The Land-War in Ireland. James Godkin
a brief and brilliant campaign, in which Shane 'swept round by Lough Erne, swooped on the remaining cattle of Maguire, and struck terror and admiration into the Irishry,' he wrote a letter to Charles IX. of France, inviting his co-operation in expelling the heretics, and bringing back the country to the holy Roman see. The heretic Saxons, he said, were the enemies of Almighty God, the enemies of the holy Church of Rome, the King's enemies, and his. 'The time is come when we all are confederates in a common bond to drive the invader from our shores, and we now beseech your Majesty to send us 6,000 well-armed men. If you will grant our request there will soon be no Englishmen left alive among us, and we will be your Majesty's subjects ever more.' This letter was intercepted, and is now preserved among the Irish MSS.
Sidney resolved to adopt a new plan of warfare. His campaigns would not be mere summer forays, mere inroads of devastation during the few dry weeks of August and September. He would wait till the harvest was gathered in, place troops in fortresses, and continue hostilities through the winter. He adopted this course because 'in the cold Irish springs, the fields were bare, the cattle were lean, and the weather was so uncertain that neither man nor horse could bear it, whereas in August food everywhere was abundant, and the soldiers would have time to become hardened to their work.' They could winter somewhere on the Bann; harry Tyrone night and day without remission, and so break Shane to the ground and ruin him. There was no time to be lost. Maguire had come into Dublin, reporting that his last cottage was in ashes, and his last cow driven over the hill into Shane's country; while Argyle, with the whole disposable force of the western isles, was expected to join him in summer. O'Neill himself, after an abortive attempt to entrap Sidney at Dundalk, made a sudden attack on that town in July; but his men were beaten back, 'and eighteen heads were left behind to grin hideously over the gates.' He then returned to Armagh and burned the cathedral to the ground, to prevent its being again occupied by an English garrison. He next sent a swift messenger to Desmond, calling for a rising in Munster. 'Now was the time or never' to set upon the enemies of Ireland. If Desmond failed, or turned against his country, God would avenge it on him. But Desmond's reply was an offer to the deputy 'to go against the rebel with all his power. The Scots also held back.' Shane offered them all Antrim to join him, all the cattle in the country, and the release of Sorleyboy from captivity; but Antrim and its cattle they believed that they could recover for themselves, and James M'Connell had left a brother Allaster, who was watching with eager eyes for an opportunity to revenge the death of his kinsman, and the dishonour with which Shane had stained his race.
In the meantime troops and money came over from England, and on September 17, Colonel Randolph was at the head of an army in Lough Foyle; and the lord deputy took the field accompanied by Kildare, the old O'Donel, Shane Maguire, and O'Dogherty. So that this war against O'Neill was waged for the dispossessed Irish chiefs as well as for England. Armagh city they found a mere heap of blackened stones. Marching without obstruction to Ben brook, one of O'Neill's best and largest houses, which they found 'utterly burned and razed to the ground,' thence they went on towards Clogher, 'through pleasant fields, and villages so well inhabited as no Irish county in the realm was like it.' The Bishop of Clogher was out with Shane in the field. 'His well-fattened flock were devoured by Sidney's men as by a flight of Egyptian locusts.' 'There we stayed,' said Sidney, 'to destroy the corn; we burned the country for 124 miles compass, and we found by experience that now was the time of the year to do the rebel most harm.' But he says not a word of the harm he was doing to the poor innocent peasantry, whose industry had produced the crops, to the terrified women and children whom he was thus consigning to a horrible lingering death by famine. This was a strange commencement of his own programme to treat the people with justice.
The lord deputy expected to meet Randolph at Lifford; but struck with the singular advantages presented by Derry, then an island, for a military position, he pitched his tents there, and set the troops to work in erecting fortifications. Nothing then stood on the site of the present city, save a decrepid and deserted monastery of Augustine monks, which was said to have been built in the time of St. Columba.
