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Difficulties of Wrothe and Arnold

The trouble which it cost Wrothe and Arnold to reach Ireland pretty accurately foreshadowed the trouble which awaited them there. After waiting a long time at Holyhead they at last ventured to sea, but were taken aback before they gained mid-Channel, and had to choose between scudding under bare poles towards Ulster, or returning to Wales. They chose the latter course, but failed to make the harbour. They lay for a time under the shelter of some rocks, and were glad to scramble ashore at three o’clock on a February morning, wet and sick, but safe. Nine days later they were more fortunate, and reached Dublin to find that Leix and Offaly were again in rebellion, and that the financial confusion had not been exaggerated. All captains, castellans, sheriffs, and municipal officers were at once called on to produce accounts. The inquiry into the musters was begun by demanding an accurate return of all changes and vacancies in the Lord-Lieutenant’s own company. Sussex said he was ready to obey the Queen in all things, but that this had never been required of any chief governor, and was, in fact, out of his power. The debts to the Crown were great, and many of them desperate. There was not one groat in the Treasury, and the 11,000l. which the Commissioners brought was quite inadequate. The Pale and the wild Irish were at daggers drawn, for the former clung to their own customs and bye-laws, and looked for the Queen’s protection in their attempts at self-government. The Church was in no better case than the State, but there was a pretty general wish to have St. Patrick’s turned into a University. The Commissioners recommended that the judges should put the Act of Uniformity generally in force, ‘not meddling with the simple multitude now at the first, but with one or two boasting mass men in every shire, that it may be seen that the punishment of such men is meant.’76

Wrothe’s horror at the general corruption

It soon became clear that Wrothe was not exactly the fittest man for the work. He was anxious to do right, but very nervous about exceeding the letter of his commission, and from the first wishing to be recalled. He fell into a fever which he felt certain would be attributed to riotous living, and he assured Cecil that he seldom took more than one meal in twenty-four hours, which was not the way to preserve health. His sense of the general corruption made it hard for him to gain friends, though he was generally praised for his willingness to work hard. The whole rapacious pack of jobbers longed to be rid of him, for he was bent on even-handed justice, a scarce commodity, and not in demand with any party. The Queen was considered fair game for every robber. Arnold, a man cast in a much rougher mould, had little regard for his colleague’s feelings, and a coolness soon sprung up between them. On Sussex obtaining sick leave, the general government was entrusted to Arnold, and the new Lord Justice expected Wrothe to do the business of the Commission single-handed. He was willing enough to take routine work on himself, but declined to be responsible for any matter of moment unless Arnold was joined with him in it. ‘God deal with me,’ he wrote, ‘as I have meant to serve the Queen here. My mind is troubled and my conscience, for God’s sake help me… Our bowls here be so much biassed, and I have no skill but with upright bowls, and therefore unfit for this alley.’77

Great abuses

After a partial examination of the public accounts, Auditor Dixe estimated that the Queen’s debts were between 30,000l. and 40,000l. The victualler and the officers engaged on fortifications gave in their accounts, but they were full of mistakes. The cessors of the Pale, who were very numerous and often very incompetent, were slow to produce their books. Captains of companies delivered muster-rolls from May 1560, when they had been fully paid off by the Lord-Lieutenant’s warrant, but declined to do so for the previous year on the ground that it was contrary to custom. In many cases the books were not forthcoming, but this was not unnatural in the case of officers who constantly changed their quarters, and who did not expect any further question to arise. The real fault was in the Government. We are accustomed to clock-work regularity, and can scarcely imagine the loose way in which things were done even much later than Elizabeth’s days. When Lord Shelburne joined Colonel Wolfe’s regiment, the future hero of Quebec told him that he must not draw his pay, but let it accumulate for the benefit of deserving officers. But it was not only in money accounts that Wrothe and Arnold found the army in Ireland defective. There was an old order that every captain should find pay for his Irish soldiers if he thought proper to have more than five in his company. As a matter of fact many companies were half Irish, and this had long been winked at. The captains were now told that the Queen wanted no Irish soldiers. Wild Irishmen could not be trusted, and tame Irishmen were necessarily a deduction from the strength of the Pale. It was not for the Queen’s interest that the rebels should know all the secrets of the service and all the art of war. Irish soldiers would take less pay than Englishmen, and it was therefore for the private interest of officers to enlist them. The captains pleaded the Lord-Lieutenant’s orders to make up their strength. Englishmen could not be had, and they threw themselves on the Queen’s mercy; they were ready to serve her while life lasted.78

