by Brian Friel
Harry You suspect everybody and –
O’Neill And because that pride is gone, what I suspect is that some perverse element in your nature isn’t at all displeased to see Hugh O’Neill humiliated by this anonymous back-street wine-vendor.
Harry Hugh –
O’Neill But it does distress me to see you so soured that it actually pleases you to have the bailiffs fling O’Neill out on the street. What’s gnawing at you, Harry? Some bitterness? Some deep disappointment? Some corroding sense of betrayal?
Harry Soured? You talk to me about being soured, about betrayal? (He controls himself.) Leave the door open for the Countess.
O’Neill What was it I called you once, Harry? Was it borage? No, that was O’Donnell, may he rest in peace; loyal, faithful Hugh. No, you were … dill! The man with the comforting and soothing effect! And the interesting thing is that I chose Harry Hoveden to be my private secretary precisely because he wasn’t a Gael. You see, I thought a Gael might be vulnerable to small, tribal pressures – to little domestic loyalties – an almost attractive human weakness when you come to think of it. So instead I chose one of the Old English because he would be above that kind of petty venality. So I chose Harry Hoveden because he claimed to admire Hugh O’Neill and everything Hugh O’Neill was attempting to do for his people and because when he left the Old English and joined us he protested such fealty and faithfulness not only to Hugh O’Neill but to the whole Gaelic nation.
Harry If you weren’t so drunk, Hugh –
He breaks off because Lombard enters.
O’Neill The fault, of course, is mine. I suppose that easy rejection of his old loyalties and the almost excessive display of loyalty to us ought to have alerted me. Certainly Mabel was never taken in by it.
Harry I’m sorry for you, Hugh. You have become a pitiable, bitter bastard.
O’Neill Don’t you believe in loyalty any more, Harry? In keeping faith? In fealty?
Lombard assesses the situation instantly and accurately and in response he assumes a breezy, energetic manner which he sustains right through the scene. As he enters he holds up a bottle. O’Neill immediately regrets his outburst but is unable to apologize and slumps sulkily in a chair.
Lombard I’ve come at a bad moment, have I? No? Good. And look what I have here. You’d never guess what this is, Harry.
Harry A bottle.
Lombard Brilliant. D’you see, Hugh?
O’Neill Yes.
Lombard Arrived this very day. From home. But it’s a very special bottle, Harry. Poitin. Waterford poitin. I was never much help to their spiritual welfare but they certainly don’t neglect the state of my spirit! (He laughs.) Have you some glasses there? (to O’Neill) Catriona says she’ll be late, not to wait up for her. Something about a tailor and a dress fitting, (to Harry) Good man. This, I assure you, is ambrosia.
Harry Not for me, Peter. But he needs some very badly.
As Harry leaves Lombard calls after him.
Lombard I’ll leave this aside for you and if you feel like joining us later … And for the Earl himself, just a drop. It’s pure nectar, Hugh. (He takes a sip and relishes it.) Tell me this: are the very special delights of this world foretastes of eternity or just lures to perdition? It’s from my own parish; a very remote place called Affane, about ten miles from Dungarvan. And it has been made there for decades by an old man who claims he’s one of Ormond’s bastards. If he is, God bless bastards – God forgive me. (He takes another sip.) Exquisite, isn’t it? Affane must be an annex of heaven – or Hades.
O’Neill puts his untouched drink to the side.
O’Neill I’ll try it later, Peter.
Lombard Of course. Now. (going to his desk) You’re not too tired to help me check a few details, are you? Splendid. (He sees the book has been closed.) You know, Hugh, you were very naughty today.
O’Neill Was I?
Lombard You and I were to have spent the afternoon on this.
O’Neill What’s that?
Lombard My history. (He laughs.) ‘My history’! You would think I was Thucydides, wouldn’t you? And if the truth were told, I’m so disorganized I’m barely able to get all this stuff into chronological order, not to talk of making sense of it. But if I’m to write about the life and times of Hugh O’Neill, the co-operation of the man himself would be a help, wouldn’t it?
