Between killed, wounded, and missing the losses did not fall far short of 2,000. Not less than twenty-four officers fell, the gun which caused delay by sticking in the mud, was abandoned to the victors, many colours were taken, and nearly all the new levies threw away their arms. Several hundred Irish soldiers deserted, and with them two English recruits, who called next morning to their comrades that Tyrone would give them all twenty shillings bounty to join him. Among the captains killed was Maelmore O’Reilly, Sir John’s son, who was known as ‘the handsome,’ and who fought with distinguished bravery. The survivors gathered in the church at Armagh, but it seemed doubtful whether they could maintain themselves there. A great part of the provisions, the conveyance of which to the Blackwater was the object of the expedition, had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and the remaining supplies would scarcely suffice for ten days. The Irish soldiers continued to desert steadily, and the disheartened remnant of the foot dared not attempt to reach Newry without help, but it was known that Maguire and O’Donnell were also short of provisions, and at last it was decided that the horse should break through the victorious Irish who swarmed round the camp. Montague performed this service successfully, though not without loss, during the night which followed the battle. Terence O’Hanlon pursued him closely, and it has been particularly recorded that Captain Romney was surprised and killed while smoking a pipe of tobacco by the roadside.[286]

This disastrous battle was fought on August 14, and on the 16th Montague told the story in Dublin. Ormonde was away, and the other Lords Justices were panic-stricken. They wrote a humble letter to Tyrone, begging him not to attack the defeated troops ‘in cold blood.’ ‘You may,’ they added, ‘move her Majesty to know a favourable conceit of you by using favour to these men; and besides, your ancient adversary, the Marshal, being now taken away, we hope you will cease all further revenge towards the rest, against whom you can ground no cause of sting against yourself.’ This missive never reached Tyrone, and the Queen said it was stayed by accident, though the Lords Justices declared they had revoked it. ‘The like,’ Elizabeth declared, ‘was never read, either in form or substance, for baseness.’ And, as it turned out, Tyrone was not unwilling to make a bridge for his defeated enemy. He thought their supply of provisions greater than it was, and he feared that troops might land at Lough Foyle, while Armagh was still held. His own army, he said, was costing him 500l. a day. These reasons were not known till later, but the terms dictated by them were gladly accepted. Captain Williams and his heroic band were allowed to leave the Blackwater, the officers retaining their rapiers and horses, but without colours, drums, or firearms. The whole army then marched unmolested to Newry with their wounded and baggage. Ormonde was able to report that the loss in killed was not so great as at first reported, but might easily have been greater ‘if God had not letted it; for their disorder was such as the like hath not been among men of any understanding, dividing the army into six bodies, marching so far asunder as one of them could not second nor help th’other till those in the vanguard were overthrown. Sure the devil bewitched them! that none of them did prevent this gross error.’[287]

The Irish leaders are said to have harangued their men before the fight upon its special importance, and many writers have blamed Tyrone for not advancing straight upon Dublin. But Celtic armies, though they have often won battles, have never known how to press a victory home. Owen Roe O’Neill, Montrose, and Dundee were all subject to the same disability; and Tyrone probably did as much as he could. ‘The chiefs of Ulster,’ say the annalists, ‘returned to their respective homes in joy and exultation, though they had lost many men.’ Dublin was in no danger, nor any of the principal towns; but the country was everywhere in a flame. O’Donnell had most of Connaught at his mercy, though Sir Conyers Clifford could hold his own at Athlone and maintain garrisons at Tulsk, Boyle, and Roscommon. Tibbot ne Long, who headed such of the lower Burkes as remained loyal, was forced to take refuge in one of the boats from which he derived his name, and MacWilliam had Mayo at his mercy. With 2,000 foot and 200 horse and accompanied by O’Dogherty, who was sent by O’Donnell to help him, he swept all the cattle, even from the furthest shores of Clew Bay. The Earl of Thomond was in England, and his brother Teig, who dubbed himself the O’Brien, overran Clare, though a younger brother Donnell remained loyal and opposed him strenuously. To hold all Connaught and Clare, Clifford had but 120 English soldiers, and had but very little effective help except from Clanricarde, who offered to supply 500 cows for 500l. As times stood, this was thought a very honourable offer, but O’Donnell had no difficulty in driving off 4,000 head from those who hesitated to submit.[288]

