Miles Bourke, Viscount Mayo, and the 1641 Rebellion in Ireland

DIED A D. 1649.

From The Irish Nation: Its History and Its Biography

By James and Freeman Wills

OF the ancestral history of the family of Burke, Bourke, and de Burgo, common variations of the same illustrious name, we have said enough in these pages. The nobleman whom we are here to notice was the representative of the MacOughter branch. It is known to the reader, that near the middle of the 14th century, William de Burgo, earl of Ulster, was assassinated by his own people. His countess, with her infant daughter, took refuge in England. The possessions of the earl were left unprotected. In the north they were seized by the O'Neiles; in Connaught by two collateral descendants of the De Burgo race. To escape a future demand of restitution, these ancient gentlemen embraced the laws and manners of the surrounding septs of Irish, and assumed the names of MacWilliam Eighter and MacWilliam Oughter. Of these, the latter, and we suspect the other also, were descendants from the second son of Richard de Burgo, grandfather to the murdered earl.

The viscount of this family, whom we are now to notice, demands this distinction on account of the very peculiar and unfortunate circumstances of his history. He sat as viscount Mayo in the parliament of 1634. When the troubles of 1641 commenced, he was appointed governor of the county of Mayo, conjointly with viscount Dillon. By virtue of the authority with which he was thus intrusted, he raised six companies of foot, and during three months kept the county in a quiet state without any aid from government.

As, however, it was not long before the convulsions in England threw a cloud of uncertainty upon every question at issue between parties; the rebels were soon divided into factions, each of which contended, and was ready to fight for the shade of loyalty or of opinion maintained by itself. It is not easy now to settle with precision, by what strange course of previous politics, or from what reasons of right, real, or supposed, the lord Mayo acted in direct opposition to the principles, on the understanding of which he had been employed. Many of the circumstances are such, indeed, as to ascertain a feeble, uncertain and complying character; and indicate a degree of timidity and subservience, which it is necessary to assume as the most merciful excuses for unprincipled compliances, of which the result must have been foreseen by a little common sense, and guarded against by an ordinary sense of duty.

The accounts of the dark and bloody transactions in which this nobleman's name has been implicated, have been considered worth restatement by Lodge,[1] with a view to clear his memory from the unjust imputation of having been a party to their guilt. From such a stain, we can have no doubt in declaring him free; but our voice must be qualified by some weighty exceptions.

The approach of the rebellion was early felt among the remote and wild mountains and moors of the county of Mayo. The condition of the peasantry was poor, their manners barbarous, and their minds superstitious: their preparations for the coming strife were rude, and being under comparatively loose restraint, but little concealed. Early in the summer of 1641, their smiths were observed to be industrious in the manufacture of their knives or skeins, well known as an ancient weapon of the rudest Irish war. And these rude implements were soon to be employed. The time quickly came, and the work of plunder and destruction began.

As the incident here to be related is one of the most memorable which disgrace the annals of this period, and has been made the subject of much comment with which we cannot concur, we shall preface it by a few brief remarks to recall to the reader's mind that the principle upon which we have hitherto endeavoured to frame our statements, has been to give the facts as they have occurred, with an entire disregard to all uses which have been made of them. If we admit that the crimes of lawless and ignorant barbarians, which is the unquestionable character of the lower classes of the 17th century, may indirectly be imputed to the cause of which they were the instrument, yet we do not assent to the further implication that those atrocities can be charged directly to the principles of that cause or, (unless in special cases), to its leaders and promoters.

One distinction will be found to have a general application, and may be adopted to its full extent; the conduct of the actors in the multifarious and complicated maze of crime, suffering, and folly, which is to occupy the chief portion of this volume, will be observed to be conformable to the personal characters of the agents, and not to any abstract principles or special dogmas. In this we do not mean in any way to vindicate the soundness of these supposed opinions, but simply to maintain that so far as our assertion is applied, they are utterly unconcerned. We do not mean to say that they who could place the assassin's knife in the hands of lawless men, for the purpose of maintaining any principle, are to be acquitted: the truth of God is in higher hands—than those of the assassin. But we are far from assenting to the zeal, which for the sake of effect, would charge the most erroneous tenets with the crimes of men who would have sinned in the defence of the best and truest: the impulse, in whatever principle it originates, is propagated from its centre by means of the natural love of adventure, spoil, and lawless indulgence, common to those who have nothing to lose, and little but the fear of law to constrain them. Whether the zeal of opinion, or party animosity, move the centre—whether the cause be righteous or unjust—if its partisans be low, rude, and unimpressed by moral restraint, it is but too sure to he maintained by demonstrations, by which the soundest cause would be dishonoured; —robbery, murder, and the wanton cruelty of the passions and lusts of the most base and depraved minds: for it is unhappily, these, that float uppermost in such times.

