The dogs of War

As soon as the reports began circulating of Spanish ships approaching the west coast rumours began to percolate of the treasures and loot that were to be found in those ships that were wrecked and on the bodies of Spanish sailors both living and dead who were washed ashore. The sense of crisis which swept over the country and the northwest in particular as Spaniards came ashore began to fade once it became clear the only reason the ships had come to these shores was to find fresh supplies, to carry out repairs or because the ships were lost. For five or six weeks a force of about 1,500 men under the leadership of Don Alonso de Leiva encamped at Killybegs while repairs were administered to the Galleass ‘Girona’. This was the only group that posed any real threat to the authorities but there was no will on their part to attack English forces in this realm. When the Girona set sail for Scotland on October 26th the threat of invasion dissipated. All that remained for the authorities was to attempt round up isolated groups of Spaniards roaming around the countryside and those being sheltered by sympathetic Gaelic chieftains.

There was also the question of the loot from the ships. Everybody wanted a part of it. Some twenty six ships had been wrecked on the Irish coast and while some were not accessible others were. Those that could be reached had been picked clean of anything of value by locals who were first on the scene. At Streedagh the waves tossed up great quantities of items which were picked up by large numbers of people combing the beach. In Blacksod bay in Mayo where a local sheriff was to quick to arrive at the wreck of the Duquesa Santa Ana he could only watch as a group of locals rowed out to the wreck and loaded up their small boat with salvageable. Fighting subsequently broke out when the Sheriffs men tried to intervene but the looters slipped away with their valuable cargo. The scene was repeated around the coast as local officials arrived too late to claim the contents of the Armada ships for the government. As the wrecks were looted stories spread of great treasures which were spirited away by locals. In the months which followed officials would be instructed to seek out where all the loot had been hidden by locals. In Mayo and Sligo tensions between locals and the English authorities would be exacerbated as unscrupulous officers used their commissions to ransack areas where Spanish treasure was suspected of being hidden. Men suspected of having obtained some of the loot were imprisoned and tortured to reveal the whereabouts of the stash.

In a region already agitated by the sudden appearance of the Armada and where earlier resistance to English officials had been crushed with extreme violence rebellion was not far from the surface. The autumn of 1588 brought a potent mix events which could very easily destablise the region. Fear, suspicion and resentment pervaded the region. In Dublin the Lord Deputy, Sir William Fitzwilliam, watched the events of September and October 1588 unfold from a distance. A constant stream of reports, rumour and counter rumour poured into Dublin Castle from his officials, agents and informers. The growing anxiety of the first few weeks gave way to a sense of relief that no major invasion force was advancing from the West. However there was a lingering worry that with Spanish soldiers on the loose in the countryside a belligerent Catholic clergy might encourage disaffected chieftains to take up arms. There was a fear that rebellion could erupt if action wasn’t taken. Spies were dispatched to monitor activities of suspect chieftains. He also needed to meet with his own officials to assess their activities.

While the Lord Deputy remained in Dublin he could never feel he had proper control of the situation. He felt he had to move West in order to assess the situation for himself. He was suspicious of some of his own officials particularly Sir Richard Bingham, the Governor of Connacht. Bingham was a dangerous man, a loose cannon and the two men didn’t particularly get along. Bingham had powerful friends at London. He was turning Connacht into his own personal fiefdom and had undermined Fitzwilliams predecessor, Sir John Perrot, when he tried to block his activities. It wasn’t just rebellious natives that Fitzwilliam had to contend with. While Bingham had kept the Lord Deputy informed of the developing situation with a succession of reports detailing his activities it seem he wasn’t informing his superior of everything. Despite ordering the execution of all captured Spaniards Fitzwilliam was hearing rumours that Bingham was now keeping a number of aristocrats alive in order to ransom them back to the Spanish authorities, a highly lucrative trade and a common practice at the time. So Bingham was defying his direct orders and in the process appeared to be attempting to line his own pockets. The question of loot from ships also arose. What was Bingham doing with this? Where was it? Would he keep this for himself as well? Clearly Fitzwilliam had to act to bring his own men into line. He had to go west young man.

By the first week of November, it was clear no more Spaniards were going to land. There did, however, remain a residue of survivors who had been given shelter by Gaelic Lords in various parts of the West and northwest. Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam signaled his intention to travel to Connacht and Ulster to review the situation. Reports suggested sizeable numbers of Spanish in the northwest which continued to brew a dangerous cocktail with the Irish. In a letter to the Privy Council he outlined his plans. ‘We send your Lordships of the Privy Council certain advertisements by which your Lordships may see that as some of the Spaniards seeking to steal away in a galley were wrecked, so it appears that the residue of the numbers of Spaniards remain, and are relieved by the M'Sweenys and others, and received into their castles by troops, to the end. to cherish them and make them the stronger for any bad enterprise which they will draw them unto, which is to us a vehement reason to hasten towards them, and make head against them, lest the longer they tarry the more infection they make, for that we find already that the name of the Spaniards worketh much in the hearts of the Irishry, which I will labour in this journey to remedy, by rooting out of their minds all bad impressions. And though some of them in some degree may have dangerously erred by practising with the Spaniards, yet I mean not so to lay those faults to their charge as thereby to move any stir or disturbance, but rather to defer them until in a better time they may be called to reason.

He left Dublin on November 3rd for a tour of the country just as winter was descending. It was seen as a risky venture by his advisors who cautioned against him taking such an arduous journey given the time of year and the potential dangers he was about to face. The Lord Deputy overrode all objections, mobilized 1,500 troops who would escort him and attempt to reassert both his and the Queen’s authority in Connacht and Ulster.

