Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T02:16:36.614Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hugh O'Neill and the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Hiram Morgan
Hiram Morgan
Affiliation:
Queen's University of Belfast
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Tudor regime faced its greatest challenge in Ireland at the turn of the sixteenth century. The extension of royal authority had run into fierce opposition from a confederacy of Gaelic lords led by Hugh O'Neill. The Tudors stigmatized such resistance as rebellion but the fact that it was taking place in a dependent kingdom in which the monarch was not resident quickly rendered it a war of liberation. This prompts comparison with the other great independence struggle of the early modern period – the Dutch revolt. In both cases the language of faith and fatherland came to the fore. In Ireland this rhetoric was directed at the English-speaking descendants of the Norman conquerors whose support was crucial to the success of O'Neill's cause. Yet it fell on deaf ears because the confederates were unable to legitimize their struggle in the eyes of these catholic loyalists. The sources of political and religious legitimacy were stronger in The Netherlands. While the Netherlandish provincial estates were founts of popular sovereignty, the Irish parliament was an organ of the Tudor state. And whereas in Holland the source of ecclesiastical authority was the non-hierarchical Dutch Reformed Church, in Ireland it was externalized in the person of Clement VIII who could not be won over in spite of the efforts of Peter Lombard, O'Neill's agent in Rome.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 1993 , pp. 21 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Mitchel, J., The life and times of Aodh O'Neill (Dublin, 1845), p. viiiGoogle Scholar.

2 Elton, G. R. (ed.), The new Cambridge modern history (Cambridge, 1958), II, ch. XIVGoogle Scholar; Kossman, E. K., ‘Popular sovereignty at the beginning of the Dutch Ancien Régime’, The Low Countries History Yearbook, XIV (1981), 1–4Google Scholar.

3 Machiavelli addressed this issue. He was opposed to princes ruling foreign kingdoms from a distance because the unsupervised activities of their officials would lead to corruption and the alienation of the native people: The Prince, trans. Bull, G. (Harmondsworth, 1961), pp. 36–7Google Scholar.

4 New Camb. Mod. Hist., II, 327–9.

5 For the causes of this conflict see Morgan, Hiram, Tyrone's rebellion: the outbreak of the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland (Woodbridge, 1993)Google Scholar.

6 Parker, G., The Dutch revolt (Harmondsworth, 1977), ch. 1Google Scholar; British Library (B.L.), Additional MS 4792, fos. 96–110.

7 Parker, , ‘Why did the Dutch revolt last eighty years?’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, XXVI (1970), 61–3Google Scholar; Cambridge University Library (C.U.L), MS Kk I 15 fos. 133–77.

8 The apologie of the Prince of Orange against the proclamation of the king of Spain, edited after the English version of 1581 by Wansink, H. (Leiden, 1969), pp. 155–60Google Scholar; Public Record Office (P.R.O.), Irish State Papers, S.P. 63/179/20–1, fos. 33–7.

9 For a general look at nationalism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries see Elliot, J. H., ‘Revolution and continuity in Early Modern Europe’, Past and Present, XLII (1969), 35–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Duke, A., ‘From king and country to king or country? Loyalty and treason in the revolt of the Netherlands’, Trans. R. Hist. Soc., 5th series, XXXII (1987), 124–31Google Scholar.

11 Schama, Simon, The embarrassment of riches (1987), ch. IIGoogle Scholar.

12 Hagan, J., ‘Some papers relating to the Nine Years War’, Archivium Hibernicum, II (1913), 290Google Scholar.

13 Canny, Nicholas, From Reformation to Restoration: Ireland, 1534–1660 (Dublin, 1987), p. 20Google Scholar; Bradshaw, B., The Irish constitutional revolution of the sixteenth century (Cambridge, 1979), p. 181CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P.R.O., S.P. 63/4/22(7–10), fos. 50–53 & 20/49, fos. 106–7.

14 Ronan, M. V., The Reformation in Ireland under Elizabeth (London, 1930), p. 353Google Scholar.

15 Ibid. pp. 613–21. See also O'Donovan, J. (ed.), ‘The Irish correspondence of James Fitz Maurice of Desmond’, Proc. Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 2nd series, II (1858–1859), 354–69Google Scholar.