Harsh proceedings of Arnold

But Bermingham, who was Arnold’s principal adviser, understood the duties of the Commission differently. According to his view every officer, from the Lord-Lieutenant downwards, was to be visited with extreme penalties for every technical error. No allowance was to be made for men who were irregularly and not highly paid, and who had too often to make her Majesty’s bricks without straw. It was hard in Queen Elizabeth’s time – it is hard enough in Queen Victoria’s – to apportion the blame between the English Government and its servants in Ireland, but the irregularities themselves were scandalous enough. Even Bermingham had some doubts about the policy of employing anyone living in Ireland to inquire into matters personally affecting the Queen’s representative, but the Commissioners were peremptory, and he had to deliver a book of exceptions to the Lord-Lieutenant’s muster. A roll of his own, accompanying this document, contained 213 names, but of these twenty-five were holders of other offices, thirty were occasionally employed by other captains, and sixty-four were of Irish birth, though by rights all but eight should have been Englishmen. Of the Englishmen born ten were no soldiers, but at best retainers. A soldier’s pay was drawn in the name of the clerk of Christ Church, and still more strangely in the name of Adam Loftus, ‘primate and bishop of Armagh, almost these two years.’ Sussex could muster 155 men, but no more than forty-three were really fit for service, and of these twenty-eight were officers. Thomas Smythe, the apothecary, who probably kept drugs for poisoning as well as for healing, was borne on the strength, and so were butchers, carters, woodcutters, scullions, makers of arras, musicians, a mariner, an old fisherman, a blind man, and a dead man. Brian Fitzwilliam’s company should have mustered 200, exclusive of officers, whereas the rank and file in reality only numbered 128. Captain Fortescue’s followers were found to be nearly all Irish; they were disbanded, and as Fortescue declined to account, he was committed to prison.79

Wrothe is recalled, 1564. Irregularities in the army. Proceedings against the officers

When the Commission had been at work for a year, Elizabeth found out that it was very slow and very expensive. She recalled Wrothe, much to his own delight, but to the despair of Dixe, who was left single-handed to cope with Arnold and Bermingham. Unrestrained by an English colleague, the Lord Justice now proceeded to extremities, a course in which he was encouraged by the local magnates joined with him in the Commission. The captains were required to enter into recognizances, binding themselves under penalties to give a detailed account of all they had received, and to make good deficiencies. The captains were willing to bind themselves to account for all the money or value which they could be proved to have received, and confessed that they had been negligent about the preservation of books, but refused to admit the evidence of private soldiers instead of documentary proofs. Any one who has had anything to do with paying troops will know that they were amply justified in the refusal. The Commissioners proceeded in the most arbitrary way, refusing to make any allowance for men employed as servants, and proposing to pay all according to the roll, and without the knowledge of the captains. All Irishmen above six in each company were to be peremptorily disallowed, without considering the explanations offered on this head. The Commissioners swore in twelve soldiers from each company, and encouraged them to say all they could against their captains; and having thus collected much hostile evidence, they refused copies to the officers concerned. Captain George Delves having declined to submit to the requirements of the Commissioners, though he offered to give all reasonable security, was sent to prison. Sir Henry Radclyffe, the Lord-Lieutenant’s brother, and Sir George Stanley, the Marshal, ‘seeing their staves to stand next the door,’ as they themselves expressed it, protested strongly against the ‘opening of matters, we do not say the forging of matters,’ to their prejudice. They significantly added that all the Commissioners were blood-relations to each other and to Bermingham. Auditor Dixe, who seems to have been really anxious to do right, heard the Lord Justice talk much of the ‘exactions, impositions, cessings, and cuttings,’ of Sussex and the captains, to the impoverishment of the Pale, and warned him that he would be considered partial if he did not report the same of the native nobility, who extorted twice as much. The auditor reminded Cecil that he was but one man against fourteen. The jobbing of family parties, as they have been called, has indeed been for centuries one of the chief difficulties of ministers who have been successively charged with the government of Ireland.80

