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The idea of planting parts of Ireland with
English settlers had long been mooted in London, and the chief visible
result of Queen Mary's short reign was the attempted plantation
of Leix and Offaly, which were shired under the names of King's
and Queen's Counties, and granted during the Vice-royalty of Lord
Sussex to sundry tenants, most of whom were "mere English,"
but who were soon so ruined by the old inhabitants that many of
them had relet their grants to the original Irish owners. This was
the first attempt at one of those plantations which were to be tried
in various parts of Ireland with varying success during the next
reign. It was among the articles of instruction given to Sir Henry
Sidney when he first came over as Deputy in 1565 that he was to
consider how these counties were to be settled with good subjects
and the O'Connors and O'Mores expelled. Full powers were put into
his hands to let lands and to make grants of any land void by "death,
escheat, or forfeiture." [1]
[1] Carew, Cal., ii, No. 20, p. 18 (August 2, 1575).
It was hoped that the leader of the O'Mores, Rory Oge, might be
induced to "renounce his aspiring imagination of title to the
country" which he and his forefathers had possessed, and be
content with such portion of freehold as the Deputy thought meet
for him. But neither Rory Oge nor his clan were so easily disposed
of. Placed on the borders of the Pale, they carried on a fierce
and prolonged struggle against English rule. They fought through
eighteen insurrections in sixty years, and up to the time of Essex
their attempted suppression had cost the State over £200,000,
large garrisons having to be maintained in the newly planted towns
of Maryborough and Philipstown. The most ruthless means were taken
for the extirpation of the chief inhabitants. Perrot writes in April
1587, "I caused to be hanged Conell MacLysaghe O'More, Lysaghe
MacWilliam O'More, three notable men of the Kellys, and I have Conell
MacKedagh O'More's head upon the top of the Castle so that there
remaineth not one principal of the O'Mores, but Shane MacRosse...and
Walter Roghe, whose heads I am promised very shortly. I have also
taken the young fry of all the O'Mores, saving one whom I am promised
to have. So I do not know one dangerous man of the sept left."
[2] Rory Oge and his elder brother Callogh had been educated in
England. At Ormonde's request in 1571, and in spite of orders that
no O'More should hold land in Leix, Callogh was given a grant in
his father's country.[3] |
[2] Carew, Cal., ii, No. 627, pp. 442-443 (April 18, 1587); Ulster Journal
of Archaeology (1856), iii, 341-342.
[3] He may have been the John Callow entered at Gray's Inn in 1557.
But Rory refused to settle down; he headed a wild band who ran through
the towns "like hags and furies of hell with flakes of fire fastened
on poles," [4] attacked the Pale, and burned the town of Naas with
five hundred people in it, himself sitting on the cross in the market-place,
making "great joy and triumphe that he had doone so divelish an act."
This is not surprising when we reflect that such men as Alexander Crosby
and his son Francis were chief governors of Leix. Francis it was who perpetrated
the savage massacre of the chief men of the district at Mullaghmast, and
who hung women and children on the spreading tree before his hall-door
at Stradbally.[5] Grim legends of death-coaches still cling around this
house.
[4] Cal. S.P.I., Eliz. (1808), vi, 395.
[5] Annals of the Four Masters, 1577 (Vol. V, p. 1695); O'Sullevan Beare,
Hist. Cath. Iber. Comp., vol. ii, Bk. IV, ch. vi.
When Rory was at last captured by Sir Barnaby FitzPatrick in 1578 his
son, Owny, took his place, showing himself as fearless and indefatigable
a fighter as his father had been. At one time Sir Henry Harington, a nephew
of Sidney, was a prisoner among them; his opinion was that the Irish at
home were so kind and hospitable to all newcomers that he would willingly
have hazarded to live among them for life. But the terms asked for his
ransom were so high that Sidney said he would not have given them "to
enlarge Philip my son." [6]
[6] P. O'Sullevan Beare, op. cit., vol. ii, Bk. IV, ch. v; Carew, Cal.,
ii, No. 501, p. 355 (March 1, 1583).