Fitzwilliam travelled first to Athlone to meet with Sir Richard Bingham. He ordered those prisoners remaining alive to be dispatched and, after receiving a further appraisal of events of the past weeks from Bingham, the Lord Deputy prepared to march to Sligo.

Accompanied by the governor of Connacht, The Lord Deputy’s entourage marched north to Sligo Ballymote castle was the main stronghold of the Bingham administration in the north of the province and was the scene of an attack by a combined force of Sligo clans and O’Rourke men when the Armada ships first arrived. The castle hadn’t been taken by the rebels who claimed to be acting for the King of Spain but Fitzwilliam would have seen the damage that had been inflicted on the village and buildings adjoining the castle. He would have recieved a report of the situation in the Sligo area from the Sheriff of Sligo, George Bingham. Establishing himself at Sligo town the Lord Deputy was reinforced by bands from Munster and Leinster. Here he met with shipping from Dublin and received much needed supplies for his men. Correspondence had been sent to him from Dublin and London and so the Lord Deputy was delayed in Sligo for a short time while he attended to some administrative business, writing instructions for the governor of Munster and replying to several letters received from Dublin and London. While he was in the town Fitzwilliam also appointed David Gwynn to oversee the recovery of Armada loot from ships in the Sligo area.

Departing Sligo Fitzwilliam and his entourage moved towards Ulster while he dispatched his messengers with various letters by ship to Dublin. He stopped, briefly, to survey the wreckage at Streedagh. As I passed from Sligo, having then gone 120 miles, I held on towards Bundrowes [in the county of Leitrim], and so to Ballyshannon the uttermost part of Connaught that way, as some say, but denied so to be by O'Donnell and his followers, and riding still along the sea coast, I went to see the bay where some of those ships wrecked, and where, as I heard, lay not long -before 1,200 or 1,300 of the dead bodies. I rode along upon that strand near two miles, (but left behind me a long mile and more), and then turned off from that shore, leaving before me " a mile and better's riding," in both which places they said that had seen it, there lay as great store of the timber of wrecked ships as was in that place which myself had viewed, being in mine opinion (having small skill or judgment therein) more than would have built five of the greatest ships that ever I saw, besides mighty great boats, cables, and other cordage answerable thereunto, and some such masts for bigness and length, as in mine own judgment I never saw any two could make the like’.

Bingham accompanied Fitzwilliam as far as Ballyshannon. As the Lord Deputy’s train proceeded along the coast most of the inhabitants fled. Fitzwilliam ‘found all the country and cattle fled into the strong mountains and fastness of the woods in their own countries and neighbours' adjoining, as to O'Rourke, O'Hara, the M'Glannaghies, Maguire, and others. And so found I until I came to Donegal, the ancient and chief house of the O'Donnells’. At Ballyshannon Bingham turned back for Sligo taking his bands of foot and horse with him. Owen M’Tool O’Gallagher was summoned from his castle at Belleek. O’Gallagher was an important figure in south Donegal, a confidante of the ruling O’Donnell clan and marshall of the O’Donnell forces. O’Gallagher would be able to appraise The Lord Deputy of the condition of the surrounding area. Fitzwilliam was now only six miles from Lough Melvin and the MacClancy stronghold at Rosclogher.

For a month or so De Cuellar had enjoyed his time at Rosclogher, flirting with the locals and making up stories as he read their palms. However, as Fitzwilliam and his men marched through Connacht on their way to Sligo news of the Lord Deputy’s approach went before him. By the time he was leaving Sligo all of the region had been alerted. Many of the inhabitants made their preparations and fled to the mountains. O’Rourke strongholds at Newtown on Lough Gill and at Dromahaire would have been abandoned for fear of an attack by the Lord Deputy or by Bingham. O’Rourke and his group of Spaniards would most likely have retired to his castle at Leitrim or one of his other castles away from the coast, deep within his territory. Messengers arrived at Rosclogher with word that Fitzwilliam was at Sligo and that Bingham was with him. It was alarming news. Bingham was familiar with the area and people were familiar with what that man was capable of. Two years earlier he had destroyed of force of Scottish mercenaries who were marching through to support the Burkes of Mayo who were in revolt. The Scots force had over twice the number of men Bingham had at his disposal but they had been routed on the banks of the river Moy near Ballina and only a handful of survivors had escaped to tell the tale. No Scots warriors had ventured into the province since then. That rebellion had been crushed mercilessly. The rebels finally submitted in fear lest Bingham laid waste to the whole region.

On the shores of Lough Melvin De Cuellar and his hosts listened with growing anxiety as messengers brought news of the progress of the Lord Deputy’s men. The Queen’s governor ‘set out at once with seventeen hundred soldiers in search of the shipwrecks and the people who had escaped. There couldn’t have been many, fewer than a thousand men, roaming naked and unarmed in the places where each ship foundered. Most of these the governor caught and hanged at once; he inflicted other penalties too, and imprisoned the people he found sheltering us, doing them all the injury he could, so this journey cost us dear. And he seized three or four savage chieftains who had castles where they had sheltered some Spaniards, took both parties prisoner, and marched them along the entire coastline until he came to the part where I was wrecked.’ As Fitzwilliam marched along the coastline inspecting the beach at Streedagh and then advancing to Ballyshannon it was the turn of the people of Dartry to run. ‘One Sunday after mass, the chieftain, his locks down to his eyes and burning with anger took us aside and told us he couldn’t delay any longer and had decided to flee with all his people, cattle and families; and that we should think about what we wished to do to save our lives. I replied that he should calm down a bit and that we would soon give him our answer’. For De Cuellar and his companions the situation was stark. They had to decide what they were going to do and they had to decide fast. Their own hosts were about to flee high into the mountains. The Queen’s deputy was hunting for them, he was close by and he knew where they were. The dogs of war were on their way.