Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 3 (of 3)Bagwell, Richard
History
Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 3 (of 3)
Bagwell, Richard
Ireland -- History -- 16th century
Slowly and painfully Cuellar made his way to what he calls a monastery,
probably the round tower and church of Drumcliff, which is about five
miles from the scene of the shipwreck. He found no living friends in
this ancient foundation of St. Columba, but only the bodies of twelve
Spaniards, hanged 'by the Lutheran English' to the window gratings
inside the church. An old woman, who was driving her cows away for fear
of the soldiers, advised him to go back to the sea, where he was joined
by two naked Spaniards. Miserable as they were, they picked out the
corpse of Don Diego from among more than 400, and buried him in a hole
dug in the sand, 'with another much-honoured captain, a great friend
of mine.' Two hundred savages came to see what they were doing, and
they explained by signs that they were saving their brethren from the
wolves and crows, which had already begun their ghastly work. As they
were looking for any chance biscuits which the sea might have cast up
four natives proposed to strip Cuellar, who alone had some clothes,
but another of higher rank protected him. While on his way to this
friendly partisan's village, he met two armed young men, an Englishman
and a Frenchman, and a 'most extremely beautiful' girl of twenty, who
prevented the Englishman from killing, but not from stripping, the
wretched Spaniard. A gold chain worth 1,000 reals was found round his
neck, and forty-five ducats sewn up in his doublet, being two months'
pay received before leaving Corunna. He protested that he was only a
poor soldier, but it was nevertheless proposed to detain him as worth
ransom. Cuellar records, with some complacency, that the girl pitied
him much, and begged them to return his clothes and to do him no more
harm. His doublet was restored, but not his shirt, nor a relic of great
repute which he had brought from Lisbon, and which 'the savage damsel
hung round her neck, saying, by signs, that she meant to keep it, and
that she was a Christian, being as much like one as Mahomet was.' A
boy was ordered to take him to a hut, to put a plaster of herbs on his
wound, and to give him milk, butter, and oatmeal cake.[175]
[Sidenote: A visit to O'Rourke.]
[Sidenote: Cuellar is enslaved by a smith;]
[Sidenote: but escapes to MacClancy.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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