A History of Ireland.

by Eleanor Hull

1931

XIX.—FINEEN (FLORENCE) MACCARTHY REAGH

At the time of the Munster rebellion three courses were open to an Irishman of position. He might renounce his comrades and fellow-countrymen, declare openly for the Queen, and aid the English army to repress rebellion in his part of the country. Such a course seemed to open a path of safety and self-preservation, and it was definitely adopted by several of the Munster gentlemen, such as Sir Cormac MacCarthy, Lord of Muskerry, and Sir Donogh MacCarthy Reagh, Lord of Carbery, whom Sir Henry Sidney called "especial and rare men," though a closer study of their character and motives will hardly endorse his verdict. Or he might become an open rebel and throw off his allegiance. Or, again, he might adopt the position of a neutral, and try to pursue his way undisturbed amid the warring forces around him—a difficult course in a country where intermarriage had linked the families closely together, and where the non-combatant was looked on with equal suspicion by both parties.

The history of Fineen, or Florence, MacCarthy [1] illustrates the career of a young chief who deliberately chose and faithfully endeavoured to carry through the rôle of a neutral. While abstaining from any betrayal of the cause of his countrymen, or from active participation with the Queen's forces, he yet professed, apparently with sincerity, loyalty and devotion to the Queen. His father, Sir Donogh, had proved his fidelity to the Crown during the course of a long life, and his services had been gratefully acknowledged by the authorities. Fineen, in the troubles of his later life, could always appeal to the allegiance of his father as a pledge of his own sincerity when his more dubious ways brought upon him the suspicion of the Government. Fineen had been brought up among English associations. At the age of twelve his father had sent him to serve in the English army, where he made many friends among the young officers, who continued to believe in his fidelity long after the authorities had begun to doubt it. His boyhood had been happily spent in open-air pursuits, breasting the waves that beat up to the walls of Kilbrittain Castle, or hawking in the mountains and woods of Carbery. His people were wealthy and lived luxuriously. One branch of the MacCarthys, represented by the Earl of Clancarty, was said to be worth £150,000 to £200,000 in King James II's reign. Long before any Geraldine had begun to carve out estates for his family the Clan Carty held all the province in subjection, "the continual memory whereof they yet use to nourish among them," as Sir Thomas Norris remarked in 1588. They felt all the old jealousy of their sup-planters, the FitzGeralds, so that it is not altogether surprising that two of the principal lords are found fighting against Desmond, the Ingens rebellibus exemplar, out of whose forfeited estates they looked to recover their lost status, and who was, moreover, only a usurper in his own family. The massive castles of Blarney and Kilbrittain, the headquarters, of the two chiefs, were only two out of the twenty-six strongholds built by this family in Co. Cork.

[1] Much information about Fineen (Florence) is collected in Daniel MacCarthy's Life and Letters of Florence MacCarthy Reagh (1867).
When in 1575 Sidney made his progress through the South he had been "very honourably attended by them and their ladies," and found them both good subjects, especially Sir Cormac, "who truly was a special man." Fineen, brought up amid these courtly surroundings and taught to look upon the Queen as his lawful sovereign, had more chances than most Irish youths to grow up "in civility," and though, when Viceroys were not by, he and his relations relapsed into the habits of the country, taking meat and drink by force from the freeholders of Carbery, besides special tributes in money exacted from his poor tenants, Fineen did not intend to sacrifice the special advantages gained from his position and training. He determined from his early youth to steer his way in the perplexities of the time between the rival claims of the English Government and the Irish gentry, to try to preserve his name and inheritance by an open profession of loyalty to the Crown, while keeping his hands unstained from participation in acts of hostility against his neighbours. In ordinary times Fineen might have succeeded in his aim. He might have kept close within the fastnesses of Carbery, and there lived the life of a powerful lord whose princely revenue would have enabled him to keep up large bodies of kerne and galloglas, always ready at his call. The MacCarthy family could put into the field 4400 foot and over 600 horse. But when Sir Donogh died in the third year of the Desmond rebellion, and his brother succeeded him by the law of tanistry, all Munster was aflame, and every man of position was called upon to take part for or against the insurgents. Fineen, as a minor, fell under the guardianship of Sir William Drury, President of Munster; but, unlike most wards, he was allowed to remain in his own country to assist in the pursuit of the unfortunate Desmond, instead of being sent to Dublin or London to be educated under the eye of the Government. From the outset of the rebellion he had served with the royal forces. At its close, at the age of twenty, he repaired to Court, was presented by Burghley to the Queen, and received, besides a gift of a thousand marks, an annuity of two hundred marks.

