England under the Tudors Part 26

[Sidenote: Ireland and Philip II.]

In England, 1569 was the year of the Northern rebellion. France was viewing the Scots Queen's pretensions with increasing lukewarmness, and Philip was regarding her with corresponding favour. The Ridolfi plot was developing in 1570 and 1571. In brief, at this period Philip's disposition towards Elizabeth was becoming definitely, though not avowedly, hostile instead of--as. .h.i.therto on the whole--friendly. Yet he would not accept the Irish invitation to intervene. But he received at Madrid, and treated with great favour, the very remarkable adventurer Thomas Stukely, already mentioned as a piratical ally of Shan O'Neill's. Stukely had been sent over to England to answer for his miscellaneous misdeeds; but was--perhaps intentionally--allowed to escape to Spain; where he represented himself as an enthusiastic Catholic, and the most influential man in Ireland, and bragged hugely of the coming conquest of that country, of which he was to become in some sort the Prince, with the a.s.sistance of Spain. The entertainment of Stukely however summed up all that Philip was prepared to do for Ireland. By September 1572 he was again seeking Elizabeth's amity.

[Sidenote: Experimental Presidencies]

In the meantime, the experiment of const.i.tuting Connaught a Presidency had been tried and failed ignominiously. The curse of the English Government--a soldiery whose pay was permanently and hugely in arrear, who were constantly on the verge of mutiny, and lived virtually by pillage--remained unabated; and Sidney, having tried vigorous government first and then, lacking the means to maintain it properly, extirpation as an alternative, but still without success, clamoured to be recalled, and at last got his wish.

Desmond was still detained in England, but the Geraldines in Munster had not been crushed either by Sidney or by Gilbert. Despite the failure in Connaught, the Presidency plan was tried in the southern province, Sir John Perrot being appointed thereto. Perrot blew up strongholds, captured and hanged some hundreds of the population, but could not lay hold of the chiefs or bring the country into subjection.

In 1572, Fitzmaurice made his way to Ulster, gathered a force of Scots, and came down the Shannon. The President got his chance of a fight, and shattered the force: but Elizabeth was dissatisfied with the results of an unwonted if still inadequate expenditure, and declared that the whole experiment was too costly. A general amnesty and the withdrawal of Perrot ended it.

[Sidenote: 1573 Ess.e.x (the elder) in Ulster]

Yet experiments continued to be the order of the day. The one expedient not attempted was a government supported by obviously efficient physical force, but aiming at the prosperity of the people, and not running violently counter to the customs and the prejudices of centuries. Another inefficient colony was started in Ulster, which only excited popular animosity; Desmond was at last in 1573 allowed to return to Munster with many promises on his part, from which, like O'Neill before him, he considered himself absolved by a breach of faith towards him. Finally Walter Devereux, Earl of Ess.e.x, was allowed to try the biggest and perhaps the most disastrous of the whole series of experiments; being virtually granted authority to invade Ulster with a free hand to make laws and generally to do what seemed to him good there--all at his own cost--save only for some provisions safe-guarding the royal prerogative. He went with excellent intentions, romantic ideals, a respectable force, and a sublime ignorance of facts. The Irishmen, mindful of the Munster colonisation, tricked him with an apparently warm welcome at Carrickfergus, permitted him to congratulate himself on roseate prospects, and then at one swoop cleared the district of provisions. They professed to owe allegiance to the Queen, but repudiated the claims of a private adventurer. His own troops were volunteers, with no mind for hardships and no prospects of plunder. In three months he found his dreams hopelessly dissipated, and himself almost deserted, with no remotest chance of carrying out the Utopian projects with which he had started.

[Sidenote: 1574]

The volunteer method having failed thus ignominiously, Ess.e.x was made officially Governor of Ulster, and supplied with troops; for the O'Neills were now threatening, and the Deputy, Fitzwilliam, was inactive. Tirlogh O'Neill and his kinsman Sir Brian were very promptly brought to submission. In the south Desmond, between threats and promises, was persuaded to resume an air of loyalty. Ess.e.x however had learned to adopt the common view of the Irish in its extremest form. By a ruse which anywhere else he would have counted a piece of the blackest treachery, he seized Sir Brian and his wife and cut up their following when they were actually his own guests; and followed up the performance by a hideous and wanton ma.s.sacre of women and children and decrepit men at Rathlin off the Antrim Coast; of which things he wrote with a perfect complacency, and for which he was highly applauded.

