The Archbishop’s murderers are excommunicated.
Death of Kildare.
In the meantime the ecclesiastics who administered the vacant see of Dublin pronounced sentence of excommunication in its most tremendous form against the murderers of the Archbishop. Offaly himself, his uncles John and Oliver, Captain Rookes, James Delahide, and Teeling and Wafer, who seem to have been the actual murderers, were mentioned by name. Leprosy and madness, hunger and thirst were invoked upon them in this life, and eternal damnation in the life to come. No house was to shelter them, no church to give them sanctuary, no kind Christian to bestow on them a morsel of bread when starving, nor a cup of cold water when dying of thirst, on pain of being considered accessories to their crime and accursed like them. They were to be partakers with Pharaoh and Nero, Herod and Judas, Dathan and Abiram; and stones were cast towards their dwellings, as by Moses when he called down Divine wrath upon the last named. It is said that a copy of this curse was cruelly shown to the old Earl in the Tower, and that the shock snapped the enfeebled thread which still bound him to life. The fate of the seven excommunicated persons was nearly as bad as the most vindictive priest could wish. The three Geraldines were hanged at Tyburn, Rookes was hanged at Dublin, Teeling and Wafer died at Maynooth of a horrible disease, James Delahide escaped to Spain and gave the Government some further trouble, but he died an exile in Scotland.140
The new Earl seeks help from Emperor and Pope,
The new Earl—for Earl he was in spite of Stanihurst’s statement to the contrary—took advantage of the breathing space allowed him by the Deputy’s inaction to cast about for allies. He sent Dominick Power to the Emperor, armed with gifts, and with documents going to prove that Ireland was a fief of the Holy See and that it was forfeited on account of Henry’s heresy. Kildare was ready to hold the country of Pope or Emperor and to pay tribute, in consideration of being protected against the English schismatics. Twelve hawks and fourteen hobbies, or Irish palfreys, were thought suitable presents for the second Charlemagne.141
and from the Irish.
More immediate help was sought from the O’Briens of Clare and the O’Kellies. The latter were induced to threaten Westmeath, and Con O’Brien, chief of Thomond, was already in communication with Charles V., but Con’s son Donogh had married Lady Ellen Butler, and Ossory had enough influence with his son-in-law to keep him to his allegiance. Donogh, as was usual with the sons of Irish chiefs, had a strong party of his own, and prevented the clan from stirring. Ossory contrived to make the Burkes threaten the O’Kellies, and they also were neutralised.142
Many rebels executed.
Skeffington, having awoke to the fact that Ireland could not be subdued by an army which never left Dublin, allowed Maunsell and Brereton to divide their forces and to burn most of the Geraldine villages, including Maynooth. While gaining strength himself he had the satisfaction of ordering several executions in Dublin. Brode, who was called the traitor’s admiral; Rookes, who was captured near Wexford with some of the royal ordnance in his possession; a third rover named Purcell, who had been bold enough to cut a vessel out of the Thames; and Travers, Chancellor of St. Patrick’s, who had been an agent in the attempted reduction of Dublin, were all duly hanged, drawn, and quartered on Oxmantown Green.143
Maynooth Castle summoned. The siege.
Brereton summoned Maynooth Castle, proposing to let the garrison depart with bag and baggage, and offering pardons and rewards. But they trusted in their walls, and answered only with taunts and jeers. At last Skeffington left Dublin and encamped before the castle, which he invested closely the next day. He pronounced it to be the strongest fortress which had ever been in Ireland since the English first set foot there. No detailed account of the armament has been preserved, but there were several pieces of cannon and a garrison of over 100, of whom about one-half were gunners. Christopher Paris, the Earl’s foster-brother, commanded within the castle. Skeffington’s batteries opened on the third day after his arrival, and soon silenced the guns on the north-west side of the keep. The guns were then pointed against a new work on the northern side, and after five days’ bombardment the breach was pronounced practicable. Paris, who probably despaired of maintaining his post, now thought it time to make separate terms for himself, and shot out a letter in which he offered to sell his post for money. The garrison were accordingly allowed to sally forth and to capture a small piece of artillery. Paris pretended great satisfaction, and served out abundant liquor to his men, who proceeded to celebrate their triumph by getting drunk. In the first grey light of morning the outwork was occupied almost without resistance, and the warders were aroused from their slumbers by shouts of ‘St. George! St. George!’ Ladders were quickly planted against the walls of the keep, and the storming party began to ascend. Captain Holland, who was one of the first to reach the parapet, jumped down into a tub of feathers, but Brereton’s company had scaled the walls at another place, and the Geraldines, completely surprised and only half sober, made but a short stand. An arrow was discharged at Holland, the weight of whose armour kept him fast in the feathers, but it missed him, and he was released in time to take an active part in the final struggle. Brereton himself ran up to the highest turret and hoisted a flag, which told the Lord-Deputy that all was over.144
Maynooth taken. Story of Paris.
When Skeffington entered in the evening two singing-men of the Earl’s chapel prostrated themselves before him, plaintively chanting a hymn or song called ‘Dulcis amica,’ which affected the victors as the verses of Euripides affected the Dorians at Syracuse. They were pardoned, and Paris then came forward to claim his reward. Skeffington allowed that he had been useful, and promised that the King would not let him starve; he then asked what confidence the Earl of Kildare placed in his foster-brother, and Paris enumerated the benefits which he had received from the fallen family. ‘Couldst thou,’ said the Deputy sternly, ‘find in thine heart to betray his castle who has been so good to thee? Truly, thou that art so hollow to him wilt never be true to us.’ Then turning to his officers he ordered them to pay down the stipulated price, and to execute the traitor forthwith. ‘My lord,’ said the wretched man, ‘had I wist you would have dealt so straitly with me, your lordship should not have won this fort with so little bloodshed as you did.’ Among the bystanders was James Boys, formerly Constable of Maynooth, who had resigned his office at the breaking out of the rebellion, but who may have sympathised with his old employers, and who muttered ‘too late’ in Irish, a saying which became proverbial for an ineffectual repentance. Paris was executed, and it does not appear that he had been promised pardon, but Skeffington’s action was neither honest nor politic. He had profited by the treason, and to kill the traitor could only tend to make other rebels desperate. About forty other prisoners were taken, of whom twenty-five were executed, including the Dean of Kildare and another priest named Walsh. It appeared from the depositions of one prisoner, a priest, that there had been negotiations with the Emperor, who held out hopes of 10,000 men, and also with the King of Scots. The ‘pardon of Maynooth’ became a proverbial expression for the gallows.145
The Irish fall away from Kildare.
Kildare had in the meantime succeeded in raising an army of 7,000 men among the O’Connors of Offaly and in Connaught, but the news that Maynooth had fallen almost dispersed it. With the men who remained he advanced to Clane, where he came into collision with Skeffington, who took 140 prisoners and put them to the sword, on a renewal of the fight being threatened. Kildare then went into Thomond, intending to sail for Spain, but sent James Delahide and Robert Walsh, the parish priest of Loughseedy, in his stead. These messengers joined Power at Cadiz, but did not