O’Neill Sorry, Peter.
Lombard No harm done. Here we are – let me tell you the broad outline.
O’Neill I had a bad day.
Lombard I know. Pension day. That’s understandable.
O’Neill A stupid, drunken day with Plunkett and O Domhnaill.
Lombard I saw them this morning. A sorry sight. They were two great men once.
O’Neill And I was cruel to Harry just now.
Lombard I sensed something was amiss.
O’Neill I told him Mabel didn’t trust him. That was a damned lie. Mabel loved Harry.
Lombard I know she did. And Harry understands. We all understand. It’s been a difficult time for you, Hugh. That’s why this history is important – is vitally important. These last years have been especially frustrating. But what we must remember – what I must record and celebrate – is the whole life, from the very beginning right through those glorious years when aspiration and achievement came together and O’Neill was a household name right across Europe. Because they were glorious, Hugh. And they are a cause for celebration not only by us but by the generations that follow us. Now. (He finds his outline.) I think this is it – is it? Yes, it is.
O’Neill Mabel will be in the history, Peter?
Lombard Mabel? What sort of a question is that? Of course Mabel will be in the history.
O’Neill Central to it, Peter.
Lombard And so will your first wife, Brian MacFelim’s daughter. And so will your second, the wonderful Siobhan. And so will Mabel. And so will our beautiful Catriona – she says not to wait up for her. They’ll all be mentioned. What a strange question! (confidentially) But I’ve got to confess a secret unease, Hugh. The fact that the great Hugh O’Neill had four wives – and there were rumours of a fifth years and years ago, weren’t there? – long before you and I first met – but the fact that O’Neill had four, shall we say acknowledged, wives, do you think that may strike future readers as perhaps … a surfeit? I’m sure not. I’m sure I’m being too sensitive. Anyhow we can’t deliberately suppress what we know did happen, can we? So. Back to my overall framework.
O’Neill This is my last battle, Peter.
Lombard Battle? What battle?
O’Neill That (book).
Lombard What are you talking about?
O’Neill That thing there.
Lombard Your history?
O’Neill Your history. I’m an old man. I have no position, no power, no money. No, I’m not whingeing – I’m not pleading. But I’m telling you that I’m going to fight you on that and I’m going to win.
Lombard Fight –? What in the name of God is the man talking about?
O’Neill I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you to tell the truth.
Lombard To tell the truth in –? Do you really think I would –?
O’Neill I think you are not trustworthy. And that (book) is all that is left to me.
Lombard You are serious! Hugh, for heaven’s sake –! (He bursts out laughing.)
O’Neill Go ahead. Laugh. But I’m going to win this battle, Peter.
Lombard Hold on now – wait – wait – wait – wait. Just tell me one thing. Is this book some sort of a malign scheme? Am I doing something reprehensible?
O’Neill You are going to embalm me in – in – in a florid lie.
Lombard Will I lie, Hugh?
O’Neill I need the truth, Peter. That’s all that’s left. The schemer, the leader, the liar, the statesman, the lecher, the patriot, the drunk, the soured, bitter émigré – put it all in, Peter. Record the whole life – that’s what you said yourself.
Lombard Listen to me
, Hugh –
O’Neill I’m asking you, man. Yes, damn it, I am pleading. Don’t embalm me in pieties.
Lombard Let me tell you what I’m doing.
O’Neill You said Mabel will have her place. That place is central to me.
Lombard Will you listen to me?
O’Neill Can I trust you to make Mabel central?
Lombard Let me explain what my outline is. May I? Please? And if you object to it – or to any detail in it – I’ll rewrite the whole thing in any way you want. That is a solemn promise. Can I be fairer than that? Now. I start with your birth and your noble genealogy and I look briefly at those formative years when you were fostered with the O’Quinns and the O’Hagans and received your early education from the bards and the poets. I then move –
O’Neill England.
Lombard What’s that?
O’Neill I spent nine years in England with Leicester and Sidney.
