Richard Bagwell

“ Hugh O’Neill had indeed studied the strength and the weakness of England at head-quarters, and he was consequently destined to be more formidable than any of his predecessors had been. As to Fitzwilliam, he complained bitterly and with very good reason that the unpunished landing of the Scots was no fault of his. He had not been bred up to arms, and why should he be expected to do better than noblemen of great ability and military knowledge, who had failed still more conspicuously? During more than eight years’ banishment he had served the Queen in hated Ireland without bribery or robbery. ”

“ Queen Elizabeth might show clemency or policy by her treatment of Shane O’Neill, by ignoring Kildare’s intrigues and utilising him in her service, and by summoning Desmond and Ormonde to submit their controversies to her personal arbitrament; but she could not close her ears to the complaints which reached her as to the state of the English Pale. It was then, as it still is, the custom for Irish students to keep some terms in London, to study the common law at head-quarters, and to carry back legal traditions and modes of thought to their own country. ”

“ I will give place to none but my cousin of Kildare, for that he is of my House. You have made a wise Earl of Macarthy More, I keep as good a man as he. For the Queen, I confess she is my sovereign lady, yet I never made peace with her but by her own seeking. And whom would you have me trust, Mr. Stukeley? I came unto the Earl of Sussex upon the safe-conduct of two Earls and protection under the Great Seal, and the first courtesy that he offered was to put me in a handlock and to send me into England. ”

“ Perhaps too he longed to boast that, while an Earl of Desmond had been the first to bring in the curse of coyne and livery upon Ireland, an Earl of Ormonde had been the first to take it away. He accordingly issued a proclamation which throws much light on the state of the country. Reciting his right to regal power and jurisdiction in Tipperary, he confessed his obligation to see it properly governed. War and disorder had hitherto forced him and his ancestors to exact coyne and livery, necessarily showing a bad example to others who had not the excuse of responsibility. ”

“ They boasted that the Earl, and not the English power, really defended the country, and that there would be no quiet until he became chief Governor. Pride of blood made them wish to enslave all others, and ‘the daily exclamations of the poor were right sorrowful to hear.’ The Queen, having heard Sutton herself and read his reports, sent him back to Ireland, of which Sidney had assumed the government, observing that they touched Kildare too directly, and that she was loth to believe evil of her cousin until it could be proved. ”

“ But Sidney disliked him, both as too powerful for a subject and as a professed enemy of Leicester. All those who hoped for favour from the latter, and all those who favoured the Geraldine faction, were willing enough to take advantage of these rivalries and jealousies. Even Sir Barnaby Fitzpatrick, ‘which good knight was brought up to have known his duty better,’ but who had many causes of quarrel with his great neighbour, took advantage of the fact that every rebellious and disorderly person wreaked his fury upon Ormonde’s property, which was so much scattered as not to be easily protected. ”

“ To Burghley Perrott wrote still more unrestrainedly that the Earl was fitter to keep Bedlam than to rule a newly reformed country. In Munster, wrote the President proudly, the plough already laughed the unbridled rogue to scorn, and daily improvement was visible. The poor prayed for the Queen. The clansmen had almost given up swearing by their lords’ hands. The 8,000 or 9,000 men capable of bearing arms honoured Elizabeth’s name, and their hands began to wax hard in labour as their feet once did in running to mischief. The revenue might soon be expected to increase. ”

“ Edward Butler told Sidney’s messenger, who found him at Thurles with 1,000 men, that no man of Irish birth could be safe since Sir John of Desmond had been sent to the Tower for little or nothing. He knew that he himself had deeply offended his brother the Earl, and was therefore afraid of Sir Edmund, who had also 1,000 men with him. ‘Your secret conference, brother,’ he said in the messenger’s presence, ‘hath brought me to this mischief.’ To Dublin he refused to go without pardon or protection, and Shane O’Neill hardly claimed more, even in his proudest days. ”

“ By far the most remarkable Irishman of his time, he cannot be regarded as in any sense a national hero. His ambition was limited to making himself supreme in Ulster. Had he been allowed to oppress his own province, and perhaps to levy some blackmail beyond its border, it is not likely that he would have troubled the Pale, or denied the titular sovereignty of England. Being such as he was, the vast majority of Irishmen probably rejoiced at his fall, and the Irish annalists do not pretend that he was much loss, except to his own tribe. ”

“ She could not but feel that he had failed, but her heart was touched, and she addressed him thus:—
‘For your more satisfaction we have thought good to signify unto you, that by all your actions, your wise behaviour and constancy in them, your pains and travels sustained by yourself bodily, the great charge that you have been at in your private expenses, and consuming of your revenues and patrimony in our service, and for the attaining of honour by virtue and travail, we have great cause to think you a rare treasure of our realm and a principal ornament of our nobility ”

“ In your service all men of good judgment find great cause of allowance of you, and before Almighty God with my whole heart I wish myself with you to take part of good fortune. For I trust to see your recovery of the crown in Ireland in deed, that is only now had in title.’ The fact is that it went to the Queen’s frugal heart to see even her ablest servant holding two great places at once. Afterwards, when Sidney was at Court, she said that it was no wonder he made a gallant show, for that he had two of the best offices in her kingdom. ”

“ The hundred tongues of rumour were busy in giving the sword to one man to-day and to another to-morrow. Everything was believed but the truth, and as a natural consequence orders were badly obeyed. Sussex urged strongly that the campaign must be prosecuted, or that everything must be left to Shane, who claimed jurisdiction over all inhabitants of the northern province, including those who held direct of the Queen, and had never been subject to any O’Neill. ‘So as we see, Ulster is the scope he challengeth,’ and if he once gained that there was no reason why he should not shoot even higher. ”

“ But one of his followers who was taken offered, to save his own life, to betray a better person. His hiding-place was soon found, and he was killed, ‘not far, as I think,’ said Fitzwilliam, ‘from the spot where his father had the like friendship of his men.’ Brian O’Neill left a brother behind him, who was neglected on account of his youth, but who lived to be the most formidable of all Elizabeth’s Irish enemies. The murder could not be traced to Shane; and indeed Tirlough, as his presumptive successor, had an interest of his own in getting rid of a pretender who relied on letters patent. ”

“ Walter, Earl of Essex.
Having desperately resolved to pacify Munster by sending Desmond home, the Queen made haste to create disturbance in Ulster by licensing private conquest on a large scale. Smith had evidently failed, but she persuaded herself that another might succeed if only he were adequately supported. It was an age when nothing seemed impossible to the brave, and all men’s minds ran upon vague schemes of conquest, beyond unfathomed seas and over unmeasured lands. ”

“ Norris advised lenity in dealing with one who was evidently rather a tool than a ringleader—a barbarian whose cunning was neutralised by his vaingloriousness, and whose simple talk could deceive no diplomatist. ‘Promise what you list,’ said the ambassador, whose great object was to coax the refugee out of France into England, ‘and having him there perform what you list.’
Diplomacy.
The Queen lent no countenance to this Machiavellian advice, and told Norris that the Irish lord was of small value but by her favour, and not the best of his name in the estimation of his own countrymen. ”

“ At Court Philip Sidney accused Ormonde of thwarting his father, and contemptuously held his tongue when the Earl addressed him. Ormonde refused to quarrel, saying magnanimously that the young man was bound to take his father’s part, and that he was endowed with many virtues. Indeed, nothing could be said against Ormonde but that he was a general defender of the Irish cause, like all the rest of his countrymen at Court. He hated Leicester and did not like Sidney; but, as the latter himself expressed it, ‘love and loving [Pg 333] offices’ are matters of favour, not of justice. ”