16 The Walsingham letter-book or register of Ireland, May 1578 to December 1579, ed. Hogan, J. & O'Farrell, N. McNeill (Dublin, 1959), pp. 223–6Google Scholar.

17 C.U.L., Ms Kk I 15 fo. 134; Cal. Carew MSS, III, 179.

18 Col. S. P. Ire., VII, 358–9.

19 Ibid. p. 409.

20 Ibid. p. 420.

21 B.L., Add. MS 38,139/1, pt. B, fos. 10–11; Dublin, Trinity College (T.C.D.), MS 578/12, fo. 31.

22 Dublin, Marsh's Library, MS Z3 I 19/7.

23 Cal. S. P. Ire., VIII, 279–80.

24 Ibid. p. 341.

25 Ibid. p. 327.

26 Ibid. p. 203.

27 Cal. S. P. Ire., IV, 493–4.

28 Cal. S. P. Ire., VII, 334.

29 B.L., Add. MS 34,313 fos. 116–17, 119.

30 Bradshaw, , Irish constitutional revolution, pp. 276–82Google Scholar.

31 College of Arms, Betham Papers, ‘Repertory to records of the Exchequer: Philip and Mary to James I’, p. 99; P.R.O., Miscellaneous Irish Papers, S.P. 65/7, fo. 29 & S.P. 63/117/52, fo. 122.

32 See Brady, C., ‘Conservative subversives: the community of the Pale and the Dublin administration, 1556–86’, Radicals, rebels and establishments: Historical Studies XV, ed. Corish, P. J. (Belfast, 1985), pp. 11–33Google Scholar.

33 Ronan, , Reformation in Ireland, pp. 298–305, 388–99, 468–99Google Scholar; Bradshaw, , Irish constitutional revolution, pp. 285–8Google Scholar.

34 For example see Greene, D. (ed.), Duanaire Mhéig Uidhir (Dublin, 1972)Google Scholar.

35 Northampton Record Office, Fitzwilliam Papers, Ireland/68.

36 Kamen, H., The rise of toleration (London, 1967), pp. 145–50Google Scholar.

37 Kossman, E. H. and Mellink, A. L., Texts concerning the revolt of the Netherlands (Cambridge, 1974), p. 20Google Scholar.

38 Ibid. p. 20.

39 Ibid. p. 37.

40 Ibid. pp. 40–51.

41 Cal. S. P. lre., VIII, 493–4.

42 Ibid. p. 497.

43 Conway, D., ‘Guide to documents of Irish and British interest in Fondo Borghese, series II–IV’, Archivium Hibernicum, XXIV (1961), 77–8Google Scholar.

44 Corish, P. J., ‘The origins of catholic nationalism’, in The history of Irish Catholicism, ed. Corish, P. J. (Dublin, 1967), pt. 8, III, 15Google Scholar.

45 Cal. S. P. Ire., IX, 7.

46 F. M. Jones, ‘The Counter-Reformation’, in Irish Catholicism, ed. Corish, pt. 3, III, 41–53.

47 Silke, J. J., Kinsale (Liverpool, 1970), pp. 83–4Google Scholar.

48 Byrne, M. J., The Irish war of defence 1598–1600: extracts from the ‘De Hibernia Insula commentarius’ of Peter Lombard, archbishop of Armagh (Cork, 1930)Google Scholar.

49 Lombard, Peter, De regno Hiberniae, sanctorum insula, commentarius, ed. Moran, P. F. (Dublin, 1868)Google Scholar.

50 Ronan, , Reformation in Ireland, pp. 298–303, 470–90Google Scholar.

51 Lennon, C., Richard Stanihurst, the Dubliner, 1547–1618: A biography with a Stanihurst text ‘On Ireland's past’ (Dublin, 1981), pt. 3Google Scholar.

52 Lombard, , Commentarius, XIV–XVGoogle Scholar; Hagan, J., ‘Miscellanea Vaticano-Hibernica’, Archivium Hibernicum, III (1914), 241Google Scholar.

