An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 Part 37

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOLD EAR-RING, TORQUE PATTERN, FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE R.I.A., FOUND AT CASTLEREA, CO. ROSCOMMON.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: KILCOLMAN CASTLE.]

FOOTNOTES:

[402] _Heretics_.--Annals, vol. v. p. 1493.

[403] _Service_.--Shirley's _Original Letters_, p. 47. Dr. Browne gives an account of his signal failures in attempting to introduce the Protestant form of prayer in his letters to Cromwell. He says one prebendary of St. Patrick's "thought scorn to read them." He adds: "They be in a manner all the same point with me. There are twenty-eight of them, and yet scarce one that favoureth G.o.d's Word."--_State Papers_, vol. iii. p. 6.

[404] _Pertinacity_.--_The Victoria History of England_, p. 256.

[405] _Pope_.--_Lib. Mun. Hib_. part i. p. 37.

[406] _Captivity_.--Lord Chancellor Cusack addressed a very curious "Book on the State of Ireland" to the Duke of Northumberland, in 1552, in which he mentions the fearful condition of the northern counties. He states that "the cause why the Earl was detained [in Dublin Castle] was for the wasting and destroying of his county." This Sir Thomas Cusack, who took a prominent part in public affairs during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was a son of Thomas Cusack, of Ca.s.sington, in Meath, an ancient Norman-Irish family, who were hereditary seneschals and sheriffs of that county.--_Ulster Arch. Jour_. vol. iii p. 51.

[407] _People.--The Irish Reformation_, by the Rev. W. Maziere Brady, D.D., fifth edition, pp. 32, 33.

[408] _Creed_.--_Cambrensis Eversus_, vol. iii. p. 19.

[409] _Book_.--_Orationes et Motiva_, p. 87.

[410] _Date_.--_a.n.a.lecta_, p. 387.

[411] _Dr. Moran_.--_Archbishops of Dublin_, p. 68. Further information may be obtained also in Curry's _Historical Review_.

[412] _Clergyman_.--The Rev. W. Maziere Brady, D.D. Mr. Froude remarks, in his _History of England_, vol. x. p. 480: "There is no evidence that any of the bishops in Ireland who were in office at Queen Mary's death, with the exception of Curwin, either accepted the Reformed Prayer-Book, or abjured the authority of the Pope." He adds, in a foot-note: "I cannot express my astonishment at a proposition maintained by Bishop Mant and others, that whole hierarchy of Ireland went over to the Reformation with the Government. In a survey of the country supplied to Cecil in 1571, after death and deprivation had enabled the Government to fill several sees, the Archbishops Armagh, Tuam, and Cashel, with almost every one of the Bishops of the respective provinces, are described as _Catholici et Confederati_. The Archbishop of Dublin, with the Bishops of Kildare, Ossory, and Ferns, are alone returned as 'Protestantes'"

[413] _Withal_.--Shirley, _Original Letters_, p. 194.

[414] _Traitors_.--Letter of October 18, 1597.--State Paper Office.

[415] _Law_.--Letter to the Queen, in _Government of Ireland under Sir John Parrot_, p.4.

[416] _Thumbs_.--Despatch of Castlerosse, in State Paper Office, London.

[417] _Swords_.--O'Sullivan Beare, _Hist. Cath_. p. 238.

[418] _Mothers_.--_Ibid_. p. 99.

[419] _Them.--Hist. Cath_. p.133.

[420] _Army_.--See Dr. Stuart's _History of Armagh_, p. 261.

[421] _Style_.--In one of the communications from Suss.e.x to O'Neill, he complains of the chieftain's letters as being "_nimis superbe scriptae_."--State Papers for 1561.

[422] _May_.--Moore's _History of Ireland_, vol. iv. p.33.

[423] _Denied_.--This doc.u.ment has been printed in the _Ulster Arch.

Jour_. vol. ii, p.221, but the editor does not mention where the original was procured.

[424] _Englishman_.--Moore, vol. iv. p. 37, has "like a gentleman," but the above is the correct reading. In 1584 Sir J. Perrot tried to get the Irish chieftains to attend Parliament clothed in the English fashion, and even offered them robes and cloaks of velvet and satin. The chieftains objected; the Lord Deputy insisted. At last one of them, with exquisite humour, suggested that if he were obliged to wear English robes, a Protestant minister should accompany him attired in Irish garments, so that the mirth and amazement of the People should be fairly divided between them.--_Sir J. Perrot's Life_, p.198.

