerick." + +The Commons passed the bill without much difficulty. The House of +Lords, however, contained some few of the ancient nobility, and some +prelates, who refused to acknowledge the dogma, "that no faith should +be kept with Papists," as an article of their creed. The bill was +strenuously resisted, and when it was at length carried, a strong +protest against it was signed by Lords Londonderry, Tyrone, and +Duncannon, the Barons of Ossory, Limerick, Killaloe, Kerry, Howth, +Kingston, and Strabane, and, to their eternal honour be it said, the +Protestant bishops of Kildare, Elphin, Derry, Clonfert, and Killala! + +The only other political incidents of this reign, important to Ireland, +were the speech from the throne in answer to an address of the English +Houses, in which William promised to discourage the woollen and +encourage the linen manufacture in Ireland, and the publication of the +famous argument for legislative independence, "The Case of Ireland +Stated." The author of this tract, the bright precursor of the glorious +succession of men, who, often defeated or abandoned by their +colleagues, finally triumphed in 1782, was William Molyneux, member for +the University of Dublin. Molyneux's book appeared in 1698, with a +short, respectful, but manly dedication to King William. Speaking of +his own motives in writing it, he says, "I am not at all concerned in +wool or the wool trade. I am no ways interested in forfeitures or +grants. I am not at all concerned whether the bishop or the society of +Derry recover the lands they contest about." Such were the domestic +politics of Ireland at that day; but Molyneux raised other and nobler +issues when he advanced these six propositions, which lie supported +with incontestible ability. + +"1. How Ireland became a kingdom _annexed_ to the crown of England. And +here we shall at large give a faithful narrative of the first +expedition of the Britons into this country, and King Henry II.'s +arrival here, such as our best historians give us. + +"2. We shall inquire whether this expedition and the English settlement +that afterwards followed thereon, can properly be called a _conquest_; +or whether any victories obtained by the English in any succeeding ages +in this kingdom, upon any rebellion, may be called a _conquest_ +thereof. + +"3. Granting that it were a _conquest_, we shall inquire what _title_ a +conquest gives. + +"4. We shall inquire what _concessions_ have been from time to time +made to Ireland, to take off what even the most rigorous asserters of a +conqueror's title do pretend to. And herein we shall show by what +degrees the English form of government, and the English statute laws, +came to be received among us; and this shall appear to be wholly by the +_consent_ of the people and the Parliament of Ireland. + +"5. We shall inquire into the precedents and opinions of the learned in +the laws relating to this matter, with observations thereon. + +"6. We shall consider the reasons and arguments that may be further +offered on one side and t'other; and we shall draw some general +conclusions from the whole." + +The English Parliament took alarm at these bold doctrines, seldom heard +across the channel since the days of Patrick Darcy and the Catholic +Confederacy. They ordered the book to be burned by the hands of the +common hangman, as of "dangerous tendency to the crown and people of +England, by denying the power of the King and Parliament of England to +bind the kingdom and people of Ireland, and the subordination and +dependence that Ireland had, and ought to have, upon England, as being +united and annexed to the imperial crown of England." They voted an +address to the King in the same tone, and received an answer from his +majesty, assuring them that he would enforce the laws securing the +dependence of Ireland on the imperial crown of Great Britain. + +But William's days were already numbered. On the 8th of March, 1702, +when little more than fifty years of age, he died from the effects of a +fall from his horse. His reign over Ireland is synonymous to the minds +of that people of disaster, proscription and spoliation; of violated +faith and broken compacts; but these wrongs were done in his name +rather than by his orders; often without his knowledge, and sometimes +against his will. Rigid as that will was, it was forced to bend to the +anti-Popery storm which swept over the British Islands after the +abdication of King James; but the vices and follies of his times ought +no more be laid to the personal account of William than of James or +Louis, against whom he fought. + + + +CHAPTER XI. +REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE. + +The reign of Queen Anne occupies twelve years (1702 to 1714. The new +sovereign, daughter of James by his first marriage, inherited the +legacy of William's wars, arising out of the European coalition. Her +diplomatists, and her troops, under the leadership of Marlborough, +continued throughout her reign to combat against France, in Spain, +Germany, and the Netherlands; the treaty of Utrecht being signed only +the year before her majesty's decease. In domestic politics, the main +occurrences were the struggle of the Whigs and Tories, immortalized for +us in the pages of Swift, Steele, Addison, and Bolingbroke; the +limitation of the succession to the descendants of the Electress +Sophia, in the line of Hanover; and the abortive Jacobite movement on +the Queen's death which drove Ormond and Atterbury into exile. + +In Ireland, this is the reign, _par excellence_, of the penal code. +From the very beginning of the Queen's reign, an insatiate spirit of +proscription dictated the councils of the Irish oligarchy. On the +arrival of the second and last Duke of Ormond, in 1703, as +Lord-Lieutenant, the Commons waited on him in a body, with a bill "for +discouraging the further growth of Popery," to which the duke having +signified his entire concurrence, it was accordingly introduced, and +became law. The following are among the most remarkable clauses of this +act: The third clause provides, that if the son of an estated Papist +shall conform to the established religion, the father shall be +incapacitated from selling or mortgaging his estate, or disposing of +any portion of it by will. The fourth clause prohibits a Papist from +being the guardian of his own child; and orders, that if at any time +the child, though ever so young, pretends to be a Protestant, it shall +be taken from its own father, and placed under the guardianship of the +nearest Protestant relation. The sixth clause renders Papists incapable +of purchasing any manors, tenements, hereditaments, or any rents or +profits arising out of the same, or of holding any lease of lives, or +other lease whatever, for any term exceeding thirty-one years. And with +respect even to such limited leases, it further enacts, that if a +Papist should hold a farm producing a profit greater than one-third of +the amount of the rent, his right to such should immediately cease, and +pass over entirely to the first Protestant who should discover the rate +of profit. The seventh clause prohibits Papists from succeeding to the +properties or estates of their Protestant relations. By the tenth +clause, the estate of a Papist, not having a Protestant heir, is +ordered to be gavelled, or divided in equal shares between all his +children. The sixteenth and twenty-fourth clauses impose the oath of +abjuration, and the sacramental test, as a qualification for office, +and for voting at elections. The twenty-third clause deprives the +Catholics of Limerick and Galway of the protection secured to them by +the articles of the treaty of Limerick. The twenty-fifth clause vests +in her majesty all advowsons possessed by Papists. + +Certain Catholic barristers, living under protection, not yet excluded +from the practice of their profession, petitioned to be heard at the +bar of the House of Commons. Accordingly, Mr. Malone, the ancestor of +three generations of scholars and orators, Sir Stephen Rice, one of the +most spotless characters of the age, formerly chief-justice under King +James, and Sir Theobald Butler, were heard against the bill. The +argument of Butler, who stood at the very head of his profession, +remains to us almost in its entirety, and commands our admiration by +its solidity and dignity. Never was national cause more worthily +pleaded; never was the folly of religious persecution more forcibly +exhibited. Alluding to the monstrous fourth clause of the bill, the +great advocate exclaimed:— + +"It is natural for the father to love the child; but we all know that +children are but too apt and subject, without any such liberty as this +bill gives, to slight and neglect their duty to their parents; and +surely such an act as this will not be an instrument of restraint, but +rather encourage them more to it. + +"It is but too common with the son, who has a prospect of an estate, +when once he arrives at the age of one and twenty, to think the old +father too long in the way between him and it; and how much more will +he be subject to it, when, by this act, he shall have liberty, before +he comes to that age, to compel and force my estate from me, without +asking my leave, or being liable to account with me for it, or out of +his share thereof, to a moiety of the debts, portions, or other +encumbrances, with which the estate might have been charged before the +passing of this act! + +"Is not this against the laws of God and man? Against the rules of +reason and justice, by which all men ought to be governed? Is not this +the only way in the world to make children become undutiful? and to +bring the grey head of the parent to the grave with grief and tears? + +"It would be hard from any man; but from a son, a child, the fruit of +my body, whom I have nursed in my bosom, and tendered more dearly than +my own life, to become my plunderer, to rob me of my estate, to cut my +throat, and to take away my bread, is much more grievous than from any +other, and enough to make the most flinty hearts to bleed to think on +it. And yet this will be the case if this bill pass into a law; which I +hope this honourable assembly will not think of, when they shall more +seriously consider, and have weighed these matters. + +"For God's sake, gentlemen, will you consider whether this is according +to the golden rule, to do as you would be done unto? And if not, surely +you will not, nay, you cannot, without being liable to be charged with +the most manifest injustice imaginable, take from us our birthrights, +and invest them in others, before our faces." + +When Butler and Malone had closed, Sir Stephen Rice was heard, not in +his character of council, but as one of the petitioners affected by the +act. But neither the affecting position of that great jurist, who, from +the rank of chief baron had descended to the outer bar, nor the purity +of his life, nor the strength of his argument, had any effect upon the +oligarchy who heard him. He was answered by quibbles and cavils, +unworthy of record, and was finally informed that any rights which +Papists "pretended to be taken from them by the Bill, was in their own +power to remedy, by conforming, which in prudence they ought to do; and +that they had none to blame but themselves." Next day the bill passed +into law. + +The remnant of the clergy were next attacked. On the 17th of March, +1705, the Irish Commons resolved, that "informing against Papists was +an honourable service to the government," and that all magistrates and +others who failed to put the penal laws into execution, "were betrayers +of the liberties of the kingdom." But even these resolutions, rewards, +and inducements were insufficient to satisfy the spirit of persecution. + +A further act was passed, in 1709, imposing additional penalties. The +first clause declares, that no Papist shall be capable of holding an +annuity for life. The third provides, that the child of a Papist, on +conforming, shall at once receive an annuity from his father; and that +the Chancellor shall compel the father to discover, upon oath, the full +value of his estate, real and personal, and thereupon make an order for +the support of such conforming child or children, and for securing such +a share of the property, after the father's death, as the court shall +think fit. The fourteenth and fifteenth clauses secure jointures to +Popish wives who shall conform. The sixteenth prohibits a Papist from +teaching, even as assistant to a Protestant master. The eighteenth +gives a salary of 30 pounds per annum to Popish priests who shall +conform. The twentieth provides rewards for the discovery of Popish +prelates, priests, and teachers, according to the following whimsical +scale:—For discovering an archbishop, bishop, vicar-general, or other +person, exercising any foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 50 pounds; +for discovering each regular clergyman, and each secular clergyman, not +registered, 20 pounds; and for discovering each Popish schoolmaster or +usher, 10 pounds. The twenty-first clause empowers two justices to +summon before them any Papist over eighteen years of age, and +interrogate him when and where he last heard mass said, and the names +of the persons present, and likewise touching the residence of any +Popish priest or schoolmaster; and if he refuse to give testimony, +subjects him to a fine of 20 pounds, or imprisonment for twelve months. + +Several other penal laws were enacted by the same Parliament, of which +we can only notice one; it excluded Catholics from the office of +sheriff, and from grand juries, and enacts, that, in trials upon any +statute for strengthening the Protestant interest, the plaintiff might +challenge a juror for being a Papist, which challenge the judge was to +allow. + +By a royal proclamation of the same year, "all registered priests" were +to take "the oath of abjuration before the 25th of March, 1710," under +penalty of _premunire_. Under this proclamation and the tariff of +rewards just cited, there grew up a class of men, infamous and +detestable, known by the nickname of "priest hunters." One of the most +successful of these traffickers in blood was a Portuguese Jew, named +Garcia, settled at Dublin. He was very skilful at disguises. "He +sometimes put on the mien of a priest, for he affected to be one, and +thus worming himself into the good graces of some confiding Catholic +got a clue to the whereabouts of the clergy." In 1718, Garcia succeeded +in arresting seven unregistered priests, for whose detection he had a +sum equal to two or three thousand dollars of American money. To such +an excess was this trade carried, that a reaction set in, and a +Catholic bishop of Ossory, who lived at the time these acts were still +in force, records that "the priest-catchers' occupation became +exceedingly odious both to Protestants and Catholics," and that himself +had seen "ruffians of this calling assailed with a shower of stones, +flung by both Catholics and Protestants." But this creditable reaction +only became general under George II., twenty years after the passage of +the act of Queen Anne. + +We shall have to mention some monstrous additions made to the code +during the first George's reign, and some attempts to repair and +perfect its diabolical machinery, even so late as George III.; but the +great body of the penal law received its chief accessions from the +oligarchical Irish Parliament, under Queen Anne. Hitherto, we have +often had to point out, how with all its constitutional defects—with +the law of Poynings, obliging heads of bills to be first sent to +England—fettering its freedom of initiative;—how, notwithstanding all +defects, the Irish Parliament had asserted, at many critical periods, +its own and the people's rights, with an energy worthy of admiration. +But the collective bigots of this reign were wholly unworthy of the +name of a parliament. They permitted the woollen trade to be sacrificed +without a struggle,—they allowed the bold propositions of Molyneux, one +of their own number, to be condemned and reprobated without a protest. +The knotted lash of Jonathan Swift was never more worthily applied, +than to "the Legion Club," which he has consigned to such an unenviable +immortality. Swift's inspiration may have been mingled with bitter +disappointment and personal revenge; but, whatever motives animated +him, his fearless use of his great abilities must always make him the +first political, as he was certainly the first literary character of +Ireland at that day. In a country so bare and naked as he found it; +with a bigotry so rampant and united before him; it needed no ordinary +courage and capacity to evoke anything like public opinion or public +spirit. Let us be just to that most unhappy man of genius; let us +proclaim that Irish nationality, bleeding at every pore, and in danger +of perishing by the wayside, found shelter on the breast of Swift, and +took new heart from the example of that bold churchman, before whom the +Parliament, the bench of Bishops, and the Viceroy, trembled. + + + +CHAPTER XII. +THE IRISH SOLDIERS ABROAD DURING THE REIGNS OF WILLIAM AND ANNE. + +The close of the second reign from the siege of Limerick imposes the +duty of casting our eyes over the map of Europe, in quest of those +gallant exiles whom we have seen, in tens of thousands, submitting to +the hard necessity of expatriation. + +Many of the Meath and Leinster Irish, under their native commanders, +the Kavanaghs and Nugents, carried their swords into the service of +William's ally, the Emperor of Austria, and distinguished themselves in +all the campaigns of Prince Eugene. Spain attracted to her standard the +Irish of the north-west, the O'Donnells, the O'Reillys, and O'Garas, +whose regiments, during more than one reign, continued to be known by +flames of Ulster origin. In 1707, the great battle of Almanza, which +decided the Spanish succession, was determined by O'Mahony's foot and +Fitzjames's Irish horse. The next year Spain had five Irish regiments +in her regular army, three of foot and two of dragoons, under the +command of Lacy, Lawless, Wogan, O'Reilly, and O'Gara. But it was in +France that the Irish served in the greatest number, and made the most +impressive history for themselves and their descendants. + +The recruiting agents of France had long been in the habit of crossing +the narrow seas, and bringing back the stalwart sons of the western +Island to serve their ambitious kings, in every corner of the +continent. An Irish troop of horse served, in 1652, under Turenne, +against the great Conde. In the campaigns of 1673, 1674 and 1675, under +Turenne, two or three Irish regiments were in every engagement along +the Rhine. At Altenheim, their commander, Count Hamilton, was created a +major-general of France. In 1690, these old regiments, with the six new +ones sent over by James, were formed into a brigade, and from 1690 to +1693, they went through the campaigns of Savoy and Italy, under Marshal +Catinat, against Prince Eugene. Justin McCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, who +commanded them, died at Bareges of wounds received at Staffardo. At +Marsiglia, they routed, in 1693, the allies, killing Duke Schomberg, +son to the Huguenot general who fell at the Boyne. + +The "New" or Sarsfield's brigade was employed under Luxembourg, against +King William, in Flanders, in 1692 and 1693. At Namur and Enghien, they +were greatly distinguished, and William more than once sustained heavy +loss at their hands. Sarsfield, their brigadier, for these services, +was made mareschal-de-camp. At Landen, on the 29th of July, '93, France +again triumphed to the cry, "Remember Limerick!" Sarsfield, leading on +the fierce pursuers, fell, mortally wounded. Pressing his hand upon the +wound, he took it away dripping with blood, and only said, "Oh, that +this was for Ireland!" + +In the war of the Spanish succession, the remnants of both brigades, +consolidated into one, served under their favourite leader, the Marshal +Duke of Berwick, through nearly all his campaigns in Belgium, Spain and +Germany. The third Lord Clare, afterwards Field-Marshal Count Thomond, +was by the Duke's side at Phillipsburg, in 1733, when he received his +death-wound from the explosion of a mine. These exiled Clare O'Briens +commanded for three generations their famous family regiment of +dragoons. The first who followed King James abroad died of wounds +received at the battle of Ramillies; the third, with better fortune, +outlived for nearly thirty years the glorious day of Fontenoy. The +Irish cavalry regiments in the service of France were Sheldon's, +Galmoy's, Clare's, and Killmallock's; the infantry were known as the +regiments of Dublin, Charlemont, Limerick, and Athlone. There were two +other infantry regiments, known as Luttrel's and Dorrington's—and a +regiment of Irish marines, of which the Grand Prior, Fitzjames, was +colonel. During the latter years of Louis XIV., there could not have +been less, at any one time, than from 20,000 to 30,000 Irish in his +armies, and during the succeeding century, authentic documents exist to +prove that 450,000 natives of Ireland died in the military service of +France. + +In the dreary reigns of William, Anne, and the two first Georges, the +pride and courage of the disarmed and disinherited population abiding +at home, drew new life and vigour from the exploits of their exiled +brethren. The channel smuggler and the vagrant ballad-singer kept alive +their fame for the lower class of the population, while the memoirs of +Marlborough and Eugene, issuing from the Dublin press, communicated +authentic accounts of their actions, to the more prejudiced, or better +educated. The blows they struck at Landen, at Cremona, and at Almanza, +were sensibly felt by every British statesman; when, in the bitterness +of defeat, an English King cursed "the laws that deprived him of such +subjects," the doom of the penal code was pronounced. + +The high character of the famous captains of these brigades was not +confined to the field of battle. At Paris, Vienna, and Madrid, their +wit and courtesy raised them to the favour of princes, over the +jealousy of all their rivals. Important civil and diplomatic offices +were entrusted to them—embassies of peace and war—the government of +provinces, and the highest administrative offices of the state. While +their kinsmen in Ireland were declared incapable of filling the +humblest public employments, or of exercising the commonest franchise, +they met British ambassadors abroad as equals, and checked or +countermined the imperial policy of Great Britain. It was impossible +that such a contrast of situations should not attract the attention of +all thinking men! It was impossible that such reputations should shine +before all Europe without reacting powerfully on the fallen fortunes of +Ireland! + + + +BOOK XI. +FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. TO THE LEGISLATIVE UNION OF GREAT +BRITAIN AND IRELAND. + + + +CHAPTER I. +ACCESSION OF GEORGE I.—SWIFT'S LEADERSHIP. + +The last years of Queen Anne had been years of intrigue and preparation +with the Jacobite leaders throughout the three kingdoms. At their head +stood Ormond, the second and last _Duke_ of his name, and with him were +associated at one stage or another of his design, Bolingbroke, Orrery, +Bishop Atterbury, and other influential persons. It was thought that +had this party acted promptly on the death of the Queen, and proclaimed +James III. (or "the Pretender," as he was called by the partisans of +the new dynasty), the Act of Succession might have remained a dead +letter, and the Stuarts recovered their ancient sovereignty. But the +partisans of the elector were the first in the field, and King George +was accordingly proclaimed, on the 1st of August, at London, and on the +6th of August, at Dublin. + +In Dublin, where serious apprehensions of a Jacobite rising were +entertained, the proclamation was made by the glare of torches at the +extraordinary hour of midnight. Two or three arrests of insignificant +persons were made, and letters to Swift being found on one of them, the +Dean was thought by his friends to be in some danger. But it was not +correct to say, as many writers have done, that he found it necessary +to retire from Dublin. The only inconvenience he suffered was from the +hootings and revilings of the Protestant rabble in the street, and a +brutal threat of personal violence from a young nobleman, upon whom he +revenged himself in a characteristic petition to the House of Lords +"for protection against the said lord." Pretending not to be quite sure +of his assailant, he proceeds to explain: "Your petitioner is informed +that the person who spoke the words above mentioned is of your +Lordships' House, under the style and title of Lord Blaney; whom your +petitioner remembers to have introduced to Mr. Secretary Addison, in +the Earl of Wharton's government, and to have done him other good +offices at that time, because he was represented as a young man of some +hopes and a broken fortune." The entire document is a curious picture +of the insolence of the ascendancy party of that day, even towards +dignitaries of their own church who refused to go all lengths in the +only politics they permitted or tolerated. + +It was while smarting under these public indignities, and excluded from +the society of the highest class in his own country, with two or three +exceptions, that Swift laid the foundations of his own and his +country's patriotism, among the educated middle class of the Irish +capital. From the college and the clergy he drew Dr. Sheridan—ancestor +of six generations of men and women of genius! Doctors Delaney, +Jackson, Helsham, Walmsley, Stopford (afterwards Bishop of Cloyne), and +the three reverend brothers Grattan. In the city he selected as his +friends and companions four other Grattans, one of whom was Lord-Mayor, +another physician to the castle, one a schoolmaster, the other a +merchant. "Do you know the Grattans?" he wrote to the Lord-Lieutenant, +Lord Carteret; "then pray obtain their acquaintance. The Grattans, my +lord, can raise 10,000 men." Among the class represented by this +admirable family of seven brothers, and in that of the tradesmen +immediately below them, of which we may take his printers, Waters and +Faulkner for types, Swift's haughty and indignant denunciations of the +oligarchy of the hour produced striking effects. The humblest of the +community began to raise their heads, and to fix their eyes steadily on +public affairs and public characters. Questions of currency, of trade, +of the administration of justice and of patronage, were earnestly +discussed in the press and in society, and thus by slow but gradually +ascending steps, a spirit of independence was promoted where hitherto +only servility had reigned. + +The obligations of his cotemporaries to Swift are not to be counted +simply by what he was able to originate or to advocate in their +behalf—for not much could be done in that way, in such times, and in +such a position as his—but rather in regard to the enemies and +maligners of that people, whom he exposed and punished. To understand +the value of his example and inspiration, we must read over again his +castigations of Wharton, of Burnet, of Boulter, of Whitshed, of Allan, +and all the leaders of the oligarchy, in the Irish Parliament. When we +have done so, we shall see at once how his imperial reputation, his +personal position, and every faculty of his powerful mind were employed +alike to combat injustice and proscription, to promote freedom of +opinion and of trade, to punish the abuses of judicial power, and to +cultivate and foster a spirit of self reliance and economy among all +classes—especially the humblest. In his times, and in his position, +with a cassock "entangling his course," what more could have been +expected of him? + +The Irish Parliament met in 1715—elected, according to the then usage, +for the lifetime of the King—commenced its career by an act of +attainder against the Pretender, accompanied by a reward of 50,000 +pounds for his apprehension. The Lords-Justices, the Duke of Grafton +and the Earl of Galway, recommended in their speech to the Houses, that +they should cultivate such unanimity among themselves as "at once to +put an end to all other distinctions in Ireland, but that of Protestant +and Papist." In the same speech, and in all the debates of that reign, +the Catholics were spoken of as "the common enemy," and all who +sympathized with them, as "enemies of the constitution." But far as +this Parliament was from all our ideas of what a national legislature +ought to be, it was precisely at this period, when the administration +could not be worse, that the foundation was laid of the great contest +for legislative independence, which was to continue through three +generations, and to constitute the main staple of the Irish history of +this century. + +In the year 1717, the English House of Lords entertained and decided, +as a court of last resort, an appeal from the Irish courts, already +passed on by the Irish Lords, in the famous real-estate case of +Annesley _versus_ Sherlock. The proceeding was novel, and was protested +against in the English House at the time by the Duke of Leeds, and in +the Irish, by the majority of the whole House. But the British +Parliament, not content with claiming the power, proceeded to establish +the principle, by the declaratory act—6th George I.—for securing the +dependence of Ireland on the crown of Great Britain. This statute, even +more objectionable than the law of Poynings, continued unrepealed till +1782, notwithstanding all the arguments and all the protests of the +Irish patriot party. The Lords of Ireland, unsupported by the bigoted +and unprincipled oligarchy in the Commons, were shorn of their +appellate jurisdiction, and their journals for many years contain few +entries of business done, beyond servile addresses to successive +Viceroys, and motions of adjournment. + +In their session of 1723, the ascendancy party in the Commons proceeded +to their last extreme of violence against the prostrate Catholics. An +act was introduced founded on eight resolutions, "further to prevent +the growth of Popery." One of these resolutions, regularly transmitted +to England by the Viceroy-proposed that every priest, arrested within +the realm, should suffer the penalty of _castration_! For the first +time, a penal law was rejected with horror and indignation by the +English Privy Council, and the whole elaborate edifice, overweighted +with these last propositions, trembled to its base. But though badly +shaken, it was yet far from coming down. + +"Do not the corruptions and villainies of men," said Swift to his +friend Delaney, "eat your flesh and exhaust your spirits?" They +certainly gnawed at the heart of the courageous Dean, but at the same +time, they excited rather than exhausted his spirits. In 1720 he +resumed his pen, as a political writer, in his famous proposal "for the +universal use of Irish manufactures." Waters, the printer of this +piece, was indicted for a seditious libel, before Chief-Justice +Whitshed, the immortal "_coram nobis_" of the Dean's political ballads. +The jury were detained eleven hours, and sent out nine times, to compel +them to agree on a verdict. They at length finally declared they could +not agree, and a _nol. pros_. was soon after entered by the crown. This +trial of Swift's printer in 1720, is the first of a long series of +duels with the crown lawyers, which the Irish press has since +maintained with as much firmness and self-sacrifice as any press ever +exhibited. And it may be said that never, not even under martial law, +was a conspicuous example of civic courage more necessary, or more +dangerous. Browne, Bishop of Cork, had been in danger of deprivation +for preaching a sermon against the well-known toast to the memory of +King William; Swift was threatened, as we see, a few years earlier, +with personal violence by a Whig lord, and pelted by a Protestant +rabble, for his supposed Jacobitism; his friend, Dr. Sheridan, lost his +Munster living for having accidentally chosen as his text, on the +anniversary of King George's coronation, "sufficient for the day is the +evil thereof." Such was the intolerance of the oligarchy towards their +own clergy. What must it have been to others! + +The attempt to establish a National Bank, and the introduction of a +debased copper coinage, for which a patent had been, granted to one +William Wood, next employed the untiring pen of Swift. The halfpenny +controversy, was not, as is often said, a small matter; it was nearly +as important as the bank project itself. Of the 100,000 pounds worth +coined, the intrinsic value was shown to be not more than 6,000 pounds. +Such was the storm excited against the patentee, that his Dublin agents +were obliged to resign their connection with him, and the royal +letters-patent were unwillingly cancelled. The bank project was also +rejected by Parliament, adding another to the triumphs of the +invincible Dean. + +During the last years of this reign, Swift was the most powerful and +popular person in Ireland, and perhaps in the empire. The freedom with +which he advised Carteret the Viceroy, and remonstrated with Walpole, +the Premier, on the misrule of his country, was worthy of the +ascendancy of his genius. No man of letters, no churchman, no statesman +of any country in any age, ever showed himself more thoroughly +independent, in his intercourse with men of office, than Swift. The +vice of Ireland was exactly the other way, so that in this respect +also, the patriot was the liberator. + +Rising with the rise of public spirit, the great churchman, in his +fourth letter, in the assumed character of _M. B. Drapier_, confronted +the question of legislative independence. Alluding to the pamphlet of +Molyneux, published thirty years before, he pronounced its arguments +invincible, and the contrary system "the very definition of slavery." +"The remedy," he concludes, addressing the Irish people, "is wholly in +your own hands, and therefore I have digressed a little, in order to +refresh and continue that spirit so seasonably raised among you, and to +let you see, that, by the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of +your country, _you are, and ought to be, as free a people as your +brethren in England_." For this letter also, the printer, Harding, was +indicted, but the Dublin grand jury, infected with the spirit of the +times, unanimously ignored the bill. A reward of 300 pounds was then +issued from the castle for the discovery of the author, but no informer +could be found base enough to betray him. For a time, however, to +escape the ovations he despised, and the excitement which tried his +health, Swift retired to his friend Sheridan's cottage on the banks of +Lough Ramor, in Cavan, and there recreated himself with long rides +about the country, and the composition of the Travels of the immortal +Gulliver. + +Sir Robert Walpole, alarmed at the exhibition of popular intelligence +and determination evoked by Swift, committed the government of Ireland +to his rival, Lord Carteret—whom he was besides not sorry to remove to +a distance—and appointed to the See of Armagh, which fell vacant about +the time of the currency dispute, Dr. Hugh Boulter, Bishop of Bristol, +one of his own creatures. This prelate, a politician by taste and +inclination, modelled his policy on his patron's, as far as his more +contracted sphere and inferior talents permitted. To buy members in +market overt, with peerages, or secret service money, was his chief +means of securing a Parliamentary majority. An Englishman by birth and +education; the head of the Protestant establishment in Ireland, it was +inevitable that his policy should be English and Protestant, in every +particular. To resist, depress, disunite, and defeat the believers in +the dangerous doctrines of Swift and Molyneux, was the sole rule of his +nearly twenty years' political supremacy in Irish affairs. (1724-1742.) +The master of a princely income, endowed with strong passions, +unlimited patronage, and great activity, he may be said to have reigned +rather than led, even when the nominal viceroyalty was in the hands of +such able and accomplished men as Lords Carteret, Dorset and +Devonshire. His failure in his first state trial, against Harding the +printer, nothing discouraged him; he had come into Ireland to secure +the English interest, by uprooting the last vestiges of Popery and +independence, and he devoted himself to those objects with persevering +determination. In 1727—the year of George the First's decease—he +obtained the disfranchisement of Catholic electors by a clause quietly +inserted without notice in a Bill regulating elections; and soon after +he laid the foundations of those nurseries of proselytism, "the Charter +Schools." + + + +CHAPTER II. +REIGN OF GEORGE II.—GROWTH OF PUBLIC SPIRIT—THE "PATRIOT" PARTY—LORD +CHESTERFIELD'S ADMINISTRATION. + +The accession of King George II. in 1727, led to no considerable +changes, either in England or Ireland. Sir Robert Walpole continued +supreme in the one country, and Primate Boulter in the other. The +Jacobites, disheartened by their ill success in 1715, and repelled +rather than attracted by the austere character of him they called King +James III., made no sign. The new King's first act was to make public +the declaration he had addressed to the Privy Council, of his firm +resolution to uphold the existing constitution "in church and state." + +The Catholic population, beginning once more to raise their heads, +thought this a suitable occasion to present a humble and loyal address +of congratulation to the Lords Justices, in the absence of the Viceroy. +Lord Delvin and several of their number accordingly appeared at the +Castle, and delivered their address, which they begged might be +forwarded to the foot of the throne. No notice whatever was taken of +this document, either at Dublin or London, nor were the class who +signed it permitted by law to "testify their allegiance" to the +sovereign, for fifty years later—down to 1778. + +The Duke of Dorset, who succeeded Lord Carteret as Viceroy in 1731, +unlike his immediate predecessor, refrained from suggesting additional +severities against the Catholics. His first term of office—two +years—was almost entirely occupied with the fiercest controversy which +had ever waged in Ireland between the Established Church and the +Protestant Dissenters. The ground of the dispute was the sacramental +test, imposed by law upon the members of both Houses, and all burgesses +and councillors of corporate towns. By the operations of this law, when +rigidly enforced, Presbyterians and other dissenters were as +effectually excluded from political and municipal offices as Catholics +themselves. Against this exclusion it was natural that a body so +numerous, and possessed of so much property, especially in Ulster, +should make a vigorous resistance. Relying on the great share they had +in the revolution, they endeavoured, though ineffectually, to obtain +under King William the repeal of the Test Act of King Charles II. Under +Queen Anne they were equally unsuccessful, as we may still read with +interest in the pages of Swift, De Foe, Tennison, Boyse, and King. +Swift, especially, brought to the controversy not only the zeal of a +churchman, but the prejudices of an Anglo-Irishman, against the +new-comers in the north. He upbraids them in 1708, as glad to leave +their barren hills of Lochaber for the fruitful vales of Down and +Antrim, for their parsimony and their clannishness. He denied to them, +with bitter scorn, the title they had assumed of "Brother Protestants," +and as to the Papists, whom they affected to despise, 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. The language +of the Presbyterian champions was equally bold, denunciatory, and +explicit. They broadly intimated, in a memorial to Parliament, that +under the operation of the test, they would be unable to take up arms +again, as they had done in 1688, for the maintenance of the Protestant +succession; a covert menace of insurrection, which Swift and their +other opponents did not fail to make the most of. Still farther to +embarrass them, Swift got up a paper making out a much stronger case in +favour of the Catholics than of "their brethren, the Dissenters," and +the controversy closed, for that age, in the complete triumph of the +established clergy. + +This iniquitous deprivation of equal civil rights, accompanied with the +onerous burthen of tithes falling heaviest on the cultivators of the +soil, produced the first great Irish exodus to the North American +colonies. The tithe of agistment or pasturage, lately abolished, had +made the tithe of tillage more unjust and unequal. Outraged 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 an Atlantic flitting 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, +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 Nonconformists were to repeat, for +the benefit of George III., the lesson and example their ancestors had +taught to James II. at Enniskillen and at Derry. + +Swift, with all his services to his own order, disliked, and was +disliked by them. Of the bishops he has recorded his utter contempt in +some of the most cutting couplets that even he ever wrote. Boulter he +detested; Narcissus Marsh he despised; with Dr. King of Dublin, Dr. +Bolton of Cashel, and Dr. Horte of Tuam, he barely kept up appearances. +Except Sterne, Bishop of Clogher, Berkely, Bishop of Cloyne, and +Stopford, his successor, he entertained neither friendship nor respect +for one of that order. And on their part, the right reverend prelates +cordially reciprocated his antipathy. They resisted his being made a +member of the Linen Board, a Justice of the Peace, or a Visitor of +Trinity College. Had he appeared amongst them in Parliament as their +peer, they would have been compelled to accept him as a master, or +combine against him as an enemy. No wonder, then, that successive +Viceroys shrank from nominating him to any of the mitres which death +had emptied; "the original sin of his birth" was aggravated in their +eyes by the actual sin of his patriotism. No wonder the sheets of paper +that littered his desk, before he sunk into his last sad scene of +dotage, were found scribbled all over with his favourite lines— + +"Better we all were in our graves, +Than live in slavery to slaves." + + +But the seeds of manly thought he had so broadly sown, though for a +season hidden even from the sight of the sower, were not dead, nor +undergoing decay. With something of the prudence of the founder, "the +Patriot party," as the opposition to the Castle party began to be +called, occupied themselves at first with questions of taxation and +expenditure. In 1729, the Castle attempted to make it appear that there +was a deficit—that in short "the country owed the government"—the large +sum of 274,000 pounds! The Patriots met this claim, by a motion for +reducing the cost of all public establishments. This was the chosen +ground of both parties, and a more popularly intelligible ground could +not be taken. Between retrenchment and extravagance, between high taxes +and low, even the least educated of the people could easily decide; and +thenceforward for upwards of twenty years, no session was held without +a spirited debate on the supplies, and the whole subject of the public +expenditure. + +The Duke of Devonshire, who succeeded the Duke of Dorset as Viceroy in +1737, contributed by his private munificence and lavish hospitalities +to throw a factitious popularity round his administration. No Dublin +tradesman could find it in his heart to vote against the nominee of so +liberal a nobleman, and the public opinion of Dublin was as yet the +public opinion of Ireland. But the Patriot party, though unable to stem +successfully the tide of corruption and seduction thus let loose, held +their difficult position in the legislature with great gallantry and +ability. New men had arisen during the dotage of Swift, who revered his +maxims, and imitated his prudence. Henry Boyle, speaker of the House of +Commons, afterwards Earl of Shannon; Anthony Malone—son of the +_confrere_ of Sir Toby Butler, and afterwards Chancellor of the +Exchequer, Sir Edward O'Brien, member for Clare, and his son, Sir +Lucius, member for Ennis, were the pillars of the party. Out of doors, +the most active spirit among the Patriots was Charles Lucas, a native +of Clare, who, from his apothecary's shop in Dublin, attempted, not +without both talents, zeal and energy, to play the part of Swift, at +the press and among the people. His public writings, commenced in 1741, +brought him at first persecution and exile, but they afterwards +conducted him to the representation of the capital, and an honourable +niche in his country's history. + +The great event which may be said to divide into two epochs the reign +of George II. was the daring invasion of Scotland in 1745, by "the +young Pretender"—Charles Edward. This brave and unfortunate Prince, +whose adventures will live for ever in Scottish song and romance, was +accompanied from France by Sir Thomas Sheridan, Colonel O'Sullivan, and +other Irish refugees, still fondly attached to the house of Stuart. It +is not to be supposed that these gentlemen would be without +correspondents in Ireland, nor that the state of that country could be +a matter of indifference to the astute advisers of King George. In +reality, Ireland was almost as much their difficulty as Scotland, and +their choice of a Viceroy, at this critical moment, showed at once +their estimate of the importance of the position, and the talents of +the man. + +Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, a great name in the world +of fashion, in letters, and in diplomacy, is especially memorable to us +for his eight months' viceroyalty over Ireland. That office had been +long the object of his ambition, and he could hardly have attained it +at a time better calculated to draw out his eminent administrative +abilities. By temper and conviction opposed to persecution, he connived +at Catholic worship under the very walls of the Castle. The sour and +jaundiced bigotry of the local oligarchy he encountered with _bon mots_ +and raillery. The only "dangerous Papist" he had seen in Ireland, he +declared to the King on his return, was a celebrated beauty of that +religion—Miss Palmer. Relying on the magical effect of doing justice to +all classes, and seeing justice done, he was enabled to spare four +regiments of troops for the war in Scotland, instead of demanding +additions to the Irish garrisons. But whether to diminish the influence +which his brilliant administration had created in England, or through +the machinations of the oligarchy, still powerful at Dublin, within ten +days from the decisive battle of Culloden, he was recalled. The fruits +of his policy might be already observed, as he walked on foot, his +countess on his arm, to the place of embarkation, amid the acclamations +of all ranks and classes of the people, and their affectionate prayers +for his speedy return. + + + +CHAPTER III. +THE LAST JACOBITE MOVEMENT—THE IRISH SOLDIERS ABROAD—FRENCH EXPEDITION +UNDER THUROT, OR O'FARRELL. + +The mention of the Scottish insurrection of 1745 brings naturally with +it another reference to the history of the Irish soldiers in the +military service of France. This year was in truth the most eventful in +the annals of that celebrated legion, for while it was the year of +Fontenoy and victory on the one hand, it was on the other the year of +Culloden and defeat. + +The decisive battle of Fontenoy, in which the Franco-Irish troops bore +so decisive a part, was fought on the 11th of May, 1745. The French +army, commanded by Saxe, and accompanied by King Louis, leaving 18,000 +men to besiege Namur, and 6,000 to guard the Scheldt, took a position +between that river and the allies, having their centre at the village +of Fontenoy. The British and Dutch, under the King's favourite son, the +Duke of Cumberland, were 55,000 strong; the French 45,000. After a hard +day's fighting, victory seemed to declare so clearly against France, +that King Louis, who was present, prepared for flight. At this moment +Marshal Saxe ordered a final charge by the seven Irish regiments under +Counts Dillon and Thomond. The tide was turned, beyond expectation, to +the cry of "Remember Limerick!" France was delivered, England checked, +and Holland reduced from a first to a second-rate power upon that +memorable day. But the victory was dearly bought. One-fourth of all the +Irish officers, including Count Dillon, were killed, and one-third of +all the men. The whole number slain on the side of France was set down +at 7,000 by English accounts, while they admitted for themselves alone, +4,000 British and 3,300 Hanoverians and Dutch. "Foremost of all," says +the just-minded Lord Mahon, "were the gallant brigade of Irish exiles." +It was this defeat of his favourite son which wrung from King George +II. the oft-quoted malediction on the laws which deprived him of such +subjects. + +The expedition of Prince Charles Edward was undertaken and conducted by +Irish aid, quite as much as by French or Scottish. The chief parties to +it, besides the old Marquis of Tullibardine and the young Duke of +Perth, were the Waterses, father and son, Irish bankers at Paris, who +advanced one hundred and eighty thousand livres between them; Walsh, an +Irish merchant at Nantz, who put a privateer of eighteen guns into the +venture; Sir Thomas Geraldine, the Pretender's agent at Paris; Sir +Thomas Sheridan, the prince's preceptor, who, with Colonels O'Sullivan +and Lynch, Captain O'Neil, and other officers of the brigade, formed +the staff, on which Sir John McDonald, a Scottish officer in the +Spanish service, was also placed. Fathers Kelly and O'Brien volunteered +in the expedition. On the 22nd of June, 1745, with seven friends, the +prince embarked in Walsh's vessel, the Doutelle, at St. Nazaire, on the +Loire, and on the 19th of July, landed on the northern coast of +Scotland, near Moidart. The Scottish chiefs, little consulted or +considered beforehand, came slowly and dubiously to the landing-place. +Under their patriarchal control there were still in the kingdom about a +hundred thousand men, and about one-twelfth of the Scottish population. +Clanronald, Cameron of Lochiel, the Laird of McLeod, and a few others, +having arrived, the royal standard was unfurled on the 19th of August +at Glenfinin, where that evening twelve hundred men—the entire army so +far—were formed into camp, under the orders of O'Sullivan. From that +day until the day of Culloden, O'Sullivan seems to have manoeuvred the +prince's forces. At Perth, at Edinburgh, at Preston, at Manchester, at +Culloden, he took command in the field, or in garrison; and even after +the sad result, he adhered to his sovereign's son with an honourable +fidelity which defied despair. + +Charles, on his part, placed full confidence in his Irish officers. In +his proclamation after the battle of Preston, he declared it was not +his intention to enforce on the people of England, Scotland, or +Ireland, "a religion they disliked." In a subsequent paper, he asks, +"Have you found reason to love and cherish your governors as the +fathers of the people of Great Britain and Ireland? Has a family upon +whom a faction unlawfully bestowed the diadem of a rightful prince, +retained a due sense of so great a trust and favour?" These and his +other proclamations betrayed an Irish pen; probably Sir Thomas +Sheridan's. One of Charles's English adherents, Lord Elcho, who kept a +journal of the campaign, notes, complainingly, the Irish influence +under which he acted. "The prince and his old governor, Sir Thomas +Sheridan," are especially objected to, and the "Irish favourites" are +censured in a body. While at Edinburgh, a French ship, containing some +arms, supplies, and "Irish officers," arrived; at the same time efforts +were made to recruit for the prince in Ireland; but the agents being +taken in some cases, the channel narrowly watched, and the people not +very eager to join the service, few recruits were obtained. + +The Irish in France, as if to cover the inaction of their countrymen at +home, strained every nerve. The Waterses and O'Brien of Paris were +liberal bankers to the expedition. Into their hands James "exhausted +his treasury" to support his gallant son. At Fontainebleau, on the 23rd +of October, Colonel O'Brien, on the part of the prince, and the Marquis +D'Argeusson for Louis XV., formed a treaty of "friendship and +alliance," one of the clauses of which was, that certain Irish +regiments, and other French troops, should be sent to sustain the +expedition. Under Lord John Drummond a thousand men were shipped from +Dunkirk, and arrived at Montrose in the Highlands about the time +Charles had penetrated as far south as Manchester. The officers, with +the prince, here refused to advance on London with so small a force; a +retreat was decided on; the sturdy defence of Carlisle, and victory of +Falkirk, checked the pursuit; but the overwhelming force of the Duke of +Cumberland compelled them to evacuate Edinburgh, Perth, and +Glasgow—operations which consumed February, March, and the first half +of April, 1746. + +The next plan of operations seems to have been to concentrate in the +western Highlands, with Inverness for head-quarters. The town Charles +easily got, but Fort-George, a powerful fortress, built upon the site +of the castle where Macbeth was said to have murdered Duncan, commanded +the Loch. Stapleton and his Irish, captured it, however, as well as the +neighbouring Fort-Augustus. Joined by some Highlanders, they next +attempted Fort-William, the last fortress of King George in the north, +but on the 3rd of April were recalled to the main body. + +To cover Inverness, his head-quarters, Charles resolved to give battle. +The ground chosen, flanked by the river Nairn, was spotted with marsh +and very irregular; it was called Culloden, and was selected by +O'Sullivan. Brigadier Stapleton and Colonel Kerr reported against it as +a field of battle; but Charles adopted O'Sullivan's opinion of its +fitness for Highland warfare. When the preparations for battle began, +"many voices exclaimed, 'We'll give Cumberland another Fontenoy!'" The +Jacobites were placed in position by O'Sullivan, "at once their +adjutant and quarter-master-general," and, as the burghers of Preston +thought, "a very likely fellow." He formed two lines, the great clans +being in the first, the Ogilvies, Gordons, and Murrays; the French and +Irish in the second. Four pieces of cannon flanked each wing, and four +occupied the centre. Lord George Murray commanded the right wing, Lord +John Drummond the left, and Brigadier Stapleton the reserve. They +mustered in all less than five thousand men. The British formed in +three lines, ten thousand strong, with two guns between every second +regiment of the first and second line. The action commenced about noon +of April 16th, and before evening half the troops of Prince Charles lay +dead on the field, and the rest were hopelessly broken. The retreat was +pell-mell, except where "a troop of the Irish pickets, by a spirited +fire, checked the pursuit, which a body of dragoons commenced after the +Macdonalds, and Lord Lewis Gordon's regiments did similar service." +Stapleton conducted the French and Irish remnant to Inverness, and +obtained for them by capitulation "fair quarter and honourable +treatment." + +The unhappy prince remained on the field almost to the last. "It +required," says Mr. Chambers, "all the eloquence, and, indeed, all the +active exertion, of O'Sullivan to make Charles quit the field. A cornet +in his service, when questioned on this subject at the point of death, +declared he saw O'Sullivan, after using entreaties in vain, turn the +head of the prince's horse and drag him away." + +From that night forth, O'Sullivan, O'Neil, and a poor sedan carrier of +Edinburgh, called Burke, accompanied him in all his wanderings and +adventures among the Scottish islands. At Long Island they were obliged +to part company, the prince proceeding alone with Miss Flora McDonald. +He had not long left, when a French cutter hove in sight and took off +O'Sullivan, intending to touch at another point, and take in the prince +and O'Neil. The same night she was blown off the coast, and the prince, +after many other adventures, was finally taken off at Badenoch, on the +15th of September, 1746, by the L'Heureux, a French armed vessel, in +which Captain Sheridan (son of Sir Thomas), Mr. O'Beirne, a lieutenant +in the French army, "and two other gentlemen," had adventured in search +of him. Poor O'Neil, in seeking to rejoin his master, was taken +prisoner, carried to London, and is lost from the record. O'Sullivan +reached France safely, where, with Stapleton, Lynch, and the Irish and +Scotch officers, he was welcomed and honoured of all brave men. + +Such was the last struggle of the Stuarts. For years after, the popular +imagination in both countries clung fondly to Prince Charles. But the +cause was dead. As if to bury it for ever, Charles, in despair, grew +dissipated and desponding. In 1755, "the British Jacobites" sent +Colonel McNamara, as their agent, to induce him to put away his +mistress, Miss Walsingham, a demand with which he haughtily refused to +comply. In 1766, when James III. died at Avignon, the French king and +the Pope refused to acknowledge the prince by the title of Charles III. +When the