Wars of the Irish Kings (41 page)

As for the English, after remaining a night at Armagh, they rose next morning early; and the resolution they adopted was, to leave their victuals, drink, their women and young persons, their horses, baggage, servants, and rabble, in that town of Armagh. Orders were then given that every one able to bear arms, both horse and foot, should proceed wherever the Marshal and other officers of the army should order them to march against their enemies. They then formed into order and array, as well as they were able, and proceeded straightforward through each rood before them, in close and solid bodies, and in compact, impenetrable squadrons, till they came to the hill which overlooks the ford of Beal-an-atha-bhuidhe. After arriving there they perceived O’Neill and O’Donnell, the Ui Eathach Uladh, and the Oirghialla, having, together with the chieftains, warriors, heroes, and champions of the North, drawn up one terrible mass before them, placed and arranged on the particular passages where they thought the others would march on them.

When the chiefs of the North observed the very great danger that now threatened them, they began to harangue and incite their people to acts of valour, saying that unless the victory was their’s on that day, no prospect remained for them after it but that of being [some] killed and slaughtered without mercy, and others cast into prisons and wrapped in chains, as the Irish had been often before, and that such as should escape from that battle would be expelled and banished into distant foreign countries: and
they told them, moreover, that it was easier for them to defend their patrimony against this foreign people [now] than to take the patrimony of others by force, after having been expelled from their own native country. This exciting exhortation of the chiefs made [the desired] impression upon their people; and the soldiers declared that they were ready to suffer death sooner than submit to what they feared would happen to them.

As for the Marshal and his English [forces], when they saw the Irish awaiting them, they did not shew any symptom whatever of fear, but advanced vigorously forwards, until they sallied across the first broad [and] deep trench that lay in their way; and some of them were killed in crossing it. The Irish army then poured upon them vehemently and boldly, furiously and impetuously, shouting in the rear and in the van, and on either side of them. The van was obliged to await the onset, bide the brunt of the conflict, and withstand the firing, so that their close lines were thinned, their gentlemen gapped, and their heroes subdued. But, to sum up in brief, the [English] General, i.e. the Marshal of Newry, was slain; and as an army, deprived of its leader and adviser, does not usually maintain the battle-field, the General’s people were finally routed, by dint of conflict and fighting, across the earthen pits, and broad, deep trenches, over which they had [previously] passed. They were being slaughtered, mangled, mutilated, and cut to pieces by those who pursued them bravely and vigorously.

At this time God allowed, and the Lord permitted, that one of the Queen’s soldiers, who had exhausted all the powder he had about him, by the great number of shots he had discharged, should go to the nearest barrel of powder to quickly replenish his measure and his pouch; and [when he began to fill it] a spark fell from his match into the powder in the barrel, which exploded aloft overhead into the air, as did every barrel nearest, and also a great gun which they had with them. A great number of the men who were around the powder were blown up in like manner. The surrounding hilly ground was enveloped in a dense, black, gloomy mass of smoke for a considerable part of the day afterwards. That part of the Queen’s army which escaped from being slaughtered [by the Irish], or burned or destroyed [by the explosion], went back to Armagh, and were eagerly pursued [by the Irish, who] continued to subdue, surround, slay, and slaughter them, by pairs, threes, scores, and thirties, until they passed inside the walls of Armagh.

The Irish then proceeded to besiege the town, and surrounded it on every side; and they [of both parties] continued to shoot and fire at each other for three days and three nights, at the expiration of which time the English ceased, and sent messengers to the Irish to tell them that they
would surrender the fort [at the Blackwater], if the warders who were [stationed] in it were suffered to come to them unmolested to Armagh, and [to add] that, on arriving there, they would leave Armagh itself, if they should be granted quarter and protection, and escorted in safety out of that country into a secure territory. When these messages were communicated to the Irish, their chiefs held a council, to consider what they should do respecting this treaty. Some of them said that the English should not be permitted to come out of their straitened position until they should all be killed or starved together; but they finally agreed to give them liberty to pass out of the places in which they were, on condition, however, that they should not carry out of the fort meat or drink, armour, arms, or ordnance, powder or lead [or, in fine, any thing], excepting only the captain’s trunk and arms, which he was at liberty to take with him. They consented on both sides to abide by those conditions; and they sent some of their gentlemen of both sides to the fort, to converse with the warders; and when these were told how the case stood, they surrendered the fort to O’Neill, as they were ordered. The Captain and the warders came to Armagh, to join that part of his people who had survived. They were all then escorted from Armagh to Newry, and from thence to the English territory. After their departure from Tyrone, O’Neill gave orders to certain persons to reckon and bury the gentlemen and common people slain. After they had been reckoned, there were found to be two thousand five hundred slain, among whom was the General, with eighteen captains, and a great number of gentlemen whose names are not given.

The Queen’s people were dispirited and depressed, and the Irish joyous and exulting, after this conflict. This battle of Athbuidhe [Yellow Ford] was fought on the 10th day of August. The chiefs of Ulster returned to their respective homes in joyous triumph and exultation, although they had lost many men ….

When it was told to the Queen of England and the Council that the Irish had risen up against her in the manner already described, and the vast numbers of her people who had been slain in this year, the resolution adopted by the Sovereign and the Council was, to send over Sir Richard Bingham with eight thousand soldiers, to sustain and carry on the war here, until the Earl of Essex should [be prepared] to come, who was then ordered to go to Ireland after the festival of St. Bridget with attire and expense, and an army, such as had not been attempted to be sent to Ireland, since the English had first undertaken to invade it, till that time.

These risings increased daily. There is in Ulster a river which the Irish call the Abhainn-mhor, and the English the Blackwater, either because it is more turbid than other Irish rivers, which are usually clear and pellucid, or because the English often met with defeat and disaster on its banks. On this river there was a fort, famous in many occasions in this war, as will appear later on, called by the English, the Blackwater fort, and by the Irish, Portmore, that is to say the great fort. It was situated three miles
beyond Armagh, the seat of the Primate of Ireland, and seven miles south of Dungannon, Earl Tyrone’s chief town. From this fort the Queen’s English garrison and heretical minister were expelled by certain Irishmen. Moreover, some of the MacMahons besieged Monaghan castle, the capital of Oriel, unjustly taken from that family by the Viceroy’s decree and fortified by an English garrison. The besiegers cutting off all supplies, it seemed as if the garrison must surrender from want. A quarrel having broken out in Armagh, as we have seen, between the Catholic priest in charge of the principal church and some English soldiers, a certain Irish nobleman, who at the time chanced to be there, cleared the town of all the Queen’s garrison who were well punished, some severely wounded and some killed. For all these things the English laid the blame on [Hugh] O’Neill.

By these risings of the Catholics, commotions, and defeats, Elizabeth, Queen of England, was sorely worried, and strained every nerve to quiet Ireland and break down the Catholic forces. In the year 1594 she appointed William Russell viceroy instead of William Fitzwilliam, who had held that office but had resigned. She recalled from France the English veterans who were employed there against His Catholic Majesty, Philip II, and ordered a levy in England and Ireland. John Norris, an English knight, with 1,800 English veterans from France, speedily landed in Ireland. Such royalist troops as he found in Ireland—veterans and raw recruits alike—he summoned to his standard, and hastened into Ulster as if to relieve Monaghan castle which, as above mentioned, was surrounded by the MacMahons.

At this time died Turlough, who had been The O’Neill, and who was regarded as the impediment to the Earl of Tyrone’s making war on the English. On his death Tyrone [Hugh O’Neill] was after the Irish fashion declared The O’Neill by the clansmen and by this title we shall henceforth call him. However, he wrote to Norris asking him not to take extreme measures and stating that he would prefer to preserve the Queen’s friendship than to be her enemy; that he had never conspired against the Queen’s crown; and that he had been unjustly accused by envious persons. He sent a similar letter to the Queen. But Bagnal, the Governor of Ulster, and O’Neill’s bitterest enemy intercepted and suppressed both letters. O’Neill when he saw that an answer to his letters was too long delayed and that the enemy was approaching, prepared to meet him and prevent him relieving Monaghan, which MacMahon’s people with the slender
force at their command, could not do. Maguire, a most redoubtable hero and Chief of Fermanagh, who was captain of the horse; O’Kane and other chiefs at the head of about 2,000 horse and foot, accompanied him. Norris is said to have increased his army to 4,000 horse and foot splendidly armed. Some were English veterans trained in France, some Anglo-Irish, others old Irish, especially O’Hanlon, Chief of Orior in Ulster, who by hereditary right was royal standard-bearer beyond the river Boyne. Bagnal, Governor of Ulster, was in attendance, and Norris himself, who had displayed the greatest courage and military skill in fighting the Spaniards during the French and Belgian wars, in which he had deservedly earned glory and fame, for in truth he was the greatest of the English generals of his time, although in this war fickle fortune or rather Divine Justice showed him little favour.

Figure 13.
Europe, c. 1200. In this map from Gerald of Wales’s
Typography of Ireland
, mainland Europe is at the top; England and Scotland are in the middle; and Iceland and Ireland are at the bottom. Irish cities on the map are Waterford, Wexford, and Limerick. The charted rivers are the Slane, the Suir, the Shannon (which is drawn to include the Erne), and the Liffey, called the Auenliffus. Courtesy the National Library of Ireland.