Arnold is too harsh and too zealous. Sir Henry Radclyffe’s case

Arnold imprisons the Lord-Lieutenant’s brother

Sir Henry Radclyffe, the most highly placed and best connected officer in Ireland, was summoned before Arnold to give fuller answers to Bermingham’s charges. He refused to go back to a period before the last general payment, but offered to wait on the Commission at any time after one hour’s notice, and begged that his soldiers might not be paid in his absence. Well might Radclyffe exclaim, ‘fiat justitia,’ when this common measure of justice was denied to him. Dixe was ordered to settle with Sir Henry’s company according to their own report. He obeyed; but took the precaution to have some of the Commissioners present, and declined to be bound by the results of such a monstrous order. It was hardly worth while to brand the character of the Queen’s officers, and to destroy the discipline of her troops for the sake of 10l., saved in the payment of a company of fifty. Radclyffe asked for a passport, and even offered to be tried by his own soldiers. Both requests were refused, and the Commissioners, who seem to have surrendered themselves to Bermingham’s guidance, declared that if fraud appeared on the face of the incriminating document drawn up by him, they would force Radclyffe to give the details which he had already refused. He was made to appear about 6,000l. in debt, nearly half of which was on account of Irishmen enlisted above the number officially allowed. The accused officer was then committed to prison, and Arnold, having undertaken to see his men paid, refused to settle the tradesmen’s bills for necessaries, alleging that all should fall on the captains. There may have been great negligence, but the Lord Justice did not venture to accuse Radclyffe of any false statement; and it must be admitted that, whatever his faults, he had managed to keep Leix and Offaly quiet. As much could not be said for Arnold, whom the English Council gently rebuked for taking such an extreme course with an officer of high rank, a Privy Councillor, and a man of family. There could be no objection to detaining him in Ireland if necessary, but he might have been left at liberty. Cecil and Leicester, after privately examining the voluminous and contradictory reports, declared themselves puzzled in some things, and advised Arnold to take a good many of the Irish Council into his confidence. They reminded him that Dixe, with whom he appeared unable to agree, was chosen for a man of honesty and ability. What Leicester and Cecil could not fully understand at the time, we shall hardly be able to clear up now. That Radclyffe had committed irregularities was not denied, that they were much smaller both in amount and in kind than Arnold supposed may be gathered from the fact that he was afterwards allowed to give a bond for 600l. to repay all moneys overpaid to him, if the balance should be against him at a final closing. Sir George Stanley gave a similar bond for 300l. Nicholas Heron, another captain whom Arnold treated with great rigour, was afterwards knighted, and died in the enjoyment of the Queen’s favour.81

‘Sir Thomas Cusack’s peaces.’ Shane in his glory

While Arnold was occupied in exposing, and perhaps exaggerating the defects of military administration, the optimist Cusack was trying to keep Shane O’Neill in good humour. ‘Sir Thomas Cusack’s peaces’ became a byword in official circles. The last was made on the basis of leaving Shane all the glories of the O’Neills until the Queen gave him his father’s title. He was not to be brought before the chief governor against his will, and the disputes between English and Irish in the North were to be referred to arbitration. The Queen had made up her mind to brook the fact of a great O’Neill; but she positively refused to confirm the articles exempting him from attending on the Viceroy, and referring all to arbitration. Shane then declared that he would have all or none; but he signed a temporary agreement for the pacification of the borders, and he appears to have kept it for a time. Cusack, who was never tired of singing Shane’s praises, wished to have the Great Seal affixed to the original treaty; but the Privy Council dared not mention it to Elizabeth, the alterations being deemed necessary for her honour. That saved, there was every desire to humour the tyrant of the North. Elizabeth said she thought she had yielded enough, but was willing to have Shane’s disputes with the Baron of Dungannon’s sons decided in the next Irish Parliament. Shane dared to claim Lady Frances Radclyffe as having been ‘appointed to him by the Queen’s Majesty,’ and the Privy Council were afraid to say more than that the question must be left till Sussex reached the Court. How Lady Frances would have fared as Shane’s wife may be inferred from the way in which he treated his mistress. The Countess of Argyle, the accomplished lady who had left her husband for his sake, was chained by day to a little boy, and only released when wanted to amuse her master’s drunken leisure.

Shane’s offers of service

Lord Robert Dudley, mindful of their old sport together, advised the chieftain to do some notable service, and thus deserve the royal favour. He answered that the Scots were rebels and traitors, who usurped the Queen’s lands and revenues in the North, and that he would drive them all out of Ireland for no greater reward than the pay of forty men. In other words, he would gladly have had the Queen’s help in adding the MacDonnell lands to his own.82