In 1600 they made an even more important capture. When the Earl of Ormonde
was travelling with Carew to suppress the Munster rebellion, and was in
command of the forces, he was surrounded while at a conference with Owny,
and only got his release by the intervention of Tyrone and on payment
of a ransom of £3000. Leix was by no means a waste under the O'Mores
and O'Connors. An English army, making its way to revictual the garrison
of Philipstown, was amazed to find the rebel's country "exceedingly
rich in all the means of life; the ground well tilled, the fields fenced,
the towns inhabited, and the highways in good repair"; the reason
of this good condition they ascribed to the fact "that the Queen's
forces during these wars never till then came amongst them." Lord
Mountjoy's campaign in 1600 speedily changed all this. His army brought
with them sickles, scythes, and harrows, and as they advanced they mowed
down the corn and burned the country, leaving a waste behind them.[7]
The common soldiers found the duty so painful that only the example of
their officers induced them to obey the command.
[7] Fynes Moryson, Itinerary (1617), ii, 76-77; Annals of the Four Masters,
1600 (vol. vi, pp. 2179, 2187).
By Owny's death in a skirmish near Timahoe in 1600, resistance came to
an end. But the O'Mores clung to their own districts, and when an attempt
was made in the reign of James I to transplant them to Kerry and Clare
they kept drifting back, saying that they preferred to die in their own
country rather than to live anywhere else. Much later another of their
race was to become one of the chief instigators of the rebellion of 1641,
and the right hand of Owen Roe. This Rory was an accomplished man, and
his activities and adventures gained for him the title of "the Irish
Robin Hood." Numerous ballads in the native tongue celebrate his
exploits.[8]
[8] Hinkson, Ireland in the Seventeenth Century, ii, 190; Nelson, Collections,
ii, 519.
The plantation of King's and Queen's Counties languished for many years.
It only revived during the Stuart period when a number of French Huguenot
refugees established themselves in and about Portarlington, where they
planted fruit and vegetable gardens, and opened spinning and weaving industries,
gradually making of this district one of the most prosperous and well-managed
parts of the country.[9] The early attempts to make similar plantations
in Ulster had been uniformly unsuccessful. In October 1572 a grant had
been made to a Mr Chatterton, of the Fews, Orier, and part of Armagh,
but he was killed by the Irish, and the more ambitious project of Sir
Thomas Smith and his illegitimate son to colonize the Ardes in Co. Down,
after the confiscations consequent on the rebellion and death of Shane
O'Neill, was not more prosperous. Smith was Professor of Civil Law and
Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, and Secretary of State under
Elizabeth; he had been ambassador to France in 1562 and 1572. The idea
of a colony had long occupied his mind, and a grant in the very heart
of Shane's country and close to his old home beside Newry, which in Shane's
day closed the passage to all strangers going north from Dundalk, seemed
an excellent opportunity to carry out his views. But he found it impossible
to subdue the inhabitants, and the death of his son in an encounter with
the Irish in October 1573, brought the settlement to an end. The district
later became the property of Sir Henry Bagenal, Marshal of Ireland and
father-in-law to Tyrone.
[9] See an interesting series of articles on the French settlements in
Ireland in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology (Old Series), vols. i, ii,
iii.
The plantation of Walter Devereux, first Earl of Essex, and father of
the Viceroy, was of a more extensive character. Though long considered,
it was undertaken in a manner that gave it little chance of success, and
those who urged it on seem to have looked on it rather as a means of ruining
Essex in purse and reputation than as a serious political enterprise.
He was bound to raise and support out of his own purse an equal number
of horse and foot to those supplied by the Queen, and all fortifications
were to be paid for between them. Not having ready money for such an outlay,
Essex was induced to borrow £10,000 from the Queen herself, at ten
per cent. interest, with forfeiture of his estates in default of punctual
payment on stated dates, a bargain by which the thrifty sovereign became
possessed of large portions of the Essex estates in England, and her servant
became hopelessly involved in debt and embarrassments. Neither did the
irregular position in which Essex was placed in Ireland tend to the advancement
of his enterprise. Lord Deputy FitzWilliam was extremely jealous of him,
and hampered him in every way in his power; in Essex's capacity as part-paymaster
he was blamed for every complaint made by the soldiery, while his authority
to deal either with them or with the Irish was persistently undermined.