In the Pale and in the midland counties things were little better than in Connaught. The Lords Justices discovered a plot to surprise Dublin Castle, and hanged some of the conspirators, but Friar Nangle and other priests who were implicated escaped their vigilance. Croghane Castle, near Philipstown, was surprised by the O’Connors, who scaled the walls, killed Captain Gifford and his men, and wounded his wife in several places. The English proprietor, Sir Thomas Moore, seems to have been absent, but the Irish carried off Lady Moore and left her in a bog, where she died of cold. Alexander Cosby, the chief of the Queen’s County settlers, had been killed in 1597, and his widow was fortunately in Dublin, but Stradbally fell into the hands of the O’Mores. James FitzPiers, the sheriff of Kildare, was a Geraldine, and being threatened with the pains of hell by Tyrone, he surrendered Athy to Owen MacRory O’More. Captain Tyrrell, who was Tyrone’s best partisan leader, went where he pleased; and it was evident that nothing less than the extirpation of the English settlers was intended.[289]

Of many partial attempts at recolonisation the greatest was that on the forfeited Desmond estates, and the storm was not long in reaching Munster. Piers Lacy, of Bruff in Limerick, who had already once been pardoned, went to Owen MacRory, informed him that all the Geraldines were ready to rise and make James Fitzthomas Earl, and that the MacCarthies would also choose a chief. Tyrone’s leave was first asked and was readily given, for the idea of a new Desmond rebellion was already in his mind. Some months before he had spread a report that the attainted Earl’s son had escaped from the Tower with the Lieutenant’s daughter, that he had been warmly welcomed in Spain, and that he might soon be expected in Munster with large forces. At Michaelmas accordingly Owen MacRory, Tyrrell, and Redmond Burke, Sir John Shamrock’s eldest son, led 1,400 men to the Abbey of Owny in Limerick, but made no advance while Norris was at Kilmallock. As soon as he withdrew they divided into several companies, and destroyed all that was English, and only what was English. They burned Sir Henry Ughtred’s castle at Mayne near Rathkeale, which he had not attempted to defend. Cahir MacHugh O’Byrne joined O’More at Ballingarry with some of his men, and there they waited until James Fitzthomas had overcome his natural hesitation. Stimulated by the threat of preferring his younger brother, he came in with twenty gentlemen, and assumed the title of Earl as of O’Neill’s gift. The plunder collected by this time was so great that a cow was publicly sold in the camp for sixpence, a brood mare for threepence, and a prime hog for a penny.[290]

From Golden on the Suir Ormonde wrote to warn this new Desmond of his danger, and summoned him to his presence under safe-conduct. ‘We need not,’ he said, ‘put you in mind of the late overthrow of the Earl your uncle, who was plagued, with his partakers, by fire, sword, and famine; and be assured, if you proceed in any traitorous actions, you will have the like end. What Her Majesty’s forces have done against the King of Spain, and is able to do against any other enemy, the world hath seen, to Her Highness’s immortal fame, by which you may judge what she is able to do against you, or any other that shall become traitors.’ But the Geraldine had made up his mind and refused to go. Practically, he complained that the State had held out hopes of the Desmond succession to him, and that he had served against his uncle on that account. A pension of a mark a day from the Queen had been paid for one year only. Others had grievances as well as himself, and indeed it was not hard to find cases of injustice. ‘To be brief with your lordship,’ he concluded, ‘Englishmen were not contented to have our lands and livings, but unmercifully to seek our lives by false and sinister means under colour of law; and as for my part I will prevent it the best I can.’[291]

