by Des Ekin
—Once you are established, Bustamante summarised, Don Juan del Águila will storm out from Kinsale and assault the enemy squadrons. If you carry out these orders exactly, within the next eight days, Our Lord will grant us not only Kinsale … but all of Ireland.
This was Bustamante’s recollection of events, backed up by Spanish witnesses at the camp. It was later to be hotly contested by others. But Águila himself confirmed his orders in a letter after the event. He said it was ‘impossible’ that the Irish chieftains could have been confused or deceived: ‘All that I sent him to say to them … was to bid them to post themselves on a mountain opposite to the enemy, who were strong, and to get themselves entrenched there, and that I would make a sortie with 2,000 men, more or less, and break through the trenches of the enemy and join them, and that once this was done, all would be well.’
It was also confirmed by an unlikely source: the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Fr Ludovico Mansoni, who was later to become one of Águila’s most vociferous critics. Mansoni said Águila had instructed O’Neill to a come to a designated hill in view of Kinsale, and to stop there until Águila saw him and sallied out. The Spanish Council of State, in its later investigation, concluded that Águila had asked them to ‘concentrate, and take up a strong position, so as to present a bold front to the enemy.’
So whether or not it was a sound plan, at least it was simple – and crystal clear.
O’Neill and O’Donnell told Bustamante they would consider the matter overnight. Fires were settled and mantles wrapped around tired bodies. Next morning – Tuesday, 22 December – Bustamante claims they agreed ‘in good spirit’ to participate in Águila’s battle plan.
As Bustamante recalled it: ‘They replied to me … that with the grace of God, they would obey Don Juan. They would go to that place, and fortify it, and bring up all the baggage and fighting eqiuipment.’ Águila later confirmed that the Irish had agreed to his plan: ‘The Earls themselves replied that they would do it.’
The chieftains volunteered a precise time and date: first light on Thursday, which for the English was Christmas Eve.
As he prepared to trudge his tortuous route through the bogs and goat-tracks back to Kinsale, Alférez Bustamante felt uneasy. Something wasn’t right. In his view, the Irish seemed strangely half-hearted.
He had good reason to be worried. Although he would not find out for sure until much later, the Irish had no intention of moving their base forward. And while they had shown enthusiasm and unity in front of their Spanish visitor, in reality they were deeply divided.
The most credible record of this split comes from the writer Philip O’Sullivan, whose uncle Donal Cam was a witness. Philip confirmed that Águila had proposed a junction between the Irish and Spanish, but ‘O’Neill, O’Sullivan, and others thought this risk ought not to be run’.
Why not? The conventional explanation is that the patient, prudent O’Neill wanted to continue the siege and to starve out the English. Instead, he was persuaded to fight by the impetuous O’Donnell – with tragic consequences for Gaelic Ireland.
But that is not what Philip O’Sullivan – the original source – says. He states that O’Neill was counting on a mass desertion by the Queen’s Irish troops in Blount’s army. Supported by Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare, O’Neill merely wanted to ‘await the coming over of the Irish’.
According to Philip, O’Neill’s plan was not to starve out his enemies, but to absorb the deserters and then to allow Blount to limp away to Cork city with his few remaining men. ‘In this manner,’ writes Philip, ‘the Catholics might have obtained a victory without a struggle or any loss.’
However, Philip says O’Donnell was ‘of a different opinion’. After a heated debate, Red Hugh had his way.
Philip claims the Irish troops in Blount’s camp had promised to defect in three days – presumably from the meeting of the chieftains’ council that Monday. So the most likely explanation is that O’Donnell won the dispute but, as a concession to O’Neill, agreed to wait for three days until Thursday to give Blount’s Irish troops a chance to keep their promise.
So where do we get the idea that O’Neill wanted to let starvation win the war? Mainly from Lughaidh O’Cleary, O’Donnell’s biographer and cheerleader.
