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An act ‘soe fowle and grievous’:1 contextualizing rape in the 1641 rebellion2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2015

Morgan T. P. Robinson
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Abstract

This study aims to critically re-evaluate existing explanations for the scale and significance of rape during the 1641 Rebellion in Ireland, using a contextual analysis of the legal testimonies of English Protestant settlers, known collectively as the ‘1641 Depositions’, analysing as far as possible the veracity of reports of rape, the circumstances in which rape occurred, and the identities of - and relationships between - victims and perpetrators. This study considers how women reported rape, comparing the Depositions to similar processes of legal testimony in early modern England. Rape perpetrated by combatants in contemporaneous conflicts is also considered, and the existence of - and adherence to - ad hoc codes of military conduct in Irish rebel ranks is investigated. Most reports of rape during the Rebellion appear highly credible, and almost all perpetrators were known to their victims as members of the same communities. There is a multiplicity of possible motivations for these crimes, with no clear pattern other than opportunism within situations where standards of ethical and military conduct were collectively ignored by rebel soldiers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 156 , November 2015 , pp. 595 - 619
Copyright
© Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2015 

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Footnotes

1

(Deposition of Christopher Cooe) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript January 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 830172r128?>] accessed Saturday 30 May 2015 04:47 PM.

2

This article is an abridged version of Morgan T. P. Robinson, ‘Rape and stripping in the Irish Rebellion of 1641: a contextual analysis’ (M.Phil. thesis, Trinity College, Dublin, 2011). The research on which both that thesis and this article have been based was carried out using the digital edition of the 1641 Depositions, accessed online at http://1641.tcd.ie/

References

3 See, for example, O’Gorman, Tom, ‘Occurrences from Ireland: contemporary pamphlet reactions to the Confederate War, 1641–1649’ (M.Litt. thesis, University College Dublin, 1999)Google Scholar; Ball, John, ‘Popular violence in the Irish uprising of 1641: the 1641 Depositions, Irish resistance to English colonialism, and its representation in English sources’ (Ph.D. thesis, John Hopkins University, 2006)Google Scholar; Darcy, Eamon, ‘Pogroms, politics and print: the 1641 Rebellion and contemporary print culture’ (Ph.D. thesis, Trinity College, Dublin, 2009)Google Scholar; Donovan, Iain, ‘ “Bloody news from Ireland”: the pamphlet literature of the Irish massacres of the 1640s’ (M.Litt. thesis, Trinity College, Dublin, 1995)Google Scholar.

4 O’Dowd, Mary, ‘Women and war in Ireland in the 1640s’ in Margaret MacCurtain and Mary O’Dowd (eds), Women in early modern Ireland (Edinburgh, 1991), p. 101Google Scholar.

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6 Canny, Nicholas, ‘The formation of the Irish mind: religion, politics and Gaelic Irish literature, 1580–1750’ in Past & Present, no. 95 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted with minor amendments in Philpin, Charles H. E. (ed.), Nationalism and popular protest in Ireland (Cambridge, 1987), pp 50–79Google Scholar, 113n.

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9 Ibid., p. 75.

10 Chaytor, Miranda, ‘Husband(ry): narratives of rape in the seventeenth century’ in Gender and History, vii, no. 3 (Nov. 1995), pp 378–407CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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13 Much of the pamphlet literature produced from English presses in the aftermath of the rising was highly political and propagandist, belonging to a long tradition of negative portrayals of the Irish, and has been shown to be at best unreliable, and at worst, completely fabricated; given this, such material will not be used as evidence in this study: for discussions of such material see O’Hara, David, English newsbooks and the Irish Rebellion, 1641–1649 (Dublin, 2006)Google Scholar; Donovan, ‘Bloody news from Ireland’; Darcy, ‘Pogroms, politics and print’; Shagan, Ethan Howard, ‘Constructing discord: ideology, propaganda, and English responses to the Irish Rebellion of 1641’ in Journal of British Studies, xxxvi (1997), pp 4–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Raymond, Joad, The invention of the newspaper: English newsbooks 1641–1649 (Oxford, 1995)Google Scholar.