Rightly or wrongly, the last Earl of Desmond had been held legitimate, and the first marriage of his father with Joan Roche treated as null and void. The boy in the Tower was therefore the only claimant whom the Government could recognise, and the sons of Sir Thomas Roe Fitzgerald were excluded. But the Geraldines accepted the new creation at O’Neill’s hands, and the Queen’s adherents in Ireland could for the time do no more than nickname him the Sugane or straw-rope Earl. The English settlement of Munster melted away like the unsubstantial fabric of a vision. ‘The undertakers,’ to use Ormonde’s words, ‘three or four excepted, most shamefully forsook all their castles and dwelling-places before any rebel came in sight of them, and left their castles with their munitions, stuff, and cattle to the traitors, and no manner of resistance made.... Which put the traitors in such pride, and so much discouraged the rest of the subjects as most of them went presently to the towns.’ But all the settlers were not fortunate enough to reach these cities of refuge, and numerous outrages were committed. English children were taken from their nurses’ breasts and dashed against walls. An Englishman’s heart was plucked out in his wife’s presence, and she was forced to lend her apron to wipe the murderer’s fingers. Of the English fugitives who flocked into Youghal, some had lost their tongues and noses, and some had their throats cut, though they still lived. Irish tenants and servants, but yesterday fed in the settlers’ houses, were now conspicuous by their cruelty. Among those who escaped to England were Edmund Spenser and his wife, but one of their children perished in the flames. The poet lost all his property, and of his life’s work in Ireland only his books remain.[292]

At Tallow, in Raleigh’s seignory, there were 60 good houses and 120 able men, of whom 30 were musketeers; but they all ran away, and the rebels burned the rising town to the ground. The destruction of his improvements at this time may account for the small price which Raleigh’s property fetched in the next reign. Among castles in the county of Cork which were abandoned without resistance by the undertakers or their agents, were Tracton, Carrigrohan, and two others belonging to Sir Warham St. Leger; Castlemagner in Sir William Becher’s seignory; and Derryvillane in Mr. Arthur Hyde’s. In Limerick, besides Mayne the rebels took Pallaskenry and another house from Sir Henry Ughtred, Newcastle, and two more from Sir William Courtenay; Tarbet and another from Justice Golde; Foynes, Shanet, and Corgrage from Sir William Trenchard, and Flemingstown from Mr. Mainwaring. The Abbey of Adare, which was leased to George Thornton, was also left undefended. Castle Island was taken from Sir William Herbert, and Tralee from Sir Edward Denny; and in Kerry generally all the English settlers fled.

Mr. Wayman, a great sheepmaster, left twenty well-armed men at Doneraile, but they ran away and were all killed on the way to Cork. Norris’s English sheep were stolen from Mallow; his park wall was broken down, and his deer let loose. Many settlers fled with their clothes only, and being stripped of these they died of cold on the mountains. The churches and other vacant places in Cork were filled with starving wretches. Youghal was full of them too, and so closely pressed that men scarcely dared to put their heads outside the gates. The most fortunate of the settlers were those who reached Waterford and got a passage to England. Here and there alliances among the Irish saved individual colonists from utter destruction.

Thus Oliver Stephenson, born of an Irish mother, was protected by his relations. He was summoned before the Sugane Earl, who ordered him to show cause why he should not surrender his castle of Dunmoylan, near Foynes, to Ulick Wall, who claimed it as his ancient inheritance. He was, he says, respited till May and ordered to give it up then, ‘if my prince be not able to overcome their power.’ Stephenson begged Norris not to construe his shift as treason, and promised in the meantime to get all the information possible from his maternal relations. Stephenson saved himself, and was afterwards trusted by Lord President Carew.[293]