53 Silke, , Kinsale, pp. 94–5, 107Google Scholar.

54 Cal. Carew MSS, III, 523; Cal. S. P. Ire., X, 154.

55 Quoted in Stafford, Thomas, Pacata Hibernica, ed. O'Grady, S. (2 vols., London, 1896), I, 298Google Scholar.

56 Silke, , Kinsale, pp. 117–19Google Scholar.

57 Oxford, Bodleian Library, [Laud] MS 612, fos. 91, 170.

58 O'Sullevan Beare used a reissued version of the Jesuit declaration dating from 1603 which was countersigned by the doctors of Salamanca university and the theologians of Valladolid: Historiae Catholicae Iberniae Compendium (Lisbon, 1621), ed. Kelly, Matthew (Dublin, 1850), pp. 262–5Google Scholar. Pages 93 to 262 of this book have been translated by Byrne, M. J. as Ireland under Elizabeth (Dublin, 1903)Google Scholar. For a refutation of O'Sullevan Beare's justification and of the pope's alleged title to the island of Ireland see Ussher's, Archbishop JamesA discourse of the religion professed by the ancient Irish (4th edn, London, 1687), ch. XIGoogle Scholar.

59 T.C.D., MS 578/12 fo. 31.

60 Cal. S. P. Ire., X, 129.

61 Park, Thomas (ed.), Nugae Antiquae (2 vols., London, 1804), I, 247–52Google Scholar.

62 Jones, , ‘The Counter-Reformation’, pp. 110–11Google Scholar.

63 P.R.O., SP 63/186/38, fo. 131; 199/21(3), fo. 43.

64 Petworth House Archives, HMC MS 90 fos. I, 18, 27–8.

65 Bagwell, Richard, Ireland under the Tudors (3 vols., London, 1885–1890), I, 172, 184–7Google Scholar; II 107; Hogan, J., Ireland in the European system (London, 1920), pp. 105, 129–30, 142, 149Google Scholar.

66 Archivo General de Simancas (A.G.S.), Fondo Estado, legajo 839, fo. 107.

67 Pearson, P., Philip II of Spain (London, 1975), pp. 57–8Google Scholar.

68 A.G.S., Estado 431 fo. 55.

69 Jones, , ‘The Counter-Reformation’, pp. 110–11Google Scholar.

70 Cal. S. P. Spanish, IV, 683.

71 A.G.S., Estado 839, fo. 107.

72 B.L., Cottonian MS Vesp. C. IV fo. 264. O'Mulrian had employed it again in 1588: A.G.S., Estado 431 fo. 55.

73 Walsh, M., ‘The military order of St. Patrick, 1593’, Seanchas Ard Mhacha, IX (1979), 280n, 283Google Scholar.

74 P.R.O., S.P. 63/190/42(1), fo. 168.

75 A.G.S., Estado 839 fo. 97.

76 Silke, , Kinsale, p. 69Google Scholar.

77 Cal. S. P. Spanish, IV, 674.

78 P.R.O., S.P. 63/175/19(1), fo. 128.

79 P.R.O., S.P. 63/179/20–1, fos. 33–7.

80 The apologie of the Prince William of Orange, p. 4.

81 Cal. S. P. Ire., V, 435–6.

82 Cal. S. P. Ire., VII, 317.

83 Cal. S. P. Ire., VIII, 473.

84 Cal. S. P. Ire., IX, 38.

85 Ibid. p. 70.

86 B.L., Add. MS 34, 313 fo. 121.

87 Cléirigh, L. Ó, Beatha Aodha Ruadh Uí Domnhnaill (London, Irish Texts Society, 1948), ed. Walsh, P., I, 112–19, 199Google Scholar.

88 Cal. S. P. Ire., VIII, 435; IX, 36.

89 Falls, C., Elizabeth's Irish wars (London, 1950), pp. 223, 286–7Google Scholar; Stafford, , Pacata Hibernica, I, 27Google Scholar.

90 Cal. S. P. Ire., VII, 306, 341.

91 Ibid. pp. 9, 48, 89.

92 Ibid. p. 172.

93 Ibid. p. 87.

94 Ibid. p. 119.