Ill-treatment and torture of O’Donnell

Cusack’s anxiety to please Shane was so great that he had no feeling left for O’Donnell, whose fate might well have moved the hardest heart. Seven years before, he told the Queen, O’Neill when hard pressed by the Government had been glad enough to take refuge in Tyrconnel, to marry his daughter, to profess loyalty to the Queen, and to swear eternal friendship to his hospitable host. O’Donnell had been glad to hear his son-in-law talk so, and said that he would befriend him only as long as he was loyal. Then Shane had taken to intriguing with his clansmen, and probably, if we may judge by the sequel, with his father-in-law’s wife. After his treacherous capture O’Donnell was bound hand and foot, an iron collar round his neck being tightly chained to the gyves on his ankles. Night or day he could neither lie down nor stand up. ‘When he perceived,’ said the victim, ‘that I could not be undone after this manner, he thought to torment me after another manner, to the intent that he might have all my jewels, and so he caused the irons to be strained upon my legs and upon my hands so sore that the very blood ran down on every side of mine irons, insomuch that I did wish after death one thousand times.’ No Christian or Turk, he thought, had ever been treated worse, and besides his personal wrongs not less than 500 people of some condition, and at least 14,000 of the poor, had lost their lives through O’Neill’s cruelty. His son Con, whose cousins delivered him to Shane, had been induced by torture to promise the surrender of Lifford. The tribesmen refused to give it up, and Shane threatened to strike off his prisoner’s leg. While Con daily expected death, his tormentor blockaded Lifford with earthworks, and his cattle ate down the green corn for miles round. The castle was taken, and all Tyrconnel was then at Shane’s mercy.83

Release of O’Donnell. He goes to Dublin, where he gets scant comfort, and thence to England, where

O’Donnell himself was released after a captivity of two years and nine months, partly perhaps because he had been a troublesome prisoner. According to Cusack, or rather to Shane, who was his informant, he had given up Lifford, promised many kine and much plate and jewels, and released his ancient claim to the suzerainty of Innishowen. In the absence of documentary evidence no one is bound to believe this, and in any case, promises extracted by torture could hardly be thought binding. O’Donnell was indeed in no condition to pay such a ransom, for he had lost all control over his country. He had incurred unpopularity by paying a pension to Argyle as the price of his faithless wife. O’Neill had, however, seized Con in revenge for the alleged breach of contract. ‘Con,’ said Sir Thomas Wrothe, ‘is as wise and active an Irishman as any in Ireland:’ he was married to an O’Neill, and there was a suspicion that the lady favoured her father rather than her husband. Cusack advised Arnold to give O’Donnell nothing but fair words, and a letter to Shane bidding him use his prisoner well. On reaching Dublin O’Donnell was accordingly received with outward marks of respect, but Arnold refused to give him any help or to allow him to go to England. He was reminded that his grandfather, who was ‘the honestest O’Donnell that ever was,’ never came to the governor but to ask aid when banished by his son, and that son was in turn banished by his son the present suppliant. Calvagh was told that he came not now for service but for help, for which he would go to the Turk, and that no O’Donnell ever did come for service, nor was able to hurt the Pale, except when allied with O’Neill, Maguire, Magennis, O’Rourke, and O’Reilly. The family quarrels of the O’Donnells could not be denied, but they might at least be matched by those of the O’Neills, and there was something savouring strongly of meanness in the rest of the answer, when we reflect that Calvagh had been in alliance with the English Government at the time of his misfortune. The cause had been determined against him beforehand, but he came before the Lord Justice and Council to hear his statement read, and to add what might be required by word of mouth. ‘Hearing his bill read,’ says Wrothe, ‘he burst out into such a weeping as when he should speak he could not, but was fain by his interpreter to pray license to weep, and so went his way without saying anything. Sure it pitied me to see him, and more because his present help is doubtful, for although it may be said that the wisest to win peace will take war in hand, and that it is likely Shane will not be reformed but by war,’ yet the poverty of Ireland and the occupation of England made war well-nigh impracticable.84

the Queen receives him kindly, but he fears Arnold, and withdraws to Scotland

Arnold seems to have thought himself bound to do in all things exactly the opposite of Sussex, and he accepted Cusack’s rose-coloured view of Shane’s intentions. But Wrothe’s reasoning was more dispassionate. He saw the danger of letting O’Donnell’s country come under the power of O’Neill, who gave good words but went his own way nevertheless. If possible he was to be pacified, but war might prove inevitable, and to be successful it would have to be conducted in a new way. He saw that O’Donnell was determined to go to the Queen with or without license, and if necessary by way of Scotland. The Queen said she would willingly see O’Donnell at Court if it would do him any good, but that the causes between him and Shane would have to be tried in Ireland, and she did not see what he could gain by the journey. She saw Arnold’s bias clearly enough, and said plainly that the Dean and Chapter of Armagh, who had been named, were no fit Commissioners to judge of this matter. Terence Daniel and his colleague had a too natural affection towards O’Neill. As Wrothe had foreseen, O’Donnell, who feared that chains and torture awaited him in Ulster, would not be denied, but took the first opportunity of slipping over to England during Arnold’s temporary absence, and he made his appearance at Court, where he told his griefs to the Queen, and to Leicester, Winchester, and Cecil. Elizabeth evidently felt much for the unfortunate chief, gave him money, and sent him back to Ireland, directing Arnold to make him some allowance until his causes were decided. ‘We are not,’ she said, ‘without compassion for him in this calamity, specially considering his first entry thereto was by taking part against Shane when he made war against our good subjects there.’ No one was ever able to resist Elizabeth when she spoke graciously, but O’Donnell’s experience of Arnold had not been satisfactory, and he thought it prudent to withdraw for a time to the Scottish Court, where he was sure of sympathy from the relations of his foolish and guilty wife, the daily victim of Shane’s brutality.85