Arthur Hyde was in England when the rebellion broke out, but his wife and children were at his castle of Carriganeady, or Castle Hyde, on the Blackwater. On the day that Owen MacRory and the rest entered Munster, the country people rose ‘instantly before noon,’ and began plundering all round. Hyde’s own cattle and those of his English tenants were taken at once, but his wife and children escaped to Cork with Lord Barry’s help, and his eighteen men held the castle for three weeks. Hyde landed at Youghal, but could do nothing, and his garrison, seeing that there was no chance of relief, yielded on promise of life and wearing apparel. They were stripped naked, but not killed, by Lord Roche’s tenants before they had gone a mile. The Sugane, who was present in person with an overwhelming force, appointed Piers Lacy seneschal of Imokilly, and the castle was surrendered to an Irishman who claimed it. Forty persons depending on Hyde were left destitute, and he sought to form a company. Sixty-four muskets and other arms, with much ammunition, had been provided, and it is probable that things would have gone differently had Hyde been himself at home. A more successful defence was that of Askeaton, by Captain Francis Barkley. The revolt was sudden and unexpected, and he had only the provisions suitable to a gentleman’s house in those days. On October 6, more than 500 English of all sorts—men, women, and children—accustomed to a decent life and nearly all householders, flocked into Askeaton at nine in the evening. The panic was so sudden that they came almost empty-handed. ‘I protest unto your lordships a spectacle of greatest pity and commiseration that ever my eye beheld, and a most notable example of human frailty.’ An English barque lay in the Shannon, and Barkley was fortunate enough to get rid of some useless mouths that way. Others were conveyed to Limerick, where the mayor and citizens used them well. By Ormonde’s advice 120 able men were retained. With soldiers who knew the country, and who burned for revenge, this brave captain announced that he would hold out till death. Corn and beef were still to be had, and he only asked for the means to keep his men together. Askeaton did not fall.[294]

The White Knight, Patrick Condon, Lord Barry’s brother John, and Lord Roche’s son David, quickly came to terms with the rebels, and Norris believed that the rest would follow from love or fear. Lord Barry, indeed, held out bravely; but most of his neighbours had no choice, for the Government could do nothing to protect them. The Lord President could not trust his Irish troops, and had to retire from Kilmallock without fighting. Four days later, after effecting a junction with Ormonde, he was able to victual the little garrison town, but had to fall back again immediately to Mallow. Tyrone had warned his friends not to fight a pitched battle, but only to skirmish on difficult ground. After several days’ desultory warfare in the woods about Mallow, Ormonde was recalled to the defence of Kilkenny and Tipperary, and Norris went back to Cork, leaving the rebels to do as they pleased. An English prisoner with Desmond could report but one family of his countrymen spared. A priest told the new-made Earl that they were Catholics, and proclamation was made that they were not to be hurt. They were robbed of all, but carried their lives to Cork. After Ormonde’s departure Owen MacRory went back to Leinster with Cahir MacHugh. He had been ten days in Munster, and left all the other counties at the Sugane’s mercy. The Queen was much chagrined, and blamed both Norris and Ormonde for not giving more effective support to the undertakers. But it does not appear that they were to blame, for the revolt was extremely sudden, and the settlement had not been so managed as to afford the means of resistance. ‘For whereas,’ says Moryson, ‘they should have built castles and brought over colonies of English, and have admitted no Irish tenant, but only English, these and like covenants were in no part performed by them. Of whom the men of best quality never came over, but made profit of the land; others brought no more English than their own families, and all entertained Irish servants and tenants, which were now the first to betray them. If the covenants had been kept by them, they of themselves might have made 2,000 able men, whereas the Lord President could not find above 200 of English birth among them when the rebels first entered the province. Neither did these gentle undertakers make any resistance to the rebels, but left their dwellings and fled to walled towns; yea, when there was such danger in flight as greater could not have been in defending their own, whereof many of them had woeful experience, being surprised with their wives and children in flight.’ So much for the weak defence, as well-informed Englishmen understood it. The causes of the outbreak, as seen from a Protestant and English point of view, are told by Chief Justice Saxey. Seminaries and Jesuits haunted the towns, of which the mayors were recusants, though shielded by being joined in the commission; the judges of assize were also recusants for the most part, and in charging grand juries they never spoke against foreign power, nor to advance the Queen’s supremacy; the English tenants were too scattered, owing to the undertakers’ slackness; and, lastly, the late exaction of cess, instead of the customary composition, had bred discontent. O’Sullivan, as usual, makes the contest one between Catholics and royalists, and the annalists, who were more emphatically Irish than Catholic, make it a war of races only. ‘In the course of seventeen days,’ they say, ‘the Irish left not, within the length and breadth of the country of the Geraldines, from Dunqueen to the Suir, which the Saxons had well cultivated and filled with habitations and various wealth, a single son of a Saxon whom they did not either kill or expel.’[295]

