by Des Ekin
Suddenly, the idea of a hostile landing at the sleepy County Cork harbour didn’t seem so far-fetched after all. Saxey had just received reports that a large armada of Spanish ships had passed the promontory known as the Old Head. It was assumed that they were trying to tack their way up to the nearby port of Cork city, but, if they were, the gods of weather had other ideas. The blustery autumn winds were making the short journey next to impossible. Whatever the intention, one thing was certain: they were now headed into Kinsale.
How many soldiers were on board the ships? Six thousand? Five thousand? Fewer? Nobody knew for certain. But with Saxey’s own meagre force, plus maybe another sixty volunteers from among the townsfolk, he wouldn’t be able to hold them off for five minutes.
Saxey looked around the town and considered his options. Kinsale had the paradoxical qualities of being a nightmare to attack and an even worse nightmare to defend. It had a great harbour, but control of that port depended on holding two forts on either side of the sea approach. If those fortresses fell into enemy hands, Kinsale’s fate would be sealed, because it could not rely on help from the sea.
Defending the landward side depended upon controlling the heights above the town. Kinsale lay in a virtual pit backed by steep hills and was wide open to attack from cannon – a child could stand up there and practically toss stones right into the streets.
The town’s ancient stone walls were crumbling and dilapidated and needed reinforcing before they would be fit to defend the city against even the basic mediaeval weapons they’d been designed to withstand, never mind the heavy artillery of modern warfare. The streets were barely wide enough for two men to pass each other.
‘The town is protected by only one wall, with turrets at intervals,’ one expert wrote later, adding that it was inconceivable that such a place could withstand a long siege. On the plus side, Kinsale had two mills to grind corn and enough ovens to bake bread for thousands of troops.
Was it worthwhile to attempt a defence? Saxey knew only too well the deal that the Spanish were likely to offer – it was the standard arrangement of a merciless age: surrender, and we let you live; try to resist, and we will put everyone to the sword.
But there was a good reason why the Spanish should withdraw even this basic concession. They had a grudge to settle. Just two decades before, a Catholic expedition of six hundred Spaniards and Italians had occupied Smerwick in County Kerry. Pinned down by thousands of English troops, the invaders had surrendered in the belief that their lives would be spared. Instead, the English had cold-bloodedly massacred almost the entire force.
As Saxey watched the approaching Spanish ships, he must have felt a deep sense of dread. Whatever he decided to do, he might not survive to see another dawn in Kinsale.
On 21 September in any other year, Kinsale would have been settling quietly into another somnolent autumn. This was St Matthew’s Day, an important date in the calendar of farmers and fisher folk. The ancient pagan festival marking the transition from summer towards winter, from light towards darkness, had been adopted by the early Christians and dedicated to the disciple Matthew. A mnemonic passed down from parent to child reminded farmers of their duties at this time of year:
St Matthee, shut up the bee;
St Mattho, take thy hopper and sow;
St Matthy, all the year goes by;
St Matthie, sends sap into the tree;
St Matthew brings the cold, rain and dew.
Kinsale knew all about cold, rain and dew. It was especially prone to precipitation, in all its forms. ‘The air is laden with warm moisture,’ one writer noted, adding: ‘Soft grey mists creep in from the sea in the autumn and cover its slopes with a grey, impenetrable mantle.’ A soldier would later grumble about the constant dampness: ‘There are perpetual springs from these rocks which make them slippery and very dangerous,’ he complained.
Sailors, on the other hand, loved Kinsale. It was blessed with a near-perfect harbour, according to one early visitor ‘one of the finest I ever saw, and one of the safest … even at low water, it is deep enough to contain 500 sail of ship, landlocked.’ Another wrote in the 1600s: ‘The haven of Kinsale is one of the most famousest of Ireland; ships may sail into it, keeping in the midst of the channel, without any danger … [at] the quay of Kinsale, ships may ride in eight or ten fathoms of water, being defended of all winds.’