On this, we are here anxious to be distinctly and emphatically understood: often as we are, and shall be compelled to repeat accounts, which have been as the battle-fields of parties, contending in rival misrepresentations, and anxious as we are to stand aloof from the feelings by which the narratives on either side are more or less tinged; and at the same time to state these facts which we regard as inductive examples in the history of man, fully, and as they appear to our indifferent reason: we find it expedient to accompany them with the precaution of our most guarded comment. We cannot agree with those writers, who have manifested their desire to be held liberal by useless attempts to qualify, misrepresent, and understate such facts as have an irritating tendency: neither do we concur with those bold and zealous assertors, who are desirous to make them hear more than their full weight of consequence. Had such been silent on either side, the truth would be an easy thing, and the comment straight and brief. We, for our part, reject the statements of the first, and the heated and precipitate inferences of the latter: so far as they are directed to convey reproach to the general character and principles of action of their antagonist party,[2]

We cannot assent with some of our fellow-labourers in the mine of Irish history, (a mine of sad combustibles,) that the most fierce and inhuman outrages were not committed by the peasantry in the name of their church and creed; but we are just as far from imputing the murders and massacres of an ignorant and inflamed populace who knew no better, to any church or creed. The insane brutality of O'Neile, the fiend-like atrocity of MacMahon, are no more to be attributed to a religion (in which they had no faith,) than the monstrous and profligate crimes of Nero and Caligula are to be imputed to the religion of Brutus and Seneca. We do not here mean to deny, or in any way to advert to any direct charges against the church of Rome as a church: with its effects as a fanaticism we are also well acquainted. Neither of these form the gravamen of the alleged imputations: the massacres of 1641, committed, as crime is ever but too likely to be committed, under holy pretences, and in duty's name, were committed by miscreants, whose actual impulses were neither those of religion or duty.

Moore committed neither robbery or murder: nor Mountgarret, nor any of the noble lords and gentlemen whose various motives led, or impelled them to take up arms in the same cause. But when the whole lives, the recorded declarations, the preserved correspondence, and the well-attested courses of conduct of the leaders in crime are viewed; and when the state of the people is considered, it will be easy to see that they would have done the same in the name of Jupiter as for the Pope; for the creed of Budha as for the church of Rome. One more last word, and we shall proceed: we would remind many of our humane and philosophical contemporaries, that nothing is gained by attempting the charge of exaggeration, when the statements do not very strongly justify such a qualification: if thirty were butchered, the crime was just the same in degree as if it had been a hundred—having been only limited by the number of the victims exposed to the mercy of popular fanaticism. The reader will we trust excuse these tedious distinctions, as a preface to facts that demand them.

The rebellion in the county of Mayo commenced with the robbery of a gentleman of the name of Perceval. He brought his complaint to lord Mayo, and sought that redress which was to be looked for from one of the governors of the county. Lord Mayo marched out to recover the property of this complainant, whose cattle had been driven away and lodged within a mill near Ballyhaunis. This building the robbers had fortified, and while his lordship was considering what to do, he was visited by messengers from an armed rabble, who had collected at a little distance, with the avowed design of supporting the robbers in the mill. Several messages passed between them, and we are compelled to assume, that his lordship, on due consideration of his forces, found himself not prepared for a more spirited course: he "granted them a protection," a proceeding which each of the parties seem to have understood in a very different way. The crowd on this came forward, and mingled among his lordship's followers, "with much shouting and joy on both sides;" and no more is said about the mill and the property of Mr Perceval.

In the midst of this motley concourse, his lordship next moved on to the abbey of Ballyhaunis, where the whole were entertained for the night. The friars of this abbey had been deprived of their possessions in the former reign: and on the first eruption of disturbance in the kingdom, a party of friars of (we believe,) the order of St Augustine, had returned to take possession of an ancient mansion of their order, which the approaching revolution that they expected, would, they hoped, enable them to secure.

Altogether different in principles, opinions, and public feelings, from the secular clergy of the church of Rome, these men had no home interest in the community, with whom they had no relations: they were the faithful and unquestioning instruments of a foreign policy, and if they had any individual or private object at heart, it was to secure their newly acquired possession. These were not the persons most likely to act as moderators in the outset of demonstrations on the course of which their whole dependence lay. They are in general terms accused of taking the occasion to aggravate the impulse by the excitement of the people.