latter died, in 1788, at Rome, Cardinal York contented himself +with having a medal struck, with the inscription "Henricus IX., Anglae +Rex." He was the last of the Stuarts. + +Notwithstanding the utter defeat of the Scottish expedition, and the +scatterment of the surviving companies of the brigade on all sorts of +service from Canada to India, there were many of the exiled Irish in +France, who did not yet despair of a national insurrection against the +house of Hanover. In the year 1759, an imposing expedition was fitted +out at Brest under Admiral Conflaus, and another at Dunkirk, under +Commodore Thurot, whose real name was O'Farrell. The former, soon after +putting to sea, was encountered at Quiberon by the English under Hawke, +and completely defeated; but the latter entered the British channel +unopposed, and proceeded to the appointed _rendezvous_. While cruising +in search of Conflaus, the autumnal equinox drove the intrepid Thurot +into the Northern ocean, and compelled him to winter among the frozen +friths of Norway and the Orkneys. One of his five frigates returned to +France, another was never heard of, but with the remaining three he +emerged from the Scottish Islands, and entered Lough Foyle early in +1760. He did not, however, attempt a landing at Derry, but appeared +suddenly before Carrickfergus, on the 21st of February, and demanded +its surrender. Placing himself at the head of his marines and sailors, +he attacked the town, which, after a brave resistance by the +commandant, Colonel Jennings, he took by assault. Here, for the first +time, this earlier Paul Jones heard of the defeat of his admiral; after +levying contributions on the rich burgesses and proprietors of +Carrickfergus and Belfast, he again put to sea. His ships, battered by +the wintry storms which they had undergone in northern latitudes, fell +in near the Isle of Man with three English frigates, just out of port, +under Commodore Elliott. A gallant action ensued, in which Thurot, or +O'Farrell, and three hundred of his men were killed. The survivors +struck to the victors, and the French ships were towed in a sinking +state, into the port of Ramsey. + +The life thus lost in the joint service of France and Ireland, was a +life illustrative of the Irish refugee class among whom he became a +leader. Left an orphan in childhood, O'Farrell, though of a good +family, had been bred in France in so menial a condition that he first +visited England as a domestic servant. From that condition he rose to +be a dexterous and successful captain in the contraband trade, so +extensive in those times. In this capacity he visited almost every port +of either channel, acquiring that accurate knowledge which, added to +his admitted bravery and capacity, placed him at length at the head of +a French squadron. "Throughout the expedition," says Lord Mahon, "the +honour and humanity of this brave adventurer are warmly acknowledged by +his enemies." "He fought his ship," according to the same author, +"until the hold was almost filled with water, and the deck covered with +dead bodies." + + + +CHAPTER IV. +REIGN OF GEORGE II. (CONCLUDED)—MALONE'S LEADERSHIP. + +The Earl of Harrington, afterwards Duke of Devonshire, succeeded Lord +Chesterfield in the government, in 1746. He was provided with a prime +minister in the person of the new Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. George +Stone, whose character, if he was not exceedingly calumniated by his +cotemporaries, might be compared to that of the worst politicians of +the worst ages of Europe. Originally, the son of the jailer of +Winchester, he had risen by dint of talents, and audacity, to receive +from the hands of his sovereign, the illustrious dignity of Primate of +Ireland. But even in this exalted office, the abominable vices of his +youth accompanied him. His house at Leixlip, was at once a tavern and a +brothel, and crimes, which are nameless, were said to be habitual under +his roof. "May the importation of Ganymedes into Ireland, be soon +discontinued," was the public toast, which disguised under the +transparent gauze of a mythological allusion, the infamies of which he +was believed to be the patron. The prurient page of Churchill was not +quite so scrupulous, and the readers of the satire entitled "The +Times," will need no further key to the horrible charges commonly +received on both sides of the channel, against Primate Stone. + +The viceroyalty of Ireland, which had become an object of ambition to +the first men in the empire, was warmly contested by the Earl of +Harrington and the Duke of Dorset. The former, through his Stanhope +influence and connections, prevailed over his rival, and arrived in +Ireland, warmly recommended by the popular Chesterfield. During his +administration, Primate Stone, proceeding from one extreme to another, +first put forward the dangerous theory, that all surplus revenue +belonged of right to the crown, and might be paid over by the +Vice-Treasurers, to his majesty's order, without authority of +Parliament. At this period, notwithstanding the vicious system of her +land tenures, and her recent losses by emigration, Ireland found +herself in possession of a considerable surplus revenue. + +Like wounds and bruises in a healthy body, the sufferings and +deprivations of the population rapidly disappeared under the appearance +even of improvement in the government. The observant Chesterfield, who +continued through life warmly attached to the country in which his name +was remembered with so much affection, expresses to his friend, +Chevenix, Bishop of Waterford, in 1751, his satisfaction at hearing +"that Ireland improves daily, and that a spirit of industry spreads +itself, to the great increase of trade and manufactures." This new-born +prosperity the Primate and politicians of his school would have met by +an annual depletion of the treasury, instead of assisting its march by +the reduction of taxes, and the promotion of necessary public works. +The surplus was naturally regarded, by the Patriot party, in the light +of so much national capital; they looked upon it as an improvement +fund, for the construction of canals, highways, and breakwaters, for +the encouragement of the linen and other manufactures, and for the +adornment of the capital with edifices worthy of the chief city of a +flourishing kingdom. + +The leader of the Patriot party, Anthony Malone, was compared at this +period, by an excellent authority, to "a great sea in a calm." He was +considered, even by the fastidious Lord Shelburne, the equal, in +oratory, of Chatham and Mansfield. He seems to have at all times, +however, sunk the mere orator in the statesman, and to have used his +great powers of argument even more in Council than in the arena. His +position at the bar, as Prime Sergeant, by which he took precedence +even of the Attorney-General, gave great weight to his opinions on all +questions of constitutional law. The roystering country gentlemen, who +troubled their heads but little with anything besides dogs and horses, +pistols and claret, felt secure in their new-fledged patriotism, under +the broad aegis of the law extended over them by the most eminent +lawyer of his age. The Speaker of the Commons, Henry Boyle, aided and +assisted Malone, and when left free to combat on the floor, his high +spirit and great fortune gave additional force to his example and +confidence to his followers. Both were men too cautious to allow their +adversaries any parliamentary advantage over them, but not so their +intrepid coadjutor out of doors, Apothecary Lucas. He, like Swift, +rising from local and municipal grievances to questions affecting the +constitution of Parliament itself, was in 1749, against all the efforts +of his friends in the House of Commons, declared by the majority of +that House to be "an enemy to his country," and a reward was +accordingly issued for his apprehension. For a time he was compelled to +retire to England; but he returned, to celebrate in his Freeman's +Journal the humiliation of the primate, and the defeat of the policy +both of Lord Harrington, and his successor, the Duke of Dorset. + +This nobleman, resolved to cast his predecessor into the shade by the +brilliancy of his success, proceeded to take vigorous measures against +the patriots. In his first speech to Parliament in 1751, he informed +them his Majesty "consented" to the appropriation of the surplus +revenue, by the House of Commons, and a clause was added to the annual +supply bill in the English Council, containing the same obnoxious word, +"consent." On this occasion, not feeling themselves strong enough to +throw out the bill, and there being no alternative but rejection or +acceptance, the Patriots permitted it to pass under protest. But the +next session, when a similar addition was made, the Commons rejected +the supply bill altogether, by a majority of 122 to 117. This was a +measure of almost revolutionary consequence, since it left every branch +of the public service unprovided for, for the ensuing twelve months. + +Both the advisers of the King in England, and the Viceroy in Ireland, +seemed by their insane conduct as if they desired to provoke such a +collision. Malone's patent of precedence as Prime Sergeant was +cancelled; the speaker was dismissed from the Privy Council, and the +surplus revenue was withdrawn from the Vice-Treasurer, by a King's +letter. The indignation of the Dubliners at these outrages rose to the +utmost pitch. Stone, Healy, Hutchinson, and others of the Castle party, +were waylaid and menaced in the streets, and the Viceroy himself hooted +wherever he appeared. Had the popular leaders been men less cautious, +or less influential, the year 1753 might have witnessed a violent +revolutionary movement. But they planted themselves on the authority of +the constitution, they united boldness with prudence, and they +triumphed. The Primate and his creatures raised against them in vain +the cuckoo cry of disloyalty, both in Dublin and London. The English +Whigs, long engaged themselves in a similar struggle with the overgrown +power of the crown, sympathized with the Irish opposition, and defended +their motives both in society and in Parliament. The enemies of the +Dorset family as naturally took their part, and the duke himself was +obliged to go over to protect his interest at court, leaving the odious +Primate as one of the Lords-Justices. At his departure his guards were +hardly able to protect him from the fury of the populace, to that +waterside to which Chesterfield had walked on foot, seven years before, +amid the benedictions of the same people. + +The Patriots had at this crisis a great addition to their strength, in +the accession of James, the twentieth Earl of Kildare, successively +Marquis and Duke of Leinster. This nobleman, in the prime of life, +married to the beautiful Emily Lennox, daughter of the Duke of +Richmond, followed Dorset to England, and presented to the King, with +his own hand, one of the boldest memorials ever addressed to a +sovereign by a subject. After reciting the past services of his family +in maintaining the imperial connection, he declared himself the organ +of several thousands of his Majesty's liege subjects, "as well the +nobles as the clergy, the gentry, and the commonalty of the kingdom." +He dwells on the peculation and extravagance of the administration, +under "the Duumvirate" of the Viceroy and the Primate, which he +compares with the league of Strafford and Laud. He denounces more +especially Lord George Sackville, son to Dorset, for his intermeddling +in every branch of administration. He speaks of Dr. Stone as "a greedy +churchman, who affects to be a second Wolsey in the senate." This +high-toned memorial struck with astonishment the English ministers, who +did not hesitate to hint, that, in a reign less merciful, it would not +have passed with impunity. In Ireland it raised the hardy earl to the +pinnacle of popular favour. A medal was struck in his honour, +representing him guarding a heap of treasure with a drawn sword, and +the motto—"Touch not, says Kildare." At the opening of the next +Parliament, he was a full hour making his way among the enthusiastic +crowd, from his house in Kildare street to College Green. In little +more than a year, the Duke of Dorset, whom English ministers had in +vain endeavoured to sustain, was removed, and the Primate, by his +Majesty's orders, was struck from the list of privy counsellors. + +Lord Harrington, now Duke of Devonshire, replaced the disgraced and +defeated Dorset, and at once surrounded himself with advisers from the +ranks of the opposition. The Earl of Kildare was his personal and +political friend, and his first visit, on arriving, was paid at Carton. +The Speaker, Mr. Boyle, the Earl of Bessborough, head of the popular +family of the Ponsonbys, and Mr. Malone, were called to the Privy +Council. Lucas, exalted rather than injured by years of exile, was +elected one of the members for the city of Dublin, and the whole face +of affairs promised a complete and salutary change of administration. + +After a year in office, Devonshire returned to England in ill-health, +leaving Lord Kildare as one of the Justices, an office which he +continued to fill, till the arrival in September, 1756, of John, fourth +Duke of Bedford, as Lord-Lieutenant, with Mr. Rigby, "a good four +bottle man," as chief secretary. + +The instructions of the Duke of Bedford, dictated by the genius and +wisdom of Chatham, were, to employ "all softening and healing arts of +government." His own desire, as a Whig, at the head of the Whig +families of England, was to unite and consolidate the same party in +Ireland, so as to make them a powerful auxiliary force to the English +Whigs. Consistently with this design, he wished well to the country he +was sent to rule, and was sincerely desirous of promoting measures of +toleration. But he found the Patriots distracted by success, and +disorganized by the possession of power. The Speaker, who had struggled +so successfully against his predecessors, was in the Upper House as +Earl of Shannon, and the chair of the Commons was filled by John +Ponsonby, of the Bessborough family. The Ponsonby following, and the +Earl of Kildare's friends were at this period almost as much divided +from each other in their views of public policy, as either were from +the party of the Primate. The Ponsonby party, still directed by Malone, +wished to follow up the recent victory on the money bills, by a measure +of Catholic relief, a tax upon absentees, and a reduction of the +pension list, shamelessly burthened beyond all former proportion. Lord +Kildare and his friends were not then prepared to go such lengths, +though that high spirited nobleman afterwards came into most of these +measures. After endeavouring in vain to unite, these two interests, the +Duke of Bedford found, or fancied himself compelled, in order to secure +a parliamentary majority, to listen to the overtures of the, obsequious +Primate, to restore him to the Council, and to leave him, together with +his old enemy, Lord Shannon, in the situation of joint administrators, +during his journey to England, in 1758. The Earl of Kildare, it should +be remarked, firmly refused to be associated with Stone, on any terms, +or for any time, long or short. + +The closing of this important reign is notable for the first Catholic +meeting held since the reign of Queen Anne. In the spring of 1757, four +hundred respectable gentlemen attended by mutual agreement, at Dublin, +among whom were Lords Devlin, Taafe, and Fingal, the antiquary, Charles +O'Conor, of Balanagar, the historian of the _Civil Wars_, Dr. Curry, +and Mr. Wyse, a merchant of Waterford, the ancestor of a still better +known labourer in the same cause. The then recent persecution of Mr. +Saul, a Dublin merchant, of their faith, for having harboured a young +lady whose friends wished to coerce her into a change of religion, gave +particular significance to this assembly. It is true the proceedings +were characterized by caution amounting almost to timidity, but the +unanimous declaration of their loyal attachment to the throne, at a +moment when French invasion was imminent, produced the best effect, and +greatly strengthened the hands of the Clanbrassils, Ponsonbys, Malones, +Dalys, and other advocates of an enlarged toleration in both Houses. It +is true no immediate legislation followed, but the way was prepared for +future ameliorations by the discretion and tact of the Catholic +delegates of 1757. They were thenceforth allowed at least the right of +meeting and petitioning, of which they had long been deprived, and the +restoration of which marks the first step in their gradual recovery of +their civil liberties. + +In 1759 a rumour broke out in Dublin that a legislative union was in +contemplation by the Primate and his faction. On the 3rd of December, +the citizens rose _en masse_, and surrounded the Houses of Parliament. +They stopped the carriages of members, and obliged them to swear +opposition to such a measure. Some of the Protestant bishops, and the +Lord Chancellor were roughly handled; a privy counsellor was thrown +into the river; the Attorney General was wounded and obliged to take +refuge in the college; Lord Inchiquin was abused till he said his name +was O'Brien, when the rage of the people "was turned into +acclamations." The Speaker, Mr. Ponsonby, and the Chief Secretary, Mr. +Rigby, had to appear in the porch of the House of Commons, solemnly to +assure the citizens that no union was dreamed of, and if it was +proposed, that they would be the first to resist it. Public spirit had +evidently grown bold and confident, and we can well believe Secretary +Rigby when he writes to the elder Pitt, that "the mob" declared, "since +they have no chance of numbers in the House, they must have recourse to +numbers out of doors." + + + +CHAPTER V. +ACCESSION OF GEORGE III.—FLOOD'S LEADERSHIP—OCTENNIAL PARLIAMENTS +ESTABLISHED. + +George III., grandson of the late king, commenced, in October, 1760, at +the age of two and twenty, the longest reign in British history. +Including the period of the regency, he reigned over his empire nearly +sixty years—an extraordinary term of royal power, and quite as +extraordinary for its events as for its extreme length. + +The great movement of the Irish mind, at the beginning of this reign, +was the limitation of the duration of Parliament, hitherto elected for +the King's life. This reform, long advocated out of doors, and by the +more progressive members within the House, was reserved for the new +Parliament under the new reign. To this Parliament were returned +several men of great promise, men of a new generation, nurtured in the +school of Swift and Malone, but going even beyond their masters in +their determination to liberate the legislature of their country from +the undue influence of the crown and the castle. Among those new +members were three destined to national celebrity, Dr. Lucas, Mr. +Hussey Burgh, and Mr. Dennis Bowes Daly; and one destined to universal +reputation—Henry Flood. This gentleman, the son of a former Chief +Justice, intermarried into the powerful oligarchical family of the +Beresfords, was only in his 28th year when first elected member for +Kilkenny; but, in point of genius and acquirements, he was even then +the first man in Ireland, and one of the first in the empire. For a +session or two he silently observed the forms of the House, preparing +himself for the great contest to come; but when at last he obtained the +ear of his party he was heard to some purpose. Though far from +advocating extreme measures, he had abundant boldness; he was not open +to the objection levelled against the leader of the past generation, +Mr. Malone, of whom Grattan said, "he was a colony-bred man, and he +feared to bring down England upon Ireland." + +The Duke of Bedford vacated the viceroyalty in 1761, and Lord Halifax +took his place. In the first parliamentary session, Dr. Lucas +introduced his resolutions limiting the duration of Parliament to seven +years, a project which Flood afterwards adopted and mainly contributed +to carry. The heads of the bill embodying these resolutions were +transmitted to London by the Lord-Lieutenant, but never returned. In +1763, under the government of the Marquis of Hertford, similar +resolutions were introduced and carried, but a similar fate awaited +them. Again they were passed, and again rejected, the popular +dissatisfaction rising higher and higher with every delay of the +reform. At length, in the session of 1767, "the Septennial Bill," as it +was called, was returned from England, changed to octennial, and with +this alteration it passed into law, in February, 1768. A new Parliament +the same year was elected under the new act, to which all the friends +of the measure were triumphantly returned. The faithful Lucas, however, +survived his success little better than two years; he died amid the +very sincere regrets of all men who were not enemies of their country. +At his funeral the pall was borne by the Marquis of Kildare, Lord +Charlemont, Mr. Flood, Mr. Hussey Burgh, Sir Lucius O'Brien, and Mr. +Ponsonby. + +Lord Halifax, and his chief secretary, Mr. Hamilton (known to us as +"the single-speech Hamilton," of literary history), received very +graciously the loyal addresses presented by the Catholics, soon after +his Majesty's accession. In a speech from the throne, the Viceroy +proposed, but was obliged to abandon the proposition, to raise six +regiments of Catholics, under their own officers, to be taken into the +service of Portugal, the ally of Great Britain. His administration was +otherwise remarkable neither for its length nor its importance; nor is +there anything else of consequence to be mentioned of his lordship, +except that his nephew, and chief secretary, had the honour to have +Edmund Burke for his private secretary, and the misfortune to offend +him. + +During the government of the Marquis of Hertford, and his successor, +Lord Townsend (appointed in 1768), the Patriot party contended on the +ground of rendering the judges independent, diminishing the pension +list, and modifying the law of Poynings, requiring heads of bills to be +sent into England, and certified by both Privy Councils, before they +could be passed upon by the legislature. The question of supply, and +that of the duration of Parliament, being settled, these reforms were +the next objects of exertion. When we know that the late King's +mistresses, the Queen Dowager of Prussia, Prince Ferdinand, and other +connections of the royal family, equally alien to the country, were +pensioners to the amount of thousands of pounds annually on the Irish +establishment, we can understand more clearly the bitterness of the +battle Mr. Flood and his colleagues were called upon to fight in +assailing the old system. But they fought it resolutely and +perseveringly. Death had removed their most unscrupulous enemy, Primate +Stone, during the Hertford administration, and the improved tone and +temper of public opinion would not tolerate any attempt to raise up a +successor of similar character. Lord Townsend, an old campaigner and +_bon vivant_, was expressly chosen as most capable of restoring the old +system of government by closeting and corruption, but he found the +Ireland of his day very materially altered from the defenceless +province, which Stone and Dorset had attempted to cajole or to coerce, +twenty years before. + +The Parliament of 1769—the first limited Parliament which Ireland had +seen since the revolution—proved, in most respects, worthy of the +expectations formed of it. John Ponsonby was chosen Speaker, and Flood +regarded, around him, well-filled benches and cheering countenances. +The usual supply bill was passed and sent up to the castle, but on its +return from England was found to be altered—15,000 men, among other +changes, being charged to the Irish military establishment, instead of +12,000, as formerly. The Commons, resolute to assert their rights, +threw out the bill, as had been done in 1753, and the Lord Lieutenant, +protesting in the House of Lords against their conduct, ordered them to +be prorogued. Prorogation followed prorogation, till February, 1771, +the interval being occupied in closeting and coquetting with members of +the opposition, in the creation of new places, and the disposal of them +to the relatives of those capable of being bought. No one was +surprised, when the Houses reassembled, to find that a bare majority of +the Commons voted a fulsome address of confidence to the Lord +Lieutenant. But this address, Speaker Ponsonby indignantly refused to +present. He preferred resignation to disgrace, and great was the +amazement and indignation when his friend, Mr. Perry, elected by a bare +majority, consented to take the post—no longer a post of honour. In +justice to Mr, Perry, however, it must be added, that in the chair as +on the floor of Parliament, he still continued the patriot—that if he +advanced his own fortunes, it was not at the expense of the +country—that some of the best measures passed by this and the +subsequent Parliament, owed their final success, if not their first +suggestion, to his far-seeing sagacity. + +The methods taken by Lord Townsend to effect his ends, not less than +those ends themselves, aroused the spirit and combined the ranks of the +Irish opposition. The press of Dublin teemed with philippics and +satires, upon his creatures and himself. The wit, the scholarship, the +elegant fancy, the irresistible torrent of eloquence, as well as the +popular enthusiasm, were against him, and in 1772, borne down by these +combined forces, he confessed his failure by resigning the sword of +state into the hands of Lord Harcourt. + +The new Viceroy, according to custom, began his reign by taking an +exactly opposite course to his predecessor, and ended it by falling +into nearly the same errors and abuses. He suggested an Absentee-tax, +which was introduced by Flood, but rejected through the preponderating +influence of the landed aristocracy. In preparing the tables of +expenditure, he had caused arrears amounting to 265,000 pounds, and an +annual increase of 100,000 pounds, to be added to the estimates. +Moreover, his supply bill was discovered, at the second reading, to +extend over _two years_ instead of one—a discovery which occasioned the +greatest indignation. Flood raised his powerful voice in warning, not +unmingled with menace; Burgh declared, that if any member should again +bring in such a bill, he would himself move his expulsion from the +House; while George Ogle, member for Wexford, proposed that the bill +itself should be burned before the porch, by the common hangman. He was +reminded that the instrument bore the great seal; to which he boldly +answered, that the seal would help to make it burn the better. It was +not thought politic to take notice of this revolutionary retort. + + + +CHAPTER VI. +FLOOD'S LEADERSHIP—STATE OF THE COUNTRY BETWEEN 1760 AND 1776. + +England was engaged in two great wars during the period of Flood's +supremacy in the Irish Parliament—the seven years' war, concluded by +the peace of Paris in 1763, and the American war, concluded by the +treaty of Versailles, in 1783. To each of these wars Ireland was the +second largest contributor both as to men and money; and by both she +was the severest sufferer, in her manufactures, her provision trade, +and her general prosperity. While army contracts, and all sorts of +military and naval expenditure in a variety of ways returned to the +people of England the produce of their taxes, the Irish had no such +compensation for the burdens imposed on their more limited resources. +The natural result was, that that incipient prosperity which +Chesterfield hailed with pleasure in 1751, was arrested in its growth, +and fears began to be seriously entertained that the country would be +driven back to the lamentable condition from which it had slowly and +laboriously emerged during the reign of George II. + +The absence of employment in the towns threw the labouring classes more +and more upon the soil for sustenance, while the landlord legislation +of the period threw them as helplessly back upon other pursuits than +agriculture. Agrarian injustice was encountered by conspiracy, and for +the first time in these pages, we have to record the introduction of +the diabolical machinery of secret oath-bound associations among the +Irish peasantry. Of the first of these combinations in the southern +counties, a cotemporary writer gives the following account: "Some +landlords in Munster," he says, "have let their lands to cotters far +above their value, and, to lighten their burden, allowed commonange to +their tenants by way of recompense: afterwards, in despite of all +equity, contrary to all compacts, the landlords enclosed these commons, +and precluded their unhappy tenants from the only means of making their +bargains tolerable." The peasantry of Waterford, Cork, and other +southern counties met in tumultuous crowds, and demolished the new +enclosures. The oligarchical majority took their usual cue on such +occasions: they pronounced, at once, that the cause of the riots was +"treason against the state;" they even obtained a select committee to +"inquire into the cause and progress of the Popish insurrection in +Munster." Although the London Gazette, on the authority of royal +commissioners, declared that the rioters "consisted indiscriminately of +persons of different persuasions," the Castle party would have it +"another Popish plot." Even Dr. Lucas was carried away by the passions +of the hour, and declaimed against all lenity, as cowardly and +criminal. + +A large military force, under the Marquis of Drogheda, was accordingly +despatched to the south. The Marquis fixed his head-quarters at +Clogheen, in Tipperary, the parish priest of which was the Rev. +Nicholas Sheehy. The magistracy of the county, especially Sir Thomas +Maude, William Bagnel, John Bagwell, Daniel Toler, and Parson Hewitson, +were among the chief maintainers of the existence of a Popish plot, to +bring in the French and the Pretender. Father Sheehy had long been +fixed upon as their victim: largely connected with the minor gentry, +educated in France, young, popular, eloquent and energetic, a stern +denouncer of the licentious lives of the squires, and of the exacting +tithes of the parsons, he was particularly obnoxious. In 1763 he was +arrested on a charge of high treason, for drilling and enrolling +Whiteboys, but was acquitted. Towards the close of that year, Bridge, +one of the late witnesses against him, suddenly disappeared. A charge +of murder was then laid against the priest of Clogheen, and a +prostitute named Dunlea, a vagrant lad named Lonergan, and a convicted +horse stealer called Toohey, were produced in evidence against him, +after he had lain nearly a year in prison, heavily fettered. On the +12th of March, 1765, he was tried at Clonmel, on this evidence; and +notwithstanding an _alibi_ was proved, he was condemned, and beheaded +on the third day afterwards. Beside the old ruined church of +Shandraghan, his well-worn tomb remains till this day. He died in his +thirty-eighth year. Two months later, Edward Sheehy, his cousin, and +two respectable young farmers, named Buxton and Farrell, were executed +under a similar charge, and upon the same testimony. All died with +religious firmness and composure. 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. + +In 1767, an attempt to revive the plot was made by the Munster +oligarchy, without success. Dr. McKenna, Bishop of Cloyne, was arrested +but enlarged; Mr. Nagle, of Garnavilla (a relative of Edmund Burke), +Mr. Robert Keating, and several respectable Catholic gentlemen, were +also arrested. It appears that Edmund Burke was charged by the +ascendancy party with having "sent his brother Richard, recorder of +Bristol, and Mr. Nagle, a relation, on a mission to Munster, to levy +money on the Popish body for the use of the Whiteboys, who were +exclusively Papists." The fact was, that Burke did originate a +subscription for the defence of the second batch of victims, who, +through his and other exertions, were fortunately saved from the fate +of their predecessors. + +Contemporaneous with the Whiteboys were the northern agrarians, called +"Hearts of Steel," formed among the absentee Lord Downshire's tenants, +in 1762; the "Oak Boys," so called from wearing oak leaves in their +hats; and the "Peep o' Day Boys," the precursors of the Orange +Association. The infection of conspiracy ran through all Ireland, and +the disorder was neither short-lived nor trivial. Right-boys, +Defenders, and a dozen other denominations descended from the same evil +genius, whoever he was, that first introduced the system of signs, and +passwords, and midnight meetings, among the peasantry of Ireland. The +celebrated society of United Irishmen was the highest form which that +principle, in our politics, ever reached. In its origin, it was mainly +a Protestant organization. + +From the first, the Catholic bishops and clergy strenuously opposed +these secret societies. The Bishop of Cloyne issued a reprobatory +pastoral; Father Arthur O'Leary employed his facile pen against them; +the Bishop of Ossory anathematized them in his diocese. Priests in +Kildare, Kilkenny, and Munster, were often in personal danger from +these midnight legislators; their chapels had been frequently nailed +up, and their bishops had been often obliged to remove them from one +neighbourhood to another to prevent worse consequences. The infatuation +was not to be stayed; the evil was engrafted on society, and many a +long year, and woeful scene, and blighted life, and broken heart, was +to signalize the perpetuation of secret societies among the population. + +These startling symptoms of insubordination and lawlessness, while they +furnished plausible pretexts to the advocates of repression, still +further confirmed the Patriot party in their belief, that, nothing +short of a free trade in exports and imports, and a thorough system of +retrenchment in every branch of the public service, could save the +nation from bankruptcy and ruin. This was Flood's opinion, and he had +been long recognized as the leading spirit of the party. The aged +Malone, true to his principles of conciliation and constitutionalism to +the last, passed away from the scene, in the midst of the exciting +events of 1776. For some years before his death, his former place had +been filled by the younger and more vigorous member for Kilkenny, who, +however, did not fail to consult him with all the deference due to his +age, his services, and his wisdom. One of his last official acts was +presiding over the committee of the whole House, which voted the +American contingent, but rejected the admission of German troops to +supply their place. + + + +CHAPTER VII. +GRATTAN'S LEADERSHIP—"FREE TRADE," AND THE VOLUNTEERS. + +The revolt of the American colonies against the oppressive legislation +of the British Parliament, was the next circumstance that deeply +affected the constitutional struggle, in which the Irish Parliament had +so long been engaged. The similarity in the grievances of Ireland and +the colonies, the close ties of kindred established between them, the +extent of colonial commerce involved in the result, contributed to give +the American Declaration of Independence more importance in men's eyes +at Dublin, than anywhere else out of the colonies, except, perhaps, +London. + +The first mention made of American affairs to the Irish legislature, +was in Lord Townsend's message in 1775, calling for the despatch of +4,000 men from the Irish establishment, to America, and offering to +supply their place by as many foreign Protestant (German) troops. The +demand was warmly debated. The proposition to receive the proffered +foreign troops was rejected by a majority of thirty-eight, and the +contingent for America passed on a division, upon Flood's plea that +they would go out merely as "4,000 armed negotiators." This expression +of the great parliamentary leader was often afterwards quoted to his +prejudice, but we must remember, that, at the time it was employed, no +one on either side of the contest had abandoned all hopes of +accommodation, and that the significance of the phrase was rather +pointed against Lord North than against the colonies. The 4,000 men +went out, among them Lord Rawdon (afterwards Lord Moira), Lord Edward +Fitzgerald, and many others, both officers and men, who were certainly +no enemies of liberty, or the colonies. + +Some slight relaxation of the commercial restrictions which operated so +severely against Irish industry were made during the same year, but +these were more than counterbalanced by the embargo on the export of +provisions to America, imposed in February, 1776. This arbitrary +measure—imposed by order in Council—was so near being censured by the +Parliament then sitting, that the House was dissolved a month +afterwards, and a new election ordered. To meet the new Parliament it +was thought advisable to send over a new Viceroy, and accordingly Lord +Buckinghamshire entered into office, with Sir Richard Heron as chief +secretary. + +In the last session of the late Parliament, a young _protege_ of Lord +Charlemont—he was only in his twenty-ninth year—had taken his seat for +the borough of Charlemont. This was Henry Grattan, son of the Recorder +of Dublin, and grandson of one of those Grattans who, according to Dean +Swift, "could raise 10,000 men." The youth of Grattan had been neither +joyous nor robust; in early manhood he had offended his father's +conservatism; the profession of the law, to which he was bred, he found +irksome and unsuited to his tastes; society, as then constituted, was +repulsive to his over-sensitive spirit and high Spartan ideal of manly +duty; no letters are sadder to read than the early correspondence of +Grattan, till he had fairly found his inspiration in listening +enraptured to the eloquent utterances of Chatham, or comparing +political opinions with such a friend as Flood. At length he found a +seat in the House of Commons, where, during his first session, he spoke +on three or four occasions, briefly, modestly, and with good effect; +there had been no sitting during 1776, nor before October of the +following year; it was, therefore, in the sessions from '78 to '82 +inclusive, that this young member raised himself to the head of the +most eloquent men, in one of the most eloquent assemblies the world has +ever seen. + +The fact of Mr. Flood, after fourteen years of opposition, having +accepted office under Lord Harcourt's administration, and defended the +American expedition and the embargo, had greatly lessened the +popularity of that eminent man. There was indeed, no lack of ability +still left in the ranks of the opposition—for Burgh, Daly, and +Yelverton were there; but for a supreme spirit like Grattan—whose +burning tongue was ever fed from his heart of fire—there is always room +in a free senate, how many soever able and accomplished men may +surround him. + +The fall of 1777 brought vital intelligence from America. General +Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga, and France had decided to ally +herself with the Americans. The effect in England and in Ireland was +immense. When the Irish Houses met, Mr. Grattan moved an address to the +King in favour of retrenchment, and against the pension list, and Mr. +Daly moved and carried an address deploring the continuance of the +American war, with a governmental amendment assuring his Majesty that +he might still rely on the services of his faithful Commons. The second +Catholic relief bill, authorizing Papists to loan money on mortgage, to +lease lands for any period not exceeding 999 years—to inherit and +bequeath real property, so limited, passed, not without some +difficulty, into law. The debate had been protracted, by adjournment +after adjournment, over the greatest part of three months; the main +motion had been further complicated by an amendment repealing the Test +Act in favour of Dissenters, which was, fortunately, engrafted on the +measure. The vote in the Commons, in favour of the bill so amended, was +127 _yeas_ to 89 _nays_, and in the Lords, 44 _Contents_ to 28 +_Noncontents_. + +In the English House of Commons, Lord Nugent moved, in April, a series +of resolutions raising the embargo on the Irish provision trade; +abolishing, so far as Ireland was concerned, the most restrictive +clauses of the Navigation Act, both as to exports and imports, with the +exception of the article of tobacco. Upon this the manufacturing and +shipping interest of England, taking the alarm, raised such a storm in +the towns and cities that the ministry of the day were compelled to +resist the proposed changes, with a few trifling exceptions. But +Grattan had caught up, in the other island, the cry of "free trade," +and the people echoed it after their orator, until the whole empire +shook with the popular demand. + +But what gave pith and power to the Irish demands was the enrolment and +arming of a numerous volunteer force, rendered absolutely necessary by +the defenceless state of the kingdom. Mr. Flood had long before +proposed a national militia, but being in opposition and in the +minority, he had failed. To him and to Mr. Perry, as much as to Lord +Charlemont and Mr. Grattan, the militia bill of 1778, and the noble +army of volunteers equipped under its provisions, owed their origin. +Whether this force was to be a regular militia, subject to martial law, +or composed of independent companies, was for some months a subject of +great anxiety at the castle; but necessity at length precipitated a +decision in favour of volunteer companies, to be supplied with arms by +the state, but drilled and clothed at their own expense, with power to +elect their own officers. The official announcement of this decision +once made, the organization spread rapidly over the whole kingdom. The +Ulster corps, first organized, chose as their commander the Earl of +Charlemont, while those of Leinster elected the Duke of Leinster. +Simultaneously, resolutions against the purchase of English goods and +wares were passed at public meetings, and by several of the corporate +bodies. Lists of the importers of such goods were obtained at the +custom houses, and printed in handbills, to the alarm of the importers. +Swift's sardonic maxim, "to burn everything coming from England, +_except the coals_," began to circulate as a toast in all societies, +and the consternation of the Castle, at this resurrection of the +redoubtable Dean, was almost equal to the apprehension entertained of +him while living. + +While the Castle was temporizing with both the military and the +manufacture movement, in a vague expectation to defeat both, the press, +as is usual in such national crises, teemed with publications of great +fervour and ability. Dr. Jebb, Mr. (afterwards Judge) Johnson, Mr. +Pollock, Mr. Charles Sheridan, Father Arthur O'Leary, and Mr. Dobbs, +M.P., were the chief workers in this department of patriotic duty. +Cheered, instructed, restrained within due bounds by these writings and +the reported debates of Parliament, the independent companies proceeded +with their organization. In July, 1779, after all the resources of +prevarication had been exhausted, arms were issued to the several +recognized corps, and the Irish volunteers became in reality a national +army for domestic protection and defence. + +When this point was reached, Mr. Grattan and his friends took anxious +council as to their future movements. Parliament was to meet on the +12th of October, and in that sweet autumnal month, Grattan, Burgh, and +Daly, met upon the sea-shore, near Bray, in view of one of the +loveliest landscapes on earth, to form their plan for the session. They +agreed on an amendment to the address in answer to the royal speech, +demanding in explicit terms "free export and import" for Irish +commerce. When Parliament met, and the address and amendment were +moved, it was found that Flood, Burgh, Hutchinson, and Gardiner, though +all holding offices of honour and emolument under government, would +vote for it. Flood suggested to substitute the simple term "free +trade," and with this and one other verbal alteration suggested by +Burgh, the amendment passed with a single dissenting voice. + +The next day the Speaker, Mr. Perry, who was all along in the +confidence of the movers of the amendment, Daly, Grattan, Burgh, Flood, +Hutchinson, Ponsonby, Gardiner, and the whole House, went up with the +amended address to the castle. The streets were lined with volunteers, +commanded in person by the Duke of Leinster, who presented arms to the +patriotic Commons as they passed. Most of the leading members wore the +uniform of one or other of the national companies, and the people saw +themselves at the same moment under the protection of a patriotic +majority in the legislature, and a patriotic force in the field. No +wonder their enthusiastic cheers rang through the corridors of the +castle with a strangely jubilant and defiant emphasis. It was not +simply the spectacle of a nation recovering its spirit, but recovering +it with all military _éclat_ and pageantry. It was the disarmed armed +and triumphant—a revolution not only in national feeling, but in the +external manifestation of that feeling. A change so profound stirred +sentiments and purposes even deeper than itself, and suggested to the +ardent imagination of Grattan the establishment of entire national +independence, saving always the rights of the crown. + +The next day, the Houses, not to be outdone in courtesy, voted their +thanks to the volunteers for "their just and necessary exertions in +defence of their country!" + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +GRATTAN'S LEADERSHIP—LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE ESTABLISHED. + +The task which Mr. Grattan felt called upon to undertake, was not +_revolutionary_, in the usually accepted sense of the term. He was a +Monarchist and a Whig in general politics; but he was an Irishman, +proud and fond of his country, and a sincere lover of the largest +religious liberty. With the independence of the judiciary and the +legislature, with freedom of commerce and of conscience, he would be +well content to stand by the British connection. "The sea," he said, in +his lofty figurative language, "protests against union—the ocean +against separation." But still, within certain legal limits, his task +_was_ revolutionary, and was undertaken under all the discouragements +incident to the early stages of great constitutional reforms. + +Without awaiting the action of the English Parliament, in relation to +free trade, a public-spirited citizen of Dublin, Alderman James Horan, +demanded an entry at the custom house, for some parcels of Irish +woollens, which he proposed exporting to Rotterdam, contrary to the +prohibitory enactment, the 10th and 11th of William III. The +commissioners of customs applied for instructions to the Castle, and +the Castle to the Secretary of State, Franklin's friend, Lord +Hillsborough. For the moment a collision similar to that which had +taken place at Boston, on a not dissimilar issue, seemed imminent. A +frigate was stationed off Howth, with instructions, it was said, to +intercept the prohibited woollens, but Alderman Horan, by the advice of +his friends, allowed his application to remain on the custom house +files. It had served its purpose of bringing home practically to the +people, the value of the principle involved in the demand for freedom +of exports and imports. At the same time that this practical argument +was discussed in every circle, Mr. Grattan moved in the House of +Commons, in amendment to the supply bill, that, "At this time it is +inexpedient to grant new taxes." The government divided the House, but +to their mortification found only 47 supporters; for Grattan's +amendment there were 170. A subsequent amendment against granting +duties for the support of the loan fund, was also carried by 138 to +100. + +These adverse votes were communicated with great trepidation, by the +Lord Lieutenant, to the British administration. At length Lord North +thought it essential to make some concessions, and with this view he +brought in resolutions, declaring the trade with the British colonies +in America and Africa, and the free export of glass and woollens, open +to the Irish merchant. A week later, similar resolutions were passed in +the Irish Commons, and in February, 1780, "a free trade" in the sense +in which it had been demanded, was established by law, placing Ireland +in most respects, as to foreign and colonial commerce, on an equality +with England. + +In February, the Viceroy again alarmed the British administration, with +the reported movement for the repeal of "Poyning's law,"—the statute +which required heads of bills to be transmitted to, and approved in +England, before they could be legislated upon. He received in reply, +the royal commands to resist by every means in his power, any attempted +"change in the constitution," and he succeeded in eliciting from the +House of Lords, an address, strongly condemnatory of "the misguided +men," who sought to raise such "groundless jealousies," between the two +kingdoms. But the Patriot Commoners were not to be so deterred. They +declared the repeal of Poyning's act, and the 6th of George I., to be +their ultimatum, and notices of motion to that effect were immediately +placed on the journals of the House of Commons. + +In the early days of April, Grattan, who, more than any of our orators, +except perhaps Burke, was sensitive to the aspects of external nature, +and imbued with the poetry of her works, retired from the city, to his +uncle Dean Marlay's house, Cellbridge Abbey, formerly the residence of +Swift's ill-fated Vannessa. "Along the banks of that river," he said, +many years afterwards, "amid the groves and bowers of Swift and +Vannessa, I grew convinced that I was right; arguments, unanswerable, +came to my mind, and what I then presaged, confirmed me in my +determination to persevere." With an enthusiasm intensified and +restrained—but wonderful in the fire and grandeur of its utterance—he +rose in his place, on the 19th of the month, to move that "the King, +Lords, and Commons of Ireland, are the only power competent to enact +laws to bind Ireland." He was supported by Hussey Burgh, Yelverton, and +Forbes; Flood favoured postponement, and laid the foundation of his +future estrangement from Grattan; Daly was also for delay; Fitzgibbon, +afterwards Lord Clare, Provost Hutchinson, and John Foster, afterwards +Lord Oriel, resisted the motion. The Castle party moved in amendment +that "there being an equivalent resolution already on the journals of +the House"—alluding to one of the resolutions against Stafford's +tyranny in 1641—a new resolution was unnecessary. This amendment was +carried by 136 to 79, thus affirming the formula of independence +adopted in 1641, but depriving Grattan of the honour of putting it, in +his own words, on the record. The substantial result, however, was the +same; the 19th of April was truly what Grattan described it, "a great +day for Ireland." "It is with the utmost concern," writes the Viceroy +next day to Lord Hillsborough, "I must acquaint your Lordship that +although so many gentlemen expressed their concern that the subject had +been introduced, the sense of the House _against_ the obligation of +_any statutes_ of the Parliament of Great Britain, within this kingdom, +is represented to me to have been almost unanimous." + +Ten days later, a motion of Mr. Yelverton's to repeal Poyning's law, as +far as related to the Irish privy council's supervision of heads of +bills, was negatived by 130 to 105. + +During the remainder of the session the battle of independence was +fought on the Mutiny Bill. The Viceroy and the Chief Secretary, playing +the game of power, were resolved that the influence of the crown should +not be diminished, so far as the military establishments were +concerned. Two justices of the peace in Sligo and Mayo, having issued +writs of _habeas corpus_ in favour of deserters from the army, on the +ground that neither the British Mutiny Act, nor any other British +statute, was binding on Ireland, unless confirmed by an act of its own +legislature, brought up anew the whole question. Lord North, who, with +all his proverbial tact and good humour, in the House of Commons, +always pursued the most arbitrary policy throughout the empire, +proposed a perpetual Mutiny Bill for Ireland, instead of the Annual +Bill, in force in England. It was introduced in the Irish House of +Commons by Mr. Gervase Parker Bushe, and, by a vote of two to one, +postponed for a fortnight. During the interval, the British authorities +remained obdurate to argument and remonstrance. In vain, the majority +of the Irish privy counsellors advised concession; in vain, Flood, who +was consulted, pointed out the futility of attempting to force such a +measure; it was forced, and, under the cry of loyalty, a draft bill was +carried through both Houses, and remitted to England in June. Early in +August it was returned; on the 12th it was read a first time; on the +16th, a second; and it was carried through Committee by 114 to 62. It +was at this emergency the Volunteers performed the second act of their +great drama of Ireland's liberation. A series of reviews were held, and +significant addresses presented to Lord Camden (then on a visit to the +country), Lord Charlemont, Mr. Flood, and Mr. Grattan. On the +re-assembling of Parliament in August, when the bill was referred to, +Mr. Grattan declared that he would resist it to the last; that if +passed into law, he and his friends would _secede_, and would appeal to +the people in "a formal instrument." A new series of corporation and +county meetings was convened by the Patriot party, which warmly +condemned the Perpetual Mutiny Act, and as warmly approved the repeal +of Poyning's Act, and the 6th of George I.: questions which were all +conceived to be intermixed together, and to flow from the assertion of +a common principle. Parliament being prorogued in September, only threw +the whole controversy back again into the furnace of popular agitation. +The British Government tried a lavish distribution of titles and a +change of Viceroys,—Lord Carlisle being substituted in December for +Lord Buckingham—but the spirit abroad was too general and too earnest, +to be quelled by the desertion of individuals, however numerous or +influential. With Lord Carlisle, came, as Chief Secretary, Mr. Eden, +afterwards Lord Auckland; he had been, with his chief, a peace +commissioner to America, two years before, and had failed; he was an +intriguing and accomplished man, but he proved himself as unequal as +Heron or Rigby to combat the movement for Irish independence. + +Parliament was not again called together till the month of October, +1781; the interval being busily occupied on both sides with endeavours +to create and sustain a party. Soon after the meeting, Mr. Grattan, +seconded by Mr. Flood, moved for a limitation of the Mutiny Bill, which +was lost; a little later, Mr. Flood himself introduced a somewhat +similar motion, which was also outvoted two to one; and again, during +the session, Mr. Yelverton, having abandoned his promised motion +against Poyning's law, on news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender reaching +Dublin, Flood took it up, moved it, and was defeated. A further measure +of relief for Roman Catholics, introduced by Mr. Gardiner, author of +the act of 1778, and warmly supported by Grattan, was resisted by Flood +in the one House, and Lord Charlemont in the other. It miscarried, and +left another deposit of disagreement between the actual and the former +leader of the Patriot party. + +Still no open rupture had taken place between the two Patriot orators. +When the convention of the volunteers was called at Dungannon for the +15th of February, 1782, they consulted at Charlemont House as to the +resolutions to be passed. They were agreed on the constitutional +question; Grattan, of his own generous free will, added the resolution +in favour of emancipation. Two hundred and forty-two delegates, +representing 143 corps, unanimously adopted the resolutions so drafted, +as their own, and, from the old head-quarters of Hugh O'Neil, sent +forth anew an unequivocal demand for civil and religious liberty. The +example of Ulster soon spread through Ireland. A meeting of the +Leinster volunteers, Mr. Flood in the chair, echoed it from Dublin; the +Munster corps endorsed it unanimously at Cork; Lord Clanrickarde +summoned together those of the western counties at Portumna—an historic +spot, suggestive of striking associations. Strengthened by these +demonstrations of public opinion, Mr. Grattan brought forward, on the +22nd of February, his motion declaratory of the rights of Ireland. An +amendment in favour of a six months' postponement of the question was +carried; but on the 16th of April, just two years from his first effort +on the subject (the administration of Lord North having fallen in the +meantime), the orator had the satisfaction of carrying his address +declaratory of Irish legislative independence. It was on this occasion +that he exclaimed: "I found Ireland on her knees; I watched over her +with a paternal solicitude; I have traced her progress from injury to +arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift! Spirit of Molyneux! +your genius has prevailed! Ireland is now a nation! in that new +character I hail her! and bowing to her august presence, I say, _Esto +perpetua!