The town’s name celebrates its greatest assets: Cionn tSáile, ‘the saltwater headland’. Another version of its name, according to Samuel Lewis’s 1837 Topographical Dictionary, is Cune Sáille, Irish for ‘smooth basin’. An added advantage was the strong tidal flow. Even in calm weather, with the right timing, ships rarely needed to be rowed or towed out of port.
The town was then, as now, breathtakingly beautiful. Its jumble of winding streets seems to have been thrown chaotically against the side of a steep hill overlooking the wide River Bandon as it sweeps in a dramatic meander around a promontory, into an estuary and out to sea. A female tourist in the 1800s told how it lay ‘picturesquely nestled in the deep valley formed by surrounding hills. Beyond and towards the left, lay the placid waters of the pretty harbour.’
But the key to the town’s success was not its looks, but its location. Anyone sailing directly due north from the bustling Spanish port of La Coruña – ‘The Groyne’ as the English called it – would cross 800km of open sea before making landfall around Kinsale. The English port of Bristol, 482km away from Kinsale, may have looked closer on the maps – but when the winds were blowing a certain way, Spain was more convenient than England. Kinsale became a major conduit for business between the squelchier and the sunnier regions of Europe.
The Irish and English couldn’t get enough of Spain’s wines, lace and metalwork. The Continentals needed Irish fish, cattle, butter, wool, leather and timber. Every year, at the fair of St James in Compostela, traders from the two centres would meet to hammer out deals which would keep everyone happy and wealthy for the next twelve months.
Such connections inevitably rubbed off both in the attitudes and genes of folk in Kinsale. Even today, the town has the strange appearance of a seaport in the Iberian Peninsula. Its narrow streets seem designed, along Mediterranean lines, to provide shade from a blazing sun, and to force cooling sea breezes throughout the centre. The fact that Kinsale actually sits on the same latitude as Newfoundland and rarely needs such air-conditioning devices gives the town a strange air of bewildered out-of-placeness, as though it has been teleported directly and mysteriously into Northern Europe from its natural home amid the olive groves.
Many of the townsfolk, too, have often shown signs of Spanish ancestry. A visitor to Kinsale in the 1700s remarked on how different the locals looked, ‘with black hair and skin more brown than white … heavy cheekbones and large upper lips as though swollen’. Although to modern readers this provides an almost perfect description of a pouting Latina movie star, the visitor regarded these attributes as ‘uglier’ than the norm.
With some two hundred houses within its walls, Kinsale sustained a population of around 1,800 to 2,000 – much the same as today’s figure. It was not great farming country, but it had another good source of food. All year round, its sturdy eight-man fishing boats plied the local waters and landed their silver hauls. In the 1700s, one visitor seeking a meal told how local children were despatched to catch ‘fairly good fish’ off the rocks using pins for hooks.
There were hard times, too. Violence, plague and fire had all devastated the town. ‘All our men died of the pestilence,’ one mayor wrote in 1548, ‘and we have a wide empty town.’ In 1594, just seven years before the events of our story, a blaze had gutted the entire centre. The town was only now beginning to recover. But, in truth, Kinsale’s real trial by fire was just about to begin.
In imagining the town of 1601, any reader who’s familiar with modern-day Kinsale will have to mentally erase many of the features that characterise the town today. It was smaller – much smaller. Almost all the flat are
as flanking the harbour and seafront are later additions reclaimed from the sea. Market Quay, now quite a bit inland, was then exactly what its name suggests: a waterfront. The estuary waters lapped its shores to the south and east and the Ballinacurra creek almost circled it to the west and north.
Picture the town of 1601 as a walled enclosure, roughly the shape of the continent of Africa, with the harbour along one side and its main twin-towered gate at the tip, facing inland. The wall is punctuated by more than twenty towers. Inside, there’s a jumble of streets with cellared houses, some made of stone and some of wood. The main landmarks are the Norman castle of the Anglo-Irish Desmond family, a courthouse, an open market square, and St Multose’s twelfth-century church, which even in the 1600s is a venerable four hundred years old. Outside the walls lies a friary, smashed by the hammer of Henry VIII in 1541 and now ignominiously used as a storehouse.
