1582.

Vol. 607, p. 74.

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March 1. Vol. 601, p. 89.

500.

501.

Lastly, we do award, order, and set down that there shall be and remain a mutual amity and society between the said Earl and his brother, and their tenants and followers.

In witness whereof we have set our hands under the signet of the province to this our instrument at Galway, 17 November, 25 Eliz., 1582:-N. Malby, W. Tuamen., Ste. Clonferten, Ed. Athenry, Tho. Dillon, Jo. Norton, Jo. Marbury, Natha. Smithe. The said Earl of Clanricard and the said John Burke bave given their consents to this order.

Signed: U. Clanricard, Jo. de Burgo.

"Ex' per me, Rowlandum Argall, clericum Consilii."
Copy. Pp. 13.

The QUEEN to the LORD JUSTICES of IRELAND (LOFTUS and WALLOP).

As the castle of Limerick is seated in a remote place far from any relief, and the constable of the same, John Bleeke, hath no allowance of any victuals from our store; and as by order from hence the ward of the said castle is abridged from 20 men to 14, and the wages of the constable are reduced to 28. by day; we authorize you to grant him a lease, without any fine, of so much of our lands, woods, tenements, and hereditaments, as well spiritual as temporal, lying near to our city of Limerick, as you think convenient. The yearly rent shall be defalked upon his entertainment. Further, according to our general order taken for all patentees, pass a grant to him of his said office of constable, with the fee and allowances of men now appointed, quam diu se bene gesserit. Contemp. copy. P. 1.

SIR HENRY SYDNEY to SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM. (A summary relation of all his services in Ireland.) Coldness is thought in me in proceeding in the matter of marriage between my son and your daughter. In truth, it is not so. 66 Compremitting the consideration of the articles to the Earls named by you, and to the Earl of Huntingdon, I most willingly agree, and protest I joy in the alliance."

By your letters of 3 January I find there is no hope of relief of her Majesty for my decayed estate in her service. By sale of part of that which is left, I ransom me out of the servitude I live in for my debts. "I am not so unlusty but that I may be so employed, as I may have occasion to sell land to redeem myself out of prison; nor yet am I so old nor my wife so healthy but that she may die and I marry again, and get children or think I get some."

But since her Majesty will not reward me, give me leave somewhat to write to you of my two high offices, and of my service in them.

"Three times her Majesty hath sent me her Deputy into Ireland, and in every of the three times I sustained a great

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and a violent rebellion, every one of which I subdued, and (with honorable peace) left the country in quiet. I returned from each of those three deputations three thousand pounds worse than I went."

The first* was against Shane O'Neale, who had usurped the whole of Tyrone, being O'Neale's country, and subdued all the potentates and landlords in Ulster. The Scots of the Glynnes he held in pay. The Queen had nothing but the miserable town of Carregffargus. The county of Lowthe paid him tribute, called black rent. He exiled O'Donell, Lord of

Tirconnell, and drave him into England.

I made war with him. He had of Scots and Irish 7,000 men. I had but 1,700, with 300 Berwick soldiers. I advanced into the rebel's country the 22nd of September 1566, and wasted Tyrone. The old Magwyre died in my camp, but I possessed his brother in his country. I then entered Tireconnell, where I found Colonel E. Randle, with a regiment of 700 soldiers. There of an old church I made a new fort. I left not one castle in the possession of the rebel, nor unrestored to the right owner. I repossessed the old exiled Callagh O'Donnell of the castle of Dunyngall and his country. In the second time of my deputation I sent to the now O'Donell, called Hugh, for the rent and the arrearages, to gather which he desired me to send my serjeant with some force.

I then marched into Carberie, O'Connor Sligo's country. O'Wryrk and others submitted. O'Conor made me great cheer. O'Ghare vowed to go into England, which he performed. I took the great abbey of Aboyle in Connaught. MacDermode submitted. The strong castle of Roscoman had been in the possession of disloyal Irishmen 160 years, "for so long was it before that it was betrayed, and the English constable and ward murdered, as I found in the Irish chronicles." There I planted a small garrison. O'Connor Dun, O'Connor Ro, O'Byrn, O'Flyn, and O'Flanygan did their homage.