_" + +Never was a new nation more nobly heralded into existence! Never was an +old nation more reverently and tenderly lifted up and restored! The +Houses adjourned to give England time to consider Ireland's +_ultimatum_. Within a month it was accepted by the new British +administration, and on the 27th of May, the new Whig Viceroy, the Duke +of Portland, was authorized to announce from the throne the +establishment of the judicial and legislative independence of Ireland. + + + +CHAPTER IX. +THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE—FIRST PERIOD. + +The accession of the Rockingham administration to power, in 1782, was +followed by the recall of Lord Carlisle, and the substitution, as +Viceroy, of one of the leading Lords of the Whig party. The nobleman +selected to this office was William Henry, third Duke of Portland, +afterwards twice prime minister; then in the prime of life, possessed +of a very ample fortune, and uniting in his own person the two great +Whig families of Bentinck and Cavendish. The policy he was sent to +represent at Dublin was undoubtedly an imperial policy; a policy which +looked as anxiously to the integrity of the empire as any Tory cabinet +could have desired; but it was, in most other respects, a policy of +conciliation and concession, dictated by the enlarged wisdom of Burke, +and adopted by the magnanimous candour of Fox. Yet by a generous +people, who always find it more difficult to resist a liberal than an +illiberal administration, it was, in reality, a policy more to be +feared than welcomed; for its almost certain effects were to divide +their ranks into two sections—a moderate and an extreme party—between +whom the national cause, only half established, might run great danger +of being lost, almost as soon as it was won. + +With the Duke of Portland was associated, as Chief Secretary, Colonel +Fitzpatrick, of the old Ossory family, one of those Irish wits and men +of fashion, who form so striking a group in the middle and later years +of King George III. As the personal and political friend of Flood, +Charlemont, and Grattan, and the first Irish secretary for several +administrations, he shared the brilliant ovation with which the Duke of +Portland was received, on his arrival at Dublin; but for the reason +already mentioned, the imperial, in so far as opposed to the national +policy, found an additional advantage in the social successes and great +personal popularity of the new secretary. + +The critical months which decided the contest for independence—April +and May—passed over fortunately for Ireland. The firmness of the +leaders in both Houses, the energy especially of Grattan, whose cry was +"No time, no time!" and the imposing attitude of the volunteers, +carried the question. Lord Rockingham and Mr. Fox by letter, the new +Viceroy and Secretary in person, had urged every argument for +adjournment and delay, but Grattan's _ultimatum_ was sent over to +England, and finally and formally accepted. The demands were _five_. I. +The repeal of the 6th of George I. II. The repeal of the Perpetual +Mutiny Act. III. An Act to abolish the alteration or suppression of +Bills. IV. An Act to establish the final jurisdiction of the Irish +Courts and the Irish House of Lords. V. The repeal of Poyning's Law. +This was the constitutional charter of 1782, which restored Ireland, +for the first time in that century, to the rank and dignity of a free +nation. + +Concession once determined on, the necessary bills were introduced in +both Parliaments simultaneously, and carried promptly into law. On the +27th of May, the Irish Houses were enabled to congratulate the Viceroy +that "no constitutional question any longer existed between the two +countries." In England it was proclaimed no less explicitly by Fox and +his friends, that the independency of the two legislatures "was fixed +and ascertained for ever." But there was, unfortunately, one ground for +dispute still left, and on that ground Henry Flood and Henry Grattan +parted, never to be reconciled. + +The elder Patriot, whose conduct from the moment of his retirement from +office, in consequence of his Free Trade vote and speech in '79, had +been, with occasional exceptions, arising mostly from bodily infirmity, +as energetic and consistent as that of Grattan himself, saw no +sufficient constitutional guarantee in mere acts of Parliament +repealing other acts. He demanded "express renunciation" of legislative +supremacy on the part of England; while Grattan maintained the +sufficiency of "simple repeal." It is possible even in such noble +natures as these men had—so strangely are we constituted—that there was +a latent sense of personal rivalry, which prompted them to grasp, each, +at the larger share of patriotic honour. It is possible that there were +other, and inferior men, who exasperated this latent personal rivalry. +Flood had once reigned supreme, until Grattan eclipsed him in the +sudden splendour of his career. In scholarship and in genius the elder +Patriot was, taken all in all, the full peer of his successor; but +Grattan had the national temperament, and he found his way more readily +into the core of the national heart; he was the man of the later, the +bolder, and the more liberal school; and such was the rapidity of his +movements, that even Flood, from '79 to '82, seemed to be his follower, +rather than his coadjutor. In the hopeful crisis of the struggle, the +slower and more experienced statesman was for the moment lost sight of. +The leading motions were all placed or left in the hands of Grattan by +the consent of their leading friends; the bills repealing the Mutiny +Act, the 6th George I., and Poyning's law, were entrusted to Burgh, +Yelverton, and Forbes; the thanks of the House were voted to Grattan +alone after the victory, with the substantial addition of 50,000 pounds +to purchase for him an estate, which should become an enduring monument +of the national gratitude. + +The open rupture between the two great orators followed fast on the +triumph of their common efforts. It was still the first month—the very +honeymoon of independence. On the 13th of June, Mr. Grattan took +occasion to notice in his place, that a late British act relating to +the importation of sugars, was so generally worded as apparently to +include Ireland; but this was explained to be a mere error of the +clerk, the result of haste, and one which would be promptly corrected. +Upon this Mr. Flood first took occasion to moot the insufficiency of +"simple repeal," and the necessity of "express renunciation," on the +part of England. On the 19th, he moved a formal resolution on the +subject, which was superseded by the order of the day; but on the 19th +of July, he again moved, at great length, and with great power of +logical and historical argument, for leave to bring in an Irish Bill of +Rights, declaring "the sole and exclusive right of the Irish Parliament +to make laws in all cases whatsoever, _external and internal_." He was +supported by Sir Simon Bradstreet, Mr. English, and Mr. Walshe, and +opposed by Grattan, who, in one of his finest efforts, proposed a +counter resolution, "that the legislature of Ireland is independent; +and that any person who shall, by writing or otherwise, maintain that a +right in any other country, to make laws for Ireland, _internally_ or +_externally_, exists or can be revived, _is inimical to the peace of +both kingdoms_." This extreme proposition—pointing out all who differed +from himself as public enemies—the mover, however, withdrew, and +substituted in its stead the milder formula, that leave was refused to +bring in the bill, because the sole and exclusive right of legislation +in the Irish Parliament in all cases, whether externally or internally, +hath been already asserted by Ireland, and fully, finally, and +irrevocably acknowledged by the British Parliament. Upon this motion +Flood did not think it advisable to divide the House, so it passed +without a division. + +But the moot point thus voted down in Parliament disquieted and alarmed +the minds of many out of doors. The volunteers as generally sided with +Flood as the Parliament had sided with Grattan. The lawyer corps of the +city of Dublin, containing all the great names of the legal profession, +endorsed the constitutional law of the member for Kilkenny; the Belfast +volunteers did likewise; and Grattan's own corps, in a respectful +address, urged him to give his adherence to the views of "the best +informed body of men in the kingdom,"—the lawyers' corps. Just at that +moment Lord Abingdon, in the English House of Lords, gave notice of a +mischievous motion to assert the external supremacy of the English +Parliament; and Lord Mansfield, in the King's Bench, decided an Irish +appeal case, notwithstanding the recent statute establishing the +judicial independence of the Irish courts. It is true the case had been +appealed before the statute was passed; and that Lord Abingdon withdrew +his motion for want of a seconder; but the alarm was given, and the +popular mind in Ireland, jealously watchful of its new-born liberties, +saw in these attempts renewed cause for apprehension. In opposition to +all this suddenly awakened suspicion and jealousy, Grattan, who +naturally enough assumed his own interest in preserving the new +constitution to be quite equal to those who cast doubts on its +security, invariably held one language. The settlement already made, +according to his view, was final; it was an international treaty; its +maintenance must depend on the ability and disposition of the parties +to uphold it, rather than on the multiplication of declaratory acts. +Ireland had gone to England with a charter, not for a charter, and the +nation which would insist upon the humiliation of another, was a +foolish nation. This was the lofty light in which he viewed the whole +transaction, and in this light, it must be added, he continued to view +it till the last. Many of the chief English and Irish jurists of his +time, Lord Camden, Lord Kenyon, Lord Erskine, Lord Kilwarden, Judges +Chamberlain, Smith, and Kelly, Sir Samuel Rommilly, Sir Arthur Pigott, +and several others, agreed fully in Grattan's doctrine, that the +settlement of '82 was final and absolute, and "terminated all British +jurisdiction over Ireland." But although these are all great names, the +instinct of national self-preservation may be considered in such +critical moments more than a counterpoise to the most matured opinions +of the oracles of the law. Such must have been the conviction also of +the English Parliament, for, immediately on their meeting in January, +1783, they passed the _Act of Renunciation_ (23rd George III.), +expressly declaring their admission of the "exclusive rights of the +Parliament and Courts of Ireland in matters of legislature and +judicature." This was Flood's greatest triumph. Six months before his +doctrine obtained but three supporters in the Irish Commons; now, at +his suggestion, and on his grounds, he saw it unanimously affirmed by +the British Parliament. + +On two other questions of the utmost importance these leading spirits +also widely differed. Grattan was in favour of, and Flood opposed to, +Catholic emancipation; while Flood was in favour of, and Grattan, at +that moment, opposed to, a complete reform of parliamentary +representation. The Catholic question had its next great triumph after +Flood's death, as will be mentioned further on; but the history of the +Irish reform movement of 1783, '84, and '85, may best be disposed of +here. + +The Reformers were a new party rising naturally out of the popular +success of 1782. They were composed of all but a few of the more +aristocratic corps of the volunteers, of the townsmen, especially in +the seaports and manufacturing towns, of the admirers of American +example, of the Catholics who had lately acquired property and +recognition, but not the elective franchise, of the gentry of the +second and third degree of wealth, overruled and overshadowed by the +greater lords of the soil. The substantial grievance of which they +complained was, that of the 300 members of the House of Commons, only +72 were returned by the people; 53 Peers having the power to nominate +123 and secure the election of 10 others; while 52 Commoners nominated +91 and controlled the choice of 4 others. The constitution of what +ought to have been the people's house was, therefore, substantially in +the hands of an oligarchy of about a hundred great proprietors, bound +together by the spirit of their class, by intermarriage, and by the +hereditary possession of power. To reduce this exorbitant influence +within reasonable bounds, was the just and wise design to which Flood +dedicated all his energies, after the passage of the _Act of +Renunciation_, and the success of which would certainly have restored +him to complete equality with Grattan. + +In the beginning of 1783, the famous coalition ministry of Lord North +and Mr. Fox was formed in England. They were at first represented at +Dublin Castle, for a few months, by Lord Temple, who succeeded the Duke +of Portland, and established the order of _Knights of Saint Patrick_; +then by Lord Northington, who dissolved Parliament early in July. A +general election followed, and the reform party made their influence +felt in all directions. County meetings were held; conventions by +districts and by provinces were called by the reforming Volunteers, in +July, August, and September. The new Parliament was to be opened on the +14th of October, and the Volunteers resolved to call a convention of +their whole body at Dublin, for the 10th of November. + +The Parliament met according to summons, but though searching +retrenchment was spoken of, no promise was held out of a constitutional +reform; the limitation of the regular troops to a fixed number was +declared advisable, and a vote of thanks to the Volunteers was passed +without demur. But the proceedings of the Houses were soon eclipsed by +the portentous presence of the Volunteer Convention. One hundred and +sixty delegates of corps attended on the appointed day. The Royal +Exchange was too small to accommodate them, so they adjourned to the +Rotunda, accompanied by mounted guards of honour. The splendid and +eccentric Bishop of Derry (Earl of Bristol), had his dragoon guards; +the courtly but anxious Charlemont had his troop of horse; Flood, tall, +emaciated, and solemn to sadness, was hailed with popular acclamations; +there also marched the popular Mr. Day, afterwards Judge; Robert +Stewart, father of Lord Castlereagh; Sir Richard Musgrave, a reformer +also, in his youth, who lived to confound reform with rebellion in his +old age. The Earl of Charlemont was elected president of this imposing +body, and for an entire month Dublin was divided between the +extraordinary spectacle of two legislatures—one sitting at the Rotunda, +and the other at College Green, many members of each being members of +the other; the uniform of the volunteer sparkling in the Houses, and +the familiar voices of both Houses being heard deliberating and +debating among the Volunteers. + +At length, on the 29th of November, after three weeks' laborious +gestation, Flood brought before Parliament the plan of reform agreed to +by the Convention. It proposed to extend the franchise to every +_Protestant_ freeholder possessed of a lease worth forty shillings +yearly; to extend restricted borough constituencies by annexing to them +neighbouring populous parishes; that the voting should be held on one +and the same day; that pensioners of the crown should be incapable of +election; that members accepting office should be subject to +re-election; that a stringent bribery oath should be administered to +candidates returned; and, finally, that the duration of Parliament +should be limited to three years. It was, indeed, an excellent +Protestant Reform Bill, for though the Convention had received Father +Arthur O'Leary with military honours, and contained many warm friends +of Catholic rights, the majority were still intolerant of _religious_ +freedom. In this majority it is painful to have to record the names of +Flood and Charlemont. + +The debate which followed the introduction of this proposed change in +the constitution was stormy beyond all precedent. Grattan, who just one +month before (Oct. 28th) had that fierce vituperative contest with +Flood familiar to every school-boy, in its worst and most exaggerated +form, supported the proposal. The law officers of the crown, +Fitzgibbon, Yelverton, Scott, denounced it as an audacious attempt of +armed men to dictate to the House its own constitution. The cry of +privilege and prerogative was raised, and the measure was rejected by +157 to 77. Flood, weary in mind and body, retired to his home; the +Convention, which outsat the House, adjourned, amid the bitter +indignation of some, and the scarcely concealed relief of others. Two +days later they met and adopted a striking address to the throne, and +adjourned _sine die_. This was, in fact, the last important day of the +Volunteers as a political institution. An attempt a month later to +re-assemble the Convention was dexterously defeated by the President, +Lord Charlemont. The regular army was next session increased to 15,000 +men; 20,000 pounds were voted to clothe and equip a rival force—"the +Militia"—and the Parliament, which had three times voted them its +thanks, now began to look with satisfaction on their rapid +disorganization and disbandment. + +This, perhaps, is the fittest place to notice the few remaining years +of the public life of Henry Flood. After the session of 1785, in which +he had been outvoted on every motion he proposed, he retired from the +Irish Parliament, and allowed himself to be persuaded, at the age of +fifty-three, to enter the English. He was elected for Winchester, and +made his first essay on the new scene, on his favourite subject of +representative reform. But his health was undermined; he failed, except +on one or two occasions, to catch the ear of that fastidious assembly, +and the figure he made there somewhat disappointed his friends. He +returned to Kilkenny to die in 1791, bequeathing a large portion of his +fortune to Trinity College, to enrich its MS. library, and to found a +permanent professorship of the Irish language. "He was an oak of the +forest," said Grattan, "too old to be transplanted at fifty." "He was a +man," said one who also knew him well, Sir Jonah Barrington, "of +profound abilities, high manners, and great experience in the affairs +of Ireland. He had deep information, an extensive capacity, and a solid +judgment." In his own magnificent "Ode to Fame," he has pictured his +ideal of the Patriot-orator, who finds some consolation amid the +unequal struggle with the enemies of his country, foreign and domestic, +in a prophetic vision of his own renown. Unhappily, the works of this +great man come down to us in as fragmentary a state as those of +Chatham; but enough remains to enable us to class him amongst the +greatest masters of our speech, and, as far as the drawbacks allowed, +among the foremost statesmen of his country. + +It is painful to be left in doubt, as we are, whether he was ever +reconciled to Grattan. The presumption, from the silence of their +cotemporaries, is, that they never met again as friends. But it is +consoling to remember that in his grave, the survivor rendered him that +tribute of justice which almost takes the undying sting out of the +philippic of 1783; it is well to know, also, that one of Grattan's +latest wishes, thirty years after the death of Flood, when he felt his +own last hours approaching, was, that it should be known that he "did +not speak the vile abuse reported in the Debates" in relation to his +illustrious rival. The best proof that what he did say was undeserved, +is that that rival's reputation for integrity and public spirit has +survived even his terrible onslaught. + + + +CHAPTER X. +THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE—SECOND PERIOD. + +The second period of the era of independence may be said to embrace the +nine years extending from the dissolution of the last Volunteer +Convention, at the end of 1784, to the passage of the Catholic Relief +Bill of 1793. They were years of continued interest and excitement, +both in the popular and parliamentary affairs of the country; but the +events are, with the exception of the last named, of a more secondary +order than those of the previous period. + +The session of 1785 was first occupied with debates relating to what +might be called the cross-channel trade between England and Ireland. +The question of trade brought with it, necessarily, the question of +revenue; of the duties levied in both kingdoms; of the conflict of +their commercial laws, and the necessity of their assimilation; of the +appropriations to be borne by each, to the general expense of the army +and navy; of the exclusive right of the English East India Company to +the Indian trade;—in short, the whole of the fiscal and commercial +relations of the two countries were now to be examined and adjusted, as +their constitutional relations had been in previous years. + +The first plan came from the Castle, through Mr. Thomas Orde, then +Chief Secretary, afterwards Lord Bolton. It consisted of eleven +propositions, embracing every division of the subject. They had been +arrived at by consultation with Mr. Joshua Pim, a most worthy Quaker +merchant, the founder of an equally worthy family; Mr. Grattan, Mr. +Foster, and others. They were passed as resolutions in Ireland, and +sent by Mr. Orde to England to see whether they would be adopted there +also, the second Pitt, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave his +concurrence, but when he introduced to the English Parliament _his_ +resolutions—twenty in number—it was found that in several important +respects they differed from the Irish propositions. On being taken up +and presented to the Irish Parliament, in August, the administration +found they could command, in a full House, only a majority of sixteen +for their introduction, and so the whole arrangement was abandoned. No +definite commercial treaty between the two kingdoms was entered into +until the Union, and there can be little doubt that the miscarriage of +the Convention of 1785 was one of the determining causes of that Union. + +The next session was chiefly remarkable for an unsuccessful attempt to +reduce the Pension List. In this debate, Curran, who had entered the +House in 1783, particularly distinguished himself. A fierce exchange of +personalities with Mr. Fitzgibbon led to a duel between them, in which, +fortunately, neither was wounded, but their public hostility was +transferred to the arena of the courts, where some of the choicest +_morceaux_ of genuine Irish wit were uttered by Curran, at the expense +of his rival, first as Attorney-General, and subsequently as +Chancellor. + +The session of 1787 was introduced by a speech from the throne, in +which the usual paragraph in favour of the Protestant Charter Schools +was followed by another advising the establishment of a general system +of schools. This raised the entire question of education, one of the +most difficult to deal with in the whole range of Irish politics. On +the 10th of April, Mr. Orde—destined to be the author of just, but +short-lived projects—introduced his plan of what might be called +national education. He proposed to establish four great provincial +academies, a second university in some north-western county, to reform +the twenty-two diocesan schools, so richly endowed under the 28th Henry +VIII., and to affiliate on Trinity College two principal preparatory +schools, north and south. In 1784, and again in this very year, the +humane John Howard had reported of the Irish Charter Schools, then half +a century established, that they were "a disgrace to all society." Sir +J. Fitzpatrick, the Inspector of Prisons, confirmed the general +impression of Howard: he found the children in these schools "puny, +filthy, ill clothed, without linen, indecent to look upon." A series of +resolutions was introduced by Mr. Orde, as the basis of better +legislation in the next session; but it is to be regretted that the +proposed reform never went farther than the introduction and adoption +of these resolutions. + +The session of 1788 was signalized by a great domestic and a great +imperial discussion—the Tithe question, and the Regency question. + +The Tithe question had slumbered within the walls of Parliament since +the days of Swift, though not in the lonely lodges of the secret +agrarian societies. Very recent outbreaks of the old agrarian +combinations against both excessive rents and excessive tithes, in the +Leinster as well as in southern counties, had called general attention +to the subject, when Grattan, in 1787, moved that, if it should appear, +by the commencement of the following session, that tranquillity had +been restored in the disturbed districts, the House would take into +consideration the subject of tithes. Accordingly, very early in the +next ensuing session, he moved for a committee on the subject, in a +three hours' speech, which ranks among the very highest efforts of his +own or any other age. He was seconded by Lord Kingsborough, one of the +most liberal men of his order, and sustained by Curran and Brownlow; he +was opposed by Attorney-General Fitzgibbon, and by Messrs. Hobart, +Browne, and Parsons. The vote was, _for_ the Committee of Inquiry, 49; +_against_ it, 121. A second attempt, a little later in the session, was +equally unsuccessful, except for the moral effect produced out of doors +by another of those speeches, which it is impossible to read even at +this day, without falling into the attitude, and assuming the +intonation, and feeling the heartfelt inspiration of the orator. + +The Regency question was precipitated upon both Parliaments by the +mental disorder, which, for the second or third time, attacked George +III., in 1788. The question was, whether the Prince of Wales should +reign with as full powers as if his father were actually deceased; +whether there should be restrictions or no restrictions. Mr. Pitt and +his colleagues contended successfully for restrictions in England, +while Mr. Fox and the opposition took the contrary position. The +English Houses and people went with Pitt, but the Irish Parliament went +for an unconditional regency. They resolved to offer the crown of +Ireland to him they considered _de_ facto their Sovereign, as freely as +they had rendered their allegiance to the incapable king; but the Lord +Lieutenant—the Marquis of Buckingham—declined to transmit their +over-zealous address, and by the time their joint delegation of both +Houses reached London, George III. had recovered! They received the +most gracious reception at Carlton House, but they incurred the +implacable enmity of William Pitt, and created a second determining +cause in his mind in favour of an early legislative union. + +The prospect of the accession of the Prince to power, wrought a +wonderful and a salutary change, though temporary, in the Irish +Commons. In the session of 1789, Mr Grattan carried, by 105 to 85, a +two months', in amendment to a twelve-months' supply bill. Before the +two months expired he brought in his police bill, his pension bill, and +his bill to prevent officers of the revenue from voting at elections, +but ere these reforms could be passed into law, the old King recovered, +the necessary majority was reversed, and the measures, of course, +defeated or delayed till better times. The triumph of the oligarchy was +in proportion to their fright. The House having passed a vote of +censure on Lord Buckingham, the Viceroy, for refusing to transmit their +address to the Regent, a threat was now held out that every one who had +voted for the censure, holding an office of honour or emolument in +Ireland, would be made "the victim of his vote." In reply to this +threat, a "Round Robin" was signed by the Duke of Leinster, the +Archbishop of Tuam, eighteen peers, all the leading Whig commoners—the +Ponsonbys, Langrishes, Grattan, Connolly, Curran, O'Neil, Day, Charles +Francis Sheridan, Bowes Daly, George Ogle, etc., etc.—declaring that +they would regard any such proscription as an attack on the +independence of Parliament, and would jointly oppose any administration +who should resort to such proscription. But the bold and domineering +spirit of Fitzgibbon—the leader of the Castle party, then, and long +afterwards—did not shrink before even so formidable a phalanx. The Duke +of Leinster was dismissed from the honorary office of Master of the +Rolls; the Earl of Shannon, from the Vice-Treasurership; William +Ponsonby from the office of Postmaster-General; Charles Francis +Sheridan, from that of Secretary at War, and ten or twelve other +prominent members of the _Irish_ administration lost places and +pensions to the value of 20,000 pounds a year, for their over-zeal for +the Prince of Wales. At the same time, Mr. Fitzgibbon was appointed +Lord Chancellor, a vacancy having opportunely occurred, by the death of +Lord Lifford, in the very midst of the prescriptive crisis. This +elevation transferred him to the Upper House, where, for the remaining +years of the Parliament, he continued to dogmatize and domineer, as he +had done in the Commons, often rebuked, but never abashed. Indeed, the +milder manners of the patrician body were ill suited to resist this +ermined demagogue, whose motto through life was _audacity, again +audacity, and always audacity_. The names of Wolfe, Toler, Corry, +Coote, Beresford, and Cooke, are also found among the promotions to +legal and administrative office; names familiar to the last generation +as the pillars of the oligarchical faction, before and after the Union. +To swamp the opposition peers, the Earls of Antrim, Tyrone, and +Hillsborough were made Marquises of Antrim, Waterford, and Downshire; +the Viscounts Glenawley, Enniskillen, Erne, and Carysfort, were created +Earls of Annesley, Enniskillen, Erne, and Carysfort. Then Judge Scott +became Viscount Clonmel; then the Lordships of Loftus, Londonderry, +Kilmaine, Cloncurry, Mountjoy, Glentworth, and Caledon, were founded +for as many convenient Commoners, who either paid for their patents, in +boroughs, or in hard cash. It was the very reign and carnival of +corruption, over which presided the invulnerable Chancellor—a true +"King of Misrule." In reference to this appalling spectacle, well might +Grattan exclaim—"In a free country the path of public treachery leads +to the block; but in a nation governed like a province, to the helm!" +But the thunders of the orator fell, and were quenched in the wide +spreading waters of corruption. + +The Whig Club—an out-of-door auxiliary of the opposition—was a creation +of this year. It numbered the chief signers of the "Round Robin," and +gained many adherents. It exercised very considerable influence in the +general election of 1790, and for the few following years, until it +fell to pieces in the presence of the more ardent politics which +preceded the storm of 1798. + +Backed though he was by Mr. Pitt, both as his relative and principal, +the Marquis of Buckingham was compelled to resign the government, and +to steal away from Dublin, under cover of night, like an absconding +debtor. The Chancellor and the Speaker—Fitzgibbon and Foster, Irishmen +at least by birth and name—were sworn in as Justices, until the arrival +of the Earl of Westmoreland, in the ensuing January. + +The last two Viceroys of the decade thus closed, form a marked contrast +worthy of particular portraiture. The Duke of Rutland, a dashing +profligate, was sent over, it was thought, to ruin public liberty by +undermining private virtue, a task in which he found a willing helpmate +in his beautiful but dissipated Duchess. During his three years' reign +were sown the seeds of that reckless private expenditure, and general +corruption of manners, which drove so many bankrupt lords and gentlemen +into the market overt, where Lord Castlereagh and Secretary Cooke, a +dozen years later, priced the value of their parliamentary cattle. Lord +Rutland died of dissipation at little over thirty, and was succeeded by +the Marquis of Buckingham (formerly Lord Temple), the founder of the +Irish Order of Chivalry, a person of the greatest pretensions, as a +reformer of abuses and an enemy of government by corruption. Yet with +all his affected superiority to the base arts of his predecessor, the +Marquis's system was still more opposite to every idea of just +government than the Duke's. The one outraged public morals, the other +pensioned and ennobled the betrayers of public trusts; the one +naturalized the gaming-table and the keeping of mistresses as customs +of Irish society; the other sold or allowed the highest offices and +honours of the state—from a weighership in the butter market to an +earl's coronet—to be put up at auction, and knocked down to the highest +bidder. How cheering in contrast with the shameful honours, flaunted +abroad in those shameful days, are even the negative virtues of the +Whig patricians, and how splendid the heroic constancy of Charlemont, +Grattan, Curran, and their devoted minority of honest legislators! + +With Lord Westmoreland was associated, as Chief Secretary, Mr. Hobart, +formerly in the army, a man of gay, convivial habits, very +accomplished, and, politically, very unprincipled. These gentlemen, +both favourites of Pitt, adopted the counsellors, and continued the +policy of the late Viceroy. In pursuance of this policy, a dissolution +took place, and the general election of 1790 was ordered. We have +already exhibited the influences which controlled the choice of members +of the House of Commons. Of the one hundred and five great proprietors, +who owned two-thirds of the seats, perhaps a fourth might be found in +the ranks of the Whig club. The only other hope for the national party +was in the boroughs, which possessed a class of freemen, engaged in +trade, too numerous to be bought, or too public spirited to be dictated +to. Both influences combined might hope to return a powerful minority, +and, on this occasion (1790) they certainly did so. Grattan and Lord +Henry Fitzgerald were elected for Dublin, over the Lord Mayor and one +of the Aldermen, backed by the whole power of the Castle; Curran, +Ponsonby, Brownlow, Forbes, and nearly all "the victims of their vote" +were re-elected. To these old familiar names were now added others +destined to equal, if not still wider fame—Arthur Wellesley, member for +Trim; Arthur O'Conor, member for Phillipstown; Jonah Barrington, member +for Tuam; and Robert Stewart, one of the members for the County Down, +then only in his twenty-second year, and, next to Lord Edward +Fitzgerald, lately elected for Athy, the most extreme reformer among +the new members. Arthur O'Conor, on the other hand, commenced his +career with the Court by moving the address in answer to the speech +from the throne! + +The new Parliament, which met in July, 1790, unanimously re-elected Mr. +Foster, Speaker; passed a very loyal address, and, after a fortnight's +sitting, was prorogued till the following January. The session of '91 +was marked by no event of importance, the highest opposition vote seems +to have been from 80 to 90, and the ministerial majority never less +than 50. The sale of Peerages, the East India trade, the Responsibility +(for money warrants) Bill, the Barren Lands Bill, and the Pension Bill, +were the chief topics. A committee to inquire into the best means of +encouraging breweries, and discouraging the use of spirituous liquors, +was also granted, and some curious facts elicited. Nothing memorable +was done, but much that was memorable was said—for the great orator had +still a free press, and a home audience to instruct and elevate. The +truth is, the barrenness of these two sessions was due to the general +prosperity of the country, more even than to the dexterous management +of Major Hobart and the Cabinet balls of Lord Westmoreland. There was, +moreover, hanging over the minds of men the electric pressure of the +wonderful events with which France shook the Continent, and made the +Islands tremble. There was hasty hope, or idle exultation, or pious +fear, or panic terror, in the hearts of the leading spectators of that +awful drama, according to the prejudices or principles they maintained. +Over all the three kingdoms there was a preternatural calm, resembling +that physical stillness which in other latitude precedes the eruption +of volcanoes. + + + +CHAPTER XI. +THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE—THIRD PERIOD—CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL OF 1793. + +Before relating the consequences which attended the spread of French +revolutionary opinions in Ireland, it is necessary to exhibit the new +and very important position assumed by the Roman Catholic population at +that period. + +The relief bills in 1774 and 1778, by throwing open to Catholics the +ordinary means of acquiring property, whether moveable or immoveable, +had enabled many of them to acquire fortunes, both in land and in +trade. Of this class were the most efficient leaders in the formation +of the Catholic Committee of 1790—John Keogh, Edward Byrne, and Richard +McCormick. They were all men who had acquired fortunes, and who felt +and cherished the independence of self-made men. They were not simply +Catholic agitators claiming an equality of civil and religious rights +with their Protestant fellow-countrymen; they were nationalists, in the +broadest and most generous meaning of the term. They had contributed to +the ranks and expenses of the Volunteers; they had swelled the chorus +of Grattan's triumph, and borne their share of the cost in many a +popular contest. The new generation of Protestant patriots—such men as +the Hon. Simon Butler, Wolfe Tone, and Thomas Addis Emmet, were their +intimate associates, shared their opinions, and regarded their +exclusion from the pale of the constitution as a public calamity. + +There was another and a smaller, but not less important class—the +remnant of the ancient Catholic peerage and landed gentry, who, through +four generations, had preferred civil death to religious apostasy. It +was impossible not to revere the heroic constancy of that class, and +the personal virtues of many among them. But they were, perhaps, +constitutionally, too timid and too punctilious to conduct a popular +movement to a successful issue. They had, after much persuasion, lent +their presence to the Committee, but on some alarm, which at that time +seems to have been premature, of the introduction of French +revolutionary principles among their associates, they seceded in a +mass. A formal remonstrance against what remained, pretending to act +for the Catholic body, was signed by Lord Kenmare and sixty-seven +others, who withdrew. As a corrective, it was inadequate; as a +preventive, useless. It no doubt hastened in the end the evil it +deprecated in the beginning; it separated the Catholic gentry from the +Catholic democracy, and thrust the latter more and more towards those +liberal Protestants, mainly men of the middle class like themselves, +who began about this time to club together at Belfast and Dublin, under +the attractive title of "United Irishmen." Whatever they were +individually, the union of so many hereditary Catholic names had been +of very great service to the committee. So long as they stood aloof, +the committee could not venture to speak for _all_ the Catholics; it +could only speak for a part, though that part might be nine-tenths of +the whole: this gave for a time a doubtful and hesitating appearance to +their proceedings. So low was their political influence, in 1791, that +they could not get a single member of Parliament to present their +annual petition. When at last it was presented, it was laid on the +table and never noticed afterwards. To their further embarrassment, Mr. +McKenna and some others formed "the Catholic Society," with the nominal +object of spreading a knowledge of Catholic principles, through the +press, but covertly, to raise up a rival organization, under the +control of the seceders. At this period John Keogh's talents for +negotiation and diplomacy saved the Catholic body from another term of +anarchical imbecility. + +A deputation of twelve having waited this year on the Chief Secretary +with a list of the existing penal laws, found no intention, at the +Castle, of further concession. They were "dismissed without an answer." +Under these circumstances, the Committee met at Allen's Court. "It was +their determination," says Keogh, "to give up the cause as desperate, +lest a perseverance in what they considered an idle pursuit might not +only prove ineffectual, but draw down a train of persecution on the +body." Keogh endeavoured to rally them; proposed a delegation to +London, to be sent at the expense of the Committee; offered, at last, +to go at his own charge, if they authorized him. This proposal was +accepted, and Keogh went. "I arrived in London," he adds, "without any +introduction from this country, without any support, any assistance, +any instructions." He remained three months, converted Mr. Dundas, +brought back with him the son of Burke as Secretary, and a promise of +four concessions: 1st. The magistracy. 2nd. The grand juries. 3rd. The +sheriffs of counties. 4th. The bar. It was in this interview that +Keogh, after obtaining Mr. Dundas's express permission and promise not +to be offended, said to him, according to Charles Butler's account, +"Since you give me this permission, and your deliberate promise not to +be offended, I beg leave to repeat, that there _is_ one thing which you +ought to know, but which you don't suspect: you, Mr. Dundas, know +nothing of Ireland." Mr. Dundas, as may be supposed, was greatly +surprised; but, with perfect good humour, told Mr. Keogh that he +believed this was not the case; it was true that he never had been in +Ireland, but he had conversed with many Irishmen. "I have drunk," he +said, "many a good bottle of wine with Lord Hillsborough, Lord Clare, +and the Beresfords." "Yes, sir," said Mr. Keogh, "I believe you have; +and that you drank many a good bottle of wine with them before you went +to war with America." + +On the return of Keogh to Dublin, a numerous meeting was held to hear +his report. At this meeting, the fair promises of the English ministers +were contrasted with the hostility of the Castle. The necessity of a +strong organization, to overcome the one and hasten the other, was felt +by all: it was then decided to form the Committee into a Convention. By +this plan, the Catholics in each county and borough were called on to +choose, in a private manner, certain electors, who were to elect two or +more delegates, to represent the town or county in the general meeting +at Dublin, on the 3rd day of December following. A circular, signed by +Edward Byrne, Chairman, and Richard McCormick, Secretary, explaining +the plan and the mode of election, was issued on the 14th of January, +and the Catholics everywhere prepared to obey it. + +The corporations of Dublin and other cities, the grand juries of Derry, +Donegal, Leitrim, Roscommon, Limerick, Cork, and other counties, at +once pronounced most strongly against the proposed Convention. They +declared it "unconstitutional," "alarming," "most dangerous;" they +denounced it as a copy of the National Assembly of France; they +declared that they would "resist it to the utmost of their power;" they +pledged "their lives and fortunes" to suppress it. The only answer of +the Catholics was the legal opinion of Butler and Burton, two eminent +lawyers, Protestants and King's counsellors, that the measure was +entirely legal. They proceeded with their selection of delegates, and +on the appointed day the Convention met. From the place of meeting, +this Convention was popularly called "the Back Lane Parliament." Above +200 members were present. + +The Convention proceeded (Mr. Byrne in the chair) to declare itself the +only body competent to speak for the Catholics of Ireland. They next +discussed the substance of the proposed petition to the King. The +debate on this subject, full of life and colour, has been preserved for +us in the memoirs of Tone, who, although a Protestant, had been elected +Secretary to the Catholic Committee. Great firmness was exhibited by +Teeling of Antrim, Bellew of Galway, McDermott of Sligo, Devereux of +Wexford, Sir Thomas French, and John Keogh. These gentlemen contended, +and finally carried, without a division, though not without a two-days' +debate, a petition, asking complete and unrestricted emancipation. With +the addition of the Chairman and Secretary, they were appointed as +deputies to proceed to London, there to place the Catholic ultimatum in +the hands of King George. + +The deputies, whether by design or accident, took Belfast on their way +to England. This great manufacturing town, at the head of the staple +industry of the north, had been in succession the head-quarters of the +Volunteers, the Northern Whigs, and the United Irishmen. Belfast had +demanded in vain, for nearly a generation, that its 20,000 inhabitants +should no longer be disfranchised, while a dozen burgesses—creatures of +Lord Donegal—controlled the representation. Community of +disfranchisement had made the Belfastians liberal; the Catholic +deputies were publicly received with bonfires and ringing of bells, +their expenses were paid by the citizens, and their carriage drawn +along in triumph, on the road to Port-Patrick. + +Arrived at London, after much negotiation and delay with ministers, a +day was fixed for their introduction to the King. It was Wednesday, the +2nd of January, 1793; they were presented by Edmund Burke and the Home +Secretary to George III., who "received them very graciously;" they +placed in his hands the petition of their co-religionists, and, after +some compliments, withdrew. In a few days, they were assured their case +would be recommended to the attention of Parliament in the next royal +speech, and so, leaving one of their number behind as "charge +d'affaires," they returned to Dublin highly elated. + +The Viceroy, on their return, was all attention to the Catholics; the +Secretary, who, a year before, would not listen to a petition, now +laboured to fix a limit to concession. The demand of complete +emancipation, was not maintained in this negotiation as firmly as in +the December debates of "the Back Lane Parliament." The shock of the +execution of the King of France; the efforts of the secret committee of +the House of Lords to inculpate certain Catholic leaders in the +United-Irish system, and as patrons of the Defenders; the telling +argument, that to press all was to risk all,—these causes combined to +induce the sub-committee to consent to less than the Convention had +decided to insist upon. Negotiation was the strong ground of the +government, and they kept it. Finally, the bill was introduced by the +Chief Secretary, and warmly supported by Grattan, Curran, Ponsonby, +Forbes, and Hutchinson, Provost of Trinity College. It was resisted in +the Lower House by Mr. Speaker Foster, Mr. Ogle, and Dr. Duigenan, an +apostate, who exhibited all the bitterness of his class; and in the +Upper House, by the Chancellor, the son of an apostate, and the +majority of the lords spiritual. On the 9th day of April, 1793, it +became the law of Ireland. "By one comprehensive clause," says Tone, +"all penalties, forfeitures, disabilities, and incapacities are +removed; the property of the Catholic is completely discharged from the +restraints and limitations of the penal laws, and their liberty, in a +great measure, restored, by the restoration of the right of elective +franchise, so long withheld, so ardently pursued. The right of +self-defence is established by the restoration of the privilege to +carry arms, subject to a restraint, which does not seem unreasonable, +as excluding none but the very lowest orders. The unjust and +unreasonable distinctions affecting Catholics, as to service on grand +and petty juries, are done away; the army, navy, and all other offices +and places of trust are opened to them, subject to exceptions hereafter +mentioned. Catholics may be masters or fellows of any college hereafter +to be founded, subject to two conditions, that such college be a member +of the University, and that it be not founded exclusively for the +education of Catholics. They may be members of any lay body corporate, +except Trinity College, any law, statute, or bye-law of such +corporation to the contrary notwithstanding. They may obtain degrees in +the University of Dublin. These, and some lesser immunities and +privileges, constitute the grant of the bill, the value of which will +be best ascertained by referring to the petition." + +It is true, Catholics were still excluded from the high offices of Lord +Lieutenant, Lord Deputy, and Lord Chancellor. What was much more +important, they were excluded from sitting in Parliament—from +exercising legislative and judicial functions, Still the franchise, the +juries, the professions, and the University, were important +concessions. Their first fruits were Daniel O'Connell and Thomas Moore! + +The Committee having met to return thanks to the parliamentary +supporters of the bill, their own future operations came also under +debate. Some members advised that they should add reform to their +programme, as the remnant of the penal laws were not sufficient to +interest and attract the people. Some would have gone much further than +reform; some were well content to rest on their laurels. There were +ultras, moderate men, and conservatives, even in the twelve. The latter +were more numerous than Wolfe Tone liked or expected. That ardent +revolutionist had, indeed, at bottom, a strong dislike of the Catholic +religion; he united himself with that body because he needed a party; +he remained with them because it gave him importance; but he chiefly +valued the position as it enabled him to further an ulterior design—an +Irish revolution and a republic on the French plan. The example of +France had, however, grown by this time rather a terror than an +attraction to more cautious men than Tone. Edward Byrne, Sir Thomas +French, and other leading Catholics, were openly hostile to any +imitation of it, and the dinner at Daly's, to celebrate the passage of +the act, was strongly anti-Gallican in spirit and sentiment. Keogh, +McCormick, and McNevin, however, joined the United Irishmen, and the +two latter were placed on the Directory. Keogh withdrew, when, in 1795, +that organization became a secret society. + +The Bishops, who had cheered on, rather than participated in the late +struggle, were well satisfied with the new measure. They were, by +education and conviction, conservatives. Dr. Plunkett of Meath, Dr. +Egan of Waterford, Dr. Troy of Dublin, and Dr. Moylan of Cork, were the +most remarkable for influence and ability at this period. Dr. Butler of +Cashel, and his opponent, Dr. Burke of Ossory, the head of the resolute +old ultramontane minority, were both recently deceased. With the +exception of Dr. James Butler, Bishop of Cloyne and Ross, who deserted +his faith and order on becoming unexpectedly heir to an earldom, the +Irish prelates of the reign of George III. were a most zealous and +devoted body. Lord Dunboyne's fall was the only cause of a reproach +within their own ranks. That unhappy prelate made, many years +afterwards, a death-bed repentance, was reconciled to his church, and +bequeathed a large part of his inherited wealth to sustain the new +national college, the founding of which, ever since the outbreak of the +French revolution, the far-seeing Burke was urging upon Pitt and all +his Irish correspondents. + +In 1794, the Irish Bishops, having applied for a "royal license" to +establish academies and seminaries, were graciously received, and Lord +Fitzwilliam's government the next session brought in the Act of +Incorporation. It became law on the 5th of June, 1795, and the college +was opened the following October with fifty students. Dr Hussey, +afterwards Bishop of Waterford, the friend of Burke, who stood by his +deathbed, was first President; some refugee French divines were +appointed to professorships; and the Irish Parliament voted the very +handsome sum of 8,000 pounds a year to the new foundation. Maynooth, +whatever its after lot, was the creation in the first instance of the +Irish Parliament. We have thus, in the third century after the +reformation, after three great religious wars, after four +confiscations, after the most ingenious, cruel, and unchristian methods +of oppression and proselytism, had been tried and had failed, the grand +spectacle of the Catholics of Ireland restored, if not fully, yet to +the most precious of the civil and religious liberties of a people! So +powerless against conscience is and ever must be coercion! + + + +CHAPTER XII. +THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE—EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN +IRELAND—SECESSION OF GRATTAN, CURRAN, AND THEIR FRIENDS, FROM +PARLIAMENT, IN 1797. + +The era of independence which we have desired to mark distinctly to the +reader's mind, may be said to terminate in 1797, with the hopeless +secession of Grattan and his friends from Parliament. Did the events +within and without the House justify that extreme measure? We shall +proceed to describe them as they arose, leaving the decision of the +question to the judgment of the reader. + +The session of 1793, which extended into July, was, besides the +Catholic Relief Bill, productive of other important results. Under the +plea of the spread of French principles, and the widespread +organization of seditious associations—a plea not wanting in +evidence—an Arms Act was introduced and carried, prohibiting the +importation of arms and gunpowder, and authorizing domiciliary visits, +at any hour of the night or day, in search of such arms. Within a month +from the passage of this bill, bravely but vainly opposed by Lord +Edward Fitzgerald, and the opposition generally, the surviving +Volunteer corps, in Dublin and its vicinity, were disbanded, their +arms, artillery, and ammunition taken possession of either by force or +negotiation, and the very wreck of that once powerful patriot army +swept away. In its stead, by nearly the same majority, the militia were +increased to 16,000 men, and the regulars from 12,000 to 17,000—thus +placing at the absolute control of the Commander-in-Chief, and the +chiefs of the oligarchy, a standing army of 33,000 men. At the same +period, Lord Clare (he had been made an earl in 1792), introduced his +Convention Act, against the assemblage in convention of delegates +purporting to represent the people. With Grattan only 27 of the Commons +divided against this measure, well characterized as "the boldest step +that ever yet was made to introduce military government." "If this bill +had been law," Grattan added, "the independence of the Irish +Parliament, the emancipation of the Catholics, and even the English +revolution of 1688, could never have taken place!" The teller in favour +of the Convention Act was Major Wellesley, member for Trim, twenty +years later—Duke of Wellington! It became and still remains the law of +Ireland. + +Against this reactionary legislation we must credit the session of '93, +besides the Catholic Relief Bill and the East India Trade Bill, with +Mr. Grattan's Barren Lands Bill, exempting all newly reclaimed lands +from the payment of tithes for a period of seven years; Mr. Forbes's +Pension Bill, limiting the pension list to 80,000 pounds sterling per +annum, and fixing the permanent civil list at 250,000 pounds per annum; +and the excellent measure of the same invaluable member, excluding from +Parliament all persons holding offices of profit under the crown, +except the usual ministerial officers, and those employed in the +_revenue service_. This last salvo was forced into the bill by the +oligarchical faction, for whose junior branches the revenue had long +been a fruitful source of provision. + +Parliament met next, on the 21st of January, '94, and held a short +two-months' session. The most remarkable incidents of these two months +were the rejection of Mr. George Ponsonby's annual motion for +parliamentary reform, and the striking position taken by Grattan, +Curran, and all but seven or eight of their friends, in favour of the +war against the French republic. Mr. Ponsonby proposed, in the spirit +of Flood's plan ten years earlier, to unite to the boroughs four miles +square of the adjoining country, thus creating a counterpoise to the +territorial aristocracy on the one hand, and the patrons of boroughs on +the other; he also proposed to extend the suffrage to every tradesman +who had served five years' apprenticeship, and gave each county _three_ +instead of two members, leaving intact, of course, the forty-shilling +freehold franchise. Not more than 44 members, however, divided in +favour of the new project, while 142 voted against it! Had it passed, +the parliamentary history of the next six years could never have been +written. + +It was on this Reform bill, and on the debate on the address, that +Grattan took occasion to declare his settled and unalterable hostility +to those "French principles," then so fashionable with all who called +themselves friends of freedom, in the three kingdoms. In the great +social schism which had taken place in Europe, in consequence of the +French revolution of 1789-'91, those kingdoms, the favourite seat of +free inquiry and free discussion, could not hope to escape. The effects +were visible in every circle, among every order of men; in all the +churches, workshops, saloons, professions, into which men were divided. +Among publicists, most of all, the shock was most severely felt; in +England it separated Burke and Windham from Fox, Erskine, Sheridan, and +Grey; in Ireland it separated Grattan and Curran from Lord Edward +Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Conor, Addis Emmet, Wolfe Tone, and all those +ardent, able, and honest men, who hailed the French, as the forerunner +of a complete series of European republics, in which Ireland should +shine out, among the brightest and the best. + +Grattan, who agreed with and revered Burke, looked upon the +"anti-Jacobin war," as a just and necessary war. It was not in his +nature to do anything by halves, and he therefore cordially supported +the paragraph in the address pledging Ireland's support to that war. He +was a constitutionalist of the British, not of the French type. In the +subsequent Reform debate he declared that he would always and ever +resist those who sought to remodel the Irish constitution on a French +original. He asserted, moreover, that great mischief had been already +done by the advocates of such a design, "It"—this design—"has thrown +back for the present the chance of any rational improvement in the +representation of the people," he cried, "and has betrayed a good +reform _to the hopes of a shabby insurrection_." Proceeding in his own +condensed, crystalline antithesis, he thus enlarged on his own +opinions: "There are two characters equally enemies to the reform of +Parliament, and equally enemies to the government—the leveller of the +constitution, and the friend of its abuses; they take different roads +to arrive at the same end. The levellers propose to subvert the King +and parliamentary constitution by a rank and unqualified democracy—the +friends of its abuses propose to support the King and buy the +Parliament, and in the end to overset both, by a rank and avowed +corruption. They are both incendiaries; the one would destroy +government to pay his court to liberty; the other would destroy liberty +to pay his court to government; but the liberty of the one would be +confusion, and the government of the other would be pollution." + +We can well understand that this language pleased as little the United +Irishmen as the Castle. It was known that in private he was accustomed +to say, that, "the wonder was not that Mr. Sheares should die on the +scaffold, but that Lord Clare was not there beside him." He stood in +the midst of the ways, crying aloud, with the wisdom of his age and his +genius, but there were few to heed his warnings. The sanguine innovator +sneered or pitied; the truculent despot scowled or menaced; to the one +his authority was an impediment, to the other his reputation was a +reproach. It was a public situation as full of conflict as man ever +occupied, and we are not astonished, on a nearer view, that it led, +after three years hoping against hope, to the despairing secession of +1797. + +A bright gleam of better things shot for an instant across the gloomy +prospect, with which the year '94 closed for the country. Lord +Westmoreland was recalled, and Lord Fitzwilliam, largely connected with +Ireland by property, and one of the most just and liberal men in +England, was to be his successor. The highest expectations were +excited; the best men congratulated each other on the certain promise +of better times close at hand; and the nation, ever ready to believe +whatever it wished to believe, saw in prospect, the oligarchy +restrained, the patriots triumphant, and the unfinished fabric of +independence completed, and crowned with honour. + +This new reign, though one of the shortest, was one of the most +important Ireland ever saw. Lord Fitzwilliam, the nephew of Lord +Rockingham, the first to acknowledge the constitution of 1782, had +married a Ponsonby; he was a Burke whig—one of those who, with the Duke +of Portland, Earl Spencer, and Mr. Windham, had followed the "great +Edmund," in his secession from the Fox-and-Sheridan majority of that +party, in 1791. Pitt, anxious to conciliate these new allies, had +brought them all into office in 1794—Earl Fitzwilliam being placed in +the dignified position of President of the Council. When spoken of for +the Viceroyalty he wrote to Grattan, bespeaking his support, and that +of "his friends, the Ponsonbys;" this letter and some others brought +Grattan to London, where he had two or three interviews with Pitt, the +Duke of Portland, and Lord Fitzwilliam. Better still, he made a +pilgrimage to Beaconsfield, and had the benefit of the last advice of +the aged Burke. With Pitt he was disappointed and dissatisfied, but he +still hoped and expected great good from the appointment of Lord +Fitzwilliam to the office of Viceroy. It seems to have been fully +understood that the new Lord Lieutenant would have very full powers to +complete the gracious work of Catholic emancipation: with this express +understanding, Mr. Grattan was pressed to accept the Chancellorship of +the Exchequer, but steadily declined; he upheld in that position Sir +Henry Parnell, an old personal, rather than political friend, one of a +family of whom Ireland has reason to retain a grateful recollection. He +was, however, with Ponsonby, Curran, and others of his friends in both +Houses, added to the Privy Council, where they were free to shape the +measures of the new administration. At the King's levee, on the 10th of +December, when Lord Fitzwilliam was sworn in, the aged Burke, in deep +mourning for his idolized son, attended; Grattan was so much spoken to +by the King as to draw towards him particular attention; Mr. Pitt, the +Duke of Portland, and other ministers, were present. All took and held +the tone that complete emancipation was a thing settled: Burke +congratulated Grattan on the event, and the new Viceroy was as jubilant +and as confident as anybody, that the great controversy was at length +to be finally closed under his auspices. + +On the 4th of January, Lord Fitzwilliam reached Dublin; and on the 25th +of March he was recalled. The history of these three months—of this +short-lived attempt to govern Ireland on the advice of Grattan—is full +of instruction. The Viceroy had not for a moment concealed his +intention of thoroughly reforming the Irish administration. On his +arrival at the Castle, Mr. Cooke was removed from the Secretaryship, +and Mr. Beresford from the Revenue Board. Great was the consternation, +and unscrupulous the intrigues of the dismissed. When the Parliament +met at the end of January, Grattan assumed the leadership of the House +of Commons, and moved the address in answer to the speech from the +throne. No opposition was offered—and it passed without a division. +Immediately, a bill granting the Catholics complete +emancipation—rendering them eligible even to the office of Chancellor, +withheld in 1829—was introduced by Grattan. Then the oligarchy found +their voices. The old cry of "the Church in danger" was raised, +delegations proceeded to London, and every agency of influence was +brought to bear on the King and the English cabinet. From the tenor of +his letters, Lord Fitzwilliam felt compelled in honour to tell Mr. +Pitt, that he might choose between him and the Beresfords. He did +choose—but not till the Irish Parliament, in the exuberance of its +confidence and gratitude, had voted the extraordinary subsidy of 20,000 +men for the navy, and _a million, eight hundred thousand pounds, +towards the expenses of the war with France!