Of three branches of the Butler family ennobled by the Tudor monarchs, two were in open rebellion. Mountgarret was a young man, and was married to Tyrone’s eldest daughter. He now sent to Ulster for 3,000 auxiliaries, and invited his father-in-law to spend Christmas with him at Kilkenny. In the meantime he allied himself with the Kavanaghs, and took the sacrament with Donnell Spaniagh at Ballyragget. Lord Cahir was married to Mountgarret’s sister, and followed his lead. He refused to go to Ormonde when summoned, who says he was ‘bewitched (a fool he always was before) by his wife, Dr. Creagh, and Father Archer.’ Two loyal neighbours went to Cahir under safe-conduct, but the poor man was not allowed to see them privately. Dr. Creagh, papal bishop of Cork, and the Jesuit Archer were both present, and the peer confessed that he must be ruled by them. Creagh abused one of the visitors for not saluting him, and Archer disarmed him for fear he might hurt the bishop. The two churchmen declared that all the abbey lands should be disgorged, and that all Catholics should make open profession, ‘or be called heretics and schismatics like you.’ They insisted upon three points: the full restoration of the Catholic Church, the restoration of their lands to all Catholics, and a native Catholic prince sworn to maintain all these things. Gough told them that their ideas were ridiculous, and that they could not tell what his religion was because that was shut up in his own breast. He told Cahir that he was sorry to see him so ‘bogged,’ and unable to speak or call his soul his own; after which, he and his friend were not sorry to get away safe.[296]

‘I pray God,’ said Ormonde, ‘I may live to see the utter destruction of those wicked and unnatural traitors, upon all whom, by fire, sword, or any other extremity, there cannot light too great a plague.’ He pursued Owen MacRory and Redmond Burke, with a mixed multitude of Fitzpatricks, O’Carrolls, O’Kennedys, and O’Ryans, into the woods of the north-west of Tipperary, and captured 100 horses laden with the spoils of the Munster undertakers. But not very much could be done, and he complained bitterly that he was badly supported by the Lords Justices. An archbishop and a chief justice, both old men, were not the Government suited to a great crisis, and matters of such vital importance as the victualling of Maryborough were left almost to chance. Ormonde relieved the place with 300 cows collected by himself, but not without hard fighting, and the annalists oddly remark that he ‘lost more than the value of the provisions, in men, horses, and arms.’ The conduct of the war in Leinster was entrusted to Sir Richard Bingham, whose prophecies had been completely fulfilled, and who was appointed Marshal in Bagenal’s place. Norris was to remain in Munster, Clifford in Connaught, Sir Samuel Bagenal on the borders of Ulster, and Ormonde in Dublin to control the military arrangements. To hold the towns and to temporise was all that the Queen required until a new viceroy could be had. Bingham had been often consulted of late, and much was expected from his unrivalled knowledge of Ireland; but he was past seventy, and worn out with more than fifty years’ service by sea and land. He died soon after his return to Ireland, and Ormonde was left to his own devices. Before the end of the year it was known that the government would be entrusted to Essex.[297]

After the victory at the Yellow Ford, O’Donnell remained for more than six months at Ballymote. His inactivity, say the annalists with unconscious irony, was caused solely by the fact that there was no part of Connaught left for him to plunder, except Clare. The Earl of Thomond had spent the year 1598 in England, where he made a very good impression, and on his return remained with Ormonde, at and about Kilkenny. Of his two brothers, Donnell, the younger, represented him in Clare, while Teig led the opposition and made friends with Tyrone’s adherents in Tipperary. Accompanied by Maguire, O’Donnell entered Clare, thoroughly plundered the baronies of Burren, Inchiquin, and Corcomroe, and returned unscathed to Mayo. Ennistymon, which was part of the territory ravaged, belonged at the time to Sir Tirlogh O’Brien, who was ‘a sheltering fence and a lighting hill to the Queen’s people,’ and who co-operated with the force sent into Clare by Sir Conyers Clifford. Teig, after some skirmishing, thought it prudent to submit, and sessions were successfully held at Ennis. Thomond then returned to his own country and proceeded to chastise Teig MacMahon, who had lately wounded and imprisoned his brother Donnell. MacMahon had taken an English ship which was in difficulties on the coast, but ‘found the profit very trivial and the punishment severe,’ and he had also seized his castle of Dunbeg, which was in pledge to a Limerick merchant, but without paying the mortgagee. Carrigaholt was taken, and all MacMahon’s cattle driven away. Cannon were brought from Limerick against Dunbeg, but the garrison did not wait to be fired at, ‘and the protection they obtained lasted only while they were led to the gallows, from which they were hanged in couples, face to face.’ Thomond then went northwards, and restored to his friends the castle from which O’Donnell had expelled them.[298]

