Page images
PDF
EPUB

course of which their whole dependance lay. They are in general terms accused of taking the occasion to aggravate the impulse by the excitement of the people. We see no reason to dissent from this statement, but we think it fair to add that the deponent from whose testimony the accusation is made, was precisely under those circumstances of terror and alarm, when small incidents assume a magnified form, and reports exaggerated by alarm carry fallacious impressions. To this consideration we must refer the inference by which Mr Goldsmith seems to have connected the hospitality of the friars with the general increase of violence. By their instructions, affirms the deponent, Mr John Goldsmith, the people "then broke forth into all inĥuman practices, barbarous cruelties, and open rebellion." It is however plain, that this incident was a consequence of the practices of which it is assumed to be a cause. The rebellion in its progress had reached them, and such was its beginning in that county. From this time the violence of the country people of the surrounding country became wild, unrestrained, and dangerous to all but those who were their counsellors and abettors.

repre

Mr John Goldsmith, from whose deposition the following particulars are mainly drawn, was a protestant clergyman, the incumbent of the parish of Brashoule. From the disturbed state of the country, of which his narrative contains a frightful picture, he was early compelled to seek refuge under the roof of the noble lord here under notice. His statement, though neither as full or clear as we should desire, is especially valuable for the authentic insight which it affords into the character and true circumstances of his noble protector, and for the lively glimpse which it presents of the terror and distress, which the lawless state of the country impressed on every breast and propagated into every circle. The interior view of the family of Belcarrow, may, we doubt not, stand for many a trembling family and home beleaguered by fear and apprehension. Lord Mayo is himself sented as "miserably perplexed in the night with anxious thoughts." His lordship was, we have every reason to infer, a man of honour and humanity, but of that unfixed principle and ductile temper that takes its tone from the reflected spirit, or the influence of harder and firmer minds. He had the misfortune to be drawn by opposite feelings and in different directions. The menaces, flatteries, reproaches, and representations of the crowd and of their leaders, had a strong effect on his naturally ductile and feeble mind: rebellion raged all round, and her thunders and gay promises, her lofty pretensions and highbreathing illusions, formed an atmosphere without his gates, and met him wherever he went: within the walls of his castle he was surrounded by a protestant family, who were zealous and earnest in their faith; his lady, like all true-hearted women, was thoroughly in earnest about her religion, and by her authority and influence maintained the same spirit in a large household. At the time that this narrative refers to, the family of Belcarrow was augmented by several protestant fugitives, of whom the principal were Mr Gilbert and Mr Goldsmith, both clergymen, with their wives and families, besides several of the protestants of the neighbouring country, who in their general alarm found at Belcarrow, a compassionate host and hospitable board,

and the free exercise of their religion, at a time when, according to Mr Goldsmith, it had nearly disappeared from every other part of the county. Thus collected by fear, the situation of this family was one of the most anxious suspense; they lived under the excitement of daily rumours of the most terrifying description, and were harassed by frequent though vague alarms. Of these, an example is given by Mr Goldsmith. One night the family, thus prepared to draw alarming interpretations from every noise, or terrified by some frightened visitor's report of the doubtful appearances of night-when fancy hears voices, and bushes can be mistaken for robbers-was thrown into a causeless fright, and every preparation was made against an immediate attack: his lordship marched out with his men to meet a force, which we are strongly inclined to think, he did not expect to meet. Such was happily the fact: his lordship had the honour of a soldier-like demonstration, and his good family were quit for the fear.

They had however to endure more substantial and anxious alarms. Every thing in his lordship's deportment was such as to suggest fears of the liveliest description to all those who had either honour, conscience, or safety at heart. It was wavering and undecided; his intercourse with the people betrayed the uncertainty of his mind, even to those without, and must have been but too evident to those who surrounded his board. To this company their noble protector often complained of the deserted condition in which he was left by the government, to whom he had, he said, appealed in vain. His lordship was at the time anxiously halting between two opinions, the rebels were looking for his adherence, and his fainily were nightly expecting an attack upon the castle: the people saw their strength, and said that he should side with them; negotiations were kept up, and still deluding himself with notions of duty, and with questionable compromises, this weak lord fluttered as a bird under the fascination of the serpent; and flirted with sedition till he fell into the snare.

