| ; |
After a desperate and successful struggle
with the 'English Maguire,' who held the islands of Lough Erne and all
the fords, O'Sullevan arrived in Glenconkeine. only to find that O'Neill
was on his way to Dublin, about to make his submission and accept terms
of peace. Hugh had decided that the moment had arrived when he could hold
out no longer. The fatal news of the death of O'Donnell had broken his
hopes, and, ever since, his most trusted officers had been falling away
from him, seeing no hope left of success. The sons of Shane O'Neill, whom
the English had induced him to release from imprisonment on his last submission,
were now guiding the Deputy's army into Ulster. The fort of Portmore was
being rebuilt and had been renamed Charlemont. It was situated close to
Tyrone's old home of Dungannon and commanded the entrance into the North.
But, most decisive reason of all, Ulster was swept by famine, and to sustain
human life in the country had become an impossibility.
The terrible policy of the year before had had its full result, and Ulster,
whose fields had formerly been thick with corn, was reduced to a desert.
Mountjoy and his party as they moved along saw everywhere the results
of their own deliberate action. "We have seen no one man in all Tyrone
of late," he writes, "but dead carcases merely hunger-starved,
of which we found divers as we passed. Between Tullaghoge and Toome [a
distance of seventeen miles] I believe there lay unburied a thousand dead,
and since our first drawing this year to Blackwater there were about three
thousand starved in Tyrone...To-morrow, by the grace of God, I am going
into the field, as near as I can to utterly waste the County Tyrone."
The wolves, coming down to the plains from the woods and mountains, attacked
and tore to pieces men weak from want. A terrible plague ran through the
country. Tyrone felt that it was time to make an end, and when Sir Garrett
Moore, the one man he trusted, came to him with Mountjoy's message he
at once signified his intention to go with him and prepared for the journey.
On March 29 he surrendered himself to the two commissioners at Tougher,
five miles from Dungannon, and on the following evening he made his formal
submission to the Deputy at Mellifont, agreeing without demur to all the
conditions imposed.
Two days before the arrival of Tyrone a messenger to the Deputy had arrived
at Mellifont from London bringing important news. Queen Elizabeth, the
woman whom some of those who had seen service in Ireland "feared
more than the rebel Tyrone," had passed away. Her last days had been
haunted by the thought of her great adversary, whom "the cost of
£100,000 and the best army in Europe had not been able to subdue."
Shortly before her death, when she was feeling "creeping time at
her gate," Sir John Harington was called to her presence; he found
her in most pitiable state, but her first question was to ask whether
he had seen Tyrone. Now she was gone without knowing of the submission
he had made to her shade, for it was deliberately decided by Mountjoy
that O'Neill should not be told till his submission was complete. To James,
if he succeeded, no submission would need to have been made, for James
had a grateful recollection of help received from O'Neill during his Scottish
wars. It was only when he was about to repeat his oath in Dublin that
Tyrone was informed that it was to be taken to the new monarch. All men
observed his face when the disclosure was made to him. His astonishment
was plain, but he burst into passionate weeping. A few days later he was
on his way to England, accompanied or followed by Rory O'Donnell, O'Sullevan,
Niall Garbh, and other Irish chiefs anxious to pay their respects to the
new king. Only O'Rorke and Maguire declined any accommodation, and departed
to their own country.
O'Sullevan could obtain no pardon, and fled to Spain with others of his
family, being warmly received and decorated by the Catholic King; Rory
was restored to his country with the title of Earl of Tyrconnel; but Niall
Garbh, Rory's old rival and enemy, who had been so long supported by Elizabeth's
Government, found himself looked upon by James I as a usurper, and reduced
to his old position with the title of Baron. He had long filled a place
to which he had no claim. O'Sullevan finds him "rough [garbh] by
name and rough by nature," and his loud complaints moved none to
sympathy. In days to come, his wife's mother, Ineen Dubh, mother to Hugh
Roe and Rory, accused Sir Niall of taking part in O'Doherty's revolt,
and in 1608 he, his son, and his two brothers were committed to the Tower.
His two brothers were released; but Sir Niall and his son ended their
lives in confinement, the former after an imprisonment of eighteen years.
King James received Hugh with respect and friendliness, and made him
welcome at the Court. This sudden change in O'Neill's fortunes brought
consternation in more quarters than one. "I have lived," cries
Sir John Harington, "to see that damnable rebel Tyrone brought to
England, courteously favoured, honoured, and well liked...How did I labour
after that knave's destruction ! I was called from my home by her Majesty's
command, adventured perils by sea and land, endured toil, was near starving,
ate horseflesh in Munster, and all to quell that man, who now smileth
in peace at those that did hazard their lives to destroy him...Now doth
Tyrone dare us old commanders with his presence and protection."
[1]
[1] Nugae Antiquae, 11, 149, 151.
In Ireland the embarrassment was hardly less. Docwra, still holding his
post at Lough Foyle, was particularly disturbed by the news. He had recently
persuaded O'Kane (O'Cahan), one of O'Neill's under-chiefs and his son-in-law
to come in, on the agreement that he should hold directly of the Crown,
and no more pay rents or hold his lands under his lord O'Neill. He should,
in fact, be an independent chief. Docwra, a blunt soldier who had endeavoured
to deal honestly with the chiefs, with whom he was on good terms, was
in the act of effecting these arrangements when sharp reminders came down
from Dublin that "my Lord of Tyrone is taken in to be restored to
all his honours and dignities" and that O'Kane's country is his and
must be obedient to his command. When Docwra expostulates that "this
is strange and beyond all expectation," and declares "I know
not how I shall look this man in the face when I shall know myself guilty
directly to have falsified my word to him," he is told that O'Kane
is "but a base and drunken fellow...and able to do neither good nor
harm," while the public good demanded that my Lord of Tyrone "should
be contented, upon which depends the peace and security of the whole kingdom."
Truly times were changed when Mountjoy could write thus of his old foe.[2]
Docwra, in spite of his own vigorous dislike of the whole matter, had
to pass on the unwelcome orders to O'Kane, who was highly offended, burst
into a passion, and shaking hands with Hugh, Tyrone's son, who was present,
bade the devil take all Englishmen and as many as put their trust in them.
He asked, "Would the English claim him hereafter "if he followed
Tyrone's counsel, though it were against the king? The relations between
him and Tyrone were no better, and at the council table in Dublin Tyrone
seized the papers he had given to O'Kane granting him his land at a fixed
rent out of his hand again, and tore them in pieces before his eyes. A
similar treatment of O'Doherty, whose lands were sold away without his
consent, was the cause of that chief's hasty plunge into rebellion and
subsequent downfall. Nor was Docwra himself better treated. The fishing
of Lough Foyle promised to him as part of his reward was restored to Tyrone,
and Docwra returned to England a disappointed man, seeing all his work
undone, and he himself suspect and glad if by silence he and his might
save their necks. When he presented his case in London he was told that
"it was all for the public good—the old song," as he says.[3]
[2] Blount, Lord Mountjoy, died on April 3, 1606. His title of Earl of
Devonshire became extinct on his death.
[3] Docwra's "Relation," in Miscellany of the Celtic Society
(1849).
It is in the doings of Sir John Davies, Attorney-General for Ireland,
and of Sir Arthur Chichester, the new Deputy, during their visitation
of Ulster in the autumn of 1606, that we may find the real causes of the
last scene in the drama of Tyrone's life in Ireland, which led him to
take the resolution of departing from the country. His life had been rendered
well-nigh intolerable by the constant espionage kept upon his every word
and movement, and the sense that his nearest kin were being constantly
tempted to report his actions. Long ago he had said that so many eyes
were watching him that he could not drink a full bumper of sack but the
State was advertised thereof within a few hours after. These men were
greedy for the forfeit of his lands, out of which they hoped to reap a
share. Added to this was the proclamation of the new king against the
Catholics, far more severe and less easy to evade than any that had preceded
it. Hugh saw that it was the determination of James and of his agents
to Anglicize the North, and to pass the lands to new planters, in spite
of all promises and pledges to the contrary.
