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Life
| b. Cadeby, Lincolnshire; ed. Peterhouse, Cambridge, MA 1587; obtained licence to travel, 1589; visited Germany, Holland, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Switzerland, and France, 1591-95; studied at Leiden Univ.; visited Palestine, Constantinople, and Scotland, 1598; [var. Russia, Scandinavia and all Europe except Spain]; went to Ireland 1600, where his br. Richard was serving with Essex; |
| became private sec. to Sir Charles Blount (Lord Mountjoy; later Earl of Devonshire), on death of his predecessor; present on the field at Kinsale, and also at the submission of Hugh O’Neill at Mellifont, 1603; remained in Mountjoy’s service till the latter’s death in 1606, when he turned to writing, at first intending a history of all the countries he had visited; wrote first in Latin and translated for publication; |
| issued An Itinerary (London 1617), of which the first part is a brief history (‘this I write out of the Annals of Ireland printed by Camden’—1735 Edn., p.5) and the second gives an account of his soldiering in Ireland and his experience as secretary to Mountjoy, in diary form; Moryson blames the Munster undertakers for failing to put English rather than Irish tenants in place, as they had agreed; he returned to Ireland in 1613 and wrote a further account at that date which remained in a manuscript at MS in Corpus Christi College, Oxford as MS 94. |
| Publication history ... |
| The Irish sections of the 1617 edition of Itinerary were reprinted by George Ewing as A Historie of Ireland [...] to which is added a Description, 2 vols. (Dublin 1735), while the unprinted MS was partially published by Charles Hughes as ‘Unpublished Chapters of Moryson’s Itinerary’ in Shakepeare’s Europe (London 1903) and more fully in Caesar Litton Falkiner in Illustrations of Irish History and Topography (London 1904), before being printed in full by Graham Kew [et al.] as The Irish Sections of Fynes Moryson’s Unpublished Itinerary (Dublin: Irish Manuscript Commission 1998), 137pp. [first published in Analecta Hibernica, 37 (1995/1996) pp.1–137.] |
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Bibliographical details
An / Historie / of / Ireland, / From the Year 1599, to 1603. / With a Short Narration of the State of / the Kingdom from the Year 1167. / To which is added, A / DESCRIPTION / of / Ireland. / In Two Volumes [2 vols.] (Dublin: Printed by S. Powell / For GEORGE EWING, at the Angel and Bible / in Dame-street, / Bookseller. MDCCXXXV [1735]) [with names of subscribers incl. Henry Brook [sic], Sir Richard Cox, Robert Dillon, et al.]. Rectangular horiz. engraving [profile presum. of Eliz. II, in a medallion, supported by two putti and birds, as if cut with fretwork on a wood panel] at head of half-title, reading: The / REBELLION / of / HUGH Earl of Tyrone, / and the / Appeasing thereof; Written in form / of a Journal.Vol. I: Book I - Chap I: Of the induction or preface to my Irish journal, and a compendious narration of how Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy (my Lord and Master of happy memory) was chosen Lord Deputy of Ireland; and of this worthy Lord’s Quality, as also of the Councils in general, by which he broke the Rebels Hearts, and gave Peace to that Troubled State. Together with his particular Actions at the End of the Year 1599. [...]
Book I - Chap. II: Of the Lord Deputy’s particular Proceedings in the Prosecution of the Rebels in the Year 1600 [p.135ff.]. On foot of p.217 - ‘The’ - anticipating The REBELLION [... &c.] title-page on the verso which, in turn, has a woodcut vignette at head-of-page [showing a peaceful harvesting with two figures harvesting], below which appears the title [as said]. Chap II: Of the beseiging of the Spaniards at Kinsale, with the Delivery of the Town to the Lord Deputy, and their Return into Spain in the same Year, 1601 [commencing in mid-page; pp.328-68 [The End of the First Volume.]
Vol. II: The REBELLION of Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, &c., / A Continuation of Book II, Chap. II. Of the beseiging of the Spaniards at Kinsale, with the Delivery of the Town to the Lord Deputy, and their Return into Spain in the same Year, 1601.
