The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (22 page)

INSTEAD I DWELLED on the Earl of Desmond, his betrayal of me and of Ireland. I wallowed in hate and anger. Dreamed of revenge. I wrote letters to Richard, long and detailed, of plans for assaults on Gerald—letters I knew he ’d never receive. I outfitted ships with rows of cannon, imagined thousands of Burkes and O’Flahertys descending on Askeaton. I designed grim weapons of siege. Dreamed of Desmond on his knees, no more than a skeleton, begging for mercy.

The man had stolen my freedom, and there was no mercy to be had from me.

My salvation came not one day too soon. On a frozen morning in November, a whole company of guards came to remove me and two more Irish rebels from Limerick Gaol. President Drury had requested my presence in Dublin—or so the captain of the guard told me—though the prison there was to be my new home. I remember little of the over land haul, for I was half dead with misery and cold, and unwilling to hope for a happy end to the journey. The two rebels in transport with me did nothing to quell my fears, for they spoke of the horrors of Dublin Prison. There was no rack there for torture, they said, but men’s feet were roasted in their boots over hot coals instead. And Dublin was the hanging ground for all of Ireland. They told how the English living there missed the sight of executions, which were numerous in their homeland, and how condemned rebels were brought in from all parts of Ireland to feed their appetites.

But once in Dublin and the prison, I found some reason for hope. I’d been given a cell of my own. ’Twas no dungeon either. A proper room it was, with a small window overlooking the prison yard, a bed, a bench, and a table. There was even a brazier, though the jailors—all English—

were stingy with coal, and I nearly froze that winter, chilblains afflicting my hands.

I wondered to what or to whom I owed these improved conditions, and I soon found out. ’Twas President Drury who, not long after my arrival, came for a visit to my room. Earlier that day the guard, a surly Englishman, had brought a good load of coal for the fire. Grumbling, he ’d even lit it for me, and I knew something was afoot.

Drury looked sicker than he ’d been in Limerick, flushed with fever and a constant wheeze in his lungs. ’Twas quite alarming, as I believed the poor man was my only salvation. “Have you all that you need, Mistress O’Malley?” he asked, quite sincere.

“All but my freedom.”

“Do you wonder why you’re here?” he said, warming his hands at the brazier.

“To be hung at the queen’s pleasure?”

He was taken aback by my directness, and then looked meek. “Well, perhaps in the future that may be your fate. But your present improvement in circumstance,” he continued almost brightly, “is due to intervention by your champion at the English court.”

“My champion?”

“Philip Sidney.”

“Blessed man!”

“He wrote to the queen herself. Sang your praises. His word may not be enough to save you from a traitor’s death, but at least from misery in Limerick Gaol.”

Drury’s red face grew suddenly pale and he lowered himself onto my bench. “Forgive me,” he said in a weak voice.

“What’s makin’ you so ill?”

“This godforsaken country,” he said with no apology. “For years I served Her Majesty bravely in Scotland—forced the surrender of Edin-burgh Castle—and this is the reward I get. Appointment as Lord Justice in a land of savages.”

“I think you’re exaggeratin’.”

“I was in Limerick to see an execution.” His eyes glazed over, remembering. “The man was beheaded, his body drawn and quartered . . .”

“A savage
English
custom,” I reminded him.

“. . . and a woman ran forward and took up the head, and sucked the blood from it, crying that the earth was not worthy to drink it! I’ve spent most of my personal fortune to sustain this administration, for the queen will not support it with her own. When she sends troops they are paltry—altogether inadequate—made up of convicts and scoundrels, with arms and provisions for an army half its size. She is haunted by Ireland, yet chooses most often to ignore it. She despises spending her money on what she calls ‘that unhappy island,’ and procrastinates most blatantly when dealing with Irish problems. Yet perversely, she sends the finest of her men—soldiers and administrators—to deal with it, and all of them who do not die here return shattered and ill.” Drury raked his fingers through his thinning hair. “I’ve lost my health and reputation in this desolate land.” His mouth quivered. “My wife has threatened that if I do not take her back to London, she will leave me.”

“Why would you stay, in that case?”

“I’m a loyal servant of the queen,” he replied, as if I’d asked why he continued to breathe. “Outside of her court and her favor . . . there is nothing of value in England. Nothing.”