We see no reason to dissent from this statement, but we think it fair to add that the deponent from whose testimony the accusation is made, was precisely under those circumstances of terror and alarm, when small incidents assume a magnified form, and reports exaggerated by alarm carry fallacious impressions To this consideration we must refer the inference by which Mr Goldsmith seems to have connected the hospitality of the friars with the general increase of violence. By their instructions, affirms the deponent, Mr John Goldsmith, the people "then broke forth into all inhuman practices, barbarous cruelties, and open rebellion." It is however plain, that this incident was a consequence of the practices of which it is assumed to be a cause. The rebellion in its progress had reached them, and such was its beginning in that county. From this time the violence of the country people of the surrounding country became wild, unrestrained, and dangerous to all but those who were their counsellors and abettors.

Mr John Goldsmith, from whose deposition the following particulars are mainly drawn, was a protestant clergyman, the incumbent of the parish of Brashoule. From the disturbed state of the country, of which his narrative contains a frightful picture, he was early compelled to seek refuge under the roof of the noble lord here under notice. His statement, though neither as full or clear as we should desire, is especially valuable for the authentic insight which it affords into the character and true circumstances of his noble protector, and for the lively glimpse which it presents of the terror and distress, which the lawless state of the country impressed on every breast, and propagated into every circle.

The interior view of the family of Belcarrow, may, we doubt not, stand for many a trembling family and home beleaguered by fear and apprehension. Lord Mayo is himself represented as "miserably perplexed in the night with anxious thoughts." His lordship was, we have every reason to infer, a man of honour and humanity, but of that unfixed principle and ductile temper that takes its tone from the reflected spirit, or the influence of harder and firmer minds. He had the misfortune to be drawn by opposite feelings and in different directions. The menaces, flatteries, reproaches, and representations of the crowd and of their leaders, had a strong effect on his naturally ductile and feeble mind: rebellion raged all round, and her thunders and gay promises, her lofty pretensions and high-breathing illusions, formed an atmosphere without his gates, and met him wherever he went: within the walls of his castle he was surrounded by a protestant family, who were zealous and earnest in their faith; his lady, like all true-hearted women, was thoroughly in earnest about her religion, and by her authority and influence maintained the same spirit in a large household.

At the time that this narrative refers to, the family of Belcarrow was augmented by several protestant fugitives, of whom the principal were Mr Gilbert and Mr Goldsmith, both clergymen, with their wives and families, besides several of the protestants of the neighbouring country, who in their general alarm found at Belcarrow a compassionate host and hospitable board, and the free exercise of their religion, at a time when, according to Mr Goldsmith, it had nearly disappeared from every other part of the county. Thus collected by fear, the situation of this family was one of the most anxious suspense; they lived under the excitement of daily rumours of the most terrifying description, and were harassed by frequent though vague alarms. Of these, an example is given by Mr Goldsmith. One night the family, thus prepared to draw alarming interpretations from every noise, or be terrified by some frightened visitor's report of the doubtful appearances of night—when fancy hears voices, and bushes can be mistaken for robbers—was thrown into a causeless fright, and every preparation was made against an immediate attack: his lordship marched out with his men to meet a force, which we are strongly inclined to think, he did not expect to meet. Such was happily the fact: his lordship had the honour of a soldier-like demonstration, and his good family were quit for the fear.

They had however to endure more substantial and anxious alarms. Every thing in his lordship's deportment was such as to suggest fears of the liveliest description to all those who had either honour, conscience, or safety at heart. It was wavering and undecided; his intercourse with the people betrayed the uncertainty of his mind, even to those without, and must have been but too evident to those who surrounded his board. To this company their noble protector often complained of the deserted condition in which he was left by the government, to whom he had, he said, appealed in vain. His lordship was at the time anxiously halting between two opinions, the rebels were looking for his adherence, and his family were nightly expecting an attack upon the castle: the people saw their strength, and said that he should side with them; negotiations were kept up, and still deluding himself with notions of duty, and with questionable compromises, this weak lord fluttered as a bird under the fascination of the serpent; and flirted with sedition till he fell into the snare.

