A Popular
History of Ireland:

from the

Earliest Period

to the

Emancipation of the Catholics

by Thomas D'Arcy McGee

In Two Volumes

Volume II

CONTENTS—VOL. II

HISTORY OF IRELAND

BOOK VIII.
THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION.
(Continued from Volume I)

CHAPTER IV.
SIR HENRY SIDNEY'S DEPUTYSHIP—PARLIAMENT OF 1569—THE SECOND "GERALDINE LEAGUE"—SIR JAMES FITZ-MAURICE.

Sir Henry Sidney, in writing to his court, had always reported John O'Neil as "the only strong man in Ireland." Before his rout at Lough Swilly, he could commonly call into the field 4,000 foot and 1,000 horse; and his two years' revolt cost Elizabeth, in money, about 150,000 pounds sterling "over and above the cess laid on the country"—besides "3,500 of her Majesty's soldiers" slain in battle. The removal of such a leader in the very prime of life was therefore a cause of much congratulation to Sidney and his royal mistress, and as no other "strong man" was likely soon to arise, the Deputy now turned with renewed ardour to the task of establishing the Queen's supremacy, in things spiritual as well as temporal. With this view he urged that separate governments, with large though subordinate military as well as civil powers, should be created for Munster and Connaught—with competent Presidents, who should reside in the former Province at Limerick, and in the latter, at Athlone. In accordance with this scheme—which continued to be acted upon for nearly a century—Sir Edward Fitton was appointed first President of Connaught, and Sir John Perrott, the Queen's illegitimate brother, President of Munster. Leinster and Ulster were reserved as the special charge of the Lord Deputy.

About the time of O'Neil's death Sidney made an official progress through the South and West, which he describes as wofully wasted by war, both town and country. The earldom of the loyal Ormond was far from being well ordered; and the other great nobles were even less favourably reported; the Earl of Desmond could neither rule nor be ruled; the Earl of Clancarty "wanted force and credit;" the Earl of Thomond had neither wit to govern "nor grace to learn of others;" the Earl of Clanrickarde was well intentioned, but controlled wholly by his wife. Many districts had but "one-twentieth" of their ancient population; Galway was in a state of perpetual defence. Athenry had but four respectable householders left, and these presented him with the rusty keys of their once famous town, which they confessed themselves unable to defend, impoverished as they were by the extortions of their lords. All this to the eye of the able Englishman had been the result of that "cowardly policy, or lack of policy," whose sole maxims had been to play off the great lords against each other and to retard the growth of population, least "through their quiet might follow" future dangers to the English interest. His own policy was based on very different principles. He proposed to make the highest heads bow to the supremacy of the royal sword—to punish with exemplary rigour every sign of insubordination, especially in the great—and, at the same time, to encourage with ample rewards, adventurers, and enterprises of all kinds. He proposed to himself precisely the part Lord Stafford acted sixty years later, and he entered on it with a will which would have won the admiration of that unbending despot. He prided himself on the number of military executions which marked his progress. "Down they go in every corner," he writes, "and down they shall go, God willing!" He seized the Earl of Desmond in his own town of Kilmallock; he took the sons of Clanrickarde, in Connaught, and carried them prisoners to Dublin. Elizabeth became alarmed at these extreme measures, and Sidney obtained leave to explain his new policy in person to her Majesty. Accordingly in October he sailed for England, taking with him the Earl and his brother John of Desmond, who had been invited to Dublin, and were detained as prisoners of State; Hugh O'Neil, as yet known by no other title than Baron of Dungannon; the O'Conor Sligo, and other chiefs and noblemen. He seems to have carried his policy triumphantly with the Queen, and from henceforth for many a long year "the dulce ways" and "politic drifts" recommended by the great Cardinal Statesman of Henry VIII. were to give way to that remorseless struggle in which the only alternative offered to the Irish was—uniformity or extermination. Of this policy, Sir Henry Sidney may, it seems to me, be fairly considered the author; Stafford, and even Cromwell were but finishers of his work. One cannot repress a sigh that so ferocious a design as the extermination of a whole people should be associated in any degree with the illustrious name of Sidney.

The triumphant Deputy arrived at Carrickfergus in September, 1568, from England. Here he received the "submission," as it is called, of Tirlogh, the new O'Neil, and turned his steps southwards in full assurance that this chief of Tyrone was not another "strong man" like the last. A new Privy Council was sworn in on his arrival at Dublin, with royal instructions "to concur with" the Deputy, and 20,000 pounds a year in addition to the whole of the cess levied in the country were guaranteed to enable him to carry out his great scheme of the "reduction." A Parliament was next summoned for the 17th of January, 1569, the first assembly of that nature which had been convened since Lord Sussex's rupture with his Parliament nine years before.

The acts of this Parliament, of the 11th of Elizabeth, are much more voluminous than those of the 2nd of the same reign. The constitution of the houses is also of interest, as the earlier records of every form of government must always be. Three sessions were held in the first year, one in 1570, and one in 1571. After its dissolution, no Parliament sat in Ireland for fourteen years—so unstable was the system at that time, and so dependent upon accidental causes for its exercise. The first sittings of Sidney's Parliament were as stormy as those of Sussex. It was found that many members presented themselves pretending to represent towns not incorporated, and others, officers of election, had returned themselves. Others, again, were non-resident Englishmen, dependent on the Deputy who had never seen the places for which they claimed to sit. The disputed elections of all classes being referred to the judges, they decided that non-residence did not disqualify the latter class; but that those who had returned themselves, and those chosen for non-corporate towns, were inadmissible. This double decision did not give the new House of Commons quite the desired complexion, though Stanihurst, Recorder of Dublin, the Court candidate, was chosen Speaker. The opposition was led by Sir Christopher Barnewall, an able and intrepid man, to whose firmness it was mainly due that a more sweeping proscription was not enacted, under form of law, at this period. The native Englishmen in the House were extremely unpopular out of doors, and Hooker, one of their number, who sat for the deserted borough of Athenry, had to be escorted to his lodgings by a strong guard, for fear of the Dublin mob. The chief acts of the first session were a subsidy, for ten years, of 13 shillings 4 pence for every ploughland granted to the Queen; an act suspending Poyning's act for the continuance of that Parliament; an act for the attainder of John O'Neil; an act appropriating to her Majesty the lands of the Knight of the Valley; an act authorizing the Lord Deputy to present to vacant benefices in Munster and Connaught for ten years; an act abolishing the title of "Captain," or ruler of counties or districts, unless by special warrant under the great seal; an act for reversing the attainder of the Earl of Kildare. In the sittings of 1570 and '71, the chief acts were for the erection of free schools, for the preservation of the public records, for establishing an uniform measure in the sale of corn, and for the attainder of the White Knight, deceased. Though undoubtedly most of these statutes strengthened Sidney's hands and favoured his policy, they did not go the lengths which in his official correspondence he advocated. For the last seven years of his connection with Irish affairs, he was accordingly disposed to dispense with the unmanageable machinery of a Parliament. Orders in council were much more easily procured than acts of legislation, even when every care had been taken to pack the House of Commons with the dependents of the executive.

The meeting of Parliament in 1569 was nearly coincident with the formal excommunication of Elizabeth by Pope Pius V. Though pretending to despise the bull, the Queen was weak enough to seek its revocation, through the interposition of the Emperor Maximilian. The high tone of the enthusiastic Pontiff irritated her deeply, and perhaps the additional severities which she now directed against her Catholic subjects, may be, in part, traced to the effects of the excommunication. In Ireland, the work of reformation, by means of civil disabilities and executive patronage, was continued with earnestness. In 1564, all Popish priests and friars were prohibited from meeting in Dublin, or even coming within the city gates. Two years later, The Book of Articles, copied from the English Articles, was published, by order of "the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical." The articles are twelve in number:—1. The Trinity in Unity; 2. The Sufficiency of the Scriptures to Salvation; 3. The Orthodoxy of Particular Churches; 4. The Necessity of Holy Orders; 5. The Queen's Supremacy; 6. Denial of the Pope's authority "to be more than other Bishops have;" 7. The Conformity of the Book of Common Prayer to the Scriptures; 8. The Ministration of Baptism does not depend on the Ceremonial; 9. Condemns "Private Masses," and denies that the Mass can be a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead; 10. Asserts the Propriety of Communion in Both Kinds; 11. Utterly disallows Images, Relics and Pilgrimages; 12. Requires a General Subscription to the foregoing Articles. With this creed, the Irish Establishment started into existence, at the command and, of course, with all the aid of the civil power. The Bishops of Meath and Kildare, the nearest to Dublin, for resisting it were banished their sees; the former to die an exile in Spain, the latter to find refuge and protection with the Earl of Desmond. Several Prelates were tolerated in their sees, on condition of observing a species of neutrality; but all vacancies, if within the reach of the English power, were filled as they occurred by nominees of the crown. Those who actively and energetically resisted the new doctrines were marked out for vengeance, and we shall see in the next decade how Ireland's martyr age began.

The honour and danger of organizing resistance to the progress of the new religion now devolved upon the noble family of the Geraldines of Munster, of whose principal members we must, therefore, give some account. The fifteenth Earl, who had concurred in the act of Henry's election, died in the year of Elizabeth's accession (1558), leaving three sons, Gerald the sixteenth Earl, John, and James. He had also an elder son by a first wife, from whom he had been divorced on the ground of consanguinity. This son disputed the succession unsuccessfully, retired to Spain, and there died. Earl Gerald, though one of the Peers who sat in the Parliament of the second year of Elizabeth, was one of those who strenuously opposed the policy of Sussex, and still more strenuously, as may be supposed, the more extreme policy of Sidney. His reputation, however, as a leader, suffered severely by the combat of Affane, in which he was taken prisoner by Thomas, the tenth Earl of Ormond, with whom he was at feud on a question of boundaries. By order of the Queen, the Lord Deputy was appointed arbitrator in this case, and though the decision was in favour of Ormond, Desmond submitted, came to Dublin, and was reconciled with his enemy in the chapter house of St. Patrick's. A year or two later, Gerald turned his arms against the ancient rivals of his house—the McCarthys of Muskerry and Duhallow—but was again taken prisoner, and after six months' detention, held to ransom by the Lord of Muskerry. After his release, the old feud with Ormond broke out anew—a most impolitic quarrel, as that Earl was not only personally a favourite with the Queen, but was also nearly connected with her in blood through the Boleyns. In 1567, as before related, Desmond was seized by surprise in his town of Kilmallock by Sidney's order, and the following autumn conveyed to London on a charge of treason and lodged in the Tower. This was the third prison he had lodged in within three years, and by far the most hopeless of the three. His brother, Sir John of Desmond, through the representations of Ormond, was the same year arrested and consigned to the same ominous dungeon, from which suspected noblemen seldom emerged, except when the hurdle waited for them at the gate.

This double capture aroused the indignation of all the tribes of Desmond, and led to the formidable combination which, in reference to the previous confederacy in the reign of Henry, may be called "the second Geraldine League." The Earl of Clancarty, and such of the O'Briens, McCarthys, and Butlers, as had resolved to resist the complete revolution in property, religion, and law, which Sidney meditated, united together to avenge the wrongs of those noblemen, their neighbours, so treacherously arrested and so cruelly confined. Sir James, son of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald of Kerry, commonly called James Fitz-Maurice, cousin-germain to the imprisoned noblemen, was chosen leader of the insurrection. He was, according to the testimony of an enemy, Hooker, member for Athenry, "a deep dissembler, passing subtile, and able to compass any matter he took in hand; courteous, valiant, expert in martial affairs." To this we may add that he had already reached a mature age; was deeply and sincerely devoted to his religion; and, according to the eulogist of the rival house of Ormond, one whom nothing could deject or bow down, a scorner of luxury and ease, insensible to danger, impervious to the elements, preferring, after a hard day's fighting, the bare earth to a luxurious couch.

One of the first steps of the League was to despatch an embassy for assistance to the King of Spain and the Pope. The Archbishop of Cashel, the Bishop of Emly, and James, the youngest brother of Desmond, were appointed on this mission, of which Sidney was no sooner apprised than he proclaimed the confederates traitors, and at once prepared for a campaign in Munster. The first blow was struck by the taking of Clogrennan Castle, which belonged to Sir Edmond Butler, one of the adherents of the League. The attack was led by Sir Peter Carew, an English adventurer, who had lately appeared at Dublin to claim the original grant made to Robert Fitzstephen of the moiety of the kingdom of Cork, and who at present commanded the garrison of Kilkenny. The accomplished soldier of fortune anticipated the Deputy's movements by this blow at the confederated Butlers, who retaliated by an abortive attack on Kilkenny, and a successful foray into Wexford, in which they took the Castle of Enniscorthy. Sidney, taking the field in person, marched through Waterford and Dungarvan against Desmond's strongholds in the vicinity of Youghal. After a week's siege he took Castlemartyr, and continued his route through Barrymore to Cork, where he established his head-quarters. From Cork, upon receiving the submission of some timid members of the League, he continued his route to Limerick, where Sir Edmond Butler and his brothers were induced to come in by their chief the Earl of Ormond. From Limerick he penetrated Clare, took the Castles of Clonoon and Ballyvaughan; he next halted some time at Galway, and returned to Dublin by Athlone. Overawed by the activity of the Deputy, many others of the confederates followed the example of the Butlers. The Earl of Clancarty sued for pardon and delivered up his eldest son as a hostage for his good faith; the Earl of Thomond—more suspected than compromised—yielded all his castles, with the sole exception of Ibrackan. But the next year, mortified at the insignificance to which he had reduced himself, he sought refuge in France, from which he only returned when the intercession of the English ambassador, Norris, had obtained him full indemnity for the past. Sir James Fitzmaurice, thus deserted by his confederates, had need of all that unyielding firmness of character for which he had obtained credit. Castle after castle belonging to his cousins and himself was taken by the powerful siege trains of President Perrott; Castlemaine, the last stronghold which commanded an outlet by sea, surrendered after a three months' siege, gallantly maintained. The unyielding leader had now, therefore, no alternative but to retire into the impregnable passes of the Galtees, where he established his head-quarters. This mountain range, towering from two to three thousand feet over the plain of Ormond, stretches from north-west to south-east, some twenty miles, descending with many a gentle undulation towards the Funcheon and the Blackwater in the earldom of Desmond. Of all its valleys Aharlow was the fairest and most secluded. Well wooded, and well watered, with outlets and intricacies known only to the native population, it seemed as if designed for a nursery of insurrection. It now became to the patriots of the South what the valley of Glenmalure had long been for those of Leinster—a fortress dedicated by Nature to the defence of freedom. In this fastness Fitzmaurice continued to maintain himself, until a prospect of new combinations opened to him in the West.

The sons of the Earl of Clanrickarde, though released from the custody of Sidney, receiving intimation that they were to be arrested at a court which Fitton, President of Connaught, had summoned at Galway, flew to arms and opened negotiations with Fitzmaurice. The latter, withdrawing from Aharlow, promptly joined them in Galway, and during the campaign which followed, aided them with his iron energy and sagacious counsel. They took and demolished the works of Athenry, and, in part, those of the Court of Athlone. Their successes induced the Deputy to liberate Clanrickarde himself, who had been detained a prisoner in Dublin, from the outbreak of his sons. On his return—their main object being attained—they submitted as promptly as they had revolted, and this hope also being quenched, Fitzmaurice found his way back again, with a handful of Scottish retainers, to the shelter of Aharlow. Sir John Perrott, having by this time no further sieges to prosecute, drew his toils closer and closer round the Geraldine's retreat. For a whole year, the fidelity of his adherents and the natural strength of the place enabled him to baffle all the President's efforts. But his faithful Scottish guards being at length surprised and cut off almost to a man, Fitzmaurice, with his son, his kinsman, the Seneschal of Imokilly, and the son of Richard Burke, surrendered to the President at Kilmallock, suing on his knees for the Queen's pardon, which was, from motives of policy, granted.

On this conclusion of the contest in Munster, the Earl of Desmond and his brother, Sir John, were released from the Tower, and transferred to Dublin, where they were treated as prisoners on parole. The Mayor of the city, who was answerable for their custody, having taken them upon a hunting party in the open country, the brothers put spurs to their horses and escaped into Munster (1574). They were stigmatized as having broken their parole, but they asserted that it was intended on that party to waylay and murder them, and that their only safety was in flight. Large rewards were offered for their capture, alive or dead, but the necessities of both parties compelled a truce during the remainder of Sidney's official career—which terminated in his resignation—about four years after the escape of the Desmonds from Dublin. Thus were new elements of combination, at the moment least expected, thrown, into the hands of the Munster Catholics.

CHAPTER V.
THE "UNDERTAKERS" IN ULSTER AND LEINSTER—DEFEAT AND DEATH OF SIR JAMES FITZMAURICE.

Queen Elizabeth, when writing to Lord Sussex of a rumoured rising by O'Neil, desired him to assure her lieges at Dublin, that if O'Neil did rise, "it would be for their advantage; for there will be estates for them who want." The Sidney policy of treating Ireland as a discovered country, whose inhabitants had no right to the soil, except such as the discoverers graciously conceded to them—begat a new order of men, unknown to the history of other civilized states, which order we must now be at some pains to introduce to the reader.

These "Undertakers," as they were called, differed widely from the Norman invaders of a former age. The Norman generally espoused the cause of some native chief, and took his pay in land; what he got by the sword he held by the sword. But the Undertaker was usually a man of peace—a courtier like Sir Christopher Hatton—a politician like Sir Walter Raleigh—a poet like Edmund Spencer, or a spy and forger like Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. He came, in the wake of war, with his elastic "letters patent," or, if he served in the field, it was mainly with a view to the subsequent confiscations. He was adroit at finding flaws in ancient titles, skilled in all the feudal quibbles of fine and recovery, and ready to employ the secret dagger where hard swearing and fabricated documents might fail to make good his title. Sometimes men of higher mark and more generous dispositions, allured by the temptations of the social revolution, would enter on the same pursuits, but they generally miscarried from want of what was then cleverly called "subtlety," but which plain people could not easily distinguish from lying and perjury. What greatly assisted them in their designs was the fact that feudal tenures had never been general in Ireland, so that by an easy process of reasoning they could prove nineteen-twentieths of all existing titles "defective," according to their notions of the laws of property.

Sir Peter Carew, already mentioned, was one of the earliest of the Undertakers. He had been bred up as page to the Prince of Orange, and had visited the Courts of France, Germany, and Constantinople. He claimed, by virtue of his descent from Robert Fitzstephen, the barony of Idrone, in Carlow, and one half the kingdom of Desmond. Sir Henry Sidney had admitted these pretensions, partly as a menace against the Kavanaghs and Geraldines, and Sir Peter established himself at Leighlin, where he kept great house, with one hundred servants, over one hundred kerne, forty horse, a stall in his stable, a seat at his board for all comers. He took an active part in all military operations, and fell fighting gallantly on a memorable day to be hereafter mentioned.

After the attainder of John the Proud in 1569, Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary to the Queen, obtained a grant of the district of the Ards of Down, for his illegitimate son, who accordingly entered on the task of its plantation. But the O'Neils of Clandeboy, the owners of the soil, attacked the young Undertaker, who met a grave where he had come to found a lordship. A higher name was equally unfortunate in the same field of adventure. Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex (father of the Essex still more unfortunate), obtained in 1573 a grant of one moiety of Farney and Clandeboy, and having mortgaged his English estates to the Queen for 10,000 pounds, associated with himself many other adventurers. On the 16th of August, he set sail from Liverpool, accompanied by the Lords Dacre and Rich, Sir Henry Knollys, the three sons of Lord Norris, and a multitude of the common people. But as he had left one powerful enemy at court in Leicester—so he found a second at Dublin, in the acting deputy, Fitzwilliam. Though gratified with the title of President of Ulster and afterwards that of Marshal of Ireland, he found his schemes constantly counteracted by orders from Dublin or from England. He was frequently ordered off from his head-quarters at Newry, on expeditions into Munster, until those who had followed his banner became disheartened and mutinous. The O'Neils and the Antrim Scots harassed his colony and increased his troubles. He attempted by treachery to retrieve his fortunes. Having invited the alliance of Con O'Donnell, he seized that chief and sent him prisoner to Dublin. Subsequently his chief opponent, Brian, lord of Clandeboy, paid him an amicable visit, accompanied by his wife, brother, and household. As they were seated at table on the fourth day of their stay, the soldiers of Essex burst into the banquet hall, put them all, "women, youths and maidens," to the sword. Brian and his wife were saved from the slaughter only to undergo at Dublin the death and mutilation inflicted upon traitors. Yet the ambitious schemes of Walter of Essex did not prosper the more of all these crimes. He died at Dublin, two years afterwards (1576), in the 36th year of his age, as was generally believed from poison administered by the orders of the arch-poisoner, Leicester, who immediately upon his death married his widow.

It is apparent that the interest of the Undertakers could not be to establish peace in Ireland so long as war might be profitably waged. The new "English interest" thus created was often hostile to the soundest rules of policy and always opposed to the dictates of right and justice; but the double desire to conquer and to convert—to anglicize and Protestantize—blinded many to the lawless means by which they were worked out. The massacre of 400 persons of the chief families of Leix and Offally, which took place at Mullaghmast in 1577, is an evidence of how the royal troops were used to promote the ends of the Undertakers. To Mullaghmast, one of the ancient raths of Leinster, situated about five miles from Athy in Kildare, the O'Moores, O'Kellys, Lalors, and other Irish tribes were invited by the local commander of the Queen's troops, Francis Cosby. The Bowens, Hartpoles, Pigotts, Hovendons, and other adventurers who had grants or designs upon the neighbouring territory were invited to meet them. One of the Lalors, perceiving that none of those who entered the rath before him emerged again, caused his friends to fall back while he himself advanced alone. At the very entrance he beheld the dead bodies of some of his slaughtered kinsmen; drawing his sword, he fought his way back to his friends, who barely escaped with their lives to Dysart. Four hundred victims, including 180 of the name of O'Moore, are said to have fallen in this deliberate butchery. Rory O'Moore, the chief of his name, avenged this massacre by many a daring deed. In rapid succession he surprised Naas, Athy, and Leighlin. From the rapidity with which his blows were struck in Kildare, Carlow, and Kilkenny, he appeared to be ubiquitous. He was the true type of a guerilla leader, yet merciful as brave. While Naas was burning, he sat coolly at the market cross enjoying the spectacle, but he suffered no lives to be taken. Having captured Cosby, he did not, as might be expected, put him to death. His confidence in his own prowess and resources amounted to rashness, and finally caused his death. Coming forth from a wood to parley with a party of the Queen's troops led by his neighbour, the Lord of Ossory, a common soldier ran him through the body with a sword. This was on the last day of June, 1578—a day mournful through all the midland districts for the loss of their best and bravest captain.

While these events occupied the minds and tongues of men in the North and East, a brief respite from the horrors of war was permitted to the province of Munster. The Earl of Desmond, only too happy to be tolerated in the possession of his 570,000 acres, was eager enough to testify his allegiance by any sort of service. His brothers, though less compliant, followed his example for the moment, and no danger was to be apprehended in that quarter, except from the indomitable James Fitzmaurice, self-exiled on the continent. No higher tribute could be paid to the character of that heroic man than the closeness with which all his movements were watched by English spies, specially set upon his track. They followed him to the French court, to St. Malo's (where he resided for some time with his family), to Madrid, whence he sent his two sons to the famous University of Alcala, and from Madrid to Rome. The honourable reception he received at the hands of the French and Spanish Sovereigns was duly reported; yet both being at peace with England, his plans elicited no open encouragement from either. At Rome, however, he obtained some material and much moral support. Here he found many zealous advocates among the English and Irish refugees—among them the celebrated Saunders, Allen, sometimes called Cardinal Alien, and O'Mulrian, Bishop of Killaloe. A force of about 1,000 men was enlisted at the expense of Pope Gregory XIII., in the Papal States, and placed under an experienced captain, Hercules Pisano. They were shipped at Civita Vecchia by a squadron under the command of Thomas Stukely, an English adventurer, who had served both for and against the Irish Catholics, but had joined Fitzmaurice in Spain and accompanied him to Rome. On the strength of some remote or pretended relationship to the McMurroghs, Stukely obtained from the Pope the titles of Marquis of Leinster and Baron of Idrone and Ross; at Fitzmaurice's urgent request—so it is stated—he was named Vice-Admiral of the fleet. The whole expedition was fitted out at the expense of the Pope, but it was secretly agreed that it should be supported, after landing in Ireland, at the charge of Philip II. Fitzmaurice, travelling overland to Spain, was to unite there with another party of adventurers, and to form a junction with Stukely and Pisano on the coast of Kerry. So with the Papal benediction gladdening his heart, and a most earnest exhortation from the Holy Father to the Catholics of Ireland to follow his banner, this noblest of all the Catholic Geraldines departed from Rome, to try again the hazard of war in his own country.

This was in the spring of the year 1579. Sir Henry Sidney, after many years' direction of the government, had been recalled at his own request; Sir William Drury was acting as Lord Justice; and Sir Nicholas Malby as President of Munster. Expectation of the return of Fitzmaurice, at the head of a liberating expedition, began to be rife throughout the south and west, and the coasts were watched with the utmost vigilance. In the month of June, three persons having landed in disguise from a Spanish ship, at Dingle, were seized by government spies, and carried before the Earl of Desmond. On examination, one of them proved to be O'Haly, Bishop of Mayo, and another a friar named O'Rourke; the third is not named. By the timid, temporizing Desmond, they were forwarded to Kilmallock to Drury, who put them to every conceivable torture, in order to extract intelligence of Fitzmaurice's movements. After their thighs had been broken with hammers, they were hanged on a tree, and their bodies used as targets by the brutal soldiery. Fitzmaurice, with his friends, having survived shipwreck on the coast of Galicia, entered the same harbour (Dingle) on the 17th of July. But no tidings had yet reached Munster of Stukely and Pisano; and his cousin, the Earl, sent him neither sign of friendship nor promise of co-operation. He therefore brought his vessels round to the small harbour of Smerwick, and commenced fortifying the almost isolated rock of Oilen-an-oir—or golden island, so called from the shipwreck at that point of one of Martin Forbisher's vessels, laden with golden quartz, some years before. Here he was joined by John and James of Desmond, and by a band of 200 of the O'Flaherties of Galway, the only allies who presented themselves. These latter, on finding the expected Munster rising already dead, and the much-talked-of Spanish auxiliary force so mere a handful, soon withdrew in their own galleys, upon which an English ship and pinnace, sweeping round from Kinsale, carried off the Spanish vessels in sight of the powerless little fort. These desperate circumstances inspired desperate councils, and it was decided by the cousins to endeavour to gain the great wood of Kilmore, near Charleville—in the neighbourhood of Sir James' old retreat among the Galtee Mountains. In this march they were closely pursued by the Earl of Desmond, either in earnest or in sham, and were obliged to separate into three small bands, the brothers of the Earl retiring respectively to the fastnesses of Lymnamore and Glenfesk, while Fitzmaurice, with "a dozen horsemen and a few kerne," made a desperate push to reach the western side of the Shannon, where he hoped, perhaps, for better opportunity and a warmer reception. This proved for him a fatal adventure. Jaded after a long day's ride he was compelled to seize some horses from the plough, in the barony of Clanwilliam, in order to remount his men. These horses were the property of his relative, Sir William Burke, who, with his neighbour, Mac-I-Brien of Ara, pursued the fugitives to within six miles of Limerick, where Fitzmaurice, having turned to remonstrate with his pursuers, was fired at and mortally wounded. He did not instantly fall. Dashing into the midst of his assailants he cleft down the two sons of Burke, whose followers immediately turned and fled. Then alighting from his saddle, the wounded chief received the last solemn rites of religion from the hands of Dr. Allen. His body was decapitated by one of his followers, that the noble head might not be subjected to indignity; but the trunk being but hastily buried was soon afterwards discovered, carried to Kilmallock, and there hung up for a target and a show. This tragical occurrence took place near the present site of "Barrington's bridge," on the little river Mulkern, county of Limerick, on the 18th day of August, 1579. In honour of his part in the transaction William Burke was created Baron of Castleconnell, awarded a pension of 100 marks per annum, and received from Elizabeth an autograph letter of condolence on the loss of his sons: it is added by some writers that he died of joy on the receipt of so many favours. Such was the fate of the glorious hopes of Sir James Fitzmaurice. So ended in a squabble with churls about cattle, on the banks of an insignificant stream, a career which had drawn the attention of Europe, and had inspired with apprehension the lion-hearted Queen.

As to the expedition under Stukely, its end was even more romantic. His squadron having put into the Tagus, he found the King of Portugal, Don Sebastian, on the eve of sailing against the Moors, and from some promise of after aid was induced to accompany that chivalrous Prince. On the fatal field of Alcacar, Stukely, Pisano, and the Italians under their command shared the fate of the Portuguese monarch and army. Neither Italy nor Ireland heard of them more.

Gregory XIII. did not abandon the cause. On the receipt of all these ill-tidings he issued another Bull, highly laudatory of the virtues of James Fitzmaurice "of happy memory," and granting the same indulgence to those who would fight under John or James of Desmond, "as that which was imparted to those who fought against the Turks for the recovery of the Holy Land." This remarkable document is dated from Rome, the 13th of May, 1580.

CHAPTER VI.
SEQUEL OF THE SECOND GERALDINE LEAGUE—PLANTATION OF MUNSTER—EARLY CAREER OF HUGH O'NEIL, EARL OF TYRONE—PARLIAMENT OF 1585.

We must continue to read the history of Ireland by the light of foreign affairs, and our chief light at this period is derived from Spain. The death of Don Sebastian concentrated the thoughts of Philip II. on Portugal, which he forcibly annexed to the Spanish crown. The progress of the insurrection in the Netherlands also occupied so large a place in his attention, that his projects against Elizabeth were postponed, year after year, to the bitter disappointment of the Irish leaders. It may seem far-fetched to assert, but it is not the less certainly true, that the fate of Catholic Munster was intimately involved in the change of masters in Portugal, and the fluctuations of war in the Netherlands,

The "Undertakers," who had set their hearts on having the Desmond estates, determined that the Earl and his brothers should not live long in peace, however peaceably they might be disposed. The old trick of forging letters, already alluded to, grew into a common and familiar practice during this and the following reign. Such a letter, purporting to be written by the Earl of Desmond—at that period only too anxious to be allowed to live in peace—was made public at Dublin and London. It was addressed to Sir William Pelham, the temporary Lord Justice, and among other passages contained this patent invention—that he (the Earl and his brethren) "had taken this matter in hand with great authority, both from the Pope's holiness and King Philip, who do undertake to further us in our affairs, as we shall need." It is utterly incredible that any man in Desmond's position could have written such a letter—could have placed in the hands of his enemies a document which must for ever debar him from entering into terms with Elizabeth or her representatives in Ireland. We have no hesitation, therefore, in classing this pretended letter to Pelham with those admitted forgeries which drove the unfortunate Lord Thomas Fitzgerald into premature revolt, in the reign of Henry VIII.

Sir John of Desmond had been nominated by the gallant Fitzmaurice in his last moments as the fittest person to rally the remaining defenders of religion and property in Munster. The Papal standard and benediction were almost all he could bequeath his successor, but the energy of John, aided by some favourable local occurrences, assembled a larger force for the campaign of 1579 than had lately taken the field. Without the open aid of the Earl, he contrived to get together at one time as many as 2,000 men, amongst whom not the least active officer was his younger brother, Sir James, hardly yet of man's age. Drs. Saunders and Allen, with several Spanish officers, accompanied this devoted but undisciplined multitude, sharing all the hardships of the men, and the counsels of the chiefs. Their first camp, and, so to speak, the nursery of their army, was among the inaccessible mountains of Slievelogher in Kerry, where the rudiments of discipline were daily inculcated. When they considered the time ripe for action, they removed their camp to the great wood of Kilmore, near Charleville, from which they might safely assail the line of communication between Cork and Limerick, the main depots of Elizabeth's southern army. Nearly half-way between these cities, and within a few miles of their new encampment, stood the strong town of Kilmallock on the little river Lubach. This famous old Geraldine borough, the focus of several roads, was the habitual stopping place of the Deputies in their progress, as well as of English soldiers on their march. The ancient fortifications, almost obliterated by Fitzmaurice eleven years before, had been replaced by strong walls, lined with earthworks, and crowned by towers. Here Sir William Drury fixed his head-quarters in the spring of 1579, summoning to his aid all the Queen's lieges in Munster. With a force of not less than 1,000 English regulars under his own command, and perhaps twice that number under the banner of the Munster "Undertakers" and others, who obeyed the summons, he made an unsuccessful attempt to beat up the Geraldine quarters at Kilmore. One division of his force, consisting of 300 men by the Irish, and 200 by the English account, was cut to pieces, with their captains, Herbert, Price, and Eustace. The remainder retreated in disorder to their camp at Athneasy, a ford on the Morning Star River, four miles east of Kilmallock. For nine weeks Drury continued in the field, without gaining any advantage, yet so harassed day and night by his assailants that his health gave way under his anxieties. Despairing of recovery, he was removed by slow stages to Waterford—which would seem to indicate that his communications both with Cork and Limerick were impracticable—but died before reaching the first mentioned city. The chief command in Munster now devolved upon Sir Nicholas Malby, an officer who had seen much foreign service, while the temporary vacancy in the government was filled by the Council at Dublin, whose choice fell on Sir William Pelham, another distinguished military man, lately arrived from England.

Throughout the summer and autumn months the war was maintained, with varying fortune on either side. In the combats of Gortnatibrid and Enagbeg, in Limerick, the final success, according to Irish accounts, was with the Geraldines, though they had the misfortune to lose Cardinal Allen, Sir Thomas Fitzgerald and Sir Thomas Browne. Retiring into winter quarters at Aharlow, they had a third engagement with the garrison of Kilmallock, which attempted, without success, to intercept their march. The campaign of 1580 was, however, destined to be decisive. Sir John of Desmond, being invited to an amicable conference by the Lord Barry, was entrapped by an English force under Captain Zouch, in the woods surrounding Castle Lyons, and put to death on the spot. The young Sir James had previously been captured on a foray into Muskerry, and executed at Cork, so that of the brothers there now remained but Earl Gerald, the next victim of the machinations which had already proved so fatal to his family. Perceiving at length the true designs cherished against him, the Earl took the field in the spring of 1580, and obtained two considerable advantages, one at Pea-field, against the English under Roberts, and a second at Knockgraffon against the Anglo-Irish, under the brothers of the Earl of Ormond, the recusant members of the original league. Both these actions were fought in Tipperary, and raised anew the hopes of the Munster Catholics. An unsuccessful attempt on Adare was the only other military event in which the Earl bore a part; he wintered in Aharlow, where his Christmas was rather that of an outlaw than of the Lord Palatine of Desmond. In Aharlow he had the misfortune to lose the gifted and heroic Nuncio, Dr. Saunders, whose great services, at that period, taken together with those of Cardinal Allen, long endeared the faithful English to the faithful Irish Catholics.

The sequel of the second Geraldine League may be rapidly narrated. In September, 1580, the fort at Smerwick, where Fitzmaurice had landed from Galicia, received a garrison of 800 men, chiefly Spaniards and Italians, under Don Stephen San Joseph. The place was instantly invested by sea and land, under the joint command of the new Lieutenant, Lord Grey de Wilton, and the Earl of Ormond. Among the officers of the besieging force were three especially notable men—Sir Walter Raleigh, the poet Spenser, and Hugh O'Neil, afterwards Earl of Tyrone, but at this time commanding a squadron of cavalry for her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. San Joseph surrendered the place on conditions; that savage outrage ensued, which is known in Irish history as "the massacre of Smerwick." Raleigh and Wingfield appear to have directed the operations by which 800 prisoners of war were cruelly butchered and flung over the rocks. The sea upon that coast is deep and the tides swift; but it has not proved deep enough to hide that horrid crime, or to wash the stains of such wanton bloodshed from the memory of its authors!

For four years longer the Geraldine League flickered in the South. Proclamations offering pardon to all concerned, except Earl Gerald and a few of his most devoted adherents, had their effect. Deserted at home, and cut off from foreign assistance, the condition of Desmond grew more and more intolerable. On one occasion he narrowly escaped capture by rushing with his Countess into a river, and remaining concealed up to the chin in water. His dangers can hardly be paralleled by those of Bruce after the battle of Falkirk, or by the more familiar adventures of Charles Edward. At length, on the night of the 11th of November, 1584, he was surprised with only two followers in a lonesome valley about five miles distant from Tralee, among the mountains of Kerry. The spot is still remembered, and the name of "the Earl's road" transports the fancy of the traveller to that tragical scene. Cowering over the embers of a half-extinct fire in a miserable hovel, the lord of a country, which in time of peace had yielded an annual rental of "40,000 golden pieces," was despatched by the hands of common soldiers, without pity, or time, or hesitation. A few followers watching their creaghts or herds, farther up the valley, found his bleeding trunk flung out upon the highway; the head was transported over seas, to rot upon the spikes of London Tower.

The extirpation of the Munster Geraldines, in the right line, according to the theory of the "Undertakers" and the Court 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 Warham, 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 a modest 3,000 acres in Cork, on the beautiful Blackwater. The other notable Undertakers were the Hides, Butchers, Wirths, Berklys, Trenchards, Thorntons, Bourchers, Billingsleys, &c., &c. Some of these grants, especially Raleigh's, fell in the next reign into the ravening maw of 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."

Before closing the present chapter, we must present to the reader, in a formal manner, the personage whose career is to occupy the chief remaining part of the present Book—Hugh O'Neil, best known by the title of Earl of Tyrone. We have seen him in the camp of the enemies of his country, learning the art of war on the shores of Dingle Bay—a witness to the horrors perpetrated at Smerwick. We may find him later in the same war—in 1584—serving under Perrott and Norris, along the Foyle and the Bann, for the expulsion of the Antrim Scots. The following year, for these and other good services, he received the patent of the Earldom originally conferred on his grandfather, Con O'Neil, but suffered to sink into abeyance by the less politic "John the Proud," in the days when he made his peace with the Queen. The next year he obtained from his clansmen the still higher title of O'Neil, and thus he contrived to combine, in his own person, every principle of authority likely to ensure him following and obedience, whether among the clansmen of Tyrone, or the townsmen upon its borders.

O'Neil's last official act of co-operation with the Dublin government may be considered his participation in the Parliament convoked by Sir John Perrott in 1585, and prorogued till the following year. It is remarkable of this Parliament, the third and last of Elizabeth's long reign, that it was utterly barren of ecclesiastical legislation, if we except "an act against sorcery and witchcraft" from that category. The attainder of the late Earl of Desmond, and the living Viscount of Baltinglass, in arms with the O'Byrnes in Glenmalure, are the only measures of consequence to be found among the Irish statutes of the 27th and 28th of Elizabeth. But though not remarkable for its legislation, the Parliament of 1585 is conspicuously so for its composition. Within its walls with the peers, knights, and burgesses of the anglicized counties, sat almost all the native chiefs of Ulster, Connaught, and Munster. The Leinster chiefs recently in arms, in alliance with the Earl of Desmond, generally absented themselves, with the exception of Feagh, son of Hugh, the senior of the O'Byrnes, and one of the noblest spirits of his race and age. He appears not to have had a seat in either House; but attended, on his own business, under the protection of his powerful friends and sureties.

CHAPTER VII.
BATTLE OF GLENMALURE—SIR JOHN PERROTT'S ADMINISTRATION—THE SPANISH ARMADA—LORD DEPUTY FITZWILLIAM—ESCAPE OF HUGH ROE O'DONNELL FROM DUBLIN CASTLE—THE ULSTER CONFEDERACY FORMED.