_ Then, the popular Viceroy +was recalled amid the universal regrets of the people. The day of his +departure from Dublin was a day of general mourning, except with the +oligarchical clique, whose leaders he had so resolutely thrust aside. +To them it was a day of insolent and unconcealed rejoicing; and, what +is not at all uncommon under such circumstances, the infatuated +partisans of the French revolution, rejoiced hardly less than the +extremest Tories, at the sudden collapse of a government equally +opposed to the politics of both. Grattan, than whom no public man was +ever more free from unjust suspicion of others, always remained under +the conviction that Pitt had made merely a temporary use of Lord +Fitzwilliam's popularity, in order to cheat the Irish out of the +immense supplies they had voted; and all the documents of the day, +which have since seen the light, accord well with that view of the +transaction. Lord Fitzwilliam was immediately replaced by Lord Camden, +whose Viceroyalty extended into the middle of the year 1798: a reign +which embraced all that remains to us to narrate, of the Parliamentary +politics of the era of Independence. + +The sittings of Parliament were resumed during April, May, and June, +but the complete emancipation bill was rejected three to one—155 to 55; +the debates were now marked, on the part of Toler, Duigenan, Johnson, +and others, with the most violent anti-Catholic spirit. All this tended +to inflame still more the exasperated feeling which already prevailed +in the country between Orangemen and Defenders. Thus it came, that the +High Court of Parliament, which ought to have been the chief school of +public wisdom—the calm correcting tribunal of public opinion—was made a +principal engine in the dissemination of those prejudices and passions, +which drove honest men to despair of constitutional redress, and +swelled the ranks of the secret political societies, till they became +co-extensive with the population. + +The session of 1796 was even more hopeless than the immediately +preceding one. A trade motion of Grattan's on the address commanded +only 14 votes out of 140; in the next session his motion in favour of +equal rights to persons of all religious creeds, obtained but 12 votes +out of 160! From these figures it is clear that above a third of the +members of the House no longer attended; that of those who did attend, +the overwhelming and invariable majority—ten to one—were for all the +measures of repression and coercion which marked these two sessions. +The Insurrection Act, giving power to the magistrates of any county to +proclaim martial law; the Indemnity Act, protecting magistrates from +the consequences of exercising "a vigour beyond the law;" the Riot Act, +giving authority to disperse any number of persons by force of arms +without notice; the Suspension of the _habeas corpus_ (against which +only 7 members out of a House of 164 voted)—all were evidences to +Grattan, that the usefulness of the House of Commons, as then +constituted, was, for the tune, lost or destroyed. It is quite clear +that he came to this conviction slowly and reluctantly; that he +struggled against it with manly fortitude through three sessions; that +he yielded to it at length, when there was no longer a possibility of +resistance,—when to move or to divide the House, had become a wretched +farce, humiliating to the country, and unworthy of his own earnest and +enthusiastic patriotism. + +Under these circumstances, the powerless leader and his devoted staff +resolved to withdraw, formally and openly, from further attendance on +the House of Commons. The deplorable state of the country, delivered +over to an irresponsible magistracy and all the horrors of martial law; +the spread among the patriotic rising generation of French principles; +the scarcely concealed design of the Castle to goad the people into +insurrection, in order to deprive them of their liberties; all +admonished the faithful few that the walls of Parliament were no longer +their sphere of usefulness. One last trial was, however, made in May, +1797, for a reform of Parliament. Mr. George Ponsonby moved his usual +motion, and Curran, Hardy, Sir Lawrence Parsons, Charles Kendall Bushe, +and others, ably supported him. The division was 30 to 117. It was on +this debate, that Grattan, whose mournful manner contrasted so strongly +with his usual enthusiasm, concluded a solemn exposition of the evils +the administration were bringing on the country, by these affecting +words:—"We have offered you our measure—you will reject it; we +deprecate yours—you will persevere; having no hopes left to persuade or +to dissuade, and having discharged our duty, we shall trouble you no +more, _and after this day shall not attend the House of Commons_." The +secession thus announced was accomplished; at the general election, two +months later, Grattan and his colleague, Lord Henry Fitzgerald, refused +to stand again for Dublin; Curran, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur +O'Conor, and others, followed his example. A few patriots, hoping +against hope, were, however, returned, a sort of forlorn hope, to man +the last redoubt of the Constitution. Of these was William Conyngham +Plunkett, member for Charlemont, Grattan's old borough, a +constitutionalist of the school of Edmund Burke, worthy to be named +among the most illustrious of his disciples. + +In the same July, on the 7th of the month, on which the Irish elections +were held, that celebrated Anglo-Irish statesman expired at +Beaconsfield, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His last +thoughts—his last wishes, like his first—were with his native land. His +regards continued fixed on the state of Ireland, while vision and +faculty remained. His last efforts in writing and conversation were to +plead for toleration, concession and conciliation towards Ireland. The +magisterial gravity of Burke was not calculated to permit him to be +generally popular with an impulsive people, but as years roll on, and +education extends its dominion, his reputation rises and brightens +above every other reputation of his age, British or Irish. Of him no +less truly than powerfully did Grattan say in the Imperial Parliament, +in 1815: "He read everything, he saw everything, he foresaw everything. +His knowledge of history amounted to a power of foretelling; and when +he perceived the wild work that was doing in France, that great +political physician, intelligent of symptoms, distinguished between the +access of fever and the force of health; and what other men conceived +to be the vigour of her constitution, he knew to be no more than the +paroxysm of her madness; and then, prophet-like, he denounced the +destinies of France, and in his prophetic fury, admonished nations." + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +THE UNITED IRISHMEN. + +Half measures of justice may satisfy the generation which achieves +them, but their successors will look with other eyes, as well on what +has been won as on that which is withheld. The part in possession will +appear to their youthful sense of abstract right and wrong far less +precious than the part in expectancy, for it is in the nature of the +young to look forward, as it is of the old to turn their regards to the +past. The very recollection of their fathers will stimulate the new +generation to emulate their example, and will render them averse to +being bound by former compromises. So necessary is it for statesmen, +when they yield to a just demand long withheld, to yield gracefully and +to yield all that is fairly due. + +The celebrated group known to us as "the United Irishmen," were the +birth of a new generation, entering together on the public stage. With +few exceptions, the leading characters were all born within a few years +of each other: Neilson in 1761, Tone, Arthur O'Conor and Lord Edward +Fitzgerald in '62, McNevin in '63, Sampson and Thomas Addis Emmet in +'64, and Russell in '67. They had emerged into manhood while the drums +of the Volunteers were beating victorious marches, when the public +hopes ran high, and the language of patriotism was the familiar speech +of every-day life. + +In a settled state of society it would have been natural for the first +minds of the new generation to carry their talents, gratefully and +dutifully, into the service of the first reputations of the old; but +Irish society, in the last years of the last century, was not in a +settled condition; the fascination of French example, and the goading +sense of national wrongs only half-righted, inflamed the younger +generation with a passionate thirst for speedy and summary justice on +their oppressors. We must not look, therefore, to see the Tones and +Emmets continuing in the constitutional line of public conduct marked +out by Burke in the one kingdom, and Grattan in the other. The new age +was revolutionary, and the new men were filled with the spirit of the +age. Their actions stand apart; they form an episode in the history of +the century to which there may be parallels, but a chapter in the +history of their own country original and alone. + +The United Irish Society sprung up at Belfast in October, 1791. In that +month, Theobold Wolf Tone, then in his 28th year, a native of Kildare, +a member of the bar, and an excellent popular pamphleteer, on a visit +to his friend Thomas Russell, in the northern capital, was introduced +to Samuel Neilson, proprietor of the _Northern Star_ newspaper, and +several other kindred spirits, all staunch reformers, or "something +more." Twenty of these gentlemen meeting together, adopted a programme +prepared by Tone, which contained these three simple propositions: that +"English influence" was the great danger of Irish liberty; that a +reform of Parliament could alone create a counterpoise to that +influence; and that such a reform to be just should include Irishmen of +all religious denominations. On Tone's return to Dublin, early in +November, a branch society was formed on the Belfast basis. The Hon. +Simon Butler, a leading barrister, was chosen Chairman, and Mr. Napper +Tandy, an active middle-aged merchant, with strong republican +principles, was Secretary. The solemn declaration or oath, binding +every member "to forward a brotherhood of affection, an identity of +interests, a communion of rights, and a union of power among Irishmen +of all religious persuasions," was drawn up by the Dublin club, and +became the universal bond of organization. Though the Belfast leaders +had been long in the habit of meeting in "secret committee," to direct +and control the popular movements in their vicinage, the new society +was not, in its inception, nor for three years afterwards, a secret +society. When that radical change was proposed, we find it resisted by +a considerable minority, who felt themselves at length compelled to +retire from an association, the proceedings of which they could no +longer approve. In justice to those who remained, adopting secrecy as +their only shield, it must be said, that the freedom of the press and +of public discussion had been repeatedly and frequently violated before +they abandoned the original maxims and tactics of their body, which +were all open, and above-board. + +In 1792, Simon Butler, and Oliver Bond—a prosperous Dublin merchant of +northern origin—was summoned to the bar of the House of Lords, +condemned to six months' imprisonment, and a fine of 500 pounds each, +for having acted as Chairman and Secretary of one of the meetings, at +which an address to the people, strongly reflecting on the corrupt +constitution of Parliament, was adopted. In '94, Archibald Hamilton +Rowan, one of the purest and most chivalrous characters of any age, was +convicted, by a packed jury, of circulating the famous "Universal +Emancipation" address of his friend, Dr. William Drennan, the +poet-politician of the party. He was defended by Curran, in the still +more famous speech in which occurs his apostrophe to "the genius of +Universal Emancipation;" but he atoned in the cells of Newgate, for +circulating the dangerous doctrine which Drennan had broached, and +Curran had immortalized. + +The regular place of meeting of the Dublin society was the Tailors' +Hall, in Back Lane, a spacious building, called, from the number of +great popular gatherings held in it, "the Back Lane Parliament." Here +Tandy, in the uniform of his new National Guard, whose standard bore +the harp without the crown, addressed his passionate harangues to the +applauding multitude; here Tone, whose _forte_, however, was not +oratory, constantly attended; here, also, the leading Catholics, Keogh +and McCormack, the "Gog" and "Magog," of Tone's extraordinary +_Memoirs_, were occasionally present. And here, on the night of the 4th +of May, 1794, the Dublin society found themselves suddenly assailed by +the police, their papers seized, their officers who were present +arrested, and their meeting dispersed. From that moment we may date the +new and _secret_ organization of the brotherhood, though it was not in +general operation till the middle of the following year. + +This new organization, besides its secrecy, had other revolutionary +characteristics. For "reform of Parliament" was substituted in the +test, or oath, representation "of all the people of Ireland," and for +petitions and publications, the enrolment of men, by baronies and +counties, and the appointment of officers, from the least to the +highest in rank, as in a regular army. The unit was a lodge of twelve +members, with a chairman and secretary, who were also their corporal +and sergeant; five of these lodges formed a company, and the officers +of five such companies a baronial committee, from which again, in like +manner, the county committees were formed. Each of the provinces had +its Directory, while in Dublin the supreme authority was established, +in an "Executive Directory" of five members. The orders of the +Executive were communicated to not more than one of the Provincial +Directors, and by him to one of each County Committee, and so in a +descending scale, till the rank and file were reached; an elaborate +contrivance, but one which proved wholly insufficient to protect the +secrets of the organization from the ubiquitous espionage of the +government. + +In May, 1795, the new organization lost the services of Wolfe Tone, who +was compromised by a strange incident, to a very serious extent. The +incident was the arrest and trial of the Rev. William Jackson, an +Anglican clergyman, who had imbibed the opinions of Price and +Priestley, and had been sent to Ireland by the French Republic, on a +secret embassy. Betrayed by a friend and countryman, named Cockayne, +the unhappy Jackson took poison in prison, and expired in the dock. +Tone had been seen with Jackson, and through the influence of his +friends, was alone protected from arrest. He was compelled, however, to +quit the country, in order to preserve his personal liberty. He +proceeded with his family to Belfast, where, before taking shipping for +America, he renewed with his first associates, their vows and projects, +on the summit of "the Cave Hill," which looks down upon the rich valley +of the Laggan, and the noble town and port at its outlet. Before +quitting Dublin, he had solemnly promised Emmet and Russell, in the +first instance, as he did his Belfast friends in the second, that he +would make the United States his _route_ to France, where he would +negotiate a formidable national alliance, for "the United Irishmen." + +In the year in which Tone left the country, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, +brother of the Duke of Leinster, and formerly a Major in the British +Army, joined the society; in the next year—near its close—Thomas Addis +Emmet, who had long been in the confidence of the promoters, joined, as +did, about the same time, Arthur O'Conor, nephew of Lord Longueville, +and ex-member for Phillipstown, and Dr. William James McNevin, a +Connaught Catholic, educated in Austria, then practising his profession +with eminent success in Dublin. These were felt to be important +accessions, and all four were called upon to act on "the Executive +Directory," from time to time, during 1796 and 1797. + +The coercive legislation carried through Parliament, session after +session—the Orange persecutions in Armagh and elsewhere—the domiciliary +visits—the military outrages in town and country—the free quarters, +whipping and tortures—the total suppression of the public press—the +bitter disappointment of Lord Fitzwilliam's recall—the annual failure +of Ponsonby's motion for reform—finally, the despairing secession of +Grattan and his friends from Parliament—had all tended to expand the +system, which six years before was confined to a few dozen enthusiasts +of Belfast and Dublin, into the dimensions of a national confederacy. +By the close of this year, 500,000 men had taken the test, in every +part of the country, and nearly 300,000 were reported as armed, either +with firelocks or pikes. Of this total, 110,000 alone were returned for +Ulster; about 60,000 for Leinster, and the remainder from Connaught and +Munster. A fund, ludicrously small, 1,400 pounds sterling, remained in +the hands of the Executive, after all the outlay which had taken place, +in procuring arms, in extending the union, and in defending prisoners +arrested as members of the society. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was chosen +Commander-in-Chief; but the main reliance, for munitions, artillery, +and officers, was placed upon the French Republic. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE AND HOLLAND—THE THREE EXPEDITIONS NEGOTIATED +BY TONE AND LEWINES. + +The close of the year 1795 saw France under the government of the +Directory, with Carnot in the cabinet, and Pichegru, Jourdain, Moreau, +Hoche, and Buonaparte at the head of its armies. This government, with +some change of persons, lasted from October, 1795, to November, '99, +when it was supplanted by the Consular Revolution. Within the compass +of those four years lie the negotiations which were carried on and the +three great expeditions which were fitted out by France and Holland, at +the instance of the United Irishmen. + +On the 1st of February, 1796, Tone, who had sailed from Belfast the +previous June, arrived at Havre from New York, possessed of a hundred +guineas and some useful letters of introduction. One of these letters, +written in cipher, was from the French Minister at Philadelphia to the +Minister of Foreign Affairs, Charles Lacroix; another was to the +American Minister in France, Mr. Monroe, afterwards President of the +United States, by whom he was most kindly received, and wisely advised, +on reaching Paris. Lacroix received him courteously, and referred him +to a subordinate called Madgett, but after nearly three months wasted +in interviews and explanations, Tone, by the advice of Monroe, +presented himself at the Luxembourg Palace, and demanded audience of +the "Organizer of Victory." Carnot also listened to him attentively, +asked and obtained his true name, and gave him another _rendezvous_. He +was next introduced to Clarke (afterwards Duc de Feltre), Secretary at +War, the son of an Irishman, whom he found wholly ignorant of Ireland; +and finally, on the 12th of July, General Hoche, in the most frank and +winning manner, introduced himself. At first the Directory proposed +sending to Ireland no more than 5,000 men, while Tone pleaded for +20,000; but when Hoche accepted the command, he assured Tone he would +go "in sufficient force." The "pacificator of La Vendee," as the young +general was called—he was only thirty-two,—won at once the heart of the +enthusiastic founder of the United Irishmen, and the latter seems to +have made an equally favourable impression. He was at once presented +with the commission of a _chef de brigade_ of infantry—a rank answering +to that of colonel with us—and was placed as adjutant on the general's +staff. Hoche was all ardour and anxiety; Carnot cheered him on by +expressing his belief that it would be "a most brilliant operation;" +and certainly Tone was not the man to damp such expectations, or allow +them to evaporate in mere complimentary assurances. + +During the autumn months the expedition was busily being fitted out at +Brest, and the general head-quarters were at Rennes. The Directory, to +satisfy themselves that all was as represented by Tone, had sent an +agent of their own to Ireland, by whom a meeting was arranged on the +Swiss frontier between Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Conor, Dr. +McNevin, and Hoche. From this meeting—the secret of which he kept to +himself—the young general returned in the highest spirits, and was +kinder than ever to his adjutant. At length, early in December, all was +ready, and on the 16th the Brest fleet stood out to sea; 17 sail of the +line, 13 frigates, and 13 smaller ships, carrying 15,000 picked troops, +the _élite_ of "the Army of the Ocean," and abundance of artillery and +munitions of war. Tone was in the _Indomptable_, 80 guns, commanded by +a Canadian, named Bedout; Hoche and the Admiral in the frigate +_Fraternité_; Grouchy, so memorable for the part he played then and +afterwards, was second in command. On the third morning, after groping +about and losing each other in Atlantic fog, one-half the fleet (with +the fatal exception of the _Fraternité_) found themselves close in with +the coast of Kerry. They entered Bantry Bay, and came to anchor, ten +ships of war, and "a long line of dark hulls resting on the green +water." Three or four days they lay dormant and idle, waiting for the +General and Admiral; Bouvet, the Vice-Admiral, was opposed to moving in +the absence of his chief; Grouchy was irresolute and nervous; but at +length, on Christmas day, the council of war decided in favour of +debarkation. The landing was to take place next morning; 6,500 veterans +were prepared to step ashore at daylight, but without their artillery, +their military chest, and their general. Two hours beyond midnight Tone +was roused from sleep by the wind, which he found blowing half a gale. +Pacing the gallery of the _Indomptable_ till day dawned, he felt it +rising louder and angrier, every hour. The next day it was almost a +hurricane, and the Vice-Admiral's frigate, running under the quarter of +the great 80-gun ship, ordered them to slip anchor and stand out to +sea. The whole fleet was soon driven off the Irish coast; that part of +it, in which Grouchy and Tone were embarked, made its entrance into +Brest on New Year's day; the ship which carried Hoche and the Admiral, +only arrived at La Rochelle on the 15th. The Directory and the General, +so far from being discouraged by this failure, consoled themselves by +the demonstration they had made, of the possibility of a great fleet +passing to and fro, in British waters, for nearly a month, without +encountering a single British vessel of war. Not so the Irish +negotiator; on him, light-hearted and daring as he was, the +disappointment fell with crushing weight; but he magnanimously carried +Grouchy's report to Paris, and did his utmost to defend the unlucky +general from a cabal which had been formed against him. + +While Tone was reluctantly following his new chief to the Meuse and the +Rhine—with a promise that the Irish expedition was delayed, not +abandoned—another, and no less fortunate negotiator, was raising up a +new ally for the same cause, in an unexpected quarter. The Batavian +republic, which had risen in the steps of Pichegru's victorious army, +in 1794, was now eager to imitate the example of France. With a +powerful fleet, and an unemployed army, its chiefs were quite ready to +listen to any proposal which would restore the maritime ascendancy of +Holland, and bring back to the recollection of Europe the memory of the +puissant Dutch republic. In this state of affairs, the new agent of the +Irish Directory, Edward John Lewines, a Dublin attorney, a man of great +ability and energy, addressed himself to the Batavian government. He +had been sent abroad with very general powers, to treat with Holland, +Spain, France, or any other government at war with England, for a loan +of half a million sterling, and a sufficient auxiliary force to aid the +insurrection. During two months' stay at Hamburg, the habitual route in +those days from the British ports to the continent, he had placed +himself in communication with the Spanish agent there, and had, in +forty days, received an encouraging answer from Madrid. On his way, +probably to Spain, to follow up that fair prospect, he reached the +Netherlands, and rapidly discovering the state of feeling in the Dutch, +or as it was then called, the _Batavian_ republic, he addressed himself +to the Directors, who consulted Hoche, by whom in turn Tone was +consulted. Tone had a high opinion of Lewines, and at once proceeded +with him to the Hague, where they were joined, according to agreement, +by Hoche. The Dutch Committee of Foreign Affairs, the +Commander-in-Chief, General Dandaels, and the Admiral, De Winter, +entered heartily into the project. There were in the Texel 16 ships of +the line and 10 frigates, victualled for three months, with 15,000 men +and 80 field guns on board. The only serious difficulty in the way was +removed by the disinterestedness of Hoche; the French Foreign Minister +having demanded that 5,000 French troops should be of the expedition, +and that Hoche should command in chief; the latter, to conciliate +Dandaels and the Dutch, undertook to withdraw the proposal, and +gracefully yielded his own pretensions. All then was settled: Tone was +to accompany Dandaels with the same rank he had in the Brest +expedition, and Lewines to return, and remain, as "Minister-resident" +at Paris. On the 8th of July, Tone was on board the flagship, the +_Vryheid_, 74 guns, in the Texel, and "only waiting for a wind," to +lead another navy to the aid of his compatriots. + +But the winds, "the only unsubsidized allies of England," were +strangely adverse. A week, two, three, four, five, passed heavily away, +without affording a single day in which that mighty fleet could make an +offing. Sometimes for an hour or two it shifted to the desired point, +the sails were unclewed and the anchors shortened, but then, as if to +torture the impatient exiles on board, it veered back again and settled +steadily in the fatal south-west. At length, at the end of August, the +provisions being nearly consumed, and the weather still unfavourable, +the Dutch Directory resolved to land the troops and postpone the +expedition. De Winter, as is known, subsequently found an opportunity +to work out, and attack Lord Duncan, by whom he was badly beaten. Thus +ended Irish hopes of aid from Holland. The indomitable Tone rejoined +his chief on the Rhine, where, to his infinite regret, Hoche died the +following month—September 18th, 1797—of a rapid consumption, +accelerated by cold and carelessness. "Hoche," said Napoleon to Barry +O'Meara at Saint Helena, "was one of the first generals France ever +produced. He was brave, intelligent, abounding in talent, decisive and +penetrating. Had he landed in Ireland, he would have succeeded. He was +accustomed to civil war, had pacified La Vendee, and was well adapted +for Ireland. He had a fine, handsome figure, a good address, was +prepossessing and intriguing." The loss of such a patron, who felt +himself, according to Tone's account, especially bound to follow up the +object of separating Ireland from England, was a calamity greater and +more irreparable than the detention of one fleet or the dispersion of +the other. + +The third expedition, in promoting which Tone and Lewines bore the +principal part, was decided upon by the French Directory, immediately +after the conclusion of peace with Austria, in October, 1797. The +decree for the formation of "the Army of England," named Buonaparte +Commander-in-Chief, with Desaix as his second. Buonaparte consulted +Clarke as to who he most confided in among the numerous Irish refugees +then in Paris—there were some twenty or thirty, all more or less known, +and more or less in communication with the Directory—and Clarke +answered at once, "Tone, of course." Tone, with Lewines, the one in a +military, the other in an ambassadorial capacity, had frequent +interviews with the young conqueror of Italy, whom they usually found +silent and absorbed, always attentive, sometimes asking sudden +questions betraying great want of knowledge of the British Islands, and +occasionally, though rarely, breaking out into irresistible invectives +against Jacobinism and the English system, both of which he so +cordially detested. Every assurance was given by the General, by the +Directors, by Merlin du Douai, Barras, and Talleyrand especially, that +the expedition against England would never be abandoned. Tone, in high +spirits as usual, joined the division under the command of his +countryman, General Kilmaine, and took up his quarters at Havre, where +he had landed without knowing a soul in France two years before. + +The winter wore away in busy preparations at Havre, at Brest, and at La +Rochelle,—and, which seemed mysterious to the Irish exiles—at Toulon. +All the resources of France, now without an enemy on the Continent, +were put forth in these preparations. But it soon appeared they were +not put forth for Ireland. On the 20th of May, 1798—within three days +of the outbreak in Dublin, Wexford, and Kildare—Buonaparte sailed with +the _elite_ of all that expedition for Alexandria, and "the Army of +England" became, in reality, "the Army of Egypt." + +The bitterness, the despondency, and desperation which seized on the +Irish leaders in France, and on the rank and file of the United +Irishmen at home, on receiving this intelligence are sufficiently +illustrated in the subsequent attempts under Humbert and Bompart, and +the partial, ineffectual risings in Leinster, Ulster, and Connaught, +during the summer and autumn of 1798. After all their high hopes from +France and her allies, this was what it had come to at last! A few +frigates, with three or four thousand men, were all that could be +spared for the succour of a kingdom more populous than Egypt and Syria +combined; the granary of England, and the key of her Atlantic position. +It might have been some comfort to the family of Tone to have read, +thirty years afterwards, in their American asylum, or for the aged +Lewines to have read in the Parisian retreat in which he died, the +memorable confession of Napoleon at Saint Helena: "If instead of the +expedition to Egypt, I had undertaken that to Ireland, what," he asked, +"could England do now? On such chances," he mournfully added, "depend +the destinies of empires!" + + + +CHAPTER XV. +THE INSURRECTION OF 1798. + +It is no longer matter of assertion merely, but simple matter of fact, +that the English and Irish ministers of George III. regarded the +insurrectionary movement of the United Irishmen as at once a pretext +and a means for effecting a legislative union between the two +countries. Lord Camden, the Viceroy who succeeded Lord Fitzwilliam in +March, '95—with Mr. Pelham as his Chief Secretary, in a letter to his +relative, the Hon. Robert Stewart, afterwards Lord Castlereagh, +announced this policy, in unmistakable terms, so early as 1793; and all +the official correspondence published of late years, concerning that +period of British and Irish history, establishes the fact beyond the +possibility of denial. + +Such being the design, it was neither the wish nor the interest of the +Government, that the insurrection should be suppressed, unless the +Irish constitution could be extinguished with it. To that end they +proceeded in the coercive legislation described in a previous chapter; +to that end they armed with irresponsible power the military officers +and the oligarchical magistracy; with that view they quartered those +yeomanry regiments, which were known to be composed of Orangemen, on +the wretched peasantry of the most Catholic counties, while the corps +in which Catholics or United Irishmen were most numerous, were sent +over to England, in exchange for Scotch fencibles and Welsh cavalry. +The outrages committed by all these volunteer troops, but above all by +the Orange yeomanry of the country, were so monstrous, that the gallant +and humane Sir John Moore exclaimed, "If I were an Irishman, I would be +a rebel!" + +It was, indeed, impossible for any man, however obscure, or however +eminent, to live longer in the country, without taking sides. Yet the +choice was at best a hard and unhappy one. On the one side was the +Castle, hardly concealing its intention of goading on the people, in +order to rob them of their Parliament; on the other was the injured +multitude, bound together by a secret system which proved in reality no +safeguard against traitors in their own ranks, and which had been +placed by its Protestant chiefs under the auspices of an infidel +republic. Between the two courses men made election according to their +bias or their necessities, or as they took local or general, political +or theological views of the situation. Both Houses of the legislature +unanimously sustained the government against the insurrection; as did +the judges, the bar, and the Anglican clergy and bishops. The +Presbyterian body were in the beginning all but unanimous for a +republican revolution and the French alliance; the great majority of +the Catholic peasantry were, as the crisis increased, driven into the +same position, while all their bishops and a majority of the Catholic +aristocracy, adhered to that which they, with the natural tendency of +their respective orders, considered the side of religion and authority. +Thus was the nation sub-divided within itself; Protestant civilian from +Protestant ecclesiastic, Catholic layman from Catholic priest, tenant +from lord, neighbour from neighbour, father from son, and friend from +friend. + +During the whole of '97, the opposing parties were in a ferment of +movement and apprehension. As the year wore on, the administration, +both English and Irish, began to feel that the danger was more +formidable than they had foreseen. The timely storm which had blown +Grouchy out of Bantry Bay, the previous Christmas, could hardly be +reckoned on again, though the settled hostility of the French +government knew no change. Thoroughly well informed by their legion of +spies both on the Continent and in Ireland, every possible military +precaution was taken. The Lord Lieutenant's proclamation for disarming +the people, issued in May, was rigorously enforced by General Johnstone +in the South, General Hutchinson in the West, and Lord Lake in the +North. Two hundred thousand pikes and pike-heads were said to have been +discovered or surrendered during the year, and several thousand +firelocks. The yeomanry, and English and Scotch corps amounted to +35,000 men, while the regular troops were increased to 50,000 and +subsequently to 80,000, including three regiments of the Guards. The +defensive works at Cork, and other vulnerable points were strengthened +at an immense cost; the "Pigeon House" fort, near Dublin, was enlarged, +for the city itself was pronounced by General Vallancy, Colonel +Packenham, and other engineer authorities dangerously weak, if not +wholly untenable. A system of telegraphic signals was established from +all points of the coast with the Capital, and every precaution taken +against the surprise of another French invasion. + +During the summer assize, almost every considerable town and circuit +had its state trial. The sheriffs had been carefully selected +beforehand by the Castle, and the juries were certain to be of "the +right sort," under the auspices of such sheriffs. Immense sums in the +aggregate were contributed by the United Irish for the defence of their +associates; at the Down assizes alone, not less than seven hundred or +eight hundred guineas were spent in fees and retainers; but at the +close of the term, Mr. Beresford was able to boast to his friend Lord +Auckland, that but one of all the accused had escaped the penalty of +death or banishment! The military tribunals, however, did not wait for +the idle formalities of the civil courts. Soldiers and civilians, +yeomen and townsmen, against whom the informer pointed his finger, were +taken out, and summarily executed. Ghastly forms hung upon the +thick-set gibbets, not only in the market places of country towns, and +before the public prisons, but on all the bridges of the metropolis. +Many of the soldiers, in every military district were shot weekly and +almost daily for real or alleged complicity with the rebels. The horrid +torture of picketing, and the blood-stained lash, were constantly +resorted to, to extort accusations or confessions. Over all these +atrocities the furious and implacable spirit of Lord Clare presided in +Council, and the equally furious and implacable Luttrel, Lord +Carhampton, as Commander-in-Chief. All moderate councils were denounced +as nothing short of treason, and even the elder Beresford, the Privy +Counsellor, was compelled to complain of the violence of his noble +associates, and his inability to restrain the ferocity of his own +nearest relatives—meaning probably his son John Claudius, and his +son-in-law, Sir George Hill. + +It was while this spirit was abroad, a spirit as destructive as ever +animated the Councils of Sylla or Marius in Old Rome, or prompted the +decrees of Robespierre or Marat in France, that the genius and courage +of one man redeemed the lost reputation of the law, and upheld against +all odds the sacred claims of personal liberty. This man was John +Philpot Curran, the most dauntless of advocates, one of the truest and +bravest of his race. Although a politician of the school of Grattan, +and wholly untainted with French principles, he identified himself +absolutely with his unhappy clients, "predoomed to death." The genius +of patriotic resistance which seemed to have withdrawn from the Island +with Grattan's secession from Parliament, now re-appeared in the last +place where it might have been expected—in those courts of death, +rather than of justice—before those predetermined juries, besides the +hopeless inmates of the crowded dock, personified in the person of +Curran. Often at midnight, amid the clash of arms, his wonderful +pleadings were delivered; sometimes, as in Dublin, where the court +rooms adjoined the prisons, the condemned, or the confined, could hear, +in their cells, his piercing accents breaking the stillness of the +early morning, pleading for justice and mercy—pleading always with +superhuman perseverance, but almost always in vain. Neither menaces of +arrest, nor threats of assassination, had power to intimidate that +all-daring spirit; nor, it may be safely said, can the whole library of +human history present us a form of heroism superior in kind or degree +to that which this illustrious advocate exhibited during nearly two +years, when he went forth daily, with his life in his hand, in the holy +hope to snatch some human victim from the clutch of the destroyer +thirsting for his blood. + +In November, '97, some said from fear of personal consequences, some +from official pressure in a high quarter, Lord Carhampton resigned the +command of the forces, and Sir Ralph Abercromby was appointed in his +stead. There could not be a more striking illustration of the system of +terror patronized by government than was furnished in the case of Sir +Ralph as Commander-in-Chief. That distinguished soldier, with his half +century of services at his back, had not been a week in Dublin before +he discovered the weakness of the Viceroy, and the violence of his +principal advisers, the Chancellor, the Speaker, Lord Castlereagh and +the Beresfords. Writing in confidence to his son, he says, "The abuses +of all kinds I found here can scarcely be believed or enumerated." The +instances he cites of such abuses are sufficiently horrible to justify +the strong language which brought down on his head so much hostility, +when he declared in his proclamation of February '98, that the Irish +army was "formidable to every one but the enemy." These well-known +opinions were so repugnant to the Castle policy, that that party held a +caucus in the Speaker's Chambers, at which it was proposed to pass a +vote of censure in Parliament on the General, whom they denounced as "a +sulky mule," "a Scotch beast," and by other similar names. Though the +Parliamentary censure dropped, they actually compelled Lord Camden to +call on him to retract his magnanimous order. To this humiliation the +veteran stooped "for the sake of the King's service," but at the same +time he proffered his resignation. After two months' correspondence, it +was finally accepted, and the soldier who was found too jealous of the +rights of the people to be a fit instrument of their destruction, +escaped from his high position, not without a profound sentiment of +relief. His verdict upon the barbarous policy pursued in his time was +always expressed, frankly and decisively. His entire correspondence, +private and public, bears one and the same burthen—the violence, +cruelty, and tyranny of Lord Camden's chief advisers, and the pitiful +weakness of the Viceroy himself. Against the infamous plan of letting +loose a lustful and brutal soldiery to live at "free quarters" on a +defenceless and disarmed people—an outrage against which Englishmen had +taken perpetual security at _their_ revolution, as may be seen in "the +Bill of Rights," he struggled during his six months' command, but with +no great success. The plan, with all its horrors, was upheld by the +Lord-Lieutenant, and more than any other cause, precipitated the +rebellion which exploded at last, just as Sir Ralph was allowed to +retire from the country. His temporary successor, Lord Lake, was +troubled with no such scruples as the gallant old Scotsman. + +Events followed each other in the first months of 1798, fast and +furiously. Towards the end of February, Arthur O'Conor, Father James +Quigley, the brothers John and Benjamin Binns, were arrested at Margate +on their way to France; on the 6th of March, the _Press_ newspaper, the +Dublin organ of the party, as the _Star_ had been the Ulster organ, was +seized by Government, Lord Edward Fitzgerald and William Sampson being +at the time in the office. On the 12th of March, on the information of +the traitor, Thomas Reynolds, the Leinster delegates were seized in +conclave, with all their papers, at the house of Oliver Bond, in Bridge +Street, Dublin. On the same information. Addis Emmet and Dr. McNevin +were taken in their own houses, and Sampson in the north of England: of +all the executive, Lord Edward alone escaping those sent in search of +him. This was, as Tone notes in his journal, on the ill news reaching +France, "a terrible blow." O'Conor's arrest in Kent, Sampson's in +Carlisle, and the other arrests in Belfast and Dublin, proved too truly +that treason was at work, and that the much-prized oath of secrecy was +no protection whatever against the devices of the Castle and the +depravity of its secret agents. The extent to which that treason +extended, the number of associates who were in the pay of their deadly +enemies, was never known to the United Irish leaders; time has, +however, long since "revealed the secrets of the prison-house," and we +know now, that men they trusted with all their plans and hopes, such as +McNally and McGucken, were quite as deep in the conspiracy to destroy +them as Mr. Reynolds and Captain Armstrong. + +The most influential members of the Dublin Society remaining at large +contrived to correspond with each other, or to meet by stealth after +the arrest at Bond's. The vacancies in the Executive were filled up by +the brothers John and Henry Sheares, both barristers, sons of a wealthy +Cork banker, and former member of Parliament, and by Mr. Lawless, a +surgeon. For two months longer these gentlemen continued to act in +concert with Lord Edward, who remained undetected, notwithstanding all +the efforts of Government, from the 12th of March till the 19th of May +following. During those two months the new directors devoted themselves +with the utmost energy to hurrying on the armament of the people, and +especially to making proselytes among the militia, where the gain of +one man armed and disciplined was justly accounted equal to the +enlistment of three or four ordinary adherents. This part of their plan +brought the brothers Sheares into contact, among others, with Captain +John Warneford Armstrong, of the Queen's County Yeomanry, whom they +supposed they had won over, but who was, in reality, a better-class +spy, acting under Lord Castlereagh's instructions. Armstrong cultivated +them sedulously, dined at their table, echoed their opinions, and led +the credulous brothers on to their destruction. All at last was +determined on; the day of the rising was fixed—the 23rd day of May—and +the signal was to be the simultaneous stoppage of the mail coaches, +which started nightly from the Dublin post-office, to every quarter of +the kingdom. But the counterplot anticipated the plot. Lord Edward, +betrayed by a person called Higgins, proprietor of the _Freeman's +Journal_, was taken on the 19th of May, after a desperate struggle with +Majors Swan and Sirr, and Captain Ryan, in his hiding-place in Thomas +Street; the brothers Sheares were arrested in their own house on the +morning of the 21st, while Surgeon Lawless escaped from the city, and +finally from the country, to France. Thus, for the second time, was the +insurrection left without a head; but the organization had proceeded +too far to be any longer restrained, and the Castle, moreover, to use +the expression of Lord Castlereagh, "took means to make it explode." + +The first intelligence of the rebellion was received in Dublin on the +morning of the 24th of May. At Rathfarnham, within three miles of the +city, 500 insurgents attacked Lord Ely's yeomanry corps with some +success, till Lord Roden's dragoons, hastily despatched from the city, +compelled them to retreat, with the loss of some prisoners and two men +killed, whom Mr. Beresford saw the next day, literally "_cut to +pieces_—a horrid sight." At Dunboyne the insurgents piked an escort of +the Reay Fencibles (Scotch) passing through their village, and carried +off their baggage. At Naas, a large popular force attacked the +garrison, consisting of regulars, Ancient Britons (Welsh), part of a +regiment of dragoons, and the Armagh Militia; the attack was renewed +three times with great bravery, but finally, discipline, as it always +will, prevailed over mere numbers, and the assailants were repulsed +with the loss of 140 of their comrades. At Prosperous, where they cut +off to a man a strong garrison composed of North Cork Militia, under +Captain Swayne, the rising was more successful. The commander in this +exploit was Dr. Esmonde, brother of the Wexford baronet, who, being +betrayed by one of his own subalterns, was the next morning arrested at +breakfast in the neighbourhood, and suffered death at Dublin on the +14th of the following month. + +There could hardly be found a more unfavourable field for a peasant war +than the generally level and easily accessible county of Kildare, every +parish of which is within a day's march of Dublin. From having been the +residence of Lord Edward, it was, perhaps, one of the most highly +organized parts of Leinster, but as it had the misfortune to be +represented by Thomas Reynolds, as county delegate, it laboured under +the disadvantage of having its organization better known to the +government than any other. We need hardly be surprised, therefore, to +find that the military operations in this county were all over in ten +days or a fortnight; when those who had neither surrendered nor fallen, +fell back into Meath or Connaught, or effected a junction with the +Wicklow rebels in their mountain fastnesses. Their struggle, though so +brief, had been creditable for personal bravery. Attacked by a numerous +cavalry and militia under General Wilford, by 2,500 men, chiefly +regulars, under General Dundas, and by 800 regulars brought up by +forced marches from Limerick, under Sir James Duff, they showed +qualities, which, if well directed, would have established for their +possessors a high military reputation. At Monastereven they were +repulsed with loss, the defenders of the town being in part Catholic +loyalists, under Captain Cassidy; at Rathangan, they were more +successful, taking and holding the town for several days; at Clane, the +captors of Prosperous were repulsed; while at Old Killcullen, their +associates drove back General Dundas' advance, with the loss of 22 +regulars and Captain Erskine killed. Sir James Duff's wanton cruelty in +sabring and shooting down an unarmed multitude on the Curragh, won him +the warm approval of the extermination party in the Capital, while +Generals Wilford and Dundas narrowly escaped being reprimanded for +granting a truce to the insurgents under Aylmer, and accepting of the +surrender of that leader and his companions. By the beginning of June +the six Kildare encampments of insurgents were totally dispersed, and +their most active officers in prison or fugitives west or south. + +By a preconcerted arrangement, the local chiefs of the insurrection in +Dublin and Meath, gathered with their men on the third day after the +outbreak, at the historic hill of Tara. Here they expected to be joined +by the men of Cavan, Longford, Louth and Monaghan; but before the +northerners reached the trysting place, three companies of the Reay +Fencibles, under Captain McClean, the Kells and Navan Yeomanry, under +Captain Preston, (afterwards Lord Tara,) and a troop of cavalry under +Lord Fingal, surrounded the royal hill. The insurgents, commanded by +Gilshine and other leaders, intrenched themselves in the graveyard +which occupies the summit of Tara, and stoutly defended their position. +Twenty-six of the Highlanders and six of the Yeomanry fell in the +assault, but the bullet reached farther than the pike, and the +defenders were driven, after a sharp action, over the brow of the +eminence, and many of them shot or sabred down as they fled. + +Southward from the Capital the long pent-up flame of disaffection broke +out on the same memorable day, May 23rd. At Dunlavin, an abortive +attempt on the barrack revealed the fact that many of the Yeomanry were +thoroughly with the insurgents. Hardly had the danger from without +passed over, when a military inquiry was improvised. By this tribunal, +nineteen Wexford, and nine Kildare Yeomanry, were ordered to be shot, +and the execution of the sentence followed immediately on its rending. +At Blessington, the town was seized, but a nocturnal attack on Carlow +was repulsed with great loss. In this last affair, the rebels had +_rendezvoused_ in the domain of Sir Edward Crosbie, within two miles of +the town. Here arms were distributed and orders given by their leader, +named Roche. Silently and quickly they reached the town they hoped to +surprise. But the regular troops, of which the garrison was chiefly +composed, were on the alert, though their preparations were made full +as silently. When the peasantry emerged from Tullow Street, into an +exposed space, a deadly fire was opened upon them from the houses on +all sides. The regulars, in perfect security themselves, and abundantly +supplied with ammunition, shot them down with deadly unerring aim. The +people soon found there was nothing for it but retreat, and carrying +off as best they could their killed and wounded, they retired sorely +discomfited. For alleged complicity in this attack, Sir Edward Crosbie +was shortly afterward arrested, tried and executed. There was not a +shadow of proof against him; but he was known to sympathize with the +sufferings of his countrymen, to have condemned in strong language the +policy of provocation, and that was sufficient. He paid with the +penalty of his head for the kindness and generosity of his heart. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. +THE INSURRECTION OF 1798—THE WEXFORD INSURRECTION. + +The most formidable insurrection, indeed the only really formidable +one, broke out in the county of Wexford, a county in which it was +stated there were not 200 sworn United Irishmen, and which Lord Edward +Fitzgerald had altogether omitted from his official list of counties +organized in the month of February. In that brief interval, the +Government policy of provocation had the desired effect, though the +explosion was of a nature to startle those who occasioned it. + +Wexford, geographically, is a peculiar county, and its people are a +peculiar people. The county fills up the south-eastern corner of the +island, with the sea south-east, the river Barrow to the west, and the +woods and mountains of Carlow and Wicklow to the north. It is about +forty miles long by twenty-four broad; the surface undulating and +rising into numerous groups of detached hills, two or more of which are +generally visible from each conspicuous summit. Almost in the midst +flows the river Slaney, springing from a lofty Wicklow peak, which +sends down on its northern slope the better known river Liffey. On the +estuary of the Slaney, some seventy miles south of Dublin, stands the +county town, the traveller journeying to which by the usual route then +taken, passed in succession through Arklow, Gorey, Ferns, Enniscorthy, +and other places of less consequence, though familiar enough in the +fiery records of 1798. North-westward, the only road in those days from +Carlow and Kilkenny, crossed the Blackstairs at Scollagh-gap, entering +the county at Newtownbarry, the ancient Bunclody; westward, some twenty +miles, on the river Barrow, stands New Ross, often mentioned in this +history, the road from which to the county town passes through +Scullabogue and Taghmon (_Ta'mun_), the former at the foot of +Carrickbyrne rock, the latter at the base of what is rather +hyperbolically called "the _mountain_ of Forth." South and west of the +town, towards the estuary of Waterford, lie the baronies of Forth and +Bargy, a great part of the population of which, even within our own +time, spoke the language Chaucer and Spenser wrote, and retained many +of the characteristics of their Saxon, Flemish, and Cambrian ancestors. +Through this singular district lay the road towards Duncannon fort, on +Waterford harbour, with branches running off to Bannow, Ballyhack, and +Dunbrody. We shall, therefore, speak of all the localities we may have +occasion to mention as on or near one of the four main roads of the +county, the Dublin, Carlow, Boss, and Waterford roads. + +The population of this territory was variously estimated in 1798, at +150,000, 180,000, and 200,000. They were, generally speaking, a +comfortable and contented peasantry, for the Wexford landlords were +seldom absentees, and the farmers held under them by long leases and +reasonable rents. There were in the country few great lords, but there +was little poverty and no pauperism. In such a soil, the secret +societies were almost certain to fail, and if it had not been for the +diabolical experiments of Lord Kingsborough's North Cork Militia, it is +very probable that that orderly and thrifty population would have seen +the eventful year we are describing pass over their homes without +experiencing any of the terrible trials which accompanied it. But it +was impossible for human nature to endure the provocations inflicted +upon this patient and prosperous people. The pitch-cap and the triangle +were resorted to on the slightest and most frivolous pretexts. "A +sergeant of the North Cork Militia," says Mr. Hay, the county +historian, "nicknamed, _Tom the Devil_, was most ingenious in devising +new modes of torture. Moistened gunpowder was frequently rubbed into +the hair cut close and then set on fire; some, while shearing for this +purpose, had the tips of their ears snipt off; sometimes an entire ear, +and often both ears were completely cut off; and many lost part of +their noses during the like preparation. But, strange to tell," adds +Mr. Hay, "these atrocities were publicly practised without the least +reserve in open day, and no magistrate or officer ever interfered, but +shamefully connived at this extraordinary mode of quieting the people! +Some of the miserable sufferers on these shocking occasions, or some of +their relations or friends, actuated by a principle of retaliation, if +not of revenge, cut short the hair of several persons whom they either +considered as enemies or suspected of having pointed them out as +objects for such desperate treatment. This was done with a view that +those active citizens should fall in for a little experience of the +like discipline, or to make the fashion of short hair so general that +it might no longer be a mark of party distinction." This was the origin +of the nickname "Croppy," by which, during the remainder of the +insurrection, it was customary to designate all who were suspected or +proved to be hostile to, the government. + +Among the magistracy of the county were several persons who, whatever +might have been their conduct in ordinary times, now showed themselves +utterly unfit to be entrusted with those large discretionary powers +which Parliament had recently conferred upon all justices of the peace. +One of these magistrates, surrounded by his troops, perambulated the +county with an executioner, armed with all the equipments of his +office; another carried away the lopped hands and fingers of his +victims, with which he stirred his punch in the carousals that followed +every expedition. At Carnew, midway between the Dublin and Carlow +roads, on the second day of the insurrection, twenty-eight prisoners +were brought out to be shot at as targets in the public ball alley; on +the same day Enniscorthy witnessed its first execution for treason, and +the neighbourhood of Ballaghkeen was harried by Mr. Jacob, one of the +magistrates whose method of preserving the peace of the county has been +just referred to. The majority of the bench, either weakly or +willingly, sanctioned these atrocities, but some others, among them a +few of the first men in the county, did not hesitate to resist and +condemn them. Among these were Mr. Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey of Bargy +Castle, Mr. Fitzgerald of Newpark, and Mr. John Henry Colclough of +Tintern Abbey; but all these gentlemen were arrested on Saturday, the +26th of May—the same day, or more strictly speaking, the eve of the day +on which the Wexford outbreak occurred. + +On the day succeeding these arrests, being Whitsunday, Father John +Murphy, parish priest of Kilcormick, the son of a small farmer of the +neighbourhood, educated in Spain, on coming to his little wayside +chapel, found it laid in ashes. To his flock, as they surrounded him in +the open air, he boldly preached that it would be much better for them +to die in a fair field than to await the tortures inflicted by such +magistrates as Archibald Jacob, Hunter Gowan, and Hawtrey White. He +declared his readiness to share their fate, whatever it might be, and +in response, about 2,000 of the country people gathered in a few hours +upon Oulart Hill, situated about half-way between Enniscorthy and the +sea, and eleven miles north of Wexford. Here they were attacked on the +afternoon of the same day by the North Cork Militia, Colonel Foote, the +Shilmalier Yeoman cavalry, Colonel Le Hunte, and the Wexford cavalry. +The rebels, strong in their position, and more generally accustomed to +the use of arms than persons in their condition in other parts of the +country, made a brave and successful stand. Major Lambert, the Hon. +Captain De Courcy (brother of Lord Kinsale), and some other officers, +fell before the long-shore guns of the Shilmalier fowlers; of the North +Cork detachment, only the colonel, a sergeant, and two or three +privates escaped; the cavalry, at the top of their speed, galloped back +to the county town. + +The people were soon thoroughly aroused. Another popular priest of the +diocese, Michael Murphy, on reaching Gorey, finding his chapel also +rifled, and the altar desecrated, turned his horse's head and joined +the insurgents, who had gathered on Kilthomas hill, near Carnew. Signal +fires burned that night on all the eminences of the county, which +seemed as if they had been designed for so many watch-towers; horns +resounded; horsemen galloped far and near; on the morrow of Whitsunday +all Wexford arose, animated with the passions and purposes of civil +war. + +On the 28th, Ferns, Camolin, and Enniscorthy were taken by the +insurgents; the latter, after an action of four hours, in which a +captain, two lieutenants, and eighty of the local yeomanry fell. The +survivors fled to Wexford, which was as rapidly as possible placed in a +state of defence. The old walls and gates were still in good repair, +and 300 North Cork, 200 Donegal, and 700 local militia ought to have +formed a strong garrison within such ramparts, against a mere +tumultuous peasantry. The yeomen, however, thought otherwise, and two +of the three imprisoned popular magistrates were sent to Enniscorthy to +exhort and endeavour to disperse the insurgents. One of them only +returned, the other, Mr. Fitzgerald, joined the rebels, who, continuing +their march, were allowed to take possession of the county town without +striking a blow. Mr. Bagenal Harvey, the magistrate still in prison, +they insisted on making their Commander-in-Chief; a gentleman of +considerable property, by no means destitute of courage, but in every +other respect quite unequal to the task imposed upon him. After a trial +of his generalship at the battle of Ross, he was transferred to the +more pacific office of President of the Council, which continued to sit +and direct operations from Wexford, with the co-operation of a +sub-committee at Enniscorthy. Captain Matthew Keogh, a retired officer +of the regular army, aged but active, was made governor of the town, in +which a couple of hundred armed men were left as his guards. An attempt +to relieve the place from Duncannon had utterly failed. General +Fawcett, commanding that important fortress, set out on his march with +this object on the 30th of May—his advanced guard of 70 Meathian +yeomanry, having in charge three howitzers, whose slower movements it +was expected the main force would overtake long before reaching the +neighbourhood of danger. At Taghmon this force was joined by Captain +Adams with his command, and thus reinforced they continued their march +to Wexford. Within three miles of the town the road wound round the +base of the "three rock" mountain; evening fell as the royalists +approached this neighbourhood, where the victors of Oulart, +Enniscorthy, and Wexford had just improvised a new camp. A sharp volley +from the long-shore-men's guns, and a furious onslaught of pikes threw +the royal detachment into the utmost disorder. Three officers of the +Meathian cavalry, and nearly one hundred men were placed _hors de +combat_; the three howitzers, eleven gunners, and several prisoners +taken; making the third considerable success of the insurgents within a +week. + +Wexford county now became the theatre of operations, on which all eyes +were fixed. The populace gathered as if by instinct into three great +encampments, on Vinegar Hill, above Enniscorthy; on Carrickbyrne, on +the road leading to Ross, and on the hill of Corrigrua, seven miles +from Gorey. The principal leaders of the first division were Fathers +Kearns and Clinch, and Messrs. Fitzgerald, Doyle, and Redmond; of the +second, Bagenal Harvey, and Father Philip Roche; of the last, Anthony +Perry of Inch, Esmond Kyan, and the two Fathers Murphy, Michael, and +John. The general plan of operations was that the third division should +move by way of Arklow and Wicklow on the Capital; the second to open +communication with Carlow, Kilkenny, and Kildare by Newtownbarry and +Scollagh-gap; while the first was to attack New Ross, and endeavour to +hasten the rising in Munster. + +On the 1st of June, the advance of the northern division marching upon +Gorey, then occupied in force by General Loftus, were encountered four +miles from the town, and driven back with the loss of about a hundred +killed and wounded. On the 4th of June, Loftus, at the instance of +Colonel Walpole, aid-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant, who had lately +joined him with considerable reinforcements, resolved to beat up the +rebel quarters at Corrigrua. It was to be a combined movement; Lord +Ancram, posted with his militia and dragoons at the bridge of +Scaramalsh, where the poetic Banna joins the Slaney, was to prevent the +arrival of succours from Vinegar Hill; Captain McManus, with a couple +of companies of yeomanry, stationed at another exposed point from which +intelligence could be obtained and communicated; while the General and +Colonel Walpole, marched to the attack by roads some distance apart, +which ran into one within two miles of Corrigrua camp. The main body of +the King's troops were committed to the lead of Walpole, who had also +two six-pounders and a howitzer. After an hour-and-a-half's march he +found the country changed its character near the village of Clogh +(_clo'_), where the road descending from the level arable land, dips +suddenly into the narrow and winding pass of Tubberneering. The sides +of the pass were lined with a bushy shrubbery, and the roadway at the +bottom embanked with ditch and dike. On came the confident Walpole, +never dreaming that these silent thickets were so soon to re-echo the +cries of the onslaught. The 4th dragoon guards, the Ancient Britons, +under Sir Watkyn Wynne, the Antrim militia, under Colonel Cope, had all +entered the defile before the ambuscade was discovered. Then, at the +first volley, Walpole fell, with several of those immediately about his +person; out from the shrubbery rushed the pikemen, clearing ditch and +dike at a bound; dragoons and fencibles went down like the sward before +the scythe of the mower; the three guns were captured, and turned on +the flying survivors; the regimental flags taken, with all the other +spoils pertaining to such a retreat. It was, in truth, an immense +victory for a mob of peasants, marshalled by men who that day saw their +first, or, at most, their second action. Before forty-eight hours they +were masters of Gorey, and talked of nothing less than the capture of +Dublin within another week or fortnight! + +From Vinegar Hill the concerted movement was made against Newtonbarry, +on the 2nd of June, the rebels advancing by both banks of the Slaney, +under cover of a six-pounder—the only gun they had with them. The +detachment in command of the beautiful little town, half hidden in its +leafy valley, was from 600 to 800 strong, with a troop of dragoons, and +two battalion guns, under command of Colonel L'Estrange; these, after a +sharp fusilade on both sides, were driven out, but the assailants, +instead of following up the blow, dispersed for plunder or refreshment, +were attacked in turn, and compelled to retreat, with a reported loss +of 400 killed. Three days later, however, a still more important +action, and a yet more disastrous repulse from the self-same cause, +took place at New Ross, on the Barrow. + +The garrison of Ross, on the morning of the 5th of June, when General +Harvey appeared before it, consisted of 1,400 men—Dublin, Meath, +Donegal, and Clare militia, Mid-Lothian fencibles, and English +artillery. General Johnson, a veteran soldier, was in command, and the +place, strong in its well preserved old walls, had not heard a shot +fired in anger since the time of Cromwell. Harvey was reported to have +with him 20,000 men; but if we allow for the exaggeration of numbers +common to all such movements, we may, perhaps, deduct one-half, and +still leave him at the head of a formidable force—10,000 men, with +three field-pieces. Mr. Furlong, a favourite officer, being sent +forward to summon the town, was shot down by a sentinel, and the attack +began. The main point of assault was the gate known as "three bullet +gate," and the hour, five o'clock of the lovely summer's morning. The +obstinacy with which the town was contested, may be judged from the +fact, that the fighting continued for nearly ten hours, with the +interruption of an hour or two at noon. This was the fatal interruption +for the rebels. They had, at a heavy cost, driven out the royalists, +with the loss of a colonel (Lord Mountjoy), three captains, and above +200 men killed: but of their friends and comrades treble the number had +fallen. Still the town, an object of the first importance, was theirs, +when worn out with heat, fatigue, and fasting since sunrise, they +indulged themselves in the luxury of a deep unmeasured carouse. The +fugitive garrison finding themselves unpursued, halted to breathe on +the Kilkenny bank of the river, were rallied by the veteran Johnson, +and led back again across the bridge, taking the surprised revellers +completely unprepared. A cry was raised that this was a fresh force +from Waterford; the disorganised multitude endeavoured to rally in +turn, but before the leaders could collect their men, the town was once +more in possession of the Bang's troops. The rebels, in their turn, +unpursued by their exhausted enemies, fell back upon their camping +ground of the night before, at Corbet hill and Slieve-kielter. At the +latter, Father Philip Roche, dissatisfied with Harvey's management, +established a separate command, which he transferred to a layman of his +own name, Edward Roche, with whom he continued to act and advise during +the remainder of this memorable month. + +The summer of 1798 was, for an Irish summer, remarkably dry and warm. +The heavy Atlantic rains which at all seasons are poured out upon that +soil, seemed suspended in favour of the insurgent multitudes, amounting +to 30,000, or 40,000 at the highest, who, on the different hill +summits, posted their nightly sentinels, and threw themselves down on +turf and heather to snatch a short repose. The kindling of a beacon, +the lowing of cattle, or the hurried arrival of scout or messenger, +hardly interfered with slumbers which the fatigues of the day, and, +unhappily also, the potations of the night rendered doubly deep. An +early morning mass mustered all the Catholics, unless the very +depraved, to the chaplain's tent—for several of the officers, and the +chaplains always were supplied with tents; and then a hasty meal was +snatched before the sun was fairly above the horizon, and the day's +work commenced. The endurance exhibited by the rebels, their personal +strength, swiftness and agility; their tenacity of life, and the ease +with which their worst wounds were healed, excited the astonishment of +the surgeons and officers of the regular army. The truth is, that the +virtuous lives led by that peaceful peasantry before the outbreak, +enabled them to withstand privations and hardships under which the +better fed and better clad Irish yeomen and English guardsmen would +have sunk prostrate in a week. + +Several signs now marked the turning of the tide against the men of +Wexford. Waterford did not rise after the battle of Ross; while +Munster, generally, was left to undecided councils, or held back in +hopes of another French expedition. The first week of June had passed +over, and neither northward nor westward was there any movement +formidable enough to draw off from the devoted county the combined +armies which were now directed against its camps. A gunboat fleet lined +the coast from Bannow round to Wicklow, which soon after appeared off +Wexford bar, and forced an entrance into the harbour. A few days +earlier, General Needham marched from Dublin, and took up his position +at Arklow, at the head of a force variously stated at 1,500 to 2,000 +men, composed of 120 cavalry under Sir Watkyn Wynne, two brigades of +militia under Colonels Cope and Maxwell, and a brigade of English and +Scotch fencibles under Colonel Skerrett. There were also at Arklow +about 300 of the Wexford and Wicklow mounted yeomanry raised by Lord +Wicklow, Lord Mountnorris, and other gentlemen of the neighbourhood. +Early on the morning of the 9th of June the northern division of the +rebels left Gorey in two columns, in order if possible to drive this +force from Arklow. One body proceeding by the coast road hoped to turn +the English position by way of the strand, the other taking the inner +line of the Dublin road, was to assail the town at its upper or inland +suburb. But General Needham had made the most of his two days' +possession; barricades were erected across the road, and at the +entrance to the main street; the graveyard and bridge commanding the +approach by the shore road were mounted with ordnance; the cavalry were +posted where they could best operate, near the strand; the barrack wall +was lined with a _banquette_ or stage, from which the musketeers could +pour their fire with the greatest advantage, and every other precaution +taken to give the rebels a warm reception. The action commenced early +in the afternoon, and lasted till eight in the evening—five or six +hours. The inland column suffered most severely from the marksmen on +the _banquette_, and the gallant Father Michael Murphy, whom his +followers believed to be invulnerable, fell leading them on to the +charge for the third time. On the side of the sea, Esmond Kyan was +badly wounded in the arm, which he was subsequently obliged to have +amputated, and though the fearless Shilmaliers drove the cavalry into +and over the Avoca, discipline and ordnance prevailed once again over +numbers and courage. As night fell, the assailants retired slowly +towards Coolgreney, carrying off nine carloads of their wounded, and +leaving, perhaps, as many more on the field; their loss was variously +reported from 700 to 1,000, and even 1,500. The opposite force returned +less than 100 killed, including Captain Knox, and about as many +wounded. The repulse was even more than that at Ross, dispiriting to +the rebels, who, as a last resort, now decided to concentrate all their +strength on the favourite position at Vinegar Hill. + +Against this encampment, therefore, the entire available force of +regulars and militia within fifty miles of the spot were concentrated +by orders of Lord Lake, the Commander-in-Chief. General Dundas from +Wicklow was to join General Loftus at Carnew on the 18th; General +Needham was to advance simultaneously to Gorey; General Sir Henry +Johnson to unite at Old Ross with Sir James Duff from Carlow; Sir +Charles Asgill was to occupy Gore's bridge and Borris; Sir John Moore +was to land at Ballyhack ferry, march to Foulke's Mill, and united with +Johnson and Duff, to assail the rebel camp on Carrickbyrne. These +various movements ordered on the 16th, were to be completed by the +20th, on which day, from their various new positions, the entire force, +led by these six general officers, was to surround Vinegar Hill, and +make a simultaneous attack upon the last stronghold of the Wexford +rebellion. + +This elaborate plan failed of complete execution in two points. +_First_, the camp on Carrickbyrne, instead of waiting the attack, sent +down its fighting men to Foulke's Mill, where, in the afternoon of the +20th they beat up Sir John Moore's quarters, and maintained from 3 +o'clock till dark, what that officer calls "a pretty sharp action." +Several times they were repulsed and again formed behind the ditches +and renewed the conflict; but the arrival of two fresh regiments, under +Lord Dalhousie, taught them that there was no farther chance of +victory. By this affair, however, though at a heavy cost, they had +prevented the junction of all the troops, and, not without +satisfaction, they now followed the two Roches, the priest and the +layman, to the original position of the mountain of Forth; Sir John +Moore, on his part, taking the same direction, until he halted within +sight of the walls of Wexford. The other departure from Lord Lake's +plan was on the side of General Needham, who was ordered to approach +the point of attack by the circuitous route of Oulart, but who did not +come up in time to complete the investment of the hill. + +On the morning of the appointed day, about 13,000 royal troops were in +movement against the 20,000 rebels whom they intended to dislodge. Sir +James Duff obtained possession of an eminence which commanded the lower +line of the rebel encampment, and from this point a brisk cannonade was +opened against the opposite force; at the same time the columns of +Lake, Wilford, Dundas, and Johnson, pushed up the south-eastern, +northern and western sides of the eminence, partially covered by the +fire of these guns, so advantageously placed. After an hour and a +half's desperate fighting, the rebels broke and fled by the unguarded +side of the hill. Their rout was complete, and many were cut down by +the cavalry, as they pressed in dense masses on each other, over the +level fields and out on the open highways. Still this action was far +from being one of the most fatal as to loss of life, fought in that +county; the rebel dead were numbered only at 400, and the royalists +killed and wounded at less than half that number. + +It was the last considerable action of the Wexford rising, and all the +consequences which followed being attributed arbitrarily to this cause, +helped to invest it with a disproportionate importance. The only leader +lost on the rebel side was Father Clinch of Enniscorthy, who +encountered Lord Roden hand to hand in the retreat, but who, while +engaged with his lordship whom he wounded, was shot down by a trooper. +The disorganization, however, which followed on the dispersion, was +irreparable. One column had taken the road by Gorey to the mountains of +Wicklow—another to Wexford, where they split into two parts, a portion +crossing the Slaney into the sea-coast parishes, and facing northward +by the shore road, the other falling back on "the three rocks" +encampment, where the Messrs. Roche held together a fragment of their +former command. Wexford town, on the 22nd, was abandoned to Lord Lake, +who established himself in the house of Governor Keogh, the owner being +lodged in the common jail. Within the week, Bagenal Harvey, Father +Philip Roche, and Kelly of Killane, had surrendered in despair, while +Messrs. Grogan and Colclough, who had secreted themselves in a cave in +the great Saltee Island, were discovered, and conducted to the same +prison. Notwithstanding the capitulation agreed to by Lord +Kingsborough, the execution and decapitation of all these gentlemen +speedily followed, and their ghastly faces looked down for many a day +from the iron spikes above the entrance of Wexford Court House. Mr. +Esmond Kyan, the popular hero of the district, as merciful as brave, +was discovered some time subsequently paying a stealthy visit to his +family; he was put to death on the spot, and his body, weighted with +heavy stones, thrown into the harbour. A few mornings afterwards the +incoming tide deposited it close by the dwelling of his father-in-law, +and the rites of Christian burial, so dear to all his race, were +hurriedly rendered to the beloved remains. + +The insurrection in this county, while it abounded in instances of +individual and general heroism, was stained also, on both sides, by +many acts of diabolical cruelty. The aggressors, both in time and in +crime were the yeomanry and military; but the popular movement dragged +wretches to the surface who delighted in repaying torture with torture, +and death with death. The butcheries of Dunlavin and Carnew were repaid +by the massacres at Scullabogue and Wexford bridge, in the former of +which 110, and in the latter 35 or 40 persons were put to death in cold +blood, by the monsters who absented themselves from the battles of Ross +and Vinegar Hill. The executions at Wexford bridge would probably have +been swelled to double the number, had not Father Corrin, one of the +priests of the town, rushing in between his Protestant neighbours and +the ferocious Captain Dixon, and summoning all present to pray, invoked +the Almighty "to show them the same mercy" they showed their prisoners. +This awful supplication calmed even that savage rabble, and no further +execution took place. Nearly forty years afterwards, Captain Kellet, of +Clonard, ancestor of the Arctic discoverer, and others whom he had +rescued from the very grasp of the executioner, followed to the grave +that revered and devoted minister of mercy! + +It would be a profitless task to draw out a parallel of the crimes +committed on both sides. Two facts only need be recorded: that although +from 1798 to 1800, not less than _sixty-five_ places of Catholic +worship were demolished or burned in Leinster, (twenty-two of which +were in Wexford county), only _one_ Protestant Church, that of Old +Ross, was destroyed in retaliation; and that although towards men, +especially men in arms, the rebels acted on the fierce Mosaic maxim of +"an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," no outrage upon women is +laid to their charge, even by their most exasperated enemies. + + + +CHAPTER XVII. +THE INSURRECTION ELSEWHERE—FATE OF THE LEADING UNITED IRISHMEN. + +On the 21st of June, the Marquis Cornwallis, whose name is so familiar +in American and East Indian history, arrived in Dublin, to assume the +supreme power, both civil and military. As his Chief Secretary, he +recommended Lord Castlereagh, who had acted in that capacity during the +latter part of Lord Camden's administration in consequence of Mr +Pelham's illness; and the Pitt-Portland administration appointed his +lordship accordingly, because, among other good and sufficient reasons, +"he was so unlike an Irishman." + +While the new Viceroy came to Ireland still more resolute than his +predecessor to bring about the long-desired legislative union, it is +but justice to his memory to say, that he as resolutely resisted the +policy of torture and provocation pursued under Lord Camden. That +policy had, indeed, served its pernicious purpose, and it was now +possible for a new ruler to turn a new leaf; this Lord Cornwallis did +from the hour of his arrival, not without incurring the ill-concealed +displeasures of the Castle cabal. But his position gave him means of +protection which Sir Ralph Abercromby had not; he was known to enjoy +the personal confidence of the King; and those who did not hesitate +three months before to assail by every abusive epithet the humane +Scottish Baronet, hesitated long before criticising with equal freedom +the all-powerful Viceroy. + +The sequel of the insurrection may be briefly related: next to Wexford, +the adjoining county of Wicklow, famous throughout the world for its +lakes and glens, maintained the chief brunt of the Leinster battle. The +brothers Byrne, of Ballymanus, with Holt, Hackett, and other local +leaders, were for months, from the difficult nature of the country, +enabled to defy those combined movements by which, as in a huge net, +Lord Lake had swept up the camps of Wexford. At Hacketstown, on the +25th of June, the Byrnes were repulsed with considerable loss, but at +Ballyellis, on the 30th, fortune and skill gave them and their Wexford +comrades a victory, resembling in many respects that of Clough. General +Needham, who had again established his head-quarters at Gorey, detached +Colonel Preston, with some troops of Ancient Britons, the 4th and 5th +dragoons, and three yeomanry corps, to attack the insurgents who were +observed in force in the neighbourhood of Monaseed. Aware of this +movement, the Byrnes prepared in the ravine of Ballyellis a well-laid +ambuscade, barricading with carts and trees the farther end of the +pass. Attacked by the royalists they retreated towards this pass, were +hotly pursued, and then turned on their pursuers. Two officers and +sixty men were killed in the trap, while the terrified rear-rank fled +for their lives to the shelter of their head-quarters. At Ballyraheene, +on the 2nd of July, the King's troops sustained another check in which +they lost two officers and ten men, but at Ballygullen, on the 4th, the +insurgents were surrounded between the forces of General Needham, Sir +James Duff, and the Marquis of Huntley. This was the last considerable +action in which the Wicklow and Wexford men were unitedly engaged. In +the dispersion which followed, "Billy Byrne of Ballymanus," the hero of +his county, paid the forfeit of his life; while his brother, Garrett, +subsequently surrendered, and was included in the Banishment Act. + +Anthony Perry of Inch, and Father Kearns, leading a much diminished +band into Kildare, formed a junction with Aylmer and Reynolds of that +county, and marched into Meath, with a view of reaching and surprising +Athlone. The plan was boldly and well conceived, but their means of +execution were deplorably deficient. At Clonard they were repulsed by a +handful of troops well armed and posted; a combined movement always +possible in Meath, drove them from side to side during the midweek of +July, until at length, hunted down as they were, they broke up in twos +and threes to seek any means of escape. Father Kearns and Mr. Perry +were, however, arrested, and executed by martial law at Edenderry. Both +died bravely; the priest sustaining and exhorting his companion to the +last. + +Still another band of the Wexford men, under Father John Murphy and +Walter Devereux, crossed the Barrow at Gore's bridge, and marched upon +Kilkenny. At Lowgrange they surprised an outpost; at Castlecomer, after +a sharp action, they took the town, which Sir Charles Asgill +endeavoured, but without success, to relieve. Thence they continued +their march towards Athy in Kildare, but being caught between two or +rather three fires, that of Major Mathews, from Maryboro', General +Dunne, from Athy, and Sir Charles Asgill, they retreated on old +Leighlin, as if seeking the shelter of the Carlow mountains. At +Killcomney Hill, however, they were forced into action under most +unfavourable circumstances, and utterly routed. One, Father Murphy, +fell in the engagement, the other, the precursor of the insurrection, +was captured three days afterward, and conveyed a prisoner to General +Duff's headquarters at Tullow. Here he was put on his trial before a +Military Commission composed of Sir James Duff, Lord Roden, Colonels +Eden and Foster, and Major Hall. Hall had the meanness to put to him, +prisoner as he was, several insulting questions, which at length the +high-spirited rebel answered with a blow. The Commission thought him +highly dangerous, and instantly ordered him to execution. His body was +burned, his head spiked on the market-house of Tullow, and his memory +gibbeted in all the loyal publications of the period. On his person, +before execution, were found a crucifix, a pix, and letters from many +Protestants, asking his protection; as to his reputation, the priest +who girded on the sword only when he found his altar overthrown and his +flock devoured by wolves, need not fear to look posterity in the face. + +Of the other Leinster leaders, Walter Devereux, the last colleague of +Father Murphy, was arrested at Cork, on the eve of sailing for America, +tried and executed; Fitzgerald and Aylmer were spared on condition of +expatriation; months afterwards, Holt surrendered, was transported, and +returned after several years, to end his days where he began his +career; Dwyer alone maintained the life of a Rapparee for five long +years among the hills of Wicklow, where his adventures were often of +such a nature as to throw all fictitious conceptions of an outlaw's +life into commonplace by comparison. Except in the fastnesses +frequented by this extraordinary man, and in the wood of Killaughram, +in Wexford, where the outlaws, with the last stroke of national humour, +assumed the name of _The Babes in the Wood_, the Leinster insurrection +was utterly trodden out within two months from its first beginning, on +the 23rd of May. So weak against discipline, arms, munitions and money, +are all that mere naked valour and devotion can accomplish! + +In Ulster, on the organization of which so much time and labour had +been expended for four or five years preceding, the rising was not more +general than in Leinster, and the actual struggle lasted only a week. +The two counties which moved _en masse_ were Down and Antrim, the +original chiefs of which, such as Thomas Russell and Samuel Neilson, +were unfortunately in prison. The next leader on whom the men of Antrim +relied, resigned his command on the very eve of the appointed day; this +disappointment and the arrest of the Rev. Steele Dickson in Down, +compelled a full fortnight's delay. On the 7th of June, however, the +more determined spirits resolved on action, and the first movement was +to seize the town of Antrim, which, if they could have held it, would +have given them command of the communications with Donegal and Down, +from both of which they might have expected important additions to +their ranks. The leader of this enterprise was Henry John McCracken, a +cotton manufacturer of Belfast, thirty two years of age, well educated, +accomplished and resolute, with whom was associated a brother of +William Orr, the proto-martyr of the Ulster Union. The town of Antrim +was occupied by the 22nd light dragoons, Colonel Lumley, and the local +yeomanry under Lord O'Neil. In the first assault the insurgents were +successful, Lord O'Neil, five officers, forty-seven rank and file +having fallen, and two guns being captured; but Lumley's dragoons had +hardly vanished out of sight, when a strong reinforcement from Blaris +camp arrived and renewed the action, changing premature exultation into +panic and confusion. Between two and three hundred of the rebels fell, +and McCracken and his staff, deserted by their hasty levies, were +arrested, wearied and hopeless, about a month later, wandering among +the Antrim hills. The leaders were tried at Belfast and executed. + +In Down two actions were fought, one at Saintfield on the 7th of June, +under Dr. Jackson—where Colonel Stapleton was severely handled—and +another and more important one at Ballynahinch, under Henry Munro, on +the 13th, where Nugent, the district General, commanded in person. +Here, after a gallant defence, the men of Down were utterly routed; +their leader, alone and on foot, was captured some five or six miles +from the field, and executed two days afterwards before his own door at +Lisburn. He died with the utmost composure; his wife and mother looking +down, on the awful scene from the windows of his own house. + +In Munster, with the exception of a trifling skirmish between the +West-Meath yeomanry under Sir Hugh O'Reilly, with whom were the +Caithness legion, under Major Innes, and a body of 300 or 400 ill-armed +peasants, who attacked them on the 19th of June, on the road from +Clonakilty to Bandon, there was no notable attempt at insurrection. But +in Connaught, very unexpectedly, as late as the end of August, the +flame extinguished in blood in Leinster and Ulster, again blazed up for +some days with portentous brightness. The counties of Mayo, Sligo, +Roscommon and Galway had been partially organized by those fugitives +from Orange oppression in the North, who, in the years '95, '96, and +'97, had been compelled to flee for their lives into Connaught, to the +number of several thousands. They brought with the tale of their +sufferings the secret of Defenderism; they first taught the peasantry +of the West, who, safe in their isolated situation and their +overwhelming numbers, were more familiar with poverty than with +persecution, what manner of men then held sway over all the rest of the +country, and how easily it would be for Irishmen once united and backed +by France, to establish under their own green flag, both religious and +civil liberty. + +When, therefore, three French frigates cast anchor in Killalla Bay, on +the 22nd of August, they did not find the country wholly unprepared, +though far from being as ripe for revolt as they expected. These ships +had on board 1,000 men, with arms for 1,000 more, under command of +General Humbert, who had taken on himself, in the state of anarchy +which then prevailed in France, to sail from La Rochelle with this +handful of men, in aid of the insurrection. With Humbert were Mathew +Tone and Bartholomew Teeling; and immediately on his arrival he was +joined by Messrs. McDonnell, Moore, Bellew, Barrett, O'Dowd, and +O'Donnell of Mayo, Blake of Galway, Plunkett of Roscommon, and a few +other influential gentlemen of that Province—almost all Catholics. +Three days were spent at Killalla, which was easily taken, in landing +stores, enrolling recruits, and sending out parties of observation. On +the 4th, (Sunday,) Humbert entered Ballina without resistance, and on +the same night set out for Castlebar, the county town. By this time +intelligence of his landing was spread over the whole country, and both +Lord Lake and General Hutchinson had advanced to Castlebar, where they +had from 2,000 to 3,000 men under their command. The place could be +reached only by two routes from the north-west, by the Foxford road, or +a long deserted mountain road which led over the pass of Barnagee, +within sight of the town. Humbert, accustomed to the long marches and +difficult country of La Vendee, chose the unfrequented and therefore +unguarded route, and, to the consternation of the British generals, +descended through the pass of Barnagee, soon after sunrise, on the +morning of Monday, August 27th. His force consisted of 900 French +bayonets, and between 2,000 and 3,000 new recruits. The action, which +commenced at 7 o'clock, was short, sharp, and decisive; the yeomanry +and regulars broke and fled, some of them never drawing rein till they +reached Tuam, while others carried their fears and their falsehoods as +far inland as Athlone—more than sixty miles from the scene of action. +In this engagement, still remembered as "the races," the royalists +confessed to the loss, killed, wounded, or prisoners, of 18 officers, +and about 350 men, while the French commander estimated the killed +alone at 600. Fourteen British guns and five stand of colours were also +taken. A hot pursuit was continued for some distance by the native +troops under Mathew Tone, Teeling, and the Mayo officers; but Lord +Roden's famous corps of "Fox hunters" covered the retreat and checked +the pursuers at French Hill. Immediately after the battle a Provisional +Government was established at Castlebar, with Mr. Moore of Moore Hall, +as President; proclamations addressed to the inhabitants at large, +commissions to raise men, and _assignats_ payable by the future Irish +Republic, were issued in its name. + +Meanwhile the whole of the royalist forces were now in movement toward +the capital of Mayo, as they had been toward Vinegar Hill two months +before. Sir John Moore and General Hunter marched from Wexford toward +the Shannon. General Taylor, with 2,500 men, advanced from Sligo +towards Castlebar; Colonel Maxwell was ordered from Enniskillen to +assume command at Sligo; General Nugent from Lisburn occupied +Enniskillen, and the Viceroy, leaving Dublin in person, advanced +rapidly through the midland counties to Kilbeggan, and ordered Lord +Lake and General Hutchinson, with such of their command as could be +depended on, to assume the aggressive from the direction of Tuam. Thus +Humbert and his allies found themselves surrounded on all sides—their +retreat cut off by sea, for their frigates had returned to France +immediately on their landing; three thousand men against not less than +thirty thousand, with at least as many more in reserve, ready to be +called into action at a day's notice. + +The French general determined if possible to reach the mountains of +Leitrim, and open communications with Ulster, and the northern coast, +upon which he hoped soon to see succour arrive from France. With this +object he marched from Castlebar to Cooloney (35 miles), in one day; +here he sustained a check from Colonel Vereker's militia, which +necessitated a change of route; turning aside, he passed rapidly +through Dromahaine, Manor-Hamilton, and Ballintra, making for Granard, +from which accounts of a formidable popular outbreak had just reached +him. In three days and a half he had marched 110 miles, flinging half +his guns into the rivers that he crossed, lest they should fall into +the hands of his pursuers. At Ballinamuck, county Longford, on the +borders of Leitrim, he found himself fairly surrounded, on the morning +of the 8th of September; and here he prepared to make a last desperate +stand. The end could not be doubtful, the numbers against him being ten +to one; after an action of half an hour's duration, two hundred of the +French having thrown down their arms, the remainder surrendered, as +prisoners of war. For the rebels no terms were thought of, and the full +vengeance of the victors was reserved for them. Mr. Blake, who had +formerly been a British officer, was executed on the field; Mathew Tone +and Teeling were executed within the week in Dublin; Mr. Moore, +President of the Provisional Government, was sentenced to banishment by +the clemency of Lord Cornwallis, but died on shipboard; ninety of the +Longford and Kilkenny militia who had joined the French were hanged, +and the country generally given up to pillage and massacre. As an +evidence of the excessive thirst for blood, it may be mentioned that at +the re-capture of Killalla a few days later, four hundred persons were +killed, of whom fully one-half were non-combatants. + +The disorganization of all government in France in the latter half of +'98, was illustrated not only by Humbert's unauthorized adventure, but +by a still weaker demonstration under General Reay and Napper Tandy, +about the same time. With a single armed brig these daring allies made +a descent, on the 17th of September, on Rathlin Island, well equipped +with eloquent proclamations, bearing the date "first year of Irish +liberty." From the postmaster of the island they ascertained Humbert's +fate, and immediately turned the prow of their solitary ship in the +opposite direction; Reay, to rise in after times to honour and power; +Tandy, to continue in old age the dashing career of his manhood, and to +expiate in exile the crime of preferring the country of his birth to +the general centralizing policy of the empire with which he was united. +Twelve days after the combat at Ballinamuck, while Humbert and his men +were on their way through England to France, a new French fleet, under +Admiral Bompart, consisting of one 74-gun ship, "the Hoche," eight +frigates, and two smaller vessels, sailed from Brest. On board this +fleet were embarked 3,000 men under General Hardi, the remnant of the +army once menacing England. In this fleet sailed Theobold Wolfe Tone, +true to his motto, _nil desperandum_, with two or three other refugees +of less celebrity. The troops of General Hardi, however, were destined +never to land. On the 12th of October, after tossing about for nearly a +month in the German ocean and the North Atlantic, they appeared off the +coast of Donegal, and stood in for Lough Swilly. But another fleet also +was on the horizon. Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, with an equal +number of ships, but a much heavier armament, had been cruising on the +track of the French during the whole time they were at sea. After many +disappointments, the flag-ship and three of the frigates were at last +within range and the action began. Six hours' fighting laid the Hoche a +helpless log upon the water; nothing was left her but surrender; two of +the frigates shared the same fate on the same day; another was captured +on the 14th, and yet another on the 17th. The remainder of the fleet +escaped back to France. + +The French officers landed in Donegal were received with courtesy by +the neighbouring gentry, among whom was the Earl of Cavan, who +entertained them at dinner. Here it was that Sir George Hill, +son-in-law to Commissioner Beresford, an old college friend of Tone's, +identified the founder of the United Irishmen under the uniform of a +French Adjutant-General. Stepping up to his old schoolmate he addressed +him by name, which Tone instantly acknowledged, inquiring politely for +Lady Hill, and other members of Sir George's family. He was instantly +arrested, ironed, and conveyed to Dublin under a strong guard. On the +10th of November he was tried by court-martial and sentenced to be +hanged: he begged only for a soldier's death—"to be shot by a platoon +of grenadiers." This favour was denied him, and the next morning he +attempted to commit suicide. The attempt did not immediately succeed; +but one week later—on the 19th of November—he died from the results of +his self-inflicted wound, with a compliment to the attendant physician +upon his lips. Truth compels us to say he died the death of a Pagan; +but it was a Pagan of the noblest and freest type of Grecian and Roman +times. Had it occurred in ancient days, beyond the Christian era, it +would have been a death every way admirable; as it was, that fatal +final act must always stand between Wolfe Tone and the Christian people +for whom he suffered, sternly forbidding them to invoke him in their +prayers, or to uphold him as an example to the young men of their +country. So closed the memorable year 1798, on the baffled and +dispersed United Irishmen. Of the chiefs imprisoned in March and May, +Lord Edward had died of his wounds and vexation; Oliver Bond of +apoplexy; the brothers Sheares, Father Quigley, and William Michael +Byrne on the gibbet. In July, on Samuel Nelson's motion, the remaining +prisoners in Newgate, Bridewell, and Kilmainham, agreed, in order to +stop the effusion of blood, to expatriate themselves to any country not +at war with England, and to reveal the general secrets of their system, +without inculpating individuals. These terms were accepted, as the +Castle party needed their evidence to enable them to promote the +cherished scheme of legislative Union. But that evidence delivered +before the Committees of Parliament by Emmet, McNevin, and O'Conor, did +not altogether serve the purposes of government. The patriotic +prisoners made it at once a protest against, and an exposition of, the +despotic policy under which their country had been goaded into +rebellion. For their firmness they were punished by three years' +confinement in Fort George, in the Scottish Highlands, where, however, +a gallant old soldier, Colonel Stuart, endeavoured to soften the hard +realities of a prison by all the kind attentions his instructions +permitted him to show these unfortunate gentlemen. At the peace of +Amiens, (1802), they were at last allowed the melancholy privilege of +expatriation. Russell and Dowdall were permitted to return to Ireland, +where they shared the fate of Robert Emmet in 1803; O'Conor, Corbet, +Allen, Ware, and others, cast their lot in France, where they all rose +to distinction; Emmet, McNevin, Sampson, and the family of Tone were +reunited in New York, where the many changes and distractions of a +great metropolitan community have not even yet obliterated the memories +of their virtues, their talents, and their accomplishments. + +It is impossible to dismiss this celebrated group of men, whose +principles and conduct so greatly influenced their country's destiny, +without bearing explicit testimony to their heroic qualities as a +class. If ever a body of public men deserved the character of a +brotherhood of heroes, so far as disinterestedness, courage, +self-denial, truthfulness and glowing love of country constitute +heroism, these men deserved that character. The wisdom of their +conduct, and the intrinsic merit of their plans, are other questions. +As between their political system and that of Burke, Grattan and +O'Connell, there always will be, probably, among their countrymen, very +decided differences of opinion. That is but natural: but as to the +personal and political virtues of the United Irishmen there can be no +difference; the world has never seen a more sincere or more +self-sacrificing generation. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. +ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS—BEFORE THE UNION. + +"Nothing strengthens a dynasty," said the first Napoleon, "more than an +unsuccessful rebellion." The partial uprising; of the Irish people in +1798 was a rebellion of this class, and the use of such a failure to an +able and unscrupulous administration, was illustrated in the extinction +of the ancient legislature of the kingdom, before the recurrence of the +third anniversary of the insurrection. + +This project, the favourite and long-cherished design of Mr. Pitt, was +cordially approved by his principal colleagues, the Duke of Portland, +Lord Grenville, and Mr. Dundas; indeed, it may be questioned whether it +was not as much Lord Grenville's design as Pitt's, and as much George +the Third's personal project as that of any of his ministers. The old +King's Irish policy was always of the most narrow and illiberal +description. In his memorandum on the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, he +explains his views with the business-like brevity which characterized +all his communications with his ministers while he retained possession +of his faculties; he was totally opposed to Lord Fitzwilliam's +emancipation policy, which he thought adopted "in implicit obedience to +the heated imagination of Mr. Burke." To Lord Camden his instructions +were, "to support the old English interest as well as the Protestant +religion," and to Lord Cornwallis, that no further "indulgence could be +granted to Catholics," but that he should steadily pursue the object of +effecting the union of Ireland and England. + +The new Viceroy entered heartily into the views of his Sovereign. +Though unwilling to exchange his English position as a Cabinet Minister +and Master-General of Ordnance for the troubled life of a +Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he at length allowed himself to be +persuaded into the acceptance of that office, with a view mainly to +carrying the Union. He was ambitious to connect his name with that +great imperial measure, so often projected, but never formally +proposed. If he could only succeed in incorporating the Irish with the +British legislature, he declared he would feel satisfied to retire from +all other public employments; that he would look on his day as +finished, and his evening of ease and dignity fully earned. He was not +wholly unacquainted with the kingdom against which he cherished these +ulterior views; for he had been, nearly thirty years before, when he +fell under the lash of _Junius_, one of the Vice-Treasurers of Ireland. +For the rest he was a man of great information, tact, and firmness; +indefatigable in business; tolerant by temperament and conviction; but +both as a general and a politician it was his lot to be identified in +India and in Ireland with successes which might better have been +failures, and in America, with failures which were much more beneficial +to mankind than his successes. + +In his new sphere of action his two principal agents were Lord Clare +and Lord Castlereagh, both Irishmen; the Chancellor, the son of what in +that country is called a "spoiled priest," and the Secretary, the son +of an ex-volunteer, and member of Flood's Reform Convention. It is not +possible to regard the conduct of these high officials in undermining +and destroying the ancient national legislature of their own country, +in the same light as that of Lord Cornwallis, or Mr. Pitt, or Lord +Grenville. It was but natural, that as Englishmen, these ministers +should consider the empire in the first place; that they should desire +to centralize all the resources and all the authority of both Islands +in London; that to them the existence of an independent Parliament at +Dublin, with its ample control over the courts, the revenues, the +defences, and the trade of that kingdom, should appear an obstacle and +a hindrance to the unity of the imperial system. From their point of +view they were quite right, and had they pursued their end, complete +centralization, by honourable means, no stigma could attach to them +even in the eyes of Irishmen; but with Lords Clare and Castlereagh the +case was wholly different. Born in the land, deriving income as well as +existence from the soil, elected to its Parliament by the confidence of +their countrymen, attaining to posts of honour in consequence of such +election, that they should voluntarily offer their services to +establish an alien and a hostile policy on the ruins of their own +national constitution, which, with all its defects, was national, and +was corrigible; this betrayal of their own, at the dictate of another +State, will always place the names of Clare and Castlereagh on the +detested list of public traitors. Yet though in such treason, united +and identified, no two men could be more unlike in all other respects. +Lord Clare was fiery, dogmatic, and uncompromising to the last degree; +while Lord Castlereagh was stealthy, imperturbable, insidious, bland, +and adroit. The Chancellor endeavoured to carry everything with a high +hand, with a bold, defiant, confident swagger; the Secretary, on the +contrary, trusted to management, expediency, and silent tenacity of +purpose. The one had faith in violence, the other in corruption; they +were no inapt personifications of the two chief agencies by which the +union was effected—Force and Fraud. + +The Irish Parliament, which had been of necessity adjourned during the +greater part of the time the insurrection lasted, assembled within a +week of Lord Cornwallis' arrival. Both Houses voted highly loyal +addresses to the King and Lord-Lieutenant, the latter seconded in the +Commons by Charles Kendal Bushe, the college companion of Wolfe Tone! A +vote of 100,000 pounds to indemnify those who had suffered from the +rebels—subsequently increased to above 1,000,000 pounds—was passed _una +voce_; another, placing on the Irish establishment certain English +militia regiments, passed with equal promptitude. In July, five +consecutive acts—a complete code of penalties and proscription—were +introduced, and, after various debates and delays, received the royal +sanction on the 6th of October, the last day of the session of 1798. +These acts were: 1. The Amnesty Act, the exceptions to which were so +numerous "that few of those who took any active part in the rebellion," +were, according to the Cornwallis' correspondence, "benefited by it." +2. An Act of Indemnity, by which all magistrates who had "exercised a +vigour beyond the law" against the rebels, were protected from the +legal consequences of such acts. 3. An act for attainting Lord Edward +Fitzgerald, Mr. Harvey, and Mr. Grogan, against which Curran, taking +"his instructions from the grave," pleaded at the bar of the House of +Lords, but pleaded in vain. (This act was finally reversed by the +Imperial Parliament in 1819.) 4. An act forbidding communication +between persons in Ireland and those enumerated in the Banishment Act, +and making the return to Ireland, after sentence of banishment by a +court-martial, a transportable felony. 5. An act to compel fifty-one +persons therein named to surrender before 1st of December, 1798, under +pain of high treason. Among the fifty-one were the principal refugees +at Paris and Hamburg: Tone, Lewines, Tandy, Deane Swift, Major +Plunkett, Anthony McCann, Harvey Morres, etc. On the same day in which +the session terminated, and the royal sanction was given to these acts, +the name of Henry Grattan was, a significant coincidence, formally +struck, by the King's commands, from the roll of the Irish Privy +Council! + +This legislation of the session of 1798, was fatal to the Irish +Parliament. The partisans of the Union, who had used the rebellion to +discredit the constitution, now used the Parliament to discredit +itself. Under the influence of a fierce reactionary spirit, when all +merciful and moderate councils were denounced as treasonable, it was +not difficult to procure the passage of sweeping measures of +proscription. But with their passage vanished the former popularity of +the domestic legislature. And what followed? The constitution of '82 +could only be upheld in the hearts of the people; and, with all its +defects, it had been popular before the sudden spread of French +revolutionary notions distracted and dissipated the public opinion +which had grown up within the era of independence. To make the once +cherished authority, which liberated trade in '79, and half emancipated +the Catholics in '93, the last executioner of the vengeance of the +Castle against the people, was to place a gulf between it and the +affections of that people in the day of trial. To make the +anti-unionists in Parliament, such as the Speaker, Sir Lawrence +Parsons, Plunkett, Ponsonby and Bushe, personally responsible for this +vindictive code, was to disarm them of the power, and almost of the +right, to call on the people whom they turned over, bound hand and +foot, to the mercy of the minister in '98, to aid them against the +machinations of that same minister in '99. The last months of the year +were marked besides by events already referred to, and by negotiations +incessantly carried on, both in England and Ireland, in favour of the +Union. Members of both Houses were personally courted and canvassed by +the Prime Minister, the Secretaries of State, the Viceroy and the Irish +Secretary. Titles, pensions and offices were freely promised. Vast sums +of secret service money, afterwards added as a charge to the public +debt of Ireland, were remitted from Whitehall. An army of pamphleteers, +marshalled by Under-Secretary Cooke, and confidentially directed by the +able but anti-national Bishop of Meath, (Dr. O'Beirne,) and by Lord +Castlereagh personally, plied their pens in favour of "the +consolidation of the empire." The Lord Chancellor, the Chief Secretary +and Mr. Beresford, made journeys to England, to assist the Prime +Minister with their local information, and to receive his imperial +confidence in return. The Orangemen were neutralized by securing a +majority of their leaders; the Catholics, by the establishment of +familiar communication with the bishops. The Viceroy complimented Dr. +Troy at Dublin; the Duke of Portland lavished personal attentions on +Dr. Moylan, in England. The Protestant clergy were satisfied with the +assurance that the maintenance of their establishment would be made a +fundamental article of the Union, while the Catholic bishops were given +to understand that complete Emancipation would be one of the first +measures submitted to the Imperial Parliament. The oligarchy were to be +indemnified for their boroughs, while the advocates of Reform were +shown how hopeless it was to expect a House constituted of _their_ +nominees, ever to enlarge or amend its own exclusive constitution. Thus +for every description of people a particular set of appeals and +arguments was found, and for those who discarded the affectation of +reasoning on the surrender of their national existence, there were the +more convincing arguments of titles, employments, and direct pecuniary +purchase. At the close of the year of the rebellion, Lord Cornwallis +was able to report to Mr. Pitt that the prospects of carrying the +measure were better than could have been expected, and on this report +he was authorized to open the matter formally to Parliament in his +speech at the opening of the following session. + +On the 22nd of January, 1799, the Irish legislature met under +circumstances of great interest and excitement. The city of Dublin, +always keenly alive to its metropolitan interests, sent its eager +thousands by every avenue towards College Green. The Viceroy went down +to the Houses with a more than ordinary guard, and being seated on the +throne in the House of Lords, the Commons were summoned to the bar. The +House was considered a full one, 217 members being present. The +viceregal speech congratulated both Houses on the suppression of the +late rebellion, on the defeat of Bompart's squadron, and the recent +French victories of Lord Nelson; then came, amid profound expectation, +this concluding sentence:—"The unremitting industry," said the Viceroy, +"with which our enemies persevere in their avowed design of +endeavouring to effect a separation of this kingdom from Great Britain, +must have engaged your attention, and his Majesty commands me to +express his anxious hope that this consideration, joined to the +sentiment of mutual affection and common interest, may dispose the +Parliaments in both kingdoms to provide the most effectual means of +maintaining and improving a connection essential to their common +security, and of consolidating, as far as possible, into one firm and +lasting fabric, the strength, the power, and the resources of the +British empire." On the paragraph of the address, re-echoing this +sentiment, which was carried by a large majority in the Lords, a debate +ensued in the Commons, which lasted till one o'clock of the following +day, above twenty consecutive hours. Against the suggestion of a Union +spoke Ponsonby, Parsons, Fitzgerald, Barrington, Plunkett, Lee, +O'Donnell and Bushe; in its favour, Lord Castlereagh, the Knight of +Kerry, Corry, Fox, Osborne, Duigenan, and some other members little +known. The galleries and lobbies were crowded all night by the first +people of the city, of both sexes, and when the division was being +taken, the most intense anxiety was manifested, within doors and +without. At length the tellers made their report to the Speaker, +himself an ardent anti-Unionist, and it was announced that the numbers +were—"for the address 105, for the amendment 106," so the paragraph in +favour of "consolidating the empire" was lost by one vote! The +remainder of the address, tainted with the association of the expunged +paragraph, was barely carried by 107 to 105. Mr. Ponsonby had attempted +to follow his victory by a solemn pledge binding the majority never +again to entertain the question, but to this several members objected, +and the motion was withdrawn. The ministry found some consolation in +this withdrawal, which they characterized as "a retreat after a +victory," but to the public at large, unused to place much stress on +the minor tactics of debate, nothing appeared but the broad, general +fact, that the first overture for a Union had been rejected. It was a +day of immense rejoicing in Dublin; the leading anti-Unionists were +escorted in triumph to their homes, while the Unionists were protected +by strong military escorts from the popular indignation. At night the +city was illuminated, and the patrols were doubled as a protection to +the obnoxious minority. + +Mr. Ponsonby's amendment, affirmed by the House of Commons, was in +these words:—"That the House would be ready to enter into any measure +short of surrendering their free, resident and independent legislature +as established in 1782." This was the _ultimatum_ of the great party +which rallied in January, 1799, to the defence of the established +constitution of their country. The arguments with which they sustained +their position were few, bold, and intelligible to every capacity. +There was the argument from Ireland's geographical situation, and the +policy incident to it; the historical argument; the argument for a +resident gentry occupied and retained in the country by their public +duties; the commercial argument; the revenue argument; but above all, +the argument of the incompetency of Parliament to put an end to its own +existence. "Yourselves," exclaimed the eloquent Plunkett, "you may +extinguish, but Parliament you cannot extinguish. It is enthroned in +the hearts of the people—it is enshrined in the sanctuary of the +constitution—it is as immortal as the island that protects it. As well +might the frantic suicide imagine that the act which destroys his +miserable body should also extinguish his eternal soul. Again, +therefore, I warn you. Do not dare to lay your hands on the +Constitution—it is above your powers!" + +These arguments were combated on the grounds that the islands were +already united under one crown—that that species of union was uncertain +and precarious—that the Irish Parliament was never in reality a +national legislature; that it existed only as an instrument of class +legislation; that the Union would benefit Ireland materially as it had +benefited Scotland; that she would come in for a full share of imperial +honours, expenditure and trade; that such a Union would discourage all +future hostile attempts by France or any other foreign power against +the connection, and other similar arguments. But the division which +followed the first introduction of the subject showed clearly to the +Unionists that they could not hope to succeed with the House of Commons +as then constituted; that more time and more preparation were +necessary. Accordingly, Lord Castlereagh was authorized in March, to +state formally in his place, that it was not the intention of the +government to bring up the question again during that session; an +announcement which was hailed with a new outburst of rejoicing in the +city. + +But those who imagined the measure was abandoned were sadly deceived. +Steps were immediately taken by the Castle to deplete the House of its +majority, and to supply their places before another session with forty +or fifty new members, who would be entirely at the beck of the Chief +Secretary. With this view, thirty-two new county judgeships were +created; a great number of additional inspectorships and commissioners +were also placed at the Minister's disposal; thirteen members had +peerages for themselves or for their wives, with remainder to their +children, and nineteen others were presented to various lucrative +offices. The "Escheatorship of Munster"—a sort of Chiltern Hundreds +office—was accepted by those who agreed to withdraw from opposition, +for such considerations, but who could not be got to reverse their +votes. By these means, and a lavish expenditure of secret service +money, it was hoped that Mr. Pitt's stipulated majority of "not less +than fifty" could be secured during the year. + +The other events of the session of '99, though interesting in +themselves, are of little importance compared to the union debates. In +the English Parliament, which met on the same day as the Irish, a +paragraph identical with that employed by Lord Cornwallis in +introducing the subject of the Union, was inserted in the King's +speech. To this paragraph, repeated in the address, an amendment was +moved by the celebrated Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and resisted with an +eloquence scarcely inferior to his own, by his former _protege_ and +countryman, George Canning. Canning, like Sheridan, had sprung from a +line of Irish literateurs and actors; he had much of the wit and genius +of his illustrious friend, with more worldly wisdom, and a higher +sentiment of personal pride. In very early life, distinguished by great +oratorical talents, he had deliberately attached himself to Mr. Pitt, +while Sheridan remained steadfast to the last, in the ranks of the Whig +or liberal party. For the land of their ancestors both had, at bottom, +very warm, good wishes; but Canning looked down upon her politics from +the heights of empire, while Sheridan felt for her honour and her +interests with the affection of an expatriated son. We can well credit +his statement to Grattan, years afterwards, when referring to his +persistent opposition to the Union, he said, he would "have waded in +blood to his knees," to preserve the Constitution of Ireland. In taking +this course he had with him a few eminent friends: General Fitzpatrick, +the former Irish Secretary, Mr. Tierney, Mr. Hobhouse, Dr. Lawrence, +the executor of Edmund Burke, and Mr., afterwards Earl Grey. Throughout +the entire discussion these just minded Englishmen stood boldly forward +for the rights of Ireland, and this highly honourable conduct was long +remembered as one of Ireland's real obligations to the Whig party. + +The resolutions intended to serve as "the basis of union," were +introduced by Mr. Pitt, on the 21st of January, and after another +powerful speech in opposition, from Mr. Grey, who was ably sustained by +Mr. Sheridan, Dr. Lawrence, and some twenty others, were put and +carried. The following are the resolutions:— + +1st. "In order to promote and secure the essential interests of Great +Britain and Ireland, and to consolidate the strength, power, and +resources of the British empire, it will be advisable to concur in such +measures as may tend to unite the two kingdoms of Great Britain and +Ireland into one kingdom, in such manner, and in such terms and +conditions as may be established by acts of the respective Parliaments +of his Majesty's said kingdoms. + +2nd. "It would be fit to propose as the first article, to serve as a +basis of the said union, that the said kingdoms of Great Britain and +Ireland shall, on a day to be agreed upon, be united into one kingdom, +by the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. + +3rd. "For the same purpose it would be fit to propose, that the +succession to the monarchy and the imperial crown of the said United +Kingdom, shall continue limited and settled, in the same manner as the +imperial crown of the said Great Britain and Ireland now stands limited +and settled, according to the existing law, and to the terms of the +union between England and Scotland. + +4th. "For the same purpose it would be fit to propose that the said +United Kingdom be represented in one and the same Parliament, to be +styled the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and +Ireland; and that such a number of Lords, spiritual and temporal, and +such a number of members of the House of Commons, as shall be hereafter +agreed upon by the acts of the respective Parliaments as aforesaid, +shall sit and vote in the said Parliament on the part of Ireland, and +shall be summoned, chosen, and returned, in such manner as shall be +fixed by an act of the Parliament of Ireland previous to the said +union; and that every member hereafter to sit and vote in the said +Parliament of the United Kingdom shall, until the said Parliament shall +otherwise provide, take, and subscribe the said oaths, and make the +same declarations as are required by law to be taken, subscribed, and +made by the members of the Parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland. + +5th. "For the same purpose it would be fit to propose, that the +Churches of England and Ireland, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, +and government thereof, shall be preserved as now by law established. + +6th. "For the same purpose it would be fit to propose, that his +Majesty's subjects in Ireland shall at all times be entitled to the +same privileges, and be on the same footing in respect of trade and +navigation in all ports and places belonging to Great Britain, and in +all cases with respect to which treaties shall be made by his Majesty, +his heirs, or successors, with any foreign power, as his Majesty's +subjects in Great Britain; that no duty shall be imposed on the import +or export between Great Britain and Ireland, of any articles now duty +free, and that on other articles there shall be established, for a time +to be limited, such a moderate rate of equal duties as shall, previous +to the Union, be agreed upon and approved by the respective +Parliaments, subject, after the expiration of such limited time, to be +diminished equally with respect to both kingdoms, but in no case to be +increased; that all articles which may at any time hereafter be +imported into Great Britain from foreign parts shall be importable +through either kingdom into the other, subject to the like duties and +regulations, as if the same were imported directly from foreign parts: +that where any articles, the growth, produce, or manufacture of either +kingdom, are subject to an internal duty in one kingdom, such +counter-vailing duties (over and above any duties on import to be fixed +as aforesaid) shall be imposed as shall be necessary to prevent any +inequality in that respect; and that all matters of trade and commerce, +other than the foregoing, and than such others as may before the Union +be specially agreed upon for the due encouragement of the agriculture +and manufactures of the respective kingdoms, shall remain to be +regulated from time to time by the United Parliament. + +7th. "For the like purpose it would be fit to propose, that the charge +arising from the payment of the interests or sinking fund for the +reduction of the principal of the debt incurred in either kingdom +before the Union, shall continue to be separately defrayed by Great +Britain and Ireland respectively; that, for a number of years to be +limited, the future ordinary expenses of the United Kingdom, in peace +or war, shall be defrayed by Great Britain and Ireland jointly, +according to such proportions as shall be established by the respective +Parliaments previous to the Union; and that, after the expiration of +the time to be so limited, the proportion shall not be liable to be +varied, except according to such rates and principles, as shall be in +like manner agreed upon previous to the Union. + +8th. "For the like purpose, that all laws in force at the time of the +Union, and all the courts of civil or ecclesiastical jurisdiction +within the respective kingdoms, shall remain as now by law established +within the same, subject only to such alterations or regulations as may +from time to time as circumstances may appear to the Parliament of the +United Kingdom to require." + +Mr. Pitt, on the passage of these resolutions, proposed an address +stating that the Commons had proceeded with the utmost attention to the +consideration of the important objects recommended in the royal +message, that they entertained a firm persuasion of the probable +benefits of a complete and entire Union between Great Britain and +Ireland, founded on equal and liberal principles; that they were +therefore induced to lay before his Majesty such propositions as +appeared to them to be best calculated to form the basis of such a +settlement, leaving it to his wisdom in due time and in proper manner, +to communicate them to the Lords and Commons of Ireland, with whom they +would be at all times ready to concur in all such measures as might be +found most conducive to the accomplishment of that great and salutary +work. + +On the 19th of March, Lord Grenville introduced the same resolutions in +the Lords, where they were passed after a spirited opposition speech +from Lord Holland, and the basis, so far as the King, Lords, and +Commons of England were concerned, was laid. In proroguing the Irish +Houses on the 1st of June, Lord Cornwallis alluded to these +resolutions, and the anxiety of the King, as the common father of his +people, to see both kingdoms united in the enjoyment of the blessings +of a free constitution. + +This prorogation was originally till August, but in August it was +extended till January, 1800. In this long interval of eight months, the +two great parties, the Unionists and the anti-Unionists were +incessantly employed, through the press, in social intercourse, in the +grand jury room, in county and city meetings, by correspondence, +petitions, addresses, each pushing forward its own views with all the +zeal and warmth of men who felt that on one side they were labouring +for the country, on the other for the empire. Two incidents of this +interval were deeply felt in the patriot ranks, the death at an +advanced age of the venerable Charlemont, the best member of his order +Ireland had ever known, and the return to the kingdom and to public +life of Lord Charlemont's early friend and _protege_, Henry Grattan. He +had spent above a year in England, chiefly in Wales and the Isle of +Wight. His health all this time had been wretched; his spirits low and +despondent, and serious fears were at some moments entertained for his +life. He had been forbidden to read or write, or to hear the exciting +news of the day. Soothed and cheered by that admirable woman, whom +Providence had given him, he passed the crisis, but he returned to +breathe his native air, greatly enfeebled in body, and sorely afflicted +in mind. The charge of theatrical affectation of illness has been +brought against Grattan by the Unionists,—against Grattan who, as to +his personal habits, was simplicity itself! It is a charge undeserving +of serious contradiction. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. +LAST SESSION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT—THE LEGISLATIVE UNION OF GREAT +BRITAIN AND IRELAND. + +When the Irish Parliament met for the last time, on the 15th of +January, 1800, the position of the Union question stood thus: 27 new +Peers had been added to the House of Lords, where the Castle might +therefore reckon with safety on a majority of three to one. Of the +Lords spiritual, only Dr. Marlay of Waterford, and Dr. Dixon of Down +and Conor, had the courage to side with their country against their +order. In the Commons there was an infusion of some 50 new borough +members, many of them general officers, such as Needham, and Pakenham, +all of them nominees of the Castle, except Mr. Saurin, returned for +Blessington, and Mr. Grattan, at the last moment, for Wicklow. The +great constitutional body of the bar had, at a general meeting, the +previous December, declared against the measure by 162 to 33. Another +powerful body, the bankers, had petitioned against it, in the interest +of the public credit. The Catholic bishops, in their annual meeting, +had taken up a position of neutrality as a body, but under the artful +management of Lord Castlereagh, the Archbishops of Dublin and Tuam, +with the Bishop of Cork, and some others, were actively employed in +counteracting anti-Union movements among the people. Although the vast +majority of that people had too much reason to be disgusted and +discontented with the legislation of the previous three years, above +700,000 of them petitioned against the measure, while all the +signatures which could be obtained in its favour, by the use of every +means at the command of the Castle, did not much exceed 7,000. + +The Houses were opened on the 15th of January. The Viceroy not going +down, his message was read in the Lords, by the Chancellor, and in the +Commons, by the Chief Secretary. It did not directly refer to the basis +laid down in England, nor to the subject matter itself; but the leaders +of the Castle party in both Houses, took care to supply the deficiency. +In the Lords, proxies included, Lord Clare had 75 to 26 for his Union +address: in the Commons, Lord Castlereagh congratulated the country on +the improvement which had taken place in public opinion, since the +former session. He briefly sketched his plan of Union, which, while +embracing the main propositions of Mr. Pitt, secured the Church +establishment, bid high for the commercial interests, hinted darkly of +emancipation to the Catholics, and gave the proprietors of boroughs to +understand that their interest in those convenient constituencies would +be capitalized, and a good round sum given to buy out their perpetual +patronage. In amendment to the address, Sir Lawrence Parsons moved, +seconded by Mr. Savage of Down, that the House would maintain _intact_ +the Constitution of '82, and the debate proceeded on this motion. +Ponsonby replied to Castlereagh; Plunkett and Bushe were answered by +the future judges, St. George Daly and Luke Fox; Toler contributed his +farce, and Dr. Duigenan his fanaticism. Through the long hours of the +winter's night the eloquent war was vigorously maintained. One who was +himself a distinguished actor in the struggle, (Sir Jonah Barrington,) +has thus described it: "Every mind," he says, "was at its stretch, +every talent was in its vigour: it was a momentous trial; and never was +so general and so deep a sensation felt in any country. Numerous +British noblemen and commoners were present at that and the succeeding +debate, and they expressed opinions of Irish eloquence which they had +never before conceived, nor ever after had an opportunity of +appreciating. Every man on that night seemed to be inspired by the +subject. Speeches more replete with talent and energy, on both sides, +never were heard in the Irish Senate; it was a vital subject. The +sublime, the eloquent, the figurative orator, the plain, the connected, +the metaphysical reasoner, the classical, the learned, and the solemn +declaimer, in a succession of speeches so full of energy and +enthusiasm, so interesting in their nature, so important in their +consequence, created a variety of sensations even in the bosom of a +stranger, and could scarcely fail of exciting some sympathy with a +nation which was doomed to close for ever that school of eloquence +which had so long given character and celebrity to Irish talent." + +At the early dawn, a special messenger from Wicklow, just arrived in +town, roused Henry Grattan from his bed. He had been elected the +previous night for the borough of Wicklow, (which cost him 2,400 pounds +sterling), and this was the bearer of the returning officer's +certificate. His friends, weak and feeble as he was, wished him to go +down to the House, and his heroic wife seconded their appeals. It was +seven o'clock in the morning of the 16th when he reached College Green, +the scene of his first triumphs twenty years before. Mr. Egan, one of +the staunchest anti-Unionists, was at the moment, on some rumour, +probably, of his approach, apostrophising warmly the father of the +Constitution of '82, when that striking apparition appeared at the bar. +Worn and emaciated beyond description, he appeared leaning on two of +his friends, Arthur Moore and W. B. Ponsonby. He wore his volunteer +uniform, blue with red facings, and advanced to the table, where he +removed his cocked hat, bowed to the Speaker, and took the oaths. After +Mr. Egan had concluded, he begged permission from his seat beside +Plunkett, to address the House sitting, which was granted, and then in +a discourse of two hours' duration, full of his ancient fire and +vigour, he asserted once again, by the divine right of intellect, his +title to be considered the first Commoner of Ireland. Gifted men were +not rare in that assembly; but the inspiration of the heart, the +uncontrollable utterance of a supreme spirit, not less than the +extraordinary faculty of condensation, in which, perhaps, he has never +had a superior in our language, gave the Grattan of 1800 the same +pre-eminence among his cotemporaries, that was conceded to the Grattan +of 1782. After eighteen hours' discussion the division was taken, when +the result of the long recess was clearly seen; for the amendment there +appeared 96, for the address 138 members. The Union majority, +therefore, was 42. It was apparent from that moment that the +representation of the people in Parliament had been effectually +corrupted; that that assembly was no longer the safeguard of the +liberties of the people. Other ministerial majorities confirmed this +impression. A measure to enable 10,000 of the Irish militia to enter +the regular army, and to substitute English militia in their stead, +followed; an inquiry into outrages committed by the sheriff and +military in King's county, was voted down; a similar motion somewhat +later, in relation to officials in Tipperary met the same fate. On the +5th of February, a formal message proposing a basis of Union was +received from his Excellency, and debated for twenty consecutive +hours—from 4 o'clock of one day, till 12 of the next. Grattan, +Plunkett, Parnell, Ponsonby, Saurin, were, as always, eloquent and +able, but again the division told for the minister, 160 to 117—majority +43. On the 17th of February, the House went into Committee on the +proposed articles of Union, and the Speaker (John Foster) being now on +the floor, addressed the House with great ability in review of Mr. +Pitt's recent Union speech, which he designated "a paltry production." +But again, a majority mustered, at the nod of the minister, 161 to +140—a few not fully committed showing some last faint spark of +independence. It was on this occasion that Mr. Corry, Chancellor of the +Exchequer, member for Newry, made for the third or fourth time that +session, an attack on Grattan, which brought out, on the instant, that +famous "philippic against Corry," unequalled in our language, for its +well-suppressed passion, and finely condensed denunciation. A duel +followed, as soon as there was sufficient light; the Chancellor was +wounded, after which the Castlereagh tactics of "fighting down the +opposition," received an immediate and lasting check. + +Throughout the months of February and March, with an occasional +adjournment, the Constitutional battle was fought on every point +permitted by the forms of the House. On the 25th of March, the +Committee, after another powerful speech from the Speaker, finally +reported the resolutions which were passed by 154 to 107—a majority of +47. The Houses then adjourned for six weeks, to allow time for +corresponding action to be taken in England. There was little +difficulty in carrying the measure. In the Upper House, Lords Derby, +Holland, and King only opposed it; in the Lower, Sheridan, Tierney, +Grey, and Lawrence mustered on a division, 30 votes against Pitt's 206. +On the 21st of May, in the Irish Commons, Lord Castlereagh obtained +leave to bring in the Union Bill by 160 to 100; on the 7th of June the +final passage of the measure was effected. That closing scene has been +often described, but never so graphically, as by the diamond pen of +Jonah Barrington. + +"The galleries were full, but the change was lamentable. They were no +longer crowded with those who had been accustomed to witness the +eloquence and to animate the debates of that devoted assembly. A +monotonous and melancholy murmur ran through the benches; scarcely a +word was exchanged amongst the members; nobody seemed at ease; no +cheerfulness was apparent; and the ordinary business, for a short time, +proceeded in the usual manner. + +"At length, the expected moment arrived: the order of the day for the +third reading of the bill for a 'legislative union between Great +Britain and Ireland' was moved by Lord Castlereagh. Unvaried, tame, +cold-blooded, the words seemed frozen as they issued from his lips; +and, as if a simple citizen of the world, he seemed to have no +sensation on the subject. + +"At that moment he had no country, no God, but his ambition. He made +his motion, and resumed his seat, with the utmost composure and +indifference. + +"Confused murmurs again ran through the House. It was visibly affected. +Every character, in a moment, seemed involuntarily rushing to its +index—some pale, some flushed, some agitated—there were few +countenances to which the heart did not despatch some messenger. +Several members withdrew before the question could be repeated, and an +awful, momentary silence succeeded their departure. The Speaker rose +slowly from that chair which had been the proud source of his honours +and of his high character. For a moment he resumed his seat, but the +strength of his mind sustained him in his duty, though his struggle was +apparent. With that dignity which never failed to signalize his +official actions, he held up the bill for a moment in silence. He +looked steadily around him on the last agony of the expiring +Parliament. He at length repeated, in an emphatic tone, 'As many as are +of opinion that THIS BILL do pass, say _ay_! The affirmative was +languid, but indisputable. Another momentary pause ensued. Again his +lips seemed to decline their office. At length, with an eye averted +from the object he hated, he proclaimed, with a subdued voice, '_The, +AYES have it_.' The fatal sentence was now pronounced. For an instant +he stood statue-like; then indignantly, and with disgust, flung the +bill upon the table, and sank into his chair with an exhausted spirit. +An independent country was thus degraded into a province. Ireland, as a +nation, was extinguished." + +The final division in the Commons was 153 to 88, nearly 60 members +absenting themselves, and in the Lords, 76 to 17. In England all the +stages were passed in July, and on the 2nd of August, the anniversary +of the King's accession, the royal assent was given to the twofold +legislation, which declared the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland +one and inseparable! + +By the provisions of this statute, compact, or treaty, the Sovereignty +of the United Kingdom was to follow the order of the Act of Succession; +the Irish peerage was to be reduced by the filling of one vacancy for +every three deaths, to the number of one hundred; from among these, +twenty-eight representative Peers were to be elected for life, and four +spiritual Lords to sit in succession. The number of Irish +representatives in the Imperial Parliament was fixed at one hundred +(increased to one hundred and five); the churches of England and +Ireland were united like the kingdoms, and declared to be one in +doctrine and discipline. The debt of Ireland, which was less than +4,000,000 pounds in 1797, increased to 14,000,000 pounds in '99, and +had risen to nearly 17,000,000 pounds in 1801, was to be alone +chargeable to Ireland, whose proportionate share of general taxation +was then estimated at 2-17ths of that of the United Kingdom. The Courts +of Law, the Privy Council, and the Viceroyalty, were to remain at +Dublin, the cenotaph and the shadows of departed nationality. + +On the 1st day of January, 1801, in accordance with this great +Constitutional change, a new imperial standard was run up on London +Tower, Edinburgh Castle, and Dublin Castle. It was formed of the three +crosses of St. Patrick, Saint Andrew, and Saint George, and is that +popularly known to us as "the Union Jack." The _fleur de lis_, and the +word "France," were struck from the royal title, which was settled, by +proclamation, to consist henceforth of the words _Dei Gratia, +Britanniarum Rex, Fidei Defensor_. + +The foul means by which this counter revolution was accomplished, have, +perhaps, been already sufficiently indicated. It may be necessary, +however, in order to account for the continued hostility of the Irish +people to the measure, after more than sixty years' experience of its +results, to recapitulate them very briefly. Of all who voted for the +Union, in both Houses, it was said that only six or seven were known to +have done so on conviction. Great borough proprietors, like Lord Ely +and Lord Shannon, received as much as 45,000 pounds sterling in +"compensation" for their loss of patronage; while proprietors of single +seats received 15,000 pounds. That the majority was avowedly purchased, +in both Houses, is no longer matter of inference, nay, that some of +them were purchased twice over is now well known. Lord Carysfort, an +active partisan of the measure, writing in February, 1800, to his +friend the Marquis of Buckingham, frankly says: "The majority, which +has been bought at an enormous price, must be bought over again, +perhaps more than once, before all the details can be gone through." +His lordship himself, and the order to which he belonged, and those who +aspired to enter it, were, it must be added, among the most insatiable +of these purchased supporters. The Dublin _Gazette_ for July, 1800, +announced not less than sixteen new peerages, and the same publication +for the last week of the year, contained a fresh list of twenty-six +others. Forty-two creations in six months was a stretch of prerogative +far beyond the most arbitrary of the Stuarts or Tudors, and forms one, +not of the least unanswerable evidences, of the utterly corrupt +considerations which secured the support of the Irish majority in both +Houses. + +It was impossible that a people like the Irish, disinterested and +unselfish to a fault, should ever come to respect a compact brought +about by such means and influences as these. Had, however, the Union, +vile as were the means by which it was accomplished, proved to the real +benefit of the country—had equal civil and religious rights been freely +and at once extended to the people of the lesser kingdom—there is no +reason to doubt that the measure would have become popular in time, and +the vices of the old system be better remembered than its benefits, +real or imaginary. But the Union was never utilized for Ireland; it +proved in reality what Samuel Johnson had predicted, when spoken of in +his day: "Do not unite with us, sir," said the gruff old moralist to an +Irish acquaintance; "it would be the union of the shark with his prey; +we should unite with you only to destroy you." + +In glancing backward over the long political connexion of Ireland and +England, we mark four great epochs. The Anglo-Norman invasion in 1169; +the statute of Kilkenny decreeing eternal separation between the races, +"the English pale" and "the Irish enemy," 1367; the Union of the +Crowns, in 1541, and the Legislative Union, in 1801. One more cardinal +event remains to be recorded—the Emancipation of the Catholics, in +1829. + + + +BOOK XII. +FROM THE UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND TO THE EMANCIPATION OF THE +CATHOLICS. + + + +CHAPTER I. +AFTER THE UNION—DEATH OF LORD CLARE—ROBERT EMMET'S EMEUTE. + +The plan of this brief compendium of Irish history obliges us to sketch +for some years farther on, the political and religious annals of the +Irish people. Having described in what manner their distinctive +political nationality was at length lost, it only remains to show how +their religious liberties were finally recovered. + +The first striking effect of the Union was to introduce Catholic +Emancipation into the category of imperial difficulties, and to assign +it the very first place on the list. By a singular retribution, the +Pitt administration with its 200 of a House of Commons majority, its +absolute control of the Lords, and its seventeen years' prescription in +its favour, fell upon this very question, after they had used it to +carry the Union, within a few weeks of the consummation of that Union. +The cause of this crisis was the invincible obstinacy of the King, who +had taken into his head, at the time of Lord Fitzwilliam's recall from +Ireland, that his coronation oath bound him in conscience to resist the +Catholic claims. The suggestion of this obstacle was originally Lord +Clare's; and though Lord Kenyon and Lord Stowell had declared it +unfounded in law, Lord Loughborough and Lord Eldon were unfortunately +of a different opinion. With George III. the idea became a monomaniac +certainty, and there is no reason to doubt that he would have preferred +abdication to its abandonment. + +The King was not for several months aware how far his Prime Minister +had gone on the Catholic question in Ireland. But those who were weary +of Pitt's ascendancy, were, of course, interested in giving him this +important information. The minister himself, wrapped in his austere +self-reliance, did not volunteer explanations even to his Sovereign, +and the King broke silence very unexpectedly, a few days after the +first meeting of the Imperial Parliament (January 22nd, 1801). Stepping +up to Mr. Dundas at the levee, he began in his usual manner, "What's +this? what's this? this, that this young Lord (Castlereagh) has brought +over from Ireland to throw at my head? The most Jacobinical thing I +ever heard of! Any man who proposes such a thing is my personal enemy." +Mr. Dundas replied respectfully but firmly, and immediately +communicated the conversation to Mr. Pitt. The King's remarks had been +overheard by the bystanders, so that either the minister or the +Sovereign had now to give way. Pitt, at first, was resolute; the King +then offered to impose silence on himself as regarded the whole +subject, provided Mr. Pitt would agree to do likewise, but the haughty +minister refused, and tendered his resignation. On the 5th of February, +within five weeks of the consummation of the Union, this tender was +most reluctantly and regretfully accepted. Lord Grenville, Mr. Dundas, +and others of his principal colleagues went out of office with him; +Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh following their example. Of the +new Cabinet, Addington, the Speaker, was Premier, with Lord Hardwicke +as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. By the enemies of Pitt this was looked +upon as a mere administration _ad interim_; as a concerted arrangement +to enable him to evade an unfavourable peace—that of Amiens—which he +saw coming; but it is only fair to say, that the private letters of the +period, since published, do not sanction any such imputation. It is, +however, to be observed, _per contra_, that three weeks after his +formal resignation, he had no hesitation in assuring the King, who had +just recovered from one of his attacks brought on by this crisis, that +he would never again urge the Catholic claims on his Majesty's notice. +On this understanding he returned to office in the spring of 1804; to +this compact he adhered till his death, in January, 1806. + +In Ireland, the events immediately consequent upon the Union, were such +as might have been expected. Many of those who had been instrumental in +carrying it, were disappointed and discontented with their new +situation in the empire. Of these, the most conspicuous and the least +to be pitied, was Lord Clare. That haughty, domineering spirit, +accustomed to dictate with almost absolute power to the Privy +Counsellors and peerage of Ireland, experienced nothing but +mortification in the Imperial House of Lords. The part he hoped to play +on that wider stage he found impossible to assume; he confronted there +in the aged Thurlow and the astute Loughborough, law lords as absolute +as himself, who soon made him conscious that, though a main agent of +the Union, he was only a stranger in the united legislature. The Duke +of Bedford reminded him that "the Union had not transferred his +dictatorial powers to the Imperial Parliament;" other noble Lords were +hardly less severe. Pitt was cold, and Grenville ceremonious; and in +the arrangements of the Addington ministry he was not even consulted. +He returned to Ireland before the first year of the Union closed, in a +state of mind and temper which preyed upon his health. Before the +second session of the Imperial Parliament assembled, he had been borne +to the grave amid the revilings and hootings of the multitude. Dublin, +true to its ancient disposition, which led the townsfolk of the twelfth +century to bury the ancestor of Dermid McMurrogh with the carcass of a +dog, filled the grave of the once splendid Lord Chancellor with every +description of garbage. + +On the other hand, Lord Castlereagh, younger, suppler, and more +accommodating to English prejudices, rose from one Cabinet office to +another, until at length, in fifteen years from the Union, he directed +the destinies of the Empire, as absolutely, as he had moulded the fate +of Ireland. To Castlereagh and the Wellesley family, the Union was in +truth, an era of honour and advancement. The sons of the spendthrift +amateur, Lord Mornington, were reserved to rule India, and lead the +armies of Europe; while the son of Flood's colleague in the Reform +convention of 1783, was destined to give law to Christendom, at the +Congress of Vienna. + +A career very different in all respects from those just mentioned, +closed in the second year of Dublin's widowhood as a metropolis. It was +the career of a young man of four-and-twenty, who snatched at immortal +fame and obtained it, in the very agony of a public, but not for him, a +shameful death. This was Robert, youngest brother of Thomas Addis +Emmet, whose _emeute_ of 1803 would long since have sunk to the level +of other city riots, but for the matchless dying speech of which it was +the prelude and the occasion. This young gentleman was in his 20th year +when expelled with nineteen others from Trinity College, in 1798, by +order of the visitors, Lord Clare and Dr. Duigenan. His reputation as a +scholar and debater was already established within the college walls, +and the highest expectations were naturally entertained of him, by his +friends. One of his early college companions—Thomas Moore—who lived to +know all the leading men of his age, declares that of all he had ever +known, he would place among "the highest of the few" who combined in +"the greatest degree pure moral worth with intellectual power"—Robert +Emmet. After the expatriation of his brother, young Emmet visited him +at Fort-George, and proceeded from thence to the Continent. During the +year the Union was consummated he visited Spain, and travelled through +Holland, France, and Switzerland, till the peace of Amiens. +Subsequently he joined his brother's family in Paris, and was taken +into the full confidence of the exiles, then in direct communication +with Buonaparte and Talleyrand. It was not concealed from the Irish by +either the First Consul, or his minister, that the peace with England +was likely to have a speedy termination; and, accordingly, they were +not unprepared for the new declaration of war between the two +countries, which was officially made at London and Paris, in May, +1803—little more than twelve months after the proclamation of the peace +of Amiens. + +It was in expectation of this rupture, and a consequent invasion of +Ireland, that Robert Emmet returned to Dublin, in October, 1802, to +endeavour to re-establish in some degree the old organization of the +United Irishmen. In the same expectation, McNevin, Corbet, and others +of the Irish in France, formed themselves, by permission of the First +Consul, into a legion, under command of Tone's trusty aid-de-camp, +McSheehey; while Thomas Addis Emmet and Arthur O'Conor remained at +Paris, the plenipotentiaries of their countrymen. On the rupture with +England Buonaparte took up the Irish negotiation with much earnestness; +he even suggested to the exiles the colours and the motto under which +they were to fight, when once landed on their own soil. The flag on a +tricolour ground, was to have a green centre, bearing the letters +_R.I.—Republique Irlandaise_. The legend at large was to be: +_L'independence de l'Irlande—Liberte de Conscience_; a motto which +certainly told the whole story. The First Consul also suggested the +formation of an Irish Committee at Paris, and the preparation of +statements of Irish grievances for the _Moniteur_, and the +semi-official papers. + +Robert Emmet seems to have been confidently of opinion soon after his +return to Dublin, that nineteen out of the thirty-two counties would +rise; and, perhaps, if a sufficient French force had landed, his +opinion might have been justified by the fact. So did not think, +however, John Keogh, Valentine Lawless (Lord Cloncurry), and other +close observers of the state of the country. But Emmet was +enthusiastic, and he inspired his own spirit into many. Mr. Long, a +merchant, placed 1,400 pounds sterling at his disposal; he had himself, +in consequence of the recent death of his father, stock to the amount +of 1,500 pounds converted into cash, and with these funds he entered +actively on his preliminary preparations. His chief confidants and +assistants were Thomas Russell and Mathew Dowdall, formerly prisoners +at Fort-George, but now permitted to return; William Putnam McCabe, the +most adventurous of all the party, a perfect Proteus in disguise; Gray, +a Wexford attorney; Colonel Lumm of Kildare, an old friend of Lord +Edward Fitzgerald; Mr. Long, before mentioned; Hamilton, an Enniskillen +barrister, married to Russell's niece; James Hope of Templepatrick, and +Michael Dwyer, the Wicklow outlaw, who had remained since '98 +uncaptured in the mountains. + +In the month of March, when the renewal of hostilities with France was +decided on in England, the preparations of the conspirators were pushed +forward with redoubled energy. The still wilder conspiracy headed by +Colonel Despard in London, the previous winter, the secret and the fate +of which was well known to the Dublin leaders—Dowdall being Despard's +agent—did not in the least intimidate Emmet or his friends. Despard +suffered death in February, with nine of his followers, but his Irish +confederates only went on with their arrangements with a more reckless +resolution. Their plan was the plan of O'Moore and McGuire, to surprise +the Castle, seize the authorities and secure the capital; but the +Dublin of 1803 was in many respects very different from the Dublin of +1641. The discontent, however, arising from the recent loss of the +Parliament might have turned the city scale in Emmet's favour, had its +first stroke been successful. The emissaries at work in the Leinster +and Ulster counties gave besides sanguine reports of success, so that, +judging by the information in his possession, an older and cooler head +than Robert Emmet's might well have been misled into the expectation of +nineteen counties rising if the signal could only be given from Dublin +Castle. If the blow could be withheld till August, there was every +reason to expect a French invasion of England, which would drain away +all the regular army, and leave the people merely the militia and the +volunteers to contend against. But all the Dublin arrangements exploded +in the melancholy _emeute_ of the 23rd of July, 1803, in which the +Chief-Justice, Lord Kilwarden, passing through the disturbed quarter of +the city at the time, was cruelly murdered; for which, and for his +cause, Emmet suffered death on the same spot on the 20th of September +following. For the same cause, the equally pure-minded and chivalrous +Thomas Russell was executed at Downpatrick; Kearney, Roche, Redmond and +Howley also suffered death at Dublin; Allen, Putnam, McCabe, and +Dowdall escaped to France, where the former became an officer of rank +in the army of Napoleon; Michael Dwyer, who had surrendered on +condition of being allowed to emigrate to' North America, died in exile +in Australia, in 1825. Others of Emmet's known or suspected friends, +after undergoing two, three, and even four years' imprisonment, were +finally discharged without trial. Mr. Long, his generous banker, and +James Hope, his faithful emissary, were both permitted to end their +days in Ireland. + +The trial of Robert Emmet, from the wonderful death-speech delivered at +it, is perfectly well known. But in justice to a man of genius equal if +not superior to his own—an Irishman, whose memory is national property, +as well as Emmet's, it must here be observed, that the latter never +delivered, and had no justification to deliver the vulgar diatribe +against Plunkett, his prosecutor, now constantly printed in the common +and incorrect versions of that speech. Plunkett, as Attorney-General, +in 1803, had no option but to prosecute for the crown; he was a +politician of a totally different school from that of Emmet; he shared +all Burke and Grattan's horror of French revolutionary principles. In +the fervour of his accusatory oration he may have gone too far; he may +have, and in reading it now, it is clear to us that he did press too +hard upon the prisoner in the dock. He might have performed his awful +office with more sorrow and less vehemence, for there was no doubt +about his jury. But withal, he gave no fair grounds for any such retort +as is falsely attributed to Emmet, the very style of which proves its +falsity. It is now well known that the apostrophe in the death-speech, +commencing "you viper," alleged to have been addressed to Plunkett, was +the interpolation many years afterwards of that literary +Ishmaelite—Walter Cox of the _Hibernian Magazine_,—who through such +base means endeavoured to aim a blow at Plunkett's reputation. The +personal reputation of the younger Emmet, the least known to his +countrymen of all the United Irish leaders, except by the crowning act +of his death, is safe beyond the reach of calumny, or party zeal, or +time's changes. It is embalmed in the verse of Moore and Southey, and +the precious prose of Washington Irvine. Men of genius in England and +America have done honour to his memory; in the annals of his own +country his name deserves to stand with those youthful chiefs, equally +renowned, and equally ready to seal their patriotism with their +blood—Sir Cahir O'Doherty and Hugh Roe O'Donnell. + + + +CHAPTER II. +ADMINISTRATION OF LORD HARDWICKE (1801 TO 1806), AND OF THE DUKE OF +BEDFORD (1806 TO 1808). + +During the five years in which Lord Hardwicke was Viceroy of Ireland, +the _habeas corpus_ remained suspended, and the Insurrection Act +continued in force. These were the years in which the power of Napoleon +made the most astonishing strides; the years in which he remodelled the +German Empire, placed on his head the iron crown of Lombardy, on his +sister's that of Etruria, and on his brother's that of Holland; when +the Consulate gave place to the Empire, and Dukedoms and Principalities +were freely distributed among the marshals of the Grand Army. During +all these years, Napoleon harassed England with menaces of invasion, +and excited Ireland with corresponding hopes of intervention. The more +far-seeing United Irishmen, however, had so little faith in these +demonstrations that Emmet and McNevin emigrated to the United States, +leaving behind them in the ranks of the French Army, those of their +compatriots who, either from habit or preference, had become attached +to a military life. It must however be borne in mind, for it is +essential to the understanding of England's policy towards Ireland, in +the first twelve or fourteen years after the Union, that the wild hope +of a French invasion never forsook the hearts of a large portion of the +Irish people, so long as Napoleon Buonaparte continued at the head of +the government of France. During the whole of that period the British +government were kept in constant apprehension for Ireland; under this +feeling they kept up and increased the local militia; strengthened +garrisons, and replenished magazines; constructed a chain of Martello +towers round the entire coast, and maintained in full rigour the +Insurrection Act. They refused, indeed, to the Munster magistrates in +1803, and subsequently, the power of summary convictions which they +possessed in '98; but they sent special Commissions of their own into +the suspected counties, who sentenced to death with as little remorse +as if they had been so many hydrophobic dogs. Ten, twelve, and even +twenty capital executions was no uncommon result of a single sitting of +one of those murderous commissions, over which Lord Norbury presided; +but it must be added that there were other judges, who observed not +only the decencies of everyday life, but who interpreted the law in +mercy as well as in justice. They were a minority, it is true, but +there were some such, nevertheless. + +The session of the Imperial Parliament of 1803-'4, was chiefly +remarkable for its war speeches and war budget. In Ireland 50,000 men +of the regular militia were under arms and under pay; 70,000 volunteers +were enrolled, battalioned, and ready to be called out in case of +emergency, to which it was proposed to add 25,000 sea-fencibles. +General Fox, who it was alleged had neglected taking proper precaution +at the time of Robert Emmet's _emeute_, was replaced by Lord Cathcart, +as Commander-in-Chief. The _public_ reports at least of this officer, +were highly laudatory of the discipline and conduct of the Irish +militia. + +In May, 1804, Mr. Pitt returned to power, as Chancellor of the +Exchequer and Prime Minister, when the whole Pitt policy towards +Ireland, France, and America, was of course resumed; a policy which +continued to be acted on during the short remainder of the life of its +celebrated author. + +The year 1805 may be called the first year of the revival of public +spirit and public opinion after the Union. In that year Grattan had +allowed himself to be persuaded by Fox, into entering the Imperial +Parliament, and his old friend Lord Fitzwilliam found a constituency +for him, in his Yorkshire borough of Malton. About the same time, Pitt, +or his colleagues, induced Plunkett to enter the same great assembly, +providing him with a constituency at Midhurst, in Sussex. But they did +not succeed—if they ever attempted—to match Plunkett with Grattan. +Those great men were warm and close friends in the Imperial as they had +been in the Irish Parliament; very dissimilar in their genius, they +were both decided anti-Jacobins; both strenuous advocates of the +Catholic claims, and both proud and fond of their original country. +Grattan had more poetry, and Plunkett more science; but the heart of +the man of colder exterior opened and swelled out, in one of the +noblest tributes ever paid by one great orator to another, when +Plunkett introduced in 1821, in the Imperial Parliament, his allusion +to his illustrious friend, then recently deceased. + +Preparatory to the meeting of Parliament in 1805, the members of the +old Catholic Committee, who had not met for any such purpose for +several years, assembled in Dublin, and prepared a petition which they +authorized their chairman, Lord Fingall, to place in such hands as he +might choose, for presentation in both Houses. His lordship on reaching +London waited on Mr. Pitt, and entreated him to take charge of the +petition; but he found that the Prime Minister had promised the King +one thing and the Catholics another, and, therefore, declined acceding +to his request. He then gave the petition into the charge of Lord +Grenville and Mr. Fox, and by them the subject was brought accordingly +before the Lords and Commons. This debate in the Commons was remarkable +in many respects, but most of all for Grattan's _debut_. A lively +curiosity to hear one of whom so much had been said in his own country, +pervaded the whole House, as Grattan rose. His grotesque little figure, +his eccentric action, and his strangely cadenced sentences rather +surprised than attracted attention, but as he warmed with the march of +ideas, men of both parties warmed to the genial and enlarged +philosophy, embodied in the interfused rhetoric and logic of the +orator; Pitt was seen to beat time with his hand to every curiously +proportioned period, and at length both sides of the House broke into +hearty acknowledgments of the genius of the new member for Malton. But +as yet their cheers were not followed by their votes; the division +against going into Committee was 336 to 124. + +In sustaining Fox's motion, Sir John Cox Hippesley had suggested "the +Veto" as a safeguard against the encroachments of Rome, which the Irish +bishops would not be disposed to refuse. Archbishop Troy, and Dr. +Moylan, Bishop of Cork, gave considerable praise to this speech, and +partly at their request it was published in pamphlet form. This brought +up directly a discussion among the Catholics, which lasted until 1810, +was renewed in 1813, and not finally set at rest till the passage of +the bill of 1829, without any such safeguard. Sir John C. Hippesley had +modelled his proposal, he said, on the liberties of the Gallican +Church. "Her privileges," he added, "depended on two prominent maxims: +1st. That the Pope had no authority to order or interfere in anything +in which the civil rights of the kingdom were concerned. 