...manages to march unopposed through Kerry and …
Years: 1569 - 1569
August
...manages to march unopposed through Kerry and Connello, taking thirty to forty castles without the aid of artillery.
Fitzmaurice's forces break up, as individual lords have to retire to defend their own territories.
Gilbert in particular is notorious for the terror tactics he employs, killing civilians at random.
During three weeks of Gilbert's campaign, all are treated without quarter and put to the sword, including women and children—which explains, perhaps, the swiftness with which so many castles are abandoned before his advance.
He is also said to have sent Captain Apsley into Kerry to inspire terror.
In order to cow local supporters of the rebels, he chooses to put on gruesome spectacles after a day's killing, ordering the decapitation of the scattered corpses so that the heads can be brought to his camp in the evening, where they are arranged in two parallel rows, making a pathway to the flaps of his tent, along which the supplicants would tread in the presence of their late fathers, brothers and sons.
The practice of decapitating slain enemies is common in Gaelic Ireland at this time, but its adoption by an English military commander marching under the banner of justice for the oppressed is remarkable.
Locations
People
Groups
- Christians, Roman Catholic
- England, (Tudor) Kingdom of
- Protestantism
- Ireland, (English) Kingdom of
- Ulster Scots people (Scots-Irish)
Topics
- Protestant Reformation
- Counter-Reformation (also Catholic Reformation or Catholic Revival)
- Elizabethan Period
- Desmond Rebellions