In pursuing to its close the war in Munster, we were obliged to omit the mention of an affair of considerable importance, which somewhat consoled the Catholics for the massacre at Smerwick and the defeat of the Desmonds. We have already observed that what Aharlow was to the southern insurgents, the deep, secluded valley of Glenmalure was to the oppressed of Leinster. It afforded, at this period, refuge to a nobleman whose memory has been most improperly allowed to fall into oblivion. This was James Eustace, Viscount Baltinglass, who had suffered imprisonment in the Castle for refusing to pay an illegal tax of a few pounds, who was afterwards made the object of a special, vindictive enactment, known as "the Statute of Baltinglass," and was in the summer of 1580, on his keeping, surrounded by armed friends and retainers. His friend, Sir Walter Fitzgerald, son-in-law to the chief of Glenmalure, and many of the clansmen of Leix, Offally and Idrone, repaired to him at Slieveroe, near the modern village of Blessington, from which they proceeded to form a junction with the followers of the dauntless Feagh McHugh O'Byrne of Ballincor. Lord Grey, of Wilton, on reaching Dublin in August of that year, obtained information of this gathering, and determined to strike a decisive blow in Wicklow, before proceeding to the South. All the chief captains in the Queen's service—the Malbys, Dudleys, Cosbys, Carews, Moors—had repaired to meet him at Dublin, and now marched, under his command, into the neighbouring highlands. The Catholics, they knew, were concentrated in the valley, on one of the slopes of which Lord Grey constructed a strong camp, and then, having selected the fittest troops for the service, gave orders to attack the Irish camp. Sir William Stanley, one of the officers in command, well describes the upshot, in a letter to Secretary Walshingham: "When we entered the glen," he writes, "we were forced to slide, sometimes three or four fathoms, ere we could stay our feet; it was in depth, where we entered, at least a mile, full of stones, rocks, logs and wood; in the bottom thereof a river full of loose stones, which we were driven to Cross divers times * * * * before we were half through the glen, which is four miles in length, the enemy charged us very hotly * * * * it was the hottest piece of service that ever I saw, for the time, in any place." As might have been expected, the assailants were repulsed with heavy loss; among the slain were Sir Peter Carew, Colonel Francis Cosby of Mullaghmast memory, Colonel Moor, and other distinguished officers. The full extent of the defeat was concealed from Elizabeth, as well as it could be, in the official despatches; but before the end of August private letters, such as we have quoted, conveyed the painful intelligence to the court. The action was fought on the 25th day of August.

Lord Grey's deputyship, though it lasted only two years, included the three decisive campaigns in the South, already described. At the period of his recall—or leave of absence—the summer of 1582, that "most populous and plentiful country," to use the forcible language of his eloquent Secretary, Edmund Spenser, was reduced to "a heap of carcasses and ashes." The war had been truly a war of extermination; nor did Munster recover her due proportion of the population of the island for nearly two centuries afterwards.

The appointment of Sir John Perrott dates from 1583, though he did not enter on the duties of Lord Deputy till the following year. Like most of the public men of that age, he was both soldier and statesman. In temper he resembled his reputed father, Henry VIII.; for he was impatient of contradiction and control; fond of expense and magnificence, with a high opinion of his own abilities for diplomacy and legislation. The Parliament of 1585-6, as it was attended by almost every notable man in the kingdom, was one of his boasts, though no one seems to have benefited by it much, except Hugh O'Neil, whose title of Earl of Tyrone was then formally recognized. Subordinate to Perrott, the office of Governor of Connaught was held by Sir Richard Bingham—founder of the fortunes of the present Earls of Lucan—and that of President of Munster, by Sir Thomas Norris, one of four brothers, all employed in the Queen's service, and all destined to lose their lives in that employment.

The most important events which marked the four years' administration of Perrott were the pacification of Thomond and Connaught, the capture of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, and the wreck of a large part of the Spanish Armada, on the northern and western coasts. The royal commission issued for the first-mentioned purpose exemplifies, in a striking manner, the exigencies of Elizabeth's policy at that moment. The persons entrusted with its execution were Sir Richard Bingham, the Earls of Thomond and Clanrickarde; Sir Turlogh O'Brien, Sir Richard Bourke (the McWilliam), O'Conor Sligo, Sir Brian O'Ruarc, and Sir Murrogh O'Flaherty. The chief duties of this singular commission were, to fix a money rental for all lands, free and unfree, in Clare and Connaught; to assess the taxation fairly due to the crown also in money; and to substitute generally the English law of succession for the ancient customs of Tanistry and gavelkind. In Clare, from fortuitous causes, the settlement they arrived at was never wholly reversed; in Connaught, the inhuman severity of Bingham rendered it odious from the first, and the successes of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, a few years later, were hailed by the people of that province as a heaven-sent deliverance.

The treacherous capture of this youthful chieftain was one of the skilful devices on which Sir John Perrott most prided himself. Although a mere lad, the mysterious language of ancient prophecy, which seemed to point him out for greatness, give him consequence in the eyes of both friends and foes. Through his heroic mother, a daughter of the Lord of the Isles, he would naturally find allies in that warlike race. His precocious prowess and talents began to be noised abroad, and stimulated Perrott to the employment of an elaborate artifice, which, however, proved quite successful. A ship, commanded by one Bermingham, was sent round to Donegal, under pretence of being direct from Spain. She carried some casks of Spanish wine, and had a crew of 50 armed men. This ship dropped anchor off Rathmullen Castle on Lough Swilly, in which neighbourhood the young O'Donnell—then barely fifteen—was staying with his foster-father, McSweeny, and several companions of his own age. The unsuspecting youths were courteously invited on board the pretended Spanish ship, where, while they were being entertained in the cabin, the hatches were fastened down, the cable slipped, the sails spread to the wind, and the vessel put to sea. The threats and promises of the astonished clansmen as they gathered to the shore were answered by the mockery of the crew, who safely delivered their prize in Dublin, to the great delight of the Lord Deputy and his Council. Five weary years of fetters and privation the young captives were doomed to pass in the dungeons of the Castle before they breathed again the air of their native North.

But now every ship that reached the English or Irish ports brought tidings more and more positive of the immense armada which King Philip was preparing to launch from the Tagus against England. The piratical exploits of Hawkins and Drake against the Spanish settlements in America, the barbarous execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the open alliance of Elizabeth with the Dutch insurgents, all acted as stimulants to the habitual slowness of the Spanish sovereign. Another event, though of minor importance, added intensity to the national quarrel. Sir William Stanley, whose account of the battle of Glenmalure we lately quoted, went over to Philip with 1,300 English troops, whom he commanded as Governor of Daventer, and was taken into the counsels of the Spanish sovereign. The fleet for the invasion of England was on a scale commensurate with the design. One hundred and thirty-five vessels of war, manned by 8,000 sailors, and carrying 19,000 soldiers, sailed from the Tagus, and after encountering a severe storm off Cape Finesterre, re-assembled at Corunna. The flower of Spanish bravery embarked in this fleet, named somewhat presumptuously "the invincible armada." The sons of Sir James Fitzmaurice, educated at Alcala, Thomas, son of Sir John of Desmond, with several other Irish exiles, laymen, and ecclesiastics, were also on board. The fate of the expedition is well known. A series of disasters befell it on the coasts of France and Belgium, and finally, towards the middle of August, a terrific storm swept the Spaniards northward through the British channel, scattering ships and men helpless and lifeless on the coasts of Scotland, and even as far north as Norway. On the Irish shore nineteen great vessels were sunk or stranded. In Lough Foyle, one galleon, manned by 1,100 men, came ashore, and some of the survivors, it is alleged, were given up by O'Donnell to the Lord Deputy, in the vain hope of obtaining in return the liberation of his son. Sir John O'Doherty in Innishowen, Sir Brian O'Ruarc at Dromahaire, and Hugh O'Neil at Dungannon, hospitably entertained and protected several hundreds who had escaped with their lives. On the iron-bound coast of Connaught, over 2,000 men perished. In Galway harbour, 70 prisoners were taken by the Queen's garrison, and executed on St. Augustine's hill. In the Shannon, the crew of a disabled vessel set her on fire, and escaped to another in the offing. On the coasts of Cork and Kerry nearly one thousand men were lost or cast away. In all, according to a state paper of the time, above 6,000 of the Spaniards were either drowned, killed, or captured, on the north, west, and southern coasts. A more calamitous reverse could not have befallen Spain or Ireland in the era of the Reformation.

It is worthy of remark that at the very moment the fear of the armada was most intensely felt in England—the beginning of July—Sir John Perrott was recalled from the government. His high and imperious temper, not less than his reliance on the native chiefs, rather than on the courtiers of Dublin Castle, had made him many enemies. He was succeeded by a Lord Deputy of a different character—Sir William Fitzwilliam—who had filled the same office, for a short period, seventeen years before. The administration of this nobleman was protracted till the year 1594, and is chiefly memorable in connection with the formation of the Ulster Confederacy, under the leadership of O'Neil and O'Donnell.

Fitzwilliam, whose master passion was avarice, had no sooner been sworn into the government than he issued a commission to search for treasure, which the shipwrecked Spaniards were supposed to have saved. "In hopes to finger some of it," he at once marched into the territory of O'Ruarc and O'Doherty; O'Ruarc fled to Scotland, was given up by order of James VI., and subsequently executed at London; O'Doherty and Sir John O'Gallagher, "two of the most loyal subjects in Ulster," were seized and confined in the Castle. An outrage of a still more monstrous kind was perpetrated soon after on the newly elected chieftain of Oriel, Hugh McMahon. Though he had engaged Fitzwilliam by a bribe of 600 cows to recognize his succession, he was seized by order of the Deputy, tried by a jury of common soldiers, on a trumped up charge of "treason," and executed at his own door. Sir Harry Bagnal who, as Marshal of Ireland, had his head-quarters at Newry, next to Fitzwilliam himself, profited most by the consequent partition and settlement of McMahon's vast estates. Emboldened by the impunity which attended such high-handed proceedings, and instigated by the Marshal, Fitzwilliam began to practise, against the ablest as well as the most powerful of all the Northern chiefs, who had hitherto been known only as a courtier and soldier of the Queen. This was Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, another of Sir Henry Sidney's "strong men," with the additional advantage of being familiar from his youth with the character of the men he was now to encounter.

O'Neil, in the full prime of life, really desired to live in peace with Elizabeth, provided he might be allowed to govern Ulster with all the authority attached to his name. Bred up in England, he well knew the immense resources of that kingdom, and the indomitable character of its queen. A patriot of Ulster rather than of Ireland, he had served against the Desmonds, and had been a looker on at Smerwick. To suppress rivals of his own clan, to check O'Donnell's encroachments, and to preserve an interest at the English Court, were the objects of his earlier ambition. In pursuing these objects he did not hesitate to employ English troops in Ulster, nor to accompany the Queen and her Deputy to the service of the Church of England. If, however, he really believed that he could long continue to play the Celtic Prince north of the Boyne, and the English Earl at Dublin or London, he was soon undeceived when the fear of the Spanish Armada ceased to weigh on the Councils of Elizabeth.

A natural son of John the Proud, called from the circumstances of his birth "Hugh of the fetters," communicated to Fitzwilliam the fact of Tyrone having sheltered the shipwrecked Spaniards, and employed them in opening up a correspondence with King Philip. This so exasperated the Earl, that, having seized the unfortunate Hugh of the fetters, he caused him to be hanged as a common felon—a high-handed proceeding which his enemies were expert in turning to account. To protect himself from the consequent danger, he went to England in May, 1590, without obtaining the license of the Lord Deputy, as by law required. On arriving in London he was imprisoned, but, in the course of a month, obtained his liberty, after signing articles, in which he agreed to drop the Celtic title of O'Neil; to allow the erection of gaols in his country; that he should execute no man without a commission from the Lord Deputy, except in cases of martial law; that he should keep his troop of horsemen in the Queen's pay, ready for the Queen's service, and that Tyrone should be regularly reduced to shire-ground. For the performance of these articles, which he confirmed on reaching Dublin, he was to place sureties in the hands of certain merchants of that city, or gentlemen of the Pale, enjoying the confidence of the Crown. On such hard conditions his earldom was confirmed to him, and he was apparently taken into all his former favour. But we may date the conception of his latter and more national policy from the period of this journey, and the brief imprisonment he had undergone in London.

The "profound dissembling mind" which English historians, his cotemporaries, attribute to O'Neil, was now brought into daily exercise. When he discovered money to be the master passion of the Lord Deputy, he procured his connivance at the escape of Hugh Roe O'Donnell from Dublin Castle. On a dark night in the depth of winter the youthful chief, with several of his companions, succeeded in escaping to the hills in the neighbourhood of Powerscourt; but, exhausted and bewildered, they were again taken, and returned to their dungeons. Two years later, the heir of Tyrconnell was more fortunate. In Christmas week, 1592, he again escaped, through a sewer of the Castle, with Henry and Art O'Neil, sons of John the Proud. In the street they found O'Hagan, the confidential agent of Tyrone, waiting to guide them to the fastness of Glenmalure. Through the deep snows of the Dublin and Wicklow highlands the prisoners and their guide plodded their way. After a weary tramp they at length sunk down overwhelmed with fatigue. In this condition they were found insensible by a party despatched by Feagh O'Byrne; Art O'Neil, on being raised up, fell backward and expired; O'Donnell was so severely frost-bitten that he did not recover for many months the free use of his limbs. With his remaining companion he was nursed in the recesses of Glenmalure, until he became able to sit a horse, when he set out for home. Although the utmost vigilance was exercised by all the warders of the Pale, he crossed the Liffey and the Boyne undiscovered, rode boldly through the streets of Dundalk, and found an enthusiastic welcome, first from Tyrone in Dungannon, and soon after from the aged chief, his father, in the Castle of Ballyshannon. Early in the following year, the elder O'Donnell resigned the chieftaincy in favour of his popular son, who was, on the 3rd of May, duly proclaimed the O'Donnell, from the ancient mound of Kilmacrenan.

The Ulster Confederacy, of which, for ten years, O'Neil and O'Donnell were the joint and inseparable leaders, was now imminent. Tyrone, by carrying off, the year previous to O'Donnell's escape, the beautiful sister of Marshal Bagnal, whom he married, had still further inflamed the hatred borne to him by that officer. Bagnal complained bitterly of the abduction to the Queen, charging, among other things, that O'Neil had a divorced wife still alive. A challenge was in consequence sent him by his new brother-in-law, but the cartel was not accepted. Every day's events were hastening a general alliance between the secondary chieftains of the Province and the two leading spirits. The O'Ruarc and Maguire were attacked by Bingham, and successfully defended themselves until the Lord Deputy and the Marshal also marched against them, summoning O'Neil to their aid. The latter, feeling that the time was not yet ripe, temporized with Fitzwilliam during the campaign of 1593, and though in the field at the head of his horsemen, nominally for the Queen, he seems to have rather employed his opportunities to promote that Northern Union which he had so much at heart.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE ULSTER CONFEDERACY—FEAGH MAC HUGH O'BYRNE—CAMPAIGN OF 1595—NEGOTIATIONS, ENGLISH AND SPANISH—BATTLE OF THE YELLOW FORD—ITS CONSEQUENCES.

In the summer of 1594 the cruel and mercenary Fitzwilliam was succeeded by Sir William Russell, who had served the Queen, both in Ireland "and in divers other places beyond sea, in martial affairs." In lieu of the arbitrary exaction of county cess—so grossly abused by his predecessor—the shires of the Pale were to pay for the future into the Treasury of Dublin a composition of 2,100 pounds per annum, out of which the fixed sum of 1,000 pounds was allowed as the Deputy's wages. Russell's administration lasted till May, 1597. In that month he was succeeded by Thomas, Lord Borough, who died in August following of the wounds received in an expedition against Tyrone; after which the administration remained in the hands of the Justices till the appointment of the Earl of Essex.

On the arrival of Russell, Tyrone for the last time ventured to appear within the walls of Dublin. His influence in the city, and even at the Council table, must have been considerable to enable him to enter the gates of the Castle with so much confidence. He came to explain his wrongs against the previous Deputy, to defend himself against Bagnal's charges, and to discover, if possible, the instructions of Russell. If in one respect he was gratified by a personal triumph over his brother-in-law, in another he had cause for serious alarm, on learning that Sir John Norris, brother of the President of Munster, a commander of the highest reputation, was to be sent over under the title of Lord General, with 2,000 veterans who served in Brittany, and 1,000 of a new levy. He further learned that his own arrest had been discussed at the Council, and, leaving Dublin precipitately, he hastened to his home at Dungannon. All men's minds were now naturally filled with wars and rumours of wars.

The first blow was struck at "the firebrand of the mountains," as he was called at Court, Feagh Mac Hugh O'Byrne. The truce made with him expired in 1594, and his application for his renewal was not honoured with an answer. On the contrary, his sureties at Dublin, Geoffrey, son of Hugh, and his own son, James, were committed to close custody in the Castle. His son-in-law, Sir Walter Fitzgerald, had been driven by ill-usage, and his friendship for Lord Baltinglass, to the shelter of Glenmalure, and this was, of course, made a ground of charge against its chief. During the last months of 1594, Mynce, Sheriff of Carlow, informed the Lord Deputy of warlike preparations in the Glen, and that Brian Oge O'Rourke had actually passed to and fro through Dublin city and county, as confidential agent between Feagh Mac Hugh and Tyrone. In January following, under cover of a hunting party among the hills, the Deputy, by a night march on Glenmalure, succeeded in surprising O'Byrne's house at Ballincor, and had almost taken the aged chieftain prisoner. In the flight, Rose O'Toole, his wife, was wounded in the breast, and a priest detected hiding in a thicket was shot dead. Feagh retired to Dromceat, or the Cat's-back Mountain—one of the best positions in the Glen—while a strong force was quartered in his former mansion to observe his movements. In April, his son-in-law, Fitzgerald, was taken prisoner, near Baltinglass, in a retreat where he was laid up severely wounded; in May, a party under the Deputy's command scoured the mountains and seized the Lady Rose, who was attainted of treason, and, like Fitzgerald, barbarously given up to the halter and the quartering knife. Two foster-brothers of the chief were, at the same time and in the same manner, put to death, and a large reward was offered for his own apprehension, alive or dead.

Hugh O'Neil announced his resort to arms by a vigorous protest against the onslaught made on his friend O'Byrne. Without waiting for, or expecting any answer, he surprised the fort erected on the Blackwater which commanded the highway into his own territory. This fort, which was situated between Armagh and Dungannon, about five miles distant from either, served, before the fortification of Charlemont, as the main English stronghold in that part of Ulster. The river Blackwater on which it stood, from its source on the borders of Monaghan to its outlet in Lough Neagh, watered a fertile valley, which now became the principal theatre of war; for Hugh O'Neil, and afterwards for his celebrated nephew, it proved to be a theatre of victory. General Norris, on reaching Ireland, at once marched northward to recover the fort lately taken. O'Neil, having demolished the works, retreated before him; considering Dungannon also unfit to stand a regular siege, he dismantled the town, burnt his own castle to the ground, having first secured every portable article of value. Norris contented himself with reconnoitring the Earl's entrenched camp at some distance from Dungannon, and returned to Newry, where he established his head-quarters.

The campaign in another quarter was attended with even better success for the Confederates. Hugh Roe O'Donnell, no longer withheld by the more politic O'Neil, displayed in action all the fiery energy of his nature. Under his banner he united almost all the tribes of Ulster not enlisted with O'Neil; while six hundred Scots, led by MacLeod of Ara, obeyed his commands. He first descended on the plains of Annally-O'Farrell (the present county of Longford), driving the English settlers before him: he next visited the undertaker's tenants in Connaught, ejecting them from Boyle and Ballymoate, and pursuing them to the gates of Tuam. On his return, the important town and castle of Sligo, the property of O'Conor, then in England, submitted to him. Sir Richard Bingham endeavoured to recover it, but was beaten off with loss. O'Donnell, finding it cheaper to demolish than defend it, broke down the castle and returned in triumph across the Erne.

General Norris, having arranged his plan of campaign at Newry, attempted to victual Armagh, besieged by O'Neil, but was repulsed by that leader after a severe struggle. He, however, succeeded in throwing supplies into Monaghan, where a strong garrison was quartered, and to which O'Neil and O'Donnell proceeded to lay siege. While lying before Monaghan they received overtures of peace from the Lord Deputy, who continually disagreed with Sir John Norris as to the conduct of the war, and lost no opportunity of thwarting his plans. He did not now blush to address, as Earl of Tyrone, the man he had lately proclaimed a traitor at Dublin, by the title of the son of a blacksmith. The Irish leaders at the outset refused to meet the Commissioners—Chief Justice Gardiner and Sir Henry Wallop, Treasurer-at-War—in Dundalk, so the latter were compelled to wait on them in the camp before Monaghan. The terms demanded by O'Neil and O'Donnell, including entire freedom of religious worship, were reserved by the Commissioners for the consideration of the Council, with whose sanction, a few weeks afterwards, all the Ulster chiefs, except "the Queen's O'Reilly," were formally tried before a jury at Dublin, and condemned as traitors.

Monaghan was thrice taken and retaken in this campaign. It was on the second return of General Norris from that town he found himself unexpectedly in presence of O'Neil's army, advantageously posted on the left bank of the little stream which waters the village of Clontibret. Norris made two attempts to force the passage, but without success. Sir Thomas Norris, and the general himself, were wounded; Seagrave, a gigantic Meathian cavalry officer, was slain in a hand to hand encounter with O'Neil; the English retreated hastily on Newry, and Monaghan was again surrendered to the Irish. This brilliant combat at Clontibret closed the campaign of 1595. General Norris, who, like Sir John Moore, two centuries later, commanded the respect, and frankly acknowledged the wrongs of the people against whom he fought, employed the winter months in endeavouring to effect a reconciliation between O'Neil and the Queen's Government. He had conceived a warm and chivalrous regard for his opponent; for he could not deny that he had been driven to take up arms in self-defence. At his instance a royal commission to treat with the Earl was issued, and the latter cheerfully gave them a meeting in an open field without the walls of Dundalk. The same terms which he had proposed before Monaghan were repeated in his ultimatum, and the Commissioners agreed to give him a positive answer by the 2nd day of April. On that day they attended at Dundalk, but O'Neil did not appear. The Commissioners delayed an entire fortnight, addressing him in the interim an urgent remonstrance to come in and conclude their negotiation. On the 17th of the month they received his reasons for breaking off the treaty—the principal of which was, that the truce had been repeatedly broken through by the English garrisons—and so the campaign of 1596 was to be fought with renewed animosity on both sides.

Early in May the Lord Deputy made another descent on Ballincor, which Feagh Mac Hugh had recovered in the autumn to lose again in the spring. Though worn with years and infirm of body, the Wicklow chieftain held his devoted bands well together, and kept the garrison of Dublin constantly on the defensive. In the new chieftain of the O'Moores he found at this moment a young and active coadjutor. In an affair at Stradbally Bridge, O'Moore obtained a considerable victory, leaving among the slain Alexander and Francis Cosby, grandsons of the commander in the massacre at Mullaghmast.

The arrival of three Spanish frigates with arms and ammunition in Donegal Bay was welcome news to the Northern Catholics. They were delivered to O'Donnell, who was incessantly in the field, while O'Neil was again undergoing the forms of diplomacy with a new royal commission at Dundalk. He himself disclaimed any correspondence with the King of Spain, but did not deny that such negotiations might be maintained by others. It is alleged that, while many of the chiefs had signed a formal invitation to the Spanish King to assume their crown, O'Neil had not gone beyond verbal assurances of co-operation with them. However this may be, he resolved that the entire season should not be wasted in words, so he attacked the strong garrison left in Armagh, and recovered the primatial city. According to the Irish practice, he dismantled the fortress, which, however, was again reconstructed by the English before the end of the war. Some other skirmishes, of which we have no very clear account, and which we may set down as of no decisive character, terminated the campaign.

In May, 1597, Lord Borough, who had distinguished himself in the Netherlands, replaced Russell as Lord Deputy, and assumed the command-in-chief, in place of Sir John Norris. Simultaneously with his arrival Feagh Mac Hugh O'Byrne, was surprised in Glenmalure by a detachment from Dublin, and slain; he died as he had lived, a hero and a free man. O'Neil, who was warmly attached to the Wicklow chief, immediately despatched such succour as he could spare to Feagh's sons, and promised to continue to them the friendship he had always entertained for their father. Against Tyrone the new Lord Deputy now endeavoured to combine all the military resources at his disposal. Towards the end of July, Sir Conyers Clifford was ordered to muster the available force of Connaught at Boyle, and to march into Sligo and Donegal. A thousand men of the Anglo-Irish were assembled at Mullingar, under the command of young Barnewell of Trimbleston, who was instructed to effect a junction with the main force upon the borders of Ulster. The Lord Deputy, marching in force from Drogheda, penetrated, unopposed, the valley of the Blackwater, and entered Armagh. From Armagh he moved to the relief of the Blackwater fort, besieged by O'Neil. At a place called Drumfliuch, where Battleford Bridge now stands, Tyrone contrived to draw his enemies into an engagement on very disadvantageous ground. The result was a severe defeat to the new Deputy, who, a few days afterwards, died of his wounds at Newry, as his second in command, the Earl of Kildare, did at Drogheda. Sir Francis Vaughan, Sir Thomas Waller, and other distinguished officers, fell in the same action, but the fort, the main prize of the combatants, remained in English hands till the following year. O'Donnell, with equal success, held Ballyshannon, compelled Sir Conyers Clifford to raise the siege with the loss of the Earl of Thomond, and a large part of his following. Simultaneously, Captain Richard Tyrrell of West-Meath—one of O'Neil's favourite officers—having laid an ambuscade for young Barnewell at the pass in West-Meath which now bears his name, the Meathian regiment were sabred to a man. Mullingar and Maryborough were taken and sacked, and in the North, Sir John Chichester, Governor of Carrickfergus, was cut off with his troop by MacDonald of the Glens.

These successes synchronize exactly with the expectation of a second Spanish Armada, which filled Elizabeth with her old apprehensions. Philip was persuaded again to tempt the fortune of the seas, and towards the end of October his fleet, under the Adelantado of Castille, appeared off the Scilly Islands, with a view to secure the Isle of Wight, or some other station, from which to operate an invasion the ensuing spring. Extraordinary means were taken for defence; the English troops in France were recalled, new levies raised, and the Queen's favourite, the young Earl of Essex, appointed to command the fleet, with Raleigh and Lord Thomas Howard as Vice-Admirals. But the elements again fought for the northern island; a storm, which swept the channel for weeks, drove the English ships into their ports, but scattered those of Spain over the Bay of Biscay. In this second expedition sailed Florence Conroy, and other Irish exiles, who had maintained for years a close correspondence with the Catholic leaders. Their presence in the fleet, the existence of the correspondence, and the progress of the revolt itself, will sufficiently account for the apparent vacillations of English policy in Ulster in the last months of 1597. Shortly before Christmas, Ormond, now Lord Lieutenant, accompanied by the Earl of Thomond, attended only by their personal followers, visited Dungannon, and remained three days in conference with O'Neil and O'Donnell. The Irish chiefs reiterated their old demands: freedom of worship, and the retention of the substantial power attached to their ancient rank. They would admit Sheriffs, if they were chosen from among natives of their counties, but they declined to give hostages out of their own families. These terms were referred to the Queen's consideration, who, after much protocoling to and fro, finally ratified them the following April, and affixed the great seal to O'Neil's pardon. But Tyrone, guided by intelligence received from Spain or England, or both, evaded the royal messenger charged to deliver him that instrument, and as the late truce expired the first week of June, devoted himself anew to military preparations.

In the month of June, 1598, the Council at Dublin were in a state of fearful perplexity. O'Neil, two days after the expiration of the truce, invested the fort on the Blackwater, and seemed resolved to reduce it, if not by force, by famine. O'Donnell, as usual, was operating on the side of Connaught, where he had brought back O'Ruarc, O'Conor Sligo, and McDermot, to the Confederacy, from which they had been for a season estranged. Tyrrell and O'Moore, leading spirits in the midland counties were ravaging Ormond's palatinate of Tipperary almost without opposition. An English reinforcement, debarked at Dungarvan, was attacked on its march towards Dublin, and lost 400 men. In this emergency, before which even the iron nerve of Ormond quailed, the Council took the resolution of ordering one moiety of the Queen's troops under Ormond to march south against Tyrrell and O'Moore; the other under Marshal Bagnal, to proceed northward to the relief of the Blackwater fort. Ormond's campaign was brief and inglorious. After suffering a severe check in Leix, he shut himself up in Kilkenny, where he heard of the disastrous fate of Bagnal's expedition.

On Sunday, the 13th of August, the Marshal reached Newry with some trifling loss from skirmishes on the route. He had with him, by the best accounts, six regiments of infantry, numbering in all about 4,000 men and 350 horse. After resting a day, his whole force marched out of the city in three divisions; the first under the command of the Marshal and Colonel Percy, the cavalry under Sir Calisthenes Brooke and Captains Montague and Fleming; the rear guard under Sir Thomas Wingfield and Colonel Cosby. The Irish, whose numbers, both mounted and afoot, somewhat exceeded the Marshal's force, but who were not so well armed, had taken up a strong position at Ballinaboy ("the Yellow ford"), about two miles north of Armagh. With O'Neil were O'Donnell, Maguire, and McDonnell of Antrim—all approved leaders beloved by their men. O'Neil had neglected no auxiliary means of strengthening the position. In front of his lines he dug deep trenches, covered over with green sods, supported by twigs and branches. The pass leading into this plain was lined by 500 kerne, whose Parthian warfare was proverbial. He had reckoned on the headlong and boastful disposition of his opponent, and the result showed his accurate knowledge of character. Bagnal's first division, veterans from Brittany and Flanders, including 600 curassiers in complete armour, armed with lances nine feet long, dashed into the pass before the second and third divisions had time to come up. The kerne poured in their rapid volleys; many of the English fell; the pass was yielded, and the whole power of Bagnal debouched into the plain. His artillery now thundered upon O'Neil's trenches, and the cavalry, with the plain before them, were ordered to charge; but they soon came upon the concealed pitfalls, horses fell, riders were thrown, and confusion spread among the squadron. Then it was O'Neil in turn gave the signal to charge; himself led on the centre, O'Donnell the left, and Maguire, famous for horsemanship, the Irish horse. The overthrow of the English was complete, and the victory most eventful. The Marshal, 23 superior officers, with about 1,700 of the rank and file fell on the field, while all the artillery baggage and 12 stand of colours were taken: the Irish loss in killed and wounded did not exceed 800 men. "It was a glorious victory for the rebels," says the cotemporary English historian, Camden, "and of special advantage: for hereby they got arms and provisions, and Tyrone's name was cried up all over Ireland as the author of their liberty." It may also be added that it attracted renewed attention to the Irish war at Paris, Madrid, and Rome, where the names of O'Neil and O'Donnell were spoken of by all zealous Catholics with enthusiastic admiration.

The battle was over by noon of the 15th of August; and the only effort to arrest the flight of the survivors was made by "the Queen's O'Reilly," who was slain in the attempt. By one o'clock the remnant of the cavalry under Montague were in full career for Dundalk, closely pressed by the mounted men of O'Hanlon. During the ensuing week the Blackwater fort capitulated; the Protestant garrison of Armagh surrendered; and were allowed to march south, leaving their arms and ammunition behind. The panic spread far and wide; the citizens of Dublin were enrolled to defend their walls; Lord Ormond continued shut up in Kilkenny; O'Moore and Tyrrell, who entered Munster by O'Neil's order, to kindle the elements of resistance, compelled the Lord President to retire from Kilmallock to Cork. O'Donnell established his head-quarters at Ballymoate, a dozen miles south of Sligo, which he had purchased from the chieftain of Corran for 400 pounds and 300 cows. The castle had served for thirteen years as an English stronghold, and was found staunch enough fifty years later to withstand the siege trains of Coote and Ludlow. From this point the Donegal chieftain was enabled to stretch his arm in every direction over lower Connaught. The result was, that before the end of the year 1598, nearly all the inhabitants of Clanrickarde and the surrounding districts were induced, either from policy or conviction, to give in their adhesion to the Northern Confederacy.

CHAPTER IX.
ESSEX'S CAMPAIGN OF 1599—BATTLE OF THE CURLIEU MOUNTAINS—O'NEIL'S NEGOTIATIONS WITH SPAIN—MOUNTJOY, LORD DEPUTY.

The last favourite of the many who enjoyed the foolish, if not guilty, favours of Elizabeth was Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, son of that unfortunate nobleman spoken of in a previous chapter as the "undertaker" of Farney and Clandeboy. Born in 1567, the Earl had barely reached the age of manhood when he won the heart of his royal mistress, already verging on threescore. Gifted by nature with a handsome person, undoubted courage, and many generous qualities, he exhibited, in the most important transactions of life, the recklessness of a madman and the levity of a spoiled child; it was apparent to the world that nothing short of the personal fascination which he exercised over the Queen could so long have preserved him from the consequences of his continual caprices and quarrels. Such was the character of the young nobleman, who, as was afterwards said, at the instigation of his enemies, was sent over to restore the ascendancy of the English arms in the revolted provinces. His appointment was to last during the Queen's pleasure; he was provided with an army of 20,000 foot and 2,000 horse; three-fourths of the ordinary annual revenue of England (340,000 pounds out of 450,000 pounds) was placed at his disposal, and the largest administrative powers, civil and military, were conferred on him. A new plan of campaign in Ulster was decided upon at the royal council table, and Sir Samuel Bagnal, brother of the late Marshal, and other experienced officers, were to precede or accompany him to carry it into execution. The main feature of this plan was to get possession by sea and strongly fortify Ballyshannon, Donegal, Derry, and the entrance to the Foyle, so as to operate at once in the rear of the northern chiefs, as well as along the old familiar base of Newry, Monaghan, and Armagh.

Essex, on being sworn into office at Dublin, on the 15th of April, 1599, immediately issued a proclamation offering pardon and restoration of property to such of the Irish as would lay down their arms by a given day, but very few persons responded to this invitation. He next despatched reinforcements to the garrisons of Wicklow and Naas, menaced by the O'Moores and O'Byrnes, and to those of Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, and Carrickfergus, the only northern strongholds remaining in possession of the Queen. The principal operations, it had been agreed before he left England, were to be directed against Ulster, but with the waywardness which always accompanied him, he disregarded that arrangement, and set forth, at the head of 7,000 men, for the opposite quarter. He was accompanied in this march by the Earls of Clanrickarde and Thomond, Sir Conyers Clifford, Governor of Connaught, and O'Conor of Sligo, the only native chief who remained in the English ranks. In Ormond he received the submission of Lord Mountgarrett, son-in-law to Tyrone, and took the strong castle of Cahir from another of the insurgent Butlers. After a halt at Limerick, he set out against the Geraldines, who the previous year had joined the Northern league, at the instance of Tyrrell and O'Moore. Although the only heir of the Earl of Desmond was a prisoner, or ward of Elizabeth in England, James Fitzgerald, son of Thomas Roe, son of the fifteenth Earl by that marriage which had been pronounced invalid, assumed the title at the suggestion of O'Neil, and was recognized as the Desmond by the greater portion of the relatives of that family. Fitzmaurice, Lord of Lixnaw, the Knight of Glynn, the White Knight, the Lord Roche, Pierce Lacy of Buree and Bruff, the last descendant of Hugh de Lacy and the daughter of Roderick O'Conor, with the McCarthys, O'Donohoes, O'Sullivans, Condons, and other powerful tribes, were all astir to the number, as Carew supposes, of 8,000 men, all emulous of their compatriots in the North. Issuing from Limerick, Essex marched southward to strengthen the stronghold of Askeaton, into which he succeeded, after a severe skirmish by the way, in throwing supplies. Proceeding to victual Adare, he experienced a similar check, losing among others Sir Henry Norris, the third of those brave brothers who had fallen a victim to these Irish wars. In returning to Dublin, by way of Waterford and Kildare, he was assailed by O'Moore at a difficult defile, which, to this day, is known in Irish as "the pass of the plumes" or feathers. The Earl forced a passage with the loss of 500 lives, and so returned with little glory to Dublin.

The next military incident of the year transpired in the West. We have spoken of O'Conor Sligo as the only native chief who followed Essex to the South. He had been lately at the English Court, where he was treated with the highest distinction, in order that he might be used to impede O'Donnell's growing power in lower Connaught. On returning home he was promptly besieged by the Donegal chief in his remaining castle at Colooney, within five miles of Sligo. Essex, on learning this fact, ordered Sir Conyers Clifford to march to the relief of O'Conor with all the power he could muster. Clifford despatched from Galway, by sea, stores and materials for the refortification of Sligo town, and set out himself at the head of 2,100 men, drafted from both sides of the Shannon, under twenty-five ensigns. He had under him Sir Alexander Radcliffe, Sir Griffin Markham, and other experienced officers. Their rendezvous, as usual, was the old monastic town of Boyle, about a day's march to the south of Sligo. From Boyle, the highway led into the Curlieu mountains, which divide Sligo on the south-east from Roscommon. Here, in the strong pass of Ballaghboy, O'Donnell with the main body of his followers awaited their approach. He had left the remainder, under his cousin and brother-in-law, Nial Garve (or the rough), to maintain the siege of Colooney Castle. O'Ruarc and the men of Breffni joined him during the battle, but their entire force is nowhere stated. It was the eve of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and the first anniversary of the great victory of the Yellow Ford. The night was spent by the Irish in fasting and prayer, the early morning in hearing Mass, and receiving the Holy Communion. The day was far advanced when the head of Clifford's column appeared in the defile, driving in a barricade erected at its entrance. The defenders, according to orders, discharged their javelins and muskets, and fell back farther into the gorge. The English advanced twelve abreast, through a piece of woodland, after which the road crossed a patch of bog. Here the thick of the battle was fought. Sir Alexander Radcliffe, who led the vanguard, fell early in the action, and his division falling back on the centre threw them all into confusion. O'Ruarc arriving with his men at the critical moment completed the rout, and pursued the fugitives to the gates of Boyle. The gallant Clifford, scorning to fly, was found among the slain, and honourably interred by his generous enemies in the monastery of Lough Key. On his head being shown to O'Conor at Colooney, he at once surrendered to O'Donnell, and entered into the Northern Confederacy. Theobald Burke, the commander of the vessels sent round from Galway to fortify Sligo, also submitted to O'Donnell, and was permitted to return to the port from which he had lately sailed, with very different intentions.

Essex, whose mind was a prey to apprehension from his enemies in England had demanded reinforcements before he could undertake anything against Ulster. It seems hardly credible that the 15,000 regular troops in the country at his coming should be mostly taken up with garrison duty, yet we cannot otherwise account for their disappearance from the field. He asked for 2,000 fresh troops, and while awaiting their arrival, sent a detachment of 600 men into Wicklow, who were repulsed with loss by Phelim, son of Feagh, the new Chief of the O'Byrnes. Essex was thrown into transports of rage at this new loss. The officers who retreated were tried by court-martial, and, contrary to his usually generous temper, the surviving men were inhumanly decimated.

Early in September, the reinforcement he had asked for arrived with a bitterly reproachful letter from the Queen. He now hastened to make a demonstration against Tyrone, although, from some cause unexplained, he does not seem to have drawn out the whole force at his disposal. From Newry he proceeded northward towards Carrickfergus, with only 1,300 foot and 300 horse. On the high ground to the north of the river Lagan, overlooking Anaghclart Bridge, he found the host of O'Neil encamped, and received a courteous message from their leader, soliciting a personal interview. Essex at first declined, but afterwards accepted the invitation, and at an appointed hour the two commanders rode down to the opposite banks of the river, wholly unattended, the advanced guard of each looking curiously on from the uplands. O'Neil spurred his horse into the stream up to the saddle girth, and thus for an hour, exposed to the generous but impulsive Englishman, the grievances of himself and his compatriots. With all the art, for which he was distinguished, he played upon his knowledge of the Earl's character: he named those enemies of his own whom he also knew to be hostile to Essex, he showed his provocations in the strongest light, and declared his readiness to submit to her Majesty, on condition of obtaining complete liberty of conscience, an act of indemnity to include his allies in all the four Provinces; that the principal officers of state, the judges, and one half the army should in future be Irish by birth. This was, in effect, a demand for national independence, though the Lord Lieutenant may not have seen it in that light. He promised, however, to transmit the propositions to England, and within presence of six principal officers of each side, agreed to a truce till the 1st of May following. Another upbraiding letter from Elizabeth, which awaited him on his return to Dublin, drove Essex to the desperate resolution of presenting himself before her, without permission. The short remainder of his troubled career, his execution in the Tower in February, 1601, and Elizabeth's frantic lamentations, are familiar to readers of English history.

