James Charles Roy - The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: Brysketts Cottage

The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland

Also by James Charles Roy

The Road Wet, The Wind Close: Celtic Ireland

Islands of Storm

To the Land of the Free from this Island of Slaves: Henry Stratford Persses Letters from Galway to America 1821-1821 With James L. Pethica

The Vanished Kingdom: Travels Through the History of Prussia

The Fields of Athenry: A Journey Through Irish History

The Back of Beyond: A Search for the Soul of Ireland

James Charles Roy

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

Pen & Sword Military

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright James Charles Roy 2021

ISBN 978 1 52677 072 1

eISBN 978 1 52677 073 8

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52677 074 5

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Endpapers The English army under Sir Henry Sidney puts Irish rebels to flight: John Derrick, The Image of Ireland , 1581.

For

Alix Cochran Hackett

&

Dana Blennerhassett Roy

All your heads with garlands crownd

15561558 Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Essex (under the title Governor of Ireland)

15591560 Vacant (Radcliffe mostly in England)

15601564 Thomas Radcliffe (under the title Lord Lieutenant) 1564-1565 Sir Nicholas Arnold (under the title Lord Justice)

15651571 Sir Henry Sidney

15711575 William Fitzwilliam

15751578 Sir Henry Sidney (second tour of duty)

15781580 Vacant (Privy Council & Lord Justices)

15801582 Arthur, Baron Grey of Wilton

15821584 Vacant (Privy Council & Lord Justices)

15841588 Sir John Perrot

15881594 William Fitzwilliam (second tour of duty)

15941597 William Russell, Baron Russell of Thornhaugh

1597 Thomas Burgh, Baron Strabolgi

1598 Vacant (Privy Council & Lord Justices)

1599 Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (under the title Lord Lieutenant)

16001603 Charles Blount, Baron Mountjoy

16031604 Sir George Carey

16051616 Arthur Chichester, Baron Chichester

I think that when the Devil took our Saviour Jesus Christ to the pinnacle of the Temple, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, he kept this of Ireland hidden, so as not to disgust our Saviour; or else he thought to keep it for himself, for I believe that it is the Inferno itself, or some worse place.

Robert Cecil, 1601

In the evening, I return to my house and go into my study. At the door I take off my clothes I have worn all day, mud spotted and dirty, and put on regal and courtly garments. Thus appropriately clothed, I enter into the ancient courts of ancient men, where, being lovingly received, I feed on that food which is mine alone and which I was born for; I am not ashamed to speak with them and ask the reasons for their actions, and they courteously answer me. For four hours I feel no boredom and forget every worry; I do not fear poverty, and death does not terrify me. I give myself completely over to the ancients.

Niccol Machiavelli, 1513

O n a lovely spring day in 1582, or thereabouts, eight gentlemen took a walk out into the countryside from the walled town of Dublin, the principal seat of English government in Ireland. The settlement, defined by its walls and sixteen gates, stood on the south side of the river Liffey, and occupied a site of about seventy acres. A census in 1660 established a population of 9,000 inhabitants; we may presume that in the 1580s that figure may have been in the 5,000 range. The streets were dirt, cramped, and hemmed in by wooden buildings, most with roofs of straw. For Barnaby Rich, an English soldier who spent over forty years of his life in Ireland, it was not a vision that reminded him of London, the housing stock being neither outwardly fair nor inwardly handsome. Sanitation, however, may have kindled memories of home, being primitive and unwholesome, and the atmosphere about the byways, rough and burly. Some of our party of eight would probably have passed Christ Church Cathedral, founded in 1035 by a Norse chieftain (Dublin was first settled by Vikings), one of the few stone buildings in the place. Others might have left work early, treading through the courtyard of Dublin Castle with which they were all familiar, being officials (more or less) who had business there, many on a daily basis (as Bryskett was to write, each of these men lay in the bosom of the state). Their way would have been over the castles stone bridge, depicted in a woodcut by John Derricke printed in 1581, which crossed a boggy moat, a diversion of a stream called the Poddle, full of garbage and stink. Joining with the others, and continuing through a city gate,

After about a mile they arrived at a country idyll built by their mutual friend, Lodowick Bryskett, who had recently resigned as clerk to the Irish privy council. Bryskett says he was delighted to leave that position, the work being onerous and the hours long. He states as well that his health had grown impaired, that he was now happy to be living in a retired state so as to concentrate on gardening and his true love, the world of letters and philosophical contemplation; to, as it were, gather myself into a little compass, as a snail into its shell. However, a hermit he was not, and desirous of good company he had invited like-minded companions to gather at his newly built cottage for an afternoon or so of elevated conversation. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, St Augustine these paragons of the intellectual past would flow back and forth, but mostly forth from Brysketts learned tongue. When he took the time to recover his breath, one or another of his colleagues would throw in a question or assertion, and then Bryskett would continue his monologue. The whole point of the exercise was to be the exposition of moral philosophy, how a gentleman traversing the halls of power and responsibility in the service of his queen, Elizabeth I, could and should comport himself while keeping true to the highest principles of ethical conduct. A weighty subject, and it took Bryskett three days of exposition to make his points.