14 Bashar, Nazife, ‘Rape in England between 1550 and 1700’, in The London Feminist History Group, (eds), The sexual dynamics of history: men’s power, women’s resistance (London, 1983), pp 28–42Google Scholar. See also Baines, Barbara, ‘Effacing rape in early modern representation’ in English Literary History, lxv, no. 1 (Spring, 1998), pp 69–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brownmiller, Susan, Against our will: men, women, and rape (New York, 1976), p. 229Google Scholar.

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22 Ibid., pp 61–2.

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30 Ibid., p. 6. For a more detailed explanation of the language of sex and consent, see Gowing, Laura, Domestic dangers: women, words, and sex in early modern London (Oxford, 1996), p. 78Google Scholar; Roper, Lyndal, Oedipus and the devil: witchcraft, sexuality and religion in early modern Europe (London, 1994), p. 60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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32 Cited in Crawford, Patricia, ‘Sexual knowledge in England, 1500–1750’ in Roy Porter and Mikuláš Teich (eds), Sexual knowledge, sexual science: the history of attitudes to sexuality (Cambridge, 1994), p. 96Google Scholar.

33 Hindle, Steve, ‘The shaming of Margaret Knowsley: gossip, gender and the experience of authority in early modern England’ in Continuity and change, ix, no. 3 (Dec. 1994), pp 391–419CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Cited in Walker, , ‘Re-reading rape’, pp 7–8Google Scholar from Cheshire Quarter Sessions records.

35 Chaytor, , ‘Husband(ry)’, p. 382Google Scholar. For an interesting case in which both the accused and the confidant of the child who had been raped were willing to use graphic sexual vocabulary to support their cases, see Bellany, Alastair, ‘The murder of John Lambe: crowd violence, court scandal and popular politics in early seventeenth-century England’ in Past and Present, no. 200 (2008), pp 37–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Mendelson, Sara and Crawford, Patricia, Women in early modern England, 1550–1720 (Oxford, 1998), p. 213CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Crawford, , ‘Sexual knowledge’, p. 96Google Scholar.

38 Walker, , ‘Re-reading rape’, p. 4Google Scholar. For an example of a court case in which a witness refused to divulge the conversations of an all-female group, see that of Mary Clarke, in Crawford, Mendelson &, Women in early modern England, p. 213Google Scholar.

39 Chaytor, , ‘Husband(ry)’, pp 380–381Google Scholar.

40 Walker, , ‘Re-reading rape’, p. 8Google Scholar.

41 (Deposition of Gilbert Pemberton ex parte Thomas and Elizabeth Powell) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 836008r007?>] accessed Thurs, 08 Sept. 2011 07:47 AM.

42 (Deposition of Christian Stanhawe and Owen Frankland) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 836075r040?>] accessed Tues. 23 Aug. 2011 12:58 PM.

43 (Deposition of John Stibbs) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 817203r162?>] accessed Tues. 23 Aug. 2011 01:12 PM.

44 (Deposition of Suzan Steele) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript January 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 817213r169?>] accessed Tuesday 23 Aug. 2011 01:34 PM.

45 Deposition of John Stibbs.

46 Deposition of Suzan Steele.

47 Deposition of Christopher Cooe.

48 (Deposition of Occar Butts) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 818055r084?>] accessed Sun. 15 Jan.2012 12:06 PM.

49 (Deposition of Willyam Dynes) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 813360r271?>] accessed Wed. 24 Aug. 2011 12:06 PM.

50 (Deposition of Raph Walmisley) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 814264r165?>] accessed Wed. 24 Aug. 2011 01:40 PM.

51 (Examination of Samson Moore) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 826239r250?>] accessed Tues. 23 Aug. 2011 05:04 PM.

52 For an example see (Examination of John Ware) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 826137r148?>] accessed Tues. 23 Aug. 2011 05:24 PM.

53 (Deposition of George Burne) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 839038r028?>] accessed Tues. 23 Aug. 2011 05:44 PM.

54 (Deposition of Andrew Adaire) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 831174r136?>] accessed Tues. 23 Aug. 2011 02:13 PM.

55 (Deposition of William Collis) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 813285r211?>] accessed Tues. 23 Aug. 2011 02:27 PM.

56 McConnell, James and McConnell, S. G. (eds), Fasti of the Irish Presbyterian Church, 1613–1840 (Belfast, 1951), p. 11Google Scholar. The language used to describe rape in this petition is very similar to the Deposition on behalf of Elizabeth Powell, in particular.

