There was a proverb current in 16th century England, which ran: "He who would England win, must with Ireland begin". It was a saying which grew to have ominous significance during the closing years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, when the long guerilla warfare which had been waged by the Irish forces of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, began to become ever more closely enmeshed in the struggle between England and Spain.

At right, Irish Warriors drawing by Albrecht Durer, 1521. The caption above the two figures at left reads, "soldiers of Ireland, beyond England," and above the figures at right reads, "thus go the poor of Ireland."

O'Neill had been in arms since 1595, fighting a protracted guerilla struggle based in his heartland in Ulster. O'Neill had taken care to avoid being drawn into a major set-piece battle, winning instead several essentially ambush-type encounters at Clontibret, Yellow Ford and the Moyny Pass.

This strategy, coupled with the effects of other forms of attrition, had taken a heavy toll of the English forces, and ensured continued Irish resistance. It had not however, brought decisive victory any nearer.

Reputation

O'Neill had by 1601 won a reputation "which is so great that it alone sustains the war." The Irish had also been motivated by nationalism and religion. Their army had been much more effective in the type of warfare which it waged than any previous opponent of the English regime, but there was a growing realisation that time was not on the Irish side. The arrival of a highly competent new English Lord Deputy. Lord Mountjoy, together with England's greater resources, made it apparent in the beginning of the year that unless O'Neill received assistance from an outside source, which in effect meant Spain, the Irish cause faced ultimate defeat.

Throughout the year, negotiations went on to obtain this aid. Spanish motives were ultimately selfish ones: seeing Ireland as a potential base from which to launch more intensive attacks on England, and force the withdrawal of its forces from the Netherlands.

Thus, though the Spaniards recognised that it was essential for any troops whom they despatched to unite with O'Neill, the Irish viewpoint on this tended to take second place to their own considerations.

Attitude

The attitude of the principal Irish leaders, O'Neill himself and Hugh O'Donnell, Earl of' Tyrconnell, was that the location of any Spanish landing should be governed by the strength of the expedition which they despatched. If a force 6,000 or more strong were to be available, O'Neill felt that its objective should be the province of Munster, where rebellion still smouldered, though no effective field force still operated, and which was some 200 miles from Tyrone's own forces.

However, a strong Spanish force, equipped with siege artillery, would be able to operate independently for a time, and begin to reduce the English-held towns in the province. But a force less than 6,000 strong would be too weak to take the field without support, and so should head for Limerick, where the Irish forces would be able to support it quickly.

If the expedition was 7,000 men or less, it would be able to provide no more than a stiffening for O'Neill's forces, and in that case the Irish leadership felt that it should land directly in Ulster.

Spanish Forces

As the Spanish landing force was supposed to consist of 6,000 men, Munster should have been the automatic choice as landing place, but there was considerable dissension among the Spanish leadership, and the Irish were coming down more firmly in support of a landing at Limerick, though their views didn't reach Spain until after the expedition had set sail. The Spanish commanders had meanwhile reached an uneasy compmmise in which the disembarkation would take place at Kinsale.

The invasion force sailed from Belem in Portugal on 3rd September. The ships carried 4,432 Spanish and Italian troops whose 43 companies were formed into two tercios--one led by Maestre dw Campo Antonio Centano and the other under the command of Don Francisco de Padilla, who in the event was unable to sail with the expedition because of illness.

Aguila and Brochero

Overall command of the land forces was exercised by Don Juan del Aguila, who had considerable experience, having fought in the Mediterranean against the Turks in the Netherlands under Parma, and had then commanded the Spanish forces in Brittany. Here his career had come under a shadow when he was accused of corruption, and Aguila was in fact released from prison in order to command the Irish expedition.

Though Aguila was a highly capable soldier, he seems also to have been a harsh and unyielding commander, who, with most of his men, apart from three companies of veterans from Galicia, being raw new recruits, was faced with an impossible task with inadequate resources in a far-distant theatre.

Naval aspects of the expedition were the responsibility of Don Diego de Brochero, who was entirely independent of Aguila. Prospects of success were weakened further by almost complete lack of cooperation between the two commanders.

O'Neill had been re-organising his forces in preparation for the conventional war in which they would be involved after the Spaniards landed. Though in theory the Irish leadership might have been able to muster almost 7000 men, in practice because of a shortage of arms and other committments in their home territories, the force which could actually be put into the field was bound to be much smaller.

O'N'eill, backed until his departure for Spain, Richard Owen, the commander of his foot, began to re-model his field force after the English style, forming the infantry into companies with colours and drums, and, as they would be operating alongside Spanish forces. attempting to introduce his troops to the tercio formation.

Training Programme

The Irish received help in this training programme from a numher of sources, including veterans of the Armada who had survived shipwreck and massacres and continued to operate alongside the Irish. Irish veterans of the war in Flanders such as Richard Owen, English Catholics like Captain Hugh Mostyn, and Scottish mercenaries. There were still insufficent experienced officers to train or command the Irish force properly, and the rank and file lacked sufficent combat experience.

