Clanricarde

“ Tuesday.—For awhile last night, whilst Lansdowne speaking, Clanricarde sat on rear Cross Bench immediately in front of Bar where mere Commoners are permitted to stand. Amongst them at this moment were Tim Healy, O'Brien, and Sexton, leaning over rail to catch Lansdowne's remarks. Before them, almost within hand reach, certainly approachable at arm's length with a good shillalegh, was the bald pate of the man who, from some points of view, is The Irish Question. Clanricarde sat long unconscious of the proximity. ”

“ This could not be done without the consent of the Irish, and the terms offered by Bourke were such as Clanricarde could not in honour entertain. He held the King’s commission, and yet he was required to take the confederate oath of association, and to do nothing without the consent of the corporation of Galway, and of several other persons, the betrayer of Claregalway being one. Negotiations upon this basis necessarily failed, and Willoughby capitulated on the 20th without making Clanricarde a party. The garrison marched out with the honours of war, and were allowed to go on board ship. ”

“ Clanricarde having had the egregious folly to announce to the House of Lords his intention to make 'a personal statement,' in which he was unaccountably supported by such men as George Lewis and Lansdowne amongst others, [Pg 178] found out that everybody thought he was making a great fool of himself and withdrew it, but his colleagues are annoyed at his putting himself forward to ask questions of Derby. ”

“ Nobody has ever had the face to pretend that the Clanricarde estates were ‘rack-rented.’ There have been many personal attacks made upon Mr. Joyce and upon Lord Clanricarde, and Mr. Joyce has brought that well-known action against the Marquis for libel, and all this answers with the general public as an argument to show that the tenants on the Clanricarde property must have had great grievances, and must have been cruelly ground down and unable to pay their way. ”

“ Whether on account of this outrage or not, Croft found it necessary to visit Athlone himself, and try to establish some order in Connaught. The dissensions of the young Earl of Clanricarde with his kinsman Ulick, who was loth to part with his authority, had laid the whole country waste. Cusack with a small force succeeded, after a few executions, in placing the Earl quietly, and swearing the gentry of the district to obey him. ”

“ Some forty guns were landed, but there was no wood to make platforms, and Forbes soon recognised that he could not take Galway, where every house was like a castle. Sir Charles Coote had been expected, but he did not come. Clanricarde returned to Loughrea and Ranelagh to Athlone, while Willoughby remained in command of the fort, and on the worst terms with the townsmen. ”

“ On the outbreak of the Irish rebellion Clanricarde had powerful inducements for joining the Irish—the ancient greatness and independence of his family, his devotion to the Roman Catholic Church, and strongest of all, the ungrateful treatment meted out by Charles I. and Wentworth to his father, one of Elizabeth’s most stanch adherents in Ireland, whose lands were appropriated by the crown and whose death, it was popularly asserted, was hastened by the harshness of the lord-lieutenant. ”

“ He continued to discuss matters with Digby and his secretary, Edward Walsingham, who, according to Nicholas, was ‘a great babbler of all his most secret employments,’ but it all led to nothing. Leyburn, however, persuaded Clanricarde not to leave Ireland, which he had made up his mind to do. In the end the best he could do for Digby was to procure him a safe-conduct through the Confederate quarters, and he escaped to France with some difficulty. At his earnest request Leyburn himself remained in Ireland, and was sheltered by Clanricarde at Galway from August 1647 until the following March. ”

“ Clanricarde chose de son chef to propose a resolution like that of the Commons, which Derby refused to take and offered another in its place, which Clanricarde has accepted. He gave Derby the opportunity he wanted of setting himself right with his own party, who, albeit resolved to support him, are smarting severely under his complete abandonment of Protection, and the necessity to which they are reduced of swallowing the nauseous Free Trade pill. He will make the dose more palateable by soothing their wounded pride. Clanricarde went to Lord Lansdowne and told him what he proposed to do. ”