For Tyrone and the old chiefs there was no more a place in Ireland, and
means were certain to be found to oblige the surrender of their ancestral
lands to strangers. He saw this being taken in hand all over Ulster, and
even if hints that he was personally unsafe were erroneous this was sufficient
to decide him to take flight to countries where he was sure that a welcome
would await him. Quietly he made his plans, and, though a large party
sailed with him, the Government was quite in the dark as to his determination.[4]
His final movements were hastened by the arrival of one John Bath, a Drogheda
merchant and ship's captain, who had been sent by Cuconnacht Maguire,
now in the Low Countries or Brittany, to tell him that they had brought
a ship round to Rathmelton, on Lough Swilly, and were taking in food and
drink preparatory to their return; Bath urged the importance of not losing
this opportunity of leaving the country.
[4] The correspondence relating to Tyrone's flight and the preceding
days is collected by Meehan, in Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone
and Tyrconnel, pp. 115-120.
Tyrone was at Slane with Chichester, trying to settle the bounds of the
lands about Dungannon and Charlemont which he had consented to surrender.
He had just heard rumours that Chichester was to be appointed President
of Ulster, and it did not seem likely that the relations between him and
the new President would be cordial. The rumour was unfounded, for Sir
Arthur retained the post of Deputy, but it may have influenced O'Neill's
decision. He determined to go, and sent Bath on to Ballyshannon to acquaint
Rory O'Donnell with his resolution. On September 8, 1607, he took leave
of the Deputy, who returned to Dublin, and then went to spend his two
last nights in Ireland at Mellifont at the house of his friend Sir Garrett
Moore, the fosterer of his son John. It was observed that on his departure
he wept abundantly, taking farewell of every child and servant in the
house in turn. In the hurry of the flight one of Tyrone's children and
one of Caffar O'Donnell's babes were left behind, being away in the charge
of their foster-parents; but a company of ninety-nine persons embarked,
of whom the more important were—besides O'Neill and his countess,
and three of their children—Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnel, his
brother Caffar, and his sister Nuala, with the attendants belonging to
each. Among Tyrone's household was his English secretary, Henry Ovington,
in whom he put such confidence that he had been included in all Tyrone's
conferences with Essex. He seems to have had no warning of what was on
foot, and he later prayed the Government for permission to return. Among
the others went Tadhg O'Keenan, from whose interesting account of the
adventures of which he was an eyewitness we learn the future events in
the lives of the distinguished party.[5]
[5] This tract of O'Keenan has been edited by the Rev. Paul Walsh in
the Catholic Record Society's Publications (1916).
After a stormy voyage which drove them up the Channel, and made a landing
on the coast of Spain impossible, they reached the little town of Quilleboeuf,
at the mouth of the Seine, and proceeded by boats up the river to Rouen,
whence by a leisurely route they found their way into Flanders, being
everywhere treated with the greatest kindness and every mark of respect.
Before arriving at Brussels they were met by O'Neill's eldest son, Colonel
Henry O'Neill, at the head of his troop of Irish soldiers in the service
of Spain, and on the following Saturday the Spanish commander-in-chief
in Flanders, the Marquis Spinola, one of the most brilliant soldiers of
his age, came to welcome them with a splendid retinue of nobles, and invited
them to a banquet on the following day. They were equally courteously
received and entertained by the Archduke and Archduchess, the latter being
the daughter of the King of Spain, and they met many notables, including
the Duc d'Aumale, Cardinal Bentivoglio, the author of the History of the
Wars in Flanders, and others. They spent the winter in the Low countries,
visiting Douai, Mechlin, Louvain, Antwerp, and other cities, and in the
spring continued their journey into Italy. From Louvain the two Earls
had drawn up and forwarded to King James a full and dignified statement
of the grievances for which they were obliged to leave their native land;
these fully explain the causes of their flight.
They left behind them in Brussels the young boys John and Brian, who
became pages to the Archduke, and the other children, one of whom was
in the future to become the famous Owen Roe O'Neill, Tyrone's half-nephew.
