The Revolt of Tyrone

The Irish resisted the occupation of their land by English colonies, just as they resisted, for centuries, every step taken by the English to fasten their rule upon Ireland. The English colonists who attempted to occupy the land found their lives constantly harassed and endangered. The poor Irish, who had been expelled from their homes, and now lived as they could in the bogs or in the woods, formed secret leagues to attack the new-comers. The members of these leagues called themselves "Robin Hoods," after the English highwayman who was so famous in those days. The undertakers, moreover, found it impossible to comply with the conditions on which they had received their lands. They could not find Englishmen, who, in the face of the dangers which threatened them, were willing to become their tenants, and farm the land. English tradesmen and artisans could not be induced to leave their safe homes, and establish themselves in places where they might be robbed, and even killed, by the fierce Robin Hoods.

Thus it was that Elizabeth's harsh scheme for replacing the Irish by an English population, to a certain extent failed of its purpose. The natives were more obstinate in their resistance than she had foreseen. Even massacre and the desolation of the country had not tamed their inveterate hostility to English intrusion. Neither hunger nor nakedness could cow them into submission to the lot imposed upon them. Many of the undertakers gave up their lands in sheer despair. Others, in spite of their pledges, accepted native Irishmen as tenants. Yet rebellion, at least on a large scale, had been crushed. Munster lay in helplessness beneath English arms. In Connaught, some of the most powerful lords, such as the earls of Thomond, the Earl of Clanricarde, and the head of the unruly family of Burke, had refused to join arms with Desmond.

For a while Ireland was quiet, if not pacified, under the rule of the lord-deputy Perrot, who had succeeded lord Grey of Wilton in that office (154). Perrot governed, on the whole, with justice and firmness. But one of his acts was long bitterly remembered in Ireland, and this memory later aided in fanning the flames of another rebellion. He suspected the chief, O'Donnel, of secret hostility to the crown. In order to obtain security for O'Donnel's good behavior, Perrot had recourse to a perfidious stratagem. He invited a young son of O'Donnel, who was called "Red Hugh," two sons of Shane O'Neil, and several of their comrades, to drink some Spanish wine on board a vessel which lay off the shores of Donegal. When they had become tipsy from the wine, Perrot ordered the youths to be disarmed, put in irons, and thus conveyed to Dublin. They were thrown into Dublin castle, where they were kept imprisoned several years. This act aroused the open enmity of O'Donnel, and kindled fierce indignation throughout Ulster.

But Perrot's government, aside from this deed of treachery, was so temperate, that it raised up against him a host of enemies among the English. Every occasion to bring charges against him was eagerly seized by those who wished to get rid of him. At last an incident occurred which gave his enemies the opportunity they sought, by arousing against him Elizabeth's excessive vanity. A native chief named O'Rourke, who was boastful of his hostility to the English, caused a rude effigy of Elizabeth to be made. He tied this effigy to his horse's tail, and rode defiantly about the country, dragging the effigy behind him. For some reason, Perrot made no effort to punish O'Rourke for this audacious insult to the queen. The insult was promptly reported to Elizabeth, and she angrily deposed Perrot. She sent Sir William Fitzwilliam, a bad-tempered, avaricious man, to be lord-deputy in his place; and Fitzwilliam soon unsettled the tranquility and order which Perrot had established in Ireland.

From the first, Fitzwilliam carried matters with a high hand, and used his power with cruel caprice. His greed for money prompted him to commit many tyrannical acts. He threw into prison two Ulster chiefs, McTool and O'Doherty, who had always been faithful to the crown, on a false charge of having concealed some treasure which he was eager to get into his clutches. On an equally false accusation of having used force to collect rents, contrary to law, Fitzwilliam caused Hugh McMahon to be seized, tried by court-martial, and executed, and gave McMahon's lands to English men. The arbitrary acts of Fitzwilliam's agents in Ulster created wide-spread discontent. The cattle were stolen, money was extorted from the chiefs without warrant of law, and even women and children were slaughtered by the ruffians sent to carry out the lord-deputy's orders. When, after governing Ireland for six years, the avaricious Fitzwilliam was at last recalled, he left the country in a state of profound unrest. Red Hugh had escaped from Dublin castle, had returned to his own country, and assumed the lordship of Tyrconnel. He and his clans were ripe for revolt. In Connaught and in Ulster, the people only awaited a signal to rise once more against their oppressors.

There now appeared, as the leader of the Irish patriots, one of the most heroic and famous figures in Irish history. This was Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone. A descendant of the redoubtable family which had so long given warrior-kings to Ulster and to all Ireland, once more arose to defy the power of the English crown. Hugh O'Neil was the son of that Matthew whom his half-brother, Shane O'Neil, had caused to be killed. But in course of time Hugh had succeeded to the title and estates of Tyrone. In many respects he presented a striking contrast to other Irish chiefs. He had been carefully educated in England. He was an accomplished scholar, a polished courtier, an experienced soldier, a graceful and fine-mannered gentleman. From his youth up, Hugh O'Neil had given his allegiance to the English crown, and had even fought on the English side in Shane's rebellion. He was personally liked by Elizabeth, who had conferred many favors upon him.