Thereafter he returned to England.

[Sidenote: 1576 Sidney's second Deputyship]

Once more, Sidney was persuaded to accept the Deputyship. It is probable that his honest desire was to govern firmly and justly, although, when denied the means for steady rule he had fallen back on extirpation. At any rate the Irish themselves, genuinely or not, hailed his return with apparent enthusiasm. The chiefs hoped that after so many experiments had collapsed, the pristine plan of making them responsible for their own districts and leaving them alone might be tried again. But no English statesman could divest himself of the idea that no government was worth having unless it was conducted by English methods. Sidney insisted on reconst.i.tuting the Presidencies of Connaught and Munster, Malby taking charge of the former and Drury of the latter. Naturally enough, and with plenty of excuse, they set about hangings on an extensive scale, and where they met with resistance gave no quarter. English methods, as usual in Ireland, promptly degenerated into ma.s.sacre and devastation. Sidney left the country again two years after he had returned to it--and left it as ripe for rebellion as it had ever been.

And the omens abroad were dangerous. For the Jesuit Sanders was seeking to stir up a Catholic crusade, Stukely was in high favour at Madrid, and the ablest of the Geraldines, James Fitzmaurice, was in Spain.

Moreover Philip's indisposition to interfere was on the verge of being seriously disturbed by Drake's great expedition, which had sailed from England in 1577.

CHAPTER XXI

ELIZABETH (vi), 1578-83--THE PAPAL ATTACK

[Sidenote: Union of Utrecht 1579]

The presence of Alexander of Parma in the Netherlands soon resulted in a definite division between the seven northern and the ten southern States. The latter, Catholic themselves, were not inclined to hold out for religious liberty. The rest, being Protestant, and realising that, while William of Orange lived, two at least, Holland and Zealand, would hold out to the very death, resolved to stand together; combining, under the t.i.tle of the United Provinces, in the Union of Utrecht at the beginning of 1579. Their strength lay in their command of the estuaries of the Scheldt and the Meuse.

[Sidenote: 1578 The Matrimonial juggle]

Elizabeth's great object now was to keep Alencon (otherwise known as Anjou, the t.i.tle held by Henry III. before he ascended the throne; also very commonly as "Monsieur") dancing in obedience to her manipulation of the wires. In this, as in all the previous matrimonial negotiations, not one of her ministers seems ever to have grasped her policy; the policy, that is, which modern historians attribute to her: a policy of which the successful issue really depended on its never being suspected; which was possible only to one who was entire mistress of all arts of dissimulation; which did in fact succeed completely every time she applied it; a policy however of which no statesman could have dared to recommend the risk. This was, in brief, to make the whole world including her ministers believe that she really intended to marry, to keep that conviction alive over a protracted period of time, and yet to secure a loop-hole for escape at the last moment. She had played the farce for years with the Archduke Charles; she had played it with Henry of Anjou; she had already played it with Alencon once; yet every time she started it afresh, potentates and amba.s.sadors, her own ministers, and the wooer she selected, took the thing seriously, played into her hands, and were cajoled by her boundless histrionic ingenuity. Either she treated the world to a series of successful impositions, carried through, unaided and unsuspected, with the supreme audacity and skill of a consummate _comedienne;_ or she was a contemptibly capricious woman whose inordinate vacillations invariably took the turn which after-events proved to have been the luckiest possible in the circ.u.mstances. Of these two interpretations, the theory of a deliberate policy is the more acceptable, if only because it is inconceivable that the habitual indulgence of sheer wanton caprice should never once have involved her in some irrevocable blunder, some position from which she could not be extricated. Yet history affords no parallel to such repeatedly and universally successful dissimulation.