57 Chaytor, , ‘Husband(ry)’, p. 381Google Scholar; O’Dowd, , ‘Women and war in the 1640s’, p. 101Google Scholar.

58 Canny, , Making Ireland British, p. 542Google Scholar.

59 Ibid.; Walter, John, ‘Performative violence and the politics of violence in the 1641 depositions’, in Micheál Ó Siochrú and Jane Ohlmeyer (eds), Ireland 1641: contexts and reactions (Manchester, 2013), p. 137Google Scholar.

60 (Abstract of crimes committed on Connacht) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 830120r098?>] accessed Sat. 30 May 2015 11:24 AM.

61 Cuarta, Brian Mac, ‘Religious violence against settlers in south Ulster, 1641–2’ in David Edwards, Clodagh Tait and Pádraig Lenihan (eds), Age of atrocity: violence and political conflict in early modern Ireland (Dublin 2007), pp 169–170Google Scholar.

62 Deposition of William Dynes.

63 Deposition of Occar Butts.

64 Deposition of George Burne.

65 Deposition of Christian Stanhawe and Owen Frankland; Fleming, William, ‘Communications in Clancan’ in Review: Journal of the Craigavon Historical Society, v, no. 3 (1986)Google Scholar, http://www.craigavonhistoricalsociety.org.uk/rev/flemingcommunications.html, accessed Thurs. 25 Aug. 2011 14:22 PM.

66 See, for example: (Deposition of John Homes) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan.1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 817150r119?>] accessed Thurs. 25 Aug. 2011 02:29 PM; (Deposition of Jennett Hamilton) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 817208r164?>] accessed Thurs. 25 Aug. 2011 02:29 PM.

67 (Deposition of Rebecca Collys) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 813385v322?>] accessed Thurs. 25 Aug. 2011 03:46 PM; (Deposition of Mary Woods) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 813385r321?>] accessed Thurs. 25 Aug. 2011 04:09 PM.

68 Deposition of William Collis.

69 See, for example, (Deposition of Mary Hamond) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan.1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 830136r106?>] accessed Thurs.25 Aug. 2011 04:53 PM.

70 Deposition of Raph Walmisley.

71 (Examination of William Murphew) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan.1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 826230r241?>] accessed Fri. 26 Aug. 2011 12:27 PM; (Deposition of George Smithe) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 826160r181?>] accessed Fri.26 Aug. 2011 11:44 AM.

72 See, for example, (Examination of Donough McDermod) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 826290r295?>] accessed Fri. 26 Aug. 2011 12:28 PM; (Examination of Dermond ô Shyne) TCD, 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 826158r178?>] accessed Fri. 26 Aug. 2011 12:44 PM; (Examination of Charles McOwen Carthy) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970.

73 Examination of Donough McDermod.

74 Deposition of Andrew Adaire. There is no suggestion that this man was in fact Phelim O’Dowd.

75 Whelan, Bernadette, ‘“The weaker vessel?”: the impact of warfare on women in seventeenth-century Ireland’ in Christine Meek and Catherine Lawless (eds), Victims or viragos? (Dublin, 2005), p. 127Google Scholar.

76 Donagan, Barbara, War in England, 1642–1649 (Oxford, 2008), p. 185CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 Ibid., p. 134.

78 For an example of a set of ordinances of war, see Fawne, Luke, Laws and ordinances of warre, established for the better conduct of the army by His Excellency the Earl of Essex, lord generall of the forces raised by the authority of the Parliament for the defence of king and kingdom: and now enlarged by command of His Excellency (London, 1643), p. 7Google Scholar.

79 Carlton, Charles, ‘Civilians’, in John Kenyon and Jane Ohlmeyer (eds), The Civil Wars: a military history of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1638–1660 (Oxford, 1998), pp 292–295Google Scholar; Mortimer, Geoff, Eyewitness accounts of the Thirty Years’ War, 1618–48 (New York, 2004), pp 34Google Scholar, 70, 162, 170. The diarists whom Mortimer cites as having reported instances of rape in the Thirty Years’ War were Peter Hagendorf, Otto von Guericke, ‘Gerlach’, ‘Speigel’ and most famously Robert Monro, who would later command the Scottish army sent to Ulster in 1642.