In presenting so comprehensive an ultimatum to Essex, O'Neil was emboldened by the latest intelligence received from Spain. Philip II., the life-long friend of the Catholics, had, indeed, died the previous September, but one of the first acts of his successor, Philip III., was to send envoys into Ireland, assuring its chiefs that he would continue to them the friendship and alliance of his father. Shortly before the conference at Anaghclart, a third Armada, under the Adelantado of Castile, was awaiting orders in the port of Corunna, and England, for the third time in ten years, was placed in a posture of defence. The Spaniards sailed, but soon divided into two squadrons, one of which passed down the British Channel unobserved, and anchored in the waters of the Sluys, while the other sailed for the Canaries to intercept the Hollanders. At the same time, however, most positive assurances were renewed that an auxiliary force might shortly be expected to land in Ireland in aid of the Catholics. The non-arrival of this force during the fortunate campaign of 1599 was not much felt by the Catholics; and was satisfactorily explained by Philip's envoys—but the mere fact of the existence of the Spanish alliance gave additional confidence and influence to the confederates. That fact was placed beyond all question by the arrival of two Spanish ships laden with stores for O'Neil, immediately after the interview with Essex. In the summer or autumn ensuing, Mathew of Oviedo, a Spaniard, consecrated at Rome, Archbishop of Dublin, brought over 22,000 crowns towards the pay of the Irish troops, and a year afterwards, Don Martin de la Cerda was sent to reside as envoy with Tyrone.

The year 1600 was employed by Hugh O'Neil, after the manner of his ancestors, who were candidates for the Kingship of Tara, in a visitation of the Provinces. Having first planted strong garrisons on the southern passes leading into Ulster, he marched at the head of 3,000 men into West-Meath, where he obliged Lord Delvin and Sir Theobald Dillon to join the Confederation. From Meath he marched to Ely, whose chief he punished for a late act of treachery to some Ulster soldiers invited to his assistance. From Ely he turned aside to venerate the relic of the Holy Cross, at Thurles, and being there he granted his protection to the great Monastery built by Donald More O'Brien. At Cashel he was joined by the Geraldine, whom he caused to be recognized as Earl of Desmond. Desmond and his supporters accompanied him through Limerick into Cork, quartering their retainers on the lands of their enemies, but sparing their friends; the Earl of Ormond with a corps of observation moving on a parallel line of march, but carefully avoiding a collision. In the beginning of March the Catholic army halted at Inniscarra, upon the river Lee, about five miles west of Cork. Here O'Neil remained three weeks in camp consolidating the Catholic party in South Munster. During that time he was visited by the chiefs of the ancient Eugenian clans—O'Donohoe, O'Donovan, and O'Mahoney: thither also came two of the most remarkable men of the southern Province, Florence McCarthy, Lord of Carberry, and Donald O'Sullivan, Lord of Bearehaven. McCarthy "like Saul, higher by the head and shoulders than any of his house," had brain in proportion to his brawn; O'Sullivan, as was afterwards shown, was possessed of military virtues of a high order. Florence was inaugurated with O'Neil's sanction as McCarthy More, and although the rival house of Muskerry fiercely resisted his claim to superiority at first, a wiser choice could not have been made had the times tended to confirm it.

While at Inniscarra, O'Neil lost in single combat one of his most accomplished officers, the chief of Fermanagh. Maguire, accompanied only by a Priest and two horsemen, was making observations nearer to the city than the camp, when Sir Warham St. Leger, Marshal of Munster, issued out of Cork with a company of soldiers, probably on a similar mission. Both were in advance of their attendants when they came unexpectedly face to face. Both were famous as horsemen and for the use of their weapons, and neither would retrace his steps. The Irish chief, poising his spear, dashed forward against his opponent, but received a pistol shot which proved mortal the same day. He, however, had strength enough left to drive his spear through the neck of St. Leger, and to effect his escape from the English cavalry. Saint Leger was carried back to Cork where he expired; Maguire, on reaching the camp, had barely time left to make his last confession, when he breathed his last. This untoward event, the necessity of preventing possible dissensions in Fermanagh, and still more, the menacing movements of the new Deputy, lately sworn in at Dublin, obliged O'Neil to return home earlier than he intended. Soon after reaching Dungannon he had the gratification of receiving a most gracious letter from Pope Clement VIII., together with a crown of phoenix feathers, symbolical of the consideration with which he was regarded by the Sovereign Pontiff.

A new Deputy had landed at Howth on the 24th of February, 1600, and was sworn in at Dublin the day following. This was Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, afterwards Earl of Devonshire, a nobleman now in his 37th year. He had been the rival, the enemy, and the devoted friend of the unfortunate Essex, whom he equalled in personal gifts, in courage, and in gallantry, but far exceeded in judgment, firmness, and foresight. He was one of a class of soldier-statesmen, peculiar to the second half of Elizabeth's reign, who affected authorship and the patronage of letters as a necessary complement to the manners of a courtier and commander. On the 2nd of April, Mountjoy, still at Dublin, wrote to her Majesty that the army had taken heart since his arrival, that he had no fear of the loss of the country, but was more anxious for Connaught than any other Province. He deplored the capture of Lord Ormond by the O'Moores, but hoped, if God prospered her arms during the summer, either "to bow or to break the crooked humours of these people." The three succeeding years of peace granted to England—interrupted only by the mad emeute of Essex, and the silly intrigues of the King of Scotland—enabled Elizabeth to direct all the energies of the State, which had so immensely increased in wealth during her reign, for the subjugation of the Irish revolt.

The capture of Ormond by the O'Moores took place in the month of April, at a place called Corroneduff, in an interview between the Earl, the President of Munster, and Lord Thomond, on the one part, and the Leinster Chief on the other. Ormond, who stood out from his party, had asked to see the famous Jesuit, Father Archer, then with O'Moore. The Priest advanced leaning on his staff, which, in the heat of a discussion that arose, he raised once or twice in the air. The clansmen, suspecting danger to the Jesuit, rushed forward and dragged the Earl from his horse. Lord Thomond and the President, taking the alarm, plied their spurs, and were but too glad to escape. Ormond remained a prisoner from April to June, during which interval he was received by Archer into the Church, to which he firmly adhered till the day of his death. On his liberation he entered into bonds for 3,000 pounds not to make reprisals, but Mountjoy took vengeance for him. The fair, well-fenced, and well-cultivated land of Leix was cruelly ravaged immediately after Ormond's release—the common soldiers cut down with their swords "corn to the value of 10,000 pounds and upwards," and the brave chief, Owny, son of Rory, having incautiously exposed himself in an attack on Maryborough, was, on the 17th of August, killed by a musket shot.

CHAPTER X.
MOUNTJOY'S ADMINISTRATION—OPERATIONS IN ULSTER AND MUNSTER—CAREW'S "WIT AND CUNNING"—LANDING OF SPANIARDS IN THE SOUTH—BATTLE OF KINSALE—DEATH OF O'DONNELL IN SPAIN.

The twofold operations against Ulster, neglected by Essex, were vigorously pressed forward by the energetic Mountjoy. On the 16th of May, a fleet arrived in Lough Foyle, having on board 4,000 foot and 200 horse, under the command of Sir Henry Dowcra, with abundance of stores, building materials, and ordnance. At the same moment, the Deputy forced the Moira pass, and made a feigned demonstration against Armagh, to draw attention from the fleet in the Foyle. This feint served its purpose; Dowcra was enabled to land and throw up defensive works at Derry, which he made his head-quarters, to fortify Culmore at the entrance to the harbour, where he placed 600 men, under the command of Captain Atford, and to seize the ancient fort of Aileach, at the head of Lough Swilly, where Captain Ellis Flood was stationed with 150 men. The attempt against Ballyshannon was, on a nearer view, found impracticable, and deferred; the Deputy, satisfied that the lodgment had been made upon Lough Foyle, retired to Dublin, after increasing the garrisons at Newry, Carlingford, and Dundalk. The Catholic chieftains immediately turned their attention to the new fort at Derry, appeared suddenly before it with 5,000 men, but failing to draw out its defenders, and being wholly unprovided with a siege train and implements—as they appear to have been throughout—they withdrew the second day, O'Donnell leaving a party in hopes to starve out the foreigners. This party were under the command of O'Doherty, of Innishowen, and Nial Garve O'Donnell, the most distinguished soldier of his name, after his illustrious cousin and chief. On the 28th of June, a party of the besieged, headed by Sir John Chamberlaine, made a sally from the works, but were driven in with loss, and Chamberlaine killed. On the 29th of July, O'Donnell, who had returned from his annual incursion into Connaught and Thomond, seized the English cavalry horses, and defeated the main force of the besieged, who had issued out to their rescue. From this affair Dowcra was carried back wounded into Derry.

But treason was busy in the Irish camp and country among the discontented members of the neighbouring clans. The election of chiefs for life, always a fruitful source of bickering and envy, supplied the very material upon which "the princely policie" of division, recommended by Bacon to Essex, might be exercised. Dowcra succeeded in the summer in winning over Art O'Neil, son of Turlogh, the early adversary of the great Hugh; before the year was over, by bribes and promises, he seduced Nial Garve, in the absence of his chief in Connaught, and Nial, having once entered on the career of treason, pursued it with all the dogged courage of his disposition. Though his wife, sister to Red Hugh, forsook him, though his name was execrated throughout the Province, except by his blindly devoted personal followers, he served the English during the remainder of the war with a zeal and ability to which they acknowledged themselves deeply indebted. By a rapid march, at the head of 1,000 men, supplied by Dowcra, he surprised the town of Lifford, which his new allies promptly fortified with walls of stone, and entrusted to him to defend. Red Hugh, on learning this alarming incident, hastened from the West to invest the place. After sitting before it an entire month, with no other advantage than a sally repulsed, he concluded to go into winter quarters. Arthur O'Neil and Nial Garve had the dignity of knighthood conferred upon them, and were, besides, recognized for the day by the English officials as the future O'Neil and O'Donnell. In like manner, "a Queen's Maguire" had been raised up in Fermanagh, "a Queen's O'Reilly" in Cavan, and other chiefs of smaller districts were provided with occupation enough at their own doors by the "princely policie" of Lord Bacon.

The English interest in Munster during the first year of Mountjoy's administration had recovered much of its lost predominance. The new President, Sir George Carew, afterwards Earl of Totness, was brother to that knightly "undertaker" who claimed the moiety of Desmond, and met his death at Glenmalure. He was a soldier of the new school, who prided himself especially on his "wit and cunning," in the composition of "sham and counterfeit letters." He had an early experience in the Irish wars, first as Governor of Askeaton Castle, and afterwards as Lieutenant General of the Ordnance. Subsequently he was employed in putting England in a state of defence against the Spaniards, and had just returned from an embassy to Poland, when he was ordered to join Mountjoy with the rank of Lord President. He has left us a memoir of his administration, civil and military, edited by his natural son and Secretary, Thomas Stafford—exceedingly interesting to read both as to matter and manner, but the documents embodied in which are about as reliable as the speeches which are read in Livy. Some of them are admitted forgeries; others are at least of doubtful authenticity. After escaping with Lord Thomond from the scene of Ormond's capture, his first act on reaching Cork was to conclude a month's truce with Florence McCarthy. This he did, in order to gain time to perfect a plot for the destruction of O'Neil's other friend, called in derision, by the Anglo-Irish of Munster, the sugane (or straw-rope) Earl of Desmond.

This plot, so characteristic of Carew and of the turn which English history was about to take in the next reign, deserves to be particularly mentioned. There was, in the service of the Earl, one Dermid O'Conor, captain of 1,400 hired troops, who was married to lady Margaret Fitzgerald, daughter to the late, and niece to the new-made Earl of Desmond. This lady, naturally interested in the restoration of her young brother, then the Queen's ward or prisoner at London, to the title and estates, was easily drawn into the scheme of seducing her husband from his patron. To justify and cloak the treachery a letter was written by Carew to the sugane Earl reminding him of his engagement to deliver up O'Conor; this letter, as pre-arranged, was intercepted by the latter, who, watching his opportunity, rushed with it open into the Earl's presence, and arrested him, in the name of O'Neil, as a traitor to the Catholic cause! Anxious to finger his reward—1,000 pounds and a royal commission for himself—before giving up his capture, O'Conor imprisoned the Earl in the keep of Castle-Ishin, but the White Knight, the Knight of Glynn, Fitzmaurice of Kerry, and Pierce Lacy, levying rapidly 2,000 men, speedily delivered him from confinement, while his baffled betrayer, crest-fallen and dishonoured, was compelled to quit the Province. The year following he was attacked while marching through Galway, and remorselessly put to death by Theobald Burke, usually called Theobald of the ships.

Another device employed to destroy the influence of O'Neil's Desmond was the liberation of the young son of the late Earl from the Tower and placing him at the disposal of Carew. The young nobleman, attended by a Captain Price, who was to watch all his movements, landed at Youghal, where he was received by the Lord President, the Clerk of the Council, Mr. Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork, and Miler Magrath, an apostate ecclesiastic, who had been the Queen's Archbishop of Cashel. By his influence with the warders, Castlemaine, in Kerry, surrendered to the President. On reaching Kilmallock, he was received with such enthusiasm that it required the effort of a guard of soldiers to make way for him through the crowd. According to their custom the people showered down upon him from the windows handfuls of wheat and salt—emblems of plenty and of safety—but the next day, being Sunday, turned all this joy into mourning, not unmingled with anger and shame. The young lord, who had been bred up a Protestant by his keepers, directed his steps to the English Church, to the consternation of the devoted adherents of his house. They clung round him in the street and endeavoured to dissuade him from proceeding, but he continued his course, and on his return was met with hootings and reproaches by those who had hailed him with acclamations the day before. Deserted by the people, and no longer useful to the President, he was recalled to London, where he resumed his quarters in the Tower, and shortly afterwards died. The capture of the strong castle of Glynn from the knight of that name, and the surrender of Carrigafoyle by O'Conor of Kerry, were the other English successes which marked the campaign of 1600 in Munster. On the other hand, O'Donnell had twice exercised his severe supremacy over southern Connaught, burning the Earl of Thomond's new town of Ennis, and sweeping the vales and plains of Clare, and of Clanrickarde, of the animal wealth of their recreant Earls, now actively enlisted against the national confederacy.

The eventful campaign of 1601 was fought out in almost every quarter of the kingdom. To hold the coast line, and prevent the advantages being obtained, which the possession of Derry, and other harbours on Lough Foyle gave them, were the tasks of O'Donnell; while to defend the southern frontier was the peculiar charge of O'Neil. They thus fought, as it were, back to back against the opposite lines of attack. The death of O'Doherty, early in this year, threw the succession to Innishowen into confusion, and while O'Donnell was personally endeavouring to settle conflicting claims, Nial Garve seized on the famous Franciscan monastery which stood at the head of the bay, within sight of the towers of Donegal Castle. Hugh Roe immediately invested the place, which his relative as stoutly defended. Three months, from the end of June till the end of September, the siege was strictly maintained, the garrison being regularly supplied with stores and ammunition from sea. On the night of the 29th of September an explosion of gunpowder occurred, and soon the monastery was wrapped in flames. This was the moment chosen for the final attack. The glare of the burning Abbey reflected over the beautiful bay, the darkness of night all round, the shouts of the assailants, and the shrieks of the fugitives driven by the flames upon the spears of their enemies, must have formed a scene of horrors such as even war rarely combines. Hundreds of the besieged were slain, but Nial Garve himself, with the remainder, covered by the fire of an English ship in the harbour, escaped along the strand to the neighbouring monastery of Magherabeg, which he quickly put into a state of defence. All that was left to O'Donnell of that monastery, the burial place of his ancestors, and the chief school of his kinsmen, was a skeleton of stone, standing amid rubbish and ashes. It was never re-inhabited by the Franciscans. A group of huts upon the shore served them for shelter, and the ruined chapel for a place of worship, while they were still left in the land.

While Hugh Roe was investing Donegal Abbey the war had not paused on the southern frontier. We have said that Mountjoy had made a second and a third demonstration against Armagh the previous year; in one of these journeys he raised a strong fort at the northern outlet of the Moira pass, which he called Mount Norris, in honour of his late master in the art of war. This work, strongly built and manned, gave him the free entree of the field of battle whenever he chose to take it. In June of this year he was in the valley of the Blackwater, menaced O'Neil's castle of Benburb, and left Sir Charles Danvers with 750 foot and 100 horse in possession of Armagh. He further proclaimed a reward of 2,000 pounds for the capture of Tyrone alive, or 1,000 pounds for his head. But no Irishman was found to entertain the thought of that bribe. An English assassin was furnished with passports by Danvers, and actually drew his sword on the Earl in his own tent, but he was seized, disarmed, and on the ground of insanity was permitted to escape. Later in the summer Mountjoy was again on the Blackwater, where he laid the foundation of Charlemont, called after himself, and placed 350 men in the works under the command of Captain Williams, the brave defender of the old fort in the same neighbourhood. There were thus quartered in Ulster at this period the 4,000 foot and 400 horse under Dowcra, chiefly on the Foyle, with whatever companies of Kerne adhered to Arthur O'Neil and Nial Garve; with Chichester in Carrickfergus there were 850 foot and 150 horse; with Danvers in Armagh, 750 foot and 100 horse; in Mount Norris, under Sir Samuel Bagnal, 600 foot and 50 horse; in and about Downpatrick, lately taken by the Deputy, under Moryson, 300 foot; in Newry, under Stafford, 400 foot and 50 horse; in Charlemont, with Williams, 300 foot and 50 horse; or, in all, of English regulars in Ulster alone, 7,000 foot and 800 horse. The position of the garrisons on the map will show how firm a grasp Mountjoy had taken of the Northern Province.

The last scene of this great struggle was now about to shift to the opposite quarter of the kingdom. The long-looked for Spanish fleet was known to have left the Tagus—had been seen off the Scilly Islands. On the 23rd of September the Council, presided over by Mountjoy, was assembled in Kilkenny Castle: there were present Carew, Ormond, Sir Richard Wingfield, Marshal of the Queen's troops, uncle to Carew, and founder of the family of Powerscourt; also Chief Justice Gardiner, and other members less known. While they were still sitting a message arrived from Cork that the Spanish fleet was off that harbour, and soon another that they had anchored in Kinsale, and taken possession of the town without opposition. The course of the Council was promptly taken. Couriers were at once despatched to call in the garrisons far and near which could possibly be dispensed with for service in Munster. Letters were despatched to England for reinforcements, and a winter campaign in the South was decided on.

The Spanish auxiliary force, when it sailed from the Tagus, consisted originally of 6,000 men in fifteen armed vessels and thirty transports. When they reached Kinsale, after suffering severely at sea, and parting company with several of their comrades, the soldiers were reduced to 3,400 men—a number inferior to Dowcra's force on the Foyle. The General, Don Jaun del Aguila, was a brave, but testy, passionate and suspicious officer. He has been severely censured by some Irish writers for landing in the extreme South, within fourteen miles of the English arsenal and head-quarters at Cork, and for his general conduct as a commander. However vulnerable he may be on the general charge, he does not seem fairly to blame for the choice of the point of debarkation. He landed in the old Geraldine country, unaware, of course, of the events of the last few weeks, in which the sugane Earl, and Florence McCarthy, had been entrapped by Carew's "wit and cunning," and shipped for London, from which they never returned. Even the northern chiefs, up to this period, evidently thought their cause much stronger in the South, and Munster much farther restored to vigour and courage than it really was. To the bitter disappointment and disgust of the Spaniards, only O'Sullivan Beare, O'Driscoll, and O'Conor of Kerry, declared openly for them; while they could hear daily of chiefs they had been taught to count as friends, either as prisoners or allies of the English. On the 17th of October—three weeks from their first arrival—they were arrested in Kinsale by a mixed army of English and Anglo-Irish, 15,000 strong, under the command of the Deputy and President, of whom above 5,000 had freshly arrived at Cork from England. With Mountjoy were the Earls of Thomond and Clanrickarde, more zealous than the English themselves for the triumph of England. The harbour was blockaded by ten ships of war, under Sir Richard Leviston, and the forts at the entrance, Rincorran and Castlenepark, being taken by cannonade, the investment on all sides was complete. Don Juan's messengers found O'Neil and O'Donnell busily engaged on their own frontiers, but both instantly resolved to muster all their strength for a winter campaign in Munster. O'Donnell rendezvoused at Ballymote, from which he set out, at the head of 2,500 men, of Tyrconnell and Connaught, on the 2nd day of November. O'Neil, with McDonnell of Antrim, McGennis of Down, McMahon of Monaghan, and others, his suffragans, marched at the head of between 3,000 and 4,000 men, through West-Meath towards Ormond. Holy Cross was their appointed place of meeting, where they expected to be joined by such of the neighbouring Catholics as were eager to strike a blow for liberty of worship. O'Donnell reached the neighbourhood first, and encamped in a strongly defensible position, "plashed on every quarter" for greater security. Mountjoy, anxious to engage him before O'Neil should come up, detached a numerically superior force, under Carew, for that purpose: but O'Donnell, evacuating his quarters by night, marched over the mountain of Slieve Felim, casting away much of his heavy baggage, and before calling halt was 32 Irish miles distant from his late encampment. After this extraordinary mountain march, equal to 40 of our present miles, he made a detour to the westward, descended on Castlehaven, in Cork, and formed a junction with 700 Spaniards, who had just arrived to join Del Aguila. A portion of these veterans were detailed to the forts of Castlehaven, Baltimore, and Dunboy, commanding three of the best havens in Munster; the remainder joined O'Donnell's division.

During the whole of November the siege of Kinsale was pressed with the utmost vigour by Mountjoy. The place mounted but three or four effective guns, while 20 great pieces of ordnance were continually playing on the walls. On the 1st of December a breach was found practicable, and an assault made by a party of 2,000 English was bravely repulsed by the Spaniards. The English fleet, ordered round to Castlehaven on the 3rd, were becalmed, and suffered some damage from a battery, manned by Spanish gunners, on the shore. The lines were advanced closer towards the town, and the bombardment became more effective. But the English ranks were considerably thinned by disease and desertion, so that on the last day of December, when the united Irish force took up their position at Belgoley, a mile to the north of their lines, the Lord Deputy's effective force did not, it is thought, exceed 10,000 men. The Catholic army has generally been estimated at 6,000 native foot and 500 horse; to these are to be added 300 Spaniards, under Don Alphonso Ocampo, who joined O'Donnell at Castlehaven.

The prospect for the besiegers was becoming exceedingly critical, but the Spaniards in Kinsale were far from being satisfied with their position. They had been fully three months within walls, in a region wholly unknown to them before their allies appeared. They neither understood nor made allowance for the immense difficulties of a winter campaign in a country trenched with innumerable swollen streams, thick with woods, which, at that season, gave no shelter, and where camping out at nights was enough to chill the hottest blood. They only felt their own inconveniences: they were cut off from escape by sea by a powerful English fleet, and Carew was already practising indirectly on their commander his "wit and cunning," in the fabrication of rumours, and the forging of letters. Don Juan wrote urgent appeals to the northern chiefs to attack the English lines without another day's delay, and a council of war, the third day after their arrival at Belgoley, decided that the attack should be made on the morrow. This decision was come to on the motion of O'Donnell, contrary to the judgment of the more circumspect and far-seeing O'Neil. Overruled, the latter acquiesced in the decision, and cheerfully prepared to discharge his duty.

A story is told by Carew that information was obtained of the intended attack from McMahon, in return for a bottle of aquavitae presented to him by the President. This tale is wholly unworthy of belief, told of a chief of the first rank, encamped in the midst of a friendly country. It is also said—and it seems credible enough—that an intercepted letter of Don Juan's gave the English in good time this valuable piece of information. On the night of the 2nd of January, new style (24th of December, O.S.—in use among the English), the Irish army left their camp in three divisions, the vanguard led by Tyrrell, the centre by O'Neil, and the rear by O'Donnell. The night was stormy and dark, with continuous peals and flashes of thunder and lightning. The guides lost their way, and the march, which, even by the most circuitous route, ought not to have exceeded four or five miles, was protracted through the entire night. At dawn of day, O'Neil, with whom were O'Sullivan and Ocampo, came in sight of the English lines, and, to his infinite surprise, found the men under arms, the cavalry in troop posted in advance of their quarters. O'Donnell's division was still to come up, and the veteran Earl now found himself in the same dilemma into which Bagnal had fallen at the Yellow Ford. His embarrassment was perceived from the English camp; the cavalry were at once ordered to advance. For an hour O'Neil maintained his ground alone; at the end of that time he was forced to retire. Of Ocampo's 300 Spaniards, 40 survivors were, with their gallant leader, taken prisoners; O'Donnell at length arrived, and drove back a wing of the English cavalry; Tyrrell's horsemen also held their ground tenaciously. But the rout of the centre proved irremediable. Fully 1,200 of the Irish were left dead on the field, and every prisoner taken was instantly executed. On the English side fell Sir Richard Graeme; Captains Danvers and Godolphin, with several others, were wounded; their total loss they stated at 200, and the Anglo-Irish, of whom they seldom made count in their reports, must have lost in proportion. The Earls of Thomond and Clanrickarde were actively engaged with their followers, and their loss could hardly have been less than that of the English regulars. On the night following their defeat, the Irish leaders held council together at Innishanon, on the river Bandon, where it was agreed that O'Donnell should instantly take shipping for Spain to lay the true state of the contest before Philip III.; that O'Sullivan should endeavour to hold the Castle of Dunboy, as commanding a most important harbour; that Rory O'Donnell, second brother of Hugh Roe, should act as Chieftain of Tyrconnell, and that O'Neil should return into Ulster to make the best defence in his power. The loss in men was not irreparable; the loss in arms, colours, and reputation, was more painful to bear, and far more difficult to retrieve.

On the 12th of January, nine days after the battle, Don Juan surrendered the town, and agreed to give up at the same time Dunboy, Baltimore, and Castlehaven. He had lost 1,000 men out of his 3,000 during a ten weeks' siege, and was heartily sick of Irish warfare. On his return to Spain he was degraded from his rank, for his too great intimacy with Carew, and confined a prisoner in his own house. He is said to have died of a broken heart occasioned by these indignities.

O'Donnell sailed from Castlehaven in a Spanish ship, on the 6th of January, three clays after the battle, and arrived at Corunna on the 14th. He was received with all the honours due to a crown prince by the Conde de Caracena, Governor of Galicia. Among other objects, he visited the remains of the tower of Betanzos, from which, according to Bardic legends, the sons of Milesius had sailed to seek for the Isle of Destiny among the waves of the west. On the 27th he set out for the Court, accompanied as far as Santa Lucia by the governor, who presented him with 1,000 ducats towards his expenses. At Compostella the Archbishop offered him his own palace, which O'Donnell respectfully declined: he afterwards celebrated a Solemn High Mass for the Irish chief's intention, entertained him magnificently at dinner, and presented him, as the governor had done, with 1,000 ducats. At Zamora he received from Philip III. a most cordial reception, and was assured that in a very short time a more powerful armament than Don Juan's should sail with him from Corunna. He returned to that port, from which he could every day look out across the western waves that lay between him and home, and where he could be kept constantly informed of what was passing in Ireland. Spring was over and gone, and summer, too, had passed away, but still the exigencies of Spanish policy delayed the promised expedition. At length O'Donnell set out on a second visit to the Spanish Court, then at Valladolid, but he reached no further than Simancas, when, fevered in mind and body, he expired on the 10th of September, 1602, in the 29th year of his age. He was attended in his last moments by two Franciscan Fathers who accompanied him, Florence, afterwards Archbishop of Tuam, and Maurice Donlevy, of his own Abbey of Donegal. His body was interred with regal honours in the Cathedral of Valladolid, where a monument was erected to his memory by the King of Spain.

Thus closed the career of one of the brightest and purest characters in any history. His youth, his early captivity, his princely generosity, his daring courage, his sincere piety won the hearts of all who came in contact with him. He was the sword as O'Neil was the brain of the Ulster Confederacy; the Ulysses and Achilles of the war, they fought side by side, without jealousy or envy, for almost as long a period as their prototypes had spent in besieging Troy.

CHAPTER XI.
THE CONQUEST OF MUNSTER—DEATH OF ELIZABETH, AND SUBMISSION OF O'NEIL—"THE ARTICLES OF MELLIFONT."

The days of Queen Elizabeth were now literally numbered. The death of Essex, the intrigues of the King of Scotland, and the successes of Tyrone, preyed upon her spirits. The Irish chief was seldom out of her mind, and, as she often predicted, she was not to live to receive his submission. She was accustomed to send for her godson, Harrington, who had served in Ireland, to ask him questions concerning Tyrone; the French ambassador considered Tyrone's war one of the causes that totally destroyed her peace of mind in her latter days. She received the news of the victory of Kinsale with pleasure, but, even then, she was not destined to receive the submission of Tyrone.

The events of the year, so inauspiciously begun for the Irish arms, continued of the same disastrous character. Castlehaven was surrendered by its Spanish guard, according to Del Aguila's agreement. Baltimore, after a momentary resistance, was also given up, but O'Sullivan, who considered the Spanish capitulation nothing short of treason, threw a body of native troops, probably drawn from Tyrrell's men, into Dunboy, under Captain Richard Mageoghegan, and Taylor, an Englishman, connected by marriage with Tyrrell. Another party of the same troops took possession of Clear Island, but were obliged to abandon it as untenable. The entire strength of the Dunboy garrison amounted to 143 men; towards the end of April—the last of the Spaniards having sailed in March—Carew left Cork at the head of 3,000 men to besiege Dunboy. Sir Charles Wilmot moved on the same point from Kerry, with a force of 1,000 men, to join Carew. In the pass near Mangerton Wilmot was encountered by Donald O'Sullivan and Tyrrell, at the head of then remaining followers, but forced a passage and united with his superior on the shores of Berehaven. On the 1st of June the English landed on Bear Island, and on the 6th opened their cannonade. They were 4,000 men, with every military equipment necessary, against 143. After eleven days' bombardment the place was shattered to pieces; the garrison offered to surrender, if allowed to retain their arms, but their messenger was hanged, and an instant assault ordered. Over fifty of this band of Christian Spartans had fallen in the defence, thirty attempted to escape in boats, or by swimming, but were killed to a man while in the water. The remainder retreated with Mageoghegan, who was severely wounded, to a cellar approached by a narrow stair, where the command was assumed by Taylor. All day the assault had been carried on till night closed upon the scene of carnage. Placing a strong guard on the approach to the crypt, Carew returned to the charge with the returning light. Cannon were first discharged into the narrow chamber which held the last defenders of Dunboy, and then a body of the assailants rushing in, despatched the wounded Mageoghegan with their swords, having found him, candle in hand, dragging himself towards the gunpowder. Taylor and fifty-seven others were led out to execution; of all the heroic band, not a soul escaped alive.

The remaining fragments of Dunboy were blown into the air by Carew on the 22nd of June. Dursey Castle, another island fortress of O'Sullivan's, had fallen even earlier; so that no roof remained to the lord of Berehaven. Still he held his men well together in the glens of Kerry, during the months of Summer, but the ill-news from Spain in September threw a gloom over those mountains deeper than was ever cast by equinoctial storm. Tyrrell was obliged to separate from him in the Autumn, probably from the difficulty of providing for so many mouths, and O'Sullivan himself prepared to bid a sad farewell to the land of his inheritance. On the last day of December he left Glengariffe, with 400 fighting men, and 600 women, children, and servants, to seek a refuge in the distant north. After a retreat almost unparalleled, the survivors of this exodus succeeded in reaching the friendly roof of O'Ruarc, at Dromahaire, not far from Sligo. Their entire march, from the extreme south to the almost extreme north-west of the island, a distance, as they travelled it, of not less than 200 miles, was one scene of warfare and suffering. They were compelled to kill their horses, on reaching the Shannon, in order to make boats of the hides, to ferry them to the western bank. At Aughrim they were attacked by a superior force under Lord Clanrickarde's brother, and Captain Henry Malby, but they fought with the courage of despair, routed the enemy, slaying Malby, and other officers. Of the ten hundred who left the shores of Glengariffe, but 35 souls reached the Leitrim chieftain's mansion. Among these were the chief himself, with Dermid, father of the historian, who at the date of this march had reached the age of seventy. The conquest of Munster, at least, was now complete. In the ensuing January, Owen McEgan, Bishop of Ross, was slain in the midst of a guerilla party, in the mountains of Carberry, and his chaplain, being taken, was hanged with the other prisoners. The policy of extermination recommended by Carew was zealously carried out by strong detachments under Wilmot, Harvey, and Flower; Mr. Boyle and the other "Undertakers" zealously assisting as volunteers.

Mountjoy, after transacting some civil business at Dublin, proceeded in person to the north, while Dowcra, marching out of Derry, pressed O'Neil from the north and north-east. In June, Mountjoy was at Charlemont, which he placed under the custody of Captain Toby Caufield, the founder of an illustrious title taken from that fort. He advanced on Dungannon, but discovered it from the distance, as Norris had once before done, in flames, kindled by the hand of its straitened proprietor. On Lough Neagh he erected a new fort called Mountjoy, so that his communications on the south now stretched from that great lake round to Omagh, while those of Dowcra, at Augher, Donegal, and Lifford, nearly completed the circle. Almost the only outlet from this chain of posts was into the mountains of O'Cane's country, the north-east angle of the present county of Derry. The extensive tract so enclosed and guarded had still some natural advantages for carrying on a defensive war. The primitive woods were standing in masses at no great distance from each other; the nearly parallel vales of Faughan, Moyala, and the river Roe, with the intermediate leagues of moor and mountain, were favourable to the movements of native forces familiar with every ford and footpath. There was also, while this central tract was held, a possibility of communication with other unbroken tribes, such as those of Clandeboy and the Antrim glens on the east, and Breffni O'Ruarc on the west. Never did the genius of Hugh O'Neil shine out brighter than in these last defensive operations. In July, Mountjoy writes apologetically to the Council, that "notwithstanding her Majesty's great forces, O'Neil doth still live." He bitterly complains of his consummate caution, his "pestilent judgment to spread and to nourish his own infection," and of the reverence entertained for his person by the native population. Early in August, Mountjoy had arranged what he hoped might prove the finishing stroke in the struggle. Dowcra from Derry, Chichester from Carrickfergus, Danvers from Armagh, and all who could be spared from Mountjoy, Charlemont, and Mount Norris, were gathered under his command, to the number of 8,000 men, for a foray into the interior of Tyrone. Inisloghlin, on the borders of Down and Antrim, which contained a great quantity of valuables, belonging to O'Neil, was captured. Magherlowney and Tulloghoge were next taken. At the latter place stood the ancient stone chair on which the O'Neils were inaugurated time out of mind; it was now broken into atoms by Mountjoy's orders. But the most effective warfare was made on the growing crops. The 8,000 men spread themselves over the fertile fields along the valleys of the Bann and the Roe, destroying the standing grain with fire, where it would burn, or with the praca, a peculiar kind of harrow, tearing it up by the roots. The horsemen trampled crops into the earth which had generously nourished them; the infantry shore them down with their sabres, and the sword, though in a very different sense from that of Holy Scripture, was, indeed, converted into a sickle. The harvest month never shone upon such fields in any Christian land. In September, Mountjoy reported to Cecil, "that between Tulloghoge and Toome there lay unburied a thousand dead," and that since his arrival on the Blackwater—a period of a couple of months—"there were about 3,000 starved in Tyrone." In O'Cane's country, the misery of his clansmen drove the chief to surrender to Dowcra, and the news of Hugh Roe's death having reached Donegal, his brother repaired to Athlone, and made his submission to Mountjoy, early in December. O'Neil, unable to maintain himself on the river, Roe, retired with 600 foot and 60 horse, to Glencancean, near Lough Neagh, the most secure of his fastnesses. His brother Cormac McMahon, and Art O'Neil, of Clandeboy, shared with him the wintry hardships of that last asylum, while Tyrone, Clandeboy, and Monaghan, were given up to horrors, surpassing any that had been known or dreamt of in former wars. Moryson, secretary to Mountjoy, in his account of this campaign, observes, "that no spectacle was more frequent in the ditches of towns, and especially in wasted countries, than to see multitudes of these poor people dead, with their mouths all coloured green, by eating nettles, docks, and all things they could rend above ground."

The new year, opening without hope, it began to be rumoured that O'Neil was disposed to surrender on honourable terms. Mountjoy and the English Council long urged the aged Queen to grant such terms, but without effect. Her pride as a sovereign had been too deeply wounded by the revolted Earl to allow her easily to forgive or forget his offences. Her advisers urged that Spain had followed her own course towards the Netherlands, in Ireland; that the war consumed three-fourths of her annual revenue, and had obliged her to keep up an Irish army of 20,000 men for several years past. At length she yielded her reluctant consent, and Mountjoy was authorized to treat with the arch-rebel upon honourable terms. The agents employed by the Lord Deputy in this negotiation were Sir William Godolphin and Sir Garrett Moore, of Mellifont, ancestor of the Marquis of Drogheda—the latter, a warm personal friend, though no partizan of O'Neil's. They found him in his retreat near Lough Neagh early in March, and obtained his promise to give the Deputy an early meeting at Mellifont. Elizabeth's serious illness, concealed from O'Neil, though well known to Mountjoy, hastened the negotiations. On the 27th of March he had intelligence of her decease at London on the 24th, but carefully concealed it till the 5th of April following. On the 31st of March, he received Tyrone's submission at Moore's residence, the ancient Cistercian Abbey, and not until a week later did O'Neil learn that he had made his peace with a dead sovereign.

The honourable terms on which this memorable religious war was concluded were these: O'Neil abjured all foreign allegiance, especially that of the King of Spain; renounced the title of O'Neil; agreed to give up his correspondence with the Spaniards, and to recall his son, Henry, who was a page at the Spanish Court, and to live in peace with the sons of John the Proud. Mountjoy granted him an amnesty for himself and his allies; agreed that he should be restored to his estates as he had held them before the war, and that the Catholics should have the free exercise of their religion. That the restoration of his ordinary chieftain rights, which did not conflict with the royal prerogative, was also included, we have the best possible evidence: Sir Henry Dowcra having complained to Lord Mountjoy that O'Neil quartered men on O'Cane, who had surrendered to himself, Mountjoy made answer—"My Lord of Tyrone is taken in with promise to be restored, as well to all his lands as to his honour and dignity, and O'Cane's country is his, and must be obedient to his commands." That the article concerning religion was understood by the Catholics to concede full freedom of worship, is evident from subsequent events. In Dublin, sixteen of the principal citizens suffered fine and imprisonment for refusing to comply with the act of uniformity; in Kilkenny the Catholics took possession of the Black Abbey, which had been converted into a lay fee; in Waterford they did the same by St. Patrick's Church, where a Dominican preacher was reported to have said, among other imprudent things, that "Jesabel was dead"—alluding to the late Queen. In Cork, Limerick, and Cashel, the cross was carried publicly in procession, the old Churches restored to their ancient rites, and enthusiastic proclamation made of the public restoration of religion. These events having obliged the Lord Deputy to make a progress through the towns and cities, he was met at Waterford by a vast procession, headed by religious in the habits of their order, who boldly declared to him "that the citizens of Waterford could not, in conscience, obey any prince that persecuted the Catholic religion." When such was the spirit of the town populations, we are not surprised to learn that, in the rural districts, almost exclusively Catholic, the people entered upon the use of many of their old Churches, and repaired several Abbeys—among the number, Buttevant, Kilcrea, and Timoleague in Cork; Quin Abbey in Clare; Kilconnell in Galway; Rosnariell in Mayo, and Multifarnham in West-Meath. So confident were they that the days of persecution were past, that King James prefaces his proclamation of July, 1605, with the statement—"Whereas we have been informed that our subjects in the kingdom of Ireland, since the death of our beloved sister, have been deceived by a false rumour, to wit, that we would allow them liberty of conscience," and so forth. How cruelly they were then undeceived belongs to the history of the next reign; here we need only remark that the Articles of Limerick were not more shamefully violated by the statute 6th and 7th, William III., than the Articles of Mellifont were violated by this Proclamation of the third year of James I.