Taller by a head and shoulders than most men, winning in address, and the heir to great estates, Fineen made friends everywhere, from Cecil to old Lord de Courcy of Kinsale, who added to the young heir's personal possessions a gift of land including the Old Head of Kinsale, which Fineen had long coveted. The reckless follies of the head of his house, the Earl of Clancar, had given the young man the opportunity of enlarging his position by the purchase by mortgage of several of the principal fortresses in the Earl's country, especially of Castle Lough, one of the three great mansions "the owner of which might always look to be MacCarthy More." Before he was come to man's estate, Fineen was already taking steps to attain that coveted position, the end and aim of all his ambitions. The time came when his spendthrift and worthless uncle had little left to sell except his daughter Ellen, now, through the death in France of her dissolute and mean-spirited brother, become by English law heir to her father's estates. In 1587 it was rumoured that the scapegrace Earl intended "to prefer his daughter in marriage." All sorts of claimants appeared. Sir Wareham St Leger suggested to Sir Thomas Norris that it would be a good match for him. But Sir Valentine Brown, who had been buying up his lands, had the old man, as well as his castle of Molahiff, in his grip. He also had a son; and it was noised abroad that, for money, the Earl was ready to sell his only daughter to this son of an adventurer.

While all this was public talk Munster was startled by the quite unexpected announcement that Fineen MacCarthy had outwitted them all, and had, with the connivance of Ellen's mother, the Countess of Clancar, secretly married his cousin in "an old broken church." St Leger verily believed that, if it were duly examined, he was married with a Mass, being "very fervant in the old religion." All Munster was in a ferment at the news; even the native chiefs saw the danger of this alliance between the heirs of the MacCarthy Reagh and the MacCarthy More. It led to combinations between Sir Owen O'Sullevan and Donal na Pipy, the wild baseborn son of old Clancar and "the only man in these two countries that leadeth a loose disloyal life." Even greater was the excitement in government circles. Fineen's recent acquisition of the Old Head of Kinsale, his fluent command of the Spanish tongue, and his mother's relationship to James FitzMaurice, "the Arch-traitor," were called to mind, and it is no wonder that they thought it "greatly to be regarded to what end the same may grow." By way of precaution Norris apprehended all the chief actors in the drama, even the Countess, who was "the wife, sister, and daughter of an Earl, ever of very modest and good demeanour, though matched with one most disorderly and dissolute," awaiting the Queen's pleasure for further instructions.

The only undisturbed member of the group was Fineen, the author of all the turmoil. His wonderful address and power of making out a case for himself so impressed Norris that we find him writing to Burghley that, having become better acquainted with Fineen, he found that the lad had erred "in simplicity, not knowing her Highness's pleasure." His "good demeanour and carriage of himself " had completely won over Norris. Nevertheless, the lovers were divided, Ellen being retained in Cork "at large" and Fineen being sent for to London and imprisoned in the Tower, "the cause best known to your honours," as a bill sent by the Constable for his maintenance to the Treasury after eight months' internment puts it. A few weeks later Lady Ellen stole out of Cork in disguise, and for two years her whereabouts were unknown. When, at the end of two years all but twenty days, Fineen was set free on Ormonde's surety, and allowed to go about in London, his wife joined him, until their first son was born, when its mother took the babe back to Ireland, where he was carried about like a young prince, with a small body of horsemen in attendance.