Shane attacks the Scots

His hereditary enemies having been reduced to a harmless state, Shane proceeded, with the full approval of the Government, to attack the Scots, who prevented him from doing as he pleased in the North. But Arnold was not so completely blinded by his professions as to make him free of Carrickfergus, which he claimed as of ancient right. Neither was it thought convenient to withdraw Kildare from the defence of the Pale, as Shane urgently desired. Eight or nine hundred Scots, under the command of Sorley Boy, lay near the left bank of the Bann, opposite Coleraine, where Shane had made the old castle tenable. His object being to get complete command of the estuary, he sent over a small party in the country boats or ‘cots,’ which were his only means of transport, and having posted them strongly in the Dominican Friary, withdrew to his main body. The Scots attacked the outpost like madmen, as Dean Danyell expressed it, and lost many men, but succeeded in killing all the defenders except the mounted men, who were seized with a panic and swam their horses over the flooded river. Neither party had much to boast, but Shane could point to the affair as a test of his sincerity. He bragged about what he would do next time, when there might be no flood, and he again suggested that he might be allowed to make Carrickfergus his base until preparations for renewing the war were complete. Arnold yielded so far as to sanction his entry with some of his chief followers. Captain Piers was to show the formidable visitor every civility, but for sparing of the poor town was to keep the multitude of his company as far off as possible. Shane’s views changed, or the policy of Piers was successful in keeping him at arm’s length, but he plundered the town of Carlingford before doing any further service against the Scots, burned the country all about, and ravished the women far and wide, up to the walls of Dundalk. More damage has been done, said Fitzwilliam, ‘than seven years of such profit as is from Shane.’86

Nothing so dangerous as loyalty. Calvagh O’Connor

When Sussex left Ireland Leix and Offaly were pretty quiet, but his departure had been the signal for disturbance. Arnold was accused of oppressing the remnant of the O’Connors, and by his own account he cared little for peace. Ormonde’s brother persecuted the O’Mores, who were reduced to a state not much above brigandage. He killed a dozen kerne near Castle-comer, and apologised for not doing more: ‘if we had any ground for horsemen we should have made a fair haul.’ Arnold praised Sir Edmund’s activity, but looked forward to general disorder as soon as the long nights, which are still dreaded in Ireland, should give better opportunities to the disaffected. By way of precaution he imprisoned Calvagh O’Connor, as some said, with little or no cause, but, as Arnold maintained, for intriguing with tribes on both sides the Shannon, and for engaging Scots mercenaries. Yet there is good ground for believing that this poor O’Connor tried to be a loyal subject, with the result of being mistrusted by both parties. ‘When I was a rebel,’ he said, ‘I had friends enough, but now I serve the Queen’s Majesty I am daily in fear of my life.’ Unable to get a hearing, Calvagh, though heavily ironed, managed to break prison, and having been treated as a rebel became one in earnest. Great preparations were made on the borders of the Pale. Arnold demanded help from all the Irish clans in the central parts of the island. The Earl of Kildare was ordered to assemble his people, and letters were sent to the gentlemen of the Pale and to the settlers in the King’s and Queen’s counties. Wexford and Carlow were not forgotten, and Ormonde, who received a special commission and pay for 200 kerne for three months, was directed to watch the rebels, who were proclaimed by name, and to attack them if they came near his border. These tremendous preparations for the hunt, for it was little more, were crowned with such success as was possible. Calvagh O’Connor was killed by a near kinsman, and his head presented to the Lord Justice. Sir Barnaby Fitzpatrick, Edward VI.’s old companion, dutifully attacked the O’Mores. But Sir Barnaby himself was little better off than an outlaw, for his father, the first Baron of Upper Ossory, had but imperfectly laid aside Celtic usages when he accepted an Anglo-Norman title; and under the influence of a wicked second wife, he persecuted his loyal and civilised heir. The O’Connors were dispersed into little parties of eight or ten, who lived as best they might in the bogs. The O’Mores had wider contiguous wastes, and managed to keep better together, but they were glad to sue for peace. It was an inglorious campaign, which only served to show how completely the settlement of the country had failed to reconcile the native population.87