Nuala, who had been Niall Garbh's wife, but had been forced to leave him,
also remained behind. The rest of the party arrived in Rome in the beginning
of May 1608. But the summer heat and malarial fever laid their hand upon
Tyrconnel. He and his brother Caffar sank within a few weeks of each other,
and were buried in a tomb which is still a resort of Irish visitors in
the Church of S. Pietro Montario, on the Janiculum. The thoughts of their
sister Nuala on hearing of their death are given voice to in Mangan's
well-known verses, "O woman of the piercing wail," founded upon
a fine poem by Owen Roe-Mac an Bhaird (or Ward), the family bard.[6] Hugh
O'Neill lived on for many years, but he had sorrow upon sorrow. His anxiety
for his scattered family must have been great. His son Hugh, Baron of
Dungannon, was stricken down soon after the O'Donnells and followed them
to the tomb. Tyrone happily did not live to hear the fate of his young
son Brian, who was mysteriously and foully murdered in Brussels in 1617;
but the babe left behind in his flight had fallen into Chichester's hands,
and anxiety for its safety must often have weighed heavily upon him.[7]
[6] O'Grady, Catalogue of Manuscripts in the British Museum, pp. 371-373.
[7] This child was for some time under the charge of Sir Tobias Caulfeild
at Charlemont Fort. He was then sent to Eton. Finally he was confined
in the Tower, where he appears to have died.
Hugh passed away in 1616, aged, blind, and bowed with griefs. There were
qualities of real greatness in O'Neill; wise, patient, and acute, in the
difficult days in which he lived he played his part with skill and dignity,
worthy of dealings with better men. We feel that he had a right to ask
that the term 'rebel' should not be applied to him more often than was
convenient, and that his persecutors should remember that he was a nobleman
born. Captain Lee, who knew Tyrone well, had a high opinion of his probity
and his desire to act straightforwardly. He writes to the Queen in 1594
deploring the mismanagement by the Lord Deputy in his dealings with him
and the other Northern men of position. He declares that "there was
never man bred in these parts who hath done your Majesty greater service
than he, with often loss of his blood upon the Queen's enemies."
He ascribes the quiet of the North of Ireland during many years not to
the Crown forces or to their officers, but only to the honest disposition
and carriage of the Earl, who had made the country obedient to her Majesty.
"And what pity it is that a man of his worth and worthiness shall
be thus dealt withal by his adversaries...I humbly leave to your Majesty."
[8]
[8] Captain Thomas Lee's "Brief Declaration of the Government of
Ireland," in J. Lodge's Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica (1772), 1, 113.
With the flight of the Earls mediaeval Ireland may be said to have come
to an end, and with it the old clan system. Henceforth, for good and ill,
the plantations over the larger portions of the country introduced an
element of English life and thought too large to admit of any extended
revival of the sept and clan conditions. We need not regret them, picturesque
as they may appear from the outside. What was good in the clan life, its
loyalty to the chieftain, its sense of interdependence, was more than
overshadowed by its inherent disadvantages. The uncertainty as to the
succession to the chiefship led to incessant wars within the sept itself,
out of which the neighbouring chiefs made their own profit; murders of
pretenders to the office were continual even in the Tudor period, and
mutilations intended to prevent designs upon the leadership of the sept.
In every chief's house sat hostages, who spent in captivity the better
part of their lives, liable at all times to be blinded or put to death
for faults not their own. The number of the chiefs' wives, and the open
acknowledgement of numerous base-born sons, who could succeed to the chieftainship,
show the state of feeling on social matters, while the cruelties of chiefs
like Shane O'Neill or the long drinking bouts of Turlogh do not give us
an impression of high culture among the general run of the leaders of
the people.[9]
[9] On one occasion Turlogh was so long unconscious as the result of
a drinking bout that it was reported to the Government that he was dead
; consternation spread when at the end of three days a report came in
that he had revived.
War, raiding, and the devastation of neighbouring lands was the daily
life of the clans and their natural delight; they were trained to be warriors,
and as warriors they lived and died. In Elizabethan times few pages of
the Annals are without such reports as the following: "Shane O'Neill
and Hugh O'Donnell left neither house neither corn in all my [Maguire's]
country upon the main land unwasted, neither church neither sanctuary
unrobbed; but there is certain islands in my country in the which islands
standeth all my goods, but your lordship shall understand that Hugh O'Donnell
has prepared twelve boats for to rob and waste all those islands."