Lombard You did indeed. I have all that material here. We then look at the years when you consolidated your position as the pre-eminent Gaelic ruler in the country, and that leads on to these early intimations you must have had of an emerging nation state. And now we come to the first of the key events: that September when all the people of Ulster came together at the crowning stone at Tullyhogue outside Dungannon, and the golden slipper is thrown over your head and fastened to your foot, and the white staff is placed in your right hand, and the True Bell of St Patrick peals out across the land, and you are proclaimed … The O’Neill.
O’Neill That was a political ploy.
Lombard It may have been that, too.
O’Neill The very next month I begged Elizabeth for pardon.
Lombard But an occasion of enormous symbolic importance for your people – six hundred and thirty continuous years of O’Neill hegemony. Right, I then move on to that special relationship between yourself and Hugh O’Donnell; the patient forging of the links with Spain and Rome; the uniting of the whole of Ulster into one great dynasty that finally inspired all the Gaelic chieftains to come together under your leadership. And suddenly the nation state was becoming a reality. And talking of Hugh O’Donnell – (He searches through a pile of papers.) This will interest you. Yes, maybe this will put your mind at ease. Ludhaidh O’Cleary has written a life of Hugh and this is how he describes him. Listen to this. ‘He was a dove in meekness and gentleness and a lion in strength and force. He was a sweet-sounding trumpet –’
O’Neill ‘Sweet-sounding’!
Lombard Listen! ‘– with power of speech and eloquence, sense and counsel, with a look of amiability in his face which struck everyone at first sight.’
O’Neill laughs.
O’Neill ‘A dove in meekness’!
Lombard But you’ll have to admit it has a ring about it. Maybe you and I remember a different Hugh. But maybe that’s not the point.
O’Neill What is the point? That’s certainly a bloody lie.
Lombard Not a lie, Hugh. Merely a convention. And I’ll come to the point later. Now, the second key event: the Nine Years War between yourself and England, culminating in the legendary battle of Kinsale and the crushing of the most magnificent Gaelic army ever assembled.
O’Neill They routed us in less than an hour, Peter. Isn’t that the point of Kinsale?
Lombard You lost a battle – that has to be said. But the telling of it can still be a triumph.
O’Neill Kinsale was a disgrace. Mountjoy routed us. We ran away like rats.
Lombard And again that’s not the point.
O’Neill You’re not listening to me now. We disgraced ourselves at Kinsale.
Lombard And then I come to my third and final key point; and I’m calling this section – I’m rather proud of the title – I’ve named it ‘The Flight of the Earls’. That has a ring to it, too, hasn’t it? That tragic but magnificent exodus of the Gaelic aristocracy –
O’Neill Peter –
Lombard When the leaders of the ancient civilization took boat from Rathmullan that September evening and set sail for Europe.
O’Neill As we pulled out from Rathmullan the McSwineys stoned us from the shore!
Lombard Then their journey across Europe when every crowned head welcomed and fêted them. And then the final coming to rest. Here. In Rome.
O’Neill And the six years after Kinsale – before the Flight of the Earls – aren’t they going to be recorded? When I lived like a criminal, skulking round the countryside – my countryside! – hiding from the English, from the Upstarts, from the Old English, but most assiduously hiding from my brother Gaels who couldn’t wait to strip me of every blade of grass I ever owned. And then when I could endure that humiliation no longer, I ran away! If these were ‘my people’ then to hell with my people! The Flight of the Earls – you make it sound like a lap of honour. We ran away just as we ran away at Kinsale. We were going to look after our own skins! That’s why we ‘took boat’ from Rathmullan! That’s why the great O’Neill is here – at rest – here – in Rome. Because we ran away.
Lombard That is my outline. I’ll rewrite it in any way you want.
O’Neill That is the truth. That is what happened.
Lombard How should it be rewritten?
O’Neill Those are the facts. There is no way you can make unpalatable facts palatable. And your point – just what is your point, Peter?
Lombard I’m no historian but –
O’Neill Then don’t write my history. Or maybe you could trust me to write it myself: one of the advantages of fading eyesight is that it gives the imagination the edge over reality.