CHAPTER XII.
STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING DURING THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

During the greater part of the reign of Elizabeth, the means relied upon for the propagation of the reformed doctrines were more exclusively those of force and coercion than even in the time of Edward VI. Thus, when Sir William Drury was Deputy, in 1578, he bound several citizens of Kilkenny, under a penalty of 40 pounds each, to attend the English Church service, and authorized the Anglican Bishop "to make a rate for the repair of the Church, and to distrain for the payment of it"—the first mention of Church rates we remember to have met with. Drury's method of proceeding may be further inferred from the fact, that of the thirty-six executions ordered by him in the same city, "one was a blackamoor and two were witches, who were condemned by the law of nature, for there was no positive law against witchcraft [in Ireland] in those days." That defect was soon supplied, however, by the statute 27th of Elizabeth, "against witchcraft and sorcery." Sir John Perrott, successor to Drury, trod in the same path, as we judge from the charge of severity against recusants, upon which, among other articles, he was recalled from the government. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, however, it began to be discovered by the wisest observers that violent methods were worse than useless with the Irish. Edmund Spenser urged that "religion should not be forcibly impressed into them with terror and sharp penalties, as now is the manner, but rather delivered and intimated with mildness and gentleness." Lord Bacon, in his "Considerations touching the Queen's Service in Ireland," addressed to Secretary Cecil, recommends "the recovery of the hearts of the people," as the first step towards their conversion. With this view he suggested "a toleration of religion (for a time not definite), except it be in some principal towns and cities," as a measure "warrantable in religion, and in policy of absolute necessity." The philosophic Chancellor farther suggested, as a means to this desired end, the preparation of "versions of Bibles and Catechisms, and other works of instruction in the Irish language." In accordance with these views of conversion, the University of Trinity College was established by a royal charter, in the month of January, 1593. The Mayor and Corporation of Dublin had granted the ancient monastery of All Hallows as a site for the buildings; some contributions were received from the Protestant gentry, large grants of confiscated Abbey and other lands, which afterwards yielded a princely revenue, were bestowed upon it, and the Lord Treasurer Burleigh graciously accepted the office of its Chancellor. The first Provost was Archbishop Loftus, and of the first three students entered, one was the afterwards illustrious James Usher. The commanders and officers engaged at Kinsale presented it with the sum of 1,800 pounds for the purchase of a library; and at the subsequent confiscations in Munster and Ulster, the College came in for a large portion of the forfeited lands.

Although the Council in England generally recommended the adoption of persuasive arts and a limited toleration, those who bore the sword usually took care that they should not bear it in vain. A High Commission Court, armed with ample powers to enforce the Act of Uniformity, had been established at Dublin in 1593; but its members were ordered to proceed cautiously after the Ulster Confederacy became formidable, and their powers lay dormant in the last two or three years of the century. Essex and Mountjoy were both fully convinced of the wisdom of Bacon's views; the former showed a partial toleration, connived at the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, even in the capital, and liberated some priests from prison. Mountjoy, in answer to the command of the English Council "to deal moderately in the great matter of religion," replied by letter that he had already advised "such as dealt in it for a time to hold a restrained hand therein." "The other course," he adds, "might have overthrown the means of our own end of a reformation of religion." This conditional toleration—such as it was—excited the indignation of the more zealous Reformers, whose favourite preacher, the youthful Usher, did not hesitate to denounce it from the pulpit of Christ Church, as an unhallowed compromise with antichrist. In 1601, Usher, then but 21 years of age, preached his well-known sermon from the text of the forty days, in which Ezekiel "was to bear the iniquity of the house of Judah—a day for a year." "From this year," cried the youthful zealot, "will I reckon the sin of Ireland, that those whom you now embrace shall be your ruin, and you shall bear their iniquity." When the northern insurrection of 1641 took place, this rhetorical menace was exalted, after the fact, into the dignity of a prophecy fulfilled. After the victory of Kinsale, however, the Ultra Protestant party had less cause to complain of the temporizing of the civil power; the pecuniary mulct of twelve pence for each absence from the English service was again enforced at least in Dublin, and several priests, then in prison, were, on various pretences, put to death. Among those who suffered in the capital was the learned Jesuit, Henry Fitzsimons, son of a Mayor of the city, the author of Brittanomachia, with whom, while in the Castle, Usher commenced a controversy, which was never finished. But the terms agreed upon at Mellifont, between Mountjoy and Tyrone, again suspended for a short interval the sword of persecution.

Notwithstanding its manifold losses by exile and the scaffold, the ancient Church was enabled, through the abundance of vocations, and the zeal of the ordained, to keep up a still powerful organization. Philip O'Sullivan states, under the next reign that the government had ascertained through its spies, the names of 1,160 priests, secular and regular, still in the country. There must have been between 300 and 400 others detained abroad, either as Professors in the Irish Colleges in Spain, France, and Flanders, or as ecclesiastics, awaiting major orders. Of the regulars at home, 120 were Franciscans, and about 50 Jesuits. There are said to have been but four Fathers of the Order of St. Dominick remaining at the time of Elizabeth's death. The reproach of Cambrensis had long been taken away, since every Diocese might now point to its martyrs. Of these we recall among the Hierarchy the names of O'Hely, Bishop of Killala, executed at Kilmallock in 1578; O'Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel, burned at the stake in Dublin in 1582; Creagh, Archbishop of Armagh, who died a prisoner in the Tower in 1585; Archbishop McGauran, his successor, slain in the act of ministering to the wounded in the engagement at Tulsk, in Roscommon, in 1593; McEgan, Bishop of Ross, who met his death under precisely similar circumstances in Carberry in 1603. Yet through all these losses the episcopal succession was maintained unbroken. In the early part of the next reign O'Sullivan gives the names of the four Archbishops, Peter Lombard of Armagh, Edward McGauran of Dublin, David O'Carny of Cashel, and Florence Conroy of Tuam. On the other hand, the last trying half century had furnished, so far as we can learn, no instance of apostacy among the Bishops, and but half a dozen at most from all orders of the clergy. We read that Owen O'Conor, an apostate, was advanced by letters patent to Killala in 1591; that Maurice O'Brien of Ara was, in 1570, by the same authority, elevated to the See of Killaloe, which he resigned in 1612; that Miler Magrath, in early life a Franciscan friar, was promoted by the Queen to the Sees of Clogher, Killala, Anchory and Lismore successively. He finally settled in the See of Cashel, in which he died, having secretly returned to the religion of his ancestors. For the rest, "the Queen's Bishops" were chiefly chosen out of England, though some few natives of the Pale, or of the walled towns, educated at Oxford, may be found in the list.

Of the state of learning in those troubled times the brief story is easily told. The Bardic Order still flourished and was held in honour by all ranks of the native population. The national adversity brought out in them, as in others, many noble traits of character. The Harper, O'Dugan, was the last companion that clung to the last of the Desmonds; the Bard of Tyrconnell, Owen Ward, accompanied the Ulster chiefs in their exile, and poured out his Gaelic dirge above their Roman graves. Although the Bardic compositions continued to be chiefly personal, relating to the inauguration, journeys, exploits, or death of some favourite chief, a large number of devotional poems on the passion of our Lord and the glories of the Blessed Virgin are known to be of this age. The first forerunners of what was destined to be a numerous progeny, the controversial ode or ballad, appeared in Elizabeth's reign, in the form of comparisons between the old and new religions, lamentations over the ruin of religious houses, and the apostacy of such persons as Miler Magrath and the son of the Earl of Desmond. The talents of many of the authors are admitted by Spenser, a competent judge, but the tendency of their writings, he complains, was to foster the love of lawlessness and rebellion rather than of virtue and loyalty. He recommended them for correction to the mercies of the Provost Marshal, whom he would have "to walk the country with half a dozen or half a score of horsemen," in quest of the treasonable poets.

As this was the age of the general diffusion of printing, we may observe that the casting of Irish type for the use of Trinity College, by order of Queen Elizabeth, is commonly dated from the year 1591; but as the College was not opened for two years later, the true date must be anticipated. John Kearney, Treasurer of St. Patrick's Church, who died about the year 1600, published a Protestant Catechism from the College Press, which, says O'Reilly, "was the first book ever printed in Irish types." In the year 1593, Florence Conroy translated from the Spanish into Irish a catechism entitled "Christian Instruction," which, he states in the preface, he had no opportunity of sending into Ireland "until the year of the age of our Lord 1598." Whether it was then printed we are not informed, but there does not seem to have been any Irish type in Catholic hands before the foundation of the Irish College at Louvain in 1616.

The merit of first giving to the press, in the native language of the country, a version of the Sacred Scriptures, belongs clearly to Trinity College. Nicholas Walsh, Bishop of Ossory, who died in 1585, had commenced, with the assistance of John Kearney, to translate the Greek Testament into Gaelic. He had also the assistance of Dr. Nehemiah Donnellan, and Dr. William Daniel, or O'Daniel, both of whom subsequently filled the See of Tuam. This translation, dedicated to King James, and published by O'Daniel in 1603, is still reprinted by the Bible Societies. The first Protestant translation of the Old Testament, made under Bishop Bedel's eye, and with such revision of particular passages as his imperfect knowledge of the language enabled him to suggest, though completed in the reign of Charles I., was not published before the year 1680. It was Bedel, also, who caused the English liturgy to be recited in Irish, in his Cathedral, as early as 1630.

Ireland and her affairs naturally attracted, during Elizabeth's reign, the attention of English writers. Of these it is enough to mention the Poet Spenser, Secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, Fynes Moryson, Secretary to Lord Mountjoy, and the Jesuit Father, Campian. Campian, early distinguished at Oxford, was employed as Cambrensis had been four centuries earlier, and as Plowden was two centuries later, to write down everything Irish. He crossed the Channel in 1570, and composed two books rapidly, without accurate or full information as to the condition or history of the country. The nearer view of Catholic suffering and Catholic constancy exercised a powerful influence on this accomplished scholar; he became a convert and a Jesuit. For members of that order there was but one exit out of life, under the law of England: he suffered death at Tyburn in 1581. Richard Stanihurst, son of the Recorder of Dublin, and uncle of Archbishop Usher, went through precisely the same experiences as his friend Campian, except that he died, a quarter of a century later, Chaplain to the Archdukes at Brussels, instead of expiring at the stake. His English hexameters are among the curiosities of literature, but his contributions to the history of his country, especially his allusions to events and characters in and about his own time, are not without their use. Stanihurst wrote his historical tracts, as did Lombard the Catholic and Usher the Protestant Primate, O'Sullivan, White, O'Meara, and almost all the Irish writers of that age, without exception, in the Latin language. The first Latin book printed in Ireland is thought to be O'Meara's poem in praise of Thomas, Earl of Ormond and Ossory, published in 1615. The earliest English books printed in Ireland are unknown to me; the collection of Anglo-Irish statutes, ordered to be published while Sir Henry Sidney was Deputy, was the most important undertaking of that class in the reign of Elizabeth.

As to institutions of learning, if we except Trinity College, which increased rapidly in numbers and reputation under the patronage of the Crown, and the College of Saint Nicholas, at Galway—protected by its remote situation on the brink of the Atlantic—there was no famous seat of learning left in the island. In the next reign 1,300 scholars are stated to have attended that western "school of humanity," when the Ecclesiastical Commissioners despotically ordered it to be closed, because the learned Principal, John Lynch, "would not confirm to the religion established." But the greater number of the children of Catholics, who still retained property enough to educate them, were sent beyond seas, a fact with which King James, soon after his accession, reproached the deputation of that body. A proclamation issued by Lord Deputy Chichester, in 1610, alludes to the same custom, and commands all noblemen, merchants, and others, whose children are abroad for educational purposes, to recall them within one year from the date thereof; and in case they refuse to return, all parents, friends, &c., sending them money, directly or indirectly, will be punished as severely as the law permits. It was mainly to guard against this danger that "the School of Wards" was established by Elizabeth, and enlarged by James I., in which the great Duke of Ormond, Sir Phelim O'Neil, Murrogh, Lord Inchiquin, and other sons of noble families, were educated for the next generation. Early in the reign of James there were not less than 300 of these Irish children in the Tower, or at the Lambeth School,—and it is humiliating to find the great name of Sir Edward Coke among those who gloried in the success of this unnatural substitution of the State for the Parent in the work of education.

BOOK IX.
FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TILL THE DEATH OF CROMWELL.

CHAPTER I.
JAMES I.—FLIGHT OF THE EARLS—CONFISCATION OF ULSTER—PENAL LAWS—PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION.

James the Sixth of Scotland was in his 37th year when he ascended the throne under the title of "James the First, King of Great Britain and Ireland." His accession naturally excited the most hopeful expectations of good government in the breasts of the Irish Catholics. He was son of Mary Queen of Scots, whom they looked upon as a martyr to her religion, and grandson of that gallant King James who styled himself "Defender of the Faith," and "Dominus Hiberniae" in introducing the first Jesuits to the Ulster Princes. His ancestors had always been in alliance with the Irish, and the antiquaries of that nation loved to trace their descent from the Scoto-Irish chiefs who first colonized Argyle, and were for ages crowned at Scone. He himself was known to have assisted the late Catholic struggle as effectually, though less openly than the King of Spain, and it is certain that he had employed Catholic agents, like Lord Home and Sir James Lindsay, to excite an interest in his succession among the Catholics, both in the British Islands and on the Continent.

The first acts of the new sovereign were calculated to confirm the expectations of Catholic liberty thus entertained. He was anxious to make an immediate and lasting peace with Spain; refused to receive a special embassy from the Hollanders; his ambassador at Paris was known to be on terms of intimacy with the Pope's Nuncio; and although personally he assumed the tone of an Anglican Churchman, on crossing the border he had invited leading Catholics to his Court, and conferred the honour of Knighthood on some of their number. The imprudent demonstrations in the Irish towns were easily quieted, and no immediate notice was taken of their leaders. In May, 1603, Mountjoy, on whom James had conferred the higher rank of Lord Lieutenant, leaving Carew as Lord Deputy, proceeded to England, accompanied by O'Neil, Roderick O'Donnell, Maguire, and other Irish gentlemen. The veteran Tyrone, now past threescore, though hooted by the London rabble, was graciously received in that court, with which he had been familiar forty years before. He was at once confirmed in his title, the Earldom of Tyrconnell was created for O'Donnell, and the Lordship of Enniskillen for Maguire. Mountjoy, created Earl of Devonshire, retained the title of Lord Lieutenant, with permission to reside in England, and was rewarded by the appointment of Master of the Ordnance and Warden of the New Forest, with an ample pension from the Crown to him and his heirs for ever, the grant of the county of Lecale (Down), and the estate of Kingston Hall, in Dorsetshire, He survived but three short years to enjoy all these riches and honours; at the age of 44, wasted with dissipation and domestic troubles, he passed to his final account.

The necessity of conciliating the Catholic party in England, of maintaining peace in Ireland, and prosecuting the Spanish negotiations, not less, perhaps, than his own original bias, led James to deal favourably with the Catholics at first. But having attempted to enforce the new Anglican Canons, adopted in 1604, against the Puritans, that party retaliated by raising against him the cry of favouring the Papists. This cry alarmed the King, who had always before his eyes the fear of Presbyterianism, and he accordingly made a speech in the Star Chamber, declaring his utter detestation of Popery, and published a proclamation banishing all Catholic missionaries from the country. All magistrates were instructed to enforce the penal laws with rigour, and an elaborate spy system for the discovery of concealed recusants was set on foot. This reign of treachery and terror drove a few desperate men into the gunpowder plot of the following year, and rendered it difficult, if not impossible, for the King to return to the policy of toleration, with which, to do him justice, he seems to have set out from Scotland.

Carew, President of Munster during the late war, became Deputy to Mountjoy on his departure for England. He was succeeded in October, 1604, by Sir Arthur Chichester, who, with the exception of occasional absences at Court, continued in office for a period of eleven years. This nobleman, a native of England, furnishes, in many points, a parallel to his cotemporary and friend, Robert Boyle, Earl of Cork. The object of his life was to found and to endow the Donegal peerage out of the spoils of Ulster, as richly as Boyle endowed his earldom out of the confiscation of Munster. Both were Puritans rather than Churchmen, in their religious opinions; Chichester, a pupil of the celebrated Cartwright, and a favourer all his life of the congregational clergy in Ulster. But they carried their repugnance to the interference of the civil magistrate in matters of conscience so discreetly as to satisfy the high church notions both of James and Elizabeth. For the violence they were thus compelled to exercise against themselves, they seem to have found relief in bitter and continuous persecution of others. Boyle, as the leading spirit in the government of Munster, as Lord Treasurer, and occasionally as Lord Justice, had ample opportunities, during his long career of forty years, to indulge at once his avarice and his bigotry; and no situation was ever more favourable than Chichester's for a proconsul, eager to enrich himself at the expense of a subjugated Province.

In the projected work of the reduction of the whole country to the laws and customs of England, it is instructive to observe that a Parliament was not called in the first place. The reformers proceeded by proclamations, letters patent, and orders in council, not by legislation. The whole island was divided into 32 counties and 6 judicial circuits, all of which were visited by Justices in the second or third year of this reign, and afterwards semi-annually. On the Northern Circuit Sir Edward Pelham and Sir John Davis were accompanied by the Deputy in person, with a numerous retinue. In some places the towns were so wasted by the late war, pestilence, and famine, that the Viceregal party were obliged to camp out in the fields, and to carry with them their own provisions. The Courts were held in ruined castles and deserted monasteries; Irish interpreters were at every step found necessary; sheriffs were installed in Tyrone and Tyrconnell for the first time; all lawyers appearing in court and all justices of the peace were tendered the oath of supremacy—the refusal of which necessarily excluded Catholics both from the bench and the bar. An enormous amount of litigation as to the law of real property was created by a judgment of the Court of King's Bench at Dublin, in 1605, by which the ancient Irish customs, of tanistry and gavelkind, were declared null and void, and the entire Feudal system, with its rights of primogeniture, hereditary succession, entail, and vassalage, was held to exist in as full force in England. Very evidently this decision was not less a violation of the articles of Mellifont than was the King's proclamation against freedom of conscience issued about the same time.

Sir John Davis, who has left us two very interesting tracts on Irish affairs, speaking of the new legal regulations of which he was one of the principal superintendents, observes that the old-fashioned allowances to be found so often in the Pipe-Rolls, pro guidagio et spiagio, into the interior, may well be spared thereafter, since "the under sheriffs and bailiffs errant are better guides and spies in time of peace than they were found in time of war." He adds, what we may very well believe, that the Earl of Tyrone complained he had so many eyes upon him, that he could not drink a cup of sack without the government being advertised of it within a few hours afterwards. This system of social espionage, so repugnant to all the habits of the Celtic family, was not the only mode of annoyance resorted to against the veteran chief. Every former dependent who could be induced to dispute his claims as a landlord, under the new relations established by the late decision, was sure of a judgment in his favour. Disputes about boundaries with O'Cane, about the commutation of chieftain-rents into tenantry, about church lands claimed by Montgomery, Protestant Bishop of Derry, were almost invariably decided against him. Harassed by these proceedings, and all uncertain of the future, O'Neil listened willingly to the treacherous suggestion of St. Lawrence and Lord Howth, that the leading Catholics of the Pale, and those of Ulster, should endeavour to form another confederation. The execution of Father Garnet, Provincial of the Jesuits in England, the heavy fines inflicted on Lords Stourton, Mordaunt, and Montague, and the new oath of allegiance, framed by Archbishop Abbott, and sanctioned by the English Parliament—all events of the year 1606—were calculated to inspire the Irish Catholics with desperate councils. A dutiful remonstrance against the Act of Uniformity the previous year had been signed by the principal Anglo-Irish Catholics for transmission to the King, but their delegates were seized and imprisoned in the Castle, while their principal agent, Sir Patrick Barnwell, was sent to London and confined in the Tower. A meeting, at Lord Howth's suggestion, was held about Christmas, 1606, at the Castle of Maynooth, then in possession of the dowager Countess of Kildare, one of whose daughters was married to Christopher Nugent, Baron of Delvin, and her granddaughter to Rory, Earl of Tyrconnell. There were present O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Cane, on the one part, and Lords Delvin and Howth on the other. The precise result of this conference, disguised under the pretext of a Christmas party, was never made known, but the fact that it had been held, and that the parties present had entertained the project of another confederacy for the defence of the Catholic religion, was mysteriously communicated in an anonymous letter, directed to Sir William Usher, Clerk of the Council, which was dropped in the Council Chamber of Dublin Castle, in March, 1607. This letter, it is now generally believed, was written by Lord Howth, who was thought to have been employed by Secretary Cecil, to entrap the northern Earls, in order to betray them. In May, O'Neil and O'Donnell were cited to attend the Lord Deputy in Dublin, but the charges were for the time kept in abeyance, and they were ordered to appear in London before the feast of Michaelmas. Early in September O'Neil was with Chichester at Slane, in Meath, when he received a letter from Maguire, who had been out of the country, conveying information on which he immediately acted. Taking leave of the Lord Deputy as if to prepare for his journey to London, he made some stay with his old friend, Sir Garrett Moore, at Mellifont, on parting from whose family he tenderly bade farewell to the children and even the servants, and was observed to shed tears. At Dungannon he remained two days, and on the shore of Lough Swilly he joined O'Donnell and others of his connexions. The French ship, in which Maguire had returned, awaited them off Rathmullen, and there they took shipping for France. With O'Neil, in that sorrowful company, were his last countess, Catherine, daughter of Magenniss, his three sons, Hugh, John, and Brian; his nephew, Art, son of Cormac, Rory O'Donnell, Caffar, his brother, Nuala, his sister, who had forsaken her husband Nial Garve, when he forsook his country; the lady Rose O'Doherty, wife of Caffar, and afterwards of Owen Roe O'Neil; Maguire, Owen MacWard, chief bard of Tyrconnell, and several others. "Woe to the heart that meditated, woe to the mind that conceived, woe to the council that decided on the project of that voyage!" exclaimed the Annalists of Donegal, in the next age. Evidently it was the judgment of their immediate successors that the flight of the Earls was a rash and irremediable step for them; but the information on which they acted, if not long since destroyed, has, as yet, never been made public. We can pronounce no judgment as to the wisdom of their conduct, from the incomplete statements at present in our possession.

There remained now few barriers to the wholesale confiscation of Ulster, so long sought by "the Undertakers," and these were rapidly removed. Sir Cahir O'Doherty, chief of Innishowen, although he had earned his Knighthood while a mere lad, fighting by the side of Dowcra, in an altercation with Sir George Paulett, Governor of Derry, was taunted with conniving at the escape of the Earls, and Paulett in his passion struck him in the face. The youthful chief—he was scarcely one and twenty—was driven almost to madness by this outrage. On the night of the 3rd of May, by a successful stratagem, he got possession of Culmore fort, at the month of Lough Foyle, and before morning dawned had surprised Derry; Paulett, his insulter, he slew with his own hand, most of the garrison were slaughtered, and the town reduced to ashes. Nial Garve O'Donnell, who had been cast off by his old protectors, was charged with sending him supplies and men, and for three months he kept the field, hoping that every gale might bring him assistance from abroad. But those same summer months and foreign climes had already proved fatal to many of the exiles, whose co-operation he invoked. In July, Rory O'Donnell expired at Rome, in August, Maguire died at Genoa, on his way to Spain, and in September, Caffar O'Donnell was laid in the same grave with his brother, on St. Peter's hill. O'Neil survived his comrades, as he had done his fortunes, and like another Belisarius, blind and old, and a pensioner on the bounty of strangers, he lived on, eight weary years, in Rome. O'Doherty, enclosed in his native peninsula, between the forces of the Marshal Wingfield and Sir Oliver Lambert, Governor of Connaught, fell by a chance shot, at the rock of Doon, in Kilmacrenan. The superfluous traitor, Nial Garve, was, with his sons, sent to London, and imprisoned in the Tower for life. In those dungeons, Cormac, brother of Hugh O'Neil, and O'Cane also languished out their days, victims to the careless or vindictive temper of King James. Sir Arthur Chichester received, soon after these events, a grant of the entire barony of Innishowen, and subsequently a grant of the borough of Dungannon, with 1,300 acres adjoining; Wingfield obtained the district of Fercullan near Dublin, with the title of Viscount Powerscourt; Lambert was soon after made Earl of Cavan, and enriched with the lands of Carig, and other estates in that county.

To justify at once the measures he proposed, as well as to divert from the exiles the sympathies of Europe, King James issued a proclamation bearing date the 5th of November, 1608, giving to the world the English version of the flight of the Earls. The whole of Ulster was then surveyed in a cursory manner by a staff over which presided Sir William Parsons as Surveyor-General. The surveys being completed early in 1609, a royal commission was issued to Chichester, Lambert, St. John, Ridgeway, Moore, Davis, and Parsons, with the Archbishop of Armagh, and the Bishop of Derry, to inquire into the portions forfeited. Before these Commissioners Juries were sworn on each particular case, and these Juries duly found that, in consequence of "the rebellion" of O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Doherty, the entire six counties of Ulster, enumerated by baronies and parishes, were forfeited to the Crown. By direction from England the Irish Privy Council submitted a scheme for planting these counties "with colonies of civil men well affected in religion," which scheme, with several modifications suggested by the English Privy Council, was finally promulgated by the royal legislator under the title of "Orders and Conditions for the Planters." According to the division thus ordered, upwards of 43,000 acres were claimed and conceded to the Primate and the Protestant Bishops of Ulster; in Tyrone, Derry, and Armagh, Trinity College got 30,000 acres, with six advowsons in each county. The various trading guilds of the city of London—such as the drapers, vintners, cordwainers, drysalters—obtained in the gross 209,800 acres, including the city of Derry, which they rebuilt and fortified, adding London to its ancient name. The grants to individuals were divided into three classes—2,000, 1,500, and 1,000 acres each. Among the conditions on which these grants were given was this—"that they should not suffer any labourer, that would not take the oath of supremacy," to dwell upon their lands. But this despotic condition—equivalent to sentence of death on tens of thousands of the native peasantry—was fortunately found impracticable in the execution. Land was little worth without hands to till it; labourers enough could not be obtained from England and Scotland, and the Hamiltons, Stewarts, Folliots, Chichesters, and Lamberts, having, from sheer necessity, to choose between Irish cultivators and letting their new estates lie waste and unprofitable, it is needless to say what choice they made.

The spirit of religious persecution was exhibited not only in the means taken to exterminate the peasantry, to destroy the northern chiefs, and to intimidate the Catholics of "the Pale" by abuse of law, but by many cruel executions. The Prior of the famous retreat of Lough Derg was one of the victims of this persecution; a Priest named O'Loughrane, who had accidentally sailed in the same ship with the Earls to France, was taken prisoner on his return, hanged and quartered. Conor O'Devany, Bishop of Down and Conor, an octogenarian, suffered martyrdom with heroic constancy at Dublin, in 1611. Two years before, John, Lord Burke of Brittas, was executed in like manner on a charge of having participated in the Catholic demonstrations which took place at Limerick on the accession of King James. The edict of 1610 in relation to Catholic children educated abroad has been quoted in a previous chapter, apropos of education, but the scheme submitted by Knox, Bishop of Raphoe, to Chichester in 1611 went even beyond that edict. In this project it was proposed that whoever should be found to harbour a Priest should forfeit all his possessions to the Crown—that quarterly returns should be made out by counties of all who refused to take the oath of supremacy, or to attend the English Church service—that no Papist should be permitted to exercise the function of a schoolmaster; and, moreover, that all churches injured during the late war should be repaired at the expense of the Papist inhabitants for the use of the Anglican congregation.

Very unexpectedly to the nation at large, after a lapse of 27 years, during which no Parliament had been held, writs were issued for the attendance of both Houses, at Dublin, on the 18th of May, 1613. The work of confiscation and plantation had gone on for several years without the sanction of the legislature, and men were at a loss to conceive for what purpose elections were now ordered, unless to invent new penal laws, or to impose fresh burdens on the country. With all the efforts which had been made to introduce civil men, well affected in religion, it was certain that the Catholics would return a large majority of the House of Commons, not only in the chief towns, but from the fifteen old, and seventeen new counties, lately created. To counterbalance this majority, over forty boroughs, returning two members each, were created, by royal charter, in places thinly or not at all inhabited, or where towns were merely projected on the estates of leading "Undertakers." Against the issue of writs returnable by these fictitious corporations, the Lords Gormanstown, Slane, Killeen, Trimbleston, Dunsany, and Howth, signed an humble remonstrance to the King, concluding with a prayer for the relaxation of the penal laws affecting religion. The King, whose notions of prerogative were extravagantly high, was highly incensed at this petition of the Catholic peers of Leinster, and Chichester proceeded with his full approbation to pack the Parliament. At the elections, however, many "recusant lawyers" and other Catholic candidates were returned, so that when the day of meeting arrived, 101 Catholic representatives assembled at Dublin, some accompanied by bands of from 100 to 200 armed followers. The supporters of the government claimed 125 votes, and six were found to be absent, making the whole number of the House of Commons 232. The Upper House consisted of 50 Peers, of whom there were 25 Protestant Bishops, so that the Deputy was certain of a majority in that chamber, on all points of ecclesiastical legislation, at least. Although, with the facts before us, we cannot agree with Sir John Davis that King James I. gave Ireland her "first free Parliament," it is impossible not to entertain a high sense of admiration for the constitutional firmness of the recusant or Catholic party in that assembly. At the very outset they successfully resisted the proposition to meet in the Castle, surrounded by the Deputy's guards, as a silent menace. They next contended that before proceeding to the election of Speaker the Council should submit to the Judges the decision of the alleged invalid elections. A tumultous and protracted debate was had on this point. The Castle party argued that they should first elect a Speaker and then proceed to try the elections; the Catholics contended that there were persons present whose votes would determine the Speakership, but who had no more title in law than the horseboys at the door. This was the preliminary trial of strength. The candidate of the Castle for the Speakership was Sir John Davis; of the Catholics, Sir John Everard, who had resigned his seat on the bench rather than take the oath of supremacy framed by Archbishop Abbott. The Castle party having gone into the lobby to be counted, the Catholics placed Sir John Everard in the Chair. On their return the government supporters placed Sir John Davis in Everard's lap, and a scene of violent disorder ensued. The House broke up in confusion; the recusants in a body declared their intention not to be present at its deliberations, and the Lord Deputy, finding them resolute, suddenly prorogued the session. Both parties sent deputies to England to lay their complaints at the foot of the throne. The Catholic spokesmen, Talbot and Lutrell, were received with a storm of reproaches, and committed, the former to the Tower, the other to the Fleet Prison. They were, however, released after a brief confinement, and a Commission was issued to inquire into the alleged electoral frauds. By the advice of Everard and others of their leaders, a compromise was effected with the Castle party; members returned for boroughs incorporated after the writs were issued were declared excluded, the contestation of seats on other grounds of irregularity were withdrawn, and the House accordingly proceeded to the business for which they were called together. The chief acts of the sessions of 1614, '15, and '16, beside the grant of four entire subsidies to the Crown, were an act joyfully recognizing the King's title; acts repealing statutes of Elizabeth and Henry VIII., as to distinctions of race; an act repealing the 3 and 4 of Philip and Mary, against "bringing Scots into Ireland," and the acts of attainder against O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Doherty. The recusant minority have been heavily censured by our recent historians for consenting to these attainders. Though the censure may be in part deserved, it is, nevertheless, clear that they had not the power to prevent their passage, even if they had been unanimous in their opposition; but they had influence enough, fortunately, to oblige the government to withdraw a sweeping penal law which it was intended to propose. An Act of oblivion and amnesty was also passed, which was of some advantage. On the whole, both for the constitutional principles which they upheld, and the religious proscription which they resisted, the recusant minority in the Irish Parliament of James I. deserve to be held in honour by all who value religious and civil liberty.

CHAPTER II.
LAST YEARS OF JAMES—CONFISCATION OF THE MIDLAND COUNTIES—ACCESSION OF CHARLES I.—GRIEVANCES AND "GRACES"—ADMINISTRATION OF LORD STRAFFORD.

From the dissolution of James's only Irish Parliament in October, 1615, until the tenth of Charles I.—an interval of twenty years—the government of the country was again exclusively regulated by arbitrary proclamations and orders in Council. Chichester, after the unusually long term of eleven years, had leave to retire in 1616; he was succeeded by the Lord Grandison, who held the office of Lord Deputy for six years, and he, in turn, by Henry Carey, Viscount Falkland, who governed from 1622 till 1629—seven years. Nothing could well be more fluctuating than the policy pursued at different periods by these Viceroys and their advisers; violent attempts at coercion alternated with the meanest devices to extort money from the oppressed; general declarations against recusants were repeated with increased vehemence, while particular treaties for a local and conditional toleration were notoriously progressing; in a word, the administration of affairs exhibited all the worst vices and weaknesses of a despotism, without any of the steadiness or magnanimity of a really paternal government. Some of the edicts issued deserve particular notice, as characterizing the administrations of Grandison and Falkland.

The municipal authorities of Waterford, having invariably refused to take the oath of supremacy, were, by an order in Council, deprived of their ancient charter, which was withheld from them for nine years. The ten shilling tax on recusants for non-attendance at the Anglican service was rigorously enforced in other cities, and was almost invariably levied with costs, which not seldom swelled the ten shillings to ten pounds. A new instrument of oppression was also, in Lord Grandison's time, invented—"the Commission for the Discovery of Defective Titles." At the head of this Commission was placed Sir William Parsons, the Surveyor-General, who had come into the kingdom in a menial situation, and had, through a long half century of guile and cruelty, contributed as much to the destruction of its inhabitants, by the perversion of law, as any armed conqueror could have done by the edge of the sword. Ulster being already applotted, and Munster undergoing the manipulation of the new Earl of Cork, there remained as a field for the Parsons Commission only the Midland Counties and Connaught. Of these they made the most in the shortest space of time. A horde of clerkly spies were employed under the name of "Discoverers," to ransack old Irish tenures in the archives of Dublin and London, with such good success, that in a very short time 66,000 acres in Wicklow, and 385,000 acres in Leitrim, Longford, the Meaths, and King's and Queen's Counties, were "found by inquisition to be vested in the Crown." The means employed by the Commissioners, in some cases, to elicit such evidence as they required, were of the most revolting description. In the Wicklow case, courts-martial were held, before which unwilling witnesses were tried on the charge of treason, and some actually put to death. Archer, one of the number, had his flesh burned with red hot iron, and was placed on a gridiron over a charcoal fire, till he offered to testify anything that was necessary. Yet on evidence so obtained whole baronies and counties were declared forfeited to the Crown.

The recusants, though suffering under every sort of injustice, and kept in a state of continual apprehension—a condition worse even than the actual horrors they endured—counted many educated and wealthy persons in their ranks, besides mustering fully ninety per cent, of the whole population. They were, therefore, far from being politically powerless. The recall of Lord Grandison from the government was attributed to their direct or indirect influence upon the King. When James Usher, then Bishop of Meath, preached before his successor from the text "He beareth not the sword in vain," they were sufficiently formidable to compel him publicly to apologise for his violent allusions to their body. Perhaps, however, we should mainly see in the comparative toleration, extended by Lord Falkland, an effect of the diplomacy then going on, for the marriage of Prince Charles to the Infanta of Spain. When, in 1623, Pope Gregory XV. granted a dispensation for this marriage, James solemnly swore to, a private article of the marriage treaty, by which he bound himself to suspend the execution of the Penal laws, to procure their repeal in Parliament, and to grant a toleration of Catholic worship in private houses. But the Spanish match was unexpectedly broken off, immediately after his decease (June, 1625), whereupon Charles married Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France.

The new monarch inherited from his father three kingdoms heaving in the throes of disaffection and rebellion. In England the most formidable of the malcontents were the Puritans, who reckoned many of the first nobility, and the ablest members of the House of Commons among their chiefs; the restoration of episcopacy, and the declaration by the subservient Parliament of Scotland, that no General Assembly should be called without the King's sanction, had laid the sure foundations of a religious insurrection in the North; while the events, which we have already described, filled the minds of all orders of men in Ireland with agitation and alarm. The marriage of Charles with Henrietta Maria gave a ray of assurance to the co-religionists of the young Queen, for they had not then discovered that it was ever the habit of the Stuarts "to sacrifice their friends to the fear of their enemies." While he was yet celebrating his nuptials at Whitehall, surrounded by Catholic guests, the House of Commons presented Charles "a pious petition," praying him to put into force the laws against recusants; a prayer which he was compelled by motives of policy to answer in the affirmative. The magistrates of England received orders accordingly, and when the King of France remonstrated against this flagrant breach of one of the articles of the marriage treaty (the same included in the terms of the Spanish match), Charles answered that he had never looked on the promised toleration as anything but an artifice to secure the Papal dispensation. But the King's compliance failed to satisfy the Puritan party in the House of Commons, and that same year began their contest with the Crown, which ended only on the scaffold before Whitehall in 1648. Of their twenty-three years' struggle, except in so far as it enters directly into our narrative, we shall have little to say, beyond reminding the reader, from time to time, that though it occasionally lulled down it was never wholly allayed on either side.

Irish affairs, in the long continued suspension of the functions of Parliament, were administered in general by the Privy Council, and in detail by three special courts, all established in defiance of ancient constitutional usage. These were the Court of Castle Chamber, modelled on the English Star Chamber, and the Ecclesiastical High Commissioners Court, both dating from 1563; and the Court of Wards and Liveries, originally founded by Henry VIII., but lately remodelled by James. The Castle Chamber was composed of certain selected members of the Privy Council acting in secret with absolute power; the High Commission Court was constituted under James and Charles, of the principal Archbishops and Bishops, with the Lord Deputy, Chancellor, Chief Justice, Master of the Rolls, Master of the Wards, and some others, laymen and jurists. They were armed with unlimited power "to visit, reform, redress, order, correct and amend, all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts and enormities," as came under the head of spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. They were, in effect, the Castle Chamber, acting as a spiritual tribunal of last resort; and were provided with their own officers, Registers and Receivers of Fines, Pursuivants, Criers and Gaolers. The Court of Wards exercised a jurisdiction, if possible, more repugnant to our first notions of liberty than that of the High Commission Court. It retained its original power "to bargain and sell the custody, wardship and marriage," of all the heirs of such persons of condition as died in the King's homage; but their powers, by royal letters patent of the year 1617, were to be exercised by a Master of Wards, with an Attorney and Surveyor, all nominated by the Crown. The Court was entitled to farm all the property of its Wards during nonage, for the benefit of the Crown, "taking one year's rent from heirs male, and two from heirs female," for charges of stewardship. The first master, Sir William Parsons, was appointed in 1622, and confirmed at the beginning of the next reign, with a salary of 300 pounds per annum, and the right to rank next to the Chief Justice of the King's Bench at the Privy Council. By this appointment the minor heirs of all the Catholic proprietors were placed, both as to person and property, at the absolute disposal of one of the most intense anti-Catholic bigots that ever appeared on the scene of Irish affairs.

