Ирландияның соңғы патшасы: Брайан О'Рурк тағдыры

Sir Brian O'Rourke (Sir Brian na Múrtha Ó Ruairc; c. 1540 – 1591) was first king and then lord of West Breifne in Ireland from 1566 until his execution in 1591. He reigned during the later stages of the Tudor conquest of Ireland and his rule was marked by English encroachments on his lands. Despite being knighted by the English in 1585, he would later be proclaimed a rebel and forced to flee his kingdom in 1590. He travelled to Scotland in early 1591 seeking assistance from King James VI, however, he was to become the first man extradited within Britain on allegations of crimes committed in Ireland and was sentenced to death in London in November 1591.

O'Rourke was a member of one of Gaelic Ireland's foremost dynasties, and was remarked upon as a handsome and unusually learned and well educated Gaelic lord. The clan's territory was centred on the banks of Lough Gill and in the area of Dromahair. Foundations of the O'Rourke tower house within its bawn wall and circular moat can be seen today at Parke's Castle, close to Dromahair. He assumed leadership of his Irish clan in the mid 1560s having assassinated his elder brothers, but his territory of west Bréifne on the border of Ulster soon came under the administration of the newly created Presidency of Connacht. Although the English knighted O'Rourke, in time they became unsettled by him. The English Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, described him in 1575 as the proudest man he had dealt with in Ireland. Similarly, the Lord President of Connaught, Sir Nicholas Malby, put him down as, "the proudest man this day living on the earth". A decade later, Sir Edward Waterhouse thought of him as, "being somewhat learned but of an insolent and proud nature and no further obedient than is constrained by her Majesty's forces".

O'Rourke was willing to deal with the government, and in an agreement concluded with Malby in 1577 he recognised the sovereignty of the Irish crown under Elizabeth I. But his allegiance was called in question within two years, during the Second Desmond Rebellion in Munster, when he rose out in defiance of the Connacht presidency. It was suspected his actions were induced by an involvement with the Old English family of the Dillons in adjacent Meath, who were engaged in an effort to spread their influence and possessions in the northern midlands, rather than by outright collusion in the rebel Geraldine cause. A further factor was almost certainly the August 1579 torture and execution of his son, Franciscan Friar Conn Ó Ruairc, by Tudor Army troops outside the city walls of Kilmallock under orders from Sir William Drury. Both Friar Conn and his companion in death, Bishop Pádraig Ó hÉilí, were Beatified in 1992 by Pope John Paul II, along with 15 other Irish Catholic Martyrs. Sir Richard Bingham took up the presidency of Connacht in 1584, when Sir John Perrot was appointed lord deputy of Ireland. Ó Ruairc immediately complained of harassment by the new president in the spring and summer of that year, and in September Bingham was ordered by his superior in Dublin Castle to temporise and refrain from making expeditions into Bréifne. Although part of the province of Connacht, the territory was not subject to a Crown sheriff, and O'Rourke was happy to preserve his freedom of action. He did maintain relations with the Dublin government by his attendance at the opening of parliament in 1585, where he was noted to have dressed all in black in the company of his strikingly beautiful wife. He was seeking not only asylum but also the opportunity to recruit mercenaries to contest the occupation of his territories. In consultation with the English ambassador Robert Bowes, King James VI denied him an audience, and Queen Elizabeth (relying on the Treaty of Berwick (1586)) made a strong request for the delivery of O'Rourke into her custody. The matter was put to the Scottish Privy Council, which readily ordered – in the face of some objections – the arrest and delivery to English crown forces of the rebel Irish lord. Elizabeth's councillors had explicitly held out the prospect of clemency for O'Rourke, and certain Scots councillors agreed to the extradition, in the supposed expectation that his life would be spared. The expectation was to be disappointed, an experience the king himself suffered in the years afterwards, when extradition requests for followers of the Earl of Bothwell were denied by the English. O'Rourke was arrested in Glasgow, where the townsmen sought a stay on his delivery into custody, fearing for their Irish trade. The denial of their request caused an outcry, and the king's officers John Carmichael and William Stewart of Blantyre were cursed as "Queen Elizabeth's knights" with the allegation that the Scottish king had been bought with English angels (a reference to the pension the king received from England). Several of O'Rourke's creditors feared that his debts would go unpaid, but the English ambassador made a contribution of £47. O'Rourke was removed from Glasgow in the afternoon of 3 April 1591 in the midst of a riot. Two ships on the west coast were looted, and, after some crews had been killed by Irishmen in protest at O'Rourke's treatment, guards had to be mounted on all vessels sailing to Ireland.

