of her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, as you shall think may, and will soonest convey and bring it to her Highness's knowledge. ... You shall faithfully and uprightly, to the best of your power, cause justice to be duly and indifferently ministered to the Queen's Majesty's subjects, that shall have cause to sue for the same, according to equity and order of laws. XXX. PROHIBITION OF IRISH MANNERS [Ordinances proclaimed at Limerick by Sir John Perrot, Lord President of Munster (1571). Cal. Carew MSS., I. 409-11.] No earl, viscount, lord, gentleman, chieftain, or any other shall usurp or take upon him the title of captain of any country, circuit or rule, upon pain of £100. The sons of all husbandmen and ploughmen shall follow the same occupation as their fathers. If the son of a husbandman or ploughman will become a kerne, gallowglass,1 or horseboy,2 or will take any other idle trade 3 of life, he shall be imprisoned for a twelve month and fined. For avoiding of robberies and idleness, no lords or any others shall keep more horsemen or footmen than they are able to maintain upon their own costs. They shall present the names of such men as they keep in a book, to the Lord President, the sheriff, or the justices of the peace in the county where they dwell, within twenty days after this Proclamation; or else they will be adjudged felons and suffer pains of death. All carrows,4 bards, rhymers,5 and common idle men and women within this province making rhymes, bringing of messages, and common players at cards, to be spoiled of all their goods and chattels, and to be put in the next stocks, there to remain till they shall find sufficient surety to leave that wicked trade of life and to fall to other occupation. . . All Irish laws called the Brehon Law to be of no force, and all persons taking upon them See p. 87 n. 3. "Out of the fry of these rake-hell horseboys, growing up in knavery and villainy, are their kerne continually supplied and maintained, for having been once brought up an idle horseboy, he will never after fall to labour, but is only made fit for the halter."-Spenser, View, pp. 641-2. See p. 222. 3 Trade or tread, a course, way, path. 4 Carrows (Ir., cearrbhach, a gamester), “a kind of people that wander up and down to gentleman's houses, living only upon cards and dice."-Spenser, View, p. 642. "There is a certain brotherhood called by the name of Carrows, and these be common gamesters that do only exercise playing at cards, and they will play away their mantles and their shirts from their backs, and when they have nothing left them, they will truss themselves in straw; this is the life they lead, and from this they will not be reclaimed." -Barnaby Rich, New Description of Ireland (1610), ch. 10. 5 See pp. 64, 341-2. to adjudge causes according to the said law, to have a twelve months' imprisonment and to forfeit all their goods and chattels. The inhabitants of cities and corporate towns shall wear no mantles ... Irish coats, or great shirts, nor suffer their hair to grow to glib, but to wear clerk's gowns, jackets, jerkins, and some civil garments; and no maid or single woman shall wear or put on any great roll or kercher of linen cloth upon their heads,2 neither any great smock with great sleeves, but to put on hats, caps, French hoods, tippets, or some other civil attire upon their heads; upon pain of £100 to the head officer of the city or corporate town that shall suffer any such Irish garments, and upon forfeiture of the said Irish garments so worn. . . Where it hath been heretofore used by divers of this Realm, for the death of any of their friends or kinsmen, to kill, murder, and rob so many as beareth the surname and nation of him that is so killed, and to pay an assault, otherwise called in Irish an "eric" 3 for the death of such so killed: from henceforth no person shall ask, levy, receive, or take up the said Irish duty called "eric upon pain of death, but sue their appeal or other ordinary remedy by her Majesty's laws for the same murder or death. XXXI. THE MUNSTER TOWNS AND THE (1) Mayors of Cork and Youghal to the Lord Deputy. [Mayor and Corporation of Cork to the Lord Deputy (20 June, 1569). Cal. S.P. Ireland, pp. 409-10.] The rebels brag that they will take Kinsale and Cork, that help cometh from Spain, and that the Butlers are of the confederacy. All the country betwixt Cork and Kinsale is destroyed. [Mayor and Corporation of Youghal to the