6

placed. It is fcarcely credible, and yet we have the fame lord deputy's teftimony for it, that this Spanish general offered fix fhillings a day to every horfeman among the Irish, that would join his standard. “So that," adds his lordfhip, " it is a wonder unto us, that from present staggering, they fall not to flat dejection." And, what increases the wonder ftill more is, that notwithstanding all these inducements, much the greater part of the queen's army, which then befieged him in Kinfale, confifted of the Irifh. But fo inconfiderable a number

" Morrif. ib. fol. 144.

7 Pacata Hibern. fol. 213.

d Morriffon affirms, "that the reafon moving Don Juan afterwards to make the furrender of Kinfale, was the malice, he and the Spaniards had against the Irish; in whofe aid, they too late difcovered no confidence, could judicially be placed." Hift. of Ireland, fol. 192.

One of the means Lord Mountjoy made ufe of to gain over the Irish to him against the Spaniards, was the following: there were fome of them, "who having no living, nor any thing that would afford them maintenance, yet had not fhewn themfelves difloyal, though all of them were fwordfmen, and many of them gentlemen by defcent, and able to draw after them many followers to whom the Spaniards made offer of great entertainment; thofe he propofed to take into her majefty's army, being confident that he should make good use of them against the Spaniards, as he meant thoroughly to put them to it. And of this, he affured the lords of the council, that when they had served his turn against the Spaniard, he could, without danger, ease her majesty of that charge, and would no longer hold them in entertainment. In the mean time (adds he) they fhall spend little of the queen's victual; but being paid in the new coin (in a fhilling of which, he elfe where tells us, there was not more than two penny worth of filver), provide for themselves." Morrif. Hift. fol. 139.

This propofal was approved by her majefty," and prevented Tirone of a great many men, that otherwife, fays his lordship, muft and would have ferved him for entertainment, having no other means to live." Id. ib. fol. 153.

Does it not from hence plainly appear, that these Irish swordsmen preferred the fervice of their proteftant queen, on this critical and trying exigency, to that of her powerful catholic enemy, even with fome difadvantage to themselves?

* Little doubt can be made, that if the generality of the Irish

had

a number of the rest of these people were feduced to that defection, by these tempting offers and declarations; and fo ridiculoufly incenfed were the Spaniards against them, on that account, and thought them fo little worthy to be faved in any fenfe, that one of their officers publicly declared, "that he believed Chrift did not die for them."

8

As for those few Irish, who joined the Spaniards on their first arrival, Sir George Carew himself feems to have made their apology,' by faying "that little wonder was to be made thereat, confidering what power religion and gold have in the hearts of men, both which the Spaniards brought with them into Ireland."

f

Immediately before the furrender of Kinfale, which was occafioned by the entire defeat of the northern Irifh under Tirone, who came to relieve it, her majesty's army, being in pursuit of the routed enemy, 10 ❝ continued the execution a mile and an half, and left it there only because they were tired of killing :" " And had it not been," fays " Morriffon who was then on the spot, "for fome impediments from the wearinefs of the men, and the ill condition of the horses for want of feeding, we had cut the throats of all the rebels there affembled."

$ Pacata Hibernia, fol. 176. 9 Id. ib. fol. 224. 10 Id. ib. fol. 144, 235. 'Hiftory of Ireland, fol. p. 178.

had affifted the Spaniards on this occafion, Kinfale would not have been taken; for the lord prefident himfelf, in a letter to Cecil fays," that Kinfale was bought at fo dear a rate, as while I live, I will proteft against a winter fiege. I do speak within my compafs, I do verily believe, that at that fiege, and after the fickness there gotten, we lost above fix thousand men that died.” Pacata Hibernia, f. 349.

Sir George Carew's army when it fat down before Kinsale, confifted of three thousand men, two thousand of whom were of Irish birth. Pacata Hibernia, fol. 213. And Lord Deputy Mountjoy acquainted the English council, that the companies under him were full of Irish. Id. ib. fol. 204.

"All the rebels in Ireland were drawn into Munfter, on that occafion." Pacata Hibernia, fol. 231.

"The Earl of Clanrickard

affembled."

killed,

2

with his own hand, above twenty Irish; and cried out to spare no rebels for which the deputy knighted him in the field, among the dead bodies. There were some of the Irish taken prifoners, who offered great ransoms, but upon their bringing to the camp, they were all hanged." h

Morriffon informs us of one particular, concerning the defeat of the Irish at the battle of Kinfale, which, for its oddity, at leaft, deferves fome notice. On the fame day," fays he, "an old written book was fhewn to the lord deputy, wherein was a prophecy, naming the ford and hill where this battle was given; and foretelling a great overthrow to befall the Irish in that place." Sir George Carew has given a more circumstantial account of this prophecy. "He had often heard the Earl of Thomond fay, that in an old book of Irish prophecies, which himself had seen, it was reported, that towards the latter days a battle should be fought between the English and the Irish, in a place which the book named, near unto Kinfale; and the earl coming out of England, and landing at Kinfale, in the time of the fiege, Sir George, and divers others, heard

" Pacata Hibernia. 13 Ubi fupra, fol. 179.