Lombard May I try to explain something to you, Hugh? May I tell you what my point is?
O’Neill I’m weary of all this.
Lombard People want to know about the past. They have a genuine curiosity about it.
O’Neill Then tell them the whole truth.
Lombard That’s exactly what my point is. People think they just want to know the ‘facts’; they think they believe in some sort of empirical truth, but what they really want is a story. And that’s what this will be: the events of your life categorized and classified and then structured as you would structure any story. No, no, I’m not talking about falsifying, about lying, for heaven’s sake. I’m simply talking about making a pattern. That’s what I’m doing with all this stuff – offering a cohesion to that random catalogue of deliberate achievement and sheer accident that constitutes your life. And that cohesion will be a narrative that people will read and be satisfied by. And that narrative will be as true and as objective as I can make it – with the help of the Holy Spirit. Would it be profane to suggest that that was the method the Four Evangelists used? – took the haphazard events in Christ’s life and shaped them into a story, into four complementary stories. And those stories are true stories. And we believe them. We call them gospel, Hugh, don’t we? (He laughs suddenly and heartily.) Would you look at that man? What are you so miserable about? Think of this (book) as an act of pietas. Ireland is reduced as it has never been reduced before – we are talking about a colonized people on the brink of extinction. This isn’t the time for a critical assessment of your ‘ploys’ and your ‘disgraces’ and your ‘betrayal’ – that’s the stuff of another history for another time. Now is the time for a hero. Now is the time for a heroic literature. So I am offering Gaelic Ireland two things. I’m offering them this narrative that has the elements of myth. And I’m offering them Hugh O’Neill as a national hero. A hero and the story of a hero. (Pause.) It’s a very worldly nostrum for a clergyman to propose – isn’t it? I suppose, if I were a holy man, not some kind of a half priest, half schemer, I suppose I would offer them God and prayer and suffering. But there are times when a hero can be as important to a people as a God. And isn’t God – or so I excuse my perfidy – isn’t God the perfect hero?
A very long silence. Lombard gathers up his papers and closes the book. O’Neill assimilates what he has heard.
O’Neill How do you write abou
t Harry?
Lombard What is the ‘truth’ about Harry? Well, we know, for example, that his Old English family threw him out, that he was destitute and that when you offered him a job, any job, he grabbed at it. We know, for example, that he was once passionately loyal to the Queen but that, when he joined you, he seemed to have no problem in betraying that loyalty. Or simply – very simply – we know for example that Harry Hoveden was a man who admired and loved you without reservation and who has dedicated his whole life to you. For all I know there may be other ‘truths’ about Harry.
O’Neill Which are you recording?
Lombard I know which one history prefers. As I keep telling you, histories are stories, Hugh, and stories prefer faithful friends, don’t they? And isn’t that the absolute truth about Harry? – is Harry Hoveden not a most faithful friend?
Another long silence.
O’Neill And Mabel?
Lombard Yes?
O’Neill (shouting) Don’t play bloody games with me, Archbishop! You know damned well what I’m asking you!
Lombard You’re asking me how Mabel will be portrayed.
O’Neill (softly) Yes, I’m asking you how Mabel will be portrayed.
Lombard I’ve tried to explain that at this time the country needs a –
O’Neill How-will-Mabel-be-portrayed?
Pause.
Lombard The story of your life has a broad but very specific sweep, Hugh –
O’Neill Peter, just –!
Lombard And all those ladies you chose as your wives – splendid and beautiful and loyal though they undoubtedly were – well, they didn’t contribute significantly to – what was it Mabel herself used to call it? – to the overall thing – wasn’t that it? I mean they didn’t reroute the course of history, did they? So I have got to be as fair as I can to all those ladies without diminishing them, without inflating them into something they were not, without lying about them. I mean our Catriona, our beautiful Catriona, would be the last to claim some historical eminence, wouldn’t she? But they all did have their own scales; and they recognized what those dimensions were; and in fairness to them we should acknowledge those dimensions accurately.