glory of Ireland, the purity of its women, was learned from the British settlers, for up to the beginning of the seventeenth century the Irish were noted for their licentiousness. These are heavy weights to be placed in the scales in which the merits and demerits of the British Government are balanced; yet, strange to say, they are never alluded to. Let us select one of the anti-English school as an example of the rest, and accompany him in his disquisitions on ancient and modern Irish history. Mr. Lecky is the most respectable among the teachers of the doctrine that no good thing can come out of the British Nazareth, and conveys his opinions in a more polished style. He is also the fittest representative of them, for he is a firm believer in all that they preach, and shares, in full vigour, the onesided credulity of these writers, and their incapacity to recognise real authorities. Like them, too, he accepts every utterance, provided it comes from an anti-English source, as confirmation strong. Thus he cites as evidence such authorities as Thomas Lee, a creature, and as he describes himself, bedfellow of the rebel Tyrone, who after his return from Ireland was executed for his share in the treason of Essex; and Peter Lombard, titular Archbishop of Armagh, and domestic prelate to the Pope, who wrote in Rome, and assured Clement VIII. that the Kingdom of Ireland was the ancient property of the Holy See, that the Irish refused to acknowledge any temporal sovereignty but that of the Pope, and that the Pope's sovereignty over Ireland was derived from God.1 1 See his De Regno Hiberniæ, preface and pp. 114-15. CHAPTER II. THE ELIZABETHAN CONQUEST. 1 THE insurrection of the Earl of Desmond was put an end to in 1583, and Munster enjoyed some peace until the year 1595. In this year "the entire province of Ulster," say the Four Masters, "rose up in one alliance and one union against the English ".1 The English Government, with a half-pacified Munster on their hands, were greatly alarmed by this outbreak, and in the following year, 1596, despatched commissioners to solicit a peace from O'Neill and O'Donnell, the chiefs of the Northern insurrection. Very favourable terms must have been offered to these chiefs, for the Irish annalists inform us that the Government proposed to them the exclusive possession of Ulster, "except the tract of country, extending from Dundalk to the river Boyne, in which the English had dwelt long before that time"; that no collectors of tributes should be sent among them, but that the rents paid by their ancestors should be forwarded by them to Dublin; and that the Irish in the province of Connaught, who had risen up in alliance with O'Donnell, should have similar privileges. Unhappily the Northern chiefs, at the instigation of the 1 Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the Four Masters, p. 1,959. These volumes will be cited by the name of the Four Masters, being that by which they are generally known. 2 Ib., p. 1,999. Spanish king and on his promise of succours, refused the terms offered, and continued the war. Philip O'Sullivan Beare, who was Irish of the Irish, and who hated the English as heretics, also tells us that the conditions proposed by the Government were favourable. "Again proposals of a peace were made on both sides. Fair and honourable terms were offered by the Queen to the Catholic priests and laymen. O'Neill and O'Donnell, with others of the Irish, gave hostages for the acceptance of just and honourable terms, and for their ceasing to rebel. But before the peace was established and arms laid aside, Cobus and other ambassadors from Philip II., king of Spain, arrived, urging O'Neill and O'Donnell to be of good courage, and promising that an army should be immediately sent to their aid. The effect of his embassy was that the terms were rejected and the war renewed. O'Hanlon, Mac Engusa and the whole of Ulster, except the royal garrisons and the AngloIrish of Louth, joined in the confederation. Leinster was in flames, and Connaught was greatly disturbed."1 In August 1598 O'Neill defeated the English with great loss in the battle of the Blackwater, not far from the town of Armagh. The effect of this victory was great and momentous. O'Neill was hailed as the deliverer of Ireland from the English yoke. The chiefs in Ulster, who had hitherto wavered, declared at once for him. In Connaught the revolt was general. The Septs in Leinster, who had up to this time confined themselves to short, occasional insurrections, broke out in full 1 Historia Catholica Iberniæ Compendium, 177. Philip O'Sullivan was nephew of O'Sullivan, Lord of Dunboy, a very valiant leader among the Irish. In 1602 Philip was sent to Spain, and entered the Spanish navy. His Compendium was published in 1621. A second edition appeared in Dublin in 1850, edited by Professor Kelly. fury of rebellion, and bade defiance to the English Government. As for Munster, O'Neill, immediately after the Blackwater defeat, sent two of his lieutenants with four thousand kerne to stir up a fresh rebellion in that province, or as the annalists express it, "to make conquests, and to bring some of the adverse territories over to their cause by solicitation or force."1 These officers were successful. The majority of the Irish clans, and many of the Anglo-Irish lords, united themselves to the Ulster army, and Munster was one general scene of insurrection. The forces of the united Irish were so numerous that they drove the president of the province and the Earl of Ormond into the town of Cork. There being no force to oppose the rebels, they proceeded to murder, burn, ravish and destroy at their leisure. So great were their ravages that "they offered and sold at their camp a stripper or cow in calf for sixpence, a brood mare for threepence and the best hog for a penny, and these bargains were offered and proclaimed in every camp in which they were." 3 Throughout the wide territories of the Earls of Desmond, every Englishman was either killed or driven away. The Four Masters tell us that, "as the country was left in the power of the Irish on this occasion, they conferred the title of Earl of Desmond, by the authority of O'Neill, upon James, the son of, etc, and in the course of seventeen days they left not within the length or breadth of the country of the Geraldines, extending from Dunqueen to the Suir, which the Saxons had well cultivated and 2 1 Four Masters, p. 2,077. Fynes Moryson says that they "spoiled the country, burnt the villages and pulled down the houses and castles of the English, against whom, especially the female sex, they committed all abominable outrages" (Moryson's Hist., i., p. 61). glory of Ireland, the purity of its women, was learned from the British settlers, for up to the beginning of the seventeenth century the Irish were noted for their licentiousness. These are heavy weights to be placed in the scales in which the merits and demerits of the British Government are balanced; yet, strange to say, they are never alluded to. Let us select one of the anti-English school as an example of the rest, and accompany him in his disquisitions on ancient and modern Irish history. Mr. Lecky is the most respectable among the teachers of the doctrine that no good thing can come out of the British Nazareth, and conveys his opinions in a more polished style. He is also the fittest representative of them, for he is a firm believer in all that they preach, and shares, in full vigour, the onesided credulity of these writers, and their incapacity to recognise real authorities. Like them, too, he accepts every utterance, provided it comes from an anti-English source, as confirmation strong. Thus he cites as evidence such authorities as Thomas Lee, a creature, and as he describes himself, bedfellow of the rebel Tyrone, who after his return from Ireland was executed for his share in the treason of Essex; and Peter Lombard, titular Archbishop of Armagh, and domestic prelate to the Pope, who wrote in Rome, and assured Clement VIII. that the Kingdom of Ireland was the ancient property of the Holy See, that the Irish refused to acknowledge any temporal sovereignty but that of the Pope, and that the Pope's sovereignty over Ireland was derived from God.1 1 See his De Regno Hiberniæ, preface and pp. 114-15. |