In his version, O’Cleary claims O’Neill said ‘it was better to continue the siege carefully … till they [the English] should die of hunger’. He says that O’Donnell, on the other hand, ‘felt it a shame and disgrace’ to stand idly by while the Spaniards suffered. Red Hugh thundered that the Irish would be ‘condemned by the King of Spain if they suffered his soldiers to be in hardships and straits … without being aided’.
However, O’Cleary had hidden agenda. Writing in the 1620s, after O’Neill’s death, he needed to convince the Spaniards to support the O’Donnells in Ireland. To this end, he depicted Red Hugh as Spain’s gallant ally in the face of O’Neill’s inactivity. The message was that Spain could always depend upon the O’Donnells.
O’Cleary’s version was copied by the Irish annalists known as The Four Masters and has been accepted as gospel for centuries.
The difference between the conventional explanation (that O’Neill wanted to dig in for a siege) and Philip’s version (that he simply wanted to await the mass desertion) is quite important. In the first case, it could be argued that O’Neill was right: that if he had had his way, he could have won at Kinsale. But if we accept Philip’s version, O’Neill could not have been more wrong. The mass desertions never took place and would never have taken place, because, as we now know, most of the Irish in Blount’s army were not only loyal but gung-ho almost to excess.
In any case, it is far from certain that an Irish siege would have succeeded in starving out the English. It’s true that Blount was just twenty-four hours away from sending his horses out of camp for lack of fodder. On the other hand, the Irish army wasn’t equipped for long sieges and the English still controlled the sea approaches.
A third possibility is that there never was any split – that it was all just a later invention to excuse the humiliating defeat at Kinsale.
Of course, O’Cleary’s version has more appeal. It is a wonderfully classic and mythic tale – an archetype of age and caution overruled by impetuous youth, or of pragmatism versus doomed romantic idealism. It is a saga that has resonated down the ages. But that doesn’t necessarily make it true.
For the Irish army, Christmas had literally come early. O’Neill’s Catholic troops were adhering to the Vatican’s new Gregorian calendar and had celebrated the Feast of the Nativity on the date the English regarded as 15 December. According to O’Cleary, their chieftains passed Christmas ‘feasting and rejoicing together in delight and gladness of mind and soul’. But a few days later, the good cheer had run out and so, presumably, had the whiskey. This hit one Irish chieftain particularly hard.
Brian McHugh Óg McMahon was a ‘principal commander in the Irish army’ and a member of the chieftains’ council that had agreed the battle plan. He was also a man ‘with a tooth for the cratur’, as the Irish saying goes. He loved his drop of whiskey.
Using the sort of logic that can appeal only to an alcoholic, he decided to plead for a bottle from his enemies. But what could he exchange for the firewater? That was easy. He could trade information.
Like O’Neill himself, McMahon had hopped easily back and forth across the fence of loyalties. Queen Elizabeth, frustrated at his duplicity, had once described him as ‘a bad limb’.
That Tuesday, 22 December (English style), he sent a message through an English captain named William Taffe. He reminded George Carew that his son Brian had once acted as his page-boy and begged him for some whiskey. Sensing an opportunity, the crafty Carew sent the bottle ‘for old acquaintance’. The following day, Wednesday, McMahon surpassed all Carew’s expectations in his gratitude.
—Thank you for the aquavitae, McMahon wrote (according to Carew). Tonight, you should stand well on your guard. At daybreak on Thursday, O�
�Neill’s army will attack you from the rear. Hearing battle, the Spanish will attack from the town. They will spare no man’s life except yours and Blount’s.
Carew informed his commander, who put his troops in arms, ready for the onslaught. And so the classic Irish weaknesses of drink, division and deception had betrayed the Gaels to their enemies. Or so we are led to believe.
However, many experts on Kinsale have since cast doubt on the story – or at least, Carew’s embellished version of it. One modern historian, Hiram Morgan, says Carew’s elaborated version ‘must be discounted’ as the key evidence is missing – the crucial McMahon letter which Carew, a scrupulous archivist, would certainly have retained. Another historian, John J Silke, dismisses the entire tale as ‘a fabrication’ invoking all the most obvious anti-Irish clichés.