If the foot were inadequately trained and equipped, the horse were worse: most of the horses were small, there was little armor available, and the commonest weapon was a half-pike.

The Spanish force began landing at the small port of Kinsale, 1.3 miles smith of Cork, on October 2nd. Aguila's army was still smaller than anticipated because part of the fleet had been scattered by storms. He was eventually able to muster 3,300-3,400 men, and discounted any possibility of taking the offensive without Irish assistance.

He made help from O'Neill and O'Donnell still more vital by declining offers of support from local Munster chiefs such as O'Sullivan Beare, whose previous support for English government he felt rendered them untrustworthy allies. Rejecting their plan to bar the approach of Mountjoy's forces, Aguila decided to fortify himself in Kinsale and await the arrival of O'Neill and O'Donnell before he attempted to take the field. The departure on October 9th of the Spanish fleet left Aguila's force totally isolared.

Mountjoy, currently in Kilkenny, from where he hoped to move quickly against any likely landing, had heard of Aguila's arrival by October 4th and four days later was in Cork ordering a general concentration of forces to deal with the invaders. The rest of the country was stripped of troops, leaving only the bare minimum to hold the line against incursions from Ulster. By 27th October. Mountjoy had mustered 6,000 men in Cork.

His chief initial problem, he realised, would be maintaining such a force reasonably intact. In despatches to England, Mountjoy emphasised the need for regular supplies. "The state of the kingdom depends on our ability to keep the field. If we break for want of victuals the country will revolt and the Spaniards will take the towns."

First Reaction

O'Neill's first reaction to news of the Spaniards' arrival was to launch widespread raids against the weakened defences of the English-held Pale. both in order to win back wavering supporters and also in an attempt to tie down English forces which could otherwise be used against Aguila. Although O'Neill succeeded in rhc first of his objectives, he failed to distract Mountjoy from his strategy, and it became apparent that more direct support would be needed by the Spaniards.

O'Neill in particular was very reluctant to leave his home territory, where he had hitherto maintained his cause with considerable success, and hazard all on a perilous march across country to confront Mountjoy in open battle. It was said of him with some justice, that he "Better trusts himself with twenty kern hidden in a wood than with five hundred Spaniards in a town."

But after making what preparations he could, O'Neill set off on the march south from Dungannon on November 23rd with a force estimated at 3,000 foot and 400 horse. His principal ally, Hugh O'Donnell, abandoning his own territory and staking everything on victory, was moving south from Tyrconnell with perhaps 2,000 foot and 300 horse.

O'Donnell evaded a force detached to intercept him led by George Carew. O'Neill, moving southwards through the Midlands more slowly, also avoided his opponents, and the Irish forces united near Bandon late in December. Their march had been a magnifieant feat, but the hardest part of their task remained before them.

Mountjoy had been concentrating his efforts on dealing with the Spaniards in Kinsale. He had no illusions about the importance of this task; he wrote to Cecil: "If we beat them, let it not trouble you though you hear all Ireland doth revolt, for (by the grace of God) you shall have them all return presently with halters about their necks: if we do not, all providence bestowed on any other place is in vain." In London, up to 5,000 reinforcements were being prepared, together with a naval squadron under Sir Richard Leveson.

Siege

The siege which now began proved both prolonged and costly for the English forces; Aguila began with something like 3,000 effectives, Mountjoy with about 7,000. After capturing two outposts commanding the approaches to Kinsale hy river, Mountjoy began to draw his entrenchments closer in to the town, but found his operations hindered at least as much by sickness and the weather as by the efforts of the Spaniards. An attempt to storm the town failed, but a major sortie by the Spaniards was also repulsed. Aguila after this was content to wait passively for the arrival of his Irish allies.

The appearance of O'Neill and O'Donnell, with a combined force of perhaps 6,500 foot and 800 horse across his lines of communications meant that Mountjoy in his turn was now blockaded. Supplies began to run short, so that the English commander was on the point of ordering his horse to break out towards Cork in order to be able to forage.

It seemed that the Irish had only to maintain their blockade a short while longer in order to place Mountjoy in a very difficult position. O'Neill seems to have been in favour of this course of action, feeling that the Spaniards were in any case sufficently well established to be able to hold out if necessary until reinforcements arrived from Spain. But he met with opposition from other quarters.

The Irish had been reinforced by about 400 men from an additional small Spanish force which had landed at Castlehaven, and its officers claimed that O'Neill would be able to cut his way through Mountjoy's defences and link up with Aguila. O'Neill was justifiably doubtful of this, but came under even greater pressure to act from O'Donnell. The younger man, described as "the firebrand of all the rebels", was strongly in favour of an attack. and, for whatever reason, got his way.

More Battle of Kinsale

Battle of Kinsale: Pre Battle Maneuverings
Battle of Kinsale: The Battle
Battle of Kinsale: Large Map