+ Pacata Hibern. fol. 235.

"No man (fays Sir George Carew) did bloody his fword more than his lordship that day, and would not fuffer any man to take any of the Irish prifoners." Pacata Hibern. fol. 235.

It appears from a letter of Don Juan D'Aguila, to Lord Mountjoy, that the Spanish prifoners taken on that occafion. were abandoned by the Irish, and left in the utmost distress; "that there was no fuftenance given them, that they fuffered extreme wants both with hunger and cold, and found not any alms." The reason of which Lord Mountjoy feems to affign, when he says, " that the contempt and fcorn, in which the Spaniards held the Irish (for not having joined them) and the distaste which the Irish had of them, were not to be believed by any but those who were present to see their behaviours and hear their Ipeeches; infomuch (adds his lordfhip) as we may probably conjecture, that by fuch time as Don Juan with his forces is arrived. in Spain, it will be a difficult thing for the Irish hereafter to procure aids out of Spain." Morrif..fol. 187, 189.

1

heard him report the prophecy, and name the place, where, according to it, the battle fhould be fought. The day on which the victory was obtained, he and the earl rode out to see the dead bodies of the vanquished, and asked fome that were there prefent, by what name that ground was called; they not knowing to what end. the question was afked, told the true name thereof; which was the fame, that the earl had before reported to him. "I beseech the reader," continues the prefident," to believe me, for I deliver nothing but truth; but as one swallow makes no fummer, fo fhall not this one true prophecy increase my credulity in old predictions of that kind."

CHA P. X.

a

The cruelty of the English army in Munster. IN December 1600, about nine months before the arrival of the Spaniards,' "there was not in the whole province of Munfter, one castle that held out against the queen; nor was it known that there were five rebels in a company there." And afterwards, at the battle of Kinfale, almost all the infurgents of the other provinces, who were there affembled under Tirone, were totally difperfed. Yet the unceafing

2

' Pacata Hibernia.

2 Id. ib.

cruelty

"And now (December, 1600) there was not a castle in Munster held for the rebels, nor any company of ten rebels together, though there wanted not loofe vagabonds dispersed in all corners." Morrif. Hift. of Ireland, fol. 94.

We are told by a contemporary Roman catholic writer, that Tirone's defeat at the battle of Kinfale, was a judgment from God, on account" of his foldiers, in their march thither to relieve the Spaniards, having robbed and spoiled the monafteries of Timnalage, and Kilcrea; and prophaned other churches. For, fays that writer, the queen's army confifted, for the most part, of Irish catholic foldiers; the English being altogether, faving a very few, confumed by cold and famine, being unable to endure

cruelty of the victors, which always increased in proportion to the weakness of the vanquifhed, proved thefe latter to have recourse, once more, to arms for their natural defence. After that battle, the English feemed determined to destroy, indifcriminately, all the remaining Irish, that came in their way; which they had fometimes done with fuch circumstances of barbarity, that the Irish, in despair, were often tempted to prevent them, by deftroying themselves. Thus, at the taking of the caftle of Dunboy, "the lord prefident' fuppofing that the besieged in their extremity would leap into the fea, which was near, pofted fome of the officers there with boats, who had the killing of about thirty of them, that attempted it." That garrifon had sent out a meffenger offering to furrender the castle, if they might have affurance of their lives; but the lord prefident, instead of granting that affurance, turned the meffenger over to the marshal, by whofe direction he was executed." 4

Nothing can better fhew the implacable fury of thefe English commanders, and the defpair to which that fury drove the Irish, than fome particulars of this fiege, which are thus related by the lord prefident himself.

3 Pacata Hibernia, fol. 320.

4

+ Id. ib.

endure the toil and labour of fo unfeasonable a winter campaign. Yet Tirone's army exceeding the other in multitude of people, and ever before that time, terrible to the English, by reason of fo many great overthrows given unto them, were broken, and put to flight by a few horfe-men, that iffued out of the English camp; being thereunto folicited, and procured by the Earl of Clanrickard, an Irish (Roman catholic) earl, then in the English camp. Wherefore," "adds my author, "the faid Earl of Tirone, returning from that overthrow, faid, that it was the vengeance of the mighty hand of God, and his moft juft judgment, which ought to be executed upon fuch wicked and facrilegious foldiers, that perpetrated fuch outrages upon facred places." Theatre of religion, p. 423.

It was probably on that account," that on the rout of his army at Kinfale, the country inhabitants, upon advantages, would not spare to take fome of their heads." Pacata Hibernia, fol. 240.