with Rome were frequent. The Irish said all Englishmen were heretics, and the King the ‘most heretic and worst man in the world,’ in which perhaps they were not far wrong. They considered Henry a disobedient Papal vassal, and a mere usurper in Ireland. ‘When Dr. Nangle, my suffragan,’ says Archbishop Browne, ‘showed the King’s broad seal for justifying of his authority, MacWilliam little esteemed it, but threw it away and vilipended the same.’ The plan was that O’Toole, to whom Gerald promised to restore Powerscourt, should harass the Pale from the south, while James Fitzjohn of Desmond, with some Scotch mercenaries, attacked it from the west and O’Neill from the north. If Tara could be reached O’Neill might be proclaimed King of Ireland, and Gerald restored to his own in Kildare. Besides her own friends, Lady Eleanor commanded the services of a Bristol captain named Kate, or Cappys, who spoke Irish fluently and owned his own ship. John Lynch, a Galway merchant, met him at Assaroe, on the Donegal coast, and warned some of the confederates that Grey would be too strong for them, and that he was active enough to surprise them when they thought he was amusing himself. But Delahide, Leverous, and others, answered that they had perfect intelligence, that Grey could not ride twenty miles in the Pale without their knowledge, that his army consisted chiefly of churls and ploughmen, of which 300 might easily be vanquished by 100, and that he had no good officers under him. These are the arguments with which the foes of order in Ireland have always deluded their adherents, and sometimes themselves.224
Catholic movement.
Wherever Lynch went he found the priests preaching daily ‘that every man ought for the salvation of his soul fight and make war against our sovereign lord the King’s Majesty and his true subjects; and if any of them which so shall fight against his said Majesty or his subjects, die in the quarrel, his soul that so shall be dead shall go to heaven as the soul of St. Peter, Paul, and others, which suffered death and martyrdom for God’s sake.’ ‘And forasmuch,’ Lynch adds, ‘as I did traverse somewhat of such words, I was cast out of church and from their masses during a certain time of days for an heretic; and I was greatly afraid.’ The result of all this preaching was an invasion of the Pale in the month of August. Lord Butler’s policy had kept the O’Briens quiet, and nothing was done on that side. But O’Donnell and O’Neill entered Meath with the greatest army, as some thought, that had ever been seen in Ireland. There was a large contingent of Scots, both from the mainland and the islands, and most of the Northern chiefs added their quotas to the host. O’Neill of Clandeboye, O’Rourke, Maguire, MacQuillin, O’Cahan, Magennis, and MacDermot are among those mentioned. Tara was reached, but no restoration of the ancient kingdom followed. Much damage was done to the modern kingdom, including the burning of Ardee and of Navan, which was the best market town in the county. The invaders set fire to the standing corn, carried off every portable article of value, and, sweeping all the cattle before them, turned in high spirits northwards. They had met with no enemy, and had probably attained their object of providing funds for a general rising, which was fixed for September 1, and which James of Desmond was expected to join.225
Grey routs the O’Neills at Bellahoe, 1539.
Grey summoned the men of Dublin and Drogheda, those citizen soldiers whom the Irish dreaded so much, and hurried after O’Neill. Out of a nominal 350 he could muster no more than 140 of his own men, but he had some help from the gentlemen of the Pale. The marchers, like Rob Roy at Sheriffmuir, waited to see which was the winning side. ‘I must help the King,’ said Fitzgerald of Osbertstown, to Gerald’s messenger, ‘but if ye be the strongest we must go with you.’ Without waiting for such Laodiceans, the Lord Deputy dashed forward, and, as Lynch had foreseen, caught the Ulstermen quite unprepared. They were encamped at Bellahoe, the ford which divides Meath from Monaghan, on the Farney side of the water, and he routed them before they had time to form. The Irish leaders who knew the country escaped, with the exception of Magennis, whose post was near the ford. He fell into the hands of the Louth men, who were bribed by some of his own clan to kill him, and did so. The only person of note killed on the English side was a gentleman named Mape, who charged up the river bank by Lord Slane’s side, and who was carried by his runaway horse into the midst of the Irish. According to Stanihurst, whose account of this affair is at least highly coloured, the mayors of Dublin and Drogheda and Thomas Talbot of Malahide were dubbed knights on the field by the Lord Deputy. He also says that Black James Fleming, Baron of Slane, led the attack, and called on his hereditary standard-bearer to do his duty in the front. But the standard-bearer, whose name was Robert Halpin or Halfpenny, thought the service desperate, and refused to advance his banner, preferring ‘to sleep in an whole sheepskin his pelt, than to walk in a torn lion his skin.’ Calling him a dastardly coward, the Baron ordered Robert Betagh to supply his place, which he cheerfully did: Mape, though he had refused to lead, was fain to follow, and fell fighting in the first rank.226
Grey is accused of favouring the Geraldines.