In addition to these civil grievances an order had lately been issued to increase the army in Ireland by 5,000 men, and means of subsistence had to be found for that additional force, within the kingdom. In reply to the murmurs of the inhabitants, they were assured by Lord Falkland that the King was their friend, and that any just and temperate representation of their grievances would secure his careful and instant attention. So encouraged, the leading Catholics convoked a General Assembly of their nobility and gentry, "with several Protestants of rank," at Dublin, in the year 1628, in order to present a dutiful statement of their complaints to the King. The minutes of this important Assembly, it is to be feared, are for ever lost to us. We only know that it included a large number of landed proprietors, of whom the Catholics were still a very numerous section. "The entire proceedings of this Assembly," says Dr. Taylor, "were marked by wisdom and moderation. They drew up a number of articles, in the nature of a Bill of Rights, to which they humbly solicited the royal assent, and promised that, on their being granted, they would raise a voluntary assessment of 100,000 pounds for the use of the Crown. The principal articles in these 'graces,' as they were called, were provisions for the security of property, the due administration of justice, the prevention of military exactions, the freedom of trade, the better regulation of the clergy, and the restraining of the tyranny of the ecclesiastical courts. Finally, they provided that the Scots, who had been planted in Ulster, should be seemed in their possessions, and a general pardon granted for all offences." Agents were chosen to repair to England with this petition, and the Assembly, hoping for the best results, adjourned. But the ultra Protestant party had taken the alarm, and convoked a Synod at Dublin to counteract the General Assembly. This Synod vehemently protested against selling truth "as a slave," and "establishing for a price idolatry in its stead." They laid it down as a dogma of their faith that "to grant Papists a toleration, or to consent that they may freely exercise their religion and profess their faith and doctrines, was a grievous sin;" wherefore they prayed God "to make those in authority zealous, resolute, and courageous against all Popery, superstition, and idolatry." This declaration of the extreme Protestants, including not only Usher, and the principal Bishops, but Chichester, Boyle, Parsons, and the most successful "Undertakers," all deeply imbued with Puritan notions, naturally found among their English brethren advocates and defenders. The King, who had lately, for the third time, renewed with France the articles of his marriage treaty, was placed in a most difficult position. He desired to save his own honour, he sorely needed the money of the Catholics, but he trembled before the compact, well organized fanaticism of the Puritans. In his distress he had recourse to a councillor, who, since the assassination of Buckingham, his first favourite, divided with Laud the royal confidence. This was Thomas, Lord Wentworth, better known by his subsequent title of Earl of Strafford, a statesman born to be the wonder and the bane of three kingdoms. Strafford (for such for clearness we must call him) boldly advised the King to grant "the graces" as his own personal act, to pocket the proposed subsidy, but to contrive that the promised concessions he was to make should never go into effect. This infamous deception was effected in this wise: the King signed, with his own hand, a schedule of fifty-one "graces," and received from the Irish agents in London bonds for 120,000 pounds, (equal to ten times the amount at present), to be paid in three annual instalments of 40,000 pounds. He also agreed that Parliament should be immediately called in Ireland, to confirm these concessions, while at the same time he secretly instructed Lord Falkland to see that the writs of election were informally prepared, so that no Parliament could be held. This was accordingly done; the agents of the General Assembly paid their first instalment; the subscribers held the King's autograph; the writs were issued, but on being returned, were found to be technically incorrect, and so the legal confirmation of the graces was indefinitely postponed, under one pretext or another. As evidence of the national demands at this period, we should add, that beside the redress of minor grievances, the articles signed by the King provided that the recusants should be allowed to practise in the courts of law; to sue the livery of their lands out of the Court of Wards, on taking an oath of civil allegiance in lieu of the oath of supremacy; that the claims of the Crown to the forfeiture of estates, under the plea of defects of title, should not be held to extend beyond sixty years anterior to 1628; that the "Undertakers" should have time allowed them to fulfil the conditions of their leases; that the proprietors of Connaught should be allowed to make a new enrollment of their estates, and that a Parliament should be held. A royal proclamation announced these concessions, as existing in the royal intention, but, as we have already related, such promises proved to be worth no more than the paper on which they were written.

In 1629 Lord Falkland, to disarm the Puritan outcry against him, had leave to withdraw, and for four years—an unusually long interregnum—the government was left in the hands of Robert Boyle, now Earl of Cork, and Adam Loftus, Viscount Ely, one of the well dowered offspring of Queen Elizabeth's Archbishop of Dublin. Ely held the office of Lord Chancellor, and Cork that of Lord High Treasurer; as Justices, they now combined in their own persons almost all the power and patronage of the kingdom. Both affected a Puritan austerity and enthusiasm, which barely cloaked a rapacity and bigotry unequalled in any former administration. In Dublin, on Saint Stephen's Day, 1629, the Protestant Archbishop, Bulkley, and the Mayor of the city, entered the Carmelite Chapel, at the head of a file of soldiers, dispersed the congregation, desecrated the altar, and arrested the officiating friars. The persecution was then taken up and repeated wherever the executive power was strong enough to defy the popular indignation. A Catholic seminary lately established in the capital was confiscated, and turned over to Trinity College as a training school. Fifteen religious houses, chiefly belonging to the Franciscan Order, which had hitherto escaped from the remoteness of their situation, were, by an order of the English Council, confiscated to the Crown, and their novices compelled to emigrate in order to complete their studies abroad. A reprimand from the King somewhat stayed the fury of the Justices, whose supreme power ended with Stafford's appointment in 1633.

The advent of Stafford was characteristic of his whole course. The King sent over another letter concerning recusants, declaring that the laws against them, at the suggestion of the Lords Justices, should be put strictly in force. The Justices proved unwilling to enter this letter on the Council book, and it was accordingly withheld till Stafford's arrival, but the threat had the desired effect of drawing "a voluntary contribution" of 20,000 pounds out of the alarmed Catholics. Equipped partly with this money Stafford arrived in Dublin in July, 1633, and entered at once on the policy, which he himself designated by the one emphatic word—"THOROUGH." He took up his abode in the Castle, surrounded by a Body Guard, a force hitherto unknown at the Irish Court; he summoned only a select number of the Privy Council, and, having kept them waiting for hours, condescended to address them in a speech full of arrogance and menace. He declared his intention of maintaining and augmenting the army; advised them to amend their grants forthwith; told them frankly he had called them to Council, more out of courtesy than necessity, and ended by requiring from them a year's subsidy in advance. As this last request was accompanied by a positive promise to obtain the King's consent to the assembling of Parliament, it was at once granted; and soon after writs were issued for the meeting of both Houses in July following.

When this long-prayed-for Parliament at last met, the Lord Deputy took good care that it should be little else than a tribunal to register his edicts. A great many officers of the army had been chosen as Burgesses, while the Sheriffs of counties were employed to secure the election of members favourable to the demands of the Crown. In the Parliament of 1613 the recusants were, admitting all the returns to be correct, nearly one-half; but in that of 1634 they could not have exceeded one-third. The Lord Deputy nominated their Speaker, whom they did not dare to reject, and treated them invariably with the supreme contempt which no one knows so well how to exhibit towards a popular assembly as an apostate liberal. "Surely," he said in his speech from the throne, "so great a meanness cannot enter your hearts, as once to suspect his Majesty's gracious regard of you, and performance with you, once you affix yourselves upon his grace." His object in this appeal was the sordid and commonplace one—to obtain more money without rendering value for it. He accordingly carried through four whole subsidies of 50,000 pounds sterling each in the session of 1634; and two additional subsidies of the same amount at the opening of the next session. The Parliament, having thus answered his purpose, was summarily dissolved in April, 1635, and for four years more no other was called. During both sessions he had contrived, according to his agreement with the King, to postpone indefinitely the act which was to have confirmed "the graces," guaranteed in 1628. He even contrived to get a report of a Committee of the House of Commons, and the opinions of some of the Judges, against legislating on the subject at all, which report gave King Charles "a great deal of contentment."

With sufficient funds in hand for the ordinary expenses of the government, Strafford applied himself earnestly to the self-elected task of making his royal master "as absolute as any King in Christendom" on the Irish side of the channel. The plantation of Connaught, delayed by the late King's death, and abandoned among the new King's graces, was resumed as a main engine of obtaining more money. The proprietary of that Province had, in the thirteenth year of the late reign, paid 3,000 pounds into the Record Office at Dublin, for the registration of their deeds, but the entries not being made by the clerk employed, the title to every estate in the five western counties was now called in question. The "Commissioners to Inquire into Defective Titles" were let loose upon the devoted Province, with Sir William Parsons at their head, and the King's title to the whole of Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon, was found by packed, bribed, or intimidated juries; the grand jury of Galway having refused to find a similar verdict, were summoned to the Court of Castle Chamber, sentenced to pay a fine of 4,000 pounds each to the Crown, and the Sheriff that empanelled them, a fine of 1,000 pounds. The lawyers who pleaded for the actual proprietors were stripped of their gowns, the sheriff died in prison, and the work of spoliation proceeded. The young Earl of Ormond was glad to compound for a portion of his estates; the Earl of Kildare was committed to prison for refusing a similar composition; the Earl of Cork was compelled to pay a heavy fine for his intrusion into lands originally granted to the Church; the O'Byrnes of Wicklow commuted for 15,000 pounds, and the London Companies, for their Derry estates, paid no less than 70,000 pounds: a forced contribution for which those frugal citizens never forgave the thorough-going Deputy. By these means, and others less violent, such as bounties to the linen trade, he raised the annual revenue of the kingdom to 80,000 pounds a year, and was enabled to embody for the King's service an army of 10,000 foot and 1,000 horse.

These arbitrary measures were entirely in consonance with the wishes of Charles. In a visit to England in 1636, the King assured Strafford personally of his cordial approbation of all he had done, encouraged him to proceed fearlessly in the same course, and conferred on him the higher rank of Lord Lieutenant. Three years later, on the first rumour of a Scottish invasion of England, Strafford was enabled to remit his master 30,000 pounds from the Irish Treasury, and to tender the services of the Anglo-Irish army, as he thought they could be safely dispensed with by the country in which they had been thus far recruited and maintained.

CHAPTER III.
LORD STRAFFORD'S IMPEACHMENT AND EXECUTION—PARLIAMENT OF 1639-'41—THE INSURRECTION OF 1641—THE IRISH ABROAD.

The tragic end of the despot, whose administration we have sketched, was now rapidly approaching. When he deserted the popular ranks in the English House of Commons for a Peerage and the government of Ireland, the fearless Pym prophetically remarked, "Though you have left us, I will not leave you while your head is on your shoulders." Yet, although conscious of having left able and vigilant enemies behind him in England, Strafford proceeded in his Irish administration as if he scorned to conciliate the feelings or interests of any order of men. By the highest nobility, as well as the humblest of the mechanic class, his will was to be received as law; so that neither in Church, nor in State, might any man express even the most guarded doubt as to its infallibility. Lord Mountnorris, for example, having dropped a casual, and altogether innocent remark at the Chancellor's table on the private habits of the Deputy, was brought to trial by court martial on a charge of mutiny, and sentenced to military execution. Though he was not actually put to death, he underwent a long and rigorous imprisonment, and at length was liberated without apology or satisfaction. If they were not so fully authenticated, the particulars of this outrageous case would hardly be credible.

The examples of resistance to arbitrary power, which for some years had been shown by both England and Scotland, were not thrown away upon the still worse used Irish. During the seven years of Strafford's iron rule, Hampden had resisted the collection of ship money, Cromwell had begun to figure in the House of Commons, the Solemn League and Covenant was established in Scotland, and the Scots had twice entered England in arms to seal with their blood, if need were, their opposition to an episcopal establishment of religion. It was in 1640, upon the occasion of their second invasion, that Strafford was recalled from Ireland to assume command of the royal forces in the North of England. After a single indecisive campaign, the King entertained the overtures of the Covenanters, and the memorable Long Parliament having met in November, one of its first acts was the impeachment of Strafford for high crimes and misdemeanors. The chief articles against him related to his administration of Irish affairs, and were sustained by delegates from the Irish House of Commons, sent over for that purpose: the whole of the trial deserves to be closely examined by every one interested in the constitutional history of England and Ireland.

A third Parliament, known as the 14th, 15th and 16th Charles I., met at Dublin on the 20th March, 1639, was prorogued till June, and adjourned till October. Yielding the point so successfully resisted in 1613, its sittings were held in the Castle, surrounded by the viceregal guard. With one exception, the acts passed in its first session were of little importance, relating only to the allotment of glebe lands and the payment of twentieths. The exception, which followed the voting of four entire subsidies to the King, was an Act ordaining "that this Parliament shall not determine by his Majesty's assent to this and other Bills." A similar statute had been passed in 1635, but was wholly disregarded by Strafford, who no doubt meant to take precisely the same course in the present instance. The members of this Assembly have been severely condemned by modern writers for passing a high eulogium upon Strafford in their first session and reversing it after his fall. But this censure is not well founded. The eulogium was introduced by the Castle party in the Lords, as part of the preamble to the Supply Bill, which, on being returned to the Commons, could only be rejected in toto, not amended—a proceeding in the last degree revolutionary. But those who dissented from that ingenious device, at the next session of the House, took care to have their protest entered on the journals and a copy of it despatched to the King. This second proceeding took place in February, 1640, and as the Lord Lieutenant was not arraigned till the month of November following, the usual denunciations of the Irish members are altogether undeserved. At no period of his fortune was the Earl more formidable as an enemy than at the very moment the Protest against "his manner of government" was ordered "to be entered among the Ordinances" of the Commons of Ireland. Nor did this Parliament confine itself to mere protestations against the abuses of executive power. At the very opening of the second session, on the 20th of January, they appointed a committee to wait on the King in England, with instructions to solicit a bill in explanation of Poyning's law, another enabling them to originate bills in Committee of their own House, a right taken away by that law, and to ask the King's consent to the regulation of the courts of law, the collecting of the revenue, and the quartering of soldiers by statute instead of by Orders in Council. On the 16th of February the House submitted a set of queries to the Judges, the nature of which may be inferred from the first question, viz.: "Whether the subjects of this Kingdom be a free people, and to be governed only by the common law of England, and statutes passed in this Kingdom ?" When the answers received were deemed insufficient, the House itself, turning the queries into the form of resolutions, proceeded to vote on them, one by one, affirming in every point the rights, the liberties, and the privileges of their constituents.

The impeachment and attainder of Strafford occupied the great part of March and April, 1641, and throughout those months the delegates from Ireland assisted at the pleadings in Westminster Hall and the debates in the English Parliament. The Houses at Dublin were themselves occupied in a similar manner. Towards the end of February articles of impeachment were drawn up against the Lord Chancellor, Bolton, Dr. Bramhall, Bishop of Derry, Chief-Justice Lowther, and Sir George Radcliffe, for conspiring with Strafford to subvert the constitution, and laws, and to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government. In March, the King's letter for the continuance of Parliament was laid before the Commons, and on the 3rd of April, his further letter, declaring that all his Majesty's subjects of Ireland "shall, from henceforth, enjoy the benefit of the said graces [of 1628] according to the true intent thereof." By the end of May the Judges, not under impeachment, sent in their answers to the Queries of the Commons, which answers were voted insufficient, and Mr. Patrick Darcy, Member for Navan, was appointed to serve as Proculator at a Conference with the Lords, held on the 9th of June, "in the dining-room of the Castle," in order to set forth the insufficiency of such replies. The learned and elaborate argument of Darcy was ordered to be printed by the House; and on the 26th day of July, previous to their prorogation, they resolved unanimously, that the subjects of Ireland "were a free people, to be governed only by the common law of England, and statutes made and established in the kingdom of Ireland, and according to the lawful custom used in the same." This was the last act of this memorable session; the great northern insurrection in October having, of course, prevented subsequent sessions from being held. Constitutional agitators in modern times have been apt to select their examples of a wise and patriotic parliamentary conduct from the opposition to the Act of Union and the famous struggles of the last century; but whoever has looked into such records as remain to us of the 15th and 16th of Charles First, and the debates on the impeachment of Lord Chancellor Bolton, will, in my opinion, be prepared to admit, that at no period whatever was constitutional law more ably expounded in Ireland than in the sessions of 1640 and 1641; and that not only the principles of Swift and of Molyneux had a triumph in 1782, but the older doctrines also of Sir Ralph Kelly, Audley Mervin, and Patrick Darcy.

Strafford's Deputy, Sir Christopher Wandesford, having died before the close of 1640, the King appointed Robert, Lord Dillon, a liberal Protestant, and Sir William Parsons, Lords Justices. But the pressure of Puritan influence in England compelled him in a short time to remove Dillon and substitute Sir John Borlace, Master of the Ordnance—a mere soldier—in point of fanaticism a fitting colleague for Parsons. The prorogation of Parliament soon gave these administrators opportunities to exhibit the spirit in which they proposed to carry on the government. When at a public entertainment in the capital, Parsons openly declared that in twelve months more no Catholics should be seen in Ireland, it was naturally inferred that the Lord Justice spoke not merely for himself but for the growing party of the English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters. The latter had repeatedly avowed that they never would lay down their arms until they had wrought the extirpation of Popery, and Mr. Pym, the Puritan leader in England, had openly declared that his party intended not to leave a priest in Ireland. The infatuation of the unfortunate Charles in entrusting at such a moment the supreme power, civil and military, to two of the devoted partizans of his deadliest enemies, could not fail to arouse the fears of all who felt themselves obnoxious to the fanatical party, either by race or by religion.

The aspirations of the chief men among the old Irish for entire freedom of worship, their hopes of recovering at least a portion of their estates, the example of the Scots, who had successfully upheld both their Church and nation against all attempts at English supremacy, the dangers that pressed, and the fears that overhung them, drove many of the very first abilities and noblest characters into the conspiracy which exploded with such terrific energy on the 23rd of October, 1641. The project, though matured on Irish soil, was first conceived among the exiled Catholics, who were to be found at that day in all the schools and camps of Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands. Philip III. had an Irish legion, under the command of Henry O'Neil, son of Tyrone, which, after his death was transferred to his brother John. In this legion, Owen Roe O'Neil, nephew of Tyrone, learned the art of war, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The number of Irish serving abroad had steadily increased after 1628, when a license of enlistment was granted by King James. An English emissary, evidently well-informed, was enabled to report, about the year 1630, that there were in the service of the Archduchess Isabella, in the Spanish Netherlands alone, "100 Irish officers able to command companies, and 20 fit to be colonels." The names of many others are given as men of noted courage, good engineers, and "well-beloved" captains, both Milesians and Anglo-Irish, residing at Lisbon, Florence, Milan and Naples. The emissary adds that they had long been providing arms for an attempt upon Ireland, "and had in readiness 5,000 or 6,000 arms laid up in Antwerp for that purpose, bought out of the deduction of their monthly pay." After the death of the Archduchess, in 1633, an attempt was made by the Franco-Dutch, under Prince Maurice and Marshal Chatillon, to separate the Belgian Provinces from Spain. In the sanguinary battle at Avien victory declared for the French, and on their junction with Prince Maurice, town after town surrendered to their arms. The first successful stand against them was made at Louvain, defended by 4,000 Belgians, Walloons, Spaniards and Irish; the Irish, 1,000 strong, under the command of Colonel Preston, of the Gormanstown family, greatly distinguished themselves. The siege was raised on the 4th of July, 1635, and Belgium was saved for that time to Philip IV. At the capture of Breda, in 1637, the Irish were again honourably conspicuous, and yet more so in the successful defence of Arras, the capital of Artois, three years later. Not yet strengthened by the citadel of Vauban, this ancient Burgundian city, famous for its cathedral and its manufactures, dear to the Spaniards as one of the conquests of Charles V., was a vital point in the campaign of 1640. Besieged by the French, under Marshal Millerie, it held out for several weeks under the command of Colonel Owen Roe O'Neil. The King of France lying at Amiens, within convenient distance, took care that the besiegers wanted for nothing; while the Prince-Cardinal, Ferdinand, the successor of the Archduchess in the government, marched to its relief at the head of his main force with the Imperialists, under Launboy, and the troops of the Duke of Lorrain, commanded by that Prince in person. In an attack on the French lines the Allies were beaten off with loss, and the brave commander was left again unsuccoured in the face of his powerful assailant. Subsequently Don Philip de Silva, General of the Horse to the Prince Cardinal, was despatched to its relief, but failed to effect anything; a failure for which he was court-martialed, but acquitted. The defenders, after exhausting every resource, finally surrendered the place on honourable terms, and marched out covered with glory. These stirring events, chronicled in prose and verse at home, rekindled the martial ardour which had slumbered since the disastrous day of Kinsale.

In the ecclesiastics who shared their banishment, the military exiles had a voluntary diplomatic corps who lost no opportunity of advancing the common cause. At Rome, their chief agent was Father Luke Wadding, founder of Saint Isidore's, one of the most eminent theologians and scholars of his age. Through the friendship of Gregory XV. and Urban VIII., many Catholic princes became deeply interested in the religious wars which the Irish of the previous ages had so bravely waged, and which their descendants were now so anxious to renew. Cardinal Richelieu—who wielded a power greater than that of Kings—had favourably entertained a project of invasion submitted to him by the son of Hugh O'Neil, a chief who, while living, was naturally regarded by the exiles as their future leader.

To prepare the country for such an invasion (if the return of men to their own country can be called by that name), it was necessary to find an agent with talents for organization, and an undoubted title to credibility and confidence. This agent was fortunately found in the person of Rory or Roger O'Moore, the representative of the ancient chiefs of Leix, who had grown up at the Spanish Court as the friend and companion of the O'Neils. O'Moore was then in the prime of life, of handsome person, and most seductive manners; his knowledge of character was profound; his zeal for the Catholic cause, intense; his personal probity, honour, and courage, undoubted. The precise date of O'Moore's arrival in Ireland is not given in any of the cotemporary accounts, but he seems to have been resident in the country some time previous to his appearance in public life, as he is familiarly spoken of by his English cotemporaries as "Mr. Roger Moore of Ballynagh." During the Parliamentary session of 1640, he took lodgings in Dublin, where he succeeded in enlisting in his plans Conor Maguire, Lord Enniskillen, Philip O'Reilly, one of the members for the county of Cavan, Costelloe McMahon, and Thorlogh O'Neil, all persons of great influence in Ulster. During the ensuing assizes in the Northern Province he visited several country towns, where in the crowd of suitors and defendants he could, without attracting special notice, meet and converse with those he desired to gain over. On this tour he received the important accession of Sir Phelim O'Neil of Kinnaird, in Tyrone, Sir Con Magennis of Down, Colonel Hugh McMahon of Monaghan, and Dr. Heber McMahon, Administrator of Clogher. Sir Phelim O'Neil, the most considerable man of his name tolerated in Ulster, was looked upon as the greatest acquisition, and at his castle of Kinnaird his associates from the neighbouring counties, under a variety of pretexts, contrived frequently to meet. From Ulster, the indefatigable O'Moore carried the threads of the conspiracy into Connaught with equal success, finding both among the nobility and clergy many adherents. In Leinster, among the Anglo-Irish, he experienced the greatest timidity and indifference, but an unforeseen circumstance threw into his hands a powerful lever, to move that province. This was the permission granted by the King to the native regiments, embodied by Strafford, to enter into the Spanish service, if they so desired. His English Parliament made no demur to the arrangement, which would rid the island of some thousands of disciplined Catholics, but several of their officers, under the inspiration of O'Moore, kept their companies together, delaying their departure from month to month. Among these were Sir James Dillon, Colonel Plunkett, Colonel Byrne, and Captain Fox, who, with O'Moore, formed the first directing body of the Confederates in Leinster.

In May, 1641, Captain Neil O'Neil arrived from the Netherlands with an urgent request from John, Earl of Tyrone, to all his clansmen to prepare for a general insurrection. He also brought them the cheering news that Cardinal Richelieu—then at the summit of his greatness—had promised the exiles arms, money, and means of transport. He was sent back, almost immediately, with the reply of Sir Phelim, O'Moore and their friends, that they would be prepared to take the field a few days before or after the festival of All Hallows—the 1st of November. The death of Earl John, the last surviving son of the illustrious Tyrone, shortly afterwards, though it grieved the Confederates, wrought no change in their plans. In his cousin-germain, the distinguished defender of Arras, they reposed equal confidence, and their confidence could not have been more worthily bestowed.

CHAPTER IV.
THE INSURRECTION OF 1641.

The plan agreed upon by the Confederates included four main features. I. A rising after the harvest was gathered in, and a campaign during the winter months, when supplies from England were most difficult to be obtained by their enemies. II. A simultaneous attack on one and the same day or night on all the fortresses within reach of their friends. III. To surprise the Castle of Dublin, which was said to contain arms for 12,000 men. IV. Aid in officers, munitions, and money from abroad. All the details of this project were carried successfully into effect, except the seizure of Dublin Castle—the most difficult as it would have been the most decisive blow to strike.

Towards the end of August, a meeting of those who could most conveniently attend was held in Dublin. There were present O'Moore and Maguire, of the civilians, and Colonels Plunkett, Byrne, and McMahon of the army. At this meeting the last week of October, or first of November, was fixed upon as the time to rise; subsequently Saturday, the 23rd of the first named month, a market day in the capital was selected. The northern movements were to be arranged with Sir Phelim O'Neil, while McMahon, Plunkett, and Byrne, with 200 picked men, were to surprise the Castle guard—consisting of only a few pensioners and 40 halbediers—turn the guns upon the city to intimidate the Puritan party, and thus make sure of Dublin; O'Moore, Lord Maguire, and other civilians, were to be in town, in order to direct the next steps to be taken. As the day approached, the arrangements went on with perfect secrecy but with perfect success. On the 22nd of October half the chosen band were in waiting, and the remainder were expected in during the night. Some hundreds of persons, in and about Dublin, and many thousands throughout the country, must have been in possession of that momentous secret, yet it was by the mere accident of trusting a drunken dependent out of sight, that the first knowledge of the plot was conveyed to the Lords Justices on the very eve of its execution.

Owen O'Connolly, the informant on this occasion, was one of those ruffling squires or henchmen, who accompanied gentlemen of fortune in that age, to take part in their quarrels, and carry their confidential messages. That he was not an ordinary domestic servant, we may learn from the fact of his carrying a sword, after the custom of the class to which we have assigned him. At this period he was in the service of Sir John Clotworthy, one of the most violent of the Puritan Undertakers, and had conformed to the established religion. Through what recklessness, or ignorance of his true character, he came to be invited by Colonel Hugh McMahon to his lodgings, and there, on the evening of the 22nd, entrusted with a knowledge of next day's plans, we have now no means of deciding. O'Connolly's information, as tendered to the Justices, states that on hearing of the proposed attack on the Castle, he pretended an occasion to withdraw, leaving his sword in McMahon's room to avoid suspicion, and that after jumping over fences and palings, he made his way from the north side of the city to Sir William Parsons at the Castle. Parsons at first discredited the tale, which O'Connolly (who was in liquor) told in a confused and rambling manner, but he finally decided to consult his colleague, Borlase, by whom some of the Council were summoned, the witness's deposition taken down, orders issued to double the guard, and officers despatched, who arrested McMahon at his lodgings. When McMahon came to be examined before the Council, it was already the morning of the 23rd; he boldly avowed his own part in the plot, and declared that what was that day to be done was now beyond the power of man to prevent. He was committed close prisoner to the Castle where he had hoped to command, and search was made for the other leaders in town. Maguire was captured the next morning, and shared McMahon's captivity; but O'Moore, Plunkett, and Byrne succeeded in escaping out of the city. O'Connolly was amply rewarded in lands and money; and we hear of him once afterwards, with the title of Colonel, in the Parliamentary army.

As McMahon had declared to the Justices, the rising was now beyond the power of man to prevent. In Ulster, by stratagem, surprise, or force, the forts of Charlemont and Mountjoy, and the town of Dungannon, were seized on the night of the 22nd by Sir Phelim O'Neil or his lieutenants; on the next day Sir Conor Magennis took the town of Newry, the McMahons possessed themselves of Carrickmacross and Castleblaney, the O'Hanlons Tandragee, while Philip O'Reilly and Roger Maguire razed Cavan and Fermanagh. A proclamation of the northern leaders appeared the same day, dated from Dungannon, setting forth their "true intent and meaning" to be, not hostility to his Majesty the King, "nor to any of his subjects, neither English nor Scotch; but only for the defence and liberty of ourselves and the Irish natives of this kingdom." A more elaborate manifesto appeared shortly afterwards from the pen of Rory O'Moore, in which the oppressions of the Catholics for conscience' sake were detailed, the King's intended "graces" acknowledged, and their frustration by the malice of the Puritan party exhibited: it also endeavoured to show that a common danger threatened the Protestants of the Episcopal Church with Roman Catholics, and asserted in the strongest terms the devotion of the Catholics to the Crown. In the same politic and tolerant spirit, Sir Conor Magennis wrote from Newry on the 25th to the officers commanding at Down. "We are," he wrote, "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." This threat of retaliation, so customary in all wars, was made on the third day of the rising, and refers wholly to future contingencies; the monstrous fictions which were afterwards circulated of a wholesale massacre committed on the 23rd were not as yet invented, nor does any public document or private letter, written in Ireland in the last week of October, or during the first days of November, so much as allude to those tales of blood and horror, afterwards so industriously circulated, and so greedily swallowed.

Fully aroused from their lethargy by McMahon's declaration, the Lords Justices acted with considerable vigour. Dublin was declared to be in a state of siege; courts martial were established; arms were distributed to the Protestant citizens, and some Catholics; and all strangers were ordered to quit the city under pain of death. Sir Francis Willoughby, Governor of Galway, who arrived on the night of the 22nd, was entrusted with the command of the Castle, Sir Charles Coote was appointed Military Governor of the city, and the Earl, afterwards Duke of Ormond, was summoned from Carrick-on-Suir to take command of the army. As Coote played a very conspicuous part in the opening scenes of this war, and Ormond till its close, it may be well to describe them both, more particularly, to the reader.

Sir Charles Coote, one of the first Baronets of Ireland, like Parsons, Boyle, Chichester, and other Englishmen, had come over to Ireland during the war against Tyrone, in quest of fortune. His first employments were in Connaught, where he filled the offices of Provost-Marshal and Vice-Governor in the reign of James I. His success as an Undertaker entitles him to rank with the fortunate adventurers we have mentioned; in Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim, Queen's, and other counties, his possessions and privileges raised him to the rank of the richest subjects of his time. In 1640 he was a colonel of foot, with the estates of a Prince and the habits of a Provost-Marshal. His reputation for ferocious cruelty has survived the remembrance even of his successful plunder of other people's property; before the campaigns of Cromwell there was no better synonym for wanton cruelty than the name of Sir Charles Coote.

James Butler, Earl, Marquis, and Duke of Ormond deservedly ranks amongst the principal statesmen of his time. During a public career of more than half a century his conduct in many eminent offices of trust was distinguished by supreme ability, life-long firmness and consistency. As a courtier of the House of Stuart, it was impossible that he should have served and satisfied both Charleses without participating in many indefensible acts of government, and originating some of them. Yet judged, not from the Irish but the Imperial point of view, not by an abstract standard but by the public morality of his age, he will be found fairly deserving of the title of "the great Duke" bestowed on him during his lifetime. When summoned by the Lords Justices to their assistance in 1641, he was in the thirty-first year of his age, and had so far only distinguished himself in political life as the friend of the late Lord Strafford. He had, however, the good fortune to restore in his own person the estates of his family, notwithstanding that they were granted in great part to others by King James; his attachment to the cause of King Charles was very naturally augmented by the fact that the partiality of that Prince and his ill-fated favourite had enabled him to retrieve both the hereditary wealth and the high political influence which formerly belonged to the Ormond Butlers. Such an ally was indispensable to the Lords Justices in the first panic of the insurrection; but it was evident to near observers that Ormond, a loyalist and a churchman, could not long act in concert with such devoted Puritans as Parsons, Borlase, and Coote.

The military position of the several parties—there were at least three—when Ormond arrived at Dublin, in the first week of November, may be thus stated: I. In Munster and Connaught there was but a single troop of royal horse, each, left as a guard with the respective Presidents, St. Leger and Willoughby; in Kilkenny, Dublin, and other of the midland counties, the gentry, Protestant and Catholic, were relied on to raise volunteers for their own defence; in Dublin there had been got together 1,500 old troops; six new regiments of foot were embodied; and thirteen volunteer companies of 100 each. In the Castle were arms and ammunition for 12,000 men, with a fine train of field artillery, provided by Stafford for his campaign in the north of England. Ormond, as Lieutenant-General, had thus at his disposal, in one fortnight after the insurrection broke out, from 8,000 to 10,000 well appointed men; his advice was to take the field at once against the northern leaders before the other Provinces became equally inflamed. But his judgment was overruled by the Justices, who would only consent, while awaiting their cue from the Long Parliament, to throw reinforcements into Drogheda, which thus became their outpost towards the north. II. In Ulster there still remained in the possession of "the Undertakers" Enniskillen, Derry, the Castles of Killeagh and Crohan in Cavan, Lisburn, Belfast, and the stronghold of Carrickfergus, garrisoned by the regiments of Colonel Chichester and Lord Conway. King Charles, who was at Edinburgh endeavouring to conciliate the Scottish Parliament when news of the Irish rising reached him, procured the instant despatch of 1,500 men to Ulster, and authorized Lords Chichester, Ardes and Clandeboy, to raise new regiments from among their own tenants. The force thus embodied—which may be called from its prevailing element the Scottish army—cannot have numbered less than 5,000 foot, and the proportionate number of horse. III. The Irish in the field by the first of November are stated in round numbers at 30,000 men in the northern counties alone; but the whole number supplied with arms and ammunition could not have reached one-third of that nominal total. Before the surprise of Charlemont and Mountjoy forts, Sir Phelim O'Neil had but a barrel or two of gunpowder; the stores of those forts, with 70 barrels taken at Newry by Magennis, and all the arms captured in the simultaneous attack, which at the outside could not well exceed 4,000 or 5,000 stand—constituted their entire equipment. One of Ormond's chief reasons for an immediate campaign in the North was to prevent them having time to get "pikes made"—which shows their deficiency even in that weapon. Besides this defect there was one, if possible, still more serious. Sir Phelim was a civilian, bred to the profession of the law; Rory O'Moore, also, had never seen service; and although Colonel Owen O'Neil and others had promised to join them "at fourteen days' notice," a variety of accidents prevented the arrival of any officer of distinction during the brief remainder of that year. Sir Phelim, however, boldly assumed the title of "Lord General of the Catholic Army in Ulster," and the still more popular title with the Gaelic speaking population of "The O'Neil."

The projected winter campaign, after the first week's successes, did not turn out favourably for the northern Insurgents. The beginning of November was marked by the barbarous slaughter committed by the Scottish garrison of Carrickfergus in the Island Magee. Three thousand persons are said to have been driven into the fathomless north sea, over the cliffs of that island, or to have perished by the sword. The ordinary inhabitants could not have exceeded one-tenth as many, but the presence of so large a number may be accounted for by the supposition that they had fled from the mainland across the peninsula, which is left dry at low water, and were pursued to their last refuge by the infuriated Covenanters. From this date forward until the accession of Owen Roe O'Neil to the command, the northern 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 sometimes 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 Irish Parliament, which was to have met on the 16th of November, was indefinitely prorogued by the Lords Justices, who preferred to act only with their chosen quorum of Privy Counsellors. The Catholic Lords of the Pale, who at first had arms granted for their retainers out of the public stores, were now summoned to surrender them by a given day; an insult not to be forgiven. Lords Dillon and Taafe, then deputies to the King, were seized at Ware by the English Puritans, their papers taken from them, and themselves imprisoned. O'Moore, whose clansmen had recovered Dunamase and other strongholds in his ancient patrimony, was still indefatigable in his propaganda among the Anglo-Irish. By his advice Sir Phelim marched to besiege Drogheda, at the head of his tumultuous bands. On the way southward he made an unsuccessful attack upon Lisburn, where he lost heavily; on the 24th of November he took possession of Mellifont Abbey, from whose gate the aged Tyrone had departed in tears, twenty-five years before. From Mellifont he proceeded to invest Drogheda; Colonel Plunkett, with the title of General, being the sole experienced officer as yet engaged in his ranks. A strongly walled town as Drogheda was, well manned, and easily accessible from the sea, cannot be carried without guns and engineers by any amount of physical courage. Whenever the Catholics were fairly matched in the open field, they were generally successful, as at Julianstown, during this siege, where one of their detachments cut off five out of six companies marching from Dublin to reinforce the town; but though the investment was complete, the vigilant governor, Sir Henry Tichburne, successfully repulsed the assailants. O'Moore, who lay between Ardee and Dundalk with a reserve of 2,000 men, found time during the siege to continue his natural career, that of a diplomatist. The Puritan party, from the Lord Justice downwards, were, indeed, every day hastening that union of Catholics of all origins which the founder of the Confederacy so ardently desired to bring about. Their avowed maxim was that the more men rebelled, the more estates there would be to confiscate. 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 county. 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.

At length the Catholic Lords of the Pale began to feel the general glow of an outraged people, too long submissive under every species of provocation. The Lords Justices having summoned them to attend in Dublin on the 8th of December, they met at Swords, at the safe distance of seven miles, and sent by letter their reasons for not trusting themselves in the capital. To the allegations in this letter the Justices replied by proclamation, denying most of them, and repeating their summons to Lords Fingal, Gormanstown, Slane, Dunsany, Netterville, Louth, and Trimleston, to attend in Dublin on the 17th. But before the 17th came, as if to ensure the defeat of their own summons, Coote was let loose upon the flourishing villages of Fingal, and the flames kindled by his men might easily be discovered from the round tower of Swords. On the 17th, the summoned Lords, with several of the neighbouring gentry, met by appointment on the hill of Crofty, in the neighbouring county of Meath; while they were engaged in discussing the best course to be taken, a party of armed men on horseback, accompanied by a guard of musketeers, was seen approaching. They proved to be O'Moore, O'Reilly, Costelloe McMahon, brother of the prisoner, Colonel Byrne, and Captain Fox. Lord Gormanstown, advancing in front of his friends, demanded of the new-comers "why they came armed into the Pale?" To which O'Moore made answer "that the ground of their coming thither was for the freedom and liberty of their consciences, the maintenance of his Majesty's prerogative, in which they understood he was abridged, and the making the subjects of this kingdom as free as those of England." Lord Gormanstown, after consulting a few moments with his friends, replied: "Seeing these be your true ends, we will likewise join with you." The leaders then embraced, amid the acclamations of their followers, and the general conditions of their union having been unanimously agreed upon, a warrant was drawn out authorizing the Sheriff of Meath to summon the gentry of the county to a final meeting at the Hill of Tara on the 24th of December.

CHAPTER V.
THE CATHOLIC CONFEDERATION—ITS CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT.

How a tumultuous insurrection grew into a national organization, with a senate, executive, treasury, army, ships, and diplomacy, we are now to describe. It may, however, be assumed throughout the narrative, that the success of the new Confederacy was quite as much to be attributed to the perverse policy of its enemies as to the counsels of its best leaders. The rising in the midland and Munster counties, and the formal adhesion of the Lords of the Pale, were two of the principal steps towards the end. A third was taken by the Bishops of the Province of Armagh, assembled in Provincial Synod at Kells, on the 22nd of March, 1642, where, with the exception of Dease of Meath, they unanimously pronounced "the war just and lawful." After solemnly condemning all acts of private vengeance, and all those who usurped other men's estates, this provincial meeting invited a national synod to meet at Kilkenny on the 10th day of May following. On that day accordingly, all the Prelates then in the country, with the exception of Bishop Dease, met at Kilkenny. There were present O'Reilly, Archbishop of Armagh; Butler, Archbishop of Cashel; O'Kealy, Archbishop of Tuam; David Rothe, the venerable Bishop of Ossory; the Bishops of Clonfert, Elphin, Waterford, Lismore, Kildare, and Down and Conor; the proctors of Dublin, Limerick, and Killaloe, with sixteen other dignitaries and heads of religious orders—in all, twenty-nine prelates and superiors, or their representatives. The most remarkable attendants were, considering the circumstances of their Province, the prelates of Connaught. Strafford's reign of terror was still painfully remembered west of the Shannon, and the immense family influence of Ulick Burke, then Earl, and afterwards Marquis of Clanrickarde, was exerted to prevent the adhesion of the western population to the Confederacy. But the zeal of the Archbishop of Tuam, and the violence of the Governor of Galway, Sir Francis Willoughby, proved more than a counterpoise for the authority of Clanrickarde and the recollection of Strafford: Connaught, though the last to come into the Confederation, was also the last to abandon it.

The Synod of Kilkenny proceeded with the utmost solemnity and anxiety to consider the circumstances of their own and the neighbouring kingdoms. No equal number of men could have been found in Ireland, at that day, with an equal amount of knowledge of foreign and domestic politics. Many of them had spent years upon the Continent, while the French Huguenots held their one hundred "cautionary towns," and "leagues" and "associations" were the ordinary instruments of popular resistance in the Netherlands and Germany. Nor were the events transpiring in the neighbouring island unknown or unweighed by that grave assembly. The true meaning and intent of the Scottish and English insurrections were by this time apparent to every one. The previous months had been especially fertile in events, calculated to rouse their most serious apprehensions. In March, the King fled from London to York; in April, the gates of Hull were shut in his face by Hotham, its governor; and in May, the Long Parliament voted a levy of 16,000 without the royal authority. The Earl of Warwick had been appointed the Parliamentary commander of the fleet, and the Earl of Essex, their Lord General, with Cromwell as one of his captains. From that hour it was evident the sword alone could decide between Charles and his subjects. In Scotland, too, events were occurring in which Irish Catholics were vitally interested. The contest for the leadership of the Scottish royalists between the Marquises of Hamilton and Montrose had occupied the early months of the year, and given their enemies of the Kirk and the Assembly full time to carry on their correspondence with the English Puritans. In April, all parties in Scotland agreed in despatching a force of 2,500 men, under "the memorable Major Monroe," for the protection of the Scottish settlers in Ulster. On the 15th of that month this officer landed at Carrickfergus, which was "given up to him by agreement," with the royalist Colonel Chichester; the fortress, which was by much the strongest in that quarter, continued for six years the head-quarters of the Scottish general, with whom we shall have occasion to meet again.

