Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum, Vol. I (of 3), 1603-1642. Bagwell, Richard
February. Edmondes remonstrated with the President Richardot about the favour shown to rebels against his sovereign, but that wily diplomatist gave him very little satisfaction. The greater part of the Irish who came over with Tyrone or who had since repaired to him were provided for by the creation of two new companies in Henry O’Neill’s regiment, but the Earls were not allowed to go to Spain, and when they left Louvain in February 1608 they passed through Lorraine to avoid French territory, and so by Switzerland into Italy. According to information received by the English Privy Council, the Netherlanders were glad to be rid of them, they having ‘left so good a memory of their barbarous life and drunkenness where they were.’36
Though there is no reason to suppose that any treachery was intended, Tyrone can hardly be blamed for mistrusting the English Government and avoiding London. He told Sir Anthony Standen at Rome that it was ‘better to be poor there than rich in a prison in England.’ And yet this may have only been a pretext, for his eldest son Henry told Edmondes that he believed the principal grievances to be religion, the denial of his jurisdiction over minor chiefs in Ulster, and the supposed intention of erecting a presidency in that province. Many obscure rumours preceded his flight. In February 1607 George St. Lawrence or Howth gave evidence of a plot to surprise Dublin Castle and to seek aid from Spain; but he incriminated no one except Art MacRory MacMahon and Shane MacPhilip O’Reilly. He was probably a relation of Sir Christopher St. Lawrence, who became twenty-second Baron of Howth in the following May, but it does not appear how far they acted in unison. The new Lord was a brave soldier, who had fought for Queen Elizabeth at Kinsale and elsewhere, but was both unscrupulous and indiscreet. In 1599, according to Camden, he had offered, should Essex desire it, to murder Lord Grey de Wilton and Sir Robert Cecil. Under Mountjoy he had done good service in command of a company, but the gradual reduction of the forces after Tyrone’s submission left him unemployed, and he was very needy. Chichester wished to continue him in pay, or at least to give him a small pension, so that he might be saved from the necessity of seeking mercenary service abroad. Nothing was done, and he went to Brussels in the autumn of 1606, but had little success there. Chichester suggested that the Archduke’s mind should be poisoned against him, so that he might come home discontented and thus dissuade other Irish gentlemen from seeking their bread in the Spanish service. That Howth was known to be a Protestant, even though he might occasionally hear a mass, was probably quite enough to prevent the Archduke from employing him. Among the Irish residents there was his uncle the historian, Richard Stanihurst, and another priest named Cusack, also related to him, and from them he heard enough to make him return to London and to give information to Salisbury. By the latter’s advice probably he returned to the Netherlands, where he met Florence Conry, the head of the Irish Franciscans, who told him that it was decided to make a descent on Ireland ‘within twenty days after the peace betwixt the King our master and the King of Spain should be broken.’ Spinola or some other great captain was to command the expedition, Waterford and Galway to be the places of disembarkation. Conry himself was to go to Ireland to sound the chief people, and it appears from the evidence of a Franciscan that he was actually expected to arrive in the summer of 1607, but that he did not go there. Howth advised a descent near Dublin, and according to his own account he made this suggestion so as to ensure failure. He said there was a large sum ready for Tyrconnel’s use at Brussels, and this was probably the very money afterwards given to Maguire for the purchase of a ship. This information was supplemented by that of Lord Delvin, and there was doubtless a strong case against Tyrconnel. Against Tyrone there was nothing but hearsay rumours as to his being involved with the others. Tyrconnel divulged to Delvin a plan for seizing Dublin Castle with the Lord Deputy and Council in it: ‘out of them,’ he said, ‘I shall have my lands and countries as I desire it’ – that is, as they had been held in Hugh Roe’s time. His general discontent and his debts were quite enough to make him fly from Ireland, and this disposition would be hastened by the consciousness that he had been talking treason, and perhaps by the knowledge that his words had been repeated. Spanish aid could not be hoped for unless there was a breach between England and Spain; and of that there was no likelihood. Tyrone must have understood this perfectly well, but Chichester had long realised that he would always be discontented at having lost the title of O’Neill and the tyrannical jurisdiction exercised by his predecessors. Perhaps he really believed there was an intention to arrest him in London. Some sympathy may be felt for a man who had lived into an age that knew him not, but the position which he sought to occupy could not possibly be maintained.37
