The Land-War In Ireland (1870) A History For The Times / Godkin, James

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Title: The Land-War In Ireland (1870)
       A History For The Times

Author: James Godkin

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THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND

A HISTORY FOR THE TIMES


BY JAMES GODKIN


AUTHOR OF 'IRELAND AND HER CHURCHES'
LATE IRISH CORRESPONDENT OF 'THE TIMES'


LONDON MACMILLAN AND CO. 1870


LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND
PARLIAMENT STREET




PREFACE.


It would be difficult to name any subject so much discussed during the
last half century as 'the condition of Ireland.' There was an endless
diversity of opinion; but in one thing all writers and speakers
agreed: the condition was morbid. Ireland was always sick, always
under medical treatment, always subject to enquiries as to the nature
of her maladies, and the remedies likely to effect a cure. The royal
commissions and parliamentary committees that sat upon her case were
innumerable, and their reports would fill a library. Still the nature
of the disease, or the complication of diseases, was a mystery. Sundry
'boons' were prescribed, by way of experiment; but, though recommended
as perfect cures, they did the patient no good. She was either very
low and weak, or so dangerously strong and violent that she had to be
put under restraint. Whenever this crisis arrived, she arrested the
special attention of the state doctors. Consultations were held, and
it was solemnly determined that something should be done. Another
effort should be made to discover the _fons malorum_, and dry it up if
possible.

A diseased nation, subject to paroxysms of insanity, and requiring
30,000 keepers, was a dangerous neighbour, as well as a serious
financial burden. Yet many contended that all such attempts were
useless. It was like trying different kinds of soap to whiten the skin
of a negro. The patient was incurable. Her ailment was nothing but
natural perversity, aggravated by religious delusions; and the root
of her disorder could never be known till she was subjected to a _post
mortem_ examination, for which it was hoped emigration, and the help
of improving landlords, would soon afford an opportunity. In the
meantime, the strait waistcoat must be put on, to keep the patient
from doing mischief.

But at length a great physician arose, who declared that this state of
things should not continue; the honour, if not the safety, of
England demanded that the treatment should be reversed. Mr. Gladstone
understands the case of Ireland, and he has courage to apply the
proper remedies. Yet the British public do not understand it so well;
and he will need all the force of public opinion to sustain him and
his cabinet in the work of national regeneration which they have
undertaken. It is not enough for a good physician to examine the
symptoms of his patient. He must have a full and faithful history
of the case. He must know how the disease originated, and how it
was treated. If injuries were inflicted, he must know under what
circumstances, how they affected the nervous system, and whether there
may not be surrounding influences which prevent the restoration of
health, or some nuisance that poisons the atmosphere.

Such a history of the case of Ireland the author has endeavoured
to give in the following pages. It it is no perfunctory service. He
resolved to do it years ago, when he finished his work on the Irish
Church Establishment, and it has been delayed only in consequence of
illness and other engagements. He does not boast of any extraordinary
qualifications for the work. But he claims the advantage of having
studied the subject long and earnestly, as one in which he has been
interested from his youth. He has written the history of the country
more or less fully three times. During his thirty years' connexion
with the press, it has been his duty to examine and discuss everything
that appeared before the public upon Irish questions, and it has
always been his habit to bring the light of history to bear upon the
topics of the day. Twenty years ago he was an active member of the
Irish Tenant League, which held great county meetings in most parts of
the island; and was enthusiastically supported by the tenant farmers,
adopting resolutions and petitions on the land question almost
identical with those passed by similar meetings at the present time.
Then Mr. Sharman Crawford was the only landlord who joined in the
movement; now many of the largest proprietors take their stand on the
tenant-right platform. And after a generation of sectarian division
and religious dissension in Ulster, stimulated by the landed gentry,
for political purposes, the Catholic priests and the Presbyterian
clergy have again united to advocate the demands of the people for the
legal protection of their industry and their property.

There is scarcely a county in Ireland which the author of this
volume has not traversed more than once, having always an eye to the
condition of the population, their mode of living, and the
relations of the different classes. During the past year, as special
commissioner of the _Irish Times_, he went through the greater part of
Ulster, and portions of the south, in order to ascertain the feelings
of the farmers and the working classes, on the great question which is
about to engage the attention of Parliament.

The result of his historical studies and personal enquiries is
this:--All the maladies of Ireland, which perplex statesmen and
economists, have arisen from injuries inflicted by England in the wars
which she waged to get possession of the Irish land. Ireland has been
irreconcilable, not because she was conquered by England, not
even because she was persecuted, but because she was robbed of her
inheritance. If England had done everything she has done against the
Irish nation, omitting the _confiscations_, the past would have been
forgotten and condoned long ago, and the two nations would have been
one people. Even the religious wars resolve themselves into efforts to
retain the land, or to recover the forfeited estates. And the banished
chiefs never could have rallied the nation to arms, as they so often
did against overwhelming odds, if the people had not been involved in
the ruin of their lords. All that is really important in the history
of the country for the last three centuries is, the fighting of the
two nations for the possession of the soil. The Reformation was
in reality nothing but a special form of the land war. The oath of
supremacy was simply a lever for evicting the owners of the land. The
process was simple. The king demanded spiritual allegiance; refusal
was high treason; the punishment of high treason was forfeiture of
estates, with death or banishment to the recusants. Any other law they
might have obeyed, and retained their inheritance. This law fixed
its iron grapples in the conscience, and made obedience impossible,
without a degree of baseness that rendered life intolerable.
Hence Protestantism was detested, not so much as a religion, as an
instrument of spoliation.

The agrarian wars were kept up from generation to generation, Ireland
always making desperate efforts to get back her inheritance, but
always crushed to the earth, a victim of famine and the sword, by the
power of England.

The history of these wars, then, is the history of the case of the
Irish patient. Its main facts are embodied in the general history of
the country. But they have recently been brought out more distinctly
by authors who have devoted years to the examination of the original
state papers, in which the actors themselves described their exploits
and recorded their motives and feelings with startling frankness. When
a task of this kind has been performed by a capable and conscientious
historian, it would be a work of supererogation for another enquirer
to undergo the wearisome toil, even if he could. I have, therefore,
for the purpose of my argument, freely availed myself of the materials
given to the public by Mr. Froude, the Rev. C.P. Meehan, and Mr.
Prendergast, not, however, without asking their permission, which was
in each case most readily and kindly granted.

The ancient state of Ireland, and especially of Ulster, is so little
known in England, that I was glad to have the facts vouched for by
so high an authority as Mr. Froude, and a writer so full of the
instinctive pride of the dominant nation; the more so as I have often
been obliged to dissent from his views, and to appeal against his
judgments. Beguiled by the beauty of his descriptions, I am afraid I
have drawn too largely on his pages, in proving and illustrating
my case; but I feel confident that no one will read these extracts
without more eagerly desiring to possess the volumes of his great work
from which they are taken.

I have similar acknowledgments to make to Father Meehan and Mr.
Prendergast, both of whom are preparing new editions of their most
valuable works. The royal charters, and other documents connected
with the Plantation of Ulster, are printed in the 'Concise View of the
Irish Society,' compiled from their records, and published by their
authority in 1832. Whenever I have been indebted to other writers,
I have acknowledged my obligation in the course of the work. In
preparing it, I have had but one object constantly in view: to present
to the public a careful collection and an impartial statement of facts
on the state of Ireland, for the right government of which the British
people are now more than ever responsible. I shall be thankful if my
labours should contribute in any measure, however humble, to the new
conquest of Ireland 'by justice' of which Mr. Bright has spoken.
His language is suggestive. It is late (happily not 'too late') to
commence the reign of justice. But the nation is not to be despised
which requires nothing more than _that_ to win its heart, while its
spirit could not be conquered by centuries of injustice. Nor should it
be forgotten by the people of England that some atonement is due for
past wrongs, not the least of which is the vilification and distrust
from which the Irish people have suffered so much. 'The spirit of a
man may sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?'
Some manifestation of Christian magnanimity just now would greatly
help the work of national reconciliation. The time is favourable. The
Government enjoys the prestige of an unparalleled success. The only
Prime Minister that ever dared to do full justice to Ireland, is the
most powerful that England has had for nearly a century. He has in
his Cabinet the only Chief Secretary of Ireland that ever thoroughly
sympathised with the nation, not excepting Lord Morpeth; the great
tribune of the English people, who has been one of the most eloquent
advocates of Ireland; an Ex-Viceroy who has pronounced it felony
for the Irish landlords to avail themselves of their legal rights,
although he put down a rebellion which that felony mainly provoked;
another Ex-Governor, who was one of the most earnest and conscientious
that ever filled the viceregal throne, and who returned to Parliament
to be one of the ablest champions of the country he had ruled so well;
not to mention other members of commanding ability, who are solemnly
pledged to the policy of justice. In these facts there is great
promise. He understands little of 'the signs of the times,' who does
not see the dangers that hang on the non-fulfilment of this promise.

J.G.

LONDON: _January 20_, 1870.




CONTENTS.


   I. INTRODUCTION

  II. THE RULE OF THE O'NEILLS

  III. SHANE O'NEILL, SOVEREIGN OF ULSTER

  IV. EXTERMINATING WARS

  V. AN IRISH CRUSADE

  VI. THE LAST OF THE IRISH PRINCES

  VII. GOVERNMENT APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE

  VIII. THE CASE OF THE FUGITIVE EARLS

  IX. THE CONFISCATION OF ULSTER

  X. THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER

  XI. THE REBELLION OF 1641

  XII. THE PURITAN PLANTATION

  XIII. THE PENAL CODE. A NEW SYSTEM OF LAND WAR

  XIV. ULSTER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

  XV. POVERTY AND COERCION

  XVI. THE FAMINE

  XVII. TENANT-RIGHT IN ULSTER

  XVIII. TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN

  XIX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM

  XX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH

  XXI. FAKNEY--MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES'

  XXII. BELFAST AND PERPETUITY

  XXIII. LEASE-BREAKING--GEASHILL

  XXIV. THE LAND SYSTEM AND THE WORKING CLASSES

  XXV. CONCLUSION--AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN

  XVIII. TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN 313

  XIX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM 328

  XX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH 346

  XXI. FAKNEY--MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES' 356

  XXII. BELFAST AND PERPETUITY 381

  XXIII. LEASE-BREAKING--GEASHILL 387

  XXIV. THE LAND SYSTEM AND THE WORKING CLASSES 401

  XXV. CONCLUSION--AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN 424




THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND.




CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.


As the hour approaches when the legislature must deal with the Irish
Land question, and settle it, like the Irish Church question, once
for all, attempts are redoubled to frighten the public with
the difficulties of the task. The alarmists conjure up gigantic
apparitions more formidable than those which encountered Bunyan's
Pilgrim. Monstrous figures frown along the gloomy avenue that, leads
up to the Egyptian temple in which the divinity, PROPERTY, dwells in
mysterious darkness. To enter the sanctuary, we are solemnly
assured, requires all the cardinal virtues in their highest state of
development--the firmest faith, the most vivid hope, and the charity
that never faileth. But this is not the only country that has had a
land question to settle. Almost every nation in Europe has done for
itself what England is now palled upon to do for Ireland. In fact,
it is a necessary process in the transition from feudalism to
constitutional self-government. Feudalism gave the land to a few whom
it made princes and lords, having forcibly taken it from the many,
whom it made subjects and serfs. The land is the natural basis of
society. The Normans made it the artificial basis of a class. Society
in nearly every other country has reverted back to its original
foundations, and so remains firm and strong without dangerous rents or
fissures. No doubt, the operation is difficult and critical. But what
has been done once may be done again; and as it was England that kept
Irish society so long rocking on its smaller end, it is her duty
now to lend all her strength to help to seat it on its own broad
foundations. Giving up the Viceroy's dreams that the glorious mission
of Ireland was to be a kitchen garden, a dairy, a larder for England,
we must come frankly to the conclusion that the national life of the
Irish people, without distinction of creed or party, increases
in vigour with their intelligence, and is now invincible. Let the
imperial legislature put an end for ever to such an unnatural state of
things--thus only can they secure the harmonious working and cordial
Union of the two nations united together in one State--thus only can
they insure for the landlords themselves all the power and all
the influence that can be retained by them in consistency with the
industrial rights and political freedom of the cultivators of the
soil. These now complain of their abject dependence, and hopeless
bondage, under grinding injustice. They are alleged to be full of
discontent, which must grow with the intelligence and manhood of the
people who writhe under the system. Their advocates affirm that their
discontent must increase in volume and angry force every year, and
that, owing to the connection of Ireland with the United States,
it may at any time be suddenly swollen with the fury of a mountain
torrent, deeply discoloured by a Republican element.

It must be granted, I fear, that the Celts of Ireland feel pretty much
as the Britons felt under the ascendency of the Saxons, and as the
Saxons in their turn felt under the ascendency of the Normans. In
the estimation of the Christian Britons, their Saxon conquerors,
even after the conversion of the latter, were 'an accursed race, the
children of robbers and murderers, possessing the fruits of their
fathers' crimes.' 'With them,' says Dr. Lingard, 'the Saxon was no
better than a pagan bearing the name of a Christian. They refused to
return his salutation, to join in prayer with him in the church, to
sit with him at the same table, to abide with him under the same roof.
The remnant of his meals and the food over which he had made the sign
of the cross they threw to their dogs or swine; the cup out of
which he had drunk they scoured with sand, as if it had contracted
defilement from his lips.'

It is not the Celtic memory only that is tenacious of national wrong.
The Saxon was doomed to drink to the dregs the same bitter cup which
he administered so unmercifully to the Briton. His Teutonic blood
saved him from no humiliation or insult. The Normans seized all the
lands, all the castles, all the pleasant mansions, all the churches
and monasteries. Even the Saxon saints were flung down out of their
shrines and trampled in the dust under the iron heel of the Christian
conqueror. Everything Saxon was vile, and the word 'Englishry' implied
as much contempt and scorn as the word 'Irishry' in a later age. In
fact, the subjugated Saxons gradually became infected with all the
vices and addicted to all the social disorders that prevailed among
the Irish in the same age; only in Ireland the anarchy endured much
longer from the incompleteness of the conquest and the absence of the
seat of supreme government, which kept the races longer separate and
antagonistic. Perhaps the most humiliating notice of the degrading
effects of conquest on the noble Saxon race to be found in history,
is the language in which Giraldus Cambrensis, the reviler of the Irish
Celt, contrasts them with his countrymen, the Welsh. 'Who dare,'
he says, 'compare the English, the most degraded of all races under
heaven, with the Welsh? In their own country they are the serfs,
the veriest slaves of the Normans. In ours whom else have we for our
herdsmen, shepherds, cobblers, skinners, cleaners of our dog kennels,
ay, even of our privies, but Englishmen? Not to mention their original
treachery to the Britons, that hired by them to defend them they
turned upon them in spite of their oaths and engagements, they are
to this day given to treachery and murder.' The lying Saxon was,
according to this authority, a proverbial expression.

The Saxon writers lamented their miserable subjection in a monotonous
wail for many generations. So late as the seventeenth century an
English author speaks in terms of compassion of the disinherited
and despoiled families who had sunk into the condition of artisans,
peasants, and paupers. 'This,' says M. Thierry, 'is the last sorrowful
glance cast back through the mist of ages on that great event which
established in England a race of kings, nobles, and warriors of
foreign extraction. The reader must figure to himself, not a mere
change of political rule, not the triumph of one of two competitors,
but the intrusion of a nation into the bosom of another people which
it came to destroy, and the scattered fragments of which it retained
as an integral portion of the new system of society, in the _status_
merely of personal property, or, to use the stronger language of
records and deeds, _a clothing of the soil_. He must not picture to
himself on the one hand the king and despot; on the other simply his
subjects, high and low, rich and poor, all inhabiting England, and
consequently all English. He must bear in mind that there were two
distinct nations--the old Anglo-Saxon race and the Norman invaders,
dwelling intermingled on the same soil; or, rather, he might
contemplate two countries--the one possessed by the Normans, wealthy
and exonerated from public burdens, the other enslaved and oppressed
with a land tax--the former full of spacious mansions, of walled
towns, and moated castles--the latter occupied with thatched cabins,
and ancient walls in a state of dilapidation. This peopled with
the happy and the idle, with soldiers, courtiers, knights, and
nobles--that with miserable men condemned to labour as peasants and
artisans. On the one side he beholds luxury and insolence, on the
other poverty and envy--not the envy of the poor at the sight of
opulence and men born to opulence, but that malignant envy, although
justice be on its side, which the despoiled cannot but entertain on
looking upon the spoilers. Lastly, to complete the picture, these two
countries are in some sort interwoven with each other--they meet
at every point, and yet they are more distinct, more completely
separated, than if the ocean rolled between them.'

Does not this picture look very like Ireland? To make it more like,
let us imagine that the Norman king had lived in Paris, and kept a
viceroy in London--that the English parliament were subordinate to the
French parliament, composed exclusively of Normans, and governed by
Norman undertakers for the benefit of the dominant State--that the
whole of the English land was held by ten thousand Norman proprietors,
many of them absentees--that all the offices of the government, in
every department, were in the hands of Normans--that, differing in
religion with the English nation, the French, being only a tenth of
the population, had got possession of all the national churches and
church property, while the poor natives supported a numerous hierarchy
by voluntary contributions--that the Anglo-Norman parliament was
bribed and coerced to abolish itself, forming a union of England with
France, in which the English members were as one to six. Imagine that
in consequence of rebellions the land of England had been confiscated
three or four times, after desolating wars and famines, so that all
the native proprietors were expelled, and the land was parcelled
out to French soldiers and adventurers on condition that the foreign
'planters' should assist in keeping down 'the mere English' by force
of arms. Imagine that the English, being crushed by a cruel penal
code for a century, were allowed to reoccupy the soil as mere
tenants-at-will, under the absolute power of their French landlords.
If all this be imagined by English legislators and English writers,
they will be better able to understand the Irish land question, and to
comprehend the nature of 'Irish difficulties,' as well as the justice
of feeble, insincere, and baffled statesmen in casting the blame
of Irish misery and disorder on the unruly and barbarous nature of
Irishmen. They will recollect that the aristocracy of Ireland are the
high-spirited descendants of conquerors, with the instinct of conquest
still in their blood. The parliament which enacted the Irish land laws
was a parliament composed almost exclusively of men of this dominant
race. They made all political power dependent on the ownership of
land, thus creating for themselves a monopoly which it is not in human
nature to surrender without a struggle.

The possession of this monopoly, however, fully accounts for two
things--the difficulty which the landlords feel in admitting the
justice of the tenant's claims for the legal recognition of the value
which his labour has added to the soil, and the extreme repugnance
with which they regard any legislation on the subject. Besides,
the want of sympathy with the people, of earnestness and courage in
meeting the realities of the case, is conspicuous in all attempts
of the kind during the last half-century. Those attempts have been
evasive, feeble, abortive--concessions to the demand that _something_
must be done, but so managed that nothing should be done to weaken the
power of the eight thousand proprietors over the mass of the nation
dependent on the land for their existence. Hence has arisen a great
amount of jealousy, distrust, and irritability in the landlord class
towards the tenantry and their advocates.

The Irish race, to adopt Thierry's language, are full of 'malignant
envy' towards the lords of the soil; not because they are rich, but
because they have the people so completely in their power, so entirely
at their mercy for all that man holds most dear. The tenants feel
bitterly when they think that they have no legal right to live on
their native land. They have read the history of our dreadful civil
wars, famines, and confiscations. They know that by the old law of
Ireland, and by custom from times far beyond the reach of authentic
history, the clans and tribes of the Celtic people occupied certain
districts with which their names are still associated, and that the
land was inalienably theirs. Rent or tribute they paid, indeed, to
their princes, and if they failed the chiefs came with armed followers
and helped themselves, driving away cows, sheep, and horses sufficient
to meet their demand, or more if they were unscrupulous, which was
'distress' with a vengeance. But the eviction of the people even for
non-payment of rent, and putting other people in their place, were
things never heard of among the Irish under their own rulers. The
chief had his own mensal lands, as well as his tribute, and these he
might forfeit. But as the clansmen could not control his acts, they
could never see the justice of being punished for his misdeeds by
the confiscation of their lands, and driven from the homes of their
ancestors often made doubly sacred by religious associations.

History, moreover, teaches them that, as a matter of fact, the
government in the reign of James I.--and James himself in repeated
proclamations--assured the people who occupied the lands of O'Neill
and O'Donnell at the time of their flight that they would be protected
in all their rights if they remained quiet and loyal, which they
did. Yet they were nearly all removed to make way for the English and
Scotch settlers.

Thus, historical investigators have been digging around the
foundations of Irish landlordism. They declare that those foundations
were cemented with blood, and they point to the many wounds still open
from which that blood issued so profusely. The facts of the conquest
and confiscation were hinted at by the Devon Commissioners as
accounting for the peculiar difficulties of the Irish land question,
and writers on it timidly allude to 'the historic past' as originating
influences still powerful in alienating landlords and tenants, and
fostering mutual distrust between them. But the time for evasion and
timidity has passed. We must now honestly and courageously face
the stern realities of this case. Among these realities is a firm
conviction in the minds of many landlords that they are in no sense
trustees for the community, but that they have an absolute power over
their estates--that they can, if they like, strip the land clean of
its human clothing, and clothe it with sheep or cattle instead, or lay
it bare and desolate, let it lapse into a wilderness, or sow it with
salt. That is in reality the terrific power secured to them by the
present land code, to be executed through the Queen's writ and by the
Queen's troops--a power which could not stand a day if England did not
sustain it by overwhelming military force.

Another of the realities of the question is the no less inveterate
conviction in the tenants' mind that the absolute power of the
landlord was originally a usurpation effected by the sword. Right or
wrong, they believe that the confiscations were the palpable violation
of the natural rights of the people whom Providence placed in this
country. With bitter emphasis they assert that no set of men has any
divine right to root a nation out of its own land. Painful as this
state of feeling is, there is no use in denying that it exists. Here,
then, is the deep radical difference that is to be removed. Here are
the two conflicting forces which are to be reconciled. This is the
real Irish land question. All other points are minor and of easy
adjustment. The people say, and, I believe, sincerely, that they are
willing to pay a fair rent, according to a public valuation--not a
rent imposed arbitrarily by one of the interested parties, which
might be raised so as to ruin the occupier. The feelings of these two
parties often clash so violently, there is such instinctive distrust
between them, the peace and prosperity of the country depend so much
on their coming to terms and putting an end to their long-standing
feud, that it is still more imperatively necessary than in the
Church question, that a third party, independent, impartial, and
authoritative, should intervene and heal the breach.

There was one phrase constantly ringing in the ears of the Devon
Commissioners, and now, after nearly a generation has passed away, it
is ringing in the ears of the nation louder than ever--'_the want
of tenure_.' All the evidence went to show that the want of security
paralysed industry and impeded social progress. It seems strange that
any evidence should be thought necesary to prove that a man will not
sow if he does not hope to reap, and that he will not build houses for
strangers to enjoy. This would be taken as an axiom anywhere out of
Ireland. Of all the people in Europe, the Irish have suffered most
from the oppression of those who, from age to age, had power in the
country. Whoever fought or conquered, they were always the victims;
and it is a singular fact that their sufferings are scarcely ever
noticed by the contemporary annalists, even when those annalists
were ecclesiastics. The extent to which they were slaughtered in the
perpetual wars between the native chiefs, and in the wars between
those chiefs and the English, is something awful to contemplate, not
to speak of the wholesale destruction of life by the famines which
those wars entailed. On several occasions the Celtic race seemed very
nearly extinct. The penal code, with all its malign influence, had one
good effect. It subdued to a great extent the fighting propensities
of the people, and fused the clans into one nation, purified by
suffering. Since that time, in spite of occasional visitations of
calamity, they have been steadily rising in the social scale, and they
are now better off than ever they were in their whole history. When
we review the stages by which they have risen, we cannot but feel at
times grieved and indignant at the opportunities for tranquillising
and enriching the country which were lost through the ignorance,
apathy, bigotry, and selfishness of the legislature. There was no end
of commissions and select committees to inquire into the condition
of the agricultural population, whenever Parliament was roused by the
prevalence of agrarian outrages. They reported, and there the matter
ended. There were always insuperable difficulties when the natives
were to be put in a better position. Between 1810 and 1814, for
example, a commission reported four times on the condition of
the Irish bogs. They expressed their entire conviction of the
practicability of cultivating with profit an immense extent of land
lying waste. In 1819, in 1823, in 1826, and in 1830, select committees
inquired into and reported on drainage, reclamation of bogs and
marshes, on roads, fisheries, emigration, and other schemes for giving
employment to the redundant population that had been encouraged to
increase and multiply in the most reckless manner, while 'war
prices' were obtained for agricultural produce, and the votes of the
forty-shilling freeholders were wanted by the landlords. When, by the
Emancipation Act in 1829, the forty-shilling franchise was abolished,
the peasant lost his political value. After the war, when the price of
corn fell very low, and, consequently, tillage gave place to grazing,
labourers became to the middleman an encumbrance and a nuisance that
must be cleared off the land, just as weeds are plucked up and flung
out to wither on the highway. Then came Lord Devon's Land Commission,
which inquired on the eve of the potato failure and the great famine.
The Irish population was now at its highest figure--between eight and
nine millions. Yet, though there had been three bad seasons, it was
clearly proved at that time that by measures which a wise and willing
legislature would have promptly passed, the whole surplus population
could have been profitably employed.

In this great land controversy, on which side lies the truth? Is it
the fault of the people, or the fault of the law, that the country is
but half cultivated, while the best of the peasantry are emigrating
with hostile feelings and purposes of vengeance towards England? As
to the landlords, as a class, they use their powers with as much
moderation and mercy as any other class of men in any country ever
used power so vast and so little restrained. The best and most
indulgent landlords, the most genial and generous, are unquestionably
the old nobility, the descendants of the Normans and Saxons, those
very conquerors of whom we have heard so much. The worst, the most
harsh and exacting, are those who have purchased under the Landed
Estates Court--strangers to the people, who think only of the
percentage on their capital. We had heard much of the necessity of
capital to develope the resources of the land. The capital came,
but the development consists in turning tillage lands into pasture,
clearing out the labouring population and sending them to the
poorhouse, or shipping them off at a few pounds per head to keep down
the rates. And yet is it not possible to set all our peasantry to work
at the profitable cultivation of their native land? Is it not possible
to establish by law what many landlords act upon as the rule of their
estates--namely, the principle that no man is to be evicted so long as
he pays a fair rent, and the other principle, that whenever he fails,
he is entitled to the market value by public sale of all the property
in his holding beyond that fair rent? The hereditary principle,
rightly cherished among the landlords, so conservative in its
influence, ought to be equally encouraged among the tenants. The man
of industry, as well as the man of rank, should be able to feel that
he is providing for his children, that his farm is at once a bank and
an insurance office, in which all his minute daily deposits of toil
and care and skill will be safe and productive. This is the way to
enrich and strengthen the State, and to multiply guarantees against
revolution--not by consolidation of farms and the abandonment of
tillage, not by degrading small holders into day labourers, levelling
the cottages and filling the workhouses.

If the legislature were guided by the spirit that animates Lord Erne
in his dealings with his tenantry, the land question would soon
be settled to the satisfaction of all parties. 'I think,' said his
lordship, 'as far as possible, every tenant on my estate may call his
farm his castle, as long as he conducts himself honestly, quietly, and
industriously; and, should he wish to leave in order to find a better
landlord, I allow him to sell his farm, provided he pleases me in a
tenant. Therefore, if a man lays out money on his farm judiciously, he
is certain to receive back the money, should he wish to go elsewhere.'
He mentioned three cases of sale which occurred last year. One tenant
sold a farm of seventy acres in bad order for 570 l., another thirty
acres for 300 l., and a third the same number of acres in worse
condition for 200 l. The landlord lost nothing by these changes. His
rent was paid up, and in each case he got a good tenant for a bad one.
Lord Erne is a just man, and puts on no more than a fair rent. But
all landlords are not just, as all tenants are not honest. Even where
tenant-right is admitted in name, it is obvious that the rent may be
raised so high as to make the farm worth nothing in the market. To
give to the tenant throughout the country generally the pleasant
feeling that his farm is his castle, which he can make worth more
money every day he rises, there must be a public letting valuation,
and this the State could easily provide. And then there should be the
right of sale to the highest solvent bidder.

This might be one way of securing permanent tenure, or stimulating the
industry and sustaining the thrift of the farmer. But the nature
of the different tenures, and the effect of each in bracing up or
relaxing the nerves of industry, will be the object of deliberation
with the Government and the legislature. It is said that, in the hands
of small farmers, proprietorship leads to endless subdivision; that
long leases generally cause bad husbandry; that tenants-at-will often
feel themselves more secure and safe than a contract could make them;
that families have lived on the same farm for generations without a
scrape of a pen except the receipt for rent. On the other hand, there
is the general cry of 'want of tenure;' there is the custom of serving
notices to quit, sometimes for other reasons than non-payment of rent;
there are occasional barbarities in the levelling of villages, and
dragging the aged and the sick from the old roof-tree, the parting
from which rends their heart-strings; and, above all, there is the
feeling among the peasantry which makes them look without horror on
the murder of a landlord or an agent who was a kind and benevolent
neighbour; and, lastly, the paramount consideration for the
legislature, that a large portion of the people are disaffected to
the State, and ready to join its enemies, and this almost solely on
account of the state of the law relating to land. Hence the necessity
of settling the question as speedily as possible, and the duty of all
who have the means to contribute something towards that most desirable
consummation, which seems to be all that is wanted to make Irishmen of
every class work together earnestly for the welfare of their country.
It is admitted that no class of men in the world has improved more
than the Irish landlords during the last twenty years. Let the
legislature restore confidence between them and the people by taking
away all ground for the suspicion that they wish to extirpate the
Celtic race.

Nor was this suspicion without cause, as the following history will
too clearly prove. A very able English writer has said: 'The policy
of all the successive swarms of settlers was to extirpate the native
Celtic race, but every effort made to break up the old framework
of society failed, for the new-comers soon became blended with and
undistinguishable from the mass of the people--being obliged to ally
themselves with the native chieftains, rather than live hemmed in by a
fiery ring of angry septs and exposed to perpetual war with everything
around them. Merged in the great Celtic mass, they adopted Irish
manners and names, yet proscribed and insulted the native inhabitants
as an inferior race. Everything liberal towards them is intercepted in
its progress.

'The past history of Ulster is but a portion of Scottish history
inserted into that of Ireland--a stone in the Irish mosaic of an
entirely different quality and colour from the pieces that surround
it.

'Thus it came to pass that, through the confiscation of their lands
and the proscription of their religion, popery was worked by a most
vehement process into the blood and brain of the Irish nation.'

It has been often said that the Irish must be an inferior race, since
they allowed themselves to be subjugated by some thousands of English
invaders. But it should be recollected, first, that the conquest,
commenced by Henry II. in the twelfth century, was not completed till
the seventeenth century, when the King's writ ran for the first time
through the province of Ulster, the ancient kingdom of the O'Neills;
in the second place, the weakness of the Celtic communities was not so
much the fault of the men as of their institutions, brought with them
from the East and clung to with wonderful tenacity. So long as they
had boundless territory for their flocks and herds, and could always
move on 'to pastures new,' they increased and multiplied, and allowed
the sword and the battle-axe to rest, unless when a newly elected
chief found it necessary to give his followers 'a hosting'--which
means an expedition for plunder. Down to the seventeenth century,
after five hundred years' contact with the Teutonic race, they were
essentially the same people as they were when the ancient Greeks
and Romans knew them. They are thus described by Dr. Mommsen in his
'History of Rome:'--'Such qualities--those of good soldiers and of bad
citizens--explain the historical fact that the Celts have shaken all
States and have _founded none_. Everywhere we find them ready to rove,
or, in other words, to march, preferring movable property to landed
estate, and gold to everything else; following the profession of arms
as a system of organised pillage, or even as a trade for hire, and
with such success that even the Roman historian, Sallust, acknowledges
that the Celts bore off the prize from the Romans in feats of arms.
They were the true 'soldiers of fortune' of antiquity, as pictures and
descriptions represent them, with big but sinewy bodies, with shaggy
hair and long moustaches--quite a contrast to the Greeks and Romans,
who shaved the upper lip--in the variegated embroidered dresses which
in combat were not unfrequently thrown off, with a broad gold ring
round their neck, wearing no helmets and without missile weapons
of any sort, but furnished instead with an immense shield, a long
ill-tempered sword, a dagger and a lance, all ornamented with gold,
for they were not unskilful in working in metals. Everything was made
subservient to ostentation--even wounds, which were often enlarged for
the purpose of boasting a broader scar. Usually they fought on foot,
but certain tribes on horseback, in which case every free man was
followed by two attendants, likewise mounted. War-chariots were early
in use, as they were among the Libyans and Hellenes in the earliest
times. Many a trait reminds us of the chivalry of the middle ages,
particularly the custom of single combat, which was foreign to the
Greeks and Romans. Not only were they accustomed in war to challenge
a single enemy to fight, after having previously insulted him by words
and gestures; in peace also they fought with each other in splendid
equipments, as for life or death. After such feats carousals followed
in due course. In this way they led, whether under their own or
a foreign banner, a restless soldier life, constantly occupied in
fighting and in their so-called feats of heroism. They were dispersed
from _Ireland_ and Spain to Asia Minor, but all their enterprises
melted away like snow in spring, and they nowhere created a great
state or developed a distinctive culture of their own.' Such were
the people who once almost terminated the existence of Rome, and were
afterwards with difficulty repulsed from Greece, who became masters of
the most fertile part of Italy and of a fair province in the heart
of Asia Minor, who, after their Italian province had been subdued,
inflicted disastrous blows on successive Roman generals, and were only
at last subjugated by Caesar himself in nine critical and sometimes
most dangerous campaigns, B.C. 51.

Niebuhr observes that at that time the form of government was
everywhere an hereditary monarchy, which, when Caesar went into Gaul,
had been swallowed up, as had the authority of the Senate, in the
anarchy of the nobles. Their freedom was lawlessness; an inherent
incapacity of living under the dominion of laws distinguishes them as
barbarians from the Greeks and Italians. As individuals had to procure
the protection of some magnate in order to live in safety, so the
weaker tribes took shelter under the patronage of a more powerful one.
For they were a disjointed multitude; and when any people had in
this manner acquired an extensive sovereignty, they exercised it
arbitrarily until its abuses became intolerable, or their subjects
were urged by blind hatred of their power to fall off from them, and
gather round some new centre. The sole bond of union was the Druidical
hierarchy which, at least in Caesar's time, was common to both nations.
Both of them paid obedience to its tribunal, which administered
justice once a year--an institution which probably was not introduced
till long after the age of migrations, when the expulsion of the
vanquished had ceased to be regarded as the end of war, and which must
have been fostered by the constant growth of lawlessness in particular
states--being upheld by the _ban_, which excluded the contumacious
from all intercourse in divine worship and in daily life with the
faithful. The huge bodies, wild features, and long shaggy hair of the
men, gave a ghastliness to their aspect. This, along with their fierce
courage, their countless numbers, and the noise made by an enormous
multitude of horns and trumpets, struck the armies arrayed against
them with fear and amazement. If these, however, did not allow
their terror to overpower them, the want of order, discipline, and
perseverance would often enable an inferior number to vanquish a vast
host of the barbarians. Besides, they were but ill equipped. Few of
them wore any armour; their narrow shields, which were of the same
height with their bodies, were weak and clumsy; they rushed upon their
enemies with broad thin battle-swords of bad steel, which the first
blow upon iron often notched and rendered useless. Like true savages,
they destroyed the inhabitants, the towns, and the agriculture of the
countries they conquered. They cut off the heads of the slain,
and tied them by the hair to the manes of their horses. If a skull
belonged to a person of rank, they nailed it up in their houses and
preserved it as an heirloom for their posterity, as the nobles in rude
ages do stag-horns. Towns were rare amongst them; the houses and
the villages, which were very numerous, were mean, the furniture
wretched--a heap of straw covered with skins served both for a bed
and a seat. They did not cultivate corn save for a very limited
consumption, for the main part of their food was the milk and the
flesh of their cattle. These formed their wealth. Gold, too, they
had in abundance, derived partly from the sandy beds of their rivers,
partly from some mines which these had led them to discover. It was
worn in ornaments by every Gaul of rank. In battle he bore gold chains
on his arms and heavy gold collars round his neck, even when the upper
part of his body was in other respects quite naked. For they often
threw off their parti-coloured chequered cloaks, which shone with
all the hues of the rainbow, like the picturesque dress of their
kinspeople the Highlanders, who have laid aside the trousers of the
ancient Gauls. Their duels and gross revels are an image of the rudest
part of the middle ages. Their debauches were mostly committed with
beer and mead; for vines and all the plants of southern regions were
as yet total strangers to the north of the Alps, where the climate in
those ages was extremely severe; so that wine was rare, though of all
the commodities imported it was the most greedily bought up.

Ulster was known in ancient times as one of the five Irish 'kingdoms,'
and remained unconquered by the English till the reign of James I.,
when the last prince of the great house of O'Neill, then Earl of
Tyrone, fled to the Continent in company with O'Donel, Earl of
Tyrconnel, head of another very ancient sept. Up to that period the
men of Ulster proudly regarded themselves as 'Irish of the Irish and
Catholic of the Catholics.' The inhabitants were of mixed blood, but,
as in the other provinces of the island, the great mass of the people,
as well as the ruling classes, were of Celtic origin. Those whom
ethnologists still recognise as aborigines, in parts of Connaught
and in some mountainous regions, an inferior race, are said to be
the descendants of the Firbolgs, or Belgae, who formed the third
immigration. They were followed and subdued by the Tuatha de
Danans--men famed for their gigantic power and supernatural skill--a
race of demigods, who still live in the national superstitions. The
last of the ancient invasions was by the Gael or Celt, known as the
Milesians and Scoti. The institutions and customs of this people were
established over the whole island, and were so deeply rooted in the
soil that their remnants to this day present the greatest obstacles
to the settlement of the land question according to the English model,
and on the principles of political economy, which run directly counter
to Irish instincts. It is truly wonderful how distinctly the present
descendants of this race preserve the leading features of their
primitive character. In France and England the Celtic character was
moulded by the power and discipline of the Roman Empire. To Ireland
this modifying influence never extended; and we find the Ulster chiefs
who fought for their territories with English viceroys 280 years ago
very little different from the men who followed Brennus to the sack
of Home, and encountered the legions of Julius Caesar on the plains of
Gaul.

Mr. Prendergast observes, in the introduction to his 'Cromwellian
Settlement' that when the companions of Strongbow landed in the reign
of Henry II. they found a country such as Caesar had found in Gaul
1200 years before. A thousand years had passed over the island without
producing the slightest social progress--'the inhabitants divided
into tribes on the system of the clansmen and chiefs, without a common
Government, suddenly confederating, suddenly dissolving, with Brehons,
Shaunahs, minstrels, bards, and harpers, in all unchanged, except that
for their ancient Druids they had got Christian priests. Had the
Irish remained honest pagans, Ireland perhaps had remained unconquered
still. Round the coast strangers had built seaport towns, either
traders from the Carthaginian settlements in Spain, or outcasts from
their own country, like the Greeks that built Marseilles. At the time
of the arrival of the French and Flemish adventurers from Wales, they
were occupied by a mixed Danish and French population, who supplied
the Irish with groceries, including the wines of Poitou, the latter in
such abundance that they had no need of vineyards.'

If vineyards had been needed, we may be sure they would not have been
planted, for the Irish Celts planted nothing. Neither did they build,
except in the simplest and rudest way, improving their architecture
from age to age no more than the beaver or the bee. Mr. Prendergast
is an able, honest, and frank writer; yet there is something amusingly
Celtic in the flourish with which he excuses the style of palaces in
which the Irish princes delighted to dwell. 'Unlike England,' he says,
'then covered with castles on the heights, where the French gentlemen
secured themselves and their families against the hatred of the churls
and villains, as the English peasantry were called, the dwellings
of the Irish chiefs were of wattles or clay. It is for robbers and
foreigners to take to rocks and precipices for security; for native
rulers, there is no such fortress _as justice and humanity_.' This
is very fine, but surely Mr. Prendergast cannot mean that the Irish
chiefs were distinguished by their justice and humanity. The following
touch is still grander:--'The Irish, like the wealthiest and highest
of the present day, loved detached houses surrounded by fields and
woods. Towns and their walls they looked upon as tombs or sepulchres,
&c.' As to fields, there were none, because the Irish never made
fences, their patches of cultivated land being divided by narrow
strips of green sod. Besides, they lived in villages, which were
certainly surrounded by woods, because the woods were everywhere,
and they furnished the inhabitants with fuel and shelter, as well as
materials for building their huts.

But further on this able author expresses himself much more in
accordance with the truth of history, when he states that the 'Irish
enemy' was no _nation_ in the modern sense of the word, but a race
divided into many nations or tribes, _separately_ defending their
lands from the English barons in the immediate neighbourhood.
There had been no ancient national government displaced, no dynasty
overthrown; the Irish had _no national flag_, nor any capital city as
the metropolis of their common country, nor any common administration
of law.' He might have added that they had no _mint_. There never was
an Irish king who had his face stamped on a coin of his realm. Some
stray pieces of money found their way into the country from abroad,
but up to the close of the sixteenth century the rudest form of barter
prevailed in Ulster, and accounts were paid not in coins but in cows.
Even the mechanical arts which had flourished in the country before
the arrival of the Celts had gradually perished, and had disappeared
at the time of the English invasion. Any handy men could build a house
of mud and wattles. Masons, carpenters, smiths, painters, glaziers,
&c., were not wanted by a people who despised stone buildings as
prisons, and abhorred walled towns as sepulchres. Spinning and weaving
were arts cultivated by the women, each household providing materials
for clothing, which was little used in warm weather, and thrown off
when fighting or any other serious work was to be done.

I should be sorry to disparage the Celtic race, or any other race, by
exaggerating their bad qualities or suppressing any reliable testimony
to their merits. But with me the truth of history is sacred. Both
sides of every case should be fairly stated. Nothing can be gained by
striving to hide facts which may be known to every person who takes
the trouble to study the subject. I write in the interest of the
people--of the toiling masses; and I find that they were oppressed and
degraded by the ruling classes long before the Norman invader took
the place of the Celtic chief. And it is a curious fact that when the
Cromwellians turned the Catholic population out of their homes and
drove them into Connaught, they were but following the example set
them by the Milesian lords of the soil centuries before.

The late Mr. Darcy Magee, a real lover of his country, in his Irish
history points out this fact. The Normans found the population divided
into two great classes--the free tribes, chiefly if not exclusively
Celtic, and the unfree tribes, consisting of the descendants of the
subjugated races, or of clans once free, reduced to servitude by the
sword, and the offspring of foreign mercenary soldiers. 'The unfree
tribes,' says Mr. Darcy Magee, 'have left no history. Under the
despotism of the Milesian kings, it was high treason to record the
actions of the conquered race, so that the Irish Belgae fared as badly
in this respect at the hands of the Milesian historians as the latter
fared in after times from the chroniclers of the Normans. We only know
that such tribes were, and that their numbers and physical force more
than once excited the apprehension of the children of the conquerors.
One thing is certain--the jealous policy of the superior race never
permitted them to reascend the plane of equality from which they had
been hurled at the very commencement of the Milesian ascendency.'

Mr. Haverty, another Catholic historian, learned, accurate, and
candid, laments the oppression of the people by their native rulers.
'Those who boasted descent from the Scytho-Spanish hero would have
considered themselves degraded were they to devote themselves to
any less honourable profession than those of soldiers, _ollavs_, or
physicians; and hence the cultivation of the soil and the exercise of
the mechanic arts were left almost exclusively to the _Firbolgs_ and
the _Tuatha-de-Danans_--the former people, in particular, being still
very numerous, and forming the great mass of the population in
the west. These were ground down by high rents and the exorbitant
exactions of the dominant race, _in order to support their unbounded
hospitality_ and defray the expenses of costly assemblies; but this
oppression must have caused perpetual discontent, and the hard-working
plebeians, as they were called, easily perceived that their masters
were running headlong to destruction, and that it only required a bold
effort to shake off their yoke.' Then follows an account of a civil
war, one of the leaders of the revolution being elected king at its
termination. Carbry reigned five years, during which time there was no
rule or order, and the country was a prey to every misfortune. 'Evil
was the state of Ireland during his reign; fruitless her corn, for
there used to be but one grain on the stalk; and fruitless her rivers;
her cattle without milk; her fruit without plenty, for there used to
be but one acorn on the oak.'

Dr. Lynch, author of _Cambrensis Eversus_, expresses his astonishment
at the great number of ancient Irish kings, most of whom were cut off
by a violent death, each hewing his way to the throne over the body
of his predecessor. But upon applying his mind to the more profound
consideration of the matter, he found nothing more wonderful in
the phenomenon 'than that the human family should proceed from one
man--the overflowing harvest from a few grains of seed, &c.' His
learned translator, the Rev. Matthew Kelly, of Maynooth, sees proof
of amendment in the fact that between 722 and 1022 twelve Irish kings
died a natural death. This candid and judicious writer observes in
a note--'It appears from the Irish and English annals that there
was perpetual war in Ireland during more than 400 years after the
invasion. It could not be called a war of races, except perhaps during
the first century, for English and Irish are constantly found fighting
under the same banner, according to the varying interests of the rival
lords and princes of both nations. This was the case even from the
commencement.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Vol. i. p.216.]

Many persons have wondered at the success of small bands of English
invaders. Why did not the Irish nation rise _en masse_, and drive them
into the sea? The answer is easy. There was no Irish nation. About
half a million of people were scattered over the island in villages,
divided into tribes generally at war with one another, each chief
ready to accept foreign aid against his adversary--some, perhaps,
hoping thereby to attain supremacy in their clans, and others, who
were pretenders, burning to be avenged of those who had supplanted
them. It was religion that first gave the Irish race a common cause.
In the very year of the English invasion (1171) there were no fewer
than twenty predatory excursions or battles among the Irish chiefs
themselves, exclusive of contests with the invaders. Hence the Pope
said--'_Gens se interimit mutua caede_.' The Pope was right.

The clergy exerted themselves to the utmost in trying to exorcise the
demon of destruction and to arrest the work of extermination. Not only
the _Bashall Isa_, or 'the staff of Jesus,' but many other relics were
used with the most solemn rites, to impress the people with a sense
of the wickedness of their clan-fights, and to induce them to keep the
peace, but in vain. The King of Connaught once broke a truce entered
into under every possible sanction of this kind, trampling upon all,
that he might get the King of Meath into his clutches. Hence the Rev.
Mr. Kelly is constrained to say--'It is now generally admitted by
Catholic writers that however great the efforts of the Irish clergy to
reform their distracted country in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
the picture of anarchy drawn by Pope Adrian is hardly overcharged.'
Indeed, some Catholic writers have confessed that the anarchy would
never have been terminated except by foreign conquest establishing a
strong central government. This, however, was not accomplished
till after a struggle of centuries, during which, except in brief
intervals, when a strong prince was able to protect his people, the
national demoralisation grew worse and worse. An Oxford priest,
who kept a school at Limerick, writing so late as 1566 of the Irish
nobles, says--'Of late they spare neither churches nor hallowed
places, but thence also they fill their hands with spoil--yea, and
sometimes they set them on fire and kill the men that there lie
hidden.'

Mr. Froude, following the Irish MSS. in the Rolls House, has presented
graphic pictures of the disorders of the Irishry in the reign of Queen
Mary. 'The English garrison,' he says, 'harassed and pillaged the
farmers of Meath and Dublin; the chiefs made forays upon each other,
killing, robbing, and burning. When the war broke out between England
and France, there were the usual conspiracies and uprisings of
nationality; the young Earl of Kildare, in reward to the Queen who
had restored him to his rank, appearing as the natural leader of
the patriots. Ireland was thus happy in the gratification of all its
natural tendencies. The Brehon law readvanced upon the narrow limits
to which, by the exertions of Henry VIII., the circuits of the
judges had been extended. And with the Brehon law came anarchy as its
inseparable attendant.'

The correctness of this view is too well attested by the records
which the learned historian brings to light, adopting the quaint
and expressive phraseology of the old writers whom he quotes. For
example:--

'The lords and gentiles of the Irish Pale that were not governed under
the Queen's laws were compelled to keep and maintain a great number
of idle men of war to rule their people at home, and exact from their
neighbours abroad--working everyone his own wilful will for a law--to
the spoil of his country, and decay and waste of the common weal of
the same. The idle men of war ate up altogether; the lord and his men
took what they pleased, destroying their tenants, and themselves never
the better. The common people, having nothing left to lose, became as
idle and careless in their behaviour as the rest, stealing by day and
robbing by night. Yet it was a state of things which they seemed all
equally to enjoy, and high and low alike were always ready to bury
their own quarrels, to join against the Queen and the English.'

At the time when the crown passed to Elizabeth the qualities of the
people were thus described by a correspondent of the council, who
presents the English view of the Irishry at that time:--

'The appearance and outward behaviour of the Irish showeth them to be
fruits of no good tree, for they exercise no virtue and refrain and
forbear from no vice, but think it lawful to do every man what him
listeth. They neither love nor dread God, nor yet hate the devil. They
are worshippers of images and open idolaters. Their common oath they
swear is by books, bells, and other ornaments which they do use as
holy religion. Their chief and solemnest oath is by their lord or
master's hand, which whoso forsweareth is sure to pay a fine or
sustain a worse turn. The Sabbath-day they rest from all honest
exercises, and the week days they are not idle, but worse occupied.
They do not honour their father and mother as much as they do
reverence strangers. For every murder that they commit they do not so
soon repent, for whose blood they once shed, they lightly never cease
killing all that name. They do not so commonly commit adultery; not
for that they profess or keep chastity, but for that they seldom or
never marry, and therefore few of them are lawful heirs, by the law of
the realm, to the lands they possess. They steal but from the strong,
and take by violence from the poor and weak. They know not so well who
is their neighbour as who they favour; with him they will witness in
right and wrong. They covet not their neighbours' good, but command
all that is their neighbours' as their own. Thus they live and die,
and there is none to teach them better. There are no ministers.
Ministers will not take pains where there is no living to be had,
neither church nor parish, but all decayed. People will not come to
inhabit where there is no defence of law.'

After six years of _discipline and improvement_ Sir Henry Sidney, in
1566, described the state of the four shires, the Irish inhabitants,
and the English garrison, in the following terms:--'The _English Pale_
is overwhelmed with vagabonds--stealth and spoil daily carried out of
it--the people miserable--not two gentlemen in the whole of it able
to lend 20 l. They have neither horse nor armour, nor apparel, nor
victual. The soldiers be so beggerlike as it would abhor a general to
look on them; yet so insolent as to be intolerable to the people, so
rooted in idleness as there is no hope by correction to amend them,
yet so allied with the Irish, I dare not trust them in a forte, or in
any dangerous service.'