Or again, when O'Rorke is contemplating a raid into Meath his family bard
exhorts him to reap down the growing corn, and fell the orchards, and
to leave misery behind him on the smooth pastures of the Boyne, so that
a woman from Meath's pasture-land must satisfy her hunger with the flesh
of her first-born child.[10] There was little to choose between the methods
of the Irish chief and the English officer so far as terrorism and bloodshed
were concerned, though the destruction caused by the passage of English
armies was more widespread. Nor was there anything to distinguish the
Irish soldier from his English comrade in the matter of pity for the sufferers
in war. Neither English or Irish troops spared those who fell under their
hand. War, in spite of the attempts or affected attempts to gloss over
its horrors, is never anything but barbarous and terrible—a monster
raised by one nation to torture and destroy another. In Elizabethan days
palliation was not even dreamed of; and the troops of both countries showed
an equal readiness to execute the ruthless orders of their commanders.
O'Sullevan Beare laments that the Irish troops did not hold their hand
even from the desecration of Armagh Cathedral, Catholics though they were,
tearing down the images and polluting the precincts with the same fury
as the heretics with whom they were associated.[11]
[10] See O'Grady, op. cit., pp. 412-417 ; E. Knott, Poems of Tadhg Dall
Higgin, ii, 74.
[11] O'Sullevan Beare, op. cit., vol. iii, Bk. III., ch. vi.
But, though Irish soldiers never failed to be forthcoming for the Irish
armies fighting on the side of the Government under English commanders,
and there is no distinction visible between their conduct and that of
their fellows, there is a real difference in the humanity shown by their
leaders toward the vanquished, or the captives that the fortunes of war
threw into their hands. When Enniskillen Castle surrendered to Maguire
and O'Donnell in 1594 the defenders were dismissed as agreed upon, and
after the battle of the Yellow Ford the surrendered garrisons were permitted
to withdraw to Newry and Dundalk. No treachery, such as seems to have
occurred at Smerwick and Dunboy, was attempted upon them. The men of note
who fell into their hands, though held to ransom, were well treated, and
in some cases, such as that of Sir Henry Harington, they were so happy
with their captors that they "ever afterwards spoke well of the Irish."
There were no massacres of surrendered garrisons or of helpless women
and children. Here the behaviour of the Irish chiefs showed a sense of
honour and courtesy of which we have lamentably few examples on the part
of the English officers in their dealings with them. The principles laid
down by Machiavelli in The Prince for the guidance of the Italian princes
of his day were equally accepted and acted upon by France, Spain, and
England, but the harshness and perfidy practised in Ireland by the men
in power in the Tudor period were not only disapproved in many cases by
the sovereigns, they also aroused horror in the bulk of the English people.
Lord Arthur Grey was assailed on all sides on his return as "a bloody
man, who regarded not the life of the Queen's subjects no more than dogs,
but had wasted and consumed all so as now she had nothing almost left
but to reign in their ashes." The heads of one Deputy and officer
after another fell on the block on their retirement from their Irish offices,
even the near kin of the reigning sovereigns not escaping the penalty
of their misdeeds. Perhaps the most remarkable expression of opinion is
that of Lord Burghley, who, writing to Sir Henry Wallop at a time when
English sympathy was strongly stirred on behalf of the suffering peoples
of the Low Countries, declares that "the Flemings had not such cause
to rebel against the oppression of the Spaniards as the Irish against
the tyranny of England."
At the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries,
in order to provide a refuge and place of study for Catholic youths shut
out from the means of education at home, a number of Irish colleges sprang
up on the Continent, founded sometimes by sovereigns, like that of Toulouse,
which owes its origin to Anne of Austria, or of Salamanca and Compostella,
founded by Philip II; others, such as Bordeaux,[12] were established by
Irish merchants settled abroad or by Irish officers in foreign service.