“A Description of Ireland” commences at p.358 of Vol. II - after the “journal” of Mountjoy’s campaign against Hugh O’Neill and his Spanish allies, concluding with a list of ‘Officers General and Provincial, Warders, Horsemen, and Footmen, as they stood at this Time of Peace.’ [pp.355-57]:
‘The longitude of Ireland extends four Degrees, from the Meridian of eleven Degrees and a half to that of fifteen and a half, and the Latitude extends also four Degrees from the Parallel of fifty four Degrees to that of fifty Degrees. In the Geographical Description I will follow Cambden as formerly. [358].
This famous island in the Virginian Sea, is by old Writers called Ierna, Inverna, and Iris, Yuerdhen, by the English at this day Ireland, and by the Irish Bards at this Day Banno, in which Sense of the Irish word, Avicen calls it the Holy Island; besides, Plutarch of old called it Ogygia, and after him Isidore named it Scotia. This Ireland, according to the Inhabitants, is divided into two Parts, the wild Irish, and the English-Irish, living in the English Pale: But of the Kingdoms, five in number, it is divided into five Parts. [...]’ (pp.358-59.)
[...]
These wild Irish are not much unlike wild Beasts, in whole Caves, a Beast passing that Way, might perhaps find Meat, but not without Danger to be ill entertained, perhaps devoured of his insatiable Host.’ [Finis; p.378.]Available at Google Books - online; accessed 19.09.2011.
Note: A Description of Ireland is anthologised in Strangers to that land: British perceptions of Ireland from the reformation to the famine, ed. Andrew Hadfield & John McVeagh [Ulster Editions & Monographs 5] (Bucks: Gerards Cross 1994).
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| See Paul Muldoon, “Moryson’s Fancy”, a poem that recounts a 17th-century tale of Irish children devouring the corpse of their mother -noticed by Adam Newey in a review of Maggot (Guardian, 30 Sept. 2010, Review sect., p.14.) |
P. W. Joyce, A Short History of Ireland from the Earliest Times to 1608 (London: Longman 1893): Joyce draws heavily on Moryson’s itinerary [or History] for his account of the O’Neill Rebellion and refers more than once to the Englishman’s contradictory perception of a well-ordered and prosperous landscape he witnessed in Ireland whilst in the service of Lord Mountjoy. Quoting from his Itinerary (or Historie], he [Joyce] interjects his own remarks: ‘“It seems incredible that by so barbarous inhabitants” - the English writers generally speak of the Irish as barbarous - “the ground should be so manured [tilled], the fields so orderly fenced, the towns so frequently [fully] inhabited, and the highways and paths so well beaten as the lord deputy found them. The reason whereof was that the queen’s forces during these wars never till then came among them.”’ [2] (Joyce, op. cit., [... &c.], p.515; citing Moryson, i, p.178.)
Note that Darrell Figgis quotes the same passage - possibly from P. W. Joyce (op. cit.) but various the parenthetic interpretation of the modifier frequently in Moryson: Thus: ‘Fynes Moryson, Secretary to Lord Mountjoy, in the campaign by which the last of independence was overthrown in Ireland, wrote of the scenes he saw. He spoke in wonder of “ground so manured, the fields so orderly fenced, the towns so frequently” (that is, so freely) ”inhabited, and the highways and paths so well beaten as the Lord Deputy now found them.’ (Figgis, The Economic Case for Irish Independence, 1920, p.46.)
P. W. Joyce, Short History of Ireland [... &c] (1893) - Joyce goes on to quote Moryson’s record of the war of attrition conducted by Lord Mountjoy in Ulster: ‘Setting out from Dublin in August with a force of horse and foot, and a supply of sickles, scythes, and harrows, to cut and tear up the unripe corn, the deputy [Mountjoy] entered Leix and Ossory and soon changed the face of the country, burning, spoiling, and destroying everything. “Our captains”, says Moryson, “and by their example (for it was otherwise painful) the common soldiers, did cut down with their swords all the rebels” corn to the value of £10,000 and upwards (more than £120,000 now; in a tract of about twenty miles long by fifteen broad), the only means by which they were to live.” Mountjoy seems to have thought this a pleasant and enjoyable sort of work; for in his letter to Carew he makes it the subject of a joke: “I am very busy at harvest [work] in cutting down the honest gentlemen’s corn.” Moryson, as we saw, calls the people barbarous; but here the real barbarians were certainly not the poor people but Mountjoy and his subordinates.’ (Joyce, op. cit., p.516; citing Moryson, i., 178, and Carew Papers, 1586-1600, p.422 [on Mountjoy].
