At dark the enemy retired, again sending her a letter offering her terms, which received the same refusal as the others had done, and the messenger she sent was kept a prisoner.
Lady Offaly managed to let Sir Charles Coote, then at Naas, know that she needed assistance, and Philip Sydney, Viscount Lisle, at once set out from Dublin to her relief, accompanied by Sir Charles Coote, Sir George Wentworth, Lord Digby, the Baroness’s eldest son, and a considerable force of horse and foot.
Lady Offaly had also despatched an appeal for help to the FitzGeralds, but the letter fell into the enemy’s hands instead, who at once renewed the siege when they learnt of her straits.
As the English forces advanced the besiegers skirmished and retreated. The relieving party supplied the fortress with food and ammunition, but at Lady Offaly’s request she remained in the castle.
The following October she was again attacked by Charles Dempsie, but this time was shortly relieved by Sir Richard Grenville, and after this she retired to Cole’s Hill, in Warwickshire, where she died in 1658.
Her eldest son, Lord Digby, inherited the castle, and it is still in the family’s possession.
Marquis of Kildare, “Earls of Kildare.” J. Wright, “King’s County Directory.” State Documents. Carew MSS., including Book of Howth. Parliamentary Gazetteer. Hore, “Rental Book of Gerald, 9th Earl of Kildare,” and “Notes on a Fac-Simile of an Ancient Map of Leix,” both in _Journal of Royal Society of Antiquaries, Ireland_.
This castle is situated in the Barony of Lower Glenarm, a little more than twenty-five miles north of Belfast, in the County Antrim, where the Glenarm rivulet enters the bay.
The original stronghold was erected by the Byset family about the middle of the thirteenth century, and came into the MacDonnell family through the marriage of Margery Bisset.
The castle stood on the southern side of the river at the head of the street which leads from the barbican, and on the opposite bank from the present building.
In 1278 an inquisition was held after the death of two John Bysets to determine if the Earl of Ulster was right in making the fortress over to the Bishop of Connor as ecclesiastical property, and it was decided that the Bysets had not held the castle from the church.