During the early months of 1599 Tyrone’s illegitimate son Con was preparing his way in Munster. The Earl blamed him severely for imprisoning and robbing Archbishop Magrath, of whose re-conversion he had hopes, since his liberty could not be restrained nor his temporalities touched without direct authority from Rome. ‘But if,’ he added, ‘the covetousness of this world caused him to remain on this way that he is upon, how did his correcting touch you? Withal I have the witness of my own priest upon him, that he promised to return from that way, saving only that he could not but take order for his children first, seeing he got them, and also that he is friend and ally unto us.’ Con tried to extort ransom from the astute Miler, who promised to befriend him as far as possible without ‘hurting his privilege in her Majesty’s laws,’ but Tyrone sent peremptory orders that he should be released without any conditions. In the almost complete paralysis of authority, most of the Munster gentry made terms with Con and the new Earl of Desmond. Lord Barry and Lord Roche between them might bring 100 men to the Queen, but they had no allies worth mentioning. Norris had about 2,000 men, but the general falling away was such that he could do very little. At the end of March he left Cork with eighteen companies of foot and three troops of horse. Lady Roche, a sister of James Fitzmaurice, was ready to come out of Castletown to meet him, but Tyrone’s Ulster mercenaries would not allow her. The capture of Carriglea castle was the only real success, and the Lord President returned on the ninth day, the rebels skirmishing with him to the outskirts of Cork. The rebels in Tipperary and the adjoining parts of Leinster assembled ‘before an idol in Ormonde called the Holy Cross, where again they solemnly swore not to abandon nor forsake one another.’ Everyone saw that a system of garrisons was the only way to break down the confederacy, but this policy was not showy enough to please the new Lord Lieutenant.’[299]

CHAPTER XLVIII.

ESSEX IN IRELAND, 1599.

Sir Henry Wotton, who was a good judge and who had special means of observation in this case, was of opinion that Essex wore out the Queen’s patience by his petulance. He has recorded that a wise and, as it turned out, prophetic adviser warned the Earl that, though he might sometimes carry a point by sulking at Wanstead, at Greenwich, or in his own chamber, yet in the long run such conduct would lead to ruin. ‘Such courses as those were like hot waters, which help at a pang, but if they be too often used will spoil the stomach.’ The advice was not taken, and Essex continued to treat every check as a personal insult. The natural effect followed, and by the year 1598 ‘his humours grew tart, as being now in the lees of favour.’[300]

Burghley died a few days before the disaster at Blackwater, and Philip II. not many days after. The policy of Spain was not much affected, though the change might be thought like that from Solomon to Rehoboam; but England missed the wise and kindly hand which had often held Essex straight. Bagenal’s overthrow brought into sudden prominence that thorny problem with which the impetuous favourite was of all men the least fit to cope. Patience, steadiness, organising power, knowledge of men, were the qualities needed in Ireland then, as now, and Essex was conspicuously deficient in them all. ‘I will tell you,’ said a great court official, ‘I know but one friend and one enemy my lord hath: and that one friend is the Queen, and that one enemy is himself.’ It seemed as if no misconduct could permanently alienate Elizabeth, and yet he tried her forbearance very hardly. A few days or weeks before the old Lord Treasurer’s death, she had proposed to send Sir William Knollys, Essex’s uncle, to govern Ireland. The Earl favoured the appointment of Sir George Carew, who was certainly much fitter for the work than himself, and whom he was thought to be anxious to remove from the court. The Queen insisting, he turned his back on her with a gesture of contempt. Raleigh—who was, however, his enemy—says he exclaimed that ‘her conditions were as crooked as her carcase.’ She in turn lost her temper, and gave him a box on the ear. He laid his hand on his sword, swearing that he would not have endured such an indignity from Henry VIII. himself, and immediately departed to Wanstead.