A sort of 'special correspondent' or 'commissioner,' as we should call
him now, furnished to Cecil a detailed account of the social condition
of the people, which of course he viewed with English eyes. He found
existing among them a general organisation wherever the Irish language
was spoken--the remnants of a civilisation very ancient, but now fast
tending to ruin. Next to the chiefs were the priesthood, and after
them came a kind of intellectual hierarchy, consisting of four classes
of spiritual leaders and teachers, which were thus described. The
first was called the Brehon, or the judge. These judges took
'pawns' of both the parties, and then judged according to their own
discretion. Their property was neutral, and the Irishmen would not
prey upon them. They had great plenty of cattle, and they harboured
many vagabonds and idle persons. They were the chief maintainers of
rebels, but when the English army came to their neighbourhood they
fled to the mountains and woods 'because they would not succour
them with victuals and other necessaries.' The next sort was called
_Shankee_, who had also great plenty of cattle wherewith they
succoured the rebels. They made the ignorant men of the country
believe that they were descended from Alexander the Great, or Darius,
or Caesar, 'or some other notable prince, which made the ignorant
people run mad, and care not what they did.' This, the correspondent
remarked, 'was very hurtful to the realm.' Not less hurtful were the
third sort called _Denisdan_, who not only maintained the rebels,
but caused those that would be true to become rebellious--'thieves,
extortioners, murderers, raveners, yea, and worse if it was possible.'
These seem to have been the historians or chroniclers of the tribe.
If they saw a young man, the descendant of an O' or a Mac, with half a
dozen followers, they forthwith made a rhyme about his father and his
ancestors, numbering how many heads they had cut off, how many towns
they had burned, how many virgins they had deflowered, how many
notable murders they had done, comparing them to Hannibal, or Scipio,
or Hercules, or some other famous person--'wherewithal the poor fool
runs mad, and thinks indeed it is so.' Then he will gather a lot of
rascals about him, and get a fortune-teller to prophesy how he is to
speed. After these preliminaries he betakes himself with his followers
at night to the side of a wood, where they lurk till morning. And when
it is daylight, then will they go to the poor villages, not sparing to
destroy young infants and aged people; and if a woman be ever so
great with child, her will they kill, burning the houses and corn, and
ransacking the poor cots; then will they drive away all the kine
and plough-horses, with all the other cattle. Then must they have a
bagpipe blowing before them, and if any of the cattle fortune to wax
weary or faint they will kill them rather than it should do the owner
good; and if they go by any house of friars, or religious house, they
will give them two or three beeves, and they will take them and pray
for them, yea, and praise their doings, and say, 'His father was
accustomed so to do, wherein he will rejoice.' The fourth class
consisted of 'poets.' These men had great store of cattle, and 'used
all the trade of the others with an addition of prophecies. They were
maintainers of witches and other vile matters, to the blasphemy of
God, and to the impoverishing of the commonwealth.'

These four septs were divided in all places of the four quarters of
Ireland, and some of the islands beyond Ireland, as Aran, the land of
the Saints, Innisbuffen, Innisturk, Innismain, and Innisclare. These
islands, he added, were under the rule of O'Neill, and they were
'very pleasant and fertile, plenty of wood, water, and arable ground,
pastures, and fish, and a very temperate air.' On this description
Mr. Froude remarks in a note--'At present they are barren heaps of
treeless moors and mountains. They yield nothing but scanty oat crops
and potatoes, and though the seas are full of fish as ever, there
are no hands to catch them. _The change is a singular commentary upon
modern improvements_.' There were many branches belonging to the four
septs, continues the credulous reporter, who was evidently imposed
upon, like many of his countrymen in modern times with better means
of information. For example, 'there was the branch of Gogath, the
glutton, of which one man would eat half a sheep at a sitting. There
was another called the Carrow, a gambler, who generally went about
naked, carrying dice and cards, and he would play the hair off his
head. Then there was a set of women called Goyng women, blasphemers
of God, who ran from country to country, sowing sedition among the
people.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude's History, of England, vol. viii. chap. vii.]

Mr. Froude says that this 'picture of Ireland' was given by some
half Anglicised, half Protestantised Celt, who wrote what he had seen
around him, careless of political philosophy, or of fine phrases with
which to embellish his diction. But if he was a Celt, I think his
description clearly proves that he must have been a Celt of some
other country than the one upon whose state he reports. Judging from
internal evidence, I should say that he could not be a native; for an
Irishman, even though a convert to Anglicanism, and anxious to please
his new masters, could scarcely betray so much ignorance of the
history of his country, so much bigotry, such a want of candour and
discrimination. If Mr. Froude's great work has any fault, it is his
unconscious prejudice against Ireland. He knows as well as anyone the
working of the feudal system and the clan system in Scotland in
the same age. He knows with what treachery and cruelty murders
were perpetrated by chiefs and lairds, pretenders and usurpers--how
anarchy, violence, and barbarism reigned in that land; yet, when he is
dealing with a similar state of things in Ireland, he uniformly takes
it as proof of an incurable national idiosyncrasy, and too often
generalises from a few cases. For example, in speaking of Shane
O'Neill, who killed his half-brother, Matthew Kelly, Baron of
Dungannon, in order to secure the succession for himself, he
says--'_They manage things strangely in Ireland._ The old O'Neill,
instead of being irritated, saw in this exploit a proof of commendable
energy. He at once took Shane into favour, and, had he been able,
would have given him his dead brother's rights.'




CHAPTER II.

THE RULE OF THE O'NEILLS.


Shane O'Neill was a man of extraordinary ability and tremendous
energy, as the English found to their cost. He was guilty of atrocious
deeds; but he had too many examples in those lawless times encouraging
him to sacrifice the most sacred ties to his ambition. He resolved to
seize the chieftainship by deposing his father and banishing him to
the Pale, where, after passing some years in captivity, he died. He
was, no doubt, urged to do this, lest by some chance the son of the
baron of Dungannon should be adopted by England as the rightful heir,
and made Earl of Tyrone. This title he spurned, and proclaimed himself
the O'Neill, the true representative of the ancient kings of Ulster,
to which office he was elected by his people, taking the usual oath
with his foot upon the sacred stone. This was an open defiance of
English power, and he prepared to abide the consequences. He thought
the opportunity a favourable one to recover the supremacy of his
ancestors over the O'Donels. He accordingly mustered a numerous army,
and marched into Tyrconnel, where he was joined by Hugh O'Donel,
brother of Calvagh, the chief, with other disaffected persons of the
same clan. O'Donel had recourse to stratagem. Having caused his cattle
to be driven out of harm's way, he sent a spy into the enemy's camp,
who mixed with the soldiers, and returning undiscovered, he undertook
to guide O'Donel's army to O'Neill's tent, which was distinguished by
a great watch-fire, and guarded by six galloglasses on one side and as
many Scots on the other. The camp, however, was taken by surprise
in the dead of night, and O'Neill's forces, careless or asleep, were
slaughtered and routed without resistance. Shane himself fled for his
life, and, swimming across three rivers, succeeded in reaching his own
territory. This occurred the year before he cast off his allegiance
to England. He was required to appear before Elizabeth in person to
explain the grounds on which he had claimed the chieftainship. He
consented, on condition that he got a safe-conduct and money for the
expenses of his journey. At the same time he sent a long letter to the
Queen, complaining of the treatment he had received, and defending his
pretensions. The letter is characteristic of the man and of the times.
He said: 'The deputy has much ill-used me, your Majesty; and now that
I am going over to see you, I hope you will consider that I am but
rude and uncivil, and do not know my duty to your Highness, nor yet
your Majesty's laws, but am one brought up in wildness, far from all
civility. Yet have I a good will to the commonwealth of my country;
and please your Majesty to send over two commissioners that you can
trust, that will take no bribes, nor otherwise be imposed on, to
observe what I have done to improve the country, and hear what my
accusers have to say; and then let them go into the Pale, and hear
what the people say of your soldiers, with their horses, and their
dogs, and their concubines. Within this year and a half, three hundred
farmers are come from the English Pale to live in my country, where
they can be safe.

'Please your Majesty, your Majesty's money here is not so good as your
money in England, and will not pass current there. Please your Majesty
to send me three thousand pounds in English money to pay my expenses
in going over to you, and when I come back I will pay your deputy
three thousand pounds Irish, such as you are pleased to have current
here. Also I will ask your Majesty to marry me to some gentlewoman of
noble blood meet for my vocation. I will make Ireland all that your
Majesty wishes for you. I am very sorry your Majesty is put to such
expense. If you will trust it to me, I will undertake that in three
years you will have a revenue, where now you have continual loss.'

Shane suspected evil designs on the part of the English, and not
without reason. The object of the summons to England was to detain him
there with 'gentle talk' till Sussex could return to his command with
an English army powerful enough to subjugate Ulster. For this purpose
such preparations were made by the English Government in men and
money, 'that rebellion should have no chance; and,' says Mr. Froude,
'so careful was the secresy which was observed, to prevent Shane from
taking alarm, that a detachment of troops sent from Portsmouth sailed
with sealed orders, and neither men nor officers knew that Ireland was
their destination till they had rounded the Land's End.' The English
plans were well laid. Kildare, whom Elizabeth most feared, had
accepted her invitation to go to London, and thus prevented any
movement in the south, while O'Donel was prepared to join the English
army on its advance into Ulster; and the Scots, notwithstanding their
predilection for Mary Stuart, were expected to act as Argyle and his
sister should direct. But Shane had a genius for intrigue as well
as Elizabeth, and he was far more rapid than her generals in the
execution of his plans. By a master-stroke of policy he disconcerted
their arrangements. He had previously asked the Earl of Argyle to give
him his daughter in marriage, in order that he might strengthen his
alliance with the Ulster Scots. It is true that she had been already
married to his rival, O'Donel; but that was a small difficulty in his
way. The knot was tied, but he had no hesitation in cutting it with
his sword. 'The countess' was well educated for her time. She was also
a Protestant, and the government had hopes that her influence would be
favourable to 'civility and the Reformation' among the barbarians of
the north. But whatever advantages the presence of the fair Scottish
missionary might bring, Shane O'Neill did not see why they should
not be all his own, especially as he had managed somehow to produce
a favourable impression on her heart. Accordingly he made a dash
into Tyrconnel, and carried off both the lady and her husband to his
stronghold, Shane's Castle, on the banks of Lough Neagh. Her Scotch
guard, though fifteen hundred strong, had offered no resistance.
O'Donel was shut up in a prison, and his wife became the willing
paramour of the captor. 'The affront to McConnell was forgiven or
atoned for by private arrangement, and the sister of the Earl of
Argyle--an educated woman for her time, not unlearned in Latin,
speaking French and Italian, counted sober, wise, and no less
subtle--had betrayed herself and her husband. The O'Neills, by this
last manoeuvre, became supreme in Ulster. Deprived of their head, the
O'Donels sank into helplessness. The whole force of the province, such
as it was, with the more serious addition of several thousand Scotch
marauders, was at Shane's disposal, and thus provided, he thought
himself safe in defying England to do its worst.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, Ibid.]

Meantime, Sussex had arrived in Dublin preceded by his English forces.
He made a rapid preliminary movement to the north, and seized the
Cathedral of Armagh, in order to make it a fortified depot for his
stores. He then fell back into Meath, where he was joined by Ormond
with flying companies of galloglasses. Soon after a singular attack
was made on the English garrison at Armagh. Seeing a number of kernes
scattered about the town, the officer in command sallied out upon
them, when O'Neill suddenly appeared, accompanied by the Catholic
Archbishop, on a hill outside the walls. 'The English had but time to
recover their defences when the whole Irish army, led by a procession
of monks, and every man carrying a fagot, came on to burn the
cathedral over their heads. The monks sang a mass; the primate walked
three times up and down the lines, willing the rebels to go forward,
for God was on their side. Shane swore a great oath not to turn his
back while an Englishman was alive; and with scream and yell his men
came on. _Fortunately there were no Scots among them._ The English,
though out-numbered ten to one, stood steady in the churchyard, and,
after a sharp hand-to-hand fight, drove back the howling crowd. The
Irish retired into the friars' houses outside the cathedral close, set
them on fire, and ran for their lives.'

'So far,' adds Mr. Froude, 'all was well. After this there was no more
talk of treating, and by the 18th, Sussex and Ormond were themselves
at Armagh with a force--had there been skill to direct it--sufficient
to have swept Tyrone from border to border.'

The English historian exults in the valour of the small garrison of
his countrymen, well-disciplined and sheltered behind a strong wall,
in resisting the assault of a howling multitude of mere Irish, and he
observes significantly, that 'fortunately there were no _Scots_ among
them.' But he is obliged immediately after to record an Irish victory
so signal that, according to the lord deputy himself, 'the fame of the
English army so hardly gotten, was now vanished.' Yet Mr. Froude does
not, in this, lay the blame of defeat upon the _nationality_ of the
vanquished. It is only the Irish nation that is made the scape-goat in
such cases.

It was July, but the weather was wet, the rivers were high, Ormond was
ill, Sussex would not leave his friend, and so the English army stayed
in town doing nothing till the end of the month, when their failing
provisions admonished them that an Irish hosting would be desirable.
O'Neill, who seems to have been aware of the state of things,
presented the appropriate temptation. Spies brought the lord deputy
word that in the direction of Cavan there were herds of cows, which
an active party might easily capture. These spies, with ardent
professions of loyalty, offered to guide the English troops to the
place where the booty would be found, their object being to draw them
among bogs and rivers where they might be destroyed. The lord deputy
did not think it necessary to accompany this host, which consisted of
200 horse, 500 men-at-arms, and some hundreds of the loyal Irish of
the Pale. Shane intended to attack them the first night while resting
on their march. But they escaped by an alteration of the route. Next
morning they were marching on the open plain, miles from any shelter
of hill or wood, when the Irish chief, with less than half their
number, pursued them, and fell upon the cavalry in the rear, with
the cry, '_Laundarg Aboo_--the Bloody Hand--Strike for O'Neill!' The
English cavalry commanded by Wingfield, seized with terror, galloped
into the ranks of their own men-at-arms, rode them down, and
extricated themselves only to fly panic-stricken from the field to the
crest of an adjoining hill. Meantime, Shane's troopers rode through
the broken ranks, cutting down the footmen on all sides. The yells and
cries were heard far off through the misty morning air. Fitzwilliam,
who had the chief command, was about a mile in advance at the head
of another body of cavalry, when a horseman was observed by him,
galloping wildly in the distance and waving his handkerchief as a
signal. He returned instantly, followed by his men, and flung himself
into the _melee_. Shane receiving such a charge of those few men, and
seeing more coming after, ran no farther risk, blew a recall note,
and withdrew unpursued. Fitzwilliam's courage alone prevented the army
from being annihilated. Out of 500 English 50 lay dead, and 50 more
were badly wounded. The survivors fell back to Armagh 'so _dismayed_
as to be unfit for farther service.' Pitiable were the lamentations
of the lord deputy to Cecil on this catastrophe. It was, said he, 'by
cowardice the dreadfullest beginning that ever was seen in Ireland.
Ah! Mr. Secretary, what unfortunate star hung over me that day to draw
me, that never could be persuaded to be absent from the army at any
time--to be then absent for a little disease of another man? _The
rearward was the best and picked soldiers in all this land._ If I
or any stout man had been that day with them, we had made an end of
Shane--which is now farther off than ever it was. Never before durst
Scot or Irishman look on Englishmen in plain or wood since I was here;
and now Shane, in a plain three miles away from any wood, and where I
would have asked of God to have had him, hath, with 120 horse, and a
few Scots and galloglasse, _scarce half in numbers_, charged our whole
army, and by the cowardice of one wretch whom I hold dear to me as
my own brother, was like in one hour to have left not one man of that
army alive, and after to have taken me and the rest at Armagh. The
fame of the English army, so hardly gotten, is now vanished, and I,
wretched and dishonoured, by the vileness of other men's deeds.'

This is real history that Mr. Froude has given us. It places the
actors before us, enables us to discern their characters, tells us
who they are and what they have done. It shows also the value and
the necessity of documentary evidence for establishing the truth
of history. How different from the vague, uncertain, shadowy
representations derived from oral tradition, or mere reports,
though contemporary, circulated from mouth to mouth, and exaggerated
according to the interests of one party or the other. Let us for
illustration compare Mr. Froude's vivid picture of this battle, so
disastrous to the English, with the account given of the same event by
the Annalists called the Four Masters. These writers had taken great
pains to collect the most authentic records of the various Irish
tribes from the invasion by Henry II. to the period of which we
are writing. They were intensely Irish, and of course glad of any
opportunity of recording events creditable to the valour of their
countrymen. They lived in Donegal, under the protection of O'Donel,
but they showed themselves quite willing to do full justice to his
great rival O'Neill. The presence of the lord deputy, the Earl of
Ormond, and other great men at Armagh, with a select English army,
would naturally have roused their attention, and when that army was
encountered and vanquished in the open field by the Irish general, we
should have expected that the details of such a glorious event would
have been collected with the greatest care from the accounts of
eye-witnesses. The bards and historiographers should have been on the
alert to do justice to their country on so great an occasion. They
were on the spot, they were beside the victors, and they had no excuse
whatever for ignorance. Yet here is the miserably cold, _jejune_,
feeble, and imperfect record which we find in the Annals of the Four
Masters:--'The Lord Justice of Ireland, namely Thomas Fitzwalter
(Sussex), marched into Tyrone to take revenge for the capture of
Caloach O'Donel, and also for his own quarrels with the country.
He encamped with a great army at Armagh, and constructed deep
entrenchments and impregnable ramparts about the great church of
Armagh, which he intended to keep constantly guarded. O'Neill, i.e.
John, having received intelligence of this, sent a party of his
faithful men and friends with Caloach O'Donel to guard and keep
him from the Lord Justice, and they conveyed him from one island to
another, in the recesses and sequestered places of Tyrone. After some
time the Lord Justice sent out from the camp at Armagh, a number of
his captains with 1000 men to take some prey and plunder in Oriel.
O'Neill, having received private information and intelligence of those
great troops marching into Oriel, proceeded privately and silently to
where they were, and came up to them after they had collected their
prey; a battle ensued in which many were slain on both sides; and
finally the preys were abandoned, and fell into the hands of their
original possessors on that occasion.'

That is the whole account of the most signal victory over the English
that had crowned the arms of Ulster during those wars! Not a word of
the disparity of the forces, or the flight of the English cavalry,
or the slaughter of the Englishmen-at-arms, or the humiliation and
disabled condition of the garrison at Armagh. Equally unsatisfactory
is the record of the subsequent march through Tyrone by Sussex, in the
course of which his army slaughtered 4000 head of cattle, which they
could not drive away. Of this tremendous destruction of property the
Four Masters do not say a word. Such omissions often occur in their
annals, even when dealing with contemporary events. Uncritical as they
were and extremely credulous, how can we trust the records which they
give of remote ages?




CHAPTER III.

O'NEILL, SOVEREIGN OF ULSTER.


The moral atmosphere of Elizabeth's court was not favourable to public
virtue. Strange to say at this time Lord Pembroke seemed to be the
only nobleman connected with it whose patriotism could be depended on;
and, according to Cecil, there was not another person, 'no not one'
who did not either wish well to Shane O'Neill, or so ill to the Earl
of Sussex as 'rather to welcome the news than regret the English
loss!' It would be difficult to find 'intriguing factiousness' baser
than this even in barbarous Ireland. The success of O'Neill, however,
had raised him high in the opinion of the Queen, who proposed,
through the Earl of Kildare, to leave him in possession of all his
territories, and let him govern the Irish 'according to Irish ideas'
if he would only become her vassal. Sussex had returned to Dublin with
the remnant of his army, while Fitzwilliam was dispatched to London
to explain the disaster, bearing with him a petition from the Irish
Council, that the troops who had been living in free quarters on the
tenants of the Pale should be recalled or disbanded. 'Useless in the
field and tyrannical to the farmer, they were a burden on the English
exchequer, and answered no purpose but to make the English name
detested.'

To O'Neill the Queen sent a pardon, with a safe conduct to England, if
he could be prevailed on to go. In the meantime Shane sent a message
to the lord deputy, demanding the removal of the garrison from Armagh.
One of his messengers, Neill Grey communicated secretly with Lord
Sussex, affecting to dislike rebellion, and intimating that he might
help the English to get rid of his master. The lord deputy, without
the least scruple or apparent consciousness of the criminality or
disgrace of the proceeding, actually proposed to this man that he
should murder O'Neill. This villanous purpose he avows in his letter
to the Queen. 'In fine,' said he, 'I breake with him to kill Shane;
and bound myself by my oath to see him have a hundred marcs of land by
the year to him, and to his heirs, for his reward. He seemed desirous
to serve your Highness, and to have the land; but fearful to do it,
doubting his own escape after with safety, which he confessed and
promised to do by any means he might, escaping with his life. What he
will do I know not, but I assure your Highness he may do it without
danger if he will. And if he will not do that he may in your service,
there will be done _to him_ what others may. God send your Highness a
good end.'

This English nobleman was, it seems, pious as well as honourable,
and could mingle prayers with his plots for assassination. Mr. Froude
suggests extenuating circumstances: 'Lord Sussex, it appears, regarded
Shane as a kind of wolf, whom having failed to capture in fair chase
he might destroy by the first expedient that came to his hand.' And
'English honour, like English coin, lost something of its purity in
the sister island.' Of course; it was the Irish atmosphere that did it
all. But Sussex was not singular in this mode of illustrating English
honour. A greater than he, the chivalrous Sir Walter Raleigh, wrote to
a friend in Munster, recommending the treacherous assassination of the
Earl of Desmond, as perfectly justifiable. And this crime, for which
an ignorant Irishman would be hanged, was deliberately suggested by
the illustrious knight whilst sitting quietly in his English study.[1]
But what perplexes the historian most of all is that the Queen of
England showed no resentment at the infamous proposal of Sussex. 'It
is most sadly certain, however, that Sussex was continued in office,
and inasmuch as it will be seen that he repeated the experiment a few
months later, his letter could not have been received with any marked
condemnation.' Yet Elizabeth was never in Ireland.

[Footnote 1: See Life of Sir Walter Raleigh.]

Fitzwilliam, however, returned with reinforcements of troops from
Berwick, with which the deputy resolved to repair the credit of the
English arms, and to set the Irish an example of civilised warfare.
How did he do this? Dispatching provisions by sea to Lough Foyle, he
succeeded this time in marching through Tyrone, 'and in destroying on
his way 4,000 cattle, which he was unable to carry away. He had left
Shane's cows to rot where he had killed them; and thus being without
food, and sententiously and characteristically concluding that man by
his policy might propose, but God at His will did dispose; Lord Sussex
fell back by the upper waters of Lough Erne, sweeping the country
before him.' When the Irish peasantry saw the carcasses of their
cattle rotting along the roads, while their children were famished for
want of milk, they must have been most favourably impressed with the
blessings of British rule! Shane, instead of encountering the deputy
on his own territory, amused himself burning villages in Meath.
Neither of those rulers--those chief protectors of the people--seems
to have been conscious that he was doing anything wrong in destroying
the homes and the food of the wretched inhabitants, whom they
alternately scourged. On the contrary, the extent of devastation which
they were able to effect was supposed to put them in a better
position for meeting together, and treating as honourable and gallant
representatives of their respective nations.

In accordance with the desire of the Queen, Shane, fresh from the work
of destruction in the Pale, was invited to a conference with Kildare.
They met at Dundalk, and the Irish chief consented to wait upon
Elizabeth in London, being allowed to name his own conditions. In
doing so he implied 'that he was rather conferring a favour than
receiving one, and that he was going to England as a victorious enemy
permitting himself to be conciliated.' He demanded a safe-conduct so
clearly worded that, whatever was the result of his visit, he should
be free to return; he required 'a complete amnesty for his past
misdeeds, and he stipulated that Elizabeth should pay all expenses
for himself and his retinue; the Earls of Ormond, Desmond, and Kildare
must receive him in state at Dundalk, and escort him to Dublin;
Kildare must accompany him to England; and, most important of all,
Armagh Cathedral must be evacuated. He did not anticipate treachery;
and either he would persuade Elizabeth to recognise him, and thus
prove to the Irish that rebellion was the surest road to prosperity
and power, or, at worst, by venturing into England, and returning
unscathed, he would show them that the Government might be defied with
more than impunity.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude.]

These terms, so humiliating to English pride, were advocated in the
Council 'for certain secret respects;' and even Sir William Cecil
was not ashamed to say, 'that, in Shane's absence from Ireland,'
_something might be cavilled against him or his_, for non-observing
the covenants on his side; and so the pact being infringed, the
matter might be used as should be thought fit. With this understanding
Elizabeth wrote, making all the ignominious concessions demanded, save
one, the evacuation of the cathedral. Shane replied in lofty terms
that, although for the Earl of Sussex he would not mollify one iota
of his agreement, yet he would consent at the request of her Majesty.
'Thus,' says Mr. Froude, 'with the Earl of Kildare in attendance, a
train of galloglasse, 1,000 l. in hand, and a second 1,000 l. awaiting
for him in London, the champion of Irish freedom sailed from Dublin,
and appeared on the second of January at the English court.'

It is stated that Cecil, Pembroke, and Bacon, received him privately
on his arrival, instructed him how to behave in the royal presence,
gave him the promised money, and endeavoured to impress upon him the
enormity of his offences. But, to every appeal made to his conscience,
Shane answered by a counter appeal about money; 2,000 l. was a poor
present from so great a Queen; he was sure their honours would
give him a few more hundreds. He agreed, however, to make a general
confession of his sins in Irish and English; and, thus tutored,
Elizabeth received him in state on January 6, 1562, attended by
the Council, the peers, the foreign ambassadors, bishops, aldermen,
dignitaries of all kinds, who gazed 'as if at the exhibition of some
wild animal of the desert.' The scene is very graphically described by
Mr. Froude: 'O'Neill stalked in, his saffron mantle sweeping round and
round him, his hair curling on his back, and clipped short below
the eyes, which gleamed from under it with a grey lustre, frowning,
fierce, and cruel. Behind him followed his galloglasse, bare-headed
and fair-haired, with shirts of mail which reached their knees, a
wolf-skin flung across their shoulders, and short broad battle-axes in
their hands. At the foot of the throne the chief paused, bent forward,
threw himself on his face upon the ground, and then, rising upon his
knees, spoke aloud in Irish!' Camden says he 'confessed his crime and
rebellion with howling,' and Mr. Froude adds that, to his hearers, the
sound of the words 'was as the howling of a dog.' He said:--

'Oh! my most dread sovereign lady and queen, like as I Shane O'Neill,
your Majesty's subject of your realm of Ireland, have of long time
desired to come into the presence of your Majesty to acknowledge my
humble and bounden subjection, so am I now here upon my knees by your
gracious permission, and do most humbly acknowledge your Majesty to be
my sovereign lady and Queen of England, France, and Ireland; and I
do confess that, for lack of civil education, I have offended your
Majesty and your laws, for the which I have required and obtained your
Majesty's pardon. And for that I most humbly, from the bottom of my
heart, thank your Majesty, and still do with all humbleness require
the continuance of the same; and I faithfully promise here before
Almighty God and your Majesty, and in presence of all these your
nobles, that I intend, by God's grace, to live hereafter in the
obedience of your Majesty as a subject of your land of Ireland.

'And because this my speech, being Irish, is not well understanded, I
have caused this my submission to be written in English and Irish, and
thereto have set my hand and seal; and to these gentlemen, my kinsmen
and friends, I most humbly beseech your Majesty to be merciful and
gracious.'

Camden remarks that the bare-headed galloglasse, with long dishevelled
hair, crocus-dyed shirts, wide sleeves, short jackets, shaggy cloaks,
&c., were objects of great wonder to the Londoners; while the hauteur
of the Irish prince excited the merriment of the courtiers, who styled
him 'O'Neill the Great, cousin to St. Patrick, friend to the Queen
of England, enemy to all the world besides.' Notwithstanding Shane's
precautions with respect to the safe-conduct, English artifice outdid
Irish cunning. With all their horror of the Jesuits, Elizabeth's
ministers in this case practised mental reservation. True, the
Government had promised to permit him to return to Ireland, but then
the time of his stay had not been specified. Various pretexts were
invented to detain him. He must be recognised as his father's heir;
the cause must be pleaded before the English judges; the young Baron
of Dungannon must come over and be heard on the other side. O'Neill
was told that he had been sent for, while Cecil wrote privately to
Fitzwilliam to keep him safe in Ireland. While the prince was thus
humoured with vain excuses, he was occupied in pleading his own cause
by flattering communications to the Queen, 'whose fame was spoken
of throughout the world.' He wished to study the wisdom of her
government, that he might know better how to order himself in civil
polity. He was most urgent that her Majesty would give him 'some noble
English lady for a wife, with augmentation of living suitable.' If she
would give him his father's earldom, he would make her the undisputed
sovereign of willing subjects in Ulster; he would drive away all her
enemies, save her from all further expense, and secure for her a
great increase of revenue. He begged in the meantime, that he might be
allowed to attend her favourite, Lord Robert Cecil, in order to learn
'to ride after the English fashion, to run at the tilt, to hawk, to
shoot, and use such other good exercises as the said good lord was
most apt unto.' Thus month after month passed away, and Shane was
still virtually a prisoner. 'At length,' says Mr. Froude, 'the false
dealing produced its cruel fruit, the murder of the boy who was used
as the pretext for the delay. Sent for to England, yet prevented from
obeying the command, the young Baron of Dungannon was waylaid at the
beginning of April in a wood near Carlingford by Turlogh O'Neill. He
fled for his life, with the murderers behind him, till he reached
the bank of a deep river, which he could not swim, and there he was
killed.'

This event brought matters to a crisis, and Shane's cause was
triumphant. By articles entered into between him and the Queen it was
agreed that he was to be constituted captain or governor of Tyrone 'in
the same manner as other captains of the said nation called O'Nele's
had rightfully executed that office in the time of King Henry VIII.
And, moreover, he was to enjoy and have the name and title of O'Nele,
with the like authority as any other of his ancestors, with the
service and homage of all the lords and captains called _urraughts_,
and other nobles of the said nation of O'Nele.' All this was upon the
condition 'that he and his said nobles should truly and faithfully,
from time to time, serve her Majesty, and, where necessary, wage war
against all her enemies in such manner as the Lord Lieutenant for the
time being should direct.' The title of O'Neill, however, was to be
contingent on the decision of Parliament as to the validity of the
letters-patent of Henry VIII. Should that decision be unfavourable, he
was to enjoy his powers and prerogatives under the style and title
of the Earl of Tyrone, with feudal jurisdiction over the northern
counties. The Pale was to be no shelter to any person whom he might
demand as a malefactor. If any Irish lord or chief did him wrong, and
the deputy failed within twenty-one days to exact reparation, Shane
might raise an army and levy war on his private account. An exception
was made on behalf of the loyal O'Donel, whose cause was to be
submitted to the arbitration of the Irish earls. The 'indenture'
between the Queen and O'Neill was signed by the high contracting
parties, and bears date April 30, 1562. The English historian
indignantly remarks: 'A rebel subject treating as an equal with his
sovereign for the terms on which he would remain in his allegiance was
an inglorious spectacle; and the admission of Shane's pretensions to
sovereignty was one more evidence to the small Ulster chiefs that no
service was worse requited in Ireland than fidelity to the English
crown. The Maguires, the O'Reillys, the O'Donels--all the clans who
had stood by Sussex in the preceding summer--were given over to their
enemy bound hand and foot. But Elizabeth was weary of the expense,
and sick of efforts which were profitless as the cultivation of a
quicksand. True it was that she was placing half Ireland in the hands
of an adulterous, murdering scoundrel, but the Irish liked to have it
so, and she forced herself to hope that he would restrain himself for
the future within the bounds of decency.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude.]

In that hope she was soon disappointed. Shane with his galloglasse
returned in glory, his purse lined with money and honour wreathed
about his brows. He told the northern chiefs that he had gone to
England not to lose but to win, and that they must henceforth submit
to his authority, or feel his power. The O'Donels, relying on English
promises, dared to refuse allegiance to the O'Neill, whereupon,
without consulting the lord deputy, 'he called his men to arms and
marched into Tyrconnel, killing, robbing, and burning in the old style
through farm and castle.' The Irish historians, however, make excuses
for O'Neill, affirming that he was released from his obligations
by the bad faith of the lord deputy. He it was who gave him a safe
conduct to Dublin, that he might take the oath of allegiance according
to promise; but the document was so ingeniously worded that its
meaning might be twisted so as to make him a prisoner. He was informed
of this treachery, and, as Mr. Froude remarks, 'Shane was too cunning
a fish, and had been too lately in the meshes, to be caught again in
so poor a snare.' A most attractive bait was provided by Sussex in
the person of his sister, who had been brought over to Dublin, and who
might be won by the great northern chief if he would only come up to
the viceregal court to woo her. 'Shane glanced at the tempting morsel
with wistful eyes. Had he trusted himself in the hands of Sussex he
would have had a short shrift for a blessing and a rough nuptial knot
about his neck. At the last moment a little bird carried the tale
to his ear. He had been advertized out of the Pale that the lady
was brought over only to entrap him, and if he came to the deputy he
should never return.' He therefore excused himself by alleging that
his duty to the Queen forbade him to leave the province while it was
in such a disturbed condition, the disturbance being caused chiefly by
his own predatory excursions into the territories of the O'Donels and
Maguires.

Shane took charge of the affairs of the Church as well as of the
State. The Catholic primate refusing to acknowledge Elizabeth as the
head of the Church, the see was declared vacant, and a _conge d'elire_
was sent down for the appointment of 'Mr. Adam Loftus,' an Englishman,
who came over as the lord deputy's chaplain. The answer returned and
reported by Sussex to the Queen was 'that the chapter there, whereof
the greater part were Shane O'Neill's horsemen, were so sparkled
and out of order that they could by no means be assembled for the
election. In the meantime the lord deputy began to apprehend that
O'Neill aspired, not without some hope of success, to the sovereignty
of the whole island. It was found that he was in correspondence with
the Pope, and the Queen of Scots, and the King of Spain. No greater
danger, wrote Sussex, had ever been in Ireland. He implored the Queen
not to trifle with it, declaring that he wished some abler general to
take the command, not from any want of will, 'for he would spend his
last penny and his last drop of blood for her Majesty.' Right and left
Shane was crushing the petty chiefs, who implored the protection
of the Government. Maguire requested the deputy to write to him in
English, not in Latin, because the latter language was well known,
and but few of the Irish had any knowledge of the former, in which
therefore the secrets of their correspondence would be more safe. Here
is a specimen of his English: 'I know well that within these four days
the sayed Shan will come to dystroy me contrey except your Lordshypp
will sette some remedy in the matter.' He did indeed go down into
Fermanagh with 'a great hoste.' As Maguire refused to submit, Shane
'bygan to wax mad, and to cawsse his men to bran all his corn and
howsses.' He spared neither church nor sanctuary; three hundred women
and children were piteously murdered, and Maguire himself, clean
banished, as he described it, took refuge with the remnant of his
people in the islands on the lake, whither Shane was making boats to
pursue him. 'Help me, your lordship,' the hunted wretch cried, in his
despair, to Sussex. 'Ye are lyke to make hym the strongest man of all
Erlond, for every man wyll take an exampull by the gratte lostys; take
hyd to yourself by thymes, for he is lyke to have all the power from
this place thill he come to the wallys of Gallway to rysse against
you.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Wright's Elizabeth, vol. i. p.73.]

It is the boast of the Irish that when Shane had subdued all his
opponents, he ruled Tyrone for some time with such order, 'that if
a robbery was committed within his territory, he either caused the
property to be restored, or reimbursed the loser out of his own
treasury.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Haverty's History of Ireland, p.300.]

The perplexity of the Government in this critical emergency is vividly
described by Mr. Froude: 'Elizabeth knew not which way to turn. Force,
treachery, conciliation had been tried successively, and the Irish
problem was more hopeless than ever. In the dense darkness of the
prospects of Ulster there was a solitary gleam of light. Grown
insolent with prosperity, Shane had been dealing too peremptorily with
the Scots; his countess, though compelled to live with him, and to be
the mother of his children, had felt his brutality and repented of her
folly, and perhaps attempted to escape. In the daytime, when he
was abroad marauding, she was coupled like a hound to a page or a
horse-boy, and only released at night when he returned to his evening
orgies. The fierce Campbells were not men to bear tamely these
outrages from a drunken savage on the sister of their chief, and
Sussex conceived that if the Scots, by any contrivance, were separated
from Shane, they might be used as a whip to scourge him.'

At length Sussex, determined to crush the arch-rebel, marched
northward in April, 1563, with a mixed force of English and Irish,
ill-armed, ill-supplied, dispirited and almost disloyal. The diary of
the commander-in-chief is, perhaps, the funniest on record: 'April 6:
The army arrived at Armagh. April 8: The army marches back to Newry
to bring up stores and ammunition left behind. April 11: The army
advances again to Armagh, where it waits for galloglasse and kerne
from the Pale. April 14: The commander-in-chief answers a letter from
James M'Connell. April 15: The army goes upon Shane's cattle, of which
it takes enough to serve it, but would have taken more if it had had
galloglasse.' Next day it returns to Armagh. There it waits three days
for the galloglasse, and then sends back for them to Dublin. On April
20, again writes M'Connell, because he did not come according to
promise. April 21: The army surveys the Trough mountains. April 22:
The pious commander winds up the glorious record in these words: 'To
Armagh with the spoil taken which would have been much more if we had
had galloglasse, and because St. George even forced me, her Majesty's
lieutenant, to return to divine service that night. April 23: Divine
service.' Subsequently his lordship's extreme piety caused him the
loss of 300 horses, which he naively confesses thus: 'Being Easter
time, and he having travelled the week before, and Easter day till
night, thought fit to give Easter Monday to prayer, and in this time
certain churls stole off with the horses.' To this Mr. Froude adds the
pertinent remark: 'The piety which could neglect practical duty for
the outward service of devotion, yet at the same time could make
overtures to Neil Greg to assassinate his master, requires no very
lenient consideration.'

In connexion with the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill Lord Elcho
proposed Solomon's plan of settling the dispute of the two mother
Churches about Ireland. He would cut the country in two, establishing
Protestantism in the north and Catholicism in the south. When an
experienced member of the House of Commons makes such a proposition
in this age, we should not be surprised that Sir Thomas Cusack in the
year 1563 proposed to Queen Elizabeth that Ireland should be divided
into four provinces, each with a separate president, either elected by
the people or chosen in compliance with their wishes. O'Neill was to
have the north, the Clanrickards the west, the O'Briens or Desmonds
the south, and thus the English might be allowed the undisturbed
enjoyment of the Pale. This notable scheme for settling the Irish
question was actually adopted by the Queen, and she wrote to Sussex,
stating that, as his expedition to the north had resulted only in
giving fresh strength to the enemy, she 'had decided to come to an end
of the war of Ulster by agreement rather than by force.' To Shane she
was all compliance. He had but to prove himself a good subject, and
he might have any pre-eminence which her Majesty could grant without
doing any other person wrong. 'If he desired to have a council
established at Armagh, he should himself be the president of that
council; if he wished to drive the Scots out of Antrim, her own troops
would assist in the expulsion; if he was offended with the garrison in
the cathedral, she would gladly see peace maintained in a manner less
expensive to herself. To the primacy he might name the person most
agreeable to himself, and with the primacy, as a matter of course,
even the form of maintaining the Protestant Church would be abandoned
also. In return for these concessions the Queen demanded only that
Shane, to save her honour, should sue for them as a favour instead
of demanding them as a right. The rebel chief consented without
difficulty to conditions which cost him nothing, and after an
interview with Cusack, O'Neill wrote a formal apology to Elizabeth,
and promised for the future to be her Majesty's true and faithful
subject. Indentures were drawn up on December 17, in which the Ulster
sovereignty was transferred to him in everything but the name, and the
treaty required only Elizabeth's signature, when a second dark effort
was made to cut the knot of the Irish difficulty.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. viii. p.48.]

This second 'dark effort' was nothing less than an attempt to murder
O'Neill by means of poison. He could not be conquered; he could not be
out-manoeuvred; he could not be assassinated in the ordinary way. But
the resources of Dublin Castle, and of English ingenuity, were
not exhausted. The lord deputy was of course delighted with the
reconciliation which had been effected with the Ulster prince. What
could be more natural than to send him a present of the choicest
wine from the viceregal cellars? certainly few presents could be more
agreeable. Shane and his household quaffed the delicious beverage
freely enough we may be sure, without the slightest suspicion that
there was death in the cup. But the wine was mingled with poison.
Those who drank it were quickly at the point of death. O'Neill might
thank his good constitution for his recovery from an illness almost
mortal. The crime was traced to an Englishman named Smith, who, if
employed by Lord Sussex, did not betray the guilty secret. Mr. Froude
admits that the suspicion cannot but cling to him that this second
attempt at murder was not made without his connivance; 'nor,' he adds,
'can Elizabeth herself be wholly acquitted of responsibility. She
professed the loudest indignation, but she ventured no allusion to
his previous communication with her, and no hint transpires of
any previous displeasure when the proposal had been made openly to
herself. The treachery of an English nobleman, the conduct of
the inquiry, and the anomalous termination of it, would have been
incredible even in Ireland, were not the original correspondence
extant, in which the facts are not denied.'

O'Neill of course complained loudly to the Queen, whereupon she
directed that a strict investigation should take place, in order
that the guilty parties should be found out and punished, 'of what
condition soever the same should be.' In writing to the lord deputy
she assumed that Smith had been committed to prison and would be
brought to condign punishment. That person, after many denials, at
length confessed his guilt, and said that his object was to rid his
country of a dangerous enemy. This motive was so good in the eye
of the Government that it saved the life of the culprit. Sir Thomas
Cusack, writing to Cecil, March 22, 1564, says, 'I persuaded O'Neill
to forget the matter, whereby no more talk should grow of it; seeing
there is no law to punish the offender other than by discretion and
imprisonment, which O'Neill would little regard except the party might
be executed by death, and that the law doth not suffer. So as the
matter be wisely pacified, it were well done to leave it.' Shane was
probably aware that Smith was but an instrument, who would be readily
sacrificed as a peace-offering.

The sketch which Mr. Froude gives of Ulster and its wild sovereign at
this time is admirably picturesque. 'Here then, for the present,
the story will leave Shane safely planted on the first step of his
ambition, in all but the title, sole monarch of the North. He
built himself a fort on an island in Lough Neagh, which he called
_Foogh-ni-gall_, or, Hate of Englishmen, and grew rich on the spoils
of his enemies, the only strong man in Ireland. He administered
justice after a paternal fashion, permitting no robbers but himself;
when wrong was done he compelled restitution, or at his own cost
redeemed the harm "to the loser's contentation." Two hundred pipes of
wine were stored in his cellars; 600 men-at-arms fed at his table, as
it were his janissaries; and daily he feasted the beggars at his gate,
saying, it was meet to serve Christ first. Half wolf, half fox, he lay
couched in his Castle of Malepartuis, with his emissaries at Rome, at
Paris, and at Edinburgh. In the morning he was the subtle pretender to
the Irish throne; in the afternoon, when the wine was in him, he was
a dissolute savage, revelling in sensuality with his unhappy countess,
uncoupled from her horseboy to wait upon his pleasure. He broke loose
from time to time to keep his hand in practice. At Carlingford,
for example, he swept off one day 200 sheep and oxen, while his
men violated sixty women in the town; but Elizabeth looked away and
endeavoured not to see. The English Government had resolved to stir no
sleeping dogs in Ireland till a staff was provided to chastise them if
they would bite. Terence Daniel, the dean of those rough-riding canons
of Armagh, was installed as primate; the Earl of Sussex was recalled
to England; and the new archbishop, unable to contain his exultation
at the blessed day which had dawned upon his country, wrote to Cecil
to say how the millennium had come at last, glory be to God!'

As a picture of Irish savage life this is very good. But the historian
has presented a companion picture of English civilised life, which
is not at all inferior. Sir Thomas Wroth and Sir Nicholas Arnold were
sent over to reform the Pale. They were stern Englishmen, impatient
of abuses among their own countrymen, and having no more sympathy for
Irishmen than for wolves. In the Pale they found that peculation had
grown into a custom; the most barefaced frauds had been converted by
habit into rights: and a captain's commission was thought ill-handled
if it did not yield, beyond the pay, 500 l. a year. They received pay
for each hundred men, when only sixty were on the roll. The soldiers,
following the example of their leaders, robbed and ground the
peasantry. In fact, the Pale was 'a weltering sea of corruption--the
captains out of credit, the soldiers mutinous, the English Government
hated; every man seeking his own, and none that which was Christ's.'
The purification of the Pale was left to Arnold, 'a hard, iron,
pitiless man, careful of things and careless of phrases, untroubled
with delicacy, and impervious to Irish enchantments. The account books
were dragged to light, where iniquity in high places was registered in
inexorable figures. The hands of Sir Henry Ratcliffe, the brother of
Sussex, were not found clean. Arnold sent him to the Castle with
the rest of the offenders. Deep, leading drains were cut through the
corrupting mass. The shaking ground grew firm, and honest healthy
human life was again made possible. With the provinces beyond the
Pale, Arnold meddled little, save where, taking a rough view of the
necessities of the case, he could help the Irish chiefs to destroy
each other.'

To Cecil, Arnold wrote thus: 'I am with all the wild Irish at the same
point I am at with bears and ban-dogs; when I see them fight, so they
fight earnestly indeed, and tug each other well, I care not who has
the worst.' 'Why not, indeed?' asks Mr. Froude; 'better so than hire
assassins! Cecil, with the modesty of genius, confessed his ignorance
of the country, and his inability to judge; yet, in every opinion
which he allowed himself to give, there was always a certain nobility
of tone and sentiment.' Nobility was scarcely necessary to induce
a statesman to revolt against the policy of Arnold. A little
Christianity, nay a slight touch of humanity, would have sufficed for
that purpose. Sussex was a nobleman, and considered himself, no
doubt, a very godly man, but everyone must admit that, in all heroic
qualities, he was incomparably beneath the uncultured Shane O'Neill,
while in baseness and wickedness he was not far behind his northern
foe, 'half wolf, half fox.' Cecil, however, was a man of a very
different stamp from Sussex. Evidently shocked at the prevailing
English notions about the value of Irish life, he wrote to Arnold:
'You be of that opinion which many wise men are of, from which I do
not dissent, being an Englishman; but being, as I am, a Christian man,
I am not without some perplexity, to enjoy of such cruelties.'

The work of reform, however, did not prove so easy a task. Arnold's
vigour was limited by his powers. The paymasters continued to cheat
the Government by false returns. The Government allowed the pay to
run in arrear, the soldiers revenged themselves by oppressing and
plundering the people; and 'so came to pass this wonderful phenomenon,
that _in O'Neill's country_ alone in Ireland--defended as it was from
attacks from without, and enriched with the plunder of the Pale--_were
the peasantry prosperous, or life or property secure_.' This fact
might suggest to the English historian that the evils of Ireland do
not all proceed from blood or race; and that the Saxon may be placed
in circumstances which make him as false, as dishonest, as lazy, as
disordered, as worthless as the Celt, and that even men of 'gentle
blood' may become as base as their most plebeian servants. Nor did
zeal for religious reformation redeem the defects of the Anglo-Irish
rulers. The Protestant bishops were chiefly agitated by the vestment
controversy. 'Adam Loftus, the titular primate, to whom,' says
Mr. Froude, 'sacked villages, ravished women, and famine-stricken
skeletons crawling about the fields, were matters of everyday
indifference, shook with terror at the mention of a surplice.' Robert
Daly wrote in anguish to Cecil, in dismay at the countenance to
'Papistry,' and at his own inability to prolong a persecution which he
had happily commenced. An abortive 'devise for the better government
of Ireland' gives us some insight into the condition of the people.
'No poor persons should be _compelled_ any more to work or labour
by the day, or otherwise, without meat, drink, wages, or some other
allowance during the time of their labour; no earth tillers, nor any
others inhabiting a dwelling, under any lord, should be distrained or
punished, in body or goods, for the faults of their landlord; nor
any honest man lose life or lands without fair trial by parliamentary
attainder, according to the ancient laws of England and Ireland.'
Surely it was no proof of incurable perversity of nature, that the
Irish peasantry were discontented and disaffected, under the horrid
system of oppression and slavery here laid before the English
Government.

As remedial measures, it was proposed that a true servant of God
should be placed in every parish, from Cape Clear to the Giant's
Causeway; that the children should be taught the New Testament and the
Psalms in Latin, 'that they, being infants, might savour of the same
in age as an old cask doth;' that there should be a university for the
education of the clergy, 'and such godly discipline among them that
there should be no more pluralities, no more abuse of patronage, no
more neglect, or idleness, or profligacy.' Mr. Froude's reflection
upon this projected policy is highly characteristic:--

'Here was an ideal Ireland painted on the retina of some worthy
English minister; but the real Ireland was still the old place. As it
was in the days of Brian Boroihme and the Danes, so it was in the days
of Shane O'Neill and Sir Nicholas Arnold; and the Queen, who was
to found all these fine institutions, cared chiefly to burden her
exchequer no further in the vain effort _to drain the black Irish
morass_, fed as it was from the perennial fountains of Irish
NATURE.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Vol. viii. p.377.]

The Queen, however, thought it more prudent to let Shane have his way
in Ulster. To oblige him, she would remove the Protestant primate,
Loftus, to Dublin, and appoint his own nominee and friend, Terence
Daniel. The Pope had sent a third archbishop for the same see,
named Creagh; but, when passing through London, he was arrested, and
incarcerated in the Tower, 'where he lay in great misery, cold, and
hunger, without a penny, without the means of getting his single
shirt washed, and without gown or hose.' At last he made his escape
by gliding over the walls into the Thames. The events of 1565 made the
English Government more than ever anxious to come to terms with the
chieftain 'whom they were powerless to crush.' Since the defeat of the
Earl of Sussex, continues Mr. Froude, 'Shane's influence and strength
had been steadily growing. His return unscathed from London, and the
fierce attitude which he assumed on the instant of his reappearance
in Ulster, convinced the petty leaders that to resist him longer would
only ensure their ruin. O'Donel was an exile in England, and there
remained unsubdued in the North only the Scottish colonies of Antrim,
which were soon to follow with the rest. O'Neill lay quiet through the
winter. With the spring and the fine weather, when the rivers fell
and the ground dried, he roused himself out of his lair, and with
his galloglasse and kerne, and a few hundred harquebussmen, he dashed
suddenly down upon the Red-shanks, and broke them utterly to pieces.
Six or seven hundred were killed in the field, James M'Connell and
his brother, Sorleyboy, were taken prisoners, and, for the moment, the
whole colony was swept away. James M'Connell, himself badly wounded
in the action, died a few months later, and Shane was left undisputed
sovereign of Ulster.'

Primate Daniel announced to the Queen this 'glorious victory over a
malicious and dangerous people' who were gradually fastening on the
country; and Sir Thomas Cusack urged that now was the time to make
O'Neill a friend for ever, an advice which was backed up by the stern
Arnold. 'For what else could be done? The Pale,' he pleaded, 'is poor
and unable to defend itself. If he do fall out before the beginning of
next summer, there is neither outlaw, rebel, murderer, thief, nor any
lewd nor evil-disposed person--of whom God knoweth there is plenty
swarming in every quarter among the wild Irish, yea and in our own
border too--which would not join to do what mischief they might.'

But Shane did not wait for further royal overtures. He saw that with
the English Government might was right, and that the justice of his
cause shone out more brightly in proportion to the increase of his
power. Thus encouraged in his course of aggression and conquest, he
seized the Queen's Castles of Newry and Dundrum. He then marched into
Connaught, demanding the tribute due of old time 'to them that were
kings in that realm.' He exacted pledges of obedience from the western
chiefs, and spoiled O'Rourke's country, and returned to Tyrone driving
before him 4,000 head of cattle. While proceeding at this rate he
wrote soothing and flattering words to the Queen. It was for her
majesty he was fighting; he was chastising her enemies and breaking
stiff-necked chiefs into her yoke; and he begged that she would not
credit any stories which his ill-willers might spread abroad against
him. On the contrary he hoped she would determine his title and rule
without delay, and grant him, in consideration of his good services,
some augmentation of living in the Pale. Elizabeth, however, excused
his conduct, saying 'we must allow something for his wild bringing-up,
and not expect from him what we should expect from a perfect subject.
If he mean well he shall have all his reasonable requests granted.'

But there was among Elizabeth's advisers a statesman who felt that
this sort of policy would never do. Sir Henry Sidney, on being
requested to take charge of the Government of Ireland, urged the
absolute necessity of a radical change. The power of O'Neill, and such
rulers as he, must be utterly broken, and that by force, at whatever
cost. And this, he argued, would not only be sound policy but true
economy. The condition of Ireland was unexampled; free from foreign
invasion, the sovereignty of the Queen not denied, yet the revenue so
mean and scanty that 'great yearly treasures were carried out of the
realm of England to satisfy the stipends of the officers and soldiers
required for the governance of the same.' He must have 10,000 l.
or 12,000 l. to pay out-standing debts and put the army in proper
condition. As for his own remuneration, the new viceroy, as he could
expect nothing from the Queen, would be content with permission to
export six thousand kerseys and clothes, free of duty.