“ The Earl of Clanricarde had distinguished himself by his courage and fidelity at Kinsale, and had enjoyed the especial favour of Queen Elizabeth. He had afterwards married Walsingham’s daughter, the widow of Sidney and Essex. His services thus entitled him to consideration, and his connections secured him friends at Court. In 1616 James I., after a full inquiry by two secretaries of state, had made him governor of the county and town of Galway in such a manner as to make him independent of the president of Connaught. ”

“ Thereupon Desmond fell ‘into some disallowable heates and passions,’ and Sidney, though he could not blame him for being ‘somewhat quicke at the matter,’ laid him by the heels and carried him back with him to Dublin, leaving the government to his brother Sir John of Desmond. Continuing his journey through Limerick to Galway, where he seized the Earl of Clanricarde's sons, he returned by way of Athlone to Kilmainham on 16 April. ”

“ It is absurd, but nevertheless true, that nothing has damaged Palmerston so much as his making Clanricarde Privy Seal. It was an unwise appointment, but the fault of it is grossly exaggerated. Everybody agrees that from one end of the country to another there is a feeling of universal indignation against it. Then there is a great turn in the public mind in favour of the East India Company, or rather against the Government measure, of which nothing is known, but that the result of it will be to place the Indian Empire in the hands of Vernon Smith. ”

“ On Tuesday in Epsom week I went to Bingham Baring's at Addiscombe, with the Clanricardes, Damers, Ben Stanley, Levesons, Poodle Byng; very agreeable people, but the women brimful of ill-nature. Clanricarde and his wife excellent members of society ”

“ Though badly supported by his followers, Clanricarde did excellent service on this occasion, but Sidney was unable to feed or arm a large force, and the victory could not be practically followed up. Fitton could do nothing without English soldiers, and they could not be maintained without cessing the country. The people hardly knew how to choose between imposts in the Queen’s name and the exactions of their own chiefs. ”

“ Disastrous retreat.
‘The Earl of Clanricarde,’ says Mountjoy, ‘had many fair escapes, being shot through his garments, and no man did bloody his sword more than his lordship that day, and would not suffer any man to take any of the Irish prisoners, but bid them kill the rebels.’ He despatched a score at least with his own hand, and the Lord-Deputy knighted him on the field among the dead bodies, some of which were probably those of his kinsmen. The pursuit continued for two miles, and the slaughter must have been much greater but that the half-starved horses could go no farther. ”

“ Differences, if they exist, are settled by judicial processes. But human nature, especially Celtic nature, is weak. The bald pate rested so conveniently on the edge of the bench. It was so near; it had schemed so much for the undoing of hapless friends in Ireland. What if * * *
To-night Clanricarde instinctively moved away from this locality. Discovered on back bench below gangway, from which safe quarter he delivered speech, showing how blessed is the lot of the light-hearted peasant on what he called "my campaign estates."
The Markiss and Clanricarde rose together. ”

“ Upper) , and becoming the ancestor of the earls of Clanricarde, and his brother Sir Edmond that of MacWilliam Oughter (Ochtar, i.e. Lower) , and founding the family of the earls of Mayo. In 1361 the duke of Clarence was sent over as lord-lieutenant to Ireland to enforce his claims as husband of the heir general, but failed, and the chiefs of the de Burghs maintained their independence of English sovereignty for several generations. ”

“ Galway itself was much decayed through the outrage of Clanricarde’s sons, and the townsmen so much disheartened as to be almost ready to abandon their post. Sidney’s presence revived them, and all men hastened to pay their respects; among them the Archbishop of Tuam, the Bishops of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh, and Birmingham, Baron of Athenry, ‘as poor a baron as liveth, and yet agreed on to be the ancientest baron in this land.’ O’Flaherty, O’Madden, O’Kelly, and other Celts also appeared, as well as the heads of several septs of Clanricarde Burkes, each with his appropriate Irish name. ”

“ They came and went between Ireland and France, and Fitzwilliam’s informant held that the preaching of Ulster friars ‘must naturally tend to rebellion.’ Their evident desire, he thought, was to subvert the English Government, and ‘set up their own wickedness.’ In Galway the mendicants bore themselves like princes, so that the Pope might be thought King of England and Ireland. Clanricarde himself dared not say a word, and Limerick threatened to be soon as bad as Galway. ”

“ I hasten to reply to the despatch which your Excellency has done me the honour to address to me under date of the 27th November (9th Dec.) , and the arrival of which was almost immediately preceded by that of the reports which you entrusted to the Marquis of Clanricarde. Before entering further into detail upon the principal subject of that despatch, my first desire, M. le Baron, is to communicate to you the lively satisfaction with which the Emperor received the happy intelligence of the submission of Mehemet Ali. The Treaty of London has at last been executed in spite of all opposition. ”

“ He fell with especial vindictiveness on the old Earl of Clanricarde, and other great landowners of Galway, and set about to seize the fort of Galway, march a body of troops into the [564] country, and compel it to submit to the king's will. The proprietors, disbelieving that the king could know of or sanction such infamous breaches of faith and acts of oppression, sent over a deputation to Charles to lay the matter before him. But the king received them with reproaches, declared his full approval of the proceedings of the Lord-Deputy, and sent them back to Ireland as State prisoners. ”

“ By the end of June, when Clanricarde came to terms, the Parliament had not many enemies left in the field, though a few strongholds held out for some months longer. The articles of surrender, or authentic copies, are for the most part extant, and the terms granted generally amounted to little more than life and personal liberty to those who had not committed murder. Where priests are not specially excluded, they are generally left tacitly to the mercy of the victors. Landed property was to be distributed according to such qualifications as Parliament might determine. ”

“ Indeed, when Kildare did actually return, he at once went to O’Neill’s aid. The chief of Tyrone may have required little persuasion to attack his hereditary foes, but the number of his allies was very uncommon. MacWilliam of Clanricarde, Tirlough O’Brien, Bishop of Killaloe, with many of his clansmen, O’Connor Don and O’Connor Roe, MacWilliam of Mayo, and MacDermot of Moylurg, all agreed to assemble on the southern border of Donegal. O’Neill brought to the trysting place Magennis, O’Rourke, and MacMahon, and many Scottish mercenaries in the hereditary service of his family. ”

“ Of relief by land there was little chance, for Clanricarde’s castle of Claregalway had been betrayed to the Irish, and it was as much as he could do to provide for the safety of Loughrea and Portumna. Bourke had a garrison at Athenry, and some of his troops watched Roscommon so as to prevent Ranelagh from making any move. Preston had occupied Banagher, and Inchiquin, though he wrote civil letters, could find neither men nor money. Early in May Bourke besieged the fort in force, with about 1000 men, but he made no approaches, and trusted to famine. ”

“ Axtell’s men burst [Pg 249] into the island and the slaughter was very great, five hundred being driven into the river and drowned in one body. Out of at least 3000 men only 300 escaped by swimming across. Clanricarde, who thought there was no danger, was away, but his waggon and tent fell into the victors’ hands. The lately captured castles were abandoned, and Axtell returned to Kilkenny, having sent a part of his force to help Ireton in besieging Nenagh. ”

“ The loyal people of Ulster complain of being deserted.
On the day fixed for the execution of the indentures made in England, the Lord-Lieutenant and Council repaired to Dundalk; but no Shane appeared. Letters from him came in plenty. He complained of hurts done during his absence, asserted his right over Maguire, MacMahon, Magennis, and others, and refused to come to Sussex if those rights were to be disputed. Kildare, Clanricarde, and Thomond were deputed to meet O’Neill, and to insist in temperate language upon the performance of the articles. ”

“ Only once, in a defile of the Nephin range, did the rebels make a stand, and they burned their own villages without waiting to be attacked. The poor MacWilliam had cause to rue his blushing honours, for he had a foot cut off by one of Thomond’s soldiers, with a single blow of his sword. That Earl marched [Pg 216] on foot through the mountains, and Clanricarde was also very active. The wounded chief lay for several days, without meat or drink, in an island in Lough Conn, and was afterwards drawn on a hurdle from place to place, to seek the alms of his clansmen. ”