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The new English Governor of Derry, Sir George Paulet, was contemptuous of the native Irish and in an argument punched O’Doherty in the face. The Lord of Inishowen, the Annals of the Four Masters record would rather have suffered death than live to brook such insult and dishonour.
O’Doherty began his rebellion in a rather unusual way. On 18 April 1608 he invited the Governor of Culmore Fort, Captain Henry Hart and his wife to dinner in his new castle at Burt. He enticed Hart upstairs, put a knife to his throat, and as the Captain’s wife screamed for mercy, O’Doherty threatened that if she or he did not take some present course for the delivery of Culmore into his hands, both they and their children should die.
By this ruse, Culmore – a strategic fort which commanded the entrance to Lough Foyle – fell to O’Doherty.
The following night O’Doherty attacked Derry, took the lower fort without difficulty, shot Governor Paulet dead and then encountered fierce resistance in the upper fort. A surviving defender recalled:
Lieutenant Gordon, hearing the shot, issued forth naked upon the rampier, with his rapier and dagger, where, with one soldier in his company, he set upon the enemy and killed two of them, using most comfortable words of courage to the soldiers to fight for their lives; but the enemy being far more in number, one struck him on the forehead with a stone, whereat, being somewhat amazed, they rushed upon him and killed him and the soldiers also.
As dawn broke the surviving townspeople barricaded themselves in the Bishop’s House and adjacent dwellings. However destitute of victuals and munition, and seeing a piece brought by the enemy from Culmore, and ready mounted to batter the said houses, and wearied with the lamentable outcry of women and children, after much parley and messages to and fro, yielded the said houses.
The Irish set fire to Derry and Strabane soon after, and factions of O’Cahans, O’Hanlons and MacSweeneys joined O’Doherty, threatening to spread the revolt across Ulster. The King’s Marshal was soon on hand, however, to recover the burnt shell of Derry. In the wild country of north Donegal, O’Doherty was cornered near Kilmacrenan and killed at the Rock of Doon. Meanwhile Lord Deputy Sir Arthur Chichester crushed the O’Hanlons in Co Armagh and moved into Tyrone, executing dozens by hanging a death which they contemn more than any other nation living; they are generally so stupid by nature, or so tough or disposed by their priests, that they show no remorse of conscience, or fear of death.
Another force in north Donegal besieged Doe Castle, the strongest hold in all the province which endured 100 blows of the demi-cannon before it yielded.
The Governor of Ballyshannon sailed up in five warships to hunt down O’Donnells who had retreated to the islands, took the castle on Tory island and slaughtered the defenders. When the O’Gallaghers’ castle of Glenveagh fell, the rebellion was over. The Crown forces had now control of country which, Chichester admitted, only recently had been as inaccessible as ‘the kingdom of China’. The Lord Deputy was not impressed by the scenery we appreciate so much today, it being one of the most barren, uncouth, and desolate countries that could be seen, fit only to confine rebels and ill spirits into.
From Coleraine the Attorney-General wrote to King James I assuring him that he had six counties now in demesne and actual possession in this province; which is a greater extent of land than any prince in Europe has to dispose of.
Indeed the king had. The crushing of O’Doherty’s rebellion had resulted in the seizing of extensive lands to add to the vast territories confiscated from the Earls who had fled from Lough Swilly the year before. The scale of the ‘Plantation of Ulster’, the King’s ambitious scheme to colonise the province with loyal British subjects, was now greatly magnified. This was the era of colonial expansion when England sought to catch up with Spain, Portugal and Holland. Only a year before the first successful band of English settlers had crossed the Atlantic for Virginia. As for Chichester, he declared he would rather labour with his hands in the plantation of Ulster than dance or play in that of Virginia.
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