[425] _Cusack_.--One reason, perhaps, was that the Chancellor always treated O'Neill with the respect due from one gentleman to another.

Flemyng mentions, in a letter to Cecil, November 29, 1563, that O'Neill told him, when about to take the oaths of his people to an agreement with the Queen, that "Cusack did not give them their oath so, _but let me give them their oath_."

CHAPTER XXVI.

Spenser's Castle--Sidney's Official Account of Ireland--Miserable State of the Protestant Church--The Catholic Church and its Persecuted Rulers--The Viceroy's Administration--A Packed Parliament and its Enactments--Claim of Sir P. Carew--An Attempt to plant in Ulster--Smith's Settlement in the Ards--His Description of the Native Irish--He tries to induce Englishmen to join him--Smith is killed, and the attempt to plant fails--Ess.e.x next tries to colonize Ulster--He dies in Dublin--Sidney returns to Ireland--His Interview with Granuaile--Ma.s.sacre at Mullamast--Spenser's Account of the State of Ireland.

[A.D. 1567-1579.]

Kilcolman Castle, with its fair domains, were bestowed on the poet Spenser, who had accompanied Lord Grey to Ireland in 1579. He has left a fearful description of the miseries of the country; but it scarcely exceeds the official report of Sir Henry Sidney, which must first be noticed. At the close of the month of January, 1567, the Lord Deputy set out on a visitation of Munster and Connaught. In his official account he writes thus of Munster: "Like as I never was in a more pleasant country in all my life, so never saw I a more waste and desolate land. Such horrible and lamentable spectacles are there to behold--as the burning of villages, the ruin of churches, the wasting of such as have been good towns and castles; yea, the view of the bones and skulls of the dead subjects, who, partly by murder, partly by famine, have died in the fields--as, in truth, hardly any Christian with dry eyes could behold."

He declares that, in the territory subject to the Earl of Ormonde, he witnessed "a want of justice and judgment." He describes the Earl of Desmond as "a man devoid of judgment to govern, and will be to be ruled." The Earl of Th.o.m.ond, he says, "had neither wit of himself to govern, nor grace or capacity to learn of others." The Earl of Clanrickarde he describes as "so overruled by a putative wife, as ofttimes, when he best intendeth, she forceth him to do the worst;" and it would appear that neither he nor his lady could govern their own family, for their sons were so turbulent they kept the whole country in disturbance. In Galway he found the people trying to protect themselves, as best they might, from their dangerous neighbours; and at Athenry there were but four respectable householders, who presented him with the rusty keys of their town--"a pitiful and lamentable present;" and they requested him to keep those keys, for "they were so impoverished by the extortions of the lords about them, as they were no longer able to keep that town."

Well might he designate the policy by which the country had been hitherto governed as "cowardly," and contemn the practice of promoting division between the native princes, which was still practised. He adds: "So far hath that policy, or rather lack of policy, in keeping dissensions among them, prevailed, as now, albeit all that are alive would become honest and live in quiet, yet there are not left alive, in those two provinces, the twentieth person necessary to inhabit the same." Sidney at once proceeded to remedy the evils under which the unfortunate country groaned, by enacting other evils. We shall leave him to give his own account of his proceedings. He writes thus, in one of his official despatches: "I write not the names of each particular varlet that hath died since I arrived, as well by the ordinary course of the law, as of the martial law, as flat fighting with them, when they would take food without the good will of the giver, for I think it no stuff worthy the loading of my letters with; but I do a.s.sure you the number of them is great, and some of the best, and the rest tremble. For most part they fight for their dinner, and many of them lose their heads before they be served with supper. Down they go in every corner, and down they shall go, G.o.d willing."[426]