During the earlier half of the seventeenth century colleges were founded
in France, Spain, Belgium and Rome. Lisbon was one of the first to open
its doors to Irish students, who were maintained by a confraternity in
that city. Salamanca had added an Irish college even sooner, Stephen White
having presented to the King of Spain at Valladolid some Irish students
and prayed him to found for these "poor exiles from Ireland"
a college in Salamanca. This college became, along with that of Louvain,
the favourite resort of Irish pupils; Colonel Henry O'Neill, Tyrone's
son, Owen Roe O'Neill, Ward, and Wadding were among the students who resorted
thither. Other colleges were started in Spain by the exertions of Thomas
Stapleton, and Madrid, Alcala, Seville, and Santiago added Irish foundations
to their list of colleges. Irish lads became a familiar sight in the streets
of Spanish towns. At Salamanca they were so well known that in Gil Blas
there is an allusion to the figures Hibernoises in the public promenade
of the city; and it is there remarked that these young Irish intellectuals
were "always ready to discuss the most abstruse questions of metaphysics
with any comer." Paris gave a welcome to Irish students from about
1578, when John Lee with six Irish students entered the College. In 1677
Lombard College was transferred to the Irish students and became the centre
of the Irish colony in Paris; when King James arrived there after the
defeat of the Boyne he held a levee at this college. The existing Irish
College in Paris was opened in 1769 by Laurence Kelly, who built a college
for clerics in what is now the rue des Irlandais, but the Lombard College
went on as before; it had attracted many of the military men who entered
the Irish Brigade in the eighteenth century.
[12] Dr. Geoffrey Keating was the seventeenth student admitted to Bordeaux
College ; it was founded in or about 1603 by Father Dermott MacCarthy.
Irish students flocked abroad in such numbers that Ware estimated that
as many as thirty foreign establishments existed, ranging from Douai and
Rheims on the west to Prague and Vienna on the east. Irish was taught
and spoken in some of the colleges, and the rules of Lille, founded for
Leinster boys, required all pupils to use the language on two days of
the week; when, in 1764, a President was chosen who could speak no Irish
the authorities refused to accept him. It was contended that in Leinster
the native tongue was not necessary for clerical students, as all the
priests in that province spoke English. At Louvain there were three Irish
colleges, and up to recent times the name "Collegium Hibernum"
could be read over the large gateway of carved stone which led to the
Irish Pastoral College. But the centre of Irish interests in Belgium was
the Franciscan College of the Recollects, named after St Anthony of Padua
and built through the intercession of Father Florence Conry by Philip
III of Spain. It was founded in 1616. Here worked that great group of
Irish scholars, Luke Wadding, John Colgan, Stephen White, Patrick Fleming,
Hugh Ward, and Thomas O'Sheerin, and to it came Michael O'Clery when engaged
in collecting materials for the lives of the Irish Saints and also for
the Annals of the Four Masters. Peter Lombard and Hugh MacCaghwell often
passed periods within its walls, and there Hugh O'Neill was reunited with
his eldest son, a colonel in the Spanish forces of the Netherlands. These
boys did not go abroad wholly unprepared. The old schools of the bards
seem to have been in full activity, and the early lists of pupils at Salamanca,
which give not only the names and parents of the students, but the places
where they had received their earlier education, show that many of those
who went abroad between the years 1600 and 1616 had been instructed by
poets whose poems are still extant, such as Blind Tadhg O'Higgin and others.
The learned Hugh Ward, a Donegal man, himself studied in the schools of
Connacht "under diverse masters, of whom the most learned was Master
Oliver Hussey, under whom he studied two years; under others, as Henry
Hart, Tadhg Higgin, Aenea Conmy, for four years." [13]
[13] See the lists of students at Salamanca published in Archivium Hib.
11, 29.
Besides the bardic schools there were several excellent 'Latin schools'
in all the important towns, Kilkenny, Ross, Drogheda, Galway, Cork, Armagh,
and Waterford, such as those of Peter White at Kilkenny and Alexander
Lynch of Galway. Peter White had been educated at Oxford, which was then
a regular resort for men of studious habits, and became a Fellow of Oriel
College. He caught the fervour of the Oxford revival of classical studies,
and his school inspired in its pupils a passion for Greece and Grecian
studies. Richard Stanihurst, Peter Lombard the Primate, Luke Wadding,
and Comerford were students at this school.[14] When these schools were
closed priests and Jesuits entered private families as teachers to the
young. The "six religious houses of the Pale," which were spared
by special petition because of the excellent education they provided,
were entirely for English-born children.