It did not console Fineen to hear that Donal na Pipy, who became known as the "Munster Robin Hood," was preying his country, as well as making himself the terror of all planters, spoiling and killing them wherever he could, and taking meat and drink where he could get it. He threatened "all men who wore hose after the English fashion." Nor was it easy to sit still in London and know that his properties were passing into other hands, and that he was contracting heavy debts. Burghley would have let him go home, but the undertakers who were making a harvest in his absence were up in arms, and petitions poured in to pray for his retention in London. But in 1593 a change came about in Fineen's condition. The Queen had always believed in him, and now he was much with her, trying to induce her to agree that he was the only man who could deal with Donal. In later days Fineen "could call to mind none but benefits received from the Queen." There were even doubts in high quarters as to the legality of his seizure "against the Queen's word and bond." Cecil feared that the clapping up of the man without trial might prove scandalous. Fineen, in a letter written thirty years later said that his confinement had been contrary to the pleasure of the Queen, "who knew me well and whom I served long." He landed in Ireland early in November, carrying orders from Elizabeth to Viscount Barry, ordering him to pay over to Fineen a fine due to herself, and putting him into possession of one-third of his lands. She was steady in her support of his rights against officials and undertakers alike. "The poor English gentlemen," Brown, Sir Edward Denny, and Herbert, were more than annoyed that difficulties were put in the way of their pouncing down upon the estates of the man of whom, once he was safe in the Tower, they hoped to hear no more.

Old Clancar had ended his discreditable career, and Herbert thought it a good opportunity to add another 6000 acres to those he had already possessed himself of. It was no pleasure to have Fineen back, determined to fight tooth and nail for every inch of his lands. A great part of his life from this time forward was absorbed in litigation, while at the same time he was persistent in his attempts to be recognized as the MacCarthy More. All around him were persons eagerly awaiting his fall, that they might make their own profit out of his disgrace, and only his extreme wariness and knowledge of the men with whom he had to deal kept him for so long a time out of their clutches. He had with him the support of all who, like himself, were fighting the undertakers; but he kept clear of rebellion and was officially recognized in Munster as engaged in recovering the country of Desmond for the Queen and dispersing the mercenaries of O'Neill who were assisting Desmond in that province, while keeping his own sept out of action and chasing the "Munster Robin Hood," his own chief enemy, out of his ill-gotten gains.

But the action of the undertakers was gradually driving the chiefs who had stood by the Queen during the earlier Desmond rebellions to the side of the Queen's enemies. The rapacity of these men seemed limitless. Fineen refused to meet the Commissioners again, withdrew from Cork, and shut himself up in Kerry, gathering round him all Donal's adversaries and hiring what Barry called "cabbage soldiers" from Connacht. His action gave rise to fresh suspicions, especially when it was noised about that he had had a secret meeting with the sougaun Earl, and that they had passed a night together in the forest, sleeping in one bed, a sure token of amity. The actual object of the meeting was to get the Earl to swoop down on Barry, who had made his harvest out of Fineen's lands; but there is little doubt that he had begun to play a double game, and Fineen's enemies made the most in Dublin and London of this friendly meeting with the rebel Desmond, and did not spare to assert that they were acting in concert. When summoned to meet Carew, Fineen was prolific in excuses. He had begun to feel that it was unsafe to venture into the presence of Carew without an absolute and unconditional pardon for all possible offences and a safe conduct to go and return. What to make of him the President knew not. He confesses himself "fairly perplexed." He remembers him "a wise and civil gentleman generally beloved, and particularly esteemed by divers of extraordinary place and credit." If Fineen prove false "then he will conclude that there is no faith in Israel." The Queen, Fineen heard, still laughed at the folly of any who cast suspicion on him, and would rather have a piece of service from him than from others whom she valued not; but in Munster the youth hung over Carew's head "like a dark cloud." When other means failed Carew had a short way with rebels. He hired a ruffian to poison Fineen and when that was unsuccessful, he determined to get him into his power by any means, even by perjuring himself and falsifying the solemn oath of pardon and protection which he had recently made to him.[2]

[2] Magrath, the apostate Bishop of Cashel, appears to have been concerned in the plot to poison Fineen. Carew states darkly that he "is busily working ; within a few days the stratagem will either take effect or fail." Cecil professes horror at the idea, but he did not hesitate shortly afterward to approve the poisoning of Tyrone in the wine of the Sacrament—"through some poisoned hosts," as the official report runs—by a man who passed as a Franciscan belonging to the same infamous bishop's diocese. See Cecil to Carew, Letters, p. 49 (October 15, 1600) and p. 51 (November 8, 1600). Cecil is suspiciously anxious to have Anmies, his agent, hanged before he can accuse his masters of complicity.
In the autumn of 1600 the last Munster rebellion was drawing to a close. James FitzThomas was reported to be "no better than a wood-kerne," with only about four to five hundred followers left, lurking in the dense woods of Tipperary, and constantly on the move to avoid the agents of the government who were on the watch for him. A new effort was made by the authorities in London to bring the tragedy to a close. There was in the Tower of London a child, the son of the old Earl and Countess of Desmond, who had been held as a hostage since his infancy. By English law he, and not James FitzThomas, the sougaun Earl, was the rightful heir to the title, and it was now proposed, apparently on the advice of Cecil and Raleigh, to divide the Desmond interest in Ireland by sending over this lad, James, known by the mournful title of "the Tower Earl." The Queen was uncertain as to the wisdom of this policy, and especially of the advisability of creating him earl before he went over to Ireland, which was pressed upon her by Cecil. Again and again she took the pen in her hand to sign the patent of his nobility, and threw it down again. Suppose that, instead of dividing the province, the two Desmonds were to unite? Finally the patent was sent over, but not mentioned to James; it might be used or not as circumstances dictated.[3] Meanwhile, the youth in the Tower, about whom all the Court and all Munster were filled with rumours, was partially released from his long confinement and allowed to walk about London during the day, returning to lie in the Tower every night; further than that the Queen would not move. Cecil finds the young gentleman's disposition "tied to honest grounds, but spendful above measure," so that it will be necessary to have a wary eye over him. He suggests that it would facilitate the setting of Munster by the ears if some portions of Fineen's lands were assigned to this new Earl instead of those belonging of right to his own family; but Cecil does not expect that the "tender and sickly" lad, who had been reared without light or liberty, will ever like an Irish life; already, before he leaves London, he is begging to be permitted soon to return to the only life he has known within the gloomy Tower walls. It is darkly hinted to Carew that no blame will attach to him "for any caution (how curious soever) in the managing this young puer male cinctus," who is proud, and whose mouth may water to get back the undertaker's lands.[4] When, on October 14, 1600, the young Desmond landed it was already felt that the need of his coming over was past.

[3] Cecil to Carew, Letters, pp. 11, 15, 18, 25, etc.
[4] Cecil to Carew, Letters, p. 45. The correspondence between Cecil and Carew about this poor lad should be read by any who wish to understand the tortuous windings of the minds of those who guided the destinies of England in Elizabethan days.
Captain Richard Greame had fallen upon the sougaun Earl as he was marching into the forests of Atherlow, had slain his son and sixty of his men, captured his cattle, munitions, and all his baggage, and driven him and his army before them into Leix, killing them as they ran. It was a complete overthrow of the Earl and of the hopes of the Munster people, which were centred in him. He was forced to take refuge in an obscure cave "many fathoms underground," in the mountain of Slewgrott. There, hidden under bushes, he was run to earth on May 29, 1601, by his mortal enemy, the White Knight, Edmond FitzGibbon, brother-in-law to the Earl, of whom Carew had once written that "a more faithless man never lived upon earth."[5] He was now so fearful of losing the £400 reward offered for the Earl's apprehension that "he could not sleep at night for dread that some other would anticipate him." There is an Irish saying that expresses the feelings of the South on hearing of the arrest of the sougaun Earl: "There is no anger but abates, except the anger of Christ with ClanGibbon." [6] Fineen MacCarthy's opinion of the White Knight is expressed in a characteristic manner in a letter written to him in Irish which fell into the President's hands. As translated to Carew it opened as follows: "Damnation, I cannot but commend me heartily to you, as bad as thou art...I would be very glad to speak to you for your good," etc. The sougaun Earl, whatever the justice of his claims to the title, was, according to Carew, "a man the most generally beloved by all sorts that in my life I have known," and the most potent of all the Geraldines; he considered that it would be dangerous to keep him prisoner in Ireland, and preparations were made to send him to London.