O'Rourke was transferred to the Tower of London, where he was kept in close custody as the legal argument began. Although treason trials in the Tudor period had more to do with political theatre than the administration of justice, the matter was not a foregone conclusion: there was a serious question over whether O'Rourke could be tried in England for treason committed in Ireland. The judges delivered a mixed, preliminary opinion, that the trial could go ahead under a treason statute enacted under King Henry VIII. Meanwhile, articles had been framed at Dublin against O'Rourke with the reluctant aid of Bingham (curiously, he complained of being bullied into his testimony), and there was also an indictment laid by a jury in Sligo. These matters were transferred to England, where the grand jury of Middlesex found evidence of various offences of treason, the most substantial of which concerned the assistance given to Armada survivors, the attempt to raise mercenaries in Scotland, and various armed raids made by O'Rourke into counties Sligo and Roscommon. There was one further charge that related to an odd incident in 1589, when a representation of the Queen (whether a wood carving or painting is not known) was said to have been tied to a horse's tail at O'Rourke's command and dragged in the mud. This was referred to as the treason of the image, but it has been suggested that it was merely an ancient new year's ritual, deliberately misconstrued for the benefit of the indictment process. O'Rourke was arraigned on 28 October 1591 and the indictment was translated for him into Irish by a native speaker. One observer said he declined to plead, but the record states that a plea of not guilty was entered (probably at the direction of the court). The defendant was asked how he wished to be tried and answered that he would submit to trial by jury if he were given a week to examine the evidence, then allowed a good legal advocate, and only if the Queen herself sat in judgment. The judge declined these requests and explained that the jury would try him anyway. O'Rourke responded, "If they thought good, let it be so". The trial proceeded and O'Rourke was convicted and sentenced to death. reads:

He remains an influential figure in the struggle of Irish lords against English expansionism in the 16th century, and was an early precursor to the generation of Irish nobles who would combat the English in the Nine Years War, which heralded the end of Gaelic Ireland. O'Rourke remains one of the most common surnames within County Leitrim to this day. As a homage to the legacy of the historic kings of West Breifne, the county's coat of arms features the defaced crest of the O'Rourke clan.

Brian O'Rourke had at least six known children Eóghan, Brian Óg, Tadhg, Art, Eogan and Mary. O'Rourke's first two children were by Annalby O'Crean. She is described as being the wife of a Sligo merchant and it is not known whether she and Brian were ever officially married. They had two known children Eóghan, born in 1562, and Brian Óg, born in 1568. Brian's first recorded marriage was to Lady Mary Burke (a daughter of the second Earl of Clanricarde). They had three known children Tadhg, born in 1576, and two other sons named Art and Eogan. O'Rourke and Burke separated sometime prior to 1585 but were never formally divorced. Tadhg, and possibly their other children, continued to live with their mother in County Galway following the separation. O'Rourke later married Elenora, daughter of James FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond and they had a daughter, Mary, who married Sir Hugh O'Conor, O'Conor Don. They later separated and Elenora remarried. She died in the spring of 1589. Based on accounts from Francisco de Cuellar who spent the Autumn of 1588 at O'Rourke's castle, Brian appears to have remarried once more, his wife being described by de Cuellar as "beautiful in the extreme".