Others aren’t so sure. In fact, the experts seem pretty much split down the middle on the issue. F. M. Jones says it’s difficult not to believe it. Standish O’Grady points out that McMahon had other strong motives which weren’t alcohol-related. He didn’t trust O’Neill. By secretly helping the enemy, he could ensure he would remain lord of his native Monaghan in the event of an English win. In short, he was playing both ends against the middle.
I believe that the whiskey did indeed change hands, but that the warning of the attack was so vague as to be useless. The risk of attack was obvious, and Blount had ‘many sources of intelligence’ warning him of an imminent assault. After the battle, Carew could not resist the temptation to ‘spin’ the episode, giving himself the credit for an English victory in which he actually played only a minor role. Unfortunately, his version gives the wrong battle plan. As we now know from Bustamante, the real plan which Águila had formulated, and which the Irish had accepted, was for O’Neill to remain static on the hilltop. Had McMahon given this crucial information, it could have altered Blount’s entire strategy.
By being wise after the event, Carew managed to fool his contemporaries. But he couldn’t fool history.
The sober reality was that Blount had been expecting an attack ever since O’Neill’s arrival. ‘We kept very strong guards, and every man was ready to be in arms,’ says Fynes Moryson. In fact, Blount was worried that he would ‘weary our men by keeping them continually in arms, the weather being extreme tempestuous, cold and wet’.
During all this, Águila kept the English busy with sallies from Kinsale, and O’Neill probed to test the English reaction. On Monday night, O’Neill ventured within two kilometres of the English lines. Blount despatched two regiments and the Irish melted back into the woods.
On Tuesday – the day after Bustamante’s first meeting with the chieftains – O’Neill sent out a substantial body of troops – five hundred infantry, backed by cavalry – in a bid to break through into Kinsale. Meanwhile, the Spaniards sallied out in force, almost as though they intended to meet them halfway.
This activity does not fit with the image of the cautious commander reluctant to attack. And it seems to fly in the face of the agreement made with Bustamante only hours beforehand. But that would be no surprise with a man like O’Neill, who, after all, had spent the past decade telling people one thing and then doing exactly the opposite.
When Bustamante finally made it back into the crumbling town, he found Águila pensive rather than overjoyed at the good news he brought. A promise was one thing. Whether the Irish chieftains would keep their word was quite another.
—Did they seem frightened? he asked his agent.
—I felt they were half-hearted, Bustamante replied. They were tepid and timorous. If I were you I should be careful.
Águila thought for a while.
—You must go back again, he told Bustamante. Bring their fears out into the open, and then reassure them. Emphasise that they are not required to fight the English except as I instructed. Assure them that if they follow the plan, this war will end well for them.
The following day – Wednesday, 23 December – Bustamante set out from Kinsale at nightfall. After three hours of dodging English patrols, he finally hacked through the vicious interwoven briars and saplings and stumbled into the Irish camp at around nine o’clock. It was just around ten hours before the crucial dawn. Bustamante repeated Águila’s assurances and urged the two chiefs to trust his commander.
O’Neill and O’Donnell listened quietly, then gave their solemn undertaking.
—We will be at that hill at daybreak, they pledged.
There was to be no sleep for Bustamante that night. This time he was not to return to Kinsale, but to accompany the Castlehaven Spaniards as they marched alongside the Irish to Ardmartin Hill. Like those interlaced willows that had guarded the camp, Bustamante’s fate was now inextricably entangled with that of O’Neill and O’Donnell.
The Irish forces fell into ranks at midnight. The usual practice in modern European warfare was to use the classic three-division formation with the vanguard in the lead; the principal force (‘main battle’) in the middle; and the rearguard following. These units, often referred to as the van, battle and rear, would keep their names even when lined up alongside each other on the battlefield.
Some Irish and English sources claim that O’Neill adhered to that practice, with the Irish mercenary Richard Tyrrell leading the vanguard, O’Neill heading up the main battle, and O’Donnell leading the rear. However, Bustamante reports that they had only two divisions – the vanguard led by O’Neill and including Tyrrell; and the rearguard led by O’Donnell.