Lord Deputy (20 June, 1569).] Beg for 60 soldiers and a barrel of good powder for their protection. Unless his Lordship come with a main army, the whole country is like to be overthrown. (2) Mayor and Corporation of Waterford to Sir William Cecil (8 July, 1569). [Cal. S.P. Ireland, p. 412.] The good subjects in the country forced by the rebels to become partners of their confederacy, or else to end their wretched lives 1 See p. 113 n. I. "Their apparel is a mantle to sleep in, and that on the ground on some rushes or flags; a thick gathered smock with wide sleeves graced with bracelets and crucifixes about their necks: they wear linen rolls about their heads of divers fashions: in Ulster carelessly wound about in Connacht like bishops' mitres, a very stately attire, and once prohibited by statute: in Munster resembling a thick Cheshire cheese."-T. Gainsford, The Glory of England (1618), p. 151. For further particulars of Irish dress, see pp. 65-6, 347-50. 3 See p. 316 m. 2. by famine. The traitors are not contented, only to spoil the kine and garrons, but also send naked to this city the men, not sparing (a shameful thing to be reported) to use the honest housewives of the country in like manner, and torment them with more cruel pains than either Phalaris or any of the old tyrants could invent. The chieftains of this rebellion are James Fitzmaurice, called Captain of the Geraldines, and MacCarthy Mór, who refuses the new title of Earl, and is offended with any one that calleth him Earl of Clancar.2 These and other rebels have forced Kinsale to compound. Great need of munition and victual. (3) James Fitzmaurice of Desmond to the Mayor and Corporation of Cork (12 July, 1569). [Cal. S.P. Ireland, p. 13.] Requires them to abolish out of that city that old heresy newly raised and invented, and namely Barnaby Daaly, and all them that be Huguenots, both men and women. XXXII. FITZMAURICE OF DESMOND TAKES KILMALLOCK [Annals of the Four Masters (ed. and tr. O'Donovan), V. 1653–5-] [1570] James Fitzmaurice took Kilmallock, not from a desire of [obtaining] its riches and various treasures, though its riches were immense, but because it had always been the rendez-vous and sally-port of the English and Geraldines [in their contests] against him. Before sunrise in the morning those who had gone to sleep happily and comfortably were aroused from their slumber by a furious attack made by the warlike troops of the Clann-Sweeny and Clann-Sheehy,3 who were along with James Fitzmaurice; and they proceeded to divide among themselves its gold, silver, various riches, and valuable jewels, which the father would not have acknowledged to his heir, or the mother to her daughter, on the day before. They were engaged for the space of three days and nights in carrying away the several kinds of riches and precious goods, as cups and ornamented goblets, upon their horses and steeds, to the woods and forests of Aherlow, and sending others of them privately to their friends and companions. They then set fire to the town, and raised a dense heavy . . . shroud of smoke about it, after they had torn down and demolished its houses of stone and wood; so that Kilmallock became the receptacle and abode of wolves 4 in addition to all the other misfortunes up to that time. I See p. 150 n. 1. Donald MacCarthy Mór was created Earl of Clancare by letters patent, 24 June, 1565. Cal. Carew MSS., I. 365. 3 The Earl of Desmond's gallowglass. 4 Wolves were very numerous in Ireland at this period and for more than a century later. See an order made by James I for their destruction, pr. in Procs. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1844, II. 77. XXXIII. PROCLAMATION OF JAMES ["The Proclamation of the Right Honourable Lord James Geraldine concerning the Justice of that War which he wageth in Ireland for the Faith" (1579). Cal. Carew MSS., I. 400.] This war is undertaken for the defence of the Catholic religion against the heretics. Pope Gregory XIII hath chosen us for general captain in this same war, as it appeareth at large by his own letters patent, which thing he did so much rather because his predecessor Pope Pius V had before deprived Elizabeth, the patroness of the aforesaid heresies, of all royal power and dominion,1 as it is plainly declared by his declaratory sentence, the authentic copy whereof we also have to show. Therefore now we fight not against the lawful sceptre and honourable throne of England, but against