Madam, - In her letter of December 1st, in reply to mine of November 14th, Valerie Bary claimed that Holinshed's Chronicleswere regarded in their time as untrustworthy and are still so regarded today. As proof of this she states that the English Privy Council "ordered both volumes to be expurgated in 1597" (sic).
I would point out that the expurgations to which she refers were undertaken, not with a view to correcting inaccuracies, but on complex grounds of state policy. Secondly, the censorship was directed largely at the English and Scottish material rather than the Irish. (See entry for Holinshed in Oxford Dictionary of Biography, 2004). Ms Bary would not seem to be correct, therefore, in seeing these expurgations as impugning the accuracy of the Irish material.
More specifically, Holinshed's Chronicles, two distinct editions of which were published in 1577 and 1587, were each censored in the year of publication. However, in the 1587 edition, the censorship extended only to the English and Scottish sections, leaving intact Hooker's Irish supplement, dedicated to Raleigh and recording his involvement at Smerwick. (Between 1723 and 1728 the expurgations were printed, exclusively, for insertion in earlier copies and in the 1808 edition all previous excisions were restored.) Some modern commentators see the Chronicles as a work of considerable scholarship.
With regard to the presence of women at Smerwick, the Calendar of State Papers (Spanish) 1580-86(p.69) records a report, dated December 11th, 1580, from the Spanish ambassador in England to the King of Spain, stating that some pregnant women were among those slaughtered at Smerwick.
In relation to Raleigh's presence, there is a letter from Thomas Bawdewyn to the Earl of Shrewsbury, dated December 22nd, 1580. Writing about items brought from Smerwick to London, he states: "Much munition and armour was taken, as heretofore I have written; and, in rifling up the baggage, Capt Rawly has found a great no. of letters, which have discovered some matters of secrecy. They came into the Court on Saturday last. . " (Edmund Lodge, ed., Illustrations of British History, Biography & Manners, 2nd edition, 1838, vol. 2, p. 186, cf Talbot Papers).
Given that very soon after the massacre, Lord Grey writes from his camp at Smerwick to Secretary of State Walsyngham with advice of the finding of "infinite letters and writings, with bulls and commissions from the Pope . . ." ( Calendar of State Papers (Ireland) 74-85, p. 267), it would appear that Raleigh, who, evidently, made the original discovery of this material, did form part of Grey's contingent there.
From the foregoing, therefore, it would seem as I contended in my original letter, that Ms Bary's denial of Raleigh's presence at Smerwick and her dismissal of the presence of women amongst the slaughtered, remain open to question.
- Yours, etc,
ANNETTE LYNE, Ballymount, Dublin 24.