[5] Sir Thomas Stafford, Pacata Hibernia (ed. S. J. O'Grady, 1896), i. 199.
[6] Carew calls the search for him "the hunting, rousing and fall of a great stag." It is only fair to the White Knight to add that he was sharply threatened both by the President and Sir G. Thornton if he let FitzThomas escape him, as he was believed to have done before. He well knew what his fate would be if this happened, and he decided to save himself, like others, by doing "acceptable service."
In the meanwhile, another event of great importance had occurred. Early in March Fineen, whose dealings with the Spaniards [7] were bringing him continually into suspicion, and whose own letters prove that he was deep in Tyrone's confidence and aiding him in every way in his power, had yet consented to come to Carew and bring in his son as a pledge. He took the precaution to obtain from Carew a renewal of his pardon and protection, though his last protection was not expired. But the temptation of having in his hands at once the two greatest sources of danger in Munster, the two around whom not only the hopes of the South were centred, but those of the Spaniards whose landing was again daily expected, proved too much for Carew. By an act of treachery he detained Fineen prisoner, awaiting an opportunity to send both his captives into England. Once, during the first rebellion of the Earl of Desmond, Burghley had proposed to Ormonde "to put protected persons into sure hold." Enemy to the Desmonds as he was, Ormonde had replied: "My Lord, I will never use treachery to any, for it will both touch her Highness' honour and mine own credit...Saving my duty to her Majesty, I would I were to have revenge by my sword of any man that thus persuadeth the Queen to write to me." Cecil and Carew had no such scruples, even as to keeping faith with a man to whom the Queen's word had been "solemnly and advisedly given."

[7] Cecil himself was accused by Essex at his trial of having dealings with Spain. He was certainly in receipt of a pension from the King of Spain, at least from the accession of James I to his death, and may have had it earlier. See Gardiner, History, i, 215.
The sougaun Earl was sentenced to death, but prudence prevailed, though "the fingers of the Lords were tingling to hang him"; he dragged out a long existence in the Tower, forgotten by his friends, while the great Desmond estates went to enrich needy courtiers and adventurers. Fineen lived on till after 1637, and must have been little short of eighty when he died. He was tossed backward and forward between the Tower, the Marshalsea, and the Fleet, with intervals of freedom during which he was allowed at large in London, mixing again with men of rank about the Court. To the end he retained his. power of making those who came into contact with him believe in his sincerity. His family sorrows were great. His wife, Lady Ellen, forsook him and worked against him even before his committal, and he ascribed his taking by Carew to her evil machinations. She seems to have been as shallow and selfish as her father, and her husband refused to have her with him in the Tower, where he believed she acted as a spy upon his actions. His eldest son, brought up in the debasing surroundings of a prison, was a degenerate, but his other children remained with him. His confinement, usually a light one, seems to have become stricter as time went on, and at the age of seventy he writes that he is kept in a little close room, without sight of the air, and contrary to the Queen's pleasure, whereby his life is much endangered. He had the added sorrow of knowing that Donal, the scapegrace, had taken the title of MacCarthy More, and in course of time he learned that Donal had been restored by the Government to his father's lands. Great numbers of Fineen's letters remain, mostly concerned with his efforts to regain his properties and the constant litigation in which these efforts involved him. Helpless in the Tower, he fought the Government and the adventurers alike in a costly but fruitless struggle to assert his rights. He was never tried, though he never relaxed his efforts to be brought to trial. The adventurers who were enjoying his lands were strong enough to prevent this and thus to stave off the inquiry into the justice of their claims that would needs have ensued. In happier times Fineen might have shone as the centre of a brilliant circle; it was only his great position that consigned him to a living tomb. He lived on into the reign of Charles I and witnessed the flight of the Earls, the plantation of Ulster, the execution of Raleigh, and the tyranny of Strafford.