The state of Anglo-Irish affairs was for some months one of disorganization and confusion. In January and February the King had been frequently induced to denounce by proclamation his "Irish rebels." He had offered the Parliament to lead their reinforcements in person, had urged the sending of arms and men, and had repeatedly declared that he would never consent to tolerate Popery in that country. He had failed to satisfy his enemies, by these profuse professions had dishonoured himself, and disgusted many who were far from being hostile to his person or family. Parsons and Borlase were still continued in the government, and Coote was entrusted by them, on all possible occasions, with a command distinct from that of Ormond. Having proclaimed the Lords of the Pale rebels for refusing to trust their persons within the walls of Dublin, Coote was employed during January to destroy Swords, their place of rendezvous, and to ravage the estates of their adherents in that neighbourhood. In the same month 1,100 veterans arrived at Dublin under Sir Simon Harcourt; early in February arrived Sir Richard Grenville with 400 horse, and soon after Lieutenant-Colonel George Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, with Lord Leicester's regiment, 1,500 strong. Up to this period Ormond had been restrained by the Justices, who were as timid as they were cruel, to operations within an easy march of Dublin. He had driven the O'Moores and their Allies out of Naas; had reinforced some garrisons in Kildare; he had broken up, though not without much loss, an entrenched camp of the O'Byrnes at Kilsalgen wood, on the borders of Dublin; at last the Justices felt secure enough, at the beginning of March, to allow him to march to the relief of Drogheda. Sir Phelim O'Neil had invested the place for more than three months, had been twice repulsed from its walls, made a last desperate attempt, towards the end of February, but with no better success. After many lives were lost the impetuous lawyer-soldier was obliged to retire, and on the 8th of March, hearing of Ormond's approach at the head of 4,000 fresh troops, he hastily retreated northward. On receiving this report, the Justices recalled Ormond to the capital; Sir Henry Tichburne and Lord Moore were despatched with a strong force, on the rear of the Ulster forces, and drove them out of Ardee and Dundalk—the latter after a sharp action. The march of Ormond into Meath had, however, been productive of offers of submission from many of the gentry of the Pale, who attended the meetings at Crofty and Tara. Lord Dunsany and Sir John Netterville actually surrendered on the Earl's guarantee, and were sent to Dublin; Lords Gormanstown, Netterville, and Slane, offered by letter to follow their example; but the two former were, on reaching the city, thrust into the dungeons of the Castle, by order of the Justices; and the proposals of the latter were rejected with contumely. About the same time the Long Parliament passed an act declaring 2,500,000 acres of the property of Irish recusants forfeited to the State, and guaranteeing to all English "adventurers" contributing to the expenses of the war, and all soldiers serving in it, grants of land in proportion to their service and contribution. This act, and a letter from Lord Essex, the Parliamentarian Commander-in-Chief, recommending the transportation of captured recusants to the West Indian Colonies, effectually put a stop to these negotiations. 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, where 80 men and women and 2 priests were put to death. Magennis was obliged to abandon Down, and McMahon Monaghan; Sir Philem 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 the 13th of April 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 pounds. 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 saberer, 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. In Munster the President St. Leger, though lately reinforced by 1,000 men from England, did not consider himself strong enough for other than occasional forays into the neighbouring county, and little was effected in that Province.

Such was the condition of affairs at home and abroad when the National Synod assembled at Kilkenny. As the most popular tribunal invested with the highest moral power in the kingdom, it was their arduous task to establish order and authority among the chaotic elements of the revolution. By the admission of those most opposed to them they conducted their deliberations for nearly three weeks with equal prudence and energy. They first, on the motion of the venerable Bishop Rothe, framed an oath of association to be publicly taken by all their adherents, by the first part of which they were bound to bear "true faith and allegiance" to King Charles and his lawful successors, "to maintain the fundamental laws of Ireland, the free exercise of the Roman Catholic faith and religion." By the second part of this oath all Confederate Catholics—for so they were to be called—as solemnly bound themselves never to accept or submit to any peace "without the consent and approbation of the general assembly of the said Confederate Catholics." They then proceeded to make certain constitutions, declaring the war just and lawful; condemning emulations and distinctions founded on distinctions of race, such as "new" and "old Irish;" ordaining an elective council for each Province; and a Supreme or National Council for the whole kingdom; condemning as excommunicate all who should, having taken the oath, violate it, or who should be guilty of murder, violence to persons, or plunder under pretence of the war. Although the attendance of the lay leaders of the movement at Kilkenny was far from general, the exigencies of the case compelled them, to nominate, with the concurrence of the Bishops, the first Supreme Council of which Lord Mountgarrett was chosen President, and Mr. Richard Belling, an accomplished writer and lawyer, Secretary. By this body a General Assembly of the entire Nation was summoned to meet at the same city, on the 23rd of October following—the anniversary of the Ulster rising, commonly called by the English party "Lord Maguire's day." The choice of such an occasion by men of Mountgarrett's and Selling's moderation and judgment, six months after the date of the alleged "massacre," would form another proof, if any were now needed, that none of the alleged atrocities were yet associated with the memory of that particular day.

The events of the five months, which intervened between the adjournment of the National Synod at the end of May, and the meeting of the General Assembly on the 23rd of October, may best be summed up under the head of the respective provinces. I. The oath of Confederation was taken with enthusiasm in Munster, a Provincial Council elected, and General Barry chosen Commander-in-Chief. Barry made an attempt upon Cork, which was repulsed, but a few days later the not less important city of Limerick opened its gates to the Confederates, and on the 21st of June the citadel was breached and surrendered by Courtenay, the Governor. On the 2nd of July St. Leger died at Cork (it was said of vexation for the loss of Limerick), and the command devolved on his son-in-law, Lord Inchiquin, a pupil of the school of Wards, and a soldier of the school of Sir Charles Coote. With Inchiquin was associated the Earl of Barrymore for the civil administration, but on Barrymore's death in September both powers remained for twelve months in the hands of the survivor. The gain of Limerick was followed by the taking of Loughgar and Askeaton, but was counterbalanced by the defeat of Liscarroll, when the Irish loss was 800 men, with several colours; Inchiquin reported only 20 killed, including the young lord Kinalmeaky, one of the five sons whom the Earl of Cork gave to this war. II. In Connaught, Lord Clanrickarde was still enabled to avert a general outbreak. In vain the western Prelates besought him in a pathetic remonstrance to place himself at the head of its injured inhabitants, and take the command of the Province. He continued to play a middle part between the President, Lord Ranelagh, Sir Charles Coote the younger, and Willoughby, Governor of Galway, until the popular impatience burst all control. The chief of the O'Flahertys seized Clanrickarde's castle, of Aughrenure, and the young men of Galway, with a skill and decision quite equal to that of the Derry apprentices of an after day, seized an English ship containing arms and supplies, lying in the bay, marched to the Church of Saint Nicholas, took the Confederate oath, and shut Willoughby up in the citadel. Clanrickarde hastened to extinguish this spark of resistance, and induced the townsmen to capitulate on his personal guarantee. But Willoughby, on the arrival of reinforcements, under the fanatical Lord Forbes, at once set the truce made by Clanrickarde at defiance, burned the suburbs, sacked the Churches, and during August and September, exercised a reign of terror in the town. About the same time local risings took place in Sligo, Mayo, and Roscommon, at first with such success that the President of the Province, Lord Ranelagh, shut himself up in the castle of Athlone, where he was closely besieged. III. In Leinster, no military movement of much importance was made, in consequence of the jealousy the Justices entertained of Ormond, and the emptiness of the treasury. In June, the Long Parliament remitted over the paltry sum of 11,500 pounds to the Justices, and 2,000 of the troops, which had all but mutinied for their pay, were despatched under Ormond to the relief of Athlone. Commissioners arrived during the summer, appointed by the Parliament to report on the affairs of Ireland, to whom the Justices submitted a penal code worthy of the brain of Draco or Domitian; Ormond was raised to the rank of Marquis, by the King; while the army he commanded grew more and more divided, by intrigues emanating from the castle and beyond the channel. Before the month of October, James Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven, an adventurous nobleman, possessed of large estates both in Ireland and England, effected his escape from Dublin Castle, where he had been imprisoned on suspicion by Parsons and Borlase, and joined the Confederation at Kilkenny. In September, Colonel Thomas Preston, the brave defender of Louvain, uncle to Lord Gormanstown, landed at Wexford, with three frigates and several transports, containing a few siege guns, field pieces, and other stores, 500 officers, and a number of engineers. IV. In Ulster, where the first blow was struck, and the first hopes were excited, the prospect had become suddenly overclouded. Monroe took Dunluce from Lord Antrim by the same stratagem by which Sir Phelim took Charlemont—inviting himself as a guest, and arresting his host at his own table. A want of cordial co-operation between the Scotch commander and "the Undertakers" alone prevented them extinguishing, in one vigorous campaign, the northern insurrection. So weak and disorganized were now the thousands who had risen at a bound one short year before, that the garrisons of Enniskillen, Derry, Newry, and Drogheda, scoured almost unopposed the neighbouring counties. The troops of Cole, Hamilton, the Stewarts, Chichesters, and Conways, found little opposition, and gave no quarter. Sir William Cole, among his claims of service rendered to the State, enumerated "7,000 of the rebels famished to death," within a circuit of a few miles from Enniskillen. The disheartened and disorganized natives were seriously deliberating a wholesale emigration to the Scottish highlands, when a word of magic effect was whispered from the sea coast to the interior. On the 6th of July, Colonel Owen Roe O'Neil arrived off Donegal with a single ship, a single company of veterans, 100 officers, and a considerable quantity of ammunition. He landed at Doe Castle, and was escorted by his kinsman, Sir Phelim, to the fort of Charlemont. A general meeting of the northern clans was quickly called at Clones, in Monaghan, and there, on an early day after his arrival, Owen O'Neil was elected "General-in-Chief of the Catholic Army" of the North, Sir Phelim resigning in his favour, and taking instead the barren title of "President of Ulster." At the same moment Lord Lieven arrived from Scotland with the remainder of the 10,000 voted by the Parliament of that kingdom. He had known O'Neil abroad, had a high opinion of his abilities, and wrote to express his surprise "that a man of his reputation should be engaged in so bad a cause;" to which O'Neil replied that "he had a better right to come to the relief of his own country than his lordship had to march into England against his lawful King." Lieven, before returning home, urged Monroe to act with promptitude, for that he might expect a severe lesson if the new commander once succeeded in collecting an army. But Monroe proved deaf to this advice, and while the Scottish and English forces in the Province would have amounted, if united, to 20,000 foot and 1,000 horse, they gave O'Neil time enough to embody, officer, drill, and arm (at least provisionally), a force not to be despised by even twice their numbers.

CHAPTER VI.
THE CONFEDERATE WAR—CAMPAIGN OF 1643—THE CESSATION.

The city of Kilkenny, which had become the capital of the Confederacy, was favourably placed for the direction of the war in Leinster and Munster. Nearly equidistant from Dublin, Cork, and Limerick, a meeting place for most of the southern and south-western roads, important in itself both as a place of trade, and as the residence of the Duke of Ormond and the Bishop of Ossory, a better choice could not, perhaps, have been made, so far as regarded the ancient southern "Half-Kingdom." But it seems rather surprising that the difficulty of directing the war in the North and North-West, from a point so far south, did not occur to the statesmen of the Confederacy. In the defective communications of those days, especially during a war, partaking even partially of the character of civil strife, it was hard, if not impossible to expect, that a supervision could be exercised over a general or an army on the Erne or the Bann, which might be quite possible and proper on the Suir or the Shannon. A similar necessity in England necessitated the creation of the Presidency of the North, with its council and head-quarters in the city of York; nor need we be surprised to find that, from the first, the Confederate movements combined themselves into two groups—the northern and the southern—those which revolved round the centre of Kilkenny, and those which took their law from the head-quarters of Owen O'Neil, at Belturbet, or wherever else his camp happened to be situated.

The General Assembly met, according to agreement, on the 23rd of October, 1642, at Kilkenny. Eleven bishops and fourteen lay lords represented the Irish peerage; two hundred and twenty-six commoners, the large majority of the constituencies. Both bodies sat in the same chamber, divided only by a raised dais. The celebrated lawyer, Patrick Darcy, a member of the Commons' House, was chosen as chancellor, and everything was conducted with the gravity and deliberation befitting so venerable an Assembly, and so great an occasion. The business most pressing, and most delicate, was felt to be the consideration of a form of supreme executive government. The committee on this subject, who reported after the interval of a week, was composed of Lords Gormanstown and Castlehaven, Sir Phelim O'Neil, Sir Richard Belling, and Mr. Darcy. A "Supreme Council" of six members for each province was recommended, approved, and elected. The Archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, and Tuam, the Bishops of Down and of Clonfert, the Lords Gormanstown, Mountgarrett, Roche, and Mayo, with fifteen of the most eminent commoners, composed this council. It was provided that the vote of two-thirds should be necessary to any act affecting the basis of the Confederacy, but a quorum of nine was sufficient for the transaction of ordinary business. A guard of honour of 500 foot and 200 horse was allowed for their greater security. The venerable Mountgarrett, the head of the Catholic Butlers, (son-in-law of the illustrious Tyrone, who, in the last years of Elizabeth, had devoted his youthful sword to the same good cause,) was elected president of this council; and Sir Richard Belling, a lawyer, and a man of letters, the continuator of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, was appointed secretary.

The first act of this Supreme Council was to appoint General O'Neil as Commander-in-Chief in Ulster; General Preston, in Leinster; General Barry, in Munster; and Sir John Burke as Lieutenant-General in Connaught; the supreme command in the West being held over for Clanrickarde, who, it was still hoped, might be led or driven into the Confederacy. We shall endeavour to indicate in turn the operations of these commanders, thus chosen or confirmed; leaving the civil and diplomatic business transacted by the General Assembly, or delegated to the Supreme Council, for future mention.

Contrary to the custom of that age, the Confederate troops were not withdrawn into winter quarters. In November, General Preston, at the head of 6,000 foot and 600 horse, encountered Monk at Tymahoe and Ballinakil, with some loss; but before the close of December he had reduced Birr, Banagher, Burris, and Fort Falkland, and found himself master of King's county, from the Shannon to the Barrow. In February, however, he sustained a serious check at Rathconnell, in endeavouring to intercept the retreat of the English troops from Connaught, under the command of Lord Ranelagh, and the younger Coote; and in March, equal ill success attended his attempt to intercept Ormond, in his retreat from the unsuccessful siege of the town of Ross. Lord Castlehaven, who was Preston's second in command, attributes both these reverses to the impetuosity of the general, whose imprudence seems to have been almost as great as his activity was conspicuous. In April and May, Preston and Castlehaven took several strongholds in Carlow, Kildare, and West-Meath, and the General Assembly, which met for its second session, on the 20th of May, 1643, at Kilkenny, had, on the whole, good grounds to be satisfied with the success of the war in Leinster.

In the Southern Province, considerable military successes might also be claimed by the Confederates. The Munster troops, under Purcell, the second in command, a capable soldier, who had learned the art of war in the armies of the German Empire, relieved Ross, when besieged by Ormond; General Barry had successfully repulsed an attack on his head-quarters, the famous old Desmond town of Killmallock. In June, Barry, Purcell, and Castlehaven drove the enemy before them across the Funcheon, and at Kilworth brought their main body, under Sir Charles Vavasour, to action. Vavasour's force was badly beaten, himself captured, with his cannon and colours, and many of his officers and men. Inchiquin, who had endeavoured to form a junction with Vavasour, escaped to one of the few remaining garrisons open to him—probably Youghal.

In Connaught, the surrender of Galway, on the 20th of June, eclipsed all the previous successes, and they were not a few, of Lieutenant-General Burke. From the day Lord Ranelagh and the younger Coote deserted the Western province, the Confederate cause had rapidly advanced. The surrender of "the second fort in the Kingdom"—a sea-port in that age, not unworthy to be ranked with Cadiz and Bristol, for its commercial wealth and reputation—was a military event of the first importance. An English fleet appeared three days after the surrender of Willoughby, in Galway harbour; but nine long years elapsed before the Confederate colours were lowered from the towers of the Connaught citadel.

In the North, O'Neil, who, without injustice to any of his contemporaries, may certainly be said to have made, during his seven years' command, the highest European reputation among the Confederate generals, gathered his recruits into a rugged district, which forms a sort of natural camp in the north-west corner of the island. The mountain plateau of Leitrim, which sends its spurs downwards to the Atlantic, towards Lough Erne, and into Longford, accessible only by four or five lines of road, leading over narrow bridges and through deep defiles, was the nursery selected by this cautious leader, in which to collect and organize his forces. In the beginning of May—seven months after the date of his commission, and ten from his solitary landing at Doe Castle—we find him a long march from his mountain fortress in Leitrim, at Charlemont, which he had strengthened and garrisoned, and now saved from a surprise attempted by Monroe, from Carrickfergus. Having effected that immediate object, he again retired towards the Leitrim highlands, fighting by the way a smart cavalry action at Clonish, with a superior force, under Colonels Stewart, Balfour, and Mervyn. In this affair O'Neil was only too happy to have carried off his troop with credit; but a fortnight brought him consolation for Clonish in the brilliant affair of Portlester. He had descended in force from his hills and taken possession of the greater part of the ancient Meath. General Monk and Lord Moore were despatched against him, but reinforced by a considerable body of Meathian Confederates, under Sir James Dillon, he resolved to risk his first regular engagement in the field. Taking advantage of the situation of the ground, about five miles from Trim, he threw up some field works, placed sixty men in Portlester mill, and patiently awaited the advance of the enemy. Their assault was overconfident, their rout complete. Lord Moore, and a large portion of the assailants were slain, and Monk fled back to Dublin. O'Neil, gathering fresh strength from these movements, abandoned his mountain stronghold, and established his head-quarters on the river Erne between Lough Oughter (memorable in his life and death) and the upper waters of Lough Erne. At this point stood the town of Belturbet, which, in "the Plantation" of James I., had been turned over exclusively to British settlers, whose "cagework" houses, and four acres of garden ground each, had elicited the approval of the surveyor Pynnar, twenty years before. The surrounding country was covered with the fortified castles and loop-holed lawns of the chief Undertakers—but few were found of sufficient strength to resist the arms of O'Neil. At Belturbet, he was within a few days' march of the vital points of four other counties, and in case of the worst, within the same distance of his protective fastness. Here, towards the end of September, busied with present duties and future projects, he heard, for the first time, with astonishment and grief, that the requisite majority of "the Supreme Council" had concluded, on the 13th of that month, a twelve-months' truce with Ormond, thus putting in peril all the advantages already acquired by the bravery of the Confederate troops, and the skill of their generals.

The war had lasted nearly two years, and this was the first time the Catholics had consented to negotiate. The moment chosen was a critical one for all the three Kingdoms, and the interests involved were complicated in the extreme. The Anglo-Irish, who formed the majority of the Supreme Council, connected by blood and language with England, had entered into the war, purely as one of religious liberty. Nationally, they had, apart from the civil disabilities imposed on religious grounds, no antipathy, no interest, hostile to the general body of English loyalists, represented in Ireland by the King's lieutenant, Ormond. On his side, that nobleman gave all his thoughts to, and governed all his actions by the exigencies of the royal cause, throughout the three Kingdoms. When Charles seemed strong in England, Ormond rated the Catholics at a low figure; but when reverses increased he estimated their alliance more highly. After the drawn battle of Edgehill, fought on the very day of the first meeting of the General Assembly at Kilkenny, the King had established his head-quarters at Oxford, in the heart of four or five of the most loyal counties in England. Here he at first negotiated with the Parliament, but finally the sword was again invoked, and while the King proclaimed the Parliament rebels, "the solemn league and covenant" was entered into, at first separately, and afterwards jointly, by the Puritans of England and Presbyterians of Scotland. The military events during that year, and in the first half of the next, were upon the whole not unfavourable to the royal cause. The great battle of Marston Moor, (July 2nd, 1644,) which "extinguished the hopes of the Royalists in the Northern counties," was the first Parliamentary victory of national importance. It was won mainly by the energy and obstinacy of Lieutenant-General Cromwell, from that day forth the foremost English figure in the Civil War. From his court at Oxford, where he had seen the utter failure of endeavouring to conciliate his English and Scottish enemies, the King had instructed Ormond—lately created a Marquis—to treat with the Irish Catholics, and to obtain from them men and money. The overtures thus made were brought to maturity in September; the Cessation was to last twelve months; each party was to remain in possession of its own quarters, as they were held at the date of the treaty; the forces of each were to unite to punish any infraction of the terms agreed on; the agents of the Confederates, during the cessation, were to have free access and safe conduct to the King; and for these advantages, the Supreme Council were to present his Majesty immediately with 15,000 pounds in money, and provisions to the value of 15,000 pounds more.

Such was "the truce of Castlemartin," condemned by O'Neil, by the Papal Nuncio, Scarampi, and by the great majority of the old Irish, lay and clerical; still more violently denounced by the Puritan Parliament as favouring Popery, and negotiated by Popish agents; beneficial to Ormond and the Undertakers, as relieving Dublin, freeing the channel from Irish privateers, and securing them in the garrisons throughout the Kingdom which they still held; in one sense advantageous to Charles, from the immediate supplies it afforded, and the favourable impression it created of his liberality, at the courts of his Catholic allies; but on the other hand disadvantageous to him in England and Scotland, from the pretexts it furnished his enemies, of renewing the cry of his connivance with Popery, a cry neither easily answered, nor, of itself, liable quickly to wear out.

CHAPTER VII.
THE CESSATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

While the Confederate delegates, reverently uncovered, and Ormond, in hat and plume, as representing royalty, were signing "the cessation" at Castlemartin, the memorable Monroe, with all his men, were taking the covenant, on their knees, in the church of Carrickfergus, at the hands of the informer O'Connolly, now a colonel in the Parliamentary army, and high in the confidence of its chiefs. Soon after this ceremony, Monroe, appointed by the English Parliament Commander-in-Chief of all their forces in Ulster, united under his immediate leadership, of Scots, English, and Undertakers, not less than 10,000 men. With this force he marched southward as far as Newry, which he found an easy prey, and where he put to the sword, after surrender, sixty men, eighteen women, and two ecclesiastics. In vain the Confederates entreated Ormond to lead them against the common enemy in the North; pursuing always a line of policy of his own, in which their interest had a very slender part, that astute politician neither took the field, nor consented that they should do so of themselves. But the Supreme Council, roused by the remonstrances of the clergy, ordered Lord Castlehaven, with the title of Commander-in-Chief, to march against Monroe. This was virtually superseding O'Neil in his own province, and that it was so felt, even by its authors, is plain from their giving him simultaneously the command in Connaught. O'Neil, never greater than in acts of self-denial and self-sacrifice, stifled his profound chagrin, and cheerfully offered to serve under the English Earl, placed over his head. But the northern movements were, for many months, languid and uneventful; both parties seemed uncertain of their true policy; both, from day to day, awaited breathlessly for tidings from Kilkenny, Dublin, London, Oxford, or Edinburgh, to learn what new forms the general contest was to take, in order to guide their own conduct by the shifting phases of that intricate diplomacy.

Among the first consequences of the cessation were the debarkation at Mostyn, in Scotland, of 3,000 well provided Irish troops, under Colkitto (the left-handed,) Alexander McDonnell, brother of Lord Antrim. Following the banner of Montrose, these regiments performed great things at Saint Johnstown, at Aberdeen, at Inverlochy, all which have been eloquently recorded by the historians of that period. "Their reputation," says a cautious writer, "more than their number, unnerved the prowess of their enemies. No force ventured to oppose them in the field; and as they advanced, every fort was abandoned or surrendered." A less agreeable result of "the cessation," for the court at Oxford, was the retirement from the royal army of the Earl of Newcastle, and most of his officers, on learning that such favourable conditions had been made with Irish Papists. To others of his supporters—as the Earl of Shrewsbury—Charles was forced to assume a tone of apology for that truce, pleading the hard necessities which compelled him: the truth seems to be, that there were not a few then at Oxford, who, like Lord Spencer, would gladly have been on the other side—or at all events in a position of neutrality—provided they could have found "a salve for their honour," as gentlemen and cavaliers.

The year 1644 opened for the Irish with two events of great significance—the appointment of Ormond as Viceroy, in January, and the execution at Tyburn, by order of the English Parliament, of Lord Maguire, a prisoner in the Tower since October, 1641. Maguire died with a courage and composure worthy of his illustrious name, and his profoundly religious character. His long absence had not effaced his memory from the hearts of his devoted clansmen of Fermanagh, and many a prayer was breathed, and many a vow of vengeance muttered among them, for what they must naturally have regarded as the cold-blooded judicial murder of their chief.

Two Irish deputations—one Catholic, the other Protestant—proceeded this year to the King, at Oxford, with the approval of Ormond, who took care to be represented by confidential agents of his own. The Catholics found a zealous auxiliary in the queen, Henrietta Maria, who, as a co-religionist, felt with them, and, as a Frenchwoman, was free from insular prejudices against them. The Irish Protestants found a scarcely less influential advocate in the venerable Archbishop Usher, whose presence and countenance, as the most puritanical of his prelates, was most essential to the policy of Charles. The King heard both parties graciously—censured some of the demands of both as extravagant, and beyond his power to concede—admitted others to be reasonable and worthy of consideration—refused to confirm the churches they had seized to the Catholics—but was willing to allow them their "seminaries of education"—would not consent to enforce the penal laws on the demand of the Protestants—but declared that neither should the Undertakers be disturbed in their possessions or offices. In short, he pathetically exhorted both parties to consider his case as well as their own; promised them to call together the Irish Parliament at the earliest possible period; and so got rid of both deputations, leaving Ormond master of the position for some time longer.

The agents and friends of the Irish Catholics on the Continent were greatly embarrassed, and not a little disheartened by the cessation. At Paris, at Brussels, at Madrid, but above all at Rome, it was regretted, blamed, or denounced, according to the temper or the insight of the discontented. His Catholic Majesty had some time before remitted a contribution of 20,000 dollars to the Confederate Treasury; one of Richelieu's last acts was to invite Con, son of Hugh O'Neil, to the French Court, and to permit the shipment of some pieces of ordnance to Ireland; from Rome, the celebrated Franciscan, Father Luke Wadding, had remitted 26,000 dollars, and the Nuncio Scarampi had brought further donations. The facility, therefore, with which the cessation had been agreed upon, against the views of the agents of the Catholic powers at Kilkenny, without any apparently sufficient cause, had certainly a tendency to check and chill the enthusiasm of those Catholic Princes who had been taught to look on the insurrection of the Irish as a species of Crusade. Remonstrances, warm, eloquent, and passionate, were poured in upon the most influential members of the Supreme Council, from those who had either by delegation, or from their own free will, befriended them abroad. These remonstrances reached that powerful body at Waterford, at Limerick, or at Galway, whither they had gone on an official visitation, to hear complaints, settle controversies, and provide for the better collection of the assessments imposed on each Province.

An incident which occurred in Ulster, soon startled the Supreme Council from their pacific occupations. General Monroe, having proclaimed that all Protestants within his command should take "the solemn league and covenant," three thousand of that religion, still loyalists, met at Belfast, to deliberate on their answer. Monroe, however, apprised of their intentions, marched rapidly from Carrickfergus, entered the town under cover of night, and drove out the loyal Protestants at the point of the sword. The fugitives threw themselves into Lisburn, and Monroe appointed Colonel Hume as Governor of Belfast, for the Parliaments of Scotland and England. Castlehaven, with O'Neil still second in command, was now despatched northward against the army of the Covenant. Monroe, who had advanced to the borders of Meath as if to meet them, contented himself with gathering in great herds of cattle; as they advanced, he slowly fell back before them through Louth and Armagh, to his original head-quarters; Castlehaven then returned with the main body of the Confederate troops to Kilkenny, and O'Neil, depressed, but not dismayed, carried his contingent to their former position at Belturbet.

In Munster, a new Parliamentary party had time to form its combinations under the shelter of the cessation. The Earl of Inchiquin, who had lately failed to obtain the Presidency of Munster from the King at Oxford, and the Lord Broghill, son of the great Southern Undertaker—the first Earl of Cork,—were at the head of this movement. Under pretence that the quarters allotted them by the cessation had been violated, they contrived to seize upon Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale. At Cork, they publicly executed Father Mathews, a Friar, and proceeding from violence to violence, they drove from the three places all the Catholic inhabitants. They then forwarded a petition to the King, beseeching him to declare the Catholics "rebels," and declaring their own determination to "die a thousand deaths sooner than condescend to any peace with them." At the same time they entered into or avowed their correspondence with the English Parliament, which naturally enough encouraged and assisted them. The Supreme Council met these demonstrations with more stringent instructions to General Purcell, now their chief in command, (Barry having retired on account of advanced age,) to observe the cessation, and to punish severely every infraction of it. At the same time they permitted or directed Purcell to enter into a trace with Inchiquin till the following April; and then they rested on their arms, in religious fidelity to the engagements they had signed at Castlemartin.

The twelve-months' truce was fast drawing to a close, when the battle of Marston Moor stimulated Ormond to effect a renewal of the treaty. Accordingly, at his request, Lord Muskerry, and five other commissioners, left Kilkenny on the last day of August for Dublin. Between them and the Viceroy, the cessation was prolonged till the first of December following; and when that day came, it was further protracted, as would appear, for three months, by which time, (March, 1645,) Ormond informed them that he had powers from the King to treat for a permanent settlement.

During the six months that the original cessation was thus protracted by the policy of Ormond, the Supreme Council sent abroad new agents, "to know what they had to trust to, and what succours they might really depend on from abroad." Father Hugh Bourke was sent to Spain, and Sir Richard Belling to Rome, where Innocent X, had recently succeeded to that generous friend of the Catholic Irish. Urban VIII. The voyage of these agents was not free from hazard, for, whereas, before the cessation, the privateers commissioned by the Council, sheltered and supplied in the Irish harbours, had kept the southern coast clear of hostile shipping, now that they had been withdrawn under the truce, the parliamentary cruisers had the channel all to themselves. Waterford and Wexford—the two chief Catholic ports in that quarter—instead of seeing their waters crowded with prizes, now began to tremble for their own safety. The strong fort of Duncannon, on the Wexford side of Waterford harbour, was corruptly surrendered by Lord Esmond, to Inchiquin and the Puritans. After a ten-weeks' siege, however, and the expenditure of 19,000 pounds of powder, the Confederates retook the fort, in spite of all the efforts made for its relief. Esmond, old and blind, escaped by a timely death the penalty due to his treason. Following up this success, Castlehaven rapidly invested other southern strongholds in possession of the same party, Cappoquin, Lismore, Mallow, Mitchelstown, Doneraile and Liscarroll surrendered on articles; Rostellan, commanded by Inchiquin's brother, was stormed and taken; Boghill was closely besieged in Youghal, but, being relieved from sea, successfully defended himself. In another quarter, the Parliament was equally active. To compensate for the loss of Galway, they had instructed the younger Coote, on whom they had conferred the Presidency of Connaught, to withdraw the regiment of Sir Frederick Hamilton, and 400 other troops, from the command of Monroe, and with these, Sir Robert Stewart's forces, and such others as he could himself raise, to invest Sligo. Against the force thus collected, Sligo could not hope to contend, and soon, from that town, as from a rallying and resting place, 2,000 horsemen were daily launched upon the adjoining country. Lord Clanrickarde, the royal president of the province, as unpopular as trimmers usually are in times of crisis, was unable to make head against this new danger. But the Confederates, under Sir James Dillon, and Dr. O'Kelly, the heroic Archbishop of Tuam, moved by the pitiful appeals of the Sligo people, boldly endeavoured to recover the town. They succeeded in entering the walls, but were subsequently repulsed and routed. The Archbishop was captured and tortured to death; some of the noblest families of the province and of Meath had also to mourn their chiefs; and several valuable papers, found or pretended to be found in the Archbishop's carriage, were eagerly given to the press of London by the Parliament of England. This tragedy at Sligo occurred on Sunday, October 26th, 1645.

CHAPTER VIII.
GLAMORGAN'S TREATY—THE NEW NUNCIO RINUCCINI—O'NEIL'S POSITION—THE BATTLE OF BENBURB.

Ormond had amused the Confederates with negotiations for a permanent peace and settlement, from spring till midsummer, when Charles, dissatisfied with these endless delays, despatched 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 pounds, 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 story of this mission has been perplexed and darkened by many controversies. But the general verdict of historians seems now to be, that Charles I., whose many good qualities as a man and a ruler are cheerfully admitted on all hands, was yet utterly deficient in downright good faith; that duplicity was his besetting sin; and that Glamorgan's embassy is one, but only one, of the strongest evidences of that ingrained duplicity.

It may help to the clearer understanding of the negotiations conducted by Glamorgan in Ireland, if we give in the first place the exact dates of the first transactions. The Earl arrived at Dublin about the 1st of August, 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 Mountgarrett 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. By birth a Tuscan, the new Nuncio had distinguished himself from boyhood by his passionate attachment to his studies. At Bologna, at Perugia, and at Rome, his intense application brought him early honours, and early physical debility. His health, partially restored in the seclusion of his native valley of the Arno, enabled him to return again to Rome. Enjoying the confidence of Gregory XV. and Uban VIII., he was named successively, Clerk of the Chamber, Secretary of the Congregation of Rites, and Archbishop of Fermo. This was the prelate chosen by the new Pope, Innocent X., for the nunciature in Ireland: a man of noble birth, in the fifty-third year of his age, of uncertain bodily health, of great learning, especially as a canonist, of a fiery Italian temperament,—"regular and even austere in his life, and far from any taint of avarice or corruption,"—such was the admission of his enemies.

Leaving Italy in May, accompanied by the Dean of Fermo, who has left us a valuable record of the embassy, his other household officers, several Italian noblemen, and Sir Richard Belling, the special agent at Rome, the Nuncio, by way of Genoa and Marseilles, reached Paris. In France he was detained nearly five months, in a fruitless attempt to come to some definite arrangement as to the conduct of the Catholic war, through Queen Henrietta Maria, then resident with the young Prince of Wales—afterwards Charles II.—at the French court. The Queen, like most persons of her rank, overwhelmed with adversity, was often unreasonably suspicious and exacting. Her sharp woman's tongue did not spare those on whom her anger fell, and there were not wanting those, who, apprehensive of the effect in England of her negotiating directly with a papal minister, did their utmost to delay or to break off their correspondence. A nice point of court etiquette further embarrassed the business. The Nuncio could not uncover his head before the Queen, and Henrietta would not receive him otherwise than uncovered. After three months lost in Paris, he was obliged to proceed on his journey, contenting himself with an exchange of complimentary messages with the Queen, whom even the crushing blow of Naseby could not induce to waive a point of etiquette with a Priest.

On reaching Rochelle, where he intended to take shipping, a further delay of six weeks took place, as was supposed by the machinations of Cardinal Mazarin. Finally, the Nuncio succeeded in purchasing a frigate of 26 guns, the San Pietro, on which he embarked with all his Italian suite, Sir Richard Belling, and several Franco-Irish officers. He had also on board a considerable sum in Spanish gold, (including another contribution of 36,000 dollars from Father Wadding,) 2,000 muskets, 2,000 cartouch belts, 4,000 swords, 2,000 pike heads, 400 brace of pistols, 20,000 pounds of powder, with match, shot, and other stores. Weighing from St. Martin's in the Isle of Rhe, the San Pietro doubled the Land's End, and stood over towards the Irish coast. The third day out they were chased for several hours by two Parliamentary cruisers, but escaped under cover of the night; on the fourth morning, being the 21st of October, they found themselves safely embayed in the waters of Kenmare, on the coast of Kerry.

The first intelligence which reached the Nuncio on landing, was the negotiation of Glamorgan, of which he had already heard, while waiting a ship at Rochelle. The next was the surrender by the Earl of Thomond, of his noble old castle of Bunratty, commanding the Shannon within six miles of Limerick, to the Puritans. This surrender had, however, determined the resolution of the city of Limerick, which hitherto had taken no part in the war, to open its gates to the Confederates. The loss of Bunratty was more than compensated by the gaining of one of the finest and strongest towns in Munster, and to Limerick accordingly the Nuncio paid the compliment of his first visit. Here he received the mitre of the diocese in dutiful submission from the hands of the Bishop, on entering the Cathedral; and here he celebrated a solemn requiem mass for the repose of the soul of the Archbishop of Tuam, lately slain before Sligo. 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 the 13th of November, 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.

The Nuncio brought from Paris a new subject of difficulty, in the form of a memorial from the English Catholics at Rome, praying that they might be included in the terms of any peace which might be made by their Irish co-religionists with the King. Nothing could be more natural than that the members of the same persecuted church should make common cause, but nothing could be more impolitic than some of the demands made in the English memorial. They wished it to be stipulated with Charles, that he would allow a distinct military organization to the English and Irish Catholics in his service, under Catholic general officers, subject only to the King's commands, meaning thereby, if they meant what they said, independence of all parliamentary and ministerial control. Yet several of the stipulations of this memorial were, after many modifications and discussions, adopted by Glamorgan into his original articles, and under the treaty thus ratified, the Confederates bound themselves to despatch 10,000 men, fully armed and equipped, to the relief of Chester and the general succour of the King in England. Towards the close of December, the English Earl, with two Commissioners from the Supreme Council, set forth for Dublin, to obtain the Viceroy's sanction to the amended treaty. But in Dublin a singular counterplot in this perplexed drama awaited them. On St. Stephen's day, while at dinner, Glamorgan was arrested by Ormond, on a charge of having exceeded his instructions, and confined a close prisoner in the castle. The gates of the city were closed, and every means taken to give éclat to this extraordinary proceeding. The Confederate Commissioners were carried to the castle, and told they might congratulate themselves on not sharing the cell prepared for Glamorgan. "Go back," they were told, "to Kilkenny and tell the President of the Council, that the Protestants of England would fling the King's person out at his window, if they believed it possible that he lent himself to such an undertaking." The Commissioners accordingly went back and delivered their errand, with a full account of all the circumstances. Fortunately, the General Assembly had been called for an early day in January, 1646, at Kilkenny. When, therefore, they met, their first resolution was to despatch Sir Robert Talbot to the Viceroy, with a letter suspending all negotiations till the Earl of Glamorgan was set at liberty. By the end of January, on the joint bail, for 40,000 pounds, of the Earls of Clanrickarde and Kildare, the English envoy was enlarged, and, to the still further amazement of the simple-minded Catholics, on his arrival at Kilkenny, he justified rather than censured the action of Ormond. To most observers it appeared that these noblemen understood each other only too well.

From January till June, Kilkenny was delivered over to cabals, intrigues, and recriminations. There was an "old Irish party," to which the Nuncio inclined, and an "Anglo-Irish party," headed by Mountgarrett and the majority of the Council. The former stigmatized the latter as Ormondists, and the latter retorted on them with the name of the Nuncio's party. In February came news of a foreign treaty made at Rome between Sir Kenelm Digby and the Pope's Ministers, most favourable to the English and Irish Catholics. On the 28th of March, a final modification of Glamorgan's articles, reduced to thirty in number, was signed by Ormond for the King, and Lord Muskerry and the other Commissioners for the Confederates. These thirty articles conceded, in fact, all the most essential claims of the Irish; they secured them equal rights as to property, in the Army, in the Universities, and at the Bar; they gave them seats in both Houses and on the Bench; they authorized a special commission of Oyer and Terminer, composed wholly of Confederates; they 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.

The treaty, thus concluded at the end of March, was to lie as an escroll in the hands of the Marquis of Clanrickarde till the 1st of May, awaiting Sir Kenelm Digby with the Roman protocol. And then, not withstanding the dissuasions of Rinuccini to the contrary, it was to be kept secret from the world, though some of its obligations were expected to be at once fulfilled, on their side, by the Catholics. The Supreme Council, ever eager to exhibit their loyalty, gathered together 6,000 troops for the relief of Chester and the service of the King in England, so soon as both treaties—the Irish and the Roman—should be signed by Charles. While so waiting, they besieged and took Bunratty castle—already referred to—but Sir Kenelm Digby did not arrive with May, and they now learned, to their renewed amazement, that Glamorgan's whole negotiation was disclaimed by the King in England. In the same interval Chester fell, and the King was obliged to throw himself into the hands of the Scottish Parliament, who surrendered him for a price to their English coadjutors. These tidings reached Ireland during May, and, varied with the capture of an occasional fortress, lost or won, occupied all men's minds. But the first days of June were destined to bring with them a victory of national—of European importance—won by Owen O'Neil, in the immediate vicinity of his grand-uncle's famous battle-field of the Yellow Ford.

