Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, Vol. 1 (of 3), 1603-1642Bagwell, Richard
History
Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, Vol. 1 (of 3), 1603-1642
Bagwell, Richard
Ireland -- History -- 17th century
The new army of which St. Leger had been so proud had become somewhat
disorderly when their pay began to be irregular. But the actual
disbandment was quietly effected. Pay ceased on May 25, but the Council
managed to scrape up 8000_l._, out of the 18,000_l._ due. Each soldier
was persuaded to take seven shillings as a donative and three shillings
on account of pay, while 50_l._ was assigned to each company for the
officers, many of whom got nothing more until the Restoration. The men
gave up their arms quietly, and dispersed, having been reminded that
they were amenable to the law and not privileged in any way. There were
no outrages, and sheriffs of counties were specially charged to keep
the peace.[254]
[Sidenote: French and Spanish crimps.]
[Sidenote: English settlers pressed.]
The disbanded soldiers in Ireland constituted a grave danger, as every
one could see when the rebellion had actually broken out, and which
some saw at the time of disbanding. But the other danger from great
bodies of Irishmen in the pay of foreign powers seemed to many greater
at the time, and was certainly not small. Antrim had failed, but
Lord Barrymore had succeeded in raising men for service in England,
most of whom must have drifted back to Ireland after the treaty of
Ripon. Barrymore complained bitterly of a 'swarm of interloping French
mountebanks who wander on their levies with titles and commissions
of their own stamp and coinage, with which they are so prided up, as
some of them have dared to contest for pressed men with my employed
servants.' Three hundred volunteers, collected for him by an O'Sullivan
were thus enticed away, and he believed that Strafford's enemy Sir
Piers Crosbie was at the bottom of it all. Barrymore landed in
Lancashire before the middle of June 1639, but with much less than the
thousand men whom he was authorised to raise. He had no money to tempt
recruits, and when his agents visited Kinsale the common people ran
away as from an enemy. They took bribes from the better sort. These
crimps even seized men actually engaged by the Government and employed
in the public service, and appear to have taken a malicious pleasure
in pouncing on English settlers whenever possible. Strafford observed
that this was not the way to encourage English enterprise, nor to make
intended plantations a success. If the King wanted Irish soldiers let
him send over money to the regular officials, and they would do the
work much better and cheaper than these Irish lords, 'who always either
out of too much love to their own, or out of over little knowledge
of the customs of England in these cases, express some Irish manner
or other, either very unseemly in itself, or pretending their own
greatness, further than well consists with the modesty of subjects.'
Barrymore, however, proved a brave and loyal soldier in spite of this
bad beginning.[255]
[Sidenote: Recruiting for Spain allowed.]
[Sidenote: Owen Roe O'Neill and Preston.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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