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
They were laid all along the wood as we should pass, behind
trees, rocks, crags, bogs, and in covert. Yet so long as we kept the
bottom we lost never a man, till we were drawn up the hill by our
leaders, where we could observe no order; we could have no sight of
them, but were fain only to beat the places where we saw the smoke of
our pieces; but the hazard of myself and the loss of my company was the
safeguard of many others... were a man never so slightly hurt, he was
lost, because no man was able to help him up the hill. Some died, being
so out of breath that they were able to go no further, being not hurt
at all.'[53]
[Sidenote: Defeat of the English.]
Carew and Audley had a dispute at the outset, and the loud talk of
two usually quiet and modest officers had a very bad effect on their
men. The renegade captain, Gerald Fitzmaurice, had full information
from Kildare's people, if not from the Earl himself, and he knew the
companies had never been together before. They contained many raw
recruits, and he rightly calculated that they would be thrown into
confusion by an unseen enemy. The soldiers fresh from England wore
red or blue coats, and Maltby, who was with Grey in the open, saw how
easily they were picked off. 'The strangeness of the fight,' he adds,
'is such to the new-come ignorant men that at the first brunt they
stand all amazed, or rather give back to the enemy.... Their coats
stand them in no stead, neither in fashion nor in giving them any
succour to their bodies. Let the coat-money be given to some person of
credit, with which, and with that which is also bestowed on their hose,
they may clothe themselves here with jerkins and hose of frieze, and
with the same money bring them every man a mantle which shall serve him
for his bedding and thereby shall not be otherwise known to the rebels
than the old soldiers be.' The recruits wavered, the kerne ran away to
the enemy, and so 'the gentlemen were lost.'
Stanley says not above thirty Englishmen were killed, but Moore, Cosby,
Audley, and other officers were among them. Grey thought the rebels
were fewer than the soldiers, who were stricken by panic. Sir Peter
Carew was clad in complete armour, which proved more fatal than even
a red coat. Suffocated from running up hill he was forced to lie down
and was easily taken. It was proposed to hold him to ransom, 'but one
villain,' says Hooker, 'most butcherly, as soon as he was disarmed,
with his sword slaughtered and killed him, who in time after was also
killed.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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