P W. Joyce, Short History of Ireland [... &c.] (1893) - quote Moryson in evidence of the English policy of destroying crops and starving the people: ‘“Now because I have often made mention formerly of our destroying the rebels’ corn, and using all means to famish them, let me by one or two examples show the miserable estate to which the rebels were thereby brought”, He then gives some hideous details, which show, if indeed showing were needed, that the women and children were famished as well as the actual rebels. And he goes on to say: “And no spectacle was more frequent in the ditches of towns than to see multitudes of these poor people dead with their mouths all coloured green by eating nettles, docks, and all things they could rend up above ground.”’ (Joyce, op. cit., p.539; citing Moryson, ii, 191, Ibid., 83.
Rodolf Gottfried, ed., Prose Works of Spenser [Variorum Edn.], Vol. 10 (1949), Moryson, writing between 1617 and 1620 and before the View was printed, followed his scheme very closely, the Irish ‘will never be reformed in Religion, manners, and constant obedience, to our laws, but by the awe of the sword, and by a strong hand at last for a tyme of bridling them.’ (Cited in Charles Hughes, ed., Shakespeare’s Europe, 1903, p.195). [279] Further quotes: ‘Nothing was more frequent, then for Irishmen, in the tyme of our war with Spayne, to live in Spayne, in Rome, and in their very Seminaryes, and yet by these and like Crafty Conveyances to preserve to them and their heyres, their goods, and lands in Ireland, yea very spiritual livings for life, not rarely graunted to children for their maintenaunce in that superstitious education, most dangerous to the State.’ (Quoted in Shakespeare’s Europe, p.232).
A. C. Judson, Life of Spenser (1945), p.109, quotes Moryson on Lord Grey: ‘such was the Lord Grey, in the late Queen’s reign Deputy of Ireland, who knew best of all his predecessors to bridle their fierce and clamorous nation’ (Moryson, in [CL] Falkiner, p.308).
Estyn E. Evans, Irish Folk Ways (London: Routledge 1957), citing Moryson on Irish fires: ‘the chief men in their houses make fires in the midst of the room, the smoke wherof goeth out at a hole in the top thereof.’ (Description, p.231; Evans, p.62.)
Joep Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fíor Ghael (1986): For Fynes Moryson, laziness was the root of all evils in the Irish character, making them ‘love libertie above all things, and likewise naturally ... delight in musick, so as the Irish harpers are excellent.’ Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary written by Fynes Moryson Gent. (1617; rep. Glasgow: James MacLehose, 1907-08; Leerssen, p.55.
John M. Breen [QUB], ‘The influence of Edmund Spenser’s View on Fynes Moryson’s Itinerary’, in Notes & Queries, Sept. 1995, pp.363-64, in which the author argues that Moryson has knowledge of MS copy of Spenser’s View; discusses the laws of Ireland; Tanistry; ‘Irish degeneracy [‘wilde Irish has a generation of poets or rather rhymers vulgarly called Bardes, who in their songs used to extoll the most bloodly licentious men, and no others, and allure their hearers, not the lave of religion and civil manners, but to outrages robberies [sic] living as outlawes, and contempt of the Magistrates and the King’s lawes.’ [Moryson, 199.]
Muriel McCarthy, ed., Hibernia Resurgens: Catalogue of Marsh’s Library Exhibition (1994). Moryson recorded, ‘from my tender youth I had a grat desire to see forraine countries ... to enable my understanding (which I though could not be done so well by contemplation as by experience)’; on his visit to Ireland, ‘rather as a Souldier than as a Traveler, as one abiding in Camps more than in Cities, as one lodging in Tents more than in Innes’; includes account of the submission of O’Neill at Mellifont, ‘kneeling on his knees’, and of his bitters tears after, ‘in such quantity as could not well be concealed, especially in him, upon whose face all men’s eyes were cast’ when he realised that the Queen was already dead and that he had been tricked. (McCarthy, p.17) [Further details as supra.] Note, Part III of Itinerary is a miscellany of travel advice and decriptions of various countries.]
