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786

Account of circumstances preceding the

[BOOK VI.

A. D. 1576, church together than any English should fortify

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escaping

confinement

A.D. 1574,

CHAP. VI.

THE REBELLION OF THE GERALDINES OF MUNSTER.

The Earl of ABOUT the period of our history at which we Desmond have now arrived, the family of the Geraldines from his or Desmonds of Munster were busily engaged in concerting further schemes of treason and rebellion, which were soon to involve their native soil in the extremest wretchedness of misery and suffering. In A. D. 1573 the earl of Desmond and his brother had been freed from their imprisonment in the tower of London and sent over to live in Dublin as state prisoners with the mayor, under heavy sucurities. But being allowed a considerable degree of liberty, they under pretence of hunting, found means in the following year to escape to their friends in Munster, where they were joyfully received by their old associates, and gladdened by recent tidings from Rome and Spain, encouraging them to persevere in their opposition to her majesty's ed a traitor; government. The earl was now proclaimed a

is proclaim

* Cox, i. 346. Mant, i. 303. The Mac an Earlas were (as their barbarous English Irish title indicates) the Sons of the earl of Clanricarde.

CH. VL]

Earl of Desmond's Rebellion.

787

traitor, and a reward offered for his apprehen- A.D. 1576. sion. He was enabled however to elude for the present the efforts of government; and in 1575 when the lord deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, made his tour of Ireland, establishing order in the country, and receiving the submissions of the chieftains, the earl of Desmond upon returning to his allegiance was once more received into but again favour at Dungarvan; and shortly after was on received insuch good terms with the government, and so with governfar trusted by them, that when Sir William ment. Drury in 1576 succeeded Sir J. Perrot as president of Munster, he was admitted to a place in the council.

to favour

Maurice

Meanwhile James Fitz-Maurice was cherish- James Fitzing beyond seas his rancour against the English goes to government, and earnestly applying to foreign Rome. powers to aid him and his party in their treasonable projects. With this object in view, he repaired at length to Rome, where his evil dispositions met with no small degree of countenance and encouragement, as appears from the following account of his proceedings in that city, furnished to us by the Romish historian O'Sullevan.*

O'Sullevan's account of his

doings in

"While these transactions are going on in Ireland," says O'Sullevan, "James Geraldine, that place, of whom we have already spoken at large, tion with

*Hist. Cath. ib. tom. ii. lib. iv. cap. xv. p. 94.

in conjunc

788
A.D. 1576.

an Irish titu

Thomas Stukely;

Treasonable proceedings of James Fitz-Maurice [Book VI. having arrived in Spain, sets before his Catholic majesty, Philip II., an account of the state of affairs in Ireland, and implores of him aid for the [R.] Catholics. He then travels through France to Rome; where there was resident at this time, Cornelius O'Melrian, an Irish Franciscan and bishop of Killaloe, and Thomas lar bishop; Stukely, who was looked upon by some as being an illegitimate son of King Henry VIII. of England, by others as the offspring of an English knight by an Irish mother, and by others as entirely an Irishman. The latter was earnestly emploring aid against the English, in the name of the people of Ireland being influenced to do so, either from resentment towards the English,* or from motives of piety, or from a taste for changes and war, and the hope of gaining some advantages by means of them, or aiming at royal power, as one who was possibly of royal blood. There was also living there Doctor Sanders, the pride of the English nation, a refugee from the tyranny of his countrymen, in

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*This was his real motive. He had been disappointed in an effort to get himself made seneschal of Wexford. The pope also had his own motive for co-operating with Stukely: he expected to get the kingdom of Ireland for his own son, Jacomo Buoncompagno. See Leland, ii. 268. He had no notion of giving Ireland to the Irish. Their island was to be dependant on Spain, a circumstance which in all probability tended to foster jealousy between the Irish chieftains and the Spanish commanders in Ireland. Vid. Phelan, pp. 188, 192, 198.

CH. VI.]

and his accomplices at Rome.

789

bers;

on the Irish

consequence of his having written a book on the A.D. 1577. Anglican schism. At this time there were and certain several troops of robbers infesting Italy in a Italian robsad way, who used to break forth at night from the woods and mountains in which they lay concealed, to spread destruction through the villages with their plundering excursions, and waylay and rob the travellers along the roads. James entreats the supreme pontiff, Gregory who are sent XIII., to succour the [R.] Catholic Church in by the pope Ireland, now tottering to its fall; and at length mission. obtained from him a pardon for those robbers, on this condition—that they should set out with him for Ireland: and so of these and others he collected a thousand soldiers, more or less. And over these the supreme pontiff appointed for leaders, Hercules of Pisa, a person eminent for courage and military experience, and other Roman soldiers; who having embarked on board ship with Bishop Cornelius and Dr. Sanders, James directs Stukely to take the command of them to Lisbon, and there wait for himself, until he should bring his wife whom he had left in France. Stukely, setting sail from Italy, comes to Lisbon with a favourable wind, just when the illustrious Sebastian, king of Portugal, was setting out on his expedition against Morocco. The king makes a request of Stukely that he would cross over with him to Morocco, promising fate.

VOL. II.

2 D

Stukely's

790

Treason and Death of T. Stukely.

[BOOK VI. A.D. 1577. that after his return he would either himself embark for Ireland with Stukely, or else that he would at all events furnish him a larger supply of troops for asserting the liberty of that island. Stukely accepting these terms with all possible readiness, falls by the arms of the barbarians in that celebrated slaughter of the Portuguese, in which fell also the illustrious King Sebastian of that eminent nation. The Italians who survived the slaughter, return to Spain, whither James too had come by this time; who being joined by these Italians that had survived the Moorish slaughter, had now eight hundred men, with one Sebastian San Josepho for their captain, (as Michael ab Isselto informs us,) who was appointed by a decree of the supreme pontiff. These having embarked in six vessels with plentiful military stores, ordnance, and arms to equip 4000 Irish, James, with Bishop Cornelius and Dr. Sanders, weigh anchor, and crossing from Spain to Ireland with a good passage, land at Ardnaccan port, called by the English Smerwick, near the town of Dingle."

The pope's

of the Irish

Thus were the unfortunate Irish, or at least ill treatment such of them as trusted in the pope for their in this affair. protector and friend, seduced, by the evil misleadings of designing and selfish men, to become the associates of the degraded robbers and assassins of Italy; and the sword, reeking from the

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