Sir Henry Sidney struck out the only line of policy by which the
English government of Ireland could be made successful or even
possible. He said: 'To go to work by force will be chargeable, it is
true; but if you will give the people justice and minister law among
them, and exercise the sword of the sovereign, and put away the sword
of the subject, _omnia haec adjicientur vobis_--you shall drive the now
man of war to be an husbandman, and he that now liveth like a lord
to live like a servant, and the money now spent in buying armour, and
horses, and waging of war, shall be bestowed in building of towns and
houses. By ending these incessant wars ere they be aware, you shall
bereave them both of force and beggary, and make them weak and
wealthy. Then you can convert the military service due from the lords
into money; then you can take up the fisheries now left to the French
and the Spaniards; then you can open and work your mines, and the
people will be able to grant you subsidies.'[1] When the lord deputy
arrived in Ireland he found a state of things in the Pale far worse
than he could have imagined. It was 'as it were overwhelmed with
vagabonds; plunder and spoils daily carried out of it; the people
miserable; not two gentlemen in the whole of it able to lend 20 l.;
without horse, armour, apparel, or victual. The soldiers were worse
than the people: so beggarlike as it would abhor a general to look on
them; never a married wife among them, and therefore so allied with
Irishwomen that they betrayed secrets, and could not be trusted on
dangerous service; so insolent as to be intolerable; so rooted in
idleness as there was no hope by correction to amend them.' In Munster
a man might ride twenty or thirty miles and find no houses standing
in a country which he had known as well inhabited as many counties in
England. 'In Ulster,' Sidney wrote, 'there tyrannizeth the prince of
pride; Lucifer was never more puffed up with pride and ambition than
that O'Neill is; he is at present the only strong and rich man in
Ireland, and he is the dangerest man and most like to bring the whole
estate of this land to subversion and subjugation either to him or
to some foreign prince, that ever was in Ireland.' He invited this
Lucifer to come into the Pale to see him, and Shane at first agreed to
meet him at Dundalk, but on second thoughts he politely declined, on
the ground that the Earl of Sussex had twice attempted to assassinate
him, and but for the Earl of Kildare would have put a lock upon
his hands when he was passing through Dublin to England. Hence his
'timorous and mistrustful people' would not trust him any more in
English hands. In fact O'Neill despised any honours the Queen could
confer upon him. 'When the wine was in him he boasted that he was in
blood and power better than the best of their earls, and he would give
place to none but his cousin of Kildare, because he was of his own
house. They had made a wise earl of M'Carthymore, but Shane kept as
good a man as he. Whom was he to trust? Sussex gave him a safe-conduct
and then offered him the courtesy of a handlock. The Queen had told
him herself that, though he had got a safe-conduct to come and go, the
document did not say when he was to go; and, in order to get away
from London, he was obliged to agree to things against his honour
and profit, and he would never perform them while he lived.' That
treachery drove him into war. 'My ancestors,' he said, 'were kings
of Ulster; and Ulster is mine, and shall be mine. O'Donel shall
never come into his country, nor Bagenal into Newry, nor Kildare into
Dundrum, or Lecale. They are now mine. With this sword I won them,
with this sword I will keep them.' Sidney, indignant at these
pretensions, wrote thus to Leicester: 'No Atila nor Yotila, no Vandal
nor Goth that ever was, was more to be dreaded for over-running any
part of Christendom, than this man is for over-running and spoiling of
Ireland. If it be an angel of heaven that will say that ever O'Neill
will be a good subject till he be thoroughly chastised, believe him
not, but think him a spirit of error. Surely if the queen do not
chastise him in Ulster, he will chase all hers out of Ireland. Her
majesty must make up her mind to the expense, and chastise this
cannibal.' He therefore demanded money that he might pay the garrison
and get rid of the idle, treacherous, incorrigible soldiers which
were worse than none. Ireland, he said, would be no small loss to the
English crown. It was never so likely to be lost as then, and he would
rather die than that it should be lost during his government. The
queen, however, sent money with the greatest possible reluctance, and
was strangely dissatisfied with this able and faithful servant, even
when his measures were attended with signal success.

[Footnote 1: Opinions of Sir H. Sidney, Irish MSS., Rolls House;
Froude, p.385.]

In the meantime O'Neill zealously espoused the cause of Mary Queen of
Scots. His friendship with Argyle grew closer, and he proposed that it
should be cemented by a marriage. 'The countess' was to be sent away,
and Shane was to be united to the widow of James M'Connell, whom he
had killed--who was another half-sister of Argyle, and whose daughter
he had married already and divorced. Sidney wrote, that was said to be
the earl's practice; and Mr. Froude, who has celebrated the virtues
of Henry VIII., takes occasion from this facility of divorce to have
another fling at 'Irish nature.' He says:--'The Irish chiefs, it
seemed, three thousand years behind the world, retained the habits
and the moralities of the Greek princes in the tale of Troy, when
the bride of the slaughtered husband was the willing prize of the
conqueror; and when only a rare Andromache was found to envy the fate
of a sister

    Who had escaped the bed of some victorious lord.'

After a brief and brilliant campaign, in which Shane 'swept round by
Lough Erne, swooped on the remaining cattle of Maguire, and struck
terror and admiration into the Irishry,' he wrote a letter to Charles
IX. of France, inviting his co-operation in expelling the heretics,
and bringing back the country to the holy Roman see. The heretic
Saxons, he said, were the enemies of Almighty God, the enemies of the
holy Church of Rome, the King's enemies, and his. 'The time is come
when we all are confederates in a common bond to drive the invader
from our shores, and we now beseech your Majesty to send us 6,000
well-armed men. If you will grant our request there will soon be no
Englishmen left alive among us, and we will be your Majesty's subjects
ever more.' This letter was intercepted, and is now preserved among
the Irish MSS.

Sidney resolved to adopt a new plan of warfare. His campaigns would
not be mere summer forays, mere inroads of devastation during the few
dry weeks of August and September. He would wait till the harvest
was gathered in, place troops in fortresses, and continue hostilities
through the winter. He adopted this course because 'in the cold Irish
springs, the fields were bare, the cattle were lean, and the weather
was so uncertain that neither man nor horse could bear it, whereas
in August _food everywhere was abundant_, and the soldiers would have
time to become hardened to their work.' They could winter somewhere on
the Bann; harry Tyrone night and day without remission, and so break
Shane to the ground and ruin him. There was no time to be lost.
Maguire had come into Dublin, reporting that his last cottage was in
ashes, and his last cow driven over the hill into Shane's country;
while Argyle, with the whole disposable force of the western isles,
was expected to join him in summer. O'Neill himself, after an abortive
attempt to entrap Sidney at Dundalk, made a sudden attack on that town
in July; but his men were beaten back, 'and eighteen heads were left
behind to grin hideously over the gates.' He then returned to Armagh
and burned the cathedral to the ground, to prevent its being again
occupied by an English garrison. He next sent a swift messenger to
Desmond, calling for a rising in Munster. 'Now was the time or never'
to set upon the enemies of Ireland. If Desmond failed, or turned
against his country, God would avenge it on him. But Desmond's reply
was an offer to the deputy 'to go against the rebel with all his
power. The Scots also held back.' Shane offered them all Antrim to
join him, all the cattle in the country, and the release of Sorleyboy
from captivity; but Antrim and its cattle they believed that they
could recover for themselves, and James M'Connell had left a brother
Allaster, who was watching with eager eyes for an opportunity to
revenge the death of his kinsman, and the dishonour with which Shane
had stained his race.

In the meantime troops and money came over from England, and on
September 17, Colonel Randolph was at the head of an army in Lough
Foyle; and the lord deputy took the field accompanied by Kildare, the
old O'Donel, Shane Maguire, and O'Dogherty. So that this war against
O'Neill was waged for the dispossessed Irish chiefs as well as for
England. Armagh city they found a mere heap of blackened stones.
Marching without obstruction to Ben brook, one of O'Neill's best and
largest houses, which they found 'utterly burned and razed to the
ground,' thence they went on towards Clogher, 'through pleasant
fields, and villages so well inhabited as no Irish county in the realm
was like it.' The Bishop of Clogher was out with Shane in the field.
'His well-fattened flock were devoured by Sidney's men as by a flight
of Egyptian locusts.' 'There we stayed,' said Sidney, 'to destroy the
corn; we burned the country for 124 miles compass, and we found by
experience that now was the time of the year to do the rebel most
harm.' But he says not a word of the harm he was doing to the poor
innocent peasantry, whose industry had produced the crops, to the
terrified women and children whom he was thus consigning to a horrible
lingering death by famine. This was a strange commencement of his own
programme to treat the people with justice.

The lord deputy expected to meet Randolph at Lifford; but struck with
the singular advantages presented by Derry, then an island, for a
military position, he pitched his tents there, and set the troops to
work in erecting fortifications. Nothing then stood on the site of
the present city, save a decrepid and deserted monastery of Augustine
monks, which was said to have been built in the time of St. Columba.

Sidney stayed a few days at Derry, and then, leaving Randolph with
650 men, 350 pioneers, and provisions for two months, he marched on
to Donegal. This was once a thriving town, inhabited by English
colonists. At the time of Sidney's arrival it was a pile of ruins,
'in the midst of which, like a wild beast's den, strewed round with
mangled bones, rose the largest and strongest castle which he had seen
in Ireland. It was held by one of O'Donel's kinsmen, to whom Shane,
to attach him to his cause, had given his sister to wife. At the
appearance of the old chief with the English army, it was immediately
surrendered. O'Donel was at last rewarded for his fidelity and
sufferings; and the whole tribe, with eager protestations of
allegiance, gave sureties for their future loyalty.' Sidney next
directed his march to Ballyshannon, and on by the coast of Sligo.
Passing over the bogs and mountains of Mayo, they came into Roscommon,
and then, 'leaving behind them as fruitful a country as was in
England or Ireland all utterly waste,' the army crossed the Shannon at
Athlone, swimming 'for lack of a bridge.' The results of this progress
are thus summed up by Mr. Froude. 'Twenty castles had been taken as
they went along and left in hands that could be trusted. In all that
long and painful journey Sidney was able to say that there had not
died of sickness but three persons; men and horses were brought
back in full health and strength, while her majesty's honour
was re-established among the Irishry, and grown to no small
veneration--"an expedition comparable only to Alexander's journey into
Bactria," wrote an admirer of Sidney to Cecil--revealing what to Irish
eyes appeared the magnitude of the difficulty, and forming a measure
of the effect which it produced. The English deputy had bearded Shane
in his stronghold, burned his houses, pillaged his people, and had
fastened a body of police in the midst of them, to keep them waking
in the winter nights. He had penetrated the hitherto impregnable
fortresses of mountain and morass; the Irish who had been faithful to
England were again in safe possession of their lands and homes. The
weakest, maddest, and wildest Celts were made aware that, when the
English were once roused to effort, they could crush them as the lion
crushes the jackal.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Vol. viii. p.407.]

O'Neill had followed the lord deputy to Lifford, and then marched on
to the Pale, expecting to retaliate upon the invaders with impunity.
But he was encountered by Warren St. Leger, lost 200 men, and was at
first hunted back over the border. He again returned, however, with
'a main army,' burned several villages, and in a second fight with St.
Leger, compelled the English to retire, 'for lack of more aid;' but
they held together in good order, and Shane, with the Derry garrison
in his rear, durst not follow far from home in pursuit. 'Before he
could revenge himself on Sidney, before he could stir against the
Scots, before he could strike a blow at O'Donel, he must pluck out the
barbed dart which was fastened in his unguarded side.'

In order to accomplish this object, he hovered cautiously about
the Foyle, watching for an opportunity to attack the garrison. But
Randolph fell upon him by surprise, and after a short sharp action,
the O'Neills gave way. O'Dogherty with his Irish horse chased the
flying crowd of his countrymen, killing every person he caught; and
Shane lost 400 men, the bravest of his warriors. The English success
was dearly bought, for Randolph leading the pursuit, was struck by a
random shot, and fell dead from his horse.

Before the Irish chief could recover from this great disaster, Sidney
'struck in again beyond Dundalk, burning his farms and capturing his
castles. The Scots came in over the Bann, wasting the country all
along the river side. Allaster M'Connell, like some chief of Sioux
Indians, sent to the captain of Knockfergus an account of the cattle
that he had driven, and _the wives and bairns_ that he had slain. Like
swarms of angry hornets, these avenging savages drove their stings in
the now maddened and desperate Shane on every point where they could
fasten; while in December the old O'Donel came out over the mountains
from Donegal, and paid back O'Neill with interest for his stolen wife,
his pillaged country, and his own long imprisonment and exile. The
tide of fortune had turned too late for his own revenge: worn out
with his long sufferings, he fell from his horse, at the head of his
people, with the stroke of death upon him; but before he died, he
called his kinsmen about him, and prayed them to be true to England
and their queen, and Hugh O'Donel, who succeeded to his father's
command, went straight to Derry, and swore allegiance to the English
crown.

'Tyrone was now smitten in all its borders. Magennis was the last
powerful chief who still adhered to Shane's fortunes; the last week in
the year Sidney carried fire and sword through his country, and left
him not a hoof remaining. It was to no purpose that Shane, bewildered
by the rapidity with which disasters were piling themselves upon him,
cried out now for pardon and peace; the deputy would not answer his
letter, and nothing was talked of but his extirpation by war only.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, p.413.]

The war, however, was interrupted by a singular calamity that befel
the Derry garrison. By the death of their commander left 'a headless
people,' they suffered from want of food and clothing. They also
became the prey of a mysterious disease, against which no precautions
could guard, which no medicine could cure, and by which strong men
were suddenly struck dead. By the middle of November 'the flux was
reigning among them wonderfully;' many of the best men went away
because there was none to stay them. The secret of the dreadful
malady--something like the cholera--was discovered in the fact that
the soldiers had built their sleeping quarters over the burial-ground
of the abbey, 'and the clammy vapour had stolen into their lungs and
poisoned them.' The officer who succeeded to the command applied the
most effectual remedy. He led the men at once into the pure air of the
enemies' country, and they returned after a few days driving before
them 700 horses and 1,000 cattle. He assured Sidney, that with 300
additional men, he could so hunt the rebel, that ere May was passed,
he should not show his face in Ulster. But the 'Black Death' returned
after a brief respite; and, says Mr. Froude, in the reeking vapour of
the charnel-house, it was indifferent whether its victims returned in
triumph from a stricken field, or were cooped within their walls by
hordes of savage enemies. By the middle of March there were left out
of 1,100 but 300 available to fight. Reinforcements had been raised at
Liverpool, but they were countermanded when on the point of sailing.
The English council was discussing the propriety of removing the
colony to the Bann, when accident finished the work which the plague
had begun, and spared them the trouble of deliberation. The huts
and sheds round the monastery had been huddled together for the
convenience of fortification. At the end of April, probably after
a drying east wind, a fire broke out in a blacksmith's forge, which
spread irresistibly through the entire range of buildings. The flames
at last reached the powder magazine: thirty men were blown to pieces
by the explosion, and the rest, paralysed by this last addition
to their misfortunes, made no more effort to extinguish the
conflagration. St. Loo, with all that remained of that ill-fated
party, watched from their provision boats in the river the utter
destruction of the settlement which had begun so happily, and then
sailed drearily away to find a refuge in Knockfergus. Such was the
fate of the first efforts for the building of Londonderry; and below
its later glories, as so often happens in this world, lay the bones
of many a hundred gallant men who lost their lives in laying its
foundations. Elizabeth, who in the immediate pressure of calamity
resumed at once her noble nature, 'perceiving the misfortune not
to come of treason, but of God's ordinance,' bore it well; she was
willing to do that should be wanting to repair the loss; and Cecil was
able to write cheerfully to Sidney, telling him to make the best of
the accident and let it stimulate him to fresh exertions.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Page 410.]

In the meantime Shane O'Neill, hard pressed on every side, earnestly
implored the cardinals of Lorraine and Guise, in the name of their
great brother the duke, to bring the _Fleur-de-lys_ to the rescue of
Ireland from the grasp of the ungodly English. 'Help us,' he cried,
blending _Irish-like_ flattery with entreaty: 'when I was in England,
I saw your noble brother, the Marquis d'Elboeuf, transfix two stags
with a single arrow. If the most Christian king will not help us,
move the pope to help us. I alone in this land sustain his cause.' To
propitiate his holiness, Primate Daniel was dismissed to the ranks
of the army, and Creagh received his crosier, and was taken into
O'Neill's household.

'All was done,' says the English historian, 'to deserve favour
in earth and heaven, but all was useless. The Pope sat silent or
muttering his anathemas with bated breath. The Guises had work enough
on hand at home to heed the _Irish wolf_, whom the English, having in
vain attempted to trap or poison, were driving to bay with more lawful
weapons.' His own people, divided and dispirited, began now to desert
the failing cause. In May, by a concerted movement, the deputy with
the light horse of the Pale overran Tyrone, and robbed the farmers
of 3,000 cattle, while the O'Donels mustered their forces for a great
contest with Shane, now struggling, almost hopelessly, to maintain
his supremacy. The O'Neills and O'Donels met on the banks of the Foyle
near Lifford. The former were superior in number, being about 3,000
men. After a brief fight 'the O'Neills broke and fled; the enemy was
behind them, the river was in front; and when the Irish battle cries
had died away over moor and mountain, but 200 survived of those fierce
troopers, who were to have cleared Ireland for ever from the presence
of the Saxons. For the rest, the wolves were snarling over their
bodies, and the seagulls whirling over them with scream and cry, as
they floated down to their last resting-place beneath the quiet waters
of Lough Foyle. Shane's foster-brethren, faithful to the last, were
all killed; he himself with half-a-dozen comrades rode for his life,
pursued by the avenging furies. His first desperate intention was to
throw himself at Sidney's feet, _with a slave's collar upon his neck_;
but his secretary, Neil M'Kevin, persuaded him that his cause was not
yet absolutely without hope. Sorleyboy was still a prisoner in the
castle at Lough Neagh, the Countess of Argyle had remained with her
ravisher through his shifting fortunes, had continued to bear him
children, and notwithstanding his many infidelities, was still
attached to him. M'Kevin told him that for their sakes, or at their
intercession, he might find shelter and perhaps help among the kindred
of the M'Connells.'

Acting on this advice, O'Neill took his prisoner, 'the countess, his
secretary, and fifty men to the camp of Allaster M'Connell, in the
far extremity of Antrim. He was received with dissembled gratulatory
words.' For two days all went on well, and an alliance was talked of.
But the vengeance of his hosts was with difficulty suppressed. The
great chief who was now in their power, had slain their leaders in the
field, had divorced James M'Connell's daughter, had kept a high-born
Scottish lady as his mistress, and had asked Argyle to give him for a
wife M'Connell's widow, who, to escape the dishonour, had remained in
concealment at Edinburgh. On the third evening, Monday June 2, when
the wine and the whiskey had gone freely round, and the blood in
Shane's veins had warmed, Gilespie M'Connell, who had watched him from
the first with an ill-boding eye, turned round upon M'Kevin, and asked
scornfully, 'whether it was he who had bruited abroad that the lady
his aunt did offer to come from Scotland to Ireland to marry with his
master?'

M'Kevin meeting scorn with scorn said, that if his aunt was Queen of
Scotland she might be proud to match with the O'Neill. 'It is false,'
the fierce Scot shouted; 'my aunt is too honest a woman to match with
her husband's murderer.'

'Shane, who was perhaps drunk, heard the words, and forgetting where
he was, flung back the lie in Gilespie's throat. Gilespie sprung to
his feet, ran out of the tent, and raised the slogan of the Isles. A
hundred dirks flashed into the moonlight, and the Irish, wherever they
could be found, were struck down and stabbed. Some two or three
found their horses and escaped, all the rest were murdered; and Shane
himself, gashed with fifty wounds, was wrapped in a kern's old shirt,
and flung into a pit, dug hastily among the ruined arches of Glenarm.
Even there, what was left of him was not allowed to rest. Four days
later, Piers, the captain of Knockfergus, hacked the head from the
body, and carried it on a spear's point through Drogheda to Dublin,
where, staked upon a pike, it bleached on the battlements of the
castle, a symbol to the Irish world of the fate of Celtic heroes.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, p.418, &c.]

Mr. Froude might have added: Celtic heroes struck down by Celtic
hands. No lord deputy could boast of a victory over Shane O'Neill
in the field. Irish traitors in English pay, Irish clans moved by
vengeance, did the work of England in the destruction of the great
principality of the O'Neills, and it was by _their_ swords, not
by English valour, that Sidney 'recovered Ireland for the crown of
Elizabeth.' Whatever may have been the faults of Shane O'Neill, and no
doubt they were very great, though not to be judged of by the morality
of the nineteenth century, his talents, his force of character, his
courage and capacity as a general, deserved more favourable notice
from Mr. Froude, who, in almost every sentence of his graphic and
splendid descriptions, betrays an animosity to the Celtic race,
very strange in an author so enlightened, and evincing, with this
exception, such generous sympathies. After so often reviling the
great Irish champion by comparing him to all sorts of wild beasts, the
historian thus concludes:--

'So died Shane O'Neill, one of those champions of Irish nationality,
who under varying features have repeated themselves in the history of
that country with periodic regularity. At once a _drunken ruffian_,
and a keen and fiery patriot, the representative in his birth of the
line of the ancient kings, the ideal in his character of all which
Irishmen most admired, regardless in his actions of the laws of God
and man, yet the devoted subject in his creed of the holy Catholic
Church; with an eye which could see far beyond the limits of his own
island, and a tongue which could touch the most passionate chords
of the Irish heart; the like of him has been seen many times in that
island, and the like of him may be seen many times again till the
Ethiopian has changed his skin, and the leopard his spots. Numbers of
his letters remain, to the Queen, to Sussex, to Sidney, to Cecil,
and to foreign princes; far-reaching, full of pleasant flattery and
promises which cost him nothing, but showing true ability and insight.
Sinner though he was, he too in his turn was sinned against; in the
stained page of Irish misrule there is no second instance in which
an English ruler stooped to treachery, or to the infamy of attempted
assassination; and it is not to be forgotten that Lord Sussex, who has
left under his own hand the evidence of his own baseness, continued a
trusted and favoured councillor of Elizabeth, while Sidney, who fought
Shane and conquered him in the open field, found only suspicion and
hard words.'




CHAPTER IV.

EXTERMINATING WARS.


Mr. Froude's magnificent chapter on Ireland, in the eleventh volume
of his history, just published, ought to be studied by every member of
the legislature before parliament meets. If a nation has a conscience,
England must feel remorse for the deeds done in her name in Ireland;
and ought to make amends for them, if possible. The historian has well
described the policy of Queen Elizabeth. She was at times disposed to
forbearance, but 'she made impossible the obedience she enjoined. Her
deputies and her presidents, too short-sighted to rule with justice,
were driven to cruelty in spite of themselves. It was easier to kill
than to restrain. Death was the only gaoler which their finances could
support, while the Irish in turn lay in wait to retaliate upon their
oppressors, and atrocity begat atrocity in hopeless continuity.'

Whenever there was a failing in any enterprise, the queen conceived 'a
great misliking of the whole matter;' but success covered a multitude
of sins. When the Irish were powerful, and the colony was in danger,
she thought it 'a hard matter to subvert the customs of the people
which they had enjoyed, to be ruled by the captains of their own
nation. Let the chiefs sue for pardon, and submit to her authority,
and she would let them have their seignories, their captaincies, their
body-guards, and all the rest of their dignities, with power of life
and death over their people. But,' says Mr. Froude, 'it was the curse
of the English rule that it never could adhere consistently to any
definite principle. It threatened, and failed to execute its threats.
It fell back on conciliation, and yet immediately, by some injustice
or cruelty, made reliance on its good faith impossible.'

Essex seemed to understand well the nature and motive of the queen's
professions, and he resolved to make some bold attempts to win back
her favour. He had made a sudden attack on Sir Brian O'Neill of
Clandeboye, with troops trained in the wars of the Low Countries, and
in a week he brought him to abject submission, which he expressed by
saying that 'he had gone wickedly astray, wandering in the wilderness
like a blind beast.' But it was the misfortune of Sir Brian, or
M'Phelim, that he still held his own territory, which had been
granted by the queen to Essex. 'The attempt to deprive him had been
relinquished. He had surrendered his lands, and the queen, at Essex's
own intercession, had reinstated him as tenant under the crown. It
seems, however, as if Essex had his eye still upon the property.'
Under such circumstances, it was easy to assume that O'Neill was still
playing false. So he resolved that he should not be able to do so any
longer. 'He determined to make sure work with so fickle a people.' He
returned to Clandeboye, as if on a friendly visit. Sir Brian and Lady
O'Neill received him with all hospitality. The Irish Annalists say
that they gave him a banquet. They not only let him off safe, but they
accompanied him to his castle at Belfast. There he was very gracious.
A high feast was held in the hall; and it was late in the night when
the noble guest and his wife retired to their lodging outside the
walls. When they were supposed to be asleep, a company of soldiers
surrounded the house and prepared to break the door. 'The O'Neills
flew to arms. The cry rang through the village, and the people swarmed
out to defend their chief; but surprised, half-armed, and outnumbered,
they were overpowered and cut to pieces. Two hundred men were killed.
The Four Masters add that the women were slain. The chieftain's wife
had female attendants with her, and no one was knowingly spared. The
tide being out, a squadron of horse was sent at daybreak over the
water into the "Ardes," from which, in a few hours, they returned with
3,000 of Sir Brian's cattle, and with a drove of stud mares, of which
the choicest were sent to Fitzwilliam. Sir Brian himself, his brother,
and Lady O'Neill, were carried as prisoners to Dublin, where they were
soon after executed.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.179.]

Essex did not miscalculate the probable effect of this exploit. It
raised him high in the estimation of the Anglo-Irish of the Pale. 'The
taint of the country was upon him; he had made himself no better than
themselves, and was the hero of the hour.' The effect of such conduct
and such a spirit in the rulers, may be imagined. A few weeks later,
Sir Edward Fitton wrote: 'I may say of Ireland, that it is quiet;
but if universal oppression of the mean sort by the great; if murder,
robberies, burnings make an ill commonwealth, then I cannot say we are
in a good case ... Public sentiment in Dublin, however, was unanimous
in its approbation. Essex was the man who would cauterize the
long-standing sores. There was a soldier in Ireland at last who
understood the work that was to be done, and the way to set about it.
Beloved by the soldiers, admirable alike for religion, nobility, and
courtesy, altogether the queen's, and not bewitched by the factions
of the realm, the governor of Ulster had but to be armed with supreme
power, and the long-wished-for conquest of Ireland would be easily and
instantly achieved.'

These feelings were not unnatural to the party in Dublin, now
represented by the men who recently declared that they rejoiced in
the election of a Fenian convict in Tipperary, and declared that they
would vote for such a candidate in preference to a loyal man. But how
did Queen Elizabeth receive the news of the treacherous and atrocious
massacre at Belfast? She was not displeased. 'Her occasional
disapprobation of severities of this kind,' says Mr. Froude, 'was
confined to cases to which the attention of Europe happened to be
especially directed. She told Essex that he was a great ornament of
her nobility, she wished she had many as ready as he to spend their
lives for the benefit of their country.'

Thus encouraged by his sovereign, and smarting under the reproach of
cowardice cast on him by Leicester, Essex determined to render his
name illustrious by a still more signal deed of heroism. After an
unprovoked raid on the territories of O'Neill in Tyrone, carrying
off cattle and slaughtering great numbers of innocent people whom
his soldiers hunted down, he perpetrated another massacre, which is
certainly one of the most infamous recorded in history. A great
number of women and children, aged and sick persons, had fled from the
horrors that reigned on the mainland, and taken refuge in the island
of Rathlin. The story of their tragic fate is admirably told by Mr.
Froude:--'The situation and the difficulty of access had thus long
marked Rathlin as a place of refuge for Scotch or Irish fugitives,
and, besides its natural strength, it was respected as a sanctuary,
having been the abode at one time of St. Columba. A mass of broken
masonry, on a cliff overhanging the sea, is a remnant of the castle in
which Robert Bruce watched the leap of the legendary spider. To this
island, when Essex entered Antrim, M'Connell and other Scots had sent
their wives and children, their aged and their sick, for safety. On
his way through Carrickfergus, when returning to Dublin, the earl
ascertained that they had not yet been brought back to their homes.
The officer in command of the English garrison (it is painful to
mention the name either of him, or of any man concerned in what
ensued) was John Norris, Lord Norris's second son, so famous
afterwards in the Low Countries, grandson of Sir Henry Norris,
executed for adultery with Anne Boleyn. Three small frigates were in
the harbour. The summer had been hot and windless; the sea was smooth,
there was a light and favourable air from the east; and Essex directed
Norris to take a company of soldiers with him, cross over, and--'

What? Bring those women and children, those sick and aged folk, back
to their homes? Essex had made peace by treaty with the O'Neill. He
had killed or chased away every man that could disturb the peace;
and an act of humanity like this would have had a most conciliatory
effect, and ought to recommend the hero to the queen, who should be
supposed to have the heart as well as the form of a woman.

No; the order was, to go over '_and kill whatever he could find!_' Mr.
Froude resumes: 'The run of the Antrim coast was rapidly and quietly
accomplished. Before an alarm could be given, the English had landed,
close to the ruins of the church which bears St. Columba's name.
Bruce's castle was then standing, and was occupied by a score or two
of Scots, who were in charge of the women. But Norris had brought
cannon with him. The weak defences were speedily destroyed, and after
a severe assault, in which several of the garrison were killed, the
chief who was in command offered to surrender, if he and his people
were allowed to return to Scotland. The conditions were rejected. The
Scots yielded at discretion, and every living creature in the place,
except the chief and his family (who were probably reserved for
ransom), was immediately put to the sword. Two hundred were killed in
the castle. It was then discovered that several hundred more, chiefly
mothers and their little ones, were hidden in the caves about
the shore. There was no remorse, nor even the faintest shadow of
perception that the occasion called for it. They were hunted out as if
they had been seals or otters, and all destroyed. Sorleyboy and other
chiefs, Essex coolly wrote, had sent their wives and children into the
island, "which be all taken and executed to the number of six hundred.
Sorleyboy himself," he continued, "stood upon the mainland of the
Glynnes and saw the taking of the island, and was likely to have run
mad for sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself, and saying that he
there lost all that he ever had!" The impression left upon the mind by
this horrible story, is increased by the composure with which even the
news of it was received. "Yellow-haired Charley," wrote Essex to
the queen, "might tear himself for his pretty little ones and
their _dam_," but in Ireland itself the massacre was not specially
distinguished in the general system of atrocity. Essex described it
himself as one of the exploits with which he was most satisfied; and
Elizabeth, in answer to his letters, bade him tell John Norris, "the
executioner of his well-designed enterprise, that she would not be
unmindful of his services."'

I have transcribed this narrative partly for the sake of the
reflection with which Mr. Froude concludes. He says: 'But though
passed over and unheeded at the time, and lying buried for three
hundred years, the bloody stain comes back to the light again, not in
myth or legend, but in the original account of the nobleman by whose
command the deed was done; and when the history of England's dealings
with Ireland settles at last into its final shape, that hunt among the
caves at Rathlin will not be forgotten.'[1] It was for services like
these that Essex got the barony of Farney, in the county Monaghan. He
had mortgaged his English estates to the queen for 10,000 l.,and after
his plundering expeditions in Ireland he went home to pay his debts.

[Footnote 1: History of England, vol. xi. p.184.]

Further on Mr. Froude has another reflection connected with the death
of Essex, supposed to have been poisoned, as his widow immediately
after married Leicester. He says: 'Notwithstanding Rathlin, Essex was
one of the noblest of living Englishmen, and that such a man could
have ordered such a deed, being totally unconscious of the horror of
it, is not the least instructive feature in the dreadful story.' It
is certainly a strange fact that nearly all the official murderers who
ruled in Ireland in those times were intensely religious, setting
to their own class a most edifying example of piety. Thus, from the
first, Protestantism was presented to the Irish in close connexion
with brutal inhumanity and remorseless cruelty. Essex, when dying, was
described by the bystanders as acting 'more like a divine preacher or
heavenly prophet than a man.' His opinion of the religious character
of his countrymen was most unfavourable. 'The Gospel had been preached
to them,' he said, 'but they were neither Papists nor Protestants--of
no religion, but full of pride and iniquity. There was nothing but
infidelity, infidelity, infidelity!--atheism, atheism!--no religion,
no religion!' What such tiger-like slaughterers of women and children,
such ruthless destroyers, could have meant by religion is a puzzle for
philosophers.

Sidney reluctantly resumed the office of viceroy in 1575. Tirlogh
O'Neill congratulated the Government on his appointment, 'wretched
Ireland needing not the sword, but sober, temperate, and humane
administration.' Though it was winter, the new deputy immediately
commenced a progress through the provinces. Going first to Ulster, he
saw Sorleyboy, and gave him back Rathlin. He paid a friendly visit
to the O'Neill, who gave him an assurance of his loyalty. Leinster he
found for the most part 'waste, burnt up and destroyed.' He proceeded
by Waterford to Cork. He was received everywhere with acclamation.
'The wretched people,' says Mr. Froude, how truly!--'sanguine then, as
ever, in the midst of sorrow, looked on his coming as the inauguration
of a new and happier era.' So, in later times, they looked on the
coming of Chesterfield, and Fitzwilliam, and Anglesey. But the good
angel was quickly chased away by the evil demon--invoked under the
name of the 'Protestant Interest.' The Munster and the Connaught
chiefs all thronged to Sidney's levees, weary of disaffection, and
willing to be loyal, if their religion were not interfered with,
'detesting their barbarous lives,'--promising rent and service for
their lands. 'The past was wiped out. Confiscation on the one hand,
and rebellion on the other, were to be heard of no more. A clean page
was turned.' Even the Catholic bishops were tractable, and the viceroy
got 'good and honest juries in Cork, and with their help twenty-four
malefactors were honourably condemned and hanged.' Enjoying an ovation
as he passed on to Limerick and Galway, he found many grievances to be
redressed--'plenty of burnings, rapes, murders, besides such spoil
in goods and cattle as in number might be counted infinite, and in
quantity innumerable.'

Sir William Drury was appointed president of Munster; and he was
determined that in his case the magistrate should not bear the sword
in vain. Going round the counties as an itinerant judge, he gleaned
the malefactors Sidney had left, and hanged forty-three of them
in Cork. One he pressed to death for declining to plead to his
indictment. Two M'Sweenys, from Kerry, were drawn and quartered. At
Limerick he hanged forty-two, and at Kilkenny thirty-six, among which
he said were 'some good ones,' as a sportsman might say, bagging his
game. He had a difficulty with 'a blackamoor and two witches,' against
whom he found no statute of the realm, so he dispatched them 'by
natural law.' Although Jeffreys, at the Bloody Assizes, did not come
near Drury, the latter found it necessary to apologise to the English
Government for the paucity of his victims, saying, 'I have chosen
rather with the snail tenderly to creep, than with the hare swiftly to
run.' With the Government in Ireland, as Mr. Froude has well remarked,
'the gallows is the only preacher of righteousness.'

But the gallows was far too slow, as an instrument of reform and
civilisation, for Malby, president of Connaught; and as modern
evictors in that province and elsewhere have chosen Christmas as the
most appropriate season for pulling down dwellings, extinguishing
domestic fires, and unhousing women and children, so Malby chose the
same blessed season for his 'improvements' in 1576. It is such a model
for dealing with the Fenians and tenants on the Tory plan, that I
transcribe his own report, which Mr. Froude has found among the Irish
MSS. 'At Christmas,' he wrote, 'I marched into their territory, and
finding courteous dealing with them had like to have cut my throat,
I thought good to take another course; and so with determination _to
consume them with fire and sword, sparing neither old nor young_,
I entered their mountains. I burnt all their corn and houses, and
committed to the sword all that could be found, where were slain
at that time above sixty of their best men, and among them the best
leaders they had. This was Shan Burke's country. Then I burnt Ulick
Burke's country. In like manner I assaulted a castle where the
garrison surrendered. I put them to the misericordia of my soldiers.
They were all slain. Thence I went on, sparing none which came in my
way, which cruelty did so amaze their followers, that they could not
tell where to bestow themselves. Shan Burke made means to me to pardon
him and forbear killing of his people. I would not hearken, but went
on my way. The gentlemen of Clanrickard came to me. I found it was but
dallying to win time, so I left Ulick as little corn and as few houses
standing as I left his brother; and what people was found had as
little favour as the other had. _It was all done in rain and frost
and storm_, journeys in such weather bringing them the sooner to
submission. They are humble enough now, and will yield to any terms we
like to offer them.'

And so Malby and his soldiers enjoyed a merry Christmas; and when
Walsingham read his letters, giving an account of his civilising
progress, to the Queen, she, too, must have enjoyed a fresh sensation,
a new pleasure amidst the festivities and gallantries of her brilliant
court. Mr. Froude has rendered a timely service in this Christmas
time to the Coercionists, the Martial Law men, and the Habeas Corpus
Suspension men of our own day. He has shown them their principles at
work and carried out with a vengeance, and with what results! He has
admirably sketched the progress of English rule in Ireland up to
that time--a rule unchanged in principle to the present hour, though
restrained in its operation by the spirit of the age. Mr. Froude says:
'When the people were quiet, there was the rope for the malefactors,
and death by the natural law for those whom the law written could not
touch. When they broke out, there was the blazing homestead, and death
by the sword for all, not for the armed kerne only, but for the aged
and infirm, the nursing mother and the baby at her breast. These, with
ruined churches, and Irish rogues for ministers,--these, and so far
_only_ these were the symbols of the advance of English rule; yet even
Sidney could not order more and more severity, and the president of
Munster was lost in wonder at the detestation with which the English
name was everywhere regarded. Clanrickard was sent to Dublin, and the
deputy wished to hang him, but he dared not execute an earl without
consulting his mistress, and Elizabeth's leniency in Ireland, as well
as England, was alive and active towards the great, although it was
dead towards the poor. She could hear without emotion of the massacres
at Rathlin or Slievh Broughty; but the blood of the nobles, who had
betrayed their wretched followers into the rebellion for which they
suffered, was for ever precious in her sight. She forbade Sidney to
touch him.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Vol. xi, p.197.]

Next came the great Desmond Rebellion, by which Munster was desolated.
The Pope had encouraged an expedition against the heretics in Ireland,
and some Spanish forces joined in the enterprise. It was organised by
an English ecclesiastic, named Sanders, and an exiled Geraldine,
named Fitzmaurice of Kerry, both able and energetic men. The Spaniards
landed at Dingle in 1579. In a few days all Kerry and Limerick were
up, and the woods between Mallow and the Shannon 'were swarming
with howling kerne.' 'The rebellion,' wrote Waterhouse, 'is the most
perilous that ever began in Ireland. Nothing is to be looked for but a
general revolt.' Malby took the command against them, joined by one of
the Burkes, Theobald, who when he saw Fitzmaurice struck by a ball
and staggering in his saddle, rode at him and cut him down. The Papal
standard was unfolded in this battle. Malby then burnt the Desmonds'
country, killing all the human beings he met, up to the walls of
Askeaton. When opportunity offered, Desmond retaliated by sacking and
burning Youghal. For two days the Geraldines revelled in plunder; they
violated the women and murdered all who could not escape. At length
Elizabeth was roused to the greatness of the danger, her parsimony
was overcome. A larger force was drawn into Ireland than had ever
been assembled there for a century. Ormond, the hereditary enemy of
Desmond, was appointed commander-in-chief; and Burghley, writing to
him in the name of the queen, concluded thus: 'So now I will merely
say, Butler aboo, against all that cry in the new language--Papa aboo,
and God send your hearts' desire to banish and vanquish those cankered
Desmonds!' The war now raged, and, as usual, the innocent people, the
cultivators of the soil, were the first victims. 'We passed through
the rebel countries,' wrote Pelham, 'in two companies, burning with
fire _all habitations, and executing the people_ wherever we found
them.' Mr. Froude says: '_Alone_ of all the English commanders he
expressed remorse at the work.' Well, if the creatures they destroyed
were horses, dogs, or cats, we should expect a man of ordinary human
feelings to be shocked at the wholesale butchery. But the beings
slaughtered were men and women and children--Christians found unarmed
and defenceless in their dwellings. Let the English imagine such a
war carried on in Kent or Yorkshire, by Irish invaders, killing in
the name of the Pope. The Irish Annalists say that Pelham and Ormond
killed the blind and the aged, women and children, sick and idiots,
sparing none.

The English, as usual, had help from an Irish chief in the work of
destruction. Ormond had in his train M'Carthymore, 'who, believing
Desmond's day to be done, hoped, by making himself useful, to secure
a share of the plunder.' Dividing their forces, Pelham marched on to
Dingle, 'destroying as he went, with Ormond parallel to him on the
opposite side of the bay, the two parties watching each other's course
at night across the water by the flames of the burning cottages!'

The fleet was waiting at Dingle. There was a merry meeting of the
officers. 'Here,' says Sir Nicholas White, 'my lord justice and I
gathered cockles for our supper.'[1] The several hunting parties
compared notes in the evening. Sometimes the sport was bad. On one
occasion Pelham reported that his party had hanged a priest in the
Spanish dress. 'Otherwise,' he says, 'we took small prey, and
killed less people, though we reached many places in our travel!' At
Killarney they found the lakes full of salmon. In one of the islands
there was an abbey, in another a parish church, in another a castle,
'out of which there came to them a fair lady, the rejected wife of
Lord Fitzmaurice.' Even the soldiers were struck with the singular
loveliness of the scene. 'A fairer land,' one of them said, 'the
sun did never shine upon--pity to see it lying waste in the hands of
traitors.' Mr. Froude, who deals more justly by the Irish in his last
volumes, replies: 'Yet it was by those traitors that the woods whose
beauty they so admired had been planted and fostered. Irish hands,
unaided by English art or English wealth, had built Muckross and
Innisfallen and Aghadoe, and had raised the castles on whose walls the
modern poet watched the splendour of the sunset.'

[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]

Ormond was the arch-destroyer of his countrymen. In a report of his
services he stated that in this one year 1580, he had put to the
sword 'forty-six captains and leaders, with 800 notorious traitors
and malefactors, _and above_ 4,000 other people.'[1] In that year
the great Desmond wrote to Philip of Spain that he was a homeless
wanderer. 'Every town, castle, village, farm-house belonging to him or
his people had been destroyed. There was no longer a roof standing in
Munster to shelter him.' Hunted like a wolf through the mountains,
he was at last found sleeping in a hut and killed. In vain his wife
pleaded with Ormond, and threw herself on his protection. Even she was
not spared. Mr. Froude gives an interesting account of Desmond's last
hours. He was hunted down into the mountains between Tralee and the
Atlantic. M'Sweeny had sheltered him and fed him through the summer,
though a large price was set on his head; and when M'Sweeny was gone,
killed by an Irish dagger, the earl's turn could not be distant.
Donell M'Donell Moriarty had been received to grace by Ormond, and
had promised to deserve his pardon. This man came to the captain
of Castlemayne, gave information of the hiding-place, a band was
sent--half-a-dozen English soldiers and a few Irish kerne, who stole
in the darkness along the path which followed the stream--the door was
dashed in, and the last Earl of Desmond was killed in his bed.

[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]

Ormond had recourse to a horrible device to extinguish the embers of
the rebellion. It was carrying out to a diabolical extent the policy
of setting one Irishman against another. If the terror-stricken
wretches hoped for pardon, they must deserve it, by murdering their
relations. Accordingly sacks full of the heads of reputed rebels were
brought in daily. Yet concerning him Mr. Froude makes this singular
remark: 'To Ormond the Irish were human beings with human rights. To
the English they were _vermin, to be cleared from off the earth_ by
any means that offered.'

Consequently, when it was proposed to make Ormond viceroy, the Pale
was in a ferment. How could any man be fit to represent English power
in Dublin Castle, who regarded the Irish as human beings! Not less
curious is the testimony which the historian bears to the character of
the English exterminators. He says, 'They were honourable, high-minded
men, full of natural tenderness and gentleness, to every one with whom
they were placed in _human relations_. The Irish, unfortunately, they
looked upon as savages who had refused peace and protection when it
was offered to them, and were now therefore to be _rooted out and
destroyed_.' A reformer in 1583, however, suggested a milder policy.
He recommended that 'all Brehons, carraghs, bards, rhymers, friars,
monks, jesuits, pardoners, nuns, and such-like should be executed by
martial law, and that with this clean sweep the work of death might
end, and a new era be ushered in with universities and schools, a
fixed police, and agriculture, and good government.'

When the English had destroyed all the houses and churches, burnt all
the corn, and driven away all the cattle, they were disgusted at the
savage state in which the remnant of the peasantry lived. A gentleman
named Andrew Trollope gave expression to this feeling thus: 'The
common people ate flesh if they could steal it, if not they lived on
shamrock and carrion. They never served God or went to church; they
had no religion and no manners, but were in all things more barbarous
and beast-like than any other people. No governor shall do good here,'
he said, 'except he show himself a Tamerlane. If hell were open and
all the evil spirits abroad, they could never be worse than these
Irish rogues--rather dogs, and worse than dogs, for dogs do but after
their kind, and they degenerate from all humanity.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.246.]

The population of Ireland was then by slaughter and famine reduced to
about 600,000, one-eighth of the population of England; but far too
many, in the estimation of their English rulers. Brabason succeeded
Malby in Connaught, and surpassed him in cruelty. The Four Masters
say: 'Neither the sanctuary of the saint, neither the wood nor the
forest valley, the town nor the lawn, was a shelter from this captain
and his people, till the whole territory was destroyed by him.' In the
spring of 1582 St. Leger wrote from Cork: 'This country is so ruined
as it is well near unpeopled by the murders and spoils done by the
traitors on the one side, and by the killing and spoil done by the
soldiers on the other side, together with the great mortality in town
and country, which is such as the like hath never been seen. There has
died by famine only not so few as 30,000 in this province in less than
half a year, besides others that are hanged and killed.'

At length the world began to cry shame on England; and Lord Burghley
was obliged to admit that the English in Ireland had outdone the
Spaniards in ferocious and blood-thirsty persecution. Remonstrating
with Sir H. Wallop, ancestor of Lord Portsmouth, he said that the
'Flemings had not such cause to rebel against the oppression of
the Spaniards, as the Irish against the tyranny of England.' Wallop
defended the Government; the causes of the rebellion were not to
be laid at the door of England at all. They were these, 'the great
affection they generally bear to the Popish religion, which agreeth
with their humour, that having committed murder, incest, thefts, with
all other execrable offences, by hearing a mass, confessing themselves
to a priest, or obtaining the Pope's pardon, they persuade themselves
that they are forgiven, and, hearing mass on Sunday or holyday, they
think all the week after they may do what heinous offence soever and
it is dispensed withal.' Trollope said they had no religion. Wallop
said they had too much religion. But their nationality was worse than
their creed. Wallop adds, 'They also much hate our nation, partly
through the general mislike or disdain one nation hath to be governed
by another; partly that we are contrary to them in religion; and
lastly, they seek to have the government among themselves.'

The last was the worst of all. Elizabeth wished to heal the wounds of
the Irish nation by appointing Ormond lord deputy. He was a nobleman
of Norman descent. His family had been true to England for centuries.
He had commanded her armies during this exterminating war, and, being
a native of the country, he would be best fitted to carry on the work
of conciliation after so much slaughter. But, says Mr. Froude, 'from
every English officer serving in the country, every English settler,
every bishop of the Anglo-Irish Church, there rose one chorus of
remonstrance and indignation; to them it appeared as a proposal now
would appear in Calcutta to make the Nizam Viceroy of India.'[1]
Wallop wrote that if he were appointed, there would be 'no dwelling in
the country for any Englishman.'

[Footnote 1: Ibid. p.202.]

The fear that a merciful policy might be adopted towards Ireland
sorely troubled Wallop and Archbishop Loftus; but they were comforted
by a great prize--an archbishop fell into their hands. Dr. Hurley
refused to give information against others. Walsingham suggested that
he should be put to the torture. To him Archbishop Loftus wrote with
unction. 'Not finding that easy method of examination do any good, we
made command to Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. Secretary Fenton to put him to
the torture, such as your honour advised us, which was to _toast his
feet_ against the fire with hot boots.' He confessed something. They
asked permission to execute him by martial law. The queen took a month
to consider. She recommended an ordinary trial for high treason, and
if the jury did not do its duty, they might take the shorter way.
She wished for no more torture, but 'for what was past her majesty
accepted in good part their careful travail, and greatly commended
their doings.' The Irish judges had repeatedly decided that there was
no case against Archbishop Hurley; but on June 19, 1584, Loftus and
Wallop wrote to Walsingham, 'We gave warrant to the knight-marshal to
do execution upon him, which accordingly was performed, and thereby
the realm rid of a most pestilent member.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.264.]

This was the last act of these two lords justices. Sir John Perrot,
the new viceroy, made a speech which sent a ray of hope athwart the
national gloom. It was simply that the people might thenceforth
expect a little justice and protection. He told the natives that 'as
natural-born subjects of her majesty she loved them as her own people.
He wished to be suppressed and universally abolished throughout the
realm the name of a churle and the crushing of a churle; affirming
that, however the former barbarous times had desired it and nourished
it, yet he held it tyrannous both in name and manner, and therefore
would extirpate it, and use in place of it the titles used in England,
namely, husbandmen, franklins or yeomen.' 'This was so plausible,'
wrote Sir G. Fenton, 'that it was carried throughout the whole realm,
in less time than might be thought credible, if expressed.'

The extirpation of the Munster Geraldines, in the right line,
according to the theory of the 'Undertakers' and the law of England in
general, vested in the queen the 570,000 acres belonging to the late
earl. Proclamation was accordingly made throughout England, inviting
'younger brothers of good families' to undertake the plantation of
Desmond--each planter to obtain a certain scope of land, on condition
of settling thereupon so many families--'none of the native Irish to
be admitted' Under these conditions, Sir Christopher Hatton took up
10,000 acres in Waterford; Sir Walter Raleigh 12,000 acres, partly in
Waterford and partly in Cork; Sir William Harbart, or Herbert, 13,000
acres in Kerry; Sir Edward Denny 6,000 in the same county; Sir Warren
St. Leger, and Sir Thomas Norris, 6,000 acres each in Cork; Sir
William Courtney 10,000 acres in Limerick; Sir Edward Fitton 11,500
acres in Tipperary and Waterford, and Edmund Spenser 3,000 acres in
Cork, on the beautiful Blackwater. The other notable Undertakers
were the Hides, Butchers, Wirths, Berkleys, Trenchards, Thorntons,
Bourchers, Billingsleys, &c. Some of these grants, especially
Raleigh's, fell in the next reign to Richard Boyle, the so-called
'_great_ Earl of Cork '--probably the most pious hypocrite to be found
in the long roll of the 'Munster Undertakers.'




CHAPTER V.

AN IRISH CRUSADE.


In 1602, the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, in obedience to instructions from
the Government in London, marched to the borders of Ulster with
a considerable force, to effect, if he could, the arrest of Hugh
O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, or to bring him to terms. Since the defeat
of the Irish and Spanish confederacy at Kinsale, O'Neill comforted
himself with the assurance that Philip III. would send another
expedition to Ireland to retrieve the honour of his flag, and avenge
the humiliation it had sustained, owing to the incompetency or
treachery of Don Juan d'Aquila. That the king was inclined to aid the
Irish there can be no question; 'for Clement VIII., then reigning in
the Vatican, pressed it upon him as a sacred duty, which he owed to
his co-religionists in Ireland, whose efforts to free themselves from
Elizabeth's tyranny, the pontiff pronounced to be a _crusade_ against
the most implacable heretic of the day.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell.
By the Rev. P.C. Meehan, M.R.I.A.]