His position was an impossible one, and largely accounts for the want
of success he met with.
The instructions he received from the Queen before his departure in July
1573, as well as his own intentions, were, if plantations are allowable
at all, not unreasonable. On his taking leave, Elizabeth besought him
to have consideration of the Irish there, since she believed they had
become her disobedient subjects rather because they had not been defended
from the Scots than from any other reason, and she held that they would
yield themselves good subjects on the coming of Essex, and therefore she
desired that they should be well used. She also laid it specially upon
him that he should not too hastily seek to change the beliefs of people
who had been trained up in another religion. Essex expressed his general
agreement with these views, though "for the present he could not
say what was best to be done," but he promised "not to imbrue
his hands with more blood than the necessity of the cause required."
[10] We can hardly feel that he kept his word.
[10] Essex to Burghley, July 20, 1573, Lives of the Devereux, Earls of
Essex, 1, 31-32.
Essex opened well. He declared that he had come over to check the tyranny
of the Scots; he restrained the extortions of his soldiers and he gave
the Scottish harvest to the Irish, guarding them while they reaped their
corn. Sir Bryan MacPhelim, who had been ousted from his lands by the Smith
settlers, came in and offered his help against the Scots; but only a few
days later, news was brought that he had changed his mind and gone out
to Turlogh Lynogh, who had newly confederated with the Scots and driven
away all his cattle into the opposite camp. This act of infidelity completely
changed Essex's opinion of the Irish and his methods of dealing with them;
he no longer put faith in their submissions, or promises, "these
Northern people being so false of their word." Nor did the new adventurers
prove satisfactory. "Not having forgotten the delicacies of England,"
they soon made for home, and prejudiced intending settlers by news of
the hardships of the enterprise. The soldiers revolted when provisions
did not come over, and the Deputy "sat in his chair and smiled,"
encouraging all parties to believe that Essex's adventure was purely a
private affair for which the Queen and he took no responsibility. He sent
Essex into Munster, when he was badly needed in the North to keep in check
Turlogh and the Scots, and he lost no opportunity of undermining his influence
with the Queen. In October 1574 Essex made an expedition into Tyrone and
as far north as Lough Foyle, accompanied by Magennis and MacMahon, but
Turlogh refused to come, and was supported by Conn O'Donnell, who "was
as fast to him as his hand to his body."
The O'Donnell and O'Doherty, on the other hand, were quite ready to help
against Turlogh, "saying very frankly that it was their duty so to
do, and he that would not spend his life and all his goods to conserve
her Highness's dignity, could neither be accounted a good subject nor
was worthy to have life." Essex took the usual plan of wasting the
country by sending out his horsemen to fire the corn, which, he says,
he found in great plenty and in large ricks. He estimates that by the
time the expedition was over his men had burned five thousand pounds worth
of grain. He seized Dunnalong on Lough Foyle from Turlogh and Lifford
from Conn, whom he took prisoner, and he cut passes through the woods,
wide enough for ten horsemen to ride abreast. He left the country of Clannaboy
"all desolate and without people," Turlogh complaining that
his rebellious behaviour was solely due to the arbitrary conduct of Essex.
Essex at length began to see clearly that his plantation would never be
allowed to succeed, and he resigned the government of Ulster, asking only
of the Queen that he might have her good licence to live in a corner of
the Province, which he would hire for money. The costs of his fruitless
Irish adventure had left him in debt for £25,473, besides £10,000
owing to the Queen. He died in Dublin on September 22, 1576. Essex is
an example of a type of character which became common during the Tudor
period, when men otherwise of taste and culture, and possessed of a certain
probity and distinction of mind, yet in their dealings with ' native '
races lost all sense of honour or feelings of natural compassion. In his
relations with some of the Irish and Scots alike Essex acted with callous
and hideous cruelty. His treatment of the families of Sir Bryan MacPhelim
and Sorley Boy have left a deep stain on his memory. We have seen that
Sir Bryan had deceived Essex in so treacherous a manner that he had prejudiced
Essex against the whole Irish people, but even this is not a sufficient
excuse for the revenge taken by the planter. He invited Sir Bryan to a
friendly banquet, during which he seized him and his wife and put them
to death. His dealings with the Scots were still more ruthless, and the
massacre of his wife and family with their dependents on Rathlin Island
must have left a deep impression on the mind of Sorley Boy MacDonnell.
On a smaller scale it compares with the massacre of Glencoe.
In the summer of 1575 Sorley Boy had information that Essex was marching
northward, and he endeavoured to protect his own young family, with the
wives of his leading officers, the women, children, and non-combatants,
by sending them over to Rathlin Island. They carried with them what they
could of their family plate and valuables. Essex ordered Sir John Norris,
then in command of three frigates at Carrickfergus, to sail round and
raid Rathlin. "And having given this direction," he reports
in a letter to the Queen, "I withdrew myself toward the Pale, to
make the Scots less suspicious of any such matter pretended." A small
garrison of about fifty men had the charge of the fortress known as Bruce's
Castle, and into it were crowded a large number of the refugees of the
better class. On July 22, Norris landed on the island with a considerable
force by means of a flotilla of boats. The commander of the garrison was
killed on the first encounter, and the constable, after what was evidently
a sharp fight, surrendered, "the lives of all within (save those
of the constable, his wife, and child) to stand upon the courtesy of the
soldiers." Essex reports: "The soldiers being moved and much
stirred with the loss of their fellows that were slain and desirous of
revenge, made request, or rather pressed, to have the killing of them,
which they did all, saving the persons to whom life was promisedThere
were slain that came out of the castle of all sorts 200; and presently
there is brought me news out of Tyrone that they be occupied still in
killing, and have slain that they have found hidden in caves and in cliffs
of the sea, to the number of 300 or 400 more. They had within the island
300 kine, 3000 sheep, and 100 stud mares, and of beer-corn upon the ground
there is sufficient to find 200 men for a whole year." Sorley watched
the awful scene from a headland on the shore, powerless to save the hapless
women and children he had thought to place out of reach of his merciless
foes. "He stood upon the mainland of the Glynnes and witnessed the
taking of the island, and was like to run mad for sorrow, tearing and
tormenting himself and saying that he had lost all that ever he had."
So runs the grim postscript in Essex's letter to Walsingham, as in the
quiet camp at the Newry out of sight and sound of these horrors, he penned
the report of the tragedy on the six hundred victims on Rathlin, caused
by his own express command.[11]
[11] Lives of the Devereux, i, 115, 116; Hill, Macdonnells of Antrim,
pp. 184-185; Carew, Cal., ii, No. 19 (July 31, 1575), pp. 16-17.
Elizabeth received the news in the midst of "the princely pleasures
of Kenilworth," where she was enjoying the magnificent hospitality
of the Earl of Leicester. Her woman's heart seems to have felt no throb
of pity for the women and children slaughtered on Rathlin. In one of the
most cryptic of her princely letters she speaks of the comfort she takes
in a subject "so serviceable" as Essex "in a calling whereof
we may, in time to come, take so great profit," and of her "thankful
acceptation of the same." She shortly afterward promoted Norris,
whom she calls "the executioner of your well-devised enterprise,"
to be Governor of Munster.[12] Though the Queen on many occasions showed
clemency and patience toward her Irish subjects, for the Scots, her natural
enemies, she knew no compassion. Cecil had often to reflect that "her
Majesty is more than a man and (in troth) sometimes less than a woman."
Yet at that moment the Queen had cause to feel that her project of sweeping
the Scots out of the North of Ireland had come near to being fulfilled.
[12] Carew, Cal., ii, No. 23, p. 21; Lives of the Devereux, i, 119.
END OF CHAPTER XIV
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