2nd. That +notwithstanding the Pope's supremacy was acknowledged in cases purely +spiritual, yet, in other respects, his power was limited by the decrees +of the ancient councils of the realm." The Irish Church, therefore, was +to be similarly administered, to obviate the objections of the +opponents of complete civil emancipation. + +In February, 1806, on the death of Pitt, Mr. Fox came into power, with +an uncertain majority and a powerful opposition. In April, the Duke of +Bedford arrived, as Viceroy, at Dublin, and the Catholics presented, +through Mr. Keogh, a mild address, expressive of their hopes that "the +glorious development" of their emancipation would be reserved for the +new government. The Duke returned an evasive answer in public, but +privately, both at Dublin and London, the Catholics were assured that, +as soon as the new Premier could convert the King—as soon as he was in +a position to act—he would make their cause his own. No doubt Fox, who +had great nobleness of soul, intended to do so; but on the 13th of +September of the same year, he followed his great rival, Pitt, to the +vaults of Westminster Abbey. A few months only had intervened between +the death of the rivals. + +Lords Grey and Grenville, during the next recess, having formed a new +administration, instructed their Irish Secretary, Mr. Elliot, to put +himself in communication with the Catholics, in relation to a measure +making them eligible to naval and military offices. The Catholics +accepted this proposal with pleasure, but at the opening of the session +of 1807, in a deputation to the Irish government, again urged the +question of complete emancipation. The bill in relation to the army and +navy had, originally, the King's acquiescence; but early in March, +after it had passed the Commons, George III. changed his mind—if the +expression may be used of him—at that time. He declared he had not +considered it at first so important as he afterwards found it; he +intimated that it could not receive his sanction; he went farther—he +required a written pledge from Lords Grey and Grenville never again to +bring forward such a measure, "nor ever to propose anything connected +with the Catholic question." This unconstitutional pledge they refused +to give, hurried the bill into law, and resigned. Mr. Spencer Perceval +was then sent for, and what was called "the No-Popery Cabinet," in +which Mr. Canning and Lord Castlereagh were the principal Secretaries +of State, was formed. Thus, for the second time in six years, had the +Catholic question made and unmade cabinets. + +The Catholics were a good deal dispirited in 1805, by the overwhelming +majority by which their petition of that year was refused to be +referred to a committee. In 1806, they contented themselves with simply +addressing the Duke of Bedford, on his arrival at Dublin. In 1807, the +"No-Popery Cabinet," by the result of the elections, was placed in +possession of an immense majority—a fact which excluded all prospects +of another change of government. But the Committee were too long +accustomed to disappointments to despair even under these reverses. +Early in the next session their petition was presented by Mr. Grattan +in the Commons, and Lord Donoughmore in the Lords. The majority against +going into committee was, in the Commons, 153; in the Lords, 87. +Similar motions in the session of 1808, made by the same parties, were +rejected by majorities somewhat reduced, and the question, on the +whole, might be said to have recovered some of its former vantage +ground, in despite of the bitter, pertinacious resistance of Mr. +Perceval, in the one House, and the Duke of Portland, in the other. + +The short-lived administration of Mr. Fox, though it was said to +include "all the talents," had been full of nothing but disappointment +to his Irish supporters. The Duke of Bedford was, indeed, a great +improvement on Lord Hardwicke, and Mr. Ponsonby on Lord Redesdale, as +Chancellor, and the liberation of the political prisoners confined +since 1803 did honour to the new administration. But there the measures +of justice so credulously expected, both as to persons and interests, +ended. Curran, whose professional claims to advancement were far beyond +those of dozens of men who had been, during the past ten years, lifted +over his head, was neglected, and very naturally dissatisfied; Grattan, +never well adapted for a courtier, could not obtain even minor +appointments for his oldest and staunchest adherents; while the +Catholics found their Whig friends, now that they were in office, as +anxious to exact the hard conditions of the Veto as Castlereagh +himself. + +In truth, the Catholic body at this period, and for a few years +subsequently, was deplorably disorganized. The young generation of +Catholic lawyers who had grown up since the Relief Act of '93 threw the +profession open to them, were men of another stamp from the old +generation of Catholic merchants, who had grown up under the Relief Act +of 1778. In the ten years before the Union, the Catholic middle class +was headed by men of business; in the period we have now reached, their +principal spokesmen came from "the Four Courts." John Keogh, the +ablest, wisest and firmest of the former generation, was now passing +into the decline of life, was frequently absent from the Committee, and +when present, frequently overruled by younger and more ardent men. In +1808, his absence, from illness, was regretted by Mr. O'Connell in an +eloquent speech addressed to the Committee on the necessity of united +action and incessant petitions. "Had he been present," said the young +barrister, "his powers of reasoning would have frightened away the +captious objections" to that course, "and the Catholics of Ireland +would again have to thank their old and useful servant for the +preservation of their honour and the support of their interests." It +was a strange anomaly, and one which continued for some years longer, +that the statesmen of the Catholic body should be all Protestants. A +more generous or tolerant spirit than Grattan's never existed; a +clearer or more fearless intellect than Plunkett's was not to be found; +nobler and more disinterested friends than Ponsonby, Curran, Burroughs +and Wallace, no people ever had; but still they were friends from +without; men of another religion, or of no particular religion, +advising and guiding an eminently religious people in their struggle +for religious liberty. This could not always last; it was not natural, +it was not desirable that it should last, though some years more were +to pass away before Catholic Emancipation was to be accomplished by the +union, the energy and the strategy of the Catholics themselves. + + + +CHAPTER III. +ADMINISTRATION OF THE DUKE OF RICHMOND (1807 TO 1813). + +Charles, fourth Duke of Richmond, succeeded the Duke of Bedford, as +Viceroy, in April, 1807, with Lord Manners as Lord Chancellor, John +Foster, Chancellor of the Exchequer—for the separate exchequer of +Ireland continued to exist till 1820—and Sir Arthur Wellesley as Chief +Secretary. Of these names, the two last were already familiar to their +countrymen, in connection with the history of their own Parliament; but +the new Chief Secretary had lately returned home covered with Indian +laurels, and full of the promise of other honours and victories to +come. + +The spirit of this administration was repressive, anti-Catholic and +high Tory. To maintain and strengthen British power, to keep the +Catholics quiet, to get possession of the Irish representation and +convert it into a means of support for the Tory party in England, these +were the leading objects of the seven years' administration of the Duke +of Richmond. Long afterwards, when the Chief Secretary of 1807 had +become "the most high, mighty and noble prince," whom all England and +nearly all Europe delighted to honour, he defended the Irish +administration of which he had formed a part, for its habitual use of +corrupt means and influence, in arguments which do more credit to his +frankness than his morality. He had "to turn the moral weakness of +individuals to good account," such was his argument. He stoutly denied +that "the whole nation is, or ever was corrupt;" but as "almost every +man of mark has his price," the Chief Secretary was obliged to use +corrupt influences "to command a majority in favour of order;" however +the particular kinds of influence employed might go against his grain, +he had, as he contended, no other alternative but to employ them. + +With the exception of a two months' campaign in Denmark—July to +September, 1807—Sir Arthur Wellesley continued to fill the office of +Chief Secretary, until his departure for the Peninsula, in July, 1808. +Even then he was expressly requested to retain the nominal office, with +power to appoint a deputy, and receive meanwhile the very handsome +salary of 8,000 pounds sterling a year. In the wonderful military +events, in which during the next seven years Sir Arthur was to play a +leading part, the comparatively unimportant particulars of his Irish +Secretariate have been long since forgotten. We have already described +the general spirit of that administration: it is only just to add, that +the dispassionate and resolute secretary, though he never shrank from +his share of the jobbery done daily at the Castle, repressed with as +much firmness the over-zeal of those he calls "red-hot Protestants," as +he showed in resisting, at that period, what he considered the +unconstitutional pretensions of the Catholics. An instance of the +impartiality to which he was capable of rising, when influenced by +partisans or religious prejudices, is afforded by his letter dissuading +the Wexford yeomanry from celebrating the anniversary of the battle of +Vinegar Hill. He regarded such a celebration as certain "to exasperate +party spirit," and "to hurt the feelings of others;" he, therefore, in +the name of the Lord-Lieutenant, strongly discouraged it, and the +intention was accordingly abandoned. It is to be regretted that the +same judicious rule was not at the same time enforced by government as +to the celebration of the much more obsolete and much more invidious +anniversaries of Aughrim and the Boyne. + +The general election which followed the death of Fox, in November, +1806, was the first great trial of political strength under the Union. +As was right and proper, Mr. Grattan, no longer indebted for a seat to +an English patron, however liberal, was returned at the head of the +poll for the city of Dublin. His associate, however, the banker, La +Touche, was defeated; the second member elect being Mr. Robert Shaw, +the Orange candidate. The Catholic electors to a man, under the +vigorous prompting of John Keogh and his friends, polled their votes +for their Protestant advocate; they did more, they subscribed the sum +of 4,000 pounds sterling to pay the expenses of the contest, but this +sum Mrs. Grattan induced the treasurer to return to the subscribers. +Ever watchful for her husband's honour, that admirable woman, as ardent +a patriot as himself, refused the generous tender of the Catholics of +Dublin. Although his several elections had cost Mr. Grattan above +54,000 pounds—more than the whole national grant of 1782—she would not, +in this case, that any one else should bear the cost of his last +triumph in the widowed capital of his own country. + +The great issue tried in this election of 1807, in those of 1812, 1818, +and 1826, was still the Catholic question. All other Irish, and most +other imperial domestic questions were subordinate to this. In one +shape or another, it came up in every session of Parliament. It entered +into the calculations of every statesman of every party; it continued +to make and unmake cabinets; in the press and in every society, it was +the principal topic of discussion. While tracing, therefore, its +progress, from year to year, we do but follow the main stream of +national history; all other branches come back again to this centre, or +exhaust themselves in secondary and forgotten results. + +The Catholics themselves, deprived in Ireland of a Parliament on which +they could act directly, were driven more and more into permanent +association, as the only means of operating a change in the Imperial +legislature. The value of a legal, popular, systematic, and continuous +combination of "the people" acting within the law, by means of +meetings, resolutions, correspondence, and petitions, was not made +suddenly, nor by all the party interested, at one and the same time. On +the minds of the more sagacious, however, an impression, favourable to +such organized action, grew deeper year by year, and at last settled +into a certainty which was justified by success. + +In May, 1809, the Catholic Committee had been reconstructed, and its +numbers enlarged. In a series of resolutions it was agreed that the +Catholic lords, the surviving delegates of 1793, the committee which +managed the petitions of 1805 and 1807, and such persons "as shall +distinctly appear to them to possess the confidence of the Catholic +body," do form henceforth the General Committee. It was proposed by +O'Connell, to avoid "the Convention Act," "that the noblemen and +gentlemen aforesaid are not representatives of the Catholic body, or +any portion thereof." The Committee were authorized to collect funds +for defraying expenses; a Treasurer was chosen, and a permanent +Secretary, Mr. Edward Hay, the historian of the Wexford rebellion—an +active and intelligent officer. The new Committee acted with great +judgment in 1810, but in 1811 Lord Fingal and his friends projected a +General Assembly of the leading Catholics, contrary to the Convention +Act, and to the resolution just cited. O'Connell was opposed to this +proposition; yet the assembly met, and were dispersed by the +authorities. The Chairman, Lord Fingal, and Drs. Sheridan and Kirwan, +Secretaries, were arrested. Lord Fingal, however, was not prosecuted, +but the Secretaries were, and one of them expiated by two years' +imprisonment his violation of the act. To get rid of the very pretext +of illegality, the Catholic Committee dissolved, but only to reappear +under a less vulnerable form, as "the Catholic Board." + +It is from the year 1810 that we must date the rise, among the +Catholics themselves, of a distinctive line of policy, suited to the +circumstances of the present century, and the first appearance of a +group of public men, capable of maintaining and enforcing that policy. +Not that the ancient leaders of that body were found deficient, in +former times, either in foresight or determination; but new times +called for new men; the Irish Catholics were now to seek their +emancipation from the imperial government; new tactics and new +combinations were necessary to success; and, in brief, instead of being +liberated from their bonds at the good will and pleasure of benevolent +Protestants, it was now to be tested whether they were capable of +contributing to their own emancipation,—whether they were willing and +able to assist their friends and to punish their enemies. + +Though the Irish Catholics could not legally meet in convention any +more than their Protestant fellow-countrymen, there was nothing to +prevent them assembling voluntarily, from every part of the kingdom, +without claim to delegation. With whom the happy idea of "the aggregate +meetings" originated is not certainly known, but to O'Connell and the +younger set of leading spirits this was a machinery capable of being +worked with good effect. No longer confined to a select Committee, +composed mainly of a few aged and cautious, though distinguished +persons, the fearless "agitators," as they now began to be called, +stood face to face with the body of the people themselves. The disused +theatre in Fishamble Street was their habitual place of meeting in +Dublin, and there, in 1811 and 1812, the orators met to criticise the +conduct of the Duke of Richmond—to denounce Mr. Wellesley Pole—to +attack Secretaries of State and Prime Ministers—to return thanks to +Lords Grey and Grenville for refusing to give the unconstitutional +anti-Catholic pledge required by the King, and to memorial the Prince +Regent. From those meetings, especially in the year 1812, the +leadership of O'Connell must be dated. After seven years of wearisome +probation, after enduring seven years the envy and the calumny of many +who, as they were his fellow-labourers, should have been his friends; +after demonstrating for seven years that his judgment and his courage +were equal to his eloquence, the successful Kerry barrister, then in +his thirty-seventh year, was at length generally recognized as "the +counsellor" of his co-religionists—as the veritable "Man of the +People." Dangers, delays and difficulties lay thick and dark in the +future, but from the year, when in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, the voice +of the famous advocate was recognized as the voice of the Catholics of +Ireland, their cause was taken out of the category of merely +ministerial measures, and exhibited in its true light as a great +national contest, entered into by the people themselves for complete +civil and religious freedom. + +Sir Arthur Wellesley had been succeeded in 1810 in the Secretaryship by +his brother, Mr. Wellesley Pole, who chiefly signalized his +administration by a circular against conventions, and the prosecution +of Sheridan and Kirwan, in 1811. He was in turn succeeded by a much +more able and memorable person—_Mr_., afterwards Sir Robert Peel. The +names of Peel and Wellington come thus into juxtaposition in Irish +politics in 1812, as they will be found in juxtaposition on the same +subject twenty and thirty years later. + +Early in the session of 1812, Mr. Perceval, the Premier, had been +assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons, by Bellingham, and a +new political crisis was precipitated on the country. In the government +which followed, Lord Liverpool became the chief, with Castlereagh and +Canning as members of his administration. In the general election which +followed, Mr. Grattan was again returned for Dublin, and Mr. Plunkett +was elected for Trinity College, but Mr. Curran was defeated at Newry, +and Mr. Christopher Hely Hutchinson, the liberal candidate, at Cork. +Upon the whole, however, the result was favourable to the Catholic +cause, and the question was certain to have several additional Irish +supporters in the new House of Commons. + +In the administrative changes that followed, Mr. Peel, though only in +his twenty-fourth year, was appointed to the important post of Chief +Secretary. The son of the first baronet of the name—this youthful +statesman had first been elected for Cashel, almost as soon as he came +of age, in 1809. He continued Chief Secretary for six years, from the +twenty-fourth to the thirtieth year of his age. He distinguished +himself in the House of Commons almost as soon as he entered it, and +the predictions of his future premiership were not, even then, confined +to members of his own family. No English statesman, since the death of +William Pitt, has wielded so great a power in Irish affairs as Sir +Robert Peel, and it is, therefore, important to consider, under what +influence, and by what maxims he regulated his public conduct during +the time he filled the most important administrative office in that +country. + +Sir Robert Peel brought to the Irish government, notwithstanding his +Oxford education and the advantages of foreign travel which he had +enjoyed, prejudices the most illiberal, on the subject of all others on +which a statesman should be most free from prejudice—religion. An +anti-Catholic of the school of Mr. Perceval and Lord Eldon, he at once +constituted himself the principal opponent of Grattan's annual motion +in favour of Catholic Emancipation. That older men, born in the evil +time, should be bigots and defenders of the Penal Code, was hardly +wonderful, but a young statesman, exhibiting at that late day, such +studied and active hostility to so large a body of his fellow subjects, +naturally drew upon his head the execrations of all those whose +enfranchisement he so stubbornly resisted. Even his great abilities +were most absurdly denied, under this passionate feeling of wrong and +injustice. His Constabulary and his Stipendiary Magistracy were +resisted, ridiculed, and denounced, as outrages on the liberty of the +subject, and assaults on the independence of the bench. The term +_Peeler_ became synonymous with spy, informer, and traitor, and the +Chief Secretary was detested not only for the illiberal sentiments he +had expressed, but for the machinery of order he had established. After +half a century's experience, we may safely say, that the Irish +Constabulary have shown themselves to be a most valuable police, and as +little deserving of popular ill-will as any such body can ever expect +to be, but they were judged very differently during the Secretaryship +of their founder; for, at that time, being new and intrusive, they may, +no doubt, have deserved many of the hard and bitter things which were +generally said of them. + +The first session of the new Parliament in the year 1813—the last of +the Duke of Richmond's Viceroyalty—was remarkable for the most +important debate which had yet arisen on the Catholic question. In the +previous year, a motion of Canning's, in favour of "a final and +conciliatory adjustment," which was carried by an unexpected majority +of 235 to 106, encouraged Grattan to prepare a detailed Emancipation +Bill, instead of making his usual annual motion of referring the +Catholic petitions to the consideration of the Committee. This bill +recited the establishment of the Protestant succession to the crown, +and the establishment of the Protestant religion in the State. It then +proceeded to provide that Roman Catholics might sit and vote in +Parliament; might hold all offices, civil and military, except the +offices of Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal in England, or +Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Deputy, or Chancellor of Ireland; another section +threw open to Roman Catholics all lay corporations, while a proviso +excluded them either from holding or bestowing benefices in the +Established Church. Such was the Emancipation Act of 1813, proposed by +Grattan; an act far less comprehensive than that introduced by the same +statesman in 1795, into the Parliament of Ireland, but still, in many +of its provisions, a long stride in advance. + +Restricted and conditioned as this measure was, it still did not meet +the objections of the opponents of the question, in giving the crown a +Veto in the appointment of the bishops. Sir John Hippesley's pernicious +suggestion—reviving a very old traditional policy—was embodied by +Canning in one set of amendments, and by Castlereagh in another. +Canning's amendments, as summarised by the eminent Catholic jurist, +Charles Butler, were to this effect:— + +"He first appointed a certain number of Commissioners, who were to +profess the Catholic religion, and to be lay peers of Great Britain or +Scotland, possessing a freehold estate of one thousand pounds a year; +to be filled up, from time to time, by his Majesty, his heirs, or +successors. The Commissioners were to take an oath for the faithful +discharge of their office, and the observance of secrecy in all matters +not thereby required to be disclosed, with power to appoint a Secretary +with salary (proposed to be five hundred pounds a year), payable out of +the consolidated fund. The Secretary was to take an oath similar to +that of the Commissioners. + +"It was then provided, that every person elected to the discharge of +Roman Catholic episcopal functions in Great Britain or Scotland should, +previously to the discharge of his office, notify his then election to +the Secretary; that the Secretary should notify it to the +Commissioners, and they to the Privy Council, with a certificate 'that +they did not know or believe anything of the person nominated, which +tended to impeach his loyalty or peaceable conduct;' unless they had +knowledge of the contrary, in which case they should refuse their +certificate. Persons obtaining such a certificate were rendered capable +of exercising episcopal functions within the United Kingdom; if they +exercised them without a certificate, they were to be considered guilty +of a misdemeanor, and liable to be sent out of the kingdom. + +"Similar provisions respecting Ireland were then introduced." + +"The second set of clauses," says Mr. Butler, "was suggested by Lord +Castlereagh, and provided that the Commissioners under the preceding +clauses—with the addition, as to Great Britain, of the Lord Chancellor, +or Lord Keeper, or first Commissioner of the Great Seal for the time +being, and of one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, +being a Protestant, or such other Protestant member of his Privy +Council as his Majesty should appoint—and with a similar addition in +respect to Ireland—and with the further addition, as to Great Britain, +of the person then exercising episcopal functions among the Catholics +in London—and, in respect to Ireland, of the titular Roman Catholic +Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin,—should be Commissioners for the +purposes thereinafter mentioned. + +"The Commissioners thus appointed were to take an oath for the +discharge of their office, and observance of secrecy, similar to the +former, and employ the same Secretary, and three of them were to form a +quorum. + +"The bill then provided, that subjects of his Majesty, receiving any +bull, dispensation, or other instrument, from the See of Rome, or any +person in foreign parts, acting under the authority of that See, +should, within six weeks, send a copy of it, signed with his name, to +the Secretary of the Commissioners, who should transmit the same to +them. + +"But with a proviso, that if the person receiving the same should +deliver to the Secretary of the Commission, within the time before +prescribed, a writing under his hand, certifying the fact of his having +received such a bull, dispensation, or other instrument, and +accompanying his certificate with an oath, declaring that 'it related, +wholly and exclusively, to spiritual concerns, and that it did not +contain, or refer to, any matter or thing which did or could, directly +or indirectly, affect or interfere with the duty and allegiance which +he owed to his Majesty's sacred person and government, or with the +temporal, civil, or social rights, properties, or duties of any other +of his Majesty's subjects, then the Commissioners were, in their +discretion, to receive such certificate and oath, in lieu of the copy +of the bull, dispensation, or other instrument. + +"Persons conforming to these provisions were to be exempted from all +pains and penalties, to which they would be liable under the existing +statutes; otherwise, they were to be deemed guilty of a high +misdemeanor; and in lieu of the pains and penalties, under the former +statutes, be liable to be sent out of the kingdom. + +"The third set of clauses provided that, within a time to be specified, +the Commissioners were to meet and appoint their Secretary, and give +notice of it to his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State in Great +Britain and Ireland; and the provisions of the act were to be in force +from that time." + +On the second reading, in May, the Committee of Parliament, on motion +of the Speaker, then on the floor, struck out the clause enabling +Catholics "to sit and vote in either House of Parliament," by a +majority of four votes: 251 against 247. Mr. Ponsonby immediately rose, +and, observing that, as "the bill without the clause," was unworthy +both of the Catholics and its authors, he moved the chairman do leave +the chair. The committee rose, without a division, and the Emancipation +Bill of 1813 was abandoned. + +Unhappily, the contest in relation to the Veto, which had originated in +the House of Commons, was extended to the Catholic body at large. +Several of the noblemen, members of the board, were not averse to +granting some such power as was claimed to the crown; some of the +professional class, more anxious to be emancipated than particular as +to the means, favoured the same view. The bishops at the time of the +Union, were known to have entertained the idea, and Sir John Hippesley +had published their letters, which certainly did not discourage his +proposal. But the second order of the clergy, the immense majority of +the laity, and all the new prelates, called to preside over vacant +sees, in the first decade of the century, were strongly opposed to any +such connexion with the head of the State. Of this party, Mr. O'Connell +was the uncompromising organ, and, perhaps, it was his course on this +very subject of the Veto, more than anything else, which established +his pretensions to be considered the leader of the Catholic body. Under +the prompting of the majority, the Catholic prelates met and passed a +resolution declaring that they could not accept the bill of 1813 as a +satisfactory settlement. This resolution they formally communicated to +the Catholic Board, who voted them, on O'Connell's motion, enthusiastic +thanks. The minority of the Board were silent rather than satisfied, +and their dissatisfaction was shown rather by their absence from the +Board meetings than by open opposition. + +Mr. O'Connell's position, from this period forward, may be best +understood from the tone in which he was spoken of in the debates of +Parliament. At the beginning of the session of 1815, we find the Chief +Secretary (Mr. Peel) stating that he "possesses more influence than any +other person" with the Irish Catholics, and that no meeting of that +body was considered complete unless a vote of thanks to Mr. O'Connell +was among the resolutions. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +O'CONNELL'S LEADERSHIP—1813 TO 1821. + +While the Veto controversy was carried into the press and the +Parliamentary debates, the extraordinary events of the last years of +Napoleon's reign became of such extreme interest as to cast into the +shade all questions of domestic policy. The Parliamentary fortunes of +the Catholic question varied with the fortunes of the war, and the +remoteness of external danger. Thus, in 1815, Sir Henry Parnell's +motion for a committee was rejected by a majority of 228 to 147; in +1816, on Mr. Grattan's similar motion, the vote was 172 to 141; in +1817, Mr. Grattan was again defeated by 245 to 221; in this session an +act exempting officers in the army and navy from forswearing +Transubstantiation passed and became law. The internal condition of the +Catholic body, both in England and Ireland, during all those years, was +far from enviable. In England there were Cisalpine and Ultramontane +factions; in Ireland, Vetoists and anti-Vetoists. The learned and +amiable Charles Butler—among jurists, the ornament of his order, was +fiercely opposed to the no less learned Dr. Milner, author of "The End +of Controversy," and "Letters to a Prebendary." In Ireland, a very +young barrister, who had hardly seen the second anniversary of his +majority, electrified the aggregate meetings with a new Franco-Irish +order of eloquence, naturally enough employed in the maintenance of +Gallican ideas of church government. This was Richard Lalor Shiel, the +author of two or three successful tragedies, and the man, next to +O'Connell, who wielded the largest tribunitian power over the Irish +populace during the whole of the subsequent agitation. Educated at +Stoneyhurst, he imbibed from refugee professors French idioms and a +French standard of taste, while, strangely enough, O'Connell, to whom +he was at first opposed, and of whom he became afterwards the first +lieutenant, educated in France by British refugees, acquired the +cumbrous English style of the Douay Bible and the Rheims Testament. The +contrast between the two men was every way extreme; physically, +mentally, and politically; but it is pleasant to know that their +differences never degenerated into distrust, envy or malice; that, in +fact, Daniel O'Connell had throughout all his after life no more +steadfast personal friend than Richard Lalor Shiel. + +In the progress of the Catholic agitation, the next memorable incident +was O'Connell's direct attack on the Prince Regent. That powerful +personage, the _de facto_ Sovereign of the realm, had long amused the +Irish Catholics with promises and pledges of being favourable to their +cause. At an aggregate meeting, in June, 1812, Mr. O'Connell maintained +that there were four distinct pledges of this description in existence: +1. One given in 1806, through the Duke of Bedford, then +Lord-Lieutenant, to induce the Catholics to withhold their petitions +for a time. 2. Another given the same year in the Prince's name by Mr. +Ponsonby, then Chancellor. 3. A pledge given to Lord Kenmare, _in +writing_, when at Cheltenham. 4. A verbal pledge given to Lord Fingal, +in the presence of Lords Clifford and Petre, and reduced to writing and +signed by these three noblemen, soon after quitting the Prince's +presence. Over the meeting at which this indictment was preferred, Lord +Fingal presided, and the celebrated "witchery" resolutions, referring +to the influence then exercised on the Prince by Lady Hertford, were +proposed by his lordship's son, Lord Killeen. It may, therefore, be +fairly assumed, that the existence of the fourth pledge was proved, the +first and second were never denied, and as to the third—that given to +Lord Kenmare—the only correction ever made was, that the Prince's +message was delivered verbally, by his Private Secretary, Colonel +McMahon, and not in writing. Lord Kenmare, who died in the autumn of +1812, could not be induced, from a motive of delicacy, to reduce his +recollection of this message to writing, but he never denied that he +had received it, and O'Connell, therefore, during the following years, +always held the Prince accountable for this, as for his other promises. +Much difference of opinion arose as to the wisdom of attacking a person +in the position of the Prince; but O'Connell, fully persuaded of the +utter worthlessness of the declarations made in that quarter, decided +for himself that the bold course was the wise course. The effect +already was various. The English Whigs, the Prince's early and constant +friends, who had followed him to lengths that honour could hardly +sanction, and who had experienced his hollow-heartedness when lately +called to govern during his father's illness; they, of course, were not +sorry to see him held up to odium in Ireland, as a dishonoured +gentleman and a false friend. The Irish Whigs, of whom Lord Moira and +Mr. Ponsonby were the leaders, and to whom Mr. Grattan might be said to +be attached rather than to belong, saw the rupture with regret, but +considered it inevitable. Among "the Prince's friends" the attacks upon +him in the Dublin meetings were regarded as little short of treason; +while by himself, it is well known the "witchery" resolutions of 1812 +were neither forgotten nor forgiven. + +The political position of the Holy See, at this period, was such as to +induce and enable an indirect English influence to be exercised, +through that channel, upon the Irish Catholic movement. Pope Pius VII., +a prisoner in France, had delegated to several persons at Rome certain +vicarious powers, to be exercised in his name, in case of necessity; of +these, more than one had followed him into exile, so that the position +of his representative devolved at length upon Monsignor Quarrantotti, +who, early in 1814, addressed a rescript to Dr. Poynter, +vicar-apostolic of the London district, commendatory of the Bill of +1813, including the Veto, and the Ecclesiastical Commission proposed by +Canning and Castlereagh. Against these dangerous concessions, as they +considered them, the Irish Catholics despatched their remonstrances to +Rome, through the agency of the celebrated Wexford Franciscan, Father +Richard Hayes; but this clergyman, having spoken with too great +freedom, was arrested, and suffered several months' confinement in the +Eternal City. A subsequent embassy of Dr. Murray, coadjutor to the +Archbishop of Dublin, on behalf of his brother prelates, was attended +with no greater advantage, though the envoy himself was more properly +treated. On his return to Ireland, at a meeting held to hear his +report, several strong resolutions were unanimously adopted, of which +the spirit may be judged from the following—the concluding one of the +series—"Though we sincerely venerate the supreme Pontiff as visible +head of the Church, we do not conceive that our apprehensions for the +safety of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland can or ought to be +removed by any determination of His Holiness, adopted or intended to be +adopted, not only without our concurrence, but in direct opposition to +our repeated resolutions and the very energetic memorial presented on +our behalf, and so ably supported by our Deputy, the Most Reverend Dr. +Murray; who, in that quality, was more competent to inform His Holiness +of the real state and interests of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland +than any other with whom he is said to have consulted." + +The resolutions were transmitted to Rome, signed by the two Archbishops +present, by Dr. Everard, the coadjutor of the Archbishop of Cashel, by +Dr. Murray, the coadjutor of the Archbishop of Dublin, by the Bishops +of Meath, Cloyne, Clonfert, Kerry, Waterford, Derry, Achonry, Killala, +Killaloe, Kilmore, Ferns, Limerick, Elphin, Cork, Down and Conor, +Ossory, Raphoe, Clogher, Dromore, Kildare and Leighlin, Ardagh, and the +Warden of Galway. Dr. Murray, and Dr. Murphy, Bishop of Cork, were +commissioned to carry this new remonstrance to Rome, and the greatest +anxiety was felt for the result of their mission. + +A strange result of this new _embroglio_ in the Catholic cause was, +that it put the people on the defensive for their religious liberties, +not so much against England as against Rome. The unlucky Italian +Monsignor who had volunteered his sanction of the Veto, fared scarcely +better at the popular gatherings than Lord Castlereagh, or Mr. Peel. +"Monsieur Forty-eight," as he was nicknamed, in reference to some +strange story of his ancestor taking his name from a lucky lottery +ticket of that number, was declared to be no better than a common +Orangeman, and if the bitter denunciations uttered against him, on the +Liffey and the Shannon, had only been translated into Italian, the +courtly Prelate must have been exceedingly amazed at the democratic +fury of a Catholic population, as orthodox as himself, but much more +jealous of State interference with things spiritual. The second order +of the clergy were hardly behind the laity, in the fervour of their +opposition to the rescript of 1814. Their entire body, secular and +regular, residing in and about Dublin, published a very strong protest +against it, headed by Dr. Blake, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, in which +it was denounced as "pregnant with mischief" and entirely +"non-obligatory upon the Catholic Church in Ireland." The several +ecclesiastical provinces followed up these declarations with a +surprising unanimity, and although a Vetoistical address to His +Holiness was despatched by the Cisalpine club in England, the Irish +ideas of Church government triumphed at Rome. Drs. Murray and Milner +were received with his habitual kindness by Pius VII.; the illustrious +Cardinal Gonsalvi was appointed by the Pope to draw up an explanatory +rescript, and Monsignor Quarrantotti was removed from his official +position. The firmness manifested at that critical period by the Irish +church has since been acknowledged with many encomiums by all the +successors of Pope Pius VII. + +The Irish government under the new Viceroy, Lord Whitworth (the former +ambassador to Napoleon), conceiving that the time had come, in the +summer of 1814, to suppress the Catholic Board, a proclamation +forbidding his Majesty's subjects to attend future meetings of that +body issued from Dublin Castle, on the 3rd of June. The leaders of the +body, after consultation at Mr. O'Connell's residence, decided to bow +to this proclamation and to meet no more as a Board; but this did not +prevent them, in the following winter, from holding a new series of +Aggregate meetings, far more formidable, in some respects, than the +deliberative meetings which had been suppressed. In the vigorous and +somewhat aggressive tone taken at these meetings, Lord Fingal, the +chief of the Catholic peerage, did not concur, and he accordingly +withdrew for some years from the agitation, Mr. Shiel, the Bellews, Mr. +Ball, Mr. Wyse of Waterford, and a few others, following his example. +With O'Connell remained the O'Conor Don, Messrs. Finlay and Lidwell +(Protestants), Purcell O'Gorman, and other popular persons. But the +cause sustained a heavy blow in the temporary retirement of Lord Fingal +and his friends, and an attempt to form a "Catholic Association," in +1815, without their co-operation, signally failed. + +During the next five years, the fortunes of the great Irish question +fluctuated with the exigencies of Imperial parties. The second American +war had closed, if not gloriously, at least without considerable loss +to England; Napoleon had exchanged Elba for St. Helena: Wellington was +the Achilles of the Empire, and Castlereagh its Ulysses. Yet it was not +in the nature of those free Islanders, the danger and pressure of +foreign war removed, to remain always indifferent to the two great +questions of domestic policy—Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary +Reform. In the session of 1816, a motion of Sir John Newport's to +inquire into the state of Ireland, was successfully resisted by Sir +Robert Peel, but the condition and state of public feeling in England +could not be as well ignored by a Parliament sitting in London. In +returning from the opening of the Houses in January, 1817, the Regent +was hooted in the street, and his carriage riddled with stones. A +reward of 1,000 pounds, issued for the apprehension of the ringleaders, +only gave additional _éclat_ to the fact, without leading to the +apprehension of the assailants. + +The personal unpopularity of the Regent seems to have increased, in +proportion as death removed from him all those who stood nearest to the +throne. In November, 1817, his oldest child, the Princess Charlotte, +married to Leopold, since King of Belgium, died in childbed; in 1818, +the aged Queen Charlotte died; in January, 1820, the old King, in the +eighty-second year of his age, departed this life. Immediately +afterwards the former Princess of Wales, long separated from her +profligate husband, returned from the Continent to claim her rightful +position as Queen Consort. The disgraceful accusations brought against +her, the trial before the House of Lords which followed, the courage +and eloquence of her counsel, Brougham and Denman, the eagerness with +which the people made her cause their own, are all well remembered +events, and all beside the purpose of this history. The unfortunate +lady died after a short illness, on the 7th of August, 1821; the same +month in which Ms Majesty—George IV.