The young "Tower Earl" soon rejoined his compatriots in the Tower. His stay in Ireland had been brief and unsuccessful. When he arrived in Cork no preparation seems to have been made for his reception; he was forced to bid himself to the Mayor's house "else had he gone supperless to bed." "If this lawyer mayor" (one Meagh or Meade), he remarks, "have no better insight into Littleton than in other observances of this place, he may be well called Lacklaw, for it was with much ado that we got anything for money; most of my people lay without lodging, and Captain Price had the hogs for his neighbours." It was intended that Castlemaine should be the young Earl's place of residence, with a pension of £500 a year from the frugal Queen, Castlemaine being then closely besieged by Sir Charles Wilmott. It did surrender on the summons of the Earl, and this was the only service done by sending the lad to Ireland. His progress into Limerick ended in a fiasco. In Kilmallock, where he arrived on a Saturday evening, a mighty concourse of people turned out to see him, "all the streets, doors, and windows, yea, the very gutters and tops of houses being filled with them"; they welcomed him with signs of joy, every one throwing upon him wheat and salt as a prediction of future peace and plenty. It was with difficulty that they made their way to Sir George Thornton's house. But, the next day being Sunday, the lad, who, like all wards and hostages, had been brought up in the reformed doctrines, attended the Protestant service, the crowds all the way endeavouring to turn him from his purpose. On his return the temper of the people had entirely changed. He was railed at and spat upon; the strangers in the town melted away, and no more notice was taken of him than of any private gentleman. His visit to Ireland proving to be a failure, he was soon afterward sent back to London. The undertakers dreaded his presence in Ireland, fearing it portended the restoration to him of some of his father's lands, of which they were in possession, and Cecil also was uneasy, for rumours reached him that the lad was proposing to marry the widow of Sir Thomas Norris, late President of Munster, who had been killed by the rebels in 1599. "I do profess unto you that I do never shut mine eyes but with fear at my waking to hear some ill news of him," Cecil writes to Carew on December 15, 1606.[8] Altogether it was decided that he was safer in the Tower, since the main object of his release was at an end, none of the chiefs in arms in the South, except Thomas Oge FitzGerald of Kerry, having submitted on his account, and the rebellion being practically over. The Queen was offering pardons to all who would come in, save the chief organizers, James FitzThomas and his brother John, with conditions to the other leaders, so that in less than two months over four thousand persons by name had been recommended by Carew to the Lord Deputy for pardons.

[8] Letters, p. 60.
The young Earl himself, whose mind had evidently been weakened by his long residence in the Tower, "not well agreeing with the manners and customs of Ireland," seems to have shown no reluctance to return, and henceforth, for the short three months during which he lingered after the sougaun Earl joined him in that gloomy abode, we have few records of him except the bills of his apothecary, of which several remain to prove the feeble state of his health. In Ireland the people had looked on the pale, weakly lad as a 'changeling,' and the effect of the Irish experiment is summed up by the Earl himself in a letter written to Cecil from that country: "I find my honourable good Lord kind to me; but I am contemptible unto the country." So ended in degeneracy and alienation from his country the last scion of the Anglo-Norman house of Desmond.

END OF CHAPTER XIX