If Mr. Meehan's authorities may be relied upon, Queen Elizabeth was,
in intention at least, a murderer as well as a heretic. He states
that while she was gasping on her cushions at Richmond, gazing on the
haggard features of death, and vainly striving to penetrate the opaque
veil of the future, she commanded Secretary Cecil to charge Mountjoy
to entrap Tyrone into a submission, on diminished rank as Baron of
Dungannon, and with lessened territory; or if possible, to have his
head, before engaging the royal word. It was to accomplish either of
these objects, that Mountjoy marched to the frontier of the north.
'Among those employed to murder O'Neill in cold blood, were Sir
Geoffry Fenton, Lord Dunsany, and _Henry Oge O'Neill._ Mountjoy bribed
one Walker, an Englishman, and a ruffian calling himself Richard
Combus, to make the attempt, but they all failed.'[1] Finding it
impossible to procure the assassination of 'the sacred person of
O'Neill, who had so many eyes of jealousy about him,' he wrote to
Cecil from Drogheda, that nothing prevented Tyrone from making his
submission but mistrust of his personal safety and guarantee
for maintenance commensurate to his princely rank. The lords of
Elizabeth's privy council empowered Mountjoy to treat with O'Neill on
these terms, and to give him the required securities. Sir Garret Moore
and Sir William Godolphin were entrusted with a commission to effect
this object. But while the lord deputy, with a brilliant retinue,
was feasting at Mellifont, a monastery bestowed by Henry VIII. on an
ancestor of Sir Garret Moore, by whom it was transformed into a 'fair
mansion,' half palace, half fortress, a courier arrived from England,
announcing the death of the queen. Nevertheless the negotiations
were pressed on in her name, the fact of her decease being carefully
concealed from the Irish. Tyrone had already sent his secretary, Henry
O'Hagan, to announce to the lord deputy that he was about to come to
his presence. Accordingly on March 29, he surrendered himself to the
two commissioners at Tougher, within five miles of Dungannon. On the
following evening he reached Mellifont, when, being admitted to the
lord deputy's presence, 'he knelt, as was usual on such occasions;'
and made penitent submission to her majesty. Then, being invited to
come nearer to the deputy, he repeated the ceremony, if we may credit
Fynes Moryson, in the same humiliating attitude, thus:--

'I, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, do absolutely submit myself to the
queen's mercy, imploring her gracious commiseration, imploring her
majesty to mitigate her just indignation against me. I do avow that
the first motives of my rebellion were neither malice nor ambition;
but that I was induced by fear of my life, to stand upon my guard. I
do therefore most humbly sue her majesty, that she will vouchsafe
to restore to me my former dignity and living. In which state of
a subject, I vow to continue for ever hereafter loyal, in all true
obedience to her royal person, crown, and prerogatives, and to be
in all things as dutifully conformable thereunto as I or any other
nobleman of this realm is bound by the duty of a subject to his
sovereign, utterly renouncing the name and title of O'Neill, or any
other claim which hath not been granted to me by her majesty. I abjure
all foreign power, and all dependency upon any other potentate but her
majesty. I renounce all manner of dependency upon the King of Spain,
or treaty with him or any of his confederates, and shall be ready to
serve her majesty against him or any of his forces or confederates.
I do renounce all challenge or intermeddling with the Uriaghts, or
fostering with them or other neighbour lords or gentlemen outside my
country, or exacting black-rents of any Uriaghts or bordering lords.
I resign all claim and title to any lands but such as shall now be
granted to me by her majesty's letters patent. Lastly, I will be
content to be advised by her majesty's magistrates here, and will
assist them in anything that may tend to the advancement of her
service, and the peaceable government of this kingdom, the abolishing
of barbarous customs, the clearing of difficult passes, wherein I will
employ the labours of the people of my country in such places as I
shall be directed by her majesty, or the lord deputy in her name; and
I will endeavour for myself and the people of my country, to erect
civil habitations such as shall be of greater effect to preserve us
against thieves, and any force but the power of the state.'

[Footnote 1: See Life and Letters of Florence M'Carthy. By D.
M'Carthy, Esq.]

To this act of submission Tyrone affixed his sign manual, and handed
it to the deputy, who told him he must write to Philip III. of Spain,
to send home his son Henry, who had gone with Father M'Cawell to
complete his studies in Salamanca. The deputy also insisted that he
should reveal all his negotiations with the Spanish court, or any
other foreign sovereign with whom he maintained correspondence; and
when the earl assured him that all these requirements should be duly
discharged, the lord deputy in the queen's name promised him her
majesty's pardon to himself and followers, to himself the restoration
of his earldom and blood with new letters patent of all his lands,
excepting the country possessed by Henry Oge O'Neill, and the Fews
belonging to Tirlough Mac Henry O'Neill, both of whom had recently
taken grants of their lands, to be holden immediately from the queen.
It was further covenanted that Tyrone should give 300 acres of his
land to the fort of Charlmont, and 300 more to that of Mountjoy, as
long as it pleased her majesty to garrison said forts. Tyrone assented
to all these conditions, and then received the accolade from the lord
deputy, who, a few months before, had written to Queen Elizabeth, that
he hoped to be able to send her that ghastliest of all trophies--her
great rebel's head!

On April 4, the lord deputy returned to Dublin accompanied by the
great vassal whom he fancied he had bound in inviolable loyalty to the
English throne. To make assurance doubly sure, the day after James was
proclaimed, Tyrone repeated the absolute submission made at Mellifont,
the name of the sovereign only being changed. He also despatched a
letter to the King of Spain stating that he had held out as long as
he could, in the vain hope of being succoured by him, and finally when
deserted by his nearest kinsmen and followers, he was enforced as in
duty bound to declare his allegiance to James I., in whose service and
obedience he meant to live and die.

The importance of this act of submission will appear from a manifesto
issued by O'Neill three years before, dated Dungannon, November 16,
1599, and subscribed 'O'Neill.' This remarkable document has been
published for the first time by Father Meehan.

'_To the Catholics of the towns in Ireland._

'Using hitherto more than ordinary favour towards all my countrymen,
who generally by profession are Catholics, and that naturally I
am inclined to affect [esteem] you, I have for these and other
considerations abstained my forces from tempting to do you hindrance,
and because I did expect that you would enter into consideration of
the lamentable state of our poor country, most tyrannically oppressed,
and of your own gentle consciences, in maintaining, relieving and
helping the enemies of God and our country in wars infallibly tending
to the promotion of heresy: But now seeing you are so obstinate in
that which hereunto you continued of necessity, I must use severity
against you (whom otherwise I most entirely love) in reclaiming you
by compulsion. My tolerance and happy victories by God's particular
favour doubtless obtained could work no alteration in your
consciences, notwithstanding the great calamity and misery, whereunto
you are most likely to fall by persevering in that damnable state in
which hereunto you have lived. Having commiseration on you I thought
it good to forewarn you, requesting every of you to come and join with
me against the enemies of God and our poor country. If the same you do
not, I will use means to spoil you of all your goods, but according to
the utmost of my power shall work what I may to dispossess you of
all your lands, because you are the means whereby wars are maintained
against the exaltation of the Catholic faith. Contrariwise, whosoever
it shall be that shall join with me, upon my conscience, and as to the
contrary I shall answer before God, I will employ myself to the utmost
of my power in their defence and for the extirpation of heresy, the
planting of the Catholic religion, the delivery of our country of
infinite murders, wicked and detestable policies by which this
kingdom was hitherto governed, nourished in obscurity and ignorance,
maintained in barbarity and incivility, and consequently of infinite
evils which were too lamentable to be rehearsed. And seeing these are
motives most laudable before any men of consideration, and before the
Almighty most meritorious, which is chiefly to be expected, I thought
myself in conscience bound, seeing God hath given me some power to use
all means for the reduction of this our poor afflicted country into
the Catholic faith, which can never be brought to any good pass
without either your destruction or helping hand; hereby protesting
that I neither seek your lands or goods, neither do I purpose to plant
any in your places, if you will adjoin with me; but will extend what
liberties and privileges that heretofore you have had if it shall
stand in my power, giving you to understand upon my salvation that
chiefly and principally I fight for the Catholic faith to be planted
throughout all our poor country, as well in cities as elsewhere,
as manifestly might appear by that I rejected all other conditions
proffered to me this not being granted. I have already by word of
mouth protested, and do now hereby protest, that if I had to be
King of Ireland without having the Catholic religion which before I
mentioned, I would not the same accept. Take your example by that most
Catholic country, France, whose subjects for defect of Catholic faith
did go against their most natural king, and maintained wars till he
was constrained to profess the Catholic religion, duly submitting
himself to the Apostolic See of Rome, to the which doubtless we may
bring our country, you putting your helping hand with me to the same.
As for myself I protest before God and upon my salvation I have been
proffered oftentimes such conditions as no man seeking his own private
commodity could refuse; but I seeking the public utility of my native
country will prosecute these wars until that generally religion be
planted throughout all Ireland. So I rest, praying the Almighty to
move your flinty hearts to prefer the commodity and profit of our
country, before your own private ends.'

As a crusader, the O'Neill was a worthy disciple of the King of Spain.
The Catholics of the south had no wish to engage in a religious
war, but the northern chief aspiring to the sovereignty of the whole
island, resolved to reclaim them by compulsion, seeing that
his tolerance and happy victories had worked no change in their
consciences, and they still persevered in that 'damnable state'
in which they had lived. From his entire love and commiseration he
forewarned them that if they did not come and join him against the
enemies of God and 'our poor country,' he would not only despoil
them of all their goods, but dispossess them of all their lands.
The extirpation of heresy, the planting of the Catholic religion, he
declared could never be brought to any good pass without either the
destruction or the help of the Catholics in the towns of the south and
west. He did not want their lands or goods, nor did he intend to plant
others in their places _if they would adjoin with him_. Pointing to
the example of France, he vowed that he would prosecute those wars
until the Catholic religion should be planted throughout all Ireland,
praying that God would move their flinty hearts to join him in this
pious and humane enterprise. In those times when religious wars
had been raging on the continent, when the whole power of Spain was
persistently employed to exterminate Protestants with fire and sword
and every species of cruelty, it is not at all surprising that a
chief like O'Neill, leading such a wild warlike life in Ulster, should
persuade himself that he would be glorifying God and serving his
country by destroying the Catholic inhabitants of the towns, that is
all the most civilised portion of the community, because they would
not join him in robbing and killing the Protestants. But it is not a
little surprising that an enlightened, learned, and liberal Catholic
priest, writing in Dublin in the year 1868, should give his deliberate
sanction to this unchristian and barbarous policy. Yet Father Meehan
writes: 'But no; not even the dint of that manifesto, _with the ring
of true steel in its every line_, could strike a spark out of their
hearts, for they were chalky.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Page 34.]

It was very natural that the English Government should act upon the
same principle of intolerance, especially when they had the plea
of state necessity. They did not yet go the length of exterminating
Catholicity by the means with which the O'Neill threatened his
peaceable and industrious co-religionists in the towns.

All they required was that the Catholics should cease to harbour
their priests, and that they should attend the Protestant churches.
Remarking upon the proclamation of Chichester to this effect Mr.
Meehan says:--'Apart from the folly of the king, who had taken into
his head that an entire nation should, at his bidding, apostatise from
the creed of their forefathers, the publishing such a manifesto
in Dungannon, in Donegal, and elsewhere was a bitter insult to
the northern chieftains, whose wars were _crusades_,--the natural
consequence of faith,--stimulated by the Roman Pontiffs, assisted
by Spain, then the most Catholic kingdom in the world.' Does not Mr.
Meehan see that crusading is a game at which two can play? And if
wars which were crusades were the natural consequence of the Catholic
faith, were stimulated by the Roman Pontiffs, and assisted by Spain,
for the purpose of destroying the power of England, everywhere as well
as in Ireland, and abolishing the Reformation,--does it not follow
as a necessary consequence that the English Government must in sheer
self-defence have waged a war of extermination against the Catholic
religion, and have regarded its priests as mortal enemies? No better
plea for the English policy in Ireland was ever offered by any
Protestant writer than this language, intended as a condemnation, by
a very able priest in our own day. It was no doubt extreme folly for
King James I. to expect that a nation, or a single individual, should
apostatise at his bidding; but it was equal folly in the King of Spain
to expect Protestants to apostatise at his bidding; and if possible
still greater folly for O'Neill to expect the Catholic citizens of
Munster to join him in the bloody work of persecution. It was, then,
the Spanish policy stimulated by the Sovereign Pontiff that was the
standing excuse of the cruel intolerance and rancorous religious
animosity which have continued to distract Irish society down to
our own time. Persecution is alien to the Irish race. The malignant
_virus_ imported from Spain poisoned the national blood, maddened the
national brain, and provoked the terrible system of retaliation that
was embodied in the Penal Code, and which, surviving to our own time,
still defends itself by the old plea--the intrusion of a foreign power
attempting to overrule the government of the country.




CHAPTER VI.

THE LAST OF THE IRISH PRINCES.


The accession of James I. produced a delirium of joy in the Catholics
of the south. Their bards had sung that the blood of the old Celtic
monarchs circulated in his veins, their clergy told them that as
James VI. of Scotland he had received supplies of money from the
Roman court, and above all Clement VIII. then reigning, had sent to
congratulate him on his accession, having been solicited by him to
favour his title to the crown of England, which the Pope guaranteed
to do on condition that James promised not to persecute the Catholics.
The consequence was that the inhabitants of the southern towns rose
_en masse_ without waiting for authority, forced open the gates of the
ancient churches, re-erected the altars and used them for the public
celebration of worship. The lord deputy was startled by intelligence
to this effect from Waterford, Limerick, Cork, Lismore, Kilkenny,
Clonmel, Wexford, &c. The cathedrals, churches, and oratories were
seized by the people and clergy, Father White, Vicar-Apostolic of
Waterford, being the leader in this movement, going about from city
to city for the purpose of 'hallowing and purifying' the temples which
Protestantism had desecrated.

The mayors of the cities were rebuked by Mountjoy as seditious and
mutinous in setting up 'the public exercise of the Popish religion,'
and he threatened to encamp speedily before Waterford, 'to suppress
insolences and see peace and obedience maintained.' The deputy kept
his word, and on May 4, 1603, he appeared before Waterford at the
head of 5,000 men, officered by Sir R. Wingfield, and others who had
distinguished themselves during Tyrone's war. 'There is among the
family pictures at Powerscourt,' says Mr. Meehan, 'a portrait of this
distinguished old warrior, whose lineal descendant, the present noble
lord, has always proved most generous to his Catholic tenantry.' The
reverend gentleman gives an amusing sketch of a theological encounter
between the old warrior and Father White and a Dominican friar,
who came forth to the camp under a safe-conduct, both wearing their
clerical habits and preceded by a cross-bearer. The soldiers jeered
at the sacred symbol, and called it an idol. Father White indignantly
resented the outrage, when Sir Richard Wingfield threatened to put
an end to the controversy by running his sword through the
Vicar-Apostolic. 'The deputy however was a bookish man, at one period
of his life inclined to Catholicity, and he listened patiently to
Father White on the right of resisting or disobeying the natural
prince; but when the latter quoted some passage thereanent in the
works of St. Augustine, Mountjoy caused to be brought to him out of
his tent the identical volume, and showed to the amazement of the
bystanders, that the context explained away all the priest had
asserted.' The noble theologian told Father White that he was a
traitor, worthy of condign punishment for bringing an idol into a
Christian camp and for opening the churches by the Pope's authority.
Father White appeared in the camp a second time that day, making
a most reasonable request. He fell on his knees before the deputy,
begging liberty of conscience, free and open exercise of religion,
protesting that the people would be ready to resist all foreign
invasion were that granted; and finally beseeching that some of the
ruined churches might be given to the Catholics, who were ready
to rebuild them, and pay for them a yearly rent into his majesty's
exchequer. But the deputy was inexorable, and all he would grant was
leave to wear clerical clothes, and celebrate mass in private houses.
Mountjoy entered Waterford, received from the citizens the oath of
allegiance, and made over the city churches to the small section
of Protestants. At the same time he sent despatches to other towns
ordering the authorities to evict the Roman Catholics from the places
of worship. And then proceeding to Cork, and thence through Cashel
to Dublin, he undid all that the clergy had done with respect to the
churches, 'leaving perhaps to future statesmen,' writes Father
Meehan, 'living above the atmosphere of effete prejudices, the duty of
restoring to the Catholics of Ireland those grand old temples, which
were never meant to accommodate a fragment of its people.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Page 30.]

When Mountjoy returned to Dublin he found that he had been created
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland with two-thirds of the deputy's allowance,
Sir George Carew, appointed deputy during his absence in
England, receiving the other third together with his own pay as
treasurer-at-war. Mountjoy was also informed that the royal pardon had
been granted to Tyrone under the great seal, and that all other grants
made to him by the lord deputy had been confirmed. The king concluded
by requesting that he would induce Tyrone to go with him to London,
adding, 'as we think it very convenient for our service, and require
you so to do; and if not that at least you bring his son.' Along with
these instructions came a protection for O'Neill and his retinue. It
was supposed that James felt grateful to the Ulster chieftain for the
services he had rendered him during the late queen's reign; and it is
stated by Craik that after the victory of the Blackwater, he sent his
secretary O'Hagan to Holyrood, to signify to his majesty that if he
supplied him with money and munitions he would instantly march on
Dublin, proclaim him King of Ireland, and set the crown upon his head.

In compliance with the sovereign's request, Mountjoy, with a brilliant
suite, accompanied by Tyrone and Rory O'Donel, embarked in May 1603,
and sailed for Holyhead. But when they had sighted the coast of Wales,
the pinnace was driven back by adverse winds, and nearly wrecked in a
fog at the Skerries. They landed safe, however, at Beaumaris, whence
they rode rapidly to Chester, where they stopped for the night, and
were entertained by the mayor. The king's protection for the O'Neill
was not uncalled for. Whenever he was recognised in city or hamlet,
the populace, notwithstanding their respect for Mountjoy, the hero of
the hour, pursued the earl with bitter insults, and stoned him as he
passed along. Throughout the whole journey to London, the Welsh and
English women assailed him with their invectives. Not unnaturally, for
'there was not one among them but could name some friend or kinsman
whose bones lay buried far away in some wild pass or glen of Ulster,
where the object of their maledictions was more often victor than
vanquished.'[1] The king, however, gave the Irish chiefs a gracious
reception, having issued a proclamation that he had restored them to
his favour, and that they should be 'of all men honourably received.'
This excited intense disgust amongst English officers who had been
engaged in the Irish wars. Thus Sir John Harrington, writing to
a bishop, said: 'I have lived to see that damnable rebel, Tyrone,
brought to England, honoured and well liked. Oh, what is there that
does not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters! How I did labour
after that knave's destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land,
was near starving, eat horseflesh in Munster, and all to quell that
man, who now smileth in peace at those who did hazard their lives
to destroy him; and now doeth Tyrone dare us old commanders with his
presence and protection.'

[Footnote 1: Father Meehan.]

In fact the favour of the king went to an excess fatal to its object,
by conceding powers incompatible with his own sovereignty, leading
to disorders and violence, and exciting jealousy and mortal enmity in
those who were charged with the government in Ireland. The lords of
the Privy Council, with the king's consent, gave O'Neill authority for
martial law, 'to be executed upon any offenders that shall live under
him, the better to keep them in obedience.' It was ordered that the
king's garrisons should not meddle with him or his people. The king
also invested O'Donel with all the lands and rights of ancient time
belonging to his house, excepting abbeys and other spiritual livings,
the castle and town of Ballyshannon, and 1,000 acres adjoining
the fishing there. He also received the style and title of Earl
of Tyrconnel, with remainder to his brother Caffar, the heirs male
apparent being created Barons of Donegal. He was formally installed
in Christ Church Cathedral on the 29th of September following, in
presence of Archbishop Loftus and a number of high officials. Tyrone,
however, was dogged by spies while he was in London, and one
Atkinson swore informations to the effect that he was in the habit
of entertaining a Jesuit named Archer, who was intriguing with the
foreign enemies of England, and who was held by Irish royalists for
'the most bloody and treacherous traitor, who could divert Tyrone
and all the rest from the king, and thrust them again into actual
rebellion.'

In the meantime, Sir George Carew was pursuing a policy in Ireland
which must of necessity involve the north in fresh troubles. In his
letters to England, he complained that the country 'so swarmed with
priests, Jesuits, seminarists, friars, and Romish bishops, that if
speedy means were not used to free the kingdom of this wicked rabble,
which laboured to draw the subjects' hearts from their due obedience
to their prince, much mischief would burst forth in very short time.
For,' he said, 'there are here so many of this wicked crew, that are
able to disquiet four of the greatest kingdoms in Christendom. It is
high time they were banished from hence, and none to receive, or
aid, or relieve them. Let the judges and officers be sworn to the
supremacy; let the lawyers go to the church and show conformity,
or not plead at the bar; and then the rest by degrees will shortly
follow.'

Carew was succeeded as deputy by Sir Arthur Chichester, descended
from a family of great antiquity in Devon. He had served in Ireland
as governor of Carrickfergus, admiral of Lough Neagh, and commander
of the Fort of Mountjoy. Father Meehan describes him as malignant and
cruel, with a physiognomy repulsive and petrifying; a Puritan of the
most rigid character, utterly devoid of sympathy, solely bent on his
own aggrandisement, and seeking it through the plunder and persecution
of the Irish chieftains. That is the Irish view of his character. How
far he deserved it the reader will be able to judge by his acts.
He was evidently a man of strong will, an able administrator
and organiser; and he set himself at once, and earnestly, to the
establishment of law and order in the conquered territories of the
Irish princes. He sent justices of assize throughout Munster and
Connaught, reducing the 'countries or regions' into shire-ground,
abolishing cuttings, cosheries, spendings, and other customary
exactions of the chiefs, by which a complete revolution was effected.
He issued a proclamation, by the king's order, commanding all the
Catholics, under penalties, to assist at the Church of England
service; proscribing priests, and other ecclesiastical persons
ordained by authority from the see of Home; forbidding parents to send
their children to seminaries beyond the seas, or to keep as private
tutors other than those licensed by the Protestant archbishop or
bishop. If any priest dared to celebrate mass, he was liable to a fine
of 200 marks, and a year's imprisonment; while to join the _Romish_
Church was to become a traitor, and to be subject to a like penalty.
Churchwardens were to make a monthly report of persons absent from
church, and to whet the zeal of wardens and constables, for each
conviction of offending parties, they were to have a reward of forty
shillings, to be levied out of the recusant's estate and goods.
Catholics might escape these penalties by quitting the country, and
taking the oath of abjuration, by which they bound themselves to
abjure the land and realm of James, King of England, Scotland, France,
and Ireland, to hasten towards a certain port by the most direct
highway, to diligently seek a passage, and tarry there but one
flood and ebb. According to one form, quoted by Mr. Meehan, the oath
concluded thus: 'And, unless I can have it (a passage) in such a
place, I will go every day into the sea up to my knees, essaying to
pass over, so God me help and His holy judgment.'

The deputy found some difficulty in bending the consciences of the
Dublin people to the will of the sovereign in matters of faith; but
the said will was to be enforced _circa sacra_ at all hazards; so he
summoned sixteen of the chief citizens and aldermen before the Privy
Council, and censured them for their recusancy, imprisoned them in the
castle during pleasure, inflicting upon six a fine of 100 l. each, and
upon three 50 l. each. The king was delighted with this evangelical
method of extending reformed religion in Ireland. Congratulating his
deputy, he expressed a hope that many, by such means, would be brought
to conformity in religion, who would hereafter 'give thanks to God for
being drawn by so gentle a constraint to their own good.' The 'gentle
constraint' was imposed in all directions. The Privy Council decreed
that none but a member of the Church of England could hold any
office under the Crown. The old Catholic families of the Pale humbly
remonstrated, and their chief men were flung into prison. Sir Patrick
Barnwell, their agent, was sent to London by order of the king, and
was forthwith committed to the Tower for contempt. Henry Usher, then
Archbishop of Armagh, carried out the system of exclusion in his own
diocese, which included the territories of Tyrone. All 'Papists' were
forbidden to assist at mass, on pain of forfeiture of their goods and
imprisonment. In a like manner, the Catholic worship was prohibited
even in the residence of the Earl of Tyrconnel. He and Tyrone strongly
remonstrated against this violation of the royal word, that they and
their people might have liberty for their worship in private houses.
The answer was decided. His majesty had made up his mind to disallow
liberty of worship, and his people, whether they liked it or not,
should repair to their parish churches.

In addition to this religious grievance, which excited the bitterest
feelings of discontent, the two earls were subjected to the most
irritating annoyances. They complained that their people were
plundered by sheriffs, under-sheriffs, officers, and soldiers; and
that even their domestic privacy was hourly violated, that their
remonstrances were unheeded, and their attempts to obtain legal
remedies were frustrated. At the same time their vassals were
encouraged to repudiate their demands for tribute and rent. Bishop
Montgomery of Derry was a dangerous neighbour to O'Neill. Meeting him
one day at Dungannon, the earl said: 'My lord, you have two or three
bishopricks, and yet you are not content with them, but seek the lands
of my earldom.'

'My lord,' replied the bishop, 'your earldom is swollen so big with
the lands of the Church, that it will burst if it be not vented.' If
he had confined his venting operations to the chiefs, and abstained
from bleeding the poor people, it would have been better for
Protestantism. For we read that he sent bailiffs through the diocese
of Raphoe, to levy contributions for the Church. 'For every cow and
plough-horse, 4 d.; as much out of every colt and calf, to be
paid twice a year; and half-a-crown a quarter of every shoemaker,
carpenter, smith, and weaver in the whole country; and 8 d. a year for
every married couple.'

This bishop seems to have been greatly impressed with the
'commodities' of O'Cahan's country, which he describes with much
unction in a letter to the Earl of Salisbury. He said that the country
was 'large, pleasant, and fruitful; twenty-four miles in length
between Lough Foyle and the Bann; and in breadth, from the sea-coast
towards the lower parts of Tyrone, 14 miles.' He states that O'Cahan
was able to assist the Earl of Tyrone, during his war, with 1,200
foot and 300 horse, the ablest men that Ulster yielded; and, by the
confession of gentlemen of the first plantation, had oftener put them
to their defence than any enemy they had to do with, not suffering
them to cut a bough or build a cabin without blows. When Tyrone was
driven to his fastness, Glenconkeine, O'Cahan sent him 100 horse and
300 foot, and yet made good his own country against the army lying
round about him, adding, that his defection 'did undo the earl, who,
as he had his country sure behind him, cared little for anything the
army could do to him.' The bishop was, therefore, very anxious that
Tyrone should not have any estate in O'Cahan's country, 'since he was
of great power to offend or benefit the poor infant city of Derry, its
new bishop and people, cast out far from the heart and head into the
remotest part of Ireland, where life would be unsafe until the whole
region was well settled with civil subjects. If this be not brought to
pass, we may say: "_fuimus Troes,--fuit Ilium_."'[1]

[Footnote 1: Meehan, p.79.]

The defection of O'Cahan was, no doubt, a very serious matter to
O'Neill. Their case was referred for adjudication to the lord deputy,
Chichester, before whom they personally pleaded. Their contradictory
statements, and the eagerness of each for the support of a ruler whom
they regarded as a common enemy, accounts for the facility with which
their power was ultimately destroyed. They at the same time throw much
light on the condition of Ulster before the confiscation of James I.,
proving that it was by no means so poor and wild and barren a region
as it is generally represented by modern writers. The two chiefs had a
personal altercation at the council table, and O'Neill so far lost his
temper as to snatch a paper out of the hand of O'Cahan. Whereupon Sir
John Davis remarked: 'I rest assured, in my own conceit, that I shall
live to see Ulster the best reformed province in this kingdom; and
as for yourself, my lord, I hope to live to see you the best reformed
subject in Ireland.' To this the haughty chief replied with warmth,
that he hoped 'the attorney-general would never see the day when
injustice should be done him by transferring his lands to the Crown,
and thence to the bishop, who was intent on converting the whole
territory into his own pocket.'

Acting under the advice of the bishop, O'Cahan employed a skilful
hand to draw up a statement of his case, which was presented on May 2,
1607, in the form of 'the humble petition of Donald Ballagh O'Cahan,
chief of his name,' addressed to the lord deputy and council. He
declared that for 3,000 years and upwards, he and his ancestors had
been possessed of a country called 'O'Cahan's country,' lying between
the river Bann and Lough Foyle, without paying any rent, or other
acknowledgment thereof to O'Neill, saving that his ancestors were wont
to aid O'Neill twice a year if he had need, with risings of 100 horse
and 300 foot, for which O'Cahan had in return O'Neill's whole suit of
apparel, the horse that he rode upon, and 100 cows in winter. He also
paid 21 cows every year in the name of _Cios'righ_, the king's rent,
or the king's rent-cess. He alleged that Queen Elizabeth had granted
him his country to be held immediately from her majesty at the
accustomed rent, by virtue of which he enjoyed it for one whole year
without paying, or being craved payment, of any rent or duty, until
the Earl of Tyrone, on his return from England, alleged that he had
got O'Cahan's country by patent, from the king, who had made him
vassal to Tyrone and his heirs for ever, imposing the annual payment
of 100 cows, with the yearly rent of 200 l. He had also claimed the
fishing of the Bann; he preyed yearly upon other parts of his country,
and drew from him his best tenants. He therefore prayed for the
protection of the lord deputy against these unjust demands and
usurpations.

On the 23rd of the same month, O'Neill made a counter statement to the
following effect: O'Cahan had no estate in the territory that was by
a corruption of speech called O'Cahan's country; nor did he or any of
his ancestors ever hold the said lands but as tenants at sufferance,
servants and followers to the defendant and his ancestors. His
grandfather Con O'Neill was seised in fee of those lands before he
surrendered to Henry VIII., 'and received yearly, and had thereout,
as much rents, cutting, spending and all other duties as of any other
lands which he had in demesne,' within the province of Ulster and
territory of Tyrone, and that after Con's surrender the territories
were all re-granted with the rents, customs, duties, &c. as before.
He was ready to prove that the ancestors of O'Cahan never enjoyed the
premises at any time, but at the will and sufferance of O'Neill and
his ancestors. A few days after, he despatched a memorial to the king
setting forth his grievances, in which he stated that there were so
many that sought to deprive him of the greatest part of the residue
of his territory that without his majesty's special consideration he
should in the end have nothing to support his 'estate' or rank. For
the Lord Bishop of Derry, not content with the great living the king
had bestowed upon him, sought to have the greater part of the earl's
lands, to which none of his predecessors had ever laid claim. And
he also set on others to question his titles which had never before
before doubted. He therefore humbly besought the king to direct that
new letters patent should be made out re-conveying to him and his
heirs the lands in dispute, being, he said, 'such a favour as is
appointed by your majesty to be extended to such of your subjects of
this kingdom as should be suitors for the same, amongst whom I will
during my life endeavour to deserve to be in the number of the most
faithful, whereunto not only duty, but also your majesty's great
bounty, hath ever obliged me.'

This was dated at Mellifont on May 26, 1607. It does not appear that
any answer was received to his appeals to the king, nor is it likely
that it served his cause, for it is seldom safe to appeal from an
agent or deputy to the supreme authority. The Privy Council in Dublin,
however, made a report confirming to some extent the claims put forth
by Tyrone. A jury had been appointed to inquire into the boundaries
and limits of the lands granted by Queen Elizabeth, and they found
that they extended from the river Fuin to Lough Foyle, and from Lough
Foyle by the sea-shore to the Bann, and thence to the east of Lough
Neagh. Within these limits they found that there existed the territory
called O'Cahan's, Glenconkeine and Killetragh, which were not the
lands of the O'Neills, '_but held by tenants having estates in them
equivalent to estates of freehold_.' The jury could not determine what
rents the tenants of said lands were accustomed to pay, but they found
generally that all lands within the limits of Tyrone, except the lands
of the church, rendered to O'Neill bonnaght or free quarters for armed
retainers, 'rising out, cutting and spending.' The parties, however,
did not abide by the decision of the privy council, but kept up their
contention in the courts of law. It was quite clear that matters could
not remain long in that unsettled state, with so many adventurers
thirsting for the possession of land, which was lying comparatively
idle. It was thought desirable to appoint a president of Ulster, as
there had been a president of Munster. The Earl of Tyrone applied to
the king for the office, evidently fearing that if Chichester were
appointed, he must share the fate of the Earl of Desmond. On the other
hand, it was felt that with his hereditary pretensions, impracticable
temper, and vast influence with the people, it would be impossible to
establish the English power on a permanent basis until he was got out
of the way. This was not difficult, with unprincipled adventurers
who were watching for opportunities to make their fortunes in those
revolutionary times. Among these was a person named St. Lawrence,
Baron of Howth. This man worked cunningly on the mind of the lord
deputy, insinuating that O'Neill was plotting treason and preparing
for a Spanish invasion. He even went so far as to write an anonymous
letter, revealing an alleged plot of O'Neill's to assassinate the lord
deputy. It was addressed to Sir William Usher, clerk of the council,
and the writer began by saying that it would show him, though far
severed from him in religion, how near he came home to him in honesty.
He was a Catholic, and professed to reveal what he had heard among
Catholic gentlemen, 'after the strictest conditions of secresy.' The
conspirators were, in the first place, to murder or poison the lord
deputy when he came to Drogheda, 'a place thought apt and secure to
act the same.' They thought it well to begin with him, because his
authority, wisdom, and valour stood only in the way of their first
attempts. Next after him they were to cut off Sir Oliver Lambert,
whom for his own judgment in the wars, his sudden resolution, and
undertaking spirit, they would not suffer to live. These two lights
thus put out, they would neither fear nor value any opposite in the
kingdom. The small dispersed garrisons must either through hunger
submit themselves to their mercy, or be penned up as sheep to the
shambles. They held the castle of Dublin for their own, neither manned
nor victualled, and readily surprised. The towns were for them, the
country with them, the great ones abroad prepared to answer the first
alarm. The Jesuits warranted from the Pope and the Catholic king would
do their parts effectually, and Spanish succours would not be wanting.
These secrets greatly troubled the sensitive conscience of Lord Howth.
From the time he was entrusted with them, he said, 'till I resolved to
give you this caveat, my eyelids never closed, my heart was a fire,
my soul suffered a thousand thousand torments; yet I could not, nor
cannot persuade my conscience, in honesty, to betray my friends,
or spill their bloods, when this timely warning may prevent the
mischief.' In conclusion, he said, 'though I reverence the mass and
the Catholic religion equal with the devoutest of them, I will make
the leaders of this dance know that I prefer my country's good before
their busy and ambitious humours.' It is related of this twenty-second
baron of Howth, known as Sir Christopher St. Lawrence, that having
served in Ulster under Essex, and accompanied him in his flight to
England, he proposed to murder Lord Grey de Wilton, lest he should
prejudice the queen's mind against her former favourite, if he got
access to her presence before him; that he had commanded a regiment of
infantry under Mountjoy, and that when that regiment was disbanded, he
became discontented, not having got either pension or employment;
that having gone as a free lance to the Low Countries, and failed to
advance himself there as he expected, through the interest of
Irish ecclesiastics, he returned to England, and skulked about the
ante-chambers of Lord Salisbury, waiting upon Providence, when he hit
upon the happy idea of the revelations which he conveyed under the
signature of' A.B.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Meehan, p.103.]

After some time he acknowledged the authorship of the letter
privately, but refused to come forth publicly as an informer, nor
was he able to produce any corroboration of the improbable story.
Ultimately, however, when pressed by Chichester, he induced his friend
Baron Devlin to swear an information to the same effect, revealing
certain alleged conversations of O'Neill. In the meantime St. Lawrence
cunningly worked upon the fears of the earl, giving him to understand
that his ruin was determined on, and that he had better consult
his safety, by leaving the country. It appears that he received
intimations to the same effect from his correspondents in Spain and
in London. At all events, he lost heart, became silent, moody, and
low-spirited, suspecting foul play on the part of the king, who was
very urgent that he should be brought over to London, in which case
Tyrone was led to believe that he would certainly be sent to the
Tower, and probably lose his head. With such apprehensions, he came
to the conclusion that it was idle to struggle any longer against the
stream.

He had for some weeks been engaged quietly making preparations for his
flight. He had given directions to his steward to collect in advance
one half of his Michaelmas rents, leading the lord deputy to think
that he did so either to provide funds for his journey to London,
or to defray the expenses of his son's projected marriage with the
daughter of Lord Argyle. Meanwhile a vessel had been purchased by
Cu-Connaught Maguire, and Bath, the captain of this vessel, assured
the Earl of Tyrconnel, whom he met at Ballyshannon, that he also
would lose his life or liberty if he did not abandon the country with
O'Neill. On September 8, Tyrone took leave of the lord deputy, and
then spent a day and night at Mellifont with his friend Sir Garret
Moore, who was specially dear to him as the fosterer of his son John.
The earl took his leave with unusual emotion, and after giving
his blessing according to the Irish fashion to every member of his
friend's household, he and his suite took horse and rode rapidly by
Dundalk, over the Fews to Armagh, where he rested a few hours, and
then proceeded to Creeve, one of his crannoges or island habitations,
where he was joined by his wife and other members of his family. Sir
Oliver Lambert in a communication to the Irish Government, relating to
the affairs of Ulster, made some interesting allusions to O'Neill. He
states that he had apologised for having appealed to the king in the
case between him and O'Cahan, and said that he felt much grieved in
being called upon so suddenly to go to England, when on account of his
poverty he was not able to furnish himself as became him for such a
journey and for such a presence. In all things else, said Sir Oliver,
'he seemed very moderate and reasonable, albeit he never gave over to
be a general solicitor in all causes concerning his country and people
however criminal.' He thought the earl had been much abused by persons
who had cunningly terrified, and diverted him from going to the king;
'or else he had within him a thousand witnesses testifying that he was
as deeply engaged in these secret treasons as any of the rest, whom
they knew or suspected.' At all events he had received information
on the previous day from his own brother Sir Cormac O'Neill, from the
primate, from Sir Toby Caulfield and others, that the earl had taken
shipping with his lady, the Baron of Dungannon, his eldest son, and
two others of his children, John and Brien, both under seven years
old, the Earl of Tyrconnel, and his son and heir, an infant, not yet a
year old, his brother Caffar O'Donel, and his son an infant two years
old, 'with divers others of their nearest and trusted followers and
servants, as well men as women, to the number of between thirty and
forty persons.'

The Rev. Mr. Meehan gives graphic details of the flight of his two
heroes. Arrived at Rathmullen they found Maguire and Captain Bath
laying stores of provisions on board the ship that had come into Lough
Swilly under French colours. Here they were joined by Rory, Earl of
Tyrconnel. At noon on Friday they all went on board and lifted anchor,
but kept close to the shore waiting for the boats' crews, who were
procuring water and fuel; but they had to wait till long after sunset,
when the boats came with only a small quantity of wood and water.
According to a fatality which makes one Irishman's extremity another
Irishman's opportunity, the foraging party was set upon by M'Sweeny
of Fanad, who churlishly prevented them getting a sufficient supply
of these necessaries. This barbarous conduct is accounted for by Mr.
Meehan, from the fact, that this M'Sweeny had recently taken a grant
of his lands from the crown. At midnight, September 14, 1607, they
spread all sail and made for the open sea, intending, however, to
land on the Island of Arran, off the coast of Donegal, to provide
themselves with more water and fuel. The entire number of souls
on board this small vessel, says O'Keenan in his narrative, was
ninety-nine, having little sea store, and being otherwise miserably
accommodated. Unable to make the island of Arran, owing to a gale
then blowing off the land, and fearing to be crossed by the king's
cruisers, they steered for the harbour of Corunna in Spain. But for
thirteen days, continues O'Keenan, 'the sea was angry, and the tempest
left us no rest; and the only brief interval of calm we enjoyed, was
when O'Neill took from his neck a golden crucifix containing a relic
of the true cross, and trailed it in the wake of the ship. At that
moment, two poor merlins with wearied pinions sought refuge in the
rigging of our vessel, and were captured for the noble ladies, who
nursed them with tenderest affection.' After being tempest-tossed
for three weeks, they dropped anchor in the harbour of Quilleboeuf
in France, having narrowly escaped shipwreck, their only remaining
provisions being one gallon of beer and a cask of water. They
proceeded to Brussels and thence to Louvain, where splendid
accommodation was provided for them. In several of the cities through
which they passed they received ovations, their countrymen clerical
and military having prepared for their reception with the greatest
zeal and devotion. The King of Spain was of course friendly, but to
avoid giving offence to King James he discouraged the stay of the
exiles in his dominions, and they found their final resting-place
at Rome, where the two earls were placed upon the Pope's civil list,
which, however, they did not long continue to burden. Tyrconnel fell a
victim to the malaria, and died on July 28, 1608. 'Sorrowful it was,'
say the Four Masters, 'to contemplate his early eclipse, for he was a
generous and hospitable lord, to whom the patrimony of his ancestors
seemed nothing for his feastings and spending.' His widow received
a pension of 300 l. a year out of his forfeited estates. O'Neill
survived his brother earl eight years, having made various attempts to
induce the King of Spain to aid him in the recovery of his patrimony.
He died in 1616, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Sir Francis
Cottington, announcing the event from Madrid, said, 'The Earl of
Tyrone is dead at Rome; by whose death this king saves 500 ducats
every month, for so much pension he had from here, well paid him.
Upon the news of his death, I observed that all the principal Irish
entertained in several parts of this kingdom are repaired unto this
court.'




CHAPTER VII.

GOVERNMENT APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE.


The flight of the earls caused great consternation to the Irish
Government. Letters were immediately despatched to the local
authorities at every port to have a sharp look out for the fugitives,
and to send out vessels to intercept them, should they be driven back
by bad weather to any part of the coast. At the same time the lord
deputy sent a despatch to the Government in London, deprecating
censure for an occurrence so unexpected, and so much to be regretted,
because of the possibility of its leading to an invasion by the
Spaniards. In other respects it was regarded by the principal members
of the Irish Government, and especially by the officials in Ulster, as
a most fortunate occurrence. For example, Sir Oliver Lambert, in his
report to the lords of the council, already referred to, said:--'But
now these things are fallen out thus, contrary to all expectation
or likelihood, by the providence of God I hope, over this miserable
people, for whose sake it may be he hath sent his majesty this rare
and unlocked for occasion: whereby he may now at length, with good
apprehension and prudent handling, repair an error which was committed
in making these men proprietary lords of so large a territory, without
regard of the poor freeholders' rights, or of his majesty's service,
and the commonwealth's, that are so much interested in the honest
liberty of that sort of men, which now, in time, I commend unto your
lordships' grave consideration and wisdom, and will come to that which
nearest concerns ourselves and the whole.'

According to Sir John Davis, in his letter to the first minister, Lord
Salisbury, Tyrone could not be reconciled in his heart to the English
Government, because 'he ever lived like a free prince, or, rather,
like an absolute tyrant, there. The law of England, and the ministers
thereof, were shackles and handlocks unto him.' He states that _after
the Irish manner_, he made all the tenants of his land _villeins_.
'Therefore to evict any part of that land from him was as grievous
unto him as to pinch away the quick flesh from his body ... Besides,'
the attorney-general added, 'as for us that are here, we are glad to
see the day wherein the countenance and majesty of the law, as civil
government, hath banished Tyrone out of Ireland, which the best army
in Europe, and the expense of two millions of sterling pounds did not
bring to pass. And we hope his majesty's happy government will work
a greater miracle in this kingdom, than ever St. Patrick did; for St.
Patrick did only banish the poisonous worms, but suffered the men full
of poison to inhabit the land still; but his majesty's blessed genius
will banish all that generation of vipers out of it, and make it, ere
it be long, a right fortunate island.'

Again, Sir Geoffry Fenton, writing to Salisbury on the same subject,
says, 'And now I am to put your lordship in mind what a door is open
to the king, if the opportunity be taken, and well converted, not only
to pull down for ever these two proud houses of O'Neill and O'Donel,
but also to bring in colonies to plant both countries, to a great
increasing of his majesty's revenues, and to establish and settle the
countries perpetually in the crown; besides that many well-deserving
servitors may be recompensed in the distribution; a matter to be taken
to heart, for that it reaches somewhat to his majesty's conscience and
honour to see these poor servitors relieved, whom time and the wars
have spent, even unto their later years, and now, by this commodity,
may be stayed and comforted without charges to his majesty.' This
advice was quite in accordance with the views of the prime minister,
who in a letter to Chichester said, 'I do think it of great necessity
that those countries be made the king's by this accident; that there
be a mixture in the plantation, the _natives_ made his majesty's
tenants of part, but the rest to be divided among those that will
_inhabit_; and in no case any man is suffered to embrace more than
is visible he can and will _manure_. That was an oversight in the
plantation of Munster, where 12,000 acres were commonly allotted to
bankrupts and country gentlemen, that never knew the disposition of
the Irish; so as God forbid that those who have spent their blood in
the service should not of all others be preferred.' It was because
this idea of manuring, i.e. residence and cultivation, was carried
out in Ulster, that the plantation has proved so successful. But Davis
would allow but small space comparatively to the natives, whom he
compared to weeds which, if too numerous, would choke the wheat. With
him the old inhabitants were simply a nuisance from the highest to
the lowest; and if there were no other way of getting rid of them, he
would no doubt have adopted the plan recommended by Lord Bacon,
who said, 'Some of the chiefest of the Irish families should
be transported to England, and have recompense there for their
possessions in Ireland, till they were cleansed from their blood,
incontinency, and theft, which were not the lapses of particular
persons, but the very laws of the nation.' The Lord Deputy Chichester,
however, agreed thoroughly with his attorney-general, for he certainly
made no more account of rooting out the 'mere Irish' from their homes
than if they were the most noxious kinds of weeds or vermin. 'If,'
said he, writing to Lord Salisbury, 'I have observed anything during
my stay in this kingdom, I may say it is not _lenity_ and good works
that will reclaim the Irish, but _an iron rod_, and severity of
justice, for the restraint and punishment of those firebrands of
sedition, _the priests_; nor can we think of any other remedy but to
proclaim _them, and their relievers and harbourers, traitors_.'

Considering that those Englishmen were professedly Christian rulers,
engaged in establishing the reformed religion, the accounts which they
give with perfect coolness of their operations in this line, are among
the most appalling passages to be met with in the world's history. For
instance, the lord deputy writes: 'I have often said and written, it
is _famine that must consume the Irish_, as our _swords_ and other
endeavours worked not that, speedy effect which is expected; _hunger_
would be a better, because a speedier, weapon to employ against them
than the sword.' He spared no means of destruction, but combined all
the most fearful scourges for the purpose of putting out of existence
the race of people whom God in his anger subjected to his power.
Surely the spirit of cruelty, the genius of destruction, must have
been incarnate in the man who wrote thus: 'I burned all along the
Lough (Neagh) within four miles of Dungannon, and killed 100 people,
sparing none, of what quality, age, or sex soever, besides _many
burned to death_. We killed man, _woman and child_, horse, beast, and
whatsoever we could find.'

At the time of the flight of the earls, however, he was very anxious
about the safety of the kingdom. He was aware that the people were
universally discontented, he had but few troops in the country,
and little or no money in the treasury, so that in case of a sudden
invasion, it was quite possible that the maddened population would
rise and act in their own way upon his own merciless policy of
extermination. He therefore hastened to issue a proclamation for the
purpose of reassuring the inhabitants of Ulster, and persuading
them that they would not suffer in any way by the desertion of
their chiefs. In this proclamation, headed by 'The _Lord Deputy
and Counsell_,' it was stated that Tyrone and Tyrconnel and their
companions had lately embarked themselves at Lough Swilly and had
secretly and suddenly departed out of this realm without license or
notice. The Government was as yet uncertain about their purpose
or destination. But inasmuch as the manner of their departure,
considering the quality of their persons, might raise many doubts
in the minds of his majesty's loving subjects in those parts, and
especially the common sort of people inhabiting the counties of
Tyrone and Tyrconnel, who might suppose they were in danger to suffer
prejudice in their _lands_ and goods for the contempt or offence of
the earls,--they were solemnly assured that they had nothing whatever
to fear. The words of the proclamation on this point are: 'We do
therefore in his majesty's name declare, proclaim, and publish that
all and every his majesty's good and loyal subjects inhabiting those
countries of Tyrone and Tyrconnel shall and may quietly and securely
possess and enjoy all and singular _their lands and goods_ without the
trouble or molestation of any of his majesty's officers or ministers
or any other person or persons whatsoever as long as they disturb not
his majesty's peace, but live as dutiful and obedient subjects. And
forasmuch as the said earls to whom his majesty, reposing special
trust in their loyalty, had committed the government of the said
several countries are now undutifully departed, therefore his Majesty
doth graciously receive all and every of his said loyal subjects into
his own immediate safeguard and protection, giving them full assurance
to defend them and every of them by his kingly power from all violence
or wrong, which any loose persons among themselves or any foreign
force shall attempt against them. And to that end, we the lord deputy
and council have made choice of certain commissioners as well Irish as
English, residing in the said several countries, not only to preserve
the public peace there, but also to administer speedy and indifferent
justice to all his majesty's loving subjects in those parts, which
shall have any cause of complaint before them.' All governors, mayors,
sheriffs, justices of peace, provost-marshals, bailiffs, constables,
and all other his majesty's ministers whatsoever were strictly charged
to use their utmost endeavours faithfully and diligently to keep the
people in their duty and obedience to his majesty and the laws of the
realm.

The assurance thus given that the subjects and tenants of the
absconding princes should securely possess and enjoy their lands and
be protected from all oppression under the sceptre of King James would
have been very satisfactory had the royal promise been realised,
but conciliation was then absolutely necessary, for the lord deputy
himself stated that 'the kingdom had not been in the like danger these
hundred years, as we have but few friends and no means of getting
more.' The foregoing proclamation was issued from Rathfarnham on
September 10. On November 9 following, another proclamation of a
general nature was published and widely circulated in order to justify
the course the Government adopted. According to this document it was
known to all the world 'how infinitely' the fugitive earls had been
obliged to the king for his singular grace and mercy in giving them
free pardon for many heinous and execrable treasons, above all hope
that they could in reason conceive, and also in restoring the one to
his lands and honours justly forfeited, and in raising the other 'from
a very mean estate to the degree and title of an earl, giving him
withal large possessions for the support of that honour, before either
of them had given any proof of loyalty, or merited the least favour.'
Even in the point of religion, which served as a cloak for all their
treasons, they got no provocation or cause of grievance. For these and
other causes it was announced that his majesty would seize and take
into his hands all the lands and goods of the said fugitives. But
he would, notwithstanding, extend such grace and favour to the
loyal inhabitants of their territories that none of them should be
'impeached, troubled, or molested in _their own lands_, goods, or
bodies, they continuing in their loyalty, _and yielding unto his
majesty such rents and duties as shall be agreeable to justice and
equity_.' This assurance was repeated again emphatically in these
words: 'His most excellent majesty doth take all the good and loyal
inhabitants of the said countries, together with their wives and
children, land and goods, into his own immediate protection, to defend
them in general against all rebellions and invasions, and to right
them in all their wrongs and oppressions, offered or to be offered
unto them by any person whatsoever, etc.'




CHAPTER VIII.

THE CASE OF THE FUGITIVE EARLS.


Before proceeding to notice the manner in which these promises of
justice, equity, and protection to the occupiers of the land were
fulfilled, it is well to record here the efforts made by King James
and his ambassador to discredit the fugitive earls on the Continent,
and the case which they made out for themselves in the statement of
wrongs and grievances which they addressed to the king soon after.
There was great alarm in England when news arrived of the friendly
reception accorded to the Irish chiefs by the continental sovereigns
through whose dominions they passed, and especially by the King of
Spain, who was suspected of intending another invasion of Ireland.
Consequently the most active preparations were made to meet the
danger. In every street of the metropolis drums were beating for
recruits, and large detachments were sent in all possible haste to
reinforce the Irish garrisons. Sir Charles Cornwallis was then English
ambassador at Madrid; and lest his diplomatic skill should not be up
to the mark, James himself sent him special and minute instructions as
to the manner in which he should handle the delicate subjects he had
to bring before the Spanish sovereign. There has been seldom a better
illustration of the saying, that the use of speech is to conceal
thought, than in the representations which the ambassador was
instructed to make about Irish affairs. Indeed Cornwallis had already
shown that he scarcely needed to be tutored by his sovereign. In a
preliminary despatch he had sent an account of his conversation with
Philip III.'s secretary of state about the fugitive earls. He told him
that though they had been guilty of rebellions and treasons they had
not only been pardoned, but loaded with dignities such as few or none
of the king's ancestors had ever bestowed on any of the Irish nation.
He had conferred upon them an absolute and, 'in a manner, unlimited
government in their own countries, nothing wanting to their ambitions
but the name of kings, and neither crossed in anything concerning
their civil government, nor so much as in act or imagination molested,
or in any sort questioned with, for their consciences and religion.'
He thought therefore that they would never have fled in such a way,
unless they had been drawn to Spain by large promises in the hope of
serving some future turns.