—departed on that Irish journey, so +satirized in the undying verse of Moore and Byron. + +Two other deaths, far more affecting than any among the mortalities of +royalty, marked the period at which we have arrived. These were the +death of Curran in 1817, and the death of Grattan, in 1820. + +Curran, after his failure to be returned for Newry, in 1812, had never +again attempted public life. He remained in his office of Master of the +Rolls, but his health began to fail sensibly. During the summers of +1816 and '17, he sought for recreation in Scotland, England and France, +but the charm which travel could not give—the charm of a cheerful +spirit—was wanting. In October, 1817, his friend, Charles Phillips, was +suddenly called to his bed-side at Brompton, near London, and found him +with one side of his face and body paralyzed cold. "And this was all," +says his friend, "that remained of Curran—the light of society—the +glory of the forum—the Fabricius of the senate—the idol of his +country." Yes! even to less than this, was he soon to sink. On the +evening of the 14th of October, he expired, in the 68th year of his +age, leaving a public reputation as free from blemish as ever did any +man who had acted a leading part, in times like those through which he +had passed. He was interred in London, but twenty years afterwards, the +committee of the Glasnevin Cemetery, near Dublin, obtained permission +of his representatives to remove his ashes to their grounds, where they +now finally repose. A tomb modelled from the tomb of Scipio covers the +grave, bearing the simple but sufficient inscription—CURRAN. Thus was +fulfilled the words he had uttered long before—"The last duties will be +paid by that country on which they are devolved; nor will it be for +charity that a little earth will be given to my bones. Tenderly will +those duties be paid, as the debt of well-earned affection, and of +gratitude not ashamed of her tears." + +Grattan's last days were characteristic of his whole life. As the +session of 1820 progressed, though suffering from his last struggle +with disease, he was stirred by an irresistible desire to make his way +to London, and present once more the petition of the Catholics. Since +the defeat of his Relief Bill of 1813, there had been some estrangement +between him and the more advanced section of the agitators, headed by +O'Connell. This he was anxious, perhaps, to heal or to overcome. He +thought, moreover, that even if he should die in the effort, it would +be, as he said himself, "a good end." Amid— + +"The trees which a nation had given, and which bowed +As if each brought a new civic crown to his head," + + +he consulted with the Catholic delegates early in May. O'Connell was +the spokesman, and the scene may yet be rendered immortal by some great +national artist. All present felt that the aged patriot was dying, but +still he would go once more to London, to fall, as he said, "at his +post." In leaving Ireland he gave to his oldest friends directions for +his funeral—that he might be buried in the little churchyard of +Moyanna, on the estate the people gave him in 1782! He reached London, +by slow stages, at the end of May, and proposed to be in his place in +the House on the 4th of June. But this gratification was not permitted +him: on the morning of the 4th, at six o'clock, he called his son to +his bed-side, and ordered him to bring him a paper containing his last +political opinions. "Add to it," he said, with all his old love of +antithesis, "that I die with a love of liberty in my heart, and this +declaration in favour of my country, in my hand." + +So worthily ended the mortal career of Henry Grattan. He was interred +by the side of his old friend, Charles James Fox, in Westminster Abbey; +the mourners included the highest imperial statesmen, and the Catholic +orphan children; his eulogium was pronounced in the House of Commons by +William Conyngham Plunkett, and in the Irish capital by Daniel +O'Connell. + + + +CHAPTER V. +RETROSPECT OF THE STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING DURING THE REIGN OF +GEORGE III. + +Before relating the decisive events in the contest for Catholic +Emancipation, which marked the reign of George IV. we may be permitted +to cast a glance backward over the religious and secular state of +Ireland, during the sixty years' reign of George III. + +The relative position of the great religious denominations underwent a +slow but important revolution during this long reign. In the last days +of George II., a Chief-Justice was bold enough to declare that "the +laws did not presume a Papist to exist in the kingdom;" but under the +sway of his successor, though much against that successor's will, they +advanced from one constitutional victory to another, till they stood, +in the person of the Earl Marshal, on the very steps of the throne. In +the towns and cities, the Catholic laity, once admitted to commerce and +the professions, rose rapidly to wealth and honour. A Dublin Papist was +at the head of the wine trade; another was the wealthiest grazier in +the kingdom; a third, at Cork, was the largest provision merchant. With +wealth came social ambition, and the heirs of these enfranchised +merchants were by a natural consequence the judges and legislators of +the next generation. + +The ecclesiastical organization of Ireland, as described in 1800 by the +bishops in answer to queries of the Chief Secretary, was simple and +inexpensive. The four archbishops and twenty bishops, were sustained by +having certain parishes attached to their cathedrals, _in commendam_: +other _Cathedraticum_ there seems to have been none. Armagh had then +350 parish priests, Tuam 206, Cashel 314, and Dublin 156: in all 1126. +The number of curates or coadjutors was at least equal to that of the +parish priests; while of regulars then returned the number did not +exceed 450. This large body of religious—24 prelates, nearly 3,000 +clergy—exclusive of female religious—were then, and have ever since +been, sustained by the voluntary contributions of the laity, paid +chiefly at the two great festivals of Christmas and Easter, or by +customary offerings made at the close of the ceremonies of marriages, +baptisms, and death. Though the income of some of the churches was +considerable, in the great majority of cases the amount received barely +sufficed to fulfil the injunction of St. Patrick to his disciples, that +"the lamp should take but that wherewith it was fed." + +The Presbyterian clergy, though in some respects more dependent on +their congregations than the Catholics were, did not always, nor in all +cases, depend on the voluntary principle for their maintenance. The +Irish Supply Bill contained an annual item before the Union of 7,700 +pounds for the Antrim Synod, and some other dissenting bodies. The +_Regium Donum_ was not, indeed, general; but that it might be made so, +was one of the inducements held out to many of that clergy to secure +their countenance for the Legislative Union. + +The Established Church continued, of course, to monopolize University +honours, and to enjoy its princely revenues and all political +advantages. Trinity College continued annually to farm its 200,000 +acres at a rental averaging 100,000 pounds sterling. Its wealth, and +the uses to which it is put, are thus described by a recent writer: +"Some of Trinity's senior fellows enjoy higher incomes than Cabinet +ministers; many of her tutors have revenues above those of cardinals; +and junior fellows, of a few days' standing, frequently decline some of +her thirty-one church livings with benefices which would shame the +poverty of scores of continental, not to say Irish, Catholic +archbishops. Even eminent judges hold her professorships; some of her +chairs are vacated for the Episcopal bench only; and majors and field +officers would acquire increased pay by being promoted to the rank of +head porter, first menial, in Trinity College. Apart from her princely +fellowships and professorships, her seventy Foundation, and sixteen +non-Foundation Scholarships, her thirty Sizarships, and her fourteen +valuable Studentships, she has at her disposal an aggregate, by +bequests, benefactions, and various endowments, of 117 permanent +exhibitions, amounting to upwards of 2,000 pounds per annum." The +splendour of the highest Protestant dignitaries may be inferred from +what has been said formerly of the Bishop of Derry, of the Era of +Independence. The state maintained by the chief bishop—Primate +Robinson, who ruled Armagh from 1765 to 1795—is thus described by Mr. +Cumberland in his _Memoirs_. "I accompanied him," says Cumberland, "on +Sunday forenoon to his cathedral. We went in his chariot of six horses +attended by three footmen behind, whilst my wife and daughters, with +Sir William Robinson, the primate's elder brother, followed in my +father's coach, which he lent me for the journey. At our approach the +great western door was thrown open, and my friend (in person one of the +finest men that could be seen) entered, like another Archbishop Laud, +in high prelatical state, preceded by his officers and ministers of the +church, conducting him in files to the robing chamber, and back again +to the throne. It may well be conceived with what invidious eyes the +barely tolerated Papists of the city of Saint Patrick must have looked +on all this pageantry, and their feelings were no doubt those in some +degree of all their co-religionists throughout the kingdom." + +The Irish Establishment, during the reign of George III., numbered +among its prelates and clergy many able and amiable men. At the period +of the Union, the two most distinguished were Dr. O'Beirne, Bishop of +Meath, an ex-priest, and Dr. Young, Bishop of Clonfert, a former fellow +of Trinity College. As a Bible scholar, Dr. Young ranked deservedly +high, but as a variously accomplished writer, Dr. O'Beirne was the +first man of his order. His political papers, though occasionally +disfigured with the bigotry natural to an apostate, are full of a +vigorous sagacity; his contributions to general literature, such as his +paper on _Tanistry_, in Vallency's _Collectanea_, show how much greater +things still he was capable of. It is not a little striking that the +most eminent bishop, as well as the most celebrated Anglican preacher +of that age, in Ireland (Dean Kirwan), should both have been ordained +as Catholic priests. + +The national literature which we have noted a century earlier, as +changing gradually its tongue, was now mainly, indeed we might almost +say solely, expressed in English. It is true the songs of "Carolan the +Blind," were sung in Gaelic by the Longford firesides, where the author +of "the Deserted Village" listened to their exquisite melody, moulding +his young ear to a sense of harmony full as exquisite; but the glory of +the Gaelic muse was past. He, too, unpromising as was his exterior, was +to be one of the bright harbingers of another great era of +Hiberno-English literature. When, within two generations, out of the +same exceedingly restricted class of educated Irishmen and women, we +count the names of Goldsmith, Samuel Madden, Arthur Murphy, Henry +Brooke, Charles Macklin, Sheridan, Burke, Edmund Malone, Maria +Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, "Psyche" Tighe, and Thomas Moore, it is +impossible not to entertain a very high opinion of the mental resources +of that population, if only they were fairly wrought and kindly valued +by the world. + +One memorable incident of literary history—the Ossianic outbreak of +1760—aided powerfully though indirectly in the revival of the study of +the ancient Celtic history of Scotland and Ireland. Something was done +then, by the Royal Irish Academy, to meet that storm of Anglo-Norman +incredulity and indignation; much more has been done since, to place +the original records of the Three Kingdoms on a sound critical basis. +The dogmatism of the unbelievers in the existence of a genuine body of +ancient Celtic literature has been rebuked; and the folly of the +theorists who, upon imaginary grounds, constructed pretentious systems, +has been exposed. The exact originals of MacPherson's odes have not +been found, after a century of research, and may be given up, as +non-existent; but the better opinion seems now to be, by those who have +studied the fragments of undoubted antiquity attributed to the son of +the warrior Fion, that whatever the modern translator may have +invented, he certainly did not invent Ossian. + +To the stage, within the same range of time, Ireland gave some +celebrated names: Quinn, Barry, Sheridan, Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Jordan, +and Miss O'Neill; and to painting, one pre-eminent name—the eccentric, +honest, and original, James Barry. + +But of all the arts, that in which the Irish of the Georgian era won +the highest and most various triumphs was the art of Oratory, What is +now usually spoken of as "the Irish School of Eloquence," may be +considered to have taken its rise from the growth of the Patriot party +in Parliament, in the last years of George II. Every contemporary +account agrees in placing its first great name—Anthony Malone—on the +same level with Chatham and Mansfield. There were great men before +Malone, as before Agamemnon; such as Sir Toby Butler, Baron Rice, and +Patrick Darcy; but he was the first of our later succession of masters. +After him came Flood and John Hely Hutchinson; then Grattan and Curran; +then Plunkett and Bushe; then O'Connell and Shiel. In England, at the +same time, Burke, Barre, Sheridan, and Sir Phillip Francis, upheld the +reputation of Irish oratory; a reputation generously acknowledged by +all parties, as it was illustrated in the ranks of all. The Tories, +within our own recollection, applauded as heartily the Irish wit and +fervour of Canning, Croker, and North, as the Whigs did the exhibition +of similar qualities in their Emancipation allies. + +Nothing can be less correct, than to pronounce judgment on the Irish +School, either of praise or blame, in sweeping general terms. Though a +certain family resemblance may be traced among its great masters, no +two of them will be found nearly alike. There are no echoes, no servile +imitators, among them. In vigorous argumentation and severe simplicity, +Plunkett resembled Flood, but the temperament of the two men—and +Oratory is nearly as much a matter of temperament as of intellect—was +widely different. Flood's movement was dramatic, while Plunkett's was +mathematical. In structural arrangement, Shiel, occasionally—very +occasionally—reminds us of Grattan; but if he has not the wonderful +condensation of thought, neither has he the frequent antithetical +abuses of that great orator. Burke and Sheridan are as distinguishable +as any other two of their contemporaries; Curran stands alone; +O'Connell never had a model, and never had an imitator who rose above +mimicry. Every combination of powers, every description of excellence, +and every variety of style and character, may be found among the +masterpieces of this great school. Of their works many will live for +ever. Most of Burke's, many of Grattan's, and one or two of Curran's +have reached us in such preservation as promises immortality. +Selections from Flood, Sheridan, Canning, Plunkett and O'Connell will +survive; Shiel will be more fortunate for he was more artistic, and +more watchful of his own fame. His exquisite finish will do, for him, +what the higher efforts of men, more indifferent to the audience of +posterity, will have forfeited for them. + +It is to be observed, farther, that the inspiration of all these men +was drawn from the very hearts of the people among whom they grew. With +one or two exceptions, sons of humble peasants, of actors, of at most +middle class men, they were true, through every change of personal +position, to the general interests of the people—to the common weal. +From generous thoughts and a lofty scorn of falsehood, fanaticism and +tyranny, they took their inspiration; and as they were true to human +nature, so will mankind, through successive ages, dwell fondly on their +works and guard lovingly their tombs. + + + +CHAPTER VI. +THE IRISH ABROAD, DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. + +The fond tenacity with which the large numbers of the Irish people who +have established themselves in foreign states have always clung to +their native country; the active sympathy they have personally shown +for their relatives at home; the repeated efforts they have made to +assist the Irish in Ireland, in all their public undertakings, requires +that, as an element in O'Connell's final and successful struggle for +Catholic Emancipation, we should take a summary view of the position of +"the Irish abroad." + +While the emigrants of that country to America naturally pursued the +paths of peace, those who, from choice or necessity, found their way to +the European Continent, were, with few exceptions, employed mainly in +two departments—war and diplomacy. An Irish Abbé, liked the celebrated +preacher, McCarthy—or an Irish merchant firm, such as the house of the +same name at Bordeaux, might be met with, but most of those who +attained any distinction did so by the sword or the pen, in the field +or the cabinet. + +In France, under the revolutionary governments from '91 to '99, the +Irish were, with their old-world notions of God and the Devil, wholly +out of place; but under the Consulate and the Empire, they rose to many +employments of the second class, and a few of the very first. From the +ranks of the expatriated of '98, Buonaparte promoted Arthur O'Conor and +William Corbet to the rank of General; Ware, Allen, Byrne, the younger +Tone, and Keating, to that of Colonel. As individuals, the Emperor was +certainly a benefactor to many Irishmen; but, as a nation, it was one +of their most foolish delusions, to expect in him a deliverer. On the +restoration of the Bourbons, the Irish officers who had acquired +distinction under Napoleon adhered generally to his fortunes, and +tendered their resignations; in their place, a new group of +Franco-Irish descendants of the old Brigades-men, began to show +themselves in the _salons_ of Paris, and the Bureaus of the Ministers. +The last swords drawn for "the legitimate branch" in '91, was by Count +Dillon and his friend Count Wall; their last defender, in 1830, was +General Wall, of the same family. + +Though the Irish in France, especially those resident at Paris, +exercised the greatest influence in favour of their original country—an +influence which met all travelled Englishmen, wherever the French +language was understood—their compatriots in Spain and Austria had also +contributed their share to range Continental opinion on the side of +Ireland. Three times, during the century, Spain was represented at +London by men of Irish birth, or Irish origin. The British merchant who +found Alexander O'Reilly Governor of Cadiz, or the diplomatist who met +him as Spanish ambassador, at the Court of Louis XVI., could hardly +look with uninstructed eyes, upon the lot of his humblest namesake in +Cavan. This family, indeed, produced a succession of eminent men, both +in Spain and Austria. "It is strange," observed Napoleon to those +around him, on his second entry into Vienna, in 1809, "that on each +occasion—in November, 1805, as this day—on arriving in the Austrian +capital, I find myself in treaty and in intercourse with the +respectable Count O'Reilly." Napoleon had other reasons for remembering +this officer; it was his dragoon regiment which saved the remnant of +the Austrians, at Austerlitz. In the Austrian army list at that period, +when she was the ally of England, there were above forty Irish names, +from the grading of Colonel up to that of Field-Marshal. In almost +every field of the Peninsula, Wellington and Anglesea learned the value +of George the Second's imprecation on the Penal Code, which deprived +him of such soldiers as conquered at Fontenoy. It cannot be doubted +that even the constant repetition of the names of the Blakes, +O'Donnells, and Sarsfields, in the bulletins sent home to England, +tended to enforce reflections of that description on the statesmen and +the nation, and to inspirit and sustain the struggling Catholics. A +powerful argument for throwing open the British army and navy to men of +all religions, was drawn from these foreign experiences; and, if such +men were worthy to hold military commissions, why not also to sit in +Parliament, and on the Bench? + +The fortunes of the Irish in America, though less brilliant for the +few, were more advantageous as to the many. They were, during the war +of the revolution, and the war of 1812, a very considerable element in +the American republic. It was a violent exaggeration to say, as Lord +Mountjoy did in moving for the repeal of the Penal laws, "that England +lost America by Ireland;" but it is very certain that Washington placed +great weight on the active aid of the gallant Pennsylvania, Maryland, +and Southern Irish troops, and the sturdy Scotch-Irish of New +Hampshire. Franklin, in his visit to Ireland, before the rupture, and +Jefferson in his correspondence, always enumerates the Irish, as one +element of reliance, in the contest between the Colonies and the +Empire. + +In the immediate cause of the war of 1812, this people were peculiarly +interested. If the doctrines of "the right of search" and "once a +subject always a subject," were to prevail, no Irish emigrant could +hope to become—or having become, could hope to enjoy the protection +of—an American citizen. It was, therefore, natural that men of that +origin should take a deep interest in the war, and it seems something +more than a fortuitous circumstance, when we find in the chairman of +the Senatorial Committee of 1812, which authorized the President to +raise the necessary levies—an Irish emigrant, John Smilie, and in the +Secretary-at-war, who acted under the powers thus granted, the son of +an Irish emigrant, John Caldwell Calhoun. On the Canadian frontier, +during the war which followed, we find in posts of importance, Brady, +Mullany, McComb, Croghan and Reilly; on the lakes, Commodore McDonough, +and on the ocean, Commodores Shaw and Stewart—all Irish. On the +Mississippi, another son of Irish emigrant parents, with his favourite +lieutenants, Carroll, Coffee, and Butler, brought the war to a close by +their brilliant defence of New Orleans. The moral of that victory was +not lost upon England; the life of Andrew Jackson, with a dedication +"to the People of Ireland" was published at London and Dublin, by the +most generally popular writer of that day—William Cobbett. + +In the cause of South American independence, the Irish under O'Higgins +and McKenna in Chili, and under Bolivar and San Martin in Colombia and +Peru, were largely engaged, and honourably distinguished. Colonel +O'Conor, nephew to Arthur, was San Martin's chief of the staff; General +Devereux, with his Irish legion, rendered distinguished services to +Bolivar and Don Bernardo. O'Higgins was hailed as the Liberator of +Chili. During that long ten years' struggle, which ended with the +evacuation of Carraccas in 1823, Irish names are conspicuous on almost +every field of action. Bolivar's generous heart was warmly attached to +persons of that nation. "The doctor who constantly attends him," says +the English General, Miller, "is Dr. Moore, an Irishman, who had +followed the Liberator from Venezuela to Peru. He is a man of great +skill in his profession, and devotedly attached to the person of the +Liberator. Bolivar's first aide-de-camp, Colonel O'Leary, is a nephew +of the celebrated Father O'Leary. In 1818, he embarked, at the age of +seventeen, in the cause of South American independence, in which he has +served with high distinction, having been present at almost every +general action fought in Colombia, and has received several wounds. He +has been often employed on diplomatic missions, and in charges of great +responsibility, in which he has always acquitted himself with great +ability." + +That these achievements of the Irish abroad produced a favourable +influence on the situation of the Irish at home, we know from many +collateral sources; we know it also from the fact, that when O'Connell +succeeded in founding a really national organization, subscriptions and +words of encouragement poured in on him, not only from France, Spain, +and Austria, but from North and South America, not only from the Irish +residents in those countries, but from their native +inhabitants—soldiers and statesmen—of the first consideration. The +services and virtues of her distinguished children in foreign climes, +stood to the mother country instead of treaties and alliances. + + + +CHAPTER VII. +O'CONNELL'S LEADERSHIP—THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION—1821 TO 1826. + +At the beginning of the year 1821, O'Connell, during the intervals of +his laborious occupations in court and on circuit, addressed a series +of stirring letters to "the People of Ireland," remarkable as +containing some of the best and most trenchant of his political +writings. His object was to induce the postponement of the annual +petition for Emancipation, and the substitution instead of a general +agitation for Parliamentary reform, in conjunction with the English +reformers. Against this conclusion—which he ridiculed "as the fashion +for January, 1821"—Mr. Shiel published a bitter, clever, rhetorical +reply, to which O'Connell at once sent forth a severe and rather +contemptuous rejoinder. Shiel was quite content to have Mr. Plunkett +continue Grattan's annual motion, with all its "conditions" and +"securities." O'Connell declared he had no hope in petitions except +from a reformed Parliament, and he, therefore, was opposed to such +motions altogether, especially as put by Mr. Plunkett, and the other +advocates of a Veto. Another session was lost in this controversy, and +when Parliament rose, it was announced that George IV. was coming to +Ireland "on a mission of Conciliation." + +On this announcement, Mr. O'Connell advised that the Catholics should +take advantage of his Majesty's presence to assemble and consider the +state of their affairs; but a protest against "connecting in any manner +the King's visit with Catholic affairs," was circulated by Lords +Fingal, Netterville, Gormanstown, and Killeen, Messrs. Baggott, Shiel, +Wyse, and other Commoners. O'Connell yielded, as he often did, for the +sake of unanimity. The King's visit led to many meetings and +arrangements, in some of which his advice was taken, while in others he +was outvoted or overruled. Nothing could exceed the patience he +exhibited at this period of his life, when his natural impetuous +temperament was still far from being subdued by the frosts of age. + +Many liberal Protestants at this period—the King's brief visit—were so +moved with admiration of the judicious and proper conduct of the +Catholic leaders, that a new but short-lived organization, called "the +Conciliation Committee," was formed. The ultra Orange zealots, however, +were not to be restrained even by the presence of the Sovereign for +whom they professed so much devotion. In the midst of the preparations +for his landing, they celebrated, with all its offensive +accompaniments, the 12th of July, and at the Dublin dinner to the +King—though after he had left the room—they gave their charter toast of +"the glorious, pious, and immortal memory." The Committee of +Conciliation soon dwindled away, and, like the visit of George IV., +left no good result behind. + +The year 1822 was most remarkable, at its commencement, for the arrival +of the Marquis of Wellesley, as Lord-Lieutenant, and at its close, for +the assault committed on him in the theatre by the Dublin Orangemen. +Though the Marquis had declined to interfere in preventing the annual +Orange celebration, he was well known to be friendly to the Catholics; +their advocate, Mr. Plunkett, was his Attorney General; and many of +their leaders were cordially welcomed at the Castle. These proofs were +sufficient for the secret tribunals which sat upon his conduct, and +when his Lordship presented himself, on the night of the 14th of +December, at the theatre, he was assailed by an organized mob, one of +whom flung a heavy piece of wood, and another a quart bottle, towards +the state box. Three Orangemen, mechanics, were arrested and tried for +the offence, but acquitted on a technical defect of evidence; a general +feeling of indignation was excited among all classes in consequence, +and it is questionable if Orangeism, in Dublin, ever recovered the +disgust occasioned by that dastardly outrage. + +The great and fortunate event, however, for the Catholics, was the +foundation of their new Association, which was finally resolved upon at +an Aggregate Meeting held in "Townsend Street Chapel," on the 10th of +May, 1823. This meeting had been called by an imposing requisition +signed with singular unanimity by all the principal Catholic gentlemen. +Lord Killeen presided. Mr. O'Connell moved the formation of the +Association; Sir Thomas Esmonde seconded the motion; Mr. Shiel—lately +and sincerely reconciled to O'Connell—sustained it. The plan was simple +and popular. The Association was to consist of members paying a guinea +a year, and associates paying a shilling; a standing committee was to +form the government; the regular meetings were to be weekly—every +Saturday; and the business to consist of organization, correspondence, +public discussions, and petitions. It was, in effect, to be a sort of +extern and unauthorized Parliament, acting always within the +Constitution, with a view to the modification of the existing laws, by +means not prohibited in those laws themselves. It was a design, subtle +in conception, but simple in form; a natural design for a +lawyer-liberator to form; and for a people strongly prepossessed in his +favour to adopt; but one, at the same time, which would require a rare +combination of circumstances to sustain for any great length of time, +under a leader less expert, inventive, and resolute. + +The Parliamentary position of the Catholic question, at the moment of +the formation of the Association, had undergone another strange +alteration. Lord Castlereagh, having attained the highest honours of +the empire, died by his own hand the previous year. Lord Liverpool +remained Premier, Lord Eldon Chancellor, Mr. Canning became Foreign +Secretary, with Mr. Peel, Home Secretary, the Duke of Wellington +continuing Master-General of the Ordnance. To this cabinet, so largely +anti-Catholic, the chosen organ of the Irish Catholics, Mr. Plunkett, +was necessarily associated as Irish Attorney General. His situation, +therefore, was in the session of 1823 one of great difficulty; this Sir +Francis Burdett and the radical reformers at once perceived, and in the +debates which followed, pressed him unmercifully. They quoted against +him his own language denouncing cabinet compromises on so vital a +question, in 1813, and to show their indignation, when he rose to +reply, they left the House in a body. His speech, as always, was most +able, but the House, when he sat down, broke into an uproar of +confusion. Party spirit ran exceedingly high; the possibility of +advancing the question during the session was doubtful, and a motion to +adjourn prevailed. A fortnight later, at the first meeting of the +Catholic Association, a very cordial vote of thanks to Plunkett was +carried by acclamation. + +The new Catholic organization was labouring hard to merit popular +favour. Within the year of its organization we find the Saturday +meetings engaged with such questions as church rates; secret societies; +correspondence with members of both Houses; voting public thanks to Mr. +Brougham; the penal laws relating to the rights of sepulture; the +purchase of a Catholic cemetery near Dublin; the commutation of tithes; +the admission of Catholic freemen into corporations; the extension of +the Association into every county in Ireland, and other more incidental +subjects. The business-like air of the weekly meetings, at this early +period, is remarkable: they were certainly anything but mere occasions +for rhetorical display. But though little could be objected against, +and so much might be said in favour of the labours of the Association, +it was not till nearly twelve months after its organization, when +O'Connell proposed and carried his system of monthly penny +subscriptions to the "Catholic Rent," that it took a firm and +far-reaching hold on the common people, and began to excite the serious +apprehensions of the oligarchical factions in Ireland and England. + +This bold, and at this time much ridiculed step, infused new life and a +system hitherto unknown into the Catholic population. The parish +collectors, corresponding directly with Dublin, established a local +agency, co-extensive with the kingdom; the smallest contributor felt +himself personally embarked in the contest; and the movement became, in +consequence, what it had not been before, an eminently popular one. +During the next six months the receipts from penny subscriptions +exceeded 100 pounds sterling per month, representing 24,000 +subscribers; during the next year they averaged above 500 pounds a +week, representing nearly half a million enrolled Associates! + +With the additional means at the disposal of the Finance Committee of +the Association, its power rose rapidly. A morning and an evening +journal were at its command in Dublin; many thousands of pounds were +expended in defending the people in the courts, and prosecuting their +Orange and other enemies. Annual subsidies, of 5,000 pounds each, were +voted for the Catholic Poor schools, and the education of missionary +priests for America; the expenses of Parliamentary and electioneering +agents were also heavy. But for all these purposes "the Catholic Rent," +of a penny per month from each associate, was found amply sufficient. + +At the close of 1824, the government, really alarmed at the formidable +proportions assumed by the agitation, caused criminal informations to +be filed against Mr. O'Connell, for an alleged seditious allusion to +the example of Bolivar, the liberator of South America; but the Dublin +grand jury ignored the bills of indictment founded on these +informations. Early in the following session, however, a bill to +suppress "Unlawful Associations in Ireland," was introduced by Mr. +Goulburn, who had succeeded Sir Robert Peel as Chief Secretary, and was +supported by Plunkett—a confirmed enemy of all extra-legal +combinations. It was aimed directly at the Catholic Association, and +passed both Houses; but O'Connell found means "to drive," as he said, +"a coach and six through it." The existing Association dissolved on the +passage of the act; another, called "the _New_ Catholic Association," +was formed for "charitable and other purposes," and the agitators +proceeded with their organization, with one word added to their title, +and immensely additional _éclat_ and success. + +In Parliament, the measure thus defeated was followed by another, the +long-promised Relief Bill. It passed in the Commons in May, accompanied +by two clauses, or as they were called, "wings," most unsatisfactory to +the Catholic body. One clause disfranchised the whole class of electors +known as the "forty-shilling freeholders;" the other provided a scale +of state maintenance for the Catholic clergy. A bishop was to have +1,000 pounds per annum; a dean 300 pounds; a parish priest 200 pounds; +a curate 60 pounds. This measure was thrown out by the House of Lords, +greatly to the satisfaction, at least, of the Irish Catholics. It was +during this debate in the Upper House that the Duke of York, +presumptive heir to the throne, made what was called his "ether +speech"—from his habit of dosing himself with that stimulant on trying +occasions. In this speech he declared, that so "help him God," he would +never, never consent to acknowledge the claims put forward by the +Catholics. Before two years were over, death had removed him to the +presence of that Awful Being whose name he had so rashly invoked, and +his brother, the Duke of Clarence, assumed his position, as next in +succession to the throne. + +The Catholic delegates, Lord Killeen, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Lawless, and +Shiel, were in London at the time the Duke of York made his memorable +declaration. If, on the one hand, they were regarded with dislike +amounting to hatred, on the other, they were welcomed with cordiality +by all the leaders of the liberal party. The venerable Earl Fitzwilliam +emerged from his retirement to do them honour; the gifted and energetic +Brougham entertained them with all hospitality; at Norfolk House they +were banqueted in the room in which George III. was born: the +millionaire-demagogue Burdett, the courtly, liberal Lord Grey, and the +flower of the Catholic nobility, were invited to meet them. The +delegates were naturally cheered and gratified; they felt, they must +have felt, that their cause had a grasp upon Imperial attention, which +nothing but concession could ever loosen. + +Committees of both Houses, to inquire into the state of Ireland, had +sat during a great part of this Session, and among the witnesses were +the principal delegates, with Drs. Murray, Curtis, Kelly, and Doyle. +The evidence of the latter—the eminent Prelate of Kildare and +Leighlin—attracted most attention. His readiness of resource, clearness +of statement, and wide range of information, inspired many of his +questioners with a feeling of respect, such as they had never before +entertained for any of his order. His writings had already made him +honourably distinguished among literary men; his examination before the +Committees made him equally so among statesmen. From that period he +could reckon the Marquises of Anglesea and Wellesley, Lord Lansdowne +and Mr. Brougham, among his correspondents and friends, and, what he +valued even more, among the friends of his cause. Mr. O'Connell, on the +other hand, certainly lost ground in Ireland by his London journey. He +had, unquestionably, given his assent to both "wings," in 1825, as he +did to the remaining one in 1828, and thereby greatly injured his own +popularity. His frank and full recantation of his error, on his return, +soon restored him to the favour of the multitude, and enabled him to +employ, with the best effect, the enormous influence which he showed he +possessed at the general elections of 1826. By him mainly the +Beresfords were beaten in Waterford, the Fosters in Louth, and the +Leslies in Monaghan. The independence of Limerick city, of Tipperary, +Cork, Kilkenny, Longford, and other important constituencies, was +secured. The parish machinery of the Association was found invaluable +for the purpose of bringing up the electors, and the people's treasury +was fortunately able to protect to some extent the fearless voter, who, +in despite of his landlord, voted according to the dictates of his own +heart. + +The effect of these elections on the empire at large was very great. +When, early in the following spring, Lord Liverpool, after fifteen +years' possession of power, died unexpectedly, George IV. sent for +Canning and gave him _carte blanche_ to form a cabinet without +excepting the question of Emancipation. That high spirited and really +liberal statesman associated with himself a ministry, three-fourths of +whom were in favour of granting the Catholic claims. This was in the +month of April; but to the consternation of those whose hopes were now +so justly raised, the gifted Premier held office only four months; his +lamented death causing another "crisis," and one more postponement of +"the Catholic question." + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +O'CONNELL'S LEADERSHIP—THE CLARE ELECTION—EMANCIPATION OF THE +CATHOLICS. + +A very little reflection will enable us to judge, even at this day, the +magnitude of the contest in which O'Connell was the great popular +leader, during the reign of George IV. In Great Britain, a very +considerable section of the ancient peerage and gentry, with the Earl +Marshal at their head, were to be restored to political existence, by +the act of Emancipation; a missionary, and barely tolerated clergy were +to be clothed, in their own country, with the commonest rights of +British subjects—protection to life and property. In Ireland, +seven-eighths of the people, one-third of the gentry, the whole of the +Catholic clergy, the numerous and distinguished array of the Catholic +bar, and all the Catholic townsmen, taxed but unrepresented in the +corporate bodies, were to enter on a new civil and social condition, on +the passage of the act. In the colonies, except Canada, where that +church was protected by treaty, the change of Imperial policy towards +Catholics was to be felt in every relation of life, civil, military, +and ecclesiastical, by all persons professing that religion. Some years +ago, a bishop of Southern Africa declared, that, until O'Connell's +time, it was impossible for Catholics to obtain any consideration from +the officials at the Cape of Good Hope. Could there be a more striking +illustration of the magnitude of the movement, which, rising in the +latitude of Ireland, flung its outermost wave of influence on the +shores of the Indian ocean? + +The adverse hosts to be encountered in this great contest, included a +large majority of the rank and wealth of both kingdoms. The King, who +had been a Whig in his youth, had grown into a Tory in his old age; the +House of Lords were strongly hostile to the measure, as were also the +universities, both in England and Ireland; the Tory party, in and out +of Parliament; the Orange organization in Ireland; the civil and +military authorities generally, with the great bulk of the rural +magistracy and the municipal authorities. The power to overcome this +power should be indeed formidable, well organized and wisely directed. + +The Lord Lieutenant selected by Mr. Canning, was the Marquis of +Anglesea, a frank soldier, as little accustomed to play the politician +as any man of his order and distinction could be. He came to Ireland, +in many respects the very opposite of Lord Wellesley; no orator +certainly, and so far as he had spoken formerly, an enemy rather than a +friend to the Catholics. But he had not been three months in office +when he began to modify his views; he was the first to prohibit, in +Dublin, the annual Orange outrage on the 12th of July, and by +subsequent, though slow degrees, he became fully convinced that the +Catholic claims could be settled only by Concession. Lord Francis +Leveson Gower, afterwards Earl of Ellesmere, accompanied the Marquis as +Chief Secretary. + +The accession to office of a prime minister friendly to the Catholics, +was the signal for a new attempt to raise that "No-Popery" cry which +had already given twenty years of political supremacy to Mr. Perceval +and Lord Liverpool. In Ireland, this feeling appeared under the guise +of what was called "the New Reformation," which, during the summer of +1827, raged with all the proverbial violence of the _odium theologicum_ +from Cork to Derry. Priests and parsons, laymen and lawyers, took part +in this general politico-religious controversy, in which every possible +subject of difference between Catholic and Protestant was publicly +discussed. Archbishop Magee of Dublin, the Rev. Sir Harcourt Lees, son +of a former English placeman at the Castle, and the Rev. Mr. Pope, were +the clerical leaders in this crusade; Exeter-Hall sent over to assist +them the Honourable and Reverend Baptist Noel, Mr. Wolff, and Captain +Gordon, a descendant of the hero of the London riot of 1798. At Derry, +Dublin, Carlow, and Cork, the challenged agreed to defend their +doctrines. Father Maginn, Maguire, Maher, McSweeney, and some others +accepted these challenges; Messrs. O'Connell, Shiel, and other laymen, +assisted, and the oral discussion of theological and historical +questions became as common as town talk in every Irish community. +Whether, in any case, these debates conduced to conversion is doubtful; +but they certainly supplied the Catholic laity with a body of facts and +arguments very necessary at that time, and which hardly any other +occasion could have presented. The Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, however, +considered them far from beneficial to the cause of true religion; and +though he tolerated a first discussion in his diocese, he positively +forbade a second. The Archbishop of Armagh and other prelates issued +their mandates to the clergy to refrain from these oral disputes, and +the practice fell into disuse. + +The notoriety of "the Second Reformation" was chiefly due to the +ostentatious patronage of it by the lay chiefs of the Irish oligarchy. +Mr. Synge, in Clare, Lord Lorton, and Mr. McClintock at Dundalk, were +indefatigable in their evangelizing exertions. The Earl of Roden—to +show his entire dependence on the translated Bible—threw all his other +books into a fish pond on his estate. Lord Farnham was even more +conspicuous in the revival; he spared neither patronage nor writs of +ejectment to convert his tenantry. The reports of conversions upon his +lordship's estates, and throughout his county, attracted so much +notice, that Drs. Curtis, Crolly, Magauran, O'Reilly, and McHale, met +on the 9th of December, 1826, at Cavan, to inquire into the facts. They +found, while there had been much exaggeration on the part of the +reformers, that some hundreds of the peasantry had, by various powerful +temptations, been led to change their former religion. The bishops +received back some of the converts, and a jubilee established among +them completed their reconversion. The Hon. Mr. Noel and Captain Gordon +posted to Cavan, with a challenge to discussion for their lordships; of +course, their challenge was not accepted. Thomas Moore's inimitable +satire was the most effective weapon against such fanatics. + +The energetic literature of the Catholic agitation attracted much more +attention than its oral polemics. Joined to a bright army of Catholic +writers, including Dr. Doyle, Thomas Moore, Thomas Furlong, and Charles +Butler, there was the powerful phalanx of the _Edinburgh Review_ led by +Jeffrey and Sidney Smith, and the English liberal press, headed by +William Cobbett. Thomas Campbell, the Poet of Hope, always and +everywhere the friend of freedom, threw open his _New Monthly_, to +Shiel, and William Henry Curran, whose sketches of the Irish Bar and +Bench, of Dublin politics, and the county elections of 1826, will live +as long as any periodical papers of the day. The indefatigable Shiel, +writing French as fluently as English, contributed besides to the +_Gazette de France_ a series of papers, which were read with great +interest on the Continent. These articles were the precursors of many +others, which made the Catholic question at length an European +question. An incident quite unimportant in itself, gave additional zest +to these French articles. The Duke de Montebello, with two of his +friends, Messrs. Duvergier and Thayer, visited Ireland in 1826. +Duvergier wrote a series of very interesting letters on the "State of +Ireland," which, at the time, went through several editions. At a +Catholic meeting at Ballinasloe, the Duke had some compliments paid +him, which he gracefully acknowledged, expressing his wishes for the +success of their cause. This simple act excited a great deal of +criticism in England. The Paris press was roused in consequence, and +the French Catholics, becoming more and more interested, voted an +address and subscription to the Catholic Association. The Bavarian +Catholics followed their example, and similar communications were +received from Spain and Italy. + +But the movement abroad did not end in Europe. An address from British +India contained a contribution of three thousand pounds sterling. From +the West Indies and Canada, generous assistance was rendered. + +In the United States sympathetic feeling was most active. New York felt +almost as much interested in the cause as Dublin. In 1826 and 1827, +associations of "Friends of Ireland" were formed at New York, Boston, +Washington, Norfolk, Charleston, Augusta, Louisville, and Bardstown. +Addresses in English and French were prepared for these societies, +chiefly by Dr. McNevin, at New York, and Bishop England, at Charleston. +The American, like the French press, became interested in the subject, +and eloquent allusions were made to it in Congress. On the 20th of +January, 1828, the veteran McNevin wrote to Mr. O'Connell—"Public +opinion in America is deep, and strong, and universal, in your behalf. +This predilection prevails over the broad bosom of our extensive +continent. Associations similar to ours are everywhere starting into +existence—in our largest and wealthiest cities—in our hamlets and our +villages—in our most remote sections; and at this moment, the propriety +of convening, at Washington, delegates of the friends of Ireland, of +all the states, is under serious deliberation. A fund will erelong be +derived from American patriotism in the United States, which will +astonish your haughtiest opponents." + +The Parliamentary fortunes of the great question were at the same time +brightening. The elections of 1826, had, upon the whole, given a large +increase of strength to its advocates. In England and Scotland, under +the influence of the "No-Popery" cry, they had lost some ground, but in +Ireland they had had an immense triumph. The death of the +generous-hearted Canning, hastened as it was by anti-Catholic +intrigues, gave a momentary check to the progress of liberal ideas; but +they were retarded only to acquire a fresh impulse destined to bear +them, in the next few years, farther than they had before advanced in +an entire century. + +The _ad interim_ administration of Lord Goderich gave way, by its own +internal discords, in January, 1828, to the Wellington and Peel +administration. The Duke was Premier, the Baronet leader of the House +of Commons; with Mr. Huskisson, Lord Palmerston, in the cabinet; Lord +Anglesea remained as Lord Lieutenant. But this coalition with the +friends of Canning was not destined to outlive the session of 1828; the +lieutenants of the late Premier were doomed, for some time longer, to +suffer for their devotion to his principles. + +This session of 1828, is—in the history of religious liberty—the most +important and interesting in the annals of the British Parliament. +Almost at its opening, the extraordinary spectacle was exhibited of a +petition signed by 800,000 Irish Catholics, praying for the repeal of +"the Corporation and Test Acts," enacted on the restoration of Charles +II., against the non-Conformists. Monster petitions, both for and +against the repeal of these acts, as well as for and against Catholic +emancipation, soon became of common occurrence. Protestants of all +sects petitioned for, but still more petitioned against equal rights +for Catholics; while Catholics petitioned for the rights of Protestant +dissenters. It is a spectacle to look back upon with admiration and +instruction; exhibiting as it does, so much of a truly tolerant spirit +in Christians of all creeds, worthy of all honour and imitation. + +In April, "the Corporation and Test Acts" were repealed; in May, the +Canningites seceded from the Duke's government, and one of the +gentlemen brought in to fill a vacant seat in the Cabinet—Mr. Vesey +Fitzgerald, member for Clare—issued his address to his electors, asking +a renewal of their confidence. Out of this event grew another, which +finally and successfully brought to an issue the century-old Catholic +question. + +The Catholic Association, on the accession of the Wellington-Peel +Cabinet, had publicly pledged itself to oppose every man who would +accept office under these statesmen. The memory of both as +ex-secretaries—but especially Peel's—was odious in Ireland. When, +however, the Duke had sustained, and ensured thereby the passage of the +repeal of "the Corporation and Test Acts," Mr. O'Connell, at the +suggestion of Lord John Russell the mover of the repeal, endeavoured to +get his angry and uncompromising resolution against the Duke's +government rescinded. Powerful as he was, however, the Association +refused to go with him, and the resolution remained. So it happened +that when Mr. Fitzgerald presented himself to the electors of Clare, as +the colleague of Peel and Wellington, the Association at once +endeavoured to bring out an opposition candidate. They pitched with +this view on Major McNamara, a liberal Protestant of the county, at the +head of one of its oldest families, and personally popular; but this +gentleman, after keeping them several days in suspense, till the time +of nomination was close at hand, positively declined to stand against +his friend, Mr. Fitzgerald, to the great dismay of the associated +Catholics. + +In their emergency, an idea, so bold and original, that it was at first +received with general incredulity by the external public, was started. +It was remembered by Sir David De Roose, a personal friend of +O'Connell's, that the late sagacious John Keogh had often declared the +Emancipation question would never be brought to an issue till some +Catholic member elect stood at the bar of the House of Commons +demanding his seat. A trusted few were at first consulted on the daring +proposition, that O'Connell himself, in despite of the legal exclusion +of all men of his religion, should come forward for Clare. Many were +the consultations, and diverse the judgments delivered on this +proposal, but at length, on the reception of information from the +county itself, which gave strong assurance of success, the hero of the +adventure decided for himself. The bold course was again selected as +the wise course, and the spirit-stirring address of "the arch-Agitator" +to the electors, was at once issued from Dublin. "Your county," he +began by saying, "wants a representative. I respectfully solicit your +suffrages, to raise me to that station. + +"Of my qualification to fill that station, I leave you to judge. The +habits of public speaking, and many, many years of public business, +render me, perhaps, equally suited with most men to attend to the +interests of Ireland in Parliament. + +"You will be told I am not qualified to be elected; the assertion, my +friends, is untrue. I am qualified to be elected, and to be your +representative. It is true that as a Catholic I cannot, and of course +never will, take the oaths at present prescribed to members of +Parliament; but the authority which created these oaths (the +Parliament), can abrogate them: and I entertain a confident hope that, +if you elect me, the most bigoted of our enemies will see the necessity +of removing from the chosen representative of the people an obstacle +which would prevent him from doing his duty to his king and to his +country." + +This address was followed instantly by the departure of all the most +effective agitators to the scene of the great contest. Shiel went down +as conducting agent for the candidate; Lawless left his Belfast +newspaper, and Father Maguire his Leitrim flock; Messrs. Steele and +O'Gorman Mahon, both proprietors in the county, were already in the +field, and O'Connell himself soon followed. On the other hand, the +leading county families, the O'Briens, McNamaras, Vandeleurs, +Fitzgeralds and others, declared for their old favourite, Mr. +Fitzgerald. He was personally much liked in the county; the son of a +venerable anti-Unionist, the well-remembered Prime Sergeant, and a man +besides of superior abilities. The county itself was no easy one to +contest; its immense constituency (the 40-shilling freeholders had not +yet been abolished), were scattered over a mountain and valley region, +more than fifty miles long by above thirty wide. They were almost +everywhere to be addressed in both languages—English and Irish—and when +the canvass was over, they were still to be brought under the very eyes +of the landlords, upon the breath of whose lips their subsistence +depended, to vote the overthrow and conquest of those absolute masters. +The little county town of Ennis, situated on the river Fergus, about +110 miles south-west of Dublin, was the centre of attraction or of +apprehension, and the hills that rise on either side of the little +prosaic river soon swarmed with an unwonted population, who had +resolved, subsist how they might, to see the election out. It is hardly +an exaggeration to say that the eyes of the empire were turned, during +those days of June, on the ancient patrimony of King Brian. "I fear the +Clare election will end ill," wrote the Viceroy to the leader of the +House of Commons. "This business," wrote the Lord Chancellor (Eldon), +"must bring the Roman Catholic question to a crisis and a conclusion." +"May the God of truth and justice protect and prosper you," was the +public invocation for O'Connell's success, by the bishop of Kildare and +Leighlin. "It was foreseen," said Sir Robert Peel, long afterwards, +"that the Clare election would be the turning point of the Catholic +question." In all its aspects, and to all sorts of men, this, then, was +no ordinary election, but a national event of the utmost religious and +political consequence. Thirty thousand people welcomed O'Connell into +Ennis, and universal sobriety and order characterized the proceedings. +The troops called out to overawe the peasantry, infected by the +prevailing good humour, joined in their cheers. The nomination, the +polling, and the declaration, have been described by the graphic pen of +Shiel. At the close of the poll the numbers were—O'Connell, 2,057; +Fitzgerald, 1,075; so Daniel O'Connell was declared duly elected, +amidst the most extraordinary manifestations of popular enthusiasm. Mr. +Fitzgerald, who gracefully bowed to the popular verdict, sat down, and +wrote his famous despatch to Sir Robert Peel: "All the great +interests," he said, "my dear Peel, broke down, and the desertion has +been universal. Such a scene as we have had! Such a tremendous prospect +as is open before us!" + +This "tremendous prospect," disclosed at the hustings of Ennis, was +followed up by demonstrations which bore a strongly revolutionary +character. Mr. O'Connell, on his return to Dublin, was accompanied by a +_levee en masse_, all along the route, of a highly imposing +description. Mr. Lawless, on his return to Belfast, was escorted +through Meath and Monaghan by a multitude estimated at 100,000 men, +whom only the most powerful persuasions of the Catholic clergy, and the +appeals of the well-known liberal commander of the district, General +Thornton, induced to disperse. Troops from England were ordered over in +considerable numbers, but whole companies, composed of Irish Catholics, +signalized their landing at Waterford and Dublin by cheers for +O'Connell. Reports of the continued hostility of the government +suggested desperate councils. Mr. Ford, a Catholic solicitor, openly +proposed, in the Association, exclusive dealing and a run on the banks +for specie, while Mr. John Claudius Beresford, and other leading +Orangemen, publicly predicted a revival of the scenes and results of +1798. + +The Clare election was, indeed, decisive; Lord Anglesea, who landed +fully resolved to make no terms with those he had regarded from a +distance as no better than rebels, became now one of their warmest +partisans. His favourite counsellor was Lord Cloncurry, the early +friend of Emmet and O'Conor; the true friend to the last of every +national interest. For a public letter to Bishop Curtis, towards the +close of 1828, in which he advises the Catholics to stand firm, he was +immediately recalled from the government; but his former and his actual +chief, within three months from the date of his recall, was equally +obliged to surrender to the Association. The great duke was, or +affected to be, really alarmed for the integrity of the empire, from +the menacing aspect of events in Ireland. A call of Parliament was +accordingly made for an early day, and, on the 5th of March, Mr. Peel +moved a committee of the whole House, to go into a "consideration of +the civil disabilities of his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects." This +motion, after two days' debate, was carried by a majority of 188. On +the 10th of March the Relief Bill was read for the first time, and +passed without opposition, such being the arrangement entered into +while in committee. But in five days all the bigotry of the land had +been aroused; nine hundred and fifty-seven petitions had already been +presented against it; that from the city of London was signed by more +than "an hundred thousand freeholders." On the 17th of March it passed +to a second reading, and on the 30th to a third, with large majorities +in each stage of debate. Out of 320 members who voted on the final +reading, 178 were in its favour. On the 31st of March it was carried to +the Lords by Mr. Peel, and read a first time; two days later, on the +2nd of April, it was read a second time, on motion of the Duke of +Wellington; a bitterly contested debate of three days followed; on the +10th, it was read a third time, and passed by a majority of 104. Three +days later the bill received the royal assent, and became law. + +The only drawbacks on this great measure of long-withheld justice, +were, that it disfranchised the "forty-shilling freeholders" throughout +Ireland, and condemned Mr. O'Connell, by the insertion of the single +word "hereafter," to go back to Clare for re-election. In this there +was little difficulty for him, but much petty spleen in the framers of +the measure. + +While the Relief Bill was still under discussion, Mr. O'Connell +presented himself, with his counsel, at the bar of the House of +Commons, to claim his seat as member for Clare. The pleadings in the +case were adjourned from day to day, during the months of March, April, +and May. A committee of the House, of which Lord John Russell was +Chairman, having been appointed in the meantime to consider the +petition of Thomas Mahon and others, against the validity of the +election, reported that Mr. O'Connell had been duly elected. On the +15th of May, introduced by Lords Ebrington and Duncannon, the new +member entered the House, and advanced to the table to be sworn by the +Clerk. On the oath of abjuration being tendered to him, he read over +audibly these words—"that the sacrifice of the mass, and the invocation +of the blessed Virgin Mary, and other saints, as now practised in the +Church of Rome, are impious and idolatrous:" at the subsequent passage, +relative to the falsely imputed Catholic "doctrine of the dispensing +power" of the Pope, he again read aloud, and paused. Then slightly +raising his voice, he bowed, and added, "I decline, Mr. Clerk, to take +this oath. Part of it I know to be false; another part I do not believe +to be true." + +He was subsequently heard at the bar, in his own person, in explanation +of his refusal to take the oath, and, according to custom, withdrew. +The House then entered into a very animated discussion on the Solicitor +General's motion "that Mr. O'Connell, having been returned a member of +this House before the passing of the Act for the Relief of the Roman +Catholics, he is not entitled to sit or vote in this House unless he +first takes the oath of supremacy." For this motion the vote on a +division was 190 against 116: majority, 74. So Mr. O'Connell had again +to seek the suffrages of the electors of Clare. + +A strange, but well authenticated incident, struck with a somewhat +superstitious awe both Protestants and Catholics, in a corner of +Ireland the most remote from Clare, but not the least interested in the +result of its memorable election. A lofty column on the walls of Derry +bore the effigy of Bishop Walker, who fell at the Boyne, armed with a +sword, typical of his martial inclinations, rather than of his +religious calling. Many long years, by day and night, had his sword, +sacred to liberty or ascendancy, according to the eyes with which the +spectator regarded it, turned its steadfast point to the broad estuary +of Lough Foyle. Neither wintry storms nor summer rains had loosened it +in the grasp of the warlike churchman's effigy, until, on the 13th day +of April, 1829—the day the royal signature was given to the Act of +Emancipation—the sword of Walker fell with a prophetic crash upon the +ramparts of Derry, and was shattered to pieces. So, we may now say, +without bitterness and almost without reproach, so may fall and shiver +to pieces, every code, in every land beneath the sun, which impiously +attempts to shackle conscience, or endows an exclusive caste with the +rights and franchises which belong to an entire People! + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Popular History of Ireland, by Thomas D'Arcy McGee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND *** + +***** This file should be named 6634-0.txt or 6634-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/6/3/6634/ + +This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan with help from +Charles Aldarondo and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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