The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (53 page)

Au t h o r ’ s N o t e

During the writing of this book, I found myself questioning why the sixteenth-century history of the Irish-English conflict—“the Mother of All the Irish Rebellions”—has been utterly ignored or forgotten. This episode was by far the largest of Elizabeth’s wars and the last significant effort of her reign. It was also the most costly in English lives lost, both common and noble. By some estimates, the rebellion resulted in half the population of Ireland dying through battle, famine, and disease, and the countryside—through the burning of forestland—was changed forever.

Yet almost no one studies it, writes of it, or discusses it, even as the impact of that revolt continues to make headlines across the world more than four hundred years later.

Likewise, few people outside Ireland have ever heard of Grace O’Malley, surely one of the most outrageous and extraordinary personalities of her century—at least as fascinating a character as her contemporary and sparring partner Elizabeth I. Of course history is written by the victors, and England was, by all accounts, the winner of the Irish Rebellion of the sixteenth century. But the mystery only deepens when we learn that the 
only 
contemporary knowledge we have of Grace ’s exploits—other than through Irish tradition and legend—is recorded not in Ireland’s histories, but by numerous references and documenta-tion in 
England’s Calendar of State Papers, 
as well as numerous official dispatches sent by English captains and governors such as Lords Sidney, Maltby, and Bingham.

As hard as it is to believe, Grace O’Malley’s name never once appears in the most important Irish history of the day, 
The Annals of the Four
 
Masters
. Even in the two best modern books on the Irish Rebellion—

Cyril Fall’s 
Elizabeth’s Irish Wars 
and Richard Berleth’s 
The Twilight
 
Lords
—there is virtually no mention made of her. Tibbot Burke receives only slightly better treatment. Why is this? Anne Chambers, author of my two “bibles” on the lives of Grace O’Malley ( 
Granuaile: The Life and
 
Times of Grace O’Malley
) and Tibbot Burke ( 
Chieftain to Knight
)—the only existing biographies of mother and son—suggests that as for the early historians, they might have had so little regard for women in general that Grace ’s exclusion would be expected. As for the modern historians, it is troubling that in their otherwise highly detailed books, the authors should ignore such a major player in the history of the period.

It was the mysteries of this period that excited me, spurring me to write this story, to find logical ways to fill those gaping “holes in history.” The first and most baffling question is why Elizabeth—already a cranky old woman, deeply troubled by the loss of men and money in Ireland—would allow a known rebel and infamous pirate to march into Greenwich Castle and demand an audience, then grant Grace O’Malley all the rather substantial requests that she made of the queen.

While most students of Elizabethan history know that the Earl of Essex was the queen’s last favorite (and perhaps her lover), and was executed for treason, most don’t realize that the catalyst for his downfall was his involvement in the Irish Rebellion. I wondered why Elizabeth used and abused him as she did before, during, and after sending him to Ireland. His powers as a commander had already diminished, and she knew she ’d be sending a very sickly man into an environment that had already claimed the lives of dozens of her ablest noblemen. She appeared posi-tively bent on Essex’s destruction. While she showed leniency to the Earl of Southampton, a man she loathed, for his part in Essex’s attempted coup, she denied the same to Essex himself, someone she had once deeply loved.

And finally, what possessed Essex to meet in private with O’Neill at Louth and sign a truce with him when he must have known it was political suicide?

The facts we do have about Grace O’Malley tell a fascinating story.

She did have a public meeting with Elizabeth in 1593 at Greenwich Castle, causing a stir with her nose blowing and comments on English hygiene. Previous to this the queen had sent, and Grace had answered, an “interrogatory” of eighteen questions (these are reproduced fully in Chambers’s 
Granuaile
). We can therefore surmise that Elizabeth was not only aware of Grace ’s activities, but was particularly interested in her life. History does not record any further meetings between the two women, but to my mind the public meeting might not have fully satisfied Elizabeth’s curiosity, and does not explain 
why 
the queen granted Grace her requests. Thus, the second meeting in Elizabeth’s rooms, while clearly fiction, does not seem an impossibility.

There is no documented proof of Essex’s making face-to-face contact with Grace and Tibbot. But we do know that Essex, only months before the public meeting of Grace and Elizabeth at Greenwich, had been named Privy Councilor, was constantly at Court, and was enthusiastically involved in the affairs of state. When he learned that the notorious Irish pirate Grace O’Malley was meeting with Elizabeth, there is little doubt he would have insisted on being present. That Robert Devereaux was Grace ’s deliverer to Elizabeth’s rooms, and that he overheard the conversations, is a literary device. But the truth is that Essex did inhabit his stepfather, the Earl of Leicester’s old rooms at Greenwich Castle, and there was a secret passageway between them and Elizabeth’s bedchamber—one that the young queen and her handsome horsemaster had used in years past to keep their trysts private.