The secretary listened to this insinuation with much impatience, and
declared solemnly, laying his hand on his breast with an oath, that of
the departure and intention of the earls there was no more knowledge
given to the king or any of his state than to the ambassador himself.
He added that there had been much consumption of Spanish treasure by
supporting strangers who had come from all parts. In particular they
had a bitter taste of those who had come from James's dominions; and
they would have suffered much more, 'if they had not made a resolute
and determined stop to the running of that fountain and refused to
give ear to many overtures.' The ambassador expressed his satisfaction
at this assurance, and then endeavoured to show how unworthy those
Irish princes were of the least encouragement. Their flight was the
result of madness, they departed without any occasion of 'earthly
distaste' or offence given them by their sovereign, whose position
towards the Irish was very different from that of the late queen.
Elizabeth had employed against their revolts and rebellions only her
own subjects of England, who were not accustomed either to the diet
of that savage country, or to the bogs, and other retreats which that
wild people used. But now, the king his master, being possessed of
Scotland, had in that country, 'near adjoining to the north part of
Ireland, a people of their own fashion, diet, and disposition, that
could walk their bogs as well as themselves, live with their food,
and were so well practised and accustomed in their own country to
the like, that they were as apt to pull them out of their dens and
withdrawing places, as ferrets to draw rabbits out of their burrows.'
Moreover all other parts of Ireland were now reduced to such
obedience, and so civil a course, and so well planted with a mixture
of English, that there was not a man that showed a forehead likely to
give a frown against his majesty, or his government. Cornwallis went
on to plead the incomparable virtues of the king his master, among
which liberality and magnificence were not the least. But if he had
given largely, it was upon a good exchange, for he had sowed money,
which of itself can do nothing, and had reaped hearts that can do
all. As for the alleged number of 'groaning Catholics,' he assured
the secretary that there were hardly as many hundreds as the fugitives
reckoned thousands.

According to his report the minister heard him with great attention,
and at the conclusion protested, that he joined with him in opinion
that those fugitives were dangerous people and that the Jesuits were
turbulent and busy men. He assured him on the word of a caballero,
that his majesty and council had fully determined never to receive or
treat any more of those 'straying people;' as they had been put to
great inconvenience and cost, how to deliver themselves from those
Irish vagabonds, and continual begging pretenders.

This despatch, dated October 28, 1607, was crossed on the way by one
from the English minister Salisbury, dated the 27th, giving the
king's instructions 'concerning those men that are fled into Spain.'
Cornwallis was directed not to make matters worse than they really
were, because the end must be good, 'what insolencies soever the
Jesuits and pack of fugitives there might put on. King James knew that
this remnant of the northern Irish traitors had been as full of malice
as flesh and blood could be, no way reformed by the grace received,
but rather sucking poison out of the honey thereof.' He knew also that
they had absolutely given commission to their priests and others to
abandon their sovereign if Spain would entertain their cause. But this
he could not demonstrably prove _in foro judicii_, though clear _in
foro conscientiae_, and therefore punishment would savour of rigour.
So long as things were in that state his majesty was obliged to suffer
adders in his bosom, and give them means to gather strength to his
own prejudice, whereas now the whole country which they had possessed
would be made of great use both for strength and profit to the king.
What follows should be given in his majesty's own words:--

'Those poor creatures who knew no kings but those petty lords, under
the burden of whose tyranny they have ever groaned, do now with great
applause desire to be protected by the immediate power, and to receive
correction only from himself, so as if the council of Spain shall
conceive that they have now some great advantage over this state,
where it shall appear what a party their king may have if he shall
like to support it, there may be this answer: that those Irish without
the King of Spain are poor worms upon earth; and that when the King of
Spain shall think it time to begin with Ireland, the king my master is
more like than Queen Elizabeth was, to find a wholesomer place of the
King of Spain's, where he would be loath to hear of the English, and
to show the Spaniards who shall be sent into Ireland as fair a way as
they were taught before. In which time the more you speak of the base,
insulting, discoursing fugitives, the more proper it will be for you.
In the meantime upon their departure, not a man hath moved, neither
was there these thirty years more universal obedience than there is
now. Amongst the rest of their barbarous lies I doubt not but they
will pretend protection for religion, and breach of promise with them;
wherein you may safely protest this, that for any, of all those that
are gone, there never was so much as an offer made to search their
consciences.'

Not content with the labours of his ambassadors at the various
continental courts, to damage the cause of the Irish earls, the king
issued a proclamation, which was widely dispersed abroad. His majesty
said he thought it better to clear men's judgments concerning the
fugitives, 'not in respect of any worth or value in these men's
persons, being base and rude in their original,' but to prevent any
breach of friendship with other princes. For this purpose he declared
that Tyrone and Tyrconnel had not their creation or possessions in
regard of any lineal or lawful descent from ancestors of blood or
virtue, but were only conferred by the late queen and himself for some
reasons of state. Therefore, he judged it needless to seek for
many arguments 'to confirm whatsoever should be said of these men's
corruption and falsehood, whose heinous offences remained so fresh in
memory since they declared themselves so very monsters in nature, as
they did not only withdraw themselves from their personal obedience to
their sovereign, but were content to sell over their native country,
to those who stood at that time in the highest terms of hostility with
the crowns of England and Ireland.' 'Yet,' adds the king, 'to make the
absurdity and ingratitude of the allegation above mentioned so much
the more clear to all men of equal judgment, we do hereby profess
in word of a king that there was never so much as any shadow of
molestation, nor purpose of proceeding in any degree against them
for matter concerning religion:--such being their condition and
profession, to think murder no fault, marriage of no use, nor any
man worthy to be esteemed valiant that did not glory in rapine and
oppression, as we should have thought it an unreasonable thing to
trouble them for any different point in religion, before any man could
perceive by their conversation that they made truly conscience of any
religion. The king thought these declarations sufficient to disperse
and to discredit all such untruths as these contemptible creatures, so
full of infidelity and ingratitude, should discharge against him and
his just and moderate proceedings, and which should procure unto them
no better usage than they would wish should be afforded to any such
pack of rebels born their subjects and bound unto them in so many and
so great obligations.'

Such was the case of the English Government presented to the world
by the king and his ministers. Let us now hear what the personages
so heartily reviled by them had to say for themselves. The Rev. C.P.
Meehan has brought to light the categorical narratives, which the
earls dictated, and which had lain unpublished among the 'old historic
rolls,' in the Public Record Office, London. These documents are of
great historic interest, as are many other state-papers now first
published in his valuable work.[1] O'Neill's defence is headed,
'Articles Exhibited by the Earl of Tyrone to the King's Most Excellent
Majesty, declaring certain Causes of Discontent offered Him, by which
he took occasion to Depart His Country.' The statement is divided
into twenty items, of which the following is the substance: It was
proclaimed by public authority in his manor of Dungannon, that none
should hear mass upon pain of losing his goods and imprisonment, and
that no ecclesiastical person should enjoy any cure or dignity without
swearing the oath of supremacy and embracing the contrary religion,
and those who refused so to do were actually deprived of their
benefices and dignities, in proof of which the earl referred to the
lord deputy's answer to his own petition, and to the Lord Primate of
Ireland, who put the persecuting decree into execution. The Earl
of Devon, then lord-lieutenant, had taken from him the lands of his
ancestors called the Fews, in Armagh, and given them to other persons.
He was deprived of the annual tribute of sixty cows from Sir Cahir
O'Dogherty's country called Inishowen, which tribute had never been
brought into question till James's reign. The same lord-lieutenant had
taken from him the fishings of the Bann, which always belonged to his
ancestors, and which he was forced to purchase again. Portions of his
territory had been taken 'under colour of church-lands, a thing never
in any man's memory heard of before.' One Robert Leicester an attorney
had got some more of the earl's land, which he transferred to Captain
Leigh. 'So as any captain or clerk had wanted means, and had no other
means or device to live, might bring the earl in trouble for some part
or parcel of his living, falsely inventing the same, to be concealed
or church-land.' The Archbishop of Armagh and the Bishop of Derry
and Clogher claimed the best part of the earl's whole estate, as
appertaining to their bishoprics, 'which was never moved by any other
predecessors before, other than that they had some _chiefry_ due to
them, in most part of all his living, and would now have the whole
land to themselves as their domain lands, not content with the benefit
of their ancient registers, which the earl always offered, and
was willing to give without further question. O'Cahan, 'one of the
chiefest and principalest of the earl's tenants, was set upon by
certain of his majesty's privy council, as also by his highness's
counsel-at-law, to withdraw himself and the lands called
_Iraght-I-Cahan_ from the earl, being a great substance of his
living;' and this although O'Cahan had no right to the property except
as his _tenant at will_, yielding and paying all such rents, dues,
and reservations as the other tenants did. He complained that at
the council table in Dublin it was determined to take two-thirds of
O'Cahan's country from him; and he perceived by what Sir John Davis
said, that they had determined to take the other third also. They
further made claim in his majesty's behalf to four other parcels of
the earl's land, which he named, being the substance of all that was
left, and began their suit for the same in the court of exchequer.
In fine he felt that he could not assure himself of anything by the
letters patent he had from the king. Whenever he had recourse to law
his proceedings were frustrated by the government; so that he could
not get the benefit of his majesty's laws, or the possession of his
lands; 'and yet any man, of what degree soever, obtained the extremity
of the law with favour against him, in any suit.' Although the king
had allowed him to be lieutenant of his country, yet he had no more
command there than his boy; the worst man that belonged to the sheriff
could command more than he, and that even in the earl's own house. If
they wanted to arrest any one in the house they would not wait till
he came out, but burst open the doors, and 'never do the earl so much
honour in any respect as once to acquaint him therewith, or to send to
himself for the party, though he had been within the house when they
would attempt these things; and if any of the earl's officers would
by his direction order or execute any matter betwixt his own tenants,
with their own mutual consent, they would be driven not only to
restore the same again, but also be first amerced by the sheriff, and
after indicated as felons, and so brought to trial for their lives
for the same; so as the earl in the end could scarce get any of his
servants that would undertake to levy his rents.' According to law the
sheriff should be a resident in the county, have property there, and
be elected by the nobility and chief gentlemen belonging to it; but
the law was set aside by the lord deputy, who appointed as sheriffs
for the counties Tyrone and Armagh Captain Edmund Leigh and one
Marmaduke Whitechurch, dwelling in the county of Louth, both being
retainers, and very dear friends to the Knight-marshal Bagenal, who
was the only man that urged the earl to his last troubles. Of all
these things 'the earl did eftsoons complain to the lord deputy,
and could get no redress, but did rather fare the worse for his
complaints, in respect they were so little regarded.'

[Footnote 1: Page 192.]

The earl understanding that earnest suit had been made to his majesty
for the presidentship of Ulster, made bold to write to the king,
humbly beseeching him not to grant any such office to any person over
himself, 'suspecting it would be his overthrow, as by plain experience
he knew the like office to be the utter overthrow of others of his
rank in other provinces within the realm of Ireland.' He also wrote
to the Earl of Salisbury, who replied that the earl was not to tie his
majesty to place or displace officers at his (the earl's) pleasure in
any of his majesty's kingdoms. This was not the earl's meaning, but it
indicated to him pretty plainly that he had no favour to expect from
that quarter. The office was intended for Sir Arthur Chichester, and
he much feared that it would be used for his destruction without
his majesty's privity. Therefore, seeing himself envied by those who
should be his protectors, considering the misery sustained by
others through the oppression of the like government, he resolved to
sacrifice all rather than live under that yoke.

The next item is very characteristic. The earl's nephew Brian M'Art
happened to be in the house of Turlough M'Henry, having two men in his
company. Being in a merry humour, some dispute arose between him and
a kinsman of his own, who 'gave the earl's nephew a blow of a club
on the head, and tumbled him to the ground; whereupon, one of his men
standing by and seeing his master down, did step up with the fellow
and gave him some three or four stabs of a knife, having no other
weapon, and the master himself, as it was said, gave him another,
through which means the man came to his death. Thereupon, the earl's
nephew and his two men were taken and kept in prison till the next
sessions holden in the county Armagh, where his men were tried by a
jury of four innocent and mere ignorant people, having little or no
substance, most of them being bare soldiers and not fit, as well by
the institution of law in matters of that kind as also through their
own insufficiency, to be permitted or elected to the like charge;
and the rest foster-brethren, followers, and very dear friends to the
party slain, that would not spare to spend their lives and goods to
revenge his death. Yet all that notwithstanding were they allowed,
and the trial of these two gentlemen committed to them, through which
means, and the vigorous threatening and earnest enticements of the
judges, they most shamefully condemned to die, and the jury in a
manner forced to find the matter murder in each of them, and that,
not so much for their own offences, as thinking to make it an evidence
against the master, who was in prison in the Castle of Dublin,
attending to be tried the last Michaelmas term, whose death, were it
right or wrong, was much desired by the lord deputy.

Again, the earl had given his daughter in marriage to O'Cahan with
a portion of goods. After they had lived together for eight years,
O'Cahan was induced to withdraw himself from the earl, and at the same
time, by the procurement of his setters on, he turned off the earl's
daughter, kept her fortune to himself, and married another. The
father appealed to the lord deputy for justice in vain. He then took
proceedings against O'Cahan, at the assizes in Dungannon. But the
defendant produced a warrant from the lord deputy, forbidding the
judges to entertain the question, as it was one for the Lord Bishop of
Derry. The Bishop of Derry, however, was the chief instigator of the
divorce, and therefore no indifferent judge in the case. Thus the
earl's cause was frustrated, and he could get no manner of justice
therein, no more than he obtained in many other weighty matters that
concerned him. The next complaint is about outrages committed by
one Henry Oge O'Neill, one Henry M'Felemey and others, who at the
instigation of the lord deputy, 'farther to trouble the earl,' went
out as a wood-kerne to rob and spoil the earl and his nephew, and
their tenants. They committed many murders, burnings, and other
mischievous acts, and were always maintained and manifestly relieved
amongst the deputy's tenants and their friends in Clandeboye, to whom
they openly sold the spoils. They went on so for the space of two
years, and the earl could get no justice, till at length they murdered
one of the deputy's own tenants. Then he saw them prosecuted, and the
result was, that the earl cut them all off within a quarter of a year
after. But the lord deputy was not at all pleased with this. Therefore
he picked up 'a poor rascally knave' and brought him to Dublin, where
he persuaded him to accuse above threescore of the earl's tenants of
relieving rebels with meat, although it was taken from them by force.
For the rebels killed their cattle in the fields, and left them dead
there, not being able to carry them away; burnt their houses,
took what they could of their household stuff, killed and mangled
themselves. 'Yet were they, upon report of that poor knave, who was
himself foremost in doing these mischiefs, all taken and brought
to their trial by law, where they were, through their innocency,
acquitted, to their no small cost; so as betwixt the professed enemy,
and the private envy of our governors, seeking thereby to advance
themselves, there was no way left for the poor subject to live.'

One Joice Geverard, a Dutchman, belonging to the deputy, was taken
prisoner on his way from Carrickfergus to Toome, and he was compelled
to pay to his captors a ransom of 30 l. For this the lord deputy
assessed 60 l. on the county, and appointed one-half of it to be taken
from O'Neil's tenants, being of another county, and at least twelve
miles distant from the scene of the outrage, perpetrated by a
wood-kerne, 'and themselves being daily killed and spoiled by the said
wood-kerne, and never no redress had to them.' Several outrages and
murders perpetrated by the soldiers are enumerated; but they were such
as might have been expected in a state bordering on civil war, which
was then the condition of the province. If, however, Tyrone is to be
believed, the rulers themselves set the example of disorder. Sir
Henry Folliott, governor of Ballyshannon, in the second year of his
majesty's reign, came with force of arms, and drove away 200 cows from
the earl's tenants, 'and killed a good gentleman, with many other poor
men, women, and children; and besides that, there died of them above
100 persons with very famine, for want of their goods; whereof the
earl never had redress, although the said Sir Henry could show no
reasonable cause for doing the same.'

Finally the earl saw that the lord deputy was very earnest to
aggravate and search out matters against him, touching the staining
of his honour and dignity, scheming to come upon him with some forged
treason, and thereby to bereave him of both his life and living. The
better to compass this he placed his 'whispering companion,' Captain
Leigh, as sheriff in the county, 'so as to be lurking after the earl,
to spy if he might have any hole in his coat.' Seeing then that the
lord deputy, who should be indifferent, not only to him but to
the whole realm, having the rod in his own power, did seek his
destruction, he esteemed it a strife against the stream for him to
seek to live secure in that kingdom, and therefore of both evils
he did choose the least, and thought it better rather to forego
his country and lands, till he had further known his majesty's
pleasure--to make an honourable escape with his life and liberty only,
than by staying with dishonour and indignation to lose both life,
liberty, and country, which much in very deed he feared. Indeed the
many abuses 'offered' him by Sir John Davis, 'a man more fit to be a
stage player than a counsel,' and other inferior officers, might be
sufficient causes to provoke any human creature, not only to forego
a country, were it ever so dear to him, but also the whole world, to
eschew the like government. And thus he concludes his appeal to
his 'most dread sovereign:' 'And so referring himself, and the due
consideration of these, and all other his causes, to your majesty's
most royal and princely censure, as his only protector and defender,
against all his adversaries, he most humbly taketh his leave, and will
always, as in bounden duty, pray.'

The Earl of Tyrconnel's statement contains no less than forty-four
items under the following heading: 'A note, or brief collection of
the several exactions, wrongs, and grievances, as well spiritual
as temporal, wherewith the Earl of Tyrconnel particularly doth find
himself grieved and abused by the king's law ministers in Ireland,
from the first year of his majesty's reign until this present year of
1607: to be presented to the king's most excellent majesty.'

_Imprimis_, all the priests and religious persons dwelling within
the said earl's territories were daily pursued and persecuted by his
majesty's officers. Sir Arthur Chichester told him, in the presence of
divers noblemen and gentlemen, that he must resolve to go to church,
or he would be forced to go. This was contrary to the toleration which
had been till then enjoyed, and he resolved rather to abandon lands
and living, yea, all the kingdoms of the earth, with the loss of his
life, than to be forced utterly against his conscience to any such
practice.

When Sir George Carew was lord deputy, Captain Nicholas Pynnar
and Captain Basil Brook, officers of the king's forces at Lifford,
plundered the earl's tenants there, taking from them 150 cows, besides
as many sheep and swine as they pleased. Not satisfied with this
spoil, they most tyrannically stripped 100 persons of all their
apparel. These outrages the earl complained of 'in humble wise' to the
lord deputy, and could find no remedy; for the same year the garrisons
of Lough Foyle, and Ballyshannon took from the earl's tenants 400 cows
for the victualling of the soldiers; and although the English council
wrote to the lord deputy, requiring him to pay for the cattle in
English money, the payment was never made. When, in pursuance of a
promise made to him by the lord deputy, he appeared before the king,
to get new letters patent of his territories, &c., his property, in
Sligo, Tyrawly, Moylurg, Dartry, Sir Cahir O'Dogherty's country,
and all Sir Nial O'Donel's lands, were excepted and kept from him,
together with the castle of Ballyshannon and 1,000 acres of land, and
the whole salmon-fishing of the river Erne, worth 800 l. a year, 'the
same castle being one of the earl's chieftest mansion houses.' They
also took from him 1,000 acres of his best land, and joined it to
the garrison of Lifford for the king's use, without any compensation.
There were seven sheriffs sent into Tyrconnel, by each of which there
was taken out of every cow and plough-horse 4 d., and as much out of
every colt and calf twice a year, and half-a-crown a quarter of every
shoemaker, carpenter, smith, and weaver in the whole country, and
eight pence a year for every married couple.'

Sir Nial O'Donel was committed to prison by Tyrconnel, for usurping
the title of O'Donel and taking his herds and tenants. 'He broke loose
from prison and killed some of his Majesty's subjects. For this the
earl prosecuted him under a special warrant from the lord deputy;
but notwithstanding all this, Carew gave warrants to Captains Pynnar,
Brook, and Bingley, to make reprisals upon the earl's tenants for the
pretender's use. Accordingly three English companies joining with nine
score of Sir Nial's men, seized and carried away 500 cows, 60 mares,
30 plough-horses, 13 horses, besides food and drink to support the
assailants for six weeks. They were guilty of many other extortions,
the country being extremely poor after the wars, and 17 of the earl's
tenants were hindered from ploughing that season. A certain horse-boy,
who was sentenced to be hanged for killing one Cusack, was promised
his life by Sir George Carew, if he accused Tyrconnel as having
employed him to commit the murder. The boy did make the accusation,
which served no purpose 'but to accelerate his hanging.' Thus
betrayed, he declared at the gallows, and in the presence of 400
persons, the sheriff of the county, and the portreve of Trim, he
retracted the false confession. A similar attempt was made with an
Englishman, who was kept a close prisoner without food, drink, or
light, in order to get him to accuse the earl of Cusack's murder.
All such, with many other of the said Carew's cruel and tyrannical
proceedings, the earl showed to the council in England, which promised
to give satisfaction by punishing the said Carew, who at his arrival
in England did rather obtain greater favours than any reprehension or
check of his doings, so as the earl was constrained to take _patience_
for a full satisfaction of his wrongs.

Sir Henry Docwra, governor of Derry, levied 100 l. off Tyrconnel's
tenants for the building of a church in that city, but the money was
applied by Sir Henry to his own use. Carew ordered the troops under
Sir H. Docwra, Sir H. Folliott, Sir Ralph Constable, Sir Thomas
Roper, and Captain Doddington, to be quartered for three months upon
Tyrconnel's people, 'where they committed many rapes, and used many
extortions, which the earl showed, and could neither get payment
for their victuals nor obtain that they should be punished for their
sundry rapes and extortions.' Indeed there was never a garrison in
Tyrconnel that did not send at their pleasure private soldiers into
the country to fetch, now three beeves, now four, as often as they
liked, until they had taken all; and when the earl complained,
Carew seemed rather to flout him than any way to right him. Sir H.
Folliott's company on one occasion took from his tenants thirty-eight
plough-horses, which were never restored or paid for; at another
time they took twenty-one, and again fourteen. This being done in the
spring of the year the tenants were hindered from ploughing as before.
During a whole year Folliott took for the use of his own house,
regularly every month, six beeves and six muttons, without any manner
of payment. Captain Doddington and Captain Cole made free with the
people's property in the same manner.

'All these injuries he laid in a very humble manner before the lord
deputy, but instead of obtaining redress he was dismissed by him in a
scoffing manner, and even a lawyer whom he employed was threatened by
Carew in the following terms:--that he and his posterity should smart
for his doings until the seventh generation; so that all the earl's
business was ever since left at random, and no lawyer dared plead in
his cause.'

Tyrconnel killed some rebels, and captured their chief, whom his men
carried to Sir H. Folliott to be executed. Sir Henry offered to spare
his life if he could accuse the earl of any crime that might work
his overthrow. He could not, and he was hanged. In order to settle
a dispute between the earl and Sir Nial, the English _protege_ and
pretender to the chieftainship, twelve tenants of each were summoned
to be examined by the king's officers in the neighbourhood. 'The
earl's men were not examined, but locked up in a room; and the
vice-governor, upon the false deposition of Sir Nial's men, directed
warrants, and sent soldiers to the number of 300, to bring all the
earl's tenants unto Sir Nial, to the number of 340 persons, who paid
half-a-crown a piece, and 12 d. for every cow and garron, as a fee
unto the captains, whereby they lost their ploughing for the space of
twenty-eight days, the soldiers being in the country all the while.
One Captain Henry Vaughan, being sheriff in the year 1605, got a
warrant to levy 150 l. to build a sessions house. He built the house
of timber and wattles. It was not worth 10_l_, and it fell in three
months. Nevertheless he levied every penny of the money, and the
people had to meet a similar demand the next year, to build another
house. It was a rule with the governors of the local garrisons to
offer his life to every convict about to be executed, and also a large
reward, if he could accuse the earl of some detestable crime. No less
than twenty-seven persons hanged in Connaught and Tyrone were offered
pardon on this condition. He was at the same sessions called to the
bar for hanging some wood-kerne, although he had authority from the
king to execute martial law. Shortly after, by the lord deputy's
orders, the horse and foot soldiers under Docwra and Folliott were
cessed upon the country, where they for four months remained, and paid
nothing for their charges of horse-meat or man's meat.' In the year
1606 the lord deputy came to Ballyshannon, where, being at supper, he
demanded of the earl what right he had to the several territories he
claimed. He replied that his ancestors had possessed them for 1,300
years, and that the duties, rents, and homages were duly paid during
that time. Whereupon the lord deputy said, 'the earl was unworthy to
have them, he should never enjoy them, the State was sorry to have
left so much in his possession, and he should take heed to himself
or else the deputy would make his pate ache.' The matters in dispute
between him and Sir Nial being referred on that occasion to the lord
deputy, both parties having submitted their papers for examination,
every case was decided against Tyrconnel, all his challenges
frustrated, 300 l. damages imposed, and his papers burned; while Sir
Nial's papers were privately given back to him. The result was that
at the next sessions Sir Nial had the benefit of all his papers,
his opponent having nothing to show to the contrary. The fishery
of Killybegs, worth 500 l. a season, had belonged to Tyrconnel's
ancestors for 1,300 years. But it was taken from him without
compensation, by Sir Henry Folliott and the Bishop of Derry, with
the ultimate sanction of the lord deputy, who confirmed the bishop in
possession 'both for that season and for all times ensuing.' Sir H.
Folliott on one occasion took away for his carriage the horses
that served the earl's house with fuel and wood for fire, 'and the
soldiers, scorning to feed the horses themselves, went into the earl's
house, and forcibly took out one of his boys to lead them, and ran
another in the thigh with a pike for refusing to go with him.' He
had a number of tenants, who held their lands 'by lease of years for
certain rents.' Yet the lord deputy sent warrants to them, directing
them to pay no rents, and requiring the Governor of Derry 'to raise
the country from time to time, and resist and hinder the earl from
taking up his rents.'

To crown all, when Tyrconnel made a journey into the Pale to know the
reason why he was debarred from his rents, he lodged on his way in the
Abbey of Boyle. He had scarcely arrived there when the constable of
the town, accompanied by twenty soldiers, and all the churls of the
place, surrounded and set fire to the house where he lay, he having no
company within but his page and two other serving men. 'But it befell,
through the singular providence of Almighty God, whose fatherly care
he hath ever found vigilant over him, that he defended himself and his
house against them all the whole night long, they using on the other
side all their industry and might to fire it, and throwing in of
stones and staves in the earl's face, and running their pikes at him
and swords until they had wounded him, besides his other bruisings,
with stones and staves in six places; they menacing to kill him,
affirming that he was a traitor to the king, and that it was the best
service that could be rendered to his majesty to kill him. And that
all this is true, Sir Donough O'Conor, who was taken prisoner by the
same men, because he would not assist them in their _facinorous_ and
wicked design of killing the earl, will justify; but in the morning
the earl was rescued by the country folk, which conveyed him safely
out of the town. And when the earl complained, and showed his wounds
unto the lord deputy, he promised to hang the constable and ensign,
but afterwards did not once deign so much as to examine the matter
or call the delinquents to account, by reason whereof the earl doth
verily persuade himself--which his surmise was afterwards confirmed
in time, by the credible report of many--that some of the State
were sorry for his escape, but specially Sir Oliver Lambert, who had
purposely drawn the plot of the earl's ruin.'

[Transcriber's note: marker for following footnote is missing in the
original]

[Footnote: Meehan's Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, pp. 192-224.]




CHAPTER IX.

THE CONFISCATION OF ULSTER.


Sir Toby Caulfield, accompanied by the sheriffs of Tyrone and
Tyrconnel, followed quickly the proclamation of the lord deputy to
the people of Ulster, and took possession of the houses, goods, and
chattels of the fugitive earls. Sir Toby was further empowered to act
as receiver over the estates, taking up the rents according to the
Irish usage until other arrangements could be made. His inventory
of the effects of O'Neill in the castle of Dungannon is a curious
document, showing that according to the ideas of those times in the
matter of furniture 'man wants but little here below.' The following
is a copy of the document taken from the memorandum roll of the
exchequer by the late Mr. Ferguson. It is headed, '_The Earl of
Tyrone's goods, viz._' The spelling is, however, modernised, and
ordinary figures substituted for Roman numerals.


_The Earl of Tyrone's Goods, viz._

                                                  L.   s.   d.

Small steers, 9 at 10 s.                           4   10   0

60 hogs, at 2 s. 6 d.                              7   10   0

2 long tables, 10 s.
2 long forms, 5 s.; an old bedstead, 5 s.
An old trunk, 3 s.; a long stool, 12 d.
3 hogsheads of salt, 28 s. 6 d.; all valued at     4   12   6

A silk jacket                                      0   13   4

8 vessels of butter, containing 4-1/2 barrels      5   17   6

2 iron spikes                                      0    2   0

A powdering tub                                    0    0   6

2 old chests                                       0    4   0

A frying-pan and a dripping-pan                    0    3   0

5 pewter dishes                                    0    5   0

A casket, 2 d.; a comb and comb case, 18 d.        0    1   8

2 dozen of trenchers and a basket                  0    0  10

2 eighteen-bar ferris                              0    6   0

A box and 2 drinking glasses                       0    1   3

A trunk 1; a pair of red taffeta curtains 1;
other pair of green satin curtains                 4    5   0

A brass kettle                                     0    8   6

'A payer of covyrons'                              0    5   0

2 baskets with certain broken earthen dishes and
some waste spices                                  0    2   0

Half a pound of white and blue starch              0    0   4

A vessel with 11 gallons of vinegar                0    3   0

17 pewter dishes                                   0   15   0

3 glass bottles                                    0    1   6

2 stone jugs, whereof 1 broken                     0    0   6

A little iron pot                                  0    1   6

A great spit                                       0    1   6

6 garrons at 80 s. apiece                          9    0   0

19 stud mares, whereof [some] were claimed by
Nicholas Weston, which were restored to him by
warrant, 30 l. 9 s. being proved to be his own,
and so remaineth                                  17    0   0

With respect to rents, Sir Toby Caulfield left a memorandum, stating
that there was no certain portion of Tyrone's land let to any of his
tenants that paid him rent, and that such rents as he received were
paid to him partly in money and partly in victuals, as oats, oatmeal,
butter, hogs, and sheep. The money-rents were chargeable on all the
cows, milch or in calf, which grazed on his lands, at the rate of
a shilling a quarter each. The cows were to be numbered in May and
November by the earl's officers, and 'so the rents were taken up at
said rate for all the cows that were so numbered, except only the
heads and principal men of the _creaghts_, as they enabled them to
live better than the common multitude under them, whom they caused to
pay the said rents, which amounted to about twelve hundred sterling
Irish a year.

'The butter and other provisions were usually paid by those styled
horsemen--O'Hagans, O'Quins, the O'Donnillys, O'Devolins, and others.'
These were a sort of middle men, and to some of them an allowance was
made by the Government. 'Thus for example, Loughlin O'Hagan, formerly
constable of the castle of Dungannon, received in lieu thereof a
portion of his brother Henry's goods, and Henry O'Hagan's wife and her
children had all her husband's goods, at the suit of her father Sir
G. O'Ghy O'Hanlon, who had made a surrender of all his lands to the
crown.'

The cattle were to be all numbered over the whole territory in one
day, a duty which must have required a great number of men, and sharp
men too; for, if the owners were dishonestly inclined, and were
as active in that kind of work as the peasantry were during the
anti-tithe war in our own time, the cattle could be driven off into
the woods or on to the lands of a neighbouring lord. However, during
the three years that Caulfield was receiver, the rental amounted
to 12,000 l. a year, a remarkable fact considering the enormous
destruction of property that had taken place during the late wars, and
the value of money at that time.

A similar process was adopted with regard to the property of O'Donel,
and guards were placed in all the castles of the two chiefs. In order
that their territories might pass into the king's possession by due
form of law, the attorney-general, Sir John Davis, was instructed to
draw up a bill of indictment for treason against the fugitive
earls and their adherents. With this bill he proceeded to Lifford,
accompanied by a number of commissioners, clerks, sheriffs, and a
strong detachment of horse and foot. At Lifford, the county town of
Donegal, a jury was empanelled for the trial of O'Donel, consisting
of twenty-three Irishmen and ten Englishmen. Of this jury Sir Cahir
O'Dogherty was foreman. He was the lord of Inishowen, having the
largest territories in the county next to the Earl of Tyrconnel. The
bill being read in English and Irish, evidence was given, wrote the
attorney-general, 'that their guilty consciences, and fear of losing
their heads, was the cause of their flight.' The jury, however, had
exactly the same sort of difficulty that troubled the juries in our
late Fenian trials about finding the accused guilty of compassing the
death of the sovereign. But Sir John laboured to remove their scruples
by explaining the legal technicality, and arguing that, 'whoso would
take the king's crown from his head would likewise, if he could, take
his head from his shoulders; and whoever would not suffer the king to
reign, if it lay in his power, would not suffer the king to live.' The
argument was successful with the jury. In all the conflicts between
the two races, whether on the field of battle or in the courts of law,
the work of England was zealously done by Celtic agents, who became
the eager accusers, the perfidious betrayers, and sometimes the
voluntary assassins of men of their own name, kindred, and tribe.

The commissioners next sat at Strabane, a town within two or three
miles of Lifford, where a similar jury was empanelled for the county
Tyrone, to try O'Neill. One of the counts against him was that he had
treasonably taken upon him the name of O'Neill. In proof of this a
document was produced: 'O'Neill bids M'Tuin to pay 60 l.' It was also
alleged that he had committed a number of murders; but his victims,
it was alleged, were criminals ordered for execution in virtue of the
power of life and death with which he had been invested by the queen.
He was found guilty, however; and Henry Oge O'Neill, his kinsman,
who was foreman of the jury, was complimented for his civility and
loyalty, although he belonged to that class concerning which Sir John
afterwards wrote, 'It is as natural for an Irish lord to be a thief
as it is for the devil to be a liar, of whom it was written, he was a
liar and a murderer from the beginning.'

True bills having been found by the grand juries, proceedings were
taken in the Court of King's Bench to have the fugitive earls and
their followers attainted of high treason. The names were:--'Hugh
earl of Tyrone, Rory earl of Tyrconnel, Caffar O'Donel, Cu Connaught
Maguire, Donel Oge O'Donel, Art Oge, Cormack O'Neill, Henry
O'Neill, Henry Hovenden, Henry O'Hagan, Moriarty O'Quinn, John Bath,
Christopher Plunket, John O'Punty O'Hagan, Hugh O'Galagher, Carragh
O'Galagher, John and Edmund M'Davitt, Maurie O'Multully, Donogh
O'Brien, M'Mahon, George Cashel, Teigue O'Keenen, and many other false
traitors, who, by the instigation of the devil, did conspire and plot
the destruction and death of the king, Sir Arthur Chichester, &c.; and
did also conspire to seize by force of arms the castles of Athlone,
Ballyshannon, Duncannon, co. Wexford, Lifford, co. Donegal, and with
that intent did sail away in a ship, to bring in an army composed of
foreigners to invade the kingdom of Ireland, to put the king to death,
and to dispose him from the style, title, power, and government of the
Imperial crown.'

The lord deputy and his officers, able, energetic, farseeing men,
working together persistently for the accomplishment of a well-defined
purpose, were drawing the great net of English law closer and closer
around the heads of the Irish clans, who struggled gallantly and
wildly in its fatal meshes. The episode of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty is
a romance. On the death of Sir John O'Dogherty, the O'Donel, in
accordance with Irish custom, caused his brother Phelim Oge to be
inaugurated Prince of Inishowen, because Cahir, his son, was then
only thirteen years of age, too young to command the sept. But this
arrangement did not please his foster brothers, the M'Davitts, who
proposed to Sir Henry Docwra, governor of Derry, that their youthful
chief should be adopted as the queen's O'Dogherty; and on this
condition they promised that he and they would devote themselves to
her majesty's service. The terms were gladly accepted. Sir Cahir was
trained by Docwra in martial exercises, in the arts of civility, and
in English literature. He was an apt pupil. He grew up strong and
comely; and he so distinguished himself before he was sixteen years
of age in skirmishes with his father's allies, that Sir Henry wrote
of him in the following terms: 'The country was overgrown with ancient
oak and coppice. O'Dogherty was with me, alighted when I did, kept me
company in the greatest heat of the fight, behaved himself bravely,
and with a great deal of love and affection; so much so, that I
recommended him at my next meeting with the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, for
the honour of knighthood, which was accordingly conferred upon him.'
The young knight went to London, was well received at court, and
obtained a new grant of a large portion of the O'Dogherty's country.
He married a daughter of Lord Gormanstown, a catholic peer of the
Pale, distinguished for loyalty to the English throne, resided with
his bride at his Castle of Elagh, or at Burt, or Buncranna, keeping
princely state, not in the old Irish fashion, but in the manner of an
English nobleman of the period; hunting the red deer in his forest,
hawking, or fishing in the teeming waters of Lough Foyle, Lough
Swilly, and the Atlantic, which poured their treasures around the
promontory of which he was the lord. His intimate associates were
officers and favourites of the king.

Docwra had given up the government of Derry and retired to England. He
was succeeded by Sir George Paulet, a man of violent temper. Sir Cahir
had sold 3,000 acres of land, which was to be planted with English;
and, in order to perfect the deed of sale, it was necessary to have
the document signed before the governor of Derry. It had been reported
to the lord deputy that Sir Cahir, not content with his position,
intended to leave the country, probably with the design of joining the
fugitive earls in an attempt to destroy the English power in
Ireland. He was therefore summoned before the lord deputy; and Lord
Gormanstown, Thomas Fitzwilliam of Merrion, and himself, were obliged
to give security that he should not quit Ireland without due notice
and express permission. This restraint had probably irritated his
hot impetuous spirit, and made it difficult for him to exercise due
self-control when he came in contact with the English governor of
Derry, with whom his relations were not improved by the suspicions now
attaching to his loyalty. Accordingly, while the legal forms of
the transfer were being gone through, the young chief made a remark
extremely offensive to Paulet, which was resented by a blow in the
face with his clenched fist. Instead of returning the blow, young
O'Dogherty hurried away to consult the M'Davitts, whose advice was
that the insult he received must be avenged by blood. The affair
having been immediately reported to the lord deputy, who apprehended
that mischief would come of it, he sent a peremptory summons to Sir
Cahir, requiring him to appear in Dublin, 'to free himself of certain
rumours and reports touching disloyal courses into which he had
entered, contrary to his allegiance to the king, and threatening the
overthrow of many of his majesty's subjects.' His two sureties were
also written to, and required to 'bring in his body.' But O'Dogherty
utterly disregarded the lord deputy's order. Taking counsel with Nial
Garve O'Donel, he resolved to seize Culmore Fort, Castle Doe, and
other strong places; and then march on Derry, and massacre the English
settlers in the market square.

Towards the close of April, Sir Cahir invited Captain Harte, governor
of Culmore Castle, on the banks of the Foyle, about four miles from
Derry, with his wife and infant child, of which he was the godfather,
to dine with him at his Castle of Elagh.

The entertainment was sumptuous, and the pleasures of the table
protracted to a late hour. After dinner the host took his guest into
a private apartment, and told him that the blow he had received from
Paulet demanded a bloody revenge. Harte remonstrated; O'Dogherty's
retainers rushed in, and, drawing their swords and skeines, declared
that they would kill his wife and child in his presence, unless he
delivered up the castle of Culmore. The governor was terrified, but
he refused to betray his trust. Sir Cahir, commanding the armed men to
retire, locked the chamber door, and kept his guest imprisoned
there for two hours, hoping that he would yield when he had time for
reflection. But finding him still inflexible, O'Dogherty grew furious,
and vented his rage in loud and angry words. Mrs. Harte, hearing the
altercation, and suspecting foul play, rushed into the room, and
found Sir Cahir enforcing his appeal with a naked sword pointed at her
husband's throat. She fell on the floor in a swoon. Lady O'Dogherty
ran to her assistance, raised her up, and assured her that she knew
nothing of her husband's rash design. The latter then thrust the whole
party down-stairs, giving orders to his men to seize Captain Harte.
Meantime, Lady Harte fell on her knees, imploring mercy, but the only
response was an oath that she and her husband and child should be
instantly butchered if Culmore were not surrendered. What followed
shall be related in the words of Father Meehan: 'Horrified by this
menace, she consented to accompany him and his men to the fort, where
they arrived about midnight. On giving the pass word the gate was
thrown open by the warder, whose suspicions were lulled when Lady
Harte told him that her husband had broken his arm and was then lying
in Sir Cahir's house. The parley was short, and the followers of
Sir Cahir, rushing in to the tower, fell on the sleeping garrison,
slaughtered them in their beds, and then made their way to an upper
apartment where Lady Harte's brother, recently come from England,
was fast asleep. Fearing that he might get a bloody blanket for his
shroud, Lady Harte followed them into the room, and implored the
young man to offer no resistance to the Irish, who broke open trunks,
presses and other furniture, and seized whatever valuables they could
clutch. Her thoughtfulness saved the lives of her children and
her brother; for as soon as Sir Cahir had armed his followers with
matchlocks and powder out of the magazine, he left a small detachment
to garrison Culmore, and then marched rapidly on Derry, where he
arrived about two o'clock in the morning. Totally unprepared for
such an irruption, the townsfolk were roused from their sleep by the
bagpipes and war-shout of the Clan O'Dogherty, who rushed into the
streets, and made their way to Paulet's house, where Sir Cahir, still
smarting under the indignity of the angry blow, satisfied his vow of
vengeance by causing that unhappy gentleman to be hacked to death with
the pikes and skeines of Owen O'Dogherty and others of his kindred.
After plundering the houses of the more opulent inhabitants, seizing
such arms as they could find, and reducing the young town to a heap
of ashes, Sir Cahir led his followers to the palace of Montgomery the
bishop, who fortunately for himself was then absent in Dublin. Not
finding him, they captured his wife, and sent her, under escort, to
Burt Castle, whither Lady O'Dogherty, her sister-in-law and infant
daughter, had gone without warders for their protection. It was on
this occasion that Phelim M'Davitt got into Montgomery's library and
set fire to it, thus destroying hundreds of valuable volumes, printed
and manuscript, a feat for which he is not censured--we are sorry to
have to acknowledge it--by Philip O'Sullivan in his account of
the fact. Elated by this successful raid, Sir Cahir called off his
followers and proceeded to beleaguer Lifford, where there was a small
garrison of English who could not be induced to surrender, although
suffering severely from want of provisions. Finding all his attempts
to reduce the place ineffectual, he sent for the small force he had
left in Culmore to join the main body of his partisans, and then
marched into M'Swyne Doe's country.'

Meantime news of these atrocities reached Dublin, and the lord deputy
immediately sent a force of 3,000 men, commanded by Sir Richard
Wingfield, Sir Thomas Roper, and Sir Toby Caulfield, with instructions
to pursue the revolted Irish into their fastnesses and deal with them
summarily. He himself set out to act with the troops, and on reaching
Dundalk published a proclamation, in which he offered pardon to
all who laid down their arms, or would use them in killing their
associates. He took care, however, to except Phelim M'Davitt from all
hope of mercy, consigning him to be dealt with by a military tribunal.
The English force in the interval had made their way into O'Dogherty's
country, and coming before Culmore, found it abandoned by the Irish,
who, unable to carry off the heavy guns, took the precaution of
burying them in the sea. Burt Castle surrendered without a blow.
Wingfield immediately liberated the inmates, and sent Bishop
Montgomery's wife to her husband, and Lady O'Dogherty, her infant
daughter and sister-in-law, to Dublin Castle. As for Sir Cahir,
instead of going to Castle Doe, he resolved to cross the path of the
English on their march to that place, and coming up with them in the
vicinity of Kilmacrenan, he was shot dead by a soldier. The death of
the young chieftain spread panic among his followers, most of
whom flung away their arms, betook themselves to flight, and were
unmercifully cut down. Sir Cahir's head was immediately struck off and
sent to Dublin, where it was struck upon a pole at the east gate of
the city.

O'Dogherty's country was now confiscated, and the lord deputy,
Chichester, was rewarded with the greatest portion of his lands. But
what was to be done with the people? In the first instance they were
driven from the rich lowlands along the borders of Lough Foyle and
Lough Swilly, and compelled to take refuge in the mountain fastnesses
which stretched to a vast extent from Moville westward along the
Atlantic coast. But could those 'idle kerne and swordsmen,' thus
punished with loss of lands and home for the crimes of their chief,
be safely trusted to remain anywhere in the neighbourhood of the new
English settlers? Sir John Davis and Sir Toby Caulfield thought of
a plan by which they could get rid of the danger. The illustrious
Gustavus Adolphus was then fighting the battles of Protestantism
against the house of Austria. In his gallant efforts to sustain the
cause of the Reformation every true Irish Protestant sympathised, and
none more than the members of the Irish Government. To what better
use, then, could the 'loose Irish kerne and swordsmen' of Donegal be
turned than to send them to fight in the army of the King of Sweden?
Accordingly 6,000 of the able-bodied peasantry of Inishown were
shipped off for this service. Sir Toby Caulfield, founder of the
house of Charlemont, was commissioned to muster the men and have them
transported to their destination, being paid for their keep in the
meantime. A portion of his account ran thus: 'For the dyett of 80 of
said soldiers for 16 daies, during which tyme they were kept in prison
in Dungannon till they were sent away, at iiiid le peece per diem;
allso for dyett of 72 of said men kept in prison at Armagh till they
were sent away to Swethen, at iiiid le peece per diem,' &c., &c.
Caulfield was well rewarded for these services; and Captain Sandford,
married to the niece of the first Earl of Charlemont, obtained a
large grant of land on the same score. This system of clearing out the
righting men among the Irish was continued till 1629, when the lord
deputy, Falkland, wrote that Sir George Hamilton, a papist, then
impressing soldiers in Tyrone and Antrim, was opposed by one
O'Cullinan, a priest, who was rash enough to advise the people to stay
at home and have nothing to do with the Danish wars. For this he was
arrested, committed to Dublin Castle, tortured and then hanged.

With regard to the immediate followers of O'Dogherty in his insane
course, many of the most prominent leaders were tried by court-martial
and executed. Others were found guilty by ordinary course of law.
Among these was O'Hanlon, Sir Cahir's brother-in-law. Pie was hanged
at Armagh; and his youthful wife was found by a soldier, 'stripped of
her apparel, in a wood, where she perished of cold and hunger, being
lately before delivered of a child.' M'Davitt, the firebrand of the
rebellion, was convicted and executed at Derry. At Dungannon Shane,
Carragh O'Cahan was found guilty by 'a jury of his _kinsmen_' and
executed in the camp, his head being stuck upon the castle of that
place--the castle from which his brother was mainly instrumental in
driving its once potent lord into exile. At the same place a monk, who
was a chief adviser of the arch-rebel, saved his life and liberty by
tearing off his religious habit, and renouncing his allegiance to
the Pope. Father Meehan states that many of the clergy, secular and
regular, of Inishown might have saved their lives by taking the oath
of supremacy. It was a terrible time in Donegal. No day passed without
the killing and taking of some of the dispersed rebels, one betraying
another to get his own pardon, and the goods of the party betrayed,
according to a proviso in the deputy's proclamation. Among the
informers was a noble lady, the mother of Hugh Roe O'Donel and Rory
Earl of Tyronnel, who accused Nial Garve, her own son-in-law, of
complicity in O'Dogherty's revolt, for which she got a grant of some
hundreds of acres in the neighbourhood of Kilmacrenan.

The insurgent leaders and the dangerous kerne having been effectually
cleared off in various ways, the whole territory of Inishown was
overrun by the king's troops. The lord deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester,
with a numerous retinue, including the attorney-general, sheriffs,
lawyers, provosts-martial, engineers, and 'geographers,' made a grand
'progress,' and penetrated for the first time the region which was to
become the property of his family. It was a strange sight to the poor
Irish that were suffered to remain. 'As we passed through the glens
and forests,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'the wild inhabitants did as much
wonder to see the king's deputy as the ghosts in Virgil did to see
AEneas alive in hell.' In this exploring tour a thorough knowledge of
the country was for the first time obtained, and the attorney-general
could report that 'before Michaelmas he would be ready to present to
his majesty a perfect survey of six whole counties which he now hath
in actual possession in the province of Ulster, of greater extent of
land than any prince in Europe hath in his own hands to dispose of.' A
vast field for plantation! But Sir John Davis cautioned the Government
against the mistakes that caused the failure of former settlements,
saying, that if the number of the Scotch and English who were to come
to Ireland did not much exceed that of the natives, the latter would
quickly 'overgrow them, as weeds overgrow corn.'

O'Cahan, who was charged with complicity in O'Dogherty's outbreak, or
with being at least a sympathiser, had been arrested, and was kept,
with Nial Garve, a close prisoner in Dublin Castle. An anonymous
pamphleteer celebrated the victories that had been achieved by the
lord deputy, giving to his work the title, 'The Overthrow of an Irish
Rebel,' having for its frontispiece a tower with portcullis, and the
O'Dogherty's head impaled in the central embrazure. The spirit of the
narrative may be inferred from the following passage: 'As for Tyrone
and Co., or Tyrconnel, they are already fled from their coverts, and I
hope they will never return; and for other false hearts, the chief of
note is O'Cahan, Sir Nial Garve, and his two brothers, with others of
their condition. They have holes provided for them in the castle of
Dublin, where I hope they are safe enough from breeding any cubs to
disquiet and prey upon the flock of honest subjects.'

O'Cahan and his companion, however, tried to get out of the hole,
although the lord deputy kept twenty men every night to guard the
castle, in addition to the ordinary ward, and two or three of the
guards lay in the same rooms with the prisoners. Their horses had
arrived in town, and all things were in readiness. But their escape
was hindered by the fact that Shane O'Carolan, who had been acquitted
of three indictments, cast himself out of a window at the top of the
castle by the help of his mantle, which broke before he was half way
down; and though he was presently discovered, yet he escaped about
supper time. 'Surely,' exclaimed the lord deputy, 'these men do go
beyond all nations in the world for desperate escapes!' The prisoners
were subsequently conveyed to the Tower, where they remained many
years closely confined, and where they ended their days. Sir Allen
Apsley, in 1623, made a report of the prisoners then in his custody,
in which he said, 'There is here Sir Nial Garve O'Donel, a man that
was a good subject during the late queen's time, and did as great
service to the state as any man of his nation. He has been a prisoner
here about thirteen years. His offence is known specially to the Lord
Chichester. Naghtan, his son, was taken from Oxford and committed with
his father. I never heard any offence he did.'

While O'Cahan was in prison, commissioners sat in his mansion at
Limavaddy, including the Primate Usher, Bishop Montgomery of Derry,
and Sir John Davis. They decided that by the statute of 11 Elizabeth,
which it was supposed had been cancelled by the king's pardon, all his
territory had been granted to the Earl of Tyrone, and forfeited by
his flight. It was, therefore, confiscated. Although sundry royal and
viceregal proclamations had assured the tenants that they would not
be disturbed in their possessions, on account of the offences of their
chiefs, it was now declared that all O'Cahan's country belonged to
the crown, and that neither he nor those who lived under him had any
estate whatever in the lands. Certain portions of the territory were
set apart for the Church, and handed over to Bishop Montgomery. 'Of
all the fair territory which once was his, Donald Balagh had not now
as much as would afford him a last resting-place near the sculptured
tomb of Cooey-na-gall. O'Cahan got no sympathy, and he deserved
none; for he might have foreseen that the Government to which he sold
himself would cast him off as an outworn tool, when he could no
longer subserve their wicked purposes.'[1] 'Thus were the O'Cahans
dispossessed by the colonists of Derry, to whom their broad lands and
teeming rivers were passed, _mayhap_ for ever. Towards the close of
the Cromwellian war in Ireland, the Duchess of Buckingham, passing
through Limavaddy, visited its ancient castle, then sadly dilapidated,
and, entering one of the apartments, saw an aged woman wrapped in a
blanket, and crouching over a peat fire, which filled the room with
reeking smoke. After gazing at this pitiful spectacle, the duchess
asked the miserable individual her name; when the latter, rising and
drawing herself up to her full height, replied, "I am the wife of
the O'Cahan."'[Father Meehan dedicates his valuable work to the lord
chancellor of Ireland, the Right Hon. Thomas O'Hagan,--the first
Catholic chancellor since the Revolution. Descended from the O'Hagans,
who were hereditary justiciaries and secretaries to the O'Neill, he
is, by universal consent, one of the ablest and most accomplished
judges that ever adorned the Irish Bench. His ancestors were involved
in the fortunes of Tyrone. How strange that the representative of the
judicial and literary clan of ancient Ulster should now be the head of
the Irish magistracy!]