a tyrant which refuseth to hear Christ speaking by his vicar. [Instructions given by the Lord Justice and Council at Dublin to a Naval Captain (13 Jan, 1579). Cal. Carew MSS., II. 199–200.] Make sail along the west and north-west sea coasts, for the pursuit, apprehending, and plaguing of any traitors or malefactors adherent to the proclaimed traitors, Gerald, Earl of Desmond, John and James his brethren, and all such as come to their aid or go from them with messages or letters. Search all ships in the said west or north-west parts of the Realm; seize all prohibited wares; search all passengers for letters, books, ciphers, or other kind of suspect matter, that may tend either to the defacing of religion or to the dishonour of the Queen's most excellent Majesty, or any practice against this Realm and State; and commit to safe guard and custody all suspected or culpable persons. Make stay of any English, French, Spanish, Flemish, or Scottish ships, laden with any kind of victuals, and convoy them into the Shannon. . . . Any ships freighted or bargained for by any merchants of Dublin, Drogheda, Waterford, Cork, or any other corporate towns shall be suffered to pass. The religious aspect of the war was also emphasised by Viscount Baltinglas. See a letter written by him to the Earl of Ormonde (30 July, 1580), in which he says that the highest power on earth commanded him to take the sword. 'Questionless it is great want of knowledge," he explains, “and more of grace, to think and believe that a woman, incapable of all holy orders, should be the supreme governor of Christ's Church; a thing that Christ did not grant unto His own mother."-Cal. Carew MSS., II. 289. XXXIV. CAPTURE OF THE FORT OF [William Camden, Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum, regnante Elizabetha, ad Annum Salutis 1589 (1615), pp. 293-6.] A short while after, there landed at Smerwick, in Kerry, some seven hundred Italians and Spaniards, led by one San Josepho an Italian, sent thither by the Pope of Rome and the Spaniard, as they said, to restore the Romish religion, but in truth to divide the forces of Elizabeth and divert her thoughts from the affairs of the Low Countries. . . . The Deputy sent a trumpeter to their fort to ask who they might be, what was their business in Ireland, who had sent them, and why they had made a fortified place in Elizabeth's Realm, and to bid them with all speed withdraw. They answered, that they were sent, some by the most holy Father, the Pope of Rome, others by the Catholic King of Spain, to whom the Pope of Rome had granted Ireland, since Elizabeth had justly forfeited her right there by reason of her heresy. And so they would hold what they had won and perchance take more if they were able. After the Deputy and Winter had taken counsel together about the plan of the siege, the sailors took some culverins: quietly out of the ships at night, and making a rampart near the shore dragged them thither by the nearest way and set them in position. The soldiers meanwhile on the other side set up their great pieces for battery against the walls and both of them at once played for four whole days upon the fort. Once or twice the Spaniards sallied forth but [were beaten off with] loss. . . . Finally, on the fifth day, as they saw no succour coming from Spain nor from Desmond, they raised the white flag and begged for a parley. This was refused them since they had joined themselves with rebels, with whom to parley is unlawful. Then they asked that they might have leave to depart with their baggage, and this also was denied them. . . . The Deputy, bitterly railing against the Pope of Rome, bid them surrender themselves without condition. as they could obtain no other terms, they raised the white flag for the second time, crying misericordia, misericordia, and delivered themselves over utterly to the mercy of the Deputy, who there and then consulted his officers what should be done with them. But since those who had given themselves up were as many as the English, and there was danger from the rebels who were at hand more than 1,500 strong, and the English were so destitute of food and clothing that they would have mutinied if they had not been relieved out of the spoil taken from the enemy's fort, and there Sir William Winter, who was in command of the fleet. And The heaviest gun in ordinary use in the sixteenth century; length about 12 feet, bore 5 inches, weight of shot about 20 lbs. |