When we remember Sidney's own description of the desolation of country, and read of the fashion in which he remedied that desolation we cannot wonder at the piteous account given a few years later by the English poet; for who could escape the threefold danger of "ordinary law, martial law, and flat fighting." Nor was the state of religious affairs at all more promising. The Deputy describes the kingdom as "overwhelmed by the most deplorable immorality and irreligion;"[427] the Privy Council, in their deliberations, gives a similar account. "As for religion, there was but small appearance of it; the churches uncovered, and the clergy scattered."[428] An Act of Parliament was then pa.s.sed to remedy the evils which Acts of Parliament had created. In the preamble (11th Elizabeth, sess. iii. cap. 6) it mentions the disorders which Sidney had found, and complains of "the great abuse of the clergy in getting into the said dignities by force, simony, friendship, and other corrupt means, to the great overthrow of G.o.d's holy Church;" and for remedy, the Act authorizes the _Lord Deputy_ to appoint, for ten years, to all the ecclesiastical benefices of these provinces, with the exception of the cathedral churches of Waterford, Limerick, Cork, and Cashel.

But it was soon evident that Acts of Parliament could not effect ecclesiastical reform, though they might enforce exterior conformity to a new creed. In 1576, Sidney again complains of the state of the Irish Church, and addresses himself, with almost blasphemous flattery to the head of that body, "as to the only sovereign salve-giver to this your sore and sick realm, the lamentable state of the most n.o.ble and princ.i.p.al limb thereof--the Church I mean--as foul, deformed, and as cruelly crushed as any other part thereof, only by your gracious order to be cured, or at least amended. I would not have believed, had I not, for a greater part, viewed the same throughout the whole realm." He then gives a detailed account of the state of the diocese of Meath, which he declares to be the best governed and best peopled diocese in the realm; and from his official report of the state of religion there, he thinks her Majesty may easily judge of the spiritual condition of less favoured districts. He says there are no resident parsons or vicars, and only a very simple or sorry curate appointed to serve them; of them only eighteen could speak English, the rest being "Irish ministers, or rather Irish rogues, having very little Latin, and less learning or civility."[429] In many places he found the walls of the churches thrown down, the chancels uncovered, and the windows and doors ruined or spoiled--fruits of the iconoclastic zeal of the original reformers and of the rapacity of the n.o.bles, who made religion an excuse for plunder.

He complains that the sacrament of baptism was not used amongst them, and he accuses the "prelates themselves" of despoiling their sees, declaring that if he told all he should make "too long a libel of his letter. But your Majesty may believe it, that, upon the face of the earth where Christ is professed, there is not a Church in so miserable a case."

A Protestant n.o.bleman, after citing some extracts from this doc.u.ment, concludes thus: "Such was the condition of a Church which was, half a century ago, rich and flourishing, an object of reverence, and a source of consolation to the people. It was now despoiled of its revenues; the sacred edifices were in ruins; the clergy were either ignorant of the language of their flocks, or illiterate and uncivilized intruders; and the only ritual permitted by the laws was one of which the people neither comprehended the language nor believed the doctrines. And this was called establishing the Reformation!"[430]

It should be observed, however, that Sir Henry Sidney's remarks apply exclusively to the Protestant clergy. Of the state of the Catholic Church and clergy he had no knowledge, neither had he any interest in obtaining information. His account of the Protestant clergy who had been intruded into the Catholic parishes, and of the Protestant bishops who had been placed in the Catholic dioceses, we may presume to be correct, as he had no interest or object in misrepresentation; but his observation concerning the neglect of the sacrament of baptism, may be taken with some limitation. When a religious revolution takes place in a Catholic country, there is always a large cla.s.s who conform exteriorly to whatever opinions maybe enforced by the sword. They have not the generosity to become confessors, nor the courage to become martyrs. But these persons rarely renounce the faith in their hearts; and sacrifice their conscience to their worldly interest, though not without considerable uneasiness. In such cases, these apparently conforming Protestants would never think of bringing their children to be baptized by a minister of the new religion; they would make no nice distinctions between the validity of one sacrament and another; and would either believe that sacraments were a matter of indifference, as the new creed implied, or if they were of any value that they should be administered by those who respected them and that their number should remain intact.