As William Saxey begins to muster his men and organise his defence, the town around him buzzes with frantic activity. Cattle are being herded into the centre from the fields outside. The wealthier townspeople are packing up their belongings and preparing to flee. However, the mayor and burgesses are keeping their options open. They make all the correct loyal noises to Saxey, but behind it all they have a Plan B – they are secretly preparing to give the newcomers a warm and hearty welcome.
John Meade, the mayor of Cork city, was a worried man. And with good reason. Cork had never been a bastion of loyalty to English rule. If the Spaniards landed here, it would be touch and go whether the citizens would fight them or embrace them.
Meade looked at the scribbled letter from his counterpart in Kinsale, warning him of the Spaniards’ arrival off the Old Head, and immediately composed a report to the English commander, Charles Blount. ‘A post from Kinsale came in this hour, advertising that 55 ships were seen this afternoon off the Old Head of Kinsale,’ he wrote. ‘They are, I expect, our enemies; and the wind serves them well for this harbour [Cork] or Kinsale.’
Meade sent that letter in the afternoon. Within a few hours, his speculation about the destination was settled. He wrote an updated note. ‘The Spanish fleet of 30 ships arrived at Kinsale on 21 September and landed their men at 6pm that day,’ he told Blount. He sealed the historic letter, and scribbled a frantic instruction to the messenger:
‘Haste, haste, post; haste, haste, post, for your life.’
Not long afterwards, a Scottish merchant ship hauling a cargo of salt arrived in Waterford. The master, a Silvester Steene from Leith, hurried ashore and breathlessly informed the authorities about the invasion fleet. Steene had been in Lisbon when the Spanish fleet set sail in August. He claimed that fifty-five ships had left Portugal. Five of them were ‘great ships’ with the flagship a massive thousand tons. But the fleet also included French, Scottish and Flemish vessels, as well as four from Ireland. Steene identified the sea commanders by name – Admiral Don Diego de Brochero and his Vice-Admiral, Don Pedro de Zubiaur.
And who, demanded his interrogators, was the commander of the land forces? Steene shook his head. He had no name, just the most basic description imaginable.
—An old man, he replied. An old man whom I do not know.
CHAPTER THREE
THE MAN BORN WITHOUT FEAR
Cadiz, Spring 1601
Four months before the invasion
THE OLD Eagle was caged in a prison cell when he was offered one last flight to glory.
It was hard to tell exactly why Maestro de Campo Don Juan del Águila was in jail: some said it was for taking liberties with army money during his controversial command in western France. Some said it was because of the notorious stubbornness that always landed him in trouble with his military masters. Some said the former was used by the authorities as a pretext for the latter.
It hardly mattered. But when his distinguished visitors outlined an audacious plan to invade England through Ireland, the Old Eagle had plenty of time to listen. He would lead an expeditionary force that would sail in a mighty armada from Lisbon, the top brass explained.
Six thousand hand-picked veteran fighters would be under his command. He would have devastating artillery. Neither would be needed when he landed in Ireland, because he would be welcomed by the cheering populace, who would steer him in a flow of jubilation towards their leaders. He didn’t even need horses, because 1,600 fresh Irish mounts were to be placed at his disposal. All he needed were saddles.
The gritty old warrior was no fool and he didn’t suffer fools gladly. So his irritation must have mounted as the madcap plan went from one height of fancy to another. No destination had been settled yet. It could be the west coast – Donegal, Sligo, Galway, Limerick – but, wait, then again it could be Carlingford in the east. Anyway, he didn’t need to worry because he would have an old Ireland hand, a Franciscan Brother named Mateo de Oviedo, by his side to advise him on these matters.
Águila must have bitten hard on his tongue at this stage. He knew Brother Mateo’s military record and it was not a distinguished one. Should he mention Smerwick at this point? The lunatic invasion the good Brother helped to inspire, the horrific massacre which he escaped?
No. He carried on listening.
Once landed, his masters continued, he would join the northern insurgent armies of Hugh O’Neill and Hugh O’Donnell, who had the entire country on their side. Their troops would swell his invasion force to 16,000, perhaps even 20,000 as other wavering lords joined the rising.
Águila listened.