Sidney stayed a few days at Derry, and then, leaving Randolph with 650 men, 350 pioneers, and provisions for two months, he marched on to Donegal. This was once a thriving town, inhabited by English colonists. At the time of Sidney's arrival it was a pile of ruins, 'in the midst of which, like a wild beast's den, strewed round with mangled bones, rose the largest and strongest castle which he had seen in Ireland. It was held by one of O'Donel's kinsmen, to whom Shane, to attach him to his cause, had given his sister to wife. At the appearance of the old chief with the English army, it was immediately surrendered. O'Donel was at last rewarded for his fidelity and sufferings; and the whole tribe, with eager protestations of allegiance, gave sureties for their future loyalty.' Sidney next directed his march to Ballyshannon, and on by the coast of Sligo. Passing over the bogs and mountains of Mayo, they came into Roscommon, and then, 'leaving behind them as fruitful a country as was in England or Ireland all utterly waste,' the army crossed the Shannon at Athlone, swimming 'for lack of a bridge.' The results of this progress are thus summed up by Mr. Froude. 'Twenty castles had been taken as they went along and left in hands that could be trusted. In all that long and painful journey Sidney was able to say that there had not died of sickness but three persons; men and horses were brought back in full health and strength, while her majesty's honour was re-established among the Irishry, and grown to no small veneration—"an expedition comparable only to Alexander's journey into Bactria," wrote an admirer of Sidney to Cecil—revealing what to Irish eyes appeared the magnitude of the difficulty, and forming a measure of the effect which it produced. The English deputy had bearded Shane in his stronghold, burned his houses, pillaged his people, and had fastened a body of police in the midst of them, to keep them waking in the winter nights. He had penetrated the hitherto impregnable fortresses of mountain and morass; the Irish who had been faithful to England were again in safe possession of their lands and homes. The weakest, maddest, and wildest Celts were made aware that, when the English were once roused to effort, they could crush them as the lion crushes the jackal.'9
O'Neill had followed the lord deputy to Lifford, and then marched on to the Pale, expecting to retaliate upon the invaders with impunity. But he was encountered by Warren St. Leger, lost 200 men, and was at first hunted back over the border. He again returned, however, with 'a main army,' burned several villages, and in a second fight with St. Leger, compelled the English to retire, 'for lack of more aid;' but they held together in good order, and Shane, with the Derry garrison in his rear, durst not follow far from home in pursuit. 'Before he could revenge himself on Sidney, before he could stir against the Scots, before he could strike a blow at O'Donel, he must pluck out the barbed dart which was fastened in his unguarded side.'
In order to accomplish this object, he hovered cautiously about the Foyle, watching for an opportunity to attack the garrison. But Randolph fell upon him by surprise, and after a short sharp action, the O'Neills gave way. O'Dogherty with his Irish horse chased the flying crowd of his countrymen, killing every person he caught; and Shane lost 400 men, the bravest of his warriors. The English success was dearly bought, for Randolph leading the pursuit, was struck by a random shot, and fell dead from his horse.
Before the Irish chief could recover from this great disaster, Sidney 'struck in again beyond Dundalk, burning his farms and capturing his castles. The Scots came in over the Bann, wasting the country all along the river side. Allaster M'Connell, like some chief of Sioux Indians, sent to the captain of Knockfergus an account of the cattle that he had driven, and the wives and bairns that he had slain. Like swarms of angry hornets, these avenging savages drove their stings in the now maddened and desperate Shane on every point where they could fasten; while in December the old O'Donel came out over the mountains from Donegal, and paid back O'Neill with interest for his stolen wife, his pillaged country, and his own long imprisonment and exile. The tide of fortune had turned too late for his own revenge: worn out with his long sufferings, he fell from his horse, at the head of his people, with the stroke of death upon him; but before he died, he called his kinsmen about him, and prayed them to be true to England and their queen, and Hugh O'Donel, who succeeded to his father's command, went straight to Derry, and swore allegiance to the English crown.
'Tyrone was now smitten in all its borders. Magennis was the