Walter Devereux, First Earl of Essex, 1572. NPG.
Walter Devereux, 1st Devereux Earl of Essex, the eldest son of Sir Richard Devereux, was born in 1541. His
grandfather was the 2nd Baron Ferrers, who was created Viscount Hereford in 1550 and by his mother was a nephew of
Henry Bourchier, a former Earl of Essex. Walter Devereux succeeded as 2nd Viscount
Hereford in 1558, and in 1561 or 1562 married Lettice Knollys, daughter of
Sir Francis Knollys.
In 1569 he served as High Marshal of the Field under the Earl of Warwick and Lord Clinton, and materially assisted
them in suppressing the northern insurrection. For his zeal in the service of
Queen Elizabeth on this and other occasions, he in 1572
received the Garter and was created Earl of Essex, the title which formerly belonged to the Bourchier family.
Eager to give proof of "his good devotion to employ himself in the service of her majesty," he offered on certain
conditions to subdue and colonize, at his own expense, a portion of the Irish province of Ulster, at that time
completely under the dominion of the rebel O'Neills, under Sir Brian MacPhelim and Tirlogh Luineach, with the Scots
under their leader Sorley Boy MacDonnell. His offer, with certain modifications, was accepted, and he set sail for
Ireland in July 1573, accompanied by a number of earls, knights and gentlemen, and with a force of about 1200 men.
The beginning of his enterprise was inauspicious, for on account of a storm which dispersed his fleet and drove
some of his vessels as far as Cork and the Isle of Man, his forces did not all reach the place of rendezvous till
late in the autumn, and he was compelled to entrench himself at Belfast for the winter. Here, by sickness, famine
and desertions, his troops were diminished to little more than 200 men.
Intrigues of various sorts, and fighting of a guerilla type, followed with disappointing results, and Essex had
difficulties both with the deputy Fitzwilliam and with the Queen. Essex was in straits himself, and his offensive
movements in Ulster took the form of raids and brutal massacres among the O'Neills; in October 1574 he treacherously
captured MacPhelim at a conference in Belfast, and after slaughtering his attendants had him and his wife and brother
executed at Dublin. Elizabeth, instigated apparently by Leicester, after encouraging
Essex to prepare to attack the Irish chief Tirlogh Luineach, suddenly commanded him to "break off his enterprise";
but, as she left him a certain discretionary power, he took advantage of it to defeat Tirlogh Luineach, chastise
Antrim, and massacre several hundreds of Sorley Boy's following, chiefly women and children, discovered hiding in
the caves of Rathlin.
He returned to England in the end of 1575, resolved "to live henceforth an untroubled life"; but he was ultimately
persuaded to accept the offer of the queen to make him Earl Marshal of Ireland. He arrived in Dublin in September
1576, and three weeks afterwards died of dysentery. There were suspicions that he had been poisoned by Leicester,
who shortly after his death married his widow, but these were not confirmed by the post-mortem examination. The
endeavours of Essex to better the condition of Ireland were a dismal failure; and the massacres of the O'Neills
and of the Scots of Rathlin leave a dark stain on his reputation.
Excerpted from:
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed. Vol IX.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910. 781.
Other Local Resources:
Books for further study:
Devereux, Walter Bourchier. Lives and Letters of the Devereux Earls of Essex. Vol I
Facsimile Reprint of the 1853 original.
Adamant Media Corporation, 2002.
to Renaissance English Literature
to Luminarium Encyclopedia