On May 18, 1607, an anonymous paper had been left at the door of the Dublin council chamber, the writer of which professed his knowledge of a plot to kill Chichester and others. According to this informer the murders were to be followed by the seizure of the Castle and the surprise of the small scattered garrisons. If James still refused to grant religious toleration, the Spaniards were to be called in. Howth was not in Ireland, but Chichester noticed that the anonymous paper was very like his communications to Salisbury. He arrived in Ireland in June, when he was at once subjected to frequent and close examinations. Chichester was at first very little disposed to believe him, but the sudden departure of the Earls went far to give the impression that he had been telling the truth. ‘The Earl of Tyrone,’ said the Deputy when announcing the flight, ‘came to me oftentimes upon sundry artificial occasions, as now it appears, and, by all his discourses, seemed to intend nothing more than the preparation for his journey into England against the time appointed, only he showed a discontent, and professed to be much displeased with his fortune, in two respects: the one, for that he conceived he had dealt, in some sort, unworthily with me, as he said, to appeal from hence unto his Majesty and your lordships in the cause between Sir Donald O’Cahan and him; the other because that notwithstanding he held himself much bound unto his Majesty, that so graciously would vouchsafe to hear, and finally to determine the same, yet that it much grieved him to be called upon so suddenly, when, as what with the strictness of time and his present poverty, he was not able to furnish himself as became him for such a journey and for such a presence. In all things else he seemed very moderate and reasonable, albeit he never gave over to be a general solicitor in all causes concerning his country and people, how criminal soever. But now I find that he has been much abused by some that have cunningly terrified and diverted him from coming to his Majesty, which, considering his nature, I hardly believe, or else he had within him a thousand witnesses testifying that he was as deeply engaged in those secret treasons as any of the rest whom we knew or suspected.’ There is here nothing to show that any treachery was intended to Tyrone in England, but there was a report in Scotland that he would never be allowed to return into Ireland. And so the matter must rest. Tyrone was now old, his nerves were not what they had been, and if he believed that he would be imprisoned in London, that does not prove that any such thing was intended.38
Lord Howth was not the only magnate of the Pale who was concerned in the intrigues which led to the flight of Tyrone and the plantation of Ulster. Richard Nugent, tenth Baron of Delvin, a young man of twenty-three, was son to the Delvin who wrote an Irish grammar for Queen Elizabeth and nephew to William Nugent who had been in rebellion against her. He had been knighted by Mountjoy in Christchurch, Dublin, at the installation of Rory O’Donnell as Earl of Tyrconnel, and had a patent for lands in Longford which the O’Farrells had asked him to accept on the supposition that they were forfeited to the Crown. It turned out that there had been no forfeiture, and he was forced to surrender, Salisbury remarking that the O’Farrells were as good subjects as either he or his father had been. The business had cost him 3,000l., and he was naturally very angry. His mother was an Earl of Kildare’s daughter, and Sir Oliver St. John told Salisbury that he was ‘composed of the malice of the Nugents and the pride of the Geraldines.’ He became involved in Howth’s schemes, and confessed that he had ‘put buzzes into the Earl of Tyrone’s head,’ telling him that he had few friends at Court and that the King suspected his loyalty. For his own part he was willing
Statements made by Christopher Lord Howth between June 29 and August 25, 1607, No. 336; Lord Delvin’s confession, November 6, 1607; examination of John Dunn, February 14, 1606-7; examination of the Franciscan James Fitzgerald, October 3, 1607; secret information in Wotton’s handwriting, 1607, No. 897; Chichester to Devonshire, April 23, 1606, after the latter’s death, but before it was known in Ireland.
State Papers,