The warriors for Christ would sweep across Ireland, easily quashing the few thousand troops that the Queen’s commander could muster at short notice, until they reached the east coast, a mere twenty leagues from England. More ships would arrive from Spain. More veteran warriors. They would consolidate their position and gather their forces until … the final killer move: invasion of England itself. If all went well, the bells of London town would ring out to celebrate a Spanish Christmas, and a Catholic monarch would replace La Inglesa, the heretical Englishwoman Elizabeth Tudor, on the throne of England.
Águila had not been born yesterday. He had never been to Ireland, but he knew all about the country. During his time as Spanish commander in France he had regularly been approached by starry-eyed envoys from O’Neill and O’Donnell asking him to invade Ireland directly from Brittany. The two chieftains, aware of his military reputation, had written to him personally requesting his help.
Like many Spanish officers, Águila was deeply sceptical about assurances of popular support in Ireland. The Irish constantly professed kinship with the Spanish through ancient blood and brotherhood through religion, yet many of their chieftains – O’Neill among them – had attacked the survivors of the Great Armada as they had staggered ashore half-drowned from the wreckage. Could the Spanish trust a people like that?
Besides, the idea that the entire island of Ireland was united in rebellion was nonsense, despite what that zealot Brother Mateo might proclaim. If there was such a thing as an Irish nation seeking liberation, it had yet to emerge. Instead, there were dozens of separate clans, some pro-English, some anti-, but most of them hopping back and forward across the fence with dizzying speed. These clans spent as much time fighting each other as they spent fighting the English.
Twenty years ago, the invaders of Smerwick had been given cast-iron assurances that ‘one fourth of Ireland had declared in their favour’ and that ‘the whole island would be with them’. That was all pie in the sky.
True, O’Neill and O’Donnell had gone further than anyone else with their ‘confederacy’ of insurgents, and they had chalked up some notable military successes. But they did not have the support of the major cities and towns, and large swathes of the country were hostile towards them. They said they were fighting a Catholic crusade, but most of the Catholic clergy in Ireland had declared against them.
No, Águila concluded silently, there had to be another reason why he was being sent to Ireland. It had nothing to do with invading England, at lea
st not directly. Even helping the northern rebels was secondary to the main aim.
If invading England had been a real possibility, there would be no shortage of volunteers to lead the troops to glory. But Águila happened to know that the obvious candidate, General Antonio de Zuniga, had turned the job down. Zuniga had estimated that it would take a minimum of 8,000 troops and 1,000 cavalry just to survive in Ireland. Not possible? Then, no thanks.
Don Antonio was no fool, either. Why was he, Águila, being selected? After all, he was being pilloried for his actions in Brittany, where he had established a crucial bridgehead near Lorient, fortified it strongly, and held out for years against combined French and English forces. He had never surrendered.
A career soldier with nearly four decades of experience, Águila had fought the campaign as he saw fit, not always in accordance with the complex politics of the French wars of religion in which his country had become embroiled. His critics felt he should have been more proactive, hazarding his hard-won fortress with vainglorious attacks on other cities.
Was this a plan where Águila’s supposed deficits had suddenly become regarded as virtues? Did they want someone who could stoically dig in and hold a position, doggedly, against all odds; who was ready to die rather than surrender? Yes, that must be it. He wasn’t being sent to lead a triumphant wave of troops across Ireland. He was being sent on a near-suicide mission with a skeleton force to establish a foothold and then, like some beaten-down old streetfighter, to curl himself into a ball and take the kicks and blows for as long as it took, without giving in. Until … until what?
The answer was obvious. Until La Inglesa died.
The people best informed about European politics were the Venetians. Masters of intelligence-gathering, they maintained a network of well-paid informants in every royal court. One of their ambassadors, Marin Cavalli, was quick to identify the real reason for the Spanish invasion plan. Joining with the Irish rebels was a lesser aim. It was a diversion to draw English troops away from Spain’s long-drawn-out conflict in the Low Countries, where Queen Elizabeth was supporting a Protestant rebellion against Spanish rule. But it was also an attempt to establish a Spanish foothold in Ireland.