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
Archbishop's mind.' Meanwhile the country south of Dublin was at the
mercy of the rebels, and it was easy to know who sympathised with them.
'They religiously prey,' said Gerard, 'overskipping some, many have
taken oaths not to fight against them.' 2,000 Scots were plundering
loyal people in Ulster, and it was hard to see where it was to stop.[52]
[Sidenote: Grey attacks the Irish in Glenmalure.]
Baltinglas and Feagh MacHugh lay in the valley of the Liffey,
somewhere about Ballymore Eustace. On the approach of Grey's army
from the side of Naas they withdrew into Glenmalure, a deep and rocky
fortress--a combe, as the Devonian Hooker calls it--to the N.E. of
Lugnaquilla. The glen was thickly wooded, and at least four miles long,
and Colonel George Moore was ordered to enter it with about half the
army. Grey was more a knight-errant than a general, and he determined
to attack at once and in front, though warned by those about him of
the risk he was running. His object was to drive the rebels from
the covert, so that they might be shot or ridden down on the open
hillside. Old Francis Cosby, general of the Queen's kerne, who was a
man of extraordinary personal courage and of unrivalled experience in
Irish warfare, foresaw the danger; but he was not listened to, and he
boldly advanced to what he believed to be almost certain death. Jacques
Wingfield, the Master of the Ordinance, who doubtless remembered his
own overthrow nineteen years before, was present with his two nephews,
Peter and George Carew, and he vainly tried to dissuade them from
risking their lives. 'If I lose one,' he then urged, 'yet will I keep
the other,' and George, reserved, as Camden says, for greater things,
consented to stay by his uncle. Sir Peter, with Captain Audley and
Lieutenant Parker, were with Colonel Moore in front, while Sir Henry
Bagenal and Sir William Stanley brought up the rear. 'When we entered,'
says Stanley, 'the foresaid glen, we were forced to slide sometimes
three or four fathoms ere we could stay our feet. It was in depth at
least a mile, full of stones, rocks, bogs, and wood; in the bottom a
river full of loose stones, which we were driven to cross divers times.
So long as our leaders kept the bottom, the odds were on our side. But
our colonel, being a corpulent man, before we were half through the
glen, being four miles in length, led us up the hill that was a long
mile in height; it was so steep that we were forced to use our hands
as well to climb as our feet, and the vanward being gone up the hill,
we must of necessity follow.... It was the hottest piece of service
for the time that ever I saw in any place. I was in the rearward, and
with me twenty-eight soldiers of mine, whereof were slain eight, and
hurt ten. I had with me my drum, whom I caused to sound many alarms,
which was well answered by them that was in the rearward, which stayed
them from pulling us down by the heels. But I lost divers of my dear
friends.
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