Among the curious indications of this course of his lordship's mind, we are inclined to set down a proposal which he is stated by Mr Goldsmith to have discussed with himself and others of his own household: which was no less than to take the rebels into his protection; and as he was neglected by the state, avail himself of their services in behalf of his majesty: a policy afterwards under altered circumstances, adopted by wiser persons than lord Mayo. Against this singular method of resisting rebellion, Mr Goldsmith protested; and his lordship put the proposition in another form equally creditable to his statesmanship and knowledge of mankind; he expressed his design "to subdue those of Costilo by the men of Gallen, and those of Gallen by the rebels that lived in the Carragh." On this important design he sent to Sir Henry Bingham, and requested a conference at Castlebar. The state of the country did not permit the meeting, but lord Mayo sent his plan in writing, which was signed by Sir Henry and others: a fact which shows the state of alarm in which they must have been at the time.

It was immediately after this that the inmates of his lordship's house began to notice proceedings from which the more natural results of such demonstrations were to be inferred. His lordship, no doubt desirous to

be right, could not help reversing the poet's reproof, "too fond of the right, to pursue the expedient;" he took the course which it would perhaps have required a stronger spirit to avoid; and while he talked of resistance and the king's service, was under such pretexts daily contracting deeper affinity with the parties who involved his path on every side with a well-spun entanglement of menace and flattery. At this time "Mr Goldsmith perceived motions towards popery in his lordship's house; popish books of controversy were sent him; and Laughlin Kelly, the titular archbishop of Tuam, came and reconciled his lordship to the Roman church."

In the midst of his compliances, which were too evidently the result of feebleness and fear, lord Mayo evidently preserved some sense of what was due to his rank and the cause he had thus abandoned. It was, perhaps, the delusion with which he flattered himself, that the influence he should thus acquire over the people might enable him the better to protect the protestants, and the members of his own family: the illusion was humane and amiable, and may be set down to his credit. In this he was destined to be sadly undeceived.

It was while the protestant family of lord Mayo were in this state of harassing uncertainty, and the circumvallations of fear and artifice were daily drawn closer round their walls, that his lordship heard of the shocking and brutal abuse which Dr John Maxwell had received from a rebel leader, into whose hands he had been betrayed by a treacherous convoy. Lord Mayo, on learning of the circumstances, wrote a reproachful letter to the rebel, whose name was Edmunde Bourke and gave him to understand, that he would treat him as an enemy if he should hesitate to deal fairly with the bishop who was put into his hands under the pretence of convoying him on with his company, of whom several were the clergy of his diocese. On this, Bourke, who had no notion of leaving his own purposes for the bishop, brought him with his family, and left him within sight of lord Mayo's castle. He was taken in and treated with all the care and hospitality which was to be expected from the persons, and under the circumstances, and for a few days Dr Maxwell found himself among friends and fellow-christians: he had with him his wife, three children, five or six clergymen, and a numerous train of domestics, which the habits of the day required, and the apprehensions of danger perhaps increased. They remained ten days. Of course the bishop must have been anxious to reach home, and must have felt a natural reluctance to task the kindness of his host much longer with so heavy an addition. But is was now become a matter of serious danger to cross the country in the state in which it was known to be.

In this embarrassment, it seems natural that any occasion would be seized upon to forward the bishop's wishes: and an occasion was soon found. Edmunde Bourke was still besieging the castle, when a letter from Sir H. Bingham caused lord Mayo to march out against him with all the men he could command. Bourke, whose object was not a battle with armed men, and his lordship, who was perhaps no less prudent, came to an agreement, that Bourke should give up his designs upon Castlebar, and agree to convoy the garrison, with the bishop and his party safe to Galway. Bourke agreed, and the matter was soon

arranged. The parties to be thus convoyed, had to be collected from Castlebar, Kinturk, and from his lordship's castle, and were to be brought together to the village of Shrule, from which they were as soon as convenient to be delivered up to the safeguard of Edmunde Bourke, to escort them to Galway. Lord Mayo, with his son, the unfortunate Sir Theobald Bourke, at the head of his lordship's five companies, accompanied them from their several quarters to the village of Shrule, and did not leave them during their stay in that place. Lord Mayo cannot indeed, on this occasion, be accused of the wilful neglect of any precaution or care: he not only remained in the village, and slept with the bishop, but obtained from the titular archbishop of Tuam a strong promise to send with the convoy a letter of protection, and several priests and friars to see them safe in Galway.