John McGurk, ‘The Dead, Sick and Wounded of the Nine Years War, 1594-1603’, in History Ireland (Winter 1995), pp.16-22, draws on Moryson for statistics and details: ‘And in generall among the dead bodies many were found to have spels, c[h]aracters, and hallowed medalls, which they woare as preservations against death, and most of them when they were stripped were seen to have scares [i.e., scars] of Venus’s warfare ...’, in a passage on the looting of the dead at Kinsale, called ‘mischievous’ by McGurk (p.22).
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Ulster famine: Moryson witnessed the campaigns in Ulster and wrote of the multitudes of the dead ‘with their mouths all coloured green by eating nettles, docks and all things they could rend above ground.’ (Quoted by W. E. H. Lecky, in The History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, 1892-96, Vol. I, p.9; cited in Robert Kee, The Green Flag: A History of Irish Nationalism, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1972, p.12.)
Cf. Original version [Razing crops in Ulster (“corne”)]: "Againe, where other Deputies vsed to assaile the rebels onely in Summer time, this Lord prosecuted them most in the Winter, being commonly fiue daies at least in the weeke one horsebacke, all the Winter long. This brake their hearts; for the aire being sharpe, and they naked, and they being driuen from their lodgings, into the Woods bare of leaues, they had no shelter for themselues. Besides that, their cattle (giuing them no milke in the Winter) were also wasted by driuing to and fro. Ad that they being thus troubled in the Seede time, could not sowe their ground. And as in Haruest time, both the Deputies forces, and the Garrisons, cut downe their Corne, be∣fore it was ripe, so now in Winter time they carried away, or burnt, all thest ores of victuals in secret places, whether the Rebels had conueied them. (An itinerary vvritten by Fynes Moryson Gent. [of which] The II part Containeth the rebellion of Hugh, Earle of Tyrone, (London: Iohn Beale 1617, p.43; available online; accessed 03.02.2024.)
Anglo-Irish?: ‘The meere Irish disdayned to learne or speake the English tounge, yea the English Irish and the very Citizzens (excepting those of Dublin where the Lord Deputy resides) though they could speake English as well as wee, yet Commonly speake Irish among themselues, and were hardly induced by our familiar Conversation to speake English with vs, yea Common experience obserued, the Citizzens of Watterford and Corcke hauing wyues that could speak English as well as [17] wee, bitterly to chyde them when they speake English with vs.’ (Quoted in Alan Bliss, Spoken English in Ireland 1600-1740 [... &c.] [Irish Writings from the Age of Swift], Dublin: Cadenus Press 1979), pp.17-18; citing Charles Hughes, Shakespeare’s Europe: Unpublished Chapters of Fynes Moryson’s Itinerary, 1903).