[14] O'Shea, Life of Luke Wadding (Dublin, 1892).
The larger number of these Oxford students were descendants of the settlers
and came from the towns; it was naturally less common to find members
of the country Irish families taking an English education, though from
this rule there were many exceptions. The religious differences here,
as elsewhere, determined their choice. If an Irish Catholic desired a
more advanced standard of instruction than was obtainable within the country
he went abroad to obtain it. Even Protestants seem to have followed this
fashion. In the statute of Elizabeth setting forth the reasons for the
foundation of a college in Dublin it is stated that the purpose in view
was that "knowledge and civility might be increased by the instruction
of our people (in a College for learning), whereof many have usually heretofore
used to travaile into France, Italy, and Spain to get learning in such
foreigne Universities, whereby they have been infected with Popery and
other ill qualities."
In Elizabeth's reign, however, there seems to have been a great tendency
among the Irish gentlemen of position to send their boys into England
or in some way to secure that they learned the English tongue. It was,
in fact, necessary for those who took the English side either for a time
or permanently to know the language of their allies. For instance, Bryan
MacGeoghegan in a petition to the Queen states that he had been compelled
by poverty to draw home two children whom he "was bringing up in
England in good civility and literature." In 1593 it is stated that
"MacMahon's brothers and children know English and are civilly brought
up." [15] O'Donnell, we are told, "knows English and can sign
and date in that language." Nevertheless, he spoke it with difficulty,
so that Sidney had to get the aid of an interpreter, though O'Donnell
understood what was said to him. It seems as if it had become a matter
of reproach among the Irish chiefs if any one of them did not know the
English tongue. Donal O'Sullevan,[16] replying to what he considered the
false accusations of Sir Owen O'Sullevan, protests that "the country
was not so barbarous, but that the heirs thereof were always brought up
in learning and civility, and could speak the English and Latin tongues;
but to excuse his own ignorance and want of bringing up, being not able
to speak the English language, he (Sir Owen) would gladly discredit the
country and all his ancestors, who were ever better disposed people to
good government, learning, and civility than the said Sir Owen, as hereunder
shall appear."
[15] Cal. S.P.I., Eliz., clxviii. No. 2, p. 70 (January 5, 1593).
[16] Ibid., cxxix. No. 74, p. 342 (May 10, 1587).
Latin was the universal medium and was used in a free conversational way,
perhaps without a strict regard for grammar, but in a manner to make it
useful for all the common wants of life. "Without any precepts or
observation of congruity they speak Latin like a vulgar language,"
writes Campian somewhat scornfully, about 1574, "learned in their
common schools of Leachcraft [Medicine] and Law, whereat they begin children
and hold on sixteen or twenty years, conning by rote aphorisms of Hippocrates
and the Pandects of Justinian, and a few other parings of these two faculties."
The State correspondence of the time shows that Shane O'Neill could write
Latin letters to both laymen and ecclesiastics; while Cuconnacht Maguire
is said to have been "a learned and studious adept in Latin and in
Irish." [17] Shane seems to have understood English very well also;
he writes to Sussex in 1562, in the curious spelling which he shared with
many born Englishmen of the day. "Bechetching you to wrytte me no
more letters in Latyn, because that I would nott that no other clerke
nor non other man of this contrey shuld knowe your mynd; wherfor doo you
wryte all your mynd in Englys." [18]
[17] Annals of the Four Masters, 1589 (vol. vi, p. 1875).
[18] British Museum MS. Vesp., F. xii, fol. 47.
It was a much less usual accomplishment to speak and write English than
to use Latin in the same way. The poor shoeless lads on the Galway mountains
could often converse in Latin, and every young man educated for the priesthood
had of necessity to learn it. But English was, as we have seen, also acquired
where necessity demanded it; and occasionally we find a learned lady,
like Calvagh O'Donnell's Scottish wife, who could speak in three languages.[19]
[19] Carew, Cal. 11, No. 501, p. 350 (March 1583).
END OF CHAPTER XXI
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