Such was the man, so different in many respects from the still rude and untamed chiefs of the Irish clans, who now came forward to champion the cause of his oppressed fellow countrymen. Hugh was the son-in-law of the chief O'Donnel, whose son, Red Hugh, had been so treacherously dealt with by the lord-deputy Perrot. O'Neil had been angered by this treatment of his young brother-in-law, and he had felt a deep resentment at the cruelties and exactions of the English agents in Ulster. He gradually cooled in his loyalty to the crown, but at first he did not openly declare against it. A romantic incident, however, finally completed the breach between O'Neil and the English. His wife had died and he had fallen deeply in love with the sister of Sir Henry Bagnal, the commander of the English forces in Ireland. The young lady had rare beauty and many attractive graces. She ardently responded to Hugh O' Neil's affection. But Sir Henry Bagnal violently opposed the match. O'Neil thereupon eloped with his lady-love, and married her.

Bagnal at once conceived a deadly hatred of O'Neil. He tried by every means to convict him of treasonable acts, and intercepted the letters in which O'Neil defended himself from the charges made against him. O'Neil repaired to London and easily made his peace with Elizabeth. But no sooner had he returned to Ireland than he found that the flames of revolt had already burst forth. Young Red Hugh and the sons of Shane O'Neil had risen in arms; and O'Donnel, the father of Hugh's first wife, exasperated by his wrongs, had inflicted more than one desperate blow on the English forces in Ulster. Hugh O'Neil joined with O'Donnel, and promptly set about forming a great league of Irish chiefs against the English. The O'Rourkes, the McMahons, the Scots, the O'Connors, the O'Kellys, the McDermots, and the O'Byrnes joined the standard of the two great Ulster chiefs. The league appealed to the Catholics to stand by their faith against their Protestant tyrants. It sent emissaries to Spain to apply once more for aid, and it made ready to meet the formidable battalions of England in the field (1595.)

The first campaign of Tyrone's league was attended with such signal success, that Elizabeth became alarmed and tried to make peace with him. Tyrone pretended to come to terms; but his real object was to gain time, until the help which had been promised him by the Spanish king, Philip, should arrive. As soon as three Spanish frigates appeared off the coast of Donegal, Tyrone resumed his military operations. The new lord-deputy, Lord Burgh, was forced to retreat; and, a little later, Tyrone's father-in-law and bitter enemy, Bagnal, was utterly defeated, and himself slain, in a desperate battle on the banks of the Callan. Several forts held by the English surrendered to the Irish insurgents, and Tyrone now found himself the master of nearly the whole of Ulster. Meanwhile the fortunes of war leaned to the side of the Irish in other parts of the island. Connaught, Munster, and even Leinster, the province in which the Pale was situated, were afire with revolt.

Tyrrel, one of Tyrone's bravest lieutenants, drove Sir Thomas Norris, governor of Munster, into Cork. The castles of the Earl of Desmond were seized by the Irish; and a cousin of the earl, who was on Tyrone's side, took his title, and was called, in derision, the "earl of Straw." In no long time the whole of Ireland, outside the small district of the Pale, had come under the sway of Tyrone and his brave comrades. The Irish had fought, not only with valor, but with steadfastness and discipline. They had been well handled by soldiers who had seen something of war on a larger scale. They had had an abundance of food and ammunition. Many of the English troops, on the other hand, were raw recruits; and operating, as they did, in a country unfamiliar and profoundly hostile to them, they met their enemy everywhere at a disadvantage. Ireland seemed, at this moment (1598), entirely lost to England. The Irish, indeed, had all but won their independence.

But the proud spirit of Elizabeth, although she was now aged and physically feeble, was aroused to its old energy by the overwhelming disasters to her arms in Ireland. Her favorite at this time was a brave, handsome, chivalrous courtier, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. He had just performed the brilliant feat of attacking and burning a Spanish fleet in the harbor of Cadiz. Elizabeth appointed Essex lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and entrusted to him a fresh army of twenty-one thousand men, with which to put down Tyrone's revolt. Essex relieved some of the Ulster garrisons, and then marched southward into Munster. But his campaign had no marked result. The Irish troops prudently refused to meet so strong a force in the open field, but continually picked off the English as they marched to and fro. Essex returned to Dublin, with his troops greatly reduced in numbers and dampened in spirits. Meanwhile his lieutenant, Sir Conyers Clifford, had been cut off with half his force by O'Donnel in Connaught.

MEETING OF TYRONE AND ESSEX ON THE BANKS OF THE LAGAN.

Elizabeth was enraged by Essex's want of success. She sent him, however, two thousand fresh troops; and he promptly marched on Ulster. A mysterious event, which has never since been fully explained, now took place. Tyrone, seeing that he was hard pushed, begged for an interview with Essex. The lord-lieutenant granted the request. The great Ulster chief and the gallant English courtier met on the banks of the Lagan. What passed between them is not known; but the result of their meeting was, that Essex agreed to an armistice of six weeks. When the news of this concession by Essex reached England, it produced universal indignation. The queen shared in the anger of her subjects. Essex was loudly accused of treachery. He was abruptly recalled to London. There, soon after, he actually engaged in a conspiracy against the queen, was seized and thrown into the Tower, and, after a brief trial, was beheaded.