1561 July CHAP VII Abo!'-The bloody hand!'-Strike for O'Neil.' The cavalry between shame and fear rode down their own men, and extricated themselves only to fly panicstricken from the field to the crest of an adjoining hill, while Shan's troopers rode through the broken ranks 'cutting down the footmen on all sides.' Shan O'Neil defeats the English. Fitzwilliam ignorant of what was passing behind him was riding leisurely forwards, when a horseman was observed galloping wildly in the distance and waving his handkerchief for a signal. The yells and cries were heard through the misty morning air; and Fitzwilliam, followed by a gentleman named Parkinson and ten or twelve of his own servants, hurried back in a happy hour.' Without a moment's delay he flung himself into the mêlée. Sir George Stanley was close behind him with the rest of the advanced horse; and Shan, receiving such a charge of those few men and seeing more coming after,' ran no further risk, blew a recall note, and withdrew unpursued. Fitzwilliam's courage alone had prevented the army from being annihilated. Out of five hundred English, fifty lay dead, and fifty more were badly wounded; the Irish contingent had disappeared; and the survivors of the force fell back to Armagh so dismayed' as to be unfit for further service. In his official report to the Queen the Earl of Sussex made light of his loss, and pretended that after a slight repulse he had won a brilliant victory. The object of the false despatch however was less to deceive Elizabeth than to blind the English world. To Cecil the Deputy was more open, and though professing still that he had escaped defeat, admitted the magnitude of the disaster. 'By the cowardice of some,' Sussex said, ' all was like 1561 July to have been lost, and by the worthiness of two men all CHAP VII was restored and the contrary part overthrown. It was by cowardice the dreadfullest beginning that ever was seen in Ireland; and by the valiantness of a few (thanks be given to God!) brought to a good end. Ah! Mr. Secretary, what unfortunate star hung over me that day to draw me that never could be persuaded to be absent from the army at any time-to be then absent for a little disease of another man? The rereward was the best and picked soldiers in all this land. If I or any stout man had been that day with them, we had made an end of Shan-which is now further off than ever it was. Never before durst Scot or Irishman look on Englishmen in plain or wood since I was here; and now Shan, in a plain three miles away from any wood, and where I would have asked of God to have had him, hath with a hundred and twenty horse and a few Scots and galloglasse scarce half in numbers, charged our whole army, and by the cowardice of one wretch whom I hold dear to me as my own brother, was like in one hour to have left not one man of that army alive, and after to have taken me and the rest at Armagh. The fame of the English army-so hardly gotten-is now vanished, and I wrecked and dishonoured by the vileness of other men's deeds." The answer of Cecil to this sad despatch betrays the intriguing factiousness which disgraced Elizabeth's court. Lord Pembroke seemed to be the only nobleman whose patriotism could be depended on; and in Pembroke's absence there was not a person-no,' Cecil reiterated, not one,' who did not either wish so well to 1 Sussex to Cecil, July 31.-Irish MSS. CHAP VII Shan O'Neil, or so ill to the Earl of Sussex, as rather to welcome the news than regret the English loss.1 1561 August The truth was soon known in London, notwithstanding the varnished tale' with which Sussex had sought to hide it. A letter from Lady Kildare to her husband represented the English army as having been totally defeated; and Elizabeth irritated as usual at the profitless expense in which she had been involved, determined in her first vexation to bury no more money in Irish morasses. Kildare undertook to persuade Shan into conformity, if she would leave him in possession of what it appeared she was without power to take from him; the Queen consented to everything which he proposed, and the old method of governing Ireland by the Irishthat is, of leaving it to its proper anarchy-was about to be resumed. Most tempting and yet most fatalfor the true desire of the Irish leaders was to cut the links altogether which bound them to England; and England could not play into their hands more effectively than by leaving them to destroy at their leisure the few chiefs who had dared to be loyal. Kildare returned to Dublin with full powers to act as he should think best; while Sussex, leaving a garrison as before in Armagh Cathedral, returned with the dispirited remnant of his army into the Pale. Fitzwilliam was despatched to London to explain the disaster to the Queen; and the Irish Council sent a petition by his hands that the troops who had been so long quartered in the four shires should be recalled or disbanded. Useless in the field and tyrannical to the farmer, they were a burden on the English exchequer and answered no purpose but to make the English name detested. 1561 August The petition corresponded but too well with Eliza- CHAP VII beth's private inclination, but Fitzwilliam while he presented it did not approve of its recommendations ; he implored her and he was supported in his entreaties by Cecil-to postpone, at least for a short time, a measure which would be equivalent to an abandonment of Ireland. The Queen yielded, and in allowing the army to remain permitted it to be reinforced from the trained soldiers of Berwick. Fitzwilliam carried back with him three thousand pounds to pay the arrears of wages; Cecil pressed hard for three thousand besides ; but Elizabeth would risk no more till she saw some fruit arise from her expenditure.' To Shan O'Neil she sent a pardon with a safe-conduct for his journey to England, if Kildare could prevail on him to come to her; and 'accepting the defeat as the chance of war which she must bear,' she expressed to Sussex her general surprise at his remissness, with her regret that an English officer should have disgraced himself by cowardice. She desired that Wingfield might be immediately sent over to her, and that the other of fenders should be apprehended and imprisoned.' Meantime Sussex, having failed in the field, had attempted to settle his difficulties by other methods. A demand from Shan had followed him into the Pale, that the Armagh garrison should be withdrawn. The bearers of the message were Cantwell, O'Neil's seneschal, and a certain Neil Grey, one of his followers, who affected to dislike rebellion and gave the Deputy an opportunity of working on him. Lord Sussex, it appeared, regarded Shan as a kind of wolf, whom having failed to capture 1 Memoranda of Letters from Ireland, August 20 (Cecil's hand).—Cecil to Sussex, August 21. Elizabeth to Sussex, August 20. Irish MSS. Rolls House. CHAP VII in fair chase, he might destroy by the first expedient which came to his hand. 1561 August The following letter betrays no misgivings, either on the propriety of the proceeding which it describes, or on the manner in which the intimation of it would be received by the Queen. Plot to murder Shan. THE EARL OF SUSSEX TO QUEEN ELIZABETH. 'May it please your Highness, August 24, 1561. 'After conference had with Shan O'Neil's seneschal I entered talk with Neil Grey; and perceiving by him that he had little hope of Shan's conformity in anything, and that he therefore desired that he might be received to serve your Highness, for that he would no longer abide with him, and that if I would promise to receive him to your service he would do anything that I would command him, I sware him upon the Bible to keep secret that I should say unto him, and assured him if it were ever known during the time I had the government there, that besides the breach of his oath it should cost him his life. I used long circumstance in persuading him to serve you to benefit his country, and to procure assurance of living to him and his for ever, by doing of that which he might easily do. He promised to do what I would. In fine I brake with him to kill Shan; and bound myself by my oath to see him have a hundred marks of land by the year to him and to his heirs for his reward. He seemed desirous to serve your Highness, and to have the land; but fearful to do it, doubting his own escape after with safety, which he confessed and promised to do by any means he might, escaping with his life. What he will do I know not, but I assure |