After this great success, which shattered the Irish or Catholic confederacy for a time, Grey remained in the North. A fleet had been collected at Carlingford to chastise the Scots, and the crews had taken part in the fight or pursuit at Bellahoe; but not much could be done against the islanders. The old Earl of Ormonde had just died, and his son was too busy to visit Ulster. He had incurred vast expense in subsidising the O’Briens and the Clanricarde Burkes, who were ready to serve the King with 800 gallowglasses, 800 kerne, and some horse. James Fitzjohn of Desmond was growing daily stronger, while his rival was basking in Court sunshine; and Ormonde attributed this state of affairs to the Lord Deputy, who favoured all Geraldines and depressed all who owed their promotion to Cromwell. James Fitzjohn had seen the Earl’s brother, the Archbishop of Cashel, and had promised to meet Ormonde also, but he failed in his appointment, and threatened at every moment to attack Tipperary.227
The Desmond heritage. Grey goes to Munster, 1539.
The English Government had in the meantime declared that James FitzMaurice was right heir to the earldom of Desmond. He had been a royal page, and was provided with a force sufficient to guard against any sudden attack. He landed at Cork or Youghal in August, but three months elapsed before any serious effort was made to put him in possession of his own. Leaving Dublin early in November, Grey joined Ormonde near Roscrea, about which there had been fierce dissensions. The castle was now in the hands of the O’Meaghers, but they gave it up peaceably to the Lord Deputy, and he handed it over to Ormonde. Modreeny, which the Earl now acknowledged as O’Carroll’s, was also surrendered. Taking hostages from O’Carroll, MacBrien Arra, O’Kennedy, O’Mulryan, and O’Dwyer to be faithful and pay the King tribute, Grey and Ormonde cut passes through the woods near the Shannon, the inhabitants of which had guided the O’Briens in their raids. They halted two days at Thurles, where Sir Gerald MacShane and the White Knight thought it prudent to submit themselves, and victualled their troops about Cashel and Clonmel. At Youghal they delivered all the castles of Imokilly to the young Earl of Desmond, and two nephews of former Earls accepted him as the head of their House. At Cork Lord Barry, who had held aloof for years, came in and gave security. Hither also came the sons of Cormac Oge, and it was probably on this occasion that their sister Mary MacCarthy married the young Earl. The union was not fated to last long, nor to give an heir to the House of Desmond. The barony of Kerrycurrihy was taken possession of at Kinsale, and MacCarthy Reagh, in whose castle of Kilbrittain Gerald of Kildare had lately found a home, consented to come to Cork and to give his brother as a hostage. He hesitated to sacrifice his cattle, and was easily persuaded by Ormonde, who was now on unusually good terms with Grey. Barry Roe and Barry Oge also gave security. The army then shifted to O’Callaghan’s country, and near Dromaneen James Fitzjohn came to the other side of the flooded Blackwater and defied Grey. He would, he said, conclude nothing without the advice of O’Brien, who could dispose of all the Irishry of Ireland. Grey could not pass the river, and returned to Cork. John Travers, a native of Ireland who had learned the art of war elsewhere, had lately been appointed Master of the Ordnance, and accompanied this expedition, in which only 800