From thence I went to Alone. The O'Kellyes desired to hold their lands of the Queen, "and it was done." The two principal captains of the Annally, called O'Farroll Boy and O'Farroll Bane, desired that Connaghe might be shired and rented, which was done, by the name of the county of Longford. I built the bridge of Alone.

The traitor, in my absence, invaded the English Pale, and made roads to the very walls of Dreydath, but was driven home by Sir Warham Sentleger and Sir Nicholas Heron. He approached the fort of the Derry. Colonel Randle repulsed him, but was slain. The rebel thus escaping invaded O'Donneyl's country, where he was met with and defeated by

*"Note. In my first passage I lost by shipwreck the most of my household stuff and utensils, my wife's whole apparel and all her jewels, many horses and stable stuff, &c."

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Sir Hugh O'Donnell. Between the end of November and the beginning of Lent following, I made many incursions into his country. Sometimes my vauntcurrers "felt his couch warm where he lay that night."

"In the Christmas holydays I visited him in the heart of his country, where he had made as great an assembly as he could, and had provided as great and good cheer as was to be had in the country. And when word was brought him that I was so near him, 'That is not possible (qd he), for the day before yesterday I know he dined and sat under his cloth of estate in the hall of Kilmainham.' 'By O'Neyle's hand (qd the messenger), he is in thy country and not far off, for I saw the red bractok with the knotty club, and that is carried before none but himself;' meaning my pensell with the ragged staff. With that he ran away, and so I shortened his Christmas, and made an end of mine own with abundance of his good provision." He resolved to submit, but feared the fury of the watch.

"How pleasant a life it is that time of the year, with hunger and after sore travail, to harbour long and cold nights in cabbanes made of boughs and covered with grass, I leave to your indifferent judgment."

But now the Earl of Ormond applied the Queen with such complaints against me and Sir Warham Sentleger, whom I placed with others in commission in Munster, and her Majesty wrote so often and so earnestly to me touching hurts done to him and his by the Earl of Desmond, that I was forced to address me southward against Desmond. So I advanced towards Munster in January and came not home till April. "The Earl of Desmond met me at Carryke (a house of Ormond), whom I carried with me to Waterford, Dungarvon, Yoghill, and Cork, all the way hearing and ordering the complaints between the two Earls. When the Earl found I dealt justly with Ormond, and that I rather showed favour than severity (as indeed I did to all his), after sundry and several speeches of very hard digestion, expressing his malicious intention, he would have been gone from me, which I denied him, and unwitting to him appointed a guard to attend him day and night. I ordered against him a great sum in recompense of damages done to Ormond, and so took him with me to Kilmallocke. Then I was informed by his own brother John and by Lacie, then Bishop of Limerick, that he intended by force to rescue himself from me, and to that end had a great number of men in areadiness.

"Hereupon, calling such noblemen and potentates of Munster as I had with me, namely, the Viscounts Barry and Roche, Macarty Reoghe, Sir Dermod MacTeague of Muscrye, the Barons Coursey and Lexnaue, with Condon and a few other principal gentlemen of that province, I declared unto them what intelligence I had of Desmond's intention, and asked them whether they would give me their faithful promise and oath to

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take my part, and do as I would; for Desmond (said I) will I take, and as a prisoner lead away with me.' They forthwith answered me as it were with one voice, that they would to the uttermost adventure of their lives do whatsoever I would have them. Hereupon I took such security of them as I thought convenient, and was indeed sufficient, and immediately sent for the Earl of Desmond, whom in the presence of the forenamed personages and the Sovereign of Kilmallock, with the best of his brethren of the same town, [I] did arrest, and committed him to the custody of my Marshal; which arrest and commitment humbly on his knees he yielded unto."