While history does not record any meetings between Essex and Grace in Ireland, we do know that Essex and Tibbot (encouraged by Conyers Clifford) were friendly, and that Essex, knowing Tibbot’s worth in the war effort, made every attempt to keep him happy. Essex, once in Ireland, issued orders “to assure him [Tibbot] of my good affection, of my resolution to take to the protection of him and his, to heap upon him as many favors and benefits I can in any way.” We also know that Grace and Tibbot, while on opposite sides of the conflict, were still in contact, and it’s not inconceivable that while Essex was on his Munster campaign and visit to Limerick, he and Tibbot (and Grace) might have met there.

A central conflict of the story is Tibbot ’s dilemma. It is representative of the same one faced by virtually every Irish chieftain of the time—and I was fortunate that his struggle was relatively well documented. We know that while Richard Bingham was brutalizing Connaught, he kidnapped the teenage Tibbot and held him hostage. Tibbot was imprisoned by Red Hugh O’Donnell as they battled for control of the MacWilliam title, and he was alternately lured by the English and Red Hugh to take sides in the conflict. Tibbot’s firstborn son, Miles, was given as hostage to the English, and at the battle in the Curlew Mountains his friend Conyers Clifford was killed, his severed head presented to Tibbot in a crock. Finally we know that Tibbot Burke chose loyalty to the English over the Irish, and subsequently became an important player in English-Irish politics.

As for Essex’s decidedly foolhardy decision to meet and make peace with O’Neill at Louth, few historians have delved deeply into his motivations for such an act. Every one of Essex’s biographers record that his health was bad both before and after the meeting, that he ’d suffered bouts of fever, dysentery, and was battered—body and mind—by terti-ary syphilis. Essex was surely as confused and vulnerable as he had been in the Azores, but with England’s very future at stake, the pressure on him had never been so severe. Cyril Falls admits, “It is not easy for the modern mind to measure the enormity of the Lord Lieutenant’s folly in conversing with Tyrone without witnesses.” Yet all Falls says about the meeting itself is that after saluting the English earl with reverence, Tyrone and Essex “for half an hour talked alone.” Lytton Strachey, in 
Essex, a Tragic History, 
and G. B. Harrison—to whom I am eternally grateful for including in his 
Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex 
complete transcripts of all Essex’s and Elizabeth’s important correspondences to each other during this time—are equally as brief and nonanalytical.

Robert Lacey in his brilliant modern biography, 
Robert, Earl of Essex,
 puts it down to Essex forgetting the political implications of his act, and even forgetting the reality of his outnumbered and diseased army, instead being “seduced” by Tyrone ’s “simple chivalry . . . the gentle lilt of Tyrone ’s voice and the moderate logic of the Irish terms.” Not much to go on.

So if I’ve taken liberties in this partnership of imagination and history, it was in the name of clarity and good storytelling—a desire to connect as many dots as possible and make whole one of the most ignored but fascinating sagas of the sixteenth century. It is important to understand this period of Irish rebellion, not least because of the light it throws on events in Ireland ever since. England persists in occupying and claiming dominion over Irish soil, and the Catholics of Ulster continue to resist. It may seem that the policies of Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth are quaint echoes of the past, but the spirit of courage and defiance that animated rebels such as Hugh O’Neill and Grace O’Malley still lives in countless Irish hearts today.

Ac k n ow ll e d g m e n t s

First and foremost, author Anne Chambers must be thanked, for without her singular biographies of Grace O’Malley and her son Tibbot Burke ( 
Granuaile 
and 
Chieftain to Knight
), this book could never have been written. Her painstaking research, fashioned into eminently readable history, brought these two otherwise undocumented Irish rebels alive.

During a research trip for an altogether different project, my Irish-born friend and writing partner, Billie Morton, led us straight—if unknowingly—into Grace O’Malley country. There we were besieged by countless western Irishmen and -women who insisted on regaling us with tales of their most famous and beloved heroine. I thank Billie for the serendipitous discovery of my subject, and also for her subsequent support in every phase of the writing of this book.

Lynn Anderson, friend and fellow writer, made enormous contribu-tions in the early days, while this story was first taking form.

As always I am truly appreciative of my indefatigable agents, Kim Witherspoon and Marie Massie, and their wonderful associates who provide unfailingly wise counsel and lift the burden of business from my shoulders.

I am deeply grateful to my editor, Carolyn Marino—the book’s champion and cheerleader from the start—whose hard work and impeccable editorial judgment kept me on the straight and narrow. Her tireless assistant, Jennifer Civiletto, perfectly completed the editorial team.

But my most heartfelt thanks are reserved for my husband, Max Thomas, who lives the writing of all my books with me. His honesty, enthusiasm, and support make everything possible.

About the Author

ROBIN MAXWELL is the bestselling author of 
The
 
Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn
, 
The Queen’s Bastard
, and 
Virgin: Prelude to the Throne
. She lives in California.

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A llls o b y R o b i n M a x w e ll ll 
Virgin: Prelude to the Throne

The Queen’s Bastard

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn