XLII. TERMS OF PEACE

(1) Conditions to be demanded of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone (Sept. 1595). [Cal. Carew MSS., III. 521.]

That the country of Tyrone may be limited to contain no more to be by him possessed than by his letters patent is limited. . That Tyrone may be divided into two countries and two shires. . . .

That he disclaim all rule over any the Irish captains that be not of Tyrone. . .

That he suffer the Queen's garrisons to continue in peace at Monaghan, Armagh, and the Blackwater.

That he shall not aid nor yield favour to O'Donnell, Maguire, O'Rourke or MacMahon, if they shall refuse reasonable conditions for their pardons.

That he shall deliver to the Lord Deputy all such Jesuits or seminary priests as shall be named to him, and that have repaired unto him in this time of rebellion, or shall banish them or permit them to be attached.

For observation of all these articles he shall give as a pledge his son as he formerly promised, and four others of his blood, as the Council of Ireland shall think meet.

(2) Terms of the final submission of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone (8 April, 1603). [Cal. S.P. Ireland, p. 13.]1

[Tyrone] vows he will continue a loyal subject to the King's person, crown, prerogative and laws, utterly renouncing and abjuring the name and title of O'Neill. Will deliver pledges for the performance hereof, and of the following articles :-Renounces all kind of dependency on any foreign power, to serve the King against all invaders and to divulge any practices he shall know of against the King's person or his crowns. Especially abjures all dependency on the King of Spain. Renounces all challenge or inter-meddling with the uriaghts. Will be conformable and assistant to the King's magistrates, for the advancement of his service and the peaceable government of this Kingdom, as namely for the abolishing of all barbarous customs contrary to the laws, being the seeds of all incivility, and for the clearing of difficult passages and places, which are the nurseries of rebellion, wherein he will employ the labours of the people of his country, and will endeavour for himself and the people of his country to erect civil habitations, and such as shall be of greater effect to preserve against any force but the power of the State.

These are given in full by Fynes Moryson, Itinerary, III. 299-301.

2 Ir., urradha, vassal chiefs.

(3) Demands made by Tyrone (Jan. 1595). [Cal. Carew MSS., III. 133-4-]

That all persons may have free liberty of conscience.

That the Earl and all the inhabitants of Tyrone may have pardon and be restored to their blood; and that all the chieftains and others who have taken the Earl's part may have like pardon. . . All these to depend upon the Earl's peace, the Earl yielding for them such rents, services, and rising-out as their ancestors have paid to her Majesty's predecessors. . . . That no garrison, sheriff or other officer shall remain in Tyrconnel, Tyrone, or any of the inhabitants' countries before named, excepting the Newry and Carrickfergus. The Earl, O'Donnell and the rest, if these requests be granted, will remain dutiful; and after a while, when the great fear which they conceive is lessened, they will draw themselves to a more nearness of loyalty to her Highness.

["Articles intended to be stood upon by Tyrone." 2 Cal. S.P.I. (1599-1600), pp. 279-80.]

That the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion be openly preached and taught throughout all Ireland as well in cities as borough towns, by bishops, seminary priests, Jesuits, and all other religious men.3

That the Church of Ireland be wholly governed by the Pope. That all cathedrals and parish churches, abbeys, and all other religious houses, with all tithes and church lands, now in the hands of the English, be presently restored to the Catholic churchmen. ... That all Irish priests and religious men may freely pass and repass, by sea and land, to and from foreign countries.

That no Englishman may be a churchman in Ireland.

That there be erected an university upon the Crown rents of Ireland, wherein all sciences shall be taught according the manner of the Catholic Roman Church.

That the Governor of Ireland be at least an Earl, and of the Privy Council of England, bearing the name of Viceroy.

That the Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Lord Admiral, the Council of State, the Justices of the Laws, the Queen's Attorney, Queen's Sergeant, and all other officers appertaining to the Council and the law of Ireland, be Irish men.

For the Irish distrust of Government promises, see Four Masters, VI. 1999.

2 Sir William Warren in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil (24 Dec., 1599) stated that he enclosed an "unreasonable rabble of Tyrone's demands, not as sent from himself, but a copy of them gotten underhand by a gentleman whom he often employed thither by direction from the State."-Cal. S.P.I., p. 339. The "demands " are practically identical with the "articles" quoted above which are endorsed by Sir Robert Cecil with the word "Utopia." For a convenient short account of successive negotiations with Tyrone, see Gilbert, Account of Facs. of Nat. MSS., Ireland, pp. 242-57.

3 In all negotiations with the English authorities, Tyrone made liberty of conscience a primary demand.-Cal. Carew MSS., III. 349.

That all principal Governments of Ireland, as Connacht, Munster, etc., be governed by Irish noblemen.

That the Master of Ordnance, and half the soldiers with their officers resident in Ireland, be Irish men.

That no Irishman's heirs under age shall lose their lands for the faults of their ancestors.

That no children nor any other friends be taken as pledges for the good bearing of their parents, and if there be any such pledges now in the hands of the English, they must be presently released.

That all statutes made against the preferment of Irishmen, as well in their own country as abroad, be presently recalled.

That the Queen nor her successors may in no sort press an Irishman to serve them against his will.

That O'Neill, O'Donnell, the Earl of Desmond, with all their partakers, may peaceably enjoy all lands and privileges that did appertain to their predecessors 200 years past.

That all Irishmen, of what quality they be, may freely travel in foreign countries for their better experience, without making any of the Queen's officers acquainted withal.

That all Irishmen may as freely travel and traffic all merchandises in England as Englishmen, paying the same rights and tributes as the English do.

That all Irishmen may freely traffic with all merchandises, that shall be thought necessary by the Council of State of Ireland for the profit of their Republic, with foreigners or in foreign countries, and that no Irishman shall be troubled for the passage of priests or other religious men.