The lords and others above written persuaded me that it was no policy nor safe for me to lead him out of that town till I had greater force. I had but 50 English spears, 50 English shot, and 50 galloglass. But I, seeing the town to be great and weak, sent to the Mayor of Limerick, willing him to make ready for me as many men as he could, which he accomplished. 300 well-appointed fighting men met me between Kilmallock and Limerick. Out of Kilmallock I took 150 men. With these forces I issued out of the town.

'But still came threatenings to me that I should be fought with by the way, and the prisoner taken from me, but I rested resolute that I would to Limerick, and lead Desmond prisoner with me, and protested to him in the hearing of a multitude that if the least violence that might be were offered to the basest churl or horseboy of my train, he should die of my hand; and so mounting him on a worse horse than I rid on, marched away with him to Limerick, where after very few days I condemned him in the forfeiture of his band to the Queen's Majesty's use for breach of the peace against the Earl of Ormond of 20,000l. and had him indicted according to form and order of law for levying unlawfully men in warlike manner against me, her Majesty's Deputy, which is

treason.

"Here I constituted John of Desmond, his brother, to be seneschal and captain of all the Earl's lands and seigniories, with charge and oath for his loyalty, and that he should, with all the speed he might, restore or recompense all her Majesty's subjects who[m] Desmond had (I now remember not in how many years before) spoiled or injured. And so making him knight, I departed that city, leaving him behind and still leading his brother prisoner with me. Sir John did so effectually in that his charge as (within three months after) I received letters of good credit that he had caused restitution to be made to the Queen's good subjects oppressed by his brother's tyranny of above 5,000l. These my acts (good Mr. Secretary) are both registered and enrolled.

"Then I went into and through the great countries of Tomond, and quieted all controversies in the same. I made the people apt to have and to obey a President and Council,

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like as I had planted in Munster. I took pledges of all such as I thought necessary to take pledges of. And so (having the Earl of Tomond with me) I passed through O'Shaghness' country and came to Salowe in Connaught, where I quieted and appeased sundry griefs and controversies between the Earl of Clanricard and other landlords of that province of Connaught. From thence I went through the same province to Alone, where I found everything in good quiet, in sort as I had left it, in my former long journey.

"But all this my doing for the Earl of Ormond and his could nothing satisfy him, but still he exclaimed in England that he could have no justice of me, nor of the Commissioners established in Munster, who were Sir Warham Sentleger, the second Baron of th' Exchequer, called Cusake, and Nicholas White, now Master of the Rolls in Ireland. Sir Warham Sentleger I knew, and do know him, for a worshipful, honest gent', and one that would not blemish his credit for either of both the Earls. Cusake I deemed to be more affected to Desmond than Ormond. White I knew, and all others that knew him thought [him] to be affectuously devoted to Ormond as one born his follower; and yet both honest.

"This composition of a Council I thought convenient for the primitive reformation of so old a cankered faction as was and yet is between the two Earls, who albeit they would inveigh each against other, yet if any sentence passed for the advancement of the Queen's prerogative, or suppression of either of their tyrannies, straightways it was cried out of, and complained of to the Queen, specially by the Earl of Ormond, as injustice and oppression; and thereupon received I many a bitter letter, which indeed tired me, and so perplexed my most dearest wife, as she fell most grievously sick upon the same, and in that sickness remained once in trance 52 hours, upon whose recovery I sent her into England."

I then addressed myself northward against Shane O'Nell, and wasted his country. He practised with Alister Oge MacDonnell, an Irish Scot, but upon the battle fought at the fort of Derry the most of his mercenary Scots left him. Captain Piers, seneschal of Clandeboy, did deal so as the traitor's practice was prevented. "And whereas he (O'Nell) looked for service at their (the Scots') hands against me, for service of me, they killed him the 22th day of June. And I began my wars with him the 22th of September before so the wars endured eight months, whereof three I spent in Munster about the Earl of Ormond's causes, as is above rehearsed. And [they] sent me his head pickled in a pipkin and craved their reward, and (as I think they be not lately satisfied) they do still, as I know not many years since in your presence at the Council board the forenamed Alister Oge did by his letters and Captain Piers's."

;

I then went down into Ulster as far as the Blackwater, where I had yielded to me all holds or fast-places that Shane