| Moryson [as Morison] is quoted on Richard de Burgh (4th Earl Clanricarde) in Richard Ryan"s Biographia Hibernica (1819-21): |
RICHARD DE BURGH: Fourth Earl of Clanrickarde, commonly known by the name of Richard of Kinsale, from his great services against the rebels at that place, was the second son of Ulick, the third Earl; and received the honour of knighthood in 1584. During the rebellion of O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, he eminently distinguished himself in the service of the crown. In 1599, he was appointed governor of the province of Connaught, by the Earl of Essex, an office which he resigned in the following year, in consequence of some restrictions imposed upon him, which prevented him from serving her majesty as he desired. He soon afterwards went to England, for the purpose of counteracting his father’s proceedings, who had declared in favour of Tyrone; and the lord deputy, in a letter informing the secretary of state of De Burgh’s intention, states, that all his hopes of preserving the province of Connaught in obedience, depended on the Lord Dunkellin’s honesty; “neither,” says Morison, “was the lord deputy deceived in this worthy lord, who, as during his father’s life, so from his death, happening within a few months, to the end of the war, served the queen as nobly, valiantly, and faithfully, as any nobleman or gentleman in the army.” In 160J, he accompanied the lord deputy in his expedition to Kinsale, against Tyrone and the Spaniards, and was knighted in the field of battle for the great services he bad performed there, having (as it is reported) killed no less than twenty Kernes with his own hand. In this battle he bad many narrow escapes; and the queen, in her letters to the lord deputy, writes, “and let Clanricarde know, that we do most thankfully accept his endeavours.” (p.57.) |
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Touching Irish diet (from Itinerary, Bk. 3, Chap. 5) ...|
Touching the Irish dyet, Some Lords and Knights, and Gentlemen of the English-Irish, and all the English there abiding, having competent meanes, use the Englishd dyet, but some more, some lesse cleanly, few or none curiously, and no doubt they have as great and for their part greater plenty then the English, of flesh, fowle, fish, and all things for food, if they will use like Art of Cookery. Alwaies I except the Fruits, Venison, and some dainties proper to England, and rare in Ireland. And we must conceive, that Venison and Fowle seeme to be more plentiful in Ireland, because they neither so generally affect dainty foode, or so diligently search it ast the English do. Many [196] of the English-Irish, have by little and little been infected with the Irish filthinesse, and that in the very cities, excepting Dublyn, and some of the better sort in Water ford, where the English continually lodging in their houses, they more retaine the English diet. The English-Irish after our manner serve to the table joynts of flesh cut after our fashion, with Geese, Pullets, Pigges and like rosted meats, but their ordinary food for the common sort is of Whitmeates, and they eate cakes of oates for bread, and drinke not English Beere made of Mault and Hops, but Ale. At Corck I have seene with these eyes, young maides starke naked grinding of Corne with certaine stones to make cakes thereof, and striking of into the tub of meale, such reliques thereof as stuck on their belly, thighes and more unseemely parts. And for the cheese or butter commonly made by the English Irish, an English man would not touch it with his [III. iii.162, in 1617 Edn.] lippes, though hee were halfe starved; yet many English inhabitants make very good of both kindes. In Cities they have such bread as ours, but of a sharpe savour, and some mingled with Annisseeds, and baked like cakes, and that only in the houses of the better sort. In Dublyn and in some other Cities, they have taverns, wherein Spanish and French Wines are sold, but more commonly the Merchants sell them by pintes and quartes in their own Cellars. The Irish Aquavitae, vulgarly called Usquebagh, is held the best in the World of that kind; which is made also in England, but nothing so good as as that which is brought out of Ireland. And the Usquebagh is preferred before our Aquavitae, because the mingling of Raysons, Fennell seede, and other things, mitigating the heate, and making the taste pleasant, makes it lesse inflame, and yet refresh the weake stomake with moderate heate, and a good relish. These Drinkes the English-Irish drink largely, and in many families (especially at feasts) both men and women use excesse therein. And since I have in part seene, and often heard from others experienceth, at some Gentlewomen were so [197] free in this excesse, as they would kneeling upon the knee, and otherwise garausse health after health with men; not to speake of the wives of Irish Lords, or to referre it to the due place, who often drinke till they be drunken, or at least till they voide urine in full assemblies o f men, I cannot (though unwilling) but note the Irish women more specially with this fault, which I have observed in no other part to be a woman’s vice, but onely in Bohemia: Yet so as accusing them, I meane not to excuse the men, and will also confesseth at I have seene Virgins, as well Gentlewomen as Citizens, commanded by their mothers to retyre, after they had in curtesie pledged one or two healths. [...] |