In recent famine years, the men who risked their spiritual life to save their temporal existence, which the tempter would only consent to preserve on his own terms, were wont to visit the church, and bid Almighty G.o.d a solemn farewell until better times should come. They could not make up their minds to die of starvation, when food might be had for formal apostacy; they knew that they were denying their G.o.d when they appeared to deny their religion. It is more than probable that a similar feeling actuated thousands at the period of which we are writing; and that the poor Celt, who conformed from fear of the sword, took his children by night to the priest of the old religion, that he might admit them, by the sacrament of baptism, into the fold of the only Church in which he believed.

It is also a matter of fact, that though the Protestant services were not attended, and the lives of the Protestant ministers were not edifying, that the sacraments were administered constantly by the Catholic clergy. It is true they date their letters "from the place of refuge" (_e loco refugii nostri_), which might be the wood nearest to their old and ruined parish-church, or the barn or stable of some friend, who dared not shelter them in his house; yet this was no hindrance to their ministrations; for we find Dr. Loftus complaining to Sir William Cecil that the persecuted Bishop of Meath, Dr. Walsh, was "one of great credit amongst his countrymen, and upon whom (as touching cause of religion) they wholly depend."[431] Sir Henry Sidney's efforts to effect reformation of conduct in the clergy and laity, do not seem to have been so acceptable at court as he might have supposed. His strong measures were followed by tumults; and the way in which he obtained possession of the persons of some of the n.o.bles, was not calculated to enhance his popularity. He was particularly severe towards the Earl of Desmond, whom he seized in Kilmallock, after requiring his attendance, on pretence of wishing him to a.s.sist in his visitation of Munster. In October, 1567, the Deputy proceeded to England to explain his conduct, taking with him the Earl of Desmond and his brother, John, whom he also arrested on false pretences. Sidney was, however, permitted to return, in September, 1568. He landed at Carrickfergus, where he received the submission of Turlough O'Neill, who had been elected to the chieftaincy on the death of Shane the Proud.

The first public act of the Lord Deputy was to a.s.semble a Parliament, in which all const.i.tutional rules were simply set at defiance (January 17th, 1569). Mayors and sheriffs returned themselves; members were sent up for towns not incorporated, and several Englishmen were elected as burgesses for places they had never seen. One of these men, Hooker, who was returned for Athenry, has left a chronicle of the age. He had to be protected by a guard in going to his residence. Popular feeling was so strongly manifested against this gross injustice, that the judges were consulted as to the legality of proceedings of whose iniquity there could be no doubt. The elections for non-corporate towns, and the election of individuals by themselves, were p.r.o.nounced invalid; but a decision was given in favour of non-resident Englishmen, which still gave the court a large majority.[432] In this Parliament--if, indeed, it could be called such--Acts were pa.s.sed for attainting Shane O'Neill, for suppressing the name, and for annexing Tyrone to the royal possessions.

Charter schools were to be founded, of which the teachers should be English and Protestants; and the law before-mentioned, for permitting the Lord Deputy to appoint persons to ecclesiastical benefices for ten years, was pa.s.sed.

Sir Philip Carew came to Ireland about this time, and renewed the claim of his family to possessions in Ireland. This plea had been rejected in the reign of Edward III.; but he now produced a forged roll, which the corrupt administration of the day readily admitted as genuine. His claim was made in right of Robert FitzStephen, one of the first adventurers; his demand included one-half of the "kingdom of Cork," and the barony of Idrone, in Carlow. Several engagements ensued, in one of which Carew boasted of having slain 400 Irish, and lost only one man. If his statement be true, it is probable the engagement was simply a ma.s.sacre.

The war became so formidable, that the MacCarthys, FitzGeralds, Cavanaghs, and FitzMaurices united against the "common enemy," and at last despatched emissaries to the Pope to implore his a.s.sistance. It is strange to find native Irish chieftains uniting with Anglo-Norman lords to resist an English settler.