[Footnote 1: Meehan, p.317.]




CHAPTER X.

THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER.


In the account which the lord deputy gave of the flight of Tyrone
and Tyrconnel, he referred to the mistake that had been committed in
making these men proprietary lords of so large a territory, '_without
regard to the poor freeholders' rights, or of his majesty's service,
or the commonwealths, that are so much interested in the honest
liberty of that sort of men_.' And he considered it a providential
circumstance that the king had now an opportunity of repairing that
error, and of relieving the natives from the exactions and tyranny of
their former barbarous lords. How far this change was a benefit to
the honest freeholders and the labouring classes may be seen from the
reports of Sir Toby Caulfield to the lord deputy, as to his dealings
with those people. He complains of his ill success in the prosecution
of the wood-kerne. He had done his best, and all had turned to
nothing. When the news of the plantation came, he had no hope at all,
for the people then said it would be many of their cases to become
wood-kerne themselves out of necessity, 'no other means being left for
them to keep being in this world than to live as long as they could
by scrambling.' They hoped, however, that so much of the summer being
spent before the commissioners came down, 'so great cruelty would not
be showed as to remove them upon the edge of winter from their
houses, and in the very season when they were employed in making their
harvest. They held discourse among themselves, that if this course had
been taken with them in war time, it had had some colour of justice;
but being pardoned, and their land given them, and they having lived
under law ever since, and being ready to submit themselves to the
mercy of the law, for any offence they can be charged withal, since
their pardoning, they conclude it to be the greatest cruelty that was
ever inflicted upon any people.'

It is no wonder that Sir Toby was obliged to add to his report this
assurance: 'There is not a more discontented people in Christendom.'
It is difficult to conceive how any people in Christendom could be
contented, treated as they were, according to this account, which the
officer of the Government did not deny; for surely no people, in any
Christian country, were ever the victims of such flagrant injustice,
inflicted by a Government which promised to relieve them from the
cruel exactions of their barbarous chiefs--a Government, too, solemnly
pledged to protect them in the unmolested enjoyment of their houses
and lands. How little this policy tended to strengthen the Government
appears from a confession made about the same time by the lord deputy
himself. He wrote: 'The hearts of the Irish are against us: we have
only a handful of men in entertainment so ill paid, that everyone is
out of heart, and our resources so discredited, by borrowing and
not repaying, that we cannot take up 1,000 l. in twenty days, if the
safety of the kingdom depended upon it. The Irish are hopeful of the
return of the fugitives, or invasion from foreign parts.'

But the safety of England, do what she might in the way of oppression,
lay then, as it lay often since, and ever will lie, in the tendency
to division, and the instability of the Celtic character. The Rev. Mr.
Meehan, with all his zeal for Irish nationality, admits this failing
of the people with his usual candour. He says: 'These traits, so
peculiar to the Celtic character, have been justly stigmatised by a
friendly and observant Italian (the Nuncio Rinuccini) who, some thirty
years after the period of which we are writing, tells us that the
native Irish were behind the rest of Europe in the knowledge of
those things that tended to their material improvement--indifferent
agriculturists, living from hand to mouth--caring more for the sword
than the plough--good Catholics, though by nature barbarous--and
placing their hopes of deliverance from English rule on foreign
intervention. For this they were constantly straining their eyes
towards France or Spain, and, no matter whence the ally came, were
ever ready to rise in revolt. One virtue, however--intensest love of
country--more or less redeemed these vices, for so they deserve to be
called; but to establish anything like strict military discipline
or organisation among themselves, it must be avowed they had no
aptitude.' This, says Mr. Meehan, 'to some extent, will account for
the apathy of the Northern Catholics, while the undertakers were
carrying on the gigantic eviction known as the plantation of Ulster;
for, since Sir Cahir O'Dogherty's rebellion till 1615, there was only
one attempt to resist the intruders, an abortive raid on the city of
Derry, for which the meagre annals of that year tell us, six of the
Earl of Tyrone's nearest kinsmen were put to death. Withal the people
of Ulster were full of hope that O'Neill would return with forces to
evict the evicters, but the farther they advanced into this agreeable
perspective, the more rapidly did its charms disappear.

The proclamations against wood-kerne present a curious picture of
these 'plantation' times. The lord deputy, in council, understood
that 'many idle kerne, loose and masterless men, and other disordered
persons, did range up and down in sundry parts of this kingdom, being
armed with swords, targets, pikes, shot, head-pieces, horsemen's
staves, and other warlike weapons, to the great terror of his
majesty's well-disposed subjects, upon whom they had committed many
extortions, murders, robberies, and other outrages. Hence divers
proclamations had been published in his majesty's name, commanding
that no person of what condition soever, travelling on horseback,
should presume to carry more arms than one sword or rapier and dagger;
and that no person travelling on foot should carry any weapons at all.
Twenty days were allowed for giving the arms to the proper officers.
If the proclamation was not obeyed within that time, the arms were
to be seized for the king's use, and the bearers of them committed to
prison.

On July 21, 1609, a commission was issued by the crown to make
inquisition concerning the forfeited lands in Ulster after the flight
of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel. The commissioners included the
Lord-Deputy Chichester, the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, Sir John
Davis, attorney-general; Sir William Parsons, surveyor-general, and
several other public functionaries. This work done, King James, acting
on the advice of his prime minister, the Earl of Salisbury, took
measures for the plantation of Ulster, a project earnestly recommended
by statesmen connected with Ireland, and for which the flight of
O'Neill and O'Donel furnished the desired opportunity. The city of
London was thought to be the best quarter to look to for funds to
carry on the plantation. Accordingly, Lord Salisbury had a conference
with the lord mayor, Humphry Weld, Sir John Jolles, and Sir W.
Cockaine, who were well acquainted with Irish affairs. The result was
the publication of 'Motives and Reasons to induce the City of London
to undertake the Plantation in the North of Ireland.'

The inducements were of the most tempting character. It is customary
to speak of Ulster, before the plantation, as something like a desert,
out of which the planters created an Eden. But the picture presented
to the Londoners was more like the land which the Israelitish spies
found beyond Jordan--a land flowing with milk and honey. Among
'the land commodities which the North of Ireland produceth' were
these:--the country was well watered generally by abundance of
springs, brooks, and rivers. There was plenty of fuel--either wood,
or 'good and wholesome turf.' The land yielded 'store of all necessary
for man's sustenance, in such a measure as may not only maintain
itself, but also furnish the city of London yearly with manifold
provision, especially for their fleets--namely, with beef, pork, fish,
rye, bere, peas, and beans.' It was not only fit for all sorts of
husbandry, but it excelled for the breeding of mares and the increase
of cattle; whence the Londoners might expect 'plenty of butter,
cheese, hides, and tallow,' while English sheep would breed abundantly
there. It was also held to be good in many places for madder, hops,
and woad. It afforded 'fells of all sorts in great quantity, red deer,
foxes, sheep, lambs, rabbits, martins and squirrels,' &c. Hemp and
flax grew more naturally there than elsewhere, which, being well
regarded, would give provision for canvas, cables, cording, besides
thread, linen cloth, and all stuffs made of linen yarn, 'which are
more fine and plentiful there than in all the rest of the kingdom.'
Then there were the best materials of all sorts for building, with
'the goodliest and largest timber, that might compare with any in his
majesty's dominions;' and, moreover, the country was 'very plentiful
in honey and wax.'

The sea and the rivers vied with the land in the richness of their
produce. 'The sea fishing of that coast was very plentiful of all
manner of usual sea fish--there being yearly, after Michaelmas, for
taking of herrings, above seven or eight score sail of his majesty's
subjects and strangers for lading, besides an infinite number of boats
for fishing and killing.'

The corporation were willing to undertake the work of plantation if
the account given of its advantages should prove to be correct.
With the caution of men of business, they wished to put the glowing
representations of the Government to the test of an investigation by
agents of their own. So they sent over 'four wise, grave, and discreet
citizens, to view the situation proposed for the new colony.' The men
selected were John Broad, goldsmith; Robert Treswell, painter-stainer;
John Rowley, draper; and John Munns, mercer. On their return from
their Irish mission they presented a report to the Court of Common
Council, which was openly read. The report was favourable. A company
was to be formed in London for conducting the plantation. Corporations
were to be founded in Derry and Coleraine, everything concerning
the colony to be managed and performed in Ireland by the advice and
direction of the company in London. It was agreed between the Privy
Council and the City that the sum of 20,000 l. should be levied,
15,000 l. for the intended plantation, and 5,000 l. 'for the clearing
of private men's interest in the things demanded.' That 200 houses
should be built in Derry, and room left for 300 more. 'That 4,000
acres lying on the Derry side, next adjacent to the wherry, should be
laid thereunto--bog and barren mountain to be no part thereof, but
to go as waste for the city; the same to be done by indifferent
commissioners.'

The royal charters and letters clearly set forth the objects of the
plantation. James I., in the preamble of the charter to the town of
Coleraine, thus described his intentions in disposing of the forfeited
lands to English undertakers: 'Whereas there can be nothing more
worthy of a king to perform than to establish the true religion of
Christ among men hitherto depraved and almost lost in superstition;
to improve and cultivate by art and industry countries and lands
uncultivated and almost desert, and not only to stock them with
honest citizens and inhabitants, but also to strengthen them with
good institutions and ordinances, whereby they might be more safely
defended not only from the corruption of their morals but from their
intestine and domestic plots and conspiracies, and also from foreign
violence: And whereas the province of Ulster in our realm of Ireland,
for many years past, hath grossly erred from the true religion of
Christ and divine grace, and hath abounded with superstition, insomuch
that for a long time it hath not only been harassed, torn, and wasted
by private and domestic broils but also by foreign arms: We therefore,
deeply and heartily commiserating the wretched state of the said
province, have esteemed it to be a work worthy of a Christian prince,
and of our royal office, to stir up and recal the same province from
superstition, rebellion, calamity, and poverty, which heretofore
have horribly raged therein, to religion, obedience, strength, and
prosperity. And whereas our beloved and faithful subjects the mayor
and commonalty and citizens of our city of London, burning with a
flagrant zeal to promote such our pious intention in this behalf, have
undertaken a considerable part of the said plantation in Ulster, and
are making progress therein'.

King James, having heard very unsatisfactory reports of the progress
of the plantation, wrote a letter to the lord deputy in 1612,
strongly complaining of the neglect of the 'Londoners' to fulfil the
obligations they had voluntarily undertaken. He had made 'liberal
donations of great proportions of those lands to divers British
undertakers and servitors, with favourable tenures and reservations
for their better encouragement; but hitherto neither the safety of
that country, nor the planting of religion and civility among those
rude and barbarous people, which were the principal motives of that
project, and which he expected as the only fruits and returns of
his bounty, had been as yet any whit materially effected. He was not
ignorant how much the real accomplishment of the plantation concerned
the future peace and safety of that kingdom; but if there was no
reason of state to press it forward, he would yet pursue and effect
that object with the same earnestness, 'merely for the goodness and
morality of it; esteeming the settling of religion, the introducing
of civility, order, and government among a barbarous and unsubjected
people, to be acts of piety and glory, and worthy also a Christian
prince to endeavour.'

The king therefore ordered that there should be a strict inquiry into
the work done, because 'the Londoners pretended the expense of great
sums of money in that service, and yet the outward appearance of it
was very small.' The lord deputy was solemnly charged to give him
a faithful account without care or fear to displease any of his
subjects, English or Scottish, of what quality soever.'

Sir Josias Bodley was the commissioner appointed for this purpose. He
reported very unfavourably, in consequence of which his majesty
called upon the Irish society and the several companies to give him an
account of their stewardship. He also wrote again to the lord deputy
in 1615. The language the king uses is remarkable, as proving the
_trusteeship_ of the companies. Referring to Bodley's report he
said:--

'We have examined, viewed, and reviewed, with our own eye, every part
thereof, and find greatly to our discontentment the slow progression
of that plantation; some few only of our British undertakers,
servitors, and natives having as yet proceeded effectually by the
accomplishment of such things in all points as are required of them
by the articles of the plantation; the rest, and by much the greatest
part, having either done nothing at all, or so little, or, by reason
of the slightness thereof, to so little purpose, that the work seems
rather to us to be forgotten by them, and to perish under their hand,
than any whit to be advanced by them; some having begun to build and
not planted, others begun to plant and not built, and all of them, in
general, retaining the Irish still upon their lands, the avoiding of
which was the fundamental reason of that plantation. We have made
a collection of their names, as we found their endeavours and
negligences noted in the service, which we will retain as a memorial
with us, and they shall be sure to feel the effects of our favour and
disfavour, as there shall be occasion. It is well known to you that
if we had intended only (as it seems most of them over-greedily
have done) our present profit, we might have converted those large
territories to our escheated lands, to the great improvement of the
revenue of our crown there; but we chose rather, for the safety of
that country and the civilizing of that people, to part with the
inheritance of them at extreme undervalues, and to make a plantation
of them; and since we were merely induced thereunto out of reason of
state, we think we may without any breach of justice make bold with
their rights who have neglected their duties in a service of so much
importance unto us, and by the same law and reason of state resume
into our hands their lands who have failed to perform, according to
our original intention, the articles of plantation, and bestow them
upon some other men more active and worthy of them than themselves:
and the time is long since expired within which they were bound to
have finished to all purposes their plantation, so that we want not
just provocation to proceed presently with all rigour against them.'

He gave them a year to pull up their arrears of work, and in
conclusion said to Chichester: 'My lord, in this service I expect that
zeal and uprightness from you, that you will spare no flesh, English
or Scottish; for no private man's worth is able to counterbalance
the particular safety of a kingdom, which this plantation, well
accomplished, will procure.'

Two or three years later, Captain Pynnar was sent to survey the lands
that had been granted to the undertakers, and to report upon the
improvements they had effected. A few notices from his report will
give an idea of the state of Ulster at the commencement of this great
social revolution:--

Armagh was one of the six counties confiscated by James I. The
territory had belonged to the O'Neills, the O'Hanlons, the O'Carrols,
and M'Kanes, whose people were all involved more or less in the
fortunes of the Earl of Tyrone, who wielded sovereign power over this
portion of Ulster. The plantation scheme was said to be the work of
the Privy Council of Ireland, and submitted by them for the adoption
of the English Government. It was part of the plan that all the lands
escheated in each county should be divided into four parts, whereof
two should be subdivided into proportions consisting of about 1,000
acres a piece; a third part into proportions of 1,500 acres; and the
fourth in proportions of 2,000 acres. Every proportion was to be made
into a parish, a church was to be erected on it, and the minister
endowed with glebe land. If an incumbent of a parish of 1,000 acres he
was to have sixty; if of 1,500 acres, ninety; and if 2,000 acres, he
was to have 120 acres; and the whole tithes and duties of every
parish should be allotted to the incumbent as well as the glebe. The
undertakers were to be of several sorts. 1st, English and Scotch, who
were to plant their proportions with English and Scotch tenants; 2nd,
servitors in Ireland, who might take English or Scotch tenants at
their choice; 3rd, natives of the county, who were to be freeholders.

With respect to the disposal of the natives, it was arranged that the
same course should be adopted as in the county of Tyrone, which was
this: some were to be planted upon two of the small proportions, and
upon the glebes; others upon the land of Sir Art O'Neill's sons and
Sir Henry Oge O'Neill's sons, 'and of such other Irish as shall be
thought fit to have any _freeholds_; some others upon the portions of
such servitors as are not able to inhabit these lands with English or
Scotch tenants, especially of _such as best know how to rule and
order the Irish_. But the swordsmen (that is, the armed retainers or
soldiers of the chiefs) are to be transplanted into such other parts
of the kingdom as, by reason of the wastes therein, are fittest to
receive them, namely, into Connaught and some parts of Munster, where
they are to be dispersed, and not planted together in one place; and
such swordsmen, who have not followers or cattle of their own, to be
disposed of in his majesty's service.' This provision about planting
the swordsmen, however, was not carried out. The whole county of
Armagh was found to contain 77,300 acres of arable and pasture land,
which would make 60 proportions. That county, as well as other parts
of ancient Ireland, was divided into ballyboes, or townlands, tracts
of tillage land surrounding the native villages unenclosed, and held
in _rundale_, having ranges of pasture for their cattle, which were
herded in common, each owner being entitled to a certain number of
'collops' in proportion to his arable land. As these ballyboes were
not of equal extent, the English made the division of land by acres,
and erected boundary fences.

The primate's share in this county was 2,400 acres. The glebes
comprised 4,650 acres; the College of Dublin got 1,200, and the Free
School at Armagh 720; Sir Turlough M'Henry possessed 9,900 acres,
and 4,900 had been granted to Sir Henry Oge O'Neill. After these
deductions, there were for the undertakers 55,620 acres, making in all
forty-two proportions.

Number one in the survey is the estate of William Brownlow, Esq.,
which contained two proportions, making together 2,500 acres. Pynar
reported as follows: 'Upon the proportion of Ballenemony there is a
strong stone house within a good island; and at Dowcoran there is a
very fair house of stone and brick, with good lyme, and hath a strong
bawne of timber and earth with a pallizado about it. There is now laid
in readiness both lyme and stone, to make a bawne thereof, the which
is promised to be done this summer. He hath made a very fair town,
consisting of forty-two houses, all which are inhabited with
English families, and the streets all paved clean through; also two
water-mills and a wind-mill, all for corn, and he hath store of arms
in his house.'

Pynar found 'planted and estated' on this territory 57 families
altogether, who were able to furnish 100 men with arms, there not
being one Irish family upon all the land. There was, however, a number
of sub-tenants, which accounts for the fact that there was 'good store
of tillage.' Five of the English settlers were freeholders, having 120
acres each; and there were 52 leaseholders, whose farms varied in size
from 420 acres to 5; six of them holding 100 acres and upwards. This
was the foundation of the flourishing town of Lurgan.

Mr. Obens had 2,000 acres obtained from William Powell, the first
patentee. He had built a bawne of sods with a pallizado of boards
ditched about. Within this there was a 'good fair house of brick and
lyme,' and near it he had built four houses, inhabited by English
families. There were twenty settlers, who with their under-tenants
were able to furnish forty-six armed men. This was the beginning of
Portadown.

The fourth lot was obtained from the first patentee by Mr. Cope, who
had 3,000 acres. 'He built a bawne of lyme and stone 180 feet square,
14 feet high, with four flankers; and in three of them he had built
very good lodgings, which were three stories high.' He erected
two water-mills and one wind-mill, and near the bawne he had built
fourteen houses of timber, which were inhabited by English families.
This is now the rich district of Lough Gall.

It should be observed here that, in all these crown grants, the
patentees were charged crown rents only for the _arable_ lands
conveyed by their title-deeds, bogs, wastes, mountain, and unreclaimed
lands of every description being thrown in gratuitously; amounting
probably to ten or fifteen times the quantity of demised ground set
down in acres. Lord Lurgan's agent, Mr. Hancock, at the commencement
of his evidence before the Devon Commission, stated that 'Lord Lurgan
is owner of about 24,600 acres, with a population of 23,800, under the
census of 1841'--that is, by means of original reclamation, drainage,
and other works of agricultural improvement, Mr. Brownlow's 2,500
acres of the year 1619, had silently grown up to 24,600 acres, and
his hundred swordsmen, or pikemen, the representatives of 57 families,
with a few subordinates, had multiplied to 23,800 souls. Now Mr.
Hancock founds the tenant-right custom upon the fact that few, if any,
of the 'patentees were wealthy;' we may therefore fairly presume that
the _settlers built their own houses, and made their own improvements
at their own expense_, contrary to the English practice.' As the
population increased, and 'arable' land became valuable, bogs, wastes,
and barren land were gradually reclaimed and cultivated, through
the hard labour and at the cost of the occupying tenantry, until the
possessions of his descendants have spread over ten times the area
nominally demised by the crown to their progenitor. This process went
on all over the province.

Sixteen years passed away, and in the opinion of the Government the
London companies and the Irish Society, instead of reforming as Irish
planters, went on from bad to worse. Accordingly, in 1631, Charles I.
found it necessary to bring them into the Star Chamber. In a letter to
the lords justices he said:--

'Our father, of blessed memory, in his wisdom and singular care,
both to fortify and preserve that country of Ireland from foreign and
inward forces, and also for the better establishment of true religion,
justice, civility, and commerce, found it most necessary to erect
British plantations there; and, to that end, ordained and published
many politic and good orders, and for the encouragement of planters
gave them large proportions and privileges. Above the rest, his grace
and favour was most enlarged to the Londoners, who undertook the
plantation of a considerable part of Ulster, and were specially
chosen for their ability and professed zeal to public works; and yet
advertisements have been given from time to time, not only by private
men, but by all succeeding deputies, and by commissioners sent from
hence and chosen there, and being many of them of our council, that
the _Londoners for private lucre_ have broken and neglected both their
general printed ordinances and other particular directions given by us
and our council here, so as if they hall escape unpunished all others
will be heartened to do the like, and in the end expose that our
kingdom to former confusions and dangers; for prevention whereof we
have, upon mature advice of our councillors for those causes, caused
them to be questioned in our high court of Star-chamber here, whence
commission is now sent to examine witnesses, upon interrogatories, for
discovery of the truth; and because we understand that the Londoners
heretofore prevailed with some, from whom we expected better service,
that in the return of the last commission many things agreed under the
hands of most commissioners were not accordingly certified: Now that
our service may not surfer by like partiality, we will and require
you to have an especial eye to this business; and take care that this
commission be faithfully executed, and that no practice or indirect
means be used, either to delay the return or to frustrate the ends of
truth in every interrogatory.'

This proceeding on the part of the crown was ascribed to the influence
of Bishop Bramhall, who had come over with Lord Strafford as his
chaplain. The result was, that in 1632 the whole county of Londonderry
was sequestrated, and the rents levied for the king's use, the Bishop
of Derry being appointed receiver and authorised to make leases. The
lord chancellor, with the concurrence of the other judges, decreed
that the letters patent should be surrendered and cancelled. This
decree was duly executed.

Cromwell reinstated the companies in their possessions, and Charles
II., instead of reversing the forfeiture, granted a new charter. This
charter founded a system of protection and corporate exclusiveness,
the most perfect perhaps that ever existed in the three kingdoms.
He began by constituting Londonderry a county, and Derry city a
corporation--to be called Londonderry. He named the aldermen and
burgesses, who were to hold their offices during their natural lives.
He placed both the county and city under the control of 'the Irish
Society,' which was then definitely formed. He appointed Sir Thomas
Adams first governor, and John Saunders, deputy governor. He also
appointed the twenty-four assistants, all citizens of London. He
invested the society with full power 'to send orders and directions
from, this kingdom of England into the said realm of Ireland, by
letters or otherwise, for the ordering, directing, and disposing of
all and all manner of matters and things whatsoever of and concerning
the same plantation, or the disposition or government thereof. The
grant of property was most comprehensive:--

'We also will, and, by these presents for us, our heirs and
successors, do give, grant, and confirm to the said society of the
governor and assistants [London] of the new plantation in Ulster
within the realm of Ireland, and their successors: 'All that the city,
fort, and town of Derry, and all edifices and structures thereof, with
the appurtenances, in the county of the city of Derry aforesaid, in
the province of Ulster, in our realm of Ireland; and also the whole
island of Derry, with the appurtenances, and all lands and the whole
ground within the island of Derry aforesaid, in the said county of the
city of Derry, otherwise Londonderry, within the province of Ulster,
in our aforesaid realm of Ireland. And also all those lands next
adjacent to the said city or town of Derry, lying and being on or
towards the west part of the river of Loughfoyle, containing by
estimation four thousand acres, besides bog and barren mountains,
which said bog and barren mountains may be had and used as waste to
the same city belonging. And also all that portion and proportion
of land by the general survey of all the lands in the aforesaid late
county of Coleraine, now Londonderry, heretofore taken, called the
great proportion of Boughtbegg, lying and being in the barony or
precinct of Coleraine, now Londonderry, within the province of Ulster
aforesaid, in our said realm of Ireland; that is to say, all lands,
tenements, and other hereditaments, called and known by the names, and
situate, lying, and being in or within the several towns, villages,
hamlets, places, balliboes, or parcels of land following, that is to
say: Hacketbegg, being two balliboes of land; Aglakightagh, being two
balliboes of land; Altybryan, being one balliboe of land; Bratbooly,
being one balliboe of land; Hackmoore, being one balliboe of land;
Tirecurrin, being one balliboe of land; Edermale, being one balliboe
of land; Lennagorran, being one balliboe of land; Knockmult, being one
balliboe of land; Boughtmore, being one balliboe of land; Boughtbegg,
being one balliboe of land, &c.

'We will also, and by these presents for us, our heirs and successors,
do grant and confirm to the said society of the governor and
assistants [London] of the new plantation in Ulster, and their
successors, that they and their successors, and also all their
assigns, deputies, ministers, and servants shall and may have full
liberty of fishing, hawking, and fowling in all the places, tenements,
shores, and coasts aforesaid, at their will and pleasure.

'And that it shall and may be lawful to and for them and every of them
to draw and dry their nets, and pack the fishes there taken upon any
part of the shores and coasts aforesaid where they shall fish; and
the salmons and other fishes there taken to take thence and carry away
without any impediment, contradiction, or molestation of us or others
whomsoever, wheresoever it shall happen to be done.

'And that in like manner they may have the several fishings and
fowlings within the city of Londonderry aforesaid, and in all lands
and tenements before mentioned to be granted and confirmed to the said
society of the governor and assistants [London] of the new plantation
in Ulster and their successors, and in the river and water of
Loughfoile, to the ebb of the sea, and in the river or water of Bann
to Loughneagh.'

The grants were made without any reservation in favour of the tenants
or the old inhabitants, saving some portions of land given by letters
patent by his grandfather to 'certain _Irish gentlemen_ in the said
county of Londonderry, heretofore inhabiting and residing, and who
were heretofore made freeholders, and their successors, under a small
yearly rent,' which was to be paid to the Irish Society. Even the
Irish gentlemen were not allowed to hold their ancient inheritance
directly under the crown. I am informed that there is but one Roman
Catholic landed gentleman now remaining in the whole province of
Ulster.

The Londoners had extraordinary privileges as traders. They had free
quarters in every port throughout the kingdom, while they treated all
but the members of their own body as 'foreigners.' They knew nothing
of reciprocity:--'And further we will, and, by these presents for us,
our heirs and successors, do grant and confirm to the said mayor and
commonalty and citizens of our city of Londonderry aforesaid, that all
citizens of the said city of Londonderry and liberty of the same (as
much as in us is) be for ever quit and free, and all their things
throughout all Ireland, of all tolls, wharfage, murage, anchorage,
beaconage, pavage, pontage, piccage, stallage, passage, and lestage,
and of all other tolls and duties.'

The 'foreigners,' including all his majesty's subjects but the
favoured few within the walls of Derry, were forbidden to buy or sell,
or practise any trade in this sanctuary of freedom and head-centre
of 'civility.' 'And that merchants and others which are not of the
freedom of the city of Londonderry aforesaid shall not sell by
retail any wines or other wares whatsoever within the same city of
Londonderry, the suburbs, liberties, or franchises of the same, upon
pain of forfeiture for the things so bought, or the value thereof,
to the use of the mayor and commonalty and citizens of the city of
Londonderry aforesaid. And also that no person being a foreigner from
the freedom of the city aforesaid shall use or exercise within the
same city, liberties or suburbs of the same, any art, mystery, or
manual occupation whatsoever, to make his gain and profit thereof,
upon pain of forfeiture of forty shillings for every time wherein
such person shall use or exercise within the said city of Londonderry,
liberties, and suburbs of the same, any art, mystery, or manual
occupation as aforesaid.'

Foreigners were not allowed to buy from or sell to foreigners, and
there was to be no market for the accommodation of the unprivileged
inhabitants within seven miles of the city.

Similar exclusive privileges were conferred upon the corporation of
Coleraine. Such was the system established by the City of London in
its model communities in Ireland--normal schools of freedom, fountains
of civilising and Christianising influences which were to reclaim and
convert the barbarous and superstitious natives into loyal subjects
and enlightened Protestants! What the natives beheld in Londonderry
was, in fact, a royal organisation of selfishness, bigotry, and
monopoly, of the most intensely exclusive and repulsive character. In
one sense the Londoners in Derry showed that they peculiarly prized
the blessings of civilisation, for they kept them all to themselves.
The fountain was flowing in the most tempting manner before the
thirsty Irish, but let them dare to drink of it at their peril! A fine
which no Irishman was then able to pay must be the penalty for every
attempt at civilisation!

The representatives of Derry and Coleraine were not only elected
without cost, but paid for their attendance in Parliament.

From the very beginning, the greatest possible care was taken to
keep out the Irish. The society, in 1615, sent precepts to all the
companies requiring each of them to send one or two artisans, with
their families, into Ulster, to settle there; and directions were also
given, in order that Derry might not in future be peopled with Irish,
that twelve Christ's Hospital and other poor children should be sent
there as apprentices and servants, and the inhabitants were to be
prohibited from taking Irish apprentices. Directions were also given
to the companies, to repair the churches on their several proportions,
and furnish the ministers with a bible, common-prayer book, and a
communion cup. The trades which the society recommended as proper to
introduce into Ulster were, weavers of common cloth, fustians, and
new stuffs, felt-makers and trimmers of hats, and hat-band makers,
locksmiths and farriers, tanners and fellmongers, iron makers,
glass-makers, pewterers, coast fishermen, turners, basket-makers,
tallow-chandlers, dyers, and curriers.

The Christ's Hospital children arrived safe, and became the precious
seed of the 'prentice boys.

In 1629 the following return was made of the total disbursements by
the Londoners in Derry from January 2, 1609, to this year:--

                                                           L
For 77-1/2 houses at 140 l. a house                      10,850
For 33 houses at 80 l. a house                            2,680
For the Lord Bishop's house                                 500
For the walls and fortifications                          8,357
For digging the ditch and filling earth for the rampire   1,500
For levelling earth to lay the rampire                      500
For building a faggot quay at the water-gate                100
For two quays at the lime kilns                              10
For the building of the town house                          500
For the quays at the ferry                                   60
For carriage and mounting the ordnance                       40
For arms                                                    558
For a guardhouse                                             50
For the platforms for bulwarks                              300
For some work done at the old church                         40
For some work done at the town pike                           6
For sinking 22 cellars, and sundry of the houses not
done at first, at 20 s. cellar, one with another            440
For the building of lime kilns                              120
                                                         ______
                                                         26,611
                                                         ______
Sum total, as given in the Commissioners' account        27,197

The exclusive and protective system utterly failed to accomplish its
purpose in keeping out the Irish.

Sir Thomas Phillips made a muster-roll in 1622, in which he gives
110 as the number of settlers in the city of Derry capable of bearing
arms. There are but two Irish names in the list--Ermine M'Swine, and
James Doherty. The first, from his Christian name, seemed to have
been of mixed blood, the son of a judge, which would account for
his orthodoxy. But his presence might have reminded the citizens
unpleasantly of the Irish battle-axes. Never were greater pains taken
to keep a community pure than within the sacred precincts of the
Derry walls; and never was Protestantism more tenderly fostered by
the state--so far as secular advantages could do it. The natives
were treated as 'foreigners.' No trade was permitted except by the
chartered British. They were free of tolls all over the land, and for
their sake restrictions were placed on everybody that could in any way
interfere with their worldly interests. So complete was the system
of exclusion kept up by the English Government and the London
corporation, in this grand experiment for planting religion and
civility among a barbarous people, that, so late as the year 1708,
the Derry corporation considered itself nothing more or less than _a
branch of the City of London_! In that year they sent an address to
the Irish Society, to be presented through them to the queen. 'In this
address they stated themselves to be a branch of the City of London.
The secretary was ordered to wait upon the lord lieutenant of Ireland
with the address and entreat the favour of his lordship's advice
concerning the presenting of the same to her majesty.' A few days
after it was announced that the address had been graciously received,
and published in the _Gazette_.

The Irish were kept out of the enclosed part of the city till a late
period. In the memory of the present generation there was no Catholic
house within the walls, and I believe it is not much longer since
the Catholic servants within the sacred enclosure were obliged to go
outside at night to sleep among their kinsfolk. The English garrison
did not multiply very fast. In 1626 there were only 109 families
in the city, of which five were families of soldiers liable to
be removed. Archbishop King stated that in 1690 the whole of the
population of the parish, including the Donegal part, was about 700.

But the irrepressible Irish increased and multiplied around the walls
with alarming rapidity. The tide of native population rose steadily
against the ramparts of exclusion, and could no more be kept back than
the tide in the Foyle. In the general census of 1800 there were no
returns from Derry. But in 1814 it was stated in a report by the
deputation from the Irish Society, that the population amounted at
that time to 14,087 persons. This must have included the suburbs. In
the census of 1821 the city was found to have 9,313 inhabitants. The
city and suburbs together contained 16,971.

The report of the commissioners of public instruction in 1831 made a
startling disclosure as to the effect of the system of exclusion in
this 'branch of the City of London.' In the parish of Templemore (part
of) there were--

Members of the Established Church        3,166
Presbyterians                            5,811
Roman Catholics                          9,838

The report of 1834 gave the Roman Catholics, 10,299; the
Presbyterians, 6,083; and the Church only 3,314.

The figures now are--Catholics          12,036
Protestants of all denominations         8,839
Majority of Irish and Catholics in this
'branch of the City of London'           3,197

This majority is about equal to the whole number which the exclusive
system, with all its 'protection' and 'bounties,' could produce for
the Established Church in the course of two centuries! If the Irish
had been admitted to the Pale of English civilisation, and instructed
in the industrial arts by the settlers, the results with respect to
religion might have been very different. In the long run the Church
of Rome has been the greatest gainer by coercion. Derry has been a
miniature representation of the Establishment. The 'prentice boys,
like their betters, must yield to the spirit of the age, and submit
with the best grace they can to the rule of religious equality.

The plantation was, however, wonderfully successful on the whole. In
thirty years, towns, fortresses, factories, arose, pastures, ploughed
up, were converted into broad corn-fields, orchards, gardens, hedges,
&c. were planted. How did this happen? 'The answer is that it sprang
from the security of tenure which the plantation settlement supplied.
The landlords were in every case bound to make fixed estates to their
tenants at the risk of sequestration and forfeiture. Hence their
power of selling their plantation rights and improvements. This is the
origin of Ulster tenant-right.'

Yet the work went on slowly enough in some districts. The viceroy,
Chichester, was not neglected in the distribution of the spoils. He
not only got the O'Dogherty's country, Innishown, but a large tract in
Antrim, including the towns of Carrickfergus and Belfast. An English
tourist travelling that way in 1635 gives a quaint description of the
country in that transition period:--

On July 5 he landed at Carrickfergus, where he found that Lord
Chichester had a stately house, 'or rather like a prince's palace.'
In Belfast, he said, my Lord Chichester had another _daintie_, stately
palace, which, indeed, was the glory and beauty of the town. And there
were also _daintie_ orchards, gardens, and walks planted. The Bishop
of Dromore, to whom the town of Dromore entirely belonged, lived
there in a 'little timber house.' He was not given to hospitality, for
though his chaplain was a Manchester man, named Leigh, he allowed
his English visitor to stop at an inn over the way. 'This,' wrote the
tourist, 'is a very dear house, 8 d. ordinary for ourselves, 6 d. for
our servants, and we were overcharged in _beere_.' The way thence
to Newry was most difficult for a stranger to find out. 'Therein he
wandered, and, being lost, fell among the Irish _touns_.' The Irish
houses were the poorest cabins he had seen, erected in the middle of
fields and grounds which they farmed and rented. 'This,' he added,
'is a wild country, not inhabited, planted, nor enclosed.' He gave an
Irishman 'a groat' to bring him into the way, yet he led him, like a
villein, directly out of the way, and so left him in the lurch.

Leaving Belfast, this Englishman said: 'Near hereunto, Mr. Arthur
Hill, son and heir of Sir Moyses Hill, hath a brave plantation,
which he holds by lease, and which has still forty years to come.
The plantation, it is said, doth yield him 1,000 l. per annum.
Many Lancashire and Cheshire men are here planted. They sit upon a
rack-rent, and pay 5 s. or 6 s. for good ploughing land, which now is
clothed with excellent good _corne_.'

According to the Down survey, made twenty-two years later, Dromore had
not improved: 'There are no buildings in this parish; only Dromore, it
being a market town, hath some old thatched houses and a ruined church
standing in it. What other buildings are in the parish are nothing but
removeable _creaghts_.'

To the economist and the legislator, the most interesting portions
of the state papers of the 16th and 17th centuries are, undoubtedly,
those which tell us how the people lived, how they were employed,
housed, and fed, what measure of happiness fell to their lot, and what
were the causes that affected their welfare, that made them contented
and loyal, or miserable and disaffected. Contemporary authors, who
deal with social phenomena, are also read with special interest for
the same reason. They present pictures of society in their own time,
and enable us to conceive the sort of life our forefathers led, and to
estimate, at least in a rough way, what they did for posterity.

Harris was moved to write his 'History of Down' by indignation at
the misrepresentations of the English press of his day. They had the
audacity to say that 'the Irish people were uncivilised, rude, and
barbarous; that they delighted in butter _tempered_ with oatmeal,
and sometimes flesh without bread, which they ate raw, having
first pressed the blood out of it; and drank down large draughts of
usquebaugh for digestion, reserving their little corn for the horses;
that their dress and habits were no less barbarous; that cattle
was their chief wealth; that they counted it no infamy to commit
robberies, and that in their view violence and murder were in no way
displeasing to God; that the country was overgrown with woods, which
abounded in wolves and other voracious animals,' &c. It was, no doubt,
very provoking that such stories should be repeated 130 years
after the plantation of Ulster, and Harris undertook, with laudable
patriotism, to show 'how far this description of Ireland was removed
from the truth, from the present state of only one county in the
kingdom.' The information which the well-informed writer gives is most
valuable, and very much to the purpose of our present inquiry.

More than half the arable ground was then (in 1745) under tillage,
affording great quantities of oats, some rye and wheat, and 'plenty
of barley,' commonly called English or spring barley, making excellent
malt liquor, which of late, by means of drying the grain with Kilkenny
coals, was exceedingly improved. The ale made in the county was
distinguished for its fine colour and flavour. The people found the
benefit of '_a sufficient tillage_, being not obliged to take up
with the poor unwholesome diet which the commonalty of Munster and
Connaught had been forced to in the late years of scarcity; and
sickness and mortality were not near so great as in other provinces of
the kingdom.'

Yet the county Down seemed very unfavourable for tillage. The
economists of our time, perhaps our viceroys too, would say it was
only fit for bullocks and sheep. It was 'naturally coarse, and full of
hills; the air was sharp and cold in winter, with earlier frosts than
in the south, the soil inclined to _wood_, unless constantly ploughed
and kept open, and the low grounds degenerated into morass or bog
where the drains were neglected. Yet, by the constant labour and
industry of the inhabitants, the morass grounds had of late, by
burning and proper management, produced surprisingly large crops
of rye and oats. Coarse lands, manured with lime, had answered the
farmers' views in wheat, and yielded a great produce, and wherever
marl was found there was great store of barley. The staple commodity
of the county was linen, due care of which manufacture brought great
wealth among the people. Consequently the county was observed to be
'populous and flourishing, though it did not become amenable to the
laws till the reign of Queen Elizabeth, nor fully till the reign of
James I.' The English habit, language, and manners almost universally
prevailed. 'Irish,' says Harris, 'can be heard only among the inferior
rank of _Irish Papists_, and even that little diminishes every day, by
the great desire the poor natives have that their children should
be taught to read and write in the English tongue in the Charter, or
other English Protestant schools, to which they willingly send them.'
The author exults in the progress of Protestantism. There were but two
Catholic gentlemen in the county who had estates, and their income was
very moderate. When the priests were registered in 1704 there were but
thirty in the county. In 1733 the books of the hearth-money collectors
showed--

Protestant families in the county Down         14,000
Catholic families                               5,210
Total Protestants, reckoning five a family     70,300
Total Catholics                                26,050
                                               ______
Protestant majority                            44,250

Our author, who was an excellent Protestant of the 18th century type,
with boundless faith in the moral influence of the Charter schools,
would be greatly distressed if he could have lived in these degenerate
days, and seen the last religious census, which gives the following
figures for the county of Down:--

Protestants of all denominations              202,026
Catholics                                      97,240
                                              _______
Total population                              299,266

The total number of souls in the county in the year 1733 was 96,350.
These figures show that the population was more than trebled in 130
years, and that the Catholics have increased nearly fourfold.

The history of the Hertfort estate illustrates every phase of the
tenant-right question. It contains 66,000 acres, and comprises the
barony of Upper Massereene, part of the barony of Upper Belfast, in
the county of Antrim, and part of the baronies of Castlereagh and
Lower Iveagh, in the county of Down; consisting altogether of no
less than 140 townlands. It extends from Dunmurry to Lough Neagh, a
distance of about fourteen miles as the crow flies. When the Devon
commission made its inquiry, the population upon this estate amounted
to about 50,000. It contains mountain land, and the mountains are
particularly wet, because, unlike the mountains in other parts of the
country, the substratum is a stiff retentive clay. At that time there
was not a spot of mountain or bog upon Lord Hertfort's estate that
was not let by the acre. About one-third of the land is of first-rate
quality; there are 15,000 or 16,000 acres of mountain, and about the
same quantity of land of medium quality.

In the early part of Elizabeth's reign this property formed a section
of the immense territory ruled over by the O'Neills. One of these
princes was called the Captain of _Kill-Ultagh_. In those times, when
might was right, this redoubtable chief levied heavy contributions
on the settlers, partly in retaliation for aggressions and outrages
perpetrated by the English upon his own people. The queen, with the
view of effecting a reconciliation, requested the lord deputy, Sir H.
Sidney, to pay the Irish chief a visit. He did so, but his welcome
was by no means gratifying. In fact, O'Neill would not condescend to
receive him at all. His reason for exhibiting a want of hospitality
so un-Irish was this:--He said his 'home had been pillaged, his lands
swept of their cattle, and his vassals shot like wild animals.' The
lord deputy, in his notes of the northern tour, written in October,
1585, says:--'I came to Kill-Ultagh, which I found rich and plentiful,
after the manner of these countries. But the captain was proud and
insolent; he would not come to me, nor have I apt reason to visit
him as I would. But he shall be paid for this before long; I will not
remain in his debt.' The 'apt reason' for carrying out this threat
soon occurred. Tyrone had once more taken the field against the queen;
the captain joined his relative; all his property was consequently
forfeited, and handed over to Sir Fulke Conway, a Welsh soldier of
some celebrity. Sir Fulke died in 1626, and his brother, who was a
favourite of Charles I., succeeded to the estate, to which his royal
patron added the lands of Derryvolgie, thus making him lord of nearly
70,000 statute acres of the broad lands of Down and Antrim. The
Conways brought over a number of English and Welsh families, who
settled on the estate, and intermarrying with the natives, a race of
sturdy yeomen soon sprang up. The Conways were good landlords, and
greatly beloved by the people. With the addition made to the property
the king conferred upon the fortunate recipient of his bounty the
title of Baron. At the close of 1627, Lord Conway began the erection
of a castle (finished in 1630) on a picturesque mount overlooking
the Lagan, and commanding a view of the hills of Down. During the
struggles of 1641 the castle was burned down, together with
the greater part of the town, which up to this time was called
Lisnagarvah, but thenceforth it received the name of Lisburn. Very
little, however, had been done by the settlers when the outbreak
occurred, for an English traveller in 1635 remarked that 'neither the
town nor the country thereabouts was _planted_, being almost all woods
and moorish.' About a month after the breaking out of the rebellion
the king's forces, under Sir George Rawdon, obtained a signal victory
over the Irish commanded by Sir Phelim O'Neill, Sir Con M'Guinness,
and General Plunket. In 1662 the town obtained a charter of
incorporation from Charles II., and sent two members to the Irish
parliament, the church being at the same time made the cathedral for
Down and Connor. The Conway estates passed to the Seymours in this
way. Popham Seymour, Esq., was the son of Sir Edward Seymour, fourth
baronet, described by Bishop Burnet as 'the ablest man of his party,
the first speaker of the House of Commons that was not bred to the
law; a graceful man, bold and quick, and of high birth, being the
elder branch of the Seymour family.' Popham Seymour inherited the
estates of the Earl of Conway, who was his cousin, under a will dated
August 19, 1683, and assumed in consequence the surname of Conway.
This gentleman died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother
Francis, who was raised to the peerage in 1703 by the title of Baron
Conway, of Kill-Ultagh, county Antrim. His eldest son, the second
baron, was created Viscount Beauchamp and Earl of Hertfort in 1750. In
1765 he was Viceroy of Ireland, and in 1793 he was created Marquis
of Hertfort. The present peer, born in the year 1800, is the fourth
marquis, having succeeded his father in 1842.

Lisburn is classic ground. It represents all sorts of historic
interest. On this hill, now called the Castle Gardens, the Captain
of Kill-Ultagh mustered his galloglasse. Here, amid the flames of the
burning town, was fought a decisive battle between the English and the
Irish, one of the Irish chiefs in that encounter being the ancestor of
the restorer of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The battle lasted till near
midnight, when the Irish were put to flight, leaving behind them dead
and wounded thrice the number of the entire garrison. Here, on this
mount, stood William III. in June, 1690. I saw in the church the
monument of Jeremy Taylor, and the pulpit from which the most eloquent
of bishops delivered his immortal sermons. I saw the tablet erected
by his mother to the memory of Nicholson, the young hero of Delhi,
and those of several other natives of Lisburn who have contributed,
by their genius and courage, to promote the fame and power of England.
Among the rest Lieutenant Dobbs, who was killed in an encounter with
Paul Jones, the American pirate, in Carrickfergus Bay.

I received a hospitable welcome from a loyal gentleman in the house
which was the residence of General Munroe, the hero of '98, and saw
the spot in the square where he was hanged in view of his own windows.
But I confess that none of the monuments of the past excited so much
interest in my mind as the house of Louis Crommelin, the Huguenot
refugee, who founded the linen manufacture at Lisburn. That house is
now occupied by Mr. Hugh M'Call, author of 'Our Staple Manufactures,'
who worthily represents the intelligence, the public spirit, and
patriotism of the English and French settlers, with a dash of the
Irish ardour, a combination of elements which perhaps produces the
best 'staple' of character. I stood upon the identical oak floor upon
which old Crommelin planned and worked, and in the grave-yard
Mr. M'Call deciphered for me the almost obliterated inscriptions,
recording the deaths of various members of the Crommelin family. Their
leader, Louis himself, died in July, 1727, aged 75 years.

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove three quarters of a
million of Protestants out of France. A great number settled
in London, where they established the arts of silk-weaving in
Spitalfields and of fancy jewellery in St. Giles's. About 6,000 fled
to Ireland, of whom many settled in Dublin, where they commenced the
silk manufacture, and where one of them, La Touche, opened the first
banking establishment. Wherever they settled they were missionaries of
industry, and examples of perseverance and success in skilled labour,
as well as integrity in commerce. Many of those exiles settled in
Lisburn, and the colony was subsequently joined by Louis Crommelin,
a native of Armandcourt near St. Quentin, where for several centuries
his forefathers had carried on the flaxen manufacture on their own
extensive possessions in the province of Picardy. Foreseeing the
storm of persecution, the family had removed to Holland, and, at the
personal request of the Prince of Orange, Louis came over to take
charge of the colonies of his countrymen, which had been established
in different parts of Ireland. The linen trade had flourished in this
country from the earliest times. Linen formed, down to the reign of
Elizabeth, almost the only dress of the population, from the
king down--saffron-coloured, and worn in immense flowing robes,
occasionally wrapped in various forms round the body. Lord Stafford
had exerted himself strenuously to improve the fabric by the forcible
introduction of better looms; but little had been done in this
direction till the Huguenots came and brought their own looms, suited
for the manufacture of fine fabrics. Mark Dupre, Nicholas de la
Cherois, Obre, Rochet, Bouchoir, St. Clair, and others, whose ashes
lie beside the Lisburn Cathedral and in the neighbouring churchyards,
and many of whose descendants still survive among the gentry and
manufacturers of Down and Antrim, were, with Crommelin, the chief
promoters of the linen trade which has wrought such wonders in the
province of Ulster. Lord Conway granted the Lisburn colonists a site
for a place of worship, which was known as the French Church, and
stood on the ground now occupied by the Court-house in Castle Street.
The Government paid 60 l. a year to their first minister, Charles de
la Valade, who was succeeded by his relative, the Rev. Saumarez du
Bourdieu, distinguished as a divine and a historian. His father was
chaplain to the famous Schomberg, and when he fell from his horse
mortally wounded the reverend gentleman carried him in his arms to
the spot on which he died a short time after. Talent was hereditary in
this family, the Rev. John du Bourdieu, rector of Annahilt, was author
of the Statistical Surveys of Down and Antrim, published by the Royal
Dublin Society. Referring to his ancestors he says that his father
had been fifty-six years minister of the French Church in Lisburn. Mr.
M'Call states that, for some time before his death in 1812, he held
the living of Lambeg, the members of the French Church having by that
time merged into union with the congregation of the Lisburn Cathedral.
A similar process took place in Dublin, Portarlington, and elsewhere,
the descendants of the Huguenots becoming zealous members of the
Established Church.

Du Bourdieu informs us that Louis Crommelin obtained a patent for
carrying on and improving the linen manufacture, with a grant of 800
l. per annum, as interest of 10,000 l., to be advanced by him as a
capital for carrying on the same; 200 l. per annum for his trouble;
120 l. per annum for three assistants; and 160 l. for the support of
the chaplain. Mr. M'Call, in his book, copies the following note of
payments made by the Government from 1704 to 1708:--

                                                       L   s.   d.

Louis Crommelin, as overseer of linen manufacture    470   19    0

W. Crommelin, salary and rent of Kilkenny factory    451    6    7

Louis Crommelin, to repay him for sums advanced to
flax dressers and reed makers, and for services of
French ministers                                   2,225    0    0

Louis Crommelin, for individual expenses and for
sums paid Thomas Turner, of Lurgan, for buying
flax-seed and printing reports                       993    4    0

Louis Crommelin, three years' pension                600    0    0

French minister's two years' pension                 120    0    0
                                                   _______________
Total                                             L4,860    9    7

It should be mentioned, that when the owner of Lisburn, then Earl of
Hertfort, held the office of lord lieutenant in 1765, with his son,
Viscount Beauchamp, as chief secretary, he rendered very valuable
services to the linen trade, and was a liberal patron of the damask
manufacture, which arrived at a degree of perfection hitherto
unequalled, in the hands of Mr. William Coulson, founder of the great
establishment of that name which still flourishes in Lisburn, and
from whom not only the court of St. James's but foreign courts also
received their table linen. Du Bourdieu mentions that Lisburn and
Lurgan were the great markets for cambrics--the name given to cloth
of this description, which was then above five shillings a yard; under
that price it was called lawn. In that neighbourhood cambric had been
made which sold for 1 l. 2 s. 9 d. a yard unbleached. The principal
manufacturing establishments in addition to Messrs. Coulsons' are
those of the Messrs. Richardson and Co. and the Messrs. Barbour.

Lord Dufferin has written the ablest defence of the Irish landlords
that has ever appeared. In that masterly work he says: 'But though
a dealer in land and a payer of wages, I am above all things an
Irishman, and as an Irishman I rejoice in any circumstance which tends
to strengthen the independence of the tenant farmer, or to add to
the comfort of the labourer's existence.' If titles and possessions
implied the inheritance of religion and blood, Lord Dufferin ought
indeed to be 'Irish of the Irish' as the men of Ulster in the olden
times proudly called themselves. On the railroad from Belfast to
Bangor there is a station constructed with singular beauty, like
the castellated entrance to a baronial hall, and on the elaborately
chiselled stone we read 'Clandeboye.' Under the railway from Graypoint
on Belfast Lough runs a carriage-drive two miles long, to the famous
seat of the O'Neills, where his lordship's mansion is situated,
enclosed among aged trees, remembrancers of the past. Perhaps, there
is no combination of names in the kingdom more suggestive of the
barbaric power of the middle ages and the most refined culture of
modern civilisation. The avenue, kept like a garden walk, with a
flourishing plantation on each side, was cut through some of the
best farms on the estate, and must have been a work of great expense.
Taking this in connection with other costly improvements, among which
are several picturesque buildings for the residence of workmen--model
lodging-houses resembling fancy villas at the seaside--we can
understand how his lordship, within the last fifteen years, has paid
away in wages of labour the immense sum of 60,000 l., at the rate of
4,000 l. a year.