During these three years of intrigue and negotiation, the position of General O'Neil was hazardous and difficult in the extreme. One campaign he had served under a stranger, as second on his own soil. In the other two he was fettered by the terms of "cessation" to his own quarters; and to add to his embarrassments, his impetuous kinsman Sir Phelim, brave, rash, and ambitious, recently married to a daughter of his ungenerous rival, General Preston, was incited to thwart and obstruct him amongst their mutual clansmen and connections. The only recompense which seems to have been awarded to him, was the confidence of the Nuncio, who, either from that knowledge of character in which the Italians excel, or from bias received from some other source, at once singled him out as the man of his people. What portion of the Nuncio's supplies reached the Northern General we know not, but in the beginning of June, he felt himself in a position to bring on an engagement with Monroe, who, lately reinforced by both Parliaments, had marched out of Carrickfergus into Tyrone, with a view of penetrating as far south as Kilkenny. On the 4th day of June, the two armies encountered at Benburb, on the little river Blackwater, about six miles north of Armagh, and the most signal victory of the war came to recompense the long-enduring patience of O'Neil.

The battle of Benburb has been often and well described. In a naturally strong position—with this leader the choice of ground seems to have been a first consideration—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 opposing force, O'Neil 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 in panic to Lisburn, and thence to Carrickfergus, where he shut himself up, till he could obtain reinforcements. O'Neil 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. Te Deum was chanted in the Confederate Capital; penitential psalms were sung in the Northern fortress. "The Lord of Hosts," wrote Monroe, "had rubbed shame on our faces, till once we are humbled;" O'Neil 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."

CHAPTER IX.
FROM THE BATTLE OF BENBURB TILL THE LANDING OF CROMWELL AT DUBLIN.

The Nuncio, elated by the great victory of O'Neil, to which he felt he had personally contributed by his seasonable supplies, provoked and irritated by Ormond's intrigues and the King's insincerity, rushed with all the ardour of his character into making the war an uncompromising Catholic crusade. In this line of conduct, he was supported by the Archbishops of Dublin and Cashel, by ten of the Bishops, including the eminent Prelates of Limerick, Killalla, Ferns, and Clogher; the Procurator of Armagh; nine Vicars-general, and the Superiors of the Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians. The peace party, on the other hand, were not without clerical adherents, but they were inconsiderable, as to influence and numbers. They were now become as anxious to publish the Thirty Articles agreed upon at the end of March, as they then were to keep them secret. Accordingly, with Ormond's consent, copies of the treaty were sent early in August to the sheriffs of counties, mayors of cities, and other leading persons, with instructions to proclaim it publicly in due form; upon hearing which, the Nuncio and his supporters of the clergy, secular and regular, assembled in council at Waterford, on the 12th of August, solemnly declared that they gave no consent, and would not, "to any peace," that did not grant "further, surer, and safer considerations for their religion, king, and country," according to the original oath of the Confederacy.

The rupture between the clergy and the laymen of the Council was now complete. The prelates who signed the decree of Waterford, of course, thereby withdrew from the body whose action they condemned. In vain the learned Darcy and the eloquent Plunkett went to and fro between the two bodies: concord and confidence were at an end. The synod decided to address Lord Mountgarrett in future as President of "the late Supreme Council." The heralds who attempted to publish the Thirty Articles in Clonmel and Waterford were hooted or stoned; while in Limerick the mayor, endeavouring to protect them, shared this rough usage. Ormond, who was at Kilkenny at the critical moment of the breach, did his utmost to sustain the resolution of those who were stigmatized by his name; while the Nuncio, suspicious of Preston, wrote urgently to O'Neil to lead his army into Leinster, and remove the remnant of the late council from Kilkenny. All that those who held a middle course between the extremes could do, was to advocate an early meeting of the General Assembly; but various exigencies delayed this much-desired meeting, till the 10th day of January, 1647.

The five intervening months were months of triumph for Rinuccini. Lord Digby appeared at Dublin as a special agent from the King, to declare his consent to Glamorgan's original terms; but Ormond still insisted that he had no authority to go beyond the Thirty Articles. Charles himself wrote privately to Rinuccini, promising to confirm everything which Glamorgan had proposed, as soon as he should come into "the Nuncio's hands." Ormond, after a fruitless attempt to convert O'Neil to his views, had marched southward with a guard of 1,500 foot, and 500 horse, to endeavour to conciliate the towns, and to win over the Earl of Inchiquin. In both these objects he failed. He found O'Neil before him in his county palatinate of Tipperary, and the Mayor of Cashel informed him that he dared not allow him into that city, for fear of displeasing the northern general. Finding himself thus unexpectedly within a few miles of "the Catholic Army," 10,000 strong, the Viceroy retreated precipitately through Kilkenny, Carlow, and Kildare, to Dublin. Lord Digby, who had accompanied him, after an unsuccessful attempt to cajole the Synod of Waterford, made the best of his way back to France; the Marquis of Clanrickarde, who had also been of the expedition, shared the flight of Ormond. Towards the middle of September, O'Neil's army, after capturing Roscrea Castle, marched to Kilkenny, and encamped near that city. His forces had now augmented to 12,000 foot, and 1,500 horse; on the 18th of the month, he escorted the Nuncio in triumph into Kilkenny, where the Ormondist members of the old council were committed to close custody in the castle. A new council, of four bishops and eight laymen, was established on the 26th, with the Nuncio as president; Glamorgan succeeded Castlehaven, who had gone over to Ormond, as commander in Munster; while O'Neil and Preston were ordered to unite their forces for the siege of Dublin. The sanguine Italian dreamt of nothing less, for the moment, than the creation of Viceroys, the deliverance of the King, and the complete restoration of the ancient religion.

O'Neil and Preston, by different routes, on which they were delayed in taking several garrisoned posts, united at Lucan in the valley of the Liffey, seven miles west of Dublin, on the 9th of November. Their joint forces are represented at 16,000 foot, and 1,600 horse—of which Preston had about one-third, and O'Neil the remainder. Preston's head-quarters were fixed at Leixlip, and O'Neil's at Newcastle—points equi-distant, and each within two hours' march of the capital. Within the walls of that city there reigned the utmost consternation. Many of the inhabitants fled beyond seas, terrified by the fancied cruelty of the Ulstermen. But Ormond retained all his presence of mind, and readiness of resources. He entered, at first covertly, into arrangements with the Parliamentarians, who sent him a supply of powder; he wrote urgently to Monroe to make a diversion in his favour; he demolished the mills and suburbs which might cover the approaches of the enemy; he employed soldiers, civilians, and even women, upon the fortifications,—Lady Ormond setting an example to her sex, in rendering her feeble assistance. Clanrickarde, in Preston's tent, was doing the work of stimulating the old antipathy of that general towards O'Neil, which led to conflicting advices in Council, and some irritating personal altercations. To add to the Confederate embarrassment, the winter was the most severe known for many years; from twenty to thirty sentinels being frozen at night at their posts. On the 13th of November, while the plan of the Confederate attack was still undecided, commissioners of the Parliament arrived, with ample stores, in Dublin Bay. On the next day they landed at Ringsend, and entered into negotiations with Ormond; on the 16th the siege was raised, and on the 23rd Ormond broke off the treaty, having unconsciously saved Dublin from the Confederates, by the incorrect reports of supplies being received, which were finally carried northward to Monroe.

The month of January brought the meeting of the General Assembly. The attendance in the great gallery of Ormond Castle was as large, and the circumstances upon the whole as auspicious as could be desired, in the seventh year of such a struggle. The members of the old council, liberated from arrest, were in their places. O'Neil and Preston, publicly reconciled, had signed a solemn engagement to assist and sustain each other. The Nuncio, the Primate of Ireland, and eleven bishops took their seats; the peers of oldest title in the kingdom were present; two hundred and twenty-four members represented the Commons of Ireland, and among the spectators sat the ambassadors of France and Spain, and of King Charles. The main subject of discussion was the sufficiency of the Thirty Articles, and the propriety of the ecclesiastical censure promulgated against those who had signed them. The debate embraced all that may be said on the question of clerical interference in political affairs, on conditional and unconditional allegiance, on the power of the Pontiff speaking ex cathedra, and the prerogatives of the temporal sovereign. It was protracted through an entire month, and ended with a compromise, which declared that the Commissioners had acted in good faith in signing the articles, while it justified the Synod of Waterford for having, as judges of the nature and intent of the oath of Confederation, declared them insufficient and unacceptable. A new oath of Confederacy, solemnly binding the associates not to lay down their arms till they had established the free and public exercise of religion as it had existed in the reign of Henry VII., was framed and taken by the entire General Assembly; the Thirty Articles were declared insufficient and unacceptable by all but a minority of twelve votes; a new Supreme Council of twenty-four was chosen, in whom there were not known to be above four or five partisans of Ormond's policy. The church plate throughout the kingdom was ordered to be coined into money, and a formal proposal to co-operate with the Viceroy on the basis of the new oath was made, but instantly rejected; among other grounds, on this, that the Marquis had, at that moment, his son and and other sureties with the Puritans who, in the last resort, he infinitely preferred to the Roman Catholics.

The military events of the year 1647 were much more decisive than its politics. Glamorgan still commanded in Munster, Preston in Leinster, and O'Neil in both Ulster and Connaught. The first was confronted by Inchiquin, at the head of a corps of 5,000 foot and 1,500 horse, equipped and supplied by the English Puritans; the second saw the garrisons of Dundalk, Drogheda, and Dublin, reinforced by fresh regiments of Covenanters, and fed by Parliamentary supplies from the sea; the latter was in the heart of Connaught, organizing and recruiting and attempting all things within his reach, but hampered for money, clothing and ammunition. In Connaught, O'Neil was soon joined by the Nuncio, who, as difficulties thickened, began to lean more and more on the strong arm of the victor of Benburb; in Munster, the army refused to follow the lead of Glamorgan, and clamoured for their old chief, Lord Muskerry; finally, that division of the national troops was committed by the Council to Lord Taafe, a politician of the school of Ormond and Clanrickarde, wholly destitute of military experience. The vigorous Inchiquin had little difficulty in dealing with such an antagonist; Cashel was taken without a blow in its defence, and a slaughter unparalleled till the days of Drogheda and Wexford, deluged its streets and churches. At Knocknos, later in the autumn (Nov. 12th), Taafe was utterly routed; the gallant Colkitto, serving under him, lamentably sacrificed after surrendering his sword; and Inchiquin enabled to dictate a cessation covering Munster—far less favourable to Catholics than the truce of Castlemartin—to the Supreme Council. This truce was signed at Dungarvan, on the 20th of May, 1648, and on the 27th the Nuncio published his solemn decree of excommunication against all its aiders and abettors, and himself made the best of his way from Kilkenny to Maryboro', where O'Neil then lay.

The military and political situation of O'Neil, during the latter months of 1647 and the whole of 1648, was one of the most extraordinary in which any general had ever been placed. His late sworn colleague, Preston, was now combined with Inchiquin against him; the royalist Clanrickarde, in the western counties, pressed upon his rear, and captured his garrison in Athlone; the Parliamentary general, Michael Jones, to whom Ormond had finally surrendered Dublin, observed rather than impeded his movements in Leinster; the lay majority of the Supreme Council proclaimed him a traitor—a compliment which he fully returned; the Nuncio threw himself wholly into his hands; finally, at the close of '48, Ormond, returning from France to Ireland, concluded, on the 17th of January, a formal alliance with the lay members, under the title of "Commissioners of Trust," for the King and Kingdom; and Rinuccini, despairing, perhaps, of a cause so distracted, sailed in his own frigate, from Galway, on the 23rd of February. Thus did the actors change their parts, alternately triumphing and fleeing for safety. The verdict of history may condemn the Nuncio, of whom we have now seen the last, for his imperious self-will, and his too ready recourse to ecclesiastical censures; but of his zeal, his probity, and his disinterestedness, there can be, we think, no second opinion.

Under the treaty of 1649—which conceded full civil and religious equality to the Roman Catholics—Ormond was once more placed at the head of the government and in command of the royal troops. A few days after the signing of that treaty, news of the execution of Charles I. having reached Ireland, the Viceroy proclaimed the Prince of Wales by the title of Charles II., at Cork and Youghal. Prince Rupert, whose fleet had entered Kinsale, caused the same ceremony to be gone through in that ancient borough. With Ormond were now cordially united Preston, Inchiquin, Clanrickarde, and Muskerry, on whom the lead of the Supreme Council devolved, in consequence of the advanced age of Lord Mountgarrett, and the remainder of the twelve Commissioners of Trust. The cause of the young Prince, an exile, the son of that Catholic queen from whom they had expected so much, was far from unpopular in the southern half of the island. The Anglican interest was strong and widely diffused through both Leinster and Munster; and, except a resolute prelate, like Dr. French, Bishop of Ferns, or a brave band of townsmen like those of Waterford, Limerick, and Galway, or some remnant of mountain tribes, in Wicklow and Tipperary, the national, or "old Irish policy," had decidedly lost ground from the hour of the Nuncio's departure.

Owen O'Neil and the Bishops still adhered to that national policy. The former made a three-months' truce with General Monck, who had succeeded Monroe in the command of all the Parliamentary troops in his province. The singular spectacle was even exhibited of Monck forwarding supplies to O'Neil, to be used against Inchiquin and Ormond, and O'Neil coining to the rescue of Coote, and raising for him the siege of Londonderry. Inchiquin, in rapid succession, took Drogheda, Trim, Dundalk, Newry, and then rapidly countermarched to join Ormond in besieging Dublin. At Rathmines, near the city, both generals were surprised and defeated by the Parliamentarians under Michael Jones. Between desertions, and killed and wounded, they lost, by their own account, nearly 3,000, and by the Puritan accounts, above 5,000 men. This action was the virtual close of Ormond's military career; he never after made head against the Parliamentary forces in open field. The Catholic cities of Limerick and Galway refused to admit his garrisons; a synod of the Bishops, assembled at Jamestown (in Roscommon), strongly recommended his withdrawal from the kingdom; and Cromwell had arrived, resolved to finish the war in a single campaign. Ormond sailed again for France, before the end of 1649, to return no more until the restoration of the monarchy, on the death of the great Protector.

CHAPTER X.
CROMWELL'S CAMPAIGN—-1649-1650.

An actor was now to descend upon the scene, whose character has excited more controversy than that of any other personage of those times. Honoured as a saint, or reprobated as a hypocrite, worshipped for his extraordinary successes, or anathematized for the unworthy artifices by which he rose—who shall deal out, with equal hand, praise and blame to Oliver Cromwell? Not for the popular writer of Irish history, is that difficult judicial task. Not for us to re-echo cries of hatred which convince not the indifferent, nor correct the errors of the educated or cultivated: the simple, and, as far as possible, the unimpassioned narrative of facts, will constitute the whole of our duty towards the Protector's campaign in Ireland.

Cromwell left London in great state, early in July, "in a coach drawn by six gallant Flanders mares," and made a sort of royal procession across the country to Bristol. From that famous port, where Strongbow confederated with Dermid McMurrogh, and from which Dublin drew its first Anglo-Norman colony, he went on to Milford Haven, at which he embarked, arriving in Dublin on the 15th of August. He entered the city in procession, and addressed the townsfolk from "a convenient place." He had with him two hundred thousand pounds in money, eight regiments of foot, six of horse, and some troops of dragoons; besides the divisions of Jones and Monck, already in the country, and subject to his command. Among the officers were names of memorable interest—Henry Cromwell, second son of the Protector, and future Lord Deputy; Monck, Blake, Jones, Ireton, Ludlow, Hardress Waller, Sankey, and others equally prominent in accomplishing the King's death, or in raising up the English commonwealth.

Cromwell's command in Ireland extends from the middle of August, 1649, to the end of May, 1650, about nine months in all, and is remarkable for the number of sieges of walled towns crowded into that brief period. There was, during the whole time, no great action in the field, like Marston Moor, or Benburb, or Dunbar; it was a campaign of seventeenth century cannon against mediaeval masonry; what else was done, was the supplemental work of mutual bravery on both sides. Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, and Carlingford fell in September; Arklow, Enniscorthy, and Wexford in October; Ross, one of the first seaports in point of commerce, surrendered the same month; Waterford was attempted and abandoned in November; Dungarvan, Kinsale, Bandon, and Cork were won over by Lord Broghill in December; Fethard, Callan, and Cashel in January and February; Carrick and Kilkenny in March; and Clonmel, early in May. Immediately after this last capitulation, Cromwell was recalled to lead the armies of the Parliament into Scotland: during the nine months he had commanded in Ireland, he had captured five or six county capitals, and a great number of less considerable places. The terror of his siege-trains and Ironsides was spread over the greater part of three Provinces, and his well-reported successes had proved so many steps to the assumption of that sovereign power at which he already aimed.

Of the spirit in which these several sieges were conducted, it is impossible to speak without a shudder. It was, in truth, a spirit of hatred and fanaticism, altogether beyond the control of the revolutionary leader. At Drogheda, the work of slaughter occupied five entire days. Of the brave garrison of 3,000 men, not thirty were spared, and these, "were in hands for the Barbadoes;" old men, women, children and priests, were unsparingly put to the sword. Wexford was basely betrayed by Captain James Stafford, commander of the castle, whose midnight interview with Cromwell, at a petty rivulet without the walls, tradition still recounts with horror and detestation. This port was particularly obnoxious to the Parliament, as from its advantageous position on the Bristol channel, its cruisers greatly annoyed and embarrassed their commerce. "There are," Cromwell writes to Speaker Lenthall, "great quantities of iron, hides, tallow, salt, pipe and barrel staves, which are under commissioners' hands to be secured. We believe there are near a hundred cannon in the fort and elsewhere in and about the town. Here is likewise some very good shipping; here are three vessels, one of them of thirty-four guns, which a week's time would fit for sea; there is another of about twenty guns, very nearly ready likewise." He also reports two other frigates, one on the stocks, which "for her handsomeness' sake" he intended to have finished for the Parliament, and another "most excellent vessel for sailing," taken within the fort, at the harbour's mouth. By the treachery of Captain Stafford, this strong and wealthy town was at the mercy of those "soldiers of the Lord and of Gideon," who had followed Oliver to his Irish wars. The consequences were the same as at Drogheda—merciless execution on the garrison and the inhabitants.

In the third month of Cromwell's campaign, the report of Owen O'Neil's death went abroad, palsying the Catholic arms. By common consent of friend and foe, he was considered the ablest civil and military leader that had appeared in Ireland during the reigns of the Stuart kings. Whether in native ability he was capable of coping with Cromwell, was for a long time a subject of discussion; but the consciousness of irreparable national loss, perhaps, never struck deeper than amid the crash of that irresistible cannonade of the walled towns and cities of Leinster and Munster. O'Neil had lately, despairing of binding the Scots or the English, distrustful alike of Coote and of Monck, been reconciled to Ormond, and was marching southward to his aid at the head of 6,000 chosen men. Lord Chancellor Clarendon assures us that Ormond had the highest hopes from this junction, and the utmost confidence in O'Neil's abilities. But at a ball at Derry, towards the end of August, he received his death, it is said, in a pair of poisoned russet leather slippers presented to him by one Plunkett; marching southward, borne in a litter, he expired at Clough Oughter Castle, near his old Belturbet camp, on the 6th of November, 1649. His last act was to order one of his nephews—Hugh O'Neil—to form a junction with Ormond in Munster without delay. In the chancel of the Franciscan Abbey of Cavan, now grass-grown and trodden by the hoofs of cattle, his body was interred; his nephew and successor did honour to his memory at Clonmel and Limerick. It was now remembered, even by his enemies, with astonishment and admiration, how for seven long years he had subsisted and kept together an army, the creature of his genius; without a government at his back, without regular supplies, enforcing obedience, establishing discipline, winning great victories, maintaining, even at the worst, a native power in the heart of the kingdom. When the archives of those years are recovered (if they ever are), no name more illustrious for the combination of great qualities will be found preserved there than the name of this last national leader of the illustrious lineage of O'Neil.

The unexpected death of the Ulster general favoured still farther Cromwell's southern movements. The gallant, but impetuous Bishop of Clogher, Heber McMahon, was the only northern leader who could command confidence enough to keep O'Neil's force together, and on him, therefore, the command devolved. O'Ferrall, one of Owen's favourite officers, was despatched to Waterford, and mainly contributed to Cromwell's repulse before that city; Hugh O'Neil covered himself with glory at Clonmel and Limerick; Daniel O'Neil, another nephew of Owen, remained attached to Ormond, and accompanied him to France; but within six months from the loss of their Fabian chief, who knew as well when to strike as to delay, the brave Bishop of Clogher sacrificed the remnant of "the Catholic Army" at the pass of Scariffhollis, in Donegal, and, two days after, his own life by a martyr's death, at Omagh. At the date of Cromwell's departure—when Ireton took command of the southern army—there remained to the Confederates only some remote glens and highlands of the North and West, the cities of Limerick and Galway, with the county of Clare, and some detached districts of the province of Connaught.

The last act of Cromwell's proper campaign was the siege of Clonmel, where he met the stoutest resistance he had anywhere encountered. The Puritans, after effecting a breach, made an attempt to enter, chanting one of their scriptural battle-songs. They were, by their own account, "obliged to give back a while," and finally night settled down upon the scene. The following day, finding the place no longer tenable, the garrison silently withdrew to Waterford, and subsequently to Limerick. The inhabitants demanded a parley, which was granted; and Cromwell takes credit, and deserves it, when we consider the men he had to humour, for having kept conditions with them.

From before Clonmel he returned at once to England, where he was received with royal honours. All London turned out to meet the Conqueror who had wiped out the humiliation of Benburb, and humbled the pride of the detested Papists. He was lodged in the palace of the king, and chosen "Captain-general of all the forces raised, or to be raised, by the authority of the Parliament of England."

CHAPTER XI.
CLOSE OF THE CONFEDERATE WAR.

The tenth year of the contest of which we have endeavoured to follow the most important events, opened upon the remaining Catholic leaders, greatly reduced in numbers and resources, but firm and undismayed. Two chief seaports, and some of the western counties still remained to them; and accordingly we find meetings of the Bishops and other notables during this year (1650), at Limerick, at Loughrea, and finally at Jamestown, in the neighbourhood of Owen O'Neil's nursery of the first "Catholic Army."

The Puritan commander was now Henry Ireton, son-in-law of Cromwell, by a marriage contracted about two years before. The completion of the Protector's policy could have devolved upon few persons more capable of understanding, or more fearless in executing it; and in two eventful campaigns he proved himself the able successor of the Protector. In August following Cromwell's departure, Waterford and Duncannon were taken by Ireton; and there only remained to the Confederates the fortresses of Sligo, Athlone, Limerick, and Galway, with the country included within the irregular quadrangle they describe. The younger Coote making a feint against Sligo, which Clanrickarde hastened to defend, turned suddenly on his steps, and surprised Athlone. Sligo, naturally a place of no great strength after the invention of artillery, soon after fell, so that Galway and Limerick alone were left, at the beginning of 1651, to bear all the brunt of Puritan hostility.

Political events of great interest happened during the two short years of Ireton's command. The Assembly, which met at Jamestown in August, and again at Loughrea in November, 1650, made the retirement of Ormond from the Government a condition of all future efforts in the royal cause, and that nobleman, deeply wounded by this condition, had finally sailed from Galway, in December, leaving to Clanrickarde the title of Lord Deputy, and to Castlehaven the command of the forces which still kept the field. The news from Scotland of the young king's subscription to the covenant, and denunciation of all terms with Irish Papists, came to aid the councils of those, who, like the eloquent French, Bishop of Ferns, demanded a national policy, irrespective of the exigencies of the Stuart family. An embassy was accordingly despatched to Brussels, to offer the title of King-Protector to the Duke of Lorraine, or failing with him, to treat with any "other Catholic prince, state, republic, or person, as they might deem expedient for the preservation of the Catholic religion and nation." A wide latitude, dictated by desperate circumstances. The ambassadors were Bishop French and Hugh Rochfort; the embassy one of the most curious and instructive in our annals.

The Duke expressed himself willing to undertake an expedition to Ireland—to supply arms and money to the Confederates—on the condition of receiving Athlone, Limerick, Athenry and Galway into his custody, with the title of Protector. A considerable sum of money (20,000 pounds) was forwarded at once; four Belgian frigates laden with stores were made ready for sea; the Canon De Henin was sent as envoy to the Confederates, and this last venture looked most promising of success, had not Clanrickarde in Galway, and Charles and Ormond in Paris, taking alarm at the new dignity conferred upon the Duke, countermined the Bishop of Ferns and Mr. Rochfort, and defeated by intrigue and correspondence their hopeful enterprise.

The decisive battle of Worcester, fought on the 3rd of September, 1651, drove Charles II. into that nine years' exile, from which he only returned on the death of Cromwell. It may be considered the last military event of importance in the English civil war. In Ireland the contest was destined to drag out another campaign, before the walls of the two gallant cities, Galway and Limerick.

Limerick was the first object of attack. Ireton, leaving Sankey to administer martial law in Tipperary, struck the Shannon opposite Killaloe, driving Castlehaven before him. Joined by Coote and Reynolds, fresh from the sieges of Athenry and Athlone, he moved upon Limerick by the Connaught bank of the river, while Castlehaven fled to Clanrickarde in Galway, with a guard of forty horse, all that remained intact of the 4,000 men bequeathed him by Ormond. From the side of Munster, Lord Muskerry attempted a diversion in favour of Limerick, but was repulsed at Castleishen, by "the flying camp" of Lord Broghill. The besiegers were thus not only delivered of a danger, but reinforced by native troops—if the "Undertakers" could be properly called so—which made them the most formidable army that had ever surrounded an Irish city. From early summer till the last week of October, the main force of the English and Anglo-Irish, supplied with every species of arm then invented, assailed the walls of Limerick. The plague, which during these months swept with such fearful mortality over the whole kingdom, struck down its defenders, and filled all its streets with desolation and grief. The heroic bishops, O'Brien of Emly, and O'Dwyer of Limerick, exerted themselves to uphold, by religious exhortations, the confidence of the besieged; while Hugh O'Neil and General Purcell maintained the courage of their men. Clanrickarde had offered to charge himself with the command, but the citizens preferred to trust in the skill and determination of the defender of Clonmel, whose very name was a talisman among them. The municipal government, however, composed of the men of property in the city, men whose trade was not war, whose religion was not enthusiastic, formed a third party,—a party in favour of peace at any price. With the Mayor at their head, they openly encouraged the surrender of one of the outworks to the besiegers, and this betrayal, on the 27th of October, compelled the surrender of the entire works. Thus Limerick fell, divided within itself by military, clerical, and municipal factions; thus glory and misfortune combined to consecrate its name in the national veneration, and the general memory of mankind. The Bishop of Emly and General Purcell were executed as traitors; the Bishop of Limerick escaped in the disguise of a common soldier, and died at Brussels; O'Neil's life was saved by a single vote; Sir Geoffrey Gabney, Aldermen Stritch and Fanning, and other leading Confederates, expiated their devotion upon the scaffold.

On the 12th of May following—seven months after the capture of Limerick, Galway fell. Ireton, who survived the former siege but a few days, was succeeded by Ludlow, a sincere republican of the school of Pym and Hampden—if that school can be called, in our modern sense, republican. It was the sad privilege of General Preston, whose name is associated with so many of the darkest, and with some of the brightest incidents of this war, to order the surrender of Galway, as he had two years previously given up Waterford. Thus the last open port, the last considerable town held by the Confederates, yielded to the overwhelming power of numbers and munitions, in the twelfth year of that illustrious war which Ireland waged for her religious and civil liberties, against the forces of the two adjoining kingdoms, sometimes estranged from one another, but always hostile alike to the religious belief and the political independence of the Irish people.

With the fall of Galway, the Confederate war drew rapidly to a close. Colonels Fitzpatrick, O'Dwyer, Grace, and Thorlogh O'Neil, surrendered their posts; Lords Enniskillen and West-Meath followed their example; Lord Muskerry yielded Ross Castle, on Killarney, in June; Clanrickarde laid down his arms at Carrick, in October. The usual terms granted were liberty to transport themselves and followers to the service of any foreign state or prince at peace with the commonwealth; a favoured few were permitted to live and die in peace on their own estates, under the watchful eye of some neighbouring garrison.

The chief actors in the Confederate war not already accounted for, terminated their days under many different circumstances. Mountgarrett and Bishop Rothe died before Galway fell, and were buried in the capital of the Confederacy; Bishop McMahon of Clogher, surrendered to Sir Charles Coote, and was executed like a felon by one he had saved from destruction a year before at Derry; Coote, after the Restoration, became Earl of Mountrath, and Broghill, Earl of Orrery; Clanrickarde died unnoticed on his English estate, under the Protectorate; Inchiquin, after many adventures in foreign lands, turned Catholic in his old age, and this burner of churches bequeathed an annual alms for masses for his soul; Jones, Corbet, Cook, and the fanatical preacher, Hugh Peters, perished on the scaffold with the other regicides executed by order of the English Parliament; Ormond having shared the evils of exile with the King, shared also the splendour of his restoration, became a Duke, and took his place, as if by common consent, at the head of the peerage of the empire; his Irish rental, which before the war was but 7,000 pounds a year, swelled suddenly on the Restoration to 80,000 pounds; Nicholas French, after some sojourn in Spain, where he was coadjutor to the Archbishop of Saint James, returned to Louvain, where he made his first studies, and there spent the evening of his days in the composition of those powerful pamphlets which kept alive the Irish cause at home and on the continent; a Roman patrician did the honours of sepulture to Luke Wadding, and Cromwell interred James Usher in Westminster Abbey; the heroic defender of Clonmel and Limerick, and the gallant, though vacillating Preston, were cordially received in France; while the consistent republican, Ludlow, took refuge as a fugitive in Switzerland.

Sir Phelim O'Neil, the first author of the war, was among the last to suffer the penalties of defeat. For a moment, towards the end, he renewed his sway over the remnant of Owen's soldiers, took Ballyshannon, and two or three other places. Compelled at last to surrender, he was carried to Dublin, and tried on a charge of treason, a committee closeted behind the bench dictating the interrogatories to his judges, and receiving his answers in reply. Condemned to death, as was expected, he was offered his life by the Puritan colonel, Hewson, on the very steps of the scaffold, if he would inculpate the late King Charles in the rising of 1641. This he "stoutly refused to do," and the execution proceeded with all its atrocious details. Whatever may have been the excesses committed under his command by a plundered people, at their first insurrection—and we know that they have been exaggerated beyond all bounds—it must be admitted he died the death of a Christian, a soldier, and a gentleman.

CHAPTER XII.
IRELAND UNDER THE PROTECTORATE—ADMINISTRATION OF HENRY CROMWELL—DEATH OF OLIVER.

The English republic rose from the scaffold of the King, in 1649; its first government was a "Council of State" of forty-one members; under this council, Cromwell held at first the title of Lord General; but, on the 16th December, 1653, he was solemnly installed, in Westminster Hall, as "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland." He was then in his fifty-fourth year; his reign—if such it may be called—lasted less than five years.

The policy of the Protector towards Ireland is even less defensible than his military severities. For the barbarities of war there may be some apology, the poor one at least that such outrages are inseparable from war itself; but for the cold-blooded, deliberate atrocities of peace, no such defence can be permitted before the tribunal of a free posterity.

The Long Parliament, still dragging out its date, 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 the 12th of August, 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: 1st. All ecclesiastics and royalist proprietors were exempted from pardon of life or estate. 2nd. 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. 3rd. 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. 4th. All husbandmen and others of the inferior sort, "not possessed of lands or goods exceeding the value of 10 pounds," 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 1st 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 ten millions and a half 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 confiscate; 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 a hundred and fifty 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 the 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 Castle 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'Neil, Viscount Mayo, and Colonels O'Toole and Bagnall, were condemned and executed; by them the mother of Colonel Fitzpatrick was burnt at the stake; and Lords Muskerry and Clanmaliere set at liberty, through some secret influence. The commissioners were not behind the High Court of Justice in executive offices of severity. Children under age, of both sexes, were captured by thousands, and sold as slaves to the tobacco planters of Virginia and the West Indies. Secretary Thurloe informs Henry Cromwell that "the Committee of the Council have authorized 1,000 girls and as many youths, to be taken up for that purpose." Sir William Petty mentions 6,000 Irish boys and girls shipped to the West Indies. Some cotemporary accounts make the total number of children and adults so transported 100,000 souls. To this decimation, we may add 34,000 men of fighting age, who had permission to enter the armies of foreign powers, at peace with the commonwealth. The chief commissioners, sitting at Dublin, had their deputies in a commission of delinquencies, sitting at Athlone, and another of transportation, sitting at Loughrea. Under their superintendence, the distribution made of the soil among the Puritans "was nearly as complete as that of Canaan by the Israelites." Whenever native labourers were found absolutely necessary for the cultivation of the estates of their new masters, they were barely tolerated "as the Gibeonites had been by Joshua." Such Irish gentlemen as had obtained pardons, were obliged to wear a distinctive mark on their dress under pain of death; those of inferior rank were obliged to wear a round black spot on the right cheek under pain of the branding iron and the gallows; if a Puritan lost his life in any district inhabited by Catholics, the whole population were held subject to military execution. For the rest, whenever "Tory" or recusant fell into the hands of these military colonists, or the garrisons which knitted them together, they were assailed with the war cry of the Jews—"That thy feet may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and that the tongues of thy dogs may be red with the same." Thus penned in between "the mile line" of the Shannon, and "the four mile-line" of the sea, the remnant of the Irish nation passed seven years of a bondage unequalled in severity by anything which can be found in the annals of Christendom.

The conquest was not only a military but a religious subjugation. The 27th of Elizabeth—the old act of uniformity—was rigorously enforced. The Catholic lawyers were disbarred and silenced; the Catholic schoolmasters were forbidden to teach, under pain of felony. Recusants, surrounded in glens and caves, offering up the holy sacrifice through the ministry of some daring priest, were shot down or smoked out like vermin. The ecclesiastics never, in any instance, were allowed to escape. Among those who suffered death during the short space of the Protectorate, are counted "three bishops and three hundred ecclesiastics." The surviving prelates were in exile, except the bedridden Bishop of Kilmore, who for years had been unable to officiate. So that, now, that ancient hierarchy which in the worst Danish wars had still recruited its ranks as fast as they were broken, seemed on the very eve of extinction. Throughout all the island no episcopal hand remained to bless altars, to ordain priests, or to confirm the faithful. The Irish church as well as the Irish state, touched its lowest point of suffering and endurance in the decade which intervened between the death of Charles I. and the death of Cromwell.

The new population imposed upon the kingdom, soon split up into a multitude of sects. Some of them became Quakers: many adhered to the Anabaptists; others, after the Restoration, conformed to the established church. That deeper tincture of Puritanism which may be traced in the Irish, as compared with the English establishment, took its origin even more from the Cromwellian settlement than from the Calvinistic teachings of Archbishop Usher.

Oliver died in 1658, on his "fortunate day," the 3rd of September, leaving England to experience twenty months of republican intrigue and anarchy. Richard Cromwell—Lambert—Ludlow—Monck—each played his part in this stormy interval, till, the time being ripe for a restoration, Charles II. landed at Dover on the 23rd of May, 1660 and was carried in triumph to London.

BOOK X.
FROM THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. TO THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I.

CHAPTER I.
REIGN OF CHARLES II.

Hope is dear to the heart of man, and of all her votaries none have been more constant than the Irish. Half a century of the Stuarts had not extinguished their blind partiality for the descendants of the old Scoto-Irish kings. The restoration of that royal house was, therefore, an event which penetrated to the remotest wilds of Connaught, lighting up with cheering expectation the most desolate hovels of the proscribed. To the Puritans settled in Ireland, most of whom, from the mean condition of menial servants, common soldiers and subaltern officers, had become rich proprietors, the same tidings brought apprehension and alarm. But their leaders, the Protestant gentry of an earlier date, wealthy, astute and energetic, uniting all their influence for the common protection, turned this event, which seemed at one time to threaten their ruin, to their advantage and greater security. The chief of these greater leaders was the accomplished Lord Broghill, whom we are to know during this reign under his more famous title of Earl of Orrery.

The position of the Irish as compared with the English Puritans, was essentially different in the eyes of Ormond, Clarendon, and the other counsellors of the king. Though the former represented dissent as against the church, they also represented the English as against the Irish interest, in Ireland. As dissenters they were disliked and ridiculed, but as colonists they could not be disturbed. When national antipathy was placed in one scale and religious animosity in the other, the intensely national feeling of England for the Cromwellians, as Englishmen settled in a hostile country, prevailed over every other consideration. In this, as in all other conjunctures, it has been the singular infelicity of the one island to be subjected to a policy directly opposite to that pursued in the other. While in England it was considered wise and just to break down the Puritans as a party—through the court, the pulpit, and the press; to drive the violent into exile, and to win the lukewarm to conformity; in Ireland it was decided to confirm them in their possessions, to leave the government of the kingdom in their hands, and to strengthen their position by the Acts of Settlement and Explanation. These acts were hailed as "the Magna Charta of Irish Protestantism," but so far as the vast majority of the people were concerned, they were as cruelly unjust as the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, or the edicts which banished the Moors and Jews from the Spanish peninsula.

The struggle for possession of the soil inaugurated by the confiscations of Elizabeth and James was continued against great odds by the Catholic Irish throughout this reign. Though the royal declaration of Breda, which preceded the restoration, had not mentioned them expressly, they still claimed under it not only the "liberty to tender consciences," but that "just satisfaction" to those unfairly deprived of their estates, promised in that declaration. Accordingly, several of the old gentry returned from Connaught, or places abroad, took possession of their old homes, or made their way at once to Dublin or London, to urge their claims to their former estates. To their dismay, they found in Dublin, Coote and Broghill established as Lords Justices, and the new Parliament—the first that sat for twenty years—composed of an overwhelming majority of Undertakers, adventurers, and Puritan representatives of boroughs, from which all the Catholic electors had been long excluded. The Protestant interest, or "ascendancy party," as it now began to be commonly called, counted in the Commons 198 members to 64 Catholics; in the House of Lords, 72 Protestant to 21 Catholic peers. The former elected Sir Audley Mervyn their Speaker, and the able but curiously intricate and quaint discourses of the ancient colleague of Kelly and Darcy in the assertion of Irish legislative independence, shows how different was the spirit of Irish Protestantism in 1661 as compared with 1641. The Lords chose Bramhall, the long-exiled Bishop of Derry, now Archbishop of Armagh, as their Speaker, and attempted to compel their members "to take the sacrament" according to the Anglican ritual. The majority of both Houses, to secure the good-will of Ormond, voted him the sum of 30,000 pounds, and then proceeded to consider "the Bill of Settlement," in relation to landed property. The Catholic bar, which had been apparently restored to its freedom, presented a striking array of talent, from which their co-religionists selected those by whom they desired to be heard at the bar of the House. The venerable Darcy and the accomplished Belling were no longer their oracles of the law; but they had the services of Sir Nicholas Plunkett, an old confederate, of Sir Richard Nagle, author of the famous "Coventry Letter," of Nugent, afterwards Lord Riverston, and other able men. In the House of Lords they had an intrepid ally in the Earl of Kildare, and in England an agent equally intrepid, in Colonel Richard Talbot, afterwards Earl of Tyrconnell. The diplomatic and parliamentary struggle between the two interests, the disinherited and the new proprietory, was too protracted, and the details are too involved for elucidation in every part; but the result tells its own story. In 1675—in the fifteenth year of the restoration—the new settlers possessed above 4,500,000 acres, to about 2,250,000 still retained by the old owners. These relative proportions were exactly the reverse of those existing before the Cromwellian settlement; a single generation had seen this great revolution accomplished in landed property.