That all Irishmen that will may learn, and use all occupations and arts whatsoever.

That all Irishmen may freely build ships of what burden they will, furnishing the same with artillery and all munition at their pleasure.

XLIII. BATTLE OF THE YELLOW FORD '

(1598)

(1) Account by an English Soldier. [Account of the battle by Charles Montague, Lieutenant-General of the English Horse, under Sir Henry Bagnal (16 Aug., 1598). Cal. S.P. Ireland, PP. 227-8.]

On Monday, the 14th August, the army marched from Armagh

There is a graphic account of this battle by Philip O'Sullivan Beare in his Historia Catholica Iberniæ Compendium (1621), III. iv, ch. 5. A contemporary coloured plan is reproduced in Gilbert, Facs. of Nat. MSS., IV. i., Plate xxiv. See Preface to Cal. S.P.I. (1598-9), pp. xxii-xxxii.

(leaving there all our victuals and some munition), for the Blackwater, by computation 3,500 foot and 300 horse. Their form was in six regiments. We marched severally some six or seven score paces distance between each regiment, our way being hard and hilly ground, within caliver shot of wood and bog on both sides, which was wholly possessed by the enemy continually playing upon us. After a mile's marching thus we approached the enemy's trench, being a ditch cast in front of our passage a mile long, some five feet deep, and four feet over, with a thorny hedge on the top. In the middle of a bog, some forty score paces over, our vanguard passed the trench. The battle stood, for the bringing up of the saker, which stuck fast in a ford, and also for our rear, which, being hard set to, retired foully to Armagh. In the meantime, the vanguard passing, one was so distressed, as they fell to run, and were all in effect put to the sword without resistance. Up came the Marshal, being Chief Commander, to relieve them, who was killed dead in the head with a bullet; notwithstanding, two other regiments passed over the trench. The battle coming up, two barrels of powder took fire amongst them, by which they dis-ranked and routed; in which while, those two former regiments, being passed the trench, were for the most part put to the sword. Then, by the help of our horse, the enemy's munition being well spent, we brought off the rest into the plain, and so recovered Armagh ; where the captains resolved to refresh their men with victuals and munition, and so to march directly to the Newry. In the meantime the enemy approached, and fell round on all sides of us with their whole force. Then the captains, finding the insufficiency both in mind and means of their men, concluded that the horse should adventure to break forth through the enemy's quarter, and so pass into the Pale, to advertise the State, that present succour might be sent to fetch them off; or else the enemy, seeing the horse gone, might be persuaded that they having a month or two (sic) victuals, which indeed was there, but disposed upon their first resolution, so as they made account they had not now left meat for above ten days at the uttermost, that the enemy could not keep together, hearing, by a prisoner that was taken, that O'Donnell and Maguire was (sic) then ready to depart. The horsemen, according their desires, performed it with some loss. By the captains' estimation we had killed and run away to the enemy, not less than 1,800 foot, some ten horsemen, and thirty horses. 3 The enemy lost, as we heard by some of theirs that we took, seven or eight hundred. There remains of ours about 1,500 in the church of Armagh.

A light kind of musket or arquebuse which could be fired without a rest.

2 See p. 96 n. 4.

3 See p. 42 n. 3.

(2) Letter of Reproof from the Queen to the Irish Government (1 Dec., 1598). [Cal. Carew MSS., III. 284-5-]

Although we have forborne to write many letters to you since these late dangerous alterations in Ireland, we have sent over great supplies, to our excessive charge; yet we receive naught else but news of fresh losses and calamities. Although you have the great number of 9,000 men, we do not only see the northern traitor untouched at home, and range where else he pleased, but the provincial rebels in every province, by such as he can spare, enabled to give law to our provincial governors; besides that the Pale is not only wasted, but the walls of Dublin (where our State is seated) esteemed unsafe, and (as we hear) the suburbs thought a dangerous lodging for some of our principal counsellors. We disdain to bear affronts from a rabble of base kerne. In providing a remedy no expense shall be spared.

Our army is not to hazard any main prosecution until it may be better provided and strengthened. . . . În Munster and Leinster labour chiefly to assure the walled towns. . . . We will not suffer them (our subjects) any longer to be oppressed by those vile rebels, but send a sufficient force of horse and foot out of England, strengthened with old soldiers of the Low Countries. I

XLIV. THE REBELLION OF HUGH O'NEILL

(1) Dangerous Condition of the Country. [Sir Henry Wallop to Sir Robert Cecil (9 Feb., 1596). Cal. S.P. Ireland, p. 468.]

The state of the Realm was never so dangerous in the memory of man as it is at this present, in regard of the uniting of O'Donnell, and all the chieftains of Ulster and Connacht with Tyrone, and the great combination which they have drawn together, stretching itself unto all the parts of this Kingdom, and the strength of the traitors through Tyrone's wealth who is well furnished with all the habiliments of war,2 and [they] have so trained their men, as in sundry encounters that they have had with our men, they seem to be other enemies, and not those that in times past, were wont never to attempt her Majesty's forces in the plain field . . . there is great cause in my opinion for her Majesty to give speedy direction for the suppressing of this rebellion.

1 Soon after this the permanent forces in Ireland were raised to 1,300 horse and 16,000 foot. Cal. Carew MSS., IV. liv. For Tyrone's forces, see p. 42 n. 2.

2 "These cannibals have drawn the greatest part of their kerne to be musketeers, and their gallowglass pikes, they want no furniture neither of muskets, fowling pieces, calivers, swords, graven murrions, powder and shot great store."-Sir John Dowdall to Lord Burghley (9 Mar., 1596). Cal. S.P.I., p. 486. Arms and munitions were sold to the Irish by the merchants of the towns.

See p. 191.