Great Ralegh. Hugh De Sélincourt

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СКАЧАТЬ and mere motion we have given and granted and by these presents for us our heires and successours doe give and grant to our trustie and well beloved servant Sir Humfrey Gilbert of Compton in our Countie of Devonshire knight, and to his heires and assignes for ever free libertie and license from time to time and at all times for ever hereafter to discover, finde, searche out and view such remote heathen and barbarous landes countries and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people, as to him his heires and assignes and to every or anie of them shall seem good: and the same to have hold, occupy and enjoy. … " run the letters patent with their royal paraphernalia of phrase.

      And in September, 1578, Gilbert had overcome the initial difficulty of collecting provisions sufficient to victual his eleven ships for a year, and of picking the right men for the enterprise, two matters of enormous importance. In the latter he was not successful. Sir Francis Knollys owned some of the ships, and his son went on the expedition. This son sowed dissension where unity was a vital necessity; he insulted Sir Humfrey Gilbert, and at length deserted. Contrary winds delayed the expedition, which became disorganized, and after a fight with the Spaniards was recalled. Ralegh was captain of a ship named the Falcon, and that was in all probability his first engagement at sea.

      The expedition was on such a large scale that the Spanish authorities in England clamoured for its recall; and there is ample evidence, as Edwards remarks, to show that Ralegh was as much feared and hated in 1578 by the Spaniards, as ever he was at any later period of his career. They tried always to thwart his great scheme of colonization, the greatness of which they realized, seeing the danger of it to their own possessions, and for a time they succeeded in their aims.

      It is in connection with this expedition that Ralegh's name first appears in the Council Book.

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

THE ARRIVAL

       Table of Contents

      In Ireland—The state of the country—Cruelty of the wars—At Rakele—Illustrative anecdotes—Smerwick—Ralegh's initiative—Lord Grey de Wilton—Exploit at Bally—In touch with the home authorities.

      The scene changes to Ireland, where the continual fighting served as a training-ground—with France and the Netherlands—for the energies of the young gentleman of the period. Ireland seemed at this time to popish powers a suitable starting-place from which to overset the rule of the woman Elizabeth, who dared to establish again a Church independent of Rome, and to put her woman's self at the head of it. But the popish powers were mistaken in their choice. It is true that the Irish were devoutly Catholic; they were better pleased however to fight out their own feuds than to join together in any way for any cause. They were lawless and savage; and not even their hatred of the invading English could serve to concentrate them. They were far too impatient for serious warfare. They liked to come upon a foe—a Butler on a Geraldine—like a whirlwind, fight a terrific battle, and make off to their homes to listen to the songs by their bards, chanted in praise of their undying prowess, "as those Bardes and rythmers doe for a little reward or a share of a stolen cow," until the man of prowess praised "waxed most insolent and halfe madde with the love of himself and his own lewd deeds. Of a most notorious thiefe … one of their Bardes will say, That he was none of the milkesops that was brought up by the fireside, but that most of his dayes he spent in armes and valiant enterprises, that he did never eat his meat until it was won by the sword, that he lay not all night slugging under his mantle but used commonly to keep others waking to defend their lives, and did light his candle at the flames of their houses to bade him in the darknesse … and finally that he died not bewayled of many, but made many waile when he died, that dearly bought his death."

      Such men were not ripe for the burden of a great cause. But one Sanders, an English Jesuit already past middle age, meeting with Fitzmaurice in Spain, formed a capital project of passing over to Ireland, subduing it, and passing from Ireland to England and driving out Elizabeth and her nation of Protestants.

      In May, 1579, they landed at Dingle, after having on their voyage taken a small Bristol vessel, the sailors and captain of which they pitched into the sea. The landing at Dingle was impressive as the ceremony, which inaugurated the coming of the true religion, must needs be. "Two friars stepped first on shore; a bishop followed, mitre on head and crosier in hand, then Sanders, with the consecrated banner, and after him Fitzmaurice."

      But the expedition did not rise to the level of its inauguration. It served only to stir up a savage rebellion in Munster, and to bring devastation upon the country.

      It was to help quell the insurrection that Ralegh came to Ireland as captain of a company of one hundred foot-soldiers at the end of 1579, or the beginning of 1580.

      The war—if war it can be called—was carried on with savage cruelty on both sides. Less could not be expected. The times were not gentle, when little girls in London might see men hung and quartered, and limbs stared down from the chief gates of most cities. Nor would mercy be expected from generals who came to Ireland as Pelham came, and as Lord Grey de Wilton came, regarding Ireland as the grave of reputation. To Ralegh, too, the service was itself distasteful. He writes with characteristic vigour of phrase to the Earl of Leicester, "I would disdayn it as mich to keap sheepe. I will not trouble your honor with the busyness of this loste land; for that Sir Warram Sentleger can best of any man deliver unto your lordshipe the good, the bad, the mischief, the means to amende, and all in all of this common welthe or rather common woe."

      The English soldiery regarded the Irish as savages who would not live at peace, and must be exterminated, with the exception of the actual tillers of the ground or churls as they were called. And this point of view was encouraged by those in authority, who had neither men nor money to spare for guarding and feeding prisoners. "Death," as Froude says, "was the only gaoler their finances could support." Nothing can extenuate cruelty; but it is well to face the fact that cruelty, and cruelty not greatly less atrocious than this, was an absolute attribute of the Elizabethan age. The one quality, which runs through all the pages of every history of every man and every movement, is vitality—intense, burning vitality; and this vitality illumined the literature, chaotic as much of it is, and beat pulsing through the veins of the nation, explaining its magnificent advance, and enthusiasm and greatness, even as it explains its brutality. England was like a boy who is suddenly conscious of being strong and of being free, with all the capacity of some young Hercules and all his reckless faults.

      When Ralegh joined the Irish service, Lord Justice Pelham was in the position of Lord Deputy. Soon after his arrival, however, Pelham was recalled, greatly to his pleasure, and Lord Grey de Wilton, Gascoigne's patron and general in the Netherlands, undertook the command of the forces, and the Earl of Ormond, an Irishman, was made Lieutenant of Munster. These were Ralegh's chiefs; and his criticism of their methods of management first brought him, as will be seen later, under the direct notice of the great Burghley.

      As an active soldier, however, his exploits are exciting and adventurous, and they are not hidden in the obscurity which hid his exploits in France. The same Hooker who has been already quoted, records them with pride in his continuation of Holinshed's Chronicles.

      Ralegh was once stationed with a troop of cavalry at Rakele under Lord Grey. He was always a well-eyed man and observed that the Irish were in the habit of hurrying down upon an encampment immediately it had been abandoned. Accordingly, he made a plan to surprise them, and the plan was successful. He captured a considerable number of prisoners. One of the Irish carried a bundle of withies, and Ralegh went up to him and asked him why he carried the withies. "To hang English churls with," was the blunt СКАЧАТЬ