80 Carlton, , ‘Civilians’, pp 292–295Google Scholar, citing the papers of Sir William Waller’s army between April and December 1648, and of Cromwell’s forces in the Dundee area between September 1651 and January 1652.

81 Carlton, Charles, ‘The impact of the fighting’ in John Morrill (ed.), The impact of the English Civil War (London, 1991), p. 19Google Scholar.

82 Carlton, , ‘Civilians’, p. 294Google Scholar; Bennett, Ronan, ‘War and disorder: policing the soldiery in Civil War Yorkshire’, in Mark Fissel (ed.), War and government in Britain, 1598–1650 (Manchester, 1991), p. 255Google Scholar. Several other specific accounts of rape, of varying credibility, including those committed by decommissioned soldiers returning from wars, can be found in: Bridenbaugh, Carl, Vexed and troubled Englishmen, 1590–1642 (Oxford, 1968), p. 268Google Scholar; O’Hara, , English newsbooks, p. 5Google Scholar; Carlton, ‘Civilians’, p. 294; Raymond, Joad (ed.), Making the news: an anthology of the newsbooks of Revolutionary England, 1641–1660 (London, 1993), pp 128–138Google Scholar.

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84 Canny, , ‘Formation of the Irish Mind’, pp 50–79Google Scholar, 113n; Donovan, , ‘Bloody news from Ireland’, p. 129Google Scholar.

85 [Phelim O’Neill,] The petition and declaration of Sir Philom Oneal Knight, Generall of Ireland, to the High Court of Parliament now assembled in England, and the Lords and Nobility commanders of the army of the Catholicks of Ireland. Averred by Tho. Etherington Clerk. The names of the rebels. Oneal, Ormond, Antrim, Mountgarret, Neterfield, Dillon, &c. (London, 1641), p. 4.

86 Gillespie, Raymond, ‘The end of an era: Ulster and the outbreak of the 1641 rising’ in Ciaran Brady and Raymond Gillespie (eds), Natives and newcomers: essays on the making of Irish colonial society (Dublin, 1986), p. 211Google Scholar, citing Hogan, James (ed.), Letters and papers relating to the Irish Rebellion, 1642–46 (Dublin, 1936), p. 6Google Scholar.

87 (Deposition of Job Ward) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan.1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 815277r352?>] accessed Thurs. 08 Sept. 2011 08:39 AM.

88 Seven of the rapes and attempted rapes were reported to have occurred in 1641 – three in October, one in November and three in December. The others all occurred early in 1642 – one in January, one in February, two in March and one in April.

89 Deposition of Job Ward.

90 Deposition of John Stibbs.

91 Ibid.; Deposition of Suzan Steele; Deposition of Willyam Dynes. The question as to whom ‘them’ refers may result in disagreement, but given the context of the deposition, it must surely refer to the would-be rapists.

92 Deposition of Willyam Dynes.

93 Deposition of George Burne.

94 Deposition of William Collis; deposition of Christopher Cooe.

95 Carlton, , ‘Civilians’, pp 294–295Google Scholar.

96 Mortimer, , Eyewitness accounts, p. 162Google Scholar, citing Colonel Robert Monro.

97 (Examination of Donogh Lord Viscount Muskery) T.C.D., 1641 Depositions Project, online transcript Jan. 1970 [http://1641.tcd.ie/deposition.php?depID<?php echo 826220r232?>] accessed Sat. 27 Aug. 2011 01:54 PM.

98 Examination of Donough McDermod. For other deponents who verify this information, see the examination of Dermod ô Shyne; examination of Dan Morto Mahany; examination of William Murphew.

99 Porter, , ‘Rape – does it have a historical meaning?’, p. 230Google Scholar.

100 Shorter, Edward, ‘On writing the history of rape’ in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, iii, no. 2 (Winter, 1977), p. 475Google Scholar.

101 Jones, ‘A treatise giving a representation of the grand rebellion in Ireland’.

102 Ethan Howard Shagan, ‘Early modern violence from memory to history: a historiographical essay’ in Ó Siochru & Ohlmeyer (eds), Ireland: 1641. Thanks to Jane Ohlmeyer and Ethan Howard Shagan for access to this essay prior to its publication.

103 Deposition of Christopher Cooe.