| —Itinerary, Book III, Chap. V, in the Glasgow Edn., Vol. IV (1908), ppp.196-98. |
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Yea, the wilde Irish in time of greatest peace impute covetousness and base birth to him, that hath any Corne after Christmas, as if it were a point of Nobility to consume all within those Festivall dayes. They willingly eate the hearb Schamrock, being of a sharpe taste, which as they runne and are chased to an fro, they snatch like beasts out of the ditches. Neither have they any Beere made of Malt and Hoppes, nor yet any Ale, no, not the chiefe Lords, except it be very rarely: but they drinke Milke like Nectar, warmed with a stone first cast into the fier, or else Beefe-broath mingled with milke: but when they come to any Market Towne, to sell a Cow or a Horse, they never returne home, till they have drunke the price in Spanish Wine (which they call the King of Spaines Daughter), or in Irish Usqueboagh, and till they have out-slept two or three daies drunkennesse. And not onely the common sort, but even the Lords and their wives, the more they want this drinke at home, the more they swallow it when they come to it, till they be as drunke as beggers. Many of these wilde Irish eate no flesh, but that which dyes of disease or otherwise of it selfe, neither can it scape them for stinking. They desire no broath, nor have any use of a spoone. They can neither seeth Artichokes, nor eate them when they are sodden. It is strange and ridiculous, but most true, that some of our carriage Horses falling into their hands, when they found Sope and Starch, carried for the use of our Laundresses, they thinking them to bee some dainty meates, did eate them greedily, and when they stuck in their teeth, cursed bitterly the gluttony of us English churles, for so they terme us. They feede most on Whitmeates, and esteeme for a great dainties ower curds, vulgarly called by them Bonaclabbe. And for this cause they watchfully keepe their Cowes, and fight for them as for religion and life; and when they are almost starved, yet they will not kill a Cow, except it bee old, [200] and yeeld no Milke. Yet will they upon hunger in time of warre open a vaine of the Cow, and drinke the bloud, but in no case kill or much weaken it. A man would thinke these men to bee Scythians, who let their Horses bloud under the eares, and for nourishment drinke their bloud, and indeed (as I have formerly said), some of the Irish are of the race of Scythians, comming into Spaine, and from thence into Ireland. |
| Ibid., pp.199-200. |
Slovenly Irish: ‘In Ireland the English, and the English-Irish are attired after the English manner, for the most part, yet not with such pride and inconstancy, perhaps for want of means: yet the English-Irish forgetting their own country, are somewhat infected with the Irish rudeness, and with them are delighted with simple colours, as red and yellow. Touching the meere or wild Irish, it may be said of them, which of old was spoken of the Germans, namely, that they wander slovenly of and naked, and lodge in the same house (if it may be called a house) with their beasts [...] I say slovenly, because they seldom put off a shirt before it be worn [...] Their wives living among the English are attired in sluttish gown.’
Note footnote: ‘My regard for truth, and my duty as a historian, oblige me to declare, that this slovenly custom so justly reprobated by Morryson, prevailed, at least partially, amongs the heads of some of principal Irish families, so low as the last reign (viz., George II).’ (Q source; p.61.)
Cannibalism: ‘Sir Arthur Chichester, Sir Richard Moryson, and the other Commanders of the Forces sent against Brian Mac Art aforesaid, in their returne homeward, saw a most horrible spectacle of three children (whereof the eldest was not above ten yeeres old), all eating and knawing with their teeth the entrals of their dead mother, upon whose flesh they had fed twenty dayes past, and having eaten all from the feete upward to the bare bones, rosting it continually by a slow fire, were now come to the eating of her said entralls in like sort roasted, yet not divided from the body, being as yet raw. ... Captaine Trevor & many honest Gentlemen lying in the Newry can witnes, that some old women of those parts, used to make a fire in the fields, & divers little children driving out the cattel in the cold mornings, and comming thither to warme them, were by them surprised, killed and eaten. ... These and very many like lamentable effects followed their rebellion.’ (An Itinerary Containing His Ten Yeeres Travell ..., 1617, Vol. III, pp.281-83; quoted in Andrew Hadfield, ‘Rethinking Early-Modern Colonialism: The Anomalous State of Ireland’, in Irish Studies Review, April 1999, p.15.)
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References
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Literature, Vol. I [biog. and bibl. as supra].
| Books Online [Hathi Trust] lists library holdings of works of Fynes Moryson (1566-1630) as follows:— |
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| CELT Online (at University College, Cork) lists editions/translations |
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| —Corpus of Electronic Texts (UCC) - online [first access date unrecorded]. |
De Burca Books lists An History of Ireland from the year 1599 to 1603, with a short narration of the state of the Kingdom from the year 1169 ..., 2 vols. (Dublin: Powell 1735).
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