Among the curious indications of this course of his lordship's mind, we are inclined to set down a proposal which he is stated by Mr Goldsmith to have discussed with himself and others of his own household: which was no less than to take the rebels into his protection; and as he was neglected by the state, avail himself of their services in behalf of his majesty: a policy afterwards under altered circumstances, adopted by wiser persons than lord Mayo. Against this singular method of resisting rebellion, Mr Goldsmith protested; and his lordship put the proposition in another form equally creditable to his statesmanship and knowledge of mankind; he expressed his design "to subdue those of Costilo by the men of Gallen, and those of Gallen by the rebels that lived in the Carragh." On this important design he sent to Sir Henry Bingham, and requested a conference at Castlebar. The state of the country did not permit the meeting, but lord Mayo sent his plan in writing, which was signed by Sir Henry and others: a fact which shows the state of alarm in which they must have been at the time.

It was immediately after this that the inmates of his lordship's house began to notice proceedings from which, the more natural results of such demonstrations were to be inferred. His lordship, no doubt desirous to be right, could not help reversing the poet's reproof, "too fond of the right, to pursue the expedient;" he took the course which it would perhaps have required a stronger spirit to avoid; and while he talked of resistance and the king's service, was under such pretexts daily contracting deeper affinity with the parties who involved his path on every side with a well-spun entanglement of menace and flattery. At this time "Mr Goldsmith perceived motions towards popery in his lordship's house; popish books of controversy were sent him; and Laughlin Kelly, the titular archbishop of Tuam, came and reconciled his lordship to the Roman church."

In the midst of his compliances, which were too evidently the result of feebleness and fear, lord Mayo evidently preserved some sense of what was due to his rank and the cause he had thus abandoned. It was, perhaps, the delusion with which he flattered himself, that the influence he should thus acquire over the people might enable him the better to protect the protestants, and the members of his own family: the illusion was humane and amiable, and may be set down to his credit. In this he was destined to be sadly undeceived.

It was while the protestant family of lord Mayo were in this state of harassing uncertainty, and the circumvallations of fear and artifice were daily drawn closer round their walls, that his lordship heard of the shocking and brutal abuse which Dr John Maxwell had received from a rebel leader, into whose hands he had been betrayed by a treacherous convoy. Lord Mayo, on learning of the circumstances, wrote a reproachful letter to the rebel, whose name was Edmunde Bourke: and gave him to understand, that he would treat him as an enemy if he should hesitate to deal fairly with the bishop who was put into his hands under the pretence of convoying him on with his company, of whom several were the clergy of his diocese. On this, Bourke, who had no notion of leaving his own purposes for the bishop, brought him with his family, and left him within sight of lord Mayo's castle. He was taken in and treated with all the care and hospitality which was to be expected from the persons, and under the circumstances, and for a few days Dr Maxwell found himself among friends and fellow-christians: he had with him his wife, three children, five or six clergymen, and a numerous train of domestics, which the habits of the day required, and the apprehensions of danger perhaps increased. They remained ten days. Of course the bishop must have been anxious to reach home, and must have felt a natural reluctance to task the kindness of his host much longer with so heavy an addition. But is was now become a matter of serious danger to cross the country in the state in which it was known to be.

In this embarrassment, it seems natural that any occasion would be seized upon to forward the bishop's wishes: and an occasion was soon found. Edmunde Bourke was still besieging Castlebar, when a letter from Sir Henry Bingham caused lord Mayo to march out against him with all the men he could command. Bourke, whose object was not a battle with armed men, and his lordship, who was perhaps no less prudent, came to an agreement, that Bourke should give up his designs upon Castlebar, and agree to convoy the garrison, with the bishop and his party safe to Galway. Bourke agreed, and the matter was soon arranged. The parties to be thus convoyed, had to be collected from Castlebar, Kinturk, and from his lordship's castle, and were to be brought together to the village of Shrule, from which they were as soon as convenient to be delivered up to the safeguard of Edmunde Bourke, to escort them to Galway. Lord Mayo, with his son, the unfortunate Sir Theobald Bourke, at the head of his lordship's five companies, accompanied them from their several quarters to the village of Shrule, and did not leave them during their stay in that place.

Lord Mayo cannot indeed, on this occasion, be accused of the wilful neglect of any precaution or care: he not only remained in the village, and slept with the bishop, but obtained from the titular archbishop of Tuam a strong promise to send with the convoy a letter of protection, and several priests and friars to see them safe in Galway.