“And how is my dear friend the Earl of Desmond?”

“Living quietly at Askeaton.”

“Peacefully?”

“Yes.”

“The queen’s loyal servant?”

“She and her Privy Council have never forgotten his deliverance of yourself into English custody.”

“I was
that
important?”

He nodded silently, with a sly smile. I believed then that the man liked me, and I thought I’d push my luck.

“Would you give me means to write, and permission to send as well as receive letters?”

“To whom would you write?”

“My husband and children.”

“And you would promise me not to plot your escape?”

“You have my word,” I told him.

“Lord Sidney had it.”

“ ’Twas my
husband’s
word.”

“Now I’ll have yours.”

I held his eyes. He
did
like me. Wished fervently to believe me. I nodded my promise. He stood and moved to the door.

“One more thing,” I said. He turned back. “You’ll give me fair warnin’ if I’m to be executed.”

“I will.”

I wondered at Drury’s promise, as one week apart the two Irish rebels who’d come with me from Limerick were hanged like dogs and sun-dried in front of my eyes. The first time, they’d shackled the prisoners—

all of us—and took us out to the yard for a blessed breath of air, we believed. Then a company of English guards marched out to a drumbeat, in stiff formation, followed by the doomed man. Suddenly we knew

’twas no “breath of fresh air” but a group torture, forcin’ us to behold the grisly spectacle, fuel for our nightmares. Well, the Irishman bein’ led to the gibbit behaved himself with the greatest bravery, even when his captors denied him a priest, givin’ him the choice of a Protestant clergy-man . . . or nothing, which is by some ways of thinking a choice between Heaven and burnin’ eternally in the pits of Hell. He refused them the satisfaction of hearing their heretic prayers, and we in the yard all prayed after him, silent and fervent and hopin’ our prayers would speed him in the right direction. Still, it was hard, for the poor bastard swung and kicked for a long time, and finally shat himself when he let go of his miserable life. They forced us to stand for the longest time, watchin’ his dead body swing, purple tongue bulgin’ from his mouth, until the first crow soared down in a spiral, landed on his shoulder, and plucked out his eye.

Jesus, it was cruel, and it shook me to the core. Was I next? Could I trust Drury to tell me the truth?

My only true joy were the letters I received from my family, and knowledge they were receivin’ mine as well. The hours I’d sit at my table writing were the best of my day. I would study the letters from Tibbot, more and more often with bits of Latin thrown in, and I’d silently bless old MacTibbot for forwarding my son’s education. But I’d write to Tibbot sternly, with corrections, and admonitions to study even harder.

Richard’s letters, in Gaelic, were the crude epistles of a man with an indifferent education. They were nevertheless filled with news of Connaught and the invasion by Drury’s most recent field commander there, Nicholas Maltby. All the chieftains there were playin’ the game of alliance to the Crown—one day loyal, the next at attack—and Maltby was a right scourge to the countryside.

I’d been right about Drury. He liked his famous female captive and found in me a sympathetic ear. He would come to my cell and we ’d talk, sometimes for hours, of the strange times we lived in. His health seemed worse with every visit, a man of my own age who looked a hundred. He was careful to keep from his enemy—me—all intelligence that, divulged, could hurt the royal cause, but I gathered much from his tales of personal woe. He continued to beg the Crown for help in liftin’ the financial burden of Ireland off his poor shoulders. He wished, he said, to taste the queen’s bounty, and in fact Lord William Cecil obliged him with four thousand pounds. But it was soon spent, and before long he was worried again for his frail constitution, and the fate of his wife should he die, all his money wasted in this desolate land. Worse, for all his trouble, he was sure that certain men of power in London were plotting his replacement.

For my part I whispered in his ear about the Earl of Desmond, who still swore his loyal obedience to the Crown. I painted him as he was A  TRAITOR!” Elizabeth finished for Grace, sitting forward in her chair. Grace could see her eyes flashing with anger.

“He was that, all right,” she agreed. “The thing about Gerald, he was a traitor to England and Ireland both.” Elizabeth’s countenance grew hard remembering, and Grace continued. “When Desmond’s cousin Fitzmaurice returned to Munster he landed at Fort dell Oro with the English Jesuit Father Sanders, and nine hundred troops from the Holy Father . . .”

