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184

REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.

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false information, that a party of the rebels were lying. He found nothing there but a few fishing-boats; and while he was engaged in burning these, Fitzgerald attacked the division which had been sent on shore, and cut them off to a man. Nor was this the only misfortune. The pirate ships which had been watching Dublin Bay hovered round the fleet, cutting off straggling transports; and although one of them was chased and driven on shore, the small success poorly counterbalanced the injury which had been inflicted.^[1]

After a week of this trifling, Skeffington consented to resign his intention of going to Waterford, October 21.and followed Brereton into Dublin. Why he had delayed a day after discovering that the river and the city were open to him, it is impossible to conjecture.

↑ Skeffington was prudently reserved in his report of these things to Henry. He mentions having set a party on shore, but says nothing of their having heen destroyed; and he could not have been ignorant of their fate, for he was writing three weeks after it, from Dublin. He was silent, too, of the injury which he had received from the pirates, though eloquent on the boats which he burnt at the Skerries.—State Papers, vol. ii. p. 205. On first reading Skeffington' s despatch, I had supposed that the 'brilliant victory' claimed by the Irish historians (see Leland, vol. ii. p. 148) must have been imaginary. The Irish Statute Book, however, is too explicit to allow of such a hope. 'He [Fitzgerald] not only fortified and manned divers ships at sea, for keeping and letting, destroying and taking the King's deputy, army, and subjects, that they should not land within the said land; but also at the arrival of the said army, the same Thomas, accompanied with his uncles, servants, adherents, &c., falsely and traitorously assembled themselves together upon the sea coast, for keeping and resisting the King's deputy and army; and the same time they shamefully murdered divers of the said army coming to land. And Edward Rowkes, pirate at the sea, captain to the said Thomas, destroyed and took many of them.—Act of Attainder of the Earl of Kildare: 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.

[1] Skeffington was prudently reserved in his report of these things to Henry. He mentions having set a party on shore, but says nothing of their having heen destroyed; and he could not have been ignorant of their fate, for he was writing three weeks after it, from Dublin. He was silent, too, of the injury which he had received from the pirates, though eloquent on the boats which he burnt at the Skerries.—State Papers, vol. ii. p. 205. On first reading Skeffington' s despatch, I had supposed that the 'brilliant victory' claimed by the Irish historians (see Leland, vol. ii. p. 148) must have been imaginary. The Irish Statute Book, however, is too explicit to allow of such a hope. 'He [Fitzgerald] not only fortified and manned divers ships at sea, for keeping and letting, destroying and taking the King's deputy, army, and subjects, that they should not land within the said land; but also at the arrival of the said army, the same Thomas, accompanied with his uncles, servants, adherents, &c., falsely and traitorously assembled themselves together upon the sea coast, for keeping and resisting the King's deputy and army; and the same time they shamefully murdered divers of the said army coming to land. And Edward Rowkes, pirate at the sea, captain to the said Thomas, destroyed and took many of them.—Act of Attainder of the Earl of Kildare: 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.

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