It was on the evening of Saturday the 12th of February, 1641, that his lordship, with the bishop's family, occupied the house of serjeant Lambert at this village. The village was filled with their companions, the several parties and his lordship's soldiers, and felt heavily the burthen of providing for such numbers. So that, though the following day was Sunday, a strong entreaty was made that they should travel on, by the principal persons of the surrounding barony. Lord Mayo now dismissed his companies, and made such preparations as he could for the ease and security of the travellers: he made his son and others of the party dismount, and left his own servant, Edmunde Dooney, a five pound note for the bishop, to be delivered when he should part with them at Galway fort. The convoy, commanded by Murrough ua Doe O'Flaherty, and Ulick Bourke of Castlehacket, awaited the party a mile from Shrule, at a place called Killemanagh: and thither they now set out, accompanied by a party of lord Mayo's men, but commanded at the moment by Edmund Bourke, who was brother to the actual captain. The hour was far advanced towards noon, when Bourke and his men had come out from mass, and all were ready to start. The way to the nearest halting-place was ten miles, and Bourke earnestly pressed them to get forward.

Lord Mayo was hardly out of sight, and the travellers had but cleared the bridge of Shrule, when a sudden and violent assault was made upon them by their perfidious guards. There was no struggle except to fly, and that was too confused to be successful; nor, in the hurried and random tumult of the slaughter, where every individual was compelled to mind himself or what was nearest where he stood, was it possible for any one to carry away a precise description of the scene of butchery which then took place. From the depositions of individuals a few incidents are collected, and these probably describe the remainder. When the bridge was just passed, a shot was fired from between the bushes, whereupon Edmunde Bourke drew his sword, and the examinant rode back to the bridge with the bishop's child behind him, when he was charged with pikemen, but was rescued by Walter Bourke MacRichard MacThomas MacRoe, who drew his sword and made way for him. "Some," to use the language of depositions, "were shot, some stabbed with skeins, some run through with pikes, some cast into the water and drowned; and the women that were stripped naked, lying on their husbands to save them, were run through with pikes, so that very few escaped."[3]

The bishop was wounded in the head, the clergymen in his company were slain, except one, a Mr Crowd who was so severely beaten that he shortly died. The number slain is stated to have been sixty-five, and we see no reason to doubt this statement. In such cases, it is to be granted that exaggeration is to be suspected, but it is as likely at least on the side of those who seek to extenuate a crime, as on the part of those who stand in the place of accusers. And we should observe, that although the loss of one life more or less, must practically be a matter of most serious moment, nothing is gained in the point of extenuation; the crime of murder does not increase and diminish by numerical proportion. The point is frivolous; but it is fair to state that the Roman catholic gentry of the surrounding district, affirmed that the number slain was not above thirty. It is more satisfactory to us to be enabled to state, that the Roman catholic gentry of the country came forward to the aid of the few who escaped from that hideous scene, and that they brought them to their homes. Among the charitable persons who distinguished themselves in this pious work, none deserved a more grateful commemoration than "Bryan Kilkenny, the guardian of the neighbouring abbey of Ross, who, though an aged man, was one of the first that made haste to the rescue, and brought the bishop's wife and children, and many others, to his monastery, where they were hospitably entertained, to the best of the friar's ability, for several nights."[4]

Lord Mayo, when he proceeded on his way, rode towards Conge; the house of his son, Sir Tibbot, and about six miles from Shrule. On the way he stopped at the house of a Mr Andrew Lynch, intending there to await the arrival of Sir Tibbot. He was about to dismount from his horse, when a horseman came up at full speed and gave him the information of this disastrous event. Lord Mayo, overpowered with horror and indignation, retired to a chamber, where he gave expression to the most frantic exclamations of his vexation and grief; he "then wept bitterly, pulling off his hair, and refusing to hear any manner of persuasion or comfort." While he was in this state, his son, who had barely escaped with his life, arrived, and "with tears related the tragedy, but could not certainly tell who was killed or who escaped; but being demanded by his father why he would ever come away, but either have preserved their lives, or have died with them; answered, that when they began the slaughter, they charged him (having his sword drawn against them) with their pikes and muskets, and would have killed him, but that John Garvy, the sheriff of the county of Mayo, (who was brother-in-law to Edmunde Bourke, the principal murderer,) came in betwixt him and them, took him in his arms, and, by the assistance of others, forcibly carried him over the bridge."