It was on the evening of Saturday the 12th of February, 1641, that his lordship, with the bishop's family, occupied the house of serjeant Lambert at this village. The village was filled with their companions, the several parties and his lordship's soldiers, and felt heavily the burthen of providing for such numbers. So that, though the following day was Sunday, a strong entreaty was made that they should travel on, by the principal persons of the surrounding barony. Lord Mayo now dismissed his companies, and made such preparations as he could for the ease and security of the travellers: he made his son and others of the party dismount, and left his own servant, Edmunde Dooney, a five pound note for the bishop, to be delivered when he should part with them at Galway fort. The convoy, commanded by Murrough na Doe O'Flaherty, and Ulick Bourke of Castlehacket, awaited the party a mile from Shrule, at a place called Killemanagh: and thither they now set out, accompanied by a party of lord Mayo's men, but commanded at the moment by Edmund Bourke, who was brother to the actual captain. The hour was far advanced towards noon, when Bourke and his men had come out from mass, and all were ready to start. The way to the nearest halting-place was ten miles, and Bourke earnestly pressed them to get forward.

Lord Mayo was hardly out of sight, and the travellers had but cleared the bridge of Shrule, when a sudden and violent assault was made upon them by their perfidious guards. There was no struggle except to fly, and that was too confused to be successful; nor, in the hurried and random tumult of the slaughter, where every individual was compelled to mind himself or what was nearest where he stood, was it possible for any one to carry away a precise description of the scene of butchery which then took place. From the depositions of individuals a few incidents are collceted, and these probably describe the remainder. When the bridge was just passed, a shot was fired from between the bushes, whereupon Edmunde Bourke drew his sword. and the examinant rode back to the bridge with the bishop's child behind him, when he was charged with pikemen, but was rescued by Walter Bourke Mac Richard Mac Thomas Mac Roe, who drew his sword and made way for him. "Some," to use the language of depositions, "were shot, some stabbed with skeins, some run through with pikes, some cast into the water and drowned; and the women that were stripped naked, lying on their husbands to save them, were run

through with pikes, so that very few escaped." The bishop was wounded in the head, the clergymen in his company were slain, except one, a Mr Crowd who was so severely beaten that he shortly died. The number slain is stated to have been sixty-five, and we see no reason to doubt this statement. In such cases, it is to be granted that exaggeration is to be suspected, but it is as likely at least on the side of those who seek to extenuate a crime, as on the part of those who stand in the place of accusers. And we should observe, that although the loss of one life more or less, must practically be a matter of most serious moment, nothing is gained in the point of extenuation; the crime of murder does not increase and diminish by numerical proportion. The point is frivolous; but it is fair to state that the Roman catholic gentry of the surrounding district, affirmed that the number slain was not above thirty. It is more satisfactory to us to be enabled to state, that the Roman catholic gentry of the country came forward to the aid of the few who escaped from that hideous scene, and that they brought them to their homes. Among the charitable persons who distinguished themselves in this pious work, none deserved a more grateful commemoration than " Bryan Kilkenny, the guardian of the neighbouring abbey of Ross, who, though an aged man, was one of the first that made haste to the rescue, and brought the bishop's wife and children, and many others, to his monastery, where they were hospitably entertained, to the best of the friar's ability, for several nights."†

Lord Mayo, when he proceeded on his way, rode towards Conge; the house of his son, Sir Tibbot, and about six miles from Shrule. On the way he stopped at the house of a Mr Andrew Lynch, intending there to await the arrival of Sir Tibbot. He was about to dismount from his horse, when a horseman came up at full speed and gave him the information of this disastrous event. Lord Mayo, overpowered with horror and indignation, retired to a chamber, where he gave expression to the most frantic exclamations of his vexation and grief; he then wept bitterly, pulling off his hair, and refusing to hear any manner of persuasion or comfort." While he was in this state, his son, who had barely escaped with his life, arrived, and "with tears related the tragedy, but could not certainly tell who was killed or who escaped; but being demanded by his father why he would ever come away, but either have preserved their lives, or have died with them; answered, that when they began the slaughter, they charged him (having his sword drawn against them) with their pikes and muskets, and would have killed him, but that John Garvy, the sheriff of the county of Mayo, (who was brother-in-law to Edmunde Bourke, the principal murderer,) came in betwixt him and them, took him in his arms, and, by the assistance of others, forcibly carried him over the bridge." The deposition from which this extract is taken goes on to say, that lord Mayo having proceeded to Conge, took his bed for some days, after which he went, on the third day, to the house of the titular archbishop, where he conformed to the church of Rome and heard mass. In two days more he attended a great meeting

* Deposition, Lodge.

+ Dublin Penny Journal, vol. i. p. 258.

« PreviousContinue »