The Irish Parliament having sent over to England the heads of their bill, according to the constitutional rule established by Poyning's Act, the Irish Catholics sent over Sir Nicholas Plunkett to obtain modifications of its provisions. But Plunkett was met in England with such an outcry from the mob and the press as to the alleged atrocities of the Confederate war, and his own former negotiations on the continent, that he was unable to effect anything; while Colonel Talbot, for his too warm expostulations with Ormond, was sent to the Tower. An order of Council, forbidding Plunkett the presence, and declaring that "no petition or further address be made from the Roman Catholics of Ireland, as to the Bill of Settlement," closed the controversy, and the Act soon after received the royal assent.

Under this act, a court was established at Dublin, to try the claims of "nocent" and "innocent." Notwithstanding every influence which could be brought to bear on them, the judges, who were Englishmen, declared in their first session, one hundred and sixty-eight innocent to nineteen nocent. Proceeding in this spirit "to the great loss and dissatisfaction of the Protestants," the latter, greatly alarmed, procured the interference of Ormond, now Lord Lieutenant (1662), in effecting a modification of the commission, appointing the court, by which its duration was limited to an early day. The consequence was, that while less than 800 claims were decided on when the fatal day arrived, over 3,000 were left unheard, at least a third of whom were admitted even by their enemies to be innocent. About 500 others had been restored by name in the Act of Settlement itself; but, by the Act of Explanation (1665), "no Papist who had not been adjudged innocent" under the former act could be so adjudged thereafter, "or entitled to claim any lands or settlements." Thus, even the inheritance of hope, and the reversion of expectation, were extinguished for ever for the sons and daughters of the ancient gentry of the kingdom.

The religious liberties of this people, so crippled in property and political power, were equally at the mercy of the mob and of the monarch. To combat the war of calumny waged against them by the Puritan press and pulpit, the leading Catholics resolved to join in an official and authentic declaration of their true principles, as to the spiritual power of the Pope, their allegiance to the prince, and their relations to their fellow subjects of other denominations. With this intention a meeting was held at the house of the Marquis of Clanrickarde, in Dublin, at which Lords Clancarty, Carlingford, Fingal, Castlehaven, and Inchiquin, and the leading commoners of their faith, were present. At this meeting, Father Peter Walsh, a Franciscan, and an old courtier of Ormond's, as "Procurator of all the Clergy of Ireland," secular and regular, produced credentials signed by the surviving bishops or their vicars—including the Primate O'Reilly, the Bishops of Meath, Ardagh, Kilmore, and Ferns. Richard Belling, the secretary to the first Confederate Council, and Envoy to Rome, submitted the celebrated document known as "The Remonstrance," deeply imbued with the spirit of the Gallican church of that day. It was signed by about seventy Catholic peers and commoners, by the Bishop of Kilmore, by Procurator Walsh, and by the townsmen of Wexford—almost the only urban community of Catholics remaining in the country. But the propositions it contained as to the total independency of the temporal on the spiritual power, and the ecclesiastical patronage of princes, were condemned at the Sorbonne, at Louvain, and at Rome. The regular orders, by their several superiors, utterly rejected it; the exiled bishops withdrew their proxies from Father Walsh, and disclaimed his conduct; the Internuncio at Brussels, charged with the affairs of the British Isles, denounced it as contrary to the canons; and the elated Procurator found himself involved in a controversy from which he never afterwards escaped, and with which his memory is still angrily associated.

The conduct of Ormond in relation to this whole business of the Remonstrance, was the least creditable part of his administration. Writhing under the eloquent pamphlets of the exiled Bishop of Ferns, keenly remembering his own personal wrongs against the former generation of bishops, of whom but three or four were yet living, he resolved "to work that division among the Romish clergy," which he had long meditated. With this view, he connived at a meeting of the surviving prelates and the superiors of regular orders, at Dublin, in 1666. To this synod safe conduct was permitted to the Primate O'Reilly, banished to Belgium nine years before; to Peter Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin, John Burke, Archbishop of Tuam, Patrick Plunkett, Bishop of Ardagh, the vicars-general of other prelates, and the superiors of the regulars. This venerable body deliberated anxiously for an entire week, Father Walsh acting as ambassador between them and the Viceroy; at length, in spite of all politic considerations, they unanimously rejected the servile doctrine of the "Remonstrance," substituting instead a declaration of their own dictation. Ormond now cast off all affectation of liberality; Primate O'Reilly was sent back to his banishment, the other prelates and clergy were driven back to their hiding-places, or into exile abroad, and the wise, experienced, high-spirited duke, did not hesitate to avail himself of "the Popish plot" mania, which soon after broke out, to avenge himself upon an order of men whom he could neither break nor bend to his purposes! Of 1,100 secular priests, and 750 regulars, still left, only sixty-nine had signed the Clanrickarde House Remonstrance.

An incident of this same year—1666—illustrates more forcibly than description could do, the malignant feeling which had been excited in England against everything Irish. The importation of Irish cattle had long been considered an English grievance, it was now declared by law "a nuisance." The occasion taken to pass this statute was as ungracious as the act itself was despicable. In consequence of "the great fire," which still glows for us in the immortal verse of Dryden, the Irish had sent over to the distressed, a contribution of 15,000 bullocks. This was considered by the generous recipients a mere pretence to preserve the trade in cattle between the two kingdoms, and accordingly both Houses, after some sharp resistance in the Lords', gravely enacted that the importation of Irish beef into England was "a nuisance," to be abated. From this period most probably dates the famous English sarcasm against Irish bulls.

The act prohibiting the export of cattle from Ireland, and the equally exclusive and unjust Navigation Act—originally devised by Cromwell—so paralyzed every Irish industry, that the Puritan party became almost as dissatisfied as the Catholics. They maintained a close correspondence with their brethren in England, and began to speculate on the possibilities of another revolution. Ormond, to satisfy their demands, distributed 20,000 stand of arms among them, and reviewed the Leinster Militia, on the Curragh, in 1667. The next year he was recalled, and Lords Robarts, Berkely, and Essex, successively appointed to the government. The first, a Puritan, and almost a regicide, held office but a few months; the second, a cavalier and a friend of toleration, for two years; while Essex, one of those fair-minded but yielding characters, known in the next reign as "Trimmers," petitioned for his own recall and Ormond's restoration, in 1676. The only events which marked these last nine years—from Ormond's removal till his reappointment—were the surprise of Carrickfergus by a party of unpaid soldiers, and their desperate defence of that ancient stronghold; the embassies to and from the Irish Catholics and the court, of Colonel Richard Talbot; and the establishment of extensive woollen manufactories at Thomastown, Callan, and Kilkenny, under the patronage of Ormond.

CHAPTER II.
REIGN OF CHARLES II. (CONCLUDED.)

For the third time, the aged Ormond, now arrived at the period usually allotted to the life of man, returned to Ireland, with the rank of Viceroy. During the ensuing seven years, he clung to power with all the tenacity of his youth, and all the policy of his prime; they were seven years of extraordinary sectarian panic and excitement—the years of the Cabal, the Popish plot, and the Exclusion Bill, in England—and of fanatical conspiracies and explosions almost as dangerous in Ireland.

The Popish plot mania held possession of the English people much longer than any other moral epidemic of equal virulence. In the month of October, 1678, its alleged existence in Ireland was communicated to Ormond; in July, 1681, its most illustrious victim, Archbishop Plunkett, perished on the scaffold at Tyburn. Within these two points of time what a chronicle of madness, folly, perjury, and cruelty, might be written?

Ormond, too old in statecraft to believe in the existence of these incredible plots, was also too well aware of the dangerous element of fanaticism represented by Titus Oates, and his imitators, to subject himself to suspicion. On the first intelligence of the plot, he instantly issued his proclamation for the arrest of Archbishop Talbot, of Dublin, who had been permitted to return from exile under the rule of Lord Berkely, and had since resided with his brother, Colonel Talbot, at Cartown, near Maynooth. This prelate was of Ormond's own age, and of a family as ancient; while his learning, courage, and morality, made him an ornament to his order. He was seized in his sick bed at Cartown, carried to Dublin in a chair, and confined a close prisoner in the castle, where he died two years later. He was the last distinguished captive destined to end his days in that celebrated state prison, which has since been generally dedicated to the peaceful purposes of reflected royalty.

Colonel Talbot was at the same time arrested, but allowed to retire beyond seas; Lord Mountgarrett, an octogenarian, and in his dotage, was seized, but nothing could be made out against him; a Colonel Peppard was also denounced from England, but no such person was found to exist. So far the first year of the plot had passed over, and proved nothing against the Catholic Irish. But the example of successful villainy in England, of Oates idolized, pensioned, and all-powerful, extended to the sister kingdom, and brought an illustrious victim to the scaffold. This was Oliver Plunkett, a scion of the noble family of Fingal, who had been Archbishop of Armagh, since the death of Dr. O'Reilly, in exile, in 1669. Such had been the prudence and circumspection of Dr. Plunkett, during his perilous administration, that the agents of Lord Shaftesbury, sent over to concoct evidence for the occasion, were afraid to bring him to trial in the vicinage of his arrest, or in his own country. Accordingly, they caused him to be removed from Dublin to London, contrary to the laws and customs of both Kingdoms, which had first been violated towards state prisoners in the case of Lord Maguire, forty years before.

Dr. Plunkett, after ten months' confinement without trial in Ireland, was removed, 1680, and arraigned at London, on the 8th of June, 1681, without having had permission to communicate with his friends or to send for witnesses. The prosecution was conducted by Maynard and Jeffries, in violation of every form of law, and every consideration of justice. A "crown agent," whose name is given as Gorman, was introduced by "a stranger" in court, and volunteered testimony in his favour. The Earl of Essex interceded with the King on his behalf, but Charles answered, almost in the words of Pilate—"I cannot pardon him, because I dare not. His blood be upon your conscience; you could have saved him if you pleased." The Jury, after a quarter of an hour's deliberation, brought in their verdict of guilty, and the brutal Chief-Justice condemned him to be hung, emboweled, and quartered on the 1st day of July, 1681. The venerable martyr, for such he may well be called, bowed his head to the bench, and exclaimed: Deo gratias! Eight years from the very day of his execution, on the banks of that river beside which he had been seized and dragged from his retreat, the last of the Stuart kings was stricken from his throne, and his dynasty stricken from history! Does not the blood of the innocent cry to Heaven for vengeance?

The charges against Dr. Plunkett were, that he maintained treasonable correspondence with France and Rome, and the Irish on the continent; that he had organised an insurrection in Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, and Armagh; that he made preparations for the landing of a French force at Carlingford; and that he had held several meetings to raise men for these purposes. Utterly absurd and false as these charges were, they still indicate the troubled apprehensions which filled the dreams of the ascendency party. The fear of French invasion, of new insurrections, of the resumption of estates, haunted them by night and day. Every sign was to them significant of danger, and every rumour of conspiracy was taken for fact. The report of a strange fleet off the Southern coast, which turned out to be English, threw them all into panic; and the Corpus Christi crosses which the peasantry affixed to their doors, were nothing but signs for the Papist destroyer to pass by, and to spare his fellows in the general massacre of Protestants.

Under the pressure of these panics, real or pretended, proclamation after proclamation issued from the Castle. By one of these instruments, Ormond prohibited Catholics from entering the Castle of Dublin, or any other fortress; from holding fairs or markets within the walls of corporate towns, and from carrying arms to such resorts. By another, he declared all relatives of known Tories—a Gaelic term for a driver of prey—to be arrested, and banished the kingdom, within fourteen days, unless such Tories were killed, or surrendered, within that time. Where this device failed to reach the destined victims—as in the celebrated case of Count Redmond O'Hanlon—it is to be feared that he did not hesitate to whet the dagger of the assassin, which was still sometimes employed, even in the British Islands, to remove a dangerous antagonist. Count O'Hanlon, 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 and rot the princely escutcheon of James, Duke of Ormond.

The violence of religious and social persecution began to subside during the last two or three years of Charles II. Monmouth's banishment, Shaftesbury's imprisonment, the execution of Russell and Sidney on the scaffold, marked the return of the English public mind to political pursuits and objects. Early in 1685, the king was taken mortally ill. In his last moments he received the rites of the Catholic church, from the hands of Father Huddleston, who was said to have saved his life at the battle of Worcester, and who was now even more anxious to save his soul.

This event took place on the 16th of February. King James was immediately proclaimed successor to his brother. One of his first acts was to recall Ormond from Ireland and to appoint in his place the Earl of Clarendon, son of the historian and statesman of the Restoration. Ormond obeyed, not without regret; he survived his fall about three years. He was interred in Westminster in 1688, three months before the landing of William, and the second banishment of the Stuarts.

CHAPTER III.
THE STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING IN IRELAND DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Before plunging into the troubled torrent of the revolution of 1688, let us cast a glance back on the century, and consider the state of learning and religion during those three generations.

If we divide the Irish literature of this century by subjects, we shall find extant a respectable body, both in quantity and quality, of theology, history, law, politics, and poetry. If we divide it by the languages in which that literature was written, we may consider it as Latin, Gaelic, and English.

I. Latin continued throughout Europe, even till this late day, the language of the learned, but especially of theologians, jurists, and historians. In Latin, the great tomes of O'Sullivan, Usher, Colgan, Wadding, and White, were written—volumes which remain as so many monuments of the learning and industry of that age. The chief objects of these illustrious writers were, to restore the ancient ecclesiastical history of Ireland, to rescue the memory of her saints and doctors from oblivion, and to introduce the native annals of the kingdom to the attention of Europe. Though Usher differed in religion, and in his theory of the early connection of the Irish with the Roman Church, from all the rest, yet he stands pre-eminent among them for labour and research. The Waterford Franciscan, Wadding, can only be named with him for inexhaustible patience, various learning, and untiring zeal. Both were honoured of princes and parliaments. The Confederates would have made Wadding a cardinal; King James made Usher an archbishop; one instructed the Westminster Assembly; the other was sent by the King of Spain to maintain the thesis of the Immaculate Conception at Rome, and subsequently was entrusted by the Pope to report upon the propositions of Jansenius. O'Sullivan, Conde de Berehaven, in Spain, and Peter White, have left us each two or three Latin volumes on the history of the country, highly prized by all subsequent writers. But the most indispensable of the legacies left us in this tongue, are Colgan's "Acta Sanctorum"—from January to March—and Dr. John Lynch's "Cambrensis Eversus." Many other works and authors might be mentioned, but these are the great Latinists to whom we are indebted for the most important services rendered to our national history.

II. In the Gaelic literature of the country we count Geoffrey Keating, Duald McFirbis, and "the Four Masters" of Donegal. Few writers have been more rashly judged than Keating. A poet, as well as a historian, he gave a prominence in the early chapters of his history to bardic tales, which English critics have seized upon to damage his reputation for truthfulness and good sense. But these tales he gives as tales—as curious and illustrative—rather than as credible and unquestionable. The purity of his style is greatly extolled by Gaelic critics; and the interest of his narrative, even in a translation, is undoubted. McFirbis, an annalist and genealogist by inheritance, is known to us not only for his profound native lore, and tragic death, but also for the assistance he rendered Sir James Ware, Dr. Lynch, and Roderick O'Flaherty. The master-piece, however, of our Gaelic literature of this age, is the work now called "The Annals of the Four Masters." In the reign of James I., a few Franciscan friars, living partly in Donegal Abbey and partly in St. Anthony's College, at Louvain, undertook to collect and collate all the manuscript remains of Irish antiquity they could gather or borrow, or be allowed to copy. Father Hugh Ward was the head of this group, and by him the lay brother Michael O'Clery, one of the greatest benefactors his country ever saw, was sent from Belgium to Ireland. From 1620 to 1630, O'Clery travelled through the kingdom, buying or transcribing everything he could find relating to the lives of the Irish saints, which he sent to Louvain, where Ward and Colgan undertook to edit and illustrate them. Father Ward died in the early part of the undertaking, but Father Colgan spent twenty years in prosecuting the original design, so far as concerned our ecclesiastical biography.

After collecting these materials, Father O'Clery waited, as he tells us, on "the noble Fergall O'Gara," one of the two knights elected to represent the county of Sligo in the Parliament of 1634, and perceiving the anxiety of O'Gara, "from the cloud which at present hangs over our ancient Milesian race," he proposed to collect the civil and military annals of Erin into one large digest. O'Gara, struck with this proposal, freely supplied the means, and O'Clery and his coadjutors set to work in the Franciscan Convent of Donegal, which still stood, not more than half in ruins.

On the 22nd of January, 1632, they commenced this digest, and on the 10th of August, 1636, it was finished—having occupied them four years, seven months and nineteen days. The MS., dedicated to O'Gara, is authenticated by the superiors of the convent; from that original two editions have recently been printed in both languages.

These annals extend to the year 1616, the time of the compilers. Originally they bore the title of "Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland," but Colgan having quoted them as "The Annals of the Four Masters," that name remains ever since. The "Four Masters" were Brother Michael O'Clery, Conary and Peregrine O'Clery, his brothers, both laymen and natives of Donegal, and Florence Conroy of Roscommon, another hereditary antiquary.

The first edition of the New Testament, in the Gaelic tongue, so far as we are aware, appeared at Dublin, in 1603, in quarto. The translation was the work of a native scholar, O'Cionga (Anglicized King). It was made at the expense and under the supervision of Dr. William O'Donnell, one of the first fellows of Trinity, and published at the cost of the people of Connaught. Dr. O'Donnell, an amiable man, and an enemy of persecution, became subsequently Archbishop of Tuam, in which dignity he died, in 1628. A translation of the Book of Common Prayer, by O'Donnell, appeared early in the century, and towards its close (1685), a translation of the Old Testament, made for Bishop Bedell by the Gaelic scholars of Meath and Cavan, was published at the expense of the famous Robert Boyle. Bedell had also caused to be published Gaelic translations of certain homilies of Saint Leo and Saint John Chrysostom, on the importance of studying the holy Scriptures. The only other Gaelic publications of this period were issued from the Irish colleges at Louvain and Rome. Thence issued the devotional tracts of Conroy, of Gernon, and O'Molloy, and the Irish grammars of O'Clery and Stapleton. The devotional tracts, with their fanciful titles, of "Lamps," and "Mirrors," were smuggled across from Ostend and Dunkirk with other articles of contraband, and did much to keep alive the flame of faith and hope in the hearts of the Gaelic-speaking population.

The bardic order also, though shorn of much of their ancient splendour, and under the Puritan regime persecuted as vagrants, still flourished as an estate of the realm. The national tendency to poetic writing was not confined to the hereditary verse-makers, but was illustrated by such men as the martyred Plunkett, and the Bishops of Meath and Kerry—Dr. Thomas Dease, and Dr. John O'Connell. But the great body of Gaelic verse of the first half of this century is known under the name of "The Contentions of the Bards," the subject being the relative dignity, power, and prowess of the North and South. The gauntlet in this poetic warfare, was thrown down by McDaire, the Bard of Donogh O'Brien, fourth Earl of Thomond, and taken up on the part of Ulster by Lewy O'Clery. Reply led to rejoinder, and one epistle to another, until all the chief bards of the four provinces had taken sides. Half a dozen writers, pro and con, were particularly distinguished; McDaire himself, Turlogh O'Brien, and Art Oge O'Keefe on behalf of the Southerners; O'Clery, O'Donnell, the two McEgans, and Robert McArthur on the side of the North.

An immense mass of devotional Gaelic poetry may be traced to this period. The religious wars, the calamities of the church and of the people, inspired many a priest and layman to seize the harp of David, and pour forth his hopes and griefs in sacred song. The lament of Mac Ward over the Ulster princes buried at Rome, the odes of Dermod Conroy and Flan McNamee, in honour of our Blessed Lady, are of this class. Thus it happened that the bardic order, which in ancient times was the formidable enemy of Christianity, became, through adversity and affliction, its greatest supporter.

III. Our Hiberno-English literature is almost entirely the creation of this century. Except some few remarkable state papers, we have no English writings of any reputation of an earlier period. Now, however, when the language of the empire, formed and enriched by the great minds of Elizabeth's era, began to extend its influence at home and abroad, a school of Hiberno-English writers appeared, both numerous and distinguished. This school was as yet composed mainly of two classes—the dramatic poets, and the pamphleteers. Of the latter were Bishop French, Sir Richard Nagle, Sir Richard Belling, Lord Orrery, Father Peter Walsh, and William Molyneux; of the former, Ludowick Barry, Sir John Denham, the Earl of Roscommon, and Richard Flecknoe,—the Mac Flecknoe of Dryden. It is true there appeared as yet no supreme name like Swift's; but as indicating the gradual extension of the English language into Ireland, the popular pamphlets and pieces written for the stage, are illustrations of our mental life not to be overlooked.

Of the ancient schools of the island, after the final suppression of the college at Galway in 1652, not one remained. A diocesan college at Kilkenny, and the Dublin University, were alone open to the youth of the country. But the University remained exclusively in possession of the Protestant interest, nor did it give to the world during the century, except Usher, Ware and Orrery, any graduate of national, not to say, European reputation. In the bye-ways of the South and West, in the Irish colleges on the continent of Europe—at Paris, Louvain, Lisle, Salamanca, Lisbon, or Rome—the children of the proscribed majority could alone acquire a degree in learning, human or divine. It was as impossible two centuries ago, to speak of Trinity College with respect, as it is in our time, remembering all it has since done, to speak of it without veneration.

Though the Established Church had now completed its century and a half of existence, it was as far from the hearts of the Irish as ever. Though the amiable Bedell and the learned O'Donnell had caused the sacred Scriptures to be translated into the Gaelic tongue, few converts had been made from the Catholic ranks, while the spirit of animosity was inflamed by a sense of the cruel and undeserved disabilities inflicted in the name of religion. The manifold sects introduced under Cromwell gave a keener edge to Catholic contempt for the doctrines of the reformation; and although the restoration of the monarchy threw the extreme sectaries into the shade, it added nothing to the influence of the church, except the fatal gift of political patronage. For the first time, the high dignity of Archbishop of Armagh began to be regarded as the inheritance of the leader of the House of Lords; then Brahmall and Boyle laid the foundation of that primatial power which Boulter and Stone upheld under another dynasty, but which vanished before the first dawn of Parliamentary independence.

In the quarter of a century which elapsed from the restoration to the revolution, the condition of the Catholic clergy and laity was such as we have already described. In 1662, an historian of the Jesuit missionaries in Ireland described the sufferings of ecclesiastics as deplorable; they were forced to fly to the herds of cattle in remote places, to seek a refuge in barns and stables, or to sleep at night in the porticoes of temples, lest they should endanger the safety of the laity. In that same year, Orrery advised Ormond to purge the walled towns of Papists, who were still "three to one Protestant;" in 1672, Sir William Petty computed them at "eight to one" of the entire population.

"So captive Israel multiplied in chains."

The martyrdom of the Archbishop of Dublin, in 1680, and of the Archbishop of Armagh in 1681, were, however, the last of a series of executions for conscience' sake, from the relation of which the historian might well have been excused, if it was not necessary to remind our emancipated posterity at what a price they have been purchased.

CHAPTER IV.
ACCESSION OF JAMES II.—TYRCONNELL'S ADMINISTRATION.

From the accession of King James till his final flight from Ireland, in July, 1690, there elapsed an interval of five years and five months; a period fraught with consequences of the highest interest to this history. The new King was, on his accession, in his fifty-second year; he had served, as Duke of York, with credit both by land and sea, was an avowed Catholic, and married to a Catholic princess, the beautiful and unfortunate Mary of Modena.

Within a month from the proclamation of the King, Ormond quitted the government for the last time, leaving Primate Boyle, and Lord Granard, as Justices. In January, 1686, Lord Clarendon, son of the historian, assumed the government, in which he continued, till the 16th of March, 1687. The day following the national anniversary, Colonel Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, a Catholic, and the former agent for the Catholics, was installed as Lord Deputy. Other events, connecting these with each other, had filled with astonishment and apprehension the ascendancy party.

James proceeded openly with what he hoped to make a counter-reformation of England, and to accomplish which he relied on France on the one hand, and Ireland on the other. In both cases he alarmed the fears and wounded the pride of England; but when he proceeded from one illegality to another, when he began to exercise a dispensing power above the laws—to instruct the judges, to menace the parliament, and imprison the bishops—the nobility, the commons, and the army gradually combined against him, and at last invited over the Prince of Orange, as the most capable vindicator of their outraged constitution.

The headlong King had a representative equally rash, in Tyrconnell. He was a man old enough to remember well the uprising of 1641, had lived in intimacy with James as Duke of York, was personally brave, well skilled in intrigue, but vain, loud-spoken, confident, and incapable of a high command in military affairs. The colonelcy of an Irish regiment, the earldom of Tyrconnell, and a seat in the secret council or cabinet of the King, were honours conferred on him during the year of James's accession. When Clarendon was named Lord-Lieutenant at the beginning of 1686, Tyrconnell was sent over with him as Lieutenant-General of the army. At his instigation, a proclamation was issued, that "all classes" of his Majesty's subjects might be allowed to serve in the army; and another, that all arms hitherto given out should be deposited, for greater security, at one of the King's stores provided for the purpose in each town or county. Thus that exclusively Protestant militia, which for twenty years had executed the Act of Settlement and the Act of Uniformity in every quarter of the kingdom, found themselves suddenly disarmed, and a new Catholic army rising on their ruins. The numbers disbanded are nowhere stated; they probably amounted to 10,000 or 15,000 men and very naturally they became warm partisans of the Williamite revolution. The recriminations which arose between the new and the old militia were not confined to the nicknames, Whig and Tory, or to the bandying of sarcasms on each others' origin; swords were not unfrequently drawn, and muskets discharged, even in the streets of Dublin, under the very walls of the Castle.

Through Tyrconnell's influence, a similar revolution had been wrought in the exclusive character of the courts of justice, and the corporations of towns, to that which remodelled the militia. Rice, Daly, and Nugent, were elevated to the bench during Lord Clarendon's time; the Corporation of Dublin having refused to surrender their exclusive charter, were summarily rejected by a quo warranto, issued in the exchequer; other towns were similarly treated, or induced to make surrender, and a new series of charters at once granted by James, entitling Catholics to the freedom of the boroughs, and the highest municipal offices. And now, for the first time in that generation, Catholic mayors and sheriffs, escorted by Catholic troops as guards of honour, were seen marching in open day to their own places of worship, to the dismay and astonishment of the ascendancy party. Not that all Protestants were excluded either from town councils, the militia, or the bench, but those only were elected or appointed who concurred in the new arrangements, and were, therefore, pretty certain to forfeit the confidence of their co-religionists in proportion as they deserved that of the Deputy. Topham and Coghill, Masters in Chancery, were deprived of their offices, and the Protestant Chancellor was arbitrarily removed to make way for Baron Rice, a Catholic. The exclusive character of Trinity College was next assailed, and though James did not venture to revoke the charter of Elizabeth, establishing communion with the Church of England as the test of fellowship, the internal administration was in several particulars interfered with, its plate was seized in the King's name under plea of being public property, and the annual parliamentary grant of 388 pounds was discontinued. These arbitrary acts filled the more judicious Catholics with apprehension, but gained the loud applause of the unreasoning multitude. Dr. Macguire, the successor of the martyred Plunkett, who felt in Ulster the rising tide of resistance, was among the signers of a memorial to the King, dutifully remonstrating against the violent proceedings of his Deputy. From Rome also, disapprobation was more than once expressed, but all without avail; neither James nor Talbot could be brought to reason. The Protestants of the eastern and southern towns and counties who could contrive to quit their homes, did so; hundreds fled to Holland to return in the ranks of the Prince of Orange; thousands fled to England, bringing with them their tale of oppression, embellished with all the bitter exaggeration of exiles; ten thousand removed from Leinster into Ulster, soon to recross the Boyne, under very different auspices. Very soon a close correspondence was established between the fugitives in Holland, England, and Ulster, and a powerful lever was thus placed in the hands of the Prince of Orange, to work the downfall of his uncle and father-in-law. But the best allies of William were, after all, the folly and fatuity of James. The importation of Irish troops, by entire battalions, gave the last and sorest wound to the national pride of England, and still further exasperated the hatred and contempt which his majesty's English regiments had begun to feel for their royal master.

Tyrconnell, during the eventful summer months when the revolution was ripening both in Holland and England, had taken, unknown even to James, a step of the gravest importance. To him the first intelligence of the preparations of William were carried by a ship from Amsterdam, and by him they were communicated to the infatuated King, who had laughed at them as too absurd for serious consideration. But the Irish ruler, fully believing his informants, and never deficient in audacity, had at once entered into a secret treaty with Louis XIV. to put Ireland under the protection of France, in the event of the Prince of Orange succeeding to the British throne. No proposition could more entirely suit the exigencies of Louis, of whom William was by far the ablest and most relentless enemy. The correspondence which has come to light in recent times, shows the importance which he attached to Tyrconnell's proposition—an importance still further enhanced by the direct but unsuccessful overture made to the earl by William himself, on landing in England, and before embarking in the actual invasion of Ireland.

William Henry, Prince of Orange, now about to enter on the scene, was in 1688 in the thirty-seventh year of his age. Fearless of danger, patient, silent, impervious to his enemies, rather a soldier than a statesman, indifferent in religion, and personally adverse to persecution for conscience' sake, his great and almost his only public passion was the humiliation of France through the instrumentality of a European coalition. As an anti-Gallican, as the representative of the most illustrious Protestant family in Europe, as allied by blood and marriage to their kings, he was a very fit and proper chief for the English revolutionists; but for the two former of these reasons he was just as naturally antipathetic to the Catholic and Celtic majority of the Irish. His designs had been long gradually maturing, when James's incredible imprudence hastened his movements. Twenty-four ships of war were assembled at Helvoetsluys; 7,000 sailors were put on board; all the veterans of the Netherlands were encamped at Nimeguen, where 6,000 recruits were added to their numbers. On the 5th of November, the anniversary of the gunpowder plot, "the Deliverer," as he was fondly called in England, landed at Torbay; on the 25th of December, James, deserted by his nobles, his army, and even his own unnatural children, arrived, a fugitive and a suppliant, at the court of France.

A few Irish incidents of this critical moment deserve mention. The mania against everything Irish took in England forms the most ludicrous and absurd. Wharton's doggerel refrain of Lillibullero, was heard in every circle outside the court; all London, lighted with torches, and marshalled under arms, awaited during the memorable "Irish night" the advent of the terrible and detested regiments brought over by Tyrconnell; some companies of these troops quartered in the country were fallen upon by ten times their numbers, and cut to pieces. Others, fighting and inquiring their way, forced a passage to Chester or Bristol, and obtained a passage home. They passed at sea, or encountered on the landing-places, multitudes of the Protestant Irish, men, women and children, flying in exactly the opposite direction. Tyrconnell was known to meditate the repeal of the Act of Settlement; the general rumour of a Protestant massacre fixed for the 9th of December, originated no one knew how, was spread about no one knew by whom. In vain the Lord Deputy tried to stay the panic—his assurance of protection, and the still better evidence of their own experience, which proved the Irish Catholics incapable of such a project, could not allay their terrors. They rushed into England by every port, and inflamed still more the hostility which already prevailed against King James.

In Ulster, David Cairnes of Knockmany, the Rev. John Kelso of Enniskillen, a Presbyterian, and Rev. George Walker of Donaghmore, an Anglican minister, were active instruments of the Prince of Orange. On the 7th of December the gates of Derry were shut by "the youthhood" against the Earl of Antrim and his Highlanders. Enniskillen was seized by a similar impulse of the popular will, and an association was quickly formed throughout Ulster in imitation of the English association which had invited over William, under the auspices of Lord Blaney, Sir Arthur Rawdon, Sir Clotworthy Skeffington, and others, "for the maintenance of the Protestant religion and the dependency of Ireland upon England." By these associates, Sligo, Coleraine, and the fort of Culmore, at the mouth of the Foyle, were seized for King William; while the Town Council of Derry, in order to gain time, despatched one ambassador with one set of instructions to Tyrconnell, and another, with a very different set, to "the Committee for Irish Affairs," which sat at Whitehall, under the presidency of the Earl of Shrewsbury.

CHAPTER V.
KING JAMES IN IRELAND—IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1689.

A few days after his arrival in France, James despatched a messenger to Tyrconnell, with instructions expressing great anxiety as to the state of affairs in Ireland. "I am sure," wrote the fugitive monarch, "you will hold out to the utmost of your power, and I hope this king will so press the Hollanders, that the Prince of Orange will not have men to spare to attack you." All the aid he could obtain from Louis at the moment was 7,000 or 8,000 muskets, which were sent accordingly.

Events succeeded each other during the first half of the year 1689 with revolutionary rapidity. The conventions of England and Scotland, though far from being unanimous, declared by immense majorities, that James had abdicated, and that William and Mary should be offered the crowns of both kingdoms. In February, they were proclaimed as king and queen of "England, France, and Ireland," and in May, the Scottish commissioners brought them the tender of the crown of Scotland. The double heritage of the Stuart kings was thus, after nearly a century of possession, transferred by election to a kindred prince, to the exclusion of the direct descendants of the great champion of "the right divine," who first united under his sceptre the three kingdoms.

James, at the Court of France, was duly informed of all that passed at London and Edinburgh. He knew that he had powerful partizans in both conventions. The first fever of popular excitement once allayed, he marked with exultation the symptoms of reaction. There was much in the circumstances attending his flight to awaken popular sympathy, and to cast a veil over his errors. The pathetic picture drawn of parental suffering by the great dramatist in the character of King Lear, seemed realized to the life in the person of King James. Message followed message from the three kingdoms, urging him to return and place himself at the head of his faithful subjects in a war against the usurper. The French king approved of these recommendations, for in fighting James's battle he was fighting his own, and a squadron was prepared at Brest to carry the fugitive back to his dominions. Accompanied by his natural sons, the Duke of Berwick and the Grand Prior Fitzjames, by Lieutenant-Generals de Rosen and de Maumont, Majors-General de Pusignan and de Lery (or Geraldine), about a hundred officers of all ranks, and 1,200 veterans, James sailed from Brest, with a fleet of 33 vessels, and landed at Kinsale on the 12th day of March (old style). His reception by the Southern population was enthusiastic in the extreme. From Kinsale to Cork, from Cork to Dublin, his progress was accompanied by Gaelic songs and dances, by Latin orations, loyal addresses, and all the decorations with which a popular favourite can be welcomed. Nothing was remembered by that easily pacified people but his great misfortunes and his steady fidelity to his and their religion. Fifteen chaplains, nearly all Irish, accompanied him, and added to the delight of the populace; while many a long-absent soldier, now came back in the following of the king, to bless the sight of some aged parent or faithful lover. The royal entry into Dublin was the crowning pageant of this delusive restoration. With the tact and taste for such demonstrations hereditary in the citizens, the trades and arts were marshalled before him. Two venerable harpers played on their national instruments near the gate by which he entered; a number of religious in their robes, with a huge cross at their head, chanted as they went; forty young girls, dressed in white, danced the ancient Rinka, scattering flowers as they danced. The Earl of Tyrconnell, lately raised to a dukedom, the judges, the mayor and corporation, completed the procession, which marched over newly sanded streets, beneath arches of evergreens and windows hung with "tapestry and cloth of Arras." Arrived at the castle the sword of state was presented to him by the deputy, and the keys of the city by the recorder. At the inner entrance, the primate, Dr. Dominick Macguire, waited in his robes to conduct him to the chapel, lately erected by Tyrconnell, where Te Deum was solemnly sung. But of all the incidents of that striking ceremonial, nothing more powerfully impressed the popular imagination than the green flag floating from the main tower of the castle, bearing the significant inscription—"Now or Never—Now and Forever."

A fortnight was devoted by James in Dublin to daily and nightly councils and receptions. The chief advisers who formed his court were the Count d'Avaux, Ambassador of France, the Earl of Melfort, principal Secretary of State, the Duke of Tyrconnell, Lieutenant-General Lord Mountcashel, Chief Justice Nugent, and the superior officers of the army, French and Irish. One of the first things resolved upon at Dublin was the appointment of the gallant Viscount Dundee as Lieutenant-General in Scotland—and the despatch to his assistance of an Irish auxiliary force, which served under that renowned chief with as much honour as their predecessors had served under Montrose. Communications were also opened through the Bishop of Chester with the west of England Jacobites, always numerous in Cheshire, Shropshire, and other counties nearest to Ireland. Certain changes were then made in the Privy Council; Chief Justice Keating's attendance was dispensed with as one opposed to the new policy, but his judicial functions were left untouched. Dr. Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, and the French Ambassador were sworn in, and writs were issued convoking the Irish Parliament for the 7th day of May following.

Intermitting, for the present, the military events which marked the early months of the year, we will follow the acts and deliberations of King James's Parliament of 1689. The Houses met, according to summons, at the appointed time, in the building known as "the Inns of Court," within a stone's throw of the castle. There were present 228 Commoners, and 46 members of the Upper House. In the Lords several Protestant noblemen and prelates took their seats, and some Catholic peers of ancient date, whose attainders had been reversed, were seen for the first time in that generation in the front rank of their order. In the Lower House the University and a few other constituencies were represented by Protestants, but the overwhelming majority were Catholics, either of Norman or Milesian origin. The King made a judicious opening speech, declaring his intention to uphold the rights of property, and to establish liberty of conscience alike for Protestant and Catholic. He referred to the distressed state of trade and manufactures, and recommended to the attention of the Houses, those who had been unjustly deprived of their estates under the "Act of Settlement."

Three measures passed by this Parliament entitle its members to be enrolled among the chief assertors of civil and religious liberty. One was the "Act for establishing Liberty of Conscience," followed by the supplemental act that all persons should pay tithes only to the clergy of their own communion. An act abolishing writs of error and appeal into England, established the judicial independence of Ireland; but a still more necessary measure repealing Poyning's Law, was defeated through the personal hostility of the King. An act repealing the Act of Settlement was also passed, under protest from the Protestant Lords, and received the royal sanction. A bill to establish Inns of Court, for the education of Irish law students, was, however, rejected by the King, and lost; an "Act of Attainder," against persons in arms against the Sovereign, whose estates lay in Ireland, was adopted. Whatever may be the bias of historians, it cannot be denied that this Parliament showed a spirit worthy of the representatives of a free people. "Though Papists," says Mr. Grattan, our highest parliamentary authority, "they were not slaves; they wrung a constitution from King James before they accompanied him to the field."

The King, unfortunately, had not abandoned the arbitrary principles of his family, even in his worst adversity. His interference with the discussions on Poyning's Law, and the Inns of Court bill, had shocked some of his most devoted adherents. But he proceeded from obstructive to active despotism. He doubled, by his mere proclamation, the enormous subsidy of 20,000 pounds monthly voted him by the Houses. He established, by the same authority, a bank, and decreed in his own name a bank restriction act. He debased the coinage, and established a fixed scale of prices to be observed by all merchants and traders. In one respect—but in one only—he grossly violated his own professed purpose of establishing liberty of conscience, by endeavouring to force fellows and scholars on the University of Dublin contrary to its statutes. He even went so far as to appoint a provost and librarian without consent of the senate. However we may condemn the exclusiveness of the College, this was not the way to correct it; bigotry on the one hand, will not justify despotism on the other.

More justifiable was the interference of the King for the restoration of rural schools and churches, and the decent maintenance of the clergy and bishops. His appointments to the bench were also, with one or two exceptions, men of the very highest character. "The administration of justice during this brief period," says Dr. Cooke Taylor, "deserves the highest praise. With the exception of Nugent and Fritton, the Irish judges would have been an honour to any bench."

CHAPTER VI.
THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR—CAMPAIGN OF 1689—SIEGES OF DERRY AND ENNISKILLEN.

When Tyrconnell met the King at Cork, he gave his Majesty a plain account of the posture of military affairs. In Ulster, Lieutenant-General Richard Hamilton, at the head of 2,500 regular troops, was holding the rebels in check, from Charlemont to Coleraine; in Munster, Lieutenant-General Justin McCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, had taken Bandon and Castlemartyr; throughout the four provinces, the Catholics, to the number of fifty regiments (probably 30,000 men), had volunteered their services; but for all these volunteers he had only 20,000 old arms of all kinds, not over 1,000 of which were found really valuable. There were besides these, regiments of horse, Tyrconnell's, Russell's, and Galmony's, and one of dragoons, eight small pieces of artillery, but neither stores in the magazines, nor cash in the chest. While at Cork, Tyrconnell, in return for his great exertions, was created a Duke, and General-in-Chief, with De Rosen as second in command.