The Abbot of Bangor never gave employment like that. William O'Donnon,
the last of the line, was found in the thirty-second year of Henry
VIII. to be possessed of thirty-one townlands in Ards and Upper
Clandeboye, the grange of Earbeg in the county Antrim, the two
Copeland Islands, the tithes of the island of Raghery, three rectories
in Antrim, three in Down, and a townland in the Isle of Man. The
abbey, some of the walls of which still remain, adjoining the parish
church, was built early in the twelfth century. We are informed by
Archdall, that it had so gone to ruin in 1469 through the neglect
of the abbot, that he was evicted by order of Pope Paul II., who
commanded that the friars of the third order of St. Francis should
immediately take possession of it, which was accordingly done,
says Wadding, by Father Nicholas of that order. The whole of the
possessions were granted by James I. to James Viscount Clandeboye.

Bangor was one of the most celebrated schools in Ireland when this
island was said to have been 'the _quiet_ abode of learning and
sanctity.' As to the quiet, I could never make out at what period it
existed, nor how the 'thousands' of students at Bangor could have been
supported. The Danes came occasionally up the lough and murdered the
monks _en masse_, plundering the shrines. But the greatest scourges of
the monasteries in Down and elsewhere were, not the foreign pagans and
pirates, but the professedly Christian chiefs of their own country. It
appears, therefore, that neither the Irish clergy nor the people have
much reason to regret the flight of the Celtic princes and nobles, who
were utterly unable to fulfil the duties of a government; and who did
little or nothing but consume what the industry of the peasants, under
unparalleled difficulties, produced. The people of Clandeboye and
Dufferin might have been proud that their chief received 40 l. a year
as a tribute or blackmail from Lecale, that he might abstain from
visiting the settlers there with his galloglasse; but Lord Dufferin,
the successor of the O'Neill of Clandeboye, spends among the peasantry
of the present day 4,000 l. a year in wages. And how different is the
lot of the people! Not dwelling in wattled huts under the oaks of the
primeval forest, but in neat slated houses, with whitewashed walls,
looking so bright and pretty in the sunshine, like snowdrops in the
distant landscape. On the hill between Bangor and Newtownards, Lord
Dufferin has erected a beautiful tower, from which, reclining on his
couch, he can see the country to an immense extent, from the mountains
of Antrim to the mountains of Mourne, Strangford Lough, Belfast Lough,
the Antrim coast, and Portpatrick at the other side of the Channel,
all spread out before him like a coloured map.




CHAPTER XI.

THE REBELLION OF 1641.


The Rebellion of 1641--generally called a 'massacre'--was undoubtedly
a struggle on the part of the exiled nobles and clergy and the evicted
peasants to get possession of their estates and farms, which had been
occupied by the British settlers for nearly a generation. They
might probably have continued to occupy them in peace, but for the
fanaticism of the lords justices, Sir John Parsons and Sir John
Borlace. It was reported and believed that, at a public entertainment
in Dublin, Parsons declared that in twelve months no more Catholics
should be seen in that country. The English Puritans and Scottish
Covenanters were determined never to lay down their arms till they had
made an end of Popery. Pym, the celebrated Puritan leader, avowed that
the policy of his party was not to leave a priest alive in the land.
Meantime, the Irish chiefs were busy intriguing at Rome, Madrid,
Paris, and other continental capitals, clamouring for an invasion of
Ireland, to restore monarchy and Catholicity--to expel the English
planters from the forfeited lands. Philip III. of Spain encouraged
these aspirations. He had an Irish legion under the command of Henry
O'Neill, son of the fugitive Earl of Tyrone. It was reported that,
in 1630 there were in the service of the Archduchess, in the Spanish
Netherlands alone, 100 Irish officers able to command companies, and
20 fit to be colonels. There were many others at Lisbon, Florence,
Milan, and Naples. They had in readiness 5,000 or 6,000 stand of arms
laid up at Antwerp, bought out of the deduction of their monthly pay.
The banished ecclesiastics formed at every court a most efficient
diplomatic corps, the chief of these intriguers being the celebrated
Luke Wadding. Religious wars were popular in those times, and the
invasion of Ireland would be like a crusade against heresy. But with
the Irish chiefs the ruling passion was to get possession of their
homes and their lands. The most active spirit among these was Roger,
or Rory O'Moore, a man of high character, great ability, handsome
person, and fascinating manners. With him were associated Conor
Maguire, Costelloe M'Mahon, and Thorlough O'Neill, Sir Phelim O'Neill,
Sir Con Magennis, Colonel Hugh M'Mahon, and the Rev. Dr. Heber
M'Mahon. O'Moore visited the country, went through the several
provinces, and, by communicating with the chiefs personally, organised
the conspiracy to expel the British and recover the kingdom for
Charles II. and the Pope.

The plan agreed upon by the confederates was this:--A rising when
the harvest was gathered in; a simultaneous attack on all the English
fortresses; the surprise of Dublin Castle, said to contain arms for
12,000 men; and to obtain for these objects all possible aid, in
officers, men, and arms, from the Continent. The rising took place
on the night of October 22, 1641. It might have been completely
successful if the Castle of Dublin had been seized. It seemed an
easy prey, for it was guarded only by a few pensioners and forty
halberdiers, who would be quickly overpowered. But the plot was
made known to the lords justices by an informer when on the eve of
execution.

Sir Phelim O'Neill was one of those 'Irish gentlemen' who, by royal
favour, were permitted to retain some portions of their ancient
patrimonies. At this time he was in possession of thirty-eight
townlands in the barony of Dungannon, county Tyrone, containing 23,000
acres, then estimated to be worth 1,600 l. a-year, equal to some
10,000 l. of our money. Charles Boulton held by lease from the
same chief 600 acres, at a yearly rent of 29 l. for sixty years, in
consideration of a fine of 1,000 l. In 1641 this property yielded a
profit rent of 150 l. a year. Three townlands in the same barony were
claimed by George Rawden of Lisnagarvagh, as leased to him by Sir
Phelim under the rent of 100 l., estimated to be worth 50 l. per
annum.

Sir Phelim might, therefore, have been content, so far as property was
concerned. But, setting aside patriotism, religion, and ambition, it
is likely enough that he distrusted the Government, and feared the
doom pronounced in Dublin Castle against all the gentlemen of his
creed and race. At all events he put himself at the head of the
insurrection in Ulster. He and the officers under his command, on the
night of the 22nd, surprised and captured the forts of Charlemont and
Mountjoy. The towns of Dungannon, Newry, Carrickmacross, Castleblaney,
Tandragee fell into the hands of the insurgents, while the O'Reillys
and Maguires overran Cavan and Fermanagh. Sir Conor Magennis wrote
from Newry to the Government officers in Down: 'We are for our lives
and liberties. We desire no blood to be shed; but, if you mean to shed
our blood, be sure we shall be as ready as you for that purpose.' And
Sir Phelim O'Neill issued the following proclamation:--

'These are to intimate and make known unto all persons whatsoever, in
and through the whole country, the true intent and meaning of us whose
names are hereunto subscribed: 1. That the first assembling of us is
nowise intended against our sovereign lord the king, nor hurt of any
of his subjects, either English or Scotch; but only for the defence
and libertie of ourselves and the Irish natives of this kingdom. And
we further declare that whatsoever hurt hitherto hath been done to
any person shall be presently repaired; and we will that every person
forthwith, after proclamation hereof, make their speedy repaire unto
their own houses, under paine of death, that no further hurt be done
unto any one under the like paine, and that this be proclaimed in all
places.

  'PHELIM O'NEILL.

  'At Dungannon, the 23rd October, 1641.'

It is easy for an insurgent chief to give such orders to a tumultuous
mass of excited, vindictive, and drunken men, but not so easy to
enforce them. The common notion among Protestants, however, that a
midnight massacre of all the Protestant settlers was intended, or
attempted, is certainly unfounded. Though horrible outrages were
committed on both sides, the number of them has been greatly
exaggerated. Mr. Prendergast quotes some contemporary authorities,
which seem to be decisive on this point. In the same year was
published by 'G.S., minister of God's word in Ireland,' 'A Brief
Declaration of the Barbarous and Inhuman Dealings of the Northern
Irish Rebels ...; written to excite the English Nation to relieve
our poor Wives and Children that have escaped the Rebels' savage
Cruelties.'

This author says, it was the intention of the Irish to massacre all
the English. On Saturday they were to disarm them; on Sunday to seize
all their cattle and goods; on Monday, at the watchword 'Skeane,' they
were to cut all the English throats. The former they executed; the
third only (that is the massacre) they failed in.

That the massacre rested hitherto in intention only is further evident
from the proclamation of the lords justices of February 8, 1642;
for, while offering large sums for the heads of the chief northern
gentlemen in arms (Sir Phelim O'Neill's name heading the list with
a thousand pounds), the lords justices state that the massacre had
failed. Many thousands had been robbed and spoiled, dispossessed of
house and lands, many murdered on the spot; but the chief part of
their plots (so the proclamation states), and amongst them a universal
massacre, had been disappointed.

But, says Mr. Prendergast, after Lord Ormond and Sir Simon Harcourt,
with the English forces, in the month of April, 1642, had burned the
houses of the gentry in the Pale, and committed slaughters of unarmed
men, and the Scotch forces, in the same month, after beating off
Sir Phelim O'Neill's army at Newry, drowned and shot men, women, and
priests, in that town, who had surrendered on condition of mercy, then
it was that some of Sir Phelim O'Neill's wild followers in revenge,
and in fear of the advancing army, massacred their prisoners in some
of the towns in Tyrone. The subsequent cruelties were not on one side
only, and were magnified to render the Irish detestable, so as to make
it impossible for the king to seek their aid without ruining his cause
utterly in England. The story of the massacre, invented to serve
the politics of the hour, has been since kept up for the purposes
of interest. No inventions could be too monstrous that served to
strengthen the possession of Irish confiscated lands.

'A True Relation of the Proceedings of the Scots and English Forces in
the North of Ireland,' published in 1642, states that on Monday, May
5, the common soldiers, without direction from the general-major, took
some eighteen of the Irish women of the town [Newry], stripped them
naked, threw them into the river, and drowned them, shooting some in
the water. More had suffered so, but that some of the common soldiers
were made examples of.

'A Levite's Lamentation,' published at the same time, thus refers
to those atrocities: 'Mr. Griffin, Mr. Bartly, Mr. Starkey, all of
Ardmagh, and murdered by these bloudsuckers on the sixth of May. For,
about the fourth of May, as I take it, we put neare fourty of them
to death upon the bridge of the Newry, amongst which were two of
the Pope's pedlers, two seminary priests, in return of which they
slaughtered many prisoners in their custody.'

A curious illustration of the spirit of that age is given in the fact
that an English officer threw up his commission in disgust, because
the Bishop of Meath, in a sermon delivered in Christ Church, Dublin,
in 1642, pleaded for mercy to Irish women and children.

The unfortunate settlers fled panic-stricken from their homes, leaving
behind their goods, and, in many cases, their clothes; delicate women
with little children, weary and footsore, hurried on to some place
of refuge. In Cavan they crowded the house of the illustrious
Bishop Bedell, at Kilmore. Enniskillen, Derry, Lisburn, Belfast,
Carrickfergus, with some isolated castles, were still held by the
English garrisons, and in these the Protestant fugitives found succour
and protection. Before their flight they were in such terror that,
according to the Rev. Dr. Maxwell, rector of Tynan, for three nights
no cock was heard to crow, no dog to bark. The city of London sent
four ships to Londonderry with all kinds of provisions, clothing,
and accoutrements for several companies of foot, and abundance
of ammunition. The twelve chief companies sent each two pieces of
ordnance. No doubt these liberal and seasonable supplies contributed
materially to keep the city from yielding to the insurgent forces by
which it was besieged.

Meantime the Government in Dublin lost not a moment in taking the
most effectual measures for crushing the rebellion. Lord Ormond, as
lieutenant-general, had soon at his disposal 12,000 men, with a fine
train of field artillery, provided by Strafford for his campaign in
the north of England. The king, who was in Scotland, procured the
dispatch of 1,500 men to Ulster; and authorised Lords Chichester and
Clandeboye to raise regiments among their tenants. Thus the 'Scottish
army' was increased to about 5,000 foot, with cavalry in proportion.
The Irish, on the other hand, were ill-provided with arms and
ammunition. They were not even provided with pikes, for they had not
time to make them. The military officers counted upon did not appear,
though they had promised to be on the field at fourteen days' notice.
Rory O'Moore, like 'Meagher of the sword' in 1848, had never seen
service; and Sir Phelim O'Neill, like Smith O'Brien, was only a
civilian when he assumed the high-sounding title of 'Lord General of
the Catholic army in Ulster.' He also took the title of 'the O'Neill.'
The massacre of a large number of Catholics by the Carrickfergus
garrison, driving them over the cliffs into the sea at the point of
the bayonet, madly excited the Irish thirst for blood. Mr. Darcy
Magee admits that, from this date forward till the arrival of Owen Roe
O'Neill, the war assumed a ferocity of character foreign to the nature
of O'Moore, O'Reilly, and Magennis. 'That Sir Phelim permitted, if
he did not in his gusts of stormy passion instigate, those acts of
cruelty which have stained his otherwise honourable conduct, is too
true; but he stood alone among his confederates in that crime, and
that crime stands alone in his character. Brave to rashness and
disinterested to excess, few rebel chiefs ever made a more heroic end
out of a more deplorable beginning.' The same eulogy would equally
apply to many of the English generals. Cruelty was their only crime.
The Irish rulers of those times, if not taken by surprise, felt at the
outbreak of open rebellion much as the army feels at the breaking
out of a war, in some country where plenty of prize money can be won,
where the looting will be rich and the promotion rapid. Relying with
confidence on the power of England and the force of discipline, they
knew that the active defenders of the Government would be victorious
in the end, and that their rewards would be estates. The more
rebellions, the more forfeited territory, the more opportunities to
implicate, ruin, and despoil the principal men of the hated race. The
most sober writer, dealing with such facts, cannot help stirring men's
blood while recording the deeds of the heroes who founded the English
system of government in Ireland, and secured to themselves immense
tracts of its most fertile soil. What then must be the effect of the
eloquent and impassioned denunciations of such writers as Mr.
Butt, Mr. A.M. Sullivan, and Mr. John Mitchell, not to speak of the
'national press'? Yet the most fiery patriot utters nothing stronger
on the English rule in Ireland than what the Irish may read in the
works of the greatest statesmen and most profound thinkers in England.
The evil is in the facts, and the facts cannot be suppressed because
they are the roots of our present difficulties. Mr. Darcy Magee, one
of the most moderate of Irish historians, writing far away from his
native land, not long before he fell by the bullet of the assassin--a
martyr to his loyalty--sketches the preliminaries of confiscation at
the commencement of this civil war.

In Munster, their chief instruments were the aged Earl of Cork, still
insatiable as ever for other men's possessions, and the president,
St. Leger: in Leinster, Sir Charles Coote. Lord Cork prepared 1,100
indictments against men of property in his province, which he sent to
the speaker of the Long Parliament, with an urgent request that
they might be returned to him, with authority to proceed against the
parties named as outlaws. In Leinster, 4,000 similar indictments
were found in the course of two days by the free use of the rack with
witnesses. Sir John Read, an officer of the king's bedchamber, and
Mr. Barnwall of Kilbrue, a gentleman of threescore and six, were among
those who underwent the torture. When these were the proceedings of
the tribunals in peaceable cities, we may imagine what must have been
the excesses of the soldiery in the open country. In the south,
Sir William St. Leger directed a series of murderous raids upon the
peasantry of Cork, which at length produced their natural effect. Lord
Muskerry and other leading recusants, who had offered their services
to maintain the peace of the province, were driven by an insulting
refusal to combine for their own protection. The 1,100 indictments
of Lord Cork soon swelled their ranks, and the capture of the ancient
city of Cashel, by Philip O'Dwyer, announced the insurrection of the
south. Waterford soon after opened its gates to Colonel Edmund Butler;
Wexford declared for the Catholic cause, and Kilkenny surrendered to
Lord Mountgarret. In Wicklow, Coote's troopers committed murders such
as had not been equalled since the days of the pagan Northmen. Little
children were carried aloft writhing on the pikes of these barbarians,
whose worthy commander confessed that 'he liked such frolics.' Neither
age nor sex was spared, and an ecclesiastic was especially certain
of instant death. Fathers Higgins and White of Naas, in Kildare, were
given up by Coote to these 'lambs,' though, each had been granted a
safe-conduct by his superior officer, Lord Ormond. And these murders
were taking place at the very time when the Franciscans and Jesuits of
Cashel were protecting Dr. Pullen, the Protestant chancellor of that
cathedral and other Protestant prisoners; while also the castle of
Cloughouter, in Cavan, the residence of Bishop Bedell, was crowded
with Protestant fugitives, all of whom were carefully guarded by the
chivalrous Philip O'Reilly.

In Ulster, by the end of April, there were 19,000 troops, regulars and
volunteers, in the garrison or in the field. Newry was taken by Monroe
and Chichester. Magennis was obliged to abandon Down, and McMahon
Monaghan; Sir Phelim was driven to burn Armagh and Dungannon and to
take his last stand at Charlemont. In a severe action with Sir Robert
and Sir William Stewart, he had displayed his usual courage with
better than his usual fortune, which, perhaps, we may attribute to the
presence with him of Sir Alexander McDonnell, brother to Lord Antrim,
the famous _Colkitto_ of the Irish and Scottish wars. But the severest
defeat which the confederates had was in the heart of Leinster, at the
hamlet of Kilrush, within four miles of Athy. Lord Ormond, returning
from a second reinforcement of Naas and other Kildare forts, at
the head, by English account, of 4,000 men, found on April 13 the
Catholics of the midland counties, under Lords Mountgarrett, Ikerrin,
and Dunboyne, Sir Morgan Cavenagh, Rory O'Moore, and Hugh O'Byrne,
drawn up, by his report 8,000 strong, to dispute his passage. With
Ormond were the Lord Dillon, Lord Brabazon, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir
Charles Coote, and Sir T. Lucas. The combat was short but murderous.
The confederates left 700 men, including Sir Morgan Cavenagh and
some other officers, dead on the field; the remainder retreated in
disorder, and Ormond, with an inconsiderable diminution of numbers,
returned in triumph to Dublin. For this victory the Long Parliament,
in a moment of enthusiasm, voted the lieutenant-general a jewel worth
500 l. If any satisfaction could be derived from such an incident, the
violent death of their most ruthless enemy, Sir Charles Coote, might
have afforded the Catholics some consolation. That merciless soldier,
after the combat at Kilrush, had been employed in reinforcing Birr and
relieving the castle of Geashill, which the Lady Letitia of Offally
held against the neighbouring tribe of O'Dempsey. On his return from
this service he made a foray against a Catholic force, which had
mustered in the neighbourhood of Trim; here, on the night of the 7th
of May, heading a sally of his troop, he fell by a musket shot--not
without suspicion of being fired from his own ranks. His son and
namesake, who imitated him in all things, was ennobled at the
Restoration by the title of the Earl of Mountrath.

The Long Parliament would not trust the king with an army in Ireland.
They consequently took the work of subjugation into their own hands.
Having confiscated 2,500,000 acres of Irish land, they offered it as
security to 'adventurers' who would advance money to meet the cost of
the war. In February, 1642, the House of Commons received a petition
'of divers well affected' to it, offering to raise and maintain forces
at their own charge 'against the rebels of Ireland, and afterwards to
receive their recompense out of the rebels' estates.' Under the act
'for the speedy reducing of the rebels' the adventurers were to carry
over a brigade of 5,000 foot and 500 horse, and to have the right of
appointing their own officers. And they were to have estates given to
them at the following rates: 1,000 acres for 200 l. in Ulster, for 300
l. in Connaught, for 450 l. in Munster, and 600 l. in Leinster. The
rates per acre were 4 s., 6s., 8s., and 12 s. in those provinces
respectively.

The nature of the war, and the spirit in which it was conducted, may
be inferred from the sort of weapons issued from the military
stores. These included scythes with handles and rings, reaping-hooks,
whetstones, and rubstones. They were intended for cutting down the
growing corn, that the people might be starved into submission, or
forced to quit the country. The commissary of stores was ordered to
issue Bibles to the troops, one Bible for every file, that they might
learn from the Old Testament the sin and danger of sparing idolaters.

The rebellion in Ulster had almost collapsed before the end of the
year. The tens of thousands who had rushed to the standard of Sir
P. O'Neill were now reduced to a number of weak and disorganised
collections of armed men taking shelter in the woods. The English
garrisons scoured the neighbouring counties with little opposition,
and where they met any they gave no quarter. Sir William Cole,
ancestor of the Earl of Enniskillen, proudly boasted of his
achievement in having 7,000 of the rebels famished to death within
a circuit of a few miles of his garrison. Lord Enniskillen is an
excellent landlord, but the descendants of the remnant of the natives
on his estate do not forget how the family obtained its wealth and
honours. The Government, however, seemed to have good reason to
congratulate itself that the war was over with the Irish. To these Sir
Phelim O'Neill had shown that there is something in a name: but if
the name does not represent real worth and fitness for the work
undertaken, it is but a shadow. It was so in Sir Phelim's O'Neill's
case. Though he had courage, he was a poor general. But another hero
of the same name soon appeared to redeem the honour of his race, and
to show what the right man can do. At a moment when the national
cause seemed to be lost, when the Celtic population in Ulster were
meditating a wholesale emigration to the Scottish Highlands--'a word
of magic effect was whispered from the sea-coast to the interior.'
Colonel Owen Roe O'Neill had arrived off Donegal with a single ship,
a single company of veterans, 100 officers, and a quantity of
ammunition. He landed at Doe Castle, proceeded to the fort of
Charlemont, met the heads of the clans at Clones in Monaghan, was
elected general-in-chief of the Catholic forces, and at once set about
organising an army. The Catholics of the whole kingdom had joined a
confederation, which held its meetings at Kilkenny. A general assembly
was convened for October 23, 1642. The peerage was represented by
fourteen lords and eleven bishops. Generals were appointed for each
of the other provinces, Preston for Leinster, Barry for Munster, and
Burke for Connaught. With the Anglo-Irish portion of the confederacy
the war was Catholic, and the object religious liberty. With them
there was no antipathy or animosity to the English. There was the
Pope's Nuncio and his party, thinking most of papal interests, and
there was the national party, who had been, or were likely to be,
made landless. The king, then at Oxford, was importuned by the
confederation on the one side and the Puritans on the other; one
petitioning for freedom of worship, the other for the suppression of
popery. Pending these appeals there was a long cessation between the
Irish belligerents.

Ormond had amused the confederates with negotiations for a permanent
peace and settlement, from spring till midsummer, when Charles,
dissatisfied with these endless delays, dispatched to Ireland a more
hopeful ambassador. This was Herbert, Earl of Glamorgan, one of the
few Catholics remaining among the English nobility, son and heir to
the Marquis of Worcester, and son-in-law to Henry O'Brien, Earl of
Thomond. Of a family devoutly attached to the royal cause, to which
it is said they had contributed not less than 200,000 l., Glamorgan's
religion, his rank, his Irish connections, the intimate confidence of
the king which he was known to possess, all marked out his embassy as
one of the utmost importance.

The earl arrived in Dublin about August 1, and, after an interview
with Ormond, proceeded to Kilkenny. On the 28th of that month,
preliminary articles were agreed to and signed by the earl on behalf
of the king, and by Lords Montgarrett and Muskerry on behalf of the
confederates. It was necessary, it seems, to get the concurrence of
the Viceroy to these terms, and accordingly the negotiators on both
sides repaired to Dublin. Here Ormond contrived to detain them ten
long weeks in discussions on the articles relating to religion; it
was the 12th of November when they returned to Kilkenny, with a much
modified treaty. On the next day, the 13th, the new Papal Nuncio,
a prelate who, by his rank, his eloquence, and his imprudence, was
destined to exercise a powerful influence on the Catholic councils,
made his public entry into that city.

This personage was John Baptist Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo in
the marches of Ancona, which see he had preferred to the more exalted
dignity of Florence.

From Limerick, borne along on his litter, such was the feebleness
of his health, he advanced by slow stages to Kilkenny, escorted by a
guard of honour, despatched on that duty by the supreme council.

The pomp and splendour of his public entry into the Catholic capital
was a striking spectacle. The previous night he slept at a village
three miles from the city, for which he set out early on the morning
of November 13, escorted by his guard and a vast multitude of the
people. Five delegates from the supreme council accompanied him. A
band of fifty students, mounted on horseback, met him on the way, and
their leader, crowned with laurel, recited some congratulatory Latin
verses. At the city gate he left the litter and mounted a horse richly
housed; here the procession of the clergy and the city guilds awaited
him: at the market cross, a Latin oration was delivered in his honour,
to which he graciously replied in the same language. From the cross he
was escorted to the cathedral, at the door of which he was received by
the aged bishop, Dr. David Rothe. At the high altar he intonated the
_Te Deum_, and gave the multitude the apostolic benediction. Then he
was conducted to his lodgings, where he was soon waited upon by Lord
Muskerry and General Preston, who brought him to Kilkenny Castle,
where, in the great gallery, which elicited even a Florentine's
admiration, he was received in stately formality by the president of
the council--Lord Mountgarrett. Another Latin oration on the nature of
his embassy was delivered by the Nuncio, responded to by Heber, Bishop
of Clogher, and so the ceremony of reception ended.[1]

[Footnote 1: Darcy Magee, vol. ii. p.128.]

After a long time spent in negotiations, the celebrated Glamorgan
treaty was signed by Ormond for the king, and Lord Muskerry and the
other commissioners for the confederates. It conceded, in fact, all
the most essential claims of the Irish--equal rights as to property,
in the army, in the universities, and at the bar; gave them seats in
both houses and on the bench; authorised a special commission of oyer
and terminer, composed wholly of confederates; and declared that 'the
independency of the parliament of Ireland on that of England' should
be decided by declaration of both houses 'agreeably to the laws of the
kingdom of Ireland.' In short, this final form of Glamorgan's treaty
gave the Irish Catholics, in 1646, all that was subsequently obtained,
either for the church or the country, in 1782, 1793, or 1829. 'Though
some conditions were omitted, to which Rinuccini and a majority of the
prelates attached importance, Glamorgan's treaty was, upon the whole,
a charter upon which a free church and a free people might well have
stood, as the fundamental law of their religious and civil liberties.'

General O'Neill was greatly annoyed at these delays. Political
events in England swayed the destiny of Ireland then as now. The poor
vacillating, double-dealing king was delivered to the Puritans, tried,
and executed. But before Cromwell came to smash the confederation and
everything papal in Ireland, the Irish chief gladdened the hearts of
his countrymen by the glorious victory of Benburb, one of the most
memorable in Irish history.

In a naturally strong position, the Irish, for four hours, received
and repulsed the various charges of the Puritan horse. Then as the
sun began to descend, pouring its rays upon the enemy, O'Neill led
his whole force--five thousand men against eight--to the attack.
One terrible onset swept away every trace of resistance. There were
counted on the field 3,243 of the Covenanters, and of the Catholics
but 70 killed and 100 wounded. Lord Ardes, and 21 Scottish officers,
32 standards, 1,500 draught horses, and all the guns and tents, were
captured. Monroe fled to Lisburn and thence to Carrickfergus, where he
shut himself up till he could obtain reinforcements. O'Neill forwarded
the captured colours to the Nuncio at Limerick, by whom they were
solemnly placed in the choir of St. Mary's Cathedral, and afterwards,
at the request of Pope Innocent, sent to Rome. The _Te Deum_ was
chanted in the confederate capital; penitential psalms were sung
in the northern fortresses. 'The Lord of Hosts,' wrote Monroe,
'has rubbed shame on our faces till once we are humbled.' O'Neill
emblazoned the cross and keys on his banner with the Red Hand
of Ulster, and openly resumed the title originally chosen by his
adherents at Clones, 'the Catholic Army.'

The stage of Irish politics now presented the most extraordinary
complications political and military. The confederation was occupied
with endless debates and dissensions. Commanders changed positions so
rapidly, the several causes for which men had been fighting became so
confused in the unaccountable scene-shifting, giving glimpses now of
the king, now of the commonwealth, and now of the pope, that no one
knew what to do, or what was to be the end. The nuncio went home in
disgust that his blessings and his curses, which he dispensed with
equal liberality, had so little effect.

At length appeared an actor who gave a terrible unity to the drama of
Irish politics. Cromwell left London in July 1649, 'in a coach drawn
by six gallant Flanders mares,' and made a grand progress to Bristol.
He landed at Ring's End, near Dublin, on August 14. He entered the
city in procession and addressed the people from 'a convenient place,'
accompanied by his son Henry, Blake, Jones, Ireton, Ludlow, Hardress,
Waller, and others. The history of Cromwell's military exploits in
Ireland is well known. I pass on, therefore, to notice the effects of
the war on the condition of the people.

As usual, in such cases, the destruction of the crops and other
provisions by the soldiers, brought evil to the conquerors as well as
to their victims. There had been a fifteen years' war in Ulster,
when James I. ascended the throne, and it left the country waste
and desolate. Sir John Davis, his attorney-general, asserted the
unquestionable fact that perpetual war had been continued between the
two nations for 'four hundred and odd years,' and had always for its
object to 'root out the Irish.' James was to put an end to this war,
and, as we have seen, the lord deputy promised the people 'estates' in
their holdings. The effect of this promise, as recorded by Davis,
is remarkable. 'He thus made it a year of jubilee to the poor
inhabitants, because every man was to return to his own house, and
be restored to his ancient possessions, and they all went home
rejoicing.'

Poor people! they soon saw the folly of putting their trust in
princes. Now, after a seven years' war, the nation was again
visited with famine, and the country converted into a wilderness.
Three-fourths of the cattle had been destroyed; and the commissioners
for Ireland reported to the council in England in 1651, that four
parts in five of the best and most fertile land in Ireland lay waste
and uninhabited, stating that they had encouraged the Irish to till
the land, promising them the enjoyment of the crops. They had also
given orders 'for enforcing those that were removed to the mountains
to return.' The soldiers were employed to till the lands round their
posts. Corn had to be imported to Dublin from Wales. So scarce
was meat that a widow was obliged to petition the authorities for
permission to kill a lamb; and she was 'permitted and lycensed to kill
and dresse so much lambe as shall be necessary for her own eating,
not exceeding three lambes for this whole year, notwithstanding
any declaration of the said Commissioners of Parliament to the
contrary.'[A] This privilege was granted to Mrs. Buckley in
consideration of 'her old age and weakness of body.' In 1654 the Irish
revenue from all sources was only 198,000 l., while the cost of the
army was 500,000 l. A sort of conditional amnesty was granted from
necessity, pending the decision of Parliament, and on May 12,
1652, the Leinster army of the Irish surrendered on terms signed
at Kilkenny, which were adopted successively by the other principal
armies between that time and the September following, when the Ulster
forces surrendered. By these Kilkenny articles, all except those who
were guilty of the first blood were received into protection on
laying down their arms; those who should not be satisfied with the
conclusions the Parliament might come to concerning the Irish nation,
and should desire to transport themselves with their men to serve any
foreign state in amity with the Parliament, should have liberty
to treat with their agents for that purpose. But the Commissioners
undertook faithfully to mediate with the Parliament that they
might enjoy such a remnant of their lands as might make their lives
comfortable at home, or be enabled to emigrate.

[Footnote 1: Prendergast, the Cromwellian Settlement, p.16.]

The Cromwellian administration in Ireland effected a revolution
unparalleled in history. Its proceedings have been well summarised by
Mr. Darcy Magee:--

The Long Parliament, still dragging out its days under the shadow of
Cromwell's great name, declared in its session of 1652 the rebellion
in Ireland 'subdued and ended,' and proceeded to legislate for that
kingdom as a conquered country. On August 12 they passed their Act of
Settlement, the authorship of which was attributed to Lord Orrery, in
this respect the worthy son of the first Earl of Cork. Under this act
there were four chief descriptions of persons whose status was thus
settled: 1. All ecclesiastics and royalist proprietors were exempted
from pardon of life or estate. 2. All royalist commissioned officers
were condemned to banishment, and the forfeit of two-thirds of their
property, one-third being retained for the support of their wives and
children. 3. Those who had not been in arms, but could be shown, by
a parliamentary commission, to have manifested 'a constant, good
affection' to the war, were to forfeit one-third of their estates,
and receive 'an equivalent' for the remaining two-thirds west of
the Shannon. 4. All husbandmen and others of the inferior sort, 'not
possessed of lands or goods exceeding the value of 10 l.,' were to
have a free pardon, on condition also of transporting themselves
across the Shannon.

This last condition of the Cromwellian settlement distinguished it,
in our annals, from every other proscription of the native population
formerly attempted. The great river of Ireland, rising in the
mountains of Leitrim, nearly severs the five western counties from the
rest of the kingdom. The province thus set apart, though one of the
largest in superficial extent, had also the largest proportion of
waste and water, mountain and moorland. The new inhabitants were there
to congregate from all the other provinces before the first day of
May, 1654, under penalty of outlawry and all its consequences; and
when there, they were not to appear within two miles of the Shannon,
or four miles of the sea. A rigorous passport system, to evade which
was death without form of trial, completed this settlement, the design
of which was to shut up the remaining Catholic inhabitants from all
intercourse with mankind, and all communion with the other inhabitants
of their own country.

A new survey of the whole kingdom was also ordered, under the
direction of Dr. William Petty, the fortunate economist who founded
the house of Lansdowne. By him the surface of the kingdom was
estimated at 10,500,000 plantation acres, three of which were deducted
for waste and water. Of the remainder, above 5,000,000 were in
Catholic hands, in 1641; 300,000 were church and college lands; and
2,000,000 were in possession of the Protestant settlers of the reigns
of James and Elizabeth. Under the Protectorate, 5,000,000 acres were
confiscated; this enormous spoil, two-thirds of the whole island, went
to the soldiers and adventurers who had served against the Irish,
or had contributed to the military chest, since 1641--except 700,000
acres given in 'exchange' to the banished in Clare and Connaught;
and 1,200,000 confirmed to 'innocent Papists.' Such was the complete
uprooting of the ancient tenantry or clansmen from their original
holdings, that, during the survey, orders of parliament were issued to
bring back individuals from Connaught to point out the boundaries of
parishes in Munster. It cannot be imputed among the sins so freely
laid to the historical account of the native legislature, that
an Irish parliament had any share in sanctioning this universal
spoliation. Cromwell anticipated the union of the kingdoms by 150
years, when he summoned, in 1653, that assembly over which 'Praise-God
Barebones' presided; members for Ireland and Scotland sat on the same
benches with the commons of England. Oliver's first deputy in the
government of Ireland was his son-in-law Fleetwood, who had married
the widow of Ireton; but his real representative was his fourth son
Henry Cromwell, commander-in-chief of the army. In 1657, the title of
lord deputy was transferred from Fleetwood to Henry, who united the
supreme civil and military authority in his own person until the eve
of the restoration, of which he became an active partisan. We may thus
properly embrace the five years of the Protectorate as a period of
Henry Cromwell's administration.

In the absence of a parliament, the government of Ireland was vested
in the deputy, the commander-in-chief, and four commissioners, Ludlow,
Corbett, Jones, and Weaver. There was, moreover, a high court of
justice, which perambulated the kingdom, and exercised an absolute
authority over life and property greater than even Strafford's Court
of Star Chamber had pretended to. Over this court presided Lord
Lowther, assisted by Mr. Justice Donnellan, by Cooke, solicitor to the
parliament on the trial of King Charles, and the regicide Reynolds.
By this court, Sir Phelim O'Neill, Viscount Mayo, and Colonels O'Toole
and Bagnall were condemned and executed; children of both sexes were
captured by thousands, and sold as slaves to the tobacco-planters of
Virginia and the West Indies. Sir William Petty states that 6,000 boys
and girls were sent to those islands. The number, of all ages, thus
transported, was estimated at 100,000 souls. As to the 'swordsmen'
who had been trained to fighting, Petty, in his _Political Anatomy_,
records that 'the chiefest and most eminentest of the nobility and
many of the gentry had taken conditions from the King of Spain,
and had transported 40,000 of the most active, spirited men, most
acquainted with the dangers and discipline of war.' The chief
commissioners in Dublin had despatched assistant commissioners to the
provinces. The distribution which they made of the soil was nearly
as complete as that of Canaan among the Israelites; and this was
the model which the Puritans had always before their minds. Where a
miserable residue of the population was required to till the land
for its new owners, they were tolerated as the Gibeonites had been by
Joshua. Irish gentlemen who had obtained pardons were obliged to
wear a distinctive mark on their dress on pain of death. Persons of
inferior rank were distinguished by a black spot on the right cheek.
Wanting this, their punishment was the branding-iron or the gallows.

No vestige of the Catholic religion was allowed to exist. Catholic
lawyers and schoolmasters were silenced. All ecclesiastics were slain
like the priests of Baal. Three bishops and 300 of the inferior clergy
thus perished. The bedridden Bishop of Kilmore was the only native
clergyman permitted to survive. If, in mountain recesses or caves, a
few peasants were detected at mass, they were smoked out and shot.

Thus England got rid of a race concerning which Mr. Prendergast found
this contemporary testimony in a MS. in Trinity College library,
Dublin, dated 1615:--

'There lives not a people more hardy, active, and painful ... neither
is there any will endure the miseries of warre, as famine, watching,
heat, cold, wet, travel, and the like, so naturally and with such
facility and courage that they do. The Prince of Orange's excellency
uses often publiquely to deliver that the Irish are souldiers the
first day of their birth. The famous Henry IV., late king of France,
said there would prove no nation so resolute martial men as they,
would they be ruly and not too headstrong. And Sir John Norris was
wont to ascribe this particular to that nation above others, that he
never beheld so few of any country as of Irish that were idiots and
cowards, which is very notable.'

At the end of 1653, the parliament made a division of the spoil among
the conquerors and the adventurers; and, on September 26, an act was
passed for the new planting of Ireland by English. The Government
reserved for itself the towns, the church lands, and the tithes, the
established church, hierarchy and all, having been utterly abolished.
The four counties of Dublin, Kildare, Carlow, and Cork were also
reserved. The amount due to the adventurers was 360,000 l. This they
divided into three lots, of which 110,000 l. was to be satisfied in
Munster, 205,000 l. in Leinster, and 45,000 l. in Ulster, and the
moiety of ten counties was charged with their payment--Waterford,
Limerick, and Tipperary, in Munster; Meath, Westmeath, King's and
Queen's Counties, in Leinster; and Antrim, Down, and Armagh, in
Ulster. But, as all was required by the Adventurers Act to be done by
lot, a lottery was appointed to be held in Grocers' Hall, London, for
July 20, 1653, to begin at 8 o'clock in the morning, when lots should
be first drawn in which province each adventurer was to be satisfied,
not exceeding the specified amounts in any province; lots were to
be drawn, secondly, to ascertain in which of the ten counties
each adventurer was to receive his land--the lots not to exceed in
Westmeath 70,000 l., in Tipperary 60,000 l., in Meath 55,000 l., in
King's and Queen's Counties 40,000 l. each, in Limerick 30,000 l., in
Waterford 20,000 l., in Antrim, Down, and Armagh 15,000 l. each. And,
as it was thought it would be a great encouragement to the adventurers
(who were for the most part merchants and tradesmen), about to plant
in so wild and dangerous a country, not yet subdued, to have soldier
planters near them, these ten counties, when surveyed (which was
directed to be done immediately, and returned to the committee for
the lottery at Grocers' Hall), were to be divided, each county by
baronies, into two moieties, as equally as might be, without dividing
any barony. A lot was then to be drawn by the adventurers, and by
some officer appointed by the Lord General Cromwell on behalf of the
soldiery, to ascertain which baronies in the ten counties should be
for the adventurers, and which for the soldiers.

The rest of Ireland, except Connaught, was to be set out amongst the
officers and soldiers for their arrears, amounting to 1,550,000 l.,
and to satisfy debts of money or provisions due for supplies advanced
to the army of the commonwealth amounting to 1,750,000 l. Connaught
being by the parliament reserved and appointed for the habitation of
the Irish nation, all English and Protestants having lands there, who
should desire to remove out of Connaught into the provinces inhabited
by the English, were to receive estates in the English parts, of equal
value, in exchange.

The next thing was to clear out the remnant of the inhabitants,
and the overture to this performance was the following merciful
proclamation:--

'The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England having by one act
lately passed (entitled an Act for the Settling of Ireland) declared
that _it is not their intention to extirpate this whole nation_,
but that mercy and pardon for life and estate be extended to all
husbandmen, plowmen, labourers, artificers, and others of the inferior
sort, in such manner as in and by the said Act is set forth: for the
better execution of the said Act, and that timely notice may be given
to all persons therein concerned, it is ordered that the Governor and
Commissioners of Revenue, or any two or more of them, within every
precinct in this nation, do cause the said Act of Parliament with this
present declaration to be published and proclaimed in their respective
precincts _by beat of drumme and sound of trumpett_, on some markett
day, within tenn days after the same shall come unto them within their
respective precincts.

'Dated at the Castle of Kilkenny, this 11th October, 1652.

  'EDMUND LUDLOW,   MILES CORBET,
  'JOHN JONES,      R. WEAVER.'

A letter from Dublin, dated December 21, 1654, four days before
Christmas, says the 'transplantation is now far advanced, the men
being gone to prepare their new habitations in Connaught. Their wives
and children and dependants have been, and are, packing away after
them apace, and all are to be gone by the 1st of March next.' In
another letter the writer _naively_ remarks, 'It is the nature of this
people to be rebellious, and they have been so much the more disposed
to it, having been highly exasperated to it by the transplanting
work.' The temper of the settlers towards the natives may be inferred
from a petition to the lord deputy and council of Ireland, praying for
the enforcement of the original order requiring the removal of all
the Irish nation into Connaught, except boys of fourteen and girls
of twelve. 'For we humbly conceive,' say the petitioners, 'that the
proclamation for transplanting only the proprietors, and such as have
been in arms, will neither answer the end of safety nor what else is
aimed at thereby. For the first purpose of the transplantation is
to prevent those of natural principles' (i.e. of natural affections)
'becoming one with these Irish, as well in affinity as idolatry, as
many thousands did who came over in Elizabeth's time, many of which
have had a deep hand in all the late murders and massacres. And shall
we join in affinity,' they ask, 'with a people of these abominations?
Would not the Lord be angry with us till He consumes us, having
said--"the land which ye go to possess is an unclean land, because
of the filthiness of the people who dwell therein. Ye shall not,
therefore, give your sons to their daughters, nor take their daughters
to your sons," as it is in Ezra ix. 11, 12, 14. "Nay, ye shall surely
root them out, lest they cause you to forsake the Lord your God."
Deut. c. vii. &c.'

In this way they hoped that 'honest men' would be encouraged to come
and live amongst them, because the other three provinces (that is, all
the island but Connaught) would be free of 'tories,' when there was
none left to harbour or relieve them. They would have made a clean
sweep of Munster, Leinster, and Ulster, so that 'the saints' might
inherit the land without molestation. If any Protestant friends of the
Irish objected to this thorough mode of effecting the work of Irish
regeneration, Colonel Lawrence 'doubted not but God would enable that
authority yet in being to let out that dram of rebellious bloud, and
cure that fit of sullenness their advocate speaks of.'

The commissioners appointed to effect the transplantation were
painfully conscious of their unworthiness to perform so holy a work,
and Were overwhelmed with a sense of their weakness in the midst of
such tremendous difficulties, so that they were constrained to say:
'The child is now come to the birth, and much is desired and expected,
but there is no strength to bring forth.' They therefore fasted and
humbled themselves before the Lord, inviting the officers of the army
to join them in lifting up prayers, 'with strong crying and tears,
to Him to whom nothing is too strong, that His servants, whom He had
called forth in this day to act in these great transactions, might be
made faithful, and carried on by His own outstretched arm, against all
opposition and difficulty, to do what was pleasing in His sight.'

It is true they had this consolation, 'that the chiefest and
eminentest of the nobility and many of the gentry had taken conditions
from the king of Spain, and had transported 40,000 of the most active,
spirited men, most acquainted with the dangers and discipline of war.'
The priests were all banished. The remaining part of the whole nation
was scarce one-sixth of what they were at the beginning of the war, so
great a devastation had God and man brought upon that land; and that
handful of natives left were poor labourers, simple creatures, whose
sole design was to live and maintain their families.'

Of course there were many exceptions to this rule. There were some of
the upper classes remaining, described in the certificates which all
the emigrants were obliged to procure, like Sir Nicholas Comyn, of
Limerick, 'who was numb at one side of his body of a dead palsy,
accompanied only by his lady, Catherine Comyn, aged thirty-five years,
flaxen-haired, middle stature; and one maid servant, Honor M'Namara,
aged twenty years, brown hair, middle stature, having no substance,'
&c. From Tipperary went forth James, Lord Dunboyne, with 21 followers,
and having 4 cows, 10 garrons, and 2 swine. Dame Catherine Morris, 35
followers, 10 cows, 16 garrons, 19 goats, 2 swine. Lady Mary Hamilton,
of Roscrea, with 45 persons, 40 cows, 30 garrons, 46 sheep, 2 goats.
Pierce, Lord Viscount Ikerrin, with 17 persons, having 16 acres of
winter corn, 4 cows, 5 garrons, 14 sheep, 2 swine, &c. There were
other noblemen, lords of the Pale, descended from illustrious English
ancestors, the Fitzgeralds, the Butlers, the Plunkets, the Barnwells,
the Dillons, the Cheevers, the Cusacks, &c., who petitioned, praying
that their flight might not be in the winter, or alleging that their
wives and children were sick, that their cattle were unfit to drive,
or that they had crops to get in. To them dispensations were granted,
provided the husbands and parents were in Connaught building huts,
&c., and that not more than one or two servants remained behind to
look after the respective herds and flocks, and to attend to the
gathering in and threshing of the corn. And some few, such as John
Talbot de Malahide, got a pass for safe travelling from Connaught
to come back, in order to dispose of their corn and goods, giving
security to return within the time limited. If they did not return
they got this warning in the month of March--that the officers had
resolved to fill the jails with them, 'by which this bloody people
will know that they (the officers) are not degenerated from English
principles. Though I presume we should be very tender of hanging any
except leading men, yet we shall make no scruple of sending them
to the West Indies,' &c. Accordingly when the time came, all the
remaining crops were seized and sold; there was a general arrest of
all 'transplantable persons. All over the three provinces, men and
women were hauled out of their beds in the dead hour of night to
prison, till the jails were choked.' In order to further expedite
the removal of the nobility and gentry, a court-martial sat in St.
Patrick's Cathedral, and ordered the lingering delinquents, who shrunk
from going to Connaught, to be hanged, with a placard on the breast
and back of each victim--'_For not transplanting.'_

Scully's conduct at Ballycohy, was universally execrated. But what did
he attempt to do? Just what the Cromwellian officers did at the end
of a horrid civil war 200 years ago, with this difference in favour of
Cromwell, that Scully did not purpose to 'transplant,' He would simply
uproot, leaving the uprooted to perish on the highway. His conduct was
as barbarous as that of the Cromwellian officers. But what of Scully?
He is nothing. The all-important fact is, that, in playing a part
worse than Cromwellian, he, _acting according to English law, was
supported by all the power of the state_; and if the men who defended
their homes against his attack had been arrested and convicted, Irish
judges would have consigned them to the gallows; and they might, as
in the Cromwellian case, have ordered a placard to be put on their
persons:--

    'FOR NOT TRANSPLANTING!'

In fact the Cromwellian commissioners did nothing more than carry out
fully the _principles_ of our present land code. Nine-tenths of the
soil of Ireland are held by tenants at will. It is constantly argued
in the leading organs of English opinion, that the power of the
landlords to resume possession of their estates, and turn them into
pastures, evicting all the tenants, is _essential_ to the rights of
property. This has been said in connection with the great absentee
proprietors. According to this theory of proprietorship, the only one
recognised by law, Lord Lansdowne may legally spread desolation over a
large part of Kerry; Lord Fitzwilliam may send the ploughshare of ruin
through the hearths of half the county Wicklow; Lord Digby, in the
King's County, may restore to the bog of Allen vast tracts reclaimed
during many generations by the labour of his tenants; and Lord
Hertfort may convert into a wilderness the district which the
descendants of the English settlers have converted into the garden
of Ulster. If any or all of those noblemen took a fancy, like Colonel
Bernard of Kinnitty or Mr. Allen Pollok, to become graziers and
cattle-jobbers on a gigantic scale, the Government would be compelled
to place the military power of the state at their disposal, to evict
the whole population in the queen's name, to drive all the families
away from their homes, to demolish their dwellings, and turn them
adrift on the highway, without one shilling compensation. Villages,
schools, churches would all disappear from the landscape; and, when
the grouse season arrived, the noble owner might bring over a party of
English friends to see his '_improvements!_' The right of conquest
so cruelly exercised by the Cromwellians is in this year of grace _a
legal right_; and its exercise is a mere question of expediency and
discretion. There is not a landlord in Ireland who may not be a Scully
if he wishes. It is not law or justice, it is not British power, that
prevents the enactment of Cromwellian scenes of desolation in
every county of that unfortunate country. It is self-interest, with
humanity, in the hearts of good men, and the dread of assassination
in the hearts of bad men, that prevent at the present moment the
immolation of the Irish people to the Moloch of territorial despotism.
It is the effort to render impossible those human sacrifices, those
holocausts of Christian households, that the priests of
feudal landlordism denounce so frantically with loud cries of
'_confiscation_.'

The 'graces' promised by Charles I. in 1628 demonstrate the real
wretchedness of the country to which they were deceitfully offered,
and from which they were treacherously withdrawn. From them we learn
that the Government soldiers were a terror to more than the king's
enemies, that the king's rents were collected at the sword's point,
and that numerous monopolies and oppressive taxes impoverished the
country. There was little security for estates in any part of Ireland,
and none at all for estates in Connaught. No man could sue out livery
for his lands without first taking the oath of the royal supremacy.
The soldiers enjoyed an immunity in the perpetration of even capital
crimes, for the civil power could not touch them. Those who were
married, or had their children baptized, by Roman Catholic priests,
were liable to fine and censure. The Protestant bishops and clergy
were in great favour and had enormous privileges. The patentees of
dissolved religious houses claimed exemption from various assessments.
The ministers of the Established Church were entitled to the aid of
the Government in exacting reparation for clandestine exercises of
spiritual jurisdiction by Roman Catholic priests, and actually appear
to have kept private prisons of their own. They exacted tithes from
Roman Catholics of everything titheable. The eels of the rivers and
lakes, the fishes of the sea paid them toll. The dead furnished the
mortuary fees to the 'alien church' in the shape of the best clothes
which the wardrobe of the defunct afforded. The government of
Wentworth, better known as the Earl of Strafford, is highly praised by
high churchmen and admirers of Laud, but was execrated by the Irish,
who failed to appreciate the mercies of his star-chamber court, or to
recognise the justice of his fining juries who returned disagreeable
verdicts. The list of grievances, transmitted by the Irish House
of Peers in 1641 to the English Government, cannot be regarded as
altogether visionary, for it was vouched by the names of lords,
spiritual and temporal, whose attachment to the English interest was
undoubted. The lord chancellor (Loftus), the archbishop of Dublin
(Bulkeley), the bishops of Meath, Clogher, and Killala were no rebels,
and yet they protested against the grievances inflicted on Ireland by
the tyranny of Strafford. According to these contemporary witnesses,
the Irish nobles had been taxed beyond all proportion to the English
nobles; Irish peers had been sent to prison although not impeached
of treason or any capital offence; the deputy had managed to keep all
proxies of peers in the hands of his creatures, and thus to sway the
Upper House to his will; the trade of the kingdom had been destroyed;
and the 'graces' of 1628 had been denied to the nation, or clogged by
provisoes which rendered them a mockery. And yet, in the face of
such evidence of misery and misgovernment, the Archbishop of Dublin
asserted in a charge to his clergy, that 'all contemporary writers
agree in describing the flourishing condition of the island, and its
rapid advance in civilisation and wealth, when all its improvement
was brought to an end by the catastrophe of the Irish rebellion of
1641'--the very year in which the Irish Houses of Lords and Commons
agreed in depicting the condition of Ireland as utterly miserable!