Wearing their breastplates and polished helmets, two hundred Spaniards under Captain Alonso de Ocampo also marched with O’Neill. They proudly carried the flags of King Felipe – white flags with the red cross of Burgundy. One English source says they also carried Papal banners: ‘These black bands come from Spain, with Antichrist their master’s banners spread,’ he writes. ‘Stoutly advanced, spreading in the air, richly set out with Christ’s five bleeding wounds, and quartered with supposed Peter’s keys.’
Backing them up were the Munster Irish – the Bearhaven men under Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare, and the O’Driscolls from Baltimore and Castlehaven.
The main body of the force comprised O’Neill’s men from Tyrone, some in their modern uniforms and some in traditional Gaelic garb. Peppering the mix were the Scots gallowglasses, and bringing up the rear were O’Donnell’s northwesterners from Connaght and Donegal. ‘They took … their weapons of battle and their implements of war silently,’ says O’Cleary, ‘and they went in order and array as their chiefs and nobles, their lords and counsellors directed them.’
The final act in this great drama was soon to be played out. The Battle of Kinsale – the most decisive conflict in their nation’s history – was about to begin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
‘MY LORD, IT IS TIME TO ARM’
The kingdom of Ireland lay bleeding, and put almost to the hazard of the last cast.
– John Speed, 1612
IT WAS the English scout who spotted it first. Initially, it was just a spark in the night, a brief pinpoint of red flame glimmering like a glowworm in the pre-dawn darkness.
But soon it was joined by another. And then more. Soon there were dozens – hundreds, maybe, all dancing a grotesque galliard as they moved across his vision.
It could be an illusion. Staring into the pitch darkness every night could do strange things to a man’s senses, particularly those of a patrol soldier in no-man’s-land, one who hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep for a while. The dancing lights could be will-o’-the-wisps, those ghostlike flames that sometimes flared over this ancient bogland. Or they could be quirks of the thunderous atmosphere that had lately played strange tricks on them. Just before the scouts had left on patrol, their comrades in the cavalry ranks had noticed with awe how the metal points of their lances seemed to burn with an eerie flame, as though they were carrying long lamps. Spirit candles, the Welsh called them, although the sailors knew it as St Elmo’s fire.
No, it was none of those thi
ngs. The experienced scout knew exactly what they were. Those lights dancing just above the ground betrayed the movements of musketeers as they marched across the uneven terrain carrying their matchlock guns. The powder had to be ignited by hand using a long cord of fuse known as a match. The fuse had to be lit in advance of any battle, and it smouldered continuously in its serpent-shaped holder. The advantage was that you were always ready for action. The disadvantage was that the light gave away your movements.
As the scout counted them, his heart must have skipped a beat. This was no low-key night patrol. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of men out there. No doubt about it. The insurgent army was on the march towards Kinsale, and towards the English besiegers who stood in their way. The attack that would decide the fate of this siege, the fate of the three commanders, and perhaps even the fate of a kingdom, was about to begin.
The scout turned and spurred his horse back towards the English camp. There wasn’t a moment to lose – with every wasted second, the odds were stacking up against them.
Inside the rubble-strewn town of Kinsale, the Old Eagle was waiting restlessly – a caged bird of prey, chained to the crumbling walls of this hellish town. He longed to lead his troops into an open battlefield, to organise them into solid tercio formation and to fight like his Spanish heroes of the old days.
It was an hour before dawn, and the Spanish commander hadn’t slept. He had honoured the promise given to the Irish chieftains that he and his men would remain in arms all night, waiting for their allies to appear on the hilltop at dawn. He hoped against hope that this would be the moment of destiny, the day when it would all be decided. Hugh O’Neill had postponed it for as long as he could. But a master strategist like Águila knew that all this delaying, all this hit and run, all this ducking and diving, could only last for so long. Eventually, inevitably, there would come a day when O’Neill would have to stand still and deliver. Águila prayed that this would be that day.
