Ireland under the Tudors. Volume 3 (of 3). Bagwell Richard

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upon John of Desmond with three companions. He had been sent by his brother the Earl, who himself lay north of the Blackwater, to compose a quarrel between Barry and the seneschal of Imokilly. So little danger was dreamed of that Sir John and his friends rode on ponies and without defensive armour. Patrick Condon, a noted leader, and another managed to escape, but Sir John was run through with a spear and also shot in the throat by one Fleming, who had formerly been his servant. James Fitzjohn of Strancally, a cousin of Desmond, was taken prisoner. Sir John only survived a few minutes, but he was able to say that had he lived longer he would have done more mischief, and that Henry Davells was never his friend. His body was sent to Cork and hung in chains over one of the gates for three or four years, when a great storm blew it into the river. The head was sent to Dublin as a ‘New Year’s gift’ for Grey, and stuck upon a pole on the castle wall. James Fitzjohn was executed, having first confessed that the Earl was in a sad plight, and lived only by eating at night the cows that he had killed in the day. A turquoise set in gold was found upon Sir John and was sent to the Queen; his agnus dei, with its glass and gold frame, was transmitted to the Earl of Bedford. Having been designated as his successor by James Fitzmaurice, who had the Pope’s authority for so doing, John of Desmond was acknowledged as the Catholic leader, and his death was of considerable importance. He was a man of ability, and the only person fit to manage the turbulent chiefs who had never served, and who could therefore never command.84

Ill-timed parsimony

      The rebellion had received a great blow, and if it had been followed up promptly all would soon have been over. But the Queen immediately ordered the discharge of 700 men, making the second reduction of the forces within three months. Zouch had now only 400 men at his disposal, and disasters of course followed. In March James Fenton, the secretary’s brother, who had succeeded Captain Apsley in West Cork, crossed over from Berehaven with the intention of provisioning Bantry Abbey, where he expected to find some of his men. David Barry, with a strong party, had already cut the detachment to pieces, and lay hidden in the building till the first boat landed. The unsuspecting soldiers were all killed. Fenton, who followed in another boat, turned back when he discovered what had happened. The Irish gave chase, but night favoured the fugitive, who landed in the darkness, and after three days’ ‘cold entertainment on the rocks,’ scrambled back to his castle, badly bruised and very hungry, but unwounded.85

Indecisive skirmishesZouch presses Desmond hard

      In April the Baron of Lixnaw joined the rebels, and the soldiers in Kerry narrowly escaped annihilation. Captain Acham and a score of men were killed and the rest closely shut up in Ardfert Abbey, where they daily expected to be overwhelmed. The presence of a Spanish vessel may have determined the action of the Fitzmaurices. There had been a similar visitor before the descent at Smerwick, and it was thought that another and stronger force was about to fortify one of the islands off Baltimore or Castlehaven. Zouch had, however, the satisfaction of taking his revenge on David Barry. Led by John FitzEdmond of Cloyne, a noted loyalist, he surprised Barry in a wood near the Blackwater, and killed nearly 100 of his men. The defeated chief sued for protection, and Zouch granted it until his return from Kerry, whither he immediately hurried, and succeeded in relieving the beleaguered men at Ardfert. He then went to the glen of Aherlow, where Desmond himself lay. The rebels were so hard pressed that Lady Desmond took to the mountains, leaving her baggage and female attendants to be captured. Zouch’s foot could not come up in time, and nothing decisive was done. Zouch took it on himself to offer the Earl life and liberty, but he demanded the restoration of all his lands and possessions. Lady Desmond, however, went to Dublin and surrendered to Grey.86

Lady Desmond surrendersSavage warfareDesmond’s heir

      Lady Desmond’s desertion of her husband was justly considered as a sign that he was becoming weaker, but the immediate effect was to make him freer in his movements. He plundered and devastated the whole of Tipperary, and descended the valley of the Suir almost to Waterford. At Knockgraffon, near Cahir, he defeated Ormonde’s three brothers in a fair fight, though the Butlers had greatly the superior force. In Kerry he was not opposed at all. The seneschal of Imokilly had the eastern part of Cork and the western part of Waterford at his mercy, and the estates of Lord Roche were so completely depopulated that settlers had afterwards to be brought from a distance. The style of warfare may be guessed from the Irish annalists, who remark that when Grace MacBrien, the wife of Theobald Roche, ‘saw her husband mangled, and mutilated, and disfigured, she shrieked extremely and dreadfully, so that she died that night alongside the body of her husband, and both were buried together.’ There were but fourteen men fit to bear arms left alive in the whole district round Fermoy. Ormonde’s own house at Carrick was plundered by the seneschal. On the whole it was thought that the time had not come to show mercy to important rebels, and the Queen ordered that Lady Desmond should be sent back to her husband, unless she could induce him to surrender unconditionally. Her only son, as she wrote to Burghley, ‘remained in the castle of Dublin, without any kind of learning or bringing up, or any to attend on him,’ and she begged that he might be sent to England as ‘the lesser evil of the two.’87

Grey is recalled

      However much the Queen may have been to blame, it was clear that Grey had not been a successful governor, and Burghley had formed a bad opinion of his capacity. He had begun with the disaster at Glenmalure, and his bloody success at Smerwick had not added much to his reputation. Sheer severity was his great resource, and he had made enemies on all sides. Yet Sidney had been severe enough, and even the children in the streets clamoured for his return. ‘Where,’ said Secretary Fenton, ‘there is so great an antipathy and dissimilitude of humour and manners between a people and their governor, then the government cannot be carried in just rule and frame no more than a wound can be healed which is plied with medicine contrary to its proper cure.’ The Queen had accused her most successful lieutenant of extravagance, but she found his successor more costly still, and she resolved to recall him. There was no great difficulty about this, for he had very often begged to be relieved, but it was feared that a bad impression would be made in Ireland. Elizabeth therefore determined to send for him under the guise of a conference. This resolution was quickly acted upon, and Grey surrendered the sword to Wallop and Loftus.88

Causes of Grey’s failureThe famine in Munster

      The governor of a dependency will always be in some measure judged by the state in which he leaves the country that he has been called to rule, and, tried by this standard, not much can be said for Grey. The friend and hero of Spenser was called, as the poet himself records, ‘a bloody man, who regarded not the life of her Majesty’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.’ Sir Warham St. Leger, who certainly cannot be suspected of any great sympathy with the Irish people, and who was not hostile to Grey, has left a terrible picture of the state of Munster. The country was ruined almost past recovery by the ruthless exaction of cess, and by the extortions of the soldiers. 30,000 at least had perished by famine within six months, and disease also was doing its work. Cork was then a small town, consisting of one street scarce a furlong in length, yet there were sometimes seventy deaths in a day and very seldom as few as twenty. John FitzEdmond of Cloyne, one of the few really loyal men in the province, had lost nineteen-twentieths of his people, and the cattle, which could never graze in safety, were as lean as their masters. The only inhabitants in tolerable case were the actual rebels, who took freely all men’s goods and escaped disease ‘by enjoying continually the wholesome air of the fields.’ And this was Grey’s settled policy. Five counties were to be laid waste, in order that the traitors might be starved into submission. ‘I have,’ St. Leger said, ‘often told the Governor that this is far wide from the true course of government,’ for the towns would waste away, the revenues dwindle, and the whole country be exhausted by such a frightful drain. Nevertheless, the destruction was nearly as complete as it could be. Nine-tenths of the men had succumbed to the sword, the halter, or the pestilence. The women escaped better, but, taking one thing with another, a competent observer thought

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