But Archbishop Trench not only contradicts the authentic contemporary
records, in picturing as halcyon days one of the most wretched periods
of Irish history, but also wrongfully represents one of the saddest
episodes of that history. He reminded his clergy 'that the number
of Protestants who were massacred by the Roman Catholics during the
rebellion was, by the most moderate estimate, set down as 40,000.' His
grace seems to have been unacquainted with the contemporary evidence
collected by the Protestant historian Warner, who examined the
depositions of 1641, on which the story of the massacre was based, and
found the estimate of those who perished in the so-called massacre to
have been enormously exaggerated. He calculated the number of those
killed, 'upon evidence collected within two years after the rebellion
broke out,' at 4,028, besides 8,000 said to have perished through bad
usage. The parliament commissioners in Dublin, writing in 1652 to the
commissioners in England, say that, 'besides 848 families, there
were killed, hanged, burned, and drowned 6,062. Thus there were two
estimates--one of 12,000, the other of 10,000--each of which was far
lower than the estimate of 40,000, which his grace calls 'the
most moderate.' It turns out, moreover, that the argument based by
Archbishop Trench on the false estimate of those said to have been
massacred, is wholly worthless for the purpose intended by his grace.
The disproportion of Protestants to Roman Catholics, which appears
by the census of 1861, cannot be accounted for by the statistics
of 1641--be those statistics true or false. For the proportion of
Protestants to Roman Catholics was higher in 1672--thirty years after
the alleged massacre--than in 1861. The Protestants in 1672, according
to Sir W. Petty, numbered 300,000, and the Roman Catholics 800,000;
while in 1861 there were found in Ireland only 1,293,702 Protestants
of all denominations to 4,505,265 Roman Catholics. It follows from
these figures, as has been already remarked by Dr. Maziere Brady, that
there has been a relative decrease of Protestants, as compared with
Roman Catholics, of 395,772 persons. And this relative decrease was in
no way affected--inasmuch as it took place since the year 1672--by the
alleged massacre of 1641.




CHAPTER XII.

THE PURITAN PLANTATION.


It is a fearful thing to undertake the destruction of a nation
by slaughter, starvation, and banishment. When we read of such
enormities, perpetrated by some 'scourge of God,' in heathen lands and
distant ages, we are horrified, and we thank Providence that it is our
lot to be born in a Christian country. But what must the world think
of our Christianity when they read of the things that, in a most
Bible-reading age, Englishmen did in Ireland?

The work of transplanting was slow, difficult, and intensely painful
to the Irish, for Connaught was bleak, sterile, and desolate, and the
weather was inclement. The natural protectors of many families had
been killed or banished, and the women and children clung with frantic
fondness to their old homes. But for the feelings of such afflicted
ones the conquerors had no sympathy. On the contrary, they believed
that God, angry at their lingering, sent his judgments as a
punishment. Mr. Prendergast has published a number of letters, written
at the time by the English authorities and others, from which some
interesting matters may be gleaned. The town of Cashel had got a
dispensation to remain. 'But,' says the writer, 'the Lord, who is a
jealous God, and more knowing of, as well as jealous against their
iniquity than we, by a fire on the 23rd inst. hath burned down the
whole town in little less than a quarter of an hour, except a few
houses that a few English lived in,' &c. In consequence of the delay,
the Irish began to break into 'torying' (plundering). 'The tories fly
out and increase. What strange people, not to starve in peace.' To
be inclined to plunder under such circumstances, with so gracious a
Government, must be held to be a proof of great natural depravity, as
well as of a peculiar incapacity to respect, or even to understand,
the rights of property.

At length, however, the land was ready for the enjoyment of the
officers and soldiers. On August 20, 1655, the lord deputy, Fleetwood,
thus addressed one of the officers:--

'Sir,--In pursuance of his highness's command, the council here
with myself and chief officers of the army having concluded about
disbanding part of the army, in order to lessening the present charge,
it is fit that your troope be one. And, accordingly, I desire you
would march such as are willing to plant of them into the barony of
Shelmaliere, in the county of Wexford, at or before the first day of
September, where you shall be put into possession of your lands, for
your arrears, according to the rates agreed on by the committee and
agents. As also you shall have, upon the place wherein you are, so
much money as shall answer the present three months' arrear due to you
and your men, but to continue no longer the pay of the army than upon
the muster of this August. The sooner you march your men the better;
thereby you will be enabled to make provision for the winter.' After
some sweetening hints that they will be perhaps paid hereafter as a
militia he concludes:--

'And great is your mercy, that after all your hardships and
difficulties you may sit down, and, if the Lord give His blessing, may
reape some fruits of your past services. Do not think it a blemish
or underrating of your past services, that you are now disbanded; but
look upon it as of the Lord's appointing, and with cheerfulness submit
thereunto; and the blessing of the Lord be upon you all, and keep you
in His fear, and give you hearts to observe your past experience of
signal appearances. And that this fear may be seen in your hearts, and
that you may be kept from the sins and pollutions which God hath so
eminently witnessed against in those whose possessions you are to take
up, is the desire of him who is

  'Your very affectionate friend, to love and serve you,

  'CHARLES FLEETWOOD.'

He congratulated them that, 'having by the blessing of God obtained
their peace, they might sit down in the enjoyment of the enemies'
fields and houses, which they planted not nor built not. They had no
reason to repent their services, considering how great an issue God
had given.' Yet many refused to settle, and sold their debentures to
their officers. What could they do with the farms? They had no horses
or ploughs, no cattle to stock the land, no labourers to till it.
Above all, they had no women. Flogging was the punishment for amours
with Irish girls, and marriage with the idolatrous race was forbidden
under heavy penalties. Hence the soldiers pretended that their wives
were converted to Protestantism. But this was to be tested by a strict
examination of each as to the state of her soul, and the means by
which she had been enlightened. If she did not stand the test, her
husband was degraded in rank, and, if disbanded, he was liable to
be sent to Connaught with the fair seducer. The charms of the Irish
women, however, proved irresistible, and the hearts of the pious
rulers were sorely troubled by this danger.

'In 1652, amongst the first plans for paying the army their arrears
in land, it was suggested there should be a law that any officers or
soldiers marrying Irishwomen should lose their commands, forfeit their
arrears, and be made incapable of inheriting lands in Ireland. No such
provision, however, was introduced into the act, because it provided
against this danger more effectually by ordering the women to
transplant, together with the whole nation, to Connaught. Those in
authority, however, ought never to have let the English officers and
soldiers come in contact with the Irishwomen, or should have ordered
another army of young Englishwomen over, if they did not intend this
provision to be nugatory. Planted in a wasted country, amongst the
former owners and their families, with little to do but to make love,
and no lips to make love to but Irish, love or marriage must follow
between them as necessarily as a geometrical conclusion follows
from the premises. For there were but few who (in the language of a
Cromwellian patriot),

  ----'rather than turne
  From English principles, would sooner burne;
  And rather than marrie an Irish wife,
  Would batchellers remain for tearme of life.'

About forty years after the Cromwellian Settlement, and just seven
years after the Battle of the Boyne, the following was written: 'We
cannot so much wonder at this [the quick "degenerating" of the English
of Ireland], when we consider how many there are of the children of
Oliver's soldiers in Ireland who cannot speak one word of English.
And (which is strange) the same may be said of some of the children
of King William's soldiers who came but t'other day into the country.
This misfortune is owing to the marrying Irishwomen for want of
English, who come not over in so great numbers as are requisite. 'Tis
sure that no Englishman in Ireland knows what his children may be as
things are now; they cannot well live in the country without growing
Irish; for none take such care as Sir Jerome Alexander [second justice
of the Common Pleas in Ireland from 1661 to his death in 1670], who
left his estate to his daughter, but made the gift void if she married
any Irishman;' Sir Jerome including in this term 'any lord of Ireland,
any archbishop, bishop, prelate, any baronet, knight, esquire, or
gentleman of Irish extraction or descent, born and bred in Ireland, or
having his relations and means of subsistence there,' and expressly,
of course, any 'Papist.'--'True Way to render Ireland happy and
secure; or, a Discourse, wherein 'tis shown that 'tis the interest
both of England and Ireland to encourage foreign Protestants to plant
in Ireland; in a letter to the Hon. Robert Molesworth.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Cromwellian Settlement, p.130.]

The impossibility of getting a sufficient number of settlers from
England to cultivate the land, produce food, and render the estates
worth holding, led to some fraudulent transactions for the benefit
of the natives who were 'loath to leave.' The officers in various
counties got general orders giving dispensations from the necessity
of planting with English tenants, and liberty to take Irish, provided
they were not proprietors or swordsmen. But the proprietors who had
established friendships with their conquerors secretly became tenants
under them to parts of their former estates, ensuring thereby the
connivance of their new landlords against their transplantation. On
June 1, 1655, the commissioners for the affairs of Ireland (Fleetwood,
lord deputy, one of them), being then at Limerick, discovered this
fraud, and issued a peremptory order revoking all former dispensations
for English proprietors to plant with Irish tenants; and they enjoined
upon the governor of Limerick and all other officers the removing of
the proprietors thus sheltered and their families into Connaught, on
or before that day three weeks. But, happily, says Mr. Prendergast,
all penal laws against a nation are difficult of execution. The
officers still connived with many of the poor Irish gentry and
sheltered them, which caused Fleetwood, then commander of the
parliament forces in Ireland, upon his return to Dublin, and within a
fortnight after the prescribed limit for their removal was expired,
to thunder forth from Dublin Castle a severe reprimand to all
officers thus offending. Their neglect to search for and apprehend
the transplantable proprietors was denounced as a great dishonour and
breach of discipline of the army; and their entertaining any of them
as tenants was declared a hindrance to the planting of Ireland with
English Protestants. 'I do therefore,' the order continued, 'hereby
order and declare, that if any officer or soldier under my command
shall offend by neglect of his duty in searching for and apprehending
all such persons as by the declaration of November 30, 1654, are
to transplant themselves into Connaught; or by entertaining them as
tenants on his lands, or as servants under him, he shall be punished
by the articles of war as negligent of his duty, according to the
demerit of such his neglect.'

The English parliament resolved to clear out the population of all
the principal cities and seaport towns, though nearly all founded and
inhabited by Danes or English, and men of English descent. In order to
raise funds for the war, the following towns were offered to English
merchants for sale at the prices annexed:--Limerick, with 12,000 acres
contiguous, for 30,000 l., and a rent of 625 l. payable to the state;
Waterford, with 1,500 acres contiguous, at the same rate; Galway, with
10,000 acres, for 7,500 l., and a rent of 520 l.; Wexford, with 6,000
acres, for 5,000 l., and a rent of 156 l. 4 s.

There were no bidders; but still the Government adhered to its
determination to clear out the Irish, and supply their place with a
new English population. Artisans were excepted, but strictly limited
in number, each case being particularly described and registered,
while dispensations were granted to certain useful persons, on the
petition of the settlers who needed their services.

On July 8 in the same year, the governor of Clonmel was authorised to
grant dispensations to forty-three persons in a list annexed, or as
many of them as he should think fit, being artificers and workmen, to
stay for such time as he might judge convenient, the whole time not
to exceed March 25, 1655. On June 5, 1654, the governor of Dublin was
authorised to grant licences to such inhabitants to continue in the
city (notwithstanding the declaration for all Irish to quit) as he
should judge convenient, the licences to contain the name, age,
colour of hair, countenance, and stature of every such person; and the
licence not to exceed twenty days, and the cause of their stay to
be inserted in each licence. Petitions went up from the old native
inhabitants of Limerick; from the fishermen of Limerick; from the
mayor and inhabitants of Cashel, who were all ordered to transplant;
but, notwithstanding these orders, many of them still clung about
the towns, sheltered by the English, who found the benefit of their
services.

The deserted cities of course fell speedily into ruins. Lord
Inchiquin, president of Munster, put many artisans, menial servants,
grooms, &c. in the houses, to take care of them in Cork; still about
3,000 good houses in that city, and as many in Youghal, out of which
the owners had been driven, were destroyed by the soldiers, who used
the timber for fuel. The council addressed the following letter to
Secretary Thurloe:--

  'Dublin Castle, March 4, 1656.

'Right Honourable,--The council, having lately taken into their
most serious consideration what may be most for the security of this
country, and the encouragement of the English to come over and plant
here, did think fitt that all Popish recusants, as wel proprietors
as others, whose habitations are in any port-towns, walled-towns, or
garrisons, and who did not before the 15th of September 1643 (being
the time mentioned in the act of 1653 for the encouragement of
adventurers and soldiers), and ever since profess the Protestant
religion, should remove themselves and their families out of all such
places, and two miles at the least distant therefrom, before the
20th of May next; and being desirous that the English people may take
notice, that by this means there will be both security and conveniency
of habitation for such as shall be willing to come over as planters,
they have commanded me to send you the enclosed declaration, and to
desire you that you will take some course, whereby it may be made
known unto the people for their encouragement to come over and plant
in this country.

  'Your humble servant,

  'THOMAS HERBERT, Clerk of the Council.'

On July 23, 1655, the inhabitants of Galway were commanded to quit the
town for ever by the 1st of November following, the owners of houses
getting compensation at eight years' purchase.

'On October 30, this order was executed. All the inhabitants, except
the sick and bedrid, were at once banished, to provide accommodation
for English Protestants, whose integrity to the state should entitle
them to be trusted in a place of such importance; and Sir Charles
Coote, on November 7, received the thanks of the Government for
clearing the town, with a request that he would remove the sick and
bedrid as soon as the season might permit, and take care that the
houses while empty were not spoiled by the soldiery. The town was thus
made ready for the English. There was a large debt of 10,000 l., due
to Liverpool for their loss and suffering for the good cause. The
eminent deservings and losses of the city of Gloucester also had
induced the parliament to order them 10,000 l., to be satisfied in
forfeited lands in Ireland. The commissioners of Ireland now offered
forfeited houses in Galway, rated at ten years' purchase, to the
inhabitants of Liverpool and Gloucester, to satisfy their respective
debts, and they were both to arrange about the planting of it with
English Protestants. To induce them to accept the proposal, the
commissioners enlarged upon the advantages of Galway. It lay open for
trade with Spain, the Straits, the West Indies, and other places;
no town or port in the three nations, London excepted, was more
considerable. It had many noble uniform buildings of marble, though
many of the houses had become ruinous by reason of the war, and the
waste done by the impoverished English dwelling there. No Irish were
permitted to live in the city, nor within three miles of it. If it
were only properly inhabited by English, it might have a more hopeful
gain by trade than when it was in the hands of the Irish that
lived there. There never was a better opportunity of undertaking a
plantation and settling manufacturers there than the present, and they
suggested that it might become another Derry.'[1]

[Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement.]

Some writers, sickened with the state of things in Ireland, and
impatient of the inaction of our rulers, and of the tedious forms of
constitutional government, have exclaimed: 'Oh for one day of Oliver
Cromwell!' Well, Ireland had him and his worthy officers for many
years. They had opportunities, which never can be hoped for again, of
rooting out the Irish and their religion. '_Thorough_' was their word.
They dared everything, and shrunk from no consequences. They found
Dublin full of Catholics; and on June 19, 1651, Mr. John Hewson had
the felicity of making the following report on the state of religion
in the Irish metropolis:--

'Mr. Winter, a godly man, came with the commissioners, and they flock
to hear him with great desire; besides, there is in Dublin, since
January last, about 750 Papists forsaken their priests and the masse,
and attends the public ordinances, I having appointed Mr. Chambers,
a minister, to instruct them at his own house once a week. They all
repaire to him with much affection, and desireth satisfaction. And
though Dublin hath formerly swarmed with Papists, I know none (now)
there but one, who is a chirurgeon, and a peaceable man. It is much
hoped the glad tidings of salvation will be acceptable in Ireland, and
that this savage people may see the salvation of God.'

Political economists tell us that when population is greatly thinned
by war, or pestilence, or famine, Nature hastens to fill up the void
by the extraordinary fecundity of those who remain. The Irish must
have multiplied very fast in Connaught during the Commonwealth; and
the mixture of Saxon and Celtic blood resulting from the union of the
Cromwellian soldiers with the daughters of the land must have produced
a numerous as well as a very vigorous breed in Wexford, Kilkenny,
Tipperary, Waterford, Cork, East and West Meath, King's and Queen's
Counties, and Tyrone. But these were not 'wholly a right seed.' This
was to be found only in the union of English with English, newly
arrived from the land of the free. The more precious this seed was,
the more care there should be in bringing it into the field. This
matter constituted one of the great difficulties of the plantation.
There were plenty of Irish midwives: they might have been affectionate
and careful, possibly skilful; but if they had any good quality, the
council could not see it. On the contrary, it gave them credit
for many bad qualities, the worst of all being their idolatry and
disloyalty. It was really dreadful to think of English mothers and
their infants being at the mercy of Irish nurses. Consequently, after
much deliberation, and 'laying the matter before the Lord' in prayer,
it was resolved to bring over a state nurse from England, and to her
special care were to be entrusted all the _accouchements_ in the city
of Dublin. Endowed with such a monopoly, it was natural enough that
she should be an object of envy and dislike to those midwives whom she
had supplanted. She was therefore annoyed and insulted while passing
through the streets. To put a stop to these outrages, a proclamation
was issued from Dublin Castle for her special protection, which began
thus:--

_By the Commissioners of Parliament for the Affairs of Ireland_.

'Whereas we are informed by divers persons of repute and godliness,
that Mrs. Jane Preswick hath, through the blessing of God, been very
successful within Dublin and parts about, through the carefull and
skillfull discharge of her midwife's duty, and instrumental to helpe
sundry poore women who needed her helpe, which bathe abounded to the
comfourte and preservation of many English women, who (being come
into a strange country) had otherwise been destitute of due helpe,
and necessitated to expose their lives to the mercy of Irish midwives,
ignorant in the profession, and bearing little good will to any of
the English nation, which being duly considered, we thought fitt to
evidence this our acceptance thereof, and willingness that a person
so eminently qualified for publique good and so well reported of
for piety and knowledge in her art should receive encouragement and
protection,' &c.

Cromwell and his ministers did not hesitate about applying heroic
remedies for what they conceived to be grievances. The Irish
parliament was abolished, like the Irish churches, the Irish cities,
and everything else that could be called Irish, except the thing for
which they fought--_the land_, which was to be Irish no more. The new
England which the Protector established in the Island of Saints
was represented, like Scotland, in the united parliament at
Westminster--which first assembled in 1657. In that parliament, Major
Morgan represented the county of Wicklow. In speaking against some
proposed taxation for Ireland, he said, among other things, the
country was under very heavy charges for rewards paid for the
destruction of three beasts--the wolf, the priest, and the tory. 'We
have three beasts to destroy,' he said, 'that lay burdens upon us. The
first is a wolf, on whom we lay 5 l. a head if a dog, and 10 l. if a
bitch. The second beast is a priest, on whose head we lay 10 l.; if he
be eminent, more. The third beast is a tory, on whose head, if he be
a public tory, we lay 20 l.; and 40 s. on a private tory. Your army
cannot catch them: the Irish bring them in; brothers and cousins cut
one another's throats.'

In May, 1653, the council issued the following printed declaration.
'Upon serious consideration had of the great multitudes of poore
swarming in all parts of this nacion, occasioned by the devastation
of the country, and by the habits of licentiousness and idleness
which the generality of the people have acquired in the time of this
rebellion; insomuch that frequently some are found feeding on carrion
and weeds,--some starved in the highways, and many times poor children
who have lost their parents, or have been deserted by them, are found
exposed to and some of them fed upon _by ravening wolves and other
beasts and birds of prey._'

No wonder the wolves multiplied and became very bold, when they fed
upon such dainty fare as Irish children! By what infatuation, by what
diabolical fanaticism were those rulers persuaded that they were
doing God a service, or discharging the functions of a Government,
in carrying out such a policy, and consigning human beings to such a
fate!

By a printed declaration of June 29, 1653, published July 1, 1656,[1]
the commanders of the various districts were to appoint days and times
for hunting the wolf; and persons destroying wolves and bringing their
heads to the commissioners of the revenue of the precinct were to
receive for the head of a bitch wolf, 6 _l_; of a dog wolf, 5 _l_; for
the head of every cub that preyed by himself, 40 s.; and for the head
of every sucking cub, 10 _s_: The assessments on several counties
to reimburse the treasury for these advances became, as appears from
Major Morgan's speech, a serious charge. In corroboration it appears
that in March, 1655, there was due from the precinct of Galway 243
l. 5 s. 4 d. for rewards paid on this account. But the most curious
evidence of their numbers is that lands lying only nine miles north of
Dublin were leased by the state in the year 1653, under conditions of
keeping a hunting establishment with a pack of wolf hounds for killing
the wolves, part of the rent to be discounted in wolves' heads, at
the rate in the declaration of June 29, 1653. Under this lease Captain
Edward Piers was to have all the state lands in the barony of Dunboyne
in the county of Meath, valued at 543 l. 8 s. 8 d., at a rent greater
by 100 l. a year than they then yielded in rent and contribution, for
five years from May 1 following, on the terms of maintaining at Dublin
and Dunboyne three wolf-dogs, two English mastiffs, a pack of hounds
of sixteen couple (three whereof to hunt the wolf only), a knowing
huntsman, and two men and one boy. Captain Piers was to bring to the
commissioners of revenue at Dublin a stipulated number of wolf-heads
in the first year and a diminishing number every year; but for every
wolf-head whereby he fell short of the stipulated number, 5 l. was to
be defalked from his salary.[2]

[Footnote 1: A/84, p.255. Republished 7th July, 1656.--'Book of
Printed Declarations of the Commissioners for the Affairs of Ireland.'
British Museum.]

[Footnote 2: Cromwellian Settlement, p.154.]

Twenty pounds was paid for the discovery of a priest, the second
'burdensome beast,' and to harbour him was death. Again I avail myself
of the researches of Mr. Prendergast, to give a few orders on this
subject.

'_August_ 4, 1654.--Ordered, on the petition of Roger Begs, priest,
now prisoner in Dublin, setting forth his miserable condition by being
nine months in prison, and desiring liberty to go among his friends
into the country for some relief; that he be released upon giving
sufficient security that within four months he do transport himself to
foreign parts, beyond the seas, never to return, and that during that
time he do not exercise any part of his priestly functions, nor move
from where he shall choose to reside my above five miles, without
permission. Ordered, same date, on the petition of William Shiel,
priest, that the said William Shiel being old, lame, and weak, and
not able to travel without crutches, he be permitted to reside in
Connaught where the Governor of Athlone shall see fitting, provided,
however, he do not remove one mile beyond the appointed place without
licence, nor use his priestly function.'

At first the place of transportation was Spain. Thus:--'_February_
1, 1653. Ordered that the Governor of Dublin take effectual course
whereby the priests now in the several prisons of Dublin be forthwith
shipped with the party going for Spain; and that they be delivered
to the officers on shipboard for that purpose: care to be taken that,
under the colour of exportation, they be not permitted to go into the
country.'

'_May_ 29, 1654.--Upon reading the petition of the Popish priests
now in the jails of Dublin; ordered, that the Governor of Dublin take
security of such persons as shall undertake the transportation of
them, that they shall with the first opportunity be shipped for some
parts in amity with the Commonwealth, provided the five pounds for
each of the said priests due to the persons that took them, pursuant
to the tenor of a declaration dated January 6, 1653, be first paid or
secured.'

The commissioners give reasons for this policy, which are identical
with what we hear constantly repeated at the present day in Ireland
and England and in most of the newspapers conducted by Protestants.
For two centuries the burden of all comments on Irish affairs is 'the
country would be happy but for priests and agitators.' 'Hang or banish
the priests!' cry some very amiable and respectable persons, 'and then
we shall have peace.' 'We can make nothing of those priests,' says the
improving landlord, or agent, 'they will not look us straight in the
face.'

On December 8, 1655, in a letter from the commissioners to the
Governor of Barbadoes, advising him of the approach of a ship with a
cargo of proprietors deprived of their lands, and then seized for not
transplanting, or banished for having no visible means of support,
they add that amongst them were three priests; and the commissioners
particularly desire they may be so employed as they may not return
again where that sort of people are able to do much mischief, having
so great an influence over the Popish Irish, and alienating their
affections from the present Government. 'Yet these penalties did not
daunt them, or prevent their recourse to Ireland. In consequence of
the great increase of priests towards the close of the year 1655, a
general arrest by the justices of the peace was ordered, under which,
in April, 1656, the prisons in every part of Ireland seem to have
been filled to overflowing. On May 3, the governors of the respective
precincts were ordered to send them with sufficient guards from
garrison to garrison to Carrickfergus, to be there put on board such
ship as should sail with the first opportunity for the Barbadoes. One
may imagine the pains of this toilsome journey by the petition of one
of them. Paul Cashin, an aged priest, apprehended at Maryborough,
and sent to Philipstown on the way to Carrickfergus, there fell
desperately sick, and, being also extremely aged, was in danger of
perishing in restraint for want of friends and means of relief. On
August 27, 1656, the commissioners, having ascertained the truth of
his petition, ordered him sixpence a day during his sickness; and
(in answer probably to this poor prisoner's prayer to be spared from
transportation) their order directed that it should be continued to
him in his travel thence (after his recovery) to Carrickfergus, in
order to his transportation to the Barbadoes.'

At Carrickfergus the horrors of approaching exile seem to have shaken
the firmness of some of them; for on September 23, 1656, Colonel
Cooper, who had the charge of the prison, reporting that several would
under their hands renounce the Pope's supremacy, and frequent the
Protestant meetings and no other, he was directed to dispense with the
transportation, if they could give good Protestant security for the
sincerity of their professions.

As for the third beast--the tory, the following extract gives an idea
of the class to which he belonged, or, rather, from which he sprang.

'And whereas the children, grandchildren, brothers, nephews, uncles,
and next pretended heirs of the persons attainted, do remain in
the provinces of Leinster, Ulster, and Munster, having little or no
visible estates or subsistence, but living only and coshering upon
the common sort of people who were tenants to or followers of the
respective ancestors of such persons, waiting an opportunity, as
may justly be supposed, to massacre and destroy the English who, as
adventurers or souldiers, or their tenants, are set down to plant upon
the several lands and estates of the persons so attainted,' they
are to transplant or be transported to the English plantations in
America.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Act for Attainder of the Rebels in Ireland, passed 1656.
Scobell's 'Acts and Ordinances.']

No wonder that Mr. Prendergast exclaims:--

'But how must the feelings of national hatred have been heightened,
by seeing every where crowds of such unfortunates, their brothers,
cousins, kinsmen, and by beholding the whole country given up a prey
to hungry insolent soldiers and adventurers from England, mocking
their wrongs, and triumphing in their own irresistible power!'

Every possible mode of repression that has been devised at the
present time as a remedy for Ribbonism was then tried with unflinching
determination. John Symonds, an English settler, was murdered near
the garrison town of Timolin, in the county Kildare. All the Irish
inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood were immediately transported
to Connaught as a punishment for the crime. A few months after two
more settlers were murdered at Lackagh.

'All the Irish in the townland of Lackagh were seized; four of them
by sentence of court-martial were hanged for the murder, or for not
preventing it; and all the rest, thirty-seven in number, including two
priests, were on November 27 delivered to the captain of the "Wexford"
frigate, to take to Waterford, there to be handed over to Mr. Norton,
a Bristol merchant, to be sold as bond slaves to the sugar-planters in
the Barbadoes. Among these were Mrs. Margery Fitzgerald, of the age
of fourscore years, and her husband, Mr. Henry Fitzgerald of Lackagh;
although (as it afterwards appeared) the tories had by their frequent
robberies much infested that gentleman and his tenants--discovery that
seems to have been made only after the king's restoration.'

The penalties against the tories themselves were to allow them no
quarter when caught, and to set a price upon their heads. The ordinary
price for the head of a tory was 40 s.; for leaders of tories, or
distinguished men, it varied from 5 l. to 30 l.

'But,' continues Mr. Prendergast, 'a more effective way of suppressing
tories seems to have been to induce them, as already mentioned,
to betray or murder one another--a measure continued after the
Restoration, during the absence of parliaments, by acts and orders
of state, and re-enacted by the first parliament summoned after
the Revolution, when in that and the following reigns almost every
provision of the rule of the parliament of England in Ireland was
re-enacted by the parliaments of Ireland, composed of the soldiers and
adventurers of Cromwell's day, or new English and Scotch capitalists.
In 1695 any tory killing two other tories proclaimed and on their
keeping was entitled to pardon--a measure which put such distrust and
alarm among their bands on finding one of their number so killed,
that it became difficult to kill a second. Therefore, in 1718, it was
declared sufficient qualification for pardon for a tory to kill one
of his fellow-tories. This law was continued in 1755 for twenty-one
years, and only expired in 1776. Tory-hunting and tory-murdering thus
became common pursuits. No wonder, therefore, after so lengthened an
existence, to find traces of the tories in our household words. Few,
however, are now aware that the well-known Irish nursery rhymes have
so truly historical a foundation:--

  'Ho! brother Teig, what is your story?'
  'I went to the wood and shot a tory:'
  'I went to the wood, and shot another;'
  'Was it the same, or was it his brother?'

  'I hunted him in, and I hunted him out,
  Three times through the bog, and about and about;
  Till out of a bush I spied his head,
  So I levelled my gun and shot him dead.'

After the war of 1688, the tories received fresh accessions, and, a
great part of the kingdom being left waste and desolate, they betook
themselves to these wilds, and greatly discouraged the replanting of
the kingdom by their frequent murders of the new Scotch and English
planters; the Irish 'choosing rather' (so runs the language of
the act) 'to suffer strangers to be robbed and despoiled, than to
apprehend or convict the offenders.' In order, therefore, for the
better encouragement of strangers to plant and inhabit the kingdom,
any persons presented as tories, by the gentlemen of a county, and
proclaimed as such by the lord lieutenant, might be shot as outlaws
and traitors; and any persons harbouring them were to be guilty of
high treason.[1] Rewards were offered for the taking or killing of
them; and the inhabitants of the barony, of the ancient native race,
were to make satisfaction for all robberies and spoils. If persons
were maimed or dismembered by tories, they were to be compensated by
10 l.; and the families of persons murdered were to receive 30 l.'

[Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement, p.163, &c.]

The Restoration at length brought relief and enlargement to the
imprisoned Irish nation. They rushed across the Shannon to see their
old homes; they returned to the desolated cities, full of hope
that the king for whom they had suffered so much would reward
their loyalty, by giving them back their inheritances--the 'just
satisfaction' promised at Breda to those who had been unfairly
deprived of their estates. The Ulster Presbyterians also counted on
his gratitude for their devotion to his cause, notwithstanding the
wrongs inflicted on them by Strafford and the bishops in the name of
his father. But they were equally doomed to disappointment. Coote
and Broghill reigned in Dublin Castle as lords justices. The first
parliament assembled in Dublin for twenty years, contained an
overwhelming majority of undertakers, adventurers, and Puritan
representatives of boroughs, from which all the Catholic electors
had been excluded. 'The Protestant interest,' a phrase of tremendous
potency in the subsequent history of Ireland, counted 198 members
against 64 Catholics in the Commons, and in the Lords 72 against 21
peers. A court was established under an act of parliament in Dublin,
to try the claims of 'nocent' and 'innocent' proprietors. The judges,
who were Englishmen, declared in their first session that 168 were
innocent to 19 nocent. The Protestant interest was alarmed; and,
through the influence of Ormond, then lord lieutenant, the duration of
the court was limited, and when it was compelled to close its labours,
only 800 out of 3,000 cases had been decided. If the proportions
of nocent and innocent were the same, an immense number of innocent
persons were deprived of their property. In 1675, fifteen years after
the Restoration, the English settlers were in possession of 4,500,000
acres, while the old owners retained 2,250,000 acres. By an act passed
in 1665, it was declared that no Papist, who had not already been
adjudged innocent, should ever be entitled to claim any lands or
settlements.'

Any movement on the part of the Roman Catholics during this reign,
and indeed, ever since, always raised an alarm of the 'Protestant
interest' in danger. While the panic lasted the Catholics were
subjected to cruel restrictions and privations. Thus Ormond, by
proclamation, prohibited Catholics from entering the castle of Dublin,
or any other fortress; from holding fairs or markets within the walls
of fortified towns, and from carrying arms to such places. By another
proclamation, he ordered all the _relatives_ of known 'tories' to be
arrested and banished the kingdom, within fourteen days, unless such
tories were killed or surrendered within that time. There was one tory
for whose arrest all ordinary means failed. This was the celebrated
Redmond O'Hanlon, still one of the most popular heroes with the Irish
peasantry. He was known on the continent as Count O'Hanlon, and was
the brother of the owner of Tandragee, now the pretty Irish seat of
the Duke of Manchester. As no one would betray this outlaw, who levied
heavy contributions from the settlers in Ulster, it was alleged
and believed that the viceroy hired a relative to shoot him. 'Count
O'Hanlon,' says Mr. D. Magee, 'a gentleman of ancient lineage, as
accomplished as Orrery, or Ossory, was indeed an outlaw to the code
then in force; but the stain of his cowardly assassination must for
ever blot the princely escutcheon of James, Duke of Ormond.'[1]

[Footnote 1: See 'The Tory War of Ulster,' by John P. Prendergast,
author of 'The Cromwellian Settlement.' This pamphlet abounds in the
most curious information, collected from judicial records, descriptive
of Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution--A.D. 1660-1690.]




CHAPTER XIII.

THE PENAL CODE, A NEW SYSTEM OF LAND-WAR.


The accession of James II. was well calculated to have an intoxicating
effect on the Irish race. He was a Catholic, he undertook to effect
a counter-reformation. He would restore the national hierarchy to the
position from which it had been dragged down and trampled under the
feet of the Cromwellians. He would give back to the Irish gentry and
nobility their estates; and to effect this glorious revolution, he
relied upon the faith and valour of the Irish. The Protestant militia
were disarmed, a Catholic army was formed; the corporations were
thrown open to Catholics. Dublin and other corporations, which refused
to surrender their exclusive charters, were summarily deprived of
their privileges; Catholic mayors and sheriffs, escorted by troops,
went in state to their places of worship. The Protestant chancellor
was dismissed to make way for a Catholic, Baron Rice. The plate
of Trinity College was seized as public property. The Protestants,
thoroughly alarmed by these arbitrary proceedings, fled to England in
thousands. Many went to Holland and joined the army of the Prince of
Orange. Dreadful stories were circulated of an intended invasion of
England by wild Irish regiments under Tyrconnel. There was a rumour of
another massacre of the English, and of the proposed repeal of the
act of settlement. Protestants who could not cross the channel fled to
Enniskillen and to Derry, which closed its gates and prepared for its
memorable siege. James, who had fled to France, plucked up courage
to go to Ireland, and make a stand there in defence of his crown.
His progress from Kinsale to Dublin was an ovation. Fifteen royal
chaplains scattered blessings around him; Gaelic songs and dances
amused him; he was flattered in Latin orations, and conducted to his
capital under triumphal arches. In Dublin the trades turned out with
new banners; two harpers played at the gate by which he entered; the
clergy in their robes chanted as they went: and forty young girls,
dressed in white, danced the ancient _rinka_, scattering flowers on
the newly sanded streets. Tyrconnell, now a duke, the judges, the
mayor and the corporation, completed the procession, which moved
beneath arches of evergreens, and windows hung with 'tapestry and
cloth of arras.' The recorder delivered to his majesty the keys of the
city, and the Catholic primate, Dominick Maguire, waited in his robes
to conduct him to the royal chapel, where the _Te Deum_ was sung. On
that day the green flag floated from the main tower of the castle,
bearing the motto, 'Now or never--now and for ever.'

The followers of James, according to Grattan, 'though papists, were
not slaves. They wrung a constitution from King James before they
accompanied him to the field.' A constitution wrung from such a man
was not worth much. His parliament passed an act for establishing
liberty of conscience, and ordering every man to pay tithes to his own
clergy only, with some other measures of relief. But he began to
play the despot very soon. The Commons voted him the large subsidy of
20,000 l. He doubled the amount by his own mere motion. He established
a bank, and by his own authority decreed a bank monopoly. He debased
the coinage, and fixed the prices of merchandise by his own will.
He appointed a provost and librarian in Trinity College without the
consent of the senate, and attempted to force fellows and scholars on
the university contrary to the statutes. The events which followed
are well known to all readers of English history. Our concern is with
their effects on the land question.

One of the measures passed by this parliament was an act repealing the
act of settlement. But, soon after the Revolution, measures were taken
to render that settlement firmer than ever. A commission was appointed
to enquire into the forfeited estates; and the consequence was that
1,060,792 acres were declared escheated to the crown. In 1695 King
William, in his speech, read to the Irish parliament, assured
them that he was intent upon the firm settlement of Ireland upon a
Protestant basis. He kept his word, for when he died there did not
remain in the hands of Catholics one-sixth of the land which their
grandfathers held, even after the passing of the act of settlement.
The acts passed for securing the Protestant interest formed the series
known as the penal code, which was in force for the whole of the
eighteenth century. It answered its purpose effectually; it reduced
the nation to a state of poverty, degradation, and slavishness of
spirit unparalleled in the history of Christendom, while it made the
small dominant class a prodigy of political and religious tyranny.
Never was an aristocracy, as a body, more hardened in selfishness,
more insolent in spirit; never was a church more negligent of duty,
more intensely and ostentatiously secular. Both church and state
reeked with corruption.

The plan adopted for degrading the Catholics, and reducing all to one
plebeian level, was most ingenious. The ingenuity indeed may be said
to be Satanic, for it debased its victims morally as well as socially
and physically. It worked by means of treachery, covetousness,
perfidy, and the perversion of all natural affections. The trail of
the serpent was over the whole system. For example, when the last Duke
of Ormond arrived as lord lieutenant in 1703, the Commons waited on
him with a bill 'for discouraging the further growth of Popery,' which
became law, having met his decided approval. This act provided that
if the son of a Catholic became a Protestant, the father should be
incapable of selling or mortgaging his estate, or disposing of any
portion of it by will. If a child ever so young professed to be a
Protestant, it was to be taken from its parents, and placed under the
guardianship of the nearest Protestant relation.

The sixth clause renders Papists incapable of purchasing any manors,
tenements, hereditaments, or any rents or profits arising out of the
same, or of holding any lease of lives, or other lease whatever, for
any term exceeding thirty-one years. And with respect even to such
limited leases, it further enacts, that if a Papist should hold a farm
producing a profit greater than _one-third of the amount of the rent_,
his right to such should immediately cease, and pass over entirely
to the first Protestant who should discover the rate of profit. The
seventh clause prohibits Papists from succeeding to the properties or
estates of their Protestant relations. By the tenth clause, the estate
of a Papist, not having a Protestant heir, is ordered to be gavelled,
or divided in equal shares between _all_ his children. The sixteenth
and twenty-fourth clauses impose the oath of abjuration, and the
sacramental test, as a qualification for office, and for voting at
elections. The twenty-third clause deprives the Catholics of Limerick
and Galway of the protection secured to them by the articles of the
treaty of Limerick. The twenty-fifth clause vests in the crown all
advowsons possessed by Papists.

A further act was passed, in 1709, imposing additional penalties. The
first clause declares that no Papist shall be capable of holding an
annuity for life. The third provides, that the child of a Papist, on
conforming, shall at once receive an annuity from his father; and that
the chancellor shall compel the father to discover, upon oath, the
full value of his estate, real and personal, and thereupon make an
order for the support of such conforming child or children, and for
securing such a share of the property, after the father's death, as
the court shall think fit. The fourteenth and fifteenth clauses secure
jointures to Popish wives who shall conform. The sixteenth prohibits
a Papist from teaching, even as assistant to a Protestant master. The
eighteenth gives a salary of 30 l. per annum to Popish priests who
shall conform. The twentieth provides rewards for the discovery of
Popish prelates, priests, and teachers, according to the
following whimsical scale:--For discovering an archbishop, bishop,
vicar-general, or other person, exercising any foreign ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, 50 l.; for discovering each regular clergyman, and each
secular clergyman, not registered, 20 l.; and for discovering each
Popish schoolmaster or usher, 10 l.

In judging the Irish peasantry, we should try to estimate the effects
of such a system on any people for more than a century. It will
account for the farmer's habit of concealing his prosperity, and
keeping up the appearance of poverty, even if he had not reason for it
in the felonious spirit of appropriation still subsisting under legal
sanction. We are too apt to place to the account of race or religion
the results of malignant or blundering legislation. We are not without
examples of such results in England itself.

In the winter of 1831-2, a very startling state of things was
presented. In a period of great general prosperity, that portion of
England in which the poor laws had their most extensive operation, and
in which by much the largest expenditure of poor-rates had been made,
was the scene of daily riot and nightly incendiarism. There were
ninety-three parishes in four counties, of which the population was
113,147, and the poor-law expenditure 81,978 l., or 14 s. 5 d. per
head; and there were eighty parishes in three other counties, the
population of which was 105,728, and the poor-law expenditure 30,820
l., or 5 s. 9 d. a head. In the counties in which the poor-law
expenditure was large, the industry and skill of the labourers were
passing away, the connection between the master and servant had become
precarious, the unmarried were defrauded of their fair earnings,
and riots and incendiarism prevailed. In the counties where the
expenditure was comparatively small, there was scarcely any instance
of disorder; mutual attachment existed between the workman and his
employer; the intelligence, skill, and good conduct of the labourers
were unimpaired, or increased. This striking social contrast was only
a specimen of what prevailed throughout large districts, and generally
throughout the south and north of England, and it proved that, either
through the inherent vice of the system, or gross mal-administration
in the southern counties, the poor-law had the most demoralising
effect upon the working classes, while it was rapidly eating up the
capital upon which the employment of labour depended. This fact was
placed beyond question by a commission of enquiry, which was composed
of individuals distinguished by their interest in the subject, and
their intimate knowledge of its principles and details. Its labours
were continued incessantly for two years. Witnesses most competent to
give information were summoned from different parts of the country.
The commissioners had before them documentary evidence of every kind
calculated to throw light on the subject. They personally visited
localities, and examined the actual operation of the system on the
spot; and when they could not go themselves, they called to their aid
assistant commissioners, some of whom extended their enquiries into
Scotland, Guernsey, France, and Flanders; while they also collected a
vast mass of interesting evidence from our ambassadors and diplomatic
agents in different countries of Europe and America. It was upon the
report of this commission of enquiry that the act was founded for the
amendment and better administration of the laws relating to the poor
in England and Wales (4 and 5 William IV., cap. 76). A more solid
foundation for a legislative enactment could scarcely be found. The
importance of the subject fully warranted all the expense and labour
by which it was obtained.

One of the most astounding facts established by the enquiry was the
wide-spread demoralisation which had developed itself in certain
districts. Home had lost its sanctity. The ties that bind parents and
children were loosened, and natural affection gave place to intense
selfishness, which often manifested itself in the most brutal manner.
Workmen grew lazy and dishonest. Young women lost the virtue which is
not only the point of honour with their sex, but the chief support of
all other virtues. Not only women of the working classes, but in some
cases even substantial farmers' daughters, and sometimes those who
were themselves the actual owners of property, had their illegitimate
children as charges on the parish, regularly deducting the cost
of their maintenance from their poor-rate, neither they nor their
relatives feeling that to do so was any disgrace. The system must
have been fearfully vicious that produced such depravation of moral
feeling, and such a shocking want of self-respect.

Dr. Burn has given a graphic sketch of the duties of an overseer
under the old poor-law system in England. 'His office is to keep an
extraordinary watch to prevent people from coming to inhabit without
certificates; to fly to the justices to remove them. Not to let anyone
have a farm of 10 l. a year. To warn the parishioners, if they would
have servants, to hire them by the month, the week, or the day, rather
than by any way that can give them a settlement; or if they do hire
them for a year, then to endeavour to pick a quarrel with them before
the year's end, and so to get rid of them. To maintain their poor as
cheaply as they possibly can, and not to lay out twopence in prospect
of any future good, but only to serve the present necessity. To
bargain with some sturdy person to take them by the lump, who yet is
not intended to take them, but to hang over them _in terrorem_, if
they shall complain to the justices for want of maintenance. To
send them out into the country a begging. To bind out poor children
apprentices, no matter to whom, or to what trade; but to take special
care that the master live in another parish. To move heaven and earth
if any dispute happen about a settlement; and, in that particular,
to invert the general rule, and stick at no expense. To pull down
cottages: _to drive out as many inhabitants, and admit as few, as they
possibly can; that is, to depopulate the parish, in order to lessen
the poor's-rate_. To be generous, indeed, sometimes, in giving a
portion with the mother of a bastard child to the reputed father,
on condition that he will marry her, or with a poor widow, _always
provided that the husband_ be settled elsewhere; or if a poor man with
a large family happen to be industrious, they will charitably assist
him in taking a farm in some neighbouring parish, and give him 10 l.
to pay his first year's rent with, that they may thus for ever get rid
of him and his progeny.'

The effect of this system was actually to depopulate many parishes.
The author of a pamphlet on the subject, Mr. Alcock, stated that the
gentlemen were led by this system to adopt all sorts of expedients
to hinder the poor from marrying, to discharge servants in their
last quarter, to evict small tenants, and pull down cottages; so
that several parishes were in a manner depopulated, while England
complained of a want of useful hands for agriculture, manufactories,
for the land and sea service. 'When the minister marries a couple,' he
said, 'he rightly prays that they may be fruitful in the procreation
of children; but most of the parishioners pray for the very contrary,
and perhaps complain of him for marrying persons, that, should they
have a family of children, might likewise become chargeable.' Arthur
Young also described the operation of the law in his time, in
clearing off the people, and causing universally 'an open war against
cottages.' Gentlemen bought them up whenever they had an opportunity,
and immediately levelled them with the ground, lest they should become
'nests of beggars' brats.' The removal of a cottage often drove the
industrious labourer from a parish where he could earn 15 s. a week,
to one where he could earn but 10 s. As many as thirty or forty
families were sent off by removals in one day. Thus, as among the
Scotch labourers of the present day, marriage was discouraged; the
peasantry were cleared off the land, and increasing immorality was the
necessary consequence.

There was another change in the old system, by which the interests of
the influential classes were made to run in favour of the 'beggars'
nests,' which were soon at a premium. The labourer was to be paid,
not for the value of his labour, but according to the number of his
family; the prices of provisions being fixed by authority, and the
guardians making up the difference between what the wages would buy
and what the family required.

The allowance scales issued from time to time were framed on the
principle that every labourer should have a gallon loaf of standard
wheaten bread weekly for every member of his family, and one over. The
effect of this was, that a man with six children, who got 9 s. a week
wages, required nine gallon loaves, or 13 s. 6 d. a week, so that he
had a pension of 4 s. 6 d. over his wages. Another man, with a wife
and five children, so idle and disorderly that no one would employ
him, was entitled to eight gallon loaves for their maintenance, so
that he had 12 s. a week to support him. The increase of allowance
according to the number of children acted as a direct bounty upon
marriage. The report of the Committee of the House of Commons on
labourers' wages, printed in 1824, describes the effect of this
allowance system in paralysing the industry of the poor. 'It is
obvious,' remarked the committee, 'that a disinclination to work must
be the consequence of so vicious a system. He whose subsistence
is secure without work, and who cannot obtain more than a mere
sufficiency by the hardest work, will naturally be an idle and
careless labourer. Frequently the work done by four or five such
labourers does not amount to what might easily be performed by a
single labourer at task work. A surplus population is encouraged: men
who receive but a small pittance know that they have only to marry and
that pittance will be increased proportionally to the number of their
children. When complaining of their allowance, they frequently say,
"We will marry, and then you must maintain us." This system secures
subsistence to all; to the idle as well as the industrious; to the
profligate as well as the sober; and, as far as human interests are
concerned, all inducements to obtain a good character are taken away.
The effects have corresponded with the cause: able-bodied men
are found slovenly at their work, and dissolute in their hours of
relaxation; a father is negligent of his children, the children do not
think it necessary to contribute to the support of their parents;
the employer and employed are engaged in personal quarrels; and the
pauper, always relieved, is always discontented. Crime advances with
increasing boldness; and the parts of the country where this system
prevails are, in spite of our gaols and our laws, filled with poachers
and thieves.' Mr. Hodges, chairman of the West Kent quarter sessions,
in his evidence before the emigration committee, said, 'Formerly,
working people usually stayed in service till they were twenty-five,
thirty, and thirty-five years of age, before they married; whereas
they now married frequently under age. Formerly, these persons
had saved 40 l. and 50 l. before they married, and they were never
burdensome to the parish; now, they have not saved a shilling before
their marriage, and become immediately burdensome.'

The farmers were not so discontented with this allowance system as
might be supposed, because a great part of the burden was cast upon
other shoulders. The tax was laid indiscrimately upon all fixed
property; so that the occupiers of villas, shopkeepers, merchants, and
others who did not employ labourers, had to pay a portion of the wages
for those that did. The farmers were in this way led to encourage a
system which fraudently imposed a heavy burden upon others, and which,
by degrading the labourers, and multiplying their numbers beyond the
real demand for them, must, if allowed to run its full course, have
ultimately overspread the whole country with the most abject poverty
and wretchedness.

There was another interest created which tended to increase the evil.
In the counties of Suffolk, Sussex, Kent, and generally through
all the south of England, relief was given in the shape of house
accommodation, or free dwellings for the poor. The parish officers
were in the habit of paying the rent of the cottages; the rent was
therefore high and sure, and consequently persons who had small pieces
of ground were induced to cover them with those buildings. On this
subject Mr. Hodges, the gentleman already referred to, remarks: 'I
cannot forbear urging again that any measure having for its object the
relief of the parishes from their over population, must of necessity
become perfectly useless, unless the act of parliament contains some
regulations with respect to the erecting and maintaining of cottages.
I am quite satisfied that the erecting of cottages has been a most
serious evil throughout the country. The getting of the cottage tempts
young people of seventeen and eighteen years of age, and even younger,
to marry. It is notorious that almost numberless cottages have been
built by persons speculating on the parish rates for their rents.'

The evils of this system had reached their height in the years 1831-2.
That was a time when the public mind was bent upon reforms of all
sorts, without waiting for the admission from the Tories that the
grievances of which the nation complained were 'proved abuses.' The
reformers were determined no longer to tolerate the state of things,
in which the discontent of the labouring classes was proportioned to
the money disbursed in poor-rates, or in voluntary charities; in
which the young were trained in idleness, ignorance, and vice--the
able-bodied maintained in sluggish and sensual indolence--the aged
and more respectable exposed to all the misery incident to dwelling
in such society as that of a large workhouse without discipline or
classification--the whole body of inmates subsisting on food far
exceeding both in kind and amount, not merely the diet of the
independent labourer, but that of the majority of the persons who
contributed to their support. The farmer paid 10 s. in the pound in
poor-rates, and was in addition compelled to employ supernumerary
labourers not required on his farm, at a cost of from 100 l. to 250 l.
a year; the labourer had no need to hasten himself to seek work, or to
please his master, or to put a restraint upon his temper, having all
the slave's security for support, without the slave's liability to
punishment. The parish paid parents for nursing their little children,
and children for supporting their aged parents, thereby destroying
in both parties all feelings of natural affection and all sense of
Christian duty.

I hope I shall be excused in giving, from a former work of my own,
these home illustrations to prove that bad laws can degrade and
demoralize a people in a comparatively short time, in spite of race
and creed and public opinion; and that, where class interests are
involved, the most sacred rights of humanity are trampled in the mire
of corruption. Even now the pauperism resulting of necessity from the
large-farm system is degrading the English people, and threatening to
rot away the foundations of society. On this subject I am glad to find
a complete corroboration of my own conclusions in a work by one of the
ablest and most enlightened Christian ministers in England, the Rev.
Dr. Rigg. He says:--

'Notwithstanding a basis of manly, honest, and often generous
qualities, the common character of all the uneducated and unelevated
classes of the English labouring population includes, as marked
and obvious features, improvidence, distrust of their superiors,
discontent at their social position, and a predominant passion for
gross animal gratification. Of this general character we regard the
rude, heavy, unhopeful English peasant, who knows no indulge