‘Your Majesty hath,’ he afterwards wrote to Elizabeth, ‘by the intolerable wrong you have done both me and yourself, not only broken all laws of affection, but done against the honour of your sex. I think all places better than that where I am, and all dangers well undertaken, so I might retire myself from the memory of my false, inconstant, and beguiling pleasures.’ Of course it was very undignified of the Queen to strike anyone, but many things may be urged in excuse. She was old enough to be her favourite’s grandmother. She had known him from early youth, and she had every reason to look upon him still in the light of a spoiled child. No one with any sense of humour would resent a blow from a woman as from a man, and Essex might very well have treated it all as a joke. But what is to be said for a man who insults a lady well stricken in years, who is his sovereign, and who has heaped upon him honours and benefits far beyond his deserts?[301]

Norris and Bingham being dead, the appointment of a Lord Deputy became a matter of pressing necessity. The Queen thought of Mountjoy, who, as the event proved, was, of all men, fittest for the arduous task. But Essex objected to him, much upon the same grounds as Iago objected to Michael Cassio. He had indeed some experience in the field, but only in subordinate posts; and he was ‘too much drowned in book learning.’ Another argument was that he was a man of small estate and few followers, and that ‘some prime man of the nobility’ should be sent into Ireland. Everyone understood that he had come to want the place himself, and that he would oppose every possible candidate.

During the autumn of 1598 and far into the winter, the affair hung fire, more perhaps from the difficulty of satisfying his demands for extraordinary powers than from any wish to refuse him the dangerous honour. Indeed, if we may believe Camden, his enemies foresaw his failure, and were only too anxious to help him to the viceroyalty on any terms. About the new year his appointment seemed to be certain, and by the first week in March everything was settled. ‘I have beaten Knollys and Mountjoy in the Council,’ Essex wrote in great exultation, ‘and by God I will beat Tyr-Owen in the field; for nothing worthy her Majesty’s honour hath yet been achieved.’ It is not in such boastful mood that great men are wont to put on their armour. And besides all this, Knollys was his uncle and Mountjoy his familiar friend.[302]

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to inquire how Essex came to desire such a thankless office as the government of Ireland. His ambition was not of an ignoble cast; but it is certain that he grasped greedily at every important command, and that he could scarcely brook a superior, or even a colleague. This was clearly shown in his ridiculous quarrel with the Lord Admiral about precedence, no less than in more important matters. He probably saw the Irish difficulty well enough, but any hesitation about incurring the risk of failure was more than counterbalanced by the fear of someone else gaining great glory.

Bacon had advised him to remain at Court, but to take Irish affairs under his special protection there, to consult with men who knew the country, to fill places with his own friends, and to patronise others who were likely to be useful. In short, he was urged to make what the newspapers now call political capital out of Ireland, but not to risk himself and his reputation there. While giving this counsel, Bacon had expressed a fear that the Earl was not the man to play such a game skilfully. And so it fell out. By the beginning of the year 1599 Essex saw that he would have to go. Years afterwards, when Elizabeth was gone, Bacon found that an inconvenient cloud hung over him on account of the part he had played. He then tried to persuade others, and possibly succeeded in persuading himself, that he had really ‘used all means he could devise’ to prevent Essex from venturing into Ireland. The fact seems to be that he kept quiet as long as the thing could have been prevented, and did not try to make Essex reconsider the matter when he decided to go. He afterwards said that he ‘did plainly see his overthrow chained as it were by destiny to that journey’; but at the time he did no more than warn him against possible failure from defects of temper, while he enlarged upon the great glory which would follow success. A comparison of extant letters shows that Essex himself was far more impressed than Bacon with the danger and difficulties of the Irish problem, though, when he was on the eve of setting out, his impulsive nature allowed him to brag of the great things that he was going to do.[303]