Mr. James Golde, Attorney-General for Munster, writing from Tralee, thus describes the manner of Fitzmaurice’s landing, which took place on the day after his arrival at Dingle: —
‘The traitor upon Saturday last came out of his ship. Two friars were his ancient-bearers, and they went before with two ancients. A bishop, with a crozier-staff and his mitre, was next the friars. After came the traitor himself at the head of his company, about 100, and went to seek for flesh and kine, which they found, and so returned to his ships.’13 On the same day they burned the town, lit fires on the hills as if signalling to some expected allies, and then shifted their berths to Smerwick harbour, taking with them as prisoners some of the chief inhabitants of Dingle. At Smerwick they began to construct a fort, of which the later history is famous. It was believed that Fitzmaurice expected immediate help out of Connaught. ‘Ulick Burke is obedient,’ said Waterhouse; ‘but I believe that John will presently face the confederacy.’ Drury could only preach fidelity, and commission Sir Humphrey Gilbert to take up ships and prosecute the enemy by sea and land.14
Fitzmaurice brought to Ireland two printed proclamations – one in English for those who spoke it and were attached to the English crown, the other in Latin for the Irish and their priests.
The first paper sets forth that Gregory XIII. ‘perceiving what dishonour to God and his Saints, &c… hath fallen to Scotland, France, and Flanders, by the procurement of Elizabeth, the pretensed Queen of England; perceiving also that neither the warning of other Catholic princes and good Christians, nor the sentence of Pope Pius V., his predecessor, nor the long sufferance of God, could make her to forsake her schism, heresy, and wicked attempts; now purposeth (not without the consent of other Catholic potentates) to deprive her actually of the unjust possession of these kingdoms, &c.’ Any attack on the Crown of England is disclaimed; the usurper was alone aimed at, and the help of the English Catholics was considered certain. The Catholics were everywhere, but ‘Wales, Chestershire, Lancastershire, and Cumberland’ were entirely devoted to the old faith, and their proximity to Ireland increased their importance. Throughout England the husbandmen – the raw material of every army – were ‘commonly all Catholics.’ Elizabeth had a few friends indeed, but she would be afraid to send them away from her, and if Ireland remained united, all must go well. One great crime of Queen Elizabeth was her refusal to declare an heir-apparent; by espousing the cause of that heir, whose name is not mentioned, the reward of those who worship the rising sun might fairly be expected. Fitzmaurice explained that the Pope had appointed him general because he alone had been present at Rome, but that he intended to act by the advice of the Irish prelates, princes, and lords, ‘whom he took in great part for his betters.’ And his appeal ends thus: ‘This one thing I will say, which I wish to be imprinted on all our hearts, if all we that are indeed of a good mind would openly and speedily pass our faith by resorting to his Holiness’ banner, and by commanding your people and countries to keep no other but the Catholic faith, and forthwith to expel all heresies and schismatical services, you should not only deliver your country from heresy and tyranny, but also do that most godly and noble act without any danger at all, because there is no foreign power that would or durst go about to assault so universal a consent of this country; being also backed and maintained by other foreign powers, as you see we are, and, God willing, shall be; but now if one of you stand still and look what the other doth, and thereby the ancient nobility do slack to come or send us (which God forbid), they surely that come first, and are in the next place of honour to the said nobility, must of necessity occupy the chief place in his Holiness’ army, as the safeguard thereof requireth, not meaning thereby to prejudice any nobleman in his own dominion or lands, which he otherwise rightfully possesseth, unless he be found to fight, or to aid them that do fight, against the Cross of Christ and his Holiness’ banner, for both which I, as well as all other Christians, ought to spend our blood and, for my part, intend at least by God’s grace, Whom I beseech to give you all, my lords, in this world courage and stoutness for the defence of His faith, and in the world to come life everlasting.’15
The whole document is a good example of the sanguine rhetoric in which exiles have always indulged, and of the way in which the leaders of Irish sedition have been accustomed to talk. The part assigned to continental powers and to English Catholics in the sixteenth century, was transferred to the French monarchy in the seventeenth, and to the revolutionary republic in the eighteenth; and now, in the nineteenth, it is given to the United States of America, and to the British working-man.
A translation of the shorter paper may well be given in full: – ‘A just war requires three conditions – a just cause, lawful power, and the means of carrying on lawful war. It shall be made clear that all three conditions are fulfilled in the present case.
‘The cause of this war is God’s glory, for it is our care to restore the outward rite of sacrifice and the visible honour of the holy altar which the heretics have impiously taken away. The glory of Christ is belied by the heretics, who deny that his sacraments confer grace, thus invalidating Christ’s gospel on account of which the law was condemned; and the glory of the Catholic Church they also belie, which against the truth of the Scriptures they declare to have been for some centuries hidden from the world. But in the name of God, in sanctification by Christ’s sacraments, and in preserving the unity of the Church, the salvation of us all has had its chief root.
‘The power of this war is derived first from natural, and then from evangelical, law. Natural law empowers us to defend ourselves against the very manifest tyranny of heretics, who, against the law of nature, force us, under pain of death, to abjure our first faith in the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, and unwillingly to receive and profess a plainly contrary religion; a yoke which has never been imposed by Christians, Jews, or Turks, nor by themselves formerly upon us. And so since Christ in his gospel has given the help of the kingdom of heaven – that is, the supreme administration of his Church – to Peter, Gregory XIII., the legitimate successor of that chief of the Apostles in the same chair, has chosen us general of this war, as abundantly appears from his letters and patent (diploma), and which he has the rather done that his predecessor, Pius V., had deprived Elizabeth, the patroness of those heresies, of all royal power and dominion, as his declaratory decision (sententia), which we have also with us, most manifestly witnesseth.
‘Thus we are not warring against the legitimate sceptre and honourable throne of England, but against a she-tyrant who has deservedly lost her royal power by refusing to listen to Christ in the person of his vicar, and through daring to subject Christ’s Church to her feminine sex on matters of faith, about which she has no right to speak with authority.
‘In what belongs to the conduct of the war, we have no thoughts of invading the rights of our fellow-citizens, nor of following up private enmities, from which we are especially free, nor of usurping the supreme royal power. I swear that God’s honour shall be at once restored to Him, and we are ready at any moment to lay down the sword, and to obey our lawful superiors. But if any hesitate to combat heresy, it is they who rob Ireland of peace, and not us. For when there is talk of peace, not with God but with the Devil, then we ought to say, with our Saviour: I came not to bring peace on earth, but a sword. If then we wage continual war to restore peace with God, it is most just that those who oppose us should purchase their own damnation, and have for enemies all the saints whose bones they spurn, and also God himself, whose glory they fight against.
‘Let so much here suffice, for if anyone wishes to understand the rights of the case he need but read and understand the justice and reasonableness of the fuller edict which we have taken care should be also published.’16
In