Sidney now began to put his plan of local governments into execution; but this arrangement simply multiplied the number of licensed oppressors. Sir Edward Fitton was appointed President of Connaught, and Sir John Perrot, of Munster. Both of these gentlemen distinguished themselves by "strong measures," of which cruelty to the unfortunate natives was the predominant feature. Perrot boasted that he would "hunt the fox out of his hole," and devoted himself to the destruction of the Geraldines. Fitton arrested the Earl of Clanrickarde, and excited a general disturbance. In 1570 the Queen determined to lay claim to the possessions in Ulster, graciously conceded to her by the gentlemen who had been permitted to vote according to her royal pleasure in the so-called Parliament of 1569. She bestowed the district of Ards, in Down, upon her secretary, Sir Thomas Smith. It was described as "divers parts and parcels of her Highness' Earldom of Ulster that lay waste, or else was inhabited with a wicked, barbarous, and uncivil people." There were, however, two grievous misstatements in this doc.u.ment. Ulster did not belong to her Highness, unless, indeed, the Act of a packed Parliament could be considered legal; and the people who inhabited it were neither "wicked, barbarous, nor uncivil." The tract of country thus unceremoniously bestowed on an English adventurer, was in the possession of Sir Rowland Savage. His first ancestor was one of the most distinguished of the Anglo-Norman settlers who had accompanied De Courcy to Ireland. Thus, although he could not claim the prescriptive right of several thousand years for his possessions, he certainly had the right of possession for several centuries. An attempt had been made about ten years before to drive him out of part of his territory, and he had written a letter to "The Right Hon. the Earl of Suss.e.x, Lieutenant-General of Ireland," asking for "justice," which justice he had not obtained. He was permitted to hold the Southern Ards, because he could not be expelled from it without considerable difficulty, and because it was the least valuable part of his property.

Smith confided the conduct of the enterprise to his natural son who has already been mentioned as the person who attempted to poison Shane O'Neill. The first State Paper notice of this enterprise is in a letter, dated February, 8, 1572, from Captain Piers to the Lord Deputy, stating that the country is in an uproar "at Mr. Smith coming over to plant in the north." There is a rare black letter still extant, ent.i.tled, ["Letter by F.B. on the Peopling of the Ardes"] which Smith wrote to induce English adventurers to join him in his speculation. It is composed with considerable ability. He condemns severely the degeneracy of the early English settlers, "who allied and fostered themselves with the Irish." He says that "England was never fuller of people than it is at this day," and attributes this to "the dissolution of abbeys, which hath doubled the number of gentlemen and marriages." He says the younger sons who cannot "maintain themselves in the emulation of the world," as the elder and richer do, should emigrate; and then he gives glowing accounts of the advantages of this emigration.

Strange to say, one of the princ.i.p.al inducements he offers is that the "churle of Ireland is very simple and toylsomme man, desiring nothing but that he may not be eaten out with cea.s.se [rent], coyne, and liverie." He pa.s.ses over the subject of rent without any comment, but he explains very fully how "the churle is eaten up" with the exactions of "coyne and liverie." He says these laborious Irish will gladly come "to live under us, and to farm our ground;" but he does not say anything about the kind of treatment they were to receive in return for their labour. His next inducement is the immense sale (and profit) they might expect by growing corn; and he concludes by relieving their fears as to any objections which the inhabitants of this country might make to being dispossessed from their homes and lands, or any resistance they might offer. He considers it immaterial, "for the country of Lecale [which had been taken in a similar manner from Savage] was some time kept by Brereton with a hundred horses, and Lieutenant Burrows kept _Castle Rean_ [Castlereagh], and went daily one quarter of a mile to fetch his water, against five hundred Irish that lay again him."

Smith concludes with "an offer and order" for those who wished to join in the enterprise. Each footman to have a pike,[433] or halberd, or caliver, and a convenient livery cloak, of red colour or carnation, with black facings. Each horseman to have a staffe[434] and a case of dagges,[435] and his livery[436] to be of the colour aforesaid.

Strype wrote a life of Sir Thomas Smith, Bart., Oxford, 1620. He mentions this attempt at colonizing Ulster, having this good design therein: "that those half-barbarous people might be taught some civility." He speaks of "the hopeful gentleman," Sir Thomas Smith's son and concludes with stating how the expedition terminated: "But when matters went on thus fairly, Mr. Smith was intercepted and slain by a wild Irishman."

Before his a.s.sa.s.sination Smith had written an account of his proceedings to his father, in which he says that "envy had hindered him more than the enemy," and that he had been ill-handled by some of his own soldiers, ten of whom he had punished. He also expresses some fear of the native Irish, whom he had tried to drive out of their lands, as he says they sometimes "lay wait to intrap and murther the maister himself."