The deposition from which this extract is taken goes on to say, that lord Mayo having proceeded to Conge, took his bed for some days, after which he went, on the third day, to the house of the titular archbishop, where he conformed to the church of Rome—and heard mass. In two days more he attended a great meeting of "the county," we presume a meeting of the Roman catholic gentry and priesthood, at Mayo, and was "for ever after," says the deposition, "under the command of the Romish clergy." All the English in the county of Mayo followed his lordship's example, with the exception of his own household; who are enumerated, on the authority of Mr Goldsmith, by Lodge as follows: "the viscountess Mayo, the lady Bourke, Mrs Burley, Mr Tarbock, Mr Hanmec, Owen the butler, Alice the cookmaid, Mr and Mrs Goldsmith, and Grace, their child's nurse."

The condition of these can be conceived, Mr Goldsmith was, by his lordship's permission, and by the lady's desire, allowed to minister to the spiritual wants of this small congregation, "shut in by fear on every side." As this gentleman appears under these circumstances to have exercised great zeal and boldness in resisting the new opinions which were attempted every hour to be pressed upon the family, he soon became the cause of remonstrance and reproach against his protector. Lord Mayo was reproved by the titular archbishop, already mentioned, for suffering him to exercise his ministry, and insisted that he should "deliver him up to them." "What will ye do with him?" says my lord. "We will send him," said the bishop, "to his friends." "You will," said my lord, "send him to Shrule to be slain, as you did others; but if you will give me six of your priests to be bound body for body for his safe conveying to his friends, I will deliver him to you." The bishop must have thought his six priests something more than lawful change for one protestant divine, and perhaps rated rather lowly the orthodoxy of his noble convert; he refused the compromise, and prevailed with lord Mayo so far, that Mr Goldsmith was compelled to be confined to a private part of the house, and kept in daily fear of being murdered. On Sundays he was allowed to officiate clandestinely for the servants, till at last lady Mayo summoned up firmness to insist that he should be allowed openly to read prayers and preach to the few protestants who remained.

Lord Mayo was appointed governor of the county of Mayo, and admitted as one of their body by the supreme council of Kilkenny. In this new dignity his lordship did no harm, and performed some good services to humanity. On one occasion he interfered effectually to prevent one of those frightful massacres of unresisting victims which is the disgrace of that period. "The clan Jordans, the clan Steevens, and clan Donells, came to Strade and Ballysahan, and gathered together all the British they found there, closed them up in a house, (in the same manner as had been done at Sligo, when a butcher with his axe slew forty in one night) with an intent that night to murder them; but notice thereof having been given to the lord Mayo, he prevented their wickedness, and preserved the poor innocent people from slaughter." At last lord Mayo discovered that the councils of rebellion could not continue to be participated in by the timid, the honourable, or the humane; that none could endure the spirit of atrocity that had been roused into action but those who shared its influence; and that without this recommendation, it was not possible to escape the suspicion and dislike of those who had themselves abandoned all the ties of civilization: he had not contaminated his conscience bv participating in any voluntary act of rebellion, and at length he found resolution to break the sanguinary and degrading trammel, and made his escape in 1644 from the supreme council.

Lord Mayo died in 1649; but his son, Sir Tibbot, or Theobald, Burke, was, in a few years after, tried, and sentenced to be shot, upon a most flagrantly unjust and iniquitous charge of having been concerned in the massacre at Shrule. It is mentioned by Lodge, that the soldiers appointed to shoot him, missed him three times; "but at last a corporal, blind of an eye, hit him. His property of fifty thousand acres was forfeited by his attainder, and that of his father, who was at the time dead. And his son was, by the charitable consideration of the government, on his petition, sent to a free school in Dublin; and would probably, had his own spirit and the affection of his relations permitted, in course of time been apprenticed out to some handicraft. He was, however, in some time sent for by his mother's relations, and lived to be restored to his rank and paternal acres.

This branch of the Bourke family is, we believe, extinct. The title has been revived in another line of the same name and race.

NOTES:—

[1] We are unwilling to find fault with Lodge, or indeed (knowing as we do the difficulties of our history) with any writer on the score of confusion. But on this as in many other instances, we have had reason to lament the perplexity of arrangement which renders it hard to mould a clear narrative from his statements. In the long note from which we have drawn the facts of this memoir, there is a disregard to the order of events, such as to give a strange confusion to a narrative written in clear and simple language, and full of strong facts.

[2] We do not mean to disclaim party opinion in our individual person. But as editor of these Lives, we are earnestly desirous to keep self out of view. Whatever we may feel under the influence of these excitements, of which the world is composed, it is our desire and study to repress it, in the discharge of a duty of which unpartial justice is the end, and indifference the principle.

[3] Deposition, Lodge.

[4] Dublin Penny Journal, vol. i. p. 258.