“That was the real beginning . . . my worst fears realized.” Elizabeth’s body had grown straight and rigid.

“Aye. I suppose they would have been. For Sanders brought
religion
to the war. Very powerful, that.”

“And threats that Philip of Spain would follow with
his
armies, my direst nightmare,” said Elizabeth, looking pale. “Spanish troops massing just across the Irish Channel from England.”

“Well, your English forces—puny as they were—made quick work of those nine hundred Italians at the Fort. I heard about it in Dublin Prison. I’d been whispering madly in William Drury’s ear about Desmond. But he ’d not listened. Drury wished desperately to believe in Gerald’s loyalty. That he and his four thousand Munstermen would refuse to join his cousin Fitzmaurice to fight the English, but rise up to fight
for
the English. I told him he was dreamin’ if he thought Desmond would do such a thing. But then, to complicate things further still, Gerald’s brother, John, became involved, raising
his
army against the Crown. Now all the Desmonds were squabbling amongst themselves for power to lead the rebellion.”

“And then one day,” Elizabeth began, “the Earl of Desmond’s four-thousand-man army—that which we ’d counted upon to defend Munster—simply vanished.”

“It would have seemed that way to you. Of course the Irish knew where they’d gone—over to John of Desmond—and we knew ’twas only a matter of time till Gerald showed his true colors—that he was loyal to no one but himself. But I have to thank the Earl of Desmond for his treachery to the Crown, for it proved
my
case against him. Lord Drury saw it as my willingness to help the English cause. To him ’twas a show of my loyalty. He set me free, God bless his heart.” Elizabeth eased back in her chair again, though a haunted expression lingered on her face as Grace began her story again.

’TIS IRONIC THAT Fitzmaurice was killed not by the English, but by an Irishman, and a Burke at that. Only one part of the Burke clan was Protestant, and it was James Fitzmaurice ’s bad fortune that in the course of his rebellion he should run into one of the few Irishmen truly loyal to the Crown. Fitzmaurice was mortally wounded by a local Burke, but managed to get away with his men. He knew he was dyin’ and ordered them to behead him and hide his head, knowin’ the English would use that part of him for a trophy. His orders were followed all right, and his torso hidden in a tree. Indeed, the English found the body and carted it off to Limerick, where they hung it beside the cathedral to rot away to nothing.

That was how the Earl of Desmond inherited a full-on uprising, thousands of Irish rebels, a Jesuit priest, and the Pope ’s blessing to fight a holy war against England. Aye, the Desmond rebellion—the second one—was more brutal even than the first. It raged on for three years and took the lives of half a
million
Irish, destroying what had been a most beautiful land.

But back in Connaught I had troubles of my own.

Well, of course I was thrilled to be goin’ home, to have my freedom again. But the Connaught I returned to was under siege, indeed the whole of Ireland was besieged, crawlin’ with English who saw us all as the world ’s most detestable creatures. And my own life, that had changed as well. It was, in the coming years, to be dominated by three men—a teenaged son who needed protectin’, an English governor who thought me an abomination of womanhood, and a feckin’ idiot for a husband.

I arrived at Burrishoole in a fierce winter storm at the turn of the new year of 1580 to find nobody home. ’Twas dark and gloomy in the keep and not the welcome I’d dreamt of after nearly two years in prison. But soon I heard that Richard was coming, and my children—all except Tibbot.

My son Owen was first to arrive, alone, for his wife, Katherine, daughter of old Edmund Burke, had almost died two months before, givin’ birth to their first child. Murrough, who came next, had not a good word for anyone. His brother, he insisted, planting his filthy boots on my table, had gone fat and soft. He was ashamed to count Owen as his kin.

For me, his own mother, there was nary a word of sentiment and only a gruff embrace. Murrough had never married and it didn’t surprise me, always content as he was with the Galway whores. ’Twas said that he ’d sired several bastards, but they’d been girls, and he hadn’t bothered to claim them as his own.

I was greatly alarmed by Margaret’s arrival with Devil’s Hook, for the girl was too far gone with pregnancy to’ve been traveling in such weather. But I was most gratified to seem them both, for they loved each other the way a man and wife should do, and the drafty old keep grew warm by virtue of their presence alone.