[Sidenote: Alencon's wooing]

The comedy had fairly begun three months before Don John's death. In response, as it would seem, to a private invitation, Alencon's envoys came over at the end of July to propose the marriage. Monsieur wanted the affair settled at once, as he must decide whether he was going to help Orange or Don John. After a little formal procrastination, Elizabeth had her answer ready. She was quite prepared to receive him as a suitor though somewhat hurt by his conduct before; still she could not promise to marry any man till they had met, and could really feel sure that they would be happily mated. He had better come over and see her.

Alencon did not want to come over and see her; but his alternative plan, of taking part with Don John, was opportunely spoilt by the Governor's death, coupled with the new Spanish prospects opened up by the death of the Portuguese King. An alliance with Parma under these conditions was not at all the same thing for the French prince as an alliance with the ambitious and somewhat Quixotic schemer who was now dead. Elizabeth, thus strengthened, added a new condition, that he must withdraw for the present from the Netherlands. He could hardly, under the circ.u.mstances, support Orange against her will, and he obeyed her behest. Then she consented to receive another representative on his behalf, but held to her declaration that she would settle nothing till she had met Monsieur himself in person.

[Sidenote: 1579 Popular hostility]

At the beginning of the year (1579) Alencon's emissary Simier arrived.

In England however practically every one--except apparently the Queen herself--was opposed to the marriage. The traditional animosity to France was strong, and had been intensified by the Paris ma.s.sacre. The French Huguenots, for whom there was some sympathy, had no confidence in Alencon. The more unpopular the marriage showed itself, the more the Queen seemed to incline to it--since the more reasonably she could also insist to him on the necessity of delay, that her people might first be reconciled to it. Yet however much the Council might dislike it, they now felt bound to advise that Monsieur should be allowed to pay his visit. In August he arrived, and she could no longer urge the plea that she had not seen him. Mendoza, the Spanish amba.s.sador, thought she would marry him, that a civil war would follow, and the end would be the return of England to Catholicism. On the whole Mendoza was not ill pleased.

[Sidenote: Loyalty to the Queen]

Now however capricious and apparently irrational the conduct of the Queen might be, however her ministers might resent it, condemn it, bewail it to each other, and remonstrate with her, they remained always obstinately loyal. We may cynically attribute the fact to their consciousness that if they deserted her their doom under her rival would be sealed. Were that the true interpretation--were they really guided merely by a more or less enlightened self-interest--it is rather natural to suppose that some of them would have played a double game and secured friends in the other camp, like the Whig and Tory statesmen of the early eighteenth century; that they would have managed their own affairs so that they could change sides. None of them ever did anything of the kind. Whatever the Queen did, they held to their own views, advocated them stubbornly, but obeyed their mistress, even when they thought her caprices were on the verge of bringing them all to ruin.

And yet they never seem to have fully realised the extent to which their own loyalty was shared by the people at large. Men may surrender themselves to such a sentiment, without venturing to count upon its influence on others. But Elizabeth reckoned on it in ministers and people alike; and her calculation was invariably justified.

[Sidenote: Yea and Nay]

So it was in this instance. What might have happened if she really had married Alencon can only be guessed. Short of that, popular loyalty was equal to the strain. A pa.s.sionate pamphlet against the marriage was issued by a lawyer named Stubbs. The Council, confident in the real strength of the country, urged her to take the bold att.i.tude, place herself frankly at the head of European protestantism, and take measures at home to make a Catholic rising impossible. They could see no alternative but the marriage. She stormed at them, burst into tears, vowed that she had expected them all to declare that the marriage would be the fulfilment of all their hopes. They replied that since she would have it so they would do their best to make the marriage acceptable.

She had Stubbs and his publisher pilloried, and their right hands struck off--on the strength of a most iniquitous misinterpretation of a law of Queen Mary's. The victims waved their caps with the hand that was left and cried "G.o.d save the Queen". The marriage treaty was drawn up (November) but a couple of months were to pa.s.s before its ratification, to quiet the public mind. When the two months were over it was still unratified, and the whole negotiation was treated as having lapsed. Burghley at the end of January (1580) was falling back on the leadership of Protestantism as the only alternative to adopt, since France must be regarded as hopelessly alienated.

[Sidenote: The Papal plan of Campaign]

In the meantime the Papal plan of campaign against England--a plan which appears to have been matured early in 1579--was well under way.

The Pope himself could not, and Philip of Spain would not, prepare Armadas to bring the recusant island back to the Roman submission. But there were other means to be tried than Armadas. Setting aside schemes for a.s.sa.s.sination, there was trouble to be made for Elizabeth in Ireland, trouble in Scotland, and trouble in England itself. Ireland was ripe for rebellion; a Catholic faction might be reorganised in Scotland; missionary zeal and martyrs' crowns might still revolutionise sentiment in England. The triple attack was resolved on--war in Ireland, diplomacy in Scotland, in England Seminarists from Rheims (whither Allen's Douay college had migrated some years before) and Jesuits from Rome.

In Ireland we have already seen the scheme taking shape, but scotched for the time by Stukely's diversion to Morocco and his death there, in 1578. In the following summer however, an expedition landed in Kerry, with Sanders as Papal Nuncio, and half the island was soon in a blaze.

There, for some little time, such of the wilder spirits of English youth as were not occupied with ventures on the high seas were to find ample employment: and though Philip would not make open war, Philip's subjects were not restrained from seeking to pay back the blows which Drake had been dealing to Spain on the other side of the ocean--the report whereof had already found its way to Europe. In Scotland, the autumn was not far advanced when young Esme Stewart, Count D'Aubigny, of the House of Lennox, James's cousin, arrived in Scotland to win his way into the boy-king's favour and plot the overthrow of Morton and of the Preachers. In the summer of 1580, Campian and Parsons began to deliver their message to the Catholics of England.

[Sidenote: 1580 Philip annexes Portugal]

In this same summer, the Cardinal-King of Portugal, Sebastian's successor, died. Philip's opportunity for annexation had arrived, and he seized it, expelling with little difficulty another claimant, Don Antonio, prior of Crato, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of the Cardinal's brother Luis; who however for the next ten years hovers through English politics as a pretender to be supported or dropped at convenience; used as a menace to Philip, much as the enemies of Henry VII. had used Perkin Warbeck. Then, in September, the great English seaman was back on English sh.o.r.es, in the ship that had sailed round the world--back with the spoils of Spain on board.

With this impression in our minds of the leading features of the year 1580, we can turn first to the detailed record of events in Ireland.

[Sidenote: Ireland: 1579 The Desmond rising]

The Expedition which landed in July at Dingle on the furthest south- west coast was small enough; but it brought with it Sanders the accredited representative of the Pope, and Fitzmaurice, cousin of Desmond. It appealed therefore at once to the Catholics at large and the Geraldine connexion in particular. There was no strong or united English force in the country; it was the custom of Elizabeth to provide her officers with the very minimum of equipment. Desmond at first hesitated; but his brother seized an early opportunity to commit him by treacherously murdering two English officers and their servants. Half Munster was up in arms at once, and the new arrivals made haste to fortify Smerwick, in the neighbourhood of Dingle where they had landed.

It was expected and declared that reinforcements from Spain would soon be forth-coming. Malby, the President of Connaught, acted with prompt.i.tude and energy, marching south with his own troops and some of the Burkes who were at feud with the Geraldines. Fortune favoured them; Fitzmaurice was slain almost at the outset, and the Papal standard captured and sent off to Dublin. Desmond with his immediate following, who had not taken part in the engagement, fell back on Ashketyn, near Limerick; the rest of the insurgents retired on Smerwick. Drury however, advancing from Cork, was less fortunate, his troops being attacked by the Irish and very severely handled, so that he was forced to retreat.

He died soon after.

The vigorous Malby a.s.sumed control of the Presidency, marched through Desmond's country dealing miscellaneous slaughter and destruction, burnt the town at Ashketyn since the castle could not be carried without cannon, and then went his way into Connaught. When Malby was gone, Desmond sallied forth, marched quietly south to Youghal where there was an English colony, sacked it, put the English to the sword, and burnt the place. Thence, with increasing musters, he marched upon Cork, which however he abstained from attacking. In January the insurgents were encouraged by the arrival of some military stores from abroad, with promises of further a.s.sistance in response to messages from Desmond to the King of Spain.

[Sidenote: 1580 Fire and Sword]

Meantime, neither Malby at Athlone nor Pelham in Dublin had sufficient troops to take the field in force. Ormonde, dispatched from England to take the chief command, had neither money nor material allowed him to take the offensive. It was not till March that the Queen was induced to send the urgently needed reinforcements, and Admiral Wynter with a squadron of ships arrived at the mouth of the Shannon. Ormonde from Kilkenny in the Butler country, and Pelham from Dublin, marched in two columns converging on Tralee, burning and slaughtering mercilessly along the route, sparing none. Then they turned on Carrickfoyle, impregnable without artillery, but easily breached by the heavy guns landed from Wynter's ships. The garrison was put to the sword. Desmond at Ashketyn, having no mind for a like fate, withdrew from it, blowing up the castle behind him. But Elizabeth stopped the supplies; the English were again forced to inaction, and parties of insurgents went marauding over Cork and Kerry, taking their turn of murdering. In June the purse-strings were loosened again; Pelham marched into Kerry, and only just failed to surprise Desmond and his people, with Sanders, in their beds. They escaped however, and Pelham went on to Dingle. Ormonde, making his way to the same point, added considerably to the tale of burnings and slaughterings. This loyal earl in 1580 accounted for "forty-six captains and leaders, with eight notorious traitors and male-factors, and four thousand other folk". [Footnote: _Carew Papers_.]

[Sidenote: Development of the Rebellion]

The people in despair were beginning to turn against Sanders and the Geraldines, though persistently loyal to Desmond himself. But a diversion was created by a rising of the Catholics of the Pale. Lord Grey de Wilton had just arrived in Dublin as Deputy. He marched against the rebels, but the greater part of his force was ambushed and cut to pieces in the Wicklow mountains. And on the top of this disaster, the long delayed foreign expedition landed at Dingle--Wynter having withdrawn--and Smerwick was re-occupied by a force mainly consisting of eight hundred Italian and Spanish adventurers. The rebellion seemed to be reviving everywhere. Ormonde, again marching into Kerry with four thousand men, accomplished nothing. But the murderous work of the summer had had effect, and the septs would not openly take the field without immediate cash inducements, which were lacking.

[Sidenote: Smerwick: and after]

In October Grey made a fresh start and marched down from Dublin to Kerry: in the first week of November, Wynter's fleet reappeared, having been held back by stress of weather with the exception of one vessel which had been lying off Smerwick for three weeks. The siege now was brief enough. On the 9th, the garrison, after a vain attempt to obtain terms, surrendered at discretion. The officers were put to ransom; the rest were slaughtered; even women were hanged. The dead numbered 600.

Grey doubtless regarded the measure as a just return for the doings of the Inquisition, and the punishment of English sailors as pirates, for his retort to the garrison's overtures had been that their presence in Ireland was piracy. But the whole business ill.u.s.trates the sheer ruthlessness which characterised both sides, at least where there was a technical excuse for denying belligerents' rights to the vanquished.

It was no longer possible for the rebellion to make head; but for the next two years a guerrilla warfare was kept up, in which English and Irish killed each other without compunction whenever anything in the shape of an excuse offered itself. Most of the English honestly believed that the only practicable policy was one of extermination, and the Irish retaliated in kind. There is nothing so ugly as this history in the annals of a people which, outside of Ireland, has shown a unique capacity for tempering conquest with justice. The very men whose blood boiled, honestly enough, over cruelties to the Indians, adopted to the Irish the precise att.i.tude of mind which so horrified them in the Spaniards. Elizabeth herself, Burghley, Walsingham, and Ormonde, were opposed to the extermination policy; but the bloodshed went on, unsystematically instead of systematically. Sanders, wandering a hunted fugitive, died in a bog. It was not till 1583 that Desmond himself was surprised and slain in his bed. In the meantime, there had been no variation in the story. But the exhaustion of ceaseless slaughters and ceaseless famines had practically terminated the struggle. Sir John Perrot, who became Deputy in 1584, could adopt a conciliatory att.i.tude, without fear that his leniency would be immediately abused--though it led to his recall and condemnation for treason [Footnote: This sentence however was not carried out. It